by Marlin Grail
My hallucination…was a partial vision. Things are still going in favor of what I don’t want unfolding. If Claw and O. get to Grim, then…this is where my imagination scares me irrefutably.
I visualize an escape method past this firefight, then, if not too late, on where I’ll put an end to Claw and O.’s infiltration plan to the left side.
“Trey, I need to get around closer to the building!”
He pauses in firing, but only to reload.
I’ll take that as my answer.
I gently bounce up and down on my knees. I feel like a track runner ready for the pistol to signal me off. There are so many going off though that I have to make my own internal one alarm. I watch those little meteorites plunge into the road’s surface, and when they seem the most away from my visual route I’m ready to sprint on, I willingly go forward out of cover.
One foot in front of the other, crouched, and hands flinching to my head every time I feel a close one, I dash to the alley side in between two buildings.
“W-wait, Gary!” I hear Trey call out.
You have to ignore him, Gary. Keep going.
I acquire my Glock, stapling myself to the corner edge at the end of this alley side. When no danger shows itself, I make it to the last building of this new street I’ve entered. It represents the last before home base. It’s an elusive sight to find intelligent living lifeforms, specifically two, within the crowd of undead.
Surely, because of how wide the standing undead stretch, even when they magnetize to the building with very little space in between every one of them, it makes Claw and Ominous almost impossible to spot. I start to feel overwhelmed, and clasp my gun’s grip with my second hand to control my composure.
You can do this, Gary. You can—
“Gary. Stop.” Trey’s voice, accent all too familiar, commands in a completely brand new tone, unlike any he’s ever sharpened on me before.
I don’t have to turn behind to sense there’s a weighted gun pointed directly at me.
And it’s Trey pointing it.
Trey…
Chapter XIV
(Janice)
I’d better go find out what he meant by that. If I can help our group in any way, I’m doing it. For Gary.
“Hold on, Lissie.”
Her current sullen attitude juices within her body, and hints for me to ease back. She wants to carry her emotional weight on her own for a while. As much as I’d love to remain completely involved with her sadness, she needs me to let her handle herself alone.
Any mother knows how hard, yet important, it is to let the ones you love walk their difficulties by themselves.
Will has beaten me first over to the operative’s location. He also beats me to our mutual question.
“Who are those ‘lying sack of shits’?”
“Not one of you should have to know, considering the time you clearly need to heal over your loss.” His response to Will isn’t a satisfying one to him or me.
I decide to push a little more, but not before I prove he’s allowed to let us see him have vulnerability. We can start by knowing him as a person more than just a lead operative.
“I’m sorry we haven’t asked this yet, but here’s a chance to. What’s your name?”
“I’m not comfortable telling.”
“You sure? We could be—”
“I’m sure,” he curtly cuts in. “Please, don’t worry about it.”
You telling us not to worry about it does make us, me anyway, worry about it. That’s who I am. I worry for others. But since last night I’m getting a healthier grip on it.
This is where I would back down, but Lissie’s hearing must’ve gotten enhanced from all the time she’s spent crying, for she shouts out loud to him, “It’s a request on our part!”
He looks with a wince to her direction, but purposefully remains hidden away from her view. I give a little of my own, for I don’t take kindly to his biting attitude.
I’ve changed exponentially in one day’s worth than I have for decades. I can start showing my own distaste to something. Knowing who’s been lost…do I owe him these changes. My greatest emotional investment I can offer is one not censored or sugar-coated.
If I want to give this guy a mean stare, I will. Yesterday morning, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable being forthcoming like this. But it’s not yesterday, and this morning hasn’t held back for me.
Gary’s last lesson has been taught to me…for me to stop holding a standard of delicacy to a non-delicate situation.
Obeying her whim still, he focuses at Will and me again. “My name’s Hannibal.”
“Okay. Hannibal? What happened?” I firmly push.
He draws out silence, switching his stare back and forth between me and Will. But his back is slouching more and more from whatever’s weighing on him deeply. It seems he’s finally cracking to our pressure. Will asks, far less tender than I did, what he knows that we don’t.
“The site, where Gary’s helicopter pilots circled around when he nor the dispatch didn’t return back to their LZ, was identified as where our assailants were at. Bodies…not ‘undead’…were seen all on the street leading up to the site.”
My mouth ends up shielded by my cupped hand to it. I’m shaken up, and now beginning to regret wanting to have known more from Hannibal.
Is Gary one of them? No, I can’t think that deep about it.
As much as I don’t want another consecutive question, Will decides to start steering this questioning on his own terms for further details. “Do you know if…he’s one of those bodies?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t say, but they said there were many.” Hannibal already holds up a palm to Will, shutting down what he’s guessed would be requested next. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t identify further who exactly they were, because a large wave of the undead are…”
Will eases Hannibal when he gives his own hand gesture that he doesn’t require that answer finished. He moans in despair.
I choke back on tears.
“All right. Um. But, tell us, who are the liars?” Will starts back up.
Hannibal lets out a small bark and a quiver. Then, he rubs his nose quickly afterwards to regain composure. He doesn’t want to blush in embarrassment because he lets loose his anger again. “Sorry. The liars…weren’t anybody actually lying.”
Will and I turn to give each other an equal look of confusion. I stay looking at Will when he turns and moves his mouth to verbally convey that confusion. “Really? Because, you sounded very much like ‘you had just found out your wife and best friend been seeing each other and lied about it’ kind of mad.”
“I’m serious,” Hannibal strongly assures us. “The people I was referring to…weren’t any more than those pilots. They got caught in the crossfire of my rage to this whole situation. The base being overrun. The mission having been crumbled up and tossed in my face. Your leader’s death on my conscious. Nothing other than my anger-management going haywire.”
As much as his tone is stoic, his face is telling us something else much more emotional. He’s become a liar in his own way to us. He’s lying about details to this subject.
What are you trying to hide us from, Hannibal?
Will and I silently understand that everything’s gone askew for him. The problems seem out of his grasp, and I believe both Will and I mutually decide to let this one thing be what Hannibal doesn’t let slip from his fingers.
I just know you’re lying. I’m a little upset by you doing that. It’s bad to be a liar…I should know. I didn’t necessary “lie” to myself, but I never let the truth of my past emerge to the surface. I couldn’t acknowledge my past for a long time, and I never felt any changes regarding how I felt about it until yesterday afternoon. Gary might’ve been younger than me, but he was a hell of a teacher.
Therefore, I’ll be patient with you, Hannibal. I’ll let this pass, until you’re ready.
I should know.
“Okay. We understand
more now,” I conclude as Will and I start to walk off.
“You know enough,” he asserts. This drags us both right back in though. “Don’t worry about the mission’s consequences beyond your leader. We’ll handle the rest.”
Will and I remain in our standstill. After looking back at Hannibal, I stare straight at Will. He has an expression that challenges Hannibal’s rude certainty with his own sarcastic rudeness. “Well, how are you handling what’s happened out there? Making any progress?”
Then, Hannibal slams a fist to his own leg. Will sees it as an intimidation effort angled towards him. To me, it’s not to threaten us, but to inflict himself.
I gather it’s anger at himself, but he shouldn’t be self-inflicting. That prevents him from bringing together a plan for everyone in this hangar—if he doesn’t already have one.
“What could we do to help?” I ask him softly.
He tilts his head, a way a dog would when thoroughly baffled by someone. For him, it’s the fact I even consider volunteering our services to the problem. His mouth opens, but he hacks out a little chuckle to detour his thoughts. “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking of.”
“Of course I do!” My sincerity captures his gaze. “I want to fix the damage that’s been done here. I don’t know who did this to us, or why, but, clearly, we’re not in the red completely, like they would’ve wanted. We have one another to buff our strategy game.”
He massages the back of his neck as he looks down. He’s no doubt beginning to consider our group’s assistance.
“Just tell us what that strategy is, Hannibal.”
Will crosses his arms to his chest, and is purely spectating at this point. Hannibal grinds out a long and drawn-out moan of reluctance, but finally is persuaded. “We do have a method worth risking the state we have in here, but, as I just said, it’s a risk. A big risk.”
Rather than cease my questioning, or telling myself, as he recently told Will and me that we know plenty, I show him, and that side of me that I mean business when I rest my hands to my hips. “Keep going. We’re listening.”
Hannibal talks with his hands too, guiding Will and me to watch his finger point’s aim directly to a stash of weapons beside Ashton. Several rifles, missile launchers, then, three turrets with tripods.
Ashton definitely looks enthralled by it. He’s got his own glorious and fortified survival setup. Too bad he’ll have to relinquish and share it all, because that will have to be shared with everyone.
“I hope that firepower isn’t too overwhelming,” Hannibal wonders.
“No. We welcome it,” Will assures.
I accompany Will and Hannibal when we all head over to the weapons stash. We cross through the traffic of his officers walking down the middle lane of this warehouse. Most of his personnel, the ones that look like lab workers, are disenchanted.
I can tell. Several mess around with their empty tube testers, gently pounding their knuckles to their tables in depressive energy, and some have fallen asleep right where they are.
“They don’t look too happy,” I comment to Hannibal from behind him.
“Their months of readiness to research and study has been taken from them. We’re not even back to square one. We’re back a few negatives.” He sounds empathetic for his personnel, even pitying.
I wonder how long they worked for something that has been thrown in jeopardy within less than a day? I’d likely feel crushed myself if I lost something I put so much dedication and commitment in. I know that feeling.
I’m sympathetic for them, too.
Ashton raises his head off his medic bed. The way he’s holding it, he’s hiding his Adam’s apple, but he can still talk. “This looks like a little intervention,” he teases.
Hannibal’s the only one out of the rest of us that doesn’t have the slightest lift up in spirits. “We’ll be getting ready soon,” he shares.
Ashton finds the ambiguity of that uncomfortable for him. “Reeaady for what?”
“We’re going to start preparing ourselves to fight all that’s outside this hangar.”
Ashton grunts as he tries to sit up, then lowered back down by Hannibal’s palm. “Don’t worry, we’re getting you barricaded up before then.”
“Well, if you’re going to fight, then so should I.” Ashton’s seriousness is challenging, because it’s genuine he wants to help.
“No. You need to rest,” I implore.
“Like hell I do.” He snickers shortly as soon as Hannibal starts looking around for a new spot for Ashton. “I don’t need to be blocked away. Just give me a gun to shoot while lying down, and I’ll contribute.”
“I don’t think you will,” Hannibal enforces back, with his own stubbornness. “You’d be dead weight the way you currently are. Stay rested, and let someone move you onto your bed when you need to relocate.”
I see two ramming heads fighting the other one to give in. I don’t like it, because we’re all supposed to be on the same side.
I don’t think Gary would want this. What Gary would want is still important to how we should all decision-make. I know I will.
Will includes to Ashton that he is in fact injured. For the sake of what I picture what Gary would say in this situation, I have to come up with something.
Gary… I can’t believe we have to fantasize what your position would be on this. I’m so sorry for you. For Lissie. For your group. For us.
“Ashton, this will be for your own good,” I state with total confidence. “You need to heal. Just watch from the side, okay?”
He blurts out a gust of opposed air. But shortly after the wheezy scoff he nods in acceptance.
Hannibal gives a tap to Ashton’s bed with a boost in energy. He then works that by verbally commanding a few officers. “Take him over to the left corner of the front.”
“Yes, sir!” one of the three officers respond energetically.
Will and I stand idly by when Ashton is picked up on his medic bed, then escorted over to where Lissie is nearby. Hannibal straightens our minds and postures when we’re handed two rifles.
I delicately hold onto mine, unsure exactly what model, even what type it is. Will sees this in my expression. “It’s a Ruger.”
“And, it’s semi-automatic,” Hannibal elaborates. “Which means it fires one round every trigger pull.”
I don’t know squat about most guns. Though, in this world, we all have to assume that everybody here has fired every gun type there is on the planet.
“A bullet for every trigger pull. Got it.”
There’s a luring thought immediately afterwards, and it’s safest for me to talk about when Hannibal tells the two of us to inform Lissie about the plan. It’s to kill undead, and kill some more undead after the last ones.
“Will?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you see me when I froze at that last battle we had?”
“You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
“The feral aggressors shortly off the highway?”
“What about that?”
“It’s just…” I freeze up again. My words won’t fly out of me, because I’m worried how he’ll receive it.
I was too afraid to attack with something I didn’t know the first thing about. How to hold it. How to reload it. I couldn’t work with something I didn’t know how to use.
Our standstill is right in the middle lane in this hanger, and it puts us in park where several officers flow around us. Will begins to question me. “Are you doubting we can survive this plan?”
“No, I believe in us. Question to me is will I get overwhelmed again? You saw what it looks like out there. Sure, they’re not as smart or capable as a living person, like an aggressor, but they’re ginormous in their herd. Will I be able to take it all in, or will I not be helpful at all because I can’t?”
He spends some time rubbing and twisting his foot’s pad to the ground, no doubt having the same concern. I’m not offended by it, but it does go to show how pro
blematic I can actually be.
If I wasn’t so soft and sentimental, I wouldn’t have held us here, both silent. It’s great Will is listening to me though. That’s why he’s quiet.
Though I haven’t received a response from Will, the fact he’s taken the time and the responsibility as leader to listen to my concerns, he doesn’t know how much that helps me.
My hand goes to his arm. I’m delivering eyes that are hopeful for our future. No matter if his are looking afraid to discuss anything regarding it. That much I can see in his broadcasting gaze.
Time won’t heal problems…I know that. You’ll have to come around to talking things out, Will.
Hannibal shouts his disseminating of his plan, and we start noticing many of the officers gather around to the weapons area in a heartbeat. Clunky metal gun frames clank when picked up, then, come the turrets, off of the wall, and straight towards Will and me.
We’re told to scooch several feet away by the first turret carriers, then further moved away when the second gets planted. The third is headed for Ashton and Lissie’s area.
Whether Hannibal was going to or not, I helped encourage him to set these wheels in motion. I’m beginning to see how real the plan’s coming along though. I won’t hide my truth from the surface.
I’m getting concerned.
I’m like someone who was pushing to get on a roller coaster, and then wanting to get off as soon as I can see it coming to actuality.
“Will, I’m scared,” I admit in a spurt.
“We’ll be fine,” he relaxes with a hardened tone. He’s not relaxed either, but he’s not talking it out. He’s lucky the moment can let him divert his attention. “Come on, let’s get Lissie.”
You’ll come around to really talking, Will. Or at least show us how you’re really feeling. But, regardless, maybe you’re doing right by letting the large and distracting plan unfolding distract us and our group’s current issues. I should distract myself by learning how to aim, shoot, and reload this gun. I’m sure everyone in our group will be doing something to distract us from the focus off of our loss.