Marty Richards climbs through the window on the second floor as she makes her way across the floor slowly. A hole in the floor allows her to actually see the infected these raiders have herded into the building to use for their own recreation, an act she finds appalling in itself. The infected are not responsible for their own action, but these men they will soon be engaging are and the fact they consider prolonging the existence for amusement triggers a sense of impending pride as she will soon be executing several of their ranks.
Reaching the window she will be working from, Marty begins setting up her gear awaiting her signal whatever it may be. A quick reassembling of the PSG-1 and preparing the RPG, her mind drifts back to a time before the outbreak when she was a teenage girl looking to escape the craziness of her father. The man was a militant doomsday prepper who never accepted she had no desire to be a part of his madness. While other 10 year old girls in her school were playing house or dress-up, Marty was being forced to beat her faster time reassembling an M-16. While a small part of her is thankful for that now, she still finds herself wishing she had a few normal moments.
As she sits and waits, Marty takes a moment and works through her own mind to occupy her time. Before the outbreak, she was in her third year of college as a psychology major who now uses self-analysis to ease her own tensions. The lingering issue in her thoughts this time are the man she follows, William Daniels. She runs through the events of the day and begins trying to piece together her current impulse to find his approval of her ability in the heat of battle. Since the outbreak everyone has questioned and doubted her usefulness with a gun and it never phased her, but this time and this person she feels a need to hear him say "I was wrong". Her mind races through every event unable to find any link that should create the need.
Her analysis will have to wait as Marty sees William climb on top of the opposite wall. Lifting the rifle to view, she finds herself in complete admiration of his precise and deadly assault along the wall as he remains completely undetected by any on the ground as he works his way under her line of vision when a memory comes to her mind and she realizes the answer to her quandary.
It was spring break at college as Marty arrives home to check on her father. Doris, her mother, left years ago leaving her father to raise her on his own. While she had issues with the way she was raised, Marty still worried about her father on his own. She was always expecting to go home from school and find he had blown himself up by accident, living so far out in the country and having few friends she always expected no one would know he was gone until she came home.
As Marty pulls up to the house, she checks her phone to see no texts before shutting her mp3 player off before exiting the car and heading to the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices her horse, a small but sturdy Thoroughbred lying on it's side. Stepping back off the porch, Marty walks over to make sure the animal is okay noticing a soured odor in the air before the shock of what she finds. The horse has been ripped open and it's organs spilled on the ground due to part of it's underside missing.
"DAD!" Marty screams out in a panic hoping for an answer from him as she wonders if whatever attacked the horse might have gotten him. A loud banging begins from the inside of the barn as the door bows on every beat until it gives way. Marty begins stepping towards her car before she sees her father step out of the barn slowly. Relieved he is alright, she begins running to him as he raises his head in her direction and gives out a shrill scream before charging her. Marty stops in her tracks when she notices the condition of her father, his skin pale and vein-covered and his eyes appear almost white. It feels like a scene out of a horror movie to her as she silently curses herself for never listening to the radio and missing the news that zombies became real life.
Instinct kicks in as Marty runs for her car to reach the 9mm her father insist she take with her that she brings with her to appease him. She is taken to the ground as the creature who used to be her father tackles her to the ground unable to keep her down as she quickly escapes. Reaching her car and grabbing the gun, Marty turns without hesitation and shoots right between the eyes of this monster, his momentum so fierce to reach her that his body falls forward knocking her down. In her panic, she begins digging the heel of her shoe into his head repeatedly stomping before realizing he was dead before tumbling into her.
William comes back into sight as she comes out of her thoughts and grabs the RPG aiming it at the wall to the back of the compound before lowering to the desired area he asked on the ground. Holding the weapon steady, she watches as he seems to discuss something with the leader of these raider before raising his hand up with a detonator in hand. Pushing the button, she sees the fire of the explosion shoot out from the watchtower beside and across from her as they collapse. Striking the ground, both burst into flames creating a wall of fire between William and the raiders and the front gate. In the panic of the explosion, William draws two knives and begins attacking the disoriented raiders as Marty fires the first rocket. The blast causes the wall to weaken just enough that the horde of infected on the other side knock it down. As she reloads, she sees infected file out from below her before turning the RPG to the opposite wall and fires, seeing the large hinges crack on the gate.
Throwing the RPG aside, Marty quickly grips and aims the sniper rifle as she picks her shots and doing a head count on raiders on the gate side of the wall of flames. Thirteen, giving her the time it takes Matthew to crash through the gate to use the other twenty-two rounds she has to help William. As she fires with complete precision into each raiders head she aims at, she takes a small degree of solace in realizing she seeks the approval of this one man who is infected and living to make up for the approval she wanted from the father who turned and never gave her the chance to receive.
Catching the sight of lights outside the wall, Marty turns her attention to the gate side and begins firing, quickly picking off the three raiders camped around the cages. A single raider points upwards seeing the slight spark of light from the barrel as she fires, taking aim on the man but never getting the shot off as the metal gate comes slamming down upon him as she sees the cargo truck in her sights. Standing up and looking out the window, Marty drops to the walkway of the wall and pausing to turn and assassinate two more raiders to cover William before spinning around and doing the same to a raider almost on top of Matthew as he makes his way to the cages.
Picking her shots carefully, the young lady continues moving side to side covering the two men until the sight of one raider burying a machete into William's side forces her to scream out. The scream attracts the attention of a few infected as they begin running at the wall she stands upon. Three gunshots from the other side of the flames forces one runner to turn and run into the wall of fire, quickly igniting but climbing and leaping nonetheless. Marty turns the rifle to fire to find it has jammed. She quickly runs to pass the flames as the burning infected man leaps through the air towards the truck. Marty draws her pistol unsure of range and leaps from the fifteen foot wall firing as she draws nearer to the ground.
Quickly standing and gaining her composure, she is happy to see the burning attacker down rather than her comrade. Staring at the man who holds the woman he came to Oasis with and has yet to admit how he feels to her, Marty feels pity for him but pushes it aside for the time being and begins yelling at him.
"Get her in the truck and get us out of here, NOW!"
Throwing the tailgate open, Marty climbs into the truck and reaches down to help rest Maryia into the back of the truck. She looks at the unconscious woman and hopes whatever happened to her will fade in time as Matthew slams the tailgate drawing her from the thoughts to see a straggler about to grab Matthew. She quickly raises her gun shooting it through the head before covering her emotions to save face.
"DRIVE, NOW!"
As Matthew starts the truck and begins to turn the truck, Marty hears the familiar sound of a grenade launcher just before the explosion that rips the barrier created by the fallen watchtowers into pieces. he turns hoping to see William Daniels running for the truck, but instead finds the leader of the raiders walking through the gap in the flames. Reaching down to grab the hunting rifle lying in the back of the truck as he raises the launcher in their direction, Marty spots the burning figure coming down off the barricade with knives drawn and landing on the armed man, both knives buried into him before hitting the ground. Marty can barely hear his voice as he slices and stabs the raider before he stands and begins staggering towards the truck. Marty quickly surveys finding a fire extinguisher as she scream out William's name.
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