Chapter 37 - The Way South

August

Two weeks later

Heero POV

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The journey across the south of the United States of America was strenuous and monotonous again, although admittedly less fatiguing thanks to Zero and Treaty. Without the horses, crossing such long navigational legs on foot would have been far more debilitating, especially taking under consideration that the weather didn't change much, and they still felt the heat of the south. Thankfully, the Evergreen horses did very well and withstood various adversities and discomforts of such a long and distant travel. What's more, judging by their behavior, by how they communicated or brushed each other, one could actually think that they could even like each other.

This part of the journey was also particular because of one important reason. Heero and Relena could finally enjoy each other's everyday closeness again. And it wasn't only about the comfortableness in intimacy matters, though it certainly mattered too. Although Evergreen was a safe place, the fact that they had to sleep separately turned out to be distressing. Their reciprocal closeness had the mysterious power to reduce and ease all the hardships of their journey so that even a piece of the hard floor seemed cozy like a made-up bed. So, when the very first morning after leaving Evergreen, Heero awoke holding Relena in his arms, when he felt her delicate smell and the warmth of her body, he wondered how he could ever squint his eye without her at his side.

Approaching the Gulf of Mexico, they kept seeing more and more often broken or tilted signposts pointing the way to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Nevertheless, Heero had absolutely no intention of getting into this city. He remembered hearing only bad things about what had happened there from the very beginning of the pandemic. New Orleans had been swept entirely by the infection as one of the first of the southern cities, and the military quickly had decided to bomb it to ashes - to annihilate the hordes of infected. Apparently, the downtown was utterly destroyed, but even that couldn't have stopped the infection from spreading, and survivors who managed to escape from the ruined city couldn't put in words the extent of the horror without bursting into tears.

It was evident that the bridges around New Orleans didn't exist anymore, so the option that Heero and Relena were left with was to bypass the city overland around its northern borders and suburbs. So they did, and soon they reached a town called Hammond, Louisiana.

They rode down one of the main streets, along its grassy side, to save the horses' hooves. The town was deserted, like all the others they passed along their journey, but wasn't destroyed by the military. The nature and humid climate of Louisiana definitely did more damage here. Torrential rains and heat caused a massive growth of vegetation, which, not restrained by anyone, slowly appropriated its once stolen land, being at the same time more ruthless than falling bombs. Ivy and trees grew around the houses, ripping the soaked facades, weeds and grass grew in large cracks in the asphalt road, parking lots turned into extensive swamps, and wild birds nested in the windows of once inhabited houses.

Once the sun hanged at its highest point on the sky, Heero and Relena stopped their horses at a ruined gas station. Traveling in such heat was as equally exhausting for them and for horses, and the station's extensive roof provided them a shade they needed so much.

Heero jumped off his horse and looked around carefully, as he always did. They were at one of the more significant intersections before the strict city center. The surrounding buildings were low, but just across the street, in front of the large parking lot, stood a tall, multi-story building, the only one in the vicinity. A torn, half-burned American flag still fluttered on the tilted pylon right on the building's grounds.

The building seemed somehow compelling to Heero, at least to his sense of a smuggler. He walked a few steps out of the shade of the gas station, feeling the warmed-up concrete under his feet and watching the construction from the other side of the street. The facade of the building resembled a massive, black, granite block. Only the front wall was full of dirty, moss-covered, cracked windows, the rest of the building seemed like a windowless, high fortress. Its walls were covered with hundreds of sizable, fluttering in the wind government banners, the vicinity of the building was a stack of broken metal barriers and chaotically parked cars. It looked more like a warehouse or stronghold than a bank - as evidenced by the "Guaranty Bank" inscription, still visible on the front wall.

"Heero?" he heard Relena's voice from behind. He turned around; she stood by Treaty and caressed the horse's neck. The sweat accumulating on her temples slightly stuck her bangs on her forehead, and she had delicate blushes on the cheeks from the sun. "What is it? Something's wrong?"

Heero tilted his head towards the building, then quickly paced back to his horse, brushing his bangs away from his eye line. "I'll go check what's in there."

"…there?" Relena gasped, looking at the building's direction, then narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Instead, she turned to Treaty and tied the horse by its reins to a gasoline dispatcher.

Heero gazed at her, surprised. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm tying Treaty," Relena muttered. "I'm going with you."

"No, you're not. You're staying here."

"Heero!" she protested loudly, confrontationally making a step in his direction.

"Just wait a minute here," he almost growled at her. "I'll go to see if there's anything useful inside."

Relena snorted with impatience and disbelief, gazing at the gloomy building once more. Anger soared in her so much that she seemed to run out of words, then she chuckled nervously. "Why of all the buildings on the whole south coast you had to choose the most gloomy one?! This place gives me creeps!"

"That's the point. All looters and grave robbers feel exactly the same," Heero murmured, unfastening his shotgun from his saddle and shouldering it. His smuggler's sense hadn't disappointed him yet, and he intended to trust it one more time. "Plus, it surely was a strategic object in the first days of the pandemic. In such places, you can usually find a lot of useful things."

"Yes, along with the infected!" Relena noted. "Heero, we don't need to go there! We still have supplies…"

"We mustn't miss opportunities to resupply it," Heero replied in a tone that hated the discussion, then gave her a careful, fierce look. "Wait for me here."

She grabbed his arm. "Heero, please, don't..."

The grip on her delicate hand couldn't stop him. He walked briskly, easily breaking free of her reach, toward the tall, black building that resembled an old Egyptian tomb. He didn't slow down until he was sure he didn't hear Relena's footsteps behind him.

Crossing the street, he walked around the building and approached it from the parking lot. Jumping over chaotically parked cars, almost burning himself of their hot surfaces, he slowly approached the stairs. At close range, the building betrayed its harsh condition, to which led him two decades of exposure to the merciless, hot, and humid climate of southern Louisiana. Even granite walls hadn't resisted vegetation, and small ivy lianas came out of every recess, bursting the wall from the inside. The building probably had no more than five more years before it would collapse. Maybe even less.

The tall, metal entrance doors, once barricaded, were now unhinged from the outside. Apparently, survivors trapped inside had been unable to stop the attack from outside - of soldiers or infected. Heavy storage units that blocked the door squeaked under his weight as Heero leaped nimbly through it. As soon as Heero got inside, the aura dramatically changed. Despite the heat outside, there was a peculiar chill here, but almost no draft. Pulling the shotgun off his shoulder and holding it in front of him, Heero leaned forward and slowly stepped into the main hall.

The hall was high and vast, only a little sunlight was slipping through the damaged windows in the roof. Instinctively, Heero reached behind his back to grasp a mask attached to his backpack and immediately put it over his head. Just in time: a few seconds later, he entered into a cloud of spores. They were coming out of the huge, old, almost fading flowers and stems covering the stairs leading down, on the lower level. Below, the Cordyceps flowers bloomed so densely that it was practically impossible to squeeze through them on the stairs. This made Heero decide to stay on the ground floor. Inhaling the filtrated air with a soft hiss through his mask, he directed his steps toward the reception desk and then to the door next to the dark corridor. The inscription above them said "staff only" - instinct told him that this direction might be correct, so he moved forward, behind the reception desk, and jerked the metal door handle. Of course, the doors were closed.

Heero looked around closely. Right around the corner, a dark corridor commenced. Heero carefully stepped a few steps inside the passage then stopped, illuminating his view with the flashlight. He didn't like what he saw. The corridor was narrow and long, he couldn't spot its end. The part of the ceiling almost completely collapsed, breaking away from the floor above - together with damaged ventilation ducts, old cables, furniture, and various other stuff or trash from above. Still, it was possible to trespass, though the air inside the corridor was thick with spores. Heero inhaled deeply through his mask, feeling the tension painfully strain nerves in his body, then headed inside, keeping his flashlight together with his rifle in front of him.

Rainwater poured inside the building through all the nooks and crannies, and the wet floor was bent curved and rugged. It creaked alarmingly under his feet, but Heero kept on walking, ignoring all the warnings that flared up in his mind. Despite his nimble movements, he realized he was far too audible. The floor creaked loudly under his weight, betraying his every move, and that sound was definitely not reassuring. Along with the squeaking of the floor, Heero could hear the low, ominous growl of the building's walls, as if they narrowed around him. The concrete interior of the granite building was slowly losing the battle against time and elements. The construction was so weakened that it could actually collapse anytime.

When Heero passed the pile of rubble from the collapsed ceiling, in the narrow, swinging light of his flashlight, he noticed torn apart corpses, far advanced in decay. They were undoubtedly Hammond residents, among them were several children... The bank must have been some kind of evacuation gathering place. The further Heero walked down the corridor, the more corpses he passed. Some of them were torn to shreds, frozen forever in scary poses. He felt all his muscles painfully tensing, but he kept walking, holding a rifle in front of him.

Soon, apart from the corpses of people, Heero found the first infected - or rather the dry body of the dead Clicker. It was the first alarming sign that indicated that this place was definitely dangerous. But he had gone far enough that he couldn't go back.

Eventually, at his left, Heero noticed a door with an old, yellowed sign saying "storage room." He jerked at the handle, but it was locked. He turned around. On the other side of the aisle, behind the glass window, there was a room for the security team. On its wall hung a board with keys. Lighting up his view with the flashlight, Heero slowly and carefully stepped inside the room and chose one of the keys, then approached the closed door again. The key fitted, turning the lock and opening the door. Heero bent down to move a dried-up corpse blocking his path and pulled the door toward him, opening them with a loud creak.

"Bingo," Heero whispered under his breath triumphantly, as he peered inside. His movement and a breath of air swayed up the dust accumulated in the room for decades. In the darkness, he noticed the outlines of a few shelves glimmering in the light of his flashlight. He crossed the threshold of the room in one big step, and walked closer to the first storage units, carefully examining the boxes stored on it, trying to make as little noise as possible.

He found a lot of useful things, as he had expected. He replenished the supply of blades by finding a few quite nice, sharp scissors and letter openers, and also found several pieces of decent rope. But the most important find was a whole first aid kit, which was always at a premium.

Heero leaned over his backpack and packed his findings inside when he suddenly froze, hearing a distinct sound. The sound came from the corridor that led into the room he was in. Heero realized that he was definitely not alone in the dark granite building. He held his breath, staying in his spot completely still and listening carefully. The sound resembled steps and sounded even, but slow. Heero narrowed his eyes; they didn't belong to the infected - they were too even.

Whatever it was, it was slowly coming. And Heero didn't intend to get stuck in this damn storage room. With a quick but noiseless movement, he fastened his backpack and slipped it on his shoulders, then backed away against the wall opposite to the door, holding the weapon in front of him, ready to shoot. Carefully placing foot after foot, he aimed his flashlight to the corridor... to find out with surprise that that thing that was approaching apparently had a flashlight, too.

Heero quickly unlocked his shotgun and leaned to the side, trying to see through the ajar door what was approaching... and as soon as he recognized the filigree, blond-haired figure, he immediately lowered his gun.

"Holy shit…!" he hissed through his mask. Of all the possible options, he expected her least to come to here. "What the hell are you doing here? I told you to wait."

Ocean eyes glared at him through the darkness from behind the glass of the gas mask. They were filled with a mixture of terror and anger - mostly anger. "If you thought I would listen to you, then you don't know me at all," Relena responded boldly. "I followed your footprints."

Despite her daring attitude, her voice was trembling. So were her hands, in which she clenched the flashlight. She was undoubtedly terrified, walking alone through this nightmarish, narrow corridor full of corpses. He was actually impressed that she managed to reach this far at all.

Heero glared back at her. "Are you out of your mind?" he hissed with a heated tension in his voice. "Get out of here immediately, it's dangerous here."

"I'm not leaving without you."

Her stubbornness was insurmountable, as always. Subconsciously, Heero knew that once she had voluntarily walked half of this building by herself, only to look for him, no force in this world would compel her to leave him here and go back - again by herself. On the other hand, he realized that he had actually found more of the useful stuff than he had expected and decided that it was enough to capitulate.

"Fine. We're leaving."

In the dim light, he could notice the relieved, but at the same time, a triumphant smile on Relena's face, then she turned on her heel and walked back down the narrow corridor toward the hall with the reception. Heero followed her, taking his usual careful and slow steps, but her gait was way much faster. As if she couldn't wait to get outside. This shouldn't have been surprising if it wasn't for...

A split second later, this strange shiver and the bad feeling shot through Heero's neck and at the back of his head. The moans of the building's decaying structure reached his ears again. Relena's silhouette moved quickly away from him in the dark corridor, her footsteps booming in the abyss of the building like hellish snare drums. Probably wanting to get out of the awful building as soon as possible, Relena took her steps too quickly. Less carefully…

"Relena, slow-"

Those were the only words he managed to spoke to her before the roar of bending metal, and the thunder of crumbling concrete reverberated on the whole ground floor. The entire building literally shook. Coming to a dead stop, Relena turned around abruptly, gazing at Heero with terrified eyes from behind her gas mask as the damaged ceiling above her split in half. Shortly, debris and dust began to fall from above, instantaneously burying the corridor.

Heero could only look at Relena helplessly. She was a few meters ahead of him, already fading behind a curtain of a dust avalanche. Too far for him to run or jump to her.

"Run!" Heero roared at Relena, taking two steps back, as the ceiling above them opened wider, like hell gates, dropping tons of concrete, debris, furniture, garbage, and musty rainwater into the corridor.

At the very last second, Heero turned away, hunching, shielding the delicate surface of his own gas mask with his arms and hands. The falling debris bounced off the walls, hitting him in the back. He preferred to die buried under a rockfall than because of a cracked gas mask through which he would breathe in deadly spores. The thump caused by the collapse of the upper floor was so robust and resounding that it almost stunned him.

When the noise faded, Heero looked back, lifting up his flashlight, and he noticed only a high pile of crushed debris and concrete, that was now blocking his way out. The corridor he walked through minutes ago disappeared from the face of the earth, smashed under the rubble of the first floor.

"Relena!" Heero called her, reaching the rubble and kicking away a few huge pieces of concrete and distorted metal parts from his path, trying to get through to her, but it was in vain. Concrete blocks were too heavy, and the pile of the rubble was thick.

Relena didn't answer him from the other side of the wall of debris.

He felt his heart drop, and his hands started trembling. He abruptly stopped decluttering the rubble and roared louder, with all the might of his lungs. "Relena! Relena, answer me!"

"Heero!"

Hearing her voice, muted by the obstacle of the rubble, Heero breathed a sigh of relief, nervously catching air through his gas mask. Relena's voice sounded clear and sharp, but he couldn't see her. He darted his head up, inspecting the debris between them for any crack or slit, but found any. "Are you all right?"

"I think so…" Relena gasped from behind the rubble.

And then Heero froze, as the building was suddenly filled with a sound taken straight from the depths of hell.

A terrifying, deafening, torturous scream. Coming from... the other side of the debris heap.

Relena's side.

"Fuck...!" Heero hissed under his breath. "Infected!"

"Heero...!" Relena called him. He could hear an evident horror and dread in her voice. "They're coming…!"

Heero's throat tightened when he fully realized the hopelessness of their situation: he was unable to get through the pile of rubble, behind which Relena was soon to be surrounded by infected who crawled out of their holes lured by the noise caused by the blow. She was stuck in the narrow corridor, with no exit but the one from the reception desk, now blocked by the incoming infected.

The loud, squeaking roar and clicking sound made him realize that the building was full of Clickers... The multiple and chaotic cries made it apparent that there were too many of them to ask Relena to shoot at them… and they were getting louder and louder with each second… nearing.

He let out a trembling breath.

"Heero…"

Relena's petrified, almost breathless, and evidently heartbroken voice snapped him out of a stupor and instantly restored his ability to think logically. As if someone splashed a bucket of ice water over his head. He suddenly realized that there was only one thing he could do.

"Relena, SHUT UP!"

He roared as loudly as he could, hoping so badly that his voice will reach her through the debris and the screams of the infected… and that the superficial harshness of his words would get her attention. "Stay close to the wall! From now on, you mustn't say a single word! Don't even answer me!"

From behind the stone barrier that separated them, he could hear that his voice lured Clickers closer to this end of the corridor, to the pile of rubble from the collapsed upper floor. The infected's chaotic steps bounced off the corridor walls as they got near and approached the source of the only noise in the narrow passage...

Panting for air, Heero didn't move from his spot, leaning with his whole body against the rubble, as if he wanted to permeate through it. He clenched his fists nervously, crushing tiny bits of debris in his hands. Helplessness bit his guts, he felt hot, blood pulsed in his temples, and his chest hurt with a wild heartbeat, as he strained his hearing.

He couldn't hear Relena's voice on the other side… only the powerless barking of Clickers, as they furiously hit their claws against the obstacle of the rubble, trying to get to him.

"Remember, they can't see you!" Heero shouted again, and the Clickers immediately raised a loud, horrific scream, aggressively storming the barrier of debris that separated him from Relena. He didn't care at all whether other infected would run at him from behind his back, from the other end of this hellish corridor. It didn't matter to him at all… "Don't move, and they won't spot you."

The rubble he leaned against almost trembled under him when a pack of Clickers helplessly bounced off it. Heero pressed his face to its surface and closed his eyes, listening carefully, but no human voice answered him from the other side… not a scream, nor whisper... he didn't see her, but he had to believe that she was still alive.

She had to be…

"Don't say anything. I know that you can hear me," he repeated, feeling his voice break. He cursed silently and swallowed before being able to continue. "Hang in there a little bit longer, Relena. I'll get you out of here. I promise."

A furiously angry roar of Clickers answered him from the other side. Just their roar.

Heero slowly stepped away from the debris pile, clenching his fists, feeling powerless agitation tiding in him. He could subconsciously sense that Relena was still alive on the other side - he saw her through his imagination, curled up of fear on the floor in the corner of the corridor, only inches from the furious, bloodthirsty Clickers. Holding her breath, she was looking up at the terrifying, though blind monsters that hunted for her, searching and scanning the air for the faintest sound.

A cold shiver ran down his arms and shoulders, he felt like hurting himself. She warned him, she begged him to not enter this building…

It's my fault.

His flashlight began to flicker again, so he shook it. Maybe a little too violently, but it eventually worked correctly. He jerked his head up, gazing into the darkness of the floor above that collapsed on their heads, then quickly began to climb the debris and the ventilation shafts up to the upper level.

Never before in his life had he listened so carefully and perceptively to the infernal roars of the infected. But as long as he kept hearing only those enraged, helpless cries and shrieks, he knew that he still had a chance to get Relena out of here alive.

Even if it was a one-in-a-million shot…

.

TBC

Hello Readers!

Believe it or not, I had shivers writing this chapter. And at night I dreamed of what I wrote... it wasn't a pleasant dream at all. That's what happens when you're letting your imagination play games, and you're trying to describe everything in the most realistic way.

Don't try this at home.

Stay safe,

~enelle