Lousy Sentry

"Are you sure I'm not being set up? This feels like a set up," Cara speculated. The further they walked out into the woods the more on edge she felt, and she was already feeling prickly to begin with. Was he bringing her this far away from the house to kill her? Or did their sentries usually walk this wide of a circuit?

"I assure you, there is no conspiracy." He said in that uppish tone again. She side-eyed him distrustfully as he walked beside her, weaponless, with his hands linked behind his back non-threateningly. She wasn't fooled by his innocuous demeanor. She knew what he was capable of.

"Yeah, well, since when do people like me get assigned to night watch with your kind?" She challenged. Micajah stiffened at her words and his eyes narrowed when she juxtaposed his and her 'kind' but she didn't seem to notice. 'He doesn't even need my help, I'm probably just slowing him down,' she thought. What was the point sending her out here? Did Ethan suspect she was planning to abandon ship, and was feeding her to the wolves as a result?

"Is it because I have no ties? No known family? No one who would miss me if I went missing?" She asked, swept up in her own conspiracies. She couldn't help it if she was feeling paranoid. Micajah's hands came out from behind his back and she jerked back a step instinctively. She felt a fleeting sense of loss when the momentary look of compassion on his face was quickly replaced by ire.

"Maybe it's because you're a lousy sentry and they wanted to put you on watch with someone you couldn't get killed with your negligence." He enunciated the word 'they' the same way she did when referring to 'his' kind. She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him, jutting out her jaw in offense.

"So, is that your plan?" She asked bitterly. "To mock me to death before you sate your thirst-" A blood curdling outcry coming from the woods behind Cara interrupted her, and she spun around wide-eyed, fumbling to get her gun out of her holster. Wordlessly, Micajah placed one hand over hers to cease her fumbling, and with his other hand he placed a finger to his lips signaling for her to keep silent. They locked eyes and listened as something rustled from that direction.

Micajah leaned in slowly, his mouth coming close to her ear. The tender flesh of the bite mark on her neck tingled from the coolness of his breath as he whispered for her to stay there. Then without another word, he sped off and in a blur vanished from sight.

Standing there alone made the darkness feel darker, and Cara reached for her gun again, lifting it as carefully and as quietly as she could. Holding it in both hands pointed at the ground, she squinted in the direction Micajah had gone. 'Come on, come on, come on,' she thought to herself, urging him to come back. She didn't know how it was possible, but she felt more vulnerable with him gone, and it made her anxious.

Whatever he was chasing in the distance, it had distracted both of them from a much closer threat. Cara didn't notice the desiccated corpse rising up from the tangled overgrowth right beside her until she heard the so-close-you-could-almost-taste-it hunger coming out as a hoarse hiss in the back of its throat when its out stretched hand came in contact with her arm.

Cara jumped and fired her gun blindly as stiff boney fingers clutched at her for leverage, dragging the shriveled and emaciated flesh eater toward her by its vice grip. Its skeletal face stretched as it opened its maw wide, broken teeth chittering in anticipation for the bite.

Cara dropped the gun to use her hands to pry herself free but the zombie only dug its fingers in harder, causing her to yelp in pain. She planted her heels and leaned back, trying to leverage her weight to get loose but only succeeded in slipping on the dead leaves and dewy grass, falling to the ground.

The infected opened its arms for a bear hug as it came tumbling down on top of her, filling her ears with a cacophonous whooshing sound. Mid fall, it suddenly sprung backwards as if snapped back by a bungie cord, and that's when she realized what the whooshing sound had really been. Cara's quick and shallow breaths competed with the zombies strangled growls as her wide eyes watched him dangle in the air.

Micajah stood there holding the kicking, clawing, mindless beast in the air by its throat with one hand. It clawed relentless at Micajah's extended arm and shoulder, trying desperately to reach the exposed skin of his face without success. The anger, loathing and disgust in Micajah's expression as he stared at the other predator made him appear more menacing than anyone she'd ever seen in her life and she felt the threat of his presence deep down in her bones like a physical touch.

She looked back at the zombie again, still writhing midair, milliseconds before Micajah slammed it into the ground, and swiftly removed its head from its neck. The chittering teeth and strangled howls immediately ceased and he tossed the two parts of the carcass aside. Cara felt dizzy and lightheaded, all the blood draining from her face, and she forgot to breathe when Micajah looked over at her.

"Were you bitten?" Micajah asked, the gentleness in his voice completely clashing with the rage still showing on his face. Cara couldn't think, let alone speak, but she did somehow manage to shake her head. She wasn't bitten. Right? Her mind was numb as her hand rose to the side of her neck where two small punctures itched as they healed. This didn't make sense.

He kneeled down close to her and without thinking she closed her hand over the side of her neck protectively. Micajah's eyes followed the movement, and he sighed. Before coming any closer, he first reached for the discarded gun on the ground, and held it out to her.

"Here." She accepted the gun, and with deft fingers, put the safety back on. She wondered momentary where the round had gone that she shot off and it made the back of her head tingle to realize how lucky she was that she didn't shoot herself in her blind panic.

"We should get someone to teach you how to use that thing," Micajah said, still not raising his voice. With the crisis averted, the fog began to clear from her brain and she holstered the gun back on her belt. Micajah carefully stood up and offered his hand to help her rise. It wasn't until she took it that she noticed it was wet. Once standing she looked down at her hand. It was slick with blood, which she hastily wiped on her flannel.

"Don't worry, it's not his." Micajah said, gesturing to the shriveled up zombie he just dismembered.

"Who's is it?" She asked, concerned about contagion, and recalled that he had chased down a different target before this one showed up.

Micajah pursed his lips and squinted his eyes in response, he looked away from her as he pointed to the wet spot on his jumper where the bullet tore through.

"Like I said," He huffed. "Lousy sentry."