Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait, but at long last her is the final chapter. Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy the story.
Chapter 14: Inferno
Moans of pain cut through the darkness of dreams and sleep like a razor. The veil and grogginess dissipated in a mere instant as Jackie's eyes snapped open realizing that it was Caity who was on the verge of tears, pain wracking her body.
Jackie sat bolt upright, worry coursing through her veins. For a moment she didn't even know how to react. She shook her head clearing her mind for a precious few seconds. Caity's skin was pale and clammy, her eyes bloodshot.
"Hun, what's wrong?" she asked, afraid of the answer, dreading it, but knew she had to find out what was happening.
"Headache... stomach hurts… arm too," Caity replied weakly through clenched teeth, tears now beginning to fall from her eyes as the pain tore through her.
Jackie placed her wrist carefully on her lover's forehead, looking for a temperature. She found that her girlfriend has a blistering fever. She bit her lower lip nervously, this was bad, really bad. She knew she couldn't check her stomach, not really, but Caity had also said her arm hurt, Jackie could check that.
Max leaned against the window sill of the bathroom on the top floor. He had his eye settled against the scope of his rifle, peering into the field across the street where the pile of corpses still smoldered, smoke drifting lazily to fade into the hazy gray of the sky above.
The crosshairs of his sight were settled on the chest of a zombie slowly stumbling towards the house. The undead remains of some city worker didn't know there was anyone in the house, simply shuffled towards it.
Max settled his finger on the trigger, waiting for the horror to come closer before risking a shot, he had to make sure that he hit; running zombies were much harder to hit.
The creature started to cross the street, its intestines swaying from a massive hole in its gut. Max shifted the crosshairs to the zombie's forehead, looking straight at its face, skin and muscle peeling from bone, blood dripping from torn lips.
"Eat shit fucker," Max muttered as he squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit the creature in the temple, breaking through the skull and out the back again, brains falling to the street as the creature slumped onto the pavement, blood pooling around its head.
Max pulled back the action of his rifle, ejecting the spent round. The casing bounced off the edge of the window sill and fell two stories to hit the driveway below. He slammed the action forward again, chambering another round. He did a quick scan of the area to make sure there wasn't anything else.
Upon seeing it was clear he went to the back window, and looked out across the back fields behind his house, all the way to the forest a few kilometers away. There was nothing there.
Max smiled and slung his rifle over his shoulder and started down the stairs, instead of turning onto the main floor he ducked into the garage; he needed to check supplies.
There were a few boxes of ammunition sitting on the old work bench along the back wall, but not too many. Max was running low, that was bad. He didn't know if he'd be able to hold off many zombies. Jackie didn't much ammo for her own weapons either.
Max turned to the gasoline next, there were only a few canisters left, sitting next to the generator, only enough to last a week a most.
His gaze finally turned to the non-perishable goods stacked beside the freezer. They were running low as well, not enough for four people to live off of for a very long time.
Max let out a sigh. He didn't want to leave the safety of his fortress home, but he knew that they had to go scavenging. He ran a hand through his long hair, he had to tell the others soon, and it was not a conversation he was looking forward to.
Jackie lifted the sleeve of Caity's shirt to examine her arm. As soon as her lover's forearm was exposed, her eyes settled on what was causing Caity so much pain. She felt her heart fall, crushed by despair.
On Caity's forearm was a small gash, it had slipped past Jackie's notice earlier, but not it was festering, the skin around it had taken on a deathly black shade with veins sticking out a sickly purple. Pus leaked through a scab that had formed over the cut.
"Oh my god… why didn't you tell me?" Jackie said turning her watering gaze towards Caity.
"Because… I didn't want you to worry," Caity said her voice heavy with sorrow, she had known there was nothing anyone could do for her, and simply wanted to enjoy her final moments with Jackie.
A tear escaped from Jackie's eye and she pulled Caity's form close to her own, holding her tight. Caity returned the hug, with what little strength she had left.
"I'm sorry," Caity sobbed.
Jackie didn't know how to respond.
The three sat around the table that everyone had sat about the day before enjoying breakfast. All of them looked down at the table as their own thoughts ran across their minds.
Jackie didn't know how to put it easy, because there wasn't any easy way for her to put it, she had simply told Max and Jenn about what was going to happen to Caity.
No one had said anything after the statement, and so silence hung over them, broken occasionally by a cry of pain from the basement. They all knew what had to be done, and who had to do it, but they were in no hurry to take Caity's life from her.
Jackie sat, arms across her chest as her mind raced, fresh tears following their predecessors down her cheeks. The table where she had eaten so many times since she was little, where her parents had told her and Max of their divorce, where she and Caity had had their first romantic dinner together.
"We should say goodbye," Jenn said quietly, and Max nodded.
Without a further word, all three descended the stairs and entered Jackie's room, where Caity was curled into the fetal position on the bed. She looked up as her guests came in, and managed a small smile.
Jackie stood back as Max and Jenn went forward, offering tight hugs and tearful goodbyes. Jackie stood back watching trying not to utterly break down. Max was the first to leave the room, letting Jenn say a few more words of farewell. When she said all that she had to say she gave Caity a tight embrace. As Jenn walked past Jackie the two locked eyes for a moment giving the other a look into the pain of the other. Jenn studied her friend for a moment before continuing on to join Max upstairs, shutting the door behind her.
The two lovers were alone. Caity looked up at Jackie and smiled as she noticed the pistol in her girlfriend's hand, held by numb fingers. Caity nodded slightly, and Jackie loaded the weapon.
"I love you," Jackie whispered quietly.
"I know… I love you too," Caity responded, just as quietly.
"Houston… We have a problem," Max said looking out one of the boarded windows on the first floor.
Jenn came up beside him, trying to peer through a crack in the window. After realizing what she was trying to do Max moved aside, and immediately broke into a run for his sniping position upstairs.
After seeing what Max had seen Jenn's eyes went wide.
"Oh shit…" she muttered.
A horde of zombies were approaching the house most of them in a sprint, somehow knowing there were people inside. Jenn pried herself away from the window and picked up Jackie's shotgun, making sure it was loaded.
"Jackie! We have trouble up here!" Jenn yelled as she positioned herself in front of the front door, readying herself for the siege.
Upstairs Max opened his window and began to fire into the approaching horde, sweat gathering on his brow and palms. Fear gnawed at the pit of his stomach as his heart pounded within the protective confines of his ribcage. Was this it? The final conflict for him and his sister?
He tried to ignore the prophecies of doom his mind seeped into his consciousness and concentrated on firing round after round into the fast approaching creatures.
Jackie sat herself on the end of her bed, vision blurred by the tears that had gathered in her eyes. Caity looked at her, trying to offer a small smile through his grimaces of agony. She was barely clinging to life now, so close to death she tries to offer her love a picture of peace.
Jackie lifted her pistol, settling her arm on her knee to steady her shaking arm. Memories of the little girl from the school came and went through her mind as she settled the sights on Caity's temple.
The undead are pounding at the boards of both the front doors, tearing the barricades away, rotting arms reaching in through the cracks they made. Standing behind one of the doors Jenn fired at the heads she caught sight of. Blood, brains and chips of bone splattered across the wood.
Max was screaming as he fired round after round into the zombies directly below his window, pausing only to reload. He was trying to go too fast, the rounds were slipping in his shaking and sweaty fingers.
"Mother fucker!" he yelled every time a round missed the port in his weapon.
Downstairs Jenn started to feel true fear creep up inside her. She had reloaded a few times already, every shot she made gaining at least one kill, but they were still coming, and the barricades were almost gone, and Jackie still hadn't come up the stairs.
"Jenn! You have to get out of here!" Max yelled through the house as he reloaded once again.
"No! I'm not leaving you all behind," she argued, firing another shell through the widening gaps in the barricades. Even as she said the words she felt hope fading.
Finally the door burst open. For a split second Jenn's instinct for self-preservation took hold and she shoulder the door open into the garage. Too late she realized she had abandoned Max and Jackie, but knew it was too late too turn back now. Firing a shot behind her she ran towards the back door and, hopefully, escape.
The zombies started to run after her, but most started up the stairs to where Max prepared himself for his final stand.
Caity's breathing became more audible as her lungs struggled to take in air. In her final moment the mask of agony lifted from her face and she gave Jackie a final look of peace and serenity. A look of beauty that Jackie would remember forever.
Then her eyes fluttered shut and her head slumped forward as she lost her consciousness, and soon her life. Jackie swallowed.
"I love you Caity," she said quietly, and squeezed the trigger.
She ran as fast as she could, just putting one foot in front of the other. She jumped the back fence of the Hunter's yard without pausing, pulling off a perfect landing. She turned and fired a shell into the skull of each of the two zombies following her.
Jenn spun again and continued her sprint towards the distant woods, a few zombies running full tilt after her. Every once in a while she would spin and fire, bringing another down in a spray of gore, or she would beat the creature into a mushy pulp.
Each step took her further from the house, and every time she turned she got a glimpse of the house, and each time she saw it, she wondered if that would be the final resting place of the Hunter siblings.
As the undead crested the top of the stairs, Max fired a single shot into the cranium of the first zombie he saw. The leader fell backwards, tumbling into the mass of ghouls that followed it, slowing them long enough for Max to cock his weapon.
"Eat shit and die!" he yelled firing a second shot and felling another of the undead. It wasn't enough though, and Max knew it.
The undead came after him too quickly for him to cock his weapon a second time, and so the stubborn sixteen year old used the rifle as a club to beat back his attacks, cracking skulls and necks, killing a few but for the most part simply stalling them.
"Fuck all of you! Fuck you all!" he yelled as loud as he could as if his words would stun them.
His muscles ached, but he still fought desperately. He was going down, he knew it, but he was going out with as much style as he could muster.
The fact that no one would see it, read of it, or even hear of it did not cross his mind as he clubbed back the horde filling his bedroom.
Jackie slipped most of her uniform on, leaving the tunic behind; it was too much of a hassle. She slipped on her protective vest, and the tactical vest over that, checking her equipment rapidly.
Without thinking she slipped on the gloves she had taken from an zombie she had slain back in the grocery store, and picked up her assault rifle.
She slammed a magazine in place and cocked the weapon, chambering a single round. The thought of suicide, of giving up, crossed her mind but once. To counter it she pulled a box of matches from her bedside table.
She opened them and looked within. The box was nearly full. She pulled one out, and struck it against the lighting tab, setting the tip aflame. She stared at the fire for a moment. She had to do what she was about to do.
She put the lit match back in the box. The others caught up quickly, becoming a small inferno within seconds. Jackie tossed the flaming box onto the sheets of her bed, which didn't take long to catch fire.
Jackie watched as flames consumed her bedroom even as the first zombie started to pound on her frail door. The flames spreading from sheet to mattress to frame to carpet. Caity's clothes caught aflame first, and Jackie soon lost sight of her love, it was the best burial she could give in a time like this. Jackie turned as the door slammed open, and put a round into the head of the five zombies that stumbled in.
The soldier had no intention on dying in here, she jumped over the corpses and up the stairs. Some of the zombies trying to get up to join Max's brawl noticed her and turned towards the new meal only to catch a round in their head spraying blood across the walls of the Hunter home.
Jackie sprinted up her stairs and turned around them, ignoring the primary entrance to the house and going as fast as she could towards the second door.
Three creatures stood in her path. Jackie shot them down without thinking even as smoke and flames started up the stairs. Jackie pushed past the corpses as they were falling towards the ground, everything seemed to be in slow motion to her as adrenaline pumped through her veins.
She ran through the open door, jumping down the steps that led up to the house, kicking a zombie in the face with the movement. She continued her sprint across the street, towards the smoldering pile of corpses.
Finally she stopped, her chest heaving she fell to her knees, letting her rifle fall from numb fingers. Jackie Hunter lifted her face to the sky above and let out all her anger, her sorrow, her hatred, her guilt, let it all out in a roaring scream towards the clouds above.
Smoke was coming up the stairs with the undead now, but still Max fought on, his palms blistered from continuously swinging his rifle, blood running from torn skin, but still he fought on.
A zombie fell, and lunged through the pack towards Max's legs, teeth bared. The young warrior noticed and jumped backwards, forgetting about the large window.
All he heart was shattering glass and all he felt was a sense of vertigo as he fell the two stories to the ground below.
He landed on one of his legs, screaming out in intense pain that shot up from somewhere in his leg. With clenched teeth he looked up at the house, noticing the flames that licked their way through it, gutting Max's only home from the inside.
"The house… the house…" he started to say softly, before a wild grin spread across his face.
"The house is on fire, we don't need no water let the rotting fuckers burn! Burn mother fuckers, burn!" Max yelled as loud as he could, until he saw a zombie falling towards him.
Jenn stood a long distance from the house, watching the flames consume the last hope of settling down in the tormented world that she had held.
There was a small explosion from within the garage as the fire reached Max's gasoline. Jenn simply stood, and watched. It was all she could do.
The gray skies had finally let loose a torrent of rain upon the world. Sheets of fat rain drop fell onto the flaming wreckage of the Hunter home, dousing the flames.
As Jackie wandered through crisped wooden beams and burnt corpses smoke and heat still rose from the ruins. There was a large dip in the ground where the house had fallen into the basement, making Caity's tomb.
Jackie's eyes quickly examined every charred corpse, looking for any sign of either Jenn or Max.
"Hey! Back here," a familiar voice called.
Jackie looked up and saw her brother leaning against the back fence. He was covered in blood and ash, one hand clamped his leg while the other held his rifle, butt resting on the ground.
Jackie let a smile cross her face as she walked over to him. She knelt in front of him, setting her hands on his shoulders, hardly believing that he was alive. She pulled him close in a sudden hug and Max let out a yelp of pain.
"My leg, my leg! You crazy woman!" he rambled, and Jackie let him go, and did a quick check of his leg.
"It's broken," she said in a matter of fact tone.
"No shit," Max said.
"Don't worry we can fix it," Jackie said and started to look around for something to make a splint.
She looked up to see Jenn standing above her holding two pieces of wood and some rope she had found in the back fields. Jackie stared at her for a moment, unbelieving.
"I got away," she said meekly.
Jackie took the offered materials and quickly made a splint for Max. She and Jenn helped him to his feet and the three stared at the ruins of the house.
For the trio it symbolized the destruction of the past, the bleakness of the present, and the lack of hope that laid in the future.
They started to walk away, towards whatever awaited them, even as ravens flew down through the rain to get their meal.