The Last Marine

The riot van tore through the night, a wounded metal beast fleeing a burning city. The roar of its engine was the only sound that mattered, a steady, powerful thrum that slowly devoured the screams and the chaos behind them. Quinn kept his foot pressed hard on the accelerator, his eyes fixed on the empty stretch of highway unfolding in the headlights. He did not look in the rearview mirror. He did not need to. The hell he had unleashed was a brilliant, horrific orange glow that filled the cab, painting their grim faces in the colors of fire and destruction.

For miles, no one spoke. The silence inside the van was a fragile, hollow thing, filled with the ghosts of what they had just endured. The sheer, deafening roar of the explosion, the inhuman shriek of thousands of infected drawn to the flames, the desperate, bloody scramble to the van—the memories were seared into them, too fresh, too raw for words. They were alive, a fact so improbable it felt like a dream.

Quinn drove until the orange glow behind them had faded to a faint, angry pulse on the horizon, and then faded altogether. He drove until the endless river of abandoned cars thinned out, leaving behind only sporadic, solitary wrecks like lonely gravestones. The highway became a vast, empty ribbon of concrete under a starless sky. The world was utterly, unnervingly silent.

He finally spotted a rest stop, its sign riddled with bullet holes, its buildings dark and foreboding. He pulled the van off the highway, rolling to a stop in the far corner of the empty parking lot, nestled between a derelict eighteen-wheeler and a patch of overgrown trees. He cut the engine.

The sudden, absolute silence was a physical blow. It was the sound of survival. The sound of being utterly alone.

For a long moment, no one moved. The tension that had held them together like tightly wound springs finally snapped. Shoulders slumped. Heads fell back against seats. A collective, shuddering breath was drawn, the first they had truly taken in hours. They had made it. They had actually made it out of New Havenburg.

Hex was the first to break the stillness. The pragmatist, the technician, he dealt with trauma by focusing on the next problem. He swung open his door and began a methodical assessment of their situation. He checked the van’s tires, ran a hand over the new dents and scrapes in its armored hull. He opened their supply bags, his face grim as he did a quiet inventory. Three cans of food. Less than a gallon of water. A handful of medical supplies. It was a pittance.