The Last Marine
Chapter 34: Sacrifice Play

Chapter 34: Sacrifice Play

The highway was a labyrinth of rust and ruin. For over an hour, they moved through the maze of stalled vehicles, a slow, grueling advance. The initial chaos of close-quarters combat had settled into a tense, exhausting rhythm. Clear a car, check the next, move forward. Repeat. The constant, low-level threat kept their nerves frayed, their muscles coiled tight.

They had made it perhaps a quarter of a mile when the rhythm broke. They were moving past a large, overturned tractor-trailer that blocked several lanes when Hex, who was watching their rear, suddenly swore.

"Quinn, we’ve got a problem," he said, his voice tight. "Big group. Moving fast. Coming up behind us."

Quinn looked back. A wave of at least a hundred infected, mostly runners, was pouring down the on-ramp they had just ascended. They must have been drawn by the sounds of their initial fight. At the same time, the horde in front of them, which had been a slow, shambling mass, seemed to stir, its collective attention turning towards them.

They were caught. A pincer movement, with the overturned truck on one side and a solid wall of cars on the other. They were trapped in a narrow, four-lane corridor with two converging tides of the dead.

"We’re boxed in!" Ben, the young man from the clinic, yelled, his voice cracking with panic.

"Everyone, get under the trailer!" Quinn commanded, pointing to the dark, narrow space beneath the massive vehicle. "It’s our only cover! Move!"

They scrambled into the cramped, dark space, pressing themselves against the grimy undercarriage. The ground was slick with oil and littered with broken glass. The space was tight, forcing them into a single, vulnerable line. From either end of their makeshift tunnel, they could see the legs of the infected approaching, a forest of rotting limbs.

The situation was dire, but it was Clara, the other survivor from the clinic, who made it catastrophic. Overwhelmed by the sight of the two converging hordes, her composure finally shattered. She let out a high, piercing scream of pure terror.

The sound acted like a beacon. The moans of the infected rose in pitch and intensity. The shuffling feet became a frantic scramble. They knew exactly where their prey was hiding.

"Clara, be quiet!" Lena hissed, trying to comfort the hysterical woman, but it was too late. The damage was done. Infected began to drop to their knees, trying to crawl under the trailer from both sides.

Quinn and Hex opened fire, their gunshots deafening in the enclosed space. Quinn’s pistol and Hex’s shotgun created a wall of lead at either end of the tunnel, dropping the first few creatures that tried to crawl in. But for every one they killed, three more pushed forward. They were being squeezed from both ends, the space of their sanctuary shrinking with every passing second.

It was Ben who broke. He looked at the impossible odds, at Clara’s uncontrollable sobbing, at the terrified faces of the children huddled in the center. He saw the grim, desperate resolve on Quinn’s face and knew that they were not all going to make it out from under this truck.

He looked at Quinn, his eyes filled with a strange, sudden calm. "Get them out," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

Before Quinn could react, Ben scrambled out from under the truck on the side facing away from the main highway, towards the steep, grassy embankment. He stood up, fully exposed.

"HEY!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice raw with desperation and sacrifice. "COME AND GET ME, YOU BASTARDS!"

He fired his pipe like a club, smashing the window of a nearby car, then another, creating a cascade of loud, attention-grabbing noise.

The effect was instantaneous.

The relentless pressure on their tunnel slackened. A significant portion of the horde, its simple intelligence drawn to the louder, more obvious threat, turned towards Ben. He did not wait for them. He started running, scrambling up the steep embankment, continuing to scream and make as much noise as possible, deliberately drawing the bulk of the horde after him.

It was a sacrifice of breathtaking bravery. He was leading the pack away, a shepherd leading wolves away from the flock.

"He just bought us a window," Hex said, his voice filled with awe. "We have to go. Now."

Quinn watched Ben disappear over the top of the embankment, the horde a ravenous tide at his heels. Every instinct screamed at him to help, to not let the young man’s sacrifice be in vain. But he knew it was already over. Ben had made his choice.

He turned his focus back to the mission. To Lily. To the promise. "He’s right," Quinn said, his voice hard as granite. "Lena, get the kids. Clara, you’re with her. We’re moving."

He made the hard call. He had to. There was no going back.

They scrambled out from under the truck. The number of infected immediately around them had been drastically reduced, the majority of them now a seething mass on the embankment where Ben had made his last stand. They still had to fight their way through the stragglers, but the impossible odds had been reduced to merely terrible.

Lena grabbed Clara, who was now limp with shock, and half-dragged her along, pushing the children forward. Quinn and Hex took the point and rear again, a grim, efficient two-man army. They pushed forward, past the tractor-trailer, their escape route cleared by the ghost of a brave young man.

As they moved further down the highway, they risked a glance back. They could not see Ben, but they saw the aftermath. The swarm on the embankment was thick, a knot of frenzied activity. They knew what it meant.

The emotional impact rippled through their small, shattered group. Lena’s face was a stone mask, but Quinn saw the fresh pain in her eyes. Another person she could not save. Another life lost under her watch. Clara was a mess, sobbing uncontrollably, her guilt and terror a toxic cocktail.

The sacrifice weighed heavily on them all, a fresh layer of grief on top of so many others. But it did not break them. It hardened them. Ben’s death had not been meaningless. He had bought their lives with his own. To falter now, to give up, would be to dishonor that final, selfless act.

Quinn pushed them forward, his resolve now forged into something unbreakable. He would not let Ben’s death be in vain. He would not let any of their deaths be in vain. He would get Lily out of this hell, or he would die trying.

The gauntlet was not over. But their resolve had been tempered in the fires of another’s sacrifice. They moved forward, a smaller, more broken group, but a more determined one, their steps echoing with the memory of the price of their survival.