By then the cold had driven everyone inside except the gate guard, Colleen White, who was pale and shivering. She perked up at the sight of Jenn, but was slow to open the gate as she stared. “How’d you do it? How’d you know what was going to happen? You don’t have the third eye. I’ve known you since I was like seven and you never…”
“Just get out of my way,” Jenn said, pushing through the small gap. She wound through the spear maze at a jog and then disappeared into the forest at the top of the hill. Although she was angry at the way the Coven had treated her, she didn’t have time to wallow in teenage angst.
Her survival depended on her ability to keep a clear head. The moment she stepped into the forest, her pent-up emotions drained out of her, leaving her senses open. Right away she became aware of a creature sixty yards off. It was loud, snapping branches and shuffling through the leaves that crinkled beneath the thin layer of snow.
Jenn shifted to her right, angling away, finding herself heading towards the Marin Headlands where she usually set out her traps in the thin scrub on the hills overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and the entrance to the bay. On clear days she could see Alcatraz Island and all of San Francisco. From that far, the city was still pretty on warm summer days and she enjoyed watching the sailboats plying the waves.
With the snow, Jenn couldn’t see the ocean pounding the rocks below her, let alone seeing the city or the Calypso out on the bay. The boat was the real reason she was there. First there had been the deaths of Remy and Ken, then Aaron and Jeff had infections.
“And now something bad has happened to the traders,” she said to herself. There was evil in the air. In her mind’s eye she had a perfect picture of the Calypso getting broadsided by a rogue wave and capsizing or running into another school of half-submerged zombies, or getting lost in the snow and hitting Shag Rock.
For all she knew the boat was aiming right for the headlands. Against her will, she moved to the edge of the hill, which ended at an almost vertical drop. She looked down, but could see nothing.
“I’m being silly,” she told herself, trying to ignore the butterflies of fear in her belly.
To counter the fear, she decided to check her traps even though she knew full well that they hadn’t been out long enough. She went to each and was happy to find she had snared a four-pound cottontail. It had strangled on the wire but was still warm. Jenn reset the snare, thinking that it would make a perfect dinner for two. “But who’s the second person?”
She was dwelling on that as she went on to the next snare and found it missing completely. That was twice in two days. A part of her began to analyze what it could mean; she shut that train of thought down. There were so many signs that she began to worry she would become paralyzed by them all.
Hanging the cottontail from her belt, she slung the M4 across her back, keeping her crossbow out and at the ready. She should have gone back to her apartment to clean the rabbit and get it marinating, instead she found herself working her way northeast around the curve of the bay heading towards Pelican Harbor.
It was a twenty-minute walk and by the time she stood on the last hill overlooking the harbor the snow had died away and there was the Calypso tacking into a light wind. It was a half-mile out and moving slowly towards the harbor. It was in no danger now. She breathed a sigh of relief thinking that she had dodged some sort of bullet regarding the signs.
“Maybe we’re in the free and clear. Nothing else is going to happ…” Her whispered words dried up as she saw some of the Islanders coming from the restaurant. One had stuck a faded pink and white table cloth on a broken table leg and was waving it as he walked down to the dock. They were trying to signal what the wind situation was close to the docks.
“What the hell?” Jenn asked. Instinctively, she backed behind a tree. Waving a flag, no matter what the reason, was an idiotic move. Zombies had bad eyesight, but they weren’t blind. Jenn wished she could scream at them to put the damned thing away because, sure enough, there came a moan.
The dead had been hiding from the snow in one of the large homes that overlooked the harbor. Now that the snow was gone they were coming out to feed and they hadn’t missed the flag or the people. The low moans of the beasts were being drowned out by the wind as it picked up and Jenn saw that if she didn’t do something to warn the little group of Islanders they would be trapped on the dock.
She jumped up and started waving her hands to get their attention, but they didn’t turn around. In desperation, she picked up a rock and chucked it at the zombies plodding through the high grasses bordering the frontage road. Her arm wasn’t the best and yet because she was up on the steep hill the rock made it to the road and bounced noisily.
Unfortunately, the rock bounced towards the dock and the zombies weren’t distracted. Jenn was forced to do the unthinkable. “Hey!” she screamed at the top of her lungs just as the zombies stumbled onto the boardwalk that ran along the edge of the bay. “Hey! Up here!” Her voice cut through the wind and not only did the Islanders turn around, the zombies did as well.
They turned and charged. There were four of them coming for her. She wasn’t exactly afraid. They were fifty yards away and downhill from her; she had plenty of time to get away. Turning to run away, she discovered that her arm-waving had attracted a true monster. It was the one zombie that everyone feared; the nine-foot tall Frankenstein. It took Jenn’s breath away, and when it roared, her stomach turned to water and her legs to rubber.
Chapter 12
Jenn Lockhart
It wasn’t just Frank’s tremendous size that rooted Jenn in place. It was the fact that he looked almost prehistoric. His skin was rough and strangely sandy as if it had been dipped in cement and his huge head and wide shoulders were draped in dried seaweed making it look like he had crawled out of the primordial ooze that had formed the earth.
When it roared Jenn whimpered. She had never been so afraid in her life and hers had been a life filled with terrible moments.
Frank was uphill and when it lumbered down at her it moved faster than any zombie had ever moved. It covered twenty yards in seconds. Jenn was so petrified with fear that only at the last moment did she scream and try to dodge out of the way.
As big and ferocious as he was, Frank was still a zombie. His reactions were slow and too late he tried to stop. There was no stopping seven hundred pounds on a dime and his momentum carried him on down the hill.
The creature’s arms were like those of a gorilla and even though Jenn threw herself to the ground his long fingers snagged the strap of her M4 and she found herself tumbling down the hill along with Frank. Snow flew as the sky and earth traded places so fast that everything was a white blur.
Her head struck a rotted tree stump, making her eyes cross, a rock hit her mid-thigh and her leg went immediately numb. Somehow she managed to hold onto her crossbow even as he smashed the breath out of her.
Jenn was one great bruise when the two finally rolled out onto the frontage road. She tried to roll over but discovered the strap of the M4 was spun around Frank’s hand and when he stood, Jenn was lifted off the ground. If she could have breathed, she would have screamed—and she would have died.
As it was, the creature’s face was covered in snow and he didn’t even realize she was attached to his hand. He felt something on it and whipped his arm back and forth, sending Jenn flying. She landed with a thwap on the wet pavement and immediately struggled to her feet, fighting to ignore the waves of dizzying pain that wracked her.
She had to run. She had to hide. The four zombies were charging up from the docks and Frank was tearing at his face trying to clear the snow. She only had seconds to get away—six seconds to be precise—until Frank saw her and came lumbering after her with tremendous strides that ate up the distance between them. Unimaginable fear bubbled up from inside her and it came out in a blubbering whine as Frank drew closer and closer with every step.
The only cover anywhere near her was a hedge that had gone wild
and was now a wall of sticks with a few straggling leaves holding on. Jenn dove into a gopher gap and crawled through it. A few feet to her side, Frank blasted through the hedge as if it were made of straw.
Jenn reversed direction, ducked back through the hedge and nearly ran into the four zombies that had come up from the dock. There was nowhere for her to go except back under the hedge as the dead attacked from both sides. The hedge was destroyed all around her and debris rained down. She curled into a ball and clamped her eyes shut, knowing she was going to die and not wanting to see it coming.
The ferocity of the attack was unimaginably loud and explosive. The bush next to her head was pulled out of the ground, roots and all. She squinted up to see Frank standing over her. He had a hold of two of the other zombies and as she watched, he drove their heads together.
They exploded like overripe melons, raining black blood down on her. The two beasts dropped, one landing on Jenn, trapping her beneath its stinking carcass. Frank charged the other two, swinging huge fists at them. Thud, thud, thud! His fists pounded them as Jenn squirmed mightily to get out from beneath the corpse.
Frank knew only eternal hunger and rage. He never let anything get in the way of his prey, including his own kind. Right above Jenn, Frank beat the two zombies into a mush.
He was still at it when she finally pulled herself free and crawled away toward a dilapidated old house that sat behind what was left of the hedge. The pain coursing through her was terrific. She tried to get up and run, but the best she could do was a wobbling hobble.
At first Frank didn’t see her escaping. He tore at the hedge in fury, uprooting the bushes one after another and flinging them aside.
Jenn might have got away, only as she opened the front door of the house, it fell on top of her. It had been hanging by a rusty hinge which chose that moment to break. Glass shattered, making enough noise to cut through Frank’s fury. He turned and, seeing her struggling under the door, charged.
Terror gave her the strength to heave aside the door and she half-ran, half-crawled up the stairs that ran up from the main lower hall. Nothing about the house registered on her panicked mind. She had no idea how many floors it had or what sort of furniture was scattered about or who the smiling people were in the pictures that hung on the hall. The only thing on her mind was Frank.
The beast was a horror that completely filled the staircase behind her, cutting off the light from below. He had to duck his head as it thrust himself upward and with each rake of his claws half a dozen balusters were sheared away from beneath the bannister. He tore his way upward, coming on so quickly that his claws slipped through her long hair as she stumbled on the second-floor landing.
With her legs still threatening to give out beneath her, she held onto the railing, limping for the next set of stairs leading up, but with one swing of his huge arm, Frank tore the railing away shaking the entire house down to its foundation. She shrank against the wall, using it to hold herself up before throwing herself onto the next and last set of stairs.
The immense creature was right behind her when she made it to the third floor where there was nowhere to run or hide. She was trapped. The best she could do was rush into a bathroom and slam the door behind her like some willful teenager.
Holding in a whimper, she backed away from the door as it stomped down the hall. The sound of each step boomed throughout the house. The floor shook and the mirror rattled. A shower tile that had been on the verge of falling for months now came loose, clattering into the bathtub.
A second later, part of the door blasted inwards as Frank attacked it with one of his sledgehammer-like fists. He stuck his head to the hole he had made and peered at Jenn with one huge grey-filmed eye. Jenn was trapped, but not utterly defenseless. During all of this she had kept hold of her crossbow and now she leveled it and aimed.
She couldn’t miss. The bolt went three inches deep into his forehead and had the effect of making Frank really mad.
His fury had been horrendous before, but it was nothing compared to what happened next. Frank turned the door to kindling with his bare hands. As he did, Jenn smashed out the screen covering the window and climbed out onto the snow-covered roof, which was slick as ice; one slip and she would shoot down the shingles to a thirty foot drop.
Once again, she was trapped.
Thankfully, there was no way Frank would be able to get through the small, slanted bathroom window. He simply couldn’t, though he tried. Like a giant, hideous version of Winnie the Pooh, he got stuck.
“Ha!” Jenn hissed. She sat down on the point of the roof, braced the bow and pulled back on the cable. She loaded the bolt and shuffled along the tip of the triangular roof moving as close to Frank’s one waving arm as she dared. Taking a steadying breath, she shot the thing once more in the head and now there were two bolts sticking out of it.
Still he didn’t die. His rage reached a cataclysmic point and as Jenn sat down to reload once more, he strained with all of his strength. There was a cracking sound from the side of the house right before it came apart. Jenn didn’t know walls could come apart. Frantically she reloaded the crossbow as two-by-fours snapped like pencils and sheetrock disintegrated.
Frank enlarged the hole and climbed through. Jenn had only one shot left and she made sure it counted. Waiting until the beast was almost on top of her, she shot it through the right eye. Dropping the crossbow, she tried to scramble back but her foot slipped. Before she knew it she was skittering down the frozen roof, a scream in her throat, her nails leaving ten perfectly even grooves in the snow.
Above her, Frank reached out one of his long arms to grab her hand. He came up just short, and with his weight too far forward, he slipped as well, sliding right at Jenn. She felt she had reached the limit of fear. Death was in front and behind, above and below. Flailing was all she had, even as she shot off the roof.
Both hands hit the lip of the gutter and held on even as the gutter split in two and let go. The screws holding it in place popped out in a long string, sounding like machine-gun fire as she swung down in an ever-increasing arc. Behind her, Frank shot past heading straight for the ground.
Just as he hit with an ugly thud, Jenn swung into the side of the house and fell ten feet down into a drift of moldering leaves. The drift had been building for twelve years and when she fell into it, other than the smell and the wet, it was no different that falling onto a feather bed.
She sank deep into the drift and for a few minutes did nothing except catch her breath and listen for Frank. Zombies, especially the big ones, could sustain a tremendous amount of damage and keep going. A fall like that wasn’t going to kill Frank. And yet, she heard nothing except a steady creak of tin on tin as a length of gutter swayed back and forth.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Jenn crept out from the leaf pile, ready at the first sound to either dive back in or sprint out of there—although limp out of there might have been more accurate. The big muscle in her right thigh had a knot in it the size of her fist and no amount of massaging had yet loosened it.
She made her way around the bushes that were taking over the driveway and found Frank flat on his face, unmoving. Crouching, she watched the line of his chest for any sign of breathing. There wasn’t any. It didn’t make sense since his head was fully intact and his chest seemed undamaged.
“It’s dead?” Suddenly weak as a kitten she collapsed in the snow as every muscle in her body began to quiver. It was some time before she got herself under control. When she could, she sat up and took stock of herself: her right leg ached as did her ribs and right shoulder. Her jaw throbbed and when she moved it around it made an unnerving clicking sound.
“But I won,” she said in awe. It seemed so incredible that it took all of her waning courage to go up to the body and inspect it. Her pert nose wrinkled at the stench that came off the corpse in waves. It was so huge that she would never be able to get turned over. She settled for turning his head which was bigger than a basketball and had to weight
thirty pounds.
Right away she saw what had killed the brute: her crossbow bolts. When he had landed the weight of his own head, combined with the impact had driven the three bolts deep enough to hit something vital.
“Yay me,” she said, listlessly. The pain of her wounds drained away her enthusiasm and all she cared about was getting home and soaking in the bathtub. First she picked up her crossbow and reloaded it. Next, she retraced her steps until she found the M4 which had been entrusted to her; to the Coven it was more valuable than her one little life.
Only then could she limp home.
“What happened to you?” Colleen asked. “Did that rabbit put up a big fight?”
“Rabbit?” Colleen pointed to the rabbit that Jenn had snared. It still hung from her pack and although it had been dead for the last four hours, it looked better off than Jenn felt. “Oh right, the rabbit. No, it was, uh, nothing. I fell.” Killing Frank was a huge accomplishment that she should have crowed about; she didn’t have the energy for crowing.
Colleen snorted laughter but as Jenn didn’t even look up, she asked, “Do you need any help? Do you need to see the Coven?”
Jenn was quick to say, “No, no thank you. I just need to catch my breath and maybe take a bath.”
Even though she liked to poke fun, Colleen had always pitied Jenn which made her the closest thing to a friend that she’d ever had. She took Jenn’s weapons and pack from her and ran them up to her apartment. On the way, she yelled for a couple of staring children to fetch water.
The younger children didn’t dare back-talk to their elders; even teenagers were obeyed, possibly because they were known to mete out insidious punishments that happened beyond the radar of most adults. The two seven-year olds could only manage a bucket between them per trip and grumbled about the extra chore until they saw what sort of shape Jenn was in.
Generation Z [Book ] Page 10