Wait What...

The facility had been on fire for weeks before the big break happened, but no matter how many different drugs were pumped into the reagents or how many times Dr. Easterman tried to tell them how much he loved them - there were fires one could not put out, and this one exploded as if oil was poured into it.

Scientists and guards joined, supplying the reagents with uppers to keep them strong during the escape. Getting out of the facility wasn’t too hard after all, most walls were made out of plywood, and the Berserkers ripped through these walls as if they were made out of warm butter.

Every guard or other member of Murkoff who dared to stand in the way of ex-pops, Primes and reagents all together was gutted and left behind as a vile example. Dr. Easterman was taken from his room, gutted and once his corpse was freed of his organs, Liliya hung him up on the entrance of the facility, stomach split open and the rope made out of his intestines.

But once the sun kissed Coyle’s face, he felt…strange. As if he was a deer in the headlights of a car, ready to be run over any second. Like a rabbit trying to hide from a falcon, running to its nest to find shelter and comfort. But where was shelter and comfort in Coyle’s life? The warmth scared him, the smell of freedom burning its way into his sinus.

Sinyala was located in the Arizonian desert, somewhere between dust and sand and dead animals. The question was…where to go next? Murkoff would probably send in their forces from Mount Massive once they realized they had a breach - or better said an absolute worst-case accident - and everyone was gone.

The medicines were sacred and only used in the worst case moments. Many reagents had perished on the way out, either from wounds inflicted by the guards standing in their ways or general exhaustion. It’s not like they were fed well after all.

Coyle leaned against a wall as he watched the reagents and personnel trying to gather their thoughts and minds from the claws of Murkoff. They didn’t get far. Some of them decided to head into a certain direction, claiming God told them to go there. Coyle hadn’t heard the Lord speaking to him so didn’t follow. Little did he know, the word of God was a radio tower located roughly 40 miles away in Temple Gate.

A large number of people went that way, so obviously Coyle went the other way. He was never one to go with the flow. Barbi hung onto Goose’s skirt like a toddler afraid of guests in the house. The Kress twins had tried to turn on the reagents which led to Arora being cut from Otto’s shoulder like a wart, bleeding out onto the tile floor as Otto wailed for the only person who ever understood him. The saw was then turned on him. Liliya went with the people to Temple Gate, true to the Messiah’s call for her.

On the corpse of a random guard, Coyle found the keys to a car pretty quick. He located said car and made a run for it. He couldn’t have anyone following him, and he couldn’t have anyone rely on him. The AC in the car was busted, sweat clinging to Coyle’s forehead as he tried to focus on the road. It was desert and a whole lot of nothing. But there had to be a way, there had to be some way to get to a house close by and rest. There had been enough abandoned houses last time he had visited a desert, it shouldn’t be any different now.

*

Coyle had driven aimlessly for over two hours before he found a house he felt was save enough. The old man, probably the owner of said house, was taken care of very quickly. Coyle then grabbed a bottle full of gasoline, a match and lit up the car and the corpse of the old man, taking care of any trails or the small marks on the car showing it was a Murkoff car. But what he didn’t forget was the face of the man once he spotted Coyle. A mixture of disgust, shock and some strange form of pity. Maybe he looked worse than he previously thought, at least to the average, non-brainwashed human being. But at least his strength was still there, even without his stun baton he was able to kill the guy in less than a minute.

Coyle stood and stared. The smell of burning human flesh wasn’t new to his nose but it was always a punch in the gut for him. Death was but a tool for him, but getting rid of the smells and stains was a different question.

The house wasn’t big, two rooms and a basement. A bed to sleep in, some beers in the fridge, and Coyle was the happiest son of a bitch the world had ever seen. After heating up a can of goulash and popping open a beer, Coyle sat by the table, shoving food into his mouth that actually tasted of something and not just chemicals and bad decisions.

As his eyes roamed over the room he was in, his eyes landed on a newspaper, carelessly draped over the arm of a rocking chair. Coyle’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor when he saw the date - 1966. “Fuck me…”, he muttered as he read about the latest happenings in the world he hadn’t been part of for over 10 years.

If there was one thing Coyle hated the most then it was ‘not knowing’. Not knowing what had gone on in the world, not knowing what would happen tomorrow. Sinyala took this fear from him for a while - he could relax and do the same things every day on repeat, not having to worry about families or wives or documents to write or how people were watching him. Well, they were watching him, but at least there he knew who they were. Of course there was blood and murder and guts and gore, but everyone could get used to everything if they just tried hard enough and weren’t a gigantic sucker. Until the night broke in, Coyle spent his hours reading old newspapers the old man had hoarded in the house. Some president had been shot, the USA and the USSR were racing each other to the moon, some bullshit had gone down in Cuba and what the fuck is a Beatle?

*

Nighttime hit Coyle harder than he would have liked to admit. Being off his drugs for over 24 hours, the withdrawal had set in, making him sweat through the bed and its sheets, staining pajamas that didn’t even belong to him.

It felt like the worst flu in his life, his fingers barely able to bend around the cup of water he had been holding on, trying to get some fluids in as his whole body started to rebel against him. The last time Coyle had felt that weak was sometime in his childhood when his whole family got sick from some dirty water.

As Coyle prayed to a God he didn’t know even existed, he hoped everything would be over soon, whether it be the withdrawal or his life, at this point he didn’t care for his life much. His stomach was cramping, sweat poured out of every pore in his body and the open wounds on his face felt as if they were on fire. Please no infection, he thought to himself as he drifted off into a fever and delirium embraced sleep.