Kathryn tripped over a corpse on the ground as the machine gun opened up again. From her angle she could still make out the smoke from the gun, but as long as she stayed on her present course, she would not fall under his sights. Instead, she had fallen over a dead man.
“Jesus!” Kathryn gasped when she recognized him.
A few minutes ago, she had blown him off the top of the tower.
Kathryn got her hands underneath her as she pushed herself to her feet, but something caught her eye. She snagged the burlap sack, and the huge gun it contained. She wasn’t sure what in the hell it was for besides shooting, but she had a feeling that the weird-looking weapon was going to come in handy.
She launched herself to her feet and then sprinted for the side of the house. She might not be able to see the shooter yet, but she would soon.
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“Hey. I’m back. Can you still hear me?” Albert asked.
Dale stopped firing for a second and waved the barrel to let Albert know that he was getting through.
“They’re onto you, man. I’m sure of it. They sent in Smitty to take you out, so if you see him, you need to shoot his ass.”
Dale choked back a cough.
“Don’t worry, man. It’s cool. You’re good because this is the one place where you can get away with murder. There are two players near that car. One is closing in on you from the east. You gotta get that one first because she’s carrying a bunch of guns.”
Dale’s mind raced. He was being hunted not only by three other players, but also Smitty.
“I haven’t been able to track Smitty, but there may be some good news. His feed went dead a few minutes ago. I’m not sure what it means, but maybe he drove off a cliff or something.”
Something smacked into the wood over his head. Dale ducked as more bullets sought him out.
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Eli had disappeared from beneath the car. He must have slithered out and found a place to hide from the flurry of bullets while the shooter had reloaded or waited for the barrels to cool. Judging by the sound, the gun had to be an M60. The gun continued to hammer the location, and Mathew once again couldn’t believe he was still alive.
His watch hadn’t buzzed again after the big bald guy had gone down. There were still four of them alive, and his chance of getting out was growing slimmer by the second.
With no way to take out Eli from his current position, he slid toward a gap between the railroad car and the ground. It was a tiny portal that exposed him to direct fire, but it would also allow him to return fire.
He worked his rifle up into the little space, put the shooter’s location in his sights, and then pulled the trigger.
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Dale abandoned the location the second someone started shooting at him. He backed into the room, then made for the hallway before kicking open a door that led to another room that faced west.
With the big M60 in hand, he raced to the window just in time to see the figure sprinting toward the building.
“She’s almost there. Take her out!” Albert screamed in his ear.
He didn’t even bother opening the window. With rounds trailing from the feed belt, he opened fire on the player as she ran toward the house.
The window disintegrated as the gun hammered against his arms. The weapon fired 7.62 rounds, but the rate of fire, and the weight of the gun, provided a challenge. The gun pulled, and if not for that he probably would have killed the other player.
“She’s not dead. Can’t tell if you hit her, but she’s moving slow.”
Then the windowsill blew apart as someone opened fire on the location once again.
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Mathew figured out pretty quickly that the shooter had moved onto a new spot, mainly by the fact that he hadn’t been torn to pieces by gunfire.
He had to get out of here, but where could he go? Eli was out there, and the man might be old, but he had survived to be one of the finalists. Mathew backed up until he could see sunlight on his right side and then rolled toward the opening. As he shimmied out from under the rail car, a shape loomed overhead.
“Mother…!” He didn’t finish his sentence as a spear drove into his gut.
Mathew ripped the gun out from underneath the railroad car, even as pain blossomed from his midsection, aimed it at a surprised Eli, and blew the man off his feet.
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Kathryn’s lower leg screamed in pain as she slammed against the side of the house. Something had punched her, near her foot, and now she couldn’t walk. She crawled along the edge of the house but the doorway remained a dozen feet away, and even if she got inside, there was no way she could make it against that gunfire. Kathryn didn’t bother glancing at her watch as it buzzed, indicating that the zone was about to close once again. She didn’t have time because she had to get this guy before he took her out.
She pulled the big gun out of the bag and grunted at its weight. With its short barrel it couldn’t be that accurate at range, but it had a huge magazine, and that was what had caught her attention. She put the stock against her shoulder and aimed into a weird sight set up high on the barrel.
Kathryn’s short life, up until this point, had been one decision after another that had held little thought concerning her future. Now she had a chance to correct that, but a man with a really large gun seemed intent on making sure she didn’t.
“Come out, come out wherever you are!” the man screamed from above.
A barrel that smoked and glowed nearly orange stuck its way out of the wreckage of the window and pointed at her.
Kathryn knew she was probably going to die, but at least she would make an effort to take this guy out. She put her good foot against the wall, cocked her leg, and then pushed as hard as she could. As Kathryn shot away from the building, she put the barrel right on the window and squeezed the trigger.
The man triggered the gun. His face bore a look of such glee, Kathryn wished more than anything she could drive a knife into it.
But his gun didn’t fire.
Her gun did. It kicked like a mule. The cylinder rotated, so she squeezed the trigger again.
The window blew out as the rounds punched into the house. The explosion took away her hearing for a second, then the second blast came. She was beyond rational thought as she fired one more time.
The rest of the window blew out, showering Kathryn with shards of glass and debris. An upper torso sailed away from the house and landed in a smoking pile, while the big gun he had been firing landed at Kathryn’s feet.
She pulled herself across the withered grass until she reached the man. One of his eyes regarded her. The other was a mass of shredded skin, and a bloody clump that used to be his orb now appeared to be a pile of sausage.
His lower body was gone. Blood, gore, and intestines trailed from where his waist would have been.
His hand twitched as he reached for his ear.
“I can’t. Albert. I can’t,” the man said to the air.
Kathryn pulled the handgun out of the waistband of her pants, turned the barrel toward the man’s head, and fired one round.
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Eli landed in a heap next to Mathew. The two men stared into each other’s eyes as they both faded.
Mathew tugged at his pants as he tried to find either a knife or one of his guns. Eli reached for Mathew’s neck. Eli had taken a shot across his neck, and blood pumped out of a wound. The second bullet had found his cheek and ripped a furrow across his skin and left a bloody gash that extended Eli’s lips almost to his ear.
Eli tried to speak. Mathew tried to tell him to fuck off.
Mathew’s world was nothing but pain as the spear, still stuck in his gut, flopped back and forth with each tiny movement.
Finally, Mathew found a knife and pulled it out of the sheath. In slow motion, he brought it near his chest even as Eli’s fingers closed on Mathew’s neck.
Mathew tried to suck in a breath, but Eli, even as close to death as the old man appeared, had an iron grip.
Eli squeezed harder as bloody bubbles formed on his lips.
Mathew used every last bit of strength he had left and swung the big knife away from his body. It found Eli’s upper throat and sank in right next to the location the bullet had gone through.
But Eli’s grip didn’t let go, and Mathew, as hard as he tried to hold on to life, faded to blackness.
Eli wasn’t far behind.
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It was quiet now.
Kathryn stared at the sky as she contemplated fate. Just a few days ago she had been in a maximum security prison, and looking at an extended stay in segregation because she had gotten into a fight with another woman.
Now she was here, in the sunlight, lying in an open field right next to a home that, given enough work, she could call her own. She didn’t have to keep killing. That was for other people now. She’d done her job, and as blood leaked out from the wound in her leg, she considered just giving up and letting go.
Then the pressure in her chest gave way, and she sighed with relief. He watch buzzed incessantly against her arm. She lifted the device and ignored the words. The only thing that mattered was the number in the corner that read...
One.
Kathryn felt along the watch until she found the clasp. She worked it until it popped loose, and then threw the watch away.
“Go fuck yourself. I’m too exhausted for your bullshit right now,” Kathryn said.
They would come for her soon enough. But for now, she had a modicum of peace, even if it was in a city populated by forty-nine fresh corpses.