A/N: Another one is up, folks! It took me a while to write this one, but only because I had three exams in July. I got only one left till graduation which I hope I'll make in September. This leaves some room for writing future updates. As you can see, things are slowly coming together and I can confidently say that Book 2 is nearing its end, only a handful of chapters left.
I like to think of this one (and a couple of future chapters) as calm before the storm. There will be a lot for Jackson group to handle, but we all trust in them, don't we?
Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 35 – Across the mountain slopes
Ben, not even knowing why, did not flinch considering that he was surrounded by a horde, horde of infected, and the fact that he was in the very center of it. After separating from Ellie and Julie, who escaped on his horse Stepper, he found himself barely managing to outrun it. Outrun is a strong word. Hiding could be used to better describe his eventful escape. Luckily, Ben was always a good and agile climber, so he simply climbed up a tree until the wave passed. Using the opening, he leaped off the tree and traveled to a small town he remembered was a short distance from Jackson. He hid in a narrow two-story building, in a bedroom with a locked door. It was a simple bedroom of the old world, much like any others, consisting of bed, wardrobe, desk and some pictures on the wall. Dark walls made for a darker interior, and the lack of light only enhanced the darkness. Ben sat upright on a chair with a machete laid over his thighs, focused on the scene in front of him, a brown wooden door, as if he expected that the infected would break through them at any moment.
He knew that if he waited long enough in the room, the horde would pass. Тhere were so many of them outside he couldn't count. If they caught a sight of him, he was certain there'd be no way out, but currently it was one of those 'so far so good' situations. The first thing that came to his mind (after the horde leaves the town) was to return to the settlement, but as far as he could see, the horde was moving right in that direction. Ellie will warn them, he assured himself. She saw them, she knows their endless numbers. The settlement will survive, it must! He wanted to be there and help them prepare to defend the walls. But in order to do that, he first had to survive the crucial hours that were yet to come. All he had to do was be quiet and everything would go by itself.
A ray of light coming from the corner was the cause of his flashlight, the night was not nearing its end yet. At least he didn't think so. Everything he could do in the short time between running away and hiding to prepare was done; he drew the curtains on the windows just in case, checked the ammunition and sharpness of the machete, reloaded his gun and rifle, locked the door... but none of that made Ben feel safe.
The anticipation of what might have happened was too much of a burden, perhaps even unbearable for the despair and fear of living one's own life. It confused him, at one point he wasn't shaken at all, and at another... There was silence in his head, and Ben thought he was finally really alone in that room, but he knew she was wandering somewhere, waiting patiently to tell him something when he least expects it. The silence was driving him crazy, the absence of her voice was driving him crazy as well. The anticipation was unbearable.
As the night wore on, the distant cries of the infected, the runners and clickers, the occasional bloater, grew closer and louder. They surrounded the house in which he was hiding, he heard them under the window, their uneven footsteps through the snow, their incomprehensible voices, creatures that used to be human, now lacking even a shred of reason. It seemed to him that their cries were getting louder, and each minute seemed longer than the previous one.
It's been an hour. And then another. Finally, a dream came to his eyes, almost, he hated himself for allowing himself that carelessness. When he stretched out in that chair for the millionth time that night, Ben assumed it was about four or five o'clock after midnight. Still a couple of hours till dawn. He leaned on his knees, placed his hands under his chin and stared again into the more distant part of the room, the door, which in the darkness, regardless of the flashlight, seemed like a shadow. It seemed to last forever. Sun was rising in the east, bringing light. He was hungry, but he had no food left. Ben learned to live with hunger, especially in winter. Another hour passed, yet the horde was still there. When will they leave?
And then everything changed.
Somewhere in the hallway, a squeak and scraping was heard, followed by the well-known intermittent clicking. Ben jumped to his feet.
Ben crouched beside the chair and gripped the machete tightly in his left hand, caressing the handle of his pistol with the fingers of his right. He couldn't see anything through the closed door, but he could hear, approaching the door and resting his right ear on the wood to listen. One clicker, at least, was in the house while the others still traversed around the object. The clicking stopped but he didn't stop on eavesdropping. After a few minutes he dropped it, and sat down on a chair leaning back.
A few minutes passed, and the various clicks inside the house began again. Only now they didn't come from just one mouth. There were more. Clicking followed by screeching. Scratching of their claws against the door nearly knocked him off his chair. Ben almost stopped breathing. The clickers heard better than other infected. They compensated for the lack of vision with stronger hearing. Every part of his body went numb and almost no air entered his body. Stay quiet. Don't move.
There seemed to be three or four in the house. At least.
And then something hard and solid hit the door, making for a loud noise. Ben's mouth went dry. He had encountered clickers countless times, but it didn't help. The pounding sounds would draw others inside! He reminded himself to keep breathing and slowly got up from his chair. The pounding continued, seemingly with only one pair of hands, while the others clicked around on the second floor.
Ben could easily picture them in his head. The body, coated with fungus that was both a ghastly sight to the eye and served as an armor, tattered remnants of clothes hanging from thin limbs whose strength should never be underestimated. Their faces were different from the other infected. Or rather, the remnants of their faces, which were cut in half from the mouth all the way up, destroying their eyes and sight. And from that cavity protruded a fungus that spread over the rest of the head. Ben knew many who underestimated their lack of vision. Most of them paid the price.
The clicker pounded hysterically on the door, closer to breaking it with every passing second. Ben wasn't sure if he was heard or not. He told himself that it was impossible, that he was as quiet as death, but insecurity broke through to the surface. The pounding almost made him dizzy, and it seemed as if the whole house was shaking. The only sounds - other than pounding - he could hear were the sounds of crumbling, groaning, and cracking of wood. The wooden door was close to breaking - Ben moved slowly towards it, walking on his toes as inaudibly as he could. He had to do something about this noise, or they'd do something about him. If he had a choice , which he did, he'd choose the first option.
Putting his hand on the door lock, while the pounding still continued, he unlocked it and twisted the knob, pulling the door towards himself and letting the clicker inside to hurl toward him. The raspy scream intensified as the clicker leaped forward, exposing its naked chin. The fungus that covered the upper half of the face twisted in motion when the clicker revealed its yellowy, rotten teeth, spit spraying out. Pushing from below with all his might, Ben plunged the machete into its chin, continuing to push until the tip of the blade protruded from the top of the clicker's head, piercing its brain and fungal armor. He killed it barely on time. If he was only one breath late, clicker would've sunk its rotten teeth into his bared neck. The body relaxed in an instant and fell limply to the floor, as Ben held the handle of the machete tightly, feeling the head slide downwards, releasing the blade painted dark red. Following the hard fall on the wooden floor, the others emerged from the neighboring rooms and the stairway that led to the ground floor.
His left instinctively reached towards the gun tucked into his belt, but then he remembered that using a gun was a big no no. He had to do it as quietly as possible. Luckily, those outside were still oblivious to the noise inside the house. Probably because of how much noise they made themselves.
First clicker rushed hungrily at him, much in the same manner as the one that was pounding at the door. He always wanted to think that they had no awareness that its prey was living, only that it wanted to consume, ignorant to the pain they were inflicting. His father once told him that, but he was wrong. Just like he was wrong about so many other things. Ben welcomed clicker's head with the door that he slammed right into it. The already weakened wood burst open, and the pieces of splinter spread as the clicker's head plowed through the upper half of the door, leaving it trapped and right in the place where Ben wanted it. He almost laughed at how helpless it was and enjoyed every bit as he ended its life, separating its head from the shoulders in one clean slice. There were still two more outside this very door, he reminded himself. Job's not finished.
Two clickers bursting through the door was the eerie reminder of their presence, which left him with two options. An easy and a hard one. Easy consisted of using his gun to make short work of them, but that option was suffering heavy consequences. The hard one meant he had to fight them hand-to-hand, both at the same time. High risk, high reward.
Taking a deep breath, Ben relaxed his shoulders and the dance began. Move to the right, duck, aim for the neck… he missed and was almost knocked out of balance by his own carelessness. Clickers didn't possess the agility of humans, but they had the advantage of longer reach which only made it that much harder. The taller clicker swung its sharp claws right at him. Ben felt the tearing on his right arm, and his heart skipped its next beat. He angrily squirmed away from it taking two swift steps back. Heart skipped another beat when his back hit the window glass, preventing him from going any further. Not daring to look at the torn sleeve, Ben attacked before he could be attacked, only reassurance being that he didn't feel any pain in the upper arm area. From all he knew, the only damage done could be to his sleeve, but his eyes were set on his targets. Flailing their arms like lunatics, clickers prevented Ben from closing in to finish them, forcing him to back away to the window once again.
The taller clicker, with its arms in front, charged at him in an attempt to end it all, but Ben got him right where he wanted him. His heart was threatening to tear its way out through his chest, yet he had to execute the plan at the right moment. It was a sequence that seemed to last an eternity, yet it was over in two seconds. Just as clicker's hands were about to reach him, he stepped aside covering his eyes right away as the body burst out of the house through the window, glass shattering outwards. Without a moment of hesitation, he closed in on the second one, burying the machete deep into its head, both collapsing on the parquet at the same time. His eyes quickly darted to the torn sleeve, revealing that the only damage done was to the shirt he was wearing. Letting out a breath of relief, Ben sat up and leaned against a wall, finally getting a chance for a breather.
Or not.
Clicking once again intensified outside the room, as if a dozen of them poured inside in a matter of moments. How can you be this stupid?, he asked himself angrily and stood up. Could I've done it any other way? He was desperately looking around himself and measuring up the options he had left. There weren't many, and panic was slowly creeping inside of him. What now? What now? What now?
Annabel was screaming and laughing in his head, yet she was barely audible from the sound of his own thoughts. He hated her voice with his whole being. He looked around in panic, looking for a place to hide. It first occurred to him to lie down under the bed, but that was impossible unless he was the size of a newborn. The space under the bed was too narrow for him. The white closet door, not exactly to his surprise, was smashed, though only one of the two. Collateral damage caused by a previous fight, but there was still some space inside, narrow but wide enough for him to fit in. Dropping everything including machete and his pistol, except for his knife, he squeezed himself inside the narrow closet previously used to store child sized clothes. Some of plastic hangers remained hanging in the closet, the majority was broken, their shattered remains were lying on the floor with the dusty clothes they carried. Through the slit in the closet door, he observed the room.
Inside the room, in a corner he could not see, a sharp crash echoed, followed by the sound of wood crumpling. Ben blinked in terror, he couldn't see them, but he knew they were there inside with him. A slightest motion, a slightest tap against the floor would be enough for them to locate him from this distance. The clickers' greatest weapon was their hearing.
Those seconds, the moments spent in hiding stretched out seeming longer than they actually were. Soon enough it became tedious to breathe, the stench of the corpses reached his nostrils. Clickers entered his vision from the left, he could see them clearly now. They were sniffing the air, edging out their remaining senses in the attempt to locate the sound that drove them here, to locate him. They were screeching, gnawing and screaming. In the dead silence of winter, those noises combined made for a terrifying ambience. No matter what torture he went through or how hardened he became, they would always terrify him. He learned to control panic as a prisoner of a demon in a human's body. A demon dressed in white. That came at a cost of his mental health, which he was very much aware of, but it gave him a survival advantage in a 'survival of the fittest' world. Ben learned to embrace the terror, in a way. Annabel twisted him so much that he learned to enjoy it, to live for it. She twisted him that much.
He was clenching his pants with both hands when two more staggered into the room, looking around, smelling blood. He clung to that little bit of hope that was leaking very quickly. It occurred to him how much it would hurt if they...
He didn't want to finish the thought. He suffered enough pain in Seattle. Never again, he told himself. In this instant, like countless times before, Ben didn't know what to expect. Whether he'll die or live. The only difference was that he wasn't as afraid as before. But he was still afraid. It was a few minutes before they slowly started to stagger outside the room. However, Ben did not dare to peek out of the closet even ten minutes after they left. He was afraid that he would step on a hanger or break something that would attract their attention again.
He was breathing shallowly through his nose when he finally peeked out. His heart, which was still beating like crazy, desperately needed air. Doubt still ruled him. Can they hear him? Can they smell him? Despite the cold, his hair was drenched in sweat, as were his hands, clothes, and everything else.
On the tips of his toes, he stepped out of the closet and stood as if frozen. He took a deep breath, inhaling as deeply as he could. It was as if a whole new life was pouring into him. It's just that the "new" didn't change that what happened before.
Nothing, still. No movement or sound.
There was silence in the house, not so much outside. But there was silence in the house. He laughed when he realized that was all he really wanted in the moment. Did they really leave? Did he survive this too?
He looked out the window and realized that the only, and huge, trace of the horde was the snow trampled by a hundred pairs of feet, probably much more. A few runners and clickers, those that had separated from the horde, remained outside, but those didn't pose a problem for him. It'd be easy to slip past them and escape from this damn town. He didn't hesitate for a single second, picked up his things from the floor and headed outside.
x
The sky took upon a darker shade of grey by the time Ben made some distance away from the town, restlessly progressing towards the east, walking without stops for the whole afternoon. He was still hungry, the lack of food was biting him from the inside and was gnawing at his belly. Approximating that the horde usually moved in wider spaces, he avoided the main roads, including the one that led directly to the settlement. He may have survived this time, but nothing guaranteed him the same type of luck again. In his head, he formulated a plan to go all the way around the settlement, avoiding the threat the horde proved to be. In his head, it seemed a good enough plan. Digging his way through deep snow in the forests, coming occasionally upon a house or two, perhaps a car here and there, Ben tried to figure out where he was exactly. While he could crudely recognize his surroundings, he couldn't pinpoint his exact location.
The lack of his poncho was an eerie reminder that the cold was all around. Usually, on days like this, he'd take sanctuary in his own warm room, cuddled up, reading a book as Khan curled up into a white ball of fur beneath his feet. Frost grew over the car windows. He watched the ice-crystals for a while when he stopped to rest his legs, allowing his brain to be empty. Ben wanted to imagine that the morning would bring the warmth from the south. Yet between now and watching his breaths rise as new white-puffed clouds, there would be a very cold night. The kind that only stopped at the doors of well-made shelters.
He walked in silence, watching the mountains rise above the canopies in front of him. All that could be heard was the whistling of the wind and the occasional breaking and falling off of old, rotten branches that were sinking into the snow with their sharp tips. Ben would occasionally look around to make sure he was still alone before continuing.
He climbed to the top of a mountain slope and descended through it, over a wooded valley with a cold wide stream. The water ran over his ankles, soaking his feet, and he shivered from the sudden cold that poured into him. In the distance was another mountain slope with a resort that looked as if it was carved into it, no doubt one of the many abandoned outposts the Jackson people had once manned.
Little trout fled between his legs, like silver lightning bolts in clear water. In the distance, a deer raised its head and began to hesitate as Ben emerged from a shallow stream, then rushed among the trees, and a large mountain lion with a grayish fur, seemed to emerge from the ground, thwarted in stalking. It measured Ben for a moment, who stood in place, his left resting on the pistol, and then, with a swing of its tail, big cat disappeared behind the deer.
When Ben found himself between two steep slopes, snow-capped peaks as always wrapped in clouds, and crossed another smaller stream that flowed in a series of tiny waterfalls over gray rocks, it was already late afternoon.
He rubbed his nose when it suddenly itched from some stench. Turning his head in the direction of the stench, he looked at the tree in the distance, the tree that was different from the others, and not just because it was wider. A spectrum of bright colors couldn't be missed. Getting closer, Ben frowned at the corpse that was attached it. The cold, glassy look of the dead man said it all. His hands were pierced and nailed to a tree above his head, and his skin was cold for a long time, judging by its grayish color. The blood that used to flow through the mouth, nose and ears has long since dried out and turned black. However, what caught his attention were the colorful clothes he wore, the same as that girl wore, the one he cut and left to the runners as a snack. The ground next to the corpse was dark red in places where blood dripped while it was still fresh.
It was without a doubt one of the Gypsies. Whoever killed him was certainly not their friend, but Ben couldn't imagine anyone from Jackson doing something like this. At least not in such a brutal way. Then he remembered how Ellie had killed Nora, mercilessly hitting her over and over again when she could just have done it in a painless way with a bullet to her forehead. It seemed as if she enjoyed it, but who was he to judge her. He did worse things himself.
He continued on unhindered, as if the sight of a corpse nailed to a tree did not shake him at all. For him, the Gypsies were enemies, thus the fact that one of them was found dead did not bother him. Not at all.
Suddenly, a deep valley between the mountains opened up in front of him. Its slopes were steep, almost turning it into a ravine. The stream flowed from a small spring at the end of the valley. Ben's eyes spotted the resort, now at a much closer distance than before, visible through the oak branches that hid it faintly. Scattered trees towered dangerously over the resort. Among the trees in the valley were log cabins, small huts, and cottages. Ben remembered this place well. When they were younger, Ellie, he and the others often sneaked out of the settlement when they wanted to chill out by the fire. This place was good because it wasn't that far from Jackson, and was relatively devoid of the infected. The resort was at the highest point of the valley. It was hard to spot them at first, but Ben became aware of the corpses lying in front of the resort's front fence, at least a dozen of them. At first unsure whether they were human or infected, any suspicion was dispelled when he saw their colorful clothes. At the sudden, the valley seemed to be fill itself with the smell of blood and burnt flesh. Before he was aware of that fact, he was holding a gun in his hand, ready to use it. From a height, he looked at the corpses of Gypsies scattered on the snow around him. Some were killed by bullets, while several bodies were burned beyond recognition.
"Stop!"
A gust of wind blew through the valley, swirling the trees, fluttering its bare branches. Ben's snow-colored bangs covered his eyes, obstructing his vision. He stood as if frozen, not daring to move. He saw the silhouette of a person aiming at him, hidden in the darkness next to the resort door. It was a woman.
When she stepped out of the shadows, Dina lowered her gun and ran towards him with a sigh. Ben shook his head in relief.
"You scared me to death." she said between sighs, her forehead more wrinkled than usually. "We thought you were dead."
"It wouldn't be the first time." he said with a faint smile. "Where are the others? Tell me you're not alone."
Dina shook her head. "Jesse and Mark are with me. I don't know where they stayed. What about you? Where were you?"
Ben nodded, "I found Ellie and Julia and gave them my horse to make a run for Jackson. They should have arrived by now."
Dina sighed once more, and the wrinkles on her forehead thinned. Of the four of them who hung out all the time in the past, Dina was the one worrying the most about everything. Sometimes too much. Looking at Dina, Ben waved his arm at the bloody scene behind him, "Care to explain what happened here?"
"Inside."
Nodding again, Ben followed her, but Dina stopped abruptly.
"What?"
"Jesse is wounded. It's bad."
He just stared blankly for a few moments, then continued past her inside. It was warmer in the wooden interior of the resort than outside. Numerous doors on either side of the hallway indicated a multitude of rooms being rented at the time before all this. At a time when he was not even born.
They turned off their flashlights as soon as they entered the lobby, and Ben was relieved by the sudden rush of heat coming from the fireplace, above which stood Mark Jones, a boy of mediocre height and dark hair that was not currently visible because of the hat he was wearing. Upon seeing Ben at the doorstep, his eyes widened in surprise.
For a moment, Ben surveyed the dark interior. The desk was in the corner to his left, and the fireplace was to his right. Furniture was pushed in front of the fireplace with the intention of being as close as possible to the fire and heat. The windows had no form of protection on them, and for a moment Ben wondered how Dina and the others protected this place against so many people. The Gypsies were probably ambushed when they least expected it.
And then he looked down. Jesse shivered on the couch under the dark blanket. Ben noticed a thin stream of sweat squirming like a worm from the yellowed skin, spilling onto the mat. His hair was greasy and disheveled, and he looked thinner. His face was sunken and dark with dark circles under his eyes, like a death mask. Ben was scared of the worst. Was he bitten?
"What-"
He couldn't finish the question when Dina interrupted him, looking thoughtfully at Jesse who seemed to be asleep. "We ran away from the horde. We lost all but one of the horses, and we almost ran out of ammo. Then we saw people. Jesse recognized the Gypsies. They came up to us and started asking questions."
"Questions? What questions?"
"They asked us where we came from. Gypsies were always our friends, they came every summer. There was no reason to hide anything, they were supposed to help us like they always did. We said we were coming from Jackson, and then they asked where it was. The settlement. Jesse was starting to doubt. I knew that when he evaded their questions. And then the tallest one pulled out a gun. "
Ben just looked at her and listened to her. Dina didn't look away from Jesse. Her eyes were full of tears. She wasn't looking away for a single moment.
"He said he was tired of waiting and demanded to know where the settlement was. But they were Gypsies, they had to know where the settlement was. They came every summer. However, he still demanded to know. He asked other questions."
"He asked what?"
"How many of us there are, how armed we are, if we have the walls."
Mark just stood by the fireplace in the shade, silently listening and staring at Ben. There was silence. No one spoke anymore, only the squeak of fire could be heard, and crackling of wood.
"He demanded to know something else." said Dina at last.
Ben leaned against the wall behind him and crossed his arms. "What did he want to know?"
Dina turned and looked him straight in the eye. "He asked about you."
"Who?"
"That tallest, big guy. Jesse said we didn't know you. And then that big guy started shooting. Jesse stood in front of me. He stood in front of me, Ben. He shot him four times. Four times!" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "And we can't escape while they're out. Besides, the horde ... God, why is this happening?"
Mark approached her and helped her sit up, whispering to her to calm down. He looked at Ben and started, "We ran somehow. Infected appeared out of nowhere, that helped us. But Gypsies followed us. Dina and I managed to hold 'em off, but barely. Is this happening because of you? Who did you piss off while you were away, Walker?"
A shadow appeared in front of Ben's eyes, and in the distance he could hear her laughter. She laughed madly, like never before. He ignored Mark's question and walked around the couch to Jesse, watching him from above.
"Answer me, goddamn it!"
The fever melted the muscles on Jesse's bones, and Ben couldn't believe it was the same man who so confidently set out to hunt down the infected just two days ago. He stared at Jesse's face for a long time, defeated and speechless. With his right hand he took the cloth and dipped it in a bucket of cold water next to the couch. He gently and carefully wiped the eyelids and lips on his face. Mark and Dina stared at him silently, that fool managing to stay quiet, no longer repeating his question. Ben was breathing shallowly, ignoring the nausea in his stomach and the hatred swirling inside him. Jesse reacted to the touch, opening his eyes and looking at the white face above him.
"You're alive." Jesse smiled and sighed deeply. His chest expanded like a cage. Ben leaned over him and took his hand. Jesse's skin was sickly hot and dry, but he didn't let go.
"I'll find them." he told him in a whisper. "They'll pay for what they did to you. I will kill them. All of them."
He felt the grip of Jesse's hand. Even through the wounds he suffered, his grip was still strong. Ben saw his friend's lips moving, and he bowed his head to hear better.
"They want you. Just you."
He raised his head and looked away. If it really were the Wolves, then what happened to Jesse was his fault. His fault for not killing them all in Seattle. But then he forced himself to look back at his friend again. Ben wanted to engrave this sickly picture of Jesse in his head, whether he survived or not. It will be fuel for his hatred, hatred that will be directed at the people who did this to Jesse. Mark raised his head and went into the hallway, walking between the two of them.
"Ben. What do we do now?" Dina asked desperately. "We don't have any medicine, we don't have anything. Jesse can't travel like this."
"We'll figure it out. First-" as he spoke, he noticed Mark running back from the hallway with a rifle in his hand. Ben looked out the windows to see what caught Mark's eye.
"Horsemen!" exclaimed Mark, loud enough for Jesse to turn his head and look at him. "Gypsies. I saw their colorful clothes."
"How many?" Ben asked and walked over to the window to look.
"Seven. I counted." Mark replied with certainty. "Are we running away? Now they know they're here, we can't surprise them like last time."
"Where would we run to?" Annoyed, Dina asked him, checking the ammo in her pistol.
Although he didn't look at them, Ben could feel their eyes fixed on him. He was still held by the words he said to Jesse a moment ago, promising to kill them all. Although they were outnumbered, he didn't want to run away and miss this opportunity for revenge. If these were really Wolves, those who had followed him from Seattle, then maybe Connor was with them. Maybe he can end it all here and now. He sighed deeply, letting his thoughts settle and clenched his fists, making his decision.
"Keep your ammo close. Take positions by the window and wait for my signal. We fight."
x
