Beyond the Horizon(An apocalypse novel)

Chapter 90: Paste

His corpse was just the start of it.

The ghouls’ rampage had torn through the kitchen like a storm. Cabinets, pots, pans; all of it lay scattered, crushed, and mixed with the dismembered bodies on the ground.

It was hard to tell what part belonged to whom, what face used to be whose. He couldn’t recognize Jayce’s corpse in the pile. Perhaps that was a blessing.

"Hu..."

Chloe gagged, leaning against the wall for support. Being the closest to her, Miles instinctively reached a hand for her shoulder.

"Are you..."

He trailed off as she gagged again, her shoulder shaking in his hand as she struggled. In the end, she didn’t puke.

She calmed down slowly, shakily pushed herself off the wall, then pulled his hand from her shoulder. She turned to him with a pale, strained face.

"I-I’m fine. I... just..."

She sighed, then lowered her eyes, taking them away from the corpses. Miles could only give a slow, hesitant nod to that.

Most of the group looked away, to the walls, to the ceilings. Most, besides Ryan, who was staring blankly at Morgan’s corpse, and Miles, who was now scanning the scattered room.

’The sink still looks workable.’

Miraculously, it seemed to be the only thing still standing there.

"Ryan,"

Mia called out. Her voice broke him from his daze.

"Right... right. We have to get out. W-we still need those points."

"We can’t just leave them like this, can we?"

Brandon said, frowning while looking away.

"Then what? What do you suggest we do?"

The boy had no reply to that. There was little else they could try.

The center table he’d placed Morgan on before had been partly broken now. What remained of its surface tilted downwards at an angle. The body would just slide down if placed there again.

They couldn’t drag them back to the storeroom, for obvious reasons. They couldn’t even move the corpses to the cafeteria either. Not if it risked entering the Principal’s domain.

Only certain death awaited them there.

Ryan took the first step, carefully moving along the path with the body parts in the way. Miles moved next, following closely. The rest trudged slowly behind him.

Fewer corpses didn’t mean no corpses at all. At certain points, he forced himself to consciously ignore whatever sounds his shoes made as he marched onwards. Even the parts uncovered by viscera were coated in a layer of blood and body fluids that the cold had chilled overnight into a dark, reddish paste.

Each step required just that much more effort to free his legs from it. It was almost miraculous that Chloe didn’t throw up through it all.

Soon enough, they stood before the metal door leading outside. It wasn’t much of a door anymore, not after what the bifurcated ghoul had done to it.

Snow poured in freely from the opening, washing them all in its heavy, oppressive cold.

His breath came out in puffs. Perhaps it might’ve been his imagination, but it felt colder today. Not by much, barely enough to tell if anything had actually changed.

The world beyond the kitchen looked the same as it did last time. Lone basketball hoops standing somberly in the storm, the school fence ringing the area not too far from them, and finally the leaning powerlines in the distance.

Notably, the canopy they’d hidden under last time was gone now, collapsed and half-buried in snow.

It was all washed in a hazy film of white, making it hard to determine where exactly the storm ended and where the objects began. The effect only grew worse with distance.

Miles took it all in, feeling the warmth in his chest fire up for a moment before looking away and scanning his immediate environments closely.

’They’re not here.’

Those stationary figures he’d sighted before, ghouls waiting in the blizzard for some kind of excitation.

’Did we kill them all last time? No, that’s not possible.’

It was a ridiculous thought to even possess.

’Maybe just the ones in the immediate area.’

That would make a lot more sense, but it would also mean...

’We have to go deeper.’

They were on a hunting mission after all. Regardless of if he liked it or not, the only logical way to get more points was from killing monsters.

"I... I can’t see them,"

Sarah spoke up.

"See what?"

Ryan turned to face her.

"The ghouls. They aren’t in the storm anymore."

"What?"

Miles stepped in to explain. It took less than half a minute to get them up to speed. Given the fact they’d only reacted to the attack yesterday, they hadn’t actually seen the state of the ghouls before they attacked.

Brandon frowned.

"So what? There’s nothing here then?"

"Not nothing, we just have to go deeper, towards the fence. That was part of the plan anyway."

He looked to Ryan, eyes still narrowed in skepticism.

"Then we wait for them to attack us there, much further from safety, even after what we went through last time?"

"If you have any other ideas Brandon, I’m all ears,"

Ryan said, before taking a half step outside. Chloe rushed in a final warning.

"Remember to cover your skin and try not to fall completely into the snow. There could be drift worms hiding somewhere in there. If you notice any unnatural cold, well, anymore unnatural than this already is, make sure to check for parasites. Do not brush it off."

For some reason her gaze turned to Miles at the last part, though he was too busy exploring his sudden interest in kitchen ceiling decor to notice it.

Slowly they filed out into the storm, its ever-present roar suppressing all other sounds. Miles turned around, snow crunching beneath his feet.

The falling snow had an almost physical weight, one that pressed down on him anytime he exposed himself to the grayish skies.

Brandon still stood in the kitchen, a strangely hesitant look on his face. He looked between the kitchen floor and the world outside.

"What is it!?"

Ryan raised his voice, trying to speak over the howling winds.

"I... I have an idea."

’It doesn’t seem like a pleasant one.’

Judging by the look on his face at least. And in the end, true to Miles’s assumptions, it really wasn’t. Chloe puked her breakfast just at the explanation.