"Is that smoke? Gene, you better co—"
Eugene didn't even have a chance to speak before Jack had grabbed WG and run out of the shack, a second explosion shaking the shack so hard some of the equipment on the desk fell over, several cords ripping out, and Eugene fell off his chair. He had no idea what was happening, but there was shouting and screaming and gunfire, all accompanied by moans. Somewhere, he heard the high-pitched wail of a toddler rise above the chaos. He wanted to race after jack, to make sure he was safe, to find out what was happening, but Eugene still had some sense of self-preservation. He could get himself around without accidentally pantsing himself, but Maxine was constantly frustrated he didn't do his physio exercises often enough, and he was still much weaker than he should be. An examination of why he didn't do his exercises (and tried to skip his appointments on occasion) was not the most important thing right then. But he certainly regretted it.
He knew the best way to stay alive was to stay in the shack and hope the zoms didn't penetrate the walls. It felt a little like he was trapping himself, waiting for the end to come to him, but he would never make it to another building in time. The walls had lasted this long, so they'd last one more battle, right?
As he thought that, he heard a crash and shouting from the direction of the gates. "They're through!" someone said – maybe Roman? He couldn't tell. Eugene stood, thankfully uninjured from falling off his chair. He looked around for a weapon and – nothing. He'd stopped carrying a weapon everywhere when he came to Abel, unable to carry it and use his crutches at the same time. How could he have been so stupid? He should have been more prepared, should have rigged something up. His crutches themselves were all but useless as a weapon, since they were too long to have good control over and far too light to do much damage. He thought he heard Jack's voice outside, but whoever it had been didn't speak again. Eugene tried not to wonder if they were still capable of it.
He heard a woosh, which really shouldn't have been audible above the battle, and a sudden surge of heat. Something had caught fire – the storage building near the shack was made of wood, he was pretty sure. No left foot be damned, he needed to get out.
Eugene got out of the shack easily enough, but he was greeted by utter chaos. People were running everywhere, there were at least two fires, and the gate and been completely destroyed.
There were procedures in place for something like this. Designated routes to the bunker, meeting places, people who were in charge of rounding up groups. That had all worked well on paper, but apparently not so well when it needed to be put into practice. Most of the people able to use guns and fight proficiently were trying to defend the gate, so there was no one to organise the rest of them. The dead weight. (Eugene, he heard in his head, Jack's voice exactly the combination of sad and angry it had been when he'd said something similar the fourth time he'd fallen over in one trip. You're not bloody dead weight. You're too skinny, and also I'm going to keep you from being dead if it's the last thing I do.)
He should have gone to the bunker. He knew that, but Jack was out there somewhere and Eugene couldn't leave him, he couldn't just assume Jack would be okay. He could be dead already or in danger or maybe he needed Eugene's help. Eugene wasn't sure how he would help, but he'd work that out when he came to it. First, Jack had to be alive.
Halfway to the gate he realised there were far, far too many flaws in this plan. Number one was that he still didn't have a weapon, and the people at the gate were failing to hold back all the zoms. There was a small swam inside the walls now. He still couldn't see Jack.
He was so busy looking for Jack that he didn't see it. There was a crawler behind him, riddled with bullet holes. (It had red hair and freckles, but brown eyes, not blue.) It would have been the end of Eugene Woods (it should have been, he told himself in the coming fortnight, he shouldn't have survived when—), but Maxine shouted his name, told him to move, and even the moment he spent looking at the half-destroyed face thinking the worse didn't seal his fate. He moved. He lived.
"Eugene, what are you doing? Get to the bunker!" Maxine said, her hair flying everywhere, her eyes wide. She had a streak of blood on her face, but Eugene didn't know whose it was.
"I was looking for Jack," he said. "He ran off just before the explosion, and— I don't know where he is, Maxine, I've got to—"
"You've got to get to the bunker. I'm sure he's fine."
Eugene wanted to argue, but he knew Maxine was right. He couldn't help Jack anyway.
It didn't stop him thinking if he'd just done something differently, he might have changed something. Jack wasn't fine at all.