Chapter 16 - Pressure

As we're jogging back to the city, the mood was vastly different. I don't mean because of what transpired however, the atmosphere itself was unsettling. Heavy gray clouds flooded the entire sky and even though the rain had stopped, the wind was still unusually strong. At least twenty five miles per hour wind gusts coming from the west. If the remnants of the abandoned settlements weren't ominous on their own, this weather definitely adds to it.

"We're gonna cut right to head onto the main road." Says Zhaire. "That road leads directly to the entrance. We're only about a mile and a half away now."

"Question." Says Alyssa. "Have you ever seen an infected like Keily? Is that how all infected start off?"

"From what I've seen and learned when a person becomes infected, they usually lose consciousness and after a while they're pronounced brain dead. The brain stops sending the body any signals and that person becomes totally unresponsive. In the past there was no coming back after that and the person would be pronounced fully dead. However this virus somehow awakens certain parts of the brain after that. The body regains motor functions and can almost fully operate but sadly, what's most important isn't regained. The person's mind. That person's soul is lost. The body becomes just an empty vessel with only one clear motive that we've seen and that's to eat. No matter what it is. In that boy's case it seems like his mind was still fighting for control over his body. I've never seen or heard of anything like that happening before, which is why I wanted to return to the city and report it as quick as possible."

"You think there's anyway his mind could've won that fight?" Asked Liam.

Zhaire hesitates before responding "We'll never know now."

I look over to Dameer and it's easy to see how distant he is from the rest of us. He's right next to me but in his head he's miles away.

"Anybody else feels uneasy?" Lici asked as she stopped jogging and switched to walking.

"Why what's wrong?" I asked as everybody else stopped jogging as well.

"I don't know, I just feel a large amount of... pressure." She responded while looking up.

"Pressure, on you or in the air?" Lj asked.

"I don't really know. These clouds look insane." She exclaimed as we all looked up. "They look like rough waves during a storm."

"Rough weather is definitely coming." Zhaire says. "Surely the other teams have abandoned their missions and are on their way back. We should hurry back."

On arrival back to the city we were greeted by Mali and another female guard.

"We figured you guys would turn around." The guard said. "Your the first squad to reach back. Mali escort them through."

"How was the outside." Mali asked with a smile.

Everyone stayed quiet at first.

"It could've been worse." Said Cory.

"Oh." Mali replied as her smile faded.

While we were waiting on Zhaire to come through I noticed that him and the guard were listening to somebody on a radio.

"This weather is crazy huh." Said Angie as she walked over to us.

"I'm just glad we're getting into the cooler months." Mali replied. "The heat and humidity been giving me problems with my hair."

"All rookies are to immediately report back to the school and stay there until further notice!" The guard exclaimed.

"We're probably being benched until this storm passes." Liam said.

Two of the other searcher squads arrived immediately after the announcement one of which was being led by Rodney. Him, Zhaire and their other squad mate walked away to talk in private.

"Ejay let's go." Lj said to me as the group of rookies started to walk back into the city.

"This much people ain't fitting on one bus, and I'm gonna need my seat." Alyssa says walking faster.

"Meer you okay, you haven't said a word." Angie says grabbing his shoulder.

"I'm good." He replies walking up.

Angie glanced back at me and mouthed "What happened?"

I mouthed back "Long story."

A gentle rumble of thunder rolled across the land. I pull out one of my arrows and began to play with it as we all walked to where the bus is suppose to pass.

"How do you feel about Keily?" Lj asked me.

"I wanted to help him. I don't know if that would've even been possible. We've lost friends before but... that was different."

"Life goes on Jay. This world seems to be fixated on taking the weak and breaking the strong."

"You have a grey ideology you know." I responded. "All you ever wanted to do was kill infected. So I'm confused on why you didn't shoot Keily."

"Let's just say, throughout this whole experience I've... thought about my end goal more."

"Your end goal?" I asked.

"Don't worry about that right now."

All Lj use to care about was killing as many infected as he can before he eventually left this world. He never cared about people or their goals besides me. I've noticed he's slowly been changing, but I don't understand what sparked his change. Doesn't really matter though, I'm just glad it's happening.

"The guards are leaving the gate unmanned." Cory whispered to us. "They're following behind us with the other squad of searchers."

We glanced behind us to see he was right. Everyone is going into the city, but why?

"I've never seen them leave any of the gates fully unmanned. Something is happening." Cory added.

I took what he said and placed it in the back of my mind for now.

Our large group comprised of guards and searchers made its way to the bus location. On arrival we found Captain Nash waiting for us outside of an empty bus.

"I had a feeling there was going to be quite a bit of you out here." Nash stated. "Sergeant if you could, please drive the first set of people back into the city. I'll wait here with the rest of them for the other bus that should be here shortly. No body is to sit on the roof, only occupy the inside."

"You heard the Captain, swiftly and orderly make your way on." Rodney replied.

We begin to move onto the bus one at a time. From where I stood on the line, it was clear how fast the bus was filling up and we would definitely need a second one. Lj is stood in front of me and shortly it was his turn to enter. I followed in behind him to find all of the seats were now occupied.

"Ejay you're going to have to wait with the others." Rodney said to me.

"Yeah no problem." I replied as I turned around to walk back off.

Lj, Dameer, Alyssa, Liam and Cory were able to get a spot on the bus. As I exited the door closed behind me and they started their drive back into the city.

"Like I said everyone the other bus should be here soon."

"You guys feel that?" Desmond asked looking up.

We all glared up to the sky and found that once again, hail was beginning to fall.

"Alright everyone let's head into this building." Nash said pointing towards an abandoned three story building next to us.

The window in front of the building was broken thankfully because the front doors were boarded up.

Inside we continued waiting for the bus while the hailstorm outside intensified.

"They're definitely larger than the ones from the last storm." I stated.

"This is the second time in just over a week that we've had to deal with hail." Said Lici. "Before that other storm we hadn't seen hail in a long time."

"You guys think the bus could even make it to us? Cause those pieces of hail look seriously big." Mali asked.

"I doubt it." Angie replied. "Surely the driver has pulled over and is riding this out before he comes for us."

"Either way all we could do is bunker down and wait." I stated.

"Since we have time, how bout you guys tell us about your first searcher mission?" Angie asked to me and Lici.

We glanced over at each other and both of us hesitated to say anything.

"Well the outside is pretty tamed, nothing a big women like me can't handle." Lici exclaimed with a smile.

"It's ok to admit you was scared yanno, all of us are friends here." Mali replied.

"The only thing Lici scared of is water." Angie added.

"I don't appreciate this disrespect." Lici replied as they all laughed.

"What happened to Dameer though, he seemed bothered by something." Angie asked looking over to me.

Lici's smile quickly left her face as she also looked over to me.

"You guys are gonna find out sooner or later so I might as well say what happened." I responded. "When the rain came down our squad got stuck inside some abandoned convenient store. I don't know if you remember my friend Keily who I came to the city with, but you know he's been reported as missing for a while now. Well we encountered him, in the basement of that store and he was infected. To make a long story short, Dameer and Zhaire shot and killed him to save me."

"So that's why he was all gloomy?" Mali asked. "I know Meer is a bit sensitive, but I didn't think killing an infected would bother him like that."

"Well he wasn't fully infected." Lici added.

"What do you mean?" Asked Angie.

Before I could answer hail started to fly into the same window we entered through, hitting some of us inside.

"Everyone move back against the wall!" Zhaire shouted.

"The wind shifted direction." Lici said as we all ran to the back wall.

"Hail this big is going to cause serious damage in the city." Angie says. "Hopefully this.... wait." She says pausing and looking left. "You guys hear that?"

We all stood quiet trying to find the noise that captured Angie's attention.

"Am I the only one that hears nothing but falling ice?" Mali asked looking at us.

"Nah, I hear something in the distance." I replied.

Now everyone in the room was standing quietly, listening and trying to identify what the sound was.

"Isn't that the-" I began to say before getting cut off by Desmond.

"It's the siren alarm."

"I think everyone in the city is aware of the hailstorm at this point." I stated.

Angie eyes widened and looked up to me. The look of fair was in her eyes as she stared at me in shock.

"We have no alarm for a hailstorm." She said to me.

"Then what's it..." I started to say before realizing the hail was stopping.

A voice came through over Captain Nash's radio.

"Hello Captain, do you read me."

"Yes, I'm here." He replied.

"There's a tornado warning in affect sir, and I think I could see one forming to the west." The voice stated not knowing all of us can hear.

Nash hesitated to respond as he looked over at all of us staring at him. Lici however didn't hesitate to walk outside since the hail had stopped.

"Hey be careful!" Private Davis exclaimed as me and the others ran behind her.

She stood in the middle of the road looking off to west. I ran up beside her and looked in the same direction to find spinning column of cloud.

"That isn't no more than two miles away." Lici says.

I look back into the room to find only Angie still standing against the wall. Everybody else was next to me and Lici in the street.

"Sir we have reports that the tornado has touched down, repeat, the tornado is on the ground!" The voice over the radio exclaims.

"Tell every guard to get as many people underground as possible." Nash replied. "Those who aren't near a basement must begin evacuating the entire northwestern part of the city."

"What about us Captain?" A random rookie guard asks.

"If it comes our way we're going to be in problems. We need to move now."