Dead Hunt (14 page)

He tentatively put his arms around her to
return the hug, and she buried her face in his chest and cried. He
stroked her hair lovingly as she sobbed inaudible words. He looked
around the attic space, noticing the daylight as it raced in from a
giant hole in the wall and illuminated Lauren’s lifeless torso.
Michael allowed himself to cry with Lucy.

Composing himself, he looked around again and
asked, “Paul?”

Lucy finally raised her head. “He-he left
me,” she sobbed.

Michael’s mouth moved, but she could not hear
any sounds. Was he muttering some sort of curse ,or was he simply
left speechless?

Loud banging from below startled them. Lucy
let out a small scream.

“Come on,” Michael said, leading her to the
hole in the wall.

He stuck his head out and looked around,
“This leads to a little roof a few feet below. It looks like you
can jump to the ground from there. Just remember to roll when you
hit the ground. The last thing you want to do is sprain an ankle.
All of those things are inside the house right now, but I don’t
think they’ll stay in here much longer.”

Lucy nodded.

“Take this,” Michael pulled the machete from
his knapsack and handed it to her.

Lucy looked at the machete then to Michael,
confused.

Michael passed her a bottle of water. “It’s
the only one I have, so don’t drink it all at once.”

“Michael?” Lucy started to say.

“Now listen,” Michael said, holding her face
in his hand, “keep on the road. They don’t move very fast, so you
don’t have to keep running and tire yourself out. Just stay ahead
of them. If some more come up the road, wait until the last minute,
then duck into the woods…”

“Michael?” she repeated.

“Listen, this is important!” he said cutting
her off. “Cut into the woods but keep close to the road. As soon as
you get around them, go back on the road and run until you are far
enough ahead of them. Do you understand?”

“Michael, I…”

“Do you understand?”

“No! No I don’t understand why you are
telling me this. Aren’t you coming with me?”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? I can’t do this
by myself. Michael, I need you to…”

“You can do this!” he ordered. “You have to
do this!”

She started to cry.

“Lucy, you have to get off this mountain and
warn people.”

“Come with me, Michael!” she pleaded

“I can’t go with you, Lucy.”

“Why not?”

Michael didn’t say anything at first; he just
held up his hand and pulled back his sleeve revealing a bite mark
on his forearm.

“I, I don’t understand,” Lucy sobbed.

“Yes, you do.” Michael forced a smile. “Have
you ever watched a zombie movie?”

Lucy looked at him, confused.

“What happens when a zombie bites you?” he
asked.

Her eyes opened in horror.

“You don’t know that!” she pleaded, but his
index finger touched her lips, and she stopped talking.

“We don’t know that it won’t,” he explained.
“And I can’t be around you if it does.”

Lucy looked outside, then back to Michael,
tears now running freely down her cheeks. “What are you going to
do, Michael?”

Michael looked around the attic and laughed,
“I was thinking about maybe putting a hot tub over there…”

Lucy punched him in the arm. “That’s not
funny!” she said with teary eyes.

“I’m going to do the one thing I always
wanted to do,” he said, the smile now gone from his lips.

“And what’s that?” she sobbed.

“This,” he leaned towards her and kissed her
gently on the lips.

Her eyes stared at him for the briefest of
moments then slowly closed.

No more words were said after that; there was
nothing more to say.

Lucy hugged Michael tightly in silent
protest, but he pulled her arms away and without saying a word,
begged her to leave so she could survive. There are times in
people’s lives when words are not needed. If only people could
communicate that well when their lives were not in danger.

They both knew what had to be done. She had
to leave; he had to stay. They had already said their goodbyes.

Lucy climbed out of the hole, and Michael
eased her down to the ledge below. Her tears were flowing heavy
when she rolled on the ground and looked up to Michael.

His eyes filled with tears as he watched the
girl he always loved leave that God-forsaken place and run towards
safety.

“Be safe,” he whispered as she disappeared
around the bend.

Lucy ran from the lab and down the steep
road. She wanted to put some distance between her and the zombies.
At least, that’s what she was trying to tell herself. The truth
was, she just kept going because she didn’t know what else to do.
She knew, if she stopped running away from the house, she just
might turn around and run back to it, back to Michael. She’d been
on the move for over twenty minutes when she saw more of those
zombie things coming up the road towards her. She tried to remember
what Michael had said, but it was all a blur. The only thing she
could remember was his gentle kiss.

“Focus,” she commanded her brain. “What did
he say about the woods?”

Her mind raced back over the events. She
still could not concentrate, and the new mob of zombies was getting
close. Not knowing what else to do, she turned and ran into the
woods.

Night came much faster in the trees. She was
gasping for air. Her small feet pounded in the grassy forest bed,
snapping tiny twigs as she ran deeper into the impossibly dark
forest. The quick snapping of twigs below her feet contrasted with
the slow, heavy thuds of the dozen zombie things that methodically
pursued her.

Where was the road? If only she could find
it. She needed to get out of the dense bushes and back onto the
road. The laces of her running shoe snagged a low-lying branch and
yanked her hard to the ground. Her panicked scream filled the night
air as she violently kicked at imaginary hands.

Her mind raced in fear as she kicked
viciously at the empty air. It took her a moment to realize that
nothing had grabbed her. She started moving once more and… tripped
again. Blindly, she felt the ground for the machete and her bottle
of water, and grasping them tightly, she climbed back to her feet,
gulping in air. She was moving as fast as she could move in the
dense brush, and they were gaining on her.

“They’re not tripping in the dark,” Lucy
thought out loud.

She took a few more breaths to calm herself.
Straying this far off the road had not been such a great idea.
Taking another deep breath, she forced herself not to run and
walked as fast as her tired legs could carry her. She felt twigs
digging into her left foot.

“Shit!” she cursed in a frustrated voice.

Her shoe had come off. She quickly looked
behind her but could see nothing. It was so dark. She could hear
them coming.

“Fuck the shoe!” she said defiantly.

Prickly branches continued to slap at her
tender skin; others pulled at her hair. She tripped over a fallen
log and landed heavily on a large rock. It slammed into her chest
with a vengeance. She tried to shriek in agony, but no sound passed
her lips. The wind thoroughly knocked out of her, she protested in
silence. Tears streaked her face. Panic engulfed her, followed by a
feeling of complete helplessness. With no other response available
from her exasperated brain, she curled up in a fetal position and
began to sob like a small child

The sounds behind her moved closer, and she
could hear their groans. She didn’t care anymore. Her lungs burned
and her body shivered in the chilly night air. Her chest throbbed
and her legs ached. She couldn’t run any further. She was beat. She
painfully rolled to her back on the cold mossy carpet of the forest
floor and stared up at a million tiny lights. How pretty the stars
looked. How peaceful and serene.

Lucy screamed in horror as a putrefied hand
reached down to grab her. Her mind snapped back into action and her
body followed, refusing to die on this God-forsaken mountain. She
screamed once more and kicked ferociously to escape the grabbing
hands. She scrambled to her feet and then swung her giant knife.
The sheathed blade bounced harmlessly off the zombies head. Lucy
flung the sheath to the ground and swung the knife in a giant arc.
The zombie creature never made a sound as its hands were severed at
the wrists and dropped to the ground, motionless. Lucy snapped her
leg forward, kicking the zombie. She swung the giant knife at its
head. She missed the head, but the blade found its mark deep in the
zombie’s throat. Blackish-red blood oozed from the deep cut as she
yanked the blade free. She took a mighty, Babe Ruth swing as the
zombie moved forward and collapsed. The blade missed the crumbled
zombie, the force of her mighty swing flung her around like a
child’s spin toy. She crashed to the mountain floor, her eyes
staring up at the multitude of stars once again.

“Get up!” she heard Michael’s voice yell at
her.

She sprung to her feet like a cat, her head
jerking from side to side.

“Get moving!” she heard him again.

It was then that she realized the voice was
only in her head.

“I think I’m losing my mind,” she said, but
the voice of Michael ignored her. She heard bushes rustling. She
didn’t need voices to tell her to get her ass out of there. She
hastened her pace, hoping, praying, that she could keep from
tripping, when she felt something hard under her foot. It took a
few more steps to fully comprehend that the soft, springy floor of
the mossy mountainside had turned to a hard, flat surface. She
smiled triumphantly. She’d found the road.

With sunrise still a distance away, Lucy felt
her way down the mountain road, her feet and hands warning her when
she threatened to leave the road. It was a long, slow battle
staying on the road, and the moonless night offered no help. Rocks
were cutting into her foot, and it hurt like hell, but she limped
forward.

She walked for hours, trying to ignore the
chilly air and pushing past the pain of sharp rocks digging into
her shoeless foot.

She struggled forward, and morning finally
broke.

CHAPTER 14 – The Van

Lucy quickly rummaged through the bags trying
not to look at Wade’s corpse. She found a bottle of water and took
a long drink. It was disgustingly warm, almost hot, but it quenched
her agonizing thirst. She poured some over her head as if trying to
wash away the stench, then took another long, powerful gulp.

The water trickled down her face like tears,
but she didn't have time to cry. She wanted to, she just didn't
have time. She rifled through some more bags and found a pair of
running shoes, socks, a t-shirt and more of the sun-roasted water.
She grabbed her cache then stepped outside to escape the stench
that burned in her nostrils.

Lucy lowered herself to the ground and
gritted her teeth in pain as she peeled the blood-soaked sock from
her battered foot. She took a deep breath and poured water over her
wounds. Without taking the time to let the pain subside, she used
one of the socks as a makeshift bandage to wrap her battered and
blistered foot.

She picked up her trusted machete, and her
lightly-freckled nose crinkled as she gave the mob a defiant stare.
Empty, emotionless eyes stared back at her. The corner of Lucy's
lip curled in disgust as she turned her back to them and started to
jog.

Pain shot through her foot with a jolt, and
her thighs begged for mercy. She had only taken a few steps before
slowing to a fast walk. She may have been an athlete, but all this
running around and lack of sleep was taking its toll on her petite
body. That’s when she heard it. Her heart jumped in disbelief. It
couldn’t be. She listened intently. There it was again; a ringing
sound.

“My cell phone!” Lucy cried out excitedly as
she spun around towards the van. In her desperation to find water
her exhausted mind had completely forgotten that her cell phone sat
waiting in the side pocket of her duffle bag. And, it was ringing!
That meant there was a signal. That meant she could call for help!
She was rescued!

Lucy took a few excited steps towards the
van, ignoring her screaming foot, then froze in her tracks. Her
heart sank.

Rescue was not within her grasp. Something
stood between her and rescue: the zombies.

They had already reached the van. Most of
them just staggered past it towards Lucy, but a few stragglers
still hung around the vehicle, attracted to the stench of death.
Lucy slowly walked backwards, her eyes darting side to side taking
in her surroundings as her exhausted mind raced through
possibilities.

“Double-back through the woods,” she thought
excitedly. “No, that won’t work,” she corrected herself. “The
zombies in the van might not leave, and then I’ll be
surrounded.”

Her hand clenched the machete handle. “Kill
the fuckers. Kill every last one of them!”

“There’s too many,” the other side of her
brain told her. A war raged inside her mind: her emotions and
intellect battled for dominance.

Intellect won.

It was hopeless. Help was perhaps just a
phone call away, but it was a call she was not going to be making.
A loud crack jolted her mind back to the task at hand. She looked
from side to side for the source of the sound but saw nothing. She
felt something tapping the top of her head. She looked up as tiny
droplets of water kissed her face. The intensity increased abruptly
as a heavy rain blew in. Moments later she was as wet as a
trout.

She laughed sardonically. “Figures.”

And, like so many times before, Lucy turned
her back on the approaching mob and walked away, leaving her cell
phone, and her last hope of rescue, behind.