Chapter 4 – The Journey – July 13th 2033
"Wake up." Ellie was shaking my shoulder to wake up me. I'd been up since early that morning, and sleep and rest was a luxury I did no want to waste, especially in my line of work. I refused to get out of bed and in response to that, Ellie decided to kick me in the side of the leg, where she had stabbed me earlier.
"Ah! Fuck! What did you do that for!?" Pain traveled up the side of my leg, it was agony. The bleeding had long since stopped but the pain would remain for at least a week.
"Get up you lazy shit, we have to go." With that comment Ellie walked back towards a window. We were in Joel's apartment, it was high enough to see both the outskirts of the city and the city itself, a contrast between what once was and what is now. How times had changed. Ellie sat down in an old wooden chair, and stared at the city. The rain was patting gently against the window. The dark sky almost made this life seem peaceful. I climbed out of bed and walked towards Ellie, the pain in my leg forcing me to limp slightly. Calling it a bed was being generous, it was a sofa that used to be cream colored.
"You're lucky I'm a gentleman. So, do you remember me?" I questioned her, she must had known who me and Quaid were.
"Yeah, I remember." Ellie didn't move and inch, she continued to look outside the window. "I've never been this close to the outside before." So she changed the subject, obviously holds some sort of resentment towards me. Can't say I blame her.
"Well... That brings back memories. Something you probably won't remember."
"What?" Before I could exaggerate Quaid, Tess and Joel all walked back in. Joel had been keeping a look out, outside the door, just in case the soldiers had somehow tracked us.
"I saw the merchandise, it's a lot." Tess said to Joel, her body language seemed to suggest that she was excited to get start this job so we could get paid. Can't say that I was feeling the same way as she.
"Alot is an understatement, it's a fucking gold mine dude. I put some of the weapons in my backpack for us." Quaid was even more excited than Tess, I hadn't seem him this happy in a while.
"You stole from Marlene?" Joel looked at Quaid, I couldn't tell if it was disapproval or consenting.
"I didn't steal anything, those guns are ours anyway, way I see it it's a down payment." Quaid took the bag off his back and placed it in the middle of the floor.
"What did you take man?" Taking the weapons was a wise decision on Quaid's half, it increased our chances of survival from most certainly getting killed, to almost certainly getting killed.
"Something called an M1 Garrand, two MP5s, a SPAS 12 and a USP 45." That was, an old WW2 semi-automatic rifle, two SMGs, a shotgun and a pistol. I took the M1 Garrand, Joel and Tess took the MP5's and Quaid took the SPAS 12.
"Who's the pistol for?" Joel questioned, and then he realized. "No, uh uh no way. She's a kid, she's never fired a gun before in her life."
"How do you know!? Besides, I can take care of myself!" Ellie was on the verge of shouting at Joel.
"Mate we're going outside the city, it's dangerous enough in here. Out there? It's ten times worse. The infected, the hunters, not to mention the cannibals." I honestly thought Joel would have already known.
"Don't lecture me boy, I know well enough what lies outside those walls." If Joel was scared he hid it well behind a wall of well practiced intimidation.
"I'm siding with Shaun on this one Joel. The kid's gotta defend herself. One day she's gonna need to, may as well teach her how on the way." Joel looked at Tess, a sense of disbelief emanated from his face, the fact that she had sided with two strangers instead of him seemed to hurt him slightly.
"Are we gonna do this? I'd like to get my presents by Christmas. Santa ain't gonna wait forever." Now that Quaid had seen the weapons, his original reluctance to take this job had turned to motivation.
10 years ago
"Here. Take these. Just in case." Marlene handed me and Quaid two suppressed pistols.
We approached the security gate to the Boston Quarantine Zone. A huge wall guarded the city from the outside wall, with a steel wire security gate with two tall towers on either side. Two security guards stood on either side of the gate, with a soldier placed in each tower. As we approached the gate a soldier gestured for us to stop, and approach the driver side window.
"What's your business?" I gave the soldier the papers we had been given as cover from Marlene. Signed and dated by the local Sergeant, a nasty piece of work named Sergeant Miller. Of course in reality he hadn't signed a damn thing, and the papers were really simple forgeries.
"Visiting her Mother, we received a letter a few weeks back that she was dying. Just made it in time for her to say goodbye." It was complete bullshit. We'd lied and forged the papers. The soldiers nowadays were tired, bored, underfed and under trained.
"Yeah. She was very sick. But I'm glad I got to say goodbye before the end." Marlene's face erupted in emotion, tears streamed down her face. It was scary how she could just cry like that, no wonder she always got what she wanted.
"Alright. You'll have to go through clearance. Check you're not infected, go ahe-"
"WAIT!"
Shit. It was Sergeant Miller. How didn't I notice him? More importantly, how the fuck were we going to get out of this mess?
"Let me see those papers." He grabbed the letters from the Private, and glanced at the signature and date. "Like hell did I sign these God damn papers!" The second he said that, the four soldiers raised their rifles and aimed at the car.
"Just what are you doing then eh? Smugglers I bet, but what are you smuggling eh?" His voice was laced with anger and contempt. He was a rough looking bastard, with a face covered in battle scars accumulated over the past two decades of what could only be described as a war.
"As we just said to that soldier, we only went to visit her mother." I was grabbing on threads here but it was worth a shot.
"I've seen you types before, smugglers, looking for an easy pay day." He slowly walked over to the boot of the hummer.
"She was dying!" Marlene was still sticking to the story.
He opened the boot.
"We're not smugglers, we just went to visit her Mom!" We were all desperately clutching onto our story, hoping he would believe us, but we all knew he wouldn't.
"Like I believe you." And just as he said that, he removed the bottom of the boot, to uncover the area for the spare child. "What the? It's a kid! It's a fucking kid!"
"Drive!" Quaid grabbed Marlene and forced her head down between the seats as bullets flew through the window. He didn't have to tell me twice, the adrenaline coursing through my veins kicked in, I slammed down the gas pedal and released the clutch, driving into the two soldiers fortunate enough to be standing directly in front of the car. Their bodies flew over the top of the car and the Sergeant had to dive out of the way to avoid being crushed by the two broken bodies crashing towards him. The car smashed through the security gate into the city. Luckily the Army were vastly understaffed, and were being kept busy by the fireflies, a diversion Marlene had set up to make sure that we could get into the city just in case things when up shit creek. Shit. Yeah we could make it into the city, but the two remaining soldiers and Sergeant Miller knew our faces. They'd hunt us down and run us from the city, we had to kill them.
"We can't run, we have to kill them." I slammed the brakes on and turned the steering wheel left to position the car on it's side; the vehicle came to an abrupt stop.
"Are you fucking insane?" Marlene was practically begging me to drive.
"There's three of them and three of us." I had to stay calm, otherwise my emotions would take over and we'd all be fucked. I'd never had to kill anybody who wasn't infected yet, and I wasn't sure how I'd react.
"Yeah, three soldiers against three idiots dumb enough to get caught. Come on dude we're gonna fucking die!" Quaid was just as scared as me. Neither of us had killed yet, and here we were against two heavily armed trigger happy soldiers.
"Marlene keep your head down and stay in the car with the kid, Quaid get out the car with me." We both ran out the car and stayed behind it as cover. Bullets were still bouncing off the car, the ricochets were deafening and it felt like any one of them was going to kill us any second now.
"What's your plan then? Get us shot?" Quaid wasn't very optimistic at our chances, and truth be told neither was I.
"Killing that sergeant will be simple, he's just standing there like a twat. The other two? That's where it get's dangerous. You lay down covering fire, and I'll shoot him while he's distracted and for fuck's sake don't get fucking shot!" Quaid nodded at me to say he understood. I grabbed the pistol Marlene had given me. I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking, and I was sweating. This could be where I die, or where I kill a man. Killing him was a lesser evil, but it was still an evil nonetheless. I was biased anyway, It was them or us.
Quaid began to lay down covering fire, blind firing bullets from the left side of the car towards the sergeant. The sergeant ran towards his left, which was my right, to avoid getting shot. I leaned out from the right side of the hummer and took aim at the sergeant. I pulled the trigger and opened fire at my target after firing the first three bullets I closed by eyes and fired the rest of the magazine. When I ran out of ammo and opened my eyes, I noticed that I had been successful. The sergeant was dead, but I now had an empty gun.
"He's dead"
"I noticed. We need to kill those fuckers in the towers now. You take the one on the left and I'll take the one on the right. We'll run for it, don't be slow, and get directly under the tower and climb up the ladder as fast as you can. Hopefully they'll use the entire magazine by the time we get to the tower. We'll only have a few moments to get to the top of the tower before they reload so for fuck's sake get a move on." I was still shaking, I was terrified. I didn't want to die. I didn't want Quaid to die either, but we didn't have a choice.
"And what if they reload in time?" Quaid brought up a valid point.
"Then we get shot, fall off the ladder, and die." It was the harsh reality of the situation.
"Well we better get a fucking move on hadn't we?" And with that said both me and Quaid ran towards the respective tower's we had agreed on.
Bullets were narrowly missing me all around as I ran towards the bottom of the towers. I focused on the tower, running as fast as my body would let me. The bullets had stopped just as I reached the bottom of the tower, I grabbed onto the ladder and began to climb up to the soldier. I glanced up quickly and noticed he'd just ejected the magazine, I only had a few precious seconds until he had reloaded. I began to climb the ladder with furious pace, taking the ladder by every three rungs. I glanced up again, and he had the new magazine in his hand. I had to reach the top in time or it would be over and with that realization, I climbed the ladder even faster and just as I reached the top I heard a click. Without thinking I looked up and grabbed the gun that I knew was pointed at my face and threw a quick punch towards the soldiers groin. The soldier stumbled and loosened his grip on the rifle, enough for me to move the gun out of the way and climbed to my feet. With my left hand still on the rifle I wildly swung at him with my right hand but he ducked underneath my punch and managed to strike me in the stomach with his right hand. I buckled over, winded and in pain but still refusing to release the weapon.
He swung at me again but this time I blocked the punch with my right hand, and then grabbed the rifle out of his hands. I gripped the rifle and I tried to shoot him but he pushed the rifle from my hands. My grip was weakened from being winded by him, the rifle had fell off the tower and hit the ground beneath us.
The soldier grabbed me by the head and began to throw punch after punch into my stomach, each punch seemed to hurt me more than the last and I was struggling to stay conscious. I managed to break free of his grip, and grabbed his head and began to throw my own punches towards him. I threw a left hook to his nose which gave a deafening crack, it was certainly broken, the soldier was obviously in pain as he was now screaming in agony. Taking advantage of this I grabbed him by the head and attempt to smash the side of his skull off the hip high fence that separated us from the top of the tower, and the ground 20 feet below. Before his skull could hit the fence he placed his hands on the fence to counteract the force, and elbowed me in the face. I stumbled back and he grabbed me and ran me towards the fence. He pushed me over the side and I just about managed to grip on top of the fence, otherwise I'd have been a pancake on the road. I looked up towards him and he was about to stab me in the hand so I let go of the fence, and ended up on the ground, dead. I decided to not allow him the opportunity. Taking advantage of my strength, I grabbed him by his combat vest and dragged from the top of the tower, over the fence, and just before I'd be dragged with him, I let go of him. All I heard was screaming, and a deafening crack as his body hit the ground. I quickly glanced towards Quaid and saw that he was on top of the soldier, punching wildly at his face. It was obvious the soldier was already dead, but Quaid was filled with blood-lust.
Quaid made eye contact with me, and we nodded at each other. I climbed down the ladder and walked back to the hummer, past the bullet riddled body of the sergeant.
The kid was crying. Marlene was attempting to comfort her but her face was red and streaming with tears, it was heartbreaking.
"We're gonna get you out of here okay? Don't worry, I'm so so sorry." Marlene hugged the child and she instinctively hugged back, I had already deduced that it was not Marlene's kid.
"Keep your head down, don't make a sound." Quaid had walked up behind me, his fists covered in the blood of the now dead soldier.
"Shh, everything's going to be fine. You're going to be alright." Marlene was still attempting to hug the child, but there didn't seem to be any stopping her tears.
"We'll keep you safe from the bad men, don't worry." I don't know why, but I was compelled to keep the child safe in a world that was unforgiving.
"We're going to need to get rid of the bodies, and hide the car, otherwise we're gonna get caught." Marlene was right.
"What do we do?" Quaid was out of ideas, fortunately for him I wasn't.
"I know a guy." But they wouldn't like him.
10 years ago
"That's some fine quality meet you got there, a bit broken, but it'll last us a week or two."
"Just get through it. I don't care what you do."