If she made a break for the door she would probably be able to escape, providing one of the loading doors were open. But Carly was trapped behind the butcher's counter with no way out other than through the front where the dead prowled. Sarah could see her frightened eyes through the glass, barely highlighted in the off-glow of the flashlight she had dropped in the aisle. The scratchers started to get close to the counter, and Sarah knew they were going to cross behind it and see her at any moment.
She looked around, thinking fast. She tried to mouth to Carly to hold on, but she didn't think she could see her in the dark corner. It was the dead of night and the entire store was pitch-black, save for the areas illuminated by the flashlight. It gave Sarah enough cover to sneak around if she did it quietly and smartly, but there were so many scratchers around that she didn't know if she would be able to get to Carly in time.
The aisle next to her at the edge of the store was empty and she snuck out from behind the display of old cracker boxes. She reached around and picked up one of the boxes and crept to the next aisle over, still hidden in the darkness behind the flashlight. She raised her arm very carefully and tossed the box as far down the aisle as she could, then she quickly and quietly retreated back to the display.
The noise echoed in the store, just loud enough to be heard over the frustrated grunts and groans of the undead. When they heard it, they all spun around and cried out in rage. They sprinted around the corner into the aisle, some of them coming out of other aisles and bumping into each other as they tried to get to the source of the sound; they knew they had chased a meal into the grocery store and they were damned sure going to get it.
Sarah leaned out from behind the display and looked at Carly who watched the stampede of scratchers rush by in front of her. She waved her arm over to her, motioning that the coast was clear and telling her to come over to her. But Carly shook her head. She had a partial view into the aisle that they all ran into, and she was terrified that one of them would turn around as she tried to sneak by.
Come on, Sarah mouthed. But still Carly shook her head.
Frustrated, Sarah crept out from behind the display and tried to make her way to Carly. And just as she passed the aisle that the scratchers were in, a few of them started to turn around, figuring out that the noise had been nothing. Sarah's body was highlighted in the edge of the flashlight's glow and she stopped like a deer in the headlights when she saw them looking at her. The normal zombies had a certain procedure when they spotted food, taking a moment to understand what they were looking at and then getting themselves worked up for the meal, finally ending with actually chasing it. But the scratchers were completely different; they had a split second where they processed what they were seeing, and then in the very next moment they were off like a flash.
Sarah's legs had only just started to turn herself back in the other direction by the time the first scratchers were halfway to her. She ran back for the corner of the store, pulling the display over behind her and littering the floor with dozens of long cracker boxes.
The first scratchers tripped over them and fell to the floor momentarily, giving her the godsend she needed; if they hadn't, they would have already caught up to her and she would be dead.
The dozens of zombies poured into the aisle behind her. Normal zombies were more disjointed in their pack mentality, but scratchers moved as a cohesive and efficient unit. Sarah ran as fast as she could to the front of the grocery store, glancing over her shoulder as she went. She couldn't catch much of anything in the darkness, but she could see ever-so-faint glimpses of them lit by the moonlight coming in through the plate glass at the front, and she could certainly hear their hungry growls closing in on her. She looked back to the front of the store, her lungs heaving in her chest, and she knew she wasn't going to make it. It was too far.
Just as the scratchers closed in on her, she ran toward the shelf next to her and jumped into the air, grabbing it and trying to scramble over top of it. It was difficult with just one arm, but she managed to pull herself up in time and get her legs out of the way just as the first scratcher's hands reached out for her, its fingers snapping into a fist but narrowly missing her pant leg. She rolled over the top of the shelf in such a frantic hurry that she tumbled right off the other side, landing on the hard floor in the next aisle. The wind was knocked out of her and she gasped for breath. Her head rolled to the side and she saw the flashlight lighting up the area at the back next to the butcher's counter. She saw Carly start to sneak out from behind, but then she got scared and went back for cover as the scratchers rounded the corner into the aisle right in front of her. Now they were coming for Sarah, and they would be on her at any moment.
Sarah pushed herself back up to her feet and ran for the front of the store. This was not going how she planned and she started to wonder if she and Carly had made a mistake in coming here. But at the same time she was still so close to getting what she came for; it was right within her grasp, all she had to do was get Carly and then head for the exit.
She looked behind her as her legs pumped and she sped past the checkout counters. The scratchers spilled out from the ends of the aisles and came for her. They were definitely faster than humans, the zombie virus in them augmented to make them superhuman in a lot of ways, despite the cancer cells eating away at their bodies.
The entrance to the store at the front looked so inviting, and Sarah wondered for a moment if she should just make a break for it. But the idea was dashed out of her mind immediately, knowing that when she got out in the open, there would be nowhere to hide from them and they would chase her down in a matter of seconds. She had to stick to the plan.
The aisles zoomed past her as she ran and the scratchers closed in. She turned a corner into one of them and sprinted halfway down it before climbing up on one of the shelves again. This time she stayed on top as the undead crowded in the aisle below her, jumping up and trying to get to her, but still not having the mental faculty to scale the shelf like she had. Sarah looked down at them, her heart beating like mad. She scooted away from them along the shelf, but they kept right on her no matter where she went. And she knew if she tried to climb down into the other aisle, they would be right there too.
She was trapped and running out of options. Just as hopelessness started to set in, she saw Carly emerge from the butcher's counter at last from her heightened vantage point. She crept over to the flashlight and picked it up then disappeared down one of the faraway aisles. All of the scratchers were preoccupied with Sarah and didn't even notice Carly moving around a few aisles over. The dead were too busy taking in Sarah's scent, salivating and spitting their wretched fluids as they groaned and cried in ravenous hunger.
The glow of the flashlight bounced around in the distance, then it disappeared. Sarah waited on pins and needles, wondering what Carly was doing. Then the entire length of shelving standing on the other side of the aisle where the scratchers were started to tip. Carly let out a loud cry as she strained under the weight of the shelf. It tipped more and more until gravity took over and did the rest. Some of the scratchers turned their attention toward the sound and the shelf just in time for it to fall over and crush them.
"Now Sarah!" Carly cried.
Sarah scaled down into the other aisle just as the scratchers started to pull themselves from under the overturned shelf. She headed for the back of the grocery store and rounded the corner. Carly was waiting for her and didn't waste any time in turning and fleeing to the loading dock. Sarah followed and stole a glance at the scratchers as she passed the aisle. Most of them had already gotten out from under the shelf and were sprinting for her. Their silhouettes bobbed against the plate glass backdrop at the front of the store, seeming even more menacing and legion than they already were.
Carly sped past the butcher's counter, the light swinging up and down as her arms pumped at her sides. Sarah was a few paces behind her and felt the undead closing in. Carly shoved open the door leading to the loading dock
and Sarah followed.
There were three loading doors in the bare room and two of them were closed, leaving one open with a tractor-trailer pressed up against it. But it was butted right up against the opening, leaving no room to escape through the cracks. They were trapped.
They spun around and saw the door burst open as the scratchers piled into the loading dock after them. Sarah and Carly turned around and ran for the open tractor-trailer, running inside past a stack of tall boxes on the left until they reached the end of it. They turned around and put their backs to the wall, Carly pointing the flashlight at the scratchers coming for them. They both gulped and momentarily squeezed each other's hand for courage as their pursuers came to eat them.
Just as the scratchers started piling in, Sarah looked at Carly and said, "Go!"
Carly sank down to her hands and knees and crawled around the corner of the boxes stacked next to them. Sarah quickly followed her into the tunnel they had made underneath the heavy boxes just as the scratchers reached the end of the trailer and stopped in confusion. The two of them crawled through the tunnel silently and came out back into the loading bay.
"Do it!" Sarah urged, and Carly jumped up and grabbed onto the door of the trailer, using her weight to pull it down. The scratchers turned around and paused for a split second, not able to process what happened. Then the closest one lunged at the two of them, hitting its head on the door as it came down. It shot out its arm from underneath right as Carly slammed the door on it. Its bones cracked and crunched underneath the weight of the door that was now securely latched shut, leaving the arm limply hanging outside of the closed trailer as the enraged scratchers groaned inside.
Carly let out a long sigh. "That was a little closer than we thought, huh?"
"We've got to work on your courage a little," Sarah said. "We can't have you running and hiding at the first sign of trouble."
"Hey, fuck you! They were right on my ass. And didn't you see how I tipped over that shelf? That was pretty damn impressive if you ask me. That shit was heavy!"
"Yeah, I'll give you that," Sarah said. "That was pretty cool."
The two of them took a moment to catch their breath and admire what they had just pulled off, even though it didn't quite go according to plan and looked a little dicey for a while.
"Shall we get going?" Carly asked.
"Yeah, let's go."
"Good," Carly said, "I can't wait to get back and polish the old clam."
"Polish the what?"
"You know, jerk off."
Sarah looked at her in disgust. "I really didn't need to know that."
"Whatever," Carly replied. "You've got to do something fun in this shitty world."
The two of them left the loading dock as the zombies grunted and groaned and cried out behind them. They exited the store through the front and went around the building to the cab of the eighteen-wheeler. Sarah pulled out the keys and climbed up into the driver's seat as Carly got in on the other side. She slid the key in and turned the ignition, and the tractor-trailer roared into life. They'd gotten it from a major score they pulled off, carefully scoping out a main road of transit for the Shadow Man's soldiers and staging an ambush. It had a full tank of gas when they stole it, even though Sarah still didn't know how they had access to these things, and she planned on riding her prize out for as long as possible.
Sarah flipped on the headlights and shifted it into gear as the scratchers groaned in the back. She slowly pulled away from the grocery store and turned onto the road as Carly bugged her the entire way back with inane musings and old Disney songs.
2
Transmissions
When Sarah and Carly had returned to the church, dawn had broken, and everyone got up and started in on breakfast. When they were finished, they carried out their various duties, doing what needed to be done around the church to make sure that their machine stayed well-oiled. The size of the group had burgeoned significantly after Sarah's run-in with the Shadow Man at the military base. The survivors who had already been with her remained fiercely loyal to her and they were able to find and recruit more survivors who had been hiding throughout the city or surrounding areas, putting their numbers up to about eighty. Sarah needed an army if she wanted to face the Shadow Man, and she was building an army. It would still take more time and more recruits, but it was a good start. She had extolled upon the horrors that she and the others had been through with the scratchers and with the Shadow Man's soldiers, and everyone was aware of what they were going up against, but they had all pledged themselves to the cause. They had already begun training and carrying out operations against the enemy forces. Stealing the tractor-trailer was a good score, but they also did a lot of reconnaissance and found certain locations that had been secreted away from view, sometimes filled with troves of weaponry or other supplies. But the main prize was the military base. Sarah knew that that was where all of their experiments originated, and possibly where the zombie virus had been created in the first place. It was also where Wayne was being kept prisoner, if he was still alive at all. But Sarah believed that he was, if only to keep her will strong for the mission ahead. The enemy still hadn't found the church, and Sarah had been very careful to hide their location, instructing everyone to slip out a back door and disperse through a network of alleys behind it before coming together and going on whatever excursion they had planned. They were close to initiating their assault on the base; all they needed was another month or so to get more recruits.
Sarah and Carly did a walk-through of the church, making sure that everything was in order. They got into the chapel and Doug stopped them.
"Hey Sarah, did you want me to fix up the hinge on the back door or do you want me to clean the guns?" he asked, the words whistling through his missing front teeth.
"Clean the guns," she replied. "I can get someone else to fix the door."
"Okay, you got it," he said. He turned and left for the storage room where they kept not only their original gun lockers but now entire tables filled with weaponry. It was a pretty good collection, and it was even starting to rival the armory at Noah's Ark.
They finished their rounds and ended up in the small room in the back of the church where Sarah had recovered after she lost her arm. It was a good room to use whenever someone got injured badly or violently ill, but when it was unoccupied Sarah and Carly liked to use it to talk privately.
All of the differences and disagreements they had after Wayne showed up had all been patched up between them. Ever since Sarah's horrific injury, the two of them became much closer than they'd ever been before. Carly helped her a lot at first, tying her shoes, doing her hair, and helping her get on some of her shirts. She even put on or took off Sarah's bra for her, which was awkward at first, but eventually Sarah felt completely comfortable around her. She became the sister that Sarah never had, and she could say that Carly was perhaps the most special person she had ever met in her life aside from her late husband and late son.
But Sarah became far more capable as time went on, in spite of her injury. Eventually she started to do everything for herself, though Carly still insisted that she was willing to do anything Sarah needed. Sarah toughened her mind and toughened her body, knowing that she had to be in peak shape to take on the task in front of them. She began doing one-armed push-ups and even managed to do one-armed pull-ups, starting off with Carly's assistance but eventually managing them on her own. She gained a good amount of musculature and became very strong. She trained herself how to use guns with one hand, and trained for a number of combat scenarios. When the time for the assault on the base came, she would be ready.
Sarah pulled out the map that they had stuffed away in a drawer and laid it out on the bed. She and Carly leaned over as Sarah started poking certain points with a stiff finger.
"I'm thinking it's time to hit their outpost here," Sarah said.
Carly looked over the map at where Sarah pointed then traced her eyes around to other locations and rou
tes that pertained to the enemy. "But why?" she asked. "It's just an outpost. You don't think there's actually anything there, do you?"
"Not in terms of supplies..."
"Are you..." Carly started, "talking about kidnapping them?" Her eyes lit up at the suggestion. She had never considered it before, but Sarah had gotten in the habit of thinking a few steps ahead of everyone else, always figuring out ways to make inroads on the enemy and strengthen their position.
"Yep," Sarah replied. "I think it's time we got some direct intel. I've noticed on Wednesdays they always have a commander going through there. His entourage is always small, so we should be able to do a quick snatch-and-grab before anyone figures out what happened."
"That's brilliant!"
Sarah just gave a smug smile, then she turned back to the map. "Okay, so if we bring about ten people, maybe fifteen if we really want to be careful, we can go up this path here through the woods. That'll bring us right up behind them to this vantage point where we can wait them out. When the commander shows up, half of us can flank up this ridge and the other half can come up behind here. They won't see us coming."
Carly nodded her head up and down, processing all the information. "That sounds like it'll work. So that's Wednesday, you said? Wait... that's tomorrow, isn't it?"
"Yes. We can brief the others shortly and we'll figure out who to take with us."
The two of them chatted for a bit longer, talking about other operations or just about general things that were private between them. They stowed the map away when they were done and left the small room, heading back toward the chapel.
Everyone was finished with breakfast and went over their individual tasks for the day. Sarah watched on, making sure the ship was sailing smoothly. A small smile came to her face and she was proud of the job she had done as a leader. Even a month ago she wouldn't have guessed that she would be this successful, but here she was.
Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set, Vol. 2 [Books 4-7] Page 22
