Hamsikker 3

by Russ Watts

  “I want you to kill that bastard.”

  Jonas felt his left eye pop, and Javier’s thick thumb continued to gouge out his eye. The man wasn’t going to stop until one of them was dead. Jonas saw Dakota’s dead face looking at him. He remembered Erik with his throat slit and the eaten corpse of Quinn in the courier van. He remembered Peter’s lifeless corpse attacking him, and he remembered Julie being torn apart while he watched. He remembered Freya’s scared face in the van, no more than twenty feet away, and he knew he couldn’t give in. Javier was the devil, determined to destroy everything and everyone. He wouldn’t stop until the world was dead and gone. Killing was the only way left. Hamsikker had one last promise to keep to his wife, and he only needed one good eye to ensure he kept it.

  Overcome with rage and desire, suddenly Jonas shoved his head up and bit down on Javier’s ear. Javier released his blood covered hands from around Jonas’s head, and grabbed the side of his face.

  “What the fu…?”

  Jonas pulled back, ripping off Javier’s ear in the process. He spat it out, and punched Javier on the side of the head where there was now a bloody hole instead of an ear.

  Javier screamed and jumped up clutching his torn face. Blood spewed between his splayed fingers, and he stumbled back in shock.

  Jonas stamped on the decapitated ear, grinding it into the ground. He spat Javier’s warm blood out as he spoke. “I made a promise to my wife, Javier. I’m going to kill you,” Jonas grunted. The effort to speak made him feel woozy, but he found a surge of energy just when he didn’t think he had any left. His right eye was a searing white-hot ball of pain, and his left eye was useless. He knew he would never regain sight in it, but through the blood that dripped over his one good eye he could see Javier. Jonas advanced upon him with his hands balled into hard fists.

  Javier whirled around looking for the gun he had lost. It was only a few feet away, still lying beside the graves, and he ran for it. Better to shoot now than get into another pointless fight. Jonas had maimed him for life, and he was going to pay. Javier would shoot Jonas in the gut and let him bleed to death. He intended to make Jonas watch as he throttled the life out of Freya. Now that everyone else was gone and Hamsikker had shown he would rather die than join Javier, Freya had no use. She was his last bargaining chip, and Jonas had refused it, ensuring they would both die.

  As Javier bent down and picked up the gun he felt a sharp jolt in his back between his shoulder blades. The pain was brief but all too real, and he cried out. It shot through him twice, and he spun around to see Jonas towering over him with the garden stake.

  Jonas aimed for Javier’s heart as he rammed the stake into his chest, but the metal stake hit a rib. It sliced through Javier’s flesh and ended up piercing a lung. Javier’s eyes grew wide, and he frowned in confusion as the cold metal punctured his lung, and he began to gasp for air.

  “Hamsikker, stop this, we can…”

  Jonas shoved the garden stake in as far as he could so there was nothing but the tip of it sticking out. He watched with pleasure as Javier tried to prise the stake free, but there was little to get hold of, and his hands were slippery with blood. As Jonas bent down and scooped up the gun, he saw the zombies approaching. Janey’s house was safe no more, and Jonas saw lots of dead bodies wandering from the tree line. He wanted to run, but his business wasn’t done yet. Staggering toward the combi van, Jonas aimed the gun at Javier who was trying to go the other way. With one eye dead, his vision was poor, and Jonas fired wildly, just hoping he would hit Javier.

  He missed, and the bullet spat up wet dirt at Javier’s feet. Jonas didn’t know how many rounds he had left, and with the approaching zombies, he couldn’t afford to waste a single one. He marched over to Javier who was struggling for breath and punched him in the jaw, sending Javier to his knees. Jonas kicked him in the chest, and Javier was sent onto his back, clutching at thin air as he tried to stop Jonas.

  It was all he could do to stop himself from putting a bullet in Javier’s head, but the man didn’t deserve to have it ended that quickly. Jonas was disgusted as he looked at Javier on the ground. He was no man. He was barely even human. He was pathetic.

  “Please,” said Javier, coughing up blood. “Hamsikker?”

  Jonas nodded, and then retrieved the spade with which Janey had dug the graves for her three children. He marched over to the nearest section of fencing to him, quickly digging out a shallow fence post. He hacked at a piece of barbwire, and it rapidly came free. Jonas dropped the spade to carry it back with him to Javier. The house was almost surrounded now by the dead, but he wasn’t finished with him just yet.

  When Jonas reached Javier’s body, he shoved him up into a sitting position, and drew his arms behind his back. Jonas began to wrap the barbwire tightly around Javier’s arms. It gouged into his skin, tearing open his flesh, but Jonas didn’t care. He wanted to make sure Javier didn’t find some way out, some escape from this place that was saturated in death.

  “Stop.” Javier’s breath was ragged and short. “Stop, Hamsikker, think about this. Please, you’re not supposed to—”

  “I’m not supposed to do what?” Jonas finished wrapping the wire around Javier and looked proudly at his work. Javier looked as if he was on the verge of tears. Jonas had surpassed anger and was now completely in control. “Well? You want me to take the moral high ground? Show mercy? Let you go? Join you?” Jonas raised the gun and pointed it at Javier’s head.

  Javier began to plead for his life. “God, Hamsikker, don’t…”

  “Don’t what? You expect me to show you some leniency? Like you did when you took my wife away from me? Fuck that. Fuck God. And fuck you.”

  Jonas pulled the trigger, and Javier’s neck erupted in a shower of bright red blood that spurted from his exposed artery. A single stream of blood flew in an arc over the garden as the bullet passed through Javier’s neck just above the shoulder.

  “See? I can show mercy. I’m not going to kill you,” said Jonas as he spat on Javier’s writhing body. “I’m going to let them do that.”

  Jonas picked something up from the ground by Javier’s feet and then walked away. Leaving Javier with his hands tied, unable to stem the flow of blood from his neck, Jonas went to the combi van and threw back the door. Freya was sat in a forward seat, her knees up to her chin, and her pale arms wrapped around them. Jonas leant into the van, but Freya backed away. She looked scared, and Jonas guessed his appearance wasn’t helping. He must look like one of the dead. Could Freya even recognize him?

  “Take my hand, Freya. It’s me, it’s Jonas.” He leant his hand in and tried to take hers, but she backed away, her demeanor that of a cornered mouse left with nowhere to run. She reminded him of Pippa, but Jonas could see Erik in those blue eyes of hers. There was a defiance that suggested no matter how afraid she was, she wasn’t going to meekly surrender. He brought out the item he had picked up from the garden and held it out to her.

  “It’s me, Uncle Jonas. I found your key chain. Remember? The bad man has gone now. He won’t bother you anymore. I’ll look after you, okay, honey?”

  Freya tentatively reached out for the key chain in Jonas’s hand. She took it and looked at it. Her eyes went from it to him, and then back again, confusion spreading to amazement, and then finally acceptance. She smiled when she looked at the sparkling key chain, and then she shoved it into a pocket. She took Jonas’s hand, and he scooped her up into his arms.

  “It’s okay, Freya, it’s okay.” Jonas took her out of the van, and looked around. The zombies were everywhere. Some were in the house now, some in the garden, and more approaching the van. How was he supposed to stop this? How was he supposed to keep on fighting, to find a way of surviving with a nine-year-old girl with him?

  “Thank you,” said Freya quietly.

  Those two words made Jonas realize how much he still had left in him. His body ached with a fierceness he didn’t know was possible, yet hearing Freya speak for the first time in months g
ave him a belief he hadn’t felt for a long time. He gently lowered her to the ground and passed her the gun.

  “Can you do me a favor, please? I need you to hold onto this for me. It’s very dangerous, so you mustn’t play with it, you understand? I’ll get it from you when we’re out of here.” Jonas had no idea if it even had any bullets left, and it wasn’t much use in a fight against a swarm of zombies.

  “Okay, Uncle Jonas.” Freya took the gun carefully, holding it as if it were precious china. She pushed it into her other pocket, and smiled. “Are we going home now? Are we going to get Daddy?”

  The words stung Jonas more than any of the blows he had taken from Javier. “Sure, Freya. In a bit.”

  Jonas could only deal with one thing at a time. If he told Freya that Erik was dead, there was no way of knowing how she was going to react. Right now he needed her focused and positive.

  “We’re going on a little trip. Have you ever been on a boat?”

  Freya nodded. “Once, but I didn’t like it much. My tummy felt funny.”

  “Okay, okay, well this time will be better. You’re with me now, so I’ll look after you.”

  Jonas could see no way back to Janey’s house. The only way was to go where the zombies couldn’t follow. He picked up the spade and then looked at Freya. “See that boat over there? We’re going to go on that, okay?” Jonas pointed to the jetty. “I want you to run and jump in it. I’ll be right behind you. We’ll make it a race. Ready, steady…”

  Freya took off, running straight for the jetty. “Go!” shouted Jonas. He had no intention of racing Freya, but he needed her to get to the boat as fast as possible. He had seen two runners emerge from the park, and he had to make sure they didn’t get to the jetty before he had a chance to get Freya to safety.

  Jonas jogged away from the van and stood between it and the jetty. There was no way in hell they were getting past him. As he waited for the first runner to meet him, he looked back at Javier. Blood was trickling down the man’s face, filling Javier’s open mouth as he screamed and tried to push the dead off him. Jonas watched with satisfaction as Javier was eviscerated. The zombies clawed their way into his body, ripping his skin from his bones, shredding his flesh, and burying their teeth into him. As the dead dismantled Javier’s body piece by piece, Jonas caught Javier’s eyes. They were full of terror and pain, and Jonas couldn’t help but smile.

  “That was for you, Dakota.”

  Jonas gritted his teeth, raised the garden spade, and swung. He caught the first runner square in the face. With a resounding clang, it fell to the ground. The woman was barely out of her teens, but Jonas saw only the zombie. He brought the spade down on her head, the blade slicing through her scalp, decapitating her head from her body. The next runner was a thin girl with dark blue hair, a ring through her nose, and studs through her ears from top to bottom. Her upper lip appeared to have been peeled back as if in a snarl, but the reality was that it had been ripped off. Her skin was pale, mottled with a blue-green hue, and as Jonas swung the spade at her, she tripped. At the final moment, when he should’ve been lopping her head from her shoulders, she fell down at his feet, and he swung through thin air. The dead girl grabbed a leg, and Jonas stumbled back, desperately trying to get away from her gnashing teeth. He brought the spade down on her head, smacking the flattened metal over and over until the girl finally lay still. He had been seconds away from becoming one of them, and as he looked up, he knew he couldn’t fight any more. There was just enough time for him to make the boat, and he dropped the spade and ran.

  “I beat you,” announced Freya as Jonas ran up to her. She was proudly sat in the boat, holding the gun. “I got this back out in case I had to shoot the bad people.”

  “That’s great,” said Jonas jumping down into the boat. He quickly untied the mooring and began to push them away from the jetty, aware that the zombies were chasing him, some of them already running down the wooden jetty. He had to get the boat out onto the lake quickly. If even just one of those zombies got into the boat with him and Freya, he didn’t know how he would deal with it. “Just hold on to it for me, okay? Sit down and hold on, Freya.”

  Jonas used the oar to push them out into the lake and dropped the fishing rods into the water. He heard Freya yelp, and saw the zombies running straight off the jetty into the water. He prayed they hadn’t worked out how to swim, and he sat down to row them further away from land. He wanted to rest, to drop the oars and hope the boat would navigate itself, but he couldn’t risk it. He forced his weary arms to work, pulling on the oars, and getting them further away from shore. More zombies dropped into the frigid water, and then they stopped. They began to crowd on the jetty and on the shoreline all around the lake, obscuring Janey’s house from view.

  When they were far enough away, Jonas sat back in the boat and took the chance to regain some breath. His broken eye socket was causing him immense pain, and he couldn’t keep going. It was all catching up with him. It wasn’t just the physical effort but the mental effort it took to keep going.

  Dakota was dead. His unborn child was dead. Janey was dead. Everyone he had ever known was dead. He hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. The one crumb of comfort was that Javier was dead too. It had been so good watching him die, and Jonas was quite sure that Dakota was watching, too, from wherever she was now.

  As Jonas sat back in the boat it floated effortlessly on the lake, and he was pleased Freya was quiet. He needed a moment to gather his thoughts. The shoreline was teeming with the dead. It seemed as if the whole of Thunder Bay had come out to see them off. Probably drawn by the firefight, the dead came in all shapes and sizes. Some staggered around the shore watching them; some even wading into the water. Unable to swim, the dead who ventured into the water never resurfaced. Hundreds of them lined the shore, their groans drifting across the calm water to him. Jonas slumped back, and let the rain wash his face. He just needed to sit and do nothing for a moment. He remembered so much no matter how much he tried to forget. He thought of how he had got to this point, and what had led to him becoming the man he had. Dakota, who had come with him on this journey only to die when they had been so close, was at the forefront of his thoughts. Erik, Quinn, Javier – all dead.

  Dead.

  All that was left, all that he had in the world, was Freya, a boat, and a gun. As rain beaded down his forehead and dripped from the tip of his nose, he remembered his father’s funeral. He should’ve buried him in a decent coffin. Why did that matter? Why did stupid thoughts like that pop into his mind? Hamsikker knew that this was the end of the line somehow. Where were they going to go from here? Everybody he had cared about was gone. Why was he left alive when everyone else had perished? What made him special? He didn’t want this and certainly hadn’t chosen it.

  Life.

  He didn’t even know what to do with it anymore. Dakota was looking down on him, he knew that, but he couldn’t feel her presence. He would give anything to see her one last time. He remembered making love to her, the trust and love he’d seen in her eyes when he’d proposed, and he wished he had the energy left to weep. More than Janey and her three boys, more than Freya, more than anything, he wanted Dakota back. He wanted her back so much it literally hurt. His heart pounded with pain, he missed her so much, but he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. There was no going back and no way of seeing her ever again. God, he needed to be with her. He didn’t want to talk about Dakota in the past tense. To do so would be an admission she was gone forever, and his mind was not ready to accept that yet. He could still feel her, and he wanted to hold onto that as long as he could.

  “Uncle Jonas, are you okay? I can still see the bad people.”

  Freya’s question snapped Jonas out of his dreams, and he looked at her. She was so precious, so delicate and full of sorrow, that he hated to see her like this. Looking at her, her blue eyes so very much like her parent’s, he knew he couldn’t give up now. In the second that it took to look into her eyes, he felt something s
tir. It was a hope that life hadn’t given up on him just yet. This little girl needed protecting, and giving up on her was not an option. He just needed to figure out where to go next.

  “I’m okay, Freya. I’m just a bit tired. I’ll be okay in a minute. The bad people can’t reach us here. Try and ignore them.”

  Jonas let his head fall back, and he closed his eyes. He was exhausted, and he knew he was bleeding all over the boat. He had been drowned, beaten up, blinded, and left for dead. Freya would understand if Uncle Jonas needed a rest. She could…

  A loud crack startled Jonas, and he sat bolt upright. “What was that?” He saw Freya sitting upright, the gun held in both hands in front of her.

  “The bad people. I thought they were going to get you. I wanted to shoot them, but-”

  “Don’t worry, Freya, just put the gun down. The bad people can’t get you, I told you that. We’re in the middle of a lake, and they can’t…swim. I think…I think…”

  Jonas felt sleepy suddenly, and he looked down at his shirt where red blood was blossoming. It was blooming in a circle from somewhere under his collarbone. There was a burning sensation coming from his chest, and all of a sudden he felt more tired than ever.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Jonas.”

  Freya burst into tears, and Jonas watched as she threw the gun into the icy water.

  “No, Freya, we might…” Jonas tried to sit up and grab the gun, but it was too late. He saw it slip beneath the water, and as he reached for it, he knocked the oar out of the boat. It, too, began to slip beneath the surface.

  “Damn it.” Twinkling lights danced in front of his one good eye, and Jonas slumped back into the boat. He knew they needed the oar, but he felt utterly devoid of strength. He looked down at his shirt where the blood continued to flow. He understood why Freya was sorry. She had been aiming for the zombies on the shore. It was an accident. For some reason, he wasn’t worried, and didn’t even feel much pain. It was almost comical. They had come so far since Kentucky, been through so much and lost so much, that it was ironic he should die now at the hands of an innocent child. There was still a chance the bullet had only scratched him, and Jonas couldn’t bring himself to get upset about it. With Dakota gone, and only Freya left, he had other things on his mind. “Don’t worry, Freya, it’s not your fault.”