Refuge Of The Dead by Jeremy Dyson

Author:Jeremy Dyson [Dyson, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dartmoor Books
Published: 2020-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

There is no more gunfire in the depths of Cheyenne Mountain by the time we make out escape. We duck into the escape hatch and start climbing a ladder that seems to go on forever. No matter how much we pull ourselves up it seems like we’re never closer to the speck of light above us.

Finally, we emerge into the moonlight on the side of the mountain. The night air is cool and we watch the exhaled air coming out of our lungs as we try to catch our breath.

We have no vehicle, no food, and hardly any ammunition left. Even if we had any idea what our next move should be, we are just too devastated to go on right now. So we sit in the darkness and wait for daylight.

Scout and Amanda sit silently nearby me as I stare up at the countless stars in the sky. Natalie and Chase move a bit farther away and whisper quietly back and forth.

They’re probably trying to figure out what to do. I don’t even care right now.

Everything is gone. All that we fought for.

It doesn’t just seem like the end of the world. It really is the end of the world.

Any hope we had of stopping the dead is gone forever. Now the only future I can envision appears even darker than the night sky. I’ve never felt such hopelessness before now.

I know Scout feels it, too. Even though I can’t bring myself to look at anyone, I hear her quietly crying for hours. She can’t seem to stop.

Chase returns to check on us and tells us to try and get some sleep.

“Me and Nat can take turns on watch,” he adds.

None of us respond.

His presence did finally cause me to look around again. I notice Amanda sitting silently a few feet away and staring at nothing. To be honest, I’d forgotten she was even there. Maybe because she hardly is there anymore.

Not quite a person. More like an empty shell of a person.

I wonder if that is all that awaits me now.

All this time, I’d really just been ignoring the reality of our situation. I wanted to believe we had a chance. Even while I knew the odds were against us, I kept believing that for some reason we were outliers. That we were special for some reason because we were trying to stop all this from happening. Like we all had a role in some story that would keep going as long as it took for us to prevail.

But it was never going to happen. We were always destined for death.

It’s just a matter of time now.

There is no more future. No rebuilding. No going back to our old lives.

The only refuge for us now is death.

Something stirs in the brush nearby. For some reason, I don’t even bother to say something to warn anyone else.

A few seconds later, Chase stops whispering to Natalie and turns toward the sound. He raises his rifle and peers into the darkness.

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