We book it again, and Emily doesn’t hold back this time. She’s much faster than me, but if I’m being honest, that’s true for most people.
I never needed running speed in my line of work, only raw strength to handle heavy equipment and materials.
When she realizes I’ve fallen behind, she slows down and waits for me to get back in line. There’s a question in her eyes, but she won’t voice it.
“Now we keep going,” I try my hand at guessing her thoughts.
She nods, so I’m satisfied.
----------------------------------------
We run ahead of the horde for a while, but not by much. Part of it is down to stamina conservation, we still need it for the occasional scuffle, but it’s mostly to keep track of the monsters and make sure they don’t change course.
Which they don’t. The horde marches in a straight line, led by the wave boss. Every so often, when they come across smaller groups of monsters, the Marrower lets out more of those shrill calls that make them join it. The horde keeps growing, like the boss is building up an army for an assault.
At first, I assume it’s doing that in order to take Karen’s safe zone by storm. But the more I think about it, the more I get this feeling that I’m wrong. That there’s something I’m missing.
I voice my concerns to Emily when we stop for another stamina break.
“What do we know? It’s a siege, right?” I ask, and she nods. “A siege that’s made up of multiple monster waves.” She nods again. “Then there are also three wave bosses, but what role do they play in all of this?”
Emily shoots me a questioning look, and she shrugs.
“I might have an idea, but it might be stupid. Let me know if it’s stupid.” She nods, so I continue. “So the monsters spawned — or mutated — all over the place. But they only bunched up in small groups that moved around at random. I think that’s what the bosses are for, to pull the monsters together into waves and coordinate them.”
“Makes sense,” Emily says.
I look at her for a long moment, still taken aback whenever she speaks. But I quickly shake it off and continue.
“So we have a siege that’s made up of waves, which are led by wave bosses. But a siege implies an attack on a fortified position, right?” She nods. “I thought that fortified position might be your safe zone, but I think I’m wrong.”
“Yeah,” she says without further elaboration.
“Yeah what? You think it’s your safe zone, too?”
She shakes her head, and before I realize what I’m doing, I let out a sigh as my shoulders slouch. This feels eerily close to talking to a brick wall, except this particular wall answers now and again when it feels like it.
“We need to figure out where they’re going. If we can do that, then maybe we can do something about them.”
Emily frowns. She pulls out an arrow, leans down, and starts tracing some lines in the dirt. She makes one X, then another one a little further away. I watch, not interrupting her. Next up she draws some squares here and there, and she writes “safe zone” under one of them.
It takes me a moment to realize she’s drawing a map of Stelver. A very simple map that leaves out a lot of details, but a map nonetheless.
“This is where we found the horde, and this is where we are now,” I say as I point at the two X’s in turn. She nods and draws a straight line through both X’s, capping it with an arrow to show the direction the horde is moving.
I take another arrow from her and start making my own additions to the map. I mark down all of the groups I’ve found, then I go on to add other potential locations of interest. Emily takes a step back, content to watch me work after she got me started on the right track.
I jot down more boxes to represent every major neighborhood and cluster of houses — none to scale in either size or distance from each other. But that’s not important, I just need a bare bones layout of the town. When I’m done, the conclusion all but slaps me in the face and I kick myself for not figuring it out sooner.
I extend the line representing the horde’s path until it hits one of the boxes, the one I labeled “downtown”.
“That’s where they’ll hit if they don’t change course.”
Emily nods.
“Of course,” I grumble. “It’s a siege, and they need to kill all of us. So they’d obviously be heading towards the biggest gathering of people.”
Emily nods again, but I can make out a shiver passing through her body. I don’t blame her, this shit is scaring me too.
“How’s your stamina? Are you good to go?”
She nods, so we take off again.
----------------------------------------
We keep the horde a quarter mile behind us until we reach Karen’s safe zone, and they don’t seem to be deviating from the predicted course.
That’s bad news. With the way their numbers are growing, they’ll hit downtown hard. Probably too hard. I don’t yet know the situation over there, but even with hundreds of people, it would be near impossible to repel a horde this size.
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We need to thin them out, and while I have an idea on how to do that, it’s downright suicidal.
I share my plan with Emily since she’s a part of it, hoping for an opinion. She hears me out, and while she’s a great listener, she makes for a lousy planning partner.
“What do you think? Should we try it?”
She nods.
“Any…alterations you’d like to suggest?”
She shakes her head. I sigh. Business as usual.
I’m surprised to still find six people on the barricade when we reach the safe zone. If memory serves, they’re a couple of gun classes, a couple of close quarters fighters, and a couple of mages. They help us up and over the cars, and I look around to find everyone else gone. The safe zone is barren.
“What are you guys still doing here?” I ask, feeling a pang of irritation at their presence.
I absently notice Emily scooting back, partially hiding behind me. God, she really can’t stand social situations.
“Waiting for you two,” one of them answers. I take a closer look, and even though it’s hard to recognize him without all that blood on him, I realize it’s Morris. “Karen said you might need a hand, and we volunteered.”
What I need is to get them out of our hair as soon as possible. The plan requires quite a bit of destruction, and I’m worried they might oppose it because of that. Not to mention that I’d have more people to worry about. It’s simpler if it’s just me and Emily.
“We figured out where the horde is headed,” I say. “They’ll hit downtown.”
Morris turns a shade paler, and he mumbles, “we really have to get moving, then. We have to warn them.”
“You lot do that,” I continue. “Run off ahead and warn everyone. Make sure you find any stragglers too, and get them out of the horde’s way.”
“What about you?”
I share a look with Emily. She has one hand on the bow, which she holds at the ready, and the other one is idly fidgeting with the end of an arrow in her quiver. The expression on her face is like a stone wall. I nod, and she nods back.
“We’ll slow them down and thin them out before they reach downtown,” I say.
“We?!” Morris explodes.
He takes a few strides towards Emily, but I put up an arm to block him. Wrong move, I realize all too late. Before I know what the hell is going on, I have two guns and a glowing hand aimed at me. Morris and the other fighter have weapons in their hands all of a sudden, their bodies tense.
“The fuck?!” I yell.
I turn to look over my shoulder real quick, and I find Emily further behind me than I expected. She's down on one knee, her bow drawn back and holding six arrows ready to be shot.
“Come on, Em,” Morris pleads, trying to duck under my arm. I take a step back and block him again, noticing how the guns move to follow me. “You saw the size of that horde, you can’t be serious! It would be suicide!”
He tries to shove past me, but I block him again.
“Let's all calm down!” I urge, not wanting things to escalate any further.
“You mind your own business, asshole!” Morris yells and takes a swing at me with his weapon.
It's nothing too impressive, just a length of steel pipe. But it has enough heft to shatter my jaw when it hits, nearly dropping me cold. I swing back on instinct, my fist connecting with Morris's face and sending him sprawling.
Shit instantly hits the fan. One of the guns barks and my right leg explodes with pain. I go to move, to dodge the other gun, but the mage lets loose on his skill. A fireball erupts from his hands and hits me, propelling me backwards as it burns away clothes and chars skin.
I collide with one of the cars, shattering the back window and denting the metal. Pain floods me from every direction as I collapse in a heap.
A heartbeat later, Emily releases the bow. I look up just in time to see all six arrows bending in the air, hitting one target each and piercing their thighs. Her hands move deftly, retrieving six more arrows that she nocks right away.
“Next ones are headshots,” she warns.
Everyone is hurt and disoriented, but one of the gun men raises his firearm. I grunt, gritting broken teeth together as I try to push up to my feet. Realizing I can't, I use the car for support.
“Staph! Staph!” I yell, butchering the words. But I can't help it, my jaw is barely holding on and my tongue is flapping freely in my mouth.
I limp in front of Emily, one arm raised and the other one unresponsive. Morris pulls the arrow out of his leg and gets up, but the other fighter, who hasn't done anything up until this point, moves in front of him.
“Morris, man, that's enough. Let's go,” he pleads.
“Get out of my fucking way! I'll teach him a lesson!” Morris barks. “What, he thinks that because he's some cop's son, he can just whip his dick around and people will take it?!”
The fighter looks around at the others, and the gunmen lower their firearms. After a moment, the mage lets whatever skill he was building up fade.
“You already taught him,” the man tries. “Please, don't do something stupid.”
“He'll tell the others,” Morris protests.
“He won't. You won't, right?” The man asks, whipping his head around to look at me.
I try to breathe in and answer, but the movement rattles my ribs and I choke. The system is already working its magic, but it'll take a while to heal this much damage. The assholes almost zeroed out my health.
“Please,” the man says again, turning back to Morris. “If he tells anyone, we'll…we'll kill him then. Okay?”
Maybe it's his choice of words. Painting it clearly like that, making it obvious that Morris was about to kill another human. Or maybe it's just the madness of the situation sinking in. Hell, it could be a lot of things. Whatever it is, it makes Morris deflate. He lowers the pipe, and he takes a step back.
He spits on the ground and mumbles ungrateful bitch under his breath. The others gather around him, and they all start walking away together.
“You got lucky this time, Jack!” He yells back at me. “Don't ever get in my way again!”
I don't dare fall off my feet until they're well and truly gone. Not like I could've done much against them, anyway, but I don't want to give him the satisfaction. When I'm sure they're not coming back, I slowly turn to face Emily.
She's still down on one knee, but she loosened the grip on her bow. Her face points down at the ground in such a way that I can only see the top of her hoodie.
“Em-mily?” I ask, my jaw popping back into place half-way through.
She lifts her head to look at me. Gone is the stone cold expression, replaced with fear and terror and agony. Her cheeks are red, and her eyes are puffy, ringed with fresh tears.
She only says one word, a meek “sorry”. Then she looks back down.
I limp over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She shies away at first, as if my touch burns, but then the floodgates open and she leans into my hand as she starts sobbing.
I just stand there, not saying anything.