Her feet started to stick in the mud that was being created under her feet as she backed up and quickly made her way to the creek again. The trail bent sharply to the left at the creek and broke away from it, and she followed. She tried to move as quickly as possible and find the other side of the woods or some kind of safe shelter as soon as she could.
The path was clear ahead as she darted along, zipping through trees and brush, sometimes tripping over small objects jutting out of the ground and stumbling to regain her balance. Her skin crawled and every hair stood on end as her eyes shot in every direction, her hand on her hatchet the whole time. The arrows in her quivers jostled around, and she tried not to be too rough in her movements and spill them on the ground.
She could hear rushing water again and the creek reappeared ahead, much wider than before. There was a wooden bridge spanning over top of it, and the trail continued on the other side.
Before she reached the bridge, she stopped and bent over to catch her breath. She looked around for signs of zombies as the darkness closed in. A stitch tore into her side above her ribs and she held a hand to it as she slowly walked to the bridge. Wooden railings had been built on either side of it, and she held onto one for support. The boards creaked under her feet, barely audible through the rain, which was now relentlessly pouring down. The tops of the evergreens caught it and filtered it down in more pleasant droplets, but she was still getting wet.
Sarah made it halfway across the bridge when she stepped on another board and it groaned. She paused for just a moment, wondering why it sounded different than the others, before her heart started hammering again as she looked down at the bridge under her feet.
They came out from both sides, shuffling their soggy feet through the flowing water of the creek. They were roused from their rest and they were angry.
She bolted across the bridge and fled from them, following the winding trail that was becoming increasingly invisible. They followed behind, soon matching her speed. She started to panic as she held her arms out in front of her to make sure she didn't run right into something. Her legs felt like they were ready to give out, and she expected herself to just sink to the ground and collapse with each step.
She heard them behind her, but she couldn't see them when she glanced over her shoulder. Her foot slipped on something wet and she struggled to maintain her balance, pulling a muscle in her leg in the process. She cried out in pain, but forced herself to go on. She looked up at the sky as if it would offer her some kind of reprieve or advice, but even the small windows peeking through the trees showing the clouds above were no solace. Tears streaked across her face and were washed off by the rain as soon as they appeared. She could hear the dead louder than before and she knew that they were catching up.
The path ahead dipped down a hill into a valley and crossed a small stream over a haphazard collection of rocks, continuing up a hill on the other side before winding up and out of view. The hill on the other side of the stream seemed too steep and impossible for her to climb in that moment, and defeat set in. But she pushed on, knowing if she could just make it up the hill, the zombies wouldn't have the faculty to follow.
Her legs spun like a cartoon character as she descended the first hill into the stream, and the strain made them wobble. When she had almost reached the bottom, she slipped on the muddy ground and fell forward, landing on a rock in the stream with her knee. Pain shot through it and she cried out, but she knew she couldn't stop.
The dead flew over the hill behind her and tumbled down, their bodies crashing against the rocks and splashing water up all around her. Their arms flailed at her and she screamed, shoving herself forward.
She scrambled up to her feet as they nipped at her heels, and she crossed the rocks to the start of the hill on the other side.
The zombies got back to their feet with alarming speed as she scrambled up the hill. The path twisted around to the side after the first sharp incline, leveling out for a few yards before bending and continuing to climb steeply up.
Sarah used her hands and feet like a crazed dog to carry herself and she tried not to look back.
Some of the zombies managed to overcome the first incline and followed her around to the second, more difficult one, while others were left frustrated and clawing at the muddy ground from the stream.
Sarah struggled up the hill, and her hands and feet were shifting in the mud as she put her weight down on them, but she was making progress. The zombies' angry cries drove into her eardrums like rusty nails and it rattled her concentration. She tried to pay attention only to the hill, but there was nothing but an army of enraged zombies stumbling around her mind.
The sun was completely gone now and darkness had set in. She could no longer even see the ground in front of her, but she could feel that she was getting close; she was almost at the top. Her heart bounced in joy as she felt the shallower grade meet the underside of her hands, and she let out a cry of joy herself the first time her hand slapped against flat ground. She hiked up her knee and planted her foot against the very edge of the hill to give herself the last push to get over it. As she placed all her weight on her foot, the slick mud slid under her and she slipped.
She didn't know where any of her appendages were, or where the ground was, but she could tell she was no longer touching it. She felt that dreadful yet familiar sensation of her heart leaping into her throat, like she was going over a drop on a rollercoaster. She felt her shin hit the ground and she slid down the mud, lower and lower.
Her eyes went wide as she realized what was happening and she cried out in horror, the sounds somewhere between screams and gasping sputters. Her fingernails dug into the mud and slid through it uselessly, and then her shin slipped and her body went tumbling down the hill, picking up speed.
The ground hit her hard and all the air left her lungs. She felt her legs hit something on the way down, knocking it over. It fell on her and writhed around, clawing and snarling. It was right on top of her and she couldn't even see it.
Pure instinct and adrenaline took over and Sarah kicked, clawed and scratched herself away from the horde. She didn't know if she was actually getting away from them or if she was just moving herself closer, but her instincts moved her body in one direction like a torpedo.
She felt limbs slap against her and hands grab her, but she just kicked and wriggled away from them, keeping herself moving. She felt scrapes and scratches, but she didn't know if they came from branches, rocks, fingernails or teeth. And in that moment, she didn't care; she had to get away.
Her body moved across the hard rocks lining the stream, and could still feel flowing water under her, feeling the ground dip down, and she knew she must have been following the stream to wherever it led.
Suddenly there was a sharp decline and she tumbled along the rocks downhill. She heard all the arrows in her quivers fly out and bounce along the ground like pick-up sticks. Pain struck her body everywhere and wherever she landed, she just wanted it to be over.
The ground left her completely again, and a couple seconds later she landed hard in a little gully. A sharp snapping noise rang out and she knew she had broken something. She lay on her back, not moving a muscle and just waited for her inevitable fate.
She listened to the approaching sea of undead groans and the thunderous pattering of their feet. She stared up at the edges of the gully, and there was just the slightest difference in light outside of it, allowing her to see where it ended. Otherwise, with the sounds of the evil night bouncing around her in the tight space, she might have thought she had fallen into a bottomless pit.
A moment later, something heavy fell on top of her. She gasped for air, but her lungs could taste none. Then the heavy weight moved around and let a slow and raspy wail drift out of its mouth like the comfortable and practiced drawl of a southerner.
Sarah was pinned down and helpless. She didn't move a single muscle and waited for the zombie to realize what it had landed on.
It tw
isted onto its stomach, coming face to face with her. It dug its hands and feet into her body and pushed off of her, getting up to its feet and shuffling along the bottom of the gully away from her.
She was still stunned and held her breath, unable to believe what just happened. She thought for sure she was a goner, but if she couldn't see it in the dark, it must not have been able to see her either. Being that close, she knew it had to have smelled her, but with all the rain and mud covering her body, her scent was all but washed away.
She heard the rest of them above. They hadn't fallen in with the other zombie, and they walked along the edges of the gully. She saw their shadows faintly visible as they passed and she wondered how it had gotten light enough to notice.
Then she noticed the scent wafting through the air. Like burning wood. But this time she knew she wasn't imagining it. That's what really must have masked her scent, because the rich smokiness of it was strong and unmistakable.
When the zombies had left, she finally worked up the courage to move. To her surprise, aside from being battered and sore, nothing felt like it was broken. She turned onto her side and her bow fell off her shoulder, feeling oddly loose. She picked it up and realized that the wood had cracked in half. She tossed it on the ground in disappointment, knowing it would be useless to her unless she wanted a very strange pair of nunchucks. She picked herself up and climbed out of the gully onto the ground above. When she got clear of it, she could see a glowing light in the distance.
There was an overpass ahead on top of a tall hill—no doubt the same highway she had been traveling along—and there was a fire burning under the bridge on a flat slab of concrete next to a long slope that funneled down into a short flood control channel at the same level as her.
The light faintly illuminated the area just enough to see what was right in front of her. The zombies had disappeared and she didn't hear anything around. Her body ached as she walked and she knew she needed to find somewhere to finally rest. She kept her eyes on the fire, and as she got closer she could hear voices coming from it. The bridge was far away and she could only make out the brilliant flame burning through the night, but then she saw someone move into view, leaning next to the fire and moving something with their arms.
Like a skulking creature, she crept ever closer to it, mesmerized by the flame and the warmth that would come with it. She could make out the voices more and more as she approached, and they sounded happy—friendly, even.
The trees had become sparse in the area and the full brunt of the storm above cascaded rain down on her. The temperature had dipped down and it must have been close to freezing. But still she couldn't approach the people around the fire; she didn't trust them. She didn't really trust anyone anymore. How could she? Almost everyone she'd met since the world went to shit was a psychopath. For all she knew, the people gathered around the fire above were bandits.
She looked at the flame out of the corner of her eye, already starting to turn her head away from it like a hurt child looking away from an apologetic parent. There was a short cropping of rock ahead and she spotted something on the ground nearby that looked like a sheet of metal. She picked it up and felt her fingers fall into the cold grooves. It was at least a few feet across in both directions and would be big enough to shield her from the rain.
A small tree sat near the cropping of rock and a thick branch jutted out near it at about the same height. She pulled the sheet of metal over to it and hoisted it up, propping one end on the rock and the other against the branch. It was a bit of a stretch, and the rock was uneven, leaving the sheet to balance precariously, but it stayed in place.
She crawled under it and sat on a slick rock as she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged herself, shivering violently in the cold. The rain slapped loudly against the metal and rolled off the sides. The situation wasn't ideal, but it would allow her to dry off a little and hopefully not freeze to death in the night.
The sheet slid and teetered, then fell to the ground, clattering loudly against a rock. The rain poured down on Sarah again and she shivered harder than ever. She looked up the concrete slope at the fire under the bridge as the happy voices laughed and talked.
After wrestling with herself one final time, she got up and headed for it.
3
Bonfire
The warmth from the fire kissed her skin as she snuck up the concrete embankment. She used the slope to keep herself hidden from the men above, who she estimated to be at least three in number based on the voices she could hear. Their voices were deep and they sounded like big, rough men. The closer she got, the more she was having second thoughts about what she was doing. She almost reached the top of the slope when her shoe, still caked with rain and mud, slipped on the concrete, creating a scraping sound.
"Six o'clock!" someone yelled from above.
There was rattling and shifting, and in the next moment, four men stood at the edge of the flat concrete before the slope, casting long shadows over Sarah as the firelight flickered around their silhouettes. They pointed huge machine guns at her, bigger than the ones that were normally used at Noah's Ark.
Sarah froze and stared up at them, scared to death. She thought about letting go of her grip on the embankment and letting herself roll down out of their reach, but either way she knew she was dead.
"Who are you?" one of them asked in a gruff voice. The four of them stood still and elected not to shoot her on sight, but she wasn't sure how many questions they would ask her before they did.
After the initial shock wore off she tried to answer, but the walls of her throat felt like they were glued together. "Uh..." she squeaked out, roughly clearing her throat. She had a small drink of water at the creek in the woods, but the parade of zombies had made her flee before she finished, and she was still thirsty, not to mention starving.
One of the men in the middle looked at another one and waved his head toward Sarah. The other man lowered his rifle and stepped down onto the embankment, scooping an arm under her armpit and hoisting her onto her feet. He dragged her up to the even grade and sat her down on the ground as the four of them returned to their spots on the hard concrete around the fire, setting down their guns.
She was surprised at the casual turn the encounter had taken, and she still waited with bated breath for what they were going to do with her.
"What's your name?" the first man who had spoken to her said. He had a big brown beard, and he was very muscular. In fact, they were all muscular, and they were young, maybe in their late twenties. He picked some food out from between his teeth and picked up a can of corn that he had been eating before they were disturbed.
Sarah cleared her throat again and managed to utter her name.
"Sarah, huh?" he said.
"Are you going to hurt me?" she asked suddenly.
The men looked at each other then laughed.
"Not unless you try to hurt us," the man said, still grinning. "What made you think that?"
She was quiet at first. She still felt very nervous around these men, but she wasn't sure if it was because of them specifically, or if she was just nervous to be around people in general. "I've had some bad run-ins with people before," she said. "Especially... ones that look sort of like you," she added timidly.
"Oh, she's probably talking about those assholes back near Durham!" one of the other men said.
"The bandits," she corrected.
"That what you call 'em?" the first man said.
"That's what most people around here do."
He made a silent nod of understanding and went back to his corn while the other men ate their cans of food.
Sarah noticed a canteen sitting next to him and he caught her looking.
"Want some?" he asked.
"Is it water?"
He nodded and handed it to her.
She took it from him, unscrewed the cap and gratefully drank from it. She wanted to drink the whole thing, but she kept her share to just a small portion, not wa
nting to upset him.
"Go on," he said. "Have the rest of it. Look like you could use it."
She eyed him for a moment, then when she was sure he meant it, she went back at it and greedily downed the entire canteen. When she finished she handed it back to him with an almost apologetic look, feeling guilty for what she did, despite his blessing.
He ignored her look and took it back from her, putting it down by his side.
"So what are your names?" Sarah asked.
She caught the first man just as he shoveled a spoonful of corn into his mouth, and he held up a finger telling her to wait, chewed a bit, then changed his mind and pointed over at the man next to him.
"I'm Roscoe," the man said. He was taller than the rest of them and looked skinnier by comparison, but he had the same amount of muscle as everyone else—not bodybuilder-big, but certainly someone who worked out a lot and kept very fit.
"Tanner," the next man over said. He was black and his head was shaved completely bald, which was only a slightly shorter haircut than the rest of the men had. They hadn't said who they were, but they were starting to give off a jarhead vibe.
"Paulson," the man sitting next to her, opposite the corn-man, said. He was the stockiest one, with a little bit of fat on him, but she could tell he had just as much muscle underneath. His neck was thick and short and his eyes were fierce blue sapphires shining in the bonfire.
Sarah looked back at the first man and saw a lump slide down his throat.
Zombie Apocalypse Series Books 1-3 (Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set) Page 48