In which a flare of UV light isn't the only thing that keeps the Nightmares away.

Chapter 8

Pilgrim's Path: At the Gates.

A Pilgrim's life was one best lived with caution.

Aiden knew that.

You didn't get to make it through the wild without thinking ahead. Without, well, thinking. Full stop. A cautious Pilgrim lived. A reckless one died. As such it was a bit of a miracle that Aiden had made it this far. He readily admitted to that.

But he was no fool and he wasn't blind and liked to think that, even if at times nowhere near as cautious as he should have been, he knew what he could handle and what he couldn't.

This?

This he couldn't.

Aiden knew he'd screwed up the moment he climbed deeper into the train cart sitting in the dark tunnel and found himself surrounded by gore. He could barely breathe without gagging and everywhere he placed his foot something slid away with a squelch. Discarded mounds of rotten meat, bone, and animal fur layered the interior and the gore stuck to walls like it'd been glued there and surrounded him like a dead, reeking throat. One he'd walked into. Willingly.

Like a mouse crawling into a snake's wide-open jaws on purpose.

Did he stop?

No.

He kept walking, even after he'd heard Crane call after him. He'd been too far in already at that point; like that moment you started running down a steep hill. Once you did that, there was no point in stopping. All you could do was keep on running and pray that you made it to the bottom without tripping and breaking your neck.

Or keep marching into the snake's open jaw; though at least Aiden had a good reason. Dylan.

The man had sounded scared on the radio. Worried for his life. And if Aiden lost Dylan, then Aiden lost his lead to Mia. Who could blame him for not wanting to stand around and wait?

Quietly, with his mouth open a fraction so he could breathe through it and with his nose tucked into his elbow, Aiden ducked out of the meat-covered cart.

He was focused. Tense. Every step was a deliberately chosen one and quiet as he could make it. He hadn't even bothered with a flashlight, knowing that'd give him away in a second should anything lurk in here.

He could make it.

If he kept this up, he'd be okay.

He'd get to Dylan in time.

He'd find Mia.

The air pressing in around him buzzed with flies. It'd gotten hot. Way hotter than the pitch-black tunnel he crept into ought to be. Which was odd.

Aiden's mouth twisted into a grimace. He couldn't see a thing anymore, safe for the bloom of light peering after him from the other side of the cart. The irony of him walking away from the light at the other end of the tunnel was not lost on him.

Neither was the reality that he couldn't see.

It'd gotten so dark, all he could make out was the vague outline of walls diving deeper inside — and feel how the ground at his feet was nowhere near as solid as it should have been. Frustrated, Aiden fetched his light. He'd use it for a second. Get his bearings. Then move on.

If nothing saw him, he'd be fine, he repeated back at himself.

Aiden unclipped his flashlight, got a solid grip on its worn rubber handle, and clicked it on. A weak beam— the batteries were nearing their end, but he refused to replace them until he had no other choice —swept on ahead of him, catching on an even thicker layer of discarded gore piling up around the train cart's entrance. A whole damn pit of it. He'd stepped right into it, his foot landing near the mangled remains of a face. The face was lodged deep into the mass and its mouth was wide open; locked in a mostly toothless scream.

For a moment, Aiden thought the clumps of meat around it had fuses to the skull, had begun to pull it into the mass and clung to its cheeks like mould. But that was ridiculous.

Dead meat didn't grow.

Then he heard the creak of metal.

Aiden's blood ran cold. The sound had come from behind him. Above him. He whipped around, one hand on his flashlight, the other drawing his hatchet.

The dark beyond the edge of the cart chittered; a throaty, wet and almost gleeful chirr; the last sound many a Pilgrim heard before their journey ended for good.

Aiden knew what'd made the sound. And, still, he looked up.

The Volatile hunched on the cart's roof, right above the door. Aiden barely had a moment to register how wide it was, how tall; how its chest was a bloody ruin of grasping, sharp ribs; its mandibles wide open; its eyes large, yellow and hungry as the flashlight flicked over them.

It leapt.

Aiden dove out of the way. It was a clumsy dive, with the ground slick and uneven, but the Volatile missed him. It'd have crushed him otherwise. He knew that, too.

Like he'd known he shouldn't have come in here.

He swung the hatchet. Why? Because what else was he supposed to do?

Get out. That was what. You need to get out.

But he had to get past it first and so he did the only thing he could think of: he hacked at it, hoping to drive it back enough so he could slip past it. Head into the light.

Like. He. Should. Have.

The bladed end of the hatchet met the Volatile's meaty shoulder. It — didn't do much. Barely cut into the thick, leathery mass that'd been skin once.

Because this was how Pilgrim's died. Sometimes Aiden thought the only reason he was still alive was that he'd been so good at avoiding anything but Biters.

The Volatile rose to its full height and turned its mass towards Aiden. It didn't rush him. Didn't plough into him. For a few desperate heartbeats that knocked against Aiden's throat, the Volatile stared at him, its mandibles flaring open wide. A drawn-out, curious noise rattled up his throat, one click at a time. Like it was chiding him for coming here. Mocking him.

"Behind you!" someone shouted.

Crane.

Purple light hissed to life inside the cart. UV light.

The Volatile's wail turned to a screech as the light touched its flanks and — behind me.

Aiden spun, the hatchet raised. And then he ducked, right under the gnarly mass of muscle leaping at him. A second Volatile. It missed him by a hair's width. Aiden stumbled away from it. Away from the fight that'd broken out by the cart's door, from the screeching and the howling. His foot lodged into something. His balance wavered. He twisted sideways — and the Volatile that'd missed him the first time around leapt again. It barrelled into him and carried him off his feet.

The world turned sideways, then upside down, and when Aiden impacted on a patch of hard ground he'd lost track of which way was which. Up. Down. Didn't matter. WHAMP was all he heard; a solid, loud thump that blacked out his vision and knocked the air from his lungs.

Then he felt something sharp clamp down on his back.

Aiden screamed.

Kyle stalked out the back of the train cart, a UV flare in one hand, his machete in the other, and with enough attitude on his shoulders, he barely fit through the door.

But he did. Fit.

Soon as he was out, his filter sifted through the disaster unravelling in the tunnel and confirmed that, yeah, they'd found a nest. A confirmation he could have done without, even if the bloody gunk plastered to the train cart walls had been a dead giveaway already. That, and the unnatural warmth pulsing from the growing mass.

It was a fresh nest though. Unfinished. Its residents hadn't gotten around to gathering enough material to clog up the train cart entirely, at which point the route would have likely become impassable.

Which was just their luck though, wasn't it?

Anyway.

Disaster.

Volatiles.

Kyle stabbed the hissing UV flare into the first one's direction. It screamed, its mandibles flaring wildly, and recoiled as the light licked across it, leaving its skin to (literally) overheat. Faint smoke curled from the gnarly rivulets between its stretched and split skin, ghastly in the flood of purple light.

"I get it, bud." And he did. He really did. Kyle gave one more warning wave with the flare, driving the Volatile back, and then stalked right up to Fucker Number Two. The one with its teeth latched on to the kid.

Soon as the light reached FNT, it reared up and lashed out— So you're the feisty one. Got it. —which Kyle met with a one-handed swing. The machete sliced into FNT's skull, deep enough to crack bone.

Which didn't kill it. Naturally. That'd have been too easy. But it got it to let go of Aiden and thump its large feet to the side, where it swiped at empty air. Probably torn between lunging at Kyle and staying out of reach of the sharp blade and equally sharp light.

"Back. Up." Kyle jerked forward and swung the flare in a wide arc, wanting to drive them both deeper into the tunnel. If he managed that, they could retreat into the cart. Make it back into the early morning and rethink this whole Villedor thing in peace.

But when it rained, then it poured piss and shit (or so Kyle had come to understand) and the Volatiles slid around him on the right instead, where the UV light hadn't managed to reach.

Clever. Fucking. Assholes.

They knew where the sunlight was. Where the way out was. And they weren't about to let the trio of jerks who'd barged into their home walk back out. Especially after they'd come uninvited, bringing with them a biting light and not even taking their shoes off.

Fi darted into view and Kyle's eyes cut down to her for a split second. Which was all he had to spare, really. She'd ducked her small frame under Aiden's arm and had pulled him to his feet.

"It bit me," was all the kid had to say to that.

. . .

Anger boiled over in Kyle's gut; one part rational over how this all could have been avoided and one part irrational because it wasn't like this shit didn't happen all the damn time and he should have been used to it by now. So he put a lid on the anger, sealing it up best as he could, and refocused.

Two Volatiles.

One of him.

Piece of cake.

. . . if he hadn't tanned under a UV light all fucking night, anyway. But, alas—

Alternatives?

Door, answered his filter. And, yeah, who'd have thought? Off to the left, up on a narrow concrete landing, stood a maintenance door leading out of the train tunnel. Warnings had been stencilled all over it. GRE. Military. Blah, blah, Quarantine and No Entry Beyond This Point Without Clearance.

And Fi was already headed for it, with Aiden leaning on her like a drunk on the verge of passing out. Kyle followed them.

FNT did not like that. It tilted its ugly-as-fuck head back and yowled like an oversized cat getting strangled and drowned at the same time (which, to be fair, still didn't do the noise justice — you had to be there to hear it, you know?). FNO answered with excited chitters and Kyle knew they were one wrong neurone firing away from throwing themselves forward.

Because if there was one thing Kyle knew (from experience), then it was that UV flares stung. But they didn't burn. Not like sunlight did or a properly powered bulb. Worse, this particular flare had begun to splutter out. Which left him with only one thing to do: Buy Fi time.

Kyle charged them.

It was a quick charge. A single lunge. He took a wild step forward, his shoulders hunched, the flare swinging wide, and popped the lid on the anger he'd only just put away.

"Fucking try me," Kyle roared and the Volatiles slunk back, their naked bodies folded forward and their arms extended wide under the glare of the hissing light. They'd stopped yowling. Stopped chittering. All they had for him now was a pair of hateful, yellow stares and their rapidly flaring mandibles.

"Yeah," he growled. "Thought so." And with that, Kyle retreated, the slowly fading flare held up like the dimming ward it was. What'd he have? Five more seconds? Three? Didn't matter. He was nearly there. He reached the steps leading up to the door. Tripped his way backwards. Nearly knocked his damn ass down on the concrete — and right as he caught himself, he saw them.

Two more sets of shitty, dirty yellow eyes came out of the pitch-black tunnel.

The flare died with one last sad hiss.

. . .

"Ah shit."

The tunnel's heat had bled away. Left Aiden cold, froze him from the inside out, like someone'd shoved an ice-cold hand down his throat and gripped his spine tight.

Then they'd opened a trap door under him and let him fall.

That's what it felt like anyway. The fear. The panic. The unfiltered dread.

He'd been bitten.

Aiden had known he couldn't stay ahead of it forever, not with how much time he spent past what amounted to sheltering walls out there. But he'd been pretty good at avoiding it (like he'd avoided Volatiles and most other Apex). He'd been so damn good at it, that he'd begun to toy with the thought of holding out long enough to find Mia. And while he'd carried on, he'd seen it happen to others. Countless times and to any number of people. Settlers. Pilgrims. Pillars of communities. Bullies. Kids, too. He'd been around to see the aftermath, the blank, wide-eyed stares, often followed by resignation and the grab for a weapon in search of an end before the, well, end. Or the denial. The No, No, I'm fine. I'm not— I'm the guy that won't turn. He'd even been around twice when someone bought their own lies and had kept the bite quiet, only to hurt the people closest to them when reality caught up.

And now?

Now Aiden had been bitten.

Right at the end of his journey; after years upon years of dead-end after dead-end, he'd reached a— ah— literally dead-end. Yesterday he'd been eating roasted pigeon while Spike had given him hope. Today all that hope was for nothing.

Why? Because he'd been stupid. That'd been why. Stupid. Then bitten.

But not dead.

Not. Dead.

Aiden clung to his life as Zofia pushed him through a door. It was even colder here than he'd been a second prior. Especially since she let go of him and he fell, his shoulder cracking into hard concrete. That hurt. Aiden groaned, helpless and dizzy and with his heart hammering in his throat. A dim, red light filled the corridor he'd been dumped into.

There was shouting behind him; a man's voice swelling into a barbed kind of roar. It made his ears ring.

Or maybe his ears just rang in general. Aiden couldn't be certain, though he did know that he wanted to stand. To help. Yet, the moment he'd as much as gotten his elbow propped up on the ground, his world contracted into sudden, tight agony.

Brilliant flashes blinded him. His neck muscles squeezed, tore his head back. Every muscle on him contorted in ways they should not ever contort and the ice bled from his spine to pump through him, chased by flashes of red-hot heat. Aiden had lost all control and soon he lost most of his vision, with dark splotches crowding his sight, blotting out the already faint, red light.

They grew like veins across his eyes; sickly, dark and blue.

A door slammed into its frame. Then that same door was thrown violently into its hinges with a series of loud, rattling thumps.

"This opens the wrong way," said Crane's voice from somewhere above him. "It won't hold."

Ah. Yes. Aiden remembered, even as he convulsed uselessly on the floor. They'd come after him. Followed him. They were the sole reason why he wasn't already dead.

His mind spooled back to that one thing that currently mattered: Bitten, not dead. Thank you, Aiden said; though somewhere between the desire to speak and his mouth opening, things got out of hand. He screamed instead. A wheezing, choking, stuttering scream.

"Well. Shit." Crane again. "That was fast."

THUMP. Inhuman screeches filtered through the door.

"No one turns that quick," said Zofia. "Let's get him out of here before the door gives. Help me. He's heavy."

Hands. On his left arm. They had thin, but tightly clutching fingers.

Then another set of them on his right one. Considerably larger and carrying a surplus of heat that bit at Aiden's skin.

The floor fell away.

"Sure. Okay," Crane's voice huffed next to his ear. "But if he as much as nibbles I'll knock his teeth out."

Aiden groaned. The world came into a fuzzy focus as the seizure ebbed away and made room for a spell of clarity. Because that's what that'd been: a seizure. One of many to come before the end. Yeah, he'd seen those, too.

"Not funny," Aiden managed. Under him, the concrete floor travelled by steadily. His feet dragged over the rough surface.

"Not funny like you ditching us back there, you little discount punk?"

Aiden's chest filled with directionless anger. Jerk, he thought, all the while admitting that Crane was right. Even so, Aiden made to shrug him off with a sideways lurch of his shoulder, which only managed to achieve two things: it made Aiden's head spin again and had Crane grab his shirt in a tight grip, pulling Aiden back.

Probably because he'd nearly dragged Zofia down with him when his legs refused to stay upright by themselves.

"You heard Dylan." Aiden hoped his voice didn't come out as thin as he feared it did. "He said to hurry, so I hurried. I'm not about to lose my one lead to Mia because I was too slow."

Crane's retort was sharp. "Yeah and how'd that work out for you? What's your sister going to do with a—"

"Crane," Zofia cut in, her tone no more than a harsh whisper. "Wag that chin a little quieter." Then she slid out from under Aiden's shoulder, leaving him hanging off Crane's side.

Stubborn— and maybe a little humbled and most definitely terrified because he hadn't forgotten about being bitten —Aiden gathered himself together best as he could and made another attempt at standing on his own feet. The result was a sorry and uneasy wobble on shaking knees. But hey — they held. His knees, that was. Enough to lean away from Crane.

Zofia had paced on ahead. She was a sharp slip in the dim, red light. "You hear that?"

"Yeah," Crane rumble-whispered.

Hear what? Aiden nearly asked, when he finally picked them up too. Voices. They'd been easy to miss until the thumping and screeching that'd been following them up the tunnel had gained some distance. He squinted and— once again —focused on steading his legs. Which was easier said than done, since now that the seizure had faded to a memory, his nerves had begun to pick up on all the damage he'd come away with. His back burnt, especially where the straps of his pack sat. Blood soaked his shirt. Pooled against his waistband. His front was sore. Bruised.

And he swayed again, his stomach coiling and twisting another seizure shot through him. Though at least this one stayed in his core and faded quickly.

Crane's arm snapped up in front of Aiden's chest. Aiden, not wanting to fall again, grabbed it. He steadied himself against the arm and stared after his pride slithering off into the distance.

Or, rather, he stared blankly on ahead, taking in the sights. They were in a maintenance tunnel, he figured; the decaying veins of civilisation's rotten carcass. Pipes lined the walls. The red light came from dirty bulbs in the ceiling and the voices from the far end. He could hear three, maybe four of them. Going back and forth. There was laughter, too. The same pitched and frantic laugh as the one they'd picked up on the radio.

Then there was one voice he recognised. "I. Don't. Have. It. Any. More." The words were punctuated. Strained. "How dumb do you think I am? I destroyed it. Tell Waltz he can go to hell."

"That's Dylan," Zofia said. "Whoever he was hiding from must have caught up."

Crane clicked his tongue and shot a look over his shoulder. Two loud bangs echoed up to meet him. The Volatiles had not given up on the door.

"This is just great," Crane said and gave the arm Aiden held on to an upwards wag. "Think you can walk?"

It took Aiden a moment to realise the question had been to him and then another to consider what to say. He leaned back on his heels. Pulled his shoulders back. When neither made his head spin off his shoulders, he nodded.

"Fight?"

Another good question, but one he had a much quicker answer to. Aiden's hand slipped to his hatchet. Or where his hatches should have been, anyway. He'd dropped it. Obviously. His jaw jumped — and then his brows probably shot right up to the ceiling when Crane drew his machete from its sheath and offered it to him, hilt first.

He took it.

"Sweet." Crane's lips pull up in a crooked, wry smile. "Let's go say hi."

With Volatiles at his back and an unknown quantity of potential hostiles at his front, Kyle followed Fi towards the end of the maintenance tunnel. Followed, yeah. He'd lost the right to grab and shove her behind him a long while ago. Something about her having a knack for remaining unseen, whereas he liked to stick out like a peacock in a hen house.

"Look!" a man's voice called. It had an odd, gravely pitch to it. Like the dude was having a go at a Joker impression but had gargled too much whiskey for it to work out right. "Doc's been on the radio? Who you been calling? Huh? Huuuh?"

Fi reached the end of the tunnel, where a set of double-winged doors leaned open. She slid to the left of the crack, took a peek, and then waved them forward. Kyle snuck up to the right. And Aiden— with Kyle's machete clutched in one hand —took up position behind her.

Why'd he given the kid the blade, you might ask?

Because the moment that stupid UV flare had gone out, Kyle had found himself in a comforting well of darkness. That was why. So. He'd improvise.

With one more look at Fi— one she traded him a grim nod for —Kyle peered through the gap. A large maintenance room stood beyond it; a junction of sorts with multiple entryways from what he could tell. The place was clear of zombie apocalypse-flavoured gunk (much like the tunnel they were in) and working overhead bars of fluorescent light kept it well lit. Which was great. For real. It meant they'd likely reached whatever access hatch Dylan had talked about unlocking for them.

"I could have done without a welcome party," Fi whispered.

Kyle shrugged. "I like parties."

She groaned.

Said welcome party stood at the bottom of a downwards slope leading away from their door. Five men. They faced the other way.

A sixth man sat on the ground, his back to the far wall. The party surrounded him. Like a pack of animals closing in on their dinner.

Kyle's filter picked up armor (makeshift kind, but solid, with fashionable spikes and painted in blacks and reds), weapons (close combat, blades and bats), and knew they were trouble even before he'd seen the blood on Dylan.

'cause the dude on the ground had to be Dylan, right?

Right.

"So. How do you want to do this?" Fi asked.

As if to answer for him, the door way behind them made a wrenching kind of noise of metal being bent the wrong way. A noise that painted a ridiculous picture in Kyle's head: one involving a Volatile, an axe, and a cackling HERE COMES JOHNNY.

"Quick," he said, feeling a hysteric laugh coming on. "Three on the right are mine. Two on the left are yours. Aiden, you get to Dylan."

And then he pulled the doors open.

It was time to leave a lasting first impression.

Taffer Notes: More so than with Latchkey prior, you'll see me taking liberties with some of the level design in the game as well as glossing over pieces that I believe wouldn't work well in a novelisation (since written medium be different than visual). So if things don't match up 100% with the game, it's likely because I've changed the setting slightly, but I do try to keep as true to the original as possible.

I've also fed in a little more of my own lore about Volatiles (especially their nests and how the virus breeds them, as well potentially feeds all those zombies that should have hecking starved by now) into this :3