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Chapter 2: Into the Depths of Insanity

A few days after our discovery. We move around from place to place, never staying at one location for long. Finding anything that might help us find out who could have done this. Any sort of clue, in the newspaper, on a television, anything. Nothing so far, but we can’t stop. We also look for anybody who may have possibly been unaffected by the signals, but so far, we haven’t found anyone. It gets everyone; it doesn’t discriminate. Black or white, Asian, Mexican, Pacific Islander. Rich, poor, middle class, Goths, preps, jocks, geeks. Everyone is gone, no longer human. But knowing they aren’t human anymore doesn’t make it any easier to kill them. I have to focus on why they are like that. The machine that made them the way they are, and the people who made that machine.
Coming to the conclusion that they are indeed no longer humans, we decide to give them a name. After a long, in depth discussion with Daniel of why “previous humanoid beings subjected to brain-altering signals” was a bad name, we decide on “Crazies”. Firstly, because it’s humorous. And secondly, because it’s short, and easy to understand. I think it describes them quite well.
Finding shelter every day is difficult. We have to search fast, and during the day, when the activities of the Crazies is lowest. They seem to be mostly nocturnal, but some are still out during the day. And when one finds us while we’re out, they call all the other ones with that inhuman screech, and we have another fight for our lives. As I predicted, it does happen a lot.
And of course, we just happen to be spotted right now, while raiding an abandoned farmhouse for food.
The screech that freezes my blood, and then the rush of Crazies, and the fight begins. I see one jumping off of the roof, higher and farther than any human (or anything previously human) should be able too. I catch him in midair, and toss him into the side of the barn. I turn to Ian and say “and you thought I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn!” and we all laugh, in the middle of all the insanity. Then we hear another scream, but this one is different: this one is human. I yell to Ian, “Clear a path!” and a wall of flames erupt in front of him, and blast onward in an awe striking wave. The carnage left behind is horrendous, and smells oddly of chicken.
We sprint through the temporary opening, following close to the wall of flame in front of us. Right before the fire hits the barn, I yell to Ian “STOP!” and he extinguishes the wall. We charge inside, lock the doors, and barricade the windows. As I look for any other possible entrances, I notice something odd: the barn walls are steel reinforced. As I wonder why, I see another oddity. There is a staircase leading to a basement. And I realize this because of the girl coming up from the staircase with a double barreled shotgun in her hands. She fires at me, but my mind is quicker than her gun, and the gun flies away from her hands, the slugs burrowing themselves harmlessly in the wall behind me.
I hold her still and yell “we’re not one of them!” she looks at me, then at the others, and says with an air of arrogance, “I totally knew that.”
The first thing I think to ask is “Why are you not like them?”
“Why aren’t you?” is the snippy response.
“I was made this way.” I say, and she gives me a funny look. Then I ask, “So, what’s your name?”
“My name isn’t any of your business.” She said. Then, looking at me strangely for a moment, adds, “yet.”
“Well, since we’re here, do you know anything about what’s happening?” asks Dan.
“They said something on the news one day about a terrorist attack on this big corporation, and then faded from memory. Then suddenly, a few months later, everyone is all… like them.” Suddenly she realizes that she can’t move, and freaks out. “What are you doing? How are you doing this?”
“Like I said. I was made this way.” I pick her up, to demonstrate, and set her down. Then I let go, and she faints. “Uh… oops?” we look at her for a second. Dan checks her pulse.
“She’s fine.” He says, and sets her on the couch. Since our no-longer hostile host was unconscious, I decide to look around. I go down to the basement, through the door that she came through before, and look around. I find myself in a high- tech laboratory, complete with blinking lights and bubbling test tubes. After the initial shock of this, I come to realize that the lab is completely trashed. Papers strewn about across the room, smashed computers, broken floor tiles, and shattered glass complete the image of this mad scientist’s paradise, and then I see another startling image: a body lying in the middle of the floor, missing the left arm, most of the left leg, and the face.
After the quick period of jumping in surprise and yelping like a small dog, I call up to Ian and Matt. They run down the stairs, ready for a fight, only to be disappointed by the sight of the target already dead. “What did you DO to it?” asks Ian, after getting a good look at the carnage.
“Nothing, it was like this when I got here!” I explain. They both look at me funny, then shrug. I go up the stairs, and tell Dan that he is needed downstairs. He comes up a few minutes later and tells me that the cause of death was…
“An explosion was what killed her,” he says, also confirming the gender of our mystery corpse, “but the leg was missing from several massive bite wounds, tearing and the like. And the arm was removed from a shotgun blast.” Looking at the shotgun our ‘host’ was wielding earlier, then at her, I wonder if perhaps we have wandered into the lair of a psychopath.
I go back downstairs to Matt and Ian picking up the corpse on a sheet, beginning to wrap her up. “Take her upstairs,” I say, “so that when the live one wakes up, maybe she can give us some answers.” Half way up the stairs, they drop her. I look at them, then at her body, lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I slap myself on the forehead. We laugh at the inappropriateness of the situation, and then the door at the top of the stairs opens up to reveal the other girl, awake and staring at what has just happened.
She faints again.
When she wakes up the second time, she looks at us, then at the dead body lying in the sheet on the floor upstairs. “Who is she?” I ask, and the answer doesn’t come for a few moments. In the silence, I wonder if perhaps she doesn’t know, but then:
“She was my twin sister,” she answers. Then looks again at the mangled remains, and begins to cry. I ask if she’ll be ok, because we shouldn’t stay here for much longer. She sniffs a little, looks up at me, and nods. I hold out my hand, and she takes it, and stands up.
“Is there any food here?” asks Dan.
“No.”
“How about vehicles?” I question.
“Nope.” Is the answer.
“What DO you have here?” blurts Matt.
“Well, there’s the lab downstairs… but its kinda messed up.” Is the response.
“Yeah, we saw that much already.” Matt, Ian, and I laugh, and Daniel chuckles. She just looks at us as if we had walked in from another planet. We go back to the lab, to scrounge for any possible supplies, and we come upon a very important piece of equipment: a first aid kit. I take the first aid kit off the wall, and hear a loud hiss of released gas. The wall begins to slide out, and flip around, to reveal a massive gun rack. We stare at the mass of weaponry, from AK-47’s to M-16’s and MP-5’s, RPG’s and Grenade Launchers, cases of C-4 and sticks of dynamite, a few shotguns, about 6 boxes of grenades, and next to all of this, a big red button.
Being the person he is, Matt says, “OOH, LOOK! A BUTTON!” and pushes the button before we can stop him. The building shakes, and the entire floor starts sinking into the ground. We look around in wonder and awe as this massive elevator sinks lower and lower, until it stops in an enormous underground warehouse. Still awestruck from the surprise elevator, we are unaware for a moment of our surroundings. When we reorient ourselves, we realize that we are in a huge warehouse, with an exit tunnel lit in red and yellow lights. Then we see that we are surrounded my military-grade vehicles. We see a Jeep with a mounted machine gun, and Daniel hops in the driver’s seat. I get in the front passenger seat, and I toss some spare supplies in the trunk. Ian and Matt get the back with the windows down, and the girl gets in the turret seat.
A few minutes later, we get to the end of the exiting tunnel, and find ourselves in the unfinished section of the city. Driving through the empty lots and half built houses and apartments, and buildings, we notice that there are many crazies about. But they don’t seem to notice us at all. They seem too busy with carrying materials about, running like ants to a nest. Then we see the metaphorical “nest” they are running to: an enormous pile of garbage, stacked up like a beaver’s dam, but instead of wood, it’s made with anything you could find. It’s taller than all of the building skeletons around it, and wider than seven buildings side by side. We look at it, and we know exactly what we have to do.
“That nest has got to burn,” says Ian, putting in words what we are all thinking. We’re sitting at the top of a building within sight of the Nest. Sitting around a makeshift fire pit, eating what little food we found on our last raid, discussing how we’re going to take down the Nest. Daniel thinks that if we can get inside, and somehow destabilize the support, the whole building will come crashing down, killing everything inside. But considering we have no idea what to expect on the inside, it may be hard to bring it down with a full on assault, just a random bum rush. That would be suicide. Instead, we decide to send a recon team to find out what the inside layout is like, and what to expect. Guess whose first pick?
“No way.” I say. “There is NO WAY I am doing this.” I look to Matt, who was picked to go along. “Does this sound like a good idea to you?”
“Actually, it kinda does.” He says. I stare at him, half stunned, half furious. “I mean, think about it!” He says, “Who can move the fastest? Me. Who can get us out of there if I can’t get out myself? You. So why is it a bad idea?”
After thinking about it, I decide it can’t be all that bad. So I focus for a moment, take a deep breath in mental preparation. After a few seconds, I look up, a newfound determination presenting itself to me. “Alright,” I say. “I’m ready. Let’s go blow some stuff up.”
Flying across the top of the buildings, just barely keeping up with Matt. Our destination: The Nest in the center of the unfinished section of the city. I can see it, an enormous pile of garbage stacked up as if a giant child had emptied his toy box over the city. Nearing the base of the mound, we see that it is not only pieces of garbage and miscellaneous objects, but also chunks of buildings and even a slab of asphalt.
Standing on the building nearest the pile, we see the mass of Crazies surrounding it, all seemingly gathering useless junk endlessly, some throwing it on the pile, some carrying it inside the gargantuan shrine to chaos and disorder. Low beneath the ground, I hear a crunching, grinding noise. I ask Matt, “Do you hear that?” he nods, and looks back to the ground. We see a huge group of Crazies running in the direction our group is, screaming and yelling, and we know they’re going for an attack.
I look at Matt; he looks at me, says, “Alex, you remember that one time in the car, where you asked if this was going to happen a lot?”
I nod.
“It definitely is.” and he runs as fast as he can back to our group. I decide to use this momentary distraction to slip inside of the massive monument, while all of the Crazies are distracted.
Looking around the inside, I stop for a moment in incredulous awe. The sight of this breathtaking, seemingly impossible structure is amazing, a pile of garbage stuck together and holding by almost nothing. Enormous columns of junk holding the ceiling up, lanes and strings of garbage strung throughout as bridges, and walls of garbage that seem really unstable, but I see some Crazies walking on the edges, and crawling up the wall, and I realize that it is just as stable as concrete.
Testing my theory, I jump kick onto the wall, and find out (quite painfully, I might add) that it is indeed as solid as I had thought. Grabbing an outcropping truck tire, I begin my ascent to the upper bridges and walkways. The climb is a lot longer than I had thought, and I see a lot of Crazies on my way, but they don’t seem to notice me. A few look my way and growl, but most of them completely ignore me. Climbing up towards the top, I see a large bulb hanging impossibly from the ceiling, with a light glowing from inside.
Having learned enough, I let myself fall off of the wall, and fall all the way to the ground, before catching myself in perfect time and walking off without missing a beat. Seeing a group of crazies walk in the front entrance, I hide behind a column and peek out, to see what the commotion is about.
I take a closer look at the Crazies, and I see they’re carrying something: Matt, Ian, and Daniel! They seem unconscious, and at least mostly unharmed. But I see the Crazies walking towards the glowing bulb in the center of the mound, and I realize that won’t be the case for long if I don’t help. Not really thinking it through, I run out at them, screaming bloody murder and throwing anything I can wrap my mind around. Accidentally, I throw a gas tank into the glowing bulb in the center, and that’s when it all goes to hell.
The tank ruptures, igniting the fluid inside, creating a sizable explosion on its own. But whatever is inside the glowing bulb is obviously very explosive as well, because the explosion suddenly grows exponentially, and I hear a loud crack. I see the tire I had climbed on earlier fall out of the wall, hit the ground, and roll away. I look at the tire, and I’ve seen enough to know that this place is going down. I run, pick up my incapacitated friends, and sprint as fast as I can out the exit.
My unconscious teammates dangling in the air behind me, I run out the exit, and jump, hoping to be able to pick myself up as well and fly away. It doesn’t work quite like that. Instead, I fail and faceplant on a toy dump truck. Ian, Matt, and Daniel fall to the ground on top of a mattress, and all wake up simultaneously. They look at their surroundings in surprise for a moment, but that moment is soon ruined by another loud explosion, sending a crack through the Nest, and sending chunks of garbage flying through the air.
I get the message that it’s time to leave when a 9 inch long shard of glass buries itself into the ground three inches from my head. I get up; yell at my friends “HEY GUYS! TIME TO GO!” We all start making a break for the building we camped out in before, and behind us we hear the pounding of a hundred thousand crazy feet running toward us. Ian shoots fire behind us, and I bring down entire buildings in their way. But they still come, and we still run for our lives. The crazies we saw before, the ones outside the massive structure, all start looking to see what’s going on, and join in the chase. These ones get a bit too close for comfort, and we rip through them before they have a chance to react.
We’re almost at the building, with the Crazies right on our tail. Thinking of a new plan, I yell to them, “EVERYONE IN THE CAR!” jumping in the car. We all climb in the car, Matt in the front passenger, me and Ian in the back, and Daniel driving, we rev the engine, and drive like hell. The girl, who for some reason was untouched in the previous events, was already in the gun turret, screaming at us to drive faster. I turn to Ian and say “want to play a game?” he looks at me like I’m insane, then I pull out a tank of gasoline from the compartment and toss it too him. “Get creative,” I say, and then I turn to the trunk and see the supplies I had put in there earlier: a few boxes of grenades. I pick them all up with my mind, pull the pins and throw them, one after another after another. A few seconds, then we hear the first explosion, and see the pieces flying everywhere. Pieces of asphalt and bloody chunks of Crazies are blasting all over the place.
We’re going fast, but we haven’t quite lost them yet. A few very persistent Crazies are still on our tail, going faster than anything that used to be human should be able to. Ian decides to throw the tank of gas now, and blasts it as it falls between the dozen or so Crazies still chasing us. The tank ignites, and most of the Crazies are engulfed in flame. The three that survived are still running at us, and I pick one up and throw it into a wall. Then the girl fires up the turret, and tears through the other two with a hail of lead. Then silence and driving.
I look around, and see that we are outside the city, back in the suburbs. The next thing I notice is how quiet it is. Dead silence, thickening the air, making it almost hard to breathe. Driving down the street, we see some houses. We stop at a corner, load out of the truck, and start searching houses. Since we don’t know what to expect in this part of town, we split up. Daniel and Matt in a group, Ian by himself, and me and the girl are the decided groups.
Walking down the street, towards a big, three story house with her, I try and strike up conversation. “So, how are you holding up?”
“I’ve been better.” She replies.
“That makes one of us,” I say, then fall silent for a moment. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh yeah.” I say. “So, what IS your name?” I ask.
“My name?” she asks. “Why do you want to know my name?”
“Well, I just thought since we’re some of the only sane people left on the entire planet, maybe we could be on first name terms?” I say, half sarcastically.
“My name is-“A loud scream interrupts her, and we look around quizzically in the direction of the noise.
“That sounded like Daniel!” I shout, and lift off the ground, starting to fly in the direction the scream came from, then remembered the girl, and lifted her off the ground with me and pulled her along. I look behind me, to check on her, and already the initial shock has worn off and she’s focusing, reloading her shotgun and checking how much ammo she has left. I turn forward, and continue on in the direction of the scream. Up a hill, towards a very sizable mansion.
Upon arrival, I see Daniel standing in front of the door of said enormous mansion, with a bunch of dead Crazies lying on the inside of the foyer. “They were waiting for me to come in!” he said frantically. “They ambushed me!”
“Where’s Matt?” I ask.
He points towards the door. “He ran inside after we finished off these ones!” without saying a word to either of them, I sprint inside the mansion and start yelling,
“MATT! YOU IDIOT! WHERE DID YOU GO?”
I hear sounds like glass being broken from upstairs, so I look up, and jump. With a little boost, I clear the stair railing easily and run down the hallway. I hear noises from behind me, and the second I turn around, the door nearest to me blows open and Crazies start spewing out. Having left my pistols in the truck, I seem weaponless to the Crazies… but they don’t know what I can do. One of them charges me, and I blast him back into the group and send them sprawling across the floor. Picking up two more, I throw them off the railing to the floor below. It might not be the longest fall, but it hurts. Three regain themselves quicker than the others, and are already back on their feet and running at me. I grab one and slam it into the wall, then drag it across the floor to trip another. Then I toss him like a ragdoll into an expensive looking vase.
At the sound of breaking glass, I hear a rush of wind, and suddenly a Crazy’s head pops. Just kind of explodes, like sticking a needle into a balloon. Sitting there stunned, I wonder what could have happened. Then I look behind me, and I see Matt standing there with a stack of plates, throwing them like Frisbees past my head. I turn back towards the Crazies, only to see that there isn’t much of them left. A chunk of an arm here, a disembodied torso there, and blood staining the walls and carpet. Another door behind Matt gets kicked down, only this time it’s by a kid of about 6 or 7, wielding a sawed off shotgun and an Uzi. Before he gets the chance to go trigger-happy, I grab his guns and yank them away from him. “Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!! Those are Miiiiiiiiinnnnnneeee!!!!!!” he whines, in the exact annoying tone I was expecting.
The kid runs at me, spazzing out and flailing like a maniac. I pick him up and hold him in the air, and he still flails. I shake him a little, and he snaps out of it, and looks around. Suddenly realizing he is no longer standing on the ground, he screams, “What’s happening?? Somebody! GET ME DOWN!!!” I drop him. After the THUD, he stands back up and looks at me.
“Was that YOU???” he asks, staring at me in what’s either fear or admiration.
“Yeah.” I respond.
“How did you do that???” he asks.
Thinking of a witty reply, I come back with “a magician NEVER reveals his secrets.”
His eyes open even wider, if that’s possible. “You’re a MAGICIAN???” he exclaims.
“Yeah, sure. Now come on, kid. We have to move, before more of those things come.” I say, and lead the way out the door. I take a good look at this kid, and he doesn’t look like the kind that lives in a mansion. The clothes, the way he carries himself, he seems like the awkward loner kid who sits in a corner rather than a rich snobby spoiled-rotten child. So, I ask about it.
“Did you live there?”
“Where, the mansion?” The kid laughs. “No, silly! I live in that house down there!” He points to a much smaller house, easily viewable from the top of this hill. Then Dan and the girl come up behind us, and we all exchange greetings. Then, finally, we get names.
“My name is Blake, but my nickname is Shrimp.” Says the kid.
“I’m Clara.” Says the girl.
“You already know us,” I say to Clara. But to the kid, “well, since you don’t, I’m Alex.”
“Alex?” he questions. “What kind of name is Alex for a magician??”
Daniel, Matt, and Clara all give me a funny look. “So, you’re a magician now, huh?” asks Dan.
“Apparently.” I sigh.
“Well, I think it’s cute.” Says Clara.
“You would, wouldn’t you?” I say sarcastically.
She gives me the evil eye, and turns away, taking Shrimp’s hand and dragging him back towards the truck. I stand there for a moment, feeling a twinge of regret for my harsh tone. Then a screech sounds in the distance, and we know that sound well enough to go back to the truck with them. A few steps behind them now, and I can already hear the stampeding footsteps of countless Crazies running at us. I grab Shrimp and Clara, and Daniel and Matt as well. Then I fly us all back to the truck.
At the truck, we start gathering our weapons and positioning traps such as gas tanks, explosives, etc. Shrimp runs about, chattering with himself (at least, we think it’s to himself) as Clara keeps a watchful eye and gathers ammo at the same time. Matt then notices a very disturbing detail:
“Hey, where’s Ian?”
Those few words are enough to send a chill through my blood, stop me in my tracks, drop a box of grenades, and fly off as fast as I can in the direction I last saw him.
“Where are you going???” I hear a voice yell.
“If we don’t stick together, we’ll never make it!” I scream back, and then return to my frantic search for my best friend. Flying as fast as I can, I start screaming his name.
“IAN! IAN!!!!”
Silence. I keep screaming, with no response. I scream as loud as I can one last time, and then I see something: a weak burst of flame shoot up from a chimney and curl away into nothing. Without a doubt in my mind, I fly down to the house with the chimney. Ripping the door off its hinges, I rush inside, to see Ian pinned under a massive, nearly humanoid beast. Its hulking frame resembles an ape, but the way the spine sticks out is something else entirely. Its skin is a pale, sickly green shade, and it has a light pulse to it, all about its body. Its hands could easily fit Shrimp in them, and seeing how ridiculously muscular it is, could probably throw him quite a ways as well. The other thing about this thing is its smell. Like rotting cabbage, and dead animal. The once ferocious animal has now been reduced to pitiful moans.
Ian is in even worse condition, but he’s not bleeding quite as bad, and he’s breathing easier. Just unconscious. I pick up the enormous creature, and drag Ian out from under it, and drop the creature. Then, knowing our time before the Crazies arrival is short, I sprint-fly back to the truck.
On seeing the truck, I know something is terribly wrong. Partially because the truck is smashed to a bunch of tiny bits. But also partially because there is an odd smell… a smell of rotting cabbage and dead animals. Already knowing what it is we’re up against, I turn back to the remains of the truck to see if any heavy artillery survived the impact. No such luck. Realizing how dire the situation has become, I fly higher for a better view. To the south, I see Dan, Clara, and Shrimp, fighting off a mass of Crazies. But they aren’t the massive creatures I was thinking. Then, to the southwest, heading away from the group, is Matt, running circles around the bumbling abomination, irritating it to no end, leading it away from the much more vulnerable group.
I’m not sure who’s in more trouble and its times like this that it would be nice to have some help, but Ian is unconscious, and the choice has been left up to me. Hoping that Matt can handle himself for a few more minutes, I decide to lessen the number of Crazies harassing my other friends.
Flying towards them, hoping they see me flailing my arms like a maniac, I throw groups of Crazies into the nearby pond, just to make sure I have their attention. I land next to them, and lay Ian near Shrimp. He looks at me as I blast a few people away from us. I yell at him, “Keep him safe!” and run off into the mob. The next minute or so is chaos. Surrounded by bloody, screaming, inhuman creatures, I am in constant danger of being completely overwhelmed and drowned in this sea of chaos. Killing group after group of crazies, there is no end. I have lost sight of the rest of the group, but at the moment, I don’t care. The only thing I care about now is killing, move on, and then kill some more. Wipe them off the face of the planet. Make it as if they were never even here.
Some time passes. I don’t know how long. Could have been a few seconds, could have been a day. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I have lost control. I’m not even really doing anything, just sitting back and watching myself tear through hordes of Crazies. Subconsciously, I guess I really am enjoying myself. Realizing how thin the waves of Crazies have become, how littered the ground is with dead bodies, how stained the grass is with blood. I turn back towards the group, hoping I haven’t hurt anyone on accident, praying they are all ok. I see Daniel, and Clara, and even Ian waking up… but Shrimp is nowhere to be seen.
I sprint back to them, already asking where Shrimp is. I’ve only known the kid for less than 2 hours now, but already he’s like a little brother to me. Clara puts a comforting hand on my shoulder, and looking into her eyes, I can already tell what’s happened. The little kid didn’t make it.
Suddenly remembering Matt is still fighting that freakish abomination, I tell them to find Shrimp’s body, then rush off to find Matt. Flying in the direction I saw him last, I spot him again, this time farther south, and in worse trouble than I thought. The freak is holding him by the chest with one hand, crushing him between its fingers. Flying as fast as I can, but I can tell it’s not fast enough. I’m not going to make it in time. Another of my friends, this one I’ve known almost my whole life, is about to die. And this time, I’m going to be forced to watch.
I can see how much pressure is being exerted on Matt. I can sense the agony in his face, the way he’s breathing tells me he can’t hold on for much longer. But I’m too far away, too slow to help. I’m almost there, but he’s almost gone… and suddenly the creature’s head explodes, it lets go, and falls over dead. Matt stands up, gasping for breath and cradling his broken frame. I look at the dead thing, the way its brain is splattered all over the left, none to the right. That means that…
“There’s a sniper to the right.” I say casually, and pick up Matt to go take a look.
Standing in the top of the clock tower in the middle of the place, I see a boy of about 16, standing there with a .50 caliber sniper rifle, decked out in full camouflage. At least, from the waist down. All he’s wearing torso-wise is a torn, bloody white tank-top. He has a bunch of knives strapped to his right leg, and his right ankle is wrapped up in bandages. I fly up to the window, and knock on it. With a very surprised look on his face, he opens it up and lets us in.
“You can fly?” he says.
“Not in so many words,” I say, “but it seems like you have the general idea.”
“What do you mean?” he asks. I demonstrate by picking him up, moving him around the room, and setting him down.
“It’s exactly the same concept, except on me instead of someone else.” I say.
“Pretty cool.” He says, and I nod.
“Yeah. Well, I have to say, I’m impressed you’ve lasted by yourself this long.” I say, “But from the looks of it, you won’t be able to hold out here for much longer.”
He looks around. “Well… yeah.” He says, “I guess this place is in sorry shape…” he looks at his ankle and adds, “and so am I.”
“Welcome to the club, my friend,” I say, then pick him up, and fly back to the lake, with both him and Matt dangling behind me like ragdolls. Deciding to make the slow, leisurely flight back to the lake a bit of a learning experience, I turn myself towards the newcomer.
“So, how’d you get here? Did you live here?” I ask him.
“Nope. Walked here with a kid named Shrimp.” He replies, and I fall silent for a moment, the weight of his words hitting me like a sledgehammer.
“You were with Shrimp?” I ask him, just to clarify.
“Yeah, you know him?” he replies, now slightly more baffled than before.
“We found him in a mansion up on a hill,” I tell him.
“Good to know the little guy made it,” he says, showing obvious relief.
“What do you mean?” I ask. Now it’s my turn to be baffled.
“Well, Shrimp has a nasty habit of running away during fights,” he says. “And one day, there was a really big fight. We lost the other two people in our group, and Shrimp ran. Never saw him again. Figured he was dead.”
A tiny wisp of hope simmers to life in my heart. “So, he ran often?” I ask.
“Pretty much any fight that lasted longer than 10 minutes, Shrimp ran from.” He replies.
“Ah.” Is all I can say, my mind already racing, trying to figure out the possibilities of Shrimp still being alive. Silence falls again, and I spot the lake.
I land in front of the lake, next to the large pile of bodies. I lay Matt down gently, and the rest of our group comes to greet us, including Ian, who is up and moving without much trouble. Daniel rushes over to Matt, does a quick one over, and puts a hand on his forehead.
“His ribcage is busted up pretty badly,” says Dan, “He’s lucky to be breathing.”
“You have no idea,” I reply, then turn to Ian. “So, how do you feel?” I ask.
“I’ve been better.” He huffs. “Who’s this?” he asks, and shrugs towards the new guy.
“Who, him?” I say, then turn back toward our new friend. “Oh, this is…”
“Jonathan.” He says, then turns towards Matt. “He going to be alright?” he asks Dan.
“Yeah, he already looks better.” Says Dan, “But we should probably get him somewhere safe.”
I turn and look to Clara. Deciding not to bring up Shrimp yet, I ask, “How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
She turns and walks towards the lake, staring at her reflection in the water. I watch for a few more seconds, then I can’t take it anymore. I walk up behind her, put my hand on her shoulder. She turns around, and I take her into my arms and hold her tight. She sniffs, and then I feel her tears start to dampen my shoulder. I pull away, and look at her.
“It’s going to be ok. Trust me,” I say, then walk back to the group. She follows, still crying, but wiping the tears off of her face. “Well, we should probably start heading back to the ma-“
I stop in midsentence, and we all hear the reason why: the rumbling thunder of thousands of stampeding feet, headed in our direction. I look at Ian. “You stay and fight until I come back and help hold them off.” Then I look at Jonathan. “You too, buddy. Let’s see what you got.”
Jonathan picks up a few extra rounds of ammo from the scraps of the truck, and reloads his sniper. “Alright, I’ll go find a good spot.” He says, and runs off towards some trees. Ian turns towards me, nods, and his hands ignite. Fire surrounds his eyes, giving him a demon-like mask for a moment, then he turns away and launches off with a blast that knocks us back, flying up like a space shuttle-jet hybrid.
“Hm. Never seen that trick before.” I say after my hearing returns, and then I swiftly pick up the remaining team and fly back to the mansion. I fly faster than I ever have before, desperate for time. I nearly smash into the side of the house before stopping and skidding to a halt at the main entrance. I set everyone down gently, and let Dan carry Matt inside. Clara comes up to me and hugs me, and says, “Be careful… please.”
I nod, then turn around, and stare in shock and awe.
A reverse maelstrom of fire is swirling around on the ground, spiraling up to what I know must be Ian, funneling like an upside down tornado, sweeping across the town below, and the crazies as well. No longer sure if he even needs my help, I fly more cautiously towards my friend, in case he happens to be in a state similar to the one I was in at the lake. I approach Ian slowly, then it gets too hot to get closer, so I keep my distance. I watch as he blasts and scorches everything below, razing the entire town, leaving nothing taller than a car tire standing. Attila the Hun would be proud.
Suddenly, the reverse fire maelstrom stops, and Ian hovers for a moment, before rocketing up beyond my limit of vision. I look around, confused for a moment. Then I look down again, and see the Crazies that weren’t incinerated by the heat are coming back, and some of those abominations survived.
I hear a scream, like a loud firework going off, and a blur of light rushes past me, and slams into the ground with the force of a small meteor. The explosion sends me flying (uncontrollably) into a hill, where I slam into the ground. Hard. The wind rushes out of me, and I hear a loud crack. A stabbing pain in my head, a ringing in my ears, and sharp pains in my chest, I no longer feel alright. I try and stand up, but I can’t move. About to panic, I try picking myself up.
Right on cue, I lift off the ground and suddenly, motor controls are returned to me, and I’m free to move. Then, looking back to the site of the explosion, and seeing the newly formed crater, I realize what that thing was: Ian.
I fly as fast as I can towards the center of the crater, and I see Ian’ body, lying limp at the bottom. I float down, and pick him up, and see that he’s smoking and slightly burnt looking. I fly over to the lake, and drop him into the center. The second he is completely submerged, he regains consciousness and starts screaming. I pull him up out of the water.
He stares at me, and says “Don’t do that! I can’t swim!”
I look at him, and laugh. “What?” he asks.
“You can’t swim?” I ask.
“No, I never learned.” He says.
I shake my head, and tell him, “I never knew you couldn’t swim.”
At that, we both laugh, and then the adrenaline wears off. I start coughing, and that hurts, so I just stop all together. Ian looks at me, and says, “Hey, you alright man? You’re not looking so good.”
I nod, because I can’t do much other than inhale and exhale, and that hurts as it is. He puts his hand on my shoulder, and suddenly I feel an explosion of pain, and the world blanks out. Again.
I wake to the sound of a gentle voice saying “I told you to be careful, you stupid boy…” and the feeling of a soft hand stroking my cheek. I open my eyes, and I see Clara sitting next to me. She looks at me, and smiles. “Thank goodness you’re alright!” she says, then goes to hug me, then remembers, “You IDIOT! You said you’d be careful, and then you come back with four broken ribs, a broken collar bone, a dislocated shoulder, and a concussion????”
I sit up, look at her and say, “It’s not that bad.”
“NOT THAT BAD????” She screeches, then she pokes my side. I scream in pain, then fall back to the bed. “Oh, god… I’m so sorry…” then she walks out of the room. I lay there for a moment, catching my breath, readjusting myself, trying to stop the ringing in my ears.
I lay there for a few minutes, head spinning from pain. After it reduces to a dull pounding, I find the strength to stand up and walk out of the room and down the hall. I almost make it to the stairs when Ian sees me, and says, “Uh… I don’t think you’re quite ready to be up and about yet.”
I look at him, and say straight to his face, “shut up.”
He falls silent for a moment, then I smile and we both start laughing.
“Glad your alright.” He says, and then helps me into the kitchen.
“So what have we got to eat around here? I’m starving!” he opens up the pantry, and says,
“We have… soup, soup, and… more soup. What do you want?”
“I think I’ll have the soup.” I reply, and he takes a can of soup out, opens the can, and pours it in a bowl. He hands it to me, and I ask, “Don’t you need to heat…” then I see that the bowl is steaming.
“Oh. Right.” I say, and then stuff my face.