Chapter 07: Abandoned

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The shotgun was a deeply reassuring weight in his grasp.

It had come with a shoulder strap, but he held it for the first few minutes of the walk towards his last stop before leaving this area. Partially out of a paranoia born of his encounter with the drub, but mainly out of the simple but profound comfort holding a gun gave him. He'd come to rely on them so much in his day-to-day life, come to view them in the same way that some people viewed pets. Dog might be man's best friend, but right now this shotgun was his. He'd be a corpse without it. But finally, he slung it as pragmatism overtook emotion.

Walking along that gravel road, his mind kept turning over.

He thought of the things he'd seen so far, of the dead bodies he'd discovered, of what may yet lie ahead. And then he thought about Serrano. She was probably the one he knew the least about, when he actually thought about it. Isabella Serrano, or as she liked to go by, Izzy, (though only to her friends, and those were rare), was a Lance Corporal and their best technician. She was maybe five and a half feet tall, made of compact muscle, and she packed a hell of a punch. More recently, she'd talked him into sparring a few times, though he couldn't quite figure out why, and damn did she have a mean right hook.

She was fast too.

But besides these things, he didn't actually know anything about her, and she'd been around a little longer than he had on the squad. She was very reserved, and from what he could tell, slow to trust. She hardly gave up anything about herself, and he saw her alone more often than not. Working out, reading, having meals, fixing something. Although like the sudden sparring offers, they had had a few lengthier conversations just recently. What did that mean? Tord had grinned and elbowed him a few times, saying that she liked him.

He had severe doubts about that.

He had a thing for her, to be sure, but who wouldn't? She was competent, she was capable, she was obviously attractive, but if she had any interest in anyone around, it wasn't him. And it was probably for the best, anyway. Greg had never been particularly good with relationships, but in a way, that had worked out to be in his favor as the war had gone on. People had a habit of either dying or leaving abruptly as they got rotated out elsewhere. Long relationships were not only against protocol, but basically out.

There wasn't really anything wrong with trysts or friends with benefits though.

But even then, he didn't do spectacularly. He'd had exactly one sexual encounter since coming to the Icarus. It was with a very attractive, skinny little brunette technician that was part of the bridge crew who'd come after him suddenly and intensely. And, well, Greg knew that he was nothing if not easy, and she had her own private quarters, so they'd slept together and it had been great. After that, she'd kind of just cut off contact with him. He'd been a little frustrated, mainly just because he'd wanted to know if he'd done something wrong.

But he found out later that evidently this was something she did. He'd basically been hunted, another name checked off her list of guys she wanted to jump. And after that, he'd been okay with it. He didn't mind being on a list like that, and he figured it was as good a reason as any for a one night stand. It had resulted in good sex, so that was nice. But mostly he'd just been too sour to go looking for anyone ever since hearing about Earth.

That was eating him alive.

Greg came out of his mind abruptly as he came around a bend and saw the first private cabin sitting at the edge of a driveway of gravel. No car in that driveway, but the front door was open. He marched up to the cabin and walked inside. Definitely a private cabin. Fancier. The material it was made out of looked smoother, higher quality. There was a big, flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, an L of soft sofa across from it with a polished glass-top coffee table nearby. Greg tried the lights, but nothing happened.

There was evidence of someone having been through here as well. He took his time though, performing a methodical search. Nothing in the living room, and the kitchen had been almost totally cleaned out. Pipes were frozen here, too. They probably were everywhere. He found a box of breakfast bars in the back of a cabinet and stuffed the four he found in his pockets, then sighed. He needed a backpack, this was getting annoying. He only had so many pockets. After clearing the kitchen, he checked out a master bedroom and bathroom, and found nothing worthwhile. He almost left after that, but then stopped as he noticed a table through the back window. Greg headed back out into the cold and marched around back.

And he was glad he did.

There was a backpack abandoned on the ground, half buried in snow, beside the table. He picked it up and shook the snow from it, then poked around inside. Nothing within, but it was a definitely big step up. He took the opportunity to empty some of his pockets, transferring his food and water and medical kit to the pack, then he shrugged into it. This was a definite improvement, a good find. Feeling a bit better, Greg returned to the road and set off again. He let his mind drift and idle as he came to the second cabin and searched it over, finding nothing more of value among the cabinets and drawers and hiding places.

As he approached the third cabin, he heard a growl to his right.

Greg stopped in the middle of the gravel road, his hands finding the shotgun immediately as he began hunting the treeline for the varg that he'd heard. He was almost positive it was a varg. Sure enough, a few seconds later, a figure cast in ugly gray fur with four big red eyes slunk out of the treeline, head low, teeth bared.

"I'm ready for you this time," Greg growled, shotgun tucked into his shoulder, barrel following the slow progress of the nasty creature. It growled back and then started barking viciously, coming straight for him. He tracked it and then squeezed the trigger at just the right moment. The effect was devastating. The creature's body was thrown violently off course as everything above the base of its neck was shredded into so much pulped, free-flying gore. The body hit the ground and rolled a few times, then came to a stop.

Greg's face twisted in disgust as the smell of freshly spilled alien wolf blood hit him in the cold air, then he shifted aim as another two of them came out of the treeline. He fired again, clipping a second beast's skull and killing it, ripping away part of its head in a spray of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter, and then had to dodge to the side as the final varg closed the gap between them in a terrifying burst of speed and dexterity. It was a near miss, too, but he managed to twist around, tracking it with the shotgun, and fire.

He punched a fist-sized hole in its chest and sent it down to the ground like its brethren. Breathing more heavily now, Greg scanned the area once more for hostiles, but found himself alone. Reaching into his pocket, he fed another three shells into the shotgun and then finished his trek up to the third private cabin. He hesitated as he saw that not only was the front door open, there was a bloody handprint on it, and the knob was bloody as well. It was old blood, frozen over, so whoever it was would either not be there (hopefully) or was a stiff corpse by now (most likely). Greg steeled himself, then entered the cabin.

Time to find out which.

He learned the truth almost as soon as he stepped foot into the cabin. The living room was a mess: the couch shredded, TV smashed, trash and random items littering the floor. And there, in the middle of it all with his throat ripped out in a smear of frozen blood, was Lance Corporal Masterson. Greg stood there for a few moments, staring in mute misery. Slowly, he reached out and closed the door behind him, then he crossed the room and crouched by Masterson's corpse. Even in death, the medic looked strangely calm, peaceful almost.

He hadn't gone out with a smile on his face, but he didn't look like he was in agony at least. Greg wondered if that was shock or willpower or just not being afraid of the end. He wondered how to get there, or if anyone truly had. Not being afraid of death. He supposed there were those that welcomed it under the right circumstances, but that was more of a desire, a no doubt overwhelming desire, to escape a current bad situation. He had certainly risked his life often enough to be familiar with death. Hell, he'd almost died probably half a dozen times so far since coming to this miserable place. But it wasn't like he wanted to die, he wasn't even okay with dying. He just...didn't think about it, really. Mainly, he did his job and tried to survive.

Greg began the unsavory task of searching the dead man's pockets. In the end, he came up with nothing, indicating that someone must have been by. Hopefully it was his squad. At this point, all that would be left were Serrano and Bell. Greg felt an ugly combination of despair and panic wanting to poison his mind, to rush him and make him give into his emotions. For a reason he had never fully comprehended, there was something appealing about that. About saying screw it and just flipping out. But right now it would serve no purpose.

He forced himself to stand up, and then intentionally began to hunt through the cabin. Getting things done would help calm his nerves. But it felt like it had all fallen apart so fast. Or that it had all come to pieces when he wasn't looking, when he wasn't even conscious, everything here happening without his input. But that was the nature of the universe, he supposed. It ticked along with or without you. If only he had been here...

Well, if he'd been here, maybe he'd be dead too.

If he hadn't fallen out the back of that Pelican and made a miracle landing and barely made it to that cave to start a fire and last through the night, maybe he would have died in the crash or to the vargs afterward. That was the problem with maybes. They were too uncertain, took up too much time. Best not to think about them. Despite not finding anything beyond the fact that (hopefully) Serrano and Bell had done a thorough job before him, Greg felt a little better as he stepped back out into the crisp morning sunshine.

He got back onto the gravel road, heading for the last private cabin, grateful to be wrapping up this particular leg of the journey. It seemed obvious that his theoretical fellow teammates had moved on, and although he'd found some crucial supplies and learned a few things, like a lot of confirmed KIAs and about varg poison, he couldn't help but feel that he was wasting time here. He would be a lot more effective at survival if he had even one other person with him, especially if that person was a trained professional like himself.

There were things he couldn't do alone, at least not safely, like sleep. And having someone just to watch his back would go a very long way towards helping out. He kept walking, eager to be free of this region of the island, to move on and find other people, more supplies, some kind of clue as to the state of this world, and at last came to the fourth cabin. And as he stood at the head of the driveway leading up to it, he honestly didn't know how to feel.

It had been burned down to the ground.

On the one hand, it saved him the trouble of searching it. On the other, who knew what kind of resources might've been in there. And he genuinely couldn't decide if it was a fitting end to his search, or an omen of terrible things to come.

In the end, he just turned around and began retracing his steps back to the main road.

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