Howdy, it's me again, back with a new chapter. I'm posting this earlier today because I'm actually socialising with real people in person tonight. I know, it's shocking! Thank you to everyone who read, favourited, followed and commented on the last chapter - you have no idea how much I appreciate it.
Also, I feel like I should mention that the last time I visited New York I was 10, so I have basically zero idea about the layout. Sorry!
Warnings: very strong language, graphic descriptions of violence/gory injuries (I feel like zombies may be enough of a warning though), guns, panic attacks
The sky had bled into the ground. Everything choked on dust. The world stood low and weary, echoing with the screams of the dead and the risen. New York was bereft of that distinctive human hum, but instead cried out with sirens and shrieks. Car alarms were calling to their owners. Blood streaked across the tarmac. The crowds were thick with fear and desperation. Roads out of the city stood so packed that it was impossible to move and the infected surged up over the bridges despite the bullets raining down on them.
Scott couldn't see any of this. He'd heard a brief description over the radio: one of the rare transmissions that cut through the emergency broadcast. Manhattan had fallen. Brooklyn had too. There was no news coming out of Staten. The other boroughs stood crippled, stumbling to their knees, reduced to smouldering heaps as the few brave responders that had chosen to stay tried to protect the fleeing crowds.
His radio blared into life after around twenty minutes of walking. The roads were deserted, dotted with the wrecks of cars and small fires clustered in doorways. A couple of times he came across a patch of ground drenched in red liquid. He kept well clear of it. As of yet, no one knew how this virus was spread.
"Five checking in."
Scott scrambled for the radio. "FAB. All good here." He lowered his voice in dark amusement. "Not dead yet."
John growled at him. "Not funny, Scott."
He pressed himself into a doorway, concealed from the main road. "I don't know, I thought it was. Just a little. C'mon, let me have this one."
"You can joke about it all you like once we get you out of there."
"Yeah." Scott poked his head out of the door and grimaced at the dark sky. "Any idea of where I'm headed? At the moment I'm just going uptown. There's too many people fleeing the other way."
John hesitated. "Is there no way at all you can get to Central?"
"Hey, you were the one who told me to get to higher ground. Central Park isn't exactly a mountain. Besides, we don't know how this is spread. Central Park's always crowded. If there's a whole load of people who picked it up there, then I'd be walking towards my own death."
"We've talked about this."
"Oh, for fuck's sake. Fine. It would be a very bad idea." He couldn't let it go. "And I would probably die."
"The words die and death are hereby banned from your vocabulary."
Scott flipped the knife in his pocket. "Uh huh. What if I speak in a foreign language?"
"You do realise I'm the linguist of the family, right?"
Something rattled at the end of the street. Scott tensed. "Got to go. If I don't call you back in ten, then I'm probably dead."
"Look, that word's banned too." A sigh. "Good luck."
A flicker of movement flitted between a parked car and a row of dumpsters. A deep, wild snarl spat across the street. Scott kept close to the wall, his grip on his knife almost painful, and moved swiftly, his footsteps as light as possible. There was definitely something behind there, tucked just out of view, and whatever it was, it was big. A tangy copper met his nose and he dragged his shirt up again. Blood was dripping over the curb, collecting in a small pool around the drain.
A dumpster rumbled, shook out of place. Scott froze. He was less than a heartbeat from the street corner, but any sudden movements could reveal his location. He rose onto his toes, peering past the parked car, but it was too murky to make anything out. Something was hunched over a large object, its movements jerky and sporadic. Scott took a step away, moving lightly towards the corner.
He should go. He should turn away and sprint as fast as possible until he'd put as much distance between himself and it as his instincts deemed safe. Instead, he flipped the knife into his hand and withdrew it from his pocket as he pressed to the wall and peered back around.
The creature was in full view now. The lights from an office opposite where flickering, on-and-off, on-and-off, but when they blared into being they illuminated the gruesome sight in paralysing detail. Some sort of grotesque humanoid being was crouched over a catatonic body that lay sprawled on the sidewalk, drenched in blood, the same crimson that coated the creature that was wrenching and snapping and feasting.
Scott flung himself back around the corner and took deep breaths, willing himself not to throw up. Yeah. Straight out of one of Alan's video games alright. He slid the knife up his sleeve and broke into soft steps, delving into a quicker jog and then a sprint as soon as he was far enough away.
A door was banging open and closed. It was loud. Thunderous. Almost like a heartbeat. Scott swallowed and crossed the road. He needed supplies – and not the medical kind that he'd already nicked from the fire truck. His pulse was pounding in his head, but his thoughts were clear, precise, easy to follow. He kept a quick pace all the way down the next couple of blocks and then hauled himself up onto a fire-escape that wound around the outside of an empty shop.
It had been thirteen minutes. Unlucky for some. Lucky for John, though. Scott thought back to his ten-minute promise with a wince and switched the radio back on.
"Five, Scott here. Over."
John didn't waste a second. "Scott, you asshole. You said ten."
"You can see me on the scanners."
"Barely. Your signature's sporadic. There's too much interference."
"From what? The smoke? There's no one up there, John."
John muttered something unintelligible. "You slept through the helicopters."
Scott checked the street for movement. Everything stood still. A newspaper lifted from the ground and flapped across to ignite in one of the still-burning fires. "I'm sorry."
"You should be." John sucked in a breath. "Alright. We're going to have to risk Central Park."
Scott slid down into a slumped crouch with a groan. "You're kidding."
"I wish. No, the coordinates I was originally looking at have… they've become…"
"Ground zero for zombies?"
"Jesus, Scott."
"They're fucking zombies."
John fell silent. "You've seen one." It wasn't a question.
Scott pressed a fist to his mouth, breathed, and spoke again. "Yes. Just like in the movies. I'm half convinced someone slipped me something at the bar last night and this is all some crazy dream."
"We're having the same nightmare then," John muttered. There was a scuffling sound across the radio. "Okay. Can you get to Central?"
Scott peered over the railing. "Yes."
"Go there. I'll update Alan."
"John, wait."
"I'm listening."
"I've seen one of these things in flesh. They're not human. I'm being serious with the whole zombie thing."
"If this is some sort of deathbed confession then you can save it."
"John."
"You can tell the guys you love them yourself. I'm not your damn messenger. Get to Central. I'll check in again in twenty. Stay alive. Five out."
Scott switched the radio off with a quiet smile. "Psychic creep," he whispered to himself fondly.
The sky had grown dark with smoke. It was night-like. It was cold too. Scott hugged his jacket closer and shivered. The few people that he'd come across had said very little and the roads were mostly deserted, but now, as he approached a store, volume filled his ears, blisteringly loud. He ducked behind an abandoned truck and took in his surroundings.
There were people. Not infected: actual people. Looters. Scott glimpsed a group of hooded thugs wheeling a television into their van, wires and other boxes trailing behind them like captured prey. Lights blinked on and off across the complex. There was a fire blazing on the top floor. Scott could see it licking at the windows. A fire alarm was crying. A child and her father were clambering into a car with the windscreen smashed in.
They were all desperate, which made them dangerous, but there was no sign of any infected. Scott flapped his jacket's collar up to help hide his face and made a beeline for the front entrance. People split into two flows, swerving around him. Faces were pale, smeared with soot and speckled with blood.
He stepped into the first store he could find and stood for a moment, assessing the layout. The clothes and gear were at the back, next to a staff entrance. Along with the door he'd entered by, that gave him two possible escape routes and a narrow gangway between the two. He didn't like it, but there was little other choice. Besides, it was quiet in here. Everyone else had ransacked the tech and food stores. He reckoned the pharmacy and liquor shops were in bad shape too.
He'd struck lucky. This was some sort of military hardware store, with similar kit to the original GDF issued gear. He dumped his jeans and worn trainers in favour of lighter weight, more flexible trousers and good quality boots. There was a long-sleeved thermal, breathable material, which he slipped on and added his t-shirt over the top, sliding back into his flight jacket like a second skin.
Next on his hunt were weapons. He scavenged through the displays and filled his pockets with ration bars, water purification tables and swapped out his kitchen knife for newer, razor-sharp blades. There was a box of flares and he took a few of them too, adding a match box to his opposite pocket. A compass sat discarded on the floor, tossed away in favour of the guns cabinet which stood practically empty. Scott added it to his collection and strode closer, checking for any unwanted visitors while he was at it.
His relationship with guns was complicated. Dad had detested them. Sworn blind never to touch one, even on the farm with Grandpa. Scott had learned to shoot one summer with an air rifle and then he'd fallen headfirst into the Air Force and had found himself working with them a lot more than he was initially comfortable with. He could probably reload and prep in his sleep. However, there'd been his crash and all the bullshit that had followed that he was not going to think about unless he was drunk out of his skull. He hadn't touched anything other than a grapple gun in years.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Virgil had always been the nice one, the pacifist, the one to break up a fight whereas Scott would plunge straight into a punch-up to protect another. He'd made a promise to Alan and he intended to keep it, and if that involved getting his hands bloody, then, well, he'd just have to deal. It wasn't as if he was a stranger to guilt or nightmares.
There really wasn't much left. Just a handgun and a torn box of ammunition. Scott took it all and loaded the gun. His pockets were heavy. He patted the cufflinks through his flight jacket and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to summon up an image of home, of Alan and Gordon fighting over popcorn on movie nights, of John beating everyone at board games and looking entirely too smug about it, of off-duty chats with Virgil, of genuine friendship with Brains and Penelope and Parker and all those who had entered his life and delved up feelings of affection without warning.
Someone screamed.
Scott darted back to the entrance and hid behind a coat rack. Gunshots tore through the air, cracking the stillness. The stench of fresh blood caught his nose. Movement flooded through the corridors as people fled. There was an animalistic screech. Horror rushed through his veins in a hot torrent and he scrambled under a toppled display unit, concealed from view. He drew his gun up to his shoulder and disabled the safety.
One of the infected was stumbling along the corridor. The flesh around its calf was torn away in jagged chunks, blistering yellow and blue. Scott held himself as still as possible, taking tiny, even breaths, his grip on the gun white-knuckle tight. It limped towards the entrance after the crowds before hesitating. A peeling head jolted backwards, nostrils flaring as bloodshot eyes suddenly landed on Scott, staring straight at him.
Scott didn't move a muscle. He stared back, eyes locked. Then the infected lunged forwards, lurching towards him with dripping fingers and torn nails, rabid snarls pooling from its clenched jaws. It sprawled across the floor, scrabbling to get at him. Scott jolted back, wedging himself at the very end of the cabinet. Claws raked at glass shards, saliva mixing with rusty blood as the infected snapped, crazed with hunger.
This was a human. It had once been a person with a life, a family, a home. What if there was a cure? What was right and wrong here?
Scott raised his gun and took the shot.
The bullet ricocheted through the creature's skull, leaving a neat hole. The infected toppled backwards and collapsed to the ground in a heap of twitching limbs.
Scott dropped the gun to his side. He didn't have time to panic. The gunshot was bound to draw others to his location. He kicked the body out the way and struggled free, tripping over himself to clamber to his feet. He made it a good couple of blocks or more before he ducked into an alley and doubled over, bringing up everything he'd eaten until there was nothing left but bile. His throat stung, raw, and his eyes were blurry with tears from the sheer effort of it all.
His hands were shaking.
Scott reached for the radio.
"Five?"
John was there. "Scott? What happened?"
"There…fuck… give me… I need a sec…"
"Hey. Scott. C'mon, listen to me. Focus on my voice."
"I killed someone."
"Someone or an infected?"
"I… uh…" Scott spat bile onto concrete. "Infected."
John let out a long breath. "Okay. They were already dead. You did them a favour."
"They had a life."
"Would you rather turn into one of those things? Turn into a creature that hurts others? Turn into something that could hunt and kill someone you love? Yeah. Exactly. Did you get the supplies?"
"They had a life."
"Christ, look, Scott, I can't sit here and talk you through this. You can't afford to go to pieces right now. I promise you that I'll sit down with you and we'll talk, but you need to take a breath and listen when I tell you that you need to snap out of it and head for Central. You've only got a few blocks left."
"John, I fucking shot it."
"You shot it. Not a person. It. Now take a damn breath because you're close to hyperventilating."
Scott clawed a hand through his hair and wiped his face clean with the neck of his shirt. His hands were still trembling, so he shoved them into his pockets, gun attached to his hip via a couple of loops of his belt. His shoes were splashed in crimson and copper.
"Scott?" John's voice was gentler, more hushed. "Are you with me?"
He flattened himself against the wall so tightly that the concrete dug into his back, clawing little welts along his spine. His shoulder was aching. There were tiny gashes across his palms. He breathed through the fabric of his shirt and slumped, ignoring the protests from his knees.
"Yeah," he exhaled. "I'm here."
"I don't think you should stay in any one place longer than you absolutely have to."
There was a distant crash. A cat cried. A car engine growled. Scott clenched his fists. His palms stung. His mind flicked back to the toppled cabinet. There was probably still broken glass under his skin.
"FAB. I'm going to make a break for Central Park."
"Affirmative. I'm trying to loop Alan into your radio frequency, but I keep losing the signal. I'll keep you updated."
There was a horrible, soul-leeching fear that if he hung up the radio, he'd never hear John's voice again. "Johnny, if I don't make it then I'm sorry."
A beat. "You'll make it," John murmured, all belief and hope where Scott couldn't. "You've survived worse. You're going to make it."
Scott lowered the radio for a moment and let himself scream silently into his fist. He lifted it again to a burst of questioning static. "Right. Yeah."
"You need to get moving. I've got satellite image on your current location and you've got company inbound."
"How many blocks?"
"Three and closing."
"Fuck. Okay. I'm leaving."
John's sharp commands lifted into a softer promise. "Check in again in twenty?"
"FAB."
The streets were haunted with ghosts. They were paralysing, wild, hungry ghosts that clawed every scrap of life from the ground to join them. These ghosts were not spirits so much as they were demons and Scott ran from them faster than he could ever remember running before. His legs were burning. There was a hitch to his breathing. The air was clogging in his throat. He stole a bottle of water from a looted convenience store and high-tailed it another half-block before clawing his way onto the roof of a bus shelter where he drained the bottle and caught his breath.
A little while into his journey, it began to snow. Scott wandered down the middle of the street, careless in the face of strange beauty, and held out a hand to let flakes trail through his fingers. It wasn't snow, he realised, it was dust, flecks of smoke and soot that was beginning to fall from the sky. There were so many fires burning across the city.
It was oddly peaceful. All sound was muffled. Even his footsteps had a dull crunch that became deadened, leaving deep trenches in the ash that collected on the ground. Neon lights flickered on and off along the shopfronts.
Scott shivered. He had the distinct feeling that someone was watching him. Suddenly, the weight of the gun against his hip was a comfort. He kept to the centre of the streets, cautious of the traps posed by shattered windows and dark alleys. Every so often, the stench of blood overpowered the constant grate of smoke. Despite the make-shift mask offered by his shirt pulled over his mouth and nose, his throat felt raw. There wasn't much water left in the bottle though, so he forced himself to ration it.
Here, captured in a strange landscape that seemed to have been plucked from the cover of a distant dystopian novel, time stood frozen. There was an eerie calm holding everything still. The faux snow grew thicker the deeper into the city he ventured until it grew virtually impossible to see. He struck a match and held it out into the smog until the flame singed his fingertips.
Something snapped.
Scott froze. He spun around in a wide circle. The smog was too thick to see any further than four feet. There were eyes scorching a hole in his back. He struck another match and stood still, heart pounding in his ears. He had never felt quite so hunted before.
Footsteps shuffled closer, heavy and exhausted. A shadowed face peered out of the gloom. A woman with a scarf wrapped around her, binding a duffle bag close to her chest, blinked at him. For a moment, neither of them moved. Her gaze drifted down to the gun at his hip, but she didn't say a word. Scott lifted his hand away deliberately slowly and stepped aside. After a beat, she nodded, and moved on, her steps fading until she had been swallowed up completely by the clouds.
It didn't take long for her tracks to be covered. Scott twisted to glimpse that his own prints had been replaced by a smooth layer of dust and ash. He gripped his wrist with the opposite hand reflexively, his pulse firm and steady against his thumb. It was all too easy to let himself drift away, all too easy to believe everyone was already dead.
Twenty minutes had passed. He found another set of fire-stairs and climbed to perch on the rim of an apartment roof. Here, he was sat just higher than the layer of smog and smoke, and the buildings rose above the gloom like strange creatures poking their heads out of the sea.
"Five, come in."
"Reading you." John's voice was crackled with static.
It seemed worse here, more stricken with death despite the lack of violence. More like a graveyard than a murder scene. Scott shivered and took his time with the radio, searching what little he could see for movements.
"I'm one block out from Central. All seems quiet on the western front."
It really wasn't the time for pop culture references, but he couldn't help himself. Gordon would be proud, anyway.
"FAB. I've tried my best, but One's radio just can't seem to pick up your frequency."
"How do I organise a pickup then?" Scott still thought waiting on the roof of a building was his best idea, but with the high-rises to either side of him like a cage, there was no flying One in. He was going to have to get closer no matter what. He leant forwards, pinning himself to the roof with a hand curved over the railing of the stairs. "John?"
"I'm thinking."
"You've had twenty minutes to think."
John fell silent. There was a resounding sense of screw you that went unspoken. "I've been busy," he stated simply. "Worldwide disasters and all that."
The sarcasm was biting. Scott winced. "Sorry."
"Hmm." A little burst of static made him jump. "I'm locked onto your heat signature from Five. Are you on top of an apartment block? Precisely where I told you not to go?"
"To be fair," Scott commented dryly, "when have I ever done what I'm told?"
John let that remark slide. "Alan's been circling the city for a good twenty minutes now. If you head to Central and radio me then I can home in on your location from the interference and send him your coordinates."
"That sounds like it depends on an awful lot of luck."
John wasn't above denying it. "Yes."
"Great. I'm going to d-"
"If you finish that sentence, then so help me."
Scott couldn't help but grin. "FAB. On my way to Central now. ETA five minutes."
"Affirmative." There was a pause, then, in a fainter voice, "Scott?"
He paused, one foot hanging over the stairs. "Yes?"
"Keep your radio on."
Scott stared out at the little torrent of flame that erupted into the air several blocks away, the blast deadened by the sheer volume of debris in the air. "Never turned it off," he muttered, and set about climbing back down.
Central Park was a bloodbath. Scott really wished he didn't have to mean this quite so literally.
He was laid flat on the roof of a truck parked along the street, abandoned in the wake of the panic that had swept the city whilst he'd slept on, unaware, so high above. Behind him, fire alarms still rang in the ruined hotel that had once housed millionaires. There was a mostly consumed corpse stretched across the road, intestines glittering in the dull light. The stench was overwhelming. Scott had found an old packet of chewing gum in the pocket of his flight jacket and now the taste of peppermint was the only thing keeping him from upchucking his guts in the centre of New York city.
Here, essentially camouflaged in his brown jacket and khaki trousers against the grey truck, he had a perfect view of the carnage in front of him. Central Park was swarming with infected. They sort of limbered about, rasping, tugging at old injuries, eyes blank and shark-like. There was an infestation of them all snapping and snarling at some poor soul that now resembled lion bait. Anything that wasn't smothered in ash was choked with scarlet.
There was a creeping, nauseating sense of panic scuttling up his spine. Scott kept his voice low as he spoke into the radio.
"Five, we have a problem."
A beat. "Repeat?"
"We have a problem." He flinched as bloodshot eyes flashed over his location. "I don't know what's wrong with your scanners, but Central Park is a no go. Not happening. Not now, not ever."
John spat a curse so filthy that Scott genuinely wondered if his brother had also been in the military at some point without telling them.
"Let me guess, there's more bad news?"
"Alan's running low on fuel."
"Yeah, that'll do it." Part of him wanted to laugh hysterically. The universe could never let him have anything the easy way, could it? "So, Central's out. Where now?"
John sounded the closest to panicking that Scott had ever known him out on rescue. Well. His brother was a control freak thrown into a situation where there was quite literally zero factors that could possibly be controlled. Scott let him ramble for a moment longer before snapping into action.
"Alright, tell Alan to wait for my signal."
"You haven't got a plan."
Scott slid back from the roof of the truck. "I've got a plan, John - improvise."
"That's not a plan."
He switched off the radio. No doubt John would tear him a new one for that later, but right now he had bigger problems. Namely, the cluster of infected that had discarded the roadkill in favour of sniffing, blown pupils focussing on him. A thick ring of drool dripped from bloodied teeth. Nice. Very hygienic.
There were more infected spilling out of the side streets too.
His palms were sweating. He could barely hear above the pounding of his own heart. Maybe that was what was drawing these things closer. Maybe they could smell fear like sharks could blood. Either way, he wasn't going to stick around long enough to put this theory to the test.
With more infected snapping from every direction, Scott searched for an exit. The only free path was straight into the hotel. The doors were made up of grand glass panels that had been smashed to smithereens, so he pushed a couple of luggage trolleys up against the gaps in the hopes that it would buy him a few more minutes.
The foyer was slippery with what stunk suspiciously like lighter fluid. The front desk was smeared with blood. Something chewed and white with protruding bone was caught across the keyboard by the check-in computers. Scott tore his gaze away, swallowed a mouthful of peppermint flavoured saliva, and headed for stairs.
The stairwell was even more horrific. Scott closed the door behind him and wedged a broken chair leg from the foyer under the handle. It was dark with the only illumination being the hellish red glow from the emergency lights that flashed on and off. He hesitated, his back pressed flush to the wall. There was something tacky against his palms. The substance appeared dark in the crimson light, but he didn't need a second guess to tell what it was.
"Christ." He took a couple of steps forwards and stuck his head over the railings. The stairs spiralled up and up, vanishing into the darkness. The steps that lead down to the cellar and carpark were equally as ominous where the lights had been smashed to smithereens, leaving an inky void in their wake. Scott curled his hands into fists, gripping one of the knives in his right, and started the trek up to the roof.
His ears were soon ringing from the distant wailings of alarms. Their calls were muted in here, but what little sound did creep in was funnelled up and down the stairwell. Red light bled across the steps, puddles of sticky black creeping across concrete where others had attempted to flee. He made it to the twentieth floor before his luck ran out.
Something was moving.
Scott paused, one foot hovering above the next step. Slowly, he backed up until he hit the wall, and reached for his gun. There was a surge of confidence that came with feeling the grip in his palm, finger resting against the trigger.
The noise was coming from below him. A raw, inhuman snarl. Clattering. A screech of metal followed by a thud that shook the railings. Scott held his breath until his lungs were screaming. There was the sounds of wet skin slapping against stone – something was coming up the stairs, and it was moving quickly.
He wasn't about to wait around for his own death. There were only six floors left, according to his calculations. With a quick glance over the railings – which revealed nothing, as the lights had flickered out again, pushing him to light another match – Scott forced himself to keep moving.
The growls were growing louder. Something scuttled along the wall. There was a steady dripping from somewhere up above. Scott forced himself to go faster, ignoring the screaming of his muscles until he hit the top of the stairs, faced with a door out onto the roof. Which was locked. Because of course it was.
Scott risked another look over the railings. Red light blared into being. A thick mass was crawling up the stairs, just two floors below. As the lamps flickered out, a bloodied chin jerked up, yellowed eyes locking with his own. There was nothing human there. Just a raw, animalistic hunger.
Scott scrambled back, breath catching painfully in his throat, but he knew instinctively that it was no use. He'd been spotted.
The awful snapping and griping flung itself closer. It didn't bother with the stairs, simply launched across the empty space. One broken hand wrapped around the railings, muscles visibly straining beneath stretched skin, and then a shattered smile rose up as the mass tumbled over the edge to land in a heap at his feet.
Scott didn't think, he just reacted. He could only pray that the gunshot had actually broken the lock before he was smashing his shoulder – ow, again, his brain mentioned helpfully – into the door. The metal folded outwards and he collapsed in a heap on the open roof. Smoke was rising around the edges, the smog lifting higher. Something snapped and snarled at his heels. He slammed both feet into the infected, sending it tumbling backwards into the stairwell.
A distant whine met his ears above the fallen sirens. There was a familiar throbbing of engines about the clouds. Scott scrambled to his feet and ran towards the edge of the roof, fumbling with his pockets. His fingers were slippery with blood and sweat and he couldn't get the zip to open, and where had he put the flares?
Red beams streaked into the sky. He ignored the burning as sparks scattered down, scorching his hand and forearm. The radio at his side was spitting with static, unable to catch a signal. Scott hissed through gritted teeth, lighting another flare.
Engines thrummed fainter and fainter. Then, slowly, they grew louder, circling back around. A low searchlight plunged through the thin clouds that had gathered higher up. Scott let himself shout with a breathless grin as silver paintwork glinted, just visible.
Then something slammed into his back.
This really wasn't his day.
Pain flared up along his forearm as he thrust a punch at the writhing mass of flash. The infected snatched and clawed, teeth and nails congealed in red flakes. There was hot breath across his neck. He lashed out, panic igniting through his veins like wildfire. The infected slashed at his chest, eyes wild and bulging. Scott brought up a knee to smash a kick to the creature's ribs. Bone splintered under the contact point, and the infected lost its grip, rolling over, catching itself with one hand smearing blood across the concrete. Its head jerked up, mouth wide, teeth spitting and snarling, but this time Scott was ready for it.
"Go to hell."
The gunshot echoed louder than he'd anticipated. Scott dropped the gun back to his side with a wince as a surge of noise resounded from the stairwell. Clearly his attempts at holding the door on the ground floor had finally been surpassed. He could hear them, a mass of groaning, growling animals, mobbing the stairs. They were faster this time too. He tilted his head as a steady drip caught his ear. There was a deep gauge along his forearm, blood trickling down to the floor. With the scale of the adrenaline rush he was currently running, the pain didn't bother him, but the blood? That was an issue. They could smell it and they were coming for him.
Thunderbird One surged from the clouds like an avenging angel. A grapple smashed onto the edge of the roof at the same moment that the infected flooded from the stairwell. Scott didn't bother with the gun this time, simply sprinting and not stopping until his hands were closed around the grapple, rope burn licking his palms. His stomach dropped out from under him as One rocketed upwards, VTOLs whining at the force of the manoeuvre.
He wasn't scared of heights but looking down from here – so high that the tops of the tallest skyscrapers were bobbing beneath them at a safe distance – was dizzying. Scott pressed his forehead to the rope and closed his eyes. There was a dull whirr – proof that the grapple was retracting – and then cool blue and white lights surrounded him. He knew One, knew everything about her, and that little click meant that the hatch had closed, so he let go until his back slammed into metal flooring and he could breathe again.
"Cutting it a bit close there, weren't you?" he finally gasped out.
Alan's laugh rang loud and clear around the cockpit, if only a little hysterical. "I hate to say I told you so, but…"
Scott didn't bother to struggle out of his blood-stained jacket or release the radio or gun from his hip. He just stared at the ceiling until all he could see stamped into his vision was One rather than blood and gore.
"Yeah," he breathed. "You told me so."
We're heading home folks! You know what this means? This means angst in the next chapter, and I mean a loooot of angst. Cue the evil laughter. But hey, with angst comes comfort. The next part's gonna be a rollercoaster, that's what I'm saying here.
If you feel like dropping a review it would make me very happy, but no pressure!
Kat x
