They were coming in from all sides. At each moment, it seemed like they’d be overrun.
John expected he’d die at any moment. He was OK with that. It was what it was. He knew that Max felt the same way.
But he wasn’t going to let his life go in vain.
If there was just the slimmest chance that he could help save his friends, or some of them, he’d do anything.
But that was where the frustration came in.
There wasn’t anything to do. There wasn’t any way, as far as he could see, to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his friends.
Cynthia was next to him. Close by. She’d ceased making sarcastic remarks. That was one barometer for how serious the situation was.
“I’m out of ammo!” shouted Cynthia, above the roar of the mob, the screams of pain and the shouts of anger.
With one hand, John fished into his pocket and grabbed a clip. He couldn’t take his eyes off the mob. He held his hand out and felt Cynthia grab it.
Something had happened behind him. Some kind of vehicle. It didn’t seem to be a threat, so John didn’t bother shifting his attention.
Suddenly, something slammed into his shoulder.
It took him a moment to realize what had happened.
It was a bullet.
Not far away, a woman in her fifties held a handgun in an outstretched arm.
A moment later, bullets ripped into her chest, and she collapsed face-first into the dirt.
Everything was collapsing. The mob was gaining ground.
From the east, someone had broken through, reaching the van where the group was.
John saw the flurry of movement more than he saw the person. It was a man. Someone big. That was all he registered.
John needed to keep shooting to keep the mob at bay.
But someone needed to deal with this man who’d broken through.
The man brandished a tire iron. He was headed right for James, who hadn’t even taken his eyes off his scope.
John would have to be the one to act. The others could keep shooting.
The tire iron man was caught up in the midst of John’s friends. John couldn’t get a good clean shot. It’d have to be hand-to-hand. Or something like it.
John moved as fast as he could. His body was in pain, sore and exhausted. But he was also pumped full of adrenaline.
The man with the tire iron saw him moving, seemed to sense the threat. He stopped where he was, the tire iron raised.
This wasn’t the time for subtlety.
John rushed him, swinging the gun in his right hand in a wide arc.
The tire iron collided with it, knocked it out of John’s hand. It clattered to the dirt.
John went for his knife in its holster.
But it was too late.
The tire iron collided with his shoulder, sending pain shooting through him. His arm felt immobilized. It hung limply at his side.
The tire iron was swinging again.
John raised his left hand swiftly. He caught the iron. It slammed into his palm but he ignored the pain and wrapped his fingers around it.
He pulled the tire iron toward himself swiftly and with as much force as he could.
This pulled the man towards him.
John brought up his knee. He caught the man in the stomach. Hard.
He heard the breath escape him.
John tugged on the tire iron. But the other man’s grip was strong. He couldn’t get it free.
John brought his knee up again. He still couldn’t move his right arm much, but he was starting to feel twinges of feeling in his hand where it had gone numb.
Someone else was near him. A flash of movement. A long coat swirling with movement. John only got impressions of what was happening.
John’s mind tried to move his right arm up to defend himself. Desperately. But the arm didn’t move.
John’s knee slammed again into the man’s stomach. He was still pulling on the tire iron as hard as he could.
Something slammed into his head from the right. Felt like a rock. Maybe it was just a fist.
Gunshots all around him.
Someone else had broken past the line, gotten into the little huddle of desperate survivors by the van.
John was out of options.
He threw his head forward as hard as he could, going for a head-butt. Just like he used to do in soccer when he was a kid.
His forehead slammed into the man’s face. Blood was everywhere. On John’s face, too.
Something slammed into his head again. His vision went blurry.
A gun sounded right next to his ear.
He went almost deaf. Nothing but ringing in his ears.
Pain in his right arm now. Something was grabbing it.
The man in the coat to his right had fallen. His head had broken open like a watermelon. The upper portion of his skull had exploded into fragments. Almost like a busted watermelon lying on the ground. His brain was exposed, the wrinkled substance looking strange there on the ground.
The brain was some of the most advanced biology in the world, and it was lying there useless on the ground. Destroyed. And what had it accomplished before its end? Nothing. It hadn’t been able to keep up. It hadn’t been able to adapt.
The long coat lay spread out on the ground like an angel’s wings.
John’s brain was going to weird places. It was exhausted. It was stressed. It was losing track of what was happening.
Everything seemed to be happening both slowly and quickly.
John felt something crash into his face. The man with the tire iron had head-butted him. John tasted his own blood now. His nose was probably broken.
Another rapid burst of gunfire. Close enough that John could hear it over the intense ringing in his ears.
The neck and head of the man in front of him were suddenly ripped to shreds. Blood covered John.
The man’s face fell apart. Exposed bone. Cartilage. Huge chunks of flesh just hanging there. A bullet lodged into his eye.
Even in death, he gripped the tire iron tightly.
John finally let go.
He reached for his handgun with his good left hand, but it wasn’t in its holster.
He couldn’t remember what had happened to it.
The fog had entered his mind.
He was confused. Deaf. Disoriented.
His head turned rapidly as he took in the landscape.
All he saw, out past the van, were bodies. Bodies rushing at them. Bodies screaming, in pain and anger and violence. Bodies falling. Bodies lying dead on the ground. Bodies with various injuries.
This was what the world had come to.