The Phoenix Trilogy (Book 1): World On Fire (37 page)

    Satisfied
that they could see enough for now, BJ took the lead again. They weren’t headed
anywhere in particular; ultimately, they needed to make it out of the sewers
somewhere outside the camp where they might be able to regroup. If they were
lucky, the massacre above them would keep the rest of the undead preoccupied
enough to prevent them from returning home.

    It
was taking all of Natalie’s willpower to prevent herself from thinking of the
people that had been left behind. Since her time in camp, she had been forced
to do many things under the justification of necessity, but this was by far the
worst.

    A
scream reverberated off of the walls around them, and Rico quietly reminded
Natalie to turn on her noise-suppressant headgear, in case their guns became
necessary again. Natalie shuddered, trying her best not to feel paranoid.

    All
around them were offshoot pathways built into the sewers, more than one having
been torn open by the tunnels that had been carved out by the diggers. With all
of the chaos above them echoing down into their maze, it was impossible to tell
where any of the noise was actually coming from. It felt as though they were
surrounded on all sides by the howls of innocent people being torn apart, and
Natalie feared she was going to lose her mind down there in the dark.

    For
the briefest moment, Natalie believed her fear must have come true. The
screaming, slavering madness that permeated the air was escalating into a
roaring thunder that threatened to block out her thoughts even through her
headgear, but the tunnels around them remained empty.

    Rough
clattering was the only warning they had. Natalie was unable to turn in time to
see what had happened, but she could hear the dull thud of body on body as one
of the survivors of their group was tackled into the murky sewer water. The
victim, whoever it was, had barely squeaked their surprise before being dragged
under, and their group had suffered its first casualty.

    “Everyone,
move!” With all of the other noises threatening to drown them out, Natalie was
unable to pinpoint who it was that had spoken. The only thought that seemed to
hold together in her head was the dull recognition that some of the walkers
above were returning to the underground.
    There was no longer any need to worry about the sound
of gunfire. Whether it was the panicked survivors screaming for their lives or
the ravenous zombies howling for blood, any pretense of stealth had been
abandoned. As such, the crew opened fire, picking off biters with brutal
precision as the refugees continued their retreat.

    Even
Natalie had begun putting her shotgun to deadly effect, splitting the skull of
a would-be killer open like smashing a rotten pumpkin. She had resolved to
protect Thomas, if no one else, and any ghoul that got near was either
spattered across the tunnel wall or skewered through the eye on her prom-tip.

    The
more blood she drew, the less fear consumed her heart, and Natalie steadily
gave herself over to the thrill of combat. She had long since lost track of
their location, not even paying attention to who else was still traveling in
her party. A primal part of her was painfully aware of the fact that none of it
would matter anyway if she wound up dead.

    Illuminating
the path before her with her headlamp revealed BJ ushering Rico up a ladder,
followed by Stephen and Lia. Casting a glance behind her revealed a very weary
and filth-stained Marco, grimly nodding at Natalie before turning to address
the crowd of zombies swelling behind him.

    They
were on a thin walkway beside the sewer water, and as she took up position
alongside Marco, Natalie was thankful that the biters were unable to escape the
bottleneck without falling into the waste. They didn’t have to win this fight.
They just had to buy enough time for everyone to make it up the ladder and out.

    “Marco,
legs!” Natalie shouted the order between gunshots, but she had made her point.
Rather than aiming for the head to put the ghouls down, taking shots at their
legs caused a sizeable obstruction. While the zombies attempted to crawl, they
were trampled, but their flailing arms caught in the legs of the dead above
them. They were gaining ground, and quickly, but crippling was more efficient
than killing.

    “We’re
clear, fall back!” BJ had finished helping the remaining survivors climb out of
the sewer, and returned his attention to saving his team. As Natalie and Marco
were forced to raise their prom-tips to handle a walker that had broken out
ahead of the pack, the hulking man sent it flying back into the pile with a
heavy straight kick to its chest.

    Marco
smacked Natalie’s shoulder hard, his not-so-subtle way of telling her to make a
break for it. Following his lead, she sprinted to the ladder and began climbing
as quickly as she could. BJ was right behind her, and as always, Marco brought
up the rear. If things had been less dire, Natalie might have been surprised to
recognize that she was worried about the man.

    A
rough pair of hands gripped Natalie’s arm and yanked her out of the manhole.
Rico was trying to get everyone clear of the sewer as quickly as possible,
likely so he could seal the pipe with its cover and cut down on the noise
spilling out from it.

    BJ
was next, and to Natalie’s relief, Marco at last, Rico immediately manhandling
the cap into place behind them. They were both filthy but appeared to be
unharmed, though the same couldn’t be said of the rest of their party. Thomas
and Stephen were both pale as sheets, but Lia was shaking her head, sobbing
quietly. There were three others with them, whose names Natalie did not know,
but one was bleeding badly. A bite, plain as day, already weeping on his arm.

    Grimly,
Rico raised his weapon. They all knew what he meant to do, and though they each
understood that the man was doomed, one of the other refugees stepped forward
to defend him anyway. From the way she was crying, and the matching wedding
rings on each of their hands, Natalie guessed she was his wife.

    “No,
no no, wait. Just wait. I know he was bit, but look,” the woman revealed a
series of fetid scratch marks running down one shoulder, “I’m infected too.
Just let us go. We won’t come back. I swear we won’t.” She was sobbing now, and
her husband was resting at her feet with a look of grave understanding on his
face. He looked to Rico and, with the barest of nods, gave him the okay.

    There
would be many times in the future when Natalie would remember the look on
Rico’s face at that moment. It was a mix of such deep remorse and anger more
powerful than anything she had ever experienced for herself. In one fluid
motion, he plunged the tip of his rifle through the woman’s skull. At that same
moment, Marco had performed a similar execution on the man who had consigned
himself to death.

    Natalie
was surprised at Marco’s action, and when she looked to see if Rico had
intended for his cousin to join him in clearing the wounded, she saw a similar
look of confusion on his face.

    “Your
heart’s too good to be doing stuff like this, cuz. It ain’t your job.” Marco’s
explanation was simple, and though he spoke almost condescendingly, his love
for his cousin was obvious. He didn’t seem to care about killing people, that
much was clear, but it appeared he drew the line at forcing his family to do
the same.

    Somberly,
the group picked a nearby building and agreed to rest there for the remainder
of the day. It was a two story laundromat, and after quickly checking to ensure
it was clear, they were able to effectively block off the stairs to the upper
floor and make their camp.

    Natalie
couldn’t speak for the others, but everything felt hazy. Ensuring that the
building was empty was a sloppy process, and she knew it. If there had been
dead inside, they likely would have made a mistake, but their luck had returned
to them. They were alone now, and suddenly very tired.

    No
one spoke. In truth, Natalie couldn’t imagine there was anything to say. The
outpost was probably gone, or at the very least, the refugees were dead. It was
possible that others had gotten the same idea to use the tunnels, but Natalie
didn’t think it likely.

    It
was too much to process. Natalie had a bedroll in her pack, though she couldn’t
find the will to unroll it. Marco was resting with Rico, his arm draped over
his older cousin in a show of familial support. BJ was staring out the window
at nothing, his eyes unfocused and his face haggard. Lia and Stephen were
huddled together along with a bald, middle-aged stranger she didn’t recognize,
and Thomas… Thomas was curled up in the corner of the room, his back to the
rest of them.

    Part
of Natalie wanted to comfort him. Being forced to relive this nightmare again
was something she couldn’t imagine, but for all of her sympathy, she was
finished. Not two steps into the room they were hiding in, she had collapsed to
the ground, and she was content to stay here until morning.

    The
afternoon sun still blazed cheerily, blissfully unaware of the massacre that
had taken place. Natalie wanted to sleep, to just close her eyes and make
everything go away, but closing her eyes only served to invite nightmare
visions of what had happened.

    Almost
as if she were in a dream, Natalie began to dig in her pack.
My journal. I
just need to distract myself. Write anything. Write anything…
It wasn’t
likely to help, but stewing in the strange, lethargic stew of apathy that she
found herself in was making her feel worse.

    Every
thought Natalie had was sluggish, and every few seconds she felt a burst of
furious emotion welter in her chest before suddenly sputtering out as quickly
as it had come. She felt like she was on the razor’s edge of having a meltdown;
if there was anything that could bring her back from the brink, it was writing.

    With
a heavy hand, Natalie put pen to paper and tried to come to terms with the
reality of her day, the only noise to distract her coming from Lia’s strangled
sobbing. Misery had never felt so overwhelming.

Dear Journal.

I’ve spent a long time
staring at those two words. Frankly, I don’t really know what else to say. At
this point, I’m just forcing myself to write because… what? I’m hoping it’s
going to do something? Maybe it’s going to make me feel better?

It isn’t. There’s no
bringing those people back. Everything that happened, everything that went
wrong, there’s no changing it.

How many people do you think
died, Journal? How many hundreds, maybe thousands of human beings just got
snuffed out like candles on a birthday cake?

It doesn’t matter, does it.
I mean really, in the end, it doesn’t make a difference. So they died, big
deal. We all die. Tons of people already have, long before this. It happens,
especially these days.

No, you know what, fuck
that. I refuse to believe that.

Those people would still be
around if the military had listened to us instead of throwing us out. But no,
we got ignored, and so everybody else had to pay the price while they fell back
to their safe inner ring and hid.

Shit, the bastards probably
wanted this to happen. Think about it. Really put your mind to the grindstone
and consider everything that led up to this.

We had evidence, undeniable
proof that things were going to get worse before they got better. That proof
got buried under tons of bricks in an impossibly small time frame. Somehow,
whoever did it managed to do it without making a ton of noise, which, now color
me fucking suspicious here, I didn’t think was possible in the first place.

So it had to have been set
up ahead of time. There is no way, no fucking way, somebody could drop two
medium-sized buildings down spur of the moment and not have it create a goddamn
thunderous applause. It was done carefully, and since they didn’t have time for
that, it was prepared ahead of time. Long before we got there.

Somebody who was with
Thomas, or Hell, maybe even Thomas himself, set all of that up for us to find.
I would say the military might not have been involved, but I swear to God, they
went above and beyond going out of their way to ignore everything we said.

I know I’m being paranoid,
but with everything that’s happened, it’s justified. I’m still not sure who to
trust. I’ve thought about Thomas’ involvement with the whole thing, but I have
a hard time believing he was a part of it now.

At one point I was so
paranoid about him that I spoke to Mejhit before the attack about his burns,
and she said they were definitely real. After that, I started thinking about
the role he played in everything, just to make sure he was safe to be around.

I mean, he did lead us
straight there, he gave us that information, but we’d also had reports of
gunfire in the area that was bound to lead us to the corpse anyway. We didn’t
need a guide.

He could be a spy trying to
keep an eye on things, but for who? Military already controlled the outpost and
could put ears anywhere they needed without a problem, so they had no reason to
bring in a new guy.