Coming back to the lobby, I decide the outside stairwell may be the best option now. I run back through, but this time it's not empty. There are three people pacing around the room. They seem to be walking weird, but when I call out to them, nothing happens.
"Help! we need help!" I scream, but they just whip their heads to face me, before taking off in our direction. They have blood all down their clothes, so it becomes obvious that they are just like the little boy. I take off running, but we're starting to get surrounded. I look all around for any clue as to where we can escape to. I never imagined this would become my life. I see that the front doors are clear of the horde of whatever the hell they are. I wave for them to follow me, and we run right out the front of the hotel. The parking lot is seemingly empty, but we don't stop to rest.
I turn right and run right up the sidewalk. As we round the corner to go up the steps, I see that the things are a little way behind us. We run up the steps, and I run right to the room. Not waiting for Ryan to produce the key, I begin to pound on the door. When they don’t answer immediately, I begin to panic. Ryan manages to get the key out then, so he quickly unlocks the door, and I run inside; pushing him aside in my haste. Riley and Drew are awake now, but they're both looking around frantically. Riley’s hair is standing up on end, in all different angles. She looks utterly confused. I relax tremendously. I thought for sure I’d be too late. That I’d find her body, that I’d lose her. Our entire group files into the small hotel room. Jonathan, and Kerry standing in the corner of the room silently.
"Come on. We have to get out of here right now, get up!" I shout, and they just look at me like I've gone completely crazy. I can't believe how foolish she's being. We have to go now, before those things catch up with us again. I throw my arms into the air in exasperation, but Riley finally seems to get the hint.
"What the hell is going on?" she demands, her hair flying all over the place, as she climbs out of bed. She reaches down, and slips her little boy shorts back on, as Drew crawls out of bed as well.
"There are things out there, and they're killing people. They're humans, or used to be humans, but I'm not sure what the hell they are now, but anyway; we have to get to the police" I demand, fear crawling through my chest once more. Riley is looking at me as though I'm stark crazy. I try to show her my fear with my eyes, but she doesn't seem to believe my story.
"If you wanted to wake us up, you could just be honest" she says, a small laugh in her voice. I scowl at her, as Ryan looks around frantically. Riley finally senses the gravity of the situation and jumps to her feet.
Drew looks between us, and then his eyes grow wide. He seems to feel the fear in the room as well. I'm surprised that they didn't suffocate from it. I can feel it as thick as fog. It’s heavy, opaque. It’s blinding and smothering. Something of its own kind. It is real, palpable.
"They were behind us, so we need to go now. Get your things, before they kill us all." Emily says dramatically, and Riley looks at her with fear in her eyes, but there's also doubt. I grab her by the hand and pull her to the door. We go out in the hall, and I lead her over to the railing. Looking down, I point to the group of monsters stumbling around the base of the stairs. There is also a heap of something in the parking lot, and there are two humans feeding on it. She looks at the scene of horror before us, before she runs back into the room. Drew is already packing their things, so I run back to our room. Unlocking it, we run in, and I grab all of my things, shoving them back into the duffel bag.
As soon as I'm done with that, I come back to them, and find that they are ready. Riley has worry etched on her pretty face, as we gather up the last few belongings. I hear a scream, and whip around.
“Kerry run!” Emily screams, as one of the human-monster-things appears from seemingly nowhere. Stumbling over the threshold of the still open door, it collides with Kerry. She is struggling with the creature, and it seems to be winning. It slings her to the ground, and then falls to its knees. Just before it attacks her, the man that we met downstairs, Jonathan races to the beast, and tackles it to the floor. Thomas, and Ryan also follow after the thing. I watch in horror as the thing flails, and thrashes all over the place. He is a tall white guy, but he looks no older than eighteen, so why does he have no sign of a conscience? Does it have something to do with whatever is making them this way? Does it take away their ability to make good judgments? I run at the group, in an attempt to help better the situation, before it gets out of hand.
Kerry finally gets back to her feet and grabs ahold of me. Her fingers are shaking, but her grip is surprisingly strong. She pulls me away from the fiasco at my feet and sobs into my chest. I try to gently push her away, but her fingers are gripped too tightly. I begin to grow angry, but she just collapses into me. Her entire body is shaking.
“I don’t want to die. My God don’t let me die” she sobs into my shirt.
The deranged man manages to get away from the three people trying to subdue it, and Jonathan stumbles forward, and pushes it out of the door.
“Jonathan be careful” I shout, as Riley sobs in the background. I can’t face her right now, not when everything is moving so fast.
I watch in horror, as the thing tries once again to snap at us. John shoves it roughly over the railing, and it topples backward. I watch it disappear; my last impression is that the thing looks eerily like a rag doll falling from the sky. I relax, when the man disappears completely, but I know that more are not far behind. We have to get away from them. Something tells me we won’t be so lucky the next time we run into one of those beasts. I swallow my fear and turn to the stairwell.
“What the hell was that thing?” Riley sobs, tears running down her face, as she cowers in the back of the room. Her face is frozen in horror.
I take in Jonathan’s appearance then. He’s panting, his whole body rising and falling with his breathing. His grey hair is matted with sweat; his white shirt is torn slightly, he looks rough. He looks like he just won a battle with a monster.
Out of nowhere another one comes from the right and collides with Jonathan. He groans, as the thing snaps at him, but manages to push it away. I run to help him, just as I see what's about to happen. The colors around me seem to darken a shade, as the thing plows relentlessly into John once more, and this time they hit the railing. This man seems to be a lot stronger than the last, and also much heavier. The two of them hit the railing, and it gives way. Jonathan and the beast disappear over the now open edge of the floor. I run over and look down upon the scene before me, and with bile rising in my throat I see it.
I can hear Riley and Kerry crying behind me. Their panic is only helping to make my mind sharper, clearer.
I see John lying in the crippled mess of limbs that is the two monsters he just took down, but they are all feebly moving. He struggles to his feet and meets my gaze just before the group of deranged people find their way over to him. He looks at them resignedly, as one of the fallen beasts grabs him by the ankle.
"Let's go help him" I scream, before taking off at a run. I don't look around to see if any of them follow me, or if I'm alone, but I cannot leave him all alone. I cannot let those things rip him apart. I'm not sure exactly what is going on, or what happened to these people, but I know that we have to stick together, if we're going to make it out of this alive.
FOUR
The sense of urgency fills my stomach, as I plow down the hallway of the third-floor hotel. I'm just about to turn down the stairs, when I come face to face with one of the monsters. It lunges at me with slow movements, but just fast enough to knock me down. I struggle to get away from the damn thing. It starts to crawl on top of me, and I can smell its putrid breath. Randomly, I find the strength to throw it off of me, and hurry back to my feet. Leaving it behind, I run down the stairs. There is another one slowly descending, and I rush past it, as it rounds the corner of the landing. I distinctly feel it's fingers reaching after me, but I'm too fast for it to latch on. I yank my shirt away from the thing, as
I jump to safety. I turn back to see if anyone is following me and see that they're still preoccupied with the man at the top of the stairs.
I turn down one more flight of stairs, before I find myself on the solid ground in the parking lot once more. I run back down the stretch of the hotel, and skid to a halt just as I find myself at the edge of the scene before me. Jonathan is lying on the ground, and he's convulsing as three of the diseased people tear at him with their claws, and their teeth. I want to help him, but there's no way of helping him now, not when there are three of the damn things. I look around for any kind of hint as to what could help me. As I stand there, looking for a way to save this man, this man that doesn't deserve to die; he stops convulsing. I freeze, my eyes swooping right back to where they started. John is perfectly still, and the three monsters still loom over him, tearing at his flesh. I hear the others arrive at the scene behind me. Emily lets out a gasp, as she takes it in. I can hear Kerry rambling on and on in fluent Spanish
I'm just about to turn away from the dead stranger, when one of the diseased monsters does something that will haunt my consciousness as long as I shall live. Leaning down, he takes a large chunk out of the stomach of the corpse, and the other two follow suit. Together they rip his innards out, until I see what looks like overgrown spaghetti noodles flopping onto the pavement. I gag, as the body of the man is turned into a smorgasbord. I turn to the others, and see the horror, the disgust, the sadness in all of their eyes. That's when one of them looks up at me, and I know that we've been spotted. I take off running, as the other two catch on. We have to get out of here. I run down the parking lot in the direction of Emily's car. I can't see it yet, but I know we’re getting close.
“Emily, get the keys ready” I scream behind me, panic infecting my voice.
“I have them ready Ben, we got this” she says from beside me. She’s matching my stride. I tend to forget she was in track all through high school.
We aren’t far now. We’ll be okay. We will be safe. The sight of Jonathan’s insides fills my mind, as we round the final corner. I come to a sudden stop, causing Ryan to run right into me.
We find ourselves in the right area, and the right cars are still parked around the right parking spot where Emily's car should be. I turn to look at them all and ask with my eyes. When nobody answers my question, I ask the question out loud.
"Where the hell is the car? This is definitely where we parked it last night, isn't it?" I demand. I notice that Drew and Riley look a bit uncomfortable, so I round on them.
"Did you guys use the car?" I demand, and Drew nods his head slightly. I scowl.
"You were asleep, and Emily said we could run to the store, but we parked just around the corner up here. It's just ahead if you run right up the side of the hotel" he explains, and I roll my eyes because they irritate me with their incessant need to go to the store at all hours of the night to get ice-cream, and such.
"Whatever let's just get out of here, before we wind up dead like that poor guy back there" I say, giving them both a cold glare. It's so annoying. We made sure we had good snacks, and enough to drink, but they still want to take the car in the middle of a city they know nothing about, and just go at all hours of the night.
"Ben, it's literally not that big of a deal, but let's just go before they catch up" Riley says, and I glare at her once more, before taking off in the direction of where they said Emily's car is parked. I try to push my annoyance down, but it's so prominent. I knew we shouldn't have brought them on this trip with us.
"It's just up here around this corner" Drew repeats, as we near the corner of the building. I am the first to round the corner, and almost begin to cry when I see the scene before us.
There's a group of around twenty of the diseased, and they're surrounding Emily’s car, as the alarm rings loud through the parking lot. I take a step back, landing on someone's foot in the process.
"Shit ouch!" Riley hisses. I see all of the monsters before us look in our direction simultaneously. Looking behind us, I see that around six are there too, and there are twenty something in front of us. What do we do now? Where do we go from here? I take off at a run, and rush past the large gap between two of the things. Running back to John, I find him unoccupied, so I fumble through his pockets, until I locate exactly what I was looking for. I pull his keys out, and hold them above me, so I can read the name on the key fob. A small splatter of gore slides from the object and nearly drops on my face. I look around the parking lot for a Ford, and then push the panic button. The truck two spots over goes off, and I exhale with utter relief.
I wait for the others, as they run from the things pursuing us. I look around to see a few more of the beasts closing in all around us. The one closest to me is a young girl. She has blood all down her little pearl pink night gown. Her blond hair is matted with blood, and gore but it's still neatly braided; with what used to be an ivory ribbon tied into her little head. She has dark red eyes, and a permanent snarl on her once cute face. Behind her is a little boy. He's maybe three years old and dressed in a denim overalls outfit. His hair is very short and well kept, but now it has blood dried all in it, along with a deep gouge mark from something that must've attacked him. I stare at the two children before me, as they stumble in my direction. They don't speak, they don't cry; all they do is snarl, and look at me like I'm their next meal. It's a very disturbing scene to witness.
“Hurry dammit. We have to get out of here” I scream at them, as they draw nearer. Emily is standing just beside me. I wonder what held the others up, while we ran.
They finally all join me at John's dead body, and I turn the panic button off. Emily looks at me with tears unshed in her blue eyes. Her face is frozen in a grimace of fear. Her red hair in unbrushed curtains on either side of her face. Riley is looking back constantly, no doubt expecting them to rain down upon us once more. Ryan is looking around in a similar way, but his expression is one of defense, not fear. I can see the determination coming out of him. Too bad he'll never make it if we don't make it past these freaks before they really overtake us, and do to us, what they just showed us they can do to Jonathan. The amount of blood, and gore that I've seen today is going to be more than enough to get me through to the end of time. I point over to the truck and take off running. It's only two spots over, but there's a small turf of no parking between the two spots. It's about fifty feet from us to the truck.
I throw the keys to Drew, as we come up on the truck, and he catches them with ease. He runs to the driver's seat, and jumps in. I follow behind, and slide into the front seat. The others pile into the back, and Drew starts the car. Ryan crawls into the middle seat between Drew and me. I look around and see a group of nearly thirty of the damn beasts coming at us from the left side. Looking the other way, I see that there are less of them on that side, but our only ways out are completely blocked by a group of them. What are we going to do now? Drew is looking back and forth, trying to decide which path would be safer to take. The easy way out is actually the worse idea because of the narrow exit barricaded with stumbling bodies.
"What the hell do I do?" he demands, looking all around at us. I shrug because I'm at a loss. I cannot find a way out of this. The adrenaline is racing through my veins, giving me the strength to race ahead with my mind, to analyze everything around us.
“Drew, do something” Riley sobs, tears running down her cheeks again, as she looks around frantically.
"Just drive, maybe they'll scatter" Emily suggests, as they begin to beat on the sides of the truck. I can feel myself shaking in the seat, as one of the diseased peers in at me through the lightly tinted windows. I jump in fright, and finally realize with even more terror that I have tears streaming down my own face.
"Do what Emily said. It's literally our only way out" I tell him, and he seems to make up his mind. He cranks the truck to life, and puts it in reverse, before slamming on the gas. We fly backward, but it frees us from the monstrous mosh pit surrounding us for a mere second.
He flips it into drive, and slams on the gas again, and we plow through the horde of men and women. I see with disgust as the little girl flies into the air, after being hit. She lands on the hood of the truck, before rolling off the front. Drew continues forward, until the hotel is in our rearview mirror. We made it!
Now we just have to make it somewhere safe. We need to find someone to help. I think back to the movies I’ve seen. Is this the end of everything? Is this going to be how I die? I think of Paul then. I’m never going to get to see him again. My last memory of him is the day he broke me. The day we had that huge fight, the day he ended everything. The last time I’ll ever get to see him was my worst memory of him.
I think to myself that one more time. One more moment with him would be enough. If I could just live long enough to see him again, to tell him everything I feel. To have one more memory, any other memory of us to carry with me to the grave. If I could have just one more chance to end us, to do anything. I just can’t have our last conversation, our last day together to be it. I need something more pronounced. I need something more, something better.
Kerry reaches up, she grips my hand tightly, as I turn to face her. Her eyes are wild with fear, but she seems to be relaxing.
“Ben, I don’t know you that well, but where I come from there is something that sets people apart. Some people thrive under pressure, they do not freeze. Some people shut down. I wanted to say that your mother would be so proud of you. If I were your mother, I know I would be” she says. I stiffen.
“My mother disappeared a long time ago. She didn’t want us” I say, correcting her.
“I’m a mother, and I never understood how someone could leave their babies. I am sorry” she says, causing my stomach to turn slightly. She couldn’t have known. It’s not her fault.
We Are The Hunted (Book 1): We Are The Hunted Page 3