Stonewall removed his hat and held it to his chest. 'These vampires may in fact be feeding on their very torment. It seems there is no end to the horrors of our new world.'
Jon took a deep breath and tried to steady the tremble in his hands and voice.
'Let’s go.'
'Hold on,' Shep stopped him. 'Ain’t we going to do something?'
'What can we do?'
Shep grit his teeth and said, 'Drop a few mortar shells in there. Maybe drive them off.'
Jon stared at the living crypt below.
'There’s nothing we can do here. Maybe someday. But not today.'
– From the pain came the screams filling his mind. Not from his lips, but far deeper: far more personal. The howling continued even though the actual torture to his body waited for The Order to prepare his next ordeal.
Trevor found tiny lifelines in a memory, or a feeling. For a few precious seconds here and there he could beat back the screams.
Once he summoned the sense of comfort and safety he had found as a little boy in his mother's arms; the soft fabric of one of her sweaters as she hugged her young son provided a tactile connection to that moment. He heard her assuring, 'Everything is all right.'
Yet her voice and the sensory recollection of her hug faded, replaced by the much more recent feel of swarming bugs digging at his skin…ripping…biting-SCREAMS.
As he lay alone in the chamber in some state several steps removed from sleep, Trevor summoned the sound of running water-a shower, a waterfall, the rhythm of rain on a rooftop-a sound that always gave him a sense of calm.
The calm shattered in the harsh memory of his legs…his torso…sucked into the torture-spider's mouth; a false sensation of bones pulverized and shredded skin.
It may feel as if you’re being eaten, but rest assured that is only a feeling.
Screams again. His mind pulled into madness by the torment of his body.
Through the mental chaos, he reached for another lifeline: for Ashley, but instead grasped more torment in her disappearance from this Earth, and her disappearance from his heart.
Where he should have found fond memories of intimacy, he found an empty shell. Had he ever really loved her? If she were still alive, could she love what Armageddon had made him?
How could anyone love you now? Asked Ashley's voice. You're not human; you're a monster; no different from the aliens you fight.
This lifeline turned into an anchor, driving him deeper into the pool of madness. The bore bugs on his legs; the working of that monstrous maw; the vitriol from Nina.
There. For a second. Another ray of light breaking through the clouds of madness.
Yes, Nina. What have they done to you? Can you still be saved?
He heard her voice now, muffled as if covered or, perhaps, calling from great distance: I'm still in here! No matter what they do, I'll still be here!
'She's just a lonely little girl,' he managed to speak aloud the words Lori had used to describe Nina Forest. 'Just a lonely little girl.'
Like a drowning man at sea, the tide of misery dragged him under again. Screams. A choir of banshees battering down his sanity through the terrible suffering inflicted upon his body: the opposite of mind over matter in a very practical application.
Trevor Stone lay alone, bound in a tempest of insanity.
– As they neared Allentown, the rescue team found it harder to stay hidden as the wilderness dissipated, replaced by crisscrossing highways, shopping centers, office complexes, and other relics of man’s paved civilization.
That afternoon they were caught in the open on Route 145 north of Whitehall by a mob of charging ghouls who fell to a volley of automatic rifle fire. The sounds of battle attracted scavengers resembling flying Octopuses. The things gorged on the dead ghouls.
Jon knew they neared The Order’s facility when they ran into a gathering flock of converts along the riverbank north of Allentown.
Reverend Johnny tore into the converts picking and choosing targets based on complexion. He saved several of the near-zombies and dispatched a chubby female missionary of Voggoth and her box of slug-like implants.
After, the exhausted convoy camped at the Lehigh Valley Airport.
During the night, they fought off several more waves of ghouls, a troll, and a cross between a grizzly bear and a horse.
Ames broke her arm when a shipping container serving as a battlement toppled. Johnny set the bone in a makeshift splint. Fortunately, Ames could still shoot.
Time, Jon knew, was not on their side. Did Trevor live? If so, for how much longer? Besides, they could not rest: not with the denizens of Allentown attacking every hour. They needed to find and assault The Order's facility while they had the strength and supplies to do so.
Shortly after sunrise, he formed a scouting party and, with Reverend Johnny pointing the way as well as Stonewall and Shepherd in tow, found The Order’s base on the grounds of an industrial park. They watched from a rooftop far away.
Fifteen-foot organic green walls protected a variety of structures inside. Those structures included a pair of strange domes reaching two-stories tall, a number of small square buildings, and one particularly large rectangle.
Outside the grounds roamed Spider Sentries, robbed figures with swords, and varying numbers of human converts in raggedy civilian clothing filing in and out of the compound.
Jon lowered his binoculars and muttered, 'Wow. So that’s it, huh?'
'Yes, that is it,' the Reverend answered.
Shep asked Brewer, 'The question is, do you got a plan?'
'Yes, in fact, I’ve got a plan. Well, sort of an outline of a plan… kind of.'
Johnny: 'Will it deliver destruction unto our enemies?'
'Or destruction unto us, I suppose.'
'The Order are an arrogant bunch,' Reverend Johnny knew. 'They believe they can do whatever you can do, better. Think of it this way: if you pinch them, they will pinch you back but harder. If you kick them, they will kick you harder.'
Jon nodded. 'I see.'
'That makes one of you,' Shepherd said. 'So what have you got up your sleeve?'
'I plan to pinch them. And then dare them to pinch me back.'
Stonewall asked, 'We’re going to-what’s the word? — ‘goose’ them?'
'Mr. Brewer,' Reverend Johnny warned, 'Have I fully conveyed the magnitude of the monstrosities that will be unleashed upon us?'
'On us, Reverend Johnny? No, no. On you. After all, they know you, right?'
Reverend Johnny swallowed hard and said, 'May the Lord have mercy on my soul.'
19. Release
Jon’s forces stayed hidden as a 'Chariot' eased into the air from the courtyard within The Order’s outpost, and soared away to the west. He could not imagine a less aerodynamic airship.
Essentially a big square, The Order's facility covered an area equal to four football fields. One large gate remained open on the north side to accommodate the influx of new recruits.
Inside that square waited two strange domes, several small buildings, and a main structure resembling a large shoebox with veins running through its green walls.
The fortress sat in the center of a massive parking lot. To the north, across from the open gate, stretched three hundred yards of dead cars and pavement followed by trees and grassland.
