Movement. Four shapes started rushing up the hill, two were heading straight at him while two flanked to the sides. The fifth shape stayed prone. Ryan aimed and fired, centre mass and he could hear that it was a hit. Repeating, swivelling to the second shape, still not dodging but coming straight on. Another hit. Down. One of the flankers had dropped into cover, the second still zigzagging up the slope. No experience notification, so Ryan wasn’t certain of any kills. Weirdly enough, he stayed calm through the entire process, cold as ice.
Discretion was the better part of valour and instead of wasting ammo on the dodging target Ryan decided to head for new cover. Sprinting as fast as he could, backpack in one hand and rifle in the other. An experience notification nearly distracted him for a vital split second, trying to dodge around a tree. Ryan crested the next false top and once again dropped. They must have spotted him, but he couldn’t see any movement behind him.
Another experience notification rolled in, then another. Three kills, ricochet from his first shot must have hit one and wounded them severely. Still left two to deal with, but Ryan had no idea where they might be. He hoisted his backpack and stealthily moved back east along the ridge, crouched and staying out of sight, rifle at the ready.
He continued moving silently for several minutes, trying to get away. By now his anger was building, getting pissed off at what was supposed to be a force to protect civilians. They had shot at him, no questions asked. Tried to hunt him down and kill him. Whether it was latent racism or whether they had any specific reasons was irrelevant. They didn’t hunt him because they were frightened, that might have explained the initial shots, but not the subsequent hunt. For resources? They would clearly have seen his rifle strapped to the backpack. Were they trying to rob his corpse? The anger served to cover his guilt at killing another human, something he would still need to deal with, eventually.
For now, the anger drove him to make a rash decision. He would eliminate the remaining two attackers, become the hunter. Not the hunted. With that thought in mind he started moving down the hillside, sure that he would have flanked his pursuers by now. Cutting around a bush, he found himself frozen. Barely twenty metres away, back facing towards him, slowly moving up the hill, was a soldier. He moved stealthily, facing west towards Ryan’s last position.
Ryan unfroze a second later and carefully raised his rifle, aiming through the scope at this distance would be pointless. He kept the target in sight as it moved away, holding his breath. He didn’t understand how they had missed each other, but thanked the stars above for his luck. The AKM the soldier was carrying at the ready would have made mincemeat out of him before he had gotten a single shot of if they had encountered each other face to face at this range. By now the opponent was fifty metres away, closing on the crest above.
Steeling himself for what he was about to do, Ryan sighted and slowly squeezed the trigger. The following moment engraved itself into his memories, crystal clear, he would probably be haunted by it for a long time. At this range he clearly saw the bullet hit the precise spot he aimed for and the bright arterial blood spraying out of the exit wound. The experience notification pinged in his consciousness while the body seemed to collapse in slow motion.
No fair and honourable combat, he had shot an enemy in the back, eliminating him with cold and ruthless precision, no doubt as to the necessity of his action. He chambered a new round and kept still, wondering where the last opponent was. There was another enemy to eliminate and Ryan kept scanning the hillside, alert for any movement. His cover was good and his opponent as uncertain of his whereabouts as he of theirs. The suppressor would have made pinpointing the source of the single shot difficult, especially in this bushy terrain.
The minutes dragged on, and Ryan could feel his tension rising. “Where is the bastard?” repeatedly echoing through his mind. There, a slight flash at the bottom of the slope, definitely not where he had expected his target to be. Keeping his rifle shaded Ryan inched it over, searching through his scope. He found a boot sticking out behind a bush, the rest of the target hidden from view.
Patiently he observed, waiting for the opponent to move out of cover. Which she eventually did. Ryan hesitated. And hesitated some more. Carefully the police officer moved up the slope, weapon raised. Darting from cover to cover. If she had retreated Ryan might have never taken the shot, but she didn’t. Still trying to get to him, to kill him and righteous anger bloomed. Ryan took the shot the moment she dropped prone, thinking herself in cover, fully exposed from the flank. Her last mistake.
Satisfied that he had dealt with all immediate threats, Ryan left cover and approached the closest kill. He kept an eye out in direction of the roadblock, but given the range wasn’t worried about being shot from there. If there were still people there they couldn’t approach without exposing themselves either. Nonetheless, he kept the rifle in hand.
The soldier was lying face down on the ground, blood seeping into the grass. Ryan, with morbid curiosity, turned the corpse over to inspect the exit wound. It was significantly bigger than he expected, the bullet had probably fragmented and not expanded while passing through as a result of its high velocity at this range. He didn’t rifle through the various pockets, just grabbed the spare magazine he saw together with the AKM. Carrying both it and his rifle proved awkward in the bush, so Ryan just stuck the AKM through the flap of his backpack for the moment and headed towards his last kill.
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The shot had been clean, a small entry wound at her right temple. This corpse Ryan didn’t touch, he didn’t want to see the damage on the other side. He grabbed her pistol and left it at that. So far, the group wasn’t carrying much. No water supplies, no food and barely any ammunition. Ryan considered whether they had a stockpile at the roadblock, considering whether he should go investigate.
The remaining three corpses were close together and gave him another two AKM’s and spare ammunition. By now he felt like a mule, loaded as he was in gear. His first kill, the accidental ricochet, hadn’t died easy, his gut half blown away by the fragmented ricochet. Ryan felt guilt, it hadn’t been a clean kill and the guy had suffered unnecessarily.
Ryan moved upwind to another copse of bushes, a good position to observe the outpost and the ability to keep an eye on his surroundings his primary concern. He had decided to investigate the building after sunset, hopefully whatever he found there would answer his questions as to why they had attacked him without provocation. However, under no circumstance would he now approach it during daylight, he had learned his lesson. Humans were more dangerous than any mutated animal.
He kept the area under observation until after dark, chewing some biltong and drinking from his thermos. He hadn’t spotted a single flicker of movement, but decided that it was no guarantee that the building was unoccupied. It took quite a while, but eventually he had stealthily moved towards the damn where he intended to stash his gear. He had deliberated on his choice of weapon to take and in the end only opted to take his revolver. His unfamiliarity with the AKM precluded the otherwise best option and the rifle and bow would prove unwieldy in close quarters.
Darting from cover to cover he first approached the old Kapps Hotel adjacent to the police building, keeping it between himself and his target. It was safer to clear that building first to ensure no-one shot him in the back when he approached the outpost. Ryan smelled the corpses before he reached the fence of the property. Dumped in a corner of the property, the corpses of the staff and owners of the hotel further confirmation that something had gone terribly wrong.
Ryan judged that they had been dead for at least the last two days but not significantly more as the smell wasn’t strong enough given the temperature of the last few days. Foregoing further investigation Ryan scaled the fence and approached the building, his chosen entry point a window on the second floor. The noise that breaking the window made surprised him with its intensity and he dropped down to the grounds again, crouching down and listening for any sign of alarm. He couldn’t detect any movements and no-one came to investigate the noise. 5 minutes later he scaled the building once more, dropping into a bedroom.
The moon was waxing and Ryan could see, if barely, the light through the outside windows just sufficient. Ryan persevered in his search of the premises, foreboding atmosphere notwithstanding. Stealthily sneaking through the building his tension ratcheting ever higher and eventually it just proved anticlimactic. The building was empty although he had figured out that its prior occupants had been killed in the dining area, the signs of a firefight easy to detect. The bloody skid-marks along the floor self-evidently explaining the origin of the corpses at the back.
Leaving the building, Ryan snuck through the garden, now keeping an eye on the outpost. He couldn’t detect any movement, no suspicious activity. Keeping to the shadows was easier than he expected, the uncertain light of the moon masking his careful movements. By the time he was adjacent to the outpost sweat was pouring down his back. Ears strained he crept along the wall, heading to the door and keeping below the windows. He stayed crouched there for a little eternity, before trying the handle and opening the door, keeping out of the line of fire.
Still absolute silence, he risked a quick peek. The room was dark and he didn’t spot anything suspicious, but couldn’t be sure. Another peek. No reaction from inside the room. Ryan dashed inside, as silently as possible, putting his back against the nearest wall. The room was empty, he quickly determined. Ryan repeated the procedure at the next door, clearing the second and last room. Now less tense he opened the back door, still careful but not excessively so.
Ryan suddenly wished that he hadn’t decided to investigate the station. Eight corpses were sprawled in the back and even in the light of the moon he could see that they hadn’t died easy. The faces were bruised and swollen, features not recognisable. Broken fingers and torn fingernails further indictment of the beasts who had done this to them. Ryan turned around and threw up against the wall, the release of the near unbearable tension of the last few hours combined with the rising disgust at what he had uncovered triggering his gag reflex.
He was oh so glad he had killed the arseholes who had done this, they deserved far worse than the mostly quick deaths at his hand. These people had probably approached the station the same as him, trusting in the rule of law and the personnel tasked to protect them, only to be betrayed in that trust. They had paid a horrible price for that breach of trust, one that hadn’t need be paid. Only later would Ryan realise that that was the moment he lost his belief in the common decency of his fellow humans, never to regain it.
Turning his back on the station, foregoing any loot, Ryan walked to retrieve his pack. He never realised that he had just decided to move to town cross country, foregoing the dubious safety of the road to sneak through to town on the hiking trails surrounding it. Two hours later Ryan felt safe enough to pitch his camp, hidden in a gully in the mountains. Out of sight of any possible human observers.