S. Davis - 900 Miles

Gordon continued, “Anybody willing to drop your arms and give up Avalon right now will be allowed to stay. You’ll work, but you’ll be alive. Just remember, there’s a version of this conversation where you get to survive the night.”

Letting that hang there for a moment, he lowered his voice and spoke one final thing. “This is my final offer. You’ve got ninety seconds to decide.”

Glancing amongst the crowd, I could see heads moving from side to side, as if each of us was looking for someone to step out to accept defeat. For a moment, I half-expected it, but Jarvis didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t even flinch or look back at our group, for that matter. In his mind, we were taking this to the end.

After a solid minute and a half of silence, Gordon realized his offer would be unmet. I remember thinking that it really was a true testament to what we were fighting for… each other.

Before the Hummer shifted into gear and started backing up to join the rest of the madmen at the tree line, Gordon simply said, “It’s been a good run, old friend.”

Looking down at the concrete he was crouched upon, Jarvis sat there collecting his thoughts. It must have been nearly impossible to make the decision to put so many people’s lives on the line.

From behind me, a voice emerged from the crowd. Someone had cracked.

I sure as hell knew his face. Not because he was a great fighter or leader of any sort, but because I’d seen it plastered across any number of trash magazine covers prior to the apocalypse. I think he’d dated a famous singer or pop star, had an illegitimate baby with her or cheated on her, or some other crazy headline. He had long hair that even now looked like it was well conditioned.

All things said he was used to having people look at and listen to him. Eyes always watching. People always following. Guess he felt like it was time to cash in on some of that celebrity credit.

Crawling atop a broken-down car in the middle of the courtyard, Mr. Trash raised his voice loud enough to be heard by those of us scattered throughout the interior of the walls. Calling out cries for retreat, surrender, submission. I nearly shit myself as I watched a few others slowly circling around him, nodding their heads as he spoke.

“It’s not too late. There are at least a hundred armed soldiers who are going to rush in here with God knows how many of the Zs… all intent on killing us. How can we possibly survive this?”

Someone else from the crowd, a woman dressed in a black leather coat spoke up. “What choice do you think we have? Are we just going to give up? What do you think they’ll do with us? To us?”

Mr. Trash screamed out, “Whatever it is, at least we’ll have a chance to live. We can negotiate with him. Maybe even find a way to work together, and live in harmony. I for one want to live!”

The woman didn’t respond, and just looked up toward Jarvis. I followed her gaze and saw Jarvis looking down at the crowd. He was silent, listening to the discussion. I could tell he was waiting for everybody to simmer down before he spoke.

Then, just like that, Jarvis raised his head, and stood a little taller than I’d seen him do in the past. He was getting ready to give the speech to rally us. The one that would pull us together. He was getting ready to lay it all on the line to tell us how we needed to fight as a group and that we’d make it out of this alive. We would prevail. We would be victorious.

A man can go a lifetime without making a serious mistake. Making all the right moves. Doing all the right things. However, standing one inch too high or one inch too far to the right… it only takes one tiny error for it all to come to an end.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, his head exploded from a bullet passing through his skull. We all gasped in horror as gore sprayed the crowd. A split second later, we heard the bang from the sniper rifle echo in the distance, followed by what sounded like a horn that suddenly erupted from the tree line.

The world thundered around us as one hundred men let out a battle cry.

They were coming.

“Nowhere to run! Nowhere to run! Nowhere to run!”

As Jarvis, with a hole blown through his head, fell to his knees, rolled over and then off the top of the cinderblock, there was a momentary calm. We were in the eye of the storm. Even as the screaming madmen outside our walls roared to life, there was a unified gasp from inside the Yard that had yet to be let out.

I wasn’t very close, but I could feel Jarvis’s body hit the ground. The world was completely still, just before all hell broke loose. Three people ran up to check his body, feeling at his neck for a pulse.

“Oh, God! Oh, my God… He’s dead!” one of them cried.

With my mind spinning, the mud seemed to be pulling me down, sucking my entire body into its clutches. Before I knew it, I was on my knees looking out in terror as I realized Jarvis, our leader, my friend, had fallen. Those bastards out there killed him.

Gordon had murdered him.

Pulling one arm up from the mud, I sloshed it sideways, flinging the brown sludge against the cinderblock wall before reaching over to grab the hammer from my belt. Clutching that tool of death, as if it was the only thing able to steady me, I reached to my knee with my other hand and started to push myself up.

The oversized head of the hammer, with its imperfect dings and splintered handle, gave me a greatly needed sense of encouragement at that moment. It provided a calm that stopped my heart from thumping against my chest, and snapped me out of the shock.

Shaking my head, I tried to make sense of the madness inside our walls. A quick movement up the wall to my right pulled my attention to Kyle, who was darting up a ladder to the perch that Jarvis had been stationed on. I stood in amazement, watching him carry on like the soldier he was. He’d turn emotion into action, fighting to make it out of this nightmare in one piece. His time to mourn would have to come later.

Kyle always knew death so well.

Pulling each foot out of the mud, I sprinted over to the same wooden ladder. Keeping a steady eye on Kyle, I watched him lift one arm up to the communication link sitting on his shoulder. With all the screaming, I couldn’t hear him clearly from my own comm link, but I knew what he said.

Kyle was putting part of his plan into action.

Fighting marauders for months had given us plenty of experience in learning how to defend ourselves. This wasn’t the first sniper to take a shot our way, and Kyle had a trick or two of his own to combat this threat.

Glancing from Kyle to the far left wall, I knew that he had said three little words into that comm link.

“God, take them!”

One bright but precise muzzle flash sparked from the topside of our far wall just moments before I saw our own sniper roll off the side of cement and escape undetected into the shadows. God, the same man who’d watched over us from the tower above as we entered and exited Avalon, disappeared into the darkness, no doubt setting off to do what he did best. Judge his enemies from the distance. Decide who lived and who died.

Knowing that, in the darkness, our sniper could see the flash from the enemy’s weapons, it was easy for him to hone right in on the bastard that had taken down Jarvis. Kyle had given specific instruction to God. Never aim for the head. He wanted the fuckers to turn into the dead. He wanted them to tear each other apart out there.

As I slid in next to Kyle, he handed me an AR-15 semi-automatic machine gun, which had a fairly decent scope on it.

“You remember how to use this?”

“We’ll see,” I said as I slid the clip out and checked to make sure it was fully loaded.