Marcus Caravahlo (_caravahlo_) wrote in horror_story, @ 2012-10-31 19:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | alternate universe, charlie, holiday: halloween, marcus |
Halloween AU: Attack of the Killer Kids
Who: Charlie and Marcus, cameo by Emma
When: Halloween Night
Where: Shit Town. Starts in the park, goes to the gas station.
What: Marcus has a bad night. Takes others down with him.
Warning: Evisceration. Language.
Running for the trees had been a bad call. Marcus could admit that, if only to himself. It was so much darker in the trees. He couldn’t see for shit, and his bulk was working against him. Every branch clawed, like a grasping hand, every unnoticed tangle of underbrush a hazard. Bad call, and not his first of the evening, either. Fuck the trees, then. Back to the road. Four days a week were dedicated to aerobics. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Endurance training. He could run forfuckingever if he had to, so long as he kept his head. Paced himself. He had long legs. A long stride. He could do this. Out of the densely wooded park, back onto the main thoroughfare, and down Yosemite Ave. Six blocks from the gas station. Easy. He could do six blocks in his sleep.
There were cars still out. People who were on their way home from parties, some who were still just getting started. Marcus didn’t even consider stopping to flag someone down. Shit had gotten bad. Shit had gotten downright weird, but no Twilight Zone event was going to possess anyone in their right mind to stop for someone who looked like he did. Six-and-a-half-foot tall man, covered in tattoos, running like there were attack dogs after him. The fact that there didn’t seem to be anything after him wouldn’t help him in this case, either. He looked insane. He could admit that, too.
Turn on Yosemite, past the old library, and there - right in fucking front of him - was another one. A teenager, by the look of it, but young, nonetheless. From afar, it would have looked comical. Marcus stopping short out of fear, momentum almost carrying him forward directly into the kid, but he managed to catch his balance before the collision. Every single day involved at least some core training. Only one. He leveled his knife between them, cautiously. The kid was a full foot shorter than he was, skinny and unremarkable. There was even a look of surprise on the pale face. However, Marcus was beyond taking chances at that point. The night, after all, had been very weird.
In the glow of the streetlamps, he probably looked like a madman. Hair a mess, shirt slick with blood and dirt, more than just a few remnants of the park clinging to his clothes. Yet, his expression was threatened, rather than threatening. Wide eyes, fast breath. In addition to the knife, he held out his empty left hand, palm forward, in a warding off gesture. “Stay back, man. Don’t you fucking touch me.”
----
When Charlie first saw the man bounding toward him like a tree trunk on legs, he’d frozen on the spot. His fight-or-flight response had always been a bit slow and, more often than not, he erred on the side of not doing anything at all and hoping the danger would pass. This was no different. As the man got closer, he clenched his eyes shut and prayed for the best, almost as if he believed that remaining perfectly still and refusing to watch what was happening would remove him from the scene entirely. Nothing happened, though, and just when he’d gathered up enough stupidity to hope that he’d avoided a confrontation, he opened his eyes to the sight of a feral giant and a knife pointed at his belly.
He gasped and took a step back, heart leaping up to his throat as his fingers tightened around the bag of snacks he’d been carrying back to his Halloween party. They’d sent him out for chips and chips alone but, in a brilliant stroke of forethought, he’d decided to get dip as well and a few candy bars for himself, since he was breaking the rules already. The heaviest items rested at the bottom of the bag and in a moment of desperation it could be swung at an attacker, if for no other reason than to provide a sudden distraction while Charlie ran away. Still, it was a poor defense against the knife which was, really, way too close to the squishiest part of his body for Charlie to think about anything but how much it would suck to get stabbed and how very dead he would be if that happened.
His eyes were glued to the weapon but he was able to sneak a few glances up at his assailant, noting the vigilant expression and odd choice of hand gestures. If this was a mugging, it was the strangest instance of theft Charlie had ever seen--not that he had much experience with this sort of thing. Maybe it was all a show to dissuade passers by from thinking something illegal was going down. Charlie couldn't imagine it actually worked, though; this man looked like someone he would normally cross the street to avoid and the addition of the knife wasn’t doing much to take away from the overall threatening look of the guy. Anyone watching from afar would probably assume that Charlie was about to be gutted and he found himself frantically surveying the area for someone who might come to his rescue.
When it didn’t look like that was going to happen, Charlie turned his attention back to the man and wracked his brain for some plan to talk his way out of this. The man’s mouth started moving and he issued a command to stay back. Charlie’s eyes widened and he took a few, slow steps backward, raising his arms in surrender. His voice was high when he spoke and he gave the man a look of pained confusion.
“You ran into me!” He practically screeched and then thought better of it. “I mean--I’m sorry, you’re right. It was my fault,” he stared down at the knife again, squeezing his eyes shut in a last ditch attempt at teleporting out of there. “Shit! Okay, there’s money in my wallet. No there isn’t--I spent it all on chips. Do you want chips?” he dangled the bag a bit from where his hands hovered above his head.
----
Utter confusion was mirrored in the larger man’s scarred face. Whatever he’d been expecting from the kid in the street, it hadn’t been this. That the kid was speaking at all was jarring enough, so Marcus didn’t notice anything at first about the way the words were formed. At least there were words, and it wasn’t just the mocking laughter. Being offered groceries was a bit too far, though. Now Marcus was sure he’d lost his mind. Maybe someone had slipped him something at the bar. Maybe this was all just a really bad trip.
God, wouldn’t that be a relief? Pity that he wasn’t more well-versed in denial. He trusted his senses too much.
“What? No. Fuck.” Marcus lowered the knife, just a little, and tossed a look over his shoulder to see if anything was behind him, yet. He hadn’t heard anything, but they could be quiet. Fast and quiet. Terrible fucking combination. He looked back at the kid with the chips. Trusting his senses again. None of the others had been playing this particular game, and this kid seemed legitimately confused and scared. Instinct dictated that this guy wasn’t a threat at all, which meant he might also be a potential target. There were two lines of thinking there, one that could tell at a glance that the legs in front of him weren’t as long as his own. The stride would be shorter. Slower. The other didn’t care for where that was going. It hadn’t yet gotten to the point of mentally sizing up human shields. So, instead of bolting, Marcus made an appeal. “We gotta get off the fucking street. Now.”
---
He breathed a small sigh of relief when the other man lowered his knife. It was still close enough to split him open within a moment’s notice but any space between his skin and the blade was something to be thankful for. He watched the man turn his head to look back and Charlie leaned over to try and spot what he could be looking for. Was someone chasing him? If it was the cops, that would just be great. If that were the case, he would simply have to stall until one of them arrived and took this beast into custody for whatever he’d done. His reaction to the offer of money, regardless of how it had been taken back and replaced with snack foods, lead Charlie to believe that perhaps this wasn’t meant to be a mugging. Maybe it was a misunderstanding; maybe he could just step aside and let the scary fugitive be on his way.
But then the man was saying that they had to get off of the street and that brought forth a whole new brand of fear. Charlie could just imagine the look on his mother’s face when they pulled his naked body out of a frosted ditch a few months from now. He needed to stall.
“Why?”
----
Faint laughter. Mocking. Goddamn it. Marcus suddenly looked sick. They were there. Somewhere behind him. The kid was ignoring it, though. Still waiting for an answer, expecting one that made sense, no doubt. Nothing about the night was making sense, so Marcus was going to have to disappoint him there.
“No time. Run!” he growled, lunging forward to grab Charlie's arm with the knifeless hand and drag him along, in the direction of the gas station. His grip was vice-like. 3 days a week for strength training. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Not done with hostage-taking in mind, but better to take a hostage than have another death on his conscience. He could explain himself, later. Behind a locked door and bulletproof glass. Iron bars would be even better, but he hadn’t seen a cop all night. Weren’t there supposed to be more patrol cars out on a fucking holiday? Four more blocks. All he had to do was drag, push, or carry a reluctant human being, and outrun the others. Not a fucking problem.
---
Charlie yelped in pain when his arm was nearly dislocated. That's what it felt like, anyway. He stumbled as the man started pulling him in the direction of the shop he’d just come from but managed to get his feet back under him without faceplanting into the pavement. He started running, only because he had a powerful will to stay attached to all four of his limbs, and got into a routine of taking swift glances behind him every five or six strides to see if they were being followed. At this point, he was starting to believe that someone definitely was chasing Marcus but his hope that it might be the police was quickly dying. Something about the look on the other man’s face made Charlie want to flee the scene as fast as possible, which wasn’t as fast as Marcus but damned if he wasn’t trying.
He wanted to ask questions: “what the hell is happening” came to mind, along with “are you planning on using that knife” but he was trailing behind, being jerked forward with an aching twinge in his shoulder every time his pace began to lag, and there was no way he’d be able to read the answers even if he got any. So he focused on picking up speed and maintaining it.
By the looks of it, they were headed right back to the gas station he’d gotten his snacks from and once Charlie had an idea of their trajectory, he was able to avoid putting enough distance between himself and Marcus to cause that sudden pain in his arm each time he was pulled forward. Casting another glance over his shoulder as they reached the glow of the overhead lights, he could see shapes in the distance. They were small and there were a lot of them.
----
It wasn't ideal, but it should buy enough time for the cops to get there. Marcus threw the kid in ahead of him and immediately locked the doors, ignoring the protests of the woman behind the counter. Fuck, hoping the woman behind the counter was pressing the alarm. He was far more focused on the those figures than he was either of the people in the gas station.
“What the fuck?” The counter girl was thin, cute in an unassuming sort of way, and looked about all of 19, meaning she had at least a solid dozen better things to do on Halloween. She wasn't moving from the counter, which was good. That meant she might have a weapon there, and that was great. They could use more weapons. “The police are already on their way, you better get the fuck out of here.”
“Yeah?” Marcus finally looked back at her. “Good, chica. Hope they come fast.”
He backed off from the glass, looking for reinforcement, but the gas station employee did step forward when Marcus started to mess with the interior expanding scissor gate. She was holding a metal bat in both hands. Not a gun. Pity. Her voice was scared, predictably. “Hey, that's... what the fuck are you doing? Are you hiding from the cops? Look, you can have whatever's in the register. It's only about sixty bucks, but it's yours. I'm not gonna be a fucking hostage.”
As he wasn’t in the market for a fucking hostage, Marcus just let that one go. He continued trying to get the security gate to work, ignoring both the girl with the bat and the kid with the chips.
---
For all Marcus seemed to be doing his best to secure the station against... whatever was out there, he wasn’t inspiring much confidence. The cashier seemed to gape at them as Marcus fiddled with the gate and Charlie took a moment to realize that he would have to be the one to explain to her what was going on. The problem there was that he had absolutely no clue what to tell her. Hi, remember me? Well this guy tried to mug me and, in the fastest case of Stockholm syndrome in recorded history, I let him drag me back here so he could lock us all inside. There might be danger or he might be a deranged killer, stay tuned to find out. Yeah, that probably wouldn’t fly.
It didn’t look like Marcus would benefit from or appreciate his help with the gate and he really didn’t feel like getting smacked in the head with a baseball bat, so he took a tentative step toward the girl. He raised his hands again in a no-harm-intended manner and noticed that he was still holding his bag of snacks. His face flushed at the realization but he gestured toward it anyway, hoping she would remember him and feel less threatened.
“There’s something out there,” he told her with a visible lack of conviction, sneaking a look back at Marcus to see how he was doing. “I don’t know what but... I think it’s safer in here.” I hope. He wondered if he should tell her about the knife but that would probably just add to her panic. Better to try and keep her calm, even though his heart was racing and he was nearly pissing himself with fear. He turned to Marcus.
“What are those things?”
----
The brunette did seem to remember Charlie, but that didn’t net him any forgiveness for what was going on. He had somehow attracted a giant, tattooed psycho and managed to get him back to her store, so he wasn’t off the hook. She looked out the window when he told her something was out there, but didn’t relax her hold on the bat at all. Her brow furrowed. “What’s wrong with you guys? It’s kids. Trick-or-treaters. Are you on drugs?”
“They’re not fucking kids,” Marcus barked at her, still fighting with the gate. There must’ve been some kind of key for it.
Drugs made the most sense. Great. Addicts, trying to barricade her store against a handful of costumed little kids. So glad she’d agreed to work on Halloween. The gas station was one of the parent-sanctioned stops for candy, and there was a bowl of it on the counter next to the register that she’d been idly picking at, herself. She couldn’t in good conscience let the kids into the store with a crazed lunatic (or two), though. Casting a cautious look at the deaf guy, warning him with a glance not to say shit, Emma maneuvered over to the front door to unlock it and slip out.
Marcus caught the move out of the corner of his eye, but she was just out of arm’s reach for him (there were no routines that could successfully lengthen one’s limbs in a dramatic fashion, no matter how many days they were done). He grabbed at her, missed, and cursed. “Fuck! Get back here, puta! THEY’RE NOT KIDS!”
Too late. The girl was bolting towards them, arm and bat waving in the air, shouting to warn the children that the gas station was dangerous, there were crazy men inside, go back. Marcus winced in empathy at the first scream, but he didn’t go out after her. He relocked the door, and went back to the security gate, finally wrenching it free and pulling it across the glass.
---
Charlie’s mouth hung open as he stared through the window. He could see them now; they did look like kids... except for the fact that they were swarming around the girl and tearing at her flesh with their little hands. He pointed a finger uselessly at the scene as a tiny Captain America reached into her stomach and pulled out a handful of slippery pink cords. Intestines. Oh God.
“...what...” he couldn’t move. It was like what had happened when he’d first seen Marcus on the street only instead of a vague sense of hope, he was filled with a sickening feeling of dread. He was going to die. He was going to die holed up in a gas station with an ex-con when he should have been at his HOH Halloween party, dividing chips into colorful plastic bowls and assuring people it’d been no trouble at all to get them. His mouth opened and closed a few times as the certainty of his impending doom swam around in his head, making itself comfortable.
“What... the fuck!” Charlie rarely swore out loud, preferring to sign his profanities as it attracted less attention in mixed company, but now seemed like a good time for it. He felt like he was going to throw up but still, he stayed glued to the spot, paralyzed.
----
“Don’t watch,” Marcus told the kid, but the directive was ignored. The screams outside were dying now, fading off into sick, liquid gurgles. Fucked up, really, how much noise a person could make while they were being ripped apart. Once the gate was locked, Marcus physically pulled the boy away from the door. Away from the glass. Away from the sounds. There was a slim chance that the things outside wouldn’t come for them in here. Maybe they’d sate themselves on the girl, or notice someone else on foot. They liked to catch people on foot. He’d noticed that they ignored the cars. So it was possible that they’d move on, leave the building alone. Thus far, he hadn’t seen any signs of direct vandalism. Maybe being off the street was enough.
Then again, maybe not. He wasn’t wired to take those kinds of chances, hence the security gate. Still, the chance would be lost if they were noticed. He didn’t know how perceptive the things were, but letting the kid stand there ogling until he attracted their attention wasn’t smart. Marcus forced him down one of the aisles, none-too-kindly, and began scanning for some kind of first aid kid. Peroxide, rubbing alcohol, bandages, anything. Not all of the blood on his clothes was his, but some of it was. Enough to be worrisome.
As he looked, he kept glancing back at his quasi-hostage. “Stay away from the fucking windows. Don’t let the motherfuckers see you, or you’re fucked. Might be fucked, anyway.”
Ah, there. Not much, but enough to disinfect his wounds, at least. Better if he’d holed up in a pharmacy, but that would have been more of a bitch to secure. Marcus peeled off his bloody shirt and sat down on the floor in the middle of the aisle. He then tore open an overpriced bottle of rubbing alcohol and started to pour it over himself. Mostly his stomach, which was covered in what looked to be claw marks. Similar cuts were apparent over his shoulders as well, marring some very expensive tattoo work. The little shits.
---
Charlie’s face was a twisted mixture of shock, disgust and grief as he allowed himself to be pulled down under the cover of the shelves. He remained unable to move unless pushed or manoeuvred but his mouth was still working, lips rounded, puckering and unpuckering like a fish. He stared as Marcus removed his shirt and poured the liquid on his wounds without hesitation, missing the order to stay away from the windows. It didn’t make much difference to Charlie, he was about as mobile as a human vegetable at that point. He was fighting an internal battle with himself; part of him wanted to simply retreat into his mind and either wait it out or die trying and the other part urged him to take action.
He found himself wishing, not for the first time and certainly not the last, that he could hear what was going on. Were those things getting closer? Was the girl still alive? He’d never heard her screams but he could have sworn he’d felt them as he watched her being torn apart. He hoped she was dead and not just lying in agony with her guts spilling out of her. The thought set something off in his stomach and he lurched forward, dry-heaving at the cool linoleum floor.
“Oh God...” he clenched his fists, pounding one into the ground for good measure. It wasn’t necessarily progress but it was movement, and voluntary at that. He looked back to Marcus, thinking that now would maybe be a good time to start strategizing. He searched his mind for something that might be helpful but when he opened his mouth all that came out was:
“I’m deaf.”
----
That fact was certainly not helpful, though it was distracting. Dark eyes widened in surprise, and for a moment Marcus stopped tending his wounds so that he could actually take a good look at the boy in front of him. Deafness would certainly explain the weird-as-fuck accent that the kid had. Marcus had assumed foreign. He nodded, and even made a few rudimentary signs in ASL: Don’t vomit. Stay down. Mostly to show that he understood what deaf meant, although it was sound fucking advice. His eyes narrowed a bit. “You read lips, mijo?”
---
In less life-threatening circumstances, he might have been thrilled to meet a hearing person who could sign, however limited their abilities may be. At the moment, though, he was still recovering from his body’s reaction to the gruesome murder he’d just witnessed. He was coated in a thin layer of cold sweat and his arms vibrated sickeningly as he pulled himself up from his retching position. He scrubbed his hands over his face to rid himself of some of the dampness and tugged at his hair in an attempt to get blood flowing back to his skin.
With eyes still round and wild, he nodded--a response to Marcus’ question as well as an agreement to obey the signed instructions. It was difficult to just sit there, however, with no way of knowing how close those things might be to breaking through the windows, tearing down the gate and making a meal out of his wispy form. Marcus had a knife, the girl had wielded a baseball bat, Charlie was weaponless, deaf and easily breakable.
If he were to peek his head out above the rows of salted nuts and jerky they were currently hiding behind, he would see that a few of the costumed juveniles were gathering around the building already, pressing their hands to the glass and sniffing at the air like curious dogs. If he were someone else, he might be able to hear their taunting jeers getting louder as they approached; he might have some idea of just how screwed he was. But he wasn’t someone else and he couldn’t take the chance of giving away their position by looking. He had to rely on Marcus’ senses and trust that he could get them out of this. It was a tall order.
“What do we do? Can you hear them?” His whisper was harsh and frantic and a little louder than he meant it to be, not that he could tell. His eyes fell once again on the knife sitting on the floor beside the bloody shirt and he whipped his head around a few times, searching for something he might be able to use as protection. Gas stations didn’t sell full-body force fields yet, did they? Well they should.
----
Marcus put a finger to his own lips to indicate that the deaf kid should be silent, and paused for a long moment, listening. Oh, yes, he could hear them. That was the worst part about it, hearing them. The fucking giggling. Harsh, breathy snickering. Mocking laughter. The motherfuckers weren’t quiet, not when they’d found their prey. He nodded. “Yeah, I fucking hear them. They’re right outside the fucking glass. Dunno how many. Little shits found me outside North Woods Park. Thought there was four of ‘em. More like a dozen. Now... seems like more.”
For all that Marcus was still bleeding, he seemed less panicked now that there was a locked door and a steel cage between himself and the things outside. He was careful to make sure that Charlie was looking at him when he spoke, could see his mouth, and he enunciated his words very carefully so as not to have to repeat himself.
“They’re not fucking kids. They sound like kids, they look like kids... but not up close. Their fingers are all the same length, and sharp as fuck,” Marcus looked pointedly at the claw marks on his chest, then back up at the kid in front of him. “Something fucked up about their faces, too. Under the masks.”
He didn’t go into that, however. It was impossible to put what he’d seen into words. If the faces had been deformed in some way, ghoulish, it would have been easier to accept, but they were more or less human faces, just with a horrible absence. Normal teeth. One of the things had even had braces. The colored kind that were supposed to make braces more acceptable for little kids. Fun. A mouthful of wire and plastic rainbows, eager for flesh. The eyes had been blank, like a doll’s eyes. A weak fabrication of human eyes, with no emotion behind them. Even the mocking laughter seemed parroted, emotionless. As if a recording of children’s laughs had been run through some kind of filter, stripped of life in the process. The sounds were wrong. The lack of expression was wrong. And there were those sharp little talons, all of uniform length, pointing him to the conclusion that the things outside couldn’t be real children.
---
Charlie, on the other hand, was not feeling any less panicked. He was restless, clawing at his thighs and grabbing handfuls of fabric just to keep himself from checking the windows. The part of his mind that had won out was the “take action” part but he didn’t know where to even begin deciding how to act. So far his best bet for procuring a weapon lay in a plastic bucket at the end of the aisle; there was an assortment of decorative witch’s brooms standing bristle-side-up within and they looked to Charlie like real wood. They wouldn’t be much help in a battle against bloodthirsty taloned children but they were better than a plastic bag full of dip and chocolate bars.
“We can’t stay here... can we? They’ll get in! There are so many of them!” He finally took a good look at the wounds on Marcus’ chest, sucking in a breath at the thought of that happening to him. He sincerely doubted he could have made it all the way to this station from North Woods Park with injuries like that, nor would he have survived the dead weight of a petrified Charlie with those things closing in. He wanted to say thanks but thought it would seem a bit ridiculous given the circumstances.
“Are you gonna be okay? Is there something I can do?” He offered his help instead.
----
“Heh. Yeah. Fuck. Been cut up worse than this,” Marcus replied, automatically shifting into his usual bravado. It was the captive audience that did it. The kid in front of him was scared. Rightfully terrified, in fact. Which meant that Marcus had to be the one who wasn’t, for balance. It also put the power in his hands, cementing his role. Death-by-costumed-midget-demons hadn’t really been on his agenda for the night, but if it was inevitable, he’d be damned if he wasn’t going out an alpha. Whether or not his claim was true was really anyone’s guess. He did have quite a few scars that weren’t artistic over his body, as well as his face. The cuts were oozing blood, rather spurting. Though, any kind of bleeding was less than preferable.
He gave the boy a long look, noticing the restless fidgeting. Kid was liable to bolt if not given a direct task, so Marcus nodded. “Okay. Stay low, don’t go near the front. Go get some bottles of water. Plain fucking water. Nothing flavored. None of that carbonated shit.”
There was probably a larger first aid kit somewhere, behind the desk or in the office, but Marcus wasn’t sure if it would be up to code, and didn’t really want to risk being seen by searching around too much, if he could get what he needed within arm’s reach. Clean water could be used to rinse the blood away right in the middle of the aisle, between that and the rubbing alcohol he should be able to sterilize the cuts. Especially if the kid was willing to help with his shoulders. There were tubes of neosporin, as well. The area in his midsection was far beyond the help of bandaids or the thin gauze that was provided in the small, glove compartment-sized first aid kids sold there. Criss-crossed gashes cutting across his navel, seeping blood... but a pack of Always ultra thin maxi pads and an Ace bandage could be married to make one hell of a heavy-duty dressing, and then he could avoid resorting to a sewing kit. If nothing else, he was fucking resourceful.
----
He nodded once, putting on a determined face and crawling past Marcus toward the fridges. Luckily there was a stack of water bottles in plastic-wrapped packs of 12 near the end of the aisle so he wouldn’t have to open any of the sliding doors and risk blowing their cover. With his back to the shelves, trying hard not to expose himself by letting part of his body pass the solid metal of the unit, he gently slid one of the packs from its place at the top of the stack. It was kind of like Jenga but instead of worrying about the pile collapsing his concern was being seen or heard and the punishment for failing would be more severe than a mess of wooden blocks on the floor.
Shuffling over to the bucket of brooms, Charlie noticed that the aisle closest to the windows was longer than the other with the addition of the water pile. Probably he would be able to sneak around to see what the shelves on the other side had to offer without drawing attention to himself. First things first, though, and he hefted the water bottles under his right arm as he made his way back to Marcus. He snatched the knife off the floor and made quick work of the packaging, peeling it back and pulling one of the bottles out of the collection. He twisted the cap off and handed it to Marcus before pointing a thumb back toward the end of the aisle.
“I think I can get to the other side. Should I do that? There might be something that can help.”
----
Marcus had chosen the aisle he was sitting in for good reason. The alcohol, peroxide, neosporin, ace bandage... all of that was generally kept together. However, the kid had shown foresight and aptitude, grabbing a 12-pack of room temperature bottled water instead of one or two from the refrigerated section. Marcus considered, glancing around himself, and then nodded. Couldn’t hurt. “Sanitary napkins. Fucking maxi pads. Unscented. Look for boxes of hair dye, too. And any kind of fucking cloth.”
He hadn’t noticed if they’d sold any kind of novelty t-shirts in this gas station, but sometimes there were things like that. Especially around holidays. He looked away after issuing the instructions, essentially abandoning the kid to the task while he used his knife to slit the plastic over the water bottles.
---
They made scented maxi pads? He had two sisters, was close with both, and even he didn’t know that.
“Uh, okay. Pads, cloth and... hair dye.” Charlie wasn’t especially good with jokes; he missed out on all of the tone differences that went with sarcasm and exaggeration. And he didn’t know Marcus very well so there was no way for him to judge whether or not he was having his chain yanked. It seemed like an incredibly inappropriate time for it. Normally he would ask people to clarify their intentions on a demand like that but this time he just decided to look for the things he’d been told to and Marcus could snicker at his naivety all he wanted.
He let go of the knife reluctantly. Having it in his hands made everything seem less doomed and it lessened the likelihood that he would freeze up uselessly again. But if those monsters managed to get in while he was on his search, Marcus would be the first to know and he would definitely put the blade to better use than Charlie ever could.
He crawled again to the bucket and removed one of the brooms as slowly as he could; hell if he was going to do this completely weaponless. With his fingers tightening around the handle he lowered himself almost to his stomach and slid around the corner, keeping careful note of where all his limbs were so as not to knock anything over.
The aisle didn’t look very promising. Mostly boxes of soup mix, canned vegetables and dry snacks. He remembered being in there only a few minutes earlier and he cursed under his breath. There was absolutely nothing useful here. The growing crowd of tiny terrors outside was casting faint shadows on the floor in front of him but he forced himself to ignore it. If he went back empty-handed then the risk he’d taken to get there would be in vain; he had to check the other aisles. He dragged himself around the next corner and sighed in relief when he saw a long row of feminine hygiene products and snatched up a box.
From where he was kneeling he could see a door leading to the back of the shop. It was barely lit and he was willing to bet it lead to some kind of exit or maybe at least a washroom with a heavy steel door. He wondered how much noise he would make if he just slipped back there and tried to run for it. There was a chance that there wouldn’t be any of those creatures around the back and, while it had been demonstrated that Charlie couldn’t run as fast as Marcus, he was good with fences and he could probably make it over the one at the back of the station before any of those things came around to catch him.
He couldn’t remember making the decision to head for the door but within a few moments he was holding his breath and reaching for the handle. Marcus would be fine on his own... maybe. He actually stood a chance of holding his own in a fight against those things, whereas Charlie would be made into baby food the second even one of them got their claws on him. Charlie had a family, people who loved him and worried about him and who would be wrecked for life if anything were to happen to him. From the way Marcus looked, the only person who would miss him would be a parole officer. He took a final glance back before his hand settled around the knob, stomach clenching in guilt.
He saw shards of broken glass skidding across the floor and leaned over to see three terrifyingly disfigured arms grasping through a hole in the storefront window. His face paled and there was a moment of conflict; his hand was on the door, he could just go.
“Shit. Shit!” He turned around, grabbing the box of pads off the floor and swiping a pack of men’s grey socks from the shelf behind him before running to find Marcus, all hopes of stealth abandoned.
“There’s a door at the back. Come on.”
----
While Marcus had a somewhat pervasive and cruel sense of humor, he didn’t generally joke when disembowelment was a serious risk. He’d been dead serious about the hair dye. Boxes of hair dye tended to come with plastic gloves, and if he was going to let a stranger touch open wounds on him, he was going to make the guy wear gloves. While the deaf kid went scavenging, Marcus finished rinsing off the blood and sanitizing the cuts. Some of the gashes were deeper than he’d initially thought, but he still saw no reason to grab sewing kits. He just needed to dry and dress everything. Hopefully, the kid found the things he’d asked for.
The crash came sooner than expected, but he couldn’t say it was a complete surprise. Well, that answered the question as to whether the fuckers would use tools. Their claws were sharp, but not glass-shattering, so one of them had thrown a fucking rock. With glass shattered, there was nothing to mute the sounds of them. The laughing voices, not vocalizing any words he knew. The sound of the security gank being yanked on. But that had been installed to stave off rioters, so at least they had that going for them. “Fuck. KID! GOT MY FUCKING SHIT?”
Oh, that was right. Kid was deaf. Lucky him. Fuck, again. So much for laying low. Marcus forced himself into a standing position, wincing. Because he’d been liberal with the water, he’d looked like he’d just gone for a swim. Well, save for wounds. A swim through a lake filled with razor wire, maybe. At least the kid came back, and had managed to find something. Marcus signed calm down at him. Laughable, given the circumstances. He then grabbed the other items he needed, before allowing the young man to lead him to this door in the back. Sure that the gate was holding, Marcus was unhurried about all of this. Putting a heavy door between himself and the noises the things made didn’t sound like a terrible idea, however. He just hoped the door the kid had found didn’t just lead back out into the parking lot.
---
The parking lot was an option but it wasn’t the only one. Once they got past the first door there was a small, dark room with nothing in it but two other doors and a vertical ladder attached to the wall. The door in the middle was heavy with a copper mesh-enforced window through which they could see trees and street lamps; the one on the left could obviously be identified as a washroom thanks to the little sign in the middle that showed a simple drawing of two figures--one wearing pants and one wearing a dress.
“We should run,” he offered uncertainly, taking a few steps toward the exit and peering out the window at the clear expanse before him. There were none of those things back here but there would be soon and if they were leaving they had to do it fast. He shot a look at Marcus, wordlessly asking how to proceed.
----
Marcus was pleased to see the mesh. That was the main thing he’d been concerned about; that a back window might not be reinforced. When the kid made his suggestion, Marcus snorted. He almost laughed outright, but that would hurt too much. Uncertain about the accuracy of low light lipreading, he shifted his position so that the bright light from the main storefront would illuminate his face better before he asked, “How fucking old are you, mijo? Fifteen? Sixteen? You want to run, be my fucking guest. Nothing but residences - houses - in that direction. You know a house with a steel fucking gate? Go for it. Maybe you’ll luck out. None of those fuckers between you and a safer place.”
Maybe. It had crossed his mind already that there might be more of them ahead, as well as behind. Marcus didn’t know where they’d come from, but he doubted that they’d only manifested near North Woods Park. He’d expected to turn a corner and run into another pack at any moment. The last thing he wanted to do was put himself back into that situation.
“Sixteen is pretty fucking young to die. Other bitch just tried to run wasn’t much older, though, so what-the-fuck-ever. Me, I don’t know a safer place off-hand, so I’m waiting for the fucking cops and their fucking guns to show up.”
At that, Marcus leaned back against the wall and quickly went about making the dressing for his midsection to stop the bleeding. His hands were fast at it, even with the awkward angle of having to put it on his own body, instead of another. There’d probably be better light in the bathroom, but Marcus didn’t really need light for this. He felt he could do it blindfolded. Besides, given the state of an average gas station restroom, doing it in the hall was less likely to result in a staph infection. When he was finished, the dressing did limit his flexibility at the waist, but there was very little chance of bleeding through it.
----
Charlie managed to refrain from asking if Marcus had ever seen a sixteen year old in his life; it was the wrong time and the wrong place. Somehow, though, the impending doom made him want to mouth off even more. His emotions were heightened by the danger and, if Marcus was supposed to be the hero of the piece, he was the crappiest example in history. He was ready to let Charlie run out there on his own, he was more concerned about tending to his wounds than finding a safe place where he wouldn’t die before they healed and he was just generally kind of a dick. He would probably much rather be looking out for himself without the addition of the idiot deaf guy. In fact, if he had been the one to see the back door first, he probably would have left Charlie without a second thought; he would have bolted the door behind him and waited until the monsters filled up and hauled out.
And if Charlie could actually convince his brain to believe that, maybe he wouldn’t feel so guilty about almost doing the same thing. The train of thought reminded him of something, however, and he turned to bolt the door behind him. He wanted nothing more than to get out of the dark, cramped space and move on to some place where he could actually see but he wasn’t about to go alone. He exhaled harshly and pressed his back against the door, sliding down until he was sitting with his knees pushed up to his chest across from Marcus.
He fixed his eyes on the light coming from the parking lot and stayed silent as Marcus patched himself up. Every now and then he’d glance over and catch a glimpse of blood or cut flesh and wince, just imagining the pain. When the bandaging was finished he felt his shoulders relax and he crossed his arms over his chest to keep from getting cold.
He spoke, a bit indignantly “I’m twenty, and my name’s Charlie.”
----
Twenty wasn’t all that different from sixteen, as far as Marcus was concerned, but he nodded at the correction to show that he got it. “Marcus Caravahlo.”
Once he was satisfied with the bandages, his own shoulders relaxed a bit. Infection was still the main concern, but bleeding had come in a close second, and he’d done everything he could to stave off both. He reached out to tap Charlie’s shoulder, getting the young man’s attention, and then pointed at the restroom. Just a simple warning that he was going to check it out, not a direction that Charlie should follow him, though of course the deaf kid was welcome to take it however he wanted.
Marcus was confident that the steel gate in the front would hold, certain that if the things could chew through metal he’d have been dead in seconds. Their teeth were human, and their claws had seemed like bone, impossibly sharp, but not unbreakable. He wanted to check for any windows. Any exits or entrances that could be crawled through. Once secure, the gas station would be safe enough. There were provisions there, and the hope that the police would come. Maybe the things would move the fuck on once it was determined that they weren’t easy prey. It seemed just as likely as anything else that had happened. Not like he was trapped in some kind of horror movie or sci-fi picture. The real world had rules to it.
No windows in the bathroom. That was good. An overly bright fluorescent overhead light, a fucked up mirror over a fucked up sink, hand dryer, and a toilet, but no windows. The light was good, as well. He propped the door open to let it into the hallway, making it easier to hold a discussion with the lipreader. After looking out the back window for a few long moments, he tapped the other boy very lightly, just once, again just to get his attention. “They’re still working at that fucking gate, I can hear them, but we got a few coming back here, too. Keep away from the door and stay low. They see something, they get excited. They hear something, they get excited. We stay quiet and out of fucking sight, maybe they’ll get bored and move the fuck on.”
His tone wasn’t particularly optimistic on that front, but since Charlie couldn’t hear tone anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot. The things outside had already seen them, and were already excited, of course. That was the problem. They wouldn’t have broken the front window otherwise. They knew there was fun to be had inside.