August Burning (Book 3): Last Stand

by Lahey, Tyler

  More than half stared at him in the eyes, hanging on his words. They had accepted their fate, and were steeling themselves for what followed. Through the walls, if all was silent, one could hear the moaning.

  “We can die one by one, in dark rooms and closets, hunted down and eaten alive, where the only beings that would hear our screams would be those tearing into our flesh. Our deaths would be a murmur, a whisper, a snap of the finger. Nature is betting on it. Nature wants us to kneel; she wants to complete the xenocide.”

  Wilder got to his feet, and Duke joined him. Adira stood too, with Bennett. Slowly, the others began to rise.

  “Nature has declared war on our species, and she might very well win. But she must not receive the spoils without a struggle. Humanity has always been baptized in fire, and in blood. We must pay homage to our species, you and I. We must not go out with just a murmur. Our lives are worth more, than a murmur…. It must be a roar. Nature must be forced to throw everything she has at us, you and I, the last bastion of humanity on the seaboard.”

  The crowd was standing now, their glistening eyes wide in the torchlight. Forgotten were the moans and the foe that crowded the bricks outside.

  “When nature comes for the final blow, we must the hammer that strikes her in the heart.”

  A series of fists shot up in the mass of survivors, a delirious cheer. It was madness. They knew it, and it was all they could cling to.

  “Let us make work for it! We must be a stain on her memory, a band that refused to break. Do not die alone. Do not run and hide. Die at the fore. Look for me at the forefront, and look for each other.”

  The crowd surged closer, till Jaxton could reach out and touch them. They raised the crackling firebrands, with little sparks that tumbled among them. Jax could feel his head pounding manically; he had them.

  “Let it not be a murmur. Let it be a roar. Make it a roar, with me!” They cheered, thrusting rabid fists skyward. “Stand with me! To steel and stand with me!” The crowd thundered, a blur of vicious energy that resembled a coiled spring, ready to explode despite their fatigue, despite their hunger. “Look for me at the front, brothers and sisters.”

  The crowd nodded and thumped each other on the back and shoulders, voicing their approval loudly.

  Jaxton knew he only had a moment before their madness vanished and fear filled the vacuum.

  “Man the barricades, then,” he said quietly. But he knew they could hear.

  The resulting thunder filled the cavernous space. “MOVE!”

  “To the barricades!”

  “You two, with me!”

  With a ridiculous energy the ninety survivors broke into trots around the room, moving to pre-planned doors throughout the Citadel, shouting all the while. Jaxton could see one figure remained motionless in the sea of motion. Adira stood still, though her eyes were fixed on his own.

  …

  “You spoke the truth in there,” she whispered.

  Jaxton swept off the tiny pieces on his map, and felt the dream of civilization vanish with them. “It was what they needed to hear. It was what I wanted to tell them.”

  Adira drew closer, till he could smell her scent. She spoke again. “Is there really no way out?”

  Jaxton did not look away. “Even away from the doors, they line the walls in a mass, ten feet thick. They must be able to sense us, cowering inside the fortress. Even if we lowered ropes and made a dash for it, we would be swarmed before touching the soil.”

  Adira bit her lip, and looked at the torch that illuminated their little room. “So this is it, then? We’re going to die here?”

  Jaxton felt tears come unbidden to his eyes and he turned, unable to look at her.

  “I can’t really process that the others are all dead. I mean, I know they are. But my brain doesn’t really know how to make sense of that,” she mused, her voice shaking.

  Jaxton took her by the hands, and marveled at the sheets of thick, straight dark hair that fell among his arms. “I won’t let them take you. I’ll do whatever it takes. Do you understand?”

  She tried to push him away, but not with true effort. Her form shivered and then shuddered, wracked by great heaving sobs.

  Jaxton moved to eliminate any space between their bodies, and he wept from the contact.

  He forced himself to pull away. “Stay with me, do you understand. I need you with me till the very end.”

  Adira nodded violently. “It’s pretty fucked up to say it,” she struggled between the tears, “but if it hadn’t been for this whole world-ending infection, I would have never truly known you. We would have both left school, and never seen each other again.”

  Jaxton laughed through his own wretchedness, till they were laughing together, their cheeks wet.

  “I’ll have to thank the infected, when I get the chance.”

  The laughing stopped as abruptly as it started. “Let’s just get through this, and we’ll see each other after,” Adira said, her eyes burning.

  Jaxton opened his mouth, and then thought better of his words. “Ok. We’ll see each other after.”

  Adira nodded, looking insane to him. “Yes, and I’ll wait for you there. Before I go on.”

  “Easy as that.”

  She nodded immediately. “Easy as that. This isn’t the end.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” she repeated, clutching him tight to her body.

  They did not move for a long time, and remained motionless, one figure in the shadowy gloom.

  …

  The armories were bristling with motion. Men and women fitted makeshift armor to their limbs and torsos. Weapons were passed around, inspected, and seized. Jaxton and Adira were at the center of it all, directing the survivors and helping them to prepare for the worst. Nearest to them, Wilder and Duke armed themselves. Troy was loading slugs into a shotgun, resting in a wheel chair; his leg was useless.

  Jaxton fitted shin guards, elbow protectors, and a bulletproof vest on. He dragged heavily padded gloves on his hands and secured magazines to his forearms. As he reached down to grab his helmet from the floor of the locker room, he saw a pair of feet before him.

  “Brother.”

  Jaxton stood to his full height, so they were looking at each other evenly. Bennett’s shaggy beard and tattered jacket made him resemble a hippy. Then Jaxton saw the pistols at his hips, and the shotgun across his back. He nodded, in approval.

  “You’re ready, then?” Jaxton said.

  Bennett looked around, to his old friends. They drew in closer. “I wanted to come to you all. Come and say how sorry I am. And I will always be sorry for what I did under the Lieutenant. How I abandoned my friends.”

  Troy spat at him from his wheel chair, and wheeled closer. “Tell my soldiers you’re sorry. The ones lying in the woods up there. You should know that. I don’t forgive you.”

  Bennett stiffened and quickly bit his lip. “I don’t expect you to. I don’t expect any of you too. But I had to come say it.”

  Troy reached up and snatched the Eagle patch from Bennett’s baggy jacket. “Jaxton made a mistake giving this to you.” He wheeled away, deeper into the swarm of survivors.

  “Does he speak for all of you?” Bennett asked quietly, afraid to look up from under his eyebrows.

  Duke and Wilder looked to Jaxton and Adira. “He is not ours to forgive,” Wilder said quietly. “It was wrong to fight for the Lieutenant in winter, but I saw him fight today. He fought for me, and for Adira.”

  “I have hated you, Bennett. For good reason, I think. But Wilder speaks the truth. You were there for us when we needed you. And you are here now, ready to fight with us,” Adira said.

  Bennett stiffened with hope, trying not to smile. All eyes turned to Jaxton, who regarded his old friend keenly.

  “I never forget a betrayal. But I can’t forget a friend either. For what it’s worth, I’ll fight with you here, today. On this last day.”

  Bennett stuck out his hand eag
erly. Jaxton considered it, and then in a rush clasped it with his own.

  …

  He was sad. He could feel the tears building. Jaxton couldn’t help it, as he stared at the once proud back of a broken man.

  Troy’s jacket hung loosely on his famished frame, and his hands gripped the sides of the wheelchair; Jaxton could see his friend’s pain, even from a distance. The solitary figure sat in the middle of the basketball court, under a rusty ceiling fifty feet above. The light from his torch flickered and danced around the massive space.

  Troy turned as Jaxton’s heavy boots thudded on the gymnasium’s dusty wooden floor. They were alone in the darkness, save for the lone torch.

  “I’d be dying even if the infected weren’t outside,” Troy murmured, his blustery alpha male routine long since gone.

  Jaxton crouched. Troy had once been handsome, with fierce eyes, a thick square jaw and bright teeth. The man who stared back at him now was a stranger, a feverish apparition from a camp of the dying. His mottled flesh was shimmering with sweat.

  “Show me the leg.”

  Troy grunted, and handed Jaxton the torch. Pulling up his filthy camouflage, he revealed a massive, swollen knee. The skin was red and white, a mass of engorged flesh. Jaxton winced.

  “Annabelle couldn’t set it.”

  Jaxton’s mind swirled, wishing he had thought of something to say to one of his oldest friends. “You’ve always done more than anyone could have expected of you.”

  Troy snorted.

  “I’m no good at these sort of things.”

  “It was all going to end some day. I’m ready to die, Jax.”

  Jaxton withdrew, shocked from actually hearing the words. But he knew it had to be said.

  Troy continued, to Jaxton’s surprise. “I’ve been with some great girls, I’ve been infatuated a few times, and I think I was even in love once. I’ve had brothers that would die for me, and I for them. I think I’ve experienced it all, or, at least a little but of everything.”

  Jaxton placed his hand on his friend’s arm. “You are content then?”

  Troy smiled for the first time in days. “Some guys sit in their basements all their lives, playing in virtual worlds, living through other people’s experiences on the internet. Some boys die in the Army at 17, before having known a girl, before having struggled and triumphed. I pity those men. I have nothing but to be thankful.”

  Jaxton grinned wistfully.

  “I like to think we’ve experienced the spectrum.”

  “Spectrum? Is this another lofty idea from our dreamer?”

  “We’re all dreamers of sorts.”

  “Enough. What say you?”

  Jaxton sat on the gymnasium floor, so he had to look up at Troy’s bedraggled face. It was a soft face, finally. “The spectrum of emotions. You wouldn’t want to live a life experiencing just happiness would you? Even a single emotion, even if it’s positive. A full life demands the spectrum. You can’t know true highs till you slog through the mud.”

  “Tell me of it, Jaxton.”

  Jaxton watched the shadows drawing closer to them in the darkness, and adjusted the oil soaked rag atop the torch. “I’ve known ecstasy. With other girls before, but mainly with Adira. Physical, of course. Exposing that great mystery that lingered so long when we were in high school. Discovering how wonderful it all really was. And then something more. Something more sublime.”

  “I lost you at the end. Maybe I have missed something. Can I go back in time, and escape the valley when I had the chance?” Troy leaned in, like a crusty rogue.

  His compatriot grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “If only my friend.”

  Troy refocused his gaze, the sweat still pouring down his forehead, and he winced.

  “Does it hurt Troy?”

  Troy shook his head firmly, and nodded.

  Jaxton continued, “I’ve been horrified. Truly, horrified. As we all have. Where my very being revolts at the sight before me. I could feel my brain scrambling to get out of my body.

  I’ve known shame, and disgust. When I saw Liam try to save himself the other day, never had I known such revulsion. You already know. A lifetime of memories crushed with a single moment of cowardice.

  I’ve known anger. The kind that makes you a god. You are invincible. When I saw Adira lying in that study room, and Terrence dead at her feet. When I realized what he tried to do to her.”

  Troy tapped him on the shoulder, weakly. “You’re forgetting grief.”

  Jaxton drew up to his feet. “When I saw you sitting here, alone in the middle of this dark room, destined to die, I knew grief.”

  Troy looked away, his jaw tense. “Don’t waste any tears on me. We’re all going to die.”

  Jaxton nodded softly. “Oh, I know. But it made me think of it all. About all we were going to be, young, clean, and strong. And I remember you as the same. And now I see you, sick, weak, frail.”

  Troy’s eyes were watering, but he refused to lock eyes. “I was different before, huh.”

  “I am sorry.”

  Troy sniffled and wiped a miserable streak of snot on his jacket. “Don’t be. Not everything has gotten worse. I like silence these days. I used to hate it. Do you remember? There was nothing scarier then closing your eyes alone at night and being there, with just your thoughts to keep you company.”

  Jaxton smiled knowingly. “I remember silences, before the Outbreak. Existential dread. What am I doing? What is anyone even doing here? Does it matter at all?”

  “Now it’s different. That’s why I like to be here, alone.”

  “Why is it different?” Jaxton asked, watching the torch flickering to a tiny ember.

  “Because there’s only one goal.”

  “What’s that?”

  Troy’s old fire flickered in his eyes. “Survive.”

  The pair stood in the darkness, listening to the inescapable moaning of the foe outside their walls.

  …

  Jaxton walked alone, passing the rusty old lockers. 637. He stopped before the number, and ran his fingers over it. Memory stirred within him, and he found himself chuckling aloud.

  “What could you find funny, at the end of all things?”

  Jaxton looked up, and saw Joseph walking slowly towards him, his own torch held aloft. “Joseph. It’s good to see you. This was my locker, I think, when I was 14. A freshman.”

  “The little man grew up here?”

  Jaxton corrected him. “No more than a boy.”

  “But you left a man, right? 18?” Joseph stopped and leaned on the lockers beside him.

  “Still a boy. Age doesn’t make a man.”

  “True. What does?”

  Jaxton let his fingers fall from the locker. “Struggle.”

  “So we’re all men here, now, then.”

  Jaxton turned to face the soft eyed man beside him, and saw the torches dancing on his glasses. “We were men before the winter turned.”

  Joseph nodded, and stood in silence.

  Jaxton pressed him. “What are you thinking about?”

  “At the front of my mind, I’m of course wondering how long those barricades at the front doors will hold. But deeper, I’m hoping I did enough.”

  “Enough? What, enough good to go to heaven?”

  “Whatever there is beyond, and however I am judged. I hope I did enough.”

  “It’s funny,” Jaxton started, “the obsession with doing selfless acts for a selfish cause.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the only motivation to do good deeds is to be rewarded after you die, are you really doing good deeds?”

  “Well, it’s not to say I wouldn’t try to be a good man if I knew there was nothing after.”

  “But you’re not sure.”

  Joseph conceded. “I’m not sure. Why do you do good things?”

  Jaxton chuckled, “I don’t, really.”

  “Oh, but I think you do. I’ve seen you working hard, far harder than other men, to
make sure there is protection…food…for everyone here. Even if someone is weak or sick, you see it as society’s duty to help them. Others respect only the right of the strong.”

  “Joseph, I was thinking about something.”

  “Tell me.”

  Jaxton licked his lips, and felt existential anxiety coursing through him. “I had a thought, last night with Troy. I imagined Liam out there, infected along our walls. All our friends. They’re still alive.”

  Joseph shrugged warily, but his eyes were interested. “Well, in a way. They’re like animals.”

  “They are. But you believe in a soul right? A spirit? What if it’s still in all those people? What if their bodies aren’t just mindless vessels for some host? I want to believe there’s something after this. I have to. What if our infected friends are being held back by the infection? Being held back from moving on?”

  “I’ve always imagined they die after they become infected. But….”

  Jaxton continued, his mind bubbling out of his mouth, “We’ve seen there are variations of the disease, ways of natural immunity. The beta-infected. They retained some of their personalities, their individuality. I can’t shake the fear. I can’t die thinking my friends are maybe still human, at least in part. What if Liam is out there right now, a fraction of his mind existing at the back of his brain, kept in check by the infection? Could a part of his old self be conscious to it all?”

  Joseph kneaded his face, etched with a year of deep worry. “I am afraid now, too. I think it’s something I perhaps always feared, but never admitted.”

  Jaxton clutched the smaller man, and pressed his bloodshot eyes close. “How can we save them all?”

  Joseph shook his head. “Save them? What do you mean?”

  Jaxton pressed him further. “How can we kill all the infected? How can we kill most of them? How can we make sure that those who are bitten tomorrow don’t live for years as the infected?”