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The Walrider surprises Miles by using a form of self-restraint he hadn’t thought the thing had possessed. Based solely upon the way it had slaughtered Chris Walker back at Mount Massive, Miles hadn’t thought it had the capability of killing anything or anything swiftly and somewhat mercifully.
Yet tonight it holds back. Rather than tearing the woman apart, sending blood and body parts flying, it waits until she lifts her weapon above her head to send it stabbing back down, straight through her heart, killing her near instantly.
“Fuck you! And fuck your god!” Lynn cries as she clings to Blake. The words sort of surprise Miles, but more because the last few minutes of watching them hadn’t indicated that Lynn had that kind of strength in her.
“They’re not going to make it,” he remarks as the Walrider returns. The creature tilts its head, watching the Langermaan’s stumble through the village, towards the chapel at the end of the road. “I mean…one of them is going to die.”
He’s gotten a sense of these things, since leaving Mount Massive. Maybe it’s something to do with the Walrider, or maybe he’s starting to just recognize signs of death. Either way, taking one look at his friend’s as they cling to one another and Lynn clutches her belly, he knows that there’s no way they’re both walking out of here alive.
“Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s go.”
…………………….
He takes his time. Blake and Lynn don’t know he’s here and truthfully, he’s not sure how much either of them are really registering of their surroundings anymore. He doesn’t want to scare them.
Glancing up, Miles eyes the large factory towers in the distance. He doesn’t know what effect they’d been having on the people here, only knows that Blake and Lynn had been exposed long before he and the Walrider showed up to destroy it.
Whatever it’s been doing, there’s nothing he can do to reverse the effect. For now, it’s best to keep his distance. Monitor them from afar and step in when he thinks they’re ready. Or step in when he thinks he has no other choice.
So he and the Walrider explore Temple Gate, finding notes and letters as they try to piece together what the hell happened here and what sort of chaos Murkoff has caused these people.
They run into a few people, but all of them keep their distance. A wide berth grows between them and Miles, all citizens staring them down but making no move to threaten them or attack. Miles doesn’t know if it’s because of the Walrider or if they're seeing something other than what is really in front of them.
Either way, he’s grateful for it. He’s really in no mood to fight or defend himself.
After maybe an hour, perhaps a little less, the Walrider nudges him and Miles lifts his head. It takes him a few minutes to spot what the nanites are trying to show him but eventually, he spies the man heading towards the chapel.
“Come on,” Miles murmurs, pushing himself up and heading up the hill. He doesn’t know if Blake or Lynn are still alive inside, he has no idea what’s happening. All he knows is that whoever this man is, he has no good intentions.
The man hears them before Miles has said anything. He turns, eyes widening.
“You,” he whispers. Miles stops a few feet away, both he and the Walrider wary and prepared for a fight. But it does not seem that this man will fight him. Rather than anger in his eyes, there is only fear . “You’ve come to claim your child.”
Miles truly has no idea what the man is talking about, but he plays along. “And I will kill you if you harm it.”
“I knew it was only a matter of time,” the man says. “I knew if the child were born, you would touch the earth. You would crawl from hell and come to claim your spawn.” He quivers. “I have been a loyal follower of god, but seeing you here now, I know I have failed.”
Miles has absolutely no idea what’s happening. “You won’t hurt the child.”
“I will give the father one final chance to spare the world of you ,” the man replied, pushing his way into the chapel and slamming the door behind himself. Miles sighed, but at least it didn’t sound like the man was going to hurt Blake or Lynn. It mostly just seemed like he was going to talk to them, if nothing else.
The Walrider made a small noise of discontent, unhappy with not slaughtering the man where he stood. Miles just waved it off and said,
“Give him a few minutes. We don’t want to startle Blake or Lynn, remember? We’ll check in soon. If that man is hurting Blake or Lynn, then we’ll kill him. Okay?”
The Walrider is displeased, but complies regardless. They spend a few more minutes outside, poking around, before the Walrider’s suspicion starts to rub off on Miles and he gives in to the concern for his friends, pushing his way into the chapel.
He takes in the sight quickly. Blake is curled in on himself on the floor, cradling something to his chest. Lynn lays upon the stretching rack and even from this distance, Miles can tell she’s dead.
The man from before is slumped in on himself on the bench Blake leans against. Based on the blood soaking his body and the floor around him, Miles can tell he’s dead too. Carefully, he steps forward and makes sure to keep each footfall loud enough to be heard but soft enough not to cause too much fear.
Blake jerks, hard, and lifts his head. His face is bloody, bruised, covered in dirt and grime. He looks terrible. Wrung out, exhausted, strained beyond all measure. It takes him a long time to focus, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. When he speaks, his voice is wrecked. Hoarse and strained and torn.
“Miles?”
Miles nodded, carefully crouching next to his friend, looking him over for any injuries that needed to be dealt with immediately.
“Sorry I couldn’t come sooner.”
Sorry he didn’t know about those towers before Blake or Lynn got here. Sorry he and the Walrider didn’t destroy them before Blake and Lynn arrived.
Blake shook his head slowly, still confused. “What are you doing here?”
“Long story,” Miles replied, because it really is and based on the way Blake’s eyes keep wandering away then snapping back to Miles says his friend couldn’t follow it anyway. Seeing no injury that can’t wait until they get to real civilization, Miles stands and offers a hand, “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
“Lynn is…” Blake swallows. “Lynn’s dead.”
Miles nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“But she’s…she’s not.”
Miles frowned. “What?”
Blake unfolds his arms from his chest. The way he positions them implies he’s holding something. Or rather, thinks he’s holding something, because there isn’t anything there.
“The baby. She’s not dead.”
Miles took a deep breath, unsure of what to say. Does he break it to Blake that there’s nothing there? There’s no baby, he’s just seeing things? Or does he get his friend out and worry about that later? Get Blake somewhere he can get cleaned up, treated, fed and watered while Miles and the Walrider try to figure out how to get rid of the effect those towers have caused Blake?
“Yeah?” He asked, deciding to play along for the moment. It’s probably going to be the easiest way to get Blake to go along with him. He’ll wait until his friend is cleaned up—bathed, fed, watered, rested . Then they’ll talk. Then he’ll break it to him, gently, that there is no baby.
“But Lynn’s gone. How can I…I don’t even know how to…is–is the baby even mine ?”
Miles doesn’t answer that. Just crouches down again and places a careful hand on Blake’s shoulder. His friend twitches, blinks slowly as he stares up at him.
“We can figure all that out later,” Miles promised. “But let’s get you out of here for now, okay? We’ll get you some help, some food and water, some rest.” He tried for a smile, though he’s sure it’s tinted with a grimace. “Everything is going to be okay.”
It won’t be, even Miles knows that. Blake knows Lynn is dead but he seems more worried about the ‘baby’ than anything else. Miles isn’t looking forward to telling him that there is no child. That whatever he saw tonight, whatever happened, it isn’t real.
Probably most of it wasn’t.
“But the storm,” Blake mumbled, as he let Miles help him up. “There’s a storm.”
There is no storm, but Miles doesn’t tell him that. “It’s over,” he says instead. “We’ll be okay. Come on, let’s go.”
Blake stumbles, clutching his arms, the ‘baby’, to his chest. Miles lets him and doesn’t say anything. In the back of his mind, the Walrider bristles. It would much prefer they tell Blake the truth now, but Miles thinks he’s way too tired to get into it with Blake right now.
And he really isn’t sure how much of an argument Blake could handle right now. So Miles brushes the nanites off and carefully helps his friend stumble out of the chapel, into the morning light.
Blake whimpered, adjusting his arms to grab the camera Miles hadn’t realized he’d had.
“They’re all dead,” he whispered as he began to film the well they walked past. “They killed themselves.”
There’s no one around. The square is empty. Miles is beginning to suspect that Blake’s mind is a lot further gone than he had originally assumed. But again, he says nothing. Again, he keeps his mouth and suspicions silent, because Blake sounds so sure that there are dozens of corpses littering the ground around them and Miles is far too tired to argue with him on it.
Temple Gate is pretty far from any sort of civilization and Miles’ car is closer to those towers than it is to the actual village. Still, it’ll be easier to walk the distance to the car than to try and stumble their way through the Arizona desert to find the closest location of medical help.
“Come on, almost there,” Miles murmurs when Blake stumbles. He’s getting tired. He put the camera away as soon as they were out of Temple Gate and even now, he seems barely able to hold the baby he thinks he has.
“I’m tired,” Blake confesses.
Miles nodded. “I know. You can sleep in the car.”
“What about…baby?” He glances down at his arm. “We don’t have a carseat.”
Miles sighs, but tries to suppress any irritation in his next words. “It’s okay, we’ll figure something out.”
Truthfully, he’s hoping Blake will either forget about the baby or pass out before they get to the car, but if not then he supposes he can try and rig something up. But that’s a problem for later. For now, he just needs to make sure neither of them faceplant over any of the rocks or dirt rolling beneath their feet.
………………………
Blake does not pass out or forget about the baby by the time they reach the car, so Miles hunts around and finds some cloth and clothing that he can use to make a small nest on the floor of the backseat to lay the baby down.
“She’ll be okay,” he says as Blake lowers his arms down and makes the motions of getting the baby comfortable. “I’m a good driver.” Blake just hummed and rubbed his eyes, swaying as he sat back up. Miles placed his hands on his friend’s shoulders to steady him. “Come on, let’s get you up front and then you can pass out.”
Blake nodded, allowing Miles to help him into the passenger side and buckle his seatbelt. By the time Miles was around the car and getting in, Blake was already out for the count. Sighing, Miles started the engine and put the car in drive.
A few minutes of silence, the Walrider formed in the backseat. Glancing at his rearview mirror, noting the way the nanites were curiously watching the bundle of cloth on the floor. Despite knowing better, Miles still asked,
“There’s not really a baby back there, right?”
The Walrider looked up, meeting Miles’ gaze in the mirror before shaking his head. Miles huffed. He hadn’t thought so, but he still wanted to check, just in case. Relieved, he didn’t worry about being as careful with his driving as he’d told Blake he would be.
As long as his friend was unconscious, he wasn't going to know any different anyway. Miles was just going to have to be more careful once Blake woke up. But based on his friend’s torn and bloodied form, he really didn’t think that was going to happen for awhile.
“You think he’s going to be okay?” He asked the Walrider, who had crept up to hover over Blake now, staring down at him. The nanites didn’t reply, though Miles hadn’t really expected them to. “He just needs time, right? A few days away from whatever those towers were doing to Temple Gate and he’ll be back to normal. Right?”
Again, there was no reply. Miles just sighed and turned his gaze back to the road. It was going to be a long drive.