Tragic Conclusion

Mark signaled Ted to begin. A Tainted stumbled out of the entrance when he swung it open.

"Come here, you pale piece of shit," Mark spoke quietly. It was enough though.

The Tainted focused on him and lunged while growling menacingly. Adam closed on it from behind and struck it with the bat.

The Tainted lost its balance and Mark didn't miss this opportunity to charge forward and drive his blade through its head.

The Tainted collapsed to the ground without a sound.

"This was easy," Ted commented as he reached the body. "I know him. He's Jane's boyfriend."

Mark went to fetch his niece while Ted and Adam checked the rooms on the ground floor. Aside from the corpse in the living room the rest of the floor seemed empty.

The moment Emily entered the house, everyone heard a weak cry coming from above.

Ted rushed to the stairs and just as he took the first step up, a piercing shriek coming from the first floor drown out the crying baby. A shadow jumped from the top of the stairs, right on Ted. The two rolled into the corridor amidst Ted's screams.

Emily ran to her husband without a thought, Adam and Mark following right behind her. Just as they entered the corridor, the scream turned into a wet, gurgling sound that froze the blood in their veins.

The walls were painted in crimson. Ted was lying in the pool of blood, struggling weakly against the Tainted pinning him down.

Emily reached them first and struck the beast without hesitation, the scab on her arm cracking from the strain.

The Tainted shrugged her blow with ease. It smacked her with an open hand, throwing her on the wall. It hissed with irritation and lunged at the approaching Adam.

He stuck to the wall, barely avoiding the charge. The Tainted missed him and carried by its momentum ran into Mark. The man struck it with his fist, throwing it back and right into Adam's baseball bat. Its head was mercilessly smashed against the wall.

The Tainted slid off the wall and toppled to the ground. White mist rose from it and entered Adam.

Alas, it was too late. Emily reached her husband and wailed in pain. Ted was barely alive, but everyone knew that he had just a few seconds left.

The Tainted opened a gaping wound on his throat. Streams of blood splattered from it with every beat of his heart. Ted kicked weakly on the ground as he tried to take a breath, air no longer reaching his lungs.

Emily fell to her knees and hugged her husband while sobbing and howling like a wounded animal.

Mark covered her mouth as soon as he reached her, while Adam checked on Ted. The wound was beyond his capabilities. He could try to close it, but he didn't know how to repair the damage done by the Tainted. He looked at Mark and shook his head slowly.

The moment Ted grew still, they heard a weak voice coming from the first floor.

"Is anybody there? Please help!"

Adam stood up and cautiously ascended the stairs, while Mark stayed with Emily. He checked the rooms one by one. The door to the last room was closed.

"You can let me in," he said softly. "I won't hurt you. I'm with Emily and Ted."

He heard muffled wails coming from below, but whomever he was speaking with seemed oblivious. "It's safe, I promise."

A piece of furniture scraped on the floor behind the door and then the lock clicked.

A teenage girl holding a baby in her arm opened the door and looked at him in fear.

"You must be Jane and this must be Georgie, am I right?" Adam smiled warmly at her. The boy stared at him inquisitively while mumbling his thumb. Emily's son was alive.

"Yeah, I'm Jane," The girl had just begun speaking when she spotted the blood on Adam's clothes and paled, fear blooming in her eyes. "Are you really with Emily?" She asked while backing off to the room again.

"Yes, I am," Adam reassured her. "Wait here and I will go downstairs and tell her that you're all right."

Adam went back to the stairs. Mark and Emily weren't there though.

He found them in the living room, sitting on the couch. Mark was hugging his niece while she buried her face in his arm and wept quietly. Adam approached them and sat beside Mark.

"The kid and the babysitter are upstairs. They are safe, albeit the girl is scared. She must have seen a thing or two of what happened here." He pointed at the corpse of a man lying across the entrance to the kitchen. "Take her to them. She should be with her boy now."

Mark took Emily upstairs, turning her head when they passed Ted's body.

Meanwhile, Adam got to work. He carried the body from the living room to the backyard. When he went back to the house, he saw Mark standing at the top of the stairs, looking at him.

The men understood each other without words. Adam dealt with the Tainted, while Mark took care of Ted.

It took them two hours to bury the bodies.

When they finished, they found Emily asleep in the master bedroom with her son tucked tightly in her arms. Jane was with them, eating a plate of sandwiches.

Seeing the food, Adam realized how hungry he was. The men scoured the kitchen for food and sat in the living room.

They made themselves comfortable and devoured the food. After they were satisfied, Mark brought some beer from the fridge and spoke somberly.

"It doesn't look good. I scouted the horde before I stumbled upon you. There are about two thousand Tainted there. Roughly half of the village population. We don't have manpower or weapons to deal with them. Even if we had it all, the people are too terrified to do anything other than hide."

His face tensed. "Whatever caused all of this, we don't stand a chance against it." He crushed the can in his hands. "We don't have electricity, the phones aren't working and we have no way of knowing what's the situation elsewhere."

"I suspect that it isn't any different than here," Adam replied. He didn't say it, but in truth, he was convinced that the situation in the cities was much worse than what had happened to the village.

Finally, Mark asked the question he was mulling over throughout the whole conversation.

"Will you stay here and join us? We need survivors who aren't afraid of fighting."

"I can't," Adam refused flatly. "I'll stay the night and leave tomorrow morning. I just need to find a car and I'll be on my way."

"You won't get any here, at least if you don't want to have a horde of Tainted on your tail, Mark replied. "Besides, the entryway is blocked by crashed cars. You'll have to find something on the way."

The conversation died out afterward, with both men occupied by their thoughts.

Mark decided to spend the night there to make sure Emily and her baby were safe. He would take them to the hideout tomorrow.

As for Adam, he chose to sleep in the living room. He was exhausted, both in body and mind, and desperately needed some rest.

His night wasn't peaceful though.

Adam was standing on the edge of a poll filled with a gold liquid. He was draped in loose red robes covered with mystic symbols and held a silver staff in his hand.

He tried to move but his body didn't listen to him. He was in a dream, a realistic one.

"This should be enough. You will soon have her back, as promised." A hoarse voice resounded behind Adam and his body moved on its own, following the voice.

An old man clothed in black stood beside him, shriveled and wrinkled. A satisfied smile lingered on his face.

"I upheld my end of the bargain. It's your turn now," the man looked at Adam expectantly.

"Not yet, old man. I'll fulfill my promise when the ritual's complete and she's with me, safe and sound."

Adam was taken aback by his own voice. It was cold and hard as steel. It carried an air of authority and power. What Adam heard though, was a deep-rooted sadness hidden within it. It spoke of a terrible loss that the man had suffered.

A beam of light suddenly attacked his eyes and Adam woke up with a startled scream. He was back in Emily's house, the first sun rays flowing through the window.

He calmed down quickly, but the strange dream wouldn't vanish from his mind. Adam recalled the vision he experienced just two days earlier. The dream was just like it.

He didn't have the time to dwell on dreams and visions though. He had to hit the road as soon as possible.

After a quick breakfast, Adam looted nearby houses in search of new clothes and supplies. He changed his bloodied suit for a set of comfortable trekking attire and obtained a long knife.

There were still two things he wanted to check before he was on the road.