Canada Under Attack: Where Shadows Walk

Part 6

We continued sticking close to the shadows as we made our way in the opposite direction the hunter had gone. With the memory of seeing that shadowy figure smoothly move across the park faster than I would've thought possible burning bright in my mind, being in the shadows didn't really make me feel that much safer.

My mysterious savior, however, moved confidently in the lead. If she was scared by the assassin, she didn't show it. Instead she moved us through the neighborhood at a good pace, pausing only twice to make sure the way was clear before continuing on.

Then we were out of the houses and moving along Scenic Drive, which skirted the outer edges of the city.

"Stay low," she quietly instructed. "At least one of them watches the major roads all day."

"How do you know?" I asked in a hoarse whisper, snapping my head around to try and find possible spots for a sniper to perch itself.

Instead of answering, she pointed towards a distant intersection clogged with unmoving cars and trucks. Then she was moving towards it, staying in a low crouch in the tall grass as she did. Trying my best to mimic her crouch, I followed, silently thanking all my parkour for making me relatively flexible so I could stay hunched over for so long.

Still, it was slow going and in short order I found myself several steps behind her, my companion much more used to going forward in a crouch. Despite the twinge of panic it gave me to quickly give up so much space between her and me, it let me take a good look at her. Well, as good a look as I could get with her crouched over.

From what I could see past the black hoodie, hand-painted with jagged gray and blue lines to break up her silhouette, and baggy black cargo pants, she was athletic and lean, like a girl on the track team I had gone out with a couple times last spring. Last spring? Man, that felt like a thousand years ago. Back when the world hadn't yet seen the green dot of doom in their skies and I could play PS4 and listen to music whenever I wanted to.

That girl on the track team, with her red hair, freckles and killer smile. What was her name again? Damn, I couldn't remember. So much had happened since then to push aside memories of better times. Since the green dot became a laser sight aimed at Earth and we started taking shots from alien bad guys.

Then my reverie was disturbed by us moving into the intersection. Almost immediately my nose was bludgeoned by the smell of death, thick and bitter even through my hepa-mask. The girl swung around a stalled out truck and pressed herself against its other side before waving me forward. Carefully I followed, moving around the truck before sliding along the box to where she was taking cover. In doing so, what was hidden by the jumble of cars became visible.

Bodies. Lots of them, most in the dark blue and tactical equipment of cops in SWAT gear. I had seen bodies before. Hell, I had even made a few during the dark days of the third wave lockdown. But I had never seen this level of carnage before. I had to fight to keep from puking in my mask as I took in the untidy heap of limbs and torsos strewn about the space inside several of the vehicles. A space that looked almost, ... deliberate.

"From what I could tell, they were trying to escort a number of officials that had survived the plague out of the city in horse-drawn wagons," the girl said in a low voice, the dark brown eyes above her camo-painted mask narrowed in thought.

A quick glance to the side yielded two such wagons tipped over on their sides, the kind that they had used down in the river valley at the Fort Whoop-Up historical museum for hay rides for the kids. Beside one was a dead horse, which told me the escort hadn't gone so well.

"They got to this intersection where the cops had set up a checkpoint and got ambushed," she went on to say.

Ambushed? By zerkers?? Even those crazy bastards wouldn't be stupid enough to try to take on a whole company of cops in tactical gear.