Tale of The Broken Sword

Chapter Thirty Four : A Bullet from the Sky

17th February, AD 2057

Washington, D.C. – Former City

Simmons had been in front of us the entire time, taking point as we moved out. He dashed from cover to cover, careful of narrow places that might spell out an easy ambush. The rest of us followed him at a distance, each staying as close as possible. If the mutants were to have spotted us, at least we have the whole group to stand against it rather than a lone person to do all the work.

Simmons stopped at the corner of a mostly whole building and waited for us to catch up. When a few of us did, he took a long, deep breath and prepared to move out once more. As he did, Simmons noticed something and raised his hand almost immediately at us.

“Quiet!” He whispered loudly, nodding his head towards a pack of wild dogs scouring around the wide street. “Wild dogs, more dangerous than it looks. We’d better stumble onto those beasts; they’ll call out for more.”

Simmons looked around and saw an alley that leads to another main road. He raised his hunting rifle and used the flashlight to point it out. “We’ll have to bypass the main road using that alley.”

He waited for the smog in the streets to clear out and then moved out. The rest of us followed him, once more a few seconds apart.

We chased Simmons across the streets of the city, working our way closer to the beacon’s location, our goal. As we went, the buildings became more and more badly destroyed but no less abandoned. It’s like we’re advancing towards the epicentre of the blast, knowing the effects it has on the buildings on the way.

On several corners, Warren spotted handbills with the faces of missing people. After a moment of staring briefly at the handbills, he snorted and leaves, feeling sure that none of them would ever be found, alive.

Eventually, Simmons signalled for a break.

“Check your targets,” He said, sitting down on a slab of broken concrete. “Those beasts might be crawling around, waiting to pounce onto us. Unless you don’t want to be made into confetti by those things, stay sharp and tell me if there’s anything out there.”

Janice squatted on her knees behind a burned truck in the middle of the street. I came up behind her, then Warren. I was breathing heavily, trying to restore my body’s energy. I wondered if the rest of the people would felt the same, being tired as hell. The long trip from Detroit had been long and brutal –hours of boredom would be considered brutal– and the sudden change of temperature had taken a lot out of us, especially when we feel dehydrated from the extreme heat.

If anyone had gotten the worst of it, it was Simmons. An old man, he is. Couldn’t stay out in the beam of the sun longer than us and had to rest several times in a row. The former army man panted heavily as he lunged his hunting rifle along, still slung over his shoulders.

“Water?” I offered him a bottle of water.

“No, thank you,” Simmons said with a little laugh.

Janice then held up a hand. “Quiet.”

Sounds of movement came up from ahead, on the other side of the car. Aaron craned his neck to see what it was. He saw a pack of figures racing down the street away from them.

Warren raised his rifle and swung the barrel of his gun around the side of the truck and took aim, but Simmons pushed the gun away. Janice spotted what Simmons had seen. These aren’t mutants or packs of wild dogs.

“Scavengers,” Simmons quickly said, killing away every doubt that the team has on what figure was. “People that lived and survived in here. They’re not mutants or anything, and they had gas masks, like us.”

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” Simmons replied. “But they know this city better than we do. So we’ve to follow them.”

The scavengers rounded the nearest corner than disappeared. Simmons left the cover of the truck to follow them. Then he heard a loud gunfire coming from that direction, and he moved faster.

Simmons rounded around the corner cautiously and ducked straight into an open square near the centre of the city. He peered out from the edge of the concrete rubble and saw several scavengers fighting off a large pack of wolves. It was a bloodbath; several of the scavengers lay dead on the floor, mauled up by the hungry wild packs of wolves.

The rest, who survived, raised their guns and kept firing at the incoming wolves, killing as many as they can before those beasts managed to grab their limbs and tear them apart. Groans and screams came from the opposite direction, from where the wolves came from. They sounded human, though most likely that their dead already.

I nearly stood up and was about to join in the scavenger’s fight against the pack, but Simmons jerked me from behind, with a annoyed glare on his face.

“Let them be,” He growled. “It’s no use being in a losing fight.”

“But, they–.”

“Let. Them. Be.” This time, Simmons sounded so serious that I had to stop myself from saying any further. He then loosened his grip on me and shoved me aside. “We’d better move along.”

Without saying a word after that, he took point once more. The team fell into place behind him without any objections. Warren caught up with Simmons and fell into a step just behind the army man.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Warren showed no anger, only stating a question. “I mean, like leaving the scavengers to fend for themselves. They’re human, like us too you know.”

“If we join in the fight, we won’t be walking now. We would’ve been dead and became their dinner.”

He picked up the pace then, leaving Warren behind. Rubbing his forehead in a disapproving sigh, he followed from behind. Janice helped Caryn on her feet when she accidentally slipped her feet into a wide crack. Aaron chuckled for a second before being glared up by the both of them.

I glared up towards the gloomy skies and saw an enormous swirling cloud heading onto our way. Mustering all my courage to talk to Simmons, I darted towards the front of the group and tapped him on his shoulder.

“What?” He said with a gruff voice.

“Look up there,” I pointed towards the direction of the incoming ‘storm clouds’. “Don’t you think it’s a bit weird?”

“What about it?” He said, looking at the clouds.

“It’s swirling, it looked like an air passage or something like that.”

“It’s just a cloud. Nothing will––” Simmons topped as a loud humming sound came from the clouds, coming from the direction of the open space among the swirling vapours.

“What was that?” Warren asked. He felt agitated listening to the distinct humming noise. “Never heard that kind of sound before.”

“Yeah,” Simmons cocked his head towards the sky. “Sounds very... different.”

Moments later, something broke through the gray clouds like a bullet bursting through a thin wooden board. It left a large trail of smoke from behind as it plunged into the earth below. Squinting my eyes to get a clearer view of it, it looked almost similarly to the airship that we’ve caught.

“Another airship?” Warren asked almost immediately.

“Looks like it,” Simmons stared at the rapidly descending ship as it crosses through several buildings before smashing into one side of the skyscrapers top, which seemed to reach up to snatch it from the sky.

Seconds later, the airship bursts free from the building’s sleeve, into the open sky once more and careened towards the city ground below.

“It crashed!” Warren exclaimed.

“We’d better hurry!” Simmons darted towards the direction of the crashed airship. From a distance, a huge pillar of smoke emerged from the place where it crashed, making directions to it a lot easier.

We followed Simmons from behind, running across several streets before entering another open square like the previous one. Hoping that we could find the pilot of the downed ship before anyone could, answers seemed to be within my grasp.