“Come on, boy!” I said, hustling Boomer out the door.
We ran around the south end of the camp and headed for the docks. Everyone was on the north side near where Karina was yelling. She was still going at it, so I figured she hid somewhere and they were looking for her.
I made it to the boat ramps and saw that there was only one person on guard duty. It was a woman named Shelly who we had rescued from the post office.
I almost ducked so she didn’t see me, and then realized she wouldn’t know any better. I was completely geared up and with a zombie loose in the camp, I’m sure she wouldn’t suspect anything. Besides, I was a Runner. I left the camp all the time. It wasn’t like I needed printed orders to go anywhere.
“Hey Shelly,” I said, breathing heavily from my run.
“Hey Christian,” she replied with stress in her voice. “What’s going on? I heard there was a zombie attack and now someone is screaming.”
“There was,” I said as I pushed Boomer into one of the two remaining boats. “They are getting it under control now.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, though she didn’t make an attempt to stop me.
“After the search party. They radioed back and said they wanted Boomer there,” I lied. “Mind opening the gate and closing it?”
She nodded and moved to the winch that retracted the gate in the river.
I smiled and jumped in the boat. I was worried that starting the boat engine would attract people in the camp, especially since Karina’s screaming had ceased, but dared it anyway. Rowing would have been too slow and I didn’t know how long it was going to take for Campbell and Pitman to show up to the docks. Once I was gone, though, they would be well behind me. Pitman alone weighed as much as Boomer and I put together. Their boat would be slower.
I started the engine and gave Shelly a half-hearted smile as she opened the gate.
In seconds, I was heading south on the St. Johns River at full speed. It wasn’t long before the docks to the camp were out of view, so I didn’t know if anyone was following me.
DJ said that Fish was headed to the crossroads, one of our regularly used navigation points when we were out hunting. It was about three miles south on the river and only a few hundred yards from the shore. They weren’t roads, but paths in the foliage that had been created by four-wheelers that intersected. Near them was a small camp that we would use to clean our kills.
The boat cruised along, and I steered as well as I could with my left elbow. My right hand was scribbling a barely legible message on the paper I had grabbed. The thick magic marker bled through it easily.
Boomer was sitting at the front of the boat, enjoying the wind blowing in his face. His tongue was out with slobber dripping and whipping back into my face.
“Boomer, come here,” I ordered. He ignored me at first. I called to him a couple more times and he sadly stepped down from the front of the boat and hopped to the back.
I took out some duct tape and attached the now folded piece of paper to the back of Boomer’s harness. After I felt it was secure, I cracked the glow stick and taped it to the top of the paper and secured it to his harness as well.
Minutes passed and I pulled the boat up to the shore near the crossroads. On the bank were the three other boats from the search part. All were empty and they hadn’t left anyone behind to guard them. That wasn’t abnormal. We hadn’t seen another living person out here since we fortified Camp Holly. The concern that someone was going to steal one of our boats was slim.
I hobbled out of the boat and helped Boomer to the sand. My shin hurt. I pulled my pant leg up and saw some blood seeping through the gauze. My run to the docks must have irritated the wound.
It didn’t hurt that bad, though, and I marched up the beach and into the grass.
This part of the swamp was more like marshlands. Sporadic waterways mixed with islands of trees and wet, grassy areas. But there was equal amounts of dry land, too, which made navigating the terrain pretty easy.
Boomer and I followed the path leading to the crossroads.
I wasn’t a true hunter. I saw fresh tracks, but quickly lost them when I hit the four-wheeler intersection. Some of the boot prints disappeared into the grass, while others moved east down the path. I also didn’t know how old the tracks were. They could have been from Gardner’s hunting party that had gone missing.
This is why I had my backup plan if I didn’t think I could find which direction the search party went.
“Come here, Boomer,” I whispered.
He moved closer to me as I took a knee and whipped out Fish’s dirty shirt.
I wasn’t sure how this worked. I knew there were dogs specially trained to follow scents, but I wasn’t sure how much of that was a natural instinct, nor did I know if Boomer would understand what I was trying to do.
He didn’t at first.
“Come on, boy,” I said, shoving the shirt into his snout. He backed away. I didn’t blame him. Fish’s stench was pretty ripe on the garment.
After a few minutes of prodding the confused canine, he started to sniff around the ground. I think it finally clicked in his head what I was trying to do.
“Go find Fish,” I told him. He continued to sniff, blowing dirt up as he exhaled until he made it to the grass.
Boomer glanced back at me and whined.
“Do you have it?” I asked him, approaching the grass.
He came over, sniffed the shirt in my hand again, and then went back to the grass. I wasn’t sure if he truly understood what I wanted, until he sniffed the ground again. He paused and sniffed the air. Boomer then galloped into the tree line.
“Damn it,” I cursed. This was something I had worried about.
“Wait up!” I hissed, not wanting to yell out. Besides the possibility of zombies in the area, I also feared coming across a pack of wild dogs or wild pigs. Both were equally as dangerous.
I darted into the woods after Boomer, but after a few minutes of jogging, I had lost him.
“Shit!” I cursed. I had to think, but I didn’t know what to do.
I could start calling out for Fish. After all, they couldn’t be too far ahead of me. They had left the camp about forty minutes earlier, but the problem with large groups of people was it took time to organize and plan. They may have sat on the bank for twenty minutes trying to figure out what to do.
I crossed that hypothesis off my list. After all, Fish wasn’t much for letting others debate his plans. He probably had them moving the second they hit the beach.
I kept walking, keeping my AR-15 up and at the ready just in case.
Minutes ticked by as I made my way through a group of trees.
“Christian?” a voice said from off to the side.
I spun around, aiming my rifle at the source.
Private Trent was standing about ten feet away. His rifle was up as well, but he quickly lowered it upon recognizing me. Behind him, another man named John approached.
John was one of three people we rescued, including the recently deceased Kyle. He was a pretty good shot and an average huntsman, which put him in Kolin’s Hunter Team. He wore a camouflage hunting cap and he was as gritty as they come.
“What are you doing here?” Trent asked.
I lowered my rifle. “Where is everyone?”
“We split up into groups,” he replied. “I’m with Cecil, John and Rob.”
“Where is Cecil now?” I asked hurriedly.
“He said he heard something. He and Rob went to go check it out,” John answered in a thick country drawl. He walked past Trent and sat down next to a tree, letting out a deep breath. “We ain’t seen no sign of those hunters.”
“Listen to me,” I said quickly, “Cecil is a traitor. He killed Private Manns and others are dead and hurt because of him. We need to make our way to Fish. Do you have a radio?”
“What? Cecil killed people? Manns?” Trent asked, confusion draping over his face.
John started to stand. “Is
this some sorta joke?”
“We don’t have radios, Christian,” Trent said. “Cecil has the only one in our group.”
“Shit,” I turned around, scanning the woods. “We need to—”
A popping sound followed by a short grunt stole my attention. I quickly looked back and saw John clutching his chest and sliding back on the tree.
“What the—” Trent began but then something smacked him in the neck. He fell over, hopelessly trying to stop the blood gushing out of the wound.
I started to bring my rifle up when something metallic struck me on the side of the head. I fell to the ground, an explosion of stars filling my view.
I tried to move, but my brain struggled to send the commands to my limbs.
My body was flipped over and then a tremendous weight fell on my neck. I couldn’t breath and my chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it.
I blinked, trying to clear my vision. A pair of jeans was blocking my view. As my mind struggled to make sense, I realized it was a knee that was on my throat.
Lack of oxygen threatened my sight again, as things began to get cloudy. My AR-15 was detached from its sling and tossed over to the side. My Glock 9mm soon followed.
Then, the weight was lifted. I grabbed my throat and took a few deep breaths. The haze started to lift, and Cecil’s face came into view.
“Hey Christian,” he grunted as he threw a fist and hit me in the face. I could feel warm blood trickling down my collar.
Cecil grabbed me and slammed me against a tree. He raised his pistol to my temple. The oil filter on the end was cold and oddly soothing to the otherwise pounding headache I had.
“Cecil!” I choked. He threw his elbow into my jaw and my knees buckled. He grabbed me and pinned me back up against the tree.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said as he backed away.
I tasted copper as blood pooled in my mouth. I spit on the ground. “I know everything.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” he sneered.
“I know about your brother. I know about Chad and how you killed Manns.” I coughed up some more blood, and gritted my teeth. “And I know you are planning to kill all of us.”
Cecil tilted his head to the side. “You think you know everything, don’t you? You think you knew my brother?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t know him, but I know he was going to kill my friends! I didn’t have a choice.”
“Well, let me tell you about the man you killed.” Cecil paced back and forth.
“Charles was a good man. He spent two tours in Iraq, saving soldiers’ lives as a medic. That’s right,” he nodded. I winced, not wanting to hear about the man I killed. “He was a veteran just like you. He comes home, becomes a firefighter. Finds a girl, gets married, has a little boy. Yeah, he was a damn good man!”
“You think I wanted to shoot him?” I cried. Cecil responded with a kick to my stomach. I toppled over, but the former policeman picked me back up, resting me against the trunk of the tree.
“I’m not finished!” he grunted. “You’re going to hear what you’re responsible for!”
Cecil grabbed my vest and pulled me face-to-face with him, his gun pointed at my neck. Spit flew from his lips onto my cheek as he continued his tirade.
“So, my brother’s wife falls to the plague when the shit went down. I rescue him and his son. We hide for days until we come across a couple of other people. We help them, save them. Save others. We build a refuge at the airport.”
His forehead pressed against my temple and his jaw shook with anger. “Then one day, he returns from a run and tells me how some asshole started shit with them. Yeah, that was your buddy, Chad.”
Cecil backed up and pointed his pistol at my head before he went on. “A few days go by and suddenly, my brother and his crew don’t come back to the hangar. I go out, find his dead crew, and then see my brother walking around as one of those fucking dead-heads!”
He shook his head. “I had to put him down permanently! Then, I have to go back and tell his son that he was murdered. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
“I’m sorry…” I exhaled. “I’m sorry about you brother. I didn’t want to shoot him,”
“Shut up!” he roared. “I don’t want to hear your sniveling, you piece of shit!”
I closed my mouth. The haze had almost completely faded by now, but my head was still pounding and my stomach felt like it had a hole in it.
He cocked his head again, as if he was slowly going mad. “You think it’s just about my brother? No… See, after I lost him and his crew, I had to take people with me on scavenging runs that never even shot a BB gun before. One guy gets bit, turns into a scab. He brings a pack of those animals back with him to our hangar. They slaughter everyone!”
He moved closer to me and pressed his pistol to my temple. “I heard them tear apart my nephew. I had to listen to him scream for his dad, the man you killed!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting a bullet to leave his gun and take half of my head off, but it didn’t happen. He backed up, still pointing his pistol at me.
“You’re going to want to hear this,” he grinned wickedly with the radio in his hand. He pulled the earbud from his ear and disconnected it from the radio.
Fish’s voice came through the speaker in mid-sentence. “…Dobson, you there?”
“Dobson, go,” the Major’s voice returned.
“No luck so far,” Fish said dryly. “Recommend everyone meet up at the crossroads. We can come up with a new game plan.”
“Roger that, First Sergeant. See you in one-five mikes,” Dobson replied.
“Cecil, you get that?” Fish asked over the radio.
Cecil gave me a stern warning with both his eyes and pistol, and then spoke into his radio.
“Roger that,” he said as he pressed the transmit button. “Trent and I heard something a little bit down the road. We’re going to check it out. Probably just a wild pig or something. It might be a little bit until we meet up.”
I could have called out to Fish while Cecil was transmitting, but there was no guarantee that Fish would have gotten the message and Cecil would have definitely shot me.
“Roger that, Cecil,” Fish said evenly. “Fish out.”
I thought about rushing Cecil, but that idea was futile. I wasn’t much of a fighter, and Cecil had twenty years of police training. He easily subdued me after his sneak attack.
“What are you going to do to them?” I asked, already coming to terms with my own death.
I hoped that keeping the one-sided conversation going would delay the inevitable. I needed time, but I didn’t know what for. All I knew is that as long as he talked, I wasn’t dead.
“Oh, their fate is coming, Christian. I guess that you being here tells me that Manns was stopped before he could cause an outbreak in the camp… too bad.”
“Why would you want everyone to die? There are kids there!” I said furiously.
“My nephew was a kid! Did you give a fuck about him?” he said, flushing with renewed anger. A lightbulb seemed to go off in his head. “How did you figure it out?”
“I found Chad’s cell phone at the dentist office. I know how you tortured him. How you brought a zombie in to kill him,” I said accusingly.
Cecil raised his eyebrows. “Kill him? No, I didn’t kill the piece of shit…”
“But…” I started to say, but a realization hit me. “You… you turned him into a scab?”
Cecil grinned.
“Why… why would you do tha—” I stopped, grasping what Cecil had planned. “Chad is here.”
I wasn’t asking a question. Cecil wanted Camp Holly to fall like the aircraft hangar he and his brother had fortified.
I gritted my teeth together. “How did you do it?”
Cecil smirked. “I infected Chad with some zombies I lured to the dentist office with a few poppers. That’s also how I got them to surround the place before you guys tried to come and resc
ue me.”
“Why didn’t Chad come after you? When he changed he—”
“You must think I’m an idiot or something,” Cecil interrupted. “After he was infected, I pulled him on top of the roof. There was a ladder and access in the back store room. He wasn’t going to come after me with dead-heads surrounding the building, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get back through that access hatch. I fixed that door good.”
Movement caught my eye. I looked over at Trent and saw his body quiver. Cecil followed my gaze.
“I wish I could infect you, but it seems that is impossible.” Cecil raised his pistol and shot Trent, who was slowly turning into a zombie, in the forehead. He re-aimed and did the same to John.
“I was going to do you and Fish when you guys came to rescue me,” Cecil continued, approaching me again. “But Jenna was with you. So, I figured I would wait on Chad, and whatever other scabs he picked up on the way, to start picking off your people. When Gardner’s hunting party went missing...”
“You thought that was your chance,” I finished for him.
Cecil nodded. “Now you’re getting it.”
“So when we’re all dead… then what? What if Chad comes after you?” I shook my head. “You’re putting yourself in just as much danger.”
“Danger is all there is anymore, Christian. But not for you. Soon, you won’t have anything to fear.” Cecil pistol whipped me across the face. Another explosion of stars and pain erupted as I crashed to the ground.
I reached down to push myself up, but Cecil’s boot caught me in the ribs. The blow knocked the wind out of me and I rolled onto my back.
Something hard was rolling around in the blood that was pooling in my mouth. I spit off to the side and saw one of my back teeth land in the grass. When I turned back around, Cecil was standing over me, pistol pointed at my face.
I knew he was going to pull the trigger now. I tried to think through the waves of pain. I had to say something to keep him from killing me.
“Cecil,” I began, but something had caught his attention.
With his gun still pointed at me, he turned his head to the right. I saw his eyes start to go wide and he lipped the words “What the…”
The Hunt Chronicles (Book 2): Revelation Page 30