2. "Yeah. Let's keep going. We can make it past them."
The two of you continue down the road. The two Faceless ahead of you move to intercept.
"Move between the cars!" you say. "Keep them on the other side of the wreck!"
You step off the curb and head into the street. Your shoes splash in a puddle in the gutter, sending ripples that shoot off like sluggish arrows.
Jesse turns and begins to follow you. Ahead of you, the nearest Faceless, a fat man with only his ripped boxer shorts on, screams at you. His comrade, an old lady with one arm torn off, vines twisting from the bloody socket at the shoulder, steps bowlegged to try to block you off.
You and Jesse are too fast for them. Even in your injured state, you're easily able to move three times as fast. You simply navigate around a car, putting the vehicle between you and the Faceless. Their vines reach over the abandoned wrecks, scratching the metal roofs, trailing marks like fingernails on a chalkboard.
You've crossed to the left side of the street now. You continue along the sidewalk. The two Faceless you just passed turn to follow, staggering under their invisible loads.
About thirty feet from passing the Faceless, there is a sudden crashing noise directly above you, like shattering glass. Shards rain down around you, one slicing into your leg painfully.
You look up. A figure is leaning like a sick person out of a window. It's just a shadow in the fog.
"Look out!" you scream, and tackle Jesse in front of you, pushing her forward.
The Faceless lands, er, face first on the ground where Jesse was just a second ago with a heavy thud. Despite falling at least three stories, it immediately begins to rise, the vines pushing it upright.
You get to your feet and pull Jesse up, who is looking back at the large male Faceless in street clothes just a few feet behind you. A vine snakes toward your feet as you dance backward away from it.
"Come on!" you say, pulling her away. Jesse turns and starts to run again.
Buildings on either side of you. A seafood place. An unidentifiable storefront behind a security fence. Office buildings, some as high as four stories. You pass one with the main entrance standing open. There's blood on the door. A dry cleaners. You can see in the front window, it looks like there are bodies hung on the line. A pawn shop. A candy store. Another unidenti --
"Jesse!" you say. She turns. Behind you, maybe the length of a football field, the three Faceless continue to follow you, even more behind them perhaps, lost in the mist. The fog obscures and dampens your view, the three Faceless are mere shadows.
"A pawn shop!" you say, pointing.
"So?" she asks, breathing hard.
"There might be guns!" you say.
Jesse looks over at the entrance to the shop across the street. It looks closed. The front window has reinforced bars in front of it. You can't see in.
"Even if we could get in, who's to say it has any? Or hasn't already been looted?" Jesse asks, hands on her knees. Her hair is damp in the cold mist, plastered against her head and face. Blood drips from a cut under her eye.
"It doesn't look loot --"
From ahead of you, another Faceless scream. Your head jerks around to look.
More of them, coming out of god-knows-where. Shadows, vague figures in the fog. At least five more, blocking your way forward. A few cars are parked along the side of the road between you and them. They advance silently, perhaps another hundred yards down the road.
"Fuck," you say under your breath.
Jesse looks around. Her gaze falls on something in the middle of the street. "Sewers!" she says, pointing.
You follow her arm to a manhole. "I don't know if that's a good idea," you say slowly.
"We've got to get off this street!" Jesse says. "You got any better ideas?"
*******************************
1. No. Go down the manhole, Jesse is right. This street is bad news.
2. Keep going. You can make it past the Faceless up ahead, if you're careful...
3. Turn around. Go back past the three Faceless behind, and go down Oak.
4. The pawn shop. See if you can get inside.
5. That open office building represents a sure way into cover. Head in. Maybe you can barricade yourself in there, figure out what to do from there.
*******************************
Poll
4 (66.7%)
Author
Topic: The Ends (Read 59174 times)