Sammy grabbed Drew’s arm, whispered, “Are those tongues on his belt?”
He nodded. “Looks like it.”
“I know him.” Allison slid closer to Drew, kept her voice low. “He’s my doctor. He wouldn’t harm a mosquito that was feasting on him.”
“I guess he’s had a change of heart.” Drew raised his pistol in front of his chest. “I might be able to take all of them right now, but the shots might bring more company.”
Allison snapped her head around and glared at Drew. “You can’t shoot him. Whatever is happening around here isn’t his fault. If you shoot him, you’ll just be killing a sick man.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Drew glanced at her before returning his gaze to the doctor. “At this point, I’d rather shoot him than have my tongue hanging in his collection.”
Dr. Franklin and the biker moved closer.
Sammy pulled at Drew’s arm. “She’s right. Let’s just outrun them.”
Drew watched the advancing men. “You two take off. I’ll cover your backs and then catch up.”
“We can’t leave you here.” Sammy shook her head. “We have to go together.”
“They’re going to see us when we take off. I’ll stay hidden and pop off a few shots if necessary to keep them back.” Drew looked to Allison. “Stay low and move fast. Stick to the trail so I can find you.”
Allison nodded. Her hands had begun to shake again. She wasn’t built for this kind of stress. Drew didn’t seem nervous. He was alert and calculating, but not anxious.
Sammy looked like her blood pressure might make the top of her head burst. She kept shifting her weight from one leg to the next. Her fingers thrummed against the top of her tan thighs.
The doctor moved along the edge of the tall grass, watching the trees thirty feet to the left of their hiding spot. “You can come out now. We won’t hurt you.”
Allison would have found it more convincing if he weren’t holding a bloody saw in his right hand. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at the tongues dangling from his belt.
“Go!” Drew hissed. He aimed at the biker. “Now!”
Sammy jumped up and sprinted through the trees with Allison hot on her heels. They crashed through brush and branches, holding their arms up to protect their faces. Ten yards in, they found the trail and cut left, running along its packed surface.
Sammy ran with a smooth, practiced stride. Her arms pistoned with perfect form.
Allison struggled to keep up. She walked the trails a lot, but hadn’t run much in the past decade. It was clear to her that Sammy had spent a lot of time on a treadmill.
The doctor shouted behind them.
The truck’s large engine rumbled to life.
They ran on.
Allison sucked in air, her lungs already straining to get enough oxygen.
Drew hollered.
And then a gunshot cracked.
Sammy slid to a stop on the trail. Allison crashed into her, sending both of them sprawling into the dirt. Tiny pebbles bit into Allison’s palms as she put her hands out to stop her fall. She jumped to her feet and looked down the trail behind them.
The ragged whistle of her breathing made it hard for her to hear anything else.
Sammy stood and dusted off her knees and shorts. Her enormous chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. “Do you hear—?”
Three more shots came in quick succession.
They stood beside each other, listening to the sound of the rustling trees around them.
Allison looked to Sammy. “We should go back for him.”
“Give him a few seconds. He knows what he’s doing.”
Panic nibbled around the edges of Allison’s thoughts. She was running from a man who had helped her through the hardest time in her life. The idea of Dr. Franklin harming anyone was beyond absurd.
Drew burst onto the trail and stopped, his head swiveling left and right. He spotted them and shouted, “Go!”
Allison hesitated. She had to know what had happened. The thought of Drew shooting her affable doctor made her want to scream.
“Run!” Sammy grabbed her arm and jerked her around.
Reluctantly, Allison got her feet moving again.
They sprinted down the trail again, Sammy in the lead.
The giant truck rumbled down the road to their left, unseen through the trees. The sound drifted by as the vehicle drove faster than they were running. Allison wondered if they should veer to the right and put more distance between them and the road.
Drew caught up to them a few seconds later, his face red and pinched from running. “I had to shoot the biker. He had a pistol and—”
A man stepped onto the trail ahead of them, a rifle butted against his shoulder. He sighted them through a scope. “Stop right there.”
He wore the white shirt and pants of a cook. A net had corralled his hair in a bun behind his head.
Allison recognized him instantly. He worked at Sally Mae’s diner on Main Street, cooking breakfast for the first shifters. Allison went over there during her lunch break occasionally if she wanted something greasy to help with her daily hangovers. They had the best hash browns she’d ever tasted.
She waved at him and kept running. “John! Thank God, we’re being chased by—”
“Stop or I’ll put you down right now.” John squinted his left eye shut, his right watching them through the scope. “If you crazy bastards come any closer, I’ll blow your fucking heads off.”
Drew stopped and held his arms out so Allison and Sammy couldn’t run past him. “Relax, buddy. We don’t want to hurt anyone.”
They stood twenty yards away from him, all three drenched with sweat.
Allison squinted, trying to get a better look at John. His white shirt had streaks of blood stained across it. Four deep gouges ran down his left cheek, running from his temple all the way to his jawline.
“How do I know you aren’t like the others?” John stayed where he was. Blood trickled from one of his ears.
“We’re running from a couple of crazy men behind us.” Drew raised his hands and showed that he wasn’t armed.
Allison hadn’t noticed until then that he didn’t have his pistol anymore. Blood ran from a gash on the back of his right hand.
John opened his squinted eye and lowered the rifle an inch, peering at them over the top of the scope. “Allison? You haven’t gone full psycho like everyone else?”
“It’s me.” Allison stepped around Drew, standing in front of him. “Dr. Franklin is chasing us along with some other men. He had…” Allison visualized the tongues hanging from his belt. “He’s hurt some other people.”
“Did you answer your phone?”
“What?” Allison’s shoulders tensed. The question was so bizarre that she thought John must have gone as nuts as Dr. Franklin.
“Did you answer your goddamn cell phone this morning?” John raised the rifle again and looked through the scope. “Tell me right now or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
“You know I don’t even have a cell phone.”
John’s posture relaxed. The rifle lowered down to his waist. “That’s right. I forgot that you don’t bother with that tech stuff. Thank Christ for small miracles.”
Drew looked over his shoulder. “We need to get off the trail.”
“Who do you have with you? Can they be trusted?” John’s eyes flicked to Sammy’s chest and then back to Allison.
“They’re good people.” Allison moved toward him. “They’re helping me get out of here.”
John frowned. “It’s not smart to be out in the open without a gun. I just heard some shooting a few seconds ago.”
“That was me,” Drew said. “Some men are chasing us. We need to hide right now.”
John ignored him. He kept his attention on Allison. “You said Dr. Franklin is after you?”
“He’s gone crazy, I think.”
“Everyone in the whole goddamn town has gone crazy.” John turned around and waved for them to follow him. “I got a hiding place over here.”
Sammy grabbed Drew’s shoulder. “Can we trust him? He has a gun and we have nothing.”
“He’s not acting like the other people we’ve seen so far.” Drew watched John walk down the path. “I don’t know if we have much of a choice right now anyway. I emptied my pistol back there and had to throw it at the doctor. Bastard caught me on the back of the hand with his saw.”
As if on cue, Dr. Franklin shouted from behind them.
Allison shuddered at the madness in the scream. A man in control of his mind didn’t behave in such a way. “I’d rather go with John than wait for Dr. Franklin to catch up.”