Chapter 26 - The Evergreen Gates

July

The road they followed was boring to the limits and predictable for many, many kilometers. Single-band, straight, with trees in line on both sides, endless - still disappearing somewhere beyond the horizon. They passed meadows, fields, old farms, forests, groves, small clusters of ground-floor single-family houses, and caravans.

And every single day, the sun shone mercilessly, hindering their journey.

They hadn't found any supplies long since. They had eaten blueberries found along the way, which had already been running scarce. But more importantly, they were quickly running out of their water supplies.

Eventually, they arrived at a point where the road that they had been following for several days split into two branches going in entirely different directions.

Heero stopped at the crossroads, looking around, searching for the smallest sign that stood the test of time and could give them a hint of where to go next. Relena rested under the shadow of the nearby tree while he searched the undergrowth for any signpost, even broken. But the area seemed untouched by human existence, except for the asphalt road dipping in a deep forest, and tilted stumps of electric poles, now thickly overgrown with ivy.

"Fuck," Heero cursed silently. Drops of sweat were dripping down the back of his neck. For the first time since they left Philadelphia, he wasn't sure which way they should turn. Under normal circumstances, a decision of this kind wouldn't seem so burdensome; if they turned wrong, they could have turned back after a few kilometers. However, in this sun, with such a shortage of drinking water, a wrong decision could mean death. And they had to replenish their supplies immediately.

Heero glanced at Relena; her cheeks were red from the sun, her lips chapped from the heat; she showed first signs of dehydration. Heero knew, and it was almost apparent, that eating so little in recent weeks, she has lost a lot of weight too. Now Relena almost looked ill; she had dark circles under her eyes and red cheeks.

"There has to be a town somewhere nearby," he said as he walked over to her. "We will look for supplies there."

Relena lifted her weary oceanic eyes at him and sighed deeply.

"Just a moment, Heero. Please... It's so hot…"

Heero refrained himself from rushing her and dropped to his knees right next to Relena, hiding his head in the shade of a tree. He pulled his water bottle out of the backpack and immediately passed it to Relena.

"And you?" she immediately asked, her voice obviously concerned.

"I just drank," he lied and almost pressed the container into her hands, then watched Relena tilt it to her lips and drink the precious liquid, swallowing hard. "Drink to the end," he urged her, without the shadow of hesitation. When she had finished, he indifferently took the empty bottle from her. "Now come."

They turned right at those crossroads.

Although the high wall of trees around them indicated that it wasn't land without water, its only sources they had found lately were narrow embankments, half-filled with moldy rainwater, and a few polluted streams. The rain supposedly hadn't rained in the area for a long time. The drought was intense, and because of the lack of a map, they didn't know where a possible lake or more significant river could be located.

Heero was walking ahead, as usual, his watchful eyes scanning the space ahead of them, looking for any sign of warning or signpost that would tell them where exactly they were heading. He straightened his hearing to Relena's sliding, slow steps behind him. She wasn't looking sideways like she always did; her head was bowed, she was hiding from the scorching sun by escaping towards the shade of the trees at every possible opportunity.

Finally, they came out of the woods and reached the edge of something that looked like the first settlements of a small town, one of many similar in southern Alabama. Also, a familiar sight appeared on the road: abandoned cars and other vehicles with personal belongings scattered around, traces of the evacuation routes from the town. Then the trail they followed turned off, and more houses began to appear. Most were chained up, and their doors and windows boarded up - residents of small towns, such as that one, which was reached by the virus later than large cities, had much more time to secure their property. The people were confident that, after the evacuation, they would return to their homes for their belongings. No one thought that most of them wouldn't even reach the quarantine zones before they got infected.

Heero made several stops along the way, routinely breaking into some of the estates looking for supplies. He even managed to find some food, but he still couldn't find water, which they desperately needed. When he walked out of another building into the sun-burned yard, he noticed the remains of a white skeleton of the unfortunate dog left by its owners twenty years ago, next to the ruins of a shack. The thick metal chain was still stuck out with an eyeless skull, full of white fangs. Field crickets sounded far too loudly in Heero's ears as if they were grilling on the burning sun. Heero's sight hung on a skeleton, apparently for too long, because a moment later, he heard Relena's worried voice tearing him out of his trance.

"Heero?"

He looked up and rubbed his sweaty forehead with his hand, brushing away his unruly bangs, then walked out of the yard onto the street to the tree under which Relena was waiting for him. He looked up at the sky, but it was perfectly clear, not a single cloud that could herald rain.

"We need to find some water," he admitted the palpable truth, standing over her and rubbing his face. He began to see dark spots before his eyes because of dehydration. Relena said nothing at his words, just bowed her head in resignation, didn't get up to join him. Heero held out his hand to her. "Stand up, Relena."

She didn't respond to his words.

"Get up!" Heero barked of impatience to her, then he bent down and grasped her by the shoulders, hoisting her up to a standing position. She was light and limp like a rag doll; it seemed to him that if he stopped holding her, she would collapse. "You have to walk. If we stay here, we may as well shoot ourselves a bullet in the head."

Relena looked up at him, with her half-unconscious gaze.

"I'm sorry."

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving wet marks on it. Seeing this, Heero put a hand on her cheek, realizing with terror that even his hand was colder than the skin of her head.

"Just don't cry anymore," he admonished her. "You're losing water faster."

Relena nodded, then followed him toward the dusty, sun-scorched highway.

The road led to more and more densely built-up town, they passed more residential and official buildings, abandoned shops. The sun traversed the sky and stopped at its highest point when the town they were traveling revealed its name: Evergreen, Alabama.

Heero paused just before the intersection, which looked like one of the major intersections in the city and looked around. He brushed his bangs off his forehead; he realized that something was very unusual in this city. The chaos that usually prevailed in the towns of sorts here seemed... some kind of orderly. Abandoned cars didn't stand arbitrarily, but were arranged in a logical sequence, reminiscing barricades or an obstacle course. The same the overturned electric poles.

…poles...!

Heero jerked his head up and strained his hearing, trying to pick up in the seeming silence of the Alabama afternoon, interrupted by the buzzing of cicadas and the cawing of ravens, that one sound he was looking for when he suddenly heard a deaf thud behind him.

He whipped his head around, noticing what happened, then ran a few meters back. Whether by stumbling or from exhaustion, Relena fell to the asphalt, panting heavily. Heero crouched beside her and helped her sit up, then held her face in his hands.

"Relena-"

"I just tripped, Heero…" Relena said almost in a whisper, her eyes half-closed. She grasped his forearm and slowly sat down with his help. "I'm sorry…"

"Shh," he shushed her, then pressed his forehead to hers. The skin on Relena's face was dry and hot as the asphalt they were walking on. "Listen."

They both held their breaths for a moment, listening.

When the sounds of their hearts and their breaths were drowned out, when the west wind died, and cicadas stopped their crescendo for a moment, they heard it in the short pause between the buzzing of beetles.

Metallic reverb, or a hum, coming from somewhere above their heads.

When Heero was certain that Relena had heard the same thing that he had, he looked up intently at the high voltage pole above them.

"Electricity…?" he heard Relena gasp with a shock. "Here…?"

"We have to follow the high voltage lines. That's how we'll find people. And water," Heero summed up.

"But Heero, how is it possible to have the electricity in such a place? And how do we know who these people are?"

"It doesn't matter now. If you don't drink something, you're going to die," Heero interrupted her, clasping her hands in his. "We have no choice, Relena. It can't be worse than it is now-"

Suddenly, as if the universe wanted to mock them, Heero heard a familiar, ominous sound behind him: a quick, nervous patter of feet and loud wheezing. Then Heero saw Relena's eyes widening in terror as she stared over his shoulder at something behind him.

He whipped his head back, noticing a miraged, multiplied four dark figures of men approaching, rushing towards them like bullets.

"Don't move," he ordered, turning around and kneeling on one knee. He drew the sweaty bangs from his eye line, pulled his rifle off his back, leaned its buttock on his shoulder, pressed his cheek firmly into the stock, and aimed towards the approaching points. He could feel drops of sweat running down his cheek, the steel of the rifle, already warmed-up from the sun, burned his fingers. Relena tightened her hands on the material of his shirt. Resting his finger on the trigger, Heero focused on the quivering air in front of him and the dark silhouettes of men that soon merged into only one Runner that was approaching inexorably, his prolonged howling echoing in nearby streets and from neighboring houses.

Heero didn't shoot his rifle until the Runner came only a few meters away. The sound of the shot scared away all the crows hidden in the crowns of nearby trees. Shot in the head, the torso of the infected ran a few more meters, tumbling just before Heero's feet.

When the sound of the shot died down, there was a silence of a few seconds. It seemed as if even the beetles and cicadas fell silent. But then they heard that terrifying howl again.

Much louder.

Heero jumped to his feet, holding a shotgun in one hand, and lifted Relena off the ground with the other.

"Run!" he ordered in a hoarse voice, then pushed her before himself, right in the direction of the line of wires.

To his relief, Relena found some more strength in her to flee.

Already running through the intersection, he saw a group of infected approaching them, running out of nearby houses, shops, and bus stops. They were all pulled down by the sound of a shot. Heero fired at them with a few blasts from his shotgun, then kept on running, loading the gun with the new ammo.

To his surprise, they quickly left the center of the town: the remaining power lines led to the western suburbs. Again, the strict buildings were replaced by the overwhelming vegetation of the surrounding forests.

However, power lines clearly led in this direction.

"Don't stop running, Relena!" he shouted, "Just follow the cables!"

He turned back to the infernal hordes chasing them, this time shooting at them with his gun. He knocked down two or three of them, but the rest still inevitably was approaching them.

"Heero!" he suddenly heard Relena's terrified voice, "the line ends behind this gate!"

He looked ahead, and the view he saw surprised him.

They were approaching a high, wooden wall defended by a few meters high metal gates, half-covered with ivy. Just behind the gates stood another high-voltage pole, on which the tangled wires ended and went further in several directions.

They ran to the gates, and Heero hurriedly searched for any staple, door handle, or even a keyhole.

Nothing. The gates were thick, bare sheets of black steel, covered with rivets reminiscing those used to steam off steamers. The wall was as tall as the gate, and it went on in both directions as far as the eye could see, cutting them every route of escape.

"It's locked!"

Relena whipped her head at the hordes that ran after them.

"Heero, they're here!" she gasped with a trembling voice, gripping her gun. "We're trapped here!"

Heero grasped his rifle in both hands and hit the metal gate with it as hard as he could. Several times. What answered him was only an echo on the other side of the gates.

"Fuck!" he cursed loudly, then turned around. He walked a few steps briskly and stood right before Relena, between her and the approaching horde of monsters. Lifting up his rifle, he aimed at the first infected that ran up the driveway in front of the entrance and fired.

He kept taking them off one by one until his rifle got stuck.

"Relena, get out of here! Just run!" Heero screamed, pulling a gun from behind his belt, reloading it, and aiming at the approaching monsters again. He fired accurately; every fired bullet found its target, and if it didn't kill the infected immediately, it at least stopped it abruptly, giving Heero enough time to re-aim and polish it off.

But the infected just kept coming.

"No!" he heard Relena's voice, unexpectedly firm and devoid of fear. He heard gunshots from her gun flying next to him, as she started shooting the infected shoulder to shoulder with him. "I won't leave you!"

These words almost tore his consciousness to shreds, but his instinct proved to be stronger once again; she had to survive. Heero cursed angrily at her stubbornness, then reached out and pushed her abruptly far behind him, shielding her from the unexpected and violent attack of another infected.

"Run!" he shouted between the shots. "You can't die here! You can't ruin everything now!"

When another infected ran into him, Heero briefly realized that he wouldn't be able to turn back even for a second to see her one last time or to check if she had listened to him. He accepted it, wishing heartily that the silence behind him was the sign that she had ran.

Goodbye, Relena.

He resumed the shooting, but missed; the Runner approached him and ripped the weapon from his hand. At the last second, Heero managed to dodge before its claws, simultaneously flooring it with a massive blow with a shotgun buttock.

He backed away, avoiding the blow of another approaching infected, and shot blindly right in the middle of its head with his second gun. This time, stepping back, he felt the resistance of the metal gate behind his back.

There was still a large group of infected before him. Too many of them.

It was over.

So this is how he's going to die.

Suddenly, in all this tumult, he smelled the familiar, flowery scent in the thick air. Still standing up against the approaching infected, shooting his last bullets at each that came too close, he felt the touch of Relena's body when she stepped in close, leaning with her side to him and shooting the infected.

"Relena-" he drawled, half angrily, half relieved, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then reloaded his gun, loading in the very last ammo he had.

"I won't leave you," he heard her voice. "Not today or any other day."

.

What's going to happen?

In the following chapters, the story enters an entirely new phase. I will try to update the next chapter faster, but I can't promise that because I have a lot of work. And being a perfectionist in writing in a foreign language without beta is indeed a challenge.

A big 'thank you' to everyone who follows the story, and especially all my reviewers!