Echoes of the Past

They did not linger long.

Étienne allowed the group only a few minutes to recover, just enough for their lungs to settle and their limbs to regain some strength. Every heartbeat felt like a gamble, a risk of the undead bursting through the treeline and dragging them down.

Jean-Luc was the first to stand, his face slick with sweat and streaked with grime. He wiped a shaking hand across his mouth, glancing nervously toward the forest's edge.

"Are we going to talk about how we almost died back there?" he muttered. "Or should we just carry on pretending this isn't madness?"

Étienne shot him a glare, but it lacked its usual bite. Jean-Luc had a point. The Screamer's wail should have given them more time to escape unless there were more than one, or the horde had been closer than they thought. The idea of Screamers coordinating, even unintentionally, sent a shiver through him.

"Madness or not, we're still breathing," Étienne said. "Gather yourselves. We need to keep moving before they catch up."

Marie had been leaning against a tree, her hand pressed protectively to her side. Blood had darkened the bandage there, but she remained upright, her jaw set. Heinrich hovered nearby, his eyes shadowed with concern. Étienne caught the brief glance they shared worry, frustration, guilt.

"Are you fit to march?" Étienne asked.

Marie nodded stiffly. "I can manage."

He didn't push further. They couldn't afford to rest longer, not so close to where they had nearly been overrun. Étienne straightened, forcing his own exhaustion into the pit of his stomach.

"South," he ordered. "There's a village a few hours from here Saint-Armand. If it's intact, we may find shelter."

He didn't add that if the village had fallen, it might still be crawling with the dead. That was a risk they'd face when they reached it.

They trudged on through the forest, each step weighed down by fatigue. The sky above was dull and gray, a heavy, oppressive ceiling. The chill of early autumn bit at their fingers, cutting through their worn coats. Étienne kept his eyes on the path ahead, ears attuned to the creak of branches, the whisper of leaves. The echoes of the horde's groans still rang in his ears.

The silence among them stretched, punctuated only by the crunch of their boots and the distant call of crows. Étienne's thoughts drifted as they walked. Memories he tried to bury clawed their way to the surface the smell of burning flesh outside Paris, the echo of screams lost beneath cannon fire. The faces of comrades and friends, twisted by the plague's cruelty, forever frozen in those grotesque last moments.

He blinked away the images, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat. There was no room for weakness. Not here. Not now.

Hours passed before they saw the first sign of Saint-Armand a simple wooden marker, half-buried in the mud, its paint chipped and flaking. Étienne signaled for the group to halt, his gaze scanning the landscape. The village sat at the edge of a gentle slope, its rooftops barely visible through the thinning trees. Smoke did not rise from the chimneys. The fields were untended, brown and brittle.

"Doesn't look promising," Jean-Luc muttered, his fingers tapping nervously at the hilt of his dagger.

"We need to see if it's safe," Étienne replied. "Stay close. Quietly now."

They descended the slope cautiously, weapons drawn. The village was deathly still. The windows of the small, stone cottages were shattered, doors left ajar, swaying slightly in the breeze. Horses' skeletons lay scattered in the square, their ribs stripped clean. Flies swarmed thickly around the remains.

Étienne's grip on his saber tightened. Every instinct told him to turn back, to leave this dead place behind, but desperation drove him onward. If there was any chance of finding supplies, they had to take it.

"Check the houses," he ordered. "Be quick, but thorough. If you see anything anything call out."

Jean-Luc moved with the ease of a man used to slipping into places he had no right to be. He vanished through the doorway of a house, his footsteps silent. Heinrich took the next cottage, his bayonet at the ready. Marie stayed close to Étienne, her eyes scanning the village square, alert and wary.

Étienne stepped through the remains of what had been a small tavern. The smell of stale ale and rot clung to the air. Tables lay overturned, chairs scattered and splintered. A mug lay on its side, its contents dried to a sticky residue. A broken mirror hung crookedly on the wall, its glass cracked. The reflection that met Étienne's gaze was a ghost of the man he had been gaunt, weary, haunted.

He turned away, forcing himself further inside. The bar had been ransacked, but a few casks of ale remained intact, their seals unbroken. He hefted one, feeling the weight of the liquid sloshing inside. It was something. Not much, but something.

A noise outside snapped his attention back a harsh, rasping breath. Étienne froze, every muscle tensed. Marie had been by the square, watching it wasn't her.

He stepped to the doorway, peering out. There, near the well in the center of the square, a figure moved limping, swaying. Its back was to him, its shoulders hunched, movements awkward. The skin was gray and sloughing, the hair matted and filthy.

Étienne's breath caught. Just one. Alone.

He glanced back into the tavern, spotting a cracked bottle on the counter. He picked it up, weighing it for a moment before hurling it hard to the left. The glass shattered against the stone of a nearby building. The figure stiffened, turning toward the sound a woman, or what had been a woman, her face half gone, one eye hanging from a socket by a blackened thread.

Étienne's stomach churned. He tightened his grip on the saber, holding his breath as the Shambler shambled toward the noise, away from the square.

"Étienne!" a hushed voice called. Marie, eyes wide, signaling him from the edge of the square. Jean-Luc and Heinrich had reemerged, their faces drawn and anxious.

"Just one," Étienne whispered, nodding to where the Shambler had wandered. "Keep quiet."

They withdrew from the village, retreating to the tree line, their faces drawn tight with fear and relief. Once they were far enough, Étienne stopped, his eyes scanning their faces.

"Anything?" he asked quietly.

Jean-Luc held up a half-filled sack a few tarnished coins, some dried herbs, a roll of bandages. Heinrich offered a handful of rusted nails and a length of rope. It was pitiful, but it was what they had.

Étienne nodded, forcing the knot in his throat to ease. "It's something. We move on."

They left the dead village behind, its silence clinging to them like a shadow. Étienne's mind was already racing thinking of where they could go next, where they could hide, what hope they could hold on to.

And yet, as they marched away, he could not shake the image of that lone Shambler, wandering aimlessly in the square, the ghost of a life long lost.