It was the anger that gave him pause, even as the inhuman screaming built to a crescendo. He was struck by the part of her lips. Most people Micah had met lately didn’t have the energy for anger, or if they did, they used it as fuel to survive. The anger shining in her eyes was different though. She was truly appalled at what his silence had implied, that they trade his life for theirs. For the first time in what would have been weeks, Micah smiled, soft but fierce with a danger of catching like a candle lit in the pitch blackness.
"Sorry for doubting you,“ he said, and meant it, taking his hands down from behind his head so that he could take the pack the woman (the man had called her Will) had shoved into his hands. The weight in his hands was the same weight he felt on his shoulders when he prayed. This was a sign. He was meant to do something here. Finally, the woman looked at him and in her eyes, he could see the path was meant to walk opening up before him.
He would make sure the two of them made it out alive.
"There’s another exit in the supply room. It leads to an alley with a fire escape that should give us higher ground if we need it,” he said, finally looking over at the man who was moving the heaviest furniture in the cafe towards the front door. Then he crouched down and got the shotgun he’d stashed under the bar and the ax that lay next to it, neither of which he’d reached for during their altercation. Outside, there was the sound of flesh hitting pavement rapidly, then something hit the boarded-up window with full force. Micah heard the crack of glass as it splintered, and knew it wouldn’t take much more for the window to shatter completely. Whatever was out there, it knew they were inside.
"What do you need me to do?“
His own plan was already starting to form in his head, one that would guarantee the both of them got out of this alive. They’d offered him half of everything, handed him back his life even though it had been laid at their feet with little resistance, and he planned to repay that kindness, just as God intended.
Even amidst the chaos and shrieking of the oncoming horde, Ray took the moment to look surprised, pausing as he shoved a table against the door. He glanced at Will with a disbelieving shake of his head, impressed by the fact that the begging of his companion worked and that the stranger had just as many suicidal inclinations as she did. Will spared him a small, fierce smile -- so similar to the stranger’s beside her -- before helping the man shove what supplies they could into the bag. It wasn’t much at all, and what little there was she would probably give to Ray anyway, but she would worry about that later. Right now, she needed to make sure that they would be alive long enough to worry about rationing it.
“I should be used to it by now,” she brushed off, glancing at the door as Ray shouldered his gun and aimed it at the door.
“And yet she still gets mad...” Ray grumbled. “Won’t shut up about not stealing, not vandalising, not breaking and entering...” She paused while grabbing a pack of peanuts to shoot him an annoyed look. How could he possibly have the capacity to needle her when she could literally hear death itself running to greet them?
Thankfully, the stranger stopped the two of them from bickering by offering them an escape route. A means of salvation when perdition was brutally knocking both literally and metaphorically at their door. She closed her eyes and paused, pulling her bandana up to cover her mouth as she tried to drown out the howls of the damned.
“We can’t all leave out here together, we need to split up. Ray has a bad leg. Once we get out, you need to drop down and create as much noise as possible and run, you have to do it near the building across the alley that has the two fire escapes so you can get up higher once they all start coming. Then once Ray and I get on Bastard we’ll -- “
Will grabbed her bat and tomahawk, following the sound of glass shattering and a determined infected scrambling through, forcing its emaciated body through the space between the table and the window. Ray had swung around his rifle to shoot it, but fired too early, catching its shoulder. Her fury at the infected for getting so close to the stranger and Ray overruled her sense of logic -- she growled and shoved the stranger behind her, then grabbed her companion by the back of his shirt. She yanked him away from the bite of the infected as her tomahawk swung out and embedded itself in the creature’s forehead.
Then she grabbed the pack and grabbed the man’s wrist -- half in protection, half purely for the need to make sure he (her angel, her godsent) was okay -- as Ray loosed a round of bullets.
Ray, who had nearly been bitten literally two seconds ago. Ray who had the audacity to grin as they started to run and stumble away from the onslaught. “Seems like we should know your name, long as we’re backed into a corner together.”
janainaart
snowghoul
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
kaledo-art
vaporwave
kianamaiart
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
