State of Decay✔️

Chapter 31: Darkest Darkness

They managed to make it to the Tartan Mart without any real trouble. Neither of them said anything the whole way back, both Marcus and Maya lost in their misery and sorrow, in thoughts on the horror that had just befallen them. Marcus pulled up next to Jacob's pickup, which was empty now, and killed the engine. Then, he simply sat there. They both remained motionless, staring straight ahead through the dirty windshield.

Several minutes passed in a slow, horrible silence.

Marcus jerked as someone tapped on the window. He looked over and saw Lily. She looked terrible, her face blackened from soot, her eyes wide and bloodshot from crying, her hair and clothes a mess. She was hugging herself fiercely.

"What happened?" she asked quietly, barely audible through the window and the closed door.

With a sigh, Marcus opened the door and stepped out. Maya joined him. "They're all dead," he replied simply.

"Oh. Good," Lily said, sounding distant.

"How's Jacob?" Maya asked.

"He's fine. He's sleeping. We gave him a bit of morphine...what do we do now?"

"I need a minute to think," Maya replied softly.

They left the parking lot and went into the Mart. Marcus looked around. He spied everyone in his crew...everyone left alive, that was. Jacob was lying on a double-wide mattress pushed up into one corner, next to a couple of magazine racks. He was lying on his side, his shirt off, a bloodied collection of gauze wrapped around his midsection. Karen sat next to him, her knees hugged to her chest, rocking gently back and forth, her gaze suggesting that she was totally gone. Ed was leaned up against the front counter, a bottle of water in his hand, his own gaze distant and lost. Maya started pacing and Lily went to sit with her brother and Karen.

Marcus also spied two other people who made up the three-person team that ran the Mart. Logan, who normally looked on the edge of anger and physically intimidating, instead looked defeated and exhausted, smoking a cigarette with a haggard expression. Daisy stood next to him, both of them leaning against a far wall. Marcus felt control reasserting itself again. He knew that they had to do something, that they had to move on. For now...he just wanted a minute of fresh air. But he decided to multi-task.

He caught Logan's eye and nodded his head towards the front door. Logan looked at him for a moment, then turned, said something quietly to Daisy, who nodded, and moved to join him. "Gonna step out for a minute," Marcus said.

"Okay," Maya replied, still deep in thought.

He and Logan stepped out front. Logan took a long pull on his cigarette and let the smoke out in a thick pall.

"I heard what happened," he said, quietly. "I'm sorry...what happened to the Wilkersons and their nasty crew?"

"They won't be bother anyone anymore," Marcus replied.

"What does that mean? Did you shoot one of them? Scare them?...kill them?" he asked.

"None of them will be bother anyone anymore," Marcus said firmly.

Logan nodded. "Huh...well, good riddance to bad rubbish," he muttered.

"We're leaving Spencer's Mill," Marcus said after a long moment. "We're going to Marshall. There's this big trucker place we were scoping out. It looked good. Huge, fenced in, lots of room for expansion. Only thing is, there aren't all that many of us. We could really use your guy's help, and your resources," he explained.

For a moment, Logan said nothing. Then he sighed. "Sophie died earlier today," he said quietly. "One of those long-armed freaks got her. We killed it but...ugh, the damned thing ripped her in two. So it's just me and Daisy now, which sucks, because honestly, Sophie was the only one of the three of us that really had our shit together. She ran the Mart. On top of that...we're running kind of low on resources. We don't have much."