Haha, so 48 hours turned into like 2 weeks
in my defense, I had to go out of town and then I just got SC2
"Something about all this doesn't add up. Maybe that dream wasn't real. Like maybe the thing with me and Max, OK. But maybe Benny was fucking with you for that part."
"Maybe," you said slowly. "It felt pretty real, though."
"Well, do you have any other ideas?"
"I..."
"... don't really know," you finished, after a pause.
"So we still don't know if Benny is an actual flesh and blood being or not," Jesse said, brushing a strand of hair off her eye-patch.
"I somehow doubt he's 'real' in that sense, at least," you said. "He's got to be just some sort of trick of my own mind."
"But you said... oh, fuck it," Jesse said, throwing her hands up. "Let's just go."
"I think Kyle might be... coming for us," you said slowly, to Jesse's back.
She turned slightly. "How would he know where to find us?"
"If you were right about him being infected, which my dream seems to also suggest, then..."
"Christ," Jesse said. "This linked mind/hivemind shit is just... too unreal."
"We should be keeping an eye out for him, just in case," you said gently.
Finally Jesse nodded. You got the sense she was regretting coming to find you again.
Soon enough you found a working pickup truck, keys left in the ignition, driven off the road into a ditch. You put the bikes in the back and Max hopped happily in the middle seat between the two of you.
Three hours later you were turning back on the road where you, Nicole, David and Jacob had briefly encountered a man and wife still living in their house off the highway. As you drove by it, you could see the house had been reduced to a smoldering ruin. Nothing living nearby.
You passed nothing and no one. The skies were empty, cloudless. Fields of rice and grain dotted with the occasional farmhouse. Most but not all had been bombed out, hollow shells of wood and smoke drifting into the nowhere skies.
A loud pop, followed by a thud thud thud. The truck lurched.
You pulled over, got out. Flat tire. Inspecting it closer, you discovered --
"Uh, you might wanna look at this," Jesse said from behind you. Max whimpered.
A yellowish-green stain on the road, trailing in the direction of your vehicle. It hadn't been in front of you.
The question died on your lips as a sudden mass of crawlers began to pour over the edge of the road from the field.
Jesse was already running, down the road, away from them. Max loped alongside her, snapping at a crawler as it reached out with long vines.
They were coming from both sides. Hiding in the tall grass. The ditches. An ambush. Jesus. One of them must have jumped out in front of your car, sacrificed itself like a land mine to --
All your supplies. Back in the truck. Christ. Jesse running backward. Pausing to fire her pistol at the front runners. You catching up. A bullet skipped on the pavement ahead of you.
"Come on!" she shouted.
The crawlers pursued you for over twenty minutes. They were fast, alarmingly so, but it seemed like they couldn't keep up that speed forever. But over distance, they would run you down. Jesse, you, even Max, panting now, doing your best to keep jogging, keep ahead of the crawling carpet of death behind you.
You couldn't keep this up. You'd have to find some way to get away from them. As you ran you could actually begin to feel them, in your mind, in that strange echo memory. Like tiny itchy welts on your skin. Hungry.
You crested a small hill and saw a small farmhouse not too far off the side of the highway. You were less than 20 minutes (by car) away from your hometown, but it looked like you weren't going to get there anytime soon. You pointed at the house.
"The roof!" you gasped. Jesse nodded.
Cutting across the field and then the yard, frantically looking for any way to ascend. The crawlers less than a minute behind.
Around back, over the short and warn wooden fence. A small patch of overgrown green grass in a field of yellow. A plastic yellow slide and a swing set. A garden hose snaking through the grass. An aluminum ladder leaning against the back wall.
"Up!" you shouted. Jesse climbed ahead of you. You followed and were about to throw the ladder down.
"Max!" Jesse screamed.
Shit. Below, he ran back and forth, barking. A pitiful attempt to climb the ladder. Falling back to the ground.
"Shit," you said this time. "Come on, Max! Come on!"
Max tried again. Again, he failed.
"What do we do?" Jesse asked, her voice cracking.
*********************************************
1. Climb down, grab him under an arm, climb back up one armed.
2. Too risky to climb. Fortify yourself inside a room inside the house.
3. Leave Max to die.
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Topic: The Ends Act 5: The Return (Read 7381 times)