The Pathless on Paths---------Chapter VII part 3

* * *
“Why do hey have a factory in the middle of nowhere?” Hunter asked.
“It may be that this is not a factory, and this nowhere of yours is in fact somewhere.” Karrson replied. They company concealed themselves in the bushes, crouching in a shallow ravine they found somewhere off the open waterside and into the woods. They have drawn as near to the building as caution allowed, some seventy meters off of its perimeter walls, of which were built of cement. Karrson was peeking out, observing the small complex through his optics. The once white walls were about three meters tall, and its base was a moss-covered green, and the whiteness has faded into a depressing and dirty gray. It was not new, at any rate, though old or not he could not tell. Coils of barbed wire lined the top, another decoration to enhance the building’s solemnness. Luckily, it was not electrified. The complex itself was not large, merely, as it seemed, a two-storied building, flat and large, surrounded by the walls. There should be a gate, Karrson thought, but it was not on this side. A gate to where, though? Opening to the acidic river? This seemed be some type of production complex, so it must, at least, be sent material for processing. It was quite obvious that it would not come from the woods that are to the south, in accordance with the fact that none was present on east side that they now faced, he deduced that the gates must open to the rive, that is to the north, or to the west, facing the narrow beach that ran along the waterside. The building cut across the beach on the bank they were on, so it was impossible to bypass without having to enter the woods again...or wade the river of acid.

He drew back into the ravine. “Well, it will be no afternoon-walk if we were to attempt to bypass it, and since there is no bridge or the likes of it in sight, our next option would be to search for transportation.”
“And our best chance of finding one will be to search that complex,” Clare followed. “It looks like a factor of some sort to me, than it must be shipped supplies and material.”
“Yes. The gates are either on the north side facing the riving, or on the west side opening to the beach. As I see it, only by land or water can anything be shipped to such a place. Air transport would be much to expensive, and the amount much too inadequate.” Emmerich said, who had also been observing the building.

“So a boat or a car?” Sanders said. “Plain enough I guess.”
“I don’t see how a boat can ride on these waters,” opposed Clark.
“Hey, we don’t even know what year it is now, or in fact whether anyone still records dates the way we do. Do not doubt the technological advancement humans can make, if given time. Giavoni is sure to have figured something out,” Hunter answered.
“Fine,” Clark said, too weary for a unnecessary debate. “How are we gonna do this? Looks like a pretty bad place to infiltrate to me.”

“That is quite shrewd a statement, I have to say, Clark.” Emmerich replied. “But I see very little human activity. Only a few shapes through the windows. It would be quite likely that this is an automated processing plant of some sort, and require little manpower save a few security guards and technicians. The odds, I thinks, are perhaps not as against us as it would seem.”
“Even if we find nothing there,” Karrson added, “we can still scavenge some supplies. We must fine you guys equipment of protection against the Radiation. We have already been exposed to too great a dose, and it is particularly strong near this river.”

“Alright. Let me talk you through the plan I have in mind,” Emmerich said. “It is flawed, and any advice is welcomed, for we know little of what actually lies within those walls.”
* * *
Karrson adjusted the gas mask on his face into a more comfortable position. Breathing filtered air was much better, for the air near the river reeked, and burnt their throats if taken in deep breaths. The others without makes were more unfortunate, and had to make do. They walked warily and with as much stealth as they could contrive of. Knocking on the front gates would be no more different than asking for death, for the complex was not exactly a shelter for those in need, but a building sitting near a perilous forest. They would likely be shot the moment they were identified as none Giavoni personal. Yes, Emmerich was still in his Giavoni uniform, and so was Clare, but that would hardly convincing. No, They would have to breach the complex from else where, Which meant going over the walls topped with barbed wire. They had no wire clippers, and thus they were left with only one other option.

“Remember,” Emmerich briefed them one last time. “This has to be quick, and not all of us can enter. I shall go with Hunter, Emmerich, and Clark. Sanders and Clare, you two shall have to wait out side. Do not enter unless you hear one of us. I am sorry for leaving you guys out, out but you two have to give us the lift up.”
The two nodded in comprehension. “Just don’t die in there,” Sanders said. “Or else we are all fucked up.”
“I shall try,” Emmerich smiled. “We are at the edges of the woods now. From here there be no more concealment. We must breach before the guards come. Ready?” He loaded a grenade into the launcher attached to his rifle. “The element of surprise is our best weapon.”

Karrson took a deep breath. He was never meant to do this, but none of the others were, neither, save perhaps Emmerich. The man’s past was still unknown, and he made a mental note to himself to ask him one day. He removed his rucksack, giving it to Sanders, who gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Fear nothing! You’ve got Emmerich with you guys. He is got it in the bag, man.”
“Yeah...I do hope so,” Karson laughed. “You two be wary outside. Beware of the gates, for not all are friendly.”

“You outta worry about yourself first, bud. Let’s get it on!”
“Yes,” Karrson whispered to himself. “Get it on.” He adjusted his grip on the rifle.
“Alright. The time comes.” Emmerich said. He shouldered his rifle and aimed at a surveillance camera mounted on the edge of the wall. Hunter held a his rifle at the ready.
Emmerich fired twice, first a round from his rifle that destroyed the camera, and a second that ensued from his grenade launcher. Immediately ensuing the sharp pop from the launcher, a amll section of the upper wall, along with a section of the barbed wire that was set upon it, burst asunder in pieces with a defining explosion. Before the dust settled, they were already on their way. Emmerich, Karrson, Hunter, and Clark, they each leaped up, and with a lift from Sanders and Clare who stationed themselves on either side of the breached wall, half-crouching, flipped over the broken wall and dropped within it confines. Karrson ran forward, following Emmerich. They breached in a relatively deserted corner of the complex, and were now making their way through a narrow alleyway formed in between the perimeter wall and the building wall, running forward towards the west side of the building. Soon ahead was the end of this alley, and open ground. Just as they drew near to it, two bewildered guards appeared, still fumbling with their weapons, being plainly unready for such a queer and unheralded event. Karrson fired, and felled one of them with a burst from his rifle. The other fell back, with the back of his head destroyed and a bullet wound on his forehead, with several others on his body, the work of Emmerich. They passed the two bloody and crippled bodies without looking, and took an immediate right turn as soon as they were clear of the alley, emerging into a patch of clear land, with carts full of rusted metal and junk littered about the place. A large steel sliding gate could be seen on the wall on this side, powered by electric motors. There was a pair of double plywood doors at the center of the western building wall, and a small guard post standing next to it against the building wall, empty and with door ajar. It was from here that the fallen guards had come. The four lined up besides the wall.

“Prepare yourselves,” Emmerich said. He kicked at the doors from the side. They shook, but the lock did not yield. He tried again, but still the door held. Emmerich then aimed his rifle at the lock, but hesitated and lowered it again. He cursed, and moved forward, preparing to ram it with his shoulder. Just at this time with a loud bang the center of the door bursted, shattered plywood flying out. A large hole had appeared there. Emmerich had drawn himself back just in time.
“I knew it. This door has been held against us!” He cried, as he checked his left arm, from which a few drops of dark red blood has dripped onto the ground.

“Are you okay?” Clark asked with alarm.
“Fine, for now. They fired a shotgun, it would seem. I have a few BBs embedded in my arm, but I shall be fine for now. At least they helped us take out the lock.” He produced a grenade from his vest, pulling its pin out, he chucked it with great force through the hole the shot had made on the door. A shout came from inside, and a second later a deafening explosion.
Emmerich immediately busted through the door, and Karrson followed him in. They entered a corridor filled with smoke, with a few doors on either side. All doors lay open, revealing empty rooms, some dorms, others storage chambers. Two gray uniformed men lay dead and bloody on the floor. Karrson attempted to be oblivious to it, but still the sight made something in him throb. They quickly advanced, and at the end of the corridor was a flight of stairs, up which they rushed, into a control room. A man sat at the control panel with a pistol, but before he could pull the trigger he took a bullet in the head. The control room overlooked the rest of the facility, being on the second floor, with massive windows through which they could see the machinery in the building: a processing line of some sort, complicated and advanced. The roomed seemed to be empty of humans. The floor on the northern side of the building dropped in a steep slope into a small patch of the green river water, which was separated, as Karrson presumed from what he could see, from the main river by a long set of retractable rolling shutter doors. Upon that small patch of green and acidic water, a small modified speedboat. The very sight of it sparked hope in his heart. He pointed to it at Emmerich, too excited to speak, who had already walked to the other side of the control room, ready to open a door there.

“Yes, it our greatest fortune that such a vehicle is here. Clark, see if you can unlock this door for me, and see to the opening of the shutter doors and the gates, when we have cleared the facility. It may take you a while, for there may be security measures, but you should be able to work it out. Hunter, you shall stay with Clark. Emily, follow me. Remember, be wary always!”
“Why so hasty?” Karrson asked him.
“Because,” he pointed to a small and insignificant red button on the panel. “Our man here has pressed the distress button. Giavoni forces may arrive anytime soon. I can say then, that you have not noticed? Beware of things as such from this time on!”

Clark searched for moment on the panel, and then pressed a button. The door by which Emmerich stood clicked. He beckoned Karrson to follow him as he opened the door. A loud humming and periodic hissing filled his ears as he walked out the room, but still half covered he heard an exchange of words between Clark and Hunter. “Hell. Bad luck always follow good fortune. Wonder what will happen next.”
“D’hell did you learn that? Na-ah, not always.”
He followed Emmerich into the maze of steel, dimly lit by LED lights slightly yellow in age that hung from the ceiling. All the covers and shells of the machinery were painted white in unity, but each had it own purpose and unique appearance, some were stationary, and some had spinning parts, or compressing pieces. Emmerich ran, checking briefly every corner of the machines, until they had cleared the every part of the room. No one, it seemed, was here. Maybe all the people in this building were dead already. Emmerich looked around the room once more.

“I think...we are clear.” He smiled to Karrson. He walked back towards the control room.
Before following, Karrson surveyed the room one more time. The building in itself was a little worn and old perhaps, for its walls were of exposed cement, and in places it was blackened and dirty, and were paint covered, it peeled. Yet, in contrast, all the machinery was contemporary, even futuristic, to Karrson at least. Some modifications were made to the building, new wiring, new doors: they were visibly less worn. In a corner there was a staircase that seemed to lead to the roof, and...

He descried motion on the staircase.
A quick blur that disappeared before he could tell of its authenticity in sight. A pair of legs, perhaps, just before they disappeared onto the roof. He looked back, and found that Emmerich had already reached the door.
No time to warn him now, Karrson knew he would have to solve this alone. Regardless whether the owner of those legs intended simply to conceal himself, or had other more devious intentions in mind, Karrson could not let it be. A risk is a risk, and particularly when success was within grasp, he could not allow it all to hang on a thread that was chance.

He took off, bolting towards the steel stairs. Steep and winding they were, for the lands were small, and each step high, but still he flow up them, two steps each landing, until he was stopped.
Just as he saw the light from the open air around the next corner and was about to round it, someone rammed into him, a gray blur at first, but came into focus as the man shoved him against the railing of the last landing. It was a man in gray uniforms identical to that he had seen earlier, only this time the man in it was alive. Alive indeed he was, and as he pressed Karrson against the railings, his face was contorted in rage and salvage madness. Karrson knew, just from his face, that only one man shall walk away from this fight, and his opponent was not planing on it being him.

He tired to bring his rifle up, a fruitless effort, for the man had sized it with a tenacious grip, and was driving it into his body. The sharp edges of the steel burrowed into him, and compressed his lungs, making breathing an increasing effort. Karrson pushed back, but the man’s strength was enormous, and he as a weary high school student was no match. The man kept pushing, and the railings pressing into Karrson’s back. He could feel them bending, as the stairs creaked. The man was growling with effort, and breathed into Karrson’s face. He did not have a sidearm to use nor could he have freed his hands to do so, for they were occupied with the task of preventing the man from breaking the railings entirely and shoving him off the stairs.

Karrson knew he had no chance of winning by force. He must improvise, and with speed, if he did not want this to be the end of his journey. The railings creaked, and pain was spread across his back from the line of contact with the hard steel. His arms were losing strength, and he could feel the hand guard of his rifle hard against his neck. He took his eyes off of the burning glare of his winning opponent, and moved it to the man’s belt. There he saw hope, for he could see light glinting on a dagger grip that protruded from a leather sheath hung on his belt. This was his last chance, and failure meant certain death. He removed the hand holding the hand guard back, and grunted as it chocked him, forcing his head up and his eyes to the ceiling. He heard parts of the the railings snap, and suddenly the two fell back, and Karrson was half off the landing, supported only by what was left of the railing. His opponent did not cease, however and continued to push against Karrson, oblivious to the fact that if he broke the railings they would fall together.

Karrson could hardly breathe now. He searched his only free hand on the man’s belt, finding the
matte grip and sizing it. He pulled it out, and with what remained of his drained strength shoved it into the man’s side, the side of his chest, into his lungs. The man gave a horrific cry of pain, and his forced lessened. Karrson twisted the dagger around and pulled it out, accompanied by another scream of pain from the man. He was no longer pushing Karrson, but still he put his weight on him. Karrson felt the railing slowing giving away, beneath his hurting back. He brought the dagger up, and pushed it into the man’s thick and muscular neck. Just as the point buried itself into his artery, a great spray of bright red blood covered the visor of his mask, blinding him. The man cried no more, and his voice was reduced to a wordless gurgle. Still, Karrson persevered, and kept pushing the dagger in, until he touched a hard piece. The spine, he guessed. He gave the dagger one last shove with the all strength he could muster, felt it break, and pulled it out. The man fell silent. Karrson swiftly withdrew himself from under his body, grabbing his rifle, and slid back onto the landing. He could not see it, for the blood blinded him, but the railing, able to bear the weight of the strong and heavy man no more, finally snapped, and his body fell from the stairs, landing on the floor with a bam. It continued to bleed there, as his life’s blood drained empty and ran across the floor in a small rivulet.

Karrson laid his aching body against the opposite railing for a moment, wiping the blood off his visor. He evened his breaths, and took the rifle in his bloody hands. He shall have to secure the roof, so he made his way up the last flight of stairs before it ended in a bright opening that lead to the roof. An intercom, the existence of which he had not known before, blasted out a familiar voice, slightly crackled: it was Clark.
“This is Clark, calling out to the two outside. If you are still alive,” he chuckled, “please enter through the front gates. I am opening them now.”

He emerged onto the roof, a dusty and old platform of cement, set with long smoking chimneys behind him, and scattered with now disused duct outlets, expecting to find perhaps a moment of respite, but instead, he found what he had dreaded a moment before.
He was not alone. Another gray uniformed man stood behind what appears to be a chest-high wall built of sand bags, fumbling with something before him that was hidden from Karrson’s view. He saw he him perform a familiar pulling motion, and heard that sharp metallic chink of something locking into place. Just as he did this, the gates in front of them began to slide open, The man lowered his head a little.

“No...” Karrson cried and took aim at the man with his gun, and let fly a burst of lead. A moment too late he was, for before the man fell he had already fired a long burst. The man fell forward, leaning on the sandbag-built cover, his gray uniforms growing black-red, stained by his blood. Besides him was mounted a smoking machine gun, now pointing at the sky, displaces as the gunner fell.
Karrson ran forward as fast as him pained body allowed him, and came to the machine gun nest. He looked over the short wall, at the yard littered with carts of scrap metal.

There, amongst the settling dust, on the land riddled with bullet marks, was lain Clare, his red scientist uniform stained red, new blood covering the old blood from his half-healed wound. Beside him was Sanders, clutching his own bleeding arm, crying out in desperation and pain.
Karrson turned ran back. Down, he thought, down and out, I have to get Emmerich. As he passed the machine gun nest again, the gunnner laughed, getting cut short by a burst of coughs. Karrson stopped and walked up to him. He discovered that there was a hat on the ground, like a blue beret. The man had several bars on his brassard, not triangularly bent like the ones he recognized from the military, but merely simple thick bars of yellow, with the background of a gray square of a shade slightly darker then his uniform. An officer, Karrosn presumed.

“Ha...ha...ha,” He laughed again weakly. “They’re hunting ya, haha, and you ain’t gonna go far, boy. Giavoni is lookin’ for ya, real hard.” He raised his tone at the end.
“Then I shalt let the hunted become the hunter,” Karrson replied, and slit the dagger he had across the man’s throat, cutting in with force.
He turned and walked away swiftly, as the dying officer clutched at his own neck.
* * *
The remainder of the company gathered around their two wounded companions. Emmerich had searched out a first-aid med-kit from the facility, and was now tending to Clare, while Sanders was being treated by Clark. Karrson and Hunter crouched around them, helping. Sanders was not too badly maimed, a deep wound from being skinned by a round, but otherwise not too injured, and was not in mortal peril. Clare was much less fortunate. He took two rounds in his torso, and his old wound was torn and began bleeding again. A small pool of blood has already accumulated beneath him when they had found him, and his was as pale as marble tiles. He groaned in his unbearable pain, and when he fell silent it meant he had become momentarily unconscious. He was given several injections of morphine, and Emmerich was working on him, with pressure bandages and Hemostatic medicine. As Karrson helped put pressure on one of his wounds while Emmerich was fastening a pad of gauze, He felt something cold and wet touch his arm. It was Clare’s hand, covered in half-dried blood. Karrson took it, as Emmerich took over and laid a pressure bandage over the wound, muttering in hast “Com’on, com’on...”Karrson held the hand tight in his. He looked at Clare’s pale face, covered in sweat.

“You shan't die here. Not here, and not now.” He said to him.
Clare opened him mouth, groaned, and with an effort began to speak in a weak voice.
“I know...back in the facility...and along the way...I did some things...that I now regret...I am a coward..and...all I wanted to do was live...no matter what...now I just want to...apologize for my unworthy behaviour...it has been an honor...and my luck...to be at the end of the world...with you people...” He let out a breath, and continued.

“I am afraid this is where...I must take my leave...I am..I guess...burdened with partly the liability...of the contrivance...of this disaster..and I guess my doom...and payback...has finally come...I just want to say that...you all are precious company...and I am grateful...” He took another breath, shorter this time.
”Emmerich..stop...leave the stuff for Sanders...I’m done...just let me die less painfully...thankss...”
And those, were the last and finally words that were ever breathed by Clare Redfield, and he passed, as a scientist who declared himself guilty of having to helped bring doom to mankind, and a self-proclaimed coward, who faced death with plainness of heart, in the very end.