Issue 48 – End of the Line
- Somewhere in Texas, early December, 2039
The sounds of battle raging outside were muted by the thick door that Blackwood slammed behind them as they all ran into the bunker entry corridor, weapons drawn. Behind the inner door, several Seahawks were erecting a makeshift barricade from the debris left in the entryway. It won’t hold anyone for long, Seagrove thought, especially if they have power armor. Deploying the bulky Breacher suits was, however, a time-consuming endeavor and he – along with the rest of them – were hoping that by the time the Clayburn heavies arrived, they’d be long gone.
“Quickly, this way,” Blackwood beckoned them to rush to the second door at the end of the hallway, leading – they assumed – to the storage area. Unlike the outer door, this entryway was left open and all three of them rushed inside to a cavernous space behind them, labeled as the main storage space. Once inside, they stopped to take a breath and look around.
The room was completely empty.
No shelves boxes welcomed them, no rows of vehicles or supplies. Remains of papers and broken furniture covered the cold, concrete floor of the bunker – a sign of hasty evacuation. The silence was only interrupted by their labored breathing and a soft, metallic click of the entry door being shut behind them. Confused, Seagrove looked at Kathryn Grey standing in shock next to him and he could see the same fear he felt, in the expression on her face.
“No... no.... no... god no, please”, she repeated, terrified to the bone, desperately looking around for the salvation that had been promised to them.
“End of the line, my dear.”
Blackwood’s words made them turn around. He stood there with his handgun pointed at them, firing two shots.
For Seagrove, the time seemed to have slowed down and fractured into a series of seemingly unrelated images.
Blackwood’s cynical grin.
His finger pressing on the trigger of his pistol.
A spark at the barrel’s end.
Kathryn whimpering and collapsing to the ground, letting her gun go and holding her belly.
His shoulder exploding in a geyser of blood.
His own firearm dropping to the ground.
Suddenly he found himself on the ground, gasping for air. Kathryn was still whimpering, curled to the fetal position on the floor next to him. He could suddenly see everything in incredibly vivid details. The red of his own blood, Kathryn’s pained expression and Blackwood’s triumph.
“Ah, don’t worry Josh, it’s not fatal. I want you both alive for what’s to come.”
“You bastard”, he could say Kathryn whisper through her clenched teeth.
“So it was you all along. You betrayed us to Clayburn.”
Blackwood’s laughter echoed through the room. From his position, he watched Blackwood casually sit on broken remnants of a wooden crate.
“Oh, I can promise you, Josh, I did no such thing. Everything will become clear in a moment,” Blackwood smiled indulgently.
Anger swelled in him like a great, unstoppable tidal wave. Later, he would not be able to recall the minutes that followed that moment save for a single image of Blackwood falling from his perch. He couldn’t ever truly explain how he did it. A stroke of luck, Blackwood taking him for finished in his arrogance or an answer to his and her prayers.
Kathryn would tell him that he had reached for a gun lying next to him with his healthy arm faster than she had seen anyone do it and that he shot Blackwood. His gun sounded like thunder in the enclosed area and Blackwood collapsed with a major wound opening up on his face. Right under his right eye.
