Absent Link

Chapter 20: Offroad

"How did they think to hide?" Dylan panicked as he asked Amelia. She had stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she heard the rush of ersatz breaking into the building.

"I don't know." She turned to look at Dylan, then sputtered out, "Actually, yes I do. It's Layla. She gave them special instructions."

Dylan threw his hands in the air and let out a heavy, frustrated sigh.

Makalyn started to tear up, "You saw what they did here! We can't fight that!"

Dylan closed his eyes and shakily said, "No, no. We're not totally screwed. We have Amelia. She can send them away before they even get to us."

Amelia scoffed. "Away? Into the real world? Where the rest of your crew is? Oh! And not to mention us. Where we are."

"What if you just send us away?" Dylan pleaded.

"You want me to stay here and die?"

Frost once again had to halt the commotion. "For the love of God, shut up! We can find a place to hide in here, then look for a way out."

"We have a few seconds at max before those ersatz break through that door." Amelia cried. "We have to fight." Amelia turned to grab a pen from a small stand. She handed it to Makalyn. "Do your worst."

Frost looked behind them at the open courtyard. "Let's head out. Best case scenario we'll outrun them."

And so, they all piled out of that room and shut the door in its locked state, immediately running to the other side of the courtyard, hoping that some entrance might be open. All around them, the sound of the ersatz seemed to reverberate, and it wasn't long before they had broken through one of the doors and started sprinting their way towards them.

It was more of a tumble, to be fair. Many of them seemed to have difficulty walking, and they kept tripping over themselves. They clawed at the air in front of them but seemed to be unable to reach out fully, as if they were held back by intense pain.

Dylan stopped running. This was familiar. It seemed a lot like what he'd seen in that deer, although at a weaker scale. Then it hit him, and he said out loud. "They're the victims."

The rest of the group stopped running. They looked out at the mob when they realized that's what got his attention. The ersatz were all torn apart, a limb hanging from a thread, a chest sliced open and flailing, legs torn off completely. They stumbled forward in a somewhat feeble attempt to reach the group.

"Guys." Dylan looked over at the group. "We can fight them. They're handicapped."

"You can fight them, Dylan. YOU." Makalyn said, unphased.

"Well then stay close." Dylan joined the rest of the group as they ran to the nearest door. Amelia smashed it open with her fist before Frost could get his key out and they ran inside just in time for the ersatz to begin pouring in too. They had an advantage over the ersatz here since they were much more agile, but one after another would catch up, and Amelia would systematically break them down while periodically speeding up to catch up to the group. Dylan was taking on front, watching out for any paths that contained ersatz. He didn't know where he was going necessarily, just that he needed to go wherever there wasn't immediate danger. Slowly but surely, this led the group to the stairwell, where they went up a story, then another, and another until they were on the very last level of the building. Dylan pushed open the final door they could walk out of and found himself on the roof.

The cold wind had only gotten colder since the encounter began, and the sky had started to become a deep bloody red. Nevertheless, he ran out and began looking for a way down. As soon as Amelia had taken the ersatz she was fighting and tossed it over the railing of the stairs, she followed behind and slammed the door shut, knowing it wouldn't hold very long.