Chapter 19 – The Clash
It was a peaceful and serene start to a day that would ultimately result in the violent end to some of the survivors of the MV Rocket. Inside the church the fire had died down during the night, its embers retained a final glow that competed against the brilliant rising sun to light the room. The Survivors rubbed the last vestiges of sleep out of their eyes, which Janik noted with disdain also included the two sentries who were supposed to have kept watch.
Fortunately, the night had been incident free and Janik was relieved to note that his bike had been returned and was now resting along the wall. He gathered up his meager possessions and loaded them onto his backpack as he prepared to leave.
“Janik, you shouldn’t go out alone,” Yuri berated him.
“The bike only holds one and I want to scout out the area. See how far it is to the next town,” Janik replied. He hadn’t told anyone that he had a map so he needed somewhere private to look it over and plan his departure. Yuri wasn’t convinced but Janik held up the crossbow, “I’ll be fine. A couple of hours max and I’ll be back before midday. It’ll give me a chance to look for some good places for us to raid in the afternoon.” Placated, Yuri relented as Janik hopped on the bike and went on his way.
A different kind of protest was echoed at the Bandit camp as they prepared to move out. Alejandro had just returned from the nighttime scouting mission in Elektro, reporting back that it seemed like all of the Survivors were holed up in the church. As they looked over the map, Vuk proposed that they leave them be in the church and instead raid the area east of them near the water. The map showed many buildings and they were sure to find something of benefit around there.
The Butcher had a different idea and proposed that it would be better to blitz them whilst they were unaware and take them all down in the church. “It is one thing to kill on sight. It’s another to hunt and murder a man for sport,” Vuk retorted.
“This is not sport, this is survival,” The Butcher replied.
“No, it’s murder. They pose no threat to us.”
Shutov interjected, “you are both wrong.” He turned to Vuk, “if they are not with us then they are a threat,” and to The Butcher, “but Vuk is also right. There is no reason to hunt them. We'll leave them be if they stay west. More importantly, Alejandro noted there was a bus in Elektro that looked operable.”
“Why do we need a bus?” Harrison asked.
Shutov showed them the military papers he’d been reviewing all night, “because this tells me there is a better prize up north and the bus will provide the best way for us all to get there.”
Vuk was happy with this plan, so long as it avoided conflict he could live with it. He turned to Alejandro, “what do we need to get the bus operating?”
“There's some work required - I saw a tire was flat. I'm not sure about the engine but its cover was up so I suspect it had given the previous owner trouble. We’ll most likely need fuel.”
Shutov called forward Sam, a small man who has surprisingly large arms. “Sam you worked under Robert on the boat.”
“Yes, I made that drunk look good,” Sam responded.
“Do you think you can fix the bus?”
“I've done years of MOS repairs in the Air Force, I think I can fix your little bus. But I’ll need tools, and by the sound of it, some spare parts.”
Shutov turned to the others, “then men, we have a goal for today. We get Sam what he needs to get that bus working by nightfall,” they begin to disperse, gathering their things when Shutov continued, “but make no mistake. If we see one of the Survivors we kill them on sight. Forget about your previous life on the boat, they are not who they used to be and neither are we. I don’t want anyone knowing our plans.” The men nodded and continued preparing to move out. Shutov looked over at Vuk.
“I’ll kill but I won’t hunt,” Vuk responded to his look.
Shutov nodded in agreement, “that’s all the commitment I need from you to keep us safe.”
Lucas was seated up in the firehouse of Elektro looking out over the fields, enjoying the serenity, that is if you ignored the infected roaming around. He was watching them through the aimpoint sight of an M14 rifle he’d found in the firehouse. Although he was disappointed it didn’t have a zoom sight, it was still a nice weapon to have and Lucas was practicing killing infected with it.
Lucas had hunted with his father from a very young age and it was these outings that cemented their relationship. His father was sparse with words but loved Lucas, and teaching him to hunt was the best way he knew how to express that love. Lucas understood that his father was shell-shocked, having been discharged from the Army for failing in his sniper duties. At family gatherings when his Uncles got too drunk, they would mock his father for not being able to take the shot, but Lucas thought he understood why. His father enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, the tracking, observing of prey, testing wind conditions, lining up the shot, waiting for that moment. He was fine with hunting animals and shooting paper targets but the first time his father needed to pull the trigger to kill a man he couldn’t, and for that he was discharged from the Swedish Army.
For Lucas, this meant he received military training in effective sniping whenever he hunted with his father. The first time he took down a prize buck, his father was so proud he relayed the story to the entire village. Lucas was only ten at the time. That night his father hardly touched the venison but looked at Lucas with pride, constantly smiling. From then on Lucas was hooked, much to the disdain of his girlfriend who believed hunting was barbaric and cruel.
He was now applying that training to the infected, who were in many ways like animals. They didn't hide behind cover, they didn't notice anything that wasn't in their immediate vicinity and they were singled-minded about their prey. With ammo too precious to waste, he lined them up, watched their paths, followed the movement, and when ready, he took the shot. Lucas kept the safety on so the rifle wouldn’t fire, but he longed to flick it off and shoot for real. He turned away from the field to face the Survivors he was supposed to be providing overwatch for, as they looted the store.
Lucas was like Janik in his assessment that many of the Survivors were undisciplined and that this would be their undoing. Unlike Janik, Lucas wanted to help them, to teach them what he knew. So when the general store raid was planned, he volunteered to go overwatch and keep the raiders safe. He received a lot of blank looks but took the time to explain the benefits of having an overwatch.
Lucas felt decisions were being made without any real forethought - like planning to loot the store without any effective cover. Without someone watching over them, the men in the store wouldn’t know they were in danger until it was too late. As Lucas watched them inside the store, he wished he’d had another overwatch at the second firehouse near to the power plant. That would provide cover from the south. But for now, it was just him.
Janik rode far away from the raiding parties and had taken to the shade underneath a pine tree to study the map. He was on the top of a hill and could see in the distance the silhouette of Lucas on the top of the firehouse. He returned to studying the map and was so focused on it that he didn’t notice the Bandits until they were near the fuel station. There were four of them, all of whom Janik recognized from the ship: Kai; Alejandro; Rory; and Harrison. Janik was surprised that Rory was amongst them. Both Harrison and Kai had mocked him on the ship, having knighted him with the unfortunate nickname of The Dunce. I guess desperate times make for strange bedfellows, Janik mused, as he stepped further back into the tree’s shadow to ensure he was hidden.
He watched the men scout around the fuel station. They were carrying jerry cans and attempting to fill them at the pumps which, judging by the fact that Harrison threw his on the ground, wasn’t very successful. Janik noted that they were all armed, although Rory was only carrying an axe. It was the way Rory carried the axe that triggered the memory for Janik – this was the man he saw kill four infected the first night. Good
for you, Janik smiled, and was about to call out to them when his reverie was broken by the snapping of a branch behind him.
Frozen with fear, he strained to listen as the snapping was followed by footsteps, again reminding him of the first night when he heard Rory on the concrete. Although he was in the forest, the bearer of the footsteps made no effort to conceal his movement as he marched through the trees. Janik carefully turned his head and peered through the branches of the pine tree. Further up the hill, another six Bandits from the ship walked along, and to Janik they looked prepared for war.
They were all armed, some had assault rifles, AK-74s and some had shotguns. The men were spread out in two by two formation with men covering the front and rear. Janik figured that these were the men that were shooting yesterday in Cherno and whatever their plans were in Elektro, it didn’t look like they were friendly.
Vuk had stopped at the tree line 50 meters from where he’d unknowingly just passed Janik. He took out binoculars and scanned the buildings down below them. Shutov and Alejandro also looked through binoculars, with Alejandro pointing out key buildings he had discovered the night before. Vuk paid little attention to their discussion, instead focusing on the movement down in the town. From his vantage point he could see infected moving around, which he had expected. Thankfully, he didn’t see any Survivors, and back down the road he could see the second team of Bandits following the road. They’d left the fuel station behind them and were passing a farming shed, about to arrive at the outskirts of Elektro.
Although Shutov hadn’t said anything about the plan to Vuk, it looked to him that the four men were the decoy - or bait – depending on your perspective. They were all expendable, and walking along the road would definitely draw the attention of anyone watching. This second team had been tasked with fuel gathering and infected elimination, but having lived through fuel scarcity before, Vuk knew the first places to dry up would be fuel stations. He recalled back in Serbia people would hoard fuel so their best bet for gas would be out of other vehicles or from storage tanks beside buildings and factories.
Having just come up empty at the fuel station, the four men turned to task number two and began shooting infected on sight. Definitely bait, Vuk mused, as the sounds of their shots rang out across the town.
Shutov’s plan was working as their shots did draw all the infected nearby from the buildings towards the second team. Vuk was right in his assessment that the second team were all expendable, this was why Shutov had chosen them. His plan worked in drawing infected away from the buildings the first team were heading towards. They moved from the tree line and crossed the field and heading into Elektro. Vuk hoped that the shooting only attracted the infected and that the Survivors had already moved on.
From the top of the firehouse Lucas couldn’t hear the shots but he saw the movement across the field. The men were too far to make out, but by their movement and the fact they were carrying guns, Lucas was sure they weren’t infected. Since he had no idea what the other Survivors were doing, he just assumed he was watching some of them move to raid a different location. Again he cursed the fact that they didn’t have radios to communicate with, as he went back to lining up infected for practice kills.
Mitch wished he was back at his house right now and not for the obvious reason of safety. Back at his house, if you made dinner, you didn’t have to wash up. To Mitch it seemed unfair - since he’d killed the boar, he shouldn’t also have to make a meal out of it. Without refrigeration the meat wouldn’t last very long and with nothing else to do that morning he’d followed Yuri’s suggestion to use the remainder for cold cuts. And now he was delivering them - his last stop was Lucas at the firehouse. As he walked over he grumbled to himself that since he made the lunches, he shouldn’t also have to deliver them.
He climbed up the ladder panting, sweat dripping off his face onto the rungs. He had never been worried about being slightly overweight before, but after spending the morning roaming Elektro, his lack of fitness was catching up with him. At least Lucas showed the right amount of gratitude as he thankfully took the food from Mitch. Mitch took the moment up high to rest, his largish belly contracting with each breath.
“Busy morning?” Lucas sputtered the words out of a full mouth.
“Just playing delivery boy and you’re my last stop,” replied Mitch.
“Did the guys over at the factories take theirs with them?” Lucas indicated behind him to where he saw the men crossing the field.
“There’s no one out that way. We’ve got the guys at the store and the rest are at the church consolidating supplies.”
Lucas swallowed his bite and spun Mitch around standing him up. He pointed and Mitch followed his line of sight, just able to visualize men at the edge of the field as they arrived at the town.
“Then who the hell are those guys?”
“They’re not us,” Mitch said.
The Butcher caught the movement on top of the firehouse in his peripheral vision. From this distance he couldn’t make out details but there were definitely two men standing at the top of the firehouse, their silhouettes stark against the blue sky background.
“Sir, I have two contacts in the distance,” he told Shutov, pointing. Shutov took out his binoculars and looked to where The Butcher pointed.
He saw the men standing up and they were definitely looking his way. The fat one turned and climbed down the ladder. “So much for stealth,” he said aloud as he turned to Vuk, “send the second team out to cover us from that direction. Everyone else stay on task, we need these vehicle parts if we’re going to get out of here.”
Mitch cursed his bad luck at having been downgraded from delivery boy to messenger. He walked towards the men they had just seen, the hot sun not helping his sweating. The field between the firehouse and the others was too dangerous - he could see it was crawling with infected and there was no cover. So he had to take the long way around, following the houses and crawling from cover to cover, which turned a 10 minute walk into a 40 minute crawl.
As he followed the side of a dirt road, Mitch saw that there was a person in the distance, seated on the steps of a boarded-up house. The person hadn’t seen Mitch as he crawled closer, passing an infected. Once he was well clear of the walker, Mitch felt safe enough to rise to a kneeling position and waved to get the other man’s attention. Rory rose up, leaving the axe that he was holding, and waved back, beckoning Mitch towards them.
From his sniping position Lucas saw only Mitch waving. Whoever he was waving at was obscured by the boarded-up house and the tree beside it. He looked down the M14 sight - although it didn’t magnify his view it did help him focus. Subconsciously, he flicked off the weapon’s safety.
Rory called out to Kai and Harrison who were hidden out of view at the side of the house, “it’s Mitch from the ship.”
“Good work Dunce,” Kai responded, “Keep calling him over here.”
“It’s Mitch, not one of the monsters. You don’t need the guns.”
Kai and Harrison ignored him and kept their guns trained at the road that Mitch would eventually walk along. In a low hush Kai barked back to Rory, “don’t worry about us, you just get that fool over here.”
Mitch thought he could see Rory talking but he couldn’t see to whom and didn’t pay it any mind. He was more concerned that there may be other infected around and Rory was from the ship, so Mitch felt safe.
Lucas kept looking down the sight, cursing the damn tree. He thought he saw movement but the leaves obscured it. Regardless, Mitch was definitely walking towards someone.
As Mitch rounded the house he came face to face with Kai and Harrison - both pointing double-barreled shotguns at him. “Hey, hey calm down. What’s with the guns?” Mitch asked as he backed away, “I’m friendly,” he pleaded.
“Then why are you strapped?” Kai asked, as the barrel of his shotgun pointed to the pistol in Mitch’s hand.
“Infected management. But if you want, I’ll put it down,” M
itch answered.
Lucas watched as Mitch lowered his pistol, leaving it on the road and stepping away from it. Mitch was speaking to someone, obscured from Lucas by the house, and gesturing back towards the firehouse. Lucas watched Mitch step back, frantically holding his palms out, when suddenly, his chest burst open into a spray of blood. Mitch fell back and landed hard on the road, as Lucas tried to comprehend what had just happened.
“Friendly that, bitch!” Kai mocked, as the smoke wafted out of the tip of his gun.
“Why you gone and done that for?” Rory asked, running over to Mitch to try and help him. He put his hands on the wound, tried to stop it bleeding, as Mitch opened his eyes and looked at Rory.
“Why?” Mitch asked.
“I didn’t know they would. I’m sorry,” Rory replied, the last thing Mitch heard before he died.
“Come on Dunce, let’s get back to the others,” Harrison commanded.
At a factory building, Shutov and the others all stopped, having heard thee gun shot that echoed across the town. Similarly in the store, the Survivors had stopped and listened, waiting for another shot.
Lucas watched through the rifle sight as Rory kneeled next to Mitch. He could take the shot but something felt off, so he hesitated. It didn’t look like Rory was hurting Mitch and he didn't have a weapon. Rory gestured back to someone else behind the house. Take the shot you coward, Lucas berated himself, he may not have pulled the trigger but he was complicit in Mitch’s murder.
“I’m not going back,” Rory answered, “you’re bad men.”
“Bad to the bone baby,” Kai joked.
“Give me my axe,” Rory asked.
“So, you’re not with us anymore?” queried Harrison.
“No. Give me my axe and I’ll go.”
“This is our axe now.”
“But you have guns. I need a weapon. I can’t go off without a weapon.”
“Oh we wouldn’t think of letting you go off… without a weapon,” replied Kai.
Rory looked down at the pistol near Mitch’s dead body.
“Don’t even think about it Dunce. You’d probably point it the wrong way and shoot yourself,” Kai mocked as Rory looked up at him and then back at the pistol, “get up and step back from the gun.”
Lucas watched Rory rise and step back, his palms held out - just like Mitch’s were moments ago. Rory stepped back, trying desperately to shuffle away from an unseen assailant. From down low behind him Lucas heard Yuri’s voice. “Lucas what’s happened? Who’s firing?”
“Mitch is dead,” Lucas replied.
“What?”
“Someone just shot him. I have eyes on one guy but I think he has friends. Get the others and get back to the church.”
“What are you going to do?” Yuri asked.
Lucas watched as Kai walked out from behind the house and stalked Rory with the shotgun. He lined Kai up in his sights, “what my father couldn’t,” and with that, he pulled the trigger.
Harrison watched as Kai was flung to the side by the impact of the bullet. Rory turned and ran as Harrison watched the blood spurt from a second bullet that hit Kai on his side. He backed away from Kai, certain he was dead, and searched in the direction from where the shots came.
Vuk and Shutov both watched the puffs of smoke as the shots were fired from the top of the firehouse. From their angle on the second story of the TEC building they couldn’t see where the shots landed, but through the binoculars they confirmed that whoever was on the top of the tower was now firing.
Shutov lowered his binoculars and turned to Vuk, “can you tell what gun it is?”
Vuk shook his head, “it’s definitely a rifle, high powered and shooting at where the second team were set up.”
“You still think they could be friendly?”
Vuk lowered his binoculars, “Those aren't friendly actions. From now on we are weapons hot.”
Shutov heartily slapped him on the back as he called down to the rest of the men, looting the factory below them.
“You heard him men. They are firing at us. It’s kill or be killed, now go get them.”
Lucas continued to scan the buildings from where Kai appeared. The adrenaline flowed freely though his veins as he swung the sight around, scanning for any movement. He saw Harrison running across the main road and attempted to line up a shot. Harrison was running too fast and was back behind cover before Lucas could get an angle.
Lucas watched the wall that Harrison had ducked behind, waiting for him to appear on the other side where it ended at the train tracks. If he crosses those tracks he’s a dead man, Lucas mused, as he scanned the area for Harrison.
Suddenly, movement from further away caught Lucas’ eye. From the TEC building in the distance he observed a large group of men fan out and head towards him. They were too far away for Lucas to have an effective shot, and they kept cover between them and the firehouse. Lucas’ sight jumped from one man to another but there were too many and he couldn’t get a bead on one.
Instead, Lucas rose and turned to the church calling out, “Yuri! Yuri!”
Yuri ran out, “what’s going on? Who did you shoot at?”
“The guy who killed Mitch. But he has friends, I can see more of them coming towards you. You’ve got to get the fuck out of there right now!”
“What! Why? We can try to talk with them,” pleaded Yuri.
“That’s what Mitch was trying to do before they murdered him. These guys are armed and they’re not here to talk. Get everyone together and get the fuck out. Head into the trees and go North, I’ll catch up with you later.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to buy you some time so don’t waste it talking to me,” replied Lucas as he turned away from Yuri and back to the men.
They spread out and weaved in between buildings and shipping containers at the docks. Lucas lined one up and fired. As he expected, the man was too far away for the bullet to be effective as it fell short. Fortunately, the sound travelled further and caused the man to stop and look around. Lucas took the other DMR magazine out of his pack placed it on the ground in front of him. If he was conservative with his fire he should be able to slow them down as they tried to hide from him. He might even get lucky and hit a couple of them.
Shutov tried to circle around to the firehouse but every shot made him pause as he tried to ascertain where it landed. Some of them were uncomfortably close as he kept moving along the docks. The men were panicked, they fired indiscriminately at infected rather than avoiding them. In the crowded city, every shot that killed one infected attracted another three with its noise. If they made it out of here alive he would have to lay down some ground rules about ammo conservation, because at that moment, the infected weren't the threat - the sniper on the tower was.
Vuk broke off the other way from Shutov and sprinted across the train tracks. He had watched the sniper from behind cover and timed his run across the tracks at the moment the sniper faced away. They could still get him if they continued to spread out, they had the advantage of numbers, since the sniper couldn’t look all ways at once. Vuk continued down the road and noticed that there were two dead bodies up ahead. He slowed down as he got closer, looked around for infected and tried to ensure there was always cover between him and the firehouse.
As he got closer to the bodies he heard sobbing. He looked past them to see Rory cowering against the wall of house opposite. “Rory what’s wrong.”
“My axe. I need my axe,” he pointed to the axe on the steps near Vuk.
“What happened here Rory?”
“He killed him. He just shot him,” Vuk looked down at the bodies of Mitch and Kai.
“Why? Why did Mitch kill Kai?”
“It wasn’t Mitch. Mitch had no gun,” Rory pointed at the pistol lying on the road in between Mitch and Kai’s bodies. “Mitch put the gun down like Kai said. And then Kai shot him.”
“Why? Why would he do that if Mitch was unarmed?”
“Kai said Mitch was a bad man. But Kai was the bad man. He tried to shoot me and then he fell down, dead.”
“Why would he shoot you?”
“Because I don’t want to be around bad men. I told him that, but he wouldn’t give me my axe. Please just give me my axe. I'll go. I won’t tell anyone.”
Vuk assessed the situation. He looked past the house and across the field to the firehouse. To him, it looked like a clear shot to Kai’s body from there, and slowly he pieced together what he thought had happened.
Vuk picked up the axe and tossed it to Rory. It landed near Rory’s feet and he scooped it up. “Wait there. When I tell you, Rory, run. Run into the trees and stay away from other people. Don’t trust anyone. We’re all bad men here Rory. Do you understand?” Rory nodded, holding the axe close.
Vuk watched Lucas and when he saw Lucas turn away towards he church he told Rory to run. Rory didn't hesitate and bolted straight across the open field towards the trees. Vuk alternated between watching Rory run towards the trees and Lucas facing the church – silently willing Lucas to keep his back turned away from Rory. He heard Lucas fire one shot followed almost immediately by another.
Lucas watched as the last of the Survivors, Kiam, ran down the road into the woods. Kiam was being chased by two infected with another five further back. Lucas lined up the closest infected and was about to shoot it, when another infected ran out from the side of the building and knocked Kiam down.
“Fuck!” Lucas called out as he watched the infected begin to feast on him. He shot one infected and it went down, landing on top of Kiam. The other infected pushed his brethren off Kiam and continued to feast on him as the five stragglers got closer.
Lucas assessed the situation - there was nothing he could do for Kiam. He couldn't even put him out of his misery as the infected blocked any shot.
“Sorry Kiam,” Lucas whispered as he turned and focused back on the Bandits heading towards him. He had lost sight of many of them and looked at their last known positions for any movement.
Shutov lay prone behind a bush from where he could see the top of the firehouse. He watched Lucas look around, scanning the area with his rifle. He lay his CZ550 on the ground and looked down the scope, but Lucas kept moving so he was unable to get a shot. Infected walked nearby, ignoring Shutov for now, but he knew once he fired they’d all converge straight on him. This meant he got one shot - so he had to make it count.
Lucas kept scanning, looking for a target. He looked back at where he first killed Kai and thought he saw movement. He steadied the rifle against his shoulder and looked down the scope, holding his breath to keep still.
Shutov smiled as Lucas stopped moving and he was able to line him up down the sight. He also held his breath as he squeezed the trigger.
A sudden movement to his left caused Lucas to swing the rifle around, following it with his head. It was just a rabbit and he almost laughed when he felt, rather than heard, the bullet whiz past his head. Lucas dropped to the ground and lay as flat as he could.
Shutov stood up, “fuck!” he cursed, unsure if he had hit Lucas. The infected rushed over to him as he observed the firehouse tower - there was no movement but he couldn't be sure. He ran back towards the factories to lose the infected that chased after him.
Vuk was also watching the firehouse tower but all he could see from this angle was the rifle poked out over the edge. He recognized the sound of the CZ550, having had it fire so close to him previously, so he assumed Shutov took a shot. The rifle was still, maybe Shutov got him.
Lucas patted himself all over. He didn’t feel hurt but he'd heard that shock can deaden the senses. His hand came back clean – he wasn't bleeding. He crawled away from the edge and towards the ladder, taking the rifle with him, it’s time to get the fuck outta here.
Vuk saw the rifle retract behind the tower, glad that Shutov had missed whoever was up there. He watched the tower but there was no movement. From this angle he could see the ladder up to the tower, and since he hadn’t observed anyone climbing down, he knew someone was still up there.
Lucas took the magazine out of the M14 and counted the remaining bullets - there were only three. He slammed the magazine back into the rifle and patted it. “Sorry baby, I gotta leave you behind,” he said as he laid it on the ground. Lucas pushed it back out so that part of the rifle was exposed over the edge again.
Vuk watched as the rifle poked back out of the edge of the tower. It turned towards the shore and then fired. Strange, Vuk mused, since the rifle is lying flat the bullet will be just shooting far off into the air. He saw the rifle pointed far over his head and it fired another round, again high and into the air followed by a third high shot to his right. Then the rifle was still and Vuk looked behind him, attempting to locate a possible target. In the distance there were just trees, nothing worth shooting at. When he turned back to the tower he saw Lucas climb down the ladder. Vuk nodded, impressed, clever boy.
Shutov also watched the rifle, having cursed himself for missing. From his angle he couldn’t see Lucas climb down the ladder but did see the rifle poked over the edge, and so like everyone else, he assumed Lucas was still up there.
Vuk watched as Lucas jumped off the ladder and ran away, disappearing over the hill. Vuk scanned the surrounding area but there was no one else around, so Lucas’ escape stayed his secret.
It took another 20 minutes of no further shots before Vuk 'bravely' volunteered to climb the ladder and see what had happened. By this time they had all angles of the firehouse covered and no one had seen the rifle move for a long time.
As Shutov watched Vuk climb up the ladder, he secretly hoped his shot was successful and it had just taken the prick a while to die.
At the top of the tower Vuk grabbed the M14 and held it up high as he called down, “he’s not here. Just the gun.”
“Fuck!” Shutov cursed.
From up high Vuk, saw Alejandro and Sam converged on the bus which had broken down on the road near the church. Vuk recalled that this was the same church Alejandro said the Survivors were holed up in. Then he realized that Shutov also knew this, knew the bus was near the church, knew that it was always going to end in blood. Vuk shook his head, the bastard played me like a fool. Although there wasn’t any ammo, Vuk still took the M14 and stashed it in his pack.
Down on the ground the Butcher skulked over to Shutov. “It looks like they all got away, they must have headed North into the woods. Should we chase them?”
“Why would we do that? For the beans in their packs?” Shutov chastised The Butcher.
“But they have guns, they killed Kai.”
Shutov walked away from The Butcher towards the bus, “let them have their pathetic guns and their little victory. We have the bus,” he turned to Sam, “get working on that bus right now. Alejandro I want you to set up a perimeter. I want people in every direction covering Sam until he gets this bus up and running.” Alejandro nodded and started to assign the others roles.
“What’s so special about this bus?” The Butcher asked.
“Nothing. It’s just a bus. Where it can take us, now that’s special.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
Shutov held up a map.
“The Northwest airfield, that’s where our salvation lies. Believe me when I say this war has just begun and if we cross path with the Survivors again, none of them will leave alive.”
END OF ACT 1
That was a 32,000 word sample of Survivors and Bandits a DayZ Novel giving you the entire first act to read.
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