10 Days After Echo
Weary and weak, Hanson pushed the tank’s hatch open. Fresh air bombarded his bloody face as he slowly and carefully pulled himself up and out of the carnage he was leaving behind. His uniform was blanketed in gore and the smell of blood and rotting flesh. It clung to every part of him, and though his nose had long since grown used to the smell of rot and decay he wanted to vomit as he thought about what he would have looked like to his wife.
What would she think of him if she saw him like this? Would he tell her the truth? That he’d done it because there was no other option? Would she still love him?
As he contemplated it all, the hordes of corpses on the ground milled about the tank, paying him no attention. The majority of them were dressed in uniforms and military fatigues, clothes which were as shredded and bloodied as the empty husks on which they hung. The clouds had gathered and blotted out the sun, sending a shrill wind through the wreckage of the battle.
The entire outpost was pocked with craters and bullet holes. Equipment was strewn about the area, bent, twisted, and burned from airstrikes. Corpses, both moving and still, were trapped in vehicles or under debris. Some were burned, some cut and torn by shrapnel. Most of them had some form of bullet wound or another.
Was she even still alive? How could Sharon have survived this? How could he have allowed
himself to survive?
“I don’t deserve it,” he whispered, letting the wind steal his voice as another gust blew through the forlorn remains of the outpost.
He looked back into the tank’s compartment as he let his thoughts burn and scar him. He forced himself to take it all in, everything he’d done to survive the end of the world. Neil. Carlyle. The others. Their faces flashed in his mind in a grotesque slideshow displaying his inhumanity, of everything he’d given up about himself simply for the sake of not living, but
existing. He’d given up too much. He’d crossed a line, cast away everything that made him a person, everything that made him worthy of being alive.
“I’m so sorry…” he whispered into the tank. The echoing silence of death was the only answer he received.
He finally looked away, setting his eyes on the hordes of undead shuffling along below him, mindlessly wandering, empty shells of what they once were.
“Time to make it right,” he sighed, dangling his legs over the edge. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “This is for you guys. What I deserve.”
He jumped.
He backed himself against the side of the bloody tank, spreading his arms over it, bracing for the end as the horde converged, waiting to feel the flesh torn from him bones, just like he’d done to all the others. He’d die like they did, a casualty of the hunger of others.
The only sensation that greeted him was the blowing of the deathly, rotting wind.
He let his eyes flutter open as his curiosity took control, letting them wander over the graveyard where the military had made its last stand.
The undead weren’t attacking him. They were walking by him completely disinterested and unaware, almost as if he was invisible. No, not invisible…
…”I’m one of them,” he screeched under his breath. His heart threatened to jackhammer out of his chest as it thumped rapidly watching the corpses flow around him like an uncaring river. He could still taste the flavor of human flesh on his tongue and the gore soaked through his uniform, and he could imagine the stench of death that he wore like cloak. They were ignoring him like they ignored each other.
“I’m… I’m one of them,” he repeated. “I’m already dead…”
He trudged through the horde, broken and alone, away from the site of the massacre. Echo had left no survivors. Least of all him.
“Here…” he gasped. “Put me down here, I can’t go any further…”
It was a lonely stretch of highway that the siblings’ savior had stopped them on. They could smell the rain approaching on the wind as the cloudy skies of the morning forbid the sunlight from reaching them.
The two complied. The spot he stopped them in was a ditch next to the empty highway. A sign showing the distance to Memphis was a few dozen feet ahead of them. The metal was rusted with a few bullet holes punched through the sign.
“I think… this is it for me…” he told them. The two kneeled, coming closer so he wouldn’t have to spend his strength on being heard. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“It’s alright,” Anna reassured him. “You didn’t know us. You didn’t have any reason to save us.”
He gasped as he turned to look at her, blood from his stab wound pooling beneath him and wetting the dirt. He kept his hand pressed against his wound. “I’m from a community,” he wheezed, coughing a mouthful of blood onto the remains of his shirt. “There were three of us…”
“Shhhh, don’t talk,” she said, grabbing his hand and squeezing tightly. “You need to save you strength.”
“No… I’m not going any further,” he insisted. “I have to tell you…” He broke into a fit of choked coughing. She could tell he was struggling to breathe.
Ethan settled next to her and looked him in the eyes. “Tell us what?”
“About two miles to the West, straight down this road, toward Memphis,” he indicated, lifting a weak finger in the direction of the road sign, “There’s a truck stop. Behind the main building there’s a car. Red. Ohio license plates. Take it North. Map in the glove box. I marked the route. Just go along it and you’ll be safe if you can reach the end.”
“What’s there?” Ethan asked. “Your community?”
“Yeah,” he answered as the strength seeped out of him, drop by drop. “Thatcher, Karen and me were a team. We go out for supplies… long distance runs…”
“What do we do when we get there?”
“Radio’s with the map… turn it on when you get within a mile. Tell McKay that Team 2 didn’t make it. He’ll let you in if you have the car. It’s got the supplies in it.”
Anna spoke up, unable to stop herself. She knew the answer to her question before it left her mouth. “What about you?”
“I already said,” he stated firmly, digging his heels in, “This is the end of the line for me.” He looked up at the sky, closing his eyes and sniffling as he rasped his story. “That son of a bitch… he ambushed us from a crowd of walkers. Crossbow. Killed Thatcher before we knew what was happening. He was in the middle of a dozen of them, covered in guts and gore. They ignored him. He got me in the leg. Caught me and Karen. And he… he took her first.”
“We made sure he wouldn’t hurt anyone else,” Anna reminded him. “He’s gone.”
The man nodded morosely. “What’re your names? I wanna know.”
“I’m Anna. My brother is Ethan.”
He squeezed her hand in return. His grip was weak. “Richards. You kids got lucky. You get to live. Just get to Wellington and you’ll be safe.”
“We will,” Ethan assured him. “We promise. Thank you for this.”
“Don’t feel bad,” he ordered them as his voice began to give out. “Not everybody gets to survive. It’s not your fault.”
Anna stood, tears in her eyes, and readied the gun. Richards used what little energy he had left to wave her down. “Don’t waste the bullet.”
“But… but you’ll turn,” Ethan said.
“Save the bullet. I’m dead either way, but you two might need it. Just… go…”
The siblings looked away as he drew his last breath and his body went still for the final time.
Ethan stood as well, and wrapped his arms around his sister in a massive hug and Anna did the same as the emotional exhaustion took hold of both of them.
Ethan broke away from the hug after a minute, wiping at his eyes. “Alright,” he sniffled. “Let’s find that car and make it to this Wellington place. For Richards.”
“For him,” Anna agreed. “And for Dad.”
They embraced once again before they set off down the road, destination in mind with a light on the horizon drowning out the darkness.
Notice, Telltale, how I provided an explanation for how a character survived an impossible situation? That's what is called good writing. Take a page from my book, and from Jake's and everyone else's and get rid of that "I got lucky" shit in the future.
Mini rant over. Ethan and Anna are on their way to Wellington, which hasn't yet reached capacity. You know, the place where all of my surviving characters will end up in the future. Could that mean anything? I dunno...