Zombie Hunter

by A. Giacomi

  “Marcus, you can stop this. He doesn’t have to win. You don’t have to hurt anyone.”

  Marcus shuts his eyes a moment, absorbing what I’d said, and when he reopens them, all sympathy is lost. “You don’t understand. I am here to stop all this. You’re the one killing everyone and everything. If you don’t give me Cameron, this world, is doomed.”

  His breath reeked of truth somehow, but I refused to believe that sacrificing Cam’s heart would appease the Devil, he was a tricky son of a bitch from what I’ve read about him in story books. Marcus was walking into a trap, but there was no talking sense into him. He launches me far away from him. I hit the dirt so hard I feel a snap, a rib most likely. It didn’t hurt, but it made rising to my feet awkward.

  I scream over to Vincent, “Get Cam out of here!”

  He nods and they begin running.

  Marcus glares at me. “You know I will find them. There is no hiding from me, Eve. Even now I can smell them, track them, hunt them. You will never stop me, so join me. Why not help me end all this? Why is it you fight me so?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Are you kidding me? There’s something about the destruction you leave behind that makes it rather impossible to trust you, don’t you think? Plus you want to kill Cam. That seems a bit personal…why him?”

  Marcus raises his voice now, rage catching certain words in his throat. “Because he’s the only one, he’s what the prophecy wants! Why can’t you see that? Join me, Eve, there is no other way…”

  The fury in his eyes frightens me, he looks as though he desired to rip me limb from limb, and as he approaches me I know I should run, but the fight was so tempting. I wanted to be the one to end Marcus, I wanted it all over now.

  As I ready myself for combat I smell something foul in the air. Perhaps it was just Marcus, but my nose smelt ten, maybe twenty walking corpses heading our way. Marcus smells it too and turns around to view our new visitors. He doesn’t seem all that concerned.

  “Are they your little minions, Marcus? Have you been sending them after us?”

  Marcus furrows his brows to show his confusion. “Sent them? What do you mean?”

  If Marcus hasn’t sent them, then who did?

  “Are you afraid of your own kind, Eve? How ridiculous!” Marcus says as he continues to laugh hysterically.

  I watch on as he walks toward them, insisting that they won’t hurt him. When a few latch onto him and begin to bite into his rotten skin, I can’t help but feel a little amusement. I had tried to warn him that they were hunting their own kind, served him right.

  As I turn to leave, I notice that I had my own crew of undead to deal with. They were hunting Marcus and I, but why? I still didn’t have the answers I needed. There was something more going on here and I needed to get to Cam.

  The zombies surround me, I push a few back only to have another couple claw at my clothing trying to take me down. If I were to fall, I was done for. They’d all pile on top and chip away at me until there was nothing left. As they close in, I have to make a hasty decision, looking around I notice one slower zombie. He would be the one to break the circle. Slamming my foot into his chest he flies backward to the ground with a thud, bones crackle when he lands and he won’t be rising again. Another one grabs my arm and I use that to my advantage by twirling him into a couple more in the pack, knocking them backward, but the zombie still clings to my arm, tearing into my flesh with its bony fingers. Another zombie grabs my other arm, they were strong suckers. I see Marcus fighting off his own horde in the distance as I try to wriggle free from my bony captures. With my arms immobilized, I decide to use my head for once. I head butt one of them and their skull caves in, the zombie crumples to the ground and never rises the other zombie now latches onto my arm with both hands. It feels as though he will pull it off, but before I let that happen I decide to throw another head butt. The second zombie turns into a pile of bones much like the first.

  More zombies approach, but I had no time to continue this battle. Instead, I set out on the hunt for Cam and Vincent. The zombies aren’t far behind me, I can smell them, and if they were hunting their own kind, perhaps they were after Vincent too.

  As I race through the town, I notice many bodies sprawled all over the streets. I stop to count them a moment, thankfully Cam is not among them. One of the bodies rises off the pavement grunting and bearing its teeth. Soon the entire town would be infected, there would be no stopping the virus, we would have to take survivors and flee.

  Continuing my sprint, I call out for Vincent and Cam, but it only attracts more of the undead, forcing me to continue my search in silence. I decide that heading back to Cam’s residence would be the best place to head next, the new Cam would feel safest there, or so I thought. When I reach the house, it’s dead silent, but I suppose that didn’t mean empty. I enter the house cautiously, I didn’t want to get shot so I announce my presence. “Cam if you’re in here, it’s just Eve.”

  Feet shuffle in the closet nearby, but no one exits. I approach it as silently as I can and open the doors as if I was ripping off a band-aid, best to know what you’re dealing with quickly. Instead of a zombie, I find Rachel hiding behind the coats in the closet peering out at me, begging me not to hurt her. Here tears are a tad pathetic to me, wasted, more like it. I wasn’t here to hurt her, if I was I definitely would have done it already.

  “Rachel, please shut up. You’ll attract more of those things if you don’t. I’m the least of your worries, sweetie. Now where’s Cam? You seen him?”

  She shakes her head. “No, I was hoping he’d come back this way, but he hasn’t.”

  “Okay then we need to go look for him,” I say as I grab her arm and pull her out of the closet. She follows along without hesitation, she was a follower alright and stuck to whoever would keep her safe. She definitely wasn’t the type to fend for herself. I would call her a princess, definitely not someone I ever thought Cam would like, but then again, Cam wasn’t Cam these days.

  Trying to keep a steady pace, we race around and through buildings in search of Cam and Vincent, trying not to draw any attention to ourselves. This was proving to be more and more difficult as the town joined the undead crew. I wanted to save them, but I would need much more than just me to stop them all.

  When we reach Main Street, Rachel points to a bar that Cam frequented with James. It was called the Cow and Sow, a little broken down looking out front, but pretty nice on the inside. It would have been a great hangout for the townspeople if the apocalypse hadn’t decided to happen. The bar reeks of alcohol, like people spilled it without caring, seemed a bit wasteful when the local liquor stores weren’t exactly restocking these days. I ask Rachel to stay put as I search around the bar, but no one’s there. Behind the bar is the kitchen, I swing open the door and enter the dark room immediately kicking a pot that had been laying on the floor. Who the hell put that there? I hear a gun lock and load, it all became clear, that was a homemade alarm system, and I had just walked into a trap. I scream into the darkness, “Don’t shoot, please.” If they were strangers they might mistake me for human, if it were Cam or Vincent, they’d at least recognize the voice. As I wait for the gun to either go off or a voice to call back, I hear a scream out front.

  “Look, I don’t know if you’re going to shoot me or not, but I’m heading out to save that girl out there. You can help or hide here. Your choice.” I leave the dark room to find Rachel being pulled out of the bar by her hair. She grabs at the zombie’s hands trying to free her hair from their grasp, but the two zombies only grab hair closer to her skull, nearly ripping out some. They drag her out into the middle of Main Street as her screaming continues. She’s attracting more zombies, dear god, there were more of them then I would be able to handle, and I have the awful thought that maybe Rachel wasn’t worth saving, or perhaps those were the voices in my head. I was awfully jealous of her, but I couldn’t possibly wish her dead,
could I?

  As I make my way toward Rachel, I hear a blast go off and one of the zombies clinging to Rachel flies backward. Another shot rings through the air and the other zombie goes flying. Rachel crawls away from them sobbing so hard she can barely see the zombies she’s crawling toward. I look behind me to see James blankly staring at me, he was in shock, but luckily could still work a gun.

  “I’m going to get her and then we need to run,” I tell James.

  He nods.

  Running out into the street I swoop Rachel up before another zombie can grab her. James joins our side as we run in the opposite direction. We don’t run for long because another large horde of zombies is waiting for us at the top of Main Street. We were trapped.

  Rachel begins screaming again, “What now, what now?” she clings to James as I try to think, but nothing comes to mind. I could try to fight them all, but they’d most likely overpower me at some point, and Rachel and James weren’t going to be any help at all.

  Beginning to panic, I take the gun from James. Perhaps I could take down a few and thin the crowd. I aim and shoot taking out three or four before I realize I’m out of bullets.

  “James I need more bullets! Now!” I scream desperately.

  “That’s all I got!” James says while holding back his own tears.

  Angrily, I begin to use the butt end of the gun to start bashing in some brains. I had no other weapon and I wasn’t ready to let these assholes feast on us. I bash in brain after brain, a few brains even spray out hitting me in the face, but I keep going, my rage won’t let my body give up. I step back a moment to view my kills, but it almost felt as though I hadn’t made any progress. They were so close now, a few seconds and we’d be finished.

  I join Rachel and James in their huddle and close my eyes making peace with the end even if they couldn’t. Just then a loud engine revs in the distance, I open my eyes to find zombies flying through the air. A large truck plows through the undead and skids right toward us. Cam mans the wheel and Vincent is on the passenger side urging us to hurry and hop in. Grabbing Rachel and James I nearly throw them into the vehicle. There’s no time for me to hop inside, the zombies are on my tail. I kick a few away and jump into the open back end of the truck and scream for Cam to “drive!” He slams the gas, which nearly sends me flying off the back end, but I manage to hold on and so do a few of our undead friends. As Cam blasts through the sea of zombies I wait to see if any fall off, I help some along, of course, releasing their fingers from the side of the truck. When we’re clear of the crowd, I notice three zombies still managed to hold onto the truck.

  Rachel calls out to me from the window, “take this!” She holds a gun out to me and I take it graciously.

  Aiming for the head I knock each zombie down as if I were at a firing range. “Ten points each,” I say as I smirkingly kick the zombies off the back end of the truck. Their bodies roll in the road violently, one even appears to lose its head upon impact. “So long suckers,” I say while waving my gun.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CAM

  We’re miles away from Fenelon Falls now. The only home I could even remember is gone. The only survivors were sitting in this truck with me. Three humans and two zombies that sort of reminded me of humans, but could still eat us at any given moment. It made me feel really uneasy sitting next to Vincent. He constantly seemed hungry. I would catch him licking his lips and sniffing the air every now and then. There was something very animal about him.

  As for Eve, I didn’t know what to think of her yet. I glance at her in my rearview mirror as she sits next to Rachel, the woman I loved, but apparently didn’t love me back. I try to push the hurt away; there were more pressing things to think about currently. Eve smiles while looking out the window, I glance out her way to see what caught her eye. There’s a lake in the distance. She watches it fondly, as if she knew where we were, so I decide to ask, “Hey Eve, do you know this place or where we’re heading?”

  She shakes her head. “No, I don’t know this place at all, but it reminds me a little of home.

  She grins in a tormented way that I don’t quite understand. Wasn’t home a nice thing to think about?

  “So where are we heading then? Where do you think we’ll be safe?” I direct the question to the entire car, but Eve is the only one to answer.

  “We are currently heading North West toward Ottawa. I think we should keep heading toward the capital. Signs say we’re not far from it, maybe another hour if we don’t hit any speed bumps,” Eve says with certainty.

  “But what will we find in the capital?” I ask Eve bluntly.

  She continues to stare out the window. “I don’t really know, Cam. I’m hoping that our government has come up with a plan I guess. If not, I guess we’re back where we started anyway.”

  I felt a twinge of hope as we continue our ride, but that feeling is soon shattered when I feel the vehicle rattle and slowly come to a halt. Checking the gas light immediately I notice we are fresh out and nowhere near anything that resembles a gas station. Slamming the wheel over and over again I let out my frustration as the others exit the vehicle. I guess my little tantrum made them uncomfortable, not that I cared. If we were really that close to Ottawa, it felt like some sort of a slap in the face to run out of gas right now! I guess we were destined to walk.

  When I pull myself and my gear together, I meet up with the rest of the crew who’ve already decided to start walking toward our country’s Capital. Eve leads the pack, but she gives a quick glance behind her to make sure I am still in tow. It feels partly like she is avoiding me, I know she knows the real me, and perhaps that’s what frightened me most about her. I’m still not sure if I want to get to know the old me.

  Rachel waits for me to join her before walking on. It’s awkward being around her and she clearly wants to talk, but I’m not exactly in the mood for it right now.

  “Listen…” she begins, “I just want you to know that I obviously care about you. There’s a lot of other stuff I need to tell you about me, and then maybe you can decide if you really meant what you said.”

  She kisses my cheek and then runs up ahead to walk beside James, who gives me a dirty look which I of course return. I was angry at James for the way him and his brother treated Rachel, but then again, he had every right to hate me for what happened with his brother. Vincent had killed him, to protect me of course, so that made me the bad guy too. I couldn’t blame him for being angry, his brother was dead and there was no bringing him back, what it meant was I had to be on my guard. Trusting James would be a big mistake.

  After about an hour into our walk, Eve decides it’s time for a rest. Rachel and James are grateful for it, but I’m not. I want to keep going and get there already. Eve spots my frustration and walks over to me. I try to avoid making eye contact, but it’s too late, she’s on her way.

  “Look I know you want to get there already, so do I for more reasons that you even know! But our one hour drive has become a ten-hour hike, so what we really need is a car. If we walk long enough I’m hoping we can find one with gas so we can speed up this journey.”

  I nod. “I agree, but there doesn’t seem to be anything on these roads. Not a single vehicle, or body, or zombie…well…”

  She laughs a little. “It’s good to know you don’t group me in with those things. You forgot for a second what I am, and that’s promising. Maybe soon enough you’ll remember why you don’t hate me. Why you trust me, why we’ve been friends for so long…”

  “Wait we’re friends?” I ask bluntly.

  “Well, we were. I’m not sure what we are now. I wanted to ask you where we stand, but it’s sorta hard when you can’t remember.”

  I nod. “Yeah sorry, still nothing.”

  “That’s okay,” she says gently resting her hand on my shoulder. “I have a feeling you don’t hate me because you saved my life back there. I�
�ve been meaning to thank you for that,” she says with a grin and a wink. She then turns around and alerts everyone that their break is over.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t her I was trying to save. It was Rachel and only Rachel. If I had to choose between saving one or the other, I would always pick Rachel, but Eve didn’t need to hear that.

  A couple more hours pass as we continue our walk. Still no cars, no buildings, no signs, no nothing. People were starting to get hungry. Especially our new zombie friends. Their eyes seemed to glow redder when they were starving. I pull Rachel closer to me in case they get any ideas. Eve turns back to see Rachel and me side by side. She stops and for a moment and for a brief second I fear she might attack us, but instead she asks everyone to take a break and breaks away from the group to speak with Vincent in private. I prayed they weren’t planning our demise.

  When they return, Eve tells us that she and Vincent will be heading a little further out on their own and that we should stay put and get some rest. The wanted to see if they could track down a vehicle. They were faster, stronger and more resourceful than us, and as long as they were telling the truth, this seemed like a good plan.

  After they’re gone, James and Rachel let out a sign of exasperation. “I’m starving!” James exclaims. “Where the hell are we going to find some food?”

  We were in the middle of nowhere. Trees lined the stretch of road and if we were brave enough I guess we could venture into the trees and see if we could find some berries or leaves to eat, only problem was telling which were okay to eat and which weren’t. I didn’t particularly feel like dying from my own stupidity, so I was okay with starving a little longer.

  The first hour passes since Eve and Vincent left and I can see James growing restless. He paces back and forth as his stomach grumbles. I could tell he was the type of man who changed quite a bit when he was hungry; he sort of seemed to be losing his mind.

  “James, will you sit down? You’re making me nervous with all your pacing. Plus you’re burning more energy that way! It’s only going to make you hungrier!” I huff at him annoyed.