Never Far Gone, page 29
“Fire!” Corver shouts.
The sounds of close gunfire never seem to fail when it comes to making me slightly more deaf after every occasion. The ringing associated with mild tinnitus inevitably creeping in makes it harder to hear the dialogue from those around me, yet I somehow manage. The bodies of the slower Spectrals drop to the floor with little effort, but the light emanating off their corpses from the flames seems to make the ones behind them more aggressive.
“They’re getting stirred up; check your fire!” I shout, no pun intended, as I note how muffled my voice is in my ears. The men around me start letting off shots in the direction of our quicker adversaries as we collectively begin backing up toward the second floor. The recoil from the rifle is significantly more noticeable than the MPX, but I don’t let it deter me.
“Prep the chandelier!” I command as Corver pushes past an unarmed Graham and bolts into the Armory where the winch for the Chandelier is sitting in the middle of the room. Another explosion knocks some of the Specs in the lobby to the ground from the sheer power of the blast. I usher for the rest of the Thrivers on my stairwell to climb to the top and take position over the railing. The Thrivers on the other stairwell do the same as they see us climb to the second floor.
As we reach the top, I peek into the Armory to see Corver aiming his bronze Beretta 80x Cheetah at the metal chain holding up the Chandelier while his other hand holds onto a thick paracord line.
“Do it!” I yell before commanding everyone to hit the floor. Corver yanks the paracord, tied to various pins attached to nearly half a dozen m87 hand grenades strapped to the metallic chandelier above the Main Lobby. Without hesitation, he lets off a shot from his pistol that severs the chain holding the chandelier in the air. As the ear-shattering sound of shattered glass echoes off the walls below, the Earth seems to jolt as the grenades downstairs go off simultaneously.
Holy shit!
As if I wasn’t deaf enough, the explosion below, mixed with those coming from the barrels being thrown from the roof, only serves to alert the entire city of our presence. Was it the most brilliant idea for crowd control? Maybe not, but it sure as hell worked. The previously pristine wood railing and marble walls that make up the staircase are now covered in gunpowder, shrapnel, and unidentifiable body parts. The smell of decay that followed makes the temporary victory feel short-lived.
“Hell yeah!” I hear one of the Thrivers behind me yell out as we stand back on our feet. Our celebration is short-lived as I lift my head to see infected coming from near the third-floor gym.
“Contact rear!” I yell out as nearly all of us turn our attention to the imminent threat that followed.
They’re already up here.
I grab the RAK-47 from the floor and use my other hand to toss a few glow sticks down the corridor for a better visual of the threat. With more Specs entering the Lobby and heading toward the staircase, our attention is now set in two directions. Amid the ensuing mayhem, I glance up at the nearly 300-pound metal desks we had hoisted up on the ceiling above both staircases. Without so much as another thought, I bring the iron sights of the RAK-47 up to the chains holding it overhead and fire until they are severed.
The thud of the desk hitting the top of the stairwell isn’t as noticeable as the previous explosions, but it is equally as effective in keeping the Specs at bay. As the desks slide down the staircases, all infected who were previously on the stairwell are violently thrown back to the Lobby, buying us more time to hold ‘em off. With the desks coming to a halt at the bottom of the landing, trapping a few Specs against the wall, a few Thrivers around me transition their aim toward the Lobby and resume their previous defenses.
“We need to get to Derrick! We can pick off the rest of them from up top while these guys take care of things here!” I shout over the gunfire to Corver. He nods before leading the way toward the stairwell closest to the Library. The footsteps I hear from behind as Corver and I push up the stairs and to the roof comfort me, knowing we’ve got support.
The metal door to the roof creeks opens as Corver pushes through it, exposing us to the seemingly endless sounds of groaning around the building. As I push through the doorway, I see Abdul helping Derrick lift a recently ignited barrel of gasoline over the north railing. They pull back from the edge just in time to avoid the blowback from the explosion that follows once the barrel hits the concrete below.
“Damn, you’re a sight for sore eyes, man,” Derrick says as I approach him. Given his previous condition, he still seems to be limping with a shotgun in hand, albeit improving substantially faster than I had imagined. “We’re running low on-” Derrick says before my face is covered in blood. As I stand there, paralyzed, I look with horror as a bullet pierces his head directly under his right eye, causing his body to collapse suddenly.
W-wha…
In my state of paralysis, I hear another unanticipated shot go off from my left, causing my body to shutter instinctively, followed by another as Abdul’s body is riddled with bullets coming from behind me. Without thinking, I grab the Kimber from its holster and bring it up as I turn to my right. Just as the sights are brought up to my eye, there is a sharp pain in my shoulder that causes me to drop my handgun and fall to the floor in distress. Before Corver can react, I pick my head up to see Luca Silvio turn his gun from me and aim it at Corver.
“Move, and you end up just like ‘em…” Luca proclaims as Corver instinctively puts his hands out in front of him. With the roof’s edge behind him, Corver has nowhere to go, even if he chooses to run. The sounds of vehicles rumbling from the rear courtyard fade as the vehicles peel through the gate and away from the area. Although their escape should comfort me, my current situation suppresses such a feeling of triumph. I grab my shoulder in an attempt to stop the bleeding and can see Graham walking up from nearly two dozen feet behind the three of us. Graham begins to talk as he approaches.
“Looks like you’re not the only one with friends, Miles. Albeit, it looks like you’re short one of those right now,” Graham says as he picks up the handgun that Luca had swept away from Abdul’s corpse just seconds ago. The pain, mixed with the sight of blood trickling from Derrick’s wound, causes me to scream in both agony and anger. With Corver unable to move, I try to pick myself up from the floor. Graham shoots a round near my feet, intentionally missing as if he is ordering me to stay down.
“So much for the ‘continuation of a good thing,’ huh…” Graham says as he stops a few feet in front of me and brings the barrel of the handgun up to my head. The sudden fling of the door we all came through not even a minute ago startles me more than the thought of death, and the shouting that follows was overwritten with gunfire as Luca and Graham turn to engage the Thrivers that were making their way onto the roof.
As the traitors focus on their aim, I stumble to my feet and move toward the roof’s edge just as Graham turns around. The sound of a bullet whizzing slightly overhead makes me stumble faster, forcing me to ignore the pain as I bend down and grab the only rope tied to the railing that we used to hoist the barrels of gasoline from the East Parking Lot. A bullet grazes my calf, and without hesitation, I tackle Corver off of the East side of the roof. I hear him grunt as more shots are fired in our direction.
The rope does little to cushion the fall, but it slows our rapid descent enough not to kill us instantly. As I use every ounce of energy to maintain my grip on the rope, I tighten my injured arm to hold Corver by the waist and prevent him from plummeting to his death. We hit one of the gated windows before bouncing off it and falling to the concrete below. I can barely stay awake after the fall, yet I seem to be doing better than Corver because he isn’t conscious at all. Despite my affliction, I grab Corver by the collar of his sweater and pull him under the slab of concrete hanging directly above the East Entrance.
I- I don’t think they can see us from up there…
I instinctively raise my left hand as the adrenaline begins to dwindle and finally acknowledge the lingering pain and burning sensation resonating from it; two of my fingers are twisted out of place. With this dismal realization, I hastily cover my mouth before letting out a muffled scream so as not to give away our position to the threats possibly looming above. Looking down with my mouth still covered, I notice Corver’s dark blue sweater becoming darker as blood seeps into the fabric from underneath. Without so much as a peep, I take my right hand and lift his clothing to reveal a bullet wound in his lower abdomen.
Fuck…
With limited options, I take off my dark denim jacket, starting with my uninjured arm. As my arm clears the fabric, I stuff the vacant sleeve hanging from the jacket into my mouth. After a few seconds of hesitation, I snap my fingers back into position and bite down as hard as I can onto the jacket’s thick material. The pain in my fingers starts to subside after what feels like an eternity and a couple of deep breaths, so I take the opportunity to grab the knife from my belt once I regain movement in my fingers. As the blade clears its sheath, I wrap the sharp end around some of the cloth before cutting a portion off.
The gunfire around the building persists, and I feel my body shaking for the first time since this ordeal started. Countless Spectrals are walking on the streets and the sidewalks past the gates, but they haven’t spotted Corver and me. Instead, they’re collectively inching closer toward the front of the Consulate. With my attention back on Corver, I tuck the clean fabric under his sweater and apply pressure to the wound, now spewing blood at a rate quicker than expected, before working to undo my belt.
Cmon… stay with me…
As I yank the belt through the loops on my pants, the Kimber’s holster, the Benchmade’s sheath, and the empty magazine carriers fastened around my waist drop to the ground with various thuds. Paying it no mind, I wrap my belt around the fabric and tighten it just enough to keep the makeshift bandage in place. I tuck the sheathed knife behind my waistline before picking up Corver’s Beretta, sitting idly in his thigh holster, and ejecting the magazine to get a count of how many rounds we had.
Eleven… with one in the chamber.
After remembering that the vehicles we had are gone, I glance back up at the street as the gravity of our mundane circumstance causes me to sigh. As hope seems to be fleeting from my grasp, I briefly remember a private, indoor, twenty-car garage two blocks away near the Reservoir; it was built for the residents of a nearby apartment building, but I had stored my own vehicle in there with some commodities from the Consulate’s reserve shortly after the first wave of Thrivers had arrived. While making it two blocks with twelve bullets is well beyond the realm of possibility, I had to try. I’d rather die out there than let Corver die right here.
“C’mon, buddy,” I say with a painful grunt as I wrap my good arm around Corver’s torso and use whatever energy I can muster to lift him up. “We’re getting out of here,” I whisper. With Corver staggering on his feet in and out of consciousness, letting out pain-ridden grunts as we push ahead, I hold the Beretta in my other hand and peek around the concrete slab overhead to see whether Luca or Graham are still looking for us.
Clear.
With that, I take a deep breath and begin lugging Corver forward while beginning to limp myself. The graze wasn’t enough to immobilize me, but all of the injuries my body has taken are starting to weigh down on my morale. We make our way to the entrance of the parking lot facing the street. I use the darkness to our advantage as the flames from my far left, still radiating from the front courtyard of the Consulate, are drawing the attention of the Specs outside. I kneel slightly to undo the latch holding the gates secure before yanking on the right metal door and exposing us to the dangers that lie ahead.
I wait nearly ten seconds for a large enough clearing before hoisting Corver over my shoulder and dragging him toward the right of the street. With every step we take away from the Consulate, I can’t help but feel more and more hopeless. One of the Spectrals on the street averts their gaze away from the front courtyard and redirects it toward us. As the sound of its profane shriek echoes throughout the street, the sound of the .380 ACP round being fired from the Beretta serves to do the same merely seconds later.
Bang.
Now that we’ve got the attention of every Spectral in a quarter-mile radius, I start hobbling faster toward the garage. As more infected move in on our location, I fire more rounds. With my injured shoulder absorbing the recoil following every subsequent shot, the pain throughout my body becomes all the more apparent as we stagger on; nevertheless, I continue to push forward with the handgun raised. I align its iron sights as best as possible at the heads of the deteriorating figures around us to conserve ammunition.
Ten rounds. Nine. Eight. Seven… Six. Five.
In the commotion, my leg starts to give in from the weight, but I remain standing on both feet. I let out a scream that temporarily increases my confidence, yet it’s quickly overwritten when I subconsciously remind myself how much ammunition is left. As another Spec approaches from about ten feet to our right, that overwhelming feeling of hopelessness gnawing at my confidence inevitably intensifies as another round is fired.
Four.
Over the sounds of my tireless huffing and the metallic bullet casing bouncing off the floor below, I can hear groans behind us approaching ever so slowly. I try to focus on the distance we cover, but the sound only gets closer with every passing second. It’s as if they’re closing in three feet for every 12 inches we push. Corver’s feet, dragging along the concrete below, are slowing us down enough to make us an easy target. I stop and attempt to turn around to address the approaching threat, but my leg gives out in the process. Corver falls to the ground first, dragging me down faster in the process, and I practically throw myself on my back while bringing up the handgun as best as I can with both hands.
Bang.
My forearm is naturally brought up to my face as the Spec that was tailing us falls forward, covering me in more blood while landing nearly a foot in front of Corver and me after being shot from behind. After wiping the blood from my face, I realign my aim with whoever is now standing behind the fallen infected.
“Vito?” I let out in a raspy manner as the strain in my voice from all the screaming fills the air. He is standing nearly half a dozen feet away with what looks like a stainless Walther PPK/S trembling in his hands. The black backpack he’s wearing looks identical to the one I had sitting alongside my desk in the main office. His long, dirty blonde hair obscures his line of sight, yet he can still hit a small, moving target with a single shot from a few yards away.
Wow…
As one of the infected approaches a now idle Vito, Heath, the Thriver who had given me the thumbs up in the lobby before looking for Vito, puts it down with a single shot from his pump-action shotgun. The blast is enough to bring Vito and me back to our senses as we close the distance between one another. I kneel briefly in front of him as he lowers his handgun and retracts his finger from inside the trigger guard.
“Thank you,” I say before his face lights up in the darkness with joy.
“Boss, we’ve gotta move…” I hear the Thriver say as he racks a new shell into the firearm. With no time to lose, I immediately focus my attention on an unconscious Corver lying face down on the concrete and usher the middle-aged Thriver to assist. Heath wraps one of Corver’s arms around his neck to maintain a firm, two-handed grip on the shotgun while I position his other arm around my shoulder. With that, we push forward. Together.
“There’s a garage not too far from here!” I shout out before a Spec is brought down from our left. The ejected shell lands in front of us yet disappears as Corver’s feet drag across it. “V, get ready to shoot the lock on the garage door panel, yeah?” I ask aloud to ensure he knows what he has to do.
“Okay, Miles,” he says in a lower tone than I had expected, given the deafening commotion around us.
Three rounds. Two.
The pain in my shoulder is unfathomable, and I can feel my aim start to sway tremendously. I place the handgun in the front of my pants in an attempt to save the few rounds I have remaining. With Vito directly in front of the three of us, I use both hands to prop Corver up and close the gap between all of us. With nearly twenty yards to go, I order Heath to go ahead and clear a path for Vito to get the lock. As Corver’s weight falls on my shoulders, both in the literal and figurative sense, I hear various shotgun blasts go off a few feet in front of us. As the last Spec in our path falls to the ground, I snag the opportunity to get us ahead of the situation.
“Go, V! Go!” I yell as Vito sprints to the brown metal garage door between us and safety. With both hands, Vito aligns the barrel of the PPK/S with the padlock securing the controls to the garage and turns his head away as he fires a shot. The sound of the bullet ricocheting after it destroyed the lock echoes between the multi-story residential buildings, yet Vito wastes no time as he stands on his toes to remove the broken lock.
With infected approaching from behind us, Heath swings the shotgun around as Corver and I pass him; as if things aren’t bad enough, Heath starts to panic once he hears the dreadful click indicating that the gun is empty. While he fumbles to grab more shells from his pocket, dropping a few on the ground in the process, Heath is forcefully pulled to the ground by multiple infected. The indistinguishable sounds of his flesh being torn from his body are concealed by what had to be the loudest screams I’ve ever heard from another human being.
