I take point as we approach the safe zone on foot, with Emily and Jessica closely behind me. A deep sense of deja vu invades me, reminding me of the first time we arrived. That was only days prior, and yet, it feels like such a distant memory.
Jessica keeps trying to make small talk, but when neither Emily or I answer, she takes the hint. I know why she does it, she's trying to take our minds off of things. To bring some levity to the heavy silence. But I can't do it.
Some defenders are atop the barricade a little distance away. They're still on high alert, but the fact that they're even here is a good sign. It means the battle is over.
Jessica, who is in the lead, changes direction to walk towards them. I pause, back in front of Garry's hunting store. The facade of the building is gone. The monsters tore through it. The inside is drowned in shadows, but I can make out the devastation.
“Jack?” Jessica asks when she notices I don't follow.
“You two go ahead, I need a minute.”
She looks worried, but after a long moment, she nods and leaves. I walk to the closest building and sit with my back to it, staring off into the distance. Emily plops down next to me and rests her head on my shoulder.
I doze off like that.
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I’m not sure for how long I was out, but probably no longer than half an hour. When I come to, I find Jessica and Pops standing over me. Pops takes my hand and, after he helps me up, he gives me a change of clothes. I put them on through the system, no longer caring about modesty, and we start walking in silence.
Derek and Carter wait for us by the barricade, both of them staring at their feet. They look up as we pass them, and I nod. They return the gesture and fall in line behind me.
The barricade is in shambles, so we pass through it and enter the safe zone. We march towards the apartment buildings to meet up with the others for an after battle report. The streets on the way are littered with corpses — both monster and human — and the signs of battle. Shattered windows, broken doors, half collapsed walls. I can see where the fighters used skills, leaving behind impact craters, spikes of rapidly melting ice or crumbling stone, char marks on the buildings and sidewalks.
Some people are outside, digging through the ruins for survivors and gathering the dead.
We were too slow in killing the wave boss. I was too slow.
The atmosphere is oppressive, the air thick with dread. Most of the people ignore us as we pass, but the occasional person does stop me. They thank me for killing the boss, give me their condolences for Karen, and then they return to work.
“How do they already know about that?” I ask Jessica, figuring she’s the one at fault.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” she quickly defends herself. “Ask those two.”
She points at Derek and Carter, who keep to themselves at the back of the group. The two weren’t exceptionally talkative to begin with, but they’re a little too quiet. When Jessica calls them out, they spring at attention.
“Explanation?” I demand, slowing down to fall in line with them.
Carter averts his eyes and Derek gives a heavy sigh.
“We told the fighters,” the latter admits. “Then they must’ve told other people, so word is spreading.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Everything,” Derek says, sounding guilty. “You and Karen deserve for people to know that the two of you saved their asses. We wanted them to know what you had to go through.”
So that’s what this is all about. They feel guilty for what happened, and for what they had to do to me. I’m between the two of them, so I put an arm around their shoulders and pull them closer in. Carter stiffens up like a board, and Derek melts.
“Don’t you worry about it, you hear me?” I say, butting heads with them in turn. “Thank you. I mean it. You two saved my ass, so I hope you didn’t leave that part out.”
They chuckle, and although it’s an uneasy gesture, I take it for now.
I get more details out of them as we walk. The horde hit pretty hard and broke through in multiple places, pushing the fighters back. Luckily, the majority of people followed orders. They alternated between fighting the groups and letting them through, splitting the burden with the inner defenders to weather the storm.
Then we killed the wave boss, and without its presence, the monsters stopped working together as effectively. The defenders pinned the monsters in the middle again, turning the battle into a slaughter.
We lost people, but it was a good effort overall. Our guys only returned for the mop-up.
“Clarissa?” I ask.
Pops shakes his head, and I fear the worst. But then he quickly adds, “she’s somewhere around, but she didn’t want to fight anymore. Said it’s not for her.”
“Okay.”
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That doesn’t surprise me. She was a great help, but she only followed Karen into the fight. She’d been part of her group initially. After seeing her leader die like that, it’s only natural that she wouldn’t want any more of it.
“What about James? Did you go tell him?” I ask Jessica. “I’d hate it for him to hear that kind of news from gossip.”
“I did,” Jessica says.
“And how’d he take it?”
“About how you’d expect,” she answers. “Him and his friends started crying. I left Karen’s body with them and they said they’d go bury her later, once the siege is over.”
“Okay.”
We near the park, and the crowd gets steadily denser. It's mostly fighters, though there are a lot of non combatant as well who volunteered to help with the clean-up. The first person notices us and starts whispering to someone else, who passes the word along. Soon enough, everyone is talking and looking at us. Some even point fingers.
I tense up, not sure what to expect. The crowd parts to make room for us, but the rest of the group bunches up together, just as tense as me. I feel a hand taking hold of my shirt from behind, and I look to find Emily. She presses her head into my back, seeming just about ready to sink into the ground and disappear.
Everyone falls silent, making for an eerie atmosphere. I stop to look around, and Emily bumps nose first into my back.
She lets out a small ouch.
“What's…” I start.
I don't get further than that. A man in the back of the crowd raises a bloody fireman's ax and he starts cheering. A lot more hands go up, and the people go wild. I can’t make out a single word they’re saying, but I feel the gratitude all the same.
I shake my head, but I grin a little. Pops keeps a stoic expression, but he stands ever so slightly taller. Emily is just about to die of embarrassment, not liking the attention. At the front of our group, Jessica preens.
Derek and Carter rush me from behind, whooping and hollering. They whisk me off my feet, and before I know what’s going on, I’m up on their shoulders. Emily, who somehow clings to my back through all of that, is lifted up with me. She lets go and falls away.
“Jack! Jack! Jack!” Derek and Carter chant together, one arm each holding me steady and the other ones pumping in the air.
The crowd takes after them. A hundred voices melt into one, all chanting my name. I’m not sure if I like this, it’s a bittersweet victory at best. But the people need it, so I give in and go with the flow. I raise my arms, I smile, I wave. I make myself look more confident than I feel.
Derek and Carter parade me through the park, keeping up the chanting. The crowd follows, picking up more and more people, more and more voices. We reach the apartment buildings, and I can see everyone still inside, leaning out the windows to see what the hell is going on.
One by one, they join in. Hands go up. People rush around, getting to the ground floor and pushing out through the doors.
My chest is tight, my heart drums a mile a minute, but I keep smiling and waving.
William is by one of the buildings with a small group of his men, and we share a quick look. He smiles and nods, then he turns to leave. I instead motion for him to come to me.
By the way his shoulders slouch, I figure he doesn't like it. But he doesn't have to, he just has to do it. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.
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The celebrations die down in a few minutes and the crowd starts dispersing. Derek and Carter set me down gently, and we go meet up with William.
Same deal as before. We lost more fighters, some of the walls crumbled, but we weathered the wave more or less okay. I take it all in, but I don’t say much.
“Psst,” Jessica hisses and elbows my ribs. “This is the part where you want to run off to your brother and help him with the final wave boss. We argue about it, you cave in, then we make a team and ride off to be heroes.”
The others look at her, a few shaking their heads.
“What?” Jessica says. “That’s how it’ll go, I’m just skipping the bullshit and getting to the end.”
“We’re not leaving yet,” I say, surprising her.
“Okay, wow, that thing hit you harder than I thought. Are you fine?”
She checks me over, but I stop her with a hand. “I’m fine, but we can’t just up and leave right away. We have to take care of things here first.”
We talk about it and plan out the rest of the day, though it’s mostly me talking. I can’t help but notice how everyone else just listens, even William. He has a placid smile on his face throughout, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He only adds a word or two here and there.
“Okay, let’s get to it,” I say to end the impromptu meeting and send everyone scattering to their duties.
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For the rest of the day and evening, we help with whatever needs to be done. Searching for survivors, rebuilding the walls, digging graves for the fallen. That pastor we found in the hilltop church, a man by the name of Giovanni, officiates the funerals.
I excuse myself from that part and leave before anyone can ask me to speak a few words for the dead.
Jessica sends Polly over to Mike’s safe zone, and the two talk for a bit. She shares our plans, and Mike gives the greenlight. Things are still under control over there, so there’s no need for us to rush over tonight.
I go from place to place as I’m needed, with Emily shadowing me throughout. Besides giving orders or asking for updates, I don’t speak much. I’m still not right in the head, and I can’t for the life of me pull myself together. I just want to hide away somewhere, but I force myself to keep going until everything is done and everyone we have left is safe.
Emily notices that something is off. I can see as much from how she carries herself, keeping her eyes pinned on me instead of on our surroundings. Even though she doesn’t answer me most of the time, she’s probably used to me filling the silence with random chatter by now. I’ve been a bit too quiet for a bit too long, so as we go from the main safe zone to the park and it’s just the two of us, she takes my hand and looks up at me.
“How are you?” She asks in that soft way of hers.
I shake my head and try to smile. “I’ll be fine, I just need some time.”
I can see she wants to say something else, struggling to get the words out. But we come across the shower wizards, and they stop our conversation.
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It’s around midnight by the time we’re finally done and I can rest. Jessica made some sleeping arrangements for us, and by that I mean she bullied a bunch of people out of one of the top floor apartments. I expect to find a few others there as she shows us in, like Pops and Mom, maybe William too, but it’s just the three of us.
She brings out some food that we eat in candlelit silence, then she takes her leave.
“Make sure to get a good night’s sleep,” she says from the door. “We need you in top shape tomorrow.”
I nod. Jessica sighs, but she doesn’t say anything else. Just closes the door behind her, leaving me alone with Emily. We nod to each other as I blow out the candle, and as Emily takes to the bedroom, I go to sleep on the living room couch.