by David Tyne
“Garry, then. Would you mind telling us just a little bit about your... beliefs?"
I just knew her mind was screaming the word 'cult', but was much too polite to say what we were all thinking. Garry looked back at his partner, scooting just out of earshot before turning his full attention to Serah.
"To be honest, the O-Saints are breaking away from Christianity. That guy back there," he nodded over his shoulder, “he’s straight-up against dirt-bloods, even though the good book says we should help them. He just doesn’t care anymore.”
“They’ve lost their faith in God?” Serah asked, clearly not a fan of scripture from her tone.
“Wouldn’t you, after seeing all of this? It’s the new world order that matters… We are the ones who were chosen to live on and carry the human race. Any other survivors would only delay our evolution."
The med student pressed on her glasses, having locked him into a curious conversation. "...And you? What do you think?"
His eyes drooped for a second, as though he didn’t know the answer himself. "W-Well, after meeting these kids, and you..." He looked at Millie, who shrugged in the other direction, "Dirt-bloods don’t seem half-bad. I wouldn’t go out of my way to save them, though… That would just be cruel, prolonging the inevitable.”
It was the first time I could see the logic behind their way of life... Those who had the potential to become infected would be a constant threat to their friends and family. The recruited O-Saints probably saw that first-hand, their loved ones dropping like dominoes due to forces beyond their control.
Garry scratched his nose, a little nervous now that we were all listening intently. "When I see how much harder dirt-bloods… er, you guys have it, and you still manage to find ways to survive... Sometimes, I wish our leaders would stop focusing on 'purification' and start rebuilding a better, safer world—"
A foot suddenly planted itself into the chubby boy's face, forcing him to roll down the grassy hill. The taller O-Saint, Grumpy as his name suggested, towered over his writhing body. "What have I told you? Running your mouth off like that..."
We were back on our feet once more, with Beth and Jamie lugging behind as they finished off the plastic bottle. I was very aware of every movement the boy made, not liking for one second that he was so close to the little girl.
I had no reason to judge him for dispatching that Lost woman in the car, but it all seemed so... unnecessary. Something about his behaviour, that betrayed look in his eyes... I would have to watch him carefully.
My attention turned to Millie trudging past my side — the one place she never left — she’d been cold towards me, ever since that night in the penthouse. I wondered whether I should have told her the truth, instead of pushing her further away…
No, I stated to myself. If I get attached to her, it’ll just make me weaker. Like it did to Harry.
We were prodded onwards for another couple of hours, stomping through vast expanses of marshy farmland; I was beginning to wonder whether the O-Saints leading us actually knew where they were going.
Our silent guides suddenly stopped in their tracks, staring dead ahead into the murky-grey void. "We're getting close... That's enough for today. Let's set up the camp."
I glanced around. "Here? But you said we were close... If we stay in the middle of nowhere, the dead will see us for miles!" One of the men turned around and smiled knowingly.
"Yeah. I’m counting on it.”
6 | Critical Diversion
"...And you're telling us this now?!" I spat towards the fat O-Saint, circling around the small green tent that failed to prop itself up on the poles evenly. Garry shrugged, acting like our endangerment was always part of his plan.
"This was the only way that Brother Sergius could have your retrieval order approved. We've got to make full use of the resources we have, in these early days—”
“To hell with your ‘resources’!” I heard Millie growl, not making any attempt to help with our sleeping preparations. “Why should we have to do your dirty work?”
“You want to live, right? This is the best chance you’ve got, to clear the congestion of infected around our base’s perimeter. Think of it as turning the key inside the lock, it'll help us enter our refuge."
We were only a couple of miles away from the O-Saints new home, which meant we could’ve easily returned to ground level and forced our way into Queensferry. However, according to our withholding captors, it wouldn't be that easy.
Apparently, the coast was the worst place to go if you wanted to avoid the Lost — whether it was the salty air or the vast empty expanse, they were drawn to the shores of our land. As a result, the O-Saints had the most perfect natural defence surrounding them.
Unfortunately, they forgot that they weren't impervious to being eaten, leaving them stranded inside as the hundreds of undead plugged their front gates. Garry and the lesser-known ‘Grumpy’ had been tasked with creating a diversion upon their return, coming through the open fields. They had to draw the Lost away from Queensferry, leaving the area free to enter and leave as needed.
I would’ve laughed at how pathetically the O-Saints’ plan had backfired, if we weren't the ones tagging along with the clean-up crew.
"One thing I still don't understand," Serah sighed, stepping in to fix our tent as it collapsed onto a particularly-narrow slope. “You couldn’t even hold a building of the sick and the elderly hostage for five minutes. If what you’re saying is true, when did the O-Saints become so… organised?"
Grumpy exerted his brooding silence over the group, which told us he either didn't know himself, or was tired of all the questions. Meanwhile, his pudgy colleague took a chance, breaking the awkward tension with a wary tone.
"Everything changed… when we found the others." The response triggered both Serah and the other O-Saint to reel in disbelief.
"Won’t you ever stop blabbering?!" The tall man scolded, smacking Garry upside the head. As Serah fastened a piece of string around the tent pole, her eyes glimmered in response to the new information.
"Good lord... There are other gangs? Then that means you’re—" Before she could fully contemplate the repercussions, a deafening rattle forced us all to hit the deck.
We were bathed in a flurry of yellow flashes as Grumpy’s assault rifle lit up the now-darkening sky. The dark, furious man had given the signal; that noise was heard for miles in every direction. The Lost were on their way.
I held the tiny tent open, ushering the children in first before the girls, and then less enthusiastically, the O-Saints. Despite how confident I looked, my nerves were already twisting in my stomach. "Alright, so we’re really doing this... Nobody make a sound, okay?"
The plan was to simply ride out the oncoming storm. Millie had protested the idea, saying we'd be sitting ducks — however, Serah reaffirmed that it was the only choice. The lure would have to be out in the open, and this was the only spot that would grant us an uphill advantage. If we tried to outrun them, it was likely we'd crash into a merging crowd of Lost and become quickly surrounded.
"B-But won't they just come in and kill us??" Millie barked at her female nemesis. Once she’d brought it up, I suddenly realised the genius of the hasty plan.
"No... They won't! Of course!” I breathed, a strange sigh of relief. Serah and the O-Saints nodded, appreciating that at least someone else understood.
I knelt beside the entrance of the cramped tent, peeking through the partially-zipped door. The first of the Lost began to wander out from the pine-tree forests; a mixed group of vacant shells in ratty clothes, drawn towards the sharp hill we were currently parked upon.
I sealed the door fully, which left us in a small pitch-black space. I put my finger to my lips, hushing people who couldn’t even see me. The contorted shadow of a shuffling man fell upon the tent, rising along with the wails outside.
The figure seemed to stop for a moment, bumping into one of our metal pegs. Immediately forgetting the encounter, he drifted lazil
y to the left and continued up the hill to where the gunshot came from.
It's working, I thought excitedly. I recalled how the Lost had no sense of direction, only focusing on what they saw in front of them. At a gamble, it seemed as though their ability to hear behaved in a similar way.
The only thing visible through their dead eyes was a hill. Our green tent sat inside a subtle grassy indent, blending in almost perfectly at dusk. They wouldn't even know that the living were right under their noses.
I couldn't say exactly how long we spent in there, counting the shadows of people who had long since died. It could’ve been anywhere from ten minutes to a couple of hours, just sitting in tense silence. The sheer volume of the Lost was disturbing — each of those passing shapes once belonged to actual people, with lives of their own.
The fear of being caught by them didn't help much, either; one slip, one sound and we were done for. Having said that, my head whipped around along with five others as an abrupt whimper echoed from the back of the tent. Someone was crying.
"Sssh..." Millie hushed, trying not to cause a disturbance herself.
Who was it? I could barely make anything out in the dim light, but it didn't seem to be Beth. She had her arms wrapped around... Jamie.
His once-hateful eyes were now soaked with pity and melancholy, making louder noises as the shadows grew closer. "There’s so many... All of them out there, it’s just like that time..."
Jamie was inconsolable now, but it was pointless to even try and stop him. He had already given away our position, descending further into his own pit of guilt. "...I'm... I'm sorry..." He looked at his hands, shaking uncontrollably. "I... I can't take this! I want out!!" His eyes were screaming, like he’d been thrown into shell-shock. "I want my mum..."
He looked as though he’d fallen into another world entirely, detached and out of sync with the rest of us. To a kid that young, there was no point in surviving if we were going to head back out there and face those monsters anyway.
Hell, for all I knew, our entire group was stuck in a horrible, alternate reality where the ones we loved would come back to punish us for not saving them. We would inevitably become trapped within our own corpses, to repeat the cycle for eternity.
As much as I wanted none of it to be true, I at least expected someone as cold as Jamie to hold himself together. I hadn’t taken the time to get to know him, and now we were all paying the price.
We were backed against the walls of the tent, staring in muted horror as many hands imprinted themselves against the fabric of the door, clawing... beckoning. Trapped with only a thin layer between us and certain mutilation, there was no escape, no salvation.
One way or another, the dead were coming inside.
7 | Cornered
Grumpy, being the largest of us all, struggled to wiggle his assault rifle free from our mess of tangled limbs. He clearly intended on unzipping the tent and pushing through the ensuing chaos with sheer force.
"Don't!" Serah hissed. Her tone was justified — we had no idea how many infected were around us, and attracting more with gunfire would only seal our fate.
I mulled over our options as the tent’s clasp began to hauntingly unzip itself; the juddering fingers protruded through the small gap, calling us out. Seeing their hands swatting at us blindly, a bolt of inspiration struck through my mind. We had a small chance, after all...
"We've gotta open the door," I breathed.
Everyone’s face apart from Jamie's scowled at me, for apparently making a dark joke at such a critical time. The crazed look in my eyes told them I wasn't kidding.
"Jamie..." I brought myself over to him, crawling over people's legs and heads awkwardly. "I need to borrow your hunting knife." He never responded, still murmuring a rather sinister discourse to himself. I fumbled around his pockets until I found the blade.
"What the fuck?" The O-Saints looked astonished, having forgotten to search the children for weapons. A rookie mistake, but one that I’m very glad they made.
"You guys stick to the back. I'll open it there first." Seeing where I was going with this, Serah ushered everyone to the sides so that I could get through to the rear of the tent. We were pressed up against the edge of the hill, sloped like a vertical wall.
Well, here goes nothing…
I grabbed the hunting knife with both hands, forcing it down into the tough material. Piercing it, I managed to rip a slender hole along the top — just large enough for someone to squeeze their way through, provided that they had any form of cognitive awareness.
The tent was pitch-black, even with my newly-created window; the Lost would have no idea that it was even there. Our hopes rode on the assumption that they hadn’t encircled our backside yet, a gamble we had no choice but to stake our lives on.
One by one, our group left the small camp behind as the O-Saints first squeezed into the tight area, followed by the two girls and the quietly-obedient Jamie. They kept themselves low, crouched by the pegs which were driven into the dirty edge of the hill.
There was just enough room for them to check our flank over the tent, reporting back that a large crowd was forming to tear their way inside. We had ten seconds left, tops, before they clawed their way inside.
"Mister Daniel, I'm scared..." Beth clung onto me, digging her nails in as I lifted her up towards the gap.
"Don't worry, we'll get through this. Stay close to Millie and Serah, and you'll be fine. I promise." Soon it was just me in the tent, and that permanent sense of foreboding would not allow me to move forward with my plan. Encouraging myself to shake it off, I stepped towards the ghoulish shadows at the front and took possession of the clasp.
Tearing the zip across the full length of the entrance, the faces of the deceased almost lit up in their own dreary way. As soon as they saw me, every last one of them grasped and lunged in my direction, combining their assault into a single mangled entity.
They were so determined to feed that not a single Lost would give way, and it took a while for them to enter the tent. Eventually one of them toppled over, and the rest climbed over the corpse's back into our not-so-safe camp.
"Now! Run!!" I screamed backwards, and used the last of my strength to shake the tent’s overhanging pole away from its hinges.
The entire ceiling cascaded as the main support fell, enveloping the Lost and myself in heavy fabric. I could hear the scuffles of my group rushing into the Lost, pushing them out of the way as their shadows grunted and fell to the ground, some on top of the flattened tent.
They seemed to be getting away from the centre of the struggle... Now, it was my turn.
I turned around as my position as 'bait' had expired into ‘prey’, clambering to find the makeshift exit hole. Fumbling around, I was terrified that it had somehow fixed itself in order to trap me inside. When I finally found it, something clamped around my leg, refusing to let go.
I kicked and yelled for the creature to get lost, but it held on tighter with each full-body wriggle. The snarling rose up once again, and a sharp agony spread throughout my entire lower left side.
Shit… Have I been bitten?! I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip to prevent further screaming, trying to focus on slowly inching my way out.
Just as my miraculous escape began to slip from my reach, I sensed a certain warmth enveloping my right hand, directing me towards the very gap I was trying to fit through. Pulling me outside, I tried to rest myself on my other leg, which wasn't bleeding quite as much. I didn’t dare to assess the damage yet, but the burning sensation that stung to the touch told me that I was soaked with blood.
My saviour was none other than the smaller, friendlier O-Saint, which threw me for a loop. "Y-You... came back for me?" I choked, and Garry smiled in response. Raising his bloody arm, he revealed several fresh wounds of his own... He'd been bitten as well, trying to rescue me.
"At least we're the lucky ones, huh? Now c'mon, let's get a move on—" His sentence was cut short by the heap of Lost under the tent,
finding our escape route and chomping down violently on the back of his ankle.
"Rgggh... Argh!!" The boy howled in pain, falling against me while I struggled to balance us both on my one good leg. I failed, and his face hit the dirt below. The carpet of Lost quickly consumed him — his entire body, visible in one second, was completely blanketed in the next, buried under numerous dark shadows.
In his final moment of clarity, the O-Saint’s hand raised towards the sky and jerked towards our group, who were fleeing into the distant woods. I realised what he was telling me, and quickly rejected the offer.
"No!!" I yelled back at him, reaching out for his hand. I owed the bastard, but before I could return the favour, another ghoul had already sunk his teeth into the boy's fingers. There was no hope of rescuing him, after all…
As perturbing as the situation was, I could only whisper an apology before abandoning my so-called enemy, leaving him to be torn apart by the ravenous shadows. The worst part was, I knew exactly why I was able to escape from such a massive crowd of Lost.
The dead were too busy feasting on his flesh; too stimulated by his tortured screams, to even concern themselves with my inadequacy.
8 | The Red Base
Limping through the infested forest after my friends, I felt the weighted branches smacking me across the chest, trying to claw me back into the surrounding darkness. I’ll never let that happen… I won’t waste this chance.
Stumbling towards the only light I could see, I emerged from the trees to find the panicked girls staring wildly back at me. I knew I must’ve looked a sight, but after a tense second, I realised that it was because the other O-Saint hadn't returned with me. The tall O-Saint silently mourned his friend, glaring at me with contempt.
"...Let's keep moving. The streets should be clear now."
While Serah insisted that I should let her check my wound, I decided against it. I’d been moving sluggishly through the woods due to my leg; there was no telling whether the Lost had successfully tracked me down or not.