The nightmare that won't go away chapter 7 – our last hope
The rain finally began to descend from the night sky onto the now destroyed village of Blithe hollow as Agatha Prenderghast sat within the only safe place there was left that was the village church. It had been 2 hours since Norman's parents had told her about Norman and Dr. Crawden had told her about the infected villagers turned killers and currently, the young teenage girl was quietly sitting on her bed and quietly sobbing whilst Dr. Ryder Todd was applying a bandage to her head injury.
"Don't worry, little girl" Ryder said; trying to stop Agatha's tears. "This will all be over soon; Dr. Crawden will come up with a plan to save your friend and stop this madness; I'm sure of it." The reason Dr. Ryder was referring to Norman was because everyone in the church believed that Agatha was upset over the fact that Norman was gone and he was the only one who ever understood her like she did him, but the real reason was something that no one would've guessed.
Aggie blamed herself.
Agatha's tears had began falling since Dr. Crawden left her after telling her about the infected and by the looks of her, she wasn't going to stop crying any time soon. The reason was because Aggie felt responsible for all of this happening because the truth was she HAD indirectly caused the whole problem. When she broke Norman's heart by disappearing before he was called by Byron White, Norman began to experience so MUCH emotional discomfort that it was enough to awaken his dormant witch powers that he had inherited from Aggie. With the powers no longer dormant, Norman just needed a little push to spark everything off and Byron White had done just that so as much as Agatha pained to admit, she felt she had to accept that she was just as responsible for the Blithe Hollow infection as Byron White was.
Agatha's train of thought was interrupted when Dr. Ryder pulled a knot into her bandage, earning a small gasp of pain from the girl. "Sorry, didn't mean to hurt you" the doctor said sincerely. "It's okay, I'm fine" Aggie replied. Suddenly, a flash of lightning and bang of thunder caused both of them to look at of the window and at the dark night sky. "Little girl, I think it would be a good idea if you could try get some rest; you look like you need it" said Dr. Ryder. Agatha nodded in response as she had not slept in quite a while and began to get into the bed. As Dr. Ryder closed the door and she was about to fall asleep almost instantly, Agatha heard a scream of horror and two gunshots. She immediately bolted up from the bed to look at the window where she saw a normal looking man holding a calibre revolver standing in the rain, his back to the church's protective spike fence.
"Help me!" the man shouted. "Somebody help me, please!" Agatha then noticed three infected people, one man and two women. At the same time, all three let out screams of battle and began to sprint towards the normal man. On instinct, the man shot a bullet from his gun, killing one of the infected women as the bullet passed through her skull. As the man pulled the safety to shoot again, the infected man picked up a glass bottle from the ground and threw it at the normal man, causing it to break and allowing the glass to slash at his skin.
The normal man pulled the trigger again whilst the gun was pointed at the infected man and the bullet passed right through his throat. As the infected man began to die of blood loss from his throat wound, the normal man noticed that the other infected woman had disappeared. Suddenly, said infected woman appeared from behind the normal man and cut off his head with a machete. She then drove the machete into the now dead man's head and lifted it high to the sky before letting out a scream of victory. As the woman ran off with her prize, Agatha simply walked back to her bed from the window, the whole time only thinking four words over and over...
'What have I done?'
A few hours later...
Agatha rubbed her eyes as she sat up from the bed she had been sleeping in. At first, Agatha hoped it had all been a dream but that thought was crushed when she noticed the man's body from the night before, head missing as it had been stolen. After sulking a bit longer for the whole thing that had happened, Aggie stood up from her bed and opened the door to leave the room. As she stepped out, Aggie found herself in the main hall (you know, the hall with the rows of seats). She looked around and immediately noticed Norman's family (Crawden not included) sitting in one of the rows of seats praying whilst Dr. Crawden and Dr. Ryder standing at the altar looking at a map of Blithe Hollow. After another search around the room, Aggie noticed Neil sitting in one of the rows of seats on his own. Thinking that he was depressed, the girl went over to the boy.
"Hi Neil" Aggie said as she reached where he was sitting. "Hi" Neil said simply and quickly, clearly depressed. "What's wrong, Neil? You helped me earlier with Norman so I want to help you now." At that moment, tears began to fall from Neil's eyes in waterfalls. "M-M-Mitch... he didn't m-m-make it" Neil said, stuttering from his tears. Aggie raised her hand to her mouth to cover her gapping mouth. "Oh Neil, how?" she asked. "That's j-j-just it; he died saving me." Neil then stopped crying and wiped away his tears so he could explain to his new friend.
"My house was one of the first to get attacked by the infected; we had no idea at the time so we didn't stand a chance. Mum and dad were already here, collecting our new copies of the bible so they were okay but me and Mitch were at the house. They just attacked out of nowhere; it scared the hell out of us. As we went to the backyard, they managed to break through the windows and break down the door." Neil started to cry again but held it in. "Suddenly, Mitch went 'big bro' mode and tossed me over the fence so I would be safe and he began to climb over. But then, they grabbed him and pulled him back off the fence. When they did, I immediately ran over to the little hole in the fence to see an infected woman stab a knife into his throat."
Aggie was absolutely DEVESTATED compared to what she was yesterday. Thanks to her partly causing the whole thing, the only person she could call a friend had lost his big brother to the infected. As Aggie was about to hug Neil out of comfort, Dr. Ryder raised his hand for everyone to see; telling them to be quiet. When there was complete silence, everyone could the sound of machine gunfire in the distance. "That's gunfire!" Dr. Ryder shouted. "Everyone, get down!" he shouted again as him and Dr. Crawden both ran over to the windows by the main church doors; both carrying sniper rifles.
At the order, all the survivors huddled together in their own separate groups, leaving Aggie and Neil to go with the Babcocks. Everyone then quietened down as Dr. Crawden turned off the lights and hid behind a stone pillar, sniper rifle in hand. Half a minute later, the silence was interrupted as the main doors creaked open and someone in a yellow complete hazmat suit stepped in; he was holding some type of machine gun. As the door shut behind the person, Dr. Crawden turned the lights on and moved from behind the pillar to point the sniper rifle at the now worried person. "Put the gun down" Crawden ordered to which the person complied. Dr. Crawden stepped forward to taunt the person but lowered the rifle when he saw the logo on the hazmat suit. "You're military."
At this, all the survivors stood up to look at the hazmat soldier. "Yes, I am" the person said as they removed their mask, revealing them to be a white skinned man with dyed silver hair and sapphire eyes. "My name is Brendan Vulka; I'm the leader of ECHO squad for the W.S.D.C." At this, one of the survivors watching called out "W.S.D.C? What does that stand for?" Dr. Crawden and Dr. Ryder both looked at the survivor who spoke before Ryder said "Wide Spread disease control." Dr. Crawden took a long, hard look at Brendan before speaking. "Take a seat" he said. "We'll figure out what to do with you when we're done." At the order, Brendan picked up his machine gun, gave it to Ryder to take and walked off to sit in one of the rows of seats. As Ryder walked off with Brendan's gun, Crawden called out to Aggie "Hey, you got a minute? We need to speak with you". This earned him a look a worry from the girl.
As Dr. Crawden looked through the weapons many survivors had managed to scavenge lay out on the altar table, Aggie went over the plan that Crawden had come up with one more time. Crawden said that because Aggie and Norman had the same abilities and blood, if Aggie were to be able to talk to him, she might be able to calm him down like he had done to her 2 years ago; the hard part was getting to Aggie's tree with all the infected roaming the streets. As Aggie finished going over the plan, Dr. Ryder and Brendan stepped over to them.
"You wanted to talk to me?" Brendan asked Dr. Crawden. "Yes" he replied. "We figured out a way to possibly save everyone. You see this girl?" Crawden asked, pointing at Aggie; Brendan nodded. "This girl has the same ability to talk to the dead as the boy who's in control of the infected; we believe that if this girl can get a chance to talk to this boy then she might be able to save us all." At this, Brendan looked confused. "So what do you need me for?" he asked; Crawden sighed.
"The infected won't see her as a leader like they do with the boy; they'll still attempt to attack her." Dr. Ryder chose to butt in. "Basically, she needs an escort" he said; hoping he cleared things up a bit more for the soldier. "So you want me to escort her to where she needs to be, protecting her from the infected?" he asked. "Not JUST you" Crawden said in response. "Me and Ryder are going as well. Back at the Wide spread HQ; we were quite high ranking in combat training so we think we can help. However, if you would help as well, we would be truly grateful."
Brendan looked at the two doctors and Aggie before picking up the machine gun he had brought with him that had been laid out on the table and removing the safety. He then smiled proudly and said
"Where do I sign up?"
(A/N – Guys, I so far only have ONE vote on my poll for what story I'm going to do next so I'm sorry but I'm going to have to say that if I don't get votes soon, I am going to DISCONTINUE this story until I get votes!)
