Ravage

by MacCraw

  “Somebody burn that motherfucker!” Royce shrieked. Kirkley delicately leaned out of cover with his G36 rifle, aiming through the carrying handle’s built-in scope. Kirkley anxiously looked up and down and all around, desperate and eager to cap the sniper in the center of the head, but to his frustration he came up shorthanded. Still, it was obvious that, like the dog soldiers, the sniper was hungry for seconds, and was now prepared to shoot to kill.

  Speaking of the dog soldiers, Kirkley realized with dread that the screams, the gunshot and the unmistakable scent of fresh meat and dripping blood was guaranteed to attract hungry predators. “We need to move Royce, now”, Kirkley urged.

  “Yo, Chief”, Darnell remarked, “Our trigger-happy sharpshooter buddy doesn’t seem to care whether we’re naughty or nice.”

  “Down at the end!” shouted Kylie as she pointed to a sprinting dog man; “Look out!”

  The group turned their weapons towards the dog soldier, whose deep black eyes were fixed on the wounded human male with voracious excitement. Still, the three humans determined to protect their downed comrade were obstacles faced by the dog soldier.

  While Kylie carefully tended to Royce, Kirkley and Darnell unintentionally started using a powerful and effective combat maneuver to keep the wolf man away from its intended prey, a maneuver to create an impregnable wall of fire. Darnell stood crouched as Kirkley fired over his head, and during the brief period of reloading Darnell moved forward and fired his own weapon, and by the time he was out of bullets in his loaded magazine, Kirkley had taken up position right behind him and had opened fire once more. This maneuver was working with surprising efficiency, but given that it was only one dog soldier, the tactic might not work too well on a pack of wolves.

  Several hundred bullet wounds and 7 depleted magazines later, the wolf was forced to retreat as its supernatural healing slowly began to mend its deep scars and wounds.

  “Well we brought him down, even though he kept getting back up and coming back at us”, Darnell commented as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead.

  “210 bullets lasted us four minutes”, added Kirkley as he slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle and cocked the handle.

  “How’s Royce, Kylie?” asked Darnell.

  “He’s quaking like the States during the Drone Wars”, Kylie remarked as she gave him a comforting pat on the head. “We should focus on getting him into shelter.”

  “No, we need to focus on getting a ride and getting out of here”, Kirkley insisted.

  “Don’t you care about Royce?” Kylie croaked with despair.

  Kirkley rolled his eyes and head and let his arms fall to his side, conveying a mood radiating with aggravation. He slowly turned around to face Kylie, who stood with her hands on her hips and with tears in her eyes.

  “Royce has a pulse, and he isn’t an opened can of dog food”, Kirkley hissed. “We’re bringing him with us, but we can’t just keep making all of these little stops over every goddamn thing. Now I’m heading out, but you’re welcome to join me, so long as we don’t get slowed down. All I want now is to get to Italy, get whatever the hell they’ve made, and go back home to get rid of the infestation once and for all.”

  “Although I don’t respect the way you said that, K-Man”, Darnell commented, grinning in amusement based on his new nickname for Kirkley, “You do have a good point, and a good mission objective.”

  “What about that sniper?” asked Kylie.

  “Be ready to carry Royce across the lot. We regroup at that little shop over there. I’ll go out and draw out our sniper, assuming he’s still shooting. When I get there and strobe my light three times, shuttle our downed comrade over to my position as fast as I can.”

  Kirkley readied his rifle and slowly walked out of cover, looking around without any nervousness or uncertainty. The speed he walked was almost as if he wanted to get shot, but Kirkley didn’t seem to care. As he approached his target destination, a human walked out in front of him, and to his shock, the person was the sniper; what was more peculiar was that it was a young female no older than 20. The girl began to speak in German, her tone and body language suggesting an apology, but Kirkley didn’t buy it. Kirkley lowered the G36 down to waist level and fired a shot that nailed the sniper in the stomach, and as she screamed in pain, Kirkley switched his gun to fully automatic and fired several more shots that killed her. As she slowly dropped to her knees, Kirkley shoved her to the ground with his boot, and she didn’t move a muscle afterwards.

  “Oh my God…!” Kylie exclaimed upon seeing what Kirkley had done. “What have… why?”

  “This little fucker was the one who blasted Royce. I did you a favor”, Kirkley smirked, much to the horror of Kylie, who was now beginning to question the emotional and moral stability of one of her only friends still living.

  …

  Only after spending an hour ransacking cabinets and drawers to find nails and a hammer, and then spending another half hour boarding up the room they had settled in did the group consisting of the morally-questionable Kirkley, the confused Kylie, the wounded Royce and the anxious Darnell take a well-needed rest break from the running and shooting and screaming. Everybody minus Kirkley slept next to Royce, while Kirkley distanced himself from the others for reasons unclear to them.

  In actuality, Kirkley was lonely and filled to the brim with grief, and his nightmare reflected this.

  ...

  Kirkley found himself waking to a shaky and confusing world, where wind blew over him and seagulls squawked noisily. The sky was orange as it was in the present world, but it was a different style of lighting that, in actuality, was an evening sunset.

  His heart received a massive jolt of energy and rejuvenation upon the sight of a familiar racially-mixed face with large, squinted eyes, a flattened nose, and a smile that was as bright as a beam of sunshine looking over him. For the first time in a while, Kirkley had a genuine smile on his face, and almost immediately pulled his lady love in for a long and emotionally drawn-out kiss. Tears poured down his face as he tightly embraced Hannah.

  “I thought you were dead…” Kirkley sniffled.

  “Love never dies”, whispered Hannah as she pulled Kirkley upright. Looking around, Kirkley got a bearing of his surroundings: he was out at sea, but with land in sight.

  “Where are we, my love?” Kirkley asked.

  “Sailing to Sadiz”, said Hannah. “Heading to the diamond of the Caspian Sea to do what the world never wanted us to do.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Wait until we get there”, Hannah grinned.

  …

  The unofficial port of the abandoned resort city of Sadiz was nothing more than a wooden dock. The two lovers steered their boat over to the dock and got out while holding hands and walking towards the ghost town as the sea gently caressed the beach with soft splashes as each wave washed over the shoreline.

  “This city would’ve been so lovely”, Hannah smiled.

  “Well, it could’ve been if they had finished building it.”

  Hannah giggled, playfully slapping Kirkley on the cheek. “Hey, come on!” Hannah exclaimed, “I’ll race you to that resort!”

  The inner child in both Kirkley and Hannah came out as the two lovebirds raced each other up towards the large resort. They ran through Sadiz with smiles and pumping hearts, vaulting over cars and construction equipment as they happily attempted to outrun each other.

  The city of Sadiz was in territory held by the Middle Eastern Coalition, but due to it being an unfinished civilian resort with no strategic value whatsoever, they had left it untouched and unoccupied. A perfect location for a pair of young hermits to live their lives in seclusion without fear of wolf soldiers or bandits or hostile military forces.

  After an exhausting 15 minute jog up the beach, through the lot, past the empty swimming pool out front of the building, into the resort, and up the stairs, Kirkley and Hannah had reached the top of the building where, much to the surprise of K
irkley, an entire wedding ceremony was set up. Like the city it was made in, it was completely devoid of life, but that was beyond the point. A smile broke across Kirkley’s face when he realized what was about to happen.

  “I never learned the whole wedding ceremony routine”, Hannah said as she blushed brightly, “So I need to know one thing.”

  “I think I know what”, replied Kirkley. “Do I, Kirkley James Rutland, take…”

  “Hannah Lynn-Hope Marlowe.”

  “As my lawfully wedded wife?”

  “I do”, Hannah squealed as she pounced on Kirkley.

  A loud banging of hands too awkward to be described as a clap echoed across the Middle Eastern city. Following the source, Kirkley and his newly-wed wife Hannah turned to face a nightmarish sight: a massive squad of armed MEC soldiers with their bullpup STG.77 AUG assault rifles aimed at the two Brits.

  “Um… hello?” Kirkley nervously gulped.

  One of the soldiers began to angrily shout in Arabic, but Kirkley had no clue what he was saying. Kirkley was so transfixed with the MEC soldier that he failed to pay attention to his surroundings, unlike Hannah, who diligently studied the motions of each and every MEC confronting them. Hannah watched with widened eyes as the finger of one of the soldiers slowly slid down the front of his rifle, down towards the trigger of its underslung M203 grenade launcher. Without shouting or speaking a word, Hannah launched herself into Kirkley, throwing the pair of newlyweds away from the approaching 40mm grenade and almost over the edge of the roof, where Hannah now found herself hanging on for dear life. Clenched as tight as she could to Kirkley’s wrist, Hannah began hyperventilating as she sensed even more impending danger.

  The soldier responsible for blasting the pair off the side of the resort now stood over them with his assault rifle aimed at Hannah’s head. Without any means to protect her, Kirkley watched with dread as a bullet struck Hannah in the forehead. Almost immediately as the bullet made contact with her head, Hannah’s lifeless body completely surrendered its grip on Kirkley, who was forced to view his wife’s corpse plummet several dozen stories below.

  Now fueled by rage, Kirkley grabbed the ankle of the MEC murderer and firmly yanked him over the side. As the Arab screamed in terror, Kirkley leaned down to snatch the AUG rifle, but by devoting the majority of his body mass to the gravitational pull below, he ended up losing his grip and started falling towards his death. As he dropped, Kirkley roared angrily as he held down the trigger on the rifle.

  …

  …And then he woke up, still tightly squeezing down on the trigger, only instead of a gun in a dream sequence, he was holding – and shooting – his own.

  The large barrage of discharging bullets woke up the other three survivors, who reflexively began wildly shooting. Bullets fired from four different assault rifles tore apart the walls and decimated the furniture and décor, and only after hearing a constant clicking of his empty G36 did Kirkley finally snap out of his frightened trance.

  “What. The fuck?” Kylie remarked with a cocked head and an angry glare.

  “There’s wolves in them thar walls, right?” Darnell joked.

  “It was a nightmare”, sighed Kirkley.

  “Are you takin’ the piss? That was more of a night terror than a nightmare, man”, Kylie added.

  “Look, all I’m saying is that it doesn’t matter”, scowled Kirkley.

  “It does to me”, said Kylie.

  “Well it’s nothing. I’m going back to sleep now, and when I wake up I’m moving on, with or without the lot of you.”

  Kirkley plopped back down onto the bed and instantly fell asleep, though the others were wide awake and filled with concern.

  “We need to talk, boys”, Kylie ushered to Royce and Darnell.

  The two men followed her into the bathroom and quietly shut the door.

  “Alright, guys”, sighed Kylie, “About Kirkley… …I know we all love and respect him, but lately he’s been losing control over himself. He’s slipping, and going mad.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Darnell asked.

  “Look, I don’t want to shoot him, and I don’t plan to; all I’m saying is that he’s becoming ever so much more unpredictable, and I’m worried that it might reach that point”, Kylie croaked, tears pooling in her hazel eyes.

  “He was willing- he is willing to leave me behind”, said Royce as he looked at his stub of an arm.

  “You don’t have broken legs, too. He’s willing to desert somebody who is capable of moving despite a crippling injury. I know we had to help you walk for a while, but you were in agony and delirious from blood loss”, Darnell added.

  As Kylie, Darnell and Royce discussed the Kirkley issue, the man in question had taken a massive leap in the wrong direction. He hadn’t been listening in on their discussion, but he had gotten fed up with having to slow down just to accommodate his three followers, who clearly didn’t possess the same amount of determination that he did. At this point, Kirkley cared for only himself, and getting to Italy without any bullet holes or teeth marks. In another moment of self-centeredness, he decided to take as many of his friends’ G36 magazines as he could fit on his person, and once he had gotten the ammo and reloaded his rifle, he stuffed his backpack with supplies: food, water, a sleeping bag for cold nights in the wilderness, a lighter, a compass, flares, grenades, and anything else that could be of use to him.

  “Good luck, lads”, Kirkley sighed as he slowly opened the window and left his companions behind.

  …

  Running solo gave Kirkley a new feeling of freedom without any lag or restriction. Pretty much since the first day of darkened skies and dog soldiers, Kirkley had companion baggage, though they were much closer to him than anybody he knew prior to the apocalypse’s beginning. In fact, they weren’t baggage at all. But besides that, being a lone wolf in the midst of a three-way war between two human nations and a horde of wolf men wasn’t as perilous as its nature suggested. The area of Hamburg that Kirkley was presently traversing seemed to have no hostiles whatsoever. It most certainly had been under attack previously: buildings were reduced to rubble; vehicle wreckage littered the roadways; streetlights had been pulverized beneath the treads of military tanks, and other noticeable signs of the costs of war and the struggle for survival were written about.

  Throughout the march, Kirkley seldom stopped for dedicated breaks, only occasionally pausing to grab a bite or take a sip. Over 48 hours passed until Kirkley finally decided to settle down for a while and get some rest.

  The building Kirkley had chosen was a small house not too much different than the ones he’d passed through; a white house with a modernized appearance, similar in concept to two white rectangles stacked upon one another in the shape of the letter T, and with supports holding up the protruding end, under which was presumably where the resident’s vehicle would be parked. Kirkley redundantly knocked on the door, before losing what little patience he had and angrily kicking the door open. With the same fury that opened the door, Kirkley kicked it back shut, and then took the time to look around the room and find a suitable place to make a den. Kirkley noticed a staircase leading to the upper section of the home, and found the bedroom, which was positioned above the garage. Kirkley had learned his lesson about propping his gun across the room or even against the bed, so he shoved a lamp onto the floor to make room to set his rifle down on the bedside table. He then took his helmet and chucked it across the room, where it loudly knocked against the wall and plopped onto the ground with another thunk.

  …

  Another strange dream took place in Kirkley’s turbulent and malformed mind. This time, fortunately, it wasn’t set in Sadiz with Middle Eastern Coalition Armed Forces killing him, or in his home in Scotland while being chased by wolf men. It actually took place in the home he had intruded. Kirkley was seated at the kitchen table, eating breakfast in the form of pancakes with chocolate chips and hot maple syrup when a knock was heard on the front door.

  Kirkle
y didn’t quite know how to respond, since he hadn’t anticipated company. “Come in!” he hollered before he took a sip of milk.

  The door opened, and a rather grotesque figure covered in claw and teeth marks, dripping with blood, and missing certain body parts; specifically an ear and a few fingers, took footsteps into “his” house. “Hey bud”, Poet grinned.

  Kirkley was speechless. The slice of pancake on his fork slowly slid off and plopped back down on the plate.

  “You got some toast or something?” said Poet.

  “…I’m sure I’ve seen this in a movie”, Kirkley groaned as he rolled his eyes.

  “May I sit down?” Poet asked. “My ass is sore.”

  “Wouldn’t sitting down make it hurt even worse?” Kirkley remarked.

  “Eh, when you get it ripped open, and your comrades are forced to leave you behind to save their own asses, you get used to the pain”, said Poet as she swiped Kirkley’s breakfast from him. Kirkley watched as Poet ate, the bulge went down her throat, but her stomach, which had been torn open, merely dumped the food out and onto the floor in a grotesque blob of food and blood.

  “Tastes good”, Poet quipped.

  “I’m sure it does”, Kirkley responded, “But you’re cleaning up that mess, you hear?”

  “Whatever, bro”, Poet replied.

  “So, if you don’t mind me asking”, said Kirkley, “Just what in the wet sack of Su and Sat are you doing here?”

  “Oh, so you don’t want your friend here? In all honesty, I just thought I’d pay you a visit. Those dogs are all gone, by the way. Su saved me, but not all of me, if you get what I mean.”