Disclaimer: I own nothing
Resident Evil: Guardian
Chapter 3
"Save One Round"
Borderline, dead inside
I don't mind falling to pieces
Count me in, violin
Let's begin feeding the sickness
How do I simplify?
Dislocate, the enemy's on the way
Full of fear, ever clear
I'll be here, fighting forever
Curing us, venomous
You'll find me climbing to heaven
Never mind, turn back time
You'll be fine; I will get left behind
Show me what it's like
To dream in black and white
So I can leave this world tonight
Breaking Benjamin- "Unknown Soldier"
Fire, ash and the smell of brunt flesh met my nose as I pushed out the manhole's cover, pulled myself up and took a few tentative steps on the ash filled streets.
No seriously, it was everywhere, ash covered the city's pavement like a blanket, the world was nothing but a gray and white dust cloud, hell it was even snowing!
Of course it wasn't real snow, just so much of the stuff in the atmosphere that it continuously fell from above. Just what in the hell caused this?
Fire, and a really big one at that. I think I smelled it earlier, but still had yet to confirm it. Yet I think that might be a little hard when it's difficult to see anything less than twenty feet in front of me.
…Wait a minute, where's the undead? Where's the swarm!?! It's too peaceful, not a single ghoul in sight or sound. Just bare, blank, empty, and the added silence, it's just so-what's the word? Erie?
Well, no good asking questions that won't be answered. Might as well get a move on and try to escape this zombie hell hole.
But first things first.
I collect my weapons, equipment, supplies and any ammo I can manage.
Now let's see: Got my '16 with two full 5.56 magazines and another clip half empty. For backup since I'm pretty much sure I'll run dry, I've got my M9 handy with three mags. I'm holding on to my last 40mm grenade for crowd control and I still have two more frags.
That's not nearly enough
I stare hard and cold at nothing in particular as I summarize my situation and calculate my chances of living to see another day.
Ok let's see, so I'm a U.S Army Private, alone and stuck in the middle of a flesh eating zombie-infested city. I've got about 90 rounds, give or take a few. If I'm stuck in a jam, a couple grenades, and if I'm injured…
I reach into my vest's many pockets and produced a single long strip of medical gauze.
Just in case I fall and scrap my knee, heh heh.
My stomach suddenly twists and grumbles, signaling that…well, that I'm starving. But of course I have not a ounce of food on me, hell I don't even have any water. Lost everything in that fucking sewer. And god knows just how much I'll need the nourishments.
I glance up and stare towards the city, even though I can't see a thing, Is it still there? Yeah, it's still there, and so are the undead.
How many I wonder. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? A million?!?
Dammit, I'm in way over my head. Honestly, this journey is looking so horrible right now, so damn long and difficult! So much that it's looking impossible.
And maybe it is.
I cut off all brain waves and halt any rational thoughts after that. I need all concentration on just one question.
Is it worth it?
Is it? Well? Do I really want to go through all this, all this pain, torment, and suffering? Do I really want to try and make it out even though survival is not guaranteed yet death almost is?
Do I really want to try?
Do I really think I can make it?
There is however another way.
I could always take that solution.
When that thought crossed my mind I hesitantly unholstered my pistol, ejected a single round and let it rest on my palm and let my mind be swarmed by thoughts.
There is always that solution
All I have to do is pull the trigger
Quick and painless…
…But death is guaranteed…
I sat there for awhile, just sat there staring aimlessly at the bullet in my hand, contemplating whether or not I should do it. Wondering if I could even do it.
Do I have the balls to do so?
A moment passed.
Then another.
Then another…
"…No", I say silently to myself as I close my eyes and grip my fist close so hard it turns my knuckle white.
Ok, so sure I don't have the balls to shoot myself.
But I do have the balls to fight through a city of hungry zombies, find a way out, and then live my days against all odds and though all turmoil just so I could see the sun rise the next morning.
Well, that counts for something, right?
Alright, so it's decided, I fight on through and against everything that god chooses to throw at me.
I packed up my supplies, checked, then double check my weapons and then made sure everything was set for the hell before me.
But lastly, I took a long, hard glance at the 9mm cartridge in my palm.
Another minute passed before I took the bullet, and gently placed it inside my pants pocket.
Save one round…just in case.
Hey, what do you know! Guess I do have the balls to off myself after all.
The sky was red, I just realized that. So much crap filling the air from the fires I guess, must be doing wonders on the ozone.
I've been walking for sometime now, maybe two hours at most. Through all the smoke and destruction, it's hard to keep track of something so unimportant like time.
Actually it was hard to keep track of anything, other than that single recurring thought.
When will they come for me?!?
It's true, I am paranoid, but I bet you'd be too. I mean, I've only seen a total of eleven zombies so far. Honestly, this city was the most populated stretch of land for miles, you think there would be more corpses.
…Well there are, but I mean walking corpses, not the dead ones.
…Shit, when I say dead I mean…Well you know what I'm talking about, I'm not gonna explai-
Wait, wait, wait; what was that…could I have just heard what I thought I've heard?
…Gunshots
And gunshots means people!
Living people!!!
My day is finally looking up.
I found him about a klick away from my position. Wasn't very hard, all I had to do was follow the trail of bodies.
He was sprawled out and on top of a police cruiser which seemed it have crashed into a light pole, dark, crusty brown blood splashed the hood of the vehicle.
The man was short, yet muscular Hispanic with a buzz cut that looked smooth and in military regulation.
He also wore the standard MARPAT uniform of a marine.
Oh great, a jarhead.
I came up from behind the car, silent and stealthy so he wouldn't mistaken me for a ghoul.
"Hey." I said in a loud whisper.
He jerked up in reaction and brought his sidearm to bare. The fear in his eyes was almost comical, I would have laughed if I didn't have a gun pointed to my head.
It took him a moment to realize I wasn't going to eat him, then he lowered his sidearm.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you." I calmed him.
"Asshole." He whispered under his breath, he sounded tired and his voice was raspy.
I stood there for awhile, just letting him catch his breath, battlefield fatigue is horrible.
"So you got a name and rank?" He asked possibly annoyed by my silence.
"Private First Class Nathan Smith, U.S Army." I replied.
"Corporal Jacob Medina, U.S Marines."
Once again, it was quiet.
"So" I started, ending the uneasy silence, "Do you know what happened here?"
He laughed, "What? The fact that the great U.S military got their asses kicked here and everywhere else in the country or why there's a stream of bodies leading up to me?"
"Umm no, where is everybody and why is it raining ash? Although that last story sounds pretty interesting." I answered.
He smiled, but it was gone in a second, "Where you been at? Knocked out for last 24 hours or something?"
"Actually, I think I was." I admitted.
Medina let out a deep, tired sigh, the kind of sigh that people give when they recall a story that they promised themselves they never would tell again.
"Well to pretty much sum it all up, the Air Force blew this and I guess every other city in the country, to shit." He answered dryly.
"What? How?" I asked, my voice cracking.
"Cluster and Thermobaric munitions, dropped them all over the city."
I was shocked to say the least, I held my voice, I had nothing to say.
"They only used the Fuel Air on heavy infested locations", Medina continued despite my stunned silence, "Unfortunately, the most populated zombie positions were right on top of our own."
"So-"
"Yep, friendly fire…friendly-fucking fire!" Out of anger, he slammed the grip of his pistol against the cruiser's emergency lights, the glass was stronger than it seemed and resisted the force of the blow. He pulled back his weapon and clutched his chest in pain.
"Jesus, you okay?" I asked, now concerned for the first friendly face I've seen for at least a day.
"No…not really." He answered truthfully, in pain and out of breathe.
My eyes now spotted the problem that evaded me for the whole conversation, two deep red holes that bled through the ballistic vest he wore.
"Oh shit, you've been hit!"
"Really? I haven't noticed." He responded, sarcasm thick.
"Don't screw around man, this is serious!" I lowered my voice slightly, "Now tell me where you're hit."
"You got two working eyes asshole, look for yourself."
Damn, this guy has a bigger ego than me.
"They look like they're centered around the ribs." I asked for his confirmation.
"Congrats, your right." His sarcasm was starting to bug me.
Is this how I make other people feel? Gotta lay off on the sarcasm.
"Alright, hold still." I said as I began to unzip his gear. For some reason though, he refused and shoved my hand away.
"No, no." He gasped for breath, "Don't even try."
What the hell is this guy's problem? The wounds didn't look mortal, so why was he resisting my help?
"Why won't you let me help you!" I demanded.
"Two reasons." He said forcing a smile, "One: You don't have time."
"What do you mea-" And then I heard it, that distinct sound that sends my body into shakes and makes my blood run cold.
The moans and crazed snarls of the starving undead.
Oh shit!
I whipped around so fast that my vision became nothing but a blur, but then I saw them. By my guess I would have to say a little over a hundred of the fuckers. They came right at us, limping and waddling, slowly albeit, but still they were coming and they were coming just for us.
Oh fuck!
I started panicking, it was the only thing that made sense to do at that moment, only thing that came to mind.
I started rant, "Come on, Come on! We-We gotta go! Can't stay here, come on!" I yelled at Medina who, to my shock and utter frustration, started laughing.
"Wha-What the hell is so damn funny!?!" I exclaimed.
I am sooo not in the mood for this.
"You know what?" He began, "I don't even know why I'm laughing…but I'm not going with you soldier."
"The fuck are you on about?" Now I was real confused.
"Remember how I said two reasons?" He said as he began to fold up his BDU pants leg.
"What are you talking about? Your wounds aren't fatal! You'll be-" I stopped as I looked down at his exposed leg. A chunk of muscle was missing; the flesh was brownish, mushy and smelled like a dead animal would.
Oh god…he's been bit
Crap, he's infected!
"Well as you can see" Medina just kept talking, "I'm a dead man walking; in fact, I bet I'll be dead within the next hour or so."
I didn't say anything because…well.. Because I didn't know what to say, couldn't think of anything, nothing other than "Go down fighting Marine!" came to my head. But lucky for me, that was exactly what he wanted to hear.
"Well? Don't just stand there! Get the hell out of my sight you fucking army grunt!" Medina's yelling snapped me back into the real world.
I narrowed my eyes at him, but then softened them when I realized he was smiling…a blood filled smile.
Damn this fucking infection and what it does to people!
There's nothing I can do, I can't help him at all…wait, I think I can.
"So" I started, "How much ammo you got left?"
He looked at me and smiled, but it was gone is a heartbeat, replaced my a series of uncontrolled coughing and spitting up of blood.
After recovering, he picked up his M9 and began to play with it in his hands.
"I've got whatever is left in this clip and one more extra." He said.
"Is that it?" I asked
"Yep, that's about all."
I reached inside my hardness and pulled out a pair of 9mm magazines and laid them down on the cruiser's hood.
Medina immediately refused, "No no, I can't take this! You'll need it more than me!" He exclaimed while attempting to hand the ammo back to me.
"Not a chance marine, you're gonna have one hell of a last stand, and you can't accomplish that with only a clip and a half." I told him.
He stared straight into my eyes and I did the same to him, eventually I won I guess, since he took the magazines and set them down right next to himself.
"Okay then." He finally said, "I don't have the patience to argue and you have to get out of here, like now."
I looked up, he was right, the horde was closing in, they were now about a fourth of a klick away. I could see them almost clearly now; their pale, gray faces, the thick, black liquid that oozed out of their mouths, and their blank, unconscious stares which proved that any trace of humanity they once had were all but gone.
I turned my head, I just couldn't bare to stare at those… pardon the pun: dead eyes, but truth be told, it scared the shit out of me.
I glanced back towards Medina who is surprising smiling at the zombies coming this way.
"Now what's so funny?" I asked.
"Not funny, I'm happy." He answered.
"Wha-" I started to rant but he interrupted me.
"Let me finish, I said I'm happy, I'm happy because I'll finally be with all those I lost in this whole fucked up rodeo. My friends, my family, my wife…son." The last part was an almost incomprehensible whisper.
I felt slightly less guilty about leaving him behind now, he was about to be together with his loved ones again, who was I to postpone his long awaited peace?
And so as my finally farewell to my short lived comrade, I handed him something else, something that will definitely send him out with a proper bang.
When Medina took it, his face's features eased up, he grinned and then took my hand in a respectful shake.
"Good luck out there, Grunt."
"Kick some ass, Jarhead."
And then we parted ways, I jogged towards the other direction without a single thought of glancing back. Not even when the steady claps of pistol fire began…or when the resulting boom of a grenade echoed through the night.
And then just like that, there was nothing but silence.
It took awhile, till nightfall to be exact, but I eventually reached a U.S Army roadblock over looking a road that lead straight out of town and into the unpopulated desert.
The roadblock was a mess, bullet casings carpeted the ground, equipment lay broken and trashed, and blood splatter painted the vehicles.
Lucky for me, I found a clean Humvee armed with a .50 Caliber with it's keys still locked in. Hell it even had a full tank of gas in it!
I spend a good ten or fifteen minutes after scavenging the surrounding area and other vehicles for ammo, supplies, gasoline, food, weapons and well pretty much everything that might be of use on my journey.
Where ever the hell this journey is taking me.
As I started the Humvee and rolled out of town, I threw that and any other distressing thoughts out of the window. I've had one hell of a day, all I want and desperately need right now is a little time to myself in which I'm not plagued by images of death, destruction, chaos, and fucking zombies.
I subconsciously reached inside my pockets and pulled out the single 9mm round that I decided to save incase suicide was my only option.
I twirled it around my fingers for a bit, staring aimlessly towards the desert road and out into the darkness.
I put away the bullet a little while later, safely pocketed it inside my pants.
You know, just in case.
Ok sorry for my update being a little late, chapter 3 was supposed to be released on Halloween but my computer is being retarted, so sorry
But as always, R&R
And i'm always open for advice
-Tomato