Guilt and Remedy[Short Story]

[fishshrikey 0]

When I heard the footsteps, I froze. Only 10 meters ahead of me, by the Balota medical camp, another, living, person. I waited in the grass. I had no weapon to defend myself with, but when I looked at him more closely, I saw that he was unarmed too. He vaulted the sandbags into the camp, and slunk between two of the tents. I followed, certain I would regret my daring. I climbed a guard tower, and there, discarded on the floor, an AKM assault rifle. For a moment I just looked at it, then I grasped it, and cast around for ammunition. Two magazines. With a soft click, I slipped the magazine into my weapon, and then descended back into the camp.

I skirted around the fringes, alert for the survivor. Climbing another tower, I spotted a shotgun. After a moments pause, I left it where it lay. I climbed down the ladder, and moved to the next tower, checking behind me before I climbed. I froze. The other survivor was climbing the tower that I had just entered. I knew the shotgun was there. I knew what could happen if he turned it on me. My heart pumping, my insides bare, I raised my weapon, squinting down the sights. He was on the ladder, I adjusted my zero by two clicks, and then fired.

By the time my second round had caught the man between the should blades, I knew he was dead. He slumped down to rest at the foot of the ladder, and I ran. A pair of zombies ran at me, but I ducked under their outstretched arms, to the gap in the wire where I had entered.

I jumped it, and landed running. Within seconds I had cleared the camp, and the zeds didn't give pursuit. I stopped for a moment, the truth and foolishness of what I had done drowning my senses. I had killed. An unarmed man had died, and I was the cause. I had been too fast, acted without pondering the consequences, and now that man was killing me from the inside. I broke into a jog across Balota airstrip, the gunshots still ringing in my ears. As I passed across the smooth cement of the strip, I heard two soft shot. The first hit a damaged jeep to my side, the second ricocheting off the ground. I ducked down on the opposite side of the jeep, waited a moment, and then dashed for the hangar. I don't know if my attacker fired again, I was solely focused on reaching the safety of the hangar.

Once I was inside, I dashed for cover behind a cargo container, checking my AK was loaded as I went. sprawled on my front, and waited, sights alternating between either side of the hangar doors. I waited. Then I hear several loud shots, a Makarov, I presumed, followed by the booming report of an Lee Enfield. I waited, and I waited. The shots didn't come again.

I got to my feet and shuffled to the hangar entrance, keeping my back to the left hand wall. Still nothing. Plucking up my courage, I dashed around the brink. No shots. I slipped through a break in the fence, and sprinted up the hill towards the tree line.

It was only when I was under the cover of the trees that I stopped running, and rested against a tree. I felt my murder threaten me once more, but I shook it off, like a dog would shake off water after a swim. I had to get clear of Balota. Getting my feet, I jogged through the woods, heading north by my guess. I spotted a break in the trees, and surged towards it. Then I heard the flies.

They droned loudly, close by. I skirted around for a body, then I noticed two things, almost at once. A tent had been pitched by a tree, and a man lay face down in the dirt.

With hindsight, I should have searched around first, checked the perimeter, but that man had a DMR clutched in his hands. I ran forwards, and crouched over his body. I took his DMR and two spare magazines first, then his revolver, bandages and morphine. An ALICE pack was strapped to his back, so I took it without checking inside, knowing my small coyote to be empty.

The tent was completely bare. Once I had checked it, I opened my new backpack, and looked inside. First thing I noticed was the Bizon sub-machine gun. Then at least six blood packs, and several tins of Sardines. As I stared at the blood packs, I wondered why he would need so many. Then it started to fall into place in quick succession. He had a partner. If he had a partner, then he might be nearby. The though chilled me, and then, almost on cue, I spotted movement.

A second survivor, clutching another DMR, heading in my direction. He hadn't noticed me, he was only feet away. I raised my new rifle and set the cross hairs on his chest. From this distance there was no way I could miss. I began to squeeze the trigger, and as I did so, I remembered the man I had killed at the medical camp. The trigger was almost tflat against the guard, surely it must go off within milliseconds. As the gun roared and kicked, I jinked my sight upwards, sending the round sailing high over the man's head. The survivor instantly dived for cover behind a bush, and I turned and ran. I sprinted back through the woods, weaving between the trees. I had missed quite deliberately. I could not take the man's life. I broke from the trees, and rushed across a clearing, before he woods swallowed me once more.

I don't know how long I ran, but when I finally stopped, a stitch burned in my sides, and the straps of my backpack dug painfully into my shoulders, driving me to the ground. I lay there, thinking. I had killed an unarmed man. He might have hot me if I'd left him, but I couldn't have been sure.

I grasped my back and unzipped it, looking at the blood bags. There would be other fledglings nearby, along the coast. There would be more murderers, like the myself. And then I made a decision that would later become my code of honor. I would help the weak, and the inexperienced. My rifle would be put to better use, safe-guarding the towns, and people, of the south. I would make amends.

[Eatfish1 12]

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