by MacCraw
“Yo-ho-ho and a backpack o’ bullets!” Royce shouted, laughing loudly along with Pack.
“Can I get some rum with that?!” Pack yelled in response.
The majestic feeling of cruising the mighty seas gave everybody a positive feeling that tickled them and brought them to realize that fun and adventure could still be achieved in a dangerous struggle for their survival. Kylie was sound asleep, being tenderly caressed by the waves; Pack and Royce were shouting, laughing, and having a good time doing it; and Kirkley and Hannah held hands and smiled as they experienced the joy of sailing. Even Poet had a massive smile on her face as the wind blew through her hair.
This thrilling experience eventually shed its skin and revealed its true colors as a horrifically nightmarish catastrophe. Without any sort of advance notice or warning, the winds began to pick up at higher speeds, and the boat began to angrily shake around, as if it was trying to throw the topside crewmembers overboard. The rocking boat was too much for Poet to handle, and it continued to fling her back and forth as she held onto the wheel. The main issue with that was that the boat was beginning to veer right, towards the gigantic wall of jagged rocks that could easily destroy the ship – and all those aboard. The mast supports were beginning to weaken, and were also throwing Pack and Royce around as they slowly collapsed. Finally, the starboard side mast support snapped, launching Royce overboard where he crashed into the ferocious waves. Now completely unbalanced, the towering mast began to fall over towards Poet as Pack dove overboard to try and save Royce. Poet wailed in terror as she too went plunging into the raging sea, narrowly avoiding being crushed to death by the collapsed mast. The merciless waves continued to angrily slam the ship and the three survivors currently floating adrift and being tossed around in the surging sea. The three people knocked off of the sailboat were so preoccupied with their own survival that their minds overshadowed the fact that Kirkley, Kylie and Hannah were still stranded within the cabin of the slowly-sinking boat.
“Help! Help us!” Hannah frantically shrieked as she desperately tried to kick the cabin door open, not realizing that the mast had fallen on top of the cabin hatch. “We’re gonna die!”
As Hannah quickly lost her mind, Kylie was also screaming in a mix of terror and agony – she was horrified by what seemed like inevitable death, but the salt water was painfully stinging her wound and the skin around it. Kirkley was able to manifest his fear into fury, and weaponized his anger in order to figure a way out of the gradually flooding cabin. It really distressed the bold and aggressive man to see his soul mate and her best friend shriek in pain and fright, but it only served to further his relentless desire to escape.
“The rifle! Give me the fucking rifle!” Kirkley roared. As Hannah nervously shivered and lost her sanity, Kirkley groaned in frustration before abrasively snatching Hannah’s assault rifle and wildly spraying into the hull of the boat. The result of his long, uncontrolled volley of bullets was a large square outline roughly carved with bullets. It meant even more water was surging into the cramped cabin, but with several strong kicks, Kirkley kicked the wall out, which created a hole large enough for everybody to swim through and resurface outside of the boat.
“Go, go, go!” he angrily hollered, firmly shoving Hannah and guiding her into the breach. It was a very rough transition at first, but eventually Hannah was pulled up to the surface, where the waves aggressively beat her. She turned to look at the mortifying sight of the storm savagely besieging the sailboat, which was falling apart as it was swallowed by the ravenous sea. Pack, Poet and Royce were nowhere to be seen, which was alarming, but her mind was concentrated on short term survival for herself, her partner, and her best friend. Luckily, Kirkley burst up from beneath the dark water with Kylie in his arms.
“Head for shore, Hannah; my survival instincts call!” Kirkley bellowed as he and Kylie began to paddle towards the shore. Hannah nodded, and began swimming towards the rocky shores. As she swam for her life, Hannah finally realized that Pack, Poet and Royce could be in serious peril, and she was freaking out due to not knowing what their status was. The sea was becoming more and more violent, and as Hannah looked back, she saw that the ruined sailboat was swiftly being pushed towards them.
“Swim faster!” Hannah cried as she went into overdrive and went blazing towards the large wall of jagged rock. Kylie and Kirkley also sped up upon realizing that they were about to be obliterated by a gigantic sailboat heading towards them at an alarming pace. A few moments later, the three exhausted survivors were frantically scurrying up onto the rocks, and took shelter behind them as the colossal sailboat was thrown against the rocky cliffs. The complete obliteration of the sailboat made the stones Kirkley, Kylie and Hannah were hiding behind quake and tremble, and pieces of wood went flying in all directions. Large, fractured planks crashed down around them as they clenched their eyes shut and held on for their lives.
Eventually, the raging cyclone came to a gradual ending; the sailboat had been completely annihilated, and the waves began dying down. Even after the traumatic, nightmarish ordeal had come to a close, Kirkley and the girls were still shaken up and found it hard to stand up. Kirkley finally overcame his shock and staggered to his feet, carefully attempting to avoid slipping on the soaked stones.
“Hannah, Kylie”, Kirkley nervously asked, shaking both women, “You alright?”
“Well let’s look at it this way”, Hannah coughed, “We just narrowly survived a fucking sailboat crash; and we’ve been separated from Pack, Poet, and Royce. We don’t even know if they’re still…”
“Still…?”
“…Around.”
“Hannah, those three are hardy people”, Kirkley explained; “Pack is a relentless man with a never-say-die attitude and an iron will that keeps him going so long as his heart is pumping. Poet has a clear, open mind and is simply a brilliant individual. And despite the fact that Royce has three left feet outside of his own environment, he is adaptive and enduring. They’ll be okay, as long as they have each other. A team is only as strong as its weakest link, and in our little family, there are no weak links.”
“I’m going to disagree with you on that one, dude”, said Kylie. “We survive only because we have strength in numbers. We’re now split in half. We’re easier targets for those monsters. If one of us goes down, then they can- actually; they could just get us right now. A small group of three, and I’ve lost my weapon, so it’s essentially as if there are only two of us. Look, I’m in agony. I’m not going to make it. I’ll hold them back and keep them occupied, while you two retreat and live to fight another day. I don’t have a gun; I’m fatally wounded, and I’m easy prey.”
“We are not abandoning you”, Kirkley snarled as he handed Kylie his handgun. “If we are indeed a chain, the weakest link can always be reinforced.”
“I agree completely”, Hannah nodded, triumphantly standing beside Kirkley as she pulled Kylie up and onto her feet. “But, uh, Kirkley, how do we get out of here? We can’t climb these cliffs, and it’d be suicidal to try.”
“I’ve got an idea”, replied Kirkley as he eyed a relatively large chunk of sailboat.
…
Tally one up for ingenuity. Using this massive section of the demolished boat, Kirkley and Hannah were able to kick behind the makeshift raft, where Kylie could relax as she also kept tabs on the trio’s equipment and backpacks.
“Gotta hand you some credit”, Hannah panted, “This was a pretty good idea.”
“You saying that sincerely or sarcastically?”
“Both.”
“Spotted a good landing point about 70 yards off”, Kylie reported as she looked at the small manmade stairway that would allow them to get off of the raft and walk up the cliffs and back into the woods. It took about half an hour, but eventually they reached their destination, safely steering their raft into the still waters around the staircase. From there, the trio reequipped themselves and began the hike up into the wilderness, which was home to a threat as equal
ly dangerous as the storm that nearly killed them and possibly killed their friends.
“We’re still heading south, correct?” Hannah questioned.
“Yeah, we’re-“, Kirkley began as he reached into his pocket, only to come up shorthanded without a compass; “-Ohh… fuck.”
“I inhale and exhale that word”, Hannah scoffed, “And judging by the circumstances, I’d say that we’ve lost the compass?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”
“Fuck.”
“Well, let’s look on the bright side… um… of the eclipse”, said Kylie; “We’re safe on dry land; we know which direction we’re supposed to be going; and we’re on the shoreline, so we can just follow the coast until we reach London. It’ll take some time, but at least we won’t get lost like we would if we were marching through the wilderness without a compass. Besides, we’re out of harm’s way for the time being-“
Unsurprisingly, the howl of a dog soldier in the distance echoed through the forest just to remind Kylie and her two companions that they were never safe.
“-Like I said, for the time being…”
“Let’s move out, before that time gets shortened”, Hannah recommended.
…
Being so traumatized by the raging sea nearly killing him made Kirkley almost want to be hunted by the wolves. Now that he was on dry land, however, where the wolves ran wild and feral, it made him want to dive back into the crashing waves to avoid a brutal demise. Though he had two skilled combatants alongside him, as well as a good amount of shells for his shotgun, Kirkley still felt unsafe and insecure, for he knew that in very small numbers, human survivors could be easily killed by a single dog soldier. Unknown to him, his theory was actually proven in double by the Samantha wolf singlehandedly slaughtering an entire group of people with ample firepower. Also unknown to him was the whereabouts of the Samantha wolf; he had not seen her since she first transformed. Still, Kirkley viewed a dog soldier as a dog soldier; identities irrelevant. These creatures were all the same – ferocious, unsympathetic, frenzied, bloodthirsty, man killing monstrous freaks of nature that showed no fear and were almost completely resilient to physical assault. And the first woman Kirkley had ever fallen in love with had transformed into one of them.
“I hope Pack and the others are alright”, sighed Kylie as she, Kirkley and Hannah hiked through the rocky forests filled with hills and gorges and boulders.
“Honey”, Hannah asked, “Do you think we have a chance of finding them?”
“We have to at least try", said Kirkley.
“Why haven’t we at least tried calling out for them?” Kylie commented.
“Hey, if you want to scream at the top of your lungs to try and attract our friends, you’ll most likely attract something else.”
“HEY!!!” Hannah hollered, “PACK! POET! ROYCE! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, FIRE OFF THREE SHOTS!”
Kirkley swung around in shock, amazed that Hannah would just disobey his guidance in such a blunt fashion. “Hannah, what the f-“
A loud and distant gunshot shattered the tranquil silence of the forest, and was followed shortly thereafter by two more shots.
“Come on, lads! On me!” exclaimed Hannah as she beckoned for her friends to follow her. With no better options, Kirkley and Kylie began to follow Hannah as she homed in on the source of the gunshots.
Hannah and her two followers relentlessly stormed through the forest, steadfast on reuniting with their comrades. Although it meant straying a bit further from the coastline, Hannah deemed this a necessary tradeoff. Several minutes later, the deemed this a necessary tradeoff. Several minutes later, the trio entered a small field, where, much to their horror, they watched as a small pack of dog soldiers ravenously murdered another trio of survivors before their very eyes. Hannah’s blue eyes throbbed and watered in distress, and finally her anger pressed down on the trigger, sending 5.56 millimeters of pain into the primeval monsters as she screamed and roared in rage. Kylie and Kirkley also began firing, but even with the combined firepower of two assault rifles and a shotgun, the wolves refused to back down. It wasn’t until another set of gunfire from the side of the dogs began to rain down on them that made the wolf soldiers hastily retreat as some of them barked and moaned in agony.
As luck would have it, the people who provided covering fire were their friends. They certainly looked like shipwrecked survivors, for their hair and faces were salty and scruffy. They had also lost a considerable amount of equipment – Poet’s sniper rifle was gone, leaving her with her pair of .45 caliber handguns, and Pack’s backpack and everything inside of it was also permanently gone. Royce still maintained all of his gear, but had several cuts and bruises from where he had been knocked around ferociously by the raging seas. Still, he was intact, breathing, and still amongst the living, so although his wounds were well-pronounced, he was alive and well.
“Well we’ve got the spirit of Su smiling over us”, Hannah remarked as she warmly embraced the others one by one, “So we’ve got something to be thankful for.”
“Not traveling on the water, ever again”, Pack huffed.
“Then how the hell are you going to get off of this shithole and onto Europe?” Kirkley scoffed.
“Well, I’ll take a fuckin’ bus.”
“So where are we relative to London?” asked Royce.
“As of now, I don’t know”, sighed Kirkley. “We ran away from the shoreline when we heard gunshots, which we thought you fired.”
“Nope, we didn’t fire them. These sorry fucks did”, said Pack, as he grabbed and inspected the assault rifle carried by one of the freshly killed survivors.
“Look, all that matters is the fact that we’re back together, and we’ve still got one vision and one purpose”, Kirkley stated. “We might not realize exactly where we are relative to the coastline and to London, but if we head in a straight line, we should be able to get to something.”
“Something”, said Hannah in a doubtful way. “Because that will most certainly lead us to salvation.”
“Better than standing out in this clearing and waiting for predators to come and eat us. Get moving”, Pack ordered.
…
Voyaging through the English landscape was a truly captivating experience. The country was filled with so many different areas and strange lands. Expanses of open farmland, light forests, small farm towns and villages seemed to cycle through randomly and collectively create a spectacular land that was one of a kind.
“Man, I remember playing paintball games out in places like this”, Hannah sighed.
“You played paintball? Doesn’t seem like something you’d do”, Kirkley commented.
“Hey, like I said, I had a troubled youth, and a lot of anger trapped within me. My first boyfriend, who I hope is running for his life in the Preserve, hauled me out a few times to play paintball with him and his gang. Honestly, that was one of the only things I actually enjoyed doing, and it kind of explains why I’m such a good shot”, Hannah explained in detail.
“It’s a good thing that you found a hobby that would help you out in the long run”, said Kirkley. “I was captain of the team, back in high school.”
“So that’s why you’re so strong and irresistible?” Hannah winked with a kinky grin on her face.
“No; it was because I was strong and a take-charge kind of person. Our team won a lot of games, because we all pitched in and kicked ass together. I made decisions that earned victories for us.”
“That’s kind of why I joined the military”, Pack added. “All the wars going on globally made me want to try and make a difference and defend freedom and liberty. I wanted to be known for valiantly leading brave men and women on the frontlines and on towards victory.”
“Now hold on, brother”, Kirkley laughed, “I thought you joined so you could spend the rest of your days living off of booze and welfare checks.”
“Fuck off”, Pack growled through his teeth as the others chuckled and snorted.
“
’Ey, lads!” announced Royce, “Check out this ‘ere sign!”
DISTANCE TO LONDON : 4.5 MILES
“I can’t believe it!” Hannah squealed, jumping up and tightly hugging Kirkley, “We’re almost there!”
“Yes, but somehow I get the feel that our problems are only going to get exponentially worse there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I get the feeling that the military will have set up a final line of defense in London, to prevent anything from getting off-continent and potentially spreading across the mainland”, Kirkley mused.
“He has a point”, Kylie added. “After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government began to quarantine and violate the rights of Japanese-American citizens due to their perceived view that the civilians were linked to the Japanese forces that assaulted Pearl Harbor. They were wrong, obviously, but in this case, they probably have the correct mindset.”
“And I don’t want anybody else getting killed by the hostile occupants of an abandoned city”, Kirkley firmly stated.
“Can’t we try negotiating?” Pack asked. “I mean, I’m ex-military.”
“But you’ve been running around in the wild with these things for years. They don’t know if you’ve been bitten or scratched”, Hannah explained.
“Look, our mission is to get to London, so we can pick up additional food on our way to the port, where we can steal a boat and sail to France”, Kirkley declared, his enthusiasm lost with each “what-if” entry submitted by his friends. “We’re not going there to befriend the locals. If somebody fires on us, we fire back. Stop fucking around, and move.”