Chapter 25: The Wall
Max stood in the darkness. He could see the trees about a hundred yards away, but not much farther. He walked right to the front of the forest, and tried to focus on the road that ran right through it. "Stay on your toes Max, you have a short run and then Katherine will come get you," he whispered to himself.
He looked back at the town and stared at the wall. Memories he hadn’t expected suddenly filled his mind. It was amazing how they built that wall in only one year. As Max was thinking about how hard they worked to put up the wall, he heard a stick break in the distance. The hair on Max's body stood straight up, and he could feel his skin becoming hot and sweaty. "Who is that?" Max shouted aloud. And then he heard laughter, the same evil laughter he had heard in his dreams.
"Foolish boy, we told you that you didn't have a chance. Even so, you decided to make an army and try to protect your small little town."
"Come out and show yourselves!" Max shouted. At that moment, the road Max was focusing on lit up with fire. That’s when he saw the Red Death, thousands and thousands of them. One of the group leaders wearing black stepped up to Max and he was smiling. Max shivered, wondering what would happen next. The leader got within ten feet of Max and in a sinister voice said, “We will give you one last chance Max, give up and we will spare your life. Or we will capture your people and bring them all back to our home. We will not just kill your people for what you have done. Your people will be tortured, then harvested for our survival."
"You things disgust me, and I'll enjoy blowing your heads off." The Red Death leader laughed and pulled out a plasma ray gun, just like the one Max was carrying.
"Where did you get that?" Max shouted aloud.
"We had someone make them for our army boy, you didn't think we would just come to your little town with nothing did you?"
They all cackled and laughed in evil voices. "Remember, we don't just kill people boy, we keep them and harvest your kind for our own survival."
"Sounds like you have it all figured out. Too bad you won't be around to see it happen." Max pulled out his plasma ray gun and instantly blew the head off of the Red Death leader. The thing yelled and screamed loudly, bringing out more Red Death who darted after him. Max turned around and sprinted towards the town wall.
"Get ready Rock!" he shouted as he ran towards the wall. Max was just about thirty yards away from the town wall and he had all of his adrenaline pumping. He looked behind him and saw about half the Red Death army right behind him. Max ran all the way over to the wall, and instantly Katherine teleported right next to him. "Good job with the bait Max." She waited till they all got closer and right when they were about to strike, she and Max vanished into thin air. "KABOOM!" Rock pressed the detonator as soon as he saw Max vanish, and over a thousand Red Death were blown into pieces. Smoke flew from outside of the wall, and they couldn't see anything. The men with the turrets shot viciously and blindly into the distance as Max ordered them to keep shooting and yelled, “You’re doing great, light them up boys!"
As Max said this one of the two men manning the turrets was shot and a huge hole went right through his head. Max looked at the other man and saw that he was already shot in the chest. Rock ran over to Max yelling, “Max what kind of weapons do they have? They just killed the men who were using the turrets."
"Rock they have plasma ray guns like mine." "Then they'll be able shoot through the town wall! You know that, right Max?"
"Oh shit! Rock we need to move our soldiers back from the wall!" Huge holes started to appear in the wall, and it began to crack. "Group B move back!" Rock and Max shouted at the top of their lungs. But it was too late. The wall started to crumble into the town and the stones fell on hundreds of soldiers.
Max called out for lights to be shone right over where the wall used to be. When the lights were turned on, everyone saw all the Red Death. There were thousands of them all with guns and ready to attack. Most of the group B fighters were killed when the wall fell on them, but luckily there will still about a hundred of them who survived with guns.
Max shouted, “keep fighting, don't let them past!” Max ran forward shooting as many as he could. They shot at him, but he healed instantly. He felt extremely strong and the cross around his neck was now fully lit up.
"Group D go!" The women ran up with machine guns and shot furiously at the Red Death. But the Red Death shot back with total precision. "Retreat!" Rock yelled and the rest of the groups ran back. Group A arrived with Clay and they went to the side, preparing for a sneak attack. "Go!" Clay shouted and group A ran after the Red Death. Clay and the other men went into formation, all of them shooting perfectly at the Red Death. "Snipers go!" Clay shouted and all of the men dropped to the ground except for ten of the men in the back. They nailed the Red Death leaders in black and that’s when many of them went into complete panic and rage. The Red Death grouped up and retreated back outside of the town.
Max ran over to Clay shaking him in happiness. "You did it Clay, you got the leaders and they retreated!” Rock ran over and gave him a high five. "We can't get too excited boys," yelled George, "They'll be back soon, this was just their first strike. More importantly though how many people do we have left?"
Max assessed the situation and replied, “Almost everyone in group B was killed, and a number of soldiers in group A. I see many wounded, so we should get group C to help. I'm going to go with Katherine and take down as many Red Death as I can on my own." "Alright Max, we’ll stay here. Go now," Rock told him.
Katherine ran next to him and asked, "Where are we going?" "Can you teleport us a couple miles down on the road?"
"Yeah sure, but it’s completely dark, we’re going to need a flash light." Rock handed Katherine a huge light and told them to hurry. As they were about to leave Clay ran up to them. "Max, let me help you attack. I can snipe them down with you sir." That’s when George shouted, "You can't let him go with you Max, he's just a boy." Clay faced him, “George this isn't your decision I'm the leader of group A and I'm going to go with Max." "Well I guess that’s settled, c’mon Clay grab her other hand," Max answered.
They vanished and George stood with his mouth open shocked out of his mind. "Did I just get commanded by a twelve year old?" "I think you just did," Rock said trying not to laugh. "That doesn't matter though, get the rest of group C with the first aid kits and tend to the rest of the soldiers. I'm going to set up a defense with group A, D, and the rest of B." George watched as Rock walked away and thought to himself, “Goddamn I'm just taking orders from everyone."
Max, Clay, and Katherine teleported several miles down the road in the forest, and heard the Red Death running. "Don't get them yet Clay, we have to see where their base is." They followed them for a mile or two and saw them all funnel into a large cave entrance in the canyon where Max had also gone.
"How many do you think went in there Max?" Clay asked.
“I think they’ve got about ten thousand left, we took out more than half of them with all of our explosives. But they'll be back tomorrow night to come and try to finish us."
“We'll be dead meat Max, we don't even have a wall.”
"That's why we have to pick them off. If we can get about twenty soldiers here we can light them up and kill them as they come back out. We’re going to have to go back and signal the town. If we can make an ambush, everyone who comes out will be dead." Clay agreed with him and all three of them teleported back to the town.
When they appeared, they could see the front gate was destroyed and now worthless. "There's no way we can set up a defense in time for them if they come back here Max. I mean I know we can kill a good amount of them in an ambush, but if they make it back here, we really don't have a chance." "Well then Clay, I guess we better find a place for everyone to hide.”
When they walked inside what was left of the gate, there were Red Death corpses everywhere. "Don't touch any of them, guys, or you could get infected.” Katherine g
rabbed their hands and they teleported to the Town Hall, where the rest of the citizens were hiding. Max opened the doors, and saw them all crouching down. "Are we safe?" someone yelled out. "Well the Red Death are gone, for now at least. Tomorrow night, though, they will be back." Max then ordered them to get up and follow them outside and they all walked over to where the groups were. The citizens looked in horror as they saw the corpses of the Red Death. They also watched as members of the different groups took care of the injured on the ground.
Rock approached Max when he saw them come back and asked, “So did you guys take out more Red Death wherever you went?" "No, but we found something better,” Max told him, “We found out where the Red Death hide out. It’s also clear they lost about half of their original population. If we can go out there with about twenty good soldiers we can ambush them and take them out without them knowing, it'll be like they run into a trap."
Rock looked at him, "That's not a bad idea, I hope to God it works. Right now we need to find a place for these people to hide. I say we make them go outside of the town."
"No Rock, we can't run from the Red Death. Let’s have them hide inside their own homes. If they all leave and spread out we’re sure to be found and have no chance." Rock realized this was a better plan.
Max walked out in front of everyone. They were clearly shaken up by what they’d experienced and were losing hope they’d live through this battle.
"People of the town,” he told them, “Go back to your homes and fortify yourselves. We want you to rest for the night. All of you be back here around twelve with your weapons." They nodded and left. No one was walking fast, some had to be carried home.
Max wasn’t finished, “Clay, before your group leaves choose about twenty of your best soldiers." Clay nodded at Max and selected his best men, and told the others to go home. "I got them sir, what's the plan?"
Max asked George, Rock, Clay, Katherine, and the 20 other men to circle around him. "Here’s the plan,” Max started. “We found out where the Red Death base is. They go in through a cave entrance so that means there's only one way in and one way out. If we can hide around the entrance we can light up as many as possible when they leave their hideout. We'll keep them forced in until they have to come out."
Max remembered hearing that the Red Death were farming humans for survival, so he knew they might not all come out. But he decided not to divulge this information, because he needed their support. "We’ll go to their base around eight tomorrow night and kill as many as we can. If we don't succeed our town will die, this is our last stand. You can all go home now and rest, be back at the training fields at twelve with all the other citizens."
They all left and went back to their homes, only Max and Katherine remained. "Max let’s go back one more time, me and you. We can scout them and make sure that they have no other place to escape." Max agreed with her and they teleported back to the Red Death cave. The wind was howling and it was almost pitch black. "Want to go in Max?" Katherine asked, even though she was scared out of her mind, “I think it’s the only way to save our town."