Chapter Five
Highway To Hell
It is easy to go down to hell; Night and Day the Gates of Dark Death stand wide; But to climb back up again, to retrace ones steps to the open air, there lies the problem, the difficult task. - Virgil, The Aeneid: Book VI
"Goddammit."
Private Henry Runnels spat under his breath as he caught himself out of a stumble that was a result of his heavy boot catching on a jutting bit of splintered asphalt. The very street itself had literally ruptured from beneath itself. The earth forced upwards by whatever means the Locust had employed, cracking the four inch thick paving that had been laid years ago and thrusting it upwards in a manner that had one shelf collapsing over the other before the building to the left had toppled over from the upset of its foundation. The ending product of the destruction resulted in the jagged toothed obstacle that had come to block a greater portion of what was left of the road. Runnels adjusted himself, tugging at the hard collar of his chest plate to re-situate the way in which had been sitting upon him as the stumble had shifted it a bit in an uncomfortable manner.
It had already been two days since Beta Squad had veered from their intended path towards Jacinto and went to investigate the sight where Omega Squad made it's last stand against a Locust ambush. Two days since they had found the only survivor of the utter massacre and added him to the ranks of Beta Squad. Two days of utter hell as they trudged through what had at one point been a beautiful city; now gutted, charred, and rotting at the hands of past battles. Buildings stood gnarled and fractured with windows long blown out from any number of things that could have shattered the glass, chunks missing from some while others were completely leveled out and spilling into the streets in an unmoving river of concrete and steel. There were burned out and rusted vehicles here and there as always along with abandoned blockades made up of heavy duty sandbags. The same tired scene that they were all far too familiar with and essentially desensitized towards. The cities were always deserted battlefields; sterile and treeless without a single sign of mobile life until the ground upturned on itself with the opening of an E-Hole and the Locust oozed out.
Hiking up his Lancer, Private Runnels glanced ahead to where Sergeant Bartlet and Private Ted Myles were currently taking point before turning his head to look over his shoulder. Corporal Zach Evans and the sniper from the now KIA Omega Squad slid down the crumbling face of the upturned street, the metal soles of their boots digging into the dying asphalt as they balanced themselves the best they could, bringing up the rear of Beta Squad again. It hadn't taken Hawx long to fall in step with the rest of Beta Squad and even though it had only been a couple of days, it felt almost naturally to have the sniper as a member to the group. It sure as hell made things a bit easier, what with the high-tech helmet the sniper was equipped with and his overall abilities with a Longshot riffle. After the first run-in with a Locust party since picking up the lone survivor of Omega Squad, there had been a few other moments where Beta was caught up in a firefight against roaming grubs and even ambushed at one point by a pack of Wretches, but they had made it out in one piece with only a few scratches and a small depletion in their ammo stock.
"Fuck the Locust." Evans grumbled as he lost his footing with a step and wobbled slightly before catching himself as he came down off the upturned asphalt pyramid he had been successful in sliding down.
Runnels chuckled under his breath as he and his comrades as they turned to catch up with Sgt. Bartlet and Myles. "You just now saying that?" He smirked over at his buddy, who in turn shot him a dirty look which caused a small laugh to gurgle out through Hawxs' helmet Tac/Com. Again Runnels snickered while shaking his head, "Chill Zach, I'm not dicking with ya, just trying to lighten the mood."
"Har har." Evans growled while staring ahead now, "Fucking comedian."
Up ahead Myles snorted a short laugh as he listened to his friends bicker between one another now over the open in-team channel of their Tac/Com. Runnels and Evans had been friends for a long time, way back before E-Day and way back before they were of even of enlisting age during the close end of the Pendulum Wars. While they shared similar traits in their personalities and attitudes, they were definitely an oil and water sort of pair that had their squad mates calling their friendship an absolute freak of nature. Even now as they bickered and shot hostile words towards one another, there was evidence of a brotherhood that ran far deeper than any argument could render undone.
"Fuck man, seriously!" Evans spat while finally throwing up his hands in utter annoyance at his friend, "Just shut the fuck up already would ya? The fucking Locust don't need to try and locate us, you'll lead them straight here with that goddamn mouth of yours!"
"Uh, Evans, I'd hate to point this out but your own yelling isn't helping much either." Hawxs' voice clicked in through the helmet's outside link, the calm even voice of the sniper holding just the slightest tinge of a small smirk that was hidden behind the faceless plate of the helmet.
Evans gawked at the sniper, jaw dropping instantly at how easily the new man to the team had cut in with his own witty remark, while Runnels choked and snorted on his own laughter that threatened to erupt for everyone and everything to hear in that spit of wasteland. Myles bit back his own laughter at the front as he heard the corporal start to sputter out a far too late response to the sniper's jest, the low chuckle of the sergeant beside him coming out briefly as he glanced back over his shoulder momentarily. The corporal continued to stumble over a retort of any kind for a moment longer before he suddenly pulled a face that looked like a cross between a disgusted grimace and a pucker before he lifted his gaze skyward and slowly came to a complete halt.
"You've gotta be shitting me."
Runnels swallowed a bubble of laughter as he too felt an acidic taste assault his tongue merely through the breath he had just inhaled. Frowning at first, Runnels couldn't quite place the odd taste for a few seconds before he glanced over at his friend and felt the furrows on his own brow deepen as he followed suit and glanced skyward. By now the entire squad had halted its progression, eyes staring straight up into the overcast sky that already looked as though it were filled with piss and vinegar, a collective frown etching itself across their faces. The breathing filters on the helmet denied the acidic flavor that wafted through the air to hit the sniper, but Hawx could only take one guess as to what had caused the looks on the faces of the men as the small alarm lit up across the HUD.
"Nemacysts." The sniper muttered under his breath, the word rasping through the Tac/Com as the undulating balloon shaped bodies of the aerial parasites lazily drifted passed. Inky trails of black and green marred the already angry looking sky in their wake, the unusual liquid fanning out in wispy lines that slowly bled away to pollute the air with the disgusting tinge that Hawx often citied as close to a pungent coppery sort of acidic punch like blood but harsher.
The HUD skipped and scanned over the flock of Nemacysts as they slowly wafted through the air as though mocking the flight pattern of the birds. The network that the HUD worked off of and received its quickly extracted information already had all it could possible support concerning the little kamikaze flesh balloons, but even though that was the case the various lenses zoomed in and scoped out the flock numbering in the double digits. All attention was upon the Nemacyst flock until the slightly startled voice of Runnels broke the strange sort of silence that had fallen upon Beta Squad.
"What the hell?" The private murmured aloud. Something soft and feather-light had come in contact with the skin of his cheek, its presence nearly unnoticed until another touch on the same cheek shook the man from his skyward gaze. He wiped at his face and glanced down at the off-colored grey that now stained the fingertips of his heavy gloves. He stared at the odd substance, eyes squinting a bit before he noticed several small flakes of the same color drift across his vision in the same manner as falling snow.
"Christ almighty..." Evans barely found his voice as he too noticed that not only was the air tainted with the communication blocking ink of the Nemacysts, but there was a grey snow-like downfall that seemed far too unusual to be anything 'normal'. "What the hell is this stuff?" Corporal Evans glanced about as he noticed that the fall was all about them, covering everything slowly in a thin blanket.
Bartlet wiped at the grey matter that dusted across his Lancer, the entire width of the underside of his glove now blotched and looking far lighter than before. It was a strangely ethereal sight to behold and for the moment, Bartlet and his squad stared in a sort of tranced awe at the macabre scene that played out about them. What the hell is this shit? It's falling like snow, and it's all over the place now. The sergeant was snapped from his thoughts as the tail end of Hawxs' voice entered his hearing. Glancing towards the sniper, whose emotion lacking helmet plate stared straight back at him, Bartlet lifted a thick brow in an unspoken question.
The sniper didn't even question the look on the sergeant's face as he responded immediately in the same monotone as before. "Ash."
"Something bigs' burnin'n." Myles muttered dryly as he wiped at the ash he could feel tickling his face. As if the privates' own words were the cue, a faint orange glow bled across the sky in the distance beyond the disgruntled building tops that loomed before the Gears. "Fuck'n A, I was right." The private grumbled while rolling his eyes at the unwanted humor of irony.
Bartlet immediately pressed two fingers to the Tac/Com in his ear and adjusted the signal for short range to at least be within earshot of any one that happened to be nearby. "Let's keep our ears open boys." He grunted at his men who were already in the process of also readjusting their own Tac/Com earpieces as well. "If Lady Luck still favors Beta, hopefully the broadband on Hawxs' helmet will pick up long range. I'm gonna want to know ASAP the second you do kid."
Hawx merely tipped his head in understanding as the squad began to move out once more, the sighting of the Nemacyst and the raining ash putting the entire group on high alert. Lancers were held a bit more tightly now, and even Hawx had unclipped the Snub pistol from the magnetic clamp on his waist belt as he once more brought up the rear with Evans. To say that tension had risen amongst the ranks would have been understatement for sure as the Gears slid their way out of the street and slipped alongside the face of buildings, pressing tight with eyes watching the higher places that could be a possible ambush point. From its place further up front and hidden by its cloaking shield, JACK sent continuous feed to the HUD of the sniper's helmet, giving the squad a far greater vantage point of vision. Covering ground quickly, Beta Squad had made their way through several blocks without coming across anything Locust which was a welcome change from the day before where the slow crawl home was pained by an attempted ambush that seemed to pop up every ten minutes.
It had been little over an hour by the time Beta broke free of the downtown street blocks and found themselves at the start of a highway junction that lifted off the ground in an eastward and westward overpass. The choice between the two overpasses was narrowed directly down to the westward direction as the eastward overpass had collapsed at a little less than half a mile from where the junction started. Not entirely liking the fact that they would be out in the open for the most part with patches of rubble and burnt out cars here and there, the Gears slowly made their way up the overpass and then proceeded to spread out from one another in a jagged pattern as they commenced their hike once more. The continuous fall of ash had changed the world about them dramatically as it coated everything including the ground beneath their feet. A sort of dead and decrepit look had taken hold and with the lack of sound aside from their own footfalls and breathing, it was as if they had stepped into a whole other world.
Vehicles of various make and model littered the highway overpass, a few having been turned over and even slammed up against the cement siding. At one point Beta was forced to climb and pick their way around a jack-knifed freight truck that was stretched across the highway with a gutted trailer. At another point on the highway there was an overspill of broken concrete and twisted steel as several buildings had collapsed and pushed forward in a surge that slammed into the overpass and washed over it. As Beta Squad navigated the jumbled maze that the overpass had become, the once distant orange glow had grown intensely as the Gears pressed forward. There was a slight rise in temperature the further they traveled and before they knew it the grey ash had become darker in color, the barest touch causing a slight irritation.
"The fuck?" Myles rubbed at his cheek quickly as the irritation on his skin almost seemed to burn a bit, a black smudge pulling out across the privates' tanned skin from the rough gesture. "Shit, this stuff fucking burns."
Bartlet glanced momentarily over his shoulder at the private, a brow pulling upwards in question before he felt a prickling sensation on his own face. Immediately the sergeant scrunched his face, wriggling his nose slightly to be rid of the annoyance that was starting to burn and finally ran a hand over his face to be rid of the feeling. The hell...? Whys the ash burning now? The only time I know ash to actually burn is when...
"Holy mother loving..." Evans trailed off as he came to a slow halt in his walk, eyes wide and body loosing its rigid posture almost instantly.
"Fuck... me..." Runnels muttered as he could only stare at the sight that they had come across.
Bartlet merely grunted and shook his head slightly while Myles let loose a low whistle as Beta came to a halt on the highway overpass. While Hawxs' face remained hidden beneath the faceless plate of the helmet, the sniper's jaw had tightened almost instantly, teeth grinding against one another as the disturbance of packed away memories slowly started to bubble beneath the surface of thought. The brief flash of the ambush Omega Squad had suffered was one of the many images that raced forward across the sniper's mind, broiling at the forefront as though it demanded far more attention than anything else that was beginning to wake.
What greeted the battered unit of Gears was something that could have only come straight out of an old piece of literature; the morbid twist of irony of the old saying 'highway to hell' lay sprawled out before them at the right-hand side of the overpass. That once distant orange glow had become an all consuming reddish light that bled out from the city as it burned from the inside out. Buildings stood dilapidated and crippled, windows long since blown out leaving gapping wounds that bore scorch marks along jagged edging as fire continued to spit and strike from within. Everything in that part of the city was on fire, burning and melting beneath the intense heat that showed no signs of relenting its demonic frenzy upon the world it sought to consume. There was the distant pop from somewhere within that bed of fire that hardly startled the Gears that watched from the safety of the overpass, but it was the low groaning creak of some structure starting to weaken beneath its own weight that prodded the Gears into movement once again.