Though, he knew the stakes were higher this time; he had more than just one person to look out for and defend. He focused on Daelen, whose survival meant more to him than his own. It meant everything.
"This is crazy," Daelen said. The sidearm in her hand trembled. "Pierce has lost it."
"I think we've all lost something," Stellan said, steadying her hands with his. "We have to do something, and there's a chance we could make it. If we can save even just a few more people, it'll be worth it."
"Do you really think we can?" she said. "Do you think anyone's left?"
Stellan looked down at her sidearm. "After all this time, I can't believe I never showed you how to handle a weapon. I guess there never was a need."
She looked perplexed, her thin lips drawing in, her brow narrowing as she tried to understand his recollection. Her fair skin wrinkled with concern, and when he touched her face, she relaxed.
"We'll find others," he said with a smile. "We'll save everyone we can because that's what we do."
"We do. I'm afraid that isn't what Pierce does anymore."
"No," Stellan said. "It isn't."
Her perplexed expression returned, and Wendy leaned in quizzically, overhearing what he'd said. Hers was more than a look of concerned curiosity. She was afraid, and Stellan saw it in the way her chest heaved, the beads of sweat on her brow, the way her lips and eyes trembled. Outside the confines of the safety of the medical deck, she must have felt naked.
"Don't worry," Stellan said. "We're going to make it. We're all going to be just fine."
Daelen knew it wasn't true. Her husband was a dreamer, but he was so convincing she didn't know if he understood himself that he was lying. She revered him for it, his attempt to brace his loved ones from the terrible truth that they probably all wouldn't make it through the next few hours.
She wondered, then more than ever, if the goodness in him that made him into a kind of bodyguard from realism and truth required he believe the things he said absolutely.
If that were true, would he see the worst coming?
She wondered because, even without seeing the things he'd seen, she knew just how bad things could get, and if he didn't, she didn't know how he could protect them.
Six
They heard the dead somewhere ahead. The moans and shuffles carried down the corridors in a continuum of noise, the natural reverb morphing the sounds into static. Stellan hoped it was only because of the distortion of echoes that they couldn't tell how many of them were there. In reality, he feared there simply were too many to count.
"What do you think?" Pierce whispered to Stellan.
He thought that it didn't matter how many of them were ahead. When he and Edward had risked running by the group earlier, they'd been extremely lucky. Afterward, he decided taking such a risk again wouldn't be worth it.
"See what we're dealing with," Stellan said, "but if they're in our way, we should find another route."
"There isn't any more time for delays." Pierce scowled. "If we can take them, we take them. Understood?"
"I don't think—"
"This isn't a discussion," Pierce said, and Stellan understood what Pierce was really saying. If Pierce thought he could take them, he would, and Stellan would have no choice but to help because the dead would come until it was done.
Stellan nodded begrudgingly, and they instructed the rest of the group with hand gestures to move forward.
Daelen was even more frightened than before. The dead didn't scare her. Pierce did. Daelen's eyes pleaded with Stellan to do something. Short of taking Pierce down silently, Stellan didn't know what he could do. Pierce led them now not because he still commanded the authority of the Atlas. With the Atlas floating lifeless in the black and the majority of its crew now mindless killers, Pierce no longer had a ship to command. Pierce only led because of his stubbornness. He refused to follow anyone else, and the others followed for fear of what he would do if they didn't.
The group continued on, and as they drew closer to the dead, they picked up the smell. It wasn't just decomposition this time. It was something else they couldn't quite identify, a large accumulation of them amplifying the odor and carrying it down the corridor. It was an earthy, musky scent, like mold, settling on their tongues and palates like dust.
"Christ," Floyd said. "Is that what dead bodies smell like?"
"I've never smelled decomp this bad," Margo said.
"It's in my mouth, my eyes. It's in my ears," Floyd said, wiggling his pinky in his ear canal. "This stench can't infect us, can it?"
"No," Daelen said, and they looked at her uneasily. Still, Pierce and Stellan pushed forward with their rifles leading the way.
Around the next bend, they'd find Gamble's Run. Stellan hoped the dead would not be congregating there, but from what he'd seen of their behavior already, he knew they were. He imagined, one by one, they lurched down the corridors into the intersection and were caught up in the growing crowd, which became too confusing for them to escape. He could sympathize. Even with his full brain capacity, Stellan had a hard time navigating that intersection.
They moved down the corridor and peered around the bend, finding a mass of dead shambling in Gamble's Run, a whirlpool of reanimated bodies. For all intents and purposes, it was an impassable wall.
"We have to go another way," Stellan said.
"We're out of time," Pierce said with wild, amazed eyes. "Just look at them."
His gaze lingered for a moment as he estimated their numbers. Stellan knew Pierce no longer recognized the people the madness now controlled. Once, he knew them all, same as Stellan. Now, to Pierce, they were the enemy, an obstacle to overcome.
"We're going to take them," Pierce said. "Stellan, Arlo, and I will be the front firing line. Ten meters in front of us will be the kill zone for the rest of you. None of you shoot unless one of them enters that zone. Margo, you provide Arlo with magazines when he needs them. Daelen, you have Stellan. Floyd, you have me. Wendy, you're the floater. Fill in where necessary."
"Oh, God!" Wendy cried, cradling her head.
"I don't know about this, Captain," Arlo said.
"Don't worry," Pierce said. "This corridor is narrow, and they will pile up and slow themselves down. It will be over much quicker than you can believe."
"Pierce, this isn't a good idea," Stellan said. "They're attracted to sound. The more we shoot, the more will come."
"Good," Pierce said. "Let them. When we're done here, it will be easier to move."
Stellan and Arlo shared an uncertain, fearful look. The others were worse off, trembling with adrenaline. Daelen shook her head in disbelief.
"Captain," Stellan said. "We can't do this."
"We can," Pierce said. "And we will. Remember, aim for their heads."
Pierce stepped out from around the bend on his own, his body as calm and relaxed as ever. He took aim with his rifle, peering down the precision holographic sight, and then he waited for what seemed like minutes. Finally, one of the dead, formerly an Atlas engineer by the look of its tattered jump suit, a dark stain down his side that looked like oil but most certainly wasn't, noticed Pierce and looked at him stupidly as if to wonder who would be so bold. It cocked its head and turned jerkily toward him. It meandered closer, squinting its eyes in an oddly human way. Finally, when it recognized Pierce was one of the living, its eyes spread wide. Its jaw dropped, and it moaned a deep, baritone wail of not pain or loss or confusion. It was a battle cry. The others slowly turned in that jerky, twitchy motion like robots with rusty hinges.
They were coming.
If Pierce hesitated, it was only that moment where he waited to be discovered, where he invited them down that corridor to just try to take his life. He didn't taunt them. He merely waited for the right moment. When he found it, when he felt it, as Stellan knew engaging in battle was more of a feeling than a conscious decision, he exhaled, and all the world silenced. Pierce squeezed the trigger, and his rifle spoke for him, informing the dea
d what awaited them if they advanced.
The round entered the mouth of that former engineer, who was still moaning, and it burst out the back of its head like a volcanic eruption. Its rigid limbs relaxed, and it fell loosely to its knees in a sickening, hollow thud that was oddly clear after Pierce's rifle blast backgrounded all other noise. When it finished toppling to the deck, the others came into focus, and the world rushed back to Stellan's ears.
The dead did not hesitate. All the bodies filling Gamble's Run lurched with their twitchy, circular movements, their heads lolling and waving on their shoulders, their eyes wide and starving for light to penetrate their cloudy corneas, their fingers clawing at the very air to pull their victims closer.
They all marched together in step to an inaudible symphony, a ghostly conductor waving his baton at their feet.
Pierce fired again, dropping another with expert precision; it was like the soldier never left him at all, that he had merely hid that version of himself away right where he could always find it and bring it back out if he should ever need it. With another round, another body fell to the deck, tripping others advancing behind him. Stellan and Arlo remained in cover.
"Open fire, goddammit!" Pierce screamed between reports of his rifle, his eyes never leaving his targets. "What are you waiting for!?"
Stellan hesitated, but he was not afraid. Pierce had invited the dead, and they had locked onto him. They would pursue him until something stopped them, be it a high-density, tungsten carbide round from his assault rifle or an impassible obstacle, such as a sealed hatch.
Stellan looked back at his wife and the others, wondering for a moment if they would be better off without Pierce. Perhaps this was the way they could be rid of him. Perhaps abandoning him now meant they could find a safer way. Would sacrificing his oldest friend mean they could save others? Would that justify it? Make it right?
Stellan knew, no matter what conclusion he came to, he wouldn't be able to live with it; he couldn't leave Pierce behind. He couldn't abandon him. He couldn't give up on him. Stellan was incapable of letting his friend succumb to the death he so defiantly invited. Be it ego or pure madness, Stellan would follow Pierce into oblivion because that was what he did.
Stellan jumped out beside Pierce, and Arlo followed, joining in the fight. Stellan crept up to the firing line, heel-to-toe, keeping his shoulders steady and level, firing on the move. The kick of his MK7C's stock felt warm against his shoulder like an old friend playfully tapping him. The holographic sight leveled over the heads of his targets, careful not to cross Pierce or Arlo's firing lines, trusting them to take care of their own.
Floyd, Daelen, Margo, and Wendy fell in behind them, ready with their sidearms, tossing the bag of guns and ammo to the deck for easy access. They cursed in fear, but the frontline of men didn't hear them. The rifles breaking the sound barrier with their projectiles drowned out all noise. In that corridor, they fought the dead with blasts of sound itself.
However, as the bodies filled the corridor, the sounds of gunfire dampened, the dead in the back pushing the bodies up front closer, an unstoppable force crashing into a wave of bullets. Their flesh absorbed the shockwaves of the cracks and blasts. The sound dug deep, rattling the living's teeth and bones.
The gunfire surely rang throughout every deck on the Atlas. Somewhere deep within the carrier, anyone still alive would know there were others who were fighting for survival. There was still hope, but it hinged on dropping the dead fast enough to punch a hole they could pass through because there was no end in sight to their numbers. The size of the horde had to number in the hundreds.
The gunmen fired over and over, dropping dead bodies as fast as they could. In such close proximity, Stellan killed two of the dead with one shot, driving a bullet through one's skull and into another. In the midst of a sea of bobbing heads and clutching fingers, those two fell simultaneously limp and crashed to the deck like piles of laundry.
A particularly large specimen with the body shape of an egg wandered into the corridor, and Arlo took him, his round snapping the dead man's head back and up. The body relaxed and fell backward onto its brethren, who tried to push through him. A pair of others succumbed to all that dead weight, and the egg man fell onto them, his enormous gut trembling as they struggled to free themselves.
The dead surged forward like a slow-moving wave, a single volume of bodies. While they couldn't be sure how much time had passed, at some point, it appeared that the survivors were winning. The dead began to fall on top of each other, filling up the corridor and slowing their advance, just as Pierce had predicted. However, they kept coming, and they kept piling until they were forming a barrier. There was no end to their ranks.
"Cease fire!" Pierce ordered.
Arlo and Stellan stopped.
"We have to keep shooting now or fall back," Stellan said. "If we fill the hallway with their bodies, they won't be able to get through."
"We won't be able to get through either," Pierce said.
"I'm more worried about surviving," Stellan said. "We can find another way."
"Let them come," Pierce said with glowing eyes. Some men get a taste for killing and can't let it go.
Just as he wished, the dead continued to spill over the bodies of their fallen comrades, tripping and tumbling down the mound of motionless limbs, and Pierce opened fire on them again. Arlo joined in, his lips curving in either a grimace or a smile, which, Stellan couldn't decipher. He had no choice but to continue their campaign.
In spilling forth, the dead reached the interior kill zone, and Margo was the first of the secondary line to open fire. Floyd fired his handgun with uncertainty. Wendy and Daelen fired their weapons, too. None of them were very effective and burned through the ammunition.
The dead spilled into the corridor faster, and the ammunition dwindled. Stellan was forced to drop his rifle and switch to his sidearm, which was just as well. At this distance, it would be faster anyway.
His HC30 took a few of the dead down before an alarm began to buzz in the back of Stellan’s mind. Like an instinctual fear, he knew something was wrong and had to spare the seconds, which were precious, to turn.
One of the dead pinned Daelen to the ground. Between chomps of its jaws, a loose tongue dangled like a snake, dropping saliva onto her cheek. She pushed and punched its chest but was powerless under its weight.
How had they gotten through?
No time. He drove a round through its skull, and its arms and tongue fell limp.
They had attacked from behind, called forth by the survivors' thunderous weapons. Margo and Floyd were pinned as well. Wendy huddled against the wall, safe but frantic. Stellan was able to save Margo, but by the time he got to Floyd, he was already dead, his throat torn out and his limbs still, his attacker lapping the blood from the deck like a dog. Stellan put it down and felt a surge of vengeance but did not have time to dwell on the failure.
While Daelen rolled the lifeless corpse off of her with cries of disgust, screaming pain seared into Stellan's left shoulder. His arm raised in reflex and pushed against a cold, solid mass. Stellan looked to the source of his pain and found two familiar eyes gazing up at him with that cloudy vacancy.
The body that used to belong to Thomas Foster had locked its jaws onto Stellan's shoulder, attempting to tear straight through to the bone.
A wet warmth streamed inside Stellan's sleeve. His overcoat darkened. Blood flowed at the corners of Tom's gray lips.
Placing the barrel of his sidearm under Tom's chin, their eyes met for the last time. Stellan saw no spark of recognition, no spite or glow of victorious vengeance. Yet, he felt the object of all of these human emotions. He felt the hatred and wondered if it was his own.
Stellan pulled the trigger, and the top of Tom's head exploded in a fountain. The teeth that sank into his shoulder retracted as the jaws loosened their grip. Fingers slid down Stellan's arm almost as if reaching out to him. Tom lay in a heap on the deck again, and Stellan put one more roun
d into Tom's brain just to be sure he wouldn't get up this time, feeling like he should have done that a long time ago.
Daelen helped Margo shove the body off of her. They looked to Floyd, weeping even as Arlo and Pierce continued to fire on the front line. The barking of rifles drowned out the women's cries, and as they gazed upon Floyd's lifeless body, Stellan put a round through Floyd's brain as well. They didn't have time for compassion now. They could grieve later. For now, they would have to understand Stellan granted Floyd mercy because his body would no doubt rise again. Stellan's gunshot silenced their cries. Their faces turned to stone.
"We have to move!" Stellan cried. "Fall back!"
As the dead continued to advance from Gamble's Run, Pierce reluctantly nodded and then slapped Arlo on the shoulder, telling him he was retreating. Pierce grimaced at Stellan's shoulder, though he could not afford to pause.
The survivors withdrew from the bottleneck at Gamble's Run. As they raced for their lives, the gunfire continued. Arlo had remained on their kill line, the same mechanical focus in his eyes as when he docked the Atlas with the Shiva seemingly a lifetime ago.
"Arlo! Let's go!" Stellan called, but Arlo kept firing. With each round, he efficiently dropped one, but two others advanced. When his rifle clicked empty, he dropped it to the deck and switched to his sidearm, and that was when they took him.
One more gunshot cracked the walls of the Atlas' corridors as Arlo ended his own life.
Stellan felt the failure of another loss. With everything crumbling around them, he focused on Daelen. He had to get her to safety.
The survivors fell back the way they had come, fighting through more of the dead their fighting had summoned. These were easier to overcome. With their ammunition dwindling, Pierce and Stellan were able to handle them. In the panic, Margo entered a side passageway in an attempt to get anywhere but that corridor of death. After Pierce and Stellan dispatched the dead, she would not respond to calls of her name.
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