Life After Death

Chapter 8

The ride to the centre was longer than the day prior. With us being just under half an hour further away this time, it took us the best part of an hour. Not one of us seemed to mind, both me and Nathaniel were happily in conversation in the back, just like the twins were in front. The seatbelts in the back didn't work, so we sat horizontally, sharing the middle chair between us, facing each other.

When we arrived, we were kind of shocked to not see any sign of our battle, if you ignored the guts that lingered on the ground where we had driven away. There was no debris, any of the crowd had either left completely or had hidden themselves back away, and all the doors were closed. Eerie. That's what it was. As though these Lurkers were housekeepers who tidied up after themselves.

"Do we know where they came from yesterday?" Jade asked as we all hopped out with our assigned guns on our side.

"Well, no. But they looked to be coming from below us," I answered.

"Not from where they got me, the ones that jumped me must have already been on our level. There was no way they could have gotten up so quickly after I checked."

"There were some sprinters in the pack-"

"Yeah, but they're noisy. Do you not remember the racket they made? You'd think their feet were made out of metal. No, these were up there for sure, it was more like they ended up summoning the rest when they found me."

"Like a... Lurker language?"

"Or their wails being the signal for the rest. It could be that they heard us. We don't know what kind of range of their own senses they have."

The stairway we had sprinted down yesterday was clear, all bar one which had a gaping hole in its chest. Undoubtedly one of the chasers that had been injured just enough to slow it down. At least we were right about the headshot part. We anticipated that the noise would potentially alert other of our presence, but hey, that's why we practised after all.

Now up above on the higher floors, you could tell there had been a scene. Glass still sprinkled across the floor, and some of it still draped in blood that had come from one of either me, Jade, or Jace's scratches, bullet shells still on the floor, and the missed bullets on the other side of the row still engrained in the walls.

But nothing living, or rather moving, was to be seen.

"Great! We can make quick work of this and leave unscathed."

Jace told us all what we were looking for, with the way things had been left it could have been anywhere- in multiple different areas- so the struggle was true. Yet, one item seemed to also be with others of its kind, so once you found the first, you could find more.

Me and Nathaniel had taken the left side of the store, taking anything that looked like what we needed. Figuring, that we could throw out anything we didn't need, but that it was better to have picked up some than none.

But something caught my eye.

As a duo, we were at the back of the store. By the contents of the room, it was easy to label it as an area specially dedicated to that of different grenades and other explosives. There were racks on the walls, empty now, but I supposed RPGs would have been displayed upon them. Looking up, I was met with more than an empty shelf and display cabinet. Above us all, on the ceiling, was a spray-painted scythe. All in red.

The mark of the reapers we had been so warned about. The people Jace suspected the deceased man in the autocentre could have warned us all about. Clearly, this was their own territory.

"Nathaniel!" I whisper-cried, latching onto his wrist, making no motion other than a flick of my eyes upwards before I settled them back onto him.

"Well fuck," he just responded before looking down and meeting my eyes with his own again.