They continued through overgrown farmlands in silence. Dalton West had sported a shining smirk since the incident with the dolo, while Sterling had been pouty and distant from the group. August remained alert and ready for as long as he could, but the seemingly endless roll of grassy fields and dilapidated houses had lulled him into a sort of daze. He daydreamed about what would happen whenever they finally reached the nest. What would it look like? What would they find in there? Would they even make it to the nest? And even if everything went well, as unlikely as that was, what would happen if and when they returned home.
These were all questions that had been smoldering in the back of his mind. Extended silence worked like a bellows to these worries, and now they flared at the front of his thoughts. He’d keep them to himself, of course. He was almost certain that the others wrestled with the same questions and had the same amount of answers. Even the general, who did a good job maintaining an air of self-assuredness, was just as cast away in obscure darkness as the rest of them.
As time went on, the rookie’s thoughts turned grim. They changed from logical concerns to frightening images that served no purpose other than to discourage and demoralize. He imagined himself holding Wolf dead in his arms, Sterling choking on his own exterminator gasses, and Belmont dead with vacant eyes, her herbs strewn around her. Dalton West was easy to picture dead. August had seen it many times in the movies. Rosek… his heart sank. His twisted mind had all sorts of fates drawn up for Hilde Rosek. One moment, she was set ablaze, and in the next, something dragged her away while she reached out for August to help. Here she lay dead and pale. There she stood, held up only by the horde of zombies that ripped at her flesh.
His thumping heart finally snapped him out of it. He turned to check on Rosek. He knew nothing had happened, but the thoughts had turned so vivid near the end that he just had to make sure. Trent Sterling stood inches away. August jumped at the sight.
Sterling laughed. “You alright, rookie?”
August glanced past the exterminator, saw Rosek at the rear of the group in her plodding mech suit, and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t answer and looked ahead. Sterling moved to his side and pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket.
“You know what this is?” Sterling asked.
August looked at the smoke and shrugged. The answer was obvious, but he wasn’t in the mood to partake in one of the exterminator’s games.
“It’s my last cigarette.”
“You went through that pack pretty quick for someone who’s quitting,” August said. “You might as well just light it up, enjoy it, then you get to quit whether you want to or not.”
Sterling lowered his head and watched his marching feet. “It’s worse than that. This is my last cigarette… before my last cigarette. I don’t know why, but the idea of having only one scares me more than the idea of having none. So technically, this is my last smoke before I start freaking out.”
“Then you shouldn’t be calling West out,” August said. “If you’re gonna be freaking out, maybe you’re the one we should be worried about.”
Sterling met the rookie’s eyes and sneered. August wasn’t sure why he’d said it. He’d been pretty good at keeping his thoughts to himself up until that point, and it wasn’t like it had accidentally slipped out either. He’d meant to say it, and he’d say it again. He braced himself for the imminent punch, but Belmont spoke first.
“Zombie, ten o’clock.”
His blood chilled as the squad halted in the middle of the old highway. He wasn’t ready to see those things again. He supposed you could never truly be prepared to see something like a corpse walking around, hungering for your flesh, but he felt as though he’d paid his dues, so to speak. What he’d gone through in the Westendale runs with Rosek was enough interaction with those monsters for any lifetime.
He wished he could just keep his eyes on the road and let the squad deal with it. The monsters weren’t dangerous, so long as you were wrapped up in armor and not taken by surprise or overwhelmed by a massive horde. It was impossible to resist looking. He turned his head toward ten o’clock, joining the rest of the crew, and saw it.
What looked like a man stood in the open field. He was too far to make out any detail, but the creature must not have sensed them yet, for it stood still and unwavering. August thought it might’ve been another scarecrow until it took a few steps toward them.
“That’s no zombie,” General Wolf said.
August parted his lips, intending to ask how the general knew, then he saw the gun. The man held it tight to his shoulder and aimed it at the squad. He approached. “Stop where you are.” The stranger’s voice was faint from such a distance, but it carried clear on the breeze. He spoke in the common language of the dome.
Sterling drew and lifted his pistol. Wolf immediately ordered him to lower it. Sterling obeyed. An uneasy feeling hovered over the squad as August wondered what Wolf was thinking. The stranger was easily outgunned. Why should they allow him the advantage?
The squad was frozen as the stranger closed the distance and became clearer to the eye. He was young—maybe even younger than August by a year or two. He moved in careful but practiced strides, keeping the gun steady and fixed on the squad. The weapon itself was a vintage double-barreled shotgun. August had always wanted to see one in person, but not while staring down the bore of a loaded one.
“Who are you?” His soft voice confirmed his apparent youth. The stranger had stopped moving about thirty yards from the squad. The vintage shotgun was just as dangerous as anything under the dome from that range.
Wolf took one step forward, which earned him the shotgun’s attention. He put his hands up. “I’m General Wolf, and this is my squad. We’ve been sent on a special mission from the dome. We mean you no harm.”
The young man spat on the ground at the mention of the dome, and a snarl took over his features. He took a couple of steps forward. His skin was the color of rust, but his smooth movements were anything but rusty. “What are you doing outside the egg?”
Egg? August had never heard anyone refer to the dome as an egg before.
Sterling laughed. “Why don’t you cut the shit? Look at us. Do you think you can scare us with that antique fire stick? You’re just lucky my general wants you alive. I was ready to blast you at first sight.”
Stolen story; please report.
The young man turned his upper body sharply and pulled the trigger. The blast was louder than a firecracker, and it echoed over the fields for miles. A nearby fencepost stood half as high as it had a moment ago, while its former upper half lay strewn in splintered shards about the grass.
August looked back at the young man who’d just finished reloading the gun and had it pointed at Wolf again already. The boy was shaking a bit now but didn’t appear nervous. Sterling stepped back and groped at his cigarette pocket.
“Let’s keep calm,” Wolf said. “We have no dealings with you or your people, whoever you or they might be. We’re out here for a single purpose, and that is to destroy a massive nest of dolorium a short ways west of here.”
The snarl melted from the stranger’s face. It seemed as if he was trying to fight off the curling of his lips, but the smile won out. “Vanno, bless you if this is true. They’ve gotten worse of late. Started out as occasional dangers, pests, really, but now they’re bigger and more numerous than ever. Attacks used to be rare and casualties even rarer, but now, both are all too common.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Wolf said as the stranger lowered his shotgun. “We’ll do whatever we can to put an end to it.”
“Did you guys walk all the way from the egg?”
“No,” Wolf said. “We were supposed to fly to the nest, but our craft went down a ways east of Westendale.”
“I’m surprised you made it this far,” the stranger said. “It’s getting bad out here. If it ain’t the bugs, it’s the zombies. If it ain’t the zombies, it’s… I’m glad you’re here. It’s about time you egg-dwellers remember you aren’t the only people left in this world.”
Up until Vern Slupman’s goodbye letter, August had been led to believe that the folk under the dome were, in fact, the only surviving members of the human race. That much like the centaurs, dwarves, and the aquin, humanity had become extinct outside the dome. But there one stood. He was lucid, not undead, and he even knew their language.
The stranger glanced west and met Wolf’s gaze with a worried expression. “Were you guys meaning to go straight that way?” He pointed west.
Wolf nodded.
The stranger’s eyes widened. “No. That would take you straight through the heart of Chrome Chargers territory.”
Dalton West guffawed. His laugh echoed over the fields much like the shotgun blast had.
“Colonel West, what has gotten into you?” Wolf asked in an authoritative voice.
West couldn’t control his laughter enough to speak. Rosek stormed his way in her bulky mech suit and grabbed him by the Kevlar vest with her powerful metallic fingers. Her cracked visor lifted, and she shouted. “Get a hold of yourself, movie-man.”
Her wounded face contorted in anger. August still didn’t know why she harbored such rage for West. In his short time with the squad, August couldn’t find much to complain about when it came to the old sniper. He mostly kept to himself and had also proved that he was still effective in battle.
“I’m sorry,” West said. He pulled away from Rosek, and she let go, then he moved to Wolf’s side and faced the stranger. “Maybe I misheard, but did you say ‘the Chrome Chargers’?”
The stranger nodded with furrowed brows. “Why is that funny to you? You damn egglings think everything is a joke.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,” West said, suppressing another bout of laughter. “It’s just that the Chrome Chargers were a crew of bad guys from one of my earlier movies. Are you telling me there’s an actual group of thugs out there that go by that name?”
“Yes,” the stranger said, losing patience.
“Do they actually ride around on motorcycles and wear leather like the vintage folk used to?” West giggled after the question.
“They do,” the stranger said. “They also kill, rape, steal, and terrorize. I’ve lost many loved ones to them, and our community has taken in many refugees from places that no longer exist thanks to their destruction. But you can continue laughing about it all you want.”
West’s face sobered, and he returned toward the back of the squad.
“I’ll be honest with you, mister,” General Wolf said. “I don’t know anything about the world outside the dome. I thought I did. But up until a couple of days ago, I wasn’t even aware that anyone other than us existed. I’m a high-ranking officer, and so far, this whole mission has done nothing but teach me how little I know about the world outside the dome and that I might not even know what the hel is going on within the dome. Just know that no matter how offensive we might be or how much you hate us, our sole intention is to destroy that nest.”
“I believe you,” the stranger said. “But I can’t let you continue on your current route.”
“You don’t have a say,” Sterling said.
Wolf glared at the exterminator, then softened and met the stranger’s eyes. “We’re going to that nest by any means. We’ve already fought off dolo, and a couple of our squadmates were unfortunate enough to encounter some zombies. We’re ready for anything.”
“What if I said you didn’t have to take such a risk?”
“I’d ask you to elaborate.”
“There’s another way,” the stranger said. “You don’t have to go through Chrome Charger territory. There’s an underground pass that leads to my village. You can come with me, resupply, then be on your way from there.”
“I’m surprised you trust us enough to bring us to your people,” Wolf said.
“I’m a pretty good judge of character,” the stranger said. “I can tell by the look of someone’s eye if they’re evil or not. You guys aren’t. Even the trash-talker over there,” he nodded toward Sterling.
“Give us a second,” Wolf said to the stranger before turning to face the squad. They huddled and discussed in lowered voices. “What do you guys think?”
“Oh, now you want our opinions?” Sterling said.
“Could you cut it out for just one God-damned second, Sterling?” Wolf said.
“I don’t trust it,” Rosek said.
“Why not?” Belmont asked. “He seems harmless to me.”
“It’s just weird,” Rosek said. “How can he speak our language so fluently? He even comes out with terms like ‘trash-talker.’ He speaks as though it’s his primary language, and we didn’t even know there was anyone alive out here. It’s just weird.”
“My movies have definitely had some influence outside the dome,” West said. “Chrome Chargers. I seriously thought he was pulling my leg there for a minute. I think Rosek’s right. Something’s off.”
“Well, motorcycles and vintage guns are definitely outdated,” Wolf said, “but they can still hurt. Just look at what happened to that fence post. I’d say if we have an opportunity to avoid running into a gang like that, we should take advantage.”
“What if there’s more about the outside world that we don’t know?” August said. He always felt nervous when adding his opinion, but the squad just looked at him and awaited elaboration. “Look at everything we’ve already learned. Do any of you really think that the mystery stops there? Or is it more likely that we’re simply scratching the surface of a whole pile of secrets?”
“What are you getting at, Private?” Wolf said.
“Maybe I’m just paranoid, but—”
“Understandable after everything you’ve seen so far,” Belmont said.
August nodded and continued. “What if this village he’s leading us to has a bunch of people waiting for us with modern technology? What if these guys outside the dome hate us and would kill or torture us on sight? What if—”
“I see where you’re coming from,” Dalton West said, “but you can come up with a list of ‘what ifs’ for just about anything. What we have to do is determine what is most likely based on the evidence that’s presented to us. Look at his clothes. Denim bottoms and a woolen top don’t scream advanced tech to me. He’s got a vintage gun. He looked damn near petrified when he saw us.”
“I thought he seemed calm,” August said.
West chuckled. “Trust me. That boy was shaking in his boots. Slupman said the dolo nest was real, and this kid’s eyes lit up when we mentioned we were here to torch it. And to top it all off, he seems legitimately frightened of the…” he held back laughter, “the Chrome Chargers. One of you might say he’s acting or trying to trick us. As a veteran thespian, I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that the boy ain’t acting. If he is, he deserves a golden dome award.”
“It’ll have to come down to a vote,” Wolf said. “Those in favor of following the boy?”
West, Belmont, and Wolf raised their hands.
“Those in favor of continuing our current path?”
August, Rosek, and Sterling raised theirs.
“Even votes goes to the general’s decision,” Wolf said. “We’re following the boy.”