It's been more than an hour. Still running. I've heard things behind us. Gunfire, shouts, screams. The soldiers are everywhere. Everyone is dead. They shoot them and burn the bodies. Like it was nothing.
Deb was shaken. Alive, but definitely in shock. I can't say I blame her. She's been crying since we got back up to the surface. Took some time, though. The tunnels were like a maze, like wandering the guts of some long dead corpse. For all I know, I was. The Town is- was- alive.
Everything on the surface is burning.
I've read stories about white phosphorus, even seen photos on the web, but I never imagined I'd be standing in the middle of it. The wind burned my lungs and scalded my eyes. We walked for miles, blind, through the storm of white hot air.
All throughout the streets, there are burned bodies. Some human but most not quite. Amalgamations of bits and pieces of people, sure, but not people. The town's monsters. It's immune system. The soldiers were still around, and every so often we'd hear another round of gunfire. Didn't take us long to figure out what they were doing.
They were rounding up anyone still alive in the town by the city hall; the only structure not burnt out or collapsed. It was hard to tell who was part of the Church and who wasn't. We ducked behind a corner-store that had mostly fizzled out and watched. The soldiers wore these hulking suits, like gorillas. Most were blackened by the smoke and soot, but it seemed like they weren't even affected. The masks they wore looked like a cross between a gas mask and a medieval knight's helmet. I could see tubing running up and down the suits, leading back to hefty backpacks they lugged around. Their guns were connected too. Big guns, like machine guns. We stayed low when I saw that.
With little ceremony, they put another round of people up against the wall and cut them down. Then another while the bodies were carted off and dumped into a crater in the street. Christ, I didn't think about it at the time, but it seemed like the crater was almost full.
We ducked out towards the motel. It took some time without a car. Not that it mattered, though. The motel was gone, blown away like god himself had just taken a vacuum to it. Both our cars along with it. We were both too tired to even be angry about that anymore. We just sighed, collected what we could, and started down the road out of town.
I'm not sure if this will even get out to anyone. For all I know, the fuckers are blocking my signal. Or tracing it. There've been a few patrols come through since we left, but we finally hit an intersection.
Seems like burning the town to the ground got rid of that bullshit road magic they pulled on us.
At least that's one good thing.
We're going to keep walking. With any luck, someone might pick us up. It's a long shot, but at this point all I can really do is hope now.
I made sure to save two bullets just in case.
