Fall Prey: The Hunt

by Dallas Massey

  “Do you see the tower over there, diagonal to our position?” Shen pointed to the far end of the facility at the tower dominating the nightscape.

  “It’s impossible to miss,” said Cyrus.

  “That will be the retrieval point, Mr. Blackthorn. When we return to retrieve you in a month’s time, we will pick you up at that tower. Until the retrieval time, you must remain within the perimeter of the fence and survive on whatever resources you can find. As I have said, failure to stay within the perimeter could result in your permanent termination. There are a number of infected individuals within this facility with whom you will compete for survival. You are permitted to do with them what you wish. Failure to adhere to the test regulations will result in the collection of unusable data, and the test will be repeated. Failure to survive is indicative of a failed test, though we will still learn something from the collected data. Obviously, we cannot repeat the test if that happens. To achieve a positive result, it is required that you survive to be retrieved within the time allotted. Do you understand these instructions as they have been given?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Sir, the sun has nearly set,” said the guard to Shen, intent on rushing them. “We need to get the kresnik off the tower now.”

  He nodded at Cyrus when he said the word ‘kresnik.’

  Cyrus frowned, unsure as to what exactly the guard had called him. The word itself was benign enough. Regardless, he didn’t feel as though it was an insult. Instead, there was power in the word. He liked it.

  Cyrus turned toward the guard and smiled, displaying his prominent fangs. The man winced.

  “Now then,” said Shen, as Cyrus turned to face him through the helicopter’s open door. “I have told you all I can. These men will escort you to this tower’s exit point, that ladder over there, and monitor you as you climb down.”

  The armed guards moved in on Cyrus as the doctor spoke, guns still fixed on his forehead.

  “Why do I need to exit the tower from a ladder?” Cyrus asked, hesitant to move. “It’s like ten or more stories from up here to the ground, isn’t there some kind of elevator?”

  “There is indeed an elevator,” said Shen. “Only certain personnel are permitted to use it. It is to be used sparingly, lest the infected somehow learn to enter it and access the tower. They’re not coordinated enough to climb a ladder.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Cyrus turned toward the ladder to find the guards standing even closer. They were now so near him that they could prod him with the barrels of their guns.

  “Let’s get on with it.” Cyrus grew anxious.

  “Right this way.” The guard in front of him stepped to the side so he could proceed through.

  “Be careful, Cyrus!” shouted Elysia as he walked away. She had finally escaped the silent spell that enthralled her every time Shen spoke at length.

  “I’ll try, but no promises!”

  “Please remain calm, sir!” A guard shouted at Cyrus, as though he might pull the trigger of his weapon if he didn’t have a coronary first.

  All four guards followed closely behind Cyrus as he made his way toward the ladder. The caution they displayed elevated to near ridiculousness. One of them passed in front of Cyrus, hastily unlocking and then pushing open the heavy gate which separated the cage-encompassed ladder from the rest of the tower roof.

  “Proceed,” said the guard, motioning Cyrus through the gate with his gun.

  The guard slammed the gate shut behind him without warning, causing Cyrus to stiffen from surprise. He turned around to see the man produce a large set of keys, hurriedly selecting one and shoving it into the keyhole.

  “Now this gate is shut,” said the guard. He looked up at Cyrus, the lock snapping into place as he turned the key. “You will not be allowed to re-enter. You will be allowed to exit the tower, but only after the test’s one-month time period has elapsed.”

  “Whatever you say.” Cyrus sneered at the man, irritated by his unnecessary hostility.

  “Get a move on!” The guard aggressively aimed his gun at him. “I won’t hesitate to shoot! I don’t care how much you’re worth!”

  “Chill out,” Cyrus frowned at the man with exasperation. “I’m going.”

  He proceeded toward the ladder, turning back around to begin his descent, disappearing beneath the tower wall. Modest though the height was, a kind of mild vertigo instantly struck him. The distance to the ground felt nearly infinite. Cyrus closed his eyes as he faced the wall, hoping maybe that would help cool his nerves as he made his way down.

  “One foot in front of the other,” he said as he steadied himself on the ladder. It had been a long time since Cyrus had climbed down anything, and he was less than eager to re-learn the process at such a height.

  As he descended the rungs, he was pleasantly surprised by how quickly he took to climbing. The physical movements came much easier than he anticipated. Cyrus’s apprehension rested in his psyche alone. As he continued ever downward, the urge to look below became increasingly intense. He felt as though the climb down lasted for an eternity.

  Unable to wait any longer, Cyrus stopped, slowly opening his eyes to let out an audible sigh of relief. He was now far enough down the ladder that a fall likely wouldn’t result in serious injury. Several of the town’s denizens screamed up from below, causing Cyrus to freeze and briefly consider an ascent back up the ladder. He would rather take his chances with the guards and their guns.

  “I doubt I’ll ever get used to that,” Cyrus muttered, looking over his shoulder both ways while seeing no sign of nearby attackers. Hearing no more additional noise, he continued his descent, quickly reaching the bottom rung and jumping from the ladder.

  Landing firmly on his feet, Cyrus ran for the nearest alleyway across from the tower. An assailant might lurk somewhere along the narrow passage, but it had to be safer than continuing down the street in the open. Behind his cover, he put his back against one of the walls and slowly peered around the corner.

  The sun had wholly vanished below the horizon now. The tower at the other end of the facility pulled at Cyrus’s eyes. Its brilliant lighting and immense height dominated his view of the blackened sky. It wasn’t all that far away from the starting point and conveyed a sense of security and comfort within its walls. Despite what feelings the tower radiated, seeing it still put Cyrus on edge. Its proximity alluded to spending a month confined in a small area with a limited number of hiding places.

  Survival would be difficult; the horde of bloodthirsty infected providing only one potential cause of death along with heat exposure, thirst, and starvation. Cyrus needed to find shelter and nourishment as quickly as possible.

  He shifted his gaze away from the tower, and his eyes landed on the busted gas station light further down the street on his left, one of the bulbs inside flicking on and off at random intervals.

  “Here’s hoping there’s not a nest of them in there,” Cyrus muttered.

  He sprang from his hiding place, rapidly zigzagging his way down the street, bounding between alleyways as he made for the gas station. He tried to stay low to the ground as he moved, trying to remain inconspicuous. His vision, though advanced above average, was like unto that of most nocturnal animals. Cyrus could not detect color in low light, everything appearing in black and white, the images crisp and clear. The gas station sign signaled to him like a beacon, calling him forth.

  Cyrus crept past the sign and gas pumps to approach the front of the station. He cautiously peered at the building, a chill filling the air as he looked in, half expecting something to jump out at him.

  “No good,” he said. He found the windows shattered and the inside darkened, everything scattered and broken.

  Whatever food there was within likely had either spoiled or been trampled underfoot long ago. Even discounting the food, the station would make an inadequate shelter sitting out in the open as it was. The building appeared void of occupants, and the lack of noise suggested safe
ty. It remained eerie regardless, as if there was something skulking about in the shadows nearby.

  Cyrus considered entering the building through one of the broken windows but took the thought back almost immediately. He knew he would only waste time if he stopped to sift through the debris.

  Disappointed but not surprised, Cyrus stealthily slunk back across the street to look for something more promising. He needed to find shelter soon. It was a matter of time before he came upon one of the infected, or worse, a group of them.

  Cyrus continued down the street using his sneak-between-houses method for a considerable length of time. He found the rest of the buildings even less promising than the gas station. All of them were in shambles, grievously dilapidated and burnt or simply boarded up.

  “There we go,” he muttered when he found another potential food stash location, this time a grocery store.

  The building was well-lit from the outside, just as the gas station had been.

  Desperate, Cyrus moved in for a closer look, forgetting his cautious movements to sprint down the open street. He was upon the building in seconds, covering even more ground when he saw the structure remained intact through transparent windows. He found the interior lit up as brightly as the exterior.

  Cyrus rushed into the abandoned grocery store, the automatic doors sliding open. He immediately regretted stepping foot inside.

  The place smelled like an unholy union of rancid, spoiled food and an excess of human excrement. The stench could melt his eyeballs. The store’s undamaged lighting system had deceived him. The overturned shelves lay extensively ransacked with whole packages of food thrown to the ground and smashed. The culprits had no interest in their contents.

  Cyrus immediately realized his chances of finding something edible were slim, but he decided to forage anyway. It was still more promising than the gas station, despite the smell and wasted food. Knowing he was foolish to run down the street moments ago, Cyrus returned to his cautious stance, going low to the ground as he began his search.

  He took only a few steps before a flash of red caught his eye, his color vision returned under the store lights. Turning towards what he saw in his peripheral, Cyrus spotted the bright red plastic wheels of an overturned dessert snack cart, this fallen near the end of a nearby aisle.

  “Looks promising.” He hoped to find non-perishable, plastic-wrapped snack cakes just around the corner. “Stupid things got no respect for a Twinkie,” Cyrus said aloud for all to hear, frustrated.

  Something had already been at the snack cakes, smashing the sweet desserts to mush without even attempting to eat them. Cyrus bent down and picked up one of the cakes, holding it in his hands like a dead puppy.

  He let the crushed dessert fall to the ground when he heard the sound of heavy, frantically running footsteps of an unknown creature striking the floor and scrambling around the aisles.

  Cyrus jumped, turning from where he stood to see the creature staring at him from the opposite end of the aisle as it sized him up. It was one of the infected, man-shaped with yellow-green postulated skin, its filthy clothing in tatters, rotting off its body. All similarities ended there. Its features were much more bestial and simian than the zombies Cyrus had seen at CyberGen. The beast was incapable of maintaining normal human posture, down on all fours, walking on the knuckles of its oversized hands, its arms long and lanky yet impressively muscled. Its face was the most unlike a man’s. Its mouth was remarkably large, its nostrils like that of a gorilla, and its eyes red like a demon.

  The thing pushed down on its knuckles and roared, revealing rows of sharp, shark-like teeth. The beast rushed at Cyrus, barely giving him a chance to reach for his knife as it barreled into him, sending him flying toward the wall at his back. The creature lunged for him, diving for his soft, gasping throat.

  Cyrus was ready this time and pushed up at his attacker with all four limbs just as it went for him. He shoved the creature off to the side with all his strength and threw it into the shelves nearby.

  Cyrus leaped to his feet, slowly turning his head to the side to find a second creature waiting for him at the end of the aisle. Anticipating its attack, he pulled the knife from his waistband and brandished it as the creature charged at him.

  It roared, jumping for him, its snake-like jaw opened wide.

  Like a flash of light, Cyrus stepped to the side and out of the creature’s path, jamming the knife between its eyes, all in a motion so quick it surprised him. The second creature fell to the ground, the knife buried in its face, just as the first emerged from the overturned shelf.

  It bellowed at Cyrus just as before, rushing for him as it sought another chance to tear into his throat.

  Taking advantage of his newfound speed, Cyrus slid to the side before the beast could make contact and turned around as it made for him. He drove his elbow into the base of its neck and slammed its body to the ground. He dove at the creature as it fell, firmly pinning it down from behind.

  The creature howled, violently jerking and writhing as he fought desperately to hold it there.

  Cyrus screamed as a strange urge struck him. Pure instinct overtook his mind.

  Before he could stop himself, he bit into the creature’s neck, tearing into it with his now formidable jaws. The dark black blood poured onto the floor like thickened wine. He continued to hold the creature’s throat firmly in his mouth, driving his fangs farther into it. He shook the thing’s head around for good measure.

  The monster slowly went limp as its wretched life ebbed away.

  Cyrus retched, realizing what he had done. He released the creature’s neck from his jaws, its viscous blood falling from his mouth in great globs. Repulsed, he sat down beside the body, the urgency of his situation melting away. The action had been so instinctual, so immediate and tenacious. It was as though he had become a machine that had no choice but to perform the order given it.

  Reality seeped back in, and Cyrus impulsively touched a hand to his mouth. He had ingested much of the creature’s blood, his palm soaked by the black fluid.

  He groaned, trying to stay calm as he looked around to find himself sitting in an enormous puddle of the creature’s blood. He frantically scooted across the floor away from the body, wanting to cry out hysterically but refraining from it, fearful he might alert other nearby creatures. The stress made him feel sick.

  Cyrus gagged on the creature’s rancid, black blood, coughing heavily, spewing it all over the floor in a torrent. He continued to vomit violently for a few moments more, the oil-like blood finally giving rise to just saliva.

  Thoroughly disgusted, Cyrus slowly rose to his feet and walked toward the first downed creature, feeling a need to review his work. Though he staked the knife deep into its skull, he remembered what Viddur told him earlier. He needed to separate its head from the spinal column to ensure it was dead.

  Cyrus pulled the knife from the creature’s skull and began sawing through its thick neck. The blade barely cut through the skin, and while he appreciated Viddur’s gift to him, it was much better suited for slicing bread.

  The horde of bloodthirsty creatures cried from somewhere outside the store as Cyrus reached the downed creature’s spine with his knife.

  “Must be time to go.” Cyrus dropped his knife and sprinted toward the nearest window at the front of the store. “Oh… that’s not good,” he muttered as he looked through the window.

  He found a mass gathering of creatures bounding toward the store from nearly all sides. Many of them were gorilla-like, similar to the two he had killed, while the rest of them were smaller, more like chimpanzees or orangutans. Their wild, shrill screams reached a deafening volume now, their numbers far too great for Cyrus to do anything but flee. He ran back toward the other end of the store, searching for the double doors leading to the storage area and hoping they might provide passage to the outside.

  Frustrated, Cyrus looked through the small windows of the swinging doors and found them blocked by several heavy overtur
ned shelves. He dashed back to the front in a breakneck sprint, skidding to a stop on the claws of his feet as he took a last look out the window. The creatures pressed in close, eager to turn the store into a tomb of Cyrus’s own choosing.

  “Here we go…” Cyrus hesitated only for a moment before leaping headlong through the window.

  Glass flew everywhere as he tucked and rolled into it, bowling over several members of the attacking mob.

  Cyrus jumped to his feet. He spread his arms wide as he tore through the assembly, slashing faces and throats as he went. The force of the massive horde was on him, and his only hope for survival to hack and slash his way through lest the demented creatures catch hold of him. The human part of his consciousness disappeared again as he fought like a caged animal, barely tearing his way through the overwhelming infected gathering.

  Just when it appeared that the crowd would engulf him, he pushed into them with every ounce of strength he possessed, bulldozing through the throng of monsters. Free from the grasp of the crazed mob, he ran for the nearest building and leaped onto the roof.

  The beasts called after him, giving chase.

  Cyrus ignored them as he bounded from roof to roof, never thinking to look back.

  The sound of feet and knuckles struck both shingles and ground.

  Given their physical forms, Cyrus wasn’t surprised that they could climb onto roofs as well. He just hoped that the addition of added obstacles would give him a chance to outdistance them.

  Cyrus moved across the moonlit skyline at a pell-mell sprint, the fence perimeter becoming visible in the distance. A thought entered his head. If he could lure his pursuers to one of the towers around the fence and within range of the guard’s guns, he would all but guarantee his escape, so long as he could keep from being hit himself.

  As he considered the insane idea, he noticed the noise of his pursuers had ceased. Their howls had quieted, and their footsteps had stilled. He knew he couldn’t run forever.

  Cyrus slowed to a stop and turned to look back for the mob. He nearly dropped to his knees, relieved when he saw the monsters had vanished from his sight. Having outdistanced his pursuers, he decided against remaining on the roof. Cyrus dropped from it onto the ground as he abandoned all thought of luring the creatures within range of tower fire.