Aberrant: Dead Rising - The Supers' Burden [Fin]

[Dan Hawkins]

It was the part of this that Dan hated. He picked up his rifle, checking the ammunition, and made his way to where the Infected were kept. He looked at them and he sighed. Seven were definitely infected, six more it was a strong possibility. Fortunately there were no children, and the adults weren't parents to any of the children rescued.

He looked at them and nodded once. "You all know why you're here away from the others."

He looked at the Gun. "You should all realize why I'm here."

Only then did they notice the other thing, something he'd had brought in. There was an ice chest, inside, about fifteen bottles of beer. "Take one. I don't have much, but I figure we can talk abit."

[Karren Gaunt]

There's the click of an opening door, and Sarah Daunt enters the area from Dan's left, the 6'10 amazon dressed in a tanktop, jeans, and boots, her sword peaking out of it's sheath from behind one shoulder. Her expression was grim as she looked the infected over, tinging with sympathetic understanding as she rested her gaze on Dan.

She'd heard the refugees whisper as the infected were led off, asked a few questions of a native member of the settlement, and here the megamorph was, clearly ready to supply physical and moral support for one of the grimest duties of a post Z-day survivor, one she'd done often enough in her time and prayed she never, ever got used to.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nodded to Sarah. "Take a seat, grab a bottle. We're gonna talk some."

One of the men looked at Dan and took a bottle. "I'd hoped I'd make it you know, though I knew the odds weren't good."

He popped the top and smiled. "I never thought I'd taste cold Coors again. Thanks friend." He was fishing for a name.

He looked to Dan, who nodded. "Dan Hawkins, Captain in the United States Marine Corps."

The man smiled. "Dean Marcos, before Z-day I was a BlackJack Dealer at Caesar's."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah took the unspoken hint and walked over to claim a few beers and start handing them out to those infected too injured to easily get one for themselves, accepting the whispered thank yous and mixed reactions of muted anger, grey despair, and final acceptance with nods and a fragile smile on her lips. She owed their fundamental humanity that much at least.

She handed out a last beer and headed back towards Dan and the ice chest, emotional mask slipping just enough to show the roiling unease in her eyes before she recovered her outward calm. "Sarah Daunt, former college student, current urban foraging escort," the megamorph managed to add to the conversation.

[Dan Hawkins]

One of the women joined them in drinking a beer. "Mariah Daniels. I used to be a a nurse at the hospital before all this." The bitemark on her hand pained Dan. He knew she'd likely been infected helping someone, doing her job. It struck him as truly unfair.

"I saw Dan, you were flying. Your hands, they were crackling with Electricity, and you killed so many zombies."

He nodded. "Yes."

She looked to Sarah. "And you were larger, cutting through the zombies as well."

"You're supers, Like Adam, and yet not."

Dan nodded. "I don't know any two supers who are the same."

[Karren Gaunt]

"It seems to work by need. Or desire. Or both," Sarah responded quietly, having settled down into a chair with one of the last beers, "Not that my transformation brought me any happiness for a long time, messed up as any other survivor after Z-day. Until I met a good man who showed me that it's helping other people that make you happy. Much as I've hoped that there was a way to help people in your situation other than the bullet or the blade."

She sighed and sipped her beer, adding, "This is my first beer since I turned 21 a few months ago, actually. Not that *those* laws mean anything anymore."

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nodded. "I remember 21, a good number of years ago."

One of the other survivors opened their beer and smiled. "Chris Gerdan. I was a teacher. I lost my wife and child in the initial confusion."

He looked to Dan. "You know your abilities are physically impossible right. No human should be able to do what you, or even you Sarah can do."

He chuckled "Let's not forget the instant relocation by a portal in space time. That's something straight out of Star Trek."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah didn't really have anything to say to that and sipped her beer. She tended to not overthink about the 'why' of her abilities, merely accepting that they were what they were. But...

"Okay, I've tried not to think about this, but it just bugs me. We have a disease that kills people and creates zeds from them. It also aparently has something to do with creating 'supers' from people," she mused aloud, "But now I've encountered and been knocked out by a 'super zed' in Las Vegas, one that fought like it had a working brain. What's actually going on?"

[BlueNinja]

"Wouldn't we all like the answer to that question," Adam says, joining the edge of the group. "Hey, everyone." He sits down slowly, his fingers trembling a bit.

"Hey, Adam. I'm Priss Morgan," she says to Dan, "I was the night manager for the buffet at Sunset Station." She takes a beer, taps the bottle against Chris' bottle with a musical clink, and downs half of it. "Hell of a lot better than that swill you raided from Costco," she teases Adam. "As for impossible or not, it only sucks that life didn't turn into a comic book when people gained comic book powers, able to solve problems with a snap of their fingers."

"Amen to that," Chris adds. He holds up his bottle, mock dramatically, in the direction of the three supers. "A toast to impossible super-powers, who were at least able to save a few."

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nodded to Adam, not expecting him, but given the circumstances he knew why he was here.

He raised his bottle and said nothing, before taking a long draught. "We have no idea what caused the Virus, or why some die and turn and some become more. We don't even have the facilities anymore I should think to even research it properly."

He nodded to the others. "At least none of the children were infected." It pained him to see a nurse and a teacher, and who knows what other professions the others held, and knowing how desperately the refuge needed them, and that it simply was not to be.

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah digested the conversation over another pull of her drink, savoring the taste if not the buzz she used to get. Back in the before whe she was the light weight of her friends. Friends who were dead or scattered to the four winds by now.

She pushed to her feet, clearing her throat to get their attention, "I've never liked the title 'Super' to describe people like me and Adam and Dan and all the others of us scattered among the enclaves. 'Metahuman' is a much better word, a reminder that however tough we think we are, that without the vast, vast majority of unenhanced survivors being willing to stand up to despair and darkness, both within AND without, to go on, we couldn't go on. To keep human and sane and alive in every way above the merely animal."

She raised her bottle and concluded, "Thank you. For making that choice even now when that choice is being taken away from you against all fairness. It certainly humbles me."

[Dan Hawkins]

"We are all human, Even the Supers." This was from an older man who hadn't spoken.

"Gerald Ransom." He looked to Dan. "I never thought I'd see another living Marine. I retired from the Corps after twenty years as a Major, just in time to see the Virus destroy everything."

Dan looked to him. He hadn't met another marine since the base. That the first he met was a man he would soon have to kill, that tore at him.

"It's okay Son, I know what's coming. I always knew. I'm just glad to see that someone is still around to keep the traditions alive." He reached out and laid a hand on the big Marine's shoulder.

He looked to Adam. "Julia's alright I take it then?"

[BlueNinja]

Adam nods respectfully. "She's teaching Wei how to use the ammo press, which was amazingly undamaged." He pauses to take another pull from his bottle, then stares at his feet. "How bad did it get after I ... vanished?"

The infected all grow quiet, sitting still and staring inward at their own memories. "At first, we didn't notice. Your last blast cleared the area just inside the wall, enough for Rod to drive a truck into it, and we cleared out the few inside pretty quick. Then ... those teleporting zombies showed up." Gerald closes his eyes, knuckles white around the top of the bottle.

Chris nods. "Like they were waiting for you to leave before showing up en masse. Soon as you left, they popped inside, grabbed a half dozen of the younger adults, and popped them out to the top of the wall, dropping them into the horde outside."

"That's how the fire started," Mariah chimes in, "a couple of the teens were working on making molotovs, then three of them are suddenly gone, and something sparked off the spilled fuel, and suddenly half our homes were on fire."

Adam listens to it all, gaze locked on his beat-up steel toe boots, apparently unresponsive.

[Karren Gaunt]

Having sat down at the end of her heartfelt but aparently uneffective speech, Sarah listened to the story with growing concern and anger. Those were the actions of a sadistic metahuman, not a Zed. Something like that could tear apart any enclave, including her new home. And on her walkabout like this... She'd just get silence when she called with good news... A dead enclave when she got back... That would...

The shattering of her beer bottle between her fingers brought her out of her thoughts, the young woman shaking her hands free of glass fragments that failed to pierce her skin. "Sorry. Don't know my own strength," the megamorph feebly lied, clearly not as composed as her smile would like to make them all to think she was.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan and the others listened. they'd been there, aside the three supers and knew how it happened.

"I've only seen one super zombie that took more than one of us to take down, and the ones attacking you stood up to two and three of us at a time. That you lasted as long as you did, that says something about all of you."

He meant it as a compliment, but the implications running in his mind were clear. It had been thinking, feeding its bretheren. This was not good.

[BlueNinja]

Sylvia laughs, her voice on the edge of hysteria. "Headshots kill them too, just not as easily as regular zombies. You have to be good enough,"

"Or lucky enough," Gerald interrupts her.

"Yeah, to hit them two or three times before they can vanish again." She upends her bottle, downing the beer in large gulps, setting it down on the floor with a firm clink.

Dean does likewise with his beer. "Every time they showed up, even if we managed to kill them, someone died. Hell, that casino run Adam went on two weeks ago, how many did they kill when they ambushed you?"

"Two." Adam pauses to take another sip from his beer. "Brandon and Karen." He sighs, and rolls the bottle between his hands for a moment. "The doctor here, Myfwany, seemed to know what the deal was with them. Maybe enough to kill them more easily in case there are more of the bastards."

Chris finishes his beer, then with over-emphasized cautiousness, sets it down. "I realize what needs to happen, Captain Dan, but," he takes a deep breath, and looks at Adam, "I'd much prefer cremation."

"Aw fuck," Adam eloquently responds.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nodded. I did headshot them and they didn't stay down, not till the second shot." He shrugged.

When Chris spoke Dan nodded. "I can arrange that."

His look darkened. "Is that how you want it to end, or how want what happens afterwards to go?"

"Wouldn't be the first who asked for cremation afterwards." He didn't mind talking of death, but the fact it would likely be him to do it, that cast a certain pall over things.

[Karren Gaunt]

"Cremation is how we always disposed of the dead back at my settlement. More sanitary, and it's not like there's a shortage of burnables in the cities if you don't need a gasoline blaze," added Sarah on firmer mental ground with this topic, "Furthermore, if you don't want to go by fire or bullet, there's my blade. That's a service I'm here to offer. Did it back east to help us save on ammunition and contain infection. I *can* do it, so I don't have any choice but to offer *to* do it."

Her smile was grim and wan, but real.

[Dan Hawkins]

He looked to her and shook his head. "That is my burden to bare here." He looked at everyone there. "You all have your choice regardless, before or after it takes you, and which of us you'd like it to be."

[BlueNinja]

Chris stares at Adam for a few more seconds. "I want to die in fire. It's the only way I know I won't come back."

"I think you're nuts, but it's your death," Sylvie says. "I'll take a bullet. I saw some of your shooting at the end, so I know you're not going to mess it up. Would," she hesitates for a moment, then tries again. "Is just after dawn too long to wait?" she asks wistfully.

[Karren Gaunt]

"It's Dan's Enclave and thus his call, but if you want to wait that long, I'd be willing to stand vigil just in case of... complications," Sarah offered, her tone making it clear the Marine's judgement would stand on the request, the younger super seeing no harm from it if proper precautions were taken.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan nodded. "I'll make it happen."

he looked to sylvie and nodded. "that's fine. I don't think you'll turn before then."

Gerald looked to him and nodded. "That works for me too Captain. Done right, by a fellow member of the corps."

[BlueNinja]

The next morning, fifteen minutes before dawn

With the sky starting to lighten in the east, the infected walk out of the encampment, moving slowly as the zombie disease wracks them with pain, leaning on each other for support. They cover a few hundred yards, just enough to put them over a small hill and out of direct view of the Refuge.

As the sun crests over the horizon, they slowly split off into three groups, Chris leading two others off to one side, Gerald leading all the rest but Dean, trembling and gray-faced as he stood next to Sarah. They all stare into the sun as it rises, changing the sky from deep purple, through reds and orange to the bright blue of a new day. When it finally clears the horizon completely, hanging a finger's height above the ground, Gerald snaps to attention, and executes a parade-perfect right face towards Dan. "It's been an honor, son," he says, saluting crisply, eyes forward.

Adam faces Chris and the other two. "Are you ready?"

They nod, and Adam raises his hand. Golden light bursts forth, forming itself into a shape much like a 40's era bomb, and he hesitates only a moment longer, enough to stare each of them in the eyes. Then his hand flings forward. The last sight to greet his eyes is Chris grabbing the other woman in an embrace, before all three are obliterated in a burst of nuclear fire, their ashes scattering on the morning breeze.

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah's contribution was far more understated if no less serious in it's own way.

"Kneel facing away from me and close your eyes, Dean Marcos," she intoned, an undertow of compassion in her voice, "Do not move and it will be painless. We will keep you from rising again and harming others against your will."

The blonde megamorph waited until the shaking former casino employee had complied before drawing her sword, hefted it in both hands, and swung. Blade met neck, powered by metahuman strength, and the former sliced through the latter without meaningful resistence, sending the head to the ground. Dean's body slumped sideways to hit the ground.

Sarah sighed and watched the body bleed out, features stoic as she took in her handiwork with blade in hand and waited for Dan to finish his part of this grim harvest.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan drew himself to attention, returning the Salute. "The honor is mine sir." When Gerald lowered his arm Dan did, and in a single swift motion he drew his pistol and placed it over Gerald's heart, squeezing the trigger. The round burst the old Marine's heart, killing him instantly, the hint of a smile on his face.

"Rest well, brother, your fight is done."

Each of the others nodded, waiting, as one by one, he repeated the painless shot of mercy he had perfected by now. When the grisly work was done, he holstered the gun, and pulled all the bodies together, placing their hands together and closing their eyes.

"Whomever you believed awaited you, I pray you are met by. Brave and unconquered in life, Go now into the enternity of your faith. Peace be with you, Rest in Eternal Sleep."

He nodded to Adam to incinerate the remains. They couldn't leave contaminated flesh around, he stood bact to allow him room to make sure the dead remained so.

[BlueNinja]

Adam stares down at the pile of bodies for a moment, their lives ended before the zombie infection could turn them into a threat ... he thought. Still, better safe than sorry. Another bomb-shaped light formed in his hand, and an instant later, twelve more bodies floated away on the morning breeze. Turning back to Dan, he extends a hand slowly. "Thank you," he says quietly, "you didn't have to do this. They were my people, and I failed them."

[Karren Gaunt]

Dean's head and body added to the miraculous atomic pyre before Adam acted, Sarah offered charitably as she watched the rising dawn, "You encountered something deadly and new, Adam, and sought aid as soon as it was clear you and yours couldn't handle it. You don't fail when you stumble; you fail if you don't get back up and learn from your mistakes. But that's just my two cents from someone whose stumbled alot, and for a while there, failed to try and get back up again."

The towering megamorph sighed and settled against a convient rock, producing a rag to clean the blood from her weapon, "It's still terribly cruel though. I've never gotten used to doing this and pray I never will. They were human beings, after all."

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan didn't say anything immediately, instead he took the hand and shook it.

"It's not the same for me. Before all this I'd been a marine more than ten years. I'd fought and done my part. It was kill or be killed on the battlefield."

"That's why I have this job. No one else here could do it without falterning, or stand up under the knowledge of what has to be done."

"You didn't fail Adam, you did bring help, harming yourself to do it. Though they were infected, they still got to choose, and in the end they died as human beings, not slowly succumbing to the virus and becoming threats to all around them."

[BlueNinja]

He laughs bitterly at those last words. "I didn't flee Vegas to find help," he all but spits. "I ran. I knew I was out of power and couldn't keep protecting everyone, so I tried to get my sister and niece and girlfriend out. The only one I was able to save was Julia." He shakes his head, staring back towards the sun. "I don't know what I'd be doing right now if you guys hadn't been visiting Hawaii. Probably getting involved in the civil war we saw starting on the beach."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Hawaii is well off enough to be able to afford having a civil *war*?" questioned Sarah at the, to her, almost inconceviable statement, thinking that she'd seen alot of human-on-human violence but most of it was simply looting or attempted looting. "But regardless of politics, given the choice to go back... You did. I'm sure we've all heard and said the old line about what courage really is, so I won't repeat it again but... You came back. You tapped yourself dry in that fight, helped kill that thing. Goodness knows you're more deserving of the quiet 'thank yous' the other survivors are giving us than I am."

She grinned ruefully in the dawnlight, meaning every word, and sheathed her now-clean blade again.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan shook his head. "You got lucky Adam."

"Sometimes good fortune is better than being a master of something. You did manage to save someone. There's times where I wasn't even able to do that."

He looked to Sarah. "That Zed was shrugging off my attacks. It would have been alot worse for me if you weren't there."

"You killed alot of zombies beyond that one, buying time for others to make it out. So we didn't rescue everyone, We did save some people. At times like this, we've got to be thankful there was anyone there to save."

He looked where the wind had picked up the few remaining ashes, and nodded. Maybe we could have done more, done better, but we all did everything we could. There are people who live because our actions, and those who died here at least, chose to do so as people."

[Dan Hawkins]

His words were those spoken by a man who had seen too much, and he nodded, looking at his watch. "It's over now."

He looked to them. "Those who have survived are now free to go into the refuge proper. It's a small consolation, but Adam if you or Julia need anything, come find me, or Morgan, and We'll do all we can to make it happen." Adam had had it rough, and Dan wouldn't disturb him as he seemed to be thinking about the people they'd just killed.

He was already thinking of everything else that had happened.

He looked to Sarah. "You're welcome to come along with me, if you like. I can show you around."

[Karren Gaunt]

"I'd enjoy that, Dan," volunteered the younger metahuman, sheathing her blade and offering a final sympathetic glance to Adam, her thoughts turning to how poorly she would react if she found her Enclave aflame and over-run, "As well as a chance to find a tub of boiling water to clean of the gore off my clothing back in the Quarantine, it's the one real downside to my powers after the fact."

[Dan Hawkins]

"Well, not so much a tub, but shower head, but still running water and potentially warm food."

He led her through the gates, to be met by Alicia. The look on her face soured a little when she saw Sarah behind Dan, but it passed quickly. At heart Dan thought nothing of opening his home to those who'd earned his trust. She knew that, and from what she'd heard, the last day had been rough for the marine.

He actually smiled when he saw her, though he didn't reach out to her. There was a time where he would have, but her ordeal had made her thankful that he didn't.

"Alicia, this is Sarah. She's one of the supers who came back with us." He nodded. "Sarah, this is Alicia, my oldest friend."

The two blondes, one much shorter and obviously normal eyed each other. "She's going to stay with you and Lorraine tonight at least, while We try to get everyone accomodated. Also, I have another suprise for you later, though it can wait."

He made no mention of Violet, though he could see the question in her eyes. "We'll discuss other stuff later. Did you or Lorraine cook anything this morning? We haven't eaten, and The Mess is gonna be pretty crowded."

Alicia nodded. "Lorraine cooked hashbrowns and biscuits. There's some left, but not really enough for both of you, not if Sarah eats like you do."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah laughed and extended a free hand to the much-shorter woman, her other hand full of a bag of her dirty clothes and boots, "A pleasure to meet you, Alicia. I have plenty I can add to your larder from my pack in exchange for your hospitality. I try to not burden others if I can help it, and quite honestly don't feel as hungry as I usually do after a fight. I chalk it up to the good company, so no promises about next meal."

She smiled her best disarming smile, all honest good intentions eager to share in the human experience after having to safeguard it. Learn how to not be a weapon when you didn't half to, that was the trick to staying sane.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan smiled. Alicia nodded. "It's no trouble at all, and keep your supplies, Dan does more than enough to make sure we have enough, we' just weren't expecting you to get out before this afternoon, so didn't cook as much."

Alicia looked to Dan. "I assume you'll be sleeping in your second home then?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I don't think we'd all fit."

Alicia nodded. "No, I don't think so either."

He began walking. "Come on, you can get cleaned up while I eat then, and then we can switch, then I can show you around. Is lorraine actually home?"

"No, she's out helping get things ready for the newcomers. I have to head there later myself, but I wanted to make sure you were alright first."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah followed, keeping her strides short enough that the others wouldn't have to hurry to keep up, "He's fine. This is the man who beat the stuffing out of not only two super Zeds, but helped keep a several hundred-strong hoard from overwhelming someone who leaped before she looked. I'm really going to add that tip to my book when things improve."

[Dan Hawkins]

Alicia looked ahead. "He's always been that way, taking on more burdens than he should."

Dan sighed. "It wasn't that bad, we just got suprised. It caught everyone unawares."

He nodded. "Besides, we all came back."

They arrived at his humble apartment, and he let the ladies in. There was a living room where a cot sat, and a small kitchen, with a fair sized bedroom in the back.

"Shower's in the bedroom. Help yourself."

[Karren Gaunt]

Sarah didn't need much more invitation than that, shucking off her gear and stacking it in an out of the way corner in the other room. She wasn't surprised at having to crouch to get her head under the flow of water from the showerhead, but the water was warm, she had a bar of her own soap with which take off the smells of the day, and it was safe in a place that seemed to have a lot of promise. A perfect moment.

Things like that always brought a grin to her lips, the feckless smile of the innocent college student she'd been before Z-day when the hardest choice she had to make whether to waste the evening playing games or actually studying for her classes.

Almost unbeknownst to herself she hummed as she cleaned off the dust and burdens of the day, briskly to conserve water, but not with the haste of someone expecting an attack.

[Dan Hawkins]

Dan and Alicia had their own moment in the living room. "So an army of zombies and a pair of super-zombies?"

"I had alot of help."

"Modest as ever."

"I'm a soldier, I do my duty."

"You do too much sometimes Dan." She was serious he noted, she never called him that, calling him by the pet names she'd come up with over years of association.

"Seriously, it's ok, the injuries I took healed quickly." It was then she could see the tears in his clothing.

"You did get hurt."

"Part of the reason I stayed in quarantine."

She looked at him. "How many infected?"

"More than I'd have liked. We took, care of them, Sarah, Adam, and I."

She nodded. "You'll be okay, with Violet..."

"Yes. I didn't have any say in the matter. She left, and told me I was easily replaced." The disgust in his voice was palpable.

He nodded to her as he sat down. "It may be for the best for the Refuge, you should have heard her talk. She was different. She calls herself Venus now, and truly thinks herself a goddess."

There was great bitterness. "Everyone was right about her Alicia, and I should have known better, I should have listened."