Apex

Chapter 4: Amongst the Ruins

Chapter 4: Amongst the RuinsAt the pace the train was moving, it would take about three days to get to their destination. The first day, they stopped just outside a small abandoned town. If they found anything worthwhile here, it would be a miracle. The town was fairly small and was likely pillaged long ago. Lex, Jake, Nat and Linus were sent out to search for food or anything else useful. They entered the town together at first, eventually splitting up to search the houses and garages individually. Lex was hoping that the others had more luck than her as she could not find anything of use. The entire town was desolate and devoid of life.She entered a small bungalow at the end of town, hoping that she might find something before she returned to the train. All the doors and windows had been broken or forcefully removed. As with all houses these days, everything was filthy. Mud and grit covered the floor and the walls were stained. There was a foul stench in here too. Lex searched as much of the house as she could before entering a small bedroom at the far end. If there was nothing in here, she would return to the train. Lex set foot in the room and came to a quick halt. The sight before her made her wish she had left this house alone. There was a cot placed up against the far wall. Dry blood stained the wall and floor around it.“Oh, God…,” Lex whispered in shock as she neared the cot, revealing the gruesome sight. The blackened skeleton of a young child lay within. It had been dead a long time judging by the lack of any real flesh and stained bones. Lex turned from the awful scene and sped from the house as quick as she could, dropping to her knees once she was outside and placing her hand over her mouth as tears attempted to force their way past her eyes. What was worse was the fact that the parents’ bodies were nowhere to be seen. They either died while out of the house or, worse again, they abandoned the poor child in an attempt to save themselves when the Titans first emerged. Had Lex stumbled upon this sight years ago, she would have thrown up in disgust. However, she had seen her fair share of death and c*****e by now. She was unlucky enough to have seen many things even worse than this. It never got any easier, though, of that she was certain.She would need a few minutes to compose herself. Still, it seemed luck was not on her side today. There was a throaty moan from the wooded area just beside the house. Lex rose to her feet, angry and in no mood to be trifled with. She raised her rifle and entered the woods slowly, halting when she spotted the source of the noise. A single Titan stood on all fours just beside a hollow in the ground. It was more slender and almost graceful in appearance than many Titans Lex had seen. It must have been female. Upon noticing the nearby human, the beast stood up on her hind legs and roared threateningly. Strangely, it did not approach, simply attempting to scare the woman away from the area. Lex turned on the laser sight of her rifle and peered through the scope, lining up the reticule and laser together to land on the Titan’s eye. If the creature did not move, this shot would kill her instantly. Lex took a deep breath and began to pull the trigger. The thing that stopped her was a sound she did not recognise. It sounded almost like the Titan, only softer and higher pitched. Lex lowered her rifle to spot three heads pop up from the hollow in the ground beside the Titan. The heads belonged to three small little beasts.The female Titan before Lex had given birth. She would not attack Lex because she was just protecting her young. Relieved that she had not killed the animal, Lex lowered her weapon completely and turned to leave. It was fascinating that the Titans were capable of mating, where mere years or even months earlier they were hostile beasts that did not reproduce. Lex returned to the train, later being joined by the other three. They had turned up nothing except for two barrels of diesel. Those would be useful enough. Though she had been both moved and disturbed by the sights she had been met with, she did not speak with the others about her thought, choosing instead to bottle up her feelings as she often did.The sight of the baby’s skeleton would stick with her for months, she was sure of that. Death seemed to be an ever-prevalent aspect of life nowadays. The rest of the train journey for that day was fairly uneventful. At one point, a pack of starving, malnourished wild dogs chased after them and attempted to attack the carriage’s residents. They were dispatched quickly by Mike and Jackie. That night once the train had stopped, Lex lay down on the floor of the carriage, propped up against the wall. She was gazing out into the night sky, the first truly starry night they had gotten in a long time. Linus approached her apprehensively.“You okay, girlie?” he asked. With his denim jacket off and wearing only a tank top on his upper body, Lex could plainly see his muscled arms, though she was sure Jake’s were much larger.“I’m, uh…I’m alright, yeah,” she answered unconvincingly. “Why?”“You don’t look it. Not since that town earlier on, you’ve been distracted ever since.”“Is it that obvious?” she asked with a half-smile that quickly disappeared to be replaced with fresh tears. She turned her head away from Linus. She would not let him or anyone see her like this.“Look at me, Lex,” Linus commanded her. When she did not comply, he reached his hand to grasp her chin and forcefully turn her head to gaze at him. His hand was surprisingly gentle. “It ain’t no weakness to cry. We’ve all seen some messed up s**t in this world. Old memories come back to haunt us sometimes. Doesn’t mean we’re any less for it, if anything it makes us human. Be glad you still cry about these things. The day you don’t is the day you’ve lost your soul.”“Linus, we need you,” called Jake. He was attempting to calm one of the two sick people. Linus joined him immediately as the individual began violently coughing up blood once more. Lex laid down to go to sleep, reaching into her pocket and taking out the scrap of paper that meant so much to her. It probably made getting to sleep more difficult if anything. The next morning was very gloomy. Grey clouds blanketed the region and there was a thin fog creeping in from the west. The only town they passed had five very aggressive looking Titans roaming through the streets. One almost made it onto the train before they got away. Apart from that, the second day of their journey was very boring.Jake and Linus appeared to be getting along very well. They both shared an interest in boxing, apparently, something which they bonded over for hours. It was almost refreshing to hear them talking so passionately about something pre-cataclysm. The morning of the third day was quite abrupt. The train came to a sudden halt, waking all aboard. When Lex rose, the other three had already exited the carriage and Lex could hear panicked yelling and a stranger’s voice. She took her rifle in her hand and joined the others. They, along with Mike, Jackie and Kenneth, all stood beside the train, pointing their guns at a seemingly unarmed man. The stranger looked surprisingly calm. What caught Lex’s eye was the pickup truck directly in the path of the train. They could not continue forward while it was there.“Should have just rammed through,” Mike scolded Kenneth.“He was in the damn car when we were barrelling towards him, Mike, I wasn’t going to kill the fucker,” Kenneth retorted angrily.“Please, I don’t mean to cause trouble,” the stranger pleaded, that chillingly calm expression still on his face. His accent was difficult to place, possibly being from somewhere in central Europe. “I just need fuel, that’s all. Any you could spare would be appreciated.”“Not f*****g likely,” Jackie spat.“What’s your name, pal?” asked Kenneth, attempting to keep everything calm.“Bruno.” Every few seconds his eyes would go to the forest beside the train tracks as if he was looking for something. Nobody else seemed to notice this.“You could just push the truck off the tracks,” Mike suggested. He was not prepared to trust this stranger. “Leave him here.”“Please, I just need enough fuel to get home.”“How far away d’you live, champ?” asked Jake suspiciously.“About three miles, that’s all. Once I’m back there, I can refuel myself.”“Try walking back,” Mike suggested coldly. Kenneth appeared to be giving in. He would not leave a stranger to die here in the wild. It was too dangerous. Lex disagreed. There was a time when she would have agreed, maybe even offered him a place among them. But this whole situation was too peculiar. The truck right on the tracks, Bruno’s calm expression, his eyes scanning the nearby woods…it felt like they were being watched, studied even.“Look, we could just fill up his gas tank, send him on his way,” Kenneth proposed. “Just a small bit of fuel, then we take off like nothing ha-!”“Forget it, Kenneth,” Mike interrupted him. “I’m not giving this guy a chance to follow us in that thing.”“You know what? f**k you, Mike, we got plenty of gas in the carriage. I’m giving this guy what he needs and then we’ll be on our way.” Kenneth’s outburst appeared to anger Mike a lot. Lex was sure not many of the others would agree with Kenneth, but it was too late. The train driver was already refilling the pickup.“This is stupid, Ken,” Mike scolded his friend. “We can’t trust this guy. Come on, it’s too risky!” Kenneth did not answer. Once he was done, he returned the gas tank to the train.“Thank you,” Bruno said as he got back inside his pickup. “I really appreciate this.” He started the truck and took off with a disturbing look of satisfaction upon his face. With Bruno gone and Mike and Kenneth’s friendship severely deteriorated, they all got back on the train and kept moving forward. It would be a few hours before Lex, Nat and Jake would leave the train group. They wanted to get off where there might be an army base or fort of some kind, but they did not want to have to wait until the city that Jackie claimed was ‘teeming with Titans.’ If Lex remembered correctly, there had been a temporary military outpost set up about forty-six miles ahead in a small town. The town in question had seen a rather sudden emergence of Infected during the first few weeks after the comets hit. In fact, one of the comets had hit smack in the middle of a city not far from the town.“Oh, Christ,” Lex breathed as she realised the danger Mike’s group was in. The craters left by the comets were extremely toxic. The disease that was carried in the meteors, the disease that turned most of the human race into Titans, was rampant within a two mile radius of all craters across the globe. Any significant exposure to the infection and Mike’s group would become Infected within days. Lex quickly rose to her feet, opened the door separating the carriage from the main train and jumped across the gap to land on the walkway. She approached Mike immediately.“Mike, you have to stop this train,” she commanded him. He sighed and placed his hand on his face.“Look, I told you we’d let you three off once you got us to this city, isn’t that good enough?!”“No, no, it’s not that. One of comets hit that city directly. That’s why it’s full of those things!”“Oh, s**t, seriously?” Mike asked, infuriated.“I f*****g hear her right?!” called Jackie from the other side of the train, quickly navigating the walkway to join them. “How do you know this?”“I was in the army. Most of the soldiers I knew were sent out to a town nearby to clean up the situation. It was worse there than a lot of places because the comet hit right in the middle of a populated area. A city, for Christ’s sake!”“Damn,” muttered Jackie. Mike leaned against the railing of the walkway, head in his hands. He sighed.“Alright. Come on, Jackie, we’ll talk to Kenneth about this. I’ll get back to you, Lex.” Truthfully, Lex had no idea why this needed to be discussed. The three leaders of the train group had no right to put the rest of their people in such danger. Still, it wasn’t her place to argue. If she could get dropped off at the military outpost with her people, she could put the train group behind her and never think about them again. That kind of emotional baggage needed to be shelved immediately or it would destroy her. It was a while before anything happened. The train eventually came to a stop and when it did, Mike, Jackie and Kenneth emerged.“Look, we’ve talked about this,” Mike told Lex seriously. “We’re going to try the city anyways.” Lex began to protest but was interrupted. “Look, I know what you’re going to say. But don’t worry, I would never risk the lives of these people. We’re going to stop the train just outside of the city and one or two of us are going to check it out. That disease/gas stuff is visible to the naked eye, anyway. Like yellow mist or something. If the city’s clean, we’ll move in. If not, well…we’ll just have to move on. And we won’t put you or your people in that danger either.” With that, Kenneth dropped three duffle bags at their feet. “As much food and ammo as we can spare. It’s yours, we appreciate the help over the last few days.” This was where they parted ways with the train group, the Railroaders.“We really are grateful for this,” Lex told the three of them. “We can start over up here.”“Hopefully we can too,” Mike replied. Lex patted him on the shoulder in gratitude before thanking the others. Jake shook Mike’s hand as Nat said her goodbyes to Jackie and Kenneth.“Thanks for this, man. It’s been a good ride.” Mike raised an eyebrow. “Excuse the pun.” The three of them exited the carriage with their gear and watched the train depart.“Take care of yourself, girlie,” called Linus as the train began to move. Lex waved at the man before the train moved off and out of sight.“I’m gonna miss that kind son of a b***h,” Jake mused. “He knew his boxing facts.” That brokered two very disdainful expressions from Nat and Lex. “Well, it’s more than I can say for you two sorry fucks.” The three of them walked on towards the town. Lex was certain it was less than three miles away at this point. By the time they reached it, it was almost dark. But the sight that greeted them was something to behold. There was a building in fairly good condition, covered in moss here and there. The four roads on each side of it had been barricaded off from the rest of the town by walls of wood and steel, at least twenty feet high. Lex was sure there were weapons, ammo and even vehicles inside the outpost. Upon seeing this man-made fortress, Jake dropped his two bags of supplies on the ground.“Holy s**t,” he whispered. There was a large metal gate built into one of the walls. It was wide open. Locking and reinforcing that would not be difficult. Overjoyed and eager to see what prizes awaited them within, the three survivors entered the outpost with giddiness. Their prayers had been answered. Inside, they found boxes upon boxes of ammunition, plenty of functional guns and three vehicles, one of which was an army jeep. The building, too, was four stories high and completely empty. The roof had sheets of metal surrounding it, providing protection from bullets. Whoever had been here before had fortified the place very well.The next day, Jake replaced the broken lock on the door and reinforced it with some spare sheets of metal from the roof. Natalie was on watch. She patrolled the roof of the building, keeping an eye out for strangers. She could see around the outpost for miles. While the others were both occupied, Lex popped the hood of a matte black muscle car with tinted windows, likely a government vehicle pre-cataclysm. The door Jake was working on was large enough, while fully ajar, to allow vehicles to enter and exit. That would make scouting for supplies a lot easier.“How’s the car?” asked Jake as he was attempting to hammer a nail through two metal sheets with a rock. Though the people who had been here before had presumably used a hammer, there was no such tool to be found anymore.“I think it’ll work if I can get some gas,” Lex replied. “Any ideas?”“Well, you could try the basement of the building,” he suggested. Lex was unaware there even was a basement but in truth, she had declined to fully search the house. “Was searching there earlier on. No hammer, but it might have other useful stuff.”“Will do.” Luckily, there were a few tanks of petrol along with blankets and a box of grenades. This place was equipped for war. It was a wonder there was nobody here, the outpost was extremely well secured. If they got into trouble, they could easily fight back.“Don’t touch the pickup,” Jake called as Lex re-emerged, referring to a five-seater pickup truck parked just behind the muscle car. It, too, was matte black with tinted windows. “She’s mine.”“You have a terrible taste in cars,” Lex told him. “I guess Natalie can have the army jeep. She’ll feel right at home.” Once the tank was full, Lex’s car started fairly easily. She would head out soon to search the surrounding are, to make sure it was safe. She didn’t want to take any risks. They needed this and anything that could jeopardise that was something that needed to be dealt with. Jake approached Lex as she was searching the inside of the car for supplies: weapons, ammo or anything they could use. Still, what they had already found in this outpost was spectacular. They didn’t need much more, truth be told.“This place is something special,” Jake mused, leaning against the car. “We needed this, you know?”“Something seems strange about it, though. There are no bodies, no blood. Not even any signs of battle. Not a shot was fired and this place is completely empty.”“Yeah, I thought that was weird too. I would say they might’ve just moved on but it would be pretty damn stupid to leave behind the ammo and weapons they did.” Jake slapped the hood of the muscle car. “Government vehicles. This was no regular military outpost, this was a governmental installation.”“They were doing more than just killing off Titans,” Lex surmised.“Exactly. Whatever they were doing was either very important or damn well illegal.” Lex held her dog tags in her hand and twisted the chain around her fingers.“The car still works,” she said finally.“Someone must have driven it recently,” Jake assumed. “Where the hell did everyone go?”After some tinkering and a new tank of gas for the pickup and army jeep, Jake discovered that they also still worked. A group must have lived here recently, a well-armed and supplied group. The guns, jeep and a few boxes of MREs suggested there were soldiers here. Soldiers this well-equipped didn’t go down easily. It couldn’t have been Titans, the only sign of forced entry was the broken lock on the gate, something other humans would have done to break in. They would have to be alert, more so than usual. The second day, Lex had Natalie stock the jeep with three assault rifles and plenty of bullets. In the event of an attack from the same people that supposedly killed the former residents of the outpost, Lex wanted to be prepared to leave or to fight as the situation dictated. While all seemed well in the outpost for at least a week, they were eventually disturbed. Nat called down from the top of the building as Lex was making sure the generous supply of military-grade guns worked properly.“Lex, a flare went off about a mile to the west!”“No, I’ll go alone,” Lex told Jake as he stopped what he was doing and started towards the pickup. “I won’t be long. If I need help, I’ll come back.” She left her hunting rifle there, opting instead to take a silenced handgun. She got into her car, started the engine and left the outpost as Jake opened the gate. The red flare was still visible in the sky, lingering for a moment before dying in a puff of smoke. As Lex neared the source, it appeared that the flare had come from a very isolated building on the side of the road. Once the building was in plain sight, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper she had been holding onto for around ten years. Slotting it onto a spot on the dashboard, she looked at the picture of her dead brother before pulling up beside the building and exiting the car.The building was tall, about three stories, and didn’t look like it had seen much use. Lex entered cautiously, gun raised. There did not appear to be anyone in here. A few hungry rats passed by Lex’s feet a few times but that was it. They did, however, seem to be heading in the same direction. That implied they were fleeing from something. Upstairs was much the same. Rats were feeding on the rotten carcass of a bird. They paid Lex little attention. She intended to do the same. Upon emerging on the third floor, Lex halted and crouched down. There was a balcony up ahead. The source of the flare that had been fired earlier, a fairly old and battered flare gun, lay on the ground surrounded by a pool of blood. Lex whistled loudly, hoping to provoke anyone who may have been hiding on the floor to reveal themselves. Nothing happened. It was very possible that the owner of the gun had fired it while being attacked by a Titan in the hopes that they would be saved only to be killed by the animal.Lex slowly and quietly approached the balcony. Though she was trying her best to muffle her footsteps, they were still very audible. If she had not been heard now, she wouldn’t be. As she stepped foot on the balcony and leaned down to pick up the flare gun, she heard something very loud behind her. She turned as quick as she could but she was not fast enough. Someone stood there, clad in black with their face covered. They had apparently jumped down from the roof. This was a trap after all. Before she could react, Lex was kicked through the glass of the balcony to land with a serious thump on the ground below. If the pain that she felt throughout her back wasn’t enough, something very sharp had pierced her abdomen. A large sickle of glass emerged from her side, causing blood to leak out through her tank top and out onto the ground. Lex only realised now that she was screaming at the top of her lungs.“s**t,” shouted the man who had kicked her. He disappeared from the balcony quickly and emerged minutes later at her side. Clearly confused about how to handle the situation, he kicked her firmly in the head as fast as lightning, knocking her unconscious instantly.