We’d seen a number of corpses, either dead or twice dead on our way in. Crashes, crushed pedestrians, residents of Knox who lost their lives one way or another. This, however, was the first battlefield we’d ever seen.
The reason for the fight’s obvious. Front window like a mouth filled with broken glass teeth smoldered the ruined remains of a gun shop. All round it, the dead festered. Bodies closest to the store were badly burned. Charred necks strained back at unnatural angles, the heat of fire bunching muscles. Further away, many of the dead appeared to be victims of the store’s goods. Whether or not they were dead when they were shot, I don’t know.
James retched. Whiffs of cooked meat freely mixed with the decay of rotten death and old bile. The intersection, shielded as it was from wind, stunk of many, many dead. I had to clamp my own jaw as my diaphragm considered adding the stench of vomit to the riot of smell bombarding my nose, my face, and my watering eyes.
Dave immediately brought up his shotgun, wary as a nervous old jack rabbit. “Bad sign, this is. Better get on out of here.”
James wiped his mouth, trying to avoid looking at any bodies. “God. Yes. Appears we’ve got eight blocks, if we go straight. We’re close.”
Evening was falling fast, and long shadows blanketed the city streets. Eye watering sunlight contrasted sharply against the deepening building shadows, making an impossible patchwork of too bright and too dark that we snuck through, every hair pricked and every sense tight with dread. James, finally, realized how much trouble we were waltzing into. His eyes darted front and back, breath tense. He wiped sweat from his forehead with quick, anxious hands.
Even given our attentiveness, the attack struck us like lightning- impossibly fast and impossibly bad. One second, Dave walked ahead of us, and the next, a black arrow streaked into him.
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