Chapter Twenty-Eight - Your Grim Reaper

Cries, yells, and laughter were mixed together amidst the chaos inside a train station.

"Why are you doing this to us?!"

A disheveled middle aged woman angrily yelled at the people who had captured them.

A long haired man with an unkempt appearance looked down at the woman sitting on the ground and laughed. "What do you mean why? Isn't it obvious?! We're raiding you and making this place ours!" 

"You bastards! We welcomed your group with open arms and this is how you repay us?!" one of the men next to the woman angrily responded.

The unkempt man stared at him and chuckled. "Oh please, is it our fault that you people are this naive and believe everyone is good? Society is doomed! No more laws to restrict us! It's survival of the fittest!"

"You bandits!"

The unkempt man just snorted and issued an order to his accomplices. "I'm tired of hearing their bullshit. Take them away and imprison them."

"You're gonna regret this!"

The middle aged woman was outraged as she and her group were brought away and stuffed inside a boxcar, which is a railroad car and was used for carrying freight.

"What's going to happen to us, Mary?" one of the women inside the boxcar looked at Mary in despair.

Mary, the middle aged woman, turned her head towards them and responded with helplessness in her voice. "I..I don't know."

One of the men next to Mary was outraged and felt regret. "We shouldn't have never put those signs up! We brought this to ourselves!"

"Stop it, Alex. No use thinking about that now. Instead, let's start thinking about how we'll escape from here."

Alex looked up from his knees and suddenly started blaming someone. "This is all your fault, Gareth! This was all your idea!"

"Yeah? Then you should've voiced your opinions before if you thought this was a bad idea!"

"You're the one who kept on insisting on it!" Alex angrily pointed his finger at Gareth's face.

"Stop it, stop it!" Mary immediately got in between them and pushed them away from each other. "We must not fight among ourselves now. Gareth is right. We should think about a way to get out of here."

Rumble!

Suddenly, the door to the boxcar suddenly opened up, startling the survivors inside.

Three armed men stood before the entrance and studied the faces of everyone inside.

One of them smiled when he spotted someone that satisfied him and pointed at them. "That one, and that one, take them out."

Mary and the others just stood rooted there in shock as they watched the men start dragging two women with them.

"What are you planning to do with us? Let go of me!"

"Let go of me! Help me!"

Mary and her companions finally regained their bearings when the two women started yelling as they struggled against the two men dragging them.

"What are you doing?! Get away from them!"

"Leave them alone!"

The idle bandit among the three pointed his handgun at them and started threatening them.

"Stand down or i'll blow you're f*cking brains out!"

The people inside immediately shut their mouths. Gareth wanted to have a go at him but Mary immediately held him back.

"Don't."

"What are you people planning to do with them?" Mary turned her head towards them and glared at the bandit threatening them.

The bandit just smiled and responded with a laugh. "What else? We're gonna have fun with them today."

His words immediately enraged everyone inside and started cursing at them.

"You animals! Let go of them!"

"You bunch of ingrates!"

"You filthy animals! Let them go!"

The two women who were already dragged out of the boxcar and heard his words had panicked even more as their struggle intensified.

"Let go!"

"Get your..hands off of me! I'm not going!"

The door to the boxcar slid to a close and the people inside were once again locked up. They could only stand there and helplessly watch as their companions were dragged away to become playthings to these bandits.

"What have we done?" Mary was shook and helplessly sat down in despair, her voice trembling.

Gareth quickly caught her before she could further hurt herself. "Mom."

Trembling, Mary looked at Alex, then to Gareth. "What have we done?"

Gareth bit his lips in anger and helplessness, and just hugged his mother. "It's going to be fine. We're gonna think about how we're gonna get through this."

The rest of the survivors just remained silent. All of them were already mentally exhausted and had started losing hope.

Bang! Bang!

Suddenly, the sound of several gunshots rang somewhere outside, which was followed by people yelling.

"J-jared is dead!"

"Get down! Take cover!"

"Where is it coming from!? Find it!"

The people trapped inside the boxcar looked at each other. Everyone quickly got up and started peeking through the holes.

They saw the bandits scrambling for cover from an unknown assailant. Everytime the sound of a gunshot echoed, the grim reaper would reap a bandit's life. Some tried to return fire, but it was like a drop in the ocean since they don't even have any idea where the gunshots were coming from.

"Is it another bandit group?"

"I don't know. I just hope they're better than those bastards outside."

"Maybe they're good people and here to save us."

"Tsk, as if. Can't you see our current plight? From this point onwards, we should not easily trust anyone except our own people."

At this point, most of them had already lost their optimism and innocence that everything would return back to normal. They could only hope that those people attacking their captors would treat them better if they were successful in taking down the bandits.

Meanwhile,

'It's a good thing that I came here at the right time.' Michael thought lying prone on the ground while shooting at the bandits in the train station with a hunting rifle.

Bang!

One of the bandits holding one of the hostages took a bullet to his head and dropped dead, while the woman hastily picked herself up and ran for cover.

"Where is it coming from?!" The bandit leader yelled in frustration. 

Everyone hid behind their covers, no one dared to take a peek out as they didn't want to be the next one to die.

The bandit leader quickly noticed the woman who had run away earlier, and her following actions angered him. "Stop that woman!"

No one listened to him and ignored his gaze. Such actions angered their leader who decided to take matters into his own hands. "Fucking cowards!"

Bang!

He was about to shoot the woman down and stop her from freeing her companions when another shot rang out, and the pistol on his hand got flung away.

"Arrgh" The man quickly retreated back for cover while holding his hand in pain.

"Bastard!"

Rumble!

The woman immediately pulled out the lever and opened the boxcar. "Quick, hurry!"

"Let's go!"

Gareth let the others go out first and immediately followed after them when everyone except him had gotten out.

"Damn it! After them!" The bandit leader could only watch on as the woman freed her friends and fled the scene.

Some of the bandits who weren't within the sights of the sniper retreated inside and went to find those fleeing survivors around the property.

The survivors followed behind Mary as she led them through a path that led them through their weapon storage. Since the bandits had taken all the firearms inside, the storage was only left with bladed items like knives, machetes and spiked bats.

The survivors knew this would put them at a disadvantage, but it's better than dying and not even having the chance to fight back.

"Everyone, move into twos and hide. We'll ambush anyone that comes looking for us." Gareth commanded, and everyone quickly scattered and went to look for a place to hide.

Outside.

Bang!

Michael had taken down another bandit and immediately left his position while reloading his rifle.

He ran forward while crouching down and kept watch on the bandits down below.

Bang!

Michael fired another random shot, deterring the bandits from coming out of their hiding places while he sprinted across the train tracks.

"He's o–"

Both men had noticed each other at the same time, and the bandit was about to warn everyone when Michael immediately raised his rifle and shot him.

Bang!

The bandit was shot through his chest and weakly pointed towards the direction where Michael is before dropping down dead.

"He's over there!"

One of the nearby bandits quickly turned his head towards the direction where the dead bandit was pointing at and had spotted Michael taking cover behind one of the columns.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Everyone opened fire where Michael was hiding and started closing in on him.

"Freaking pests" Michael cursed under his breath and slung his rifle across his chest before arming himself with handguns on both of his hands.

"Kill that bastard!"

"Surround him and don't let him get away!"

Michael took a deep breath with guns ready. He quickly spun around from his hiding and opened fire.

Bang! Bang!

Two shots, two targets.

One immediately died by a shot through his chest, while the bandit leader had luckily survived with only a shot to his shoulder.

"Fuck! Who is this guy?!"

Michael fell on the ground and rolled on his shoulder before he quickly pounced for cover as a barrage of fire fell on his way!

Babababang!

"Group up! We'll charge at this guy at the same time!" the bandit leader yelled with his left arm limping from his gunshot wound.

The remaining seven bandits quickly gathered together and started inching closer towards Michael.

"Crap." Michael realized that he's now in a bad situation and immediately started working his brain for solutions.

"You're dead, bastard! Get him!" The bandit leader commanded and all of them immediately ran towards the pillar where Michael was hiding while shooting towards him.

Babababang!

Michael placed one of his handguns back to its holster and unsheathed his sword.

The bandit was almost upon him when he suddenly sneaked his hand out and started blindly shooting back towards the bandits, who immediately scattered while under fire.

"You b–"

The bandit leader was outraged when he saw them scattering like rats and was about to start cursing at them when two stray bullets shot him in the stomach and to his right chest.

"So..unlucky."

'Fuck! We were almost there!'

The bandit leader dropped to his knees and fell dead on his face while cursing inside.

Michael immediately took this chance and dashed out of his hiding place, and took a mad rush towards the remaining bandits.

"G-get away from me!" A bandit started yelling in panic as he scrambled to put the magazine back into his gun.

Michael just remained silent and ran towards him and slashed the man on his throat. He immediately took a turn as he was once again under fire.

Michael kept running around the bandits while taking advantage of the obstacles around them for cover as he took them down one by one.

Click! Click!

"WHAT ARE YOU?! YOU'RE NOT HUMAN!"

The remaining bandit started crying in despair as he desperately prayed that a bullet would magically appear in the magazine while he repeatedly tried to shoot Michael.

Michael started slowly walking towards him while his lips started arching upwards and into a grin.

"Your grim reaper."

Click! Click! Click!

"AHHH!"

Splatter!