Slaughterhouse

FORTY-THREE.

Sneaking through the night like a long serpent gliding through tall grass, the 1^st Battalion, 55^th Infantry Regiment eased toward the city of Philadelphia through shattered, blackened neighborhoods that smelled of ash, death, and rot. Bodies had been piled high and burned, as if an orderly process was being applied to deter the spread of infectious diseases beyond the bug which turned normal human beings into cackling, bloodthirsty monstrosities. But there were signs that such things lurked nearby—a row of heads on stakes, each wearing ludicrous hats; disemboweled corpses strewn across the street; an entire family, each member with their throats cut, sitting at a dining table on the sidewalk, forks and knives in hand, as if waiting for some service; two naked male corpses, positioned so it appeared one was heaving into the other next to a handmade sign that read WELCOME TO PHILLY, THE SHITTY OF BROTHERLY LOVE.

It was a drive through Hell, and all the troops manned up in MOPP gear got their weapons squared away and ready. Nothing in the blackness of the Philadelphia suburbs seemed comforting or even easily recognizable. Whatever fantastic orgy of violence had torn through the area had essentially eradicated everything in its path.

The battalion turned onto North Broad Street. In the lee of the old, abandoned husk of the Divine Lorraine Hotel, the convoy finally rolled to a stop. Lightfighters and civilians alike peered into the darkness ahead, and in a land that looked as if it had been ravaged by Satan’s own army, something curious happened. Hope was born.

For in the near distance, behind enormous barricades topped with razor wire and adorned with fixed machinegun emplacements, the city of Philadelphia was awash in lights like a ship in the middle of a vast, black sea.

Surrounded by the pall of death, Philadelphia still lived.