Part 18: Bloodshed

I have just finished this chapter I hope you all like it. I know it's taken me a long time to actually finish but I got there, I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to post a review and tell me what you thought of the story so far and I hope you continue to follow this story.

"Morgan!" Alice shouted as she shook me awake, "Are you alright?" She asked as I looked around the cab of the van trying to regain me bearings.

"Yeah I'm fine," I told her with a smile, "Where are we?" I then asked.

"On our way west, towards Utah!" Darius shouted from the driver's seat.

"Great, I hate Utah," I told him jokingly.

"Where are we exactly?" Alice clarified to Darius.

"In Wyoming, going along route thirty, we've got around a hundred and seventy miles to Salt Lake City."

"Why Salt Lake?" I asked him.

"Apparently there are survivors there all bound up there, so we're gonna go take a look," He replied.

"And you're fine with this?" I asked Alice.

"yeah I am," Alice said as she took me into the back of the van, "Look at her," Alice told me as she pointed to Amy, "She's just a little girl, she needs to be kept somewhere safe and if this place can take her and Darius we will be fine."

I looked back at Alice, "So you believe this place exists?"

"It's the only chance we've got," She told me looking rather serious.

"Okay then we'll get there," I told her as I moved back into the cab.

Sometime later.

We seemed to be driving along route thirty for what seemed like days but was in fact only a few hours. We made it to a small village that over looked Salt Lake. The van was pulled up on the outskirts of the village while, Alice and I dug out some guns for us just to be safe. I pulled out one of the AR-15's and chucked it over to Darius.

"Hell no, I'm getting that shotgun," Darius said as he then threw the AR at Alice, who narrowly caught it, and scooped the NS2000 out of the bag.

"Fair enough but I want you and Amy to stick right behind us, we don't need you two getting into any trouble," I told him sternly as I took point at the front of the group, looking into the dusty deep into the dusty town I couldn't see a single soul alive or dead.

"I don't like the level of noise," Alice said as she joined me at the front, passing me a .45 calibre pistol which was still inside it's holster, the steel on the magazine release shimmered in the sun as I wrapped the holster around my leg. I looked up into the town after I had made sure the pistol was attached to my leg, the dust rolled through the town blanketing everything that entered the cloud, I turned and faced Darius and Amy who looked like they were finally ready to set off.

"You two ready?" I asked them as I picked up the AK that was still in the weapons bag, throwing the bag over my back and then chambered a round in the AK.

"Yeah, but why is it so quiet?" Darius asked as he made his way over which Amy pretty much stood in his shadow as he walked.

"That's what has got us feeling nervous enough to want to chamber the guns," Alice told him as she hand chambered a round into the AR, "Right thirty in the magazine and one in the chamber."

"Let's see who's around shall we?" I asked the group as I moved up to the first dust covered building. As I pressed my weight into the side of the wooden structure I could see the dust settle on my shoulder, the smaller particles stuck like I was covered in glue while the larger more sand like grains fell to the floor.

I looked over to the van where we had come from and it was now tan coloured where it had been washed with dust, it looked like it had been there for years. The dust ripped through the town windows and doors smashed as the wind blew down the main street towards us.

"Looks like even the almighty himself don't want us to see what's going on in that town," I told everyone as I peeked down Main Street.

"Yeah but that's not going to stop us from going in there," Alice looked at me and said as she made her way across the street towards the second building on Main. I signalled to Darius and Amy to move in my shadow as I moved around the corner to the third building. As I walked down the street the dust around started to clear, exposing the town to daylight and our eyes.

I looked up and down the street there was only a few more houses before the buildings became stores and after that was what looked like a viewing platform. But standing in our way was a lot of corpses, each mangled in a different way. I signalled for Alice to move up the street she moved in a calculated and smooth way each of her footsteps was placed so that the next could go in an exact position that she had predetermined.

"You see anything?" I called out to her as she moved.

She stopped and took a knee looking out over the corpses, "Get over here there's nothing lethal," she told us, "at least not now."

I moved out into the street with Darius and Amy behind me, we moved over to Alice who was looking down at a corpse, as I got there she turned it over to the side that wasn't as dusty but it was covered in blood, so even the front had quite a large amount of dust on it.

"Shit!" Alice exclaimed as she turned it over.

"What?" I asked her as we all moved over.

"The infection didn't kill these people," She said as I broke into a sprint over to her.

"What the hell did then?" I asked but just as I got to view the corpse I spotted it, "These people were…. Shot!" I shouted out to the group.

"Yeah but this ain't just any rounds," Darius said out of the blue, "That track left through their body's. That is caused by five point five six millimetre."

"Yeah, no shit, but this much would cost a lot of money, not your everyday mass killing," I said to him as I tapped the body down for a wallet or anything I could use to identify them.

"Military?" Darius asked.

Alice picked up a brass casing up off the floor and looked at it then she passed it to me I looked at the butt of the round, "Umbrella," I whispered, the umbrella logo was etched deep into the butt of the round, it glared at me with sheer evil like something was looking down at me trying to get at me, the symbol burnt through my soul like a hot poker.

"Yeah those bastards did this! These were innocent civilians why did they do this to them?" Darius asked.

"Isn't it obvious, they have been tracking us, Umbrella have had a satellite lock on us for ages and they cleared out this town so we couldn't ask for help or even expose them," Alice told him calmly while she looked at me.

"We need to get out of here," I said as I dropped the casing and raised my AK.

"Where to though?" Darius asked, "if they are watching us then, where can we go that they won't follow?"

"Anywhere, away from here because these bodies are still warm so this can't have happened more than a few hours ago," Alice told him.

"Let's just get a vehicle and get the fuck out of here," I told the group as I scanned the surrounding buildings. As I scanned up the street, which was desolate, I noticed the store at the end of the street was riddled with bullets. I signalled to Alice to move up, with me, along the street to the storefront. I looked at the holes in the window and even poked the barrel of the AK through it. But as I stuck the barrel into the window, a shower of glass smashed into my chest. "What the fuck?" I shouted as I crawled behind cover.

I peeked my head out around the corner and looked at who was firing at me. "Who the fuck was that?" Alice shouted as she moved up next to me.

"I see someone," I told her as I looked back as her, "I'm gonna break cover and you fucking hit them!" I told her as I moved in a strafe step fashion, whilst firing single shots towards the figure.

"Morgan!" Alice shouted at me as I moved across the storefront.

"What they fucking shot at us!" I shouted back as I slid down the wall on the otherside of the storefront.

"You shot as us first you fuckers!" A voice echoed from within the store.

"No we fucking didn't!" I shouted back panicked.

"That wasn't us," Alice said calmly into the store.

"Then drop your guns and come in here!" The man inside retaliated.

"Fuck no, I ain't dropping my gun, you drop yours!" I shouted back inside.

"Well then it looks like we have a stand off!" The man returned.

"Alright," Alice stood up holding her AR-15 rifle by its handle, "I think it's time to end this," she dropped the rifle to the floor and walked into the store, I took up a firing position to focus on the target in the store, "My friend is an idiot, so he won't drop his gun. Can we just end this stalemate and tell me what happened earlier?" Alice asked.

I stepped up around the corner and I spotted a man standing behind the counter with an old looking double barrelled shotgun. I met his eye across the room and he didn't raise his shotgun to me, he just gave me a stern stare. I just lowered my rifle and stood up straight like a show of force to the man. As I walked towards the man I could see he was covered in blood his white t-shirt was crimson with blood and he had a white wrap around his leg which was again covered with blood, he looked like shit but he still chose to stand tall.

The man turned and looked at Alice who was standing on the other side of the counter to the man, "I live in a compound about half a kilometre away from here, but we heard on the radios from this town that people were shooting in the town. So I came down with my team to investigate who was around."

"And that's when you spotted the troops killing civilians?" Alice asked the man.

"Yes, they came in and were shooting everyone; they had their gas masks on like they were going into a fucking war," the man told us, "I arrived just as the guys were sweeping the buildings and killing anyone who stood in their way, I stormed this store and found a group of people afraid in here. As I did the enemy came in the other door and massacred everyone in the building. I got hit in the shoulder and leg but this girl patched me up we have three other survivors in the store room."

"Are they injured?" I asked.

"No they were left uninjured," He replied calmly as if he was relaxing around us.

"Can we see them?" Alice asked.

The man nodded, "You can come out they are safe!" The man shouted and three young girls came out of the back room of the store. They were very shaken up and they looked like they had been through the shit. I placed my gun down and ran to the front of the storefront and ran into the street and shouted at Darius and Amy to tell them to get into the store, Darius placed his shotgun next to mine and the man finally placed his gun down, "they've seen a lot but I think we need to get out of here."

"Don't you have a team here?" I asked him.

"They were killed in the attack on this place, so we can leave now," He replied as he scooped up his shotgun and moved out with the scared girls following him.

"Where are we going?" Alice asked him.

"My compound it will be safe there," He replied.

"How?" Darius sparked as he looked over to the girls.

"Because we have people who can keep it that way," He replied ominously.

Never the less we all followed the man to a truck on the other side of town and we drove off into the desolate landscape, bumping and being flipped around.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I will try and post a new chapter soon. As always I don't own resident evil but I do own Echo.