In fact, all of them remained vigilant and watching of their surroundings, so much so that they all missed what was happening right next to them.
Macklin's shivering had gotten worse, and now he was muttering things to himself in silence, his mouth moving in a frenzy with no sound coming out. His jaw periodically snapped, causing his teeth to click together, but the others thought this was just him being cold and ignored it. When the chattering got really bad, he started to twitch, and Axel finally noticed.
"The hell's gotten into you?" Axel asked, turning to him with a queer eye.
In the very next moment, Macklin lashed out at him. His hand swiped in front of Axel's face and his dirty fingernails missed his eyes by half an inch. Axel fell on his ass in his surprise, and in that moment everyone knew that Macklin had been bitten.
Axel scurried back to his feet as Macklin dove for him. He raised his arm to brandish his machete at the bandit-turned-scratcher only to find that his hand was empty. He searched around on the ground, realizing he had dropped it, but it was difficult to see in the darkness. He shuffled away from Macklin in a low crouch, prepared for another lunge.
But Macklin turned his attention around to Carly and came after her next. Sarah and Tommy scattered along with her as Macklin's crazed attacks separated all of them.
Sarah's instincts kicked in and she pulled out her knife. It was risky to go for the kill and better to flee, and if she could get Macklin to go after Axel, she would use the opportunity to escape with the others.
In the frenzy, darkened images blurred around her and she struggled to tell what was happening. She backed away as Macklin spun around and went for someone else on the other side of the road, and as Sarah reached a tree in the nearby woods, she suddenly wheeled around and nearly stabbed Tommy who had come up right beside her.
"It's me! It's me!" he said quickly.
Sarah's head snapped back to the road and her eyes narrowed. She saw that Axel had found his machete and was swinging it madly at Macklin. The blade glanced off his skull and then he sunk it into his shoulder on the backswing, but it wasn't enough to do any real damage to him. The almost pitch-black silhouettes were getting farther away in Sarah's vision, but she saw Axel throw a fist that struck Macklin in the side of the face and knocked him off balance. He fell to the ground with the machete still stuck in his arm, but he quickly rebounded up to his feet as Axel fled.
Carly started to back away into the tree line on the other side of the road from Sarah and Tommy, and as Axel darted for the woods, he changed course for her and grabbed her by the arm before disappearing into the trees.
Sarah's heart leapt, almost as if the slimy and frightened feeling that Carly must have had was energetically relayed to her. She came out from the trees and started to cross the road, but Macklin turned toward her and charged at her. She held her knife up, ready to strike, but Tommy suddenly tugged on her arm and knocked her off balance.
"Let's go!" he said.
She jerked her head back angrily at him and when she glanced again at Macklin's charging figure, the sudden confidence she had a moment ago greatly diminished when she saw the speed and ferocity at which he ran. She nearly had the nerve to make one last attempt at killing the scratcher, but another yank on her, this time on the back of her collar, threw her off her attack too much.
A decision ran through her head in that moment that she detested. It told her to run.
She turned and followed Tommy through the trees. They darted around oaks and a few poplars, struggling to watch their footing and keep from tripping or running into something. Sarah's grip around the hilt of the knife tightened immensely and she repeatedly cast glances over her shoulder. The sound and fury of her footfalls made it hard to discern how close Macklin was, or even if he was still chasing them at all. They had a good head start on him and she estimated that he'd been a good twenty yards away by the time they turned and ran, but she also knew just how fast scratchers could move.
Tommy was terrified. He'd seen a few scratchers on occasion at Axel's camp, but they were usually roaming around off in the distance below the interstate. On rare occasion, one would find its way up the nearest on-ramp half a mile away and come at them across the bridge, but they usually didn't even make it to the edge of camp before being ripped apart by gunfire. Sometimes a brave bandit would go toe-to-toe with one and hack it down with a machete or something similar, but it was never Tommy; he always cowered inside the camp in those moments, hoping no one would notice him. He was brash, but gutless. He wanted to be brave and fit in in the kill-or-be-killed environment he was prisoner to, but even now as he fled four paces ahead of Sarah, his only hope was that she didn't catch up to him so that the scratcher would eat her and not him.
Macklin closed in from behind, deftly navigating his way through the trees. The machete had come loose from him and his arm was covered in a vein-like patchwork of murky blood. Sarah desperately missed the days when they only had to deal with the old type of zombie, the ones that would stumble and stupidly bounce off the trees. Now it seemed like she and Tommy were navigating an obstacle course, while Macklin was out for a sprint on a straight track. His grunts and growls became the only indication of how close he was, and the news wasn't good.
There was no end in sight to the forest, and Sarah knew that it would come down to a fight.
Suddenly, she felt Macklin's hand swipe against the back of her shoulder. It wasn't enough to knock her off balance, but she blindly slashed behind her with the knife. She felt the blade catch something solid on her swing and Macklin let out a ferocious groan. She continued to run and it seemed like the move had given her a little bit of breathing room by disorienting him. In the dark of the night, her feet pounded against the ground as Macklin's sticky blood flung off the edge of her knife in tiny droplets as her arm swung back and forth.
"There! Look!" Tommy cried.
Sarah strained to see through the shaky blur in front of her what he was pointing at, but finally she saw it.
The woods ended maybe forty yards ahead of them and beyond it was a small building that stood next to the trees. When they got closer, they saw that it was a gas station at the side of a road.
Despite her fitness, Sarah was getting tired. Her lungs were ready to explode and she knew that her legs couldn't take much more either. Macklin was so close that he was almost breathing down her neck, and she knew that she would have to do something before they had any hope of reaching the gas station.
She locked her eyes on a tree ahead of her, a big thick one. When she came up beside it, she shoved off her right leg and darted sideways around it. As Macklin followed, Sarah stopped on the other side and kept the large trunk between them, causing a miniature game of cat and mouse to ensue.
Macklin wound himself up into a frenzy as he swiped and snarled at her, gnashing his teeth. He would lunge forward and try to take a bite of her, and sometimes he would snap up nothing but air, while other times he would get a mouthful of bark.
Tommy unsurprisingly left her behind as he continued on for the gas station. But Sarah didn't care. She knew he was green and would probably be of no real help to her, but she also knew that she had more than enough experience with scratchers to know how to deal with one.
She waited for her moment as Macklin ceaselessly pushed her around the tree. It was a struggle because he would usually lead his bites with a swing of his arm, which made it dangerous to get too close to him. Despite being in their withered, diseased state, scratchers still had power in their swings, and if they caught one just right, it would be enough to put anyone on their ass.
Macklin's head poked out from behind the tree in a demented game of peekaboo. Sarah was careful with her footwork and her arm tightened like a compressed spring. When he finally stuck his neck out just a little too far, she uncoiled.
The blade of her knife sliced through the air in an upward thrust, sliding cleanly through the bottom of his chin and up through his mouth. But her angle was off
and it missed his brain, the blade stabbing up through his nose and the tip coming out right between his eyes. Dark blood poured out of the wound and out of his nostrils as he shook his head and his eyes pinballed back and forth. Then in the next moment he shook it off and came at her again. Sarah was sure that she had gotten him and the unexpected lunge put a fear into her.
She stumbled backward without taking the knife with her and now Macklin came at her from around the tree with her only weapon lodged in his face. In desperation, Sarah picked a small rock up off the ground and threw it at him before taking off for the gas station. It struck him in the temple and made him stumble into a tree, allowing Sarah to get a head start. Tommy was nowhere in sight, and she figured that he had already reached the building.
The number of trees in front of her shrank, though it seemed to do so at a slow pace. She almost counted down the number of them, marking her progress toward having a hope of surviving. She was getting close, but she could also hear that he was back on her tail.
When she cleared the woods at last, she sped past the gas pumps and headed around the building to the front, hoping that it had a solid door. She rounded the corner and saw the entrance to the little convenience store with a glass door that was already smashed in. But next to it was a small one-bay garage with Tommy standing under the open door motioning to her.
"Come on!" he said.
Sarah stole one last glance toward the woods and saw Macklin already at the gas pumps. She lurched forward and bumped Tommy out of the way into the darkened garage as she reached up with her arm and grabbed onto the handle of the door. She pulled it down most of the way, but kept a space open about a foot tall at the bottom.
"What are you doing?" he cried. "Close it!"
"I want my knife back," she said stubbornly.
Tommy backed away into the darkness, stumbling into some boxes and nearly tripping onto the floor. Sarah held the door steady, waiting for Macklin to gauge how high or low she had to keep it.
He came around the corner and threw himself into the door with such force that he dented the metal. He flung a couple wild blows at it before he saw the opening at the bottom, then he threw himself down onto his stomach and began to crawl into the garage.
He only managed to get his head inside before Sarah hoisted the door up a little and shoved her weight down on it and slammed it onto his neck. His bones popped and crunched, but still his mouth gnashed around and his body wiggled. He swung an arm in and out of the garage under the door, but he wasn't able to do much except limply swipe at their footwear with the limited angle he had.
"Hold the door down," Sarah commanded Tommy.
He nervously shuffled forward and pushed down on the handle with both hands, leaning forward to do so as he kept his feet as far away from Macklin as possible.
Macklin's eyes darted back and forth between the two of them as Sarah reached forward and removed the knife from his face. Another outpouring of blood came out of him and made his head almost invisible in the darkness as the deep red blood covered his face like a mask. The side of his head was pressed to the ground and Sarah slashed the knife at his throat. Blood splattered everywhere with each slash as he was savagely torn apart. It pooled by her feet as she began to stab the knife down into what was left of his throat, but still he clung to life.
Sarah dropped the knife, which was completely covered from end to end in Macklin's gore, and Tommy whimpered in revulsion. She stood upright and propped herself against the garage door, then she stomped down on his head. A series of sickening cracks echoed in the small space until she crushed his head and mashed his brains. By the time she stopped, Tommy was crying, and short and fast utterances of anguish came out of his mouth.
"Hey, come here," Sarah told him, winding herself down. She felt around in the dark for something to wipe her bloody hand on and she came up with a crusty rag, but it would do. She shuffled forward carefully, going toward his rapid breathing. She held her arm out and wrapped it around him when her fingers found his body. "Shh," she cooed. "Here, sit down."
She guided him down onto the dirty floor and they found their way to the edge of the garage and pressed their backs to the wall, getting as far away from Macklin's mangled corpse as possible. The rest of the garage seemed to be filled with boxes and other items, leaving only a shallow length at the front for them to sit. Sarah pulled Tommy in close and he rested his head against her chest, letting the sound and movement of her breathing calm him down. She tenderly stroked her hand through his hair, whispering to him that it would be okay. It was almost alien for her, and something she hadn't done since David. Tommy's fragile shell broke completely and he revealed to her just how scared of everything he truly was. And she didn't blame him. This world was no place for grown and bitter men, let alone someone who was still just a kid.
"Tell me about yourself," Sarah said, trying to take his mind off of things.
"What?" he sputtered. "W-What do you mean?"
"Tell me where you used to live," she said. "Before the zombies."
This seemed to calm him down a bit and he paused to search his memory, almost as if it was so long ago that he no longer had a recollection of it. "I lived in Memphis," he said.
"Memphis..." she repeated. "What was it like there?"
"I don't know..." he said. "It was okay, I guess. Like any other place, really."
"And what did you like to do there as a kid?" she asked.
"I don't know... I don't really remember, to be honest. I lived there with my parents and my sister. We tried to make our way to the East Coast when the zombies came... I don't know, get out on the water or something." Tommy surprisingly started to open up to her and Sarah let him talk. "Our folks didn't make it, but my sister and I wound up running into someone that was with Zed when we passed through Durham. That was before the bandits walled off the city. And we were there for years before... well, before you and Noah's men came."
"I really had no idea that was going to happen," Sarah said, feeling the crushing weight of guilt overcome her. "I'm sorry."
"I know," he said. "I know it wasn't you." He paused and let more memories swirl around his head. "After that, me and my sis got out of the city because it was too dangerous with Noah and the bandits. So we headed toward Raleigh, and uh..."
He began crying again, and Sarah knew where his sad tale ended. She didn't expect him to reveal as much as he did, and she certainly wasn't going to push him. She stroked her fingers against his cheek.
"She was raped," he said, then he started bawling.
"It's okay," she whispered. "It'll all be okay." She squeezed him into her and felt him shake badly. "I was raped too," she said, trying to open up to him. "I know it's not easy."
Tommy suddenly shook his head against her. "You don't understand," he blubbered. He struggled with his next words, trying to force them out of his throat but producing nothing at first. "I raped her," he got out at last.
Sarah was taken by surprise, but she let him get everything off his chest that he needed to.
"They made me," he continued. "Th-That was part of my initiation. I said that we wanted to be bandits so they wouldn't kill us, but they said they don't take girls. They made me do it, those... those fucking assholes! They all stood around in a circle and watched. Said if I didn't do it they were going to cut my heart out and feed it to her. After that, they kept her, but I helped her sneak out one night and get away. And they beat me for it for a month. They almost beat me to death a few times, but they made sure to keep me alive, and they, they said... 'You're not getting off that easy, you little faggot,'" Tommy said in a gruff impersonation, then he started bawling again. "A-After a while, they beat me less and less, and now th-they don't touch me anymore, but they hate my guts. I try to be tough and fit in, just so they'll at least ignore me. I know my sister hates my guts too..."
"It wasn't your fault," Sarah replied. "You hear me? It wasn't your fault. I know what those scum do to people. I remember your sister. She wa
s a sweet girl. I know she doesn't blame you."
Tommy didn't reply and just quietly sobbed against her chest. She cooed to him again as she rubbed his head and let him work through the pain.
The last bit of Macklin's blood seeped out of his neck and added to the large pool around what used to be his head. The night outside was still and only a few crickets chirped, the sound a pleasant reprieve coming through the bottom of the garage door that was still slightly propped open on Macklin's body.
Sarah stared at the dim light coming through, thinking about Carly. She thought of her agreement with the bandits and hoped that Axel wouldn't lay a finger on her, but Tommy's words echoed in her head about not trusting them. She hoped for the best, but feared the worst. She knew Carly was strong and could keep her own most of the time now, but Sarah was worried. Even Axel wasn't stupid enough to kill her, knowing that Sarah would be coming back, and she hoped that was enough to keep her safe until they got there.
Something rumbled in the distance and Sarah's ears perked up. It grew louder and the faintest trace of light crept underneath the door. Tommy looked up too and Sarah gently placed him against the wall as she crawled forward and pulled up the door a little. The sound was coming from the right and soon enough she could tell that it was the engine of a truck as its headlights washed down the road. She kept the gap in the door short and stayed to the edge of it so no one would see her as they passed by.
The sound became vociferous and then a tractor-trailer zoomed by on the road. Then another. Then another. Five trucks in total passed the gas station in a convoy and disappeared out of their view.
Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 5): Scourge of Evil Page 6
