Sanctuary Read online

  ​"Slim at best, for all we know these are the fuckers that attacked us." Bryce replied.

  ​"They seem to be military, wouldn't they want to help us out?" Byark said.

  ​"I doubt they are, probably deserters or scavenging bandits who stole the supplies and equipment. Either way we should get closer and try to get a feel for who they are." Bryce said, waving the other man forward as he continued through the woods. Once Bryce felt confident that they were far enough away, they broke from the tree line and ran to the other side of the street, sneaking closer to the vehicles.

  ​They crept forward until they could hear the two men talking and stopped to listen. "I'm getting sick of these fucking workers man. They don't know how to do shit and they’re always asking questions and getting mouthy. Riley needs to stop making us take so many prisoners and let us kill more of the fucks. Not just the old and sick and weak, but any of the lazy bastards that aren't going to actually be a fucking asset." One of the men said through puffs of his smoke.

  ​"I don't know man, they got a couple cute, little high school girls back at the prison. I've definitely been getting my use out of them." The other said with a laugh.

  ​"Yeah, I guess they're pretty hot. Those tight, virgin pussies are killer, but they can't suck a dick worth a shit." The first man replied.

  ​"That's why I just throat fuck those little sluts. They squeal and cry, it's fucking hot man. I just make a game out of it, see if I can blow my load before they pass out from lack of air. It’s kind of a win, win. If they don’t, then I get to cum down their throat, and if they do, then I just fuck ‘em while they're passed out and watch ‘em rag doll around. It's fucking awesome." The second said.

  ​The first soldier burst out in laughter while his friend described his escapades. "Fuck, I'll have to try that, hopefully Peterson will send my ass back to the prison soon." He said after catching his breath.

  ​Bryce had heard enough. He was so enraged that his knuckles turned white from the powerful squeeze he was giving his rifle in order to stop himself from lashing out. Byark and himself walked back the way they had come from until they were far enough away to not be heard by the two men. "We kill them, all of them. We'll do it as quietly as possible and get the supplies and get out. We have the advantage, they won’t see us coming." Bryce said.

  ​Byark nodded. "You know I'm always ready for a fight."

  ​Bryce turned to Grunt, telling him to sit and stay. The dog listened obediently, letting out a low whine. "Sorry buddy, but I can't risk you getting shot again. Keep your chin up." Bryce said as he scratched the dog’s chin.

  ​They made their way back to the Humvees, crouching down behind the one that the two soldiers leaned on. Bryce pulled out his hatchet and watched as Byark pulled out his axe. Without saying a word, they crouch walked forward and around the vehicle, Byark moving to the left and Bryce to the right. Bryce came up behind the man, trusting that Byark would be in position as well, and rose up, swinging the hatchet at the back of the soldier’s head. The hatchet’s blade made contact with a sickening, wet, crack as it chopped into the man’s skull, forcing its way into his brain.

  ​As the blade disappeared into the man’s head, his body went limp and he fell from the hood of the Humvee, crashing to the ground and pulling the weapon from Bryce's hand. Bryce looked over to see the other man lying on the ground as well. His neck was split open and his spinal cord could be seen through the spurts of gushing blood. Byark stood over him, holding his bloody axe.

  ​"What are you two doing out there, fucking wrestling? Get in here and help me with this!" Another man called out from just inside the hospital’s entrance. Bryce grabbed the handle of his hatchet and started pulling it back and forth, attempting to wiggle it free, but it wasn't budging. "You two fucking deaf? Get in here!" The man called out again, and Bryce could hear his boots squeaking against the hospital’s floor as he walked towards the entrance.

  ​Byark pulled out his bow and drew back an arrow, preparing for the man to burst through the entrance. Bryce freed the hatchet from the soldier’s head with a grotesque noise of wet suction. The man stepped through the entrance and saw Byark just as he released the arrow. The man turned slightly, and the arrow skimmed across his Kevlar vest. He started raising his rifle at Byark as the big Swede attempted to draw another arrow. Bryce could see that Byark wouldn't get a shot off in time, so he stepped forward and swung the hatchet at the soldier’s mid-section, connecting just below his vest, the blade sinking into the man’s waist. The soldier’s mouth opened in a silent scream of shock and pain, and Bryce pulled the axe out of his waist in one, quick movement. Blood erupted from the wound and entrails pushed their way out of the man’s body as his stomach peeled open. Bryce raised the hatchet and brought it down on the back of the now bent over man’s head as the soldier reached down to stop his innards from spilling out, connecting with the base of his skull and ending his life with a loud crack. He stepped on the dead soldier’s back, pulling and wiggling the hatchet as he once again freed it from the corpse, noticing that the blade was chipped and that a decent chunk of metal was now missing.

  ​"Should we grab his rifle?" Byark asked as he examined the dead man’s weapon.

  ​Bryce paused for a moment to consider the question. “No, I don't want to leave our own gear behind and the .22 will be quieter if we have to use it. Plus, there's no need to weigh ourselves down. We'll grab what we can on the way out." He secured the bloody and chipped hatchet back to his belt and drew his knife and .45, stepping through the entrance with Byark close behind.

  ​The soldiers must have been running the emergency generators to power the hospital, given the fact that the power was still on and everything was well lit. Their chances of sneaking through the hospital and eliminating the soldiers one by one were growing slimmer by the second.

  ​The first floor was mostly just a lobby, not appearing to have much in the means of medical supplies, so they started towards the stairwell. The floor was free of anymore soldiers, and Bryce was beginning to relax a bit as they reached the stairwell. Just then, the elevator dinged, and the doors started to open. They both crouched next to the stairwell door, watching a man in ragged clothing push a gurney out of the elevator with the body of a freshly killed infected on it, its torso sliced open and its organs removed. Two soldiers came out behind the man and as he split off towards the back of the hospital, they continued towards the entrance. Knowing that the men would see the three bodies and sound the alarm, the two of them had no choice but to approach. Bryce momentarily holstered his handgun and grabbed the man on the right, sliding his blade across the man’s throat from behind and slitting open his flesh. The skin parted and blood sprayed out as he slid the sharpened steel across his neck. After slitting his throat, Bryce sank the tip of the blade into the side of the man's neck, finishing the job. Byark slammed the edge of his shield into the back of the soldier on the left’s head, knocking him out and sending him flying to the floor with an audible crack of his skull shattering. He then chopped his axe into the man’s back to make sure he was dead.

  ​The pair quickly recovered and turned to see the man who was pushing the gurney staring at them. "We're not going to hurt you." Bryce said calmly as they approached him.

  ​"What the fuck are you doing!? You're dead men!" The man yelled.

  ​"Relax and keep your fucking voice down, you don't have to be these psychopaths’ slave anymore. You can come with us." Bryce tried to reason.

  ​"Oh yeah? So that I can get fucking tortured and killed by Riley or his men just like you two fucking idiots. No thanks. Help! We're under attack! Help!" The man screamed in a panic as he backed away from them. Bryce re-drew his .45 and shot the screaming man in the center of his face, exploding his nose inward and his brains out the back of his skull, causing the man to fall to the floor in a bloody heap.

  ​"Well, if they didn't hear his screams, they definitely heard that." Byark said almost comically as he looked down
at the corpse.

  ​"Yeah, time to fucking hurry." Bryce said, turning to jog back to the stairwell. They started up the stairs, reaching the first landing and turning to take the next flight up to the second-floor entrance. They could hear soldiers yelling on the other side of the door and they stopped to raise their weapons. Two soldiers burst through the door in single file and the first raised his rifle at them as soon as he spotted them. Bryce fired several shots into the Kevlar vest of the first soldier, launching him back and into the second that was still trying to get through the narrow doorway. The impact hit the second man’s rifle down and caused him to fire into the floor. Byark launched an arrow just over the first soldier’s shoulder and directly through the second man’s neck.

  ​They quickly vaulted up the stairs as the two men collapsed to the ground, both struggling to move or breathe for very different reasons, and Bryce finished each of them off with headshots. Bryce holstered his pistol and unslung his rifle as they made their way through the second floor. As they entered a large, open area that seemed to be the central hub of this floor, bullets whizzed past them, causing debris to shower over them as they smacked into the walls. They leapt behind the nurse’s station to avoid the rapid fire and Byark let out a groan of pain that was somehow still audible over the sounds of gunfire and the ringing in Bryce's ears. Bryce looked to Byark's side where the big man had placed a now bloody hand. When Byark moved his hand to examine the wound, Bryce could see a sizeable gash where the bullet had grazed him.

  ​"Just a flesh wound!" Byark yelled to be heard over the gunfire. As soon as there was a gap in the gunfire, Bryce went to one knee and aimed his rifle through a crack between two filing cabinets. There were two men aiming M4's in their direction, using tipped over gurney's and other debris as cover. Bryce seized the moment and started shooting one of the men as they were still aiming out of their cover. Using his rifle, he was able to land two shots in the man’s collarbone and a third in the side of his neck, effectively taking him out of the fight.

  ​The second soldier opened fire on the filing cabinet and either one of the shots, or a piece of shrapnel from the metal cabinet sliced open Bryce's forehead and caused blood to run down and into his eyes. Bryce dropped back down behind more substantial cover, bringing a hand up to wipe the blood from his vision. "That's right, I see you mother fucker!" The soldier yelled out triumphantly as Bryce brought his hand up to the bloody head wound to try and slow the bleeding. Byark sprawled out on his back and drew back his bow string with much less force than usual, sending an arrow weakly sailing in the general direction of the soldier. The soldier screamed in pain and Bryce risked a look through the filing cabinets again to see the man’s leg sticking out from behind cover, an arrow sticking through the side of his calf muscle. The man flopped his leg about in pain as blood started to slick the floor underneath him. He jerked his injured leg back behind cover. Bryce could hear the man’s radio click on and he started to speak. "This is the hospital, we're under attack. I repeat, we are under attack! Multiple armed intruders. Multiple casualties on our end. Send back up now god damn it!"

  ​"Hospital, this is forest camp alpha, backup is already in route. Hang in there and contain the scientist at all costs." Bryce could just barely make out the response, but he knew they needed to act fast and get moving.

  ​"Fuck this." Bryce said, pulling his sawn-off shotgun from his pack. He stood up behind the nurse’s station, holding the shotgun with his left hand and aiming his rifle with his right, and started rapidly firing at the cover the soldier was hiding behind with the rifle as he fast walked towards it. The soldier let out panicked cries from behind the cover as Bryce advanced. Once Bryce reached the tipped over gurney, he dropped his rifle and leaned over the cover with the shotgun, firing a single shot into the man’s face and blowing off his lower jaw. The soldier’s eyes rolled back into his head as he violently convulsed and urine seeped through his military trousers. Bryce pumped the shotgun to load a fresh shell and scanned the room, making sure there weren’t any immediate threats.

  ​Knowing they were safe for the moment, he re-slung his rifle and grabbed the soldier’s radio before heading back to the nurse’s station where Byark kept watch with his bow. "Back up's coming, we need to get the supplies and get out, now." Bryce said before making his way to the second-floor directory. The only room that Bryce imagined might have what they needed on the current floor was the operating room, so he jogged in that direction.

  ​They entered through a set of double doors marked with a sign that read, “employee's only”, and then walked down a small hallway that led to another door. When they stepped through the next door, they entered a narrow viewing room with hand washing stations, a thick plate of glass to observe surgical operations through, and another door that led into the operating room. They looked through the glass, seeing that two men were standing in the room next to a gurney with the body of an infected woman on it. One of the men cowered against the back wall as he noticed them and the other; dressed in scrubs, surgical gloves, and a mask, waved for them to enter the room.

  ​Bryce pushed open the door and entered the operating room with his rifle aimed at the man in scrubs. Byark followed closely behind with his bow aimed at the cowering man. "Look, we're not with those guys alright. We don't want any trouble." The cowering man said immediately.

  ​"So, you must be the gentlemen killing off our captors. Now why would you do such a thing? If you don't mind me asking of course." The man in scrubs inquired.

  ​Bryce stepped closer, handing the man in scrubs the list of supplies Catori had given him. He then stepped back again to keep a secure shooting distance. "We need what's on that list and we need it now."

  ​The man looked over the list quizzically. "Yes, I believe I have all of that in here, or at least most of it."

  ​"Fill it up." Bryce demanded, throwing one of the empty duffels to the man.

  ​"Right away." The man said, immediately moving to grab the different supplies from cabinets and drawers across the room.

  ​Bryce looked down at the infected woman and jumped back, aiming his rifle at her as he saw her chest rise and fall. "What the fuck? You're keeping this thing alive? What are you doing here?" He fired out in rapid succession.

  ​"It's perfectly safe my friend, she's on enough sedatives to kill an elephant. As for the answer to your question, I'm studying her, or at least pretending to for those idiotic grunts." The man replied calmly.

  ​Bryce relaxed a bit and lowered his rifle. "To what end? Why are they having you study the infected?"

  ​"To find a vaccine or a way to control them it would seem, as if I can learn much more in a hospital operating room. At first, I was able to make a few breakthroughs, but in order to continue my research I would need an equipped laboratory." The man responded as he continued placing medical supplies into the duffel bag.

  ​"Why you? What are you, some sort of virologist?" Bryce asked.

  ​"Well quite frankly, yes. I spent the last few years working for the united states military on bio weapons. In fact, I was one of the scientists working on the little virus that caused this mess." The man pointed to the infected woman and then zipped up the duffel, placing it on the ground in front of Bryce. "That's everything."

  ​"Hold on, are you saying the united states military caused this shit?" Byark's voice raised with every word as he stepped closer to the man in scrubs.

  ​"I mean, not intentionally. It’s rather complicated you see. We created a sort of population control. The virus was meant to target people with certain traits and kill off a percentage of the world’s population while everyone the government deemed of value hid inside air filtrated bunkers which were built all over the country for this purpose. There are even a few bunkers not too far from here. You see, this was an airborne pathogen that was meant to dissipate and expire after around eighteen hours of exposure. Everyone who was infected would grow sick and die in that time and after forty-eight hours th
e military would emerge from their bunkers and restore order. This way other, uninformed governments would collapse, and the U.S. could essentially take over the world and all its resources. Starting a new and sustainable human society. Why do you think there was no military presence combating the infected or attempting to rescue people when this all started? If this outbreak wasn't caused by our government, then they would have been helping the people and things wouldn't have gotten so bad so quickly." The man said.

  ​"They didn't account for the virus's possibly unstable nature, the possibility of severe mutations." Bryce said.

  ​"Well, they did in a way. We ran tests, and the risks of any sort of mutation in that short time period were astronomically low. Still, myself and a few others warned them of the risks and advised against following through with the plan that had long been in the works, resulting in our abandonment. Something man made and with such a sinister purpose, of course it would go wrong. You have to understand, we didn't know the plan for this virus or for our work until the very end, when we were offered a place in the bunkers." The man said, his tone turning solemn towards the end of his explanation. "Instead of killing those it infected, the virus turned them into the killers, and gave them the ability to in turn infect others. Insuring that no one was safe from its wrath. Insuring humanity's extinction. What a sad and suicidal species we are."

  ​"Why would the government want to kill off so many of its own citizens?" Byark asked.