Final Crisis

Chapter 44

The group made it through without being ambushed, which was a worry in some of their minds. The garden was silent, the plants swaying softly in the calm wind. Rays of moonlight cascaded through the dome glass, appearing like tall pillars.

In front of them were azalea trees sprouting from the sides of a mossy, rocky hill. They weren’t exactly sure how that had been done, but they ignored it anyway.

“Jeez, was it always like this?” Raphael asked, slapping a drooping leaf out of the way as he went down a stone path. It was made of stones of various sizes, brown and gray and yellowed. Dark wooden fences lined the sides of the path. “Feels like a tree’s gonna come alive and eat me.”

“Oh please, I wish it would,” Juliet quipped, ignoring Raphael’s frown.

“You know, if any of you come across a clown zombie…lemme know,” Raphael said, readying his machete, “I wanna bonk it on the nose. See if I can get a honk.”

“Okay, we’ll let you know,” Juliet rolled her eyes.

“It’s beautiful here,” Russell said in awe, admiring all of the plant life around him. Berries, trees, bushes, ferns, flowers, moss, it was an overwhelming amount of dark green accompanied by pink and red and purple and so much more.

“We’ll head to the cabin,” Bill pointed to the house atop a rocky hill not too far from them. “We can contact the evacuation crew and then take the tunnel.”

The website had brought up a radio stashed away in a cabin near the center of the dome. They were instructed to go there and contact the evac team using it.

“Yeah, if these damn leaves wouldn’t get in the way so much…” Juliet shoved hanging branches out of the way. “At this point I’m gonna start cutting through them! Since when did they grow this fast?”

“Stay alert,” Bill said. The group had already almost taken a side path without realizing.

Bruce was hyper focused, shining his flashlight in the plants to check for any seekers. He hadn’t found any. Finn hadn’t either, but he still felt uneasy.

Did the other survivors really clear out everything?

They made their way down some stone steps, having walked into a meadow-like area, with more stone paths going through it in rows.  The grass in the area was uneven; on one side, the grass was terribly overgrown, long overdue for a trim, but as the meadow passed on, the grass got shorter and shorter until it got to grass that was only a few inches high.

They traversed through, crossing through the meadow and deciding to skip the paths. The group stopped upon hearing a quiet and weak snarl. They all whipped around, flashlight beams spinning around the place like bullets. They stopped once they saw the infected. It was a child, the same height as the overgrown grass. Her hair was up in pigtails, and her once curious and innocent eyes looked at the group with anger and hunger.

Bill stood like a statue, and Bruce readied his shotgun. The child charged at them, but Bruce fired. Her head split open like a glass bottle that suffered too much pressure, and collapsed to the ground.

“Let’s get going,” Bruce said, reloading his shotgun.

“Shit…” Raphael muttered, stepping over her body.

Russell muttered a prayer for her, and they continued on. Not until Bruce was stopped by a sudden hand that jutted from the blades of grass, grabbing his ankle. He almost tripped to the ground, but managed to steady himself.

A seeker popped its head from the grass in a blind rage. He snarled and bit at the air as Bruce managed to free his foot from his sloppy grasp. Bruce rapidly pointed his shotgun down and blasted the seeker’s head open, looking like a split cabbage. Brain matter sprayed around.