章 36: Delayed Attack

(Meghan)

Seeing the maniacal Erratic rush at her, Meghan's hands began to shake. She didn't know whether to move out of the way or stand and fight. Her mind went completely blank. The distance between her and the Erratic decreased rapidly. He was now only a foot away, his outstretched hands almost close enough to touch the skin on her neck.

In her panicked indecision, Meghan took a sudden step back and jabbed forward with her spear at the same time. The uncoordinated attack sent the blade straight into his mouth and pierced through the back oh the throat. The moment she felt the impact of the blow in her hands, Meghan let go of her weapon and fell over to her right.

The Erratic missed his grab and toppled forward with the spear firmly lodged in his mouth. He hit his head hard on the concrete and let out a loud grunt. Meghan propped herself into a sitting position and saw the Erratic lying on the ground right next to her. He got onto his knees with difficulty and began biting down multiple times on the spear handle. He seemed to be confused by the thing sticking out of his mouth.

"Momo, move!" Ray called out as he ran at the Erratic.

Meghan pushed herself off the ground and hopped backwards just as Ray passed her with his weapon held above his shoulder. When he was within striking distance, he swung the cricket bat downward with his whole body and landed a devastating blow onto the Erratic's skull.

CRACKKKKK

The Erratic fell face first with Ray still holding onto the bat's handle. He got pulled forward a few inches as the Erratic hit the ground. Ray then stepped on the body and dislodged his weapon. He immediately rushed over to Meghan and bent down beside her.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah—yeah, I am." She responded, "God! That was scary…"

"Yeah, but we better keep moving. There's more coming." He said before standing up.

He reached out his hand in her direction and Meghan took it. She rose to her feet with his help and promptly brushed off the dust from her clothes.

"Alright, let's get going." Ray said.

"Wait," said Meghan and ran up to the Erratic's corpse.

She grabbed the end of her spear with her hands and pulled. The weapon came loose with surprising ease. But when Meghan inspected the tip, she realized that it had been broken off. The blade part of her weapon was still inside the Erratic's mouth.

"No… my spear!" Meghan exclaimed, "It must have broken when you hit the Erratic on the head."

"It broke?" Ray asked, "It's okay, we'll make you a new one. C'mon, let's go."

"But…" Meghan started.

"Meghan!" Ray said sternly. "I said let's go!"

The last few words came out with a cadence she had never heard from him before. More worrying, however, was the fact that he called her Meghan again instead of Momo. She quickly understood the gravity of their situation. She dropped the broken handle just as Ray grabbed her hand. He then pulled her along, not too harshly but firm enough to steer her in the direction he wanted.

At the halfway point to F block, Meghan saw a figure emerge from the corner of the building and into the dim beam of the LED flashlight. Ray stopped running immediately causing Meghan to collide hard with his shoulder.

The figure stepped forward with an unusual gait. Meghan felt Ray's grip tighten around her hand. He quickly spun around and faced the direction they had come from. The light fell upon another figure in the distance with long hair and a lopsided head.

"Fuck…" he said under his breath. "They found us."

At that very moment, both figures tossed their head up and screeched loudly in unison. Just like before, a few more howls resonated from somewhere in the distance. Meghan's heart leapt up to her throat. Two Erratics had cornered them from both sides and she had nothing to defend herself with. If the Deathless attacked them together, they would not make it out alive.

"Dammit, it was the light." Ray spat, "It led them right to us."

He then turned the flashlight off but Meghan knew that it was too late. They had already been spotted and the Erratics had relayed their location to the rest of the lot.

Meghan pressed her back against Ray's, facing the F block building. Her breathing came out quick and agitated. She fiddle with her nails frantically as she stared at the slowly approaching Erratic in front of her. Meghan didn't think she would even last a few seconds against it without her spear but she had no other choice. She just had to survive long enough for Ray to dispatch his opponent and come to her aid.

She bit her lower lip in frustration. She instantly regretted throwing away the broken handle. If she had held onto it, it would have definitely proved useful in this moment. It may not have been able to kill the Erratic but it was certainly better than being empty-handed.

As Meghan brooded over how she was going to survive this, Ray nudged her with his elbow and said, "See that big jeep a few feet in front of you?"

Meghan looked to her left and sure enough there was a dark jeep parked along the apartment border, right underneath the metal sheet. "I see it," she said.

"Climb up the hood and use the top of the jeep to reach the metal shelter above it. Pull yourself onto it and stay there. Try and get the other Erratic's attention while I finish off the one in front of me. You should be safe that high up but I'll come back and help you as soon as I can."

Though Meghan didn't like making Ray do all the work, she knew that without her spear, she couldn't be of much help. The least she could do right now was to listen to him and pray that his plan worked out as he imagined.

Without wasting any time, Meghan gave him a curt reply and sprinted towards the jeep. The Erratic in front of her gave out a loud snarl and charged at her. She managed to reach the jeep first. Meghan stepped on the panel above the number plate and climbed up onto the hood. The Erratic caught up and lunged at her outstretched leg. Meghan pulled her leg back at the very last second as the Erratic went sailing past the front of the jeep.

She quickly stood up, almost losing balance, and climbed up to the top of the vehicle on all fours. The fallen Erratic had gotten up and was now snarling menacingly at her. He appeared to be a young man with short black hair and a big piece of his left cheek missing. He scrambled over to the side of the jeep and stretched out both hands in a futile attempt to reach her.

"That right! Try and get me, you ugly freak!" Meghan called out.

She tried to keep his attention on her so that Ray had a much better chance of winning his fight. Right now the best way to help him was to buy as much time as she possibly could. For the time being, it appeared to be working. Her taunts had successfully baited the Erratic to focus solely on her. Hopefully, Ray was having the same success.

Curious about how things were going on his side, Meghan raised herself onto her knees and craned her neck to catch sight of him. She saw that he had already engaged the Erratic head-on. But he didn't seem to be winning. Every swing he took appeared to be missing. Or rather, the Erratic managed to dodge out of the way every time right before he attacked.

Meghan watched on, flabbergasted, as Ray's efforts seemed to be ineffective. He was not making any contact with the cricket bat. Every time he missed, the Erratic sprang at him. He had gotten lucky so far, managing to evade the attacks by a hair but she doubted that his luck would last forever. He had to do something before he ran out of stamina.

Suddenly something banged into the jeep and Meghan fell onto her chest, coming dangerously close to rolling off the vehicle. She lifted herself up and looked down. The Erratic rammed himself into the side of the jeep, cracking one of the windows. The impact cause Meghan to lose balance again but she managed to recover before falling over again.

'Oh shit, can't stay here' she thought and looked up, 'I need to get on top of that thing.'

Meghan waited for the Erratic to ram into the jeep again before quickly rising up to her feet. The metal sheet came up to just below her shoulders. Standing upright, it was a lot closer than she had first thought. Meghan threw both her hands on top of the sheet just as the jeep shook again from the Erratic's tackles. She steadied her wobbling feet and gave it a nasty look.

"Can you just chill for five seconds!?" she said loudly.

Meghan then jumped up and pulled herself onto the metal sheet. It wasn't easy or graceful looking but she managed it nonetheless. She quickly sat up and found Ray with her eyes. The tip of the cricket bat was on the ground, it seemed like he had just missed again. Meghan clenched her teeth and wondered how many more misses he could afford.

Right at that moment, the Erratic lunged at him and Ray pushed it back with the back of the bat. He then lifted the weapon up to his shoulder, preparing for another swing. Expecting this, the Erratic dodged away again but this time Ray didn't attack immediately. He held the weapon for a second longer than usual before slamming it down onto the Erratic's face.

The Erratic dropped to the ground and Ray delivered another blow to the back of the head, finishing it off for good. The other one beside the jeep must have heard the sound of the impact because he went barrelling towards him. Ray cocked his weapon up and, just like before, held it a moment longer than usual to bait the Erratic into dodging. He then struck diagonally across the Erratics head, killing him in one blow.

Ray then looked up and found Meghan sitting on top of the car shelter. He ran over and climbed up onto the jeep just as she had. He held out the bloodied cricket bat towards her and Meghan took it off his hands. Ray quickly pulled himself on top of the sheet and laid down flat on his chest. He indicated for her to do the same.

Meghan copied him and got down. She looked over in his direction. He was panting loudly with sweat dripping down the side of his face. "I can't believe you took out two Erratics at once." She said, "You seemed to be really struggling with the first one."

"I was…" Ray panted, "Until I figured out that they were weak to delayed attacks."

Just as Meghan was about to ask him what that meant, she heard several loud screeches from below. She looked down and saw about half a dozen Erratics standing around the corpses of the ones Ray had just killed. Each of them snarled loudly and spread out to comb the area.

"Oh great…" Meghan whispered, "How are we going to get down now?"

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