Purgatory, 13: Mirage
20 Jan 2024Meowers
"Both the body and the spirit are essential. They work together and they can't exist without each other. When one is faltering, another could support it."
I swear once I find the freak responsible for this shit I'll atomise that bastard personally... Aw, this thing... Okay.
T + 56h 45min. I'll be short. That's ugly. That's really ugly. Saw a river on the map, moving towards it now. We might be followed. Hope they lose the trail in the water. Dropped our last landmines to slow them down, heard explosions. Good. Damn those bastards are thick. Looks like it's their real muscle.
T + 57h 19min. Reached the river. Going at least ankle deep, downstream. Could get us closer to any possible new facilities. This fucking brown goop is so muddy we can't see our own footprints. Good.
T + 57h 53min. Got back on the ground, that should be enough... Damn it's exhausting. Even if you aren't carrying a dead body.
That was the fucking worst.
Those dogs of theirs have more anabolics and adrenaline than blood. They can't do shit against armour but I swear I hit one with incendiary and it kept running with its guts burning through. And the Azimuth freaks, they were damn soaking our shots. One, two, three, four, any other merc would've turned into mist, but that bastard's crawling forward and shooting. Fuck. Barton's dead, Hayward's got a concussion, we're down one heavy gun now. Godsdamned grenades. Poor Hawkins was hugging a tree when we found him, only a second late to take cover. That's all it takes. Shit, that log is turning into an obituary. Bradshaw, Roberts, dead. Boyer, Rudzitis, Pohlmann, Topalidis, wounded. Eleven people counting me are left in okay shape. Eleven people. Fourteen more can at least point a weapon and pull the trigger. Six of them need help with walking. Shit. Shit.
At least we've gotten some of mercs' ammo and MREs. Timely, I'd say, we were kind of running low... On everything. And left a surprise. Landmines under the bodies, primed. It seemed like a few of them had appreciated the gift already.
Okay, someone wants something from me...
Shit, "we should stop carrying dead", dammit. Told them to speak it out to the squad, not to me personally. Like, what the heck. Okay, I'm not going to tell the names but if they get their tickets punched, others are free to leave them face down in the mud. Even that Steve, the escaped prisoner, with both his feet gnawed off, felon or not, he died with a rifle in hands showing those Azimuth fuckers what hell looks like. And that means he's to be buried properly. Someone doesn't want to do it? Fuck it, I'll do it.
I've never been a religious person but that doesn't mean I'm going to leave them just like that. There's one thing about battles won... You could show respect to your dead. And you should. You might've not won that battle without them.
Pfff... Fine, fine. Dropping our stuff on the ground. Time to rest and think.
Our chances to return back to our old track are slim at best, though we don't need to. Damn this map is a piece of crap. But it has some kind of a uniform scale nonetheless... So, judging by the average distance between facilities, a few more hours down that river and we could turn ninety degrees left into the jungle and go deeper until we see a road.
Nah. Not right now. I've still got a few coffee cans left in my bag. Priorities. Will take one of them and sit on that fallen tree over there for a few minutes. Quite decadently.
* * *
T + 64h 16min... We're following the riverbank for almost an entire local day. The murky, brown water to our right, and the dense, dark rainforest to our left. The river is wide and deep, and although the surface is relatively smooth and calm, it moves quickly. And eerily quietly. Across it on the other side all we could see was more jungle.
We had consumed the last of our food supplies several hours before, and many of my troops also had neither drinks nor water left. Although the mobile filtration units we carry with us are able to filter the dirt and bacteria from the river water, they could not stop it from tasting almost too foul to be able to drink.
The riverbank was wide and smooth where the water level must rise for prolonged periods at certain times of year, but the ground was quite firm underfoot as the level hadn’t risen anytime recently, and the unrelenting heat had driven the excess moisture from the deeper soil. Only the very surface was kept at all soft by the high humidity and a light drizzling rain in the air that seemed neverending. The ambient temperature, the moisture surrounding us, and the sweat of our bodies, ensured we were inescapably hot, and soaked through constantly after a long march before. I think we all would have killed for a shower.
We carried our wounded between us, with the medics checking them, and administering what care they could to keep them stable. Some of them were still able to walk and did so to the best of their ability, sometimes needing support, particularly going through the jungle.
T + 65h 44min... We spotted faint, dissolving traces of smoke in the sky, might be a campfire or something like that, certainly controlled. Lucky. It could've been too dark in only a couple of hours. Apparently, the source of it is straight ahead, further down the river, placed on the riverbank or close to it, it isn't present on the version of the map we have and honestly I believe we're out of its boundaries already. Unobservable from our current position, hidden behind the trees, but I think reaching it would take no more than two hours.
T + 66h 39min. Yep, that's a camp. A wooden fence, or a wall... Two and a half, maybe three metres, starting from near the riverbank and going deeper into the jungle. A camp with an access to the river. Can't see any people from here, but that's only an edge of it. It's certainly maintained and kept in shape. Even if crude, it wasn't built overnight. And the campfire is inside.
You know, that's odd... Are they escaped lab subjects? Most likely. Not the prisoners, prisoners would've died of the infection in mere days. But then, why did they wander deeper towards the Azimuth facilities, not the opposite direction or anywhere else? I guess there's only one way to find out...
Checking the gear, rebandaging the wounded, heading to the camp.
* * *
Next part: #14: Oasis
Next part: #14: Oasis