Shell

Chapter 2: Grinding Bone

It's been three days since we left the island and we've just now come into Idaho. Abandoned cars along with road disasters had blocked our way from time to time, but that wasn't the end of it either we had to avoid heading into Nazi territory. Our goal is to make it past Montana after that we should be home free. I pulled up the news from time to time to see how far spread the Nazi's have gone and they have effectively taken the coast which meant they were right on our tails. I had called my mom to reassure her that we were alright and that we were heading to them as best as we could whenever I had the chance. Ray was driving, I was in the passenger seat keeping a lookout on our right while the others were crashed out in the back. I scratched the stubble growing on my face in annoyance while looking out at the the empty plains.

"We'll stop at the next town alright?' Ray said to me sure to not wake the others.

"Yeah, that sounds fine." I replied.

I rest my head against the window and unknowingly fell asleep. As I slept I dreamed of a firefight, running through an office building someone screaming "Jump!" followed by an intense pain in my arm and then the sense of falling. I awoke visibly startled as the truck stopped with everyone now awake and pilling out. Ray looked over at me.

"Hey man you alright?" he asked with a quizical look on his face.

"Yeah I'm fine," I said as I turned away from him and got out of the truck.

I grabbed my rifle and gear out of the bed of the truck and I scanned around the area. It was a sizeable city though I couldn't tell which one it was from looks alone.

"Hey Ray where are we?"

"Beats me, though I think we're in Montana now."

I walked to the center of the road and looked down it. An erie fog had rolled in and I couldn't see all the way down the road but I also couldn't see the roofs of the buildings. I got a chill down my spine.

"Hey guys, you ever seen fog like this?" I asked.

They all looked around shaking their heads every so often.

"No can't I have at least," Marcus said.

The others nodded in agreement.

"I got a bad feeling about this," I muttered.

I walked back over to the group and stretched out a little bit. I sat down and pulled out an MRE and looked at what was going to be inside. Tortellini, it seems, I smiled at this as nostalgic memories came to me as this was the first kind of MRE I'd ever had as I took on a bet with my dad.

"Hey guys get the fuck behind something now!" Josh whispered loudly, running to us from the street.

We all gathered our gear quickly and ran inside of an office building and hid behind various objects that would fit us. I peeked out of a little rectangular hole in a desk to see outside of the windowed doors. My heart nearly stopped as I saw what passed them. Dark grey military and SWAT vehicles and walking along side them were fully armed soldiers clad in grey with red armbands. I already knew who they were without needing to see more, the new era Nazis, they had caught up with us.

"Sir look! It's truck we've been following!" I heard a soldier yell out.

They've been following us?! Since when? So many thoughts ran through my already taxed mind.

"Good, they're here in the city, probably somewhere close by too. Have men search that office complex. Remember I want some if not all alive," said a man with a very thick German accent.

"Right away sir!"

I looked over at Ray and Marcus, they had the same look of shock and disbelief as I did. Ray looked over to me and motioned all of us up the stairs. When we got up the stairs out of Cooper's bag a water bottle fell out and rolled down the stairs. We all stopped frozen in horror as that water bottle had probably just sealed our fates.

"Look! They're up stairs! Go, Go, Go!" one of the soldiers yelled as we heard them start running on the marble floor below.

We all muttered our fair share of curses as we dashed to find cover behind the cubicles. I set up behind Ray and Marcus and aimed my AR-15 down at the stairway entrance, Cooper and Josh set up further behind me near the other stairwell that led to the third floor. As two nazi soldiers ran up the stairs and started firing at us, before I could get a shot off Ray lit them up with his M249 that we picked up from an abandoned military base. The two nazis were felled almost instantly as the bullets ripped through them, but it was a weak victory as we heard far more than two more rushing in downstairs.

"Come on lets get another floor between us!" Josh yelled.

"Roger!" I yelled.

Ray, Marcus, and myself got up and sprinted to the stairwell. But before we got there Ray was shot in the ankle.

"Ray!" I yelled as I immediately turned to grab him and pull him up to the stairs but was met with bullets narrowly missing me.

I pulled up my rifle and fired at the nazis pouring out of the stairs one after the other until about twenty of them were in the room after I dropped about four of them. Ray was gathering himself and set back up behind a cubicle.

"Go! I'll hold em here while you look for a way out!" Ray yelled as he looked to me specifically.

"Come on Kyle we gotta go!" Marcus yelled holding back something in his throat as he pulled my jacket sleeve.

We ran up the stairs as we heard the continuous gunfire from Ray along with his yells of rage. Once we reached the top though the sounds stopped.

"Fuck this I'm going back down there, Kyle get yourself to your family," Marcus said as he pumped his shotgun and ran back down the stairs.

I tried to reach for him when an explosion hit the building and I was knocked to the floor. The nazis seemed to posses a tank. I got back up and saw a hole in the side of the building which showed that with a good jump we could pass into the next building and maybe get away. I heard shotgun bursts for a few seconds along with some screams and an unmistakable laugh, but they stopped only a few seconds after they began. I heard running beside me and Josh followed by Cooper ran to the hole and took running jumps into the next building. They looked back to me and yelled for me to get up and hurry. I scrambled to my feet and started running towards my only salvation. As I was about to jump my footing gave way from the loose ground and instead of leaping out the window I slipped out throwing my arms out in front of me. Josh and Cooper reached for my hands but missed and I fell about one meter from them before a sharp pain entered my left forearm just below my elbow. My fall abruptly stopped as pain shot through me from my arm, I looked to where the pain was and saw a re-bar from the destroyed part of the building had hooked through my arm and I was left dangling.

"Kyle!" both Josh and Cooper shouted in unison.

Both of them trying to reach my arm and try to pull me up. I realized that if they stayed here we would all be killed no matter what. I reached for my .45 and pulled it up to the other elbow.

"Kyle no! What the fuck are you doing?!" Josh yelled.

"Saving your asses," I said through a ragged breath as I began to shoot my elbow.

The pain was unlike anything I could imagine,  it was the essence of true pain as I continued to shoot my elbow until the magazine was empty. Red was clouding my vision as I looked at my destroyed elbow, the only thing keeping it attached to my forearm was a bit of muscle tissue that somehow wasn't severed. I looked back at Josh and Cooper's wide eyed stares then back at my arm. I placed my right hand on my left arm and began to forcefully pull away from my practically severed arm. The intense pain returned but not nearly as bad as before and my vision reddened again as I screamed through my teeth as finally the tissue snapped off and I fell. I fell in slow motion, Josh pulled Cooper away as he was still reaching for me. 'Mission accomplished' I thought to myself as I smiled. Time resumed normally and I fell crashing onto a dumpster before rolling off it and hitting the ground laying face up at the sky. My vision darkened as I saw a man in a dark grey coat walk up to me.

"Well, this one seems to have a strong will," the figure said with a strong German accent.

"What about the two that escaped?" asked another voice.

"Let them go, we got what we need. Yes this one alone would be fine but we snagged three of them."

"As you say sir."

And that was the last thing I saw before I blacked out.