Dead Frontier/Issue 84

This is Issue #84 of Dead Frontier by Walkerbait22, titled ''Love. ''This is the final issue in Volume 14.

Issue 84 - Love
In the lobby, the day's supply runners--Cole, Lucy, Duke, Hiro, Devon, Alec, Lienne, and ten others--are nearly prepared to head out, save for a few that take a little longer to get ready. Cole leans against the wall nearest to the entrance, his arms crossed and Lucy by his side. "Ready for your first run?" Cole asks. "You're nervous, aren't you? So nervous. So, so, so nervous, I bet."

"One: don't be a dick," Lucy says, "and two: I'm not nervous. Most infected are frozen, anyways. We go in, we get what we need, we get out."

"Most are frozen. Not all. So keep an eye out."

"Any other advice, General Pruitt?"

"Just trying to be helpful. You look a little...a little on edge."

She sighs and stares straight ahead, her eyes fixed on a random point on the opposite wall. "I'm more nervous about how pissed off my dad is, alright?"

"Okay. I'm going to say something, and no offense to you, but...your dad needs to get over this over-protection shit. You're fucking 24 years old. You're his kid, but you're not a kid, y'know? I'm sorry, but he's gotta get over it."

"I know. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't. So thanks...for convincing me."

He only has to take one look at her expression before asking, "You're not doubting this, are you?"

"No. I mean, I was. And now I am again."

"Nerves?"

"Yes, Cole. I'm nervous. There."

He smiles at her reluctant admission and pulls her into a hug, setting his chin atop her head as she rests her cheek against his chest. "That's not a bad thing, y'know. But seriously, there's nothing to be nervous about. We'll be back in four hours, at the most, and chances are there won't be any infected to even kill. So just relax, and everything'll be good. I don't want you to worry."

There's a short pause, and Lucy looks up at him and asks, "How do you always know the right thing to say?"

"I dunno. A gift from God, maybe. Or I'm just that good."

"Yeah, I'm really sure it's one of those," she says. She presses both of her palms to his chest and gives him a long kiss. She's a bit disappointed when he breaks away, instead using a finger to lift her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes.

"I'm serious, Lucy. I don't want you to be nervous. Just relax. I'll be right by your side the whole time."

Still waiting for a few people to finish preparing, Cole heads to the cafeteria and finds Adam sitting with Jake and Adrienne, with Joe preparing them all coffee across the countertop. Jake sketches on a piece of white paper, and, without saying anything, Cole looks over Jake’s shoulder, observing the drawing. Cole nods, impressed with the progress his art skills have made in just the last month. Jake’s steady hand produces a buff, rugged hero that stands tall in front of Chicago’s skyline. “That’s really good, dude,” Cole says.

“Thanks,” Jake mutters, never breaking his focus.

Adam clears his throat and looks to Cole. “He was telling me about it,” Adam says. “The guy--the superhero guy, I mean--his name’s Cooper Conley. He’s got this whole thing where he can control any animal. Any. He can...call up a bear or something. Or if there’s a bees’ nest, he can get the bees to go batshit or something on his enemy. Pretty cool.”

“That’s awesome...” Cole says, his eyes never leaving the paper.

“Adrienne gave him some tips, too.”

“Oh, really?” Cole asks, taking a quick glance at her.

“Yes,” she says. “I draw--I mean, I used to. I went to school for art, so I gave him a bit of advice. Doesn’t look like he really needs it, though. He’s a natural.”

“Very much agreed,” Joe adds in, setting his palms on the counter and leaning forward. “You’ve got talent kid.”

“Not gonna be m-much use to me now though, i-i-is it?” Jake says, and he looks up for the first time.

“I was just...giving a compliment. Sorry, Jake.” Joe forces a smile, and an uncomfortable silence settles around them. “You know Cole,” Joe says, changing the subject as quickly as possible, “I was making everyone a little cup of Joe--” He pauses for a second to chuckle at his own joke. “--and thought maybe you’d like some?”

“Yeah, sure,” Cole says, and he takes a seat next to Jake. “Archie’s taking forever to get his stuff together...guess I can stay.”

As Joe gets their drinks prepared, Cole nudges Jake lightly in the ribs. The pencil that once moved so swiftly before stops, and Jake looks up. “Are you okay?” Cole asks. “You’re being really mopey and teenager-ish today.”

“I’m just trying to f-focus.”

“Then why’d you come down here?”

“I was coming down to say bye t-to you. Then you guys took too f-fucking long to get ready, so Adam dragged me over here for a snack and ch-chat or whatever while we waited. Got bored and started drawing.”

“Well, I’m here now.”

“But you’re not l-leaving yet, so it’s not really appropriate to s-say b-b-bye.”

Cole chuckles to himself and shrugs. “Alright, Jake. Just checking.” He grabs a mug of coffee from Joe and blows on it for a few minutes before taking a sip. Jake does the same, but spits it out immediately, a look of pure disgust on his face.

“Jesus, this tastes sh-shit, Joe,” Jake says, sliding the mug back to Joe.

“Jake. Chill,” Adam says with a hint of warning in his voice. “It’s just coffee.”

“I’m just telling him, the coffee t-tastes fucking terrible.”

Joe’s face falls, and he looks at Jake apologetically. “I-I’m sorry. We’ve just been running a little low on the sugar and cream so I’ve gotta make do with what I’ve got.”

Cole glares at Jake as he says, “No, Joe, you don’t have to apologize. Come here. Please.” Cole says, and he yanks Jake by the arm, pulling him a few feet away. “If something’s wrong with you, you’ve gotta tell me Jake.”

Jake sighs and looks at the ground. “Look, I just don’t like that you’re g-going, alright?”

“Why? I’ve gone on--”

“I know. You’ve left for r-runs tons of times, but th-that was before--” He swallows hard and clenches his hands into fists. “I didn’t have any br-brothers or anything, you know? Or many people that even...just c-cared. It’s weird. What I’m saying is, you’ve left before, yeah, but that was before I th-thought of you like my...like a friend. So, just be safe. And don’t get b-bit. Please.”

Cole smiles and messes up Jake’s hair. “How much of a dick move would it be if I got bit just to piss you off?”

“A r-really big dick move. And r-really stupid.”

“Yeah, it would. Now go back and drink your coffee. Can’t waste that.” Jake manages a smile, and Cole pats him on the shoulder.

"I spy...something white," Devon says, gazing out the truck's window and propping her head up on her fist. Lienne and Alec sit next to her, and Cole drives as Lucy sits in the passenger seat.

"Snow..." Alec and Lienne say monotonously.

"Again..." Alec adds in. "More snow."

"It's coming down really hard," Lienne says, scrunching her lips together disapprovingly at the storm outside.

"It's not that bad," Devon says. "I've seen worse."

"Okay, okay, I've got a good one," Alec says. "I spy...something blue."

"Is it the sky, Alec?" Lienne groans.

"Yeah. It was the best I could do. Sorry. Cole, Lucy, wanna try?”

Cole shrugs. “Yeah, I’ll go. Uh...” He looks out the windshield, squinting his eyes through the snow. Nothing but a sheet of white until a bit of red peeks through. “I spy a big red sign.”

“Red sign?”

“Yep.”

“Stop sign?”

“Nope.”

“Uh--”

“It’s the store,” Lucy says, pointing. Sure enough, the large parking lot of a K-mart slowly appears, the sign Cole mentioned clearly coming into view as well.

Inside the store is nothing special; it’s your general department store, and the seventeen people split into 5 groups to cover a larger area. Cole walks along with Lucy’s hand grasped tight in his, sighing at the nearly-empty shelves and racks. Lienne walks a few feet behind them, periodically picking up and observing a tarnished dress or blouse.

“Guys,” Lienne says. “I know I’m the third wheel here or whatever, but I've got to ask: what do you think of this?” She holds up a flower-patterned blouse in pretty good condition.

Cole and Lucy respond simultaneously, but with completely opposite responses:

“Terrible,” Cole says.

“I like it,” Lucy says.

“I think I’ll go with the woman’s opinion,” says Lienne, stuffing the blouse into her bag.

“That’s not sexist at all,” Cole says. “And does it really matter? Is fashion that big of a priority? Really?”

“No,” Lucy says. “But can it hurt to, you know...pretend like it is.”

“She...she knows what she’s talking about,” Lienne says, nodding. “You could maybe--” She can’t finish her sentence as a burst of gunfire comes from the front of the store, eliciting a few shouts and frantic footsteps as people run in different directions.

Near an aisle toward the front filled with shelves holding cheap paperbacks, Devon, Alec, and Duke exchange glances between one another at the sound of gunshots. Duke peeks behind a shelf to observe the commotion, when a plethora of more shots sound off, followed by wild hollering. Their guns are drawn, and they crouch.

“What is it?” Devon shouts at Duke over the gunfire.

“No idea! Can’t see anything from here!” Duke responds. Then, there’s an explosion and an agonizing cry. Their stomachs drop, the fear of not knowing what’s happening overcoming all other emotions.

“We gotta go!” Duke says. He nods his head towards the back of the store, and Alec begins to follow.

But Devon says, “Wait! We can’t just go! What about everyone else?”

“Dev,” Alec says, “if shit is exploding, we gotta fucking go!” He takes a quick glance behind Duke. “Look, the back is clear.”

“ROXIE SAYS HELLO!” a man shouts, and he pulls a the pin on a grenade before launching it as far as he can.

Devon’s too preoccupied with getting Alec to stay behind that she doesn’t see something roll just a few feet away from her. And there’s another explosion:

The explosion from the grenade that blows Devon’s legs clean off.

Alec is only dazed for a couple of seconds. The explosion knocked him off his feet, and he feels a sharp pain in his shoulder. But he doesn’t check what’s causing it, and his gaze instead falls on Devon. She lies where the shelves of books, now obliterated, used to stand. From the knee down, her legs are no longer intact, and the area around her has turned into a small pool of blood that grows rapidly.

Alec can feel the tears on his cheeks as he crawls over to her. The blood stains his clothes and pants, but he ignores it, and grabs her hand. Blood speckles her face, too, as she stares back at him, the shock, fear, and sadness petrifying her. She squeezes Alec’s hand as more gunshots fill the air around them, knowing he’s muttering something but her vision quickly gets fuzzier. The world quieter.

The explosion knocked Duke into the nearest wall. He feels a bit of blood trickling down the side of his head, but he manages to get to his knees shakily. He crawls toward Devon and Alec as fast as his pained body can take him.

“Oh--oh, God,” Alec mutters, staring at the carnage around him. But he tries, as best as he can, to compose himself, and he moves some hair out of Devon’s face. “We’ll--we’ll get you somewhere safe, okay, Dev?”

“We need to leave!” Duke shouts, and he pulls Alec by the shoulders.

“Carry her! Help me carry her!” Alec screams back, pushing Duke away.

“She’s dead, Alec!”

Alec looks back down to Devon’s body. Her eyes stare back at him, open wide and lifeless. It’s hard to take in, the insanity, how fast everything happened. Without warning. He takes one last moment to place a hand on her cheek. “I--I love you. I’m so sorry.”

“Let’s fucking go!” Duke yells one last time as bullets hit the wall next to him. He grabs Alec by the arm and sprints toward the back exit of the store, the splintering pain in his head blurring his vision. Duke’s dizziness gets more severe, so much so that his legs go weak, unable to carry him. He collapses to the floor, and Alec stops and shouts: “Duke!”

Duke groans and tries to stand, but his legs fail him once again. Alec bends down and tries to lift him, but Duke’s size and Alec’s stump make it next to impossible. “Hey, just go!” Duke says. “I’ll--I’ll figure it out!”

“What the f--” Alec starts, and a bullet whizzes past his head. He hears someone shout “Back there!”

“Find everyone else, alright?”

Alec swallows hard, but decides to run, leaving Duke behind. Before the attackers can get close, Duke crawls across the tile to a nearby storage closet. He pushes it open just as he hears another explosion, and slams it shut behind him.

Cole, Lucy, and Lienne are crouched behind a crooked row of shelves, their guns drawn and their hearts beating. Lucy’s hands shake furiously as she asks, “What do we...d-do we run?”

Cole racks his brain for an answer, when he hears quick, hard footsteps. Someone emerges from behind the shelves, and Cole nearly fires before seeing it’s Archie.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s me! Chill!” Archie shouts. He takes cover next to them, sweat and blood pouring down his face.

“You see anything?” Cole asks.

“Some fucking guys in masks. They--uh--they got guns, grenades, whatever. Monica and Kris? Both dead. Blown to the fucking sky. Everyone else, too. Shot in the fucking face or something.”

“Who--”

“I don’t know! I don’t know who they are!”

“We need to go,” Lienne says calmly.

“It--it’s stopping. Sort of,” Lucy says as the gunfire beings to peter out.

Archie lifts his head above the shelf just an inch to check, and a bullet rips into his skull almost immediately. A shriek escapes both Lucy and Lienne as Archie’s body smacks the floor. Cole takes one deep breath, using all of his willpower to ignore the dead body next to him, and grabs both Lienne and Lucy by the arms. “When I say go, we’re running. Straight to the exit,” he says, and he nods his head to the left. “Don’t look back, just run, okay?”

Lucy and Lienne nod, and, before Cole can say go, he sees someone speed past them. Alec.

“Alec!” Lienne shouts, and she speeds away before Cole gives the signal. Lucy and Cole have no choice to follow, and the gunshots grow in volume once more. Cole feels something graze the right side of his abdomen, and there’s a fleeting, sharp pain, but the mix of adrenaline and fear helps him ignore it for now.

He rams his body into the double doors that mark the exit into the store’s back lot, and his feet sink into the snow. He’s surprised to see Hiro, who’s doubled over, his hands on his knees, has just made it outside.

“The...the fuck?” Hiro says to them.

“We don’t have time to find out. Alec--Devon and Duke?” Cole asks.

“They--Duke, I don’t know. He just told me to go, and Devon didn’t make it out.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck...” Cole mutters. “I’m going back in, you guys need to find a car--something--and go. Get back to the hotel.”

“Coming in with you,” Hiro says.

“You can’t do--” Lucy begins, and the glass that makes up the back doors shatters from a gunshot.

“I’m not having a fucking debate about this, so go!” Cole says, and he doesn’t waste anymore time. He fires a few wild shots into the store, which seems to stall whoevers shooting at them, and opens the doors back up, quickly retreating to an alcove on his left. Hiro is close behind, his pistol pressed tight to his chest.

“We find Duke. We get out,” Cole says.

“We’re not getting out of this shit, man,” Hiro says.

"We find Duke. And we get out," Cole repeats through gritted teeth.

Hiro sighs and nods his head at two masked men walking toward a writhing body. One of the men steps on the body and puts a bullet into the person’s head. Hiro aims and fires two shots, hitting one in the neck and the other in the back. There’s a yell, and they both fall.

“Head left, I’ll head right,” Hiro orders. They exit the alcove, out in the open for just a second, and go in separate directions. Cole falls to his stomach behind a small pile of rubble and crawls toward the two men Hiro just took down. The man that suffered the shot to the neck doesn’t move, not at all, but the other groans and sets his eyes on Cole. They’re a piercing blue, and Cole gets to his knees. He pulls the mask off of his head, revealing a face contorted in agony.

“H...he--hey...” the man says, reaching a hand out.

But Cole retrieves his knife and stabs him in the head, the man’s hand falling to the floor limply. Cole pulls the mask over his head, concealing his face effectively, and removes the mask from the other man. He stuffs it in his back pocket and stands, where he can finally see some of the damage caused.

Here and there bodies lie, blood pools scattered about. Cole’s breathing starts to speed up considerably, but he manages to control it as he roams around the store. Most of the attackers completely disregard him, and he avoids making any sort of eye contact. There’s no sign of Hiro or Duke, but Cole has already prepared for the worst.

“Take ‘em all out!” a masked man shouts somewhere in the store. “Any hiding spots, the bathrooms...check ‘em.”

Cole pretends to search, opening doors and peeking behind corners. Until he hears a heavy breathing come from one of the storage closets. He presses his ear against it and listens, but the breathing suddenly stops. He tries the handle, but the door won’t budge. It’s a long shot, but he whispers, “Duke?”

“Holy--Cole?” Duke says back.

Cole looks around quickly, making sure no one is in the vicinity. No one is.

“Open the door. We’re getting out.” He hears the door unlock, and he opens it. Duke sits in the corner, holding his wounded head. “Put this on,” Cole orders. Duke complies, and Cole lifts up a hand to help him stand.

“Shut up, don’t look at anybody, and just walk toward the back exit. Don’t draw attention to yourself," Cole orders in a harsh whisper.

Duke nods, and he follows Cole to the back exit, their eyes glued to the floor.

As they walk, just about 30 meters to the back doors, one of the attackers puts a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “Guys, Duncan wants everyone to--” But he stops, as Cole makes the foolish mistake to look him in the eye.

“Who the fuck are you?” the man asks. “And you?” He points to Duke.

Cole can’t waste time thinking up an answer, and his hesitation would make it obvious, so he throws a punch. But the man is much faster, and much stronger, and he catches Cole’s fist. The man returns a headbutt, and Cole hits the ground, his head slamming against the floor only adding insult to injury.

Before the man can do any damage to him, Duke pulls his pistol and fires a shot in the man’s stomach. Cole’s vision blurs. A pair of boots shuffle in front of him. A body hits the ground. It takes everything he has left, but Duke manages to lift him over his shoulders and trudge toward to exit.

More gunshots. It’s the last thing Cole hears. Then the opening of the door and a blast of cold hitting his face. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been running, but soon the gunshots cease. Falling snow whirls around him.

After an amount of time Cole can’t even attempt to estimate, Duke falls to the ground, dropping him as well. Cole hits the snow, the cold encasing him, even comforting the horrible pain in his head. The last thing he sees is the sheet of white around him go black.