Ravage

by MacCraw

  “Hannah?” Kirkley asked, setting the gun down.

  “…Hey”, Hannah sighed.

  “So, um… what’s up?” said Kirkley.

  “I’ve just been kind of thinking about some stuff”, Hannah answered.

  “Like?”

  “How many of us are going to make it through all of this. I mean, I might have been impulsive, and might have seemed almost eager to shoot Jonathon, but through all of my turbulent emotions, I wonder if I’m more cold-hearted than the wolf men”, Hannah frowned.

  “Hannah, Hannah, it’s okay”, Kirkley said in a calming tone, gently grabbing her arm and running it down his hands until he reached her palm.

  “May I climb in your sleeping bag with you?” Hannah nervously asked. “The bed I called dibs on is just as cold as it is outside.”

  “Sure”, Kirkley smiled, opening it up wider for Hannah to slide into.

  Hannah slithered into the sleeping bag, her silky nightgown encompassing her smooth figure brushing up against Kirkley’s firm chest. Kirkley didn’t just feel sexual arousal, he felt emotional arousal. He just wanted to reach out and touch her heart, to firmly infuse it with passionate emotional energy. That day, Kirkley had a higher morale and more devotion to stopping the dog soldiers, and restoring balance to the world so that it could brush off the layers of fear, paranoia and distrust and polish the emotional connection that other people felt for each other.

  For the first time ever, though, Hannah finally broke through her stoic and bottled-up feelings, and she felt comfortable and secure in Kirkley’s arms. Her late ex-boyfriend, Jason, may have been her original love interest, but with his bipolarism, she could never really become attached to him like she could with Kirkley. Jason could switch from being a sweetheart to a shithead at any second, but Kirkley was calm, focused, emotionally driven, dedicated, loyal, and persistent. As she cuddled up next to him in an effort to warm up, she felt herself drifting off into a blissful slumber.

  …

  Kirkley woke up to the sound of shouting and struggling. To his absolute and sudden horror, there were men and women apprehending his friends. There were two men standing over his sleeping bag with L85 rifles aimed at him, but when he saw the big guy with shredded jeans, a muddy leather jacket and a surplus of facial hair aggressively attacking Hannah, he snapped. Kirkley launched forward and grabbed the barrel of the closest rifle, barely avoiding the burst of gunfire from the second bandit. He thrust forwards, smacking the rifleman in the ribcage with the stock of his own weapon, and while his adversary was briefly disoriented, Kirkley ripped the gun out of his hands and fired on the second renegade before finishing off the first bad guy with the remaining ammunition in the magazine. Kirkley flung the empty rifle at the large brute manhandling Hannah, and scored a critical hit when the corner of the magazine struck him in the eye. He howled in pain, releasing Hannah and dropping to his knees. Kirkley tossed Hannah the other assault rifle dropped by the two men holding him hostage, and Hannah unloaded 30 rounds of 5.56mm bullets into the muscular thug.

  Hannah kicked down the door, and down the hall were more bandits holding their friends captive. She trained the SUSAT scope of the L85 onto the furthest enemies as Kirkley unloaded on the closer ones with his handgun before sliding to Pack with his knife out. Kirkley sliced through the captain’s bindings, and Pack grabbed his G3 rifle to assist his friends in repelling the evildoers.

  As Kirkley stood next to the ladder in the exposed elevator shaft, a muscular hand grabbed hold of Kirkley’s ankle and attempted to haul him down the shaft and to a grisly demise. Kirkley shook his leg to try and ward off the bandit, but this offset Kirkley’s balance, and very nearly yanked Kirkley down to his death, but at the last second Kirkley clenched one of the handlebars of the ladder, causing him and his attacker to painfully smack their faces against the ladder.

  “Who… are… you brigands?!” Kirkley shouted.

  “We’re the people that slice through your throat, shit in your neck, and steal all of your loot so we can survive!” the thug snarled.

  “You’re bandits!”

  “We like to think of ourselves as raiding survivors!”

  Kirkley heard a gunshot, and suddenly felt very light. He panicked, feeling that maybe he had suddenly died, but somehow, he was still conscious. It was a very terrifying feeling, wondering whether he was dead or alive, but when he heard the slide of a handgun cocking, he looked up to see Hannah, who was standing above him triumphantly with a Browning Hi-Power in her hand.

  “You owe me one”, Hannah smiled, lifting Kirkley to safety.

  All of the raiders were now dead, and Pack had finished slicing through the bindings on their comrades. “So much for the hunting party”, Connor remarked, tapping the head of one of the dead bandits with his war club. As he opened his mouth to add even more commentary, everybody heard wolves howling, and immediately readied up. Riley was camping next to the window, presumably to launch himself out of it like a missile if shit hit the fan. Connor stood over the elevator shaft with his blunt instrument raised, and everybody else had their weapons aimed out the windows towards the forest and the windows overlooking the courtyard.

  Even though the surprise assault on the survivors had left everybody shaken, fearful and jumpy, the one thing that came out of it was that the bandits attacking the heroes had essentially given them a mail drop of supplies – backpacks with bullets, satchels of supplies, and a variety of useful consumables. As everybody stood guard, Captain Pack hastily distributed ammunition for the respective calibers that his friends wielded, and once everybody had approximately three spare magazines at their feet, he got back into position at the window. Still nothing. In a panic, Pack closed and locked every door that didn’t block off any of his friends from one another.

  Every man and woman holding down their new safehouse were silent and focused for a solid five minutes. Just when everybody began to relax and let their guard down, they heard the loud shattering of glass from down in the lobby, and the growling suddenly became amplified.

  “They’re here!” Conner hollered, “Throw me a charge!”

  Pack tossed Connor a grenade. The warrior pulled the pin with his teeth and pitched the grenade down the elevator shaft, which landed through the maintenance hatch and onto the floor of the grounded elevator just as a wolf man stepped inside. The explosive detonated, blasting a wolf to pieces. The dust settled before another dog soldier made a charge up the ladder.

  “Stand back!” Hannah screamed, shoving Connor out of the way. She squeezed the trigger of her assault rifle, which buzzed and rang loudly as it discharged a volley of bullets. The shell casings even fought against the wolves, dumping heated brass casings onto their faces which caused minor burning that enraged them even further. As soon as Hannah ran out of ammunition, Riley and Pack stepped up to provide dual firepower with two different rifle calibers. Riley’s support weapon loudly blasted the wolf climbing the ladder, and Pack fired in short controlled bursts, striking various parts of the beast’s face. After enough sustained gunfire, the dog soldier was weakened, and released its grip on the ladder, plummeting to the bottom and very nearly taking out the wolf climbing up from behind it.

  The survivors kept pouring ammo directly into the faces of their ferocious furry attackers, but they just kept getting back up and coming at them.

  “How many of these douchebags ARE there?!” shouted Riley.

  “Keep showering them in bullets, and it won’t matter!” Hannah hollered back.

  “I’ve got an idea!” Pack announced as he slammed the tip of his boot into the wet, black nose of a wolf. “Kirkley, do you still have a flashbang?!”

  “Yeah!” Kirkley replied, digging it out of his satchel and tossing it to Pack, who barely caught it and prevented it from tumbling down beyond their reach.

  “Everybody!” screamed Pack, “Open your mouth, cover your ears, and fall the fuck back! Incoming!”

  The other 6 survivors took a backseat to Pack, and d
id as they instructed. Pack yanked the pin out of the grenade, and threw it down at the wolves. One of them grunted in confusion, sniffing the peculiar cylinder, moments before it detonated with a loud bang. The dog soldiers shrieked in pain, collapsing to the ground and releasing control of their bladders.

  “Aw, gross”, Hannah moaned. “Wolf piss.”

  “Everybody, grab your gear”, Kirkley ordered. “It won’t be long until those monsters wake up, and especially how they unintentionally marked their new hunting ground, we need to fly the coop and get the fuck out of here. We need to leave town immediately.”

  “Too fucking right”, Hannah nodded, punching Kirkley on the shoulder.

  “Alright, lads, grab a bag, some grub, some lead, and anything else you need”, said Kirkley, “We’re moving out in 10 minutes.”

  “Dude, come on, man”, whined Riley, “We just got here! And I’m sick of walking. Walking is for peasants.”

  Hannah refrained herself from punching him in the eye, and turned her frustration into verbal frustration. “Riley, you annoying twatter”, Hannah growled, “The dog soldiers know where we are, and they’re here, so when they recover from the flashbang grenade, Death will be knocking on our door, not the other way around. Do I have to break it down even further, or should I throw you down the shaft so you can figure out the hard way?”

  “Okay, okay”, Riley scoffed.

  “Look, guys”, Logan said, admonishing both Riley and Hannah, “Our original plan was to get to London and take a ship to Italy, but we put that plan on hiatus in favor of setting up shop in this city. Now that the situation has gone from bad to worse, we’re going to need a new plan and, if you ask me, the new plan is the old plan; to just get our asses to London in one piece.”

  “The sooner the better, then”, Hannah concluded. “Let’s haul ass.”

  …

  No longer than one day after a long, anguishing march through the frosty Scottish highlands and setting up camp in what could have been a genius holdout zone, the weary team of Kirkley, Hannah, Pack, Riley, Poet, Logan and Connor were once again forced from their home, and found themselves on the road again – not in a vehicle, unfortunately.

  “Why, man?” Riley complained, “Why did that furry whore blow up our truck?”

  Kirkley was very angered by the insolence that possessed Riley, as well as the lack of sympathy for his feeling of loss, and turned to Hannah. “What exactly is it that keeps us from just shooting that little twat?” Kirkley angrily muttered.

  Hannah sighed. “Kirkley, I won’t mince words with you, Riley is a pain in the ass. He has the aim of a 6-year-old taking a piss, he hardly ever shuts his mouth, and he says the wrong goddamn things at the wrong goddamn times. But, in a way… I actually care about him. I value having him around. He’s an annoying little twatter, but he’s like a little brother to me, and he provides color to this world.”

  “We could use better color in this word”, Kirkley remarked. “I’m sick of dim lighting, an orange sky with a black circle in the sky, and dark shadows.”

  “Not quite what I meant, but I do agree with you on that”, Hannah replied. “I mean, think of it like this: if the boy wonder wasn’t around, we’d just be 6 people with guns marching through a wilderness teeming with savage monsters, not really speaking or emoting much. With Riley, his comments can spark conversations, or conversations about his comments, like the one we’re having. I mean, I absolutely hate him, but I… I kind of need him.”

  “Pretty poetic”, said Kirkley, “Even for Poet.”

  Poet grinned at Kirkley and gave him the finger. “Yeah, you too, mate”, Kirkley scoffed.

  After his sarcastic exchange with the silent sniper, Kirkley refocused on Hannah, and his discussion with her relating to her feelings about Riley. “Well, Hannah, have you ever told him about how you feel?” Kirkley asked.

  “No, and I’m keeping it that way”, Hannah glared.

  …

  The majority of the march went on silently, with no wolf attacks, no gunshots, no dialogue, and no sense of panic. It was almost like a normal hike, with no audio beside the crunching of gravel and the whispering of the wind. Part of the silence came from the approach towards where the squad of bandits came from. Was there a large army of bandits in the city? Were they as hostile as the wolves?

  …

  The travel came to a crunch point when the road that the survivors were traveling down reached a river, where a bridge that was supposed to cross the river was completely obliterated through means unknown. The water was moving very rapidly, and it looked almost impossible to traverse. And being up in Scotland, the water was definitely cold enough to induce frostbite.

  “Damn”, Logan sighed. “Dead end.”

  “Wait, hold up”, said Connor, slowly turning his head, “See through those trees?”

  “Yeah, barely”, said Logan, who had to squint to see what Connor was gesturing towards.

  There was an open field visible through the tree line to the survivors’ right. It was still on their side of the river, but it could potentially lead to something, be it a bridge or another human town.

  “Well, now we have another decision to make”, Hannah groaned.

  “What would that be?” Riley grinned, asking a rhetorical question for shits and giggles.

  “Whether to take the woods, or the field, idiot”, Hannah snarled.

  “Okay, then, super troopers”, said Kirkley, “How about we weigh up our options? Advantages of going through dark, dense woods or a peaceful, open field.”

  “Sounds like somebody sure as hell wants to prance through the meadow”, Riley joked.

  “Going through the woods will give us cover”, Pack noted, stating the most obvious advantage of going through the forest, “But the trees will make it extremely difficult to maneuver, especially with the amounts of gear we’re carrying in our backpacks and cases.”

  “And the field is pretty much the opposite”, said Logan, “Except we’ll be able to move very swiftly.”

  “So the field, then?”

  “Field.”

  …

  Though Kirkley and his allies had made it about 20 yards into the suspiciously innocent field, Kirkley was quite alarmed by how nothing had happened, and how his team, which was plagued with misfortune, hadn’t been put into some sort of danger.

  The precursor to the chaos began with an unlikely sight – a lone deer. Kirkley was suddenly very alarmed, because deer were said to be the harbingers of doom in the wolf apocalypse. Since the tragedy began, birds and wildlife had become increasingly scarce, no doubt due to the insatiable appetites that the dog soldiers possessed. Kirkley shivered in horror as he watched the seemingly harmless animal walk another 20-30 yards ahead of them.

  “What’s the matter with you, you turkey?” Riley snorted.

  Kirkley couldn’t answer him, for his eyes were fixated on the every action of the deer. His fears were realized when he watched the buck strut a few feet before a loud, deafening explosion sent dirt and dust spewing in a 10 meter radius, and the eardrums of the humans pulsing and ringing.

  “Oh crap”, Riley weakly commented.

  “Mines!” Kirkley shouted. “Everybody get down!”

  The 7 survivors were falling apart, and their fears leaked out of them at alarming rates. With the dog soldiers, they could almost always predict when an attack was about to begin, but with landmines, it was completely unpredictable and terrifying. One false step on a gigantic field could lead to one or more fatal injuries. With only 7 humans against an army of dog soldiers, they could not afford to lose another comrade.

  “What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?” Riley babbled in rapid succession.

  “Keep calm, kid”, said Pack. “The first and most important step is to stay calm. Second step, don’t move. Everybody stay right where you are. I need to do some calculations.”

  “Calculations?” Riley asked doubtfully. “We’re not in math class, bro.”

&n
bsp; “I think these mines could be set into a row formation to maximize efficiency”, Pack explained. “If I can figure out what direction these were placed, then I can figure out what exact pathway we need to take to get through this.”

  Pack carefully crouched, making absolutely sure that the weight of his gear wouldn’t send him toppling over. He took his combat knife and started to lightly sketch a small diagram in the soil of the layout of the minefield. In digging, he scraped out a thin layer of dirt that covered a rigid tan landmine.

  “Oh my God”, Pack gasped, grasping his chest as he panted heavily.

  “A little too close for comfort”, Hannah commented.

  Pack carefully dug out the space around the lethal landmine, and delicately picked it up with his gloved hands. “Time to play Frisbee with my imaginary friend!” Pack said, before flinging the landmine off into the minefield. Everybody watched in awe as the explosive went hurdling through the air and dropping down to the ground, where it loudly erupted, causing a blast that set off a second landmine.

  “Alright, lads, column formation straight ahead”, Pack ordered, raising his arm forward. Everybody followed the valiant British Army officer in a line, confident of his ability to get them out of the minefield, but they were still extremely anxious and insecure about being marooned out in the middle of the minefield, especially after watching how a single mine turned a deer into mulch.

  But through determination, caution, and unclouded focus, the brave men and women managed to make it across the deadly minefield, and to the safety of the tree line on the other side. At that point, everybody was wondering why they didn’t just take the risk of going through the icy river.