Cacophony [ONC 2023]

19 - Epilogue

The Screamers now wandered and moved in seeming random directions and that saved Henna's life, otherwise she would have had to have stayed locked away in that towering communications dish until she starved. Most of the Screamers began to trail out of the compound, through holes in the fences they had made while assaulting the place, or through those gaps created by newly revived people commandeering the assembled trucks, driving in desperation trough the chainlink fencing.

Even so, it took another two days before Henna could see enough gaps in the shuffling Screamers to reach the tactical van. She had spent a little time searching for Cas, but found no sign of her. Nothing recognisable remained and, if she had survived, become cured, she would have let nothing stop her from reaching Henna. Or, perhaps she had survived but remained as a Screamer. Henna half-wished she had died.

Things were different now. So very different and Henna couldn't predict how what she had done would affect the world. Whether those people that had come back from being Screamers could help to rebuild the world, whether there were enough resources left, food, to sustain them, or whether the Screamers that now moved and sought out living creatures to slaughter would end it once and for all.

And the Screamers killed everything now. Even as Henna drove the stuttering, barking tactical van away from the compound, she saw Screamers swarming and killing other creatures. Dogs, their feral packs no longer giving them the strength they thought, lay dead along the route, torn apart and left to rot. A deer, running from the trees, bouncing and prancing, couldn't outrun the Screamers, falling to their ripping, bloodied fingernails once it had exhausted itself. Screamers never grew tired.

At least the Screamers still heralded their approach with that piercing, inhuman noise but, several times along the way, Henna could have sworn some Screamers only began to scream as they attacked something. She saw several people, former Screamers by the looks of their loose, twisted jaws, running from packs of Screamers, but she didn't stop to help. She couldn't. She had helped enough and look what her help had caused.

It didn't matter whether she travelled during the day or the night. Screamers didn't appear to need to see their victims, sensing their body heat, or hearing their movements, or smelling them. Perhaps a combination. Sight was not among the senses they needed. Twice, she saw former Screamers succumb to screaming once again, stopping in mid-stride as they ran, their bodies becoming loose and sanguine before their heads tilted back, opening their already ruined mouths to scream once again. She hadn't solved anything. Not a damned thing.

On the outskirts of the city, her city, the tactical van gave out, puttering to a stop one last time. Carrying more weaponry than she would ever need, she left the rest, hoping that other survivors could make use of it. God knew people would need everything they could get to survive this new phase of the screaming plague. Or whatever it was. Even now, she still didn't really understand it and doubted anyone ever would. It didn't matter what had caused it, or who, it only mattered that screams still rent the air and the actions of the planet's greatest minds had only served to turn the previously passive Screamers into vicious killers without guidance or purpose.

Henna had learned her lessons well, flitting from cover to cover, never showing herself for long enough that anyone could could target her. Giving Screamers as wide a birth as possible, or patiently hiding until they shuffled away in their aimless wanderings. In a way, it was better for her than before. At least now she could avoid the Screamers. Before, she and Cas had always felt on edge, awaiting the inevitable rush of Screamers racing toward them due to the package they carried. Henna no longer had that problem. She had a whole bunch of new problems.

Like here. Like now. Standing in front of the house she had shared with Carla, both before and after the Screamers had come, though in very different ways. Henna had come home, though to what, she didn't know. It was only a few days since Cas had returned to her life. A few days that felt like months. Like years. Time compressed so tight it could burst and make every clock run fast for a year.

She didn't want to go inside. She desperately needed to go inside. Wearing a fresh set of ear defenders and plugs, gas mask, tactical vest and helmet, and more armaments and bags of ammunition than a small army, she felt as safe as she could ever possibly feel short of living in a fortified bunker, but she felt greater terror now than she had ever felt.

Carla was in there.

Either the cure broadcast had returned Carla to humanity, though injured, or Carla still screamed. Henna wanted to know and didn't. If she stayed out here, she could imagine that Carla was herself once more, that she would smile again, laugh again, love Henna again. She could imagine it and never have to face an ugly truth, that Carla may be gone, forever. A wandering Screamer, further up the street made Henna's decision for her.

She secured the door closed before she dropped everything she carried in the mattress-covered room she had lived in for six months. It stank. Of stale sweat, and blood from where Cas had shot Carla. Hesitant, Henna removed her ear defenders, clipping them to her tac-vest and listened. The only screams she heard came from outside, some distance away. She couldn't hear Carla.

Moving through the house in a daze, she could barely control herself. If Carla had reverted back, stopped screaming, she would need her wounds tending to, would need food, comfort, love. Reaching the door, she ripped the mattress away and paused before opening it, but not for long. As the door opened, she saw the mattress she had rolled her girlfriend in moving and almost began to cry.

They would have to find somewhere. Somewhere safe, far away, where other survivors congregated. Somewhere where they had started to rebuild, to grow food and livestock. There had to be places like that. Sanctuaries away from the Screamers that now travelled abroad. Somewhere she and Carla could call home. Edging around, she saw the tips of Carla's dried, brittle, ruined hair and hoped to see her beautiful girlfriend once again.

The movement in the mattress stopped and, as Henna moved further around, she watched as Carla's head turned to face her. No. Not to face her. Not in any human way. The head still tilted in a painful looking manner and, as the head turned, a noise came from her. It. A gurgle, a rattle, a croak that then became a growl and then ... a scream. A loud, high-pitched, piercing scream that forced Henna to return the ear defenders to her head.

It hadn't worked for the one person Henna had needed it to. Carla wasn't cured. Hadn't returned to her. Henna's hand fell to the pistol at her belt, unclipping the catch. She removed the gun from its holster and, with her thumb, flicked off the safety. It already had a bullet in the chamber.