Hope's Ruin

20 | Return To Ruin

Twelve's voice echoed across The Great Wastes. Shrill and vile. Filled with spite and malice. She thrust her sword towards the sky. The reanimate dead roared, their weapons rattled. They rushed the walls of Hope's Ruin, heaving and pulling their skeletal remains up the stacks of broken vehicles, machinery, household appliances, timber, toys, and trinkets.

Lightning spiked the sand.

Thunder rumbled like iron-shod boots on hallowed ground.

Screams erupted beyond the walls, helpless and desperate.

Twelve gunned the quad bike, rocketing around the city, barking her orders.

"Now's our chance," said Erin.

"Our chance for what?" Pepper said, grabbing her by the shoulder. "To die?"

Erin scowled. "You know this place," she said. "How do we get in?"

"Through the main gate," Pepper said simply.

"Come on," Erin urged. "There must be a weakness in the walls. A gap to slip through. A place you and your brother used to escape and explore this graveyard of rotting tech. Something. Anything."

"Hope's Ruin was built to keep us in," Pepper said. "And repel outsiders."

Erin thumbed towards the overwhelming force of rags and bones now scaling the walls. "Solid job."

"No one predicted that an army of reanimated corpses would attack!"

"So, we follow," Erin said, shaking Pepper's grip loose and storming up the dunes towards Hope's Ruin. She grabbed at cloth and rags strewn helplessly across the sand and wrapped them around her body, transforming, blending in.

Pepper used the staff to climb the bank and launch herself after the impetuous girl. She followed Erin's lead, covering herself in itchy wool and sand-blasted fabric. They darted between the wreckage of abandoned vehicles and appliances.

Morning light fought against the tumbling clouds. The world moved in and out of shadow. Pepper and Erin used it for cover as they approached the great walls of Hope's Ruin.

Most of the dead had made their way inside. Pepper stood with her back to the wall while Erin looked for handholds. She grabbed the corner of a fridge, an iron bed frame, a splintered surfboard, and swung her feet onto the bonnet of a burnt-out jeep. Up and up she climbed, dragging her malnourished body beyond Pepper's reach.

Pepper followed, grabbing appliances and metal girders for support. She had no idea how Erin managed it. The girl made it look so easy. Pepper's arms ached. Her legs burned. But she wrenched herself towards the top, one agonising foothold at a time.

And, as she climbed, the wall quaked and shook beneath her fingers. The sound of metal on metal rang from some distant place. Pitiful wails and roars joined the dry crack of lightning and the roll of thunder.

From the top, Erin reached down.

With their fingers entwined, Pepper was heaved to the top of the wall. From here she took a long, horrifying gaze across Hope's Ruin. Buildings yawned and collapsed. Tech fizzed and sparked. Black smoke belched into the air, choking the city. Terrifying reanimates of rag and bone, tore through the city swinging weapons of blade and fire. Men and women and children abandoned their homes and ran, scared for their lives, like rats in a maze.

Chains rattled.

Metal scraped against metal.

Pepper looked to the main gate.

Victorious cheers clouded the air.

The mighty doors were opening, allowing yet more reanimated corpses to infest the city like a tidal wave of locusts. And behind them came their leader. Dark Twelve, astride her quad bike—like Death on her pale stallion.