In the Apocalypse

Escorpian and the Red Hand

We turned a corner to go under some bridges. What was under the bridges shocked me. There were zombies hanging from a noose with their guts hanging out. There was red paint on the walls beside us when we were under the bridge. I was worried about where I walked between the zombies, hoping the guts streaming down didn't end in the back carrier with my son. 

"Looks like something I would do." Hector commented.

"Damn. It's been a long time since something shocked me." Doc said. 

"So what do you make of this?" Sun Mei asked Warren. 

"Territory thing." Warren suggested with a shrug. 

"Someone's trying to send a message. Someone who doesn't want to be misunderstood." Hector stated.

Then the ropes started breaking. I stepped back, pulling my pistol out. The others were quick to begin fighting the fallen dead. Sun Mei fell backwards as a zombie attacked her. I quickly moved over to her. I kicked the zombie in the face hard enough to get it off her. Then I stomped on its head. The other zombies were dead soon after that. 

"Yeah, I coulda told ya this was a sketchy neighborhood. Could tell by all that damn graffiti on the wall." Doc commented.

We stopped at the sound of a gunshot. The bullet hit by our feet. We turned to look up at a line of men at the top of the bridge. 

"No, no, no, no, no. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Hands where we can see them!" A man in the center shouted down at us. We did as we were told, raising our hands in surrender.

"Easy now." Warren tried to calm them.

"Admiring your work? Come back to finish us off?" The man questioned. 

"You got it wrong, brother." Hector shook his head. 

"You and every one of the Red Hand are gonna die for what you did here." The man declared. 

"Hey, we had nothing to do with these killings." Warren told them. 

"We were cutting down our friends to bury them." The man said angrily. 

"And you could've got my baby and my friends killed by doing so." I shot back. 

"Chris, hush." Warren scolded. 

"Let me see your hands!" The man said again, which confused us as we were showing them our hands. 

"The backs of your hands." The man to his left added. 

"Look we don't want any trouble." Warren assured them as we showed them the backs of our hands.

"Their hands are cleaning." The man that told us to show the back of our hands said. 

"What are you doing here then? What do you want?" The main man asked. 

"Look, we were just passing through here when we came upon this." Warren explained. 

"What is this?" I questioned.

"The Red Hand. Two days ago, everyone was alive. Now look at this." The man informed. "We're gonna bury our friends and then we're going hunting."

"We're gonna bury every last one of the Red Hand. And their scumbag leader, Escorpion." The man to his left declared. 

Our group looked between each other in confusion. Escorpion is here with us, though that part of him is long buried. 

***

"Been here a couple months. Good water supply. Pretty good weather. Not a lotta Zs. Not a lotta trouble. Then the Red Hand came through like a storm. Killed everyone. Tortured 'em all first." The man explained to us as we were all standing down by the bottom of the bridge.