I know I'm being pessimistic, but what is there really to look forward to. I've seen my fair share of zombie movies, and they all end the same. The government falls, the world ends, and the people who survive are never truly happy again, as long as they do end up living. It's all pretty much a death sentence, but I just hope we can manage to defy the odds.
“Do you remember the weekend after graduation, when You, Paul, Garrett, and I rented the boat?” she asks suddenly. I flinch at the mention of Paul’s name. I then realize that she spoke her ex’s name too. That must have been hard for her. He cheated on her right after she miscarried his child.
“Yeah, what about it?” I ask, remembering the weekend clearly. We rented a houseboat. I remember the waves, the rushing sound. I remember playing music too loud, drinking too much. I remember Paul threatening to throw me overboard if I played one more Elvis song. I remember it all.
“Do you remember the zombie movie we watched that night?” she ask me, steering my memory in a new direction. I remember because Paul and I couldn’t stop laughing, it had been cheesy, and low budget. I also remember later that night, dancing under the light of the moon. Sharing a bottle of fireball. I remember sleeping under the stars, allowing Emily and Garrett to be alone.
“That really dumb one with the beavers?” I ask her, a smile that tears me apart cropping up on my face.
“I wish this kind of stuff could just stay fiction; you know?” she asks, as I look down at Kerry. Grace is still standing a few feet away, not in our conversation.
“Me too Em, me too” I tell her, pulling her in for a tight hug. She buries her head into my chest, and I place my lips to her cool forehead. I hear her take a deep breath, before I close my eyes.
I savor the feeling of normalcy. I take in her scent, the presence of sweet pea lotion, the smell of her shampoo, the feel of her skin, my best friend’s skin against mine. I pull away then, looking back out at the parking lot.
We sit there for another minute, just leaning against the wall while we have a minute of peace. I look to my right and see the first infected come around the corner.
Emily looks around and reaches for a nearby shovel leaning against the wall of the building. I watch as she crosses the parking lot and faces the zombie. I almost laugh at her, but then she does something that leaves me speechless.
Emily has always been a girly girl who prefers to not get her hands dirty, but in this moment, I see a new side of her. She looks back at me, before turning back to the two zombies before her. She raises the shovel into the air and brings the handle part of it down on the infected. The tip of it collides with the face of the beast, but it still stands, so she swings again. This time it goes right through his eye, and he immediately drops to the ground, moving no more. She seems to be more confident with the second one, as she twirls the stick into the air.
Bringing the shovel down, she hits the beast right across the face. I watch as its head snaps back, before the body crumples to the floor. I shiver as the diseased man tries to struggle back to his feet, but she brings the shovel down upon him with a look of anger on her face. Blood spurts from the beast's eye and it collapses into a heap of blood and skin. Its face is caved in, looking deformed, but peaceful.
She leaves the shovel there, protruding from the dead monster, as we turn back to the car, where Kerry is still lying unconscious. I'm just walking back to her to check if she's still okay, when she sits up. I race up to her, and she looks at me with terror in her eyes. I move to open the door and sit on the seat next to her. She's just about to start speaking, when she collapses again. I pull her head into my lap, and just hold her. I try to make her comfortable, but she's starting to shake slightly. I think of her daughter, of her story. I know we just met, but she trusted me. I failed her. I failed her when she needed me the most. I feel my eyes welling with tears.
Emily joins me, sitting in the front seat of the car and turning to face me in the back. Grace stands just outside, surveying the scene. We all look down at Kerry as she begins to seize. Emily looks behind us, as I try to keep Kerry from harming herself during her seizure.
I'm just about to pull her into a sitting position, when she takes a deep raspy breath. It sounds like a flutter of wings, when she exhales, but then her body goes limp, and she doesn't inhale again. I look to Emily, and she just shakes her head sadly. I reach down to feel her pulse and realize with resounding finality that Kerry isn't unconscious. She's dead. A silence seems to resonate in the air around us. I can’t cry for her. I want to, a few seconds ago, I was about to. Now, I’m frozen, numb.
I gently lower her head to the seat and crawl out of the car. I look back sadly, as I turn to Emily and Grace. Grace pulls out her phone, trying to call for help. I almost roll my eyes because it’s not going to work.
“We’ve already tried that; it’s not going to…” I begin, but she raises her hand rudely, waving for me to be silent. I do a doubletake, before pushing the annoyance down. I remind myself that she is scared. Hurt people, hurt people.
After a few more words, and a goodbye, Emily joins me by the car again, and looks in at Kerry's body.
"So, we know that a bite will cause a fatal infection. We know that it only takes a couple hours to spread. We know that this thing is killing people left and right" I tell her, as she continues to look from the empty parking lot, to the empty orbs that used to be Kerry's eyes. I can see the horror in her blue eyes, as she scopes our surroundings for any other monsters. I notice her fingers constantly drumming the side of the car.
“You wanna talk about it Em?” I ask her, looking from her flushed face, to the ever-drumming of her fingers. She shakes her head, biting her lip.
“It’s just so… fucked up. Kerry was a sweet lady. Why does she deserve to die?” she says, the curse word slipping into her soft voice, like medicine flowing through a vein.
“I know. It’s not fair” I say lamely, unable to say something more profound, more helpful. I rest a hand of hers briefly, before Grace cuts in on the conversation.
"Do you think it's transmitted any other way than biting?" Grace asks, finally hanging up her phone and joining us by the car again. I think about it. I chew over the thought for a couple of beats. Is this thing airborne? Is that how people are changing. Kerry didn't turn into one of them, she just died. Do you have to catch it in a different way in order to have different reactions? Grace moves to lean against the car. She is looking down at Kerry with disgust.
"I'm not sure, but either way; I don't wanna find out" I tell her. I look back to the car.
"Why don't we go find the others, before we get found by one of those…” I ask Emily, trailing off, as my eyes rest on the dead one before me. She seems to agree because she walks over to the dead zombie and pulls the shovel from his head. Turning back to me, she signals that she's ready to go. I decide to say goodbye to Kerry, before we leave so I turn to the car. I’m not usually so sentimental. She’s not even Kerry anymore. She’s just an empty husk.
I notice two things as I turn. Grace is looking out at the noise of something in the distance and Kerry is sitting up. I move to push Grace away, but Kerry springs forward. She leaps on Grace with a gurgling growling noise. Grace screams, as Kerry sinks her teeth into her throat.
A sick whimper escapes Grace’s lips, as blood pours from her open wound. Kerry devours her throat, and Grace falls to the ground dead. Thick, dark blood spreads across the cracked pavement around her body. I’m two steps away, but before I can move, Kerry finds me there and knocks me to the ground in the process. I flail around, trying to get away from her, as she snaps at me, and ferociously reaches for my face like I'm an oversized chicken nugget.
I manage to kick her off of me. She topples sideways, and I scramble to my feet, as I look down at her. She is crawling to me with a low growl. I look back at Emily, as she stands there as well. I can see that she's unsure of what to do. A pool of Grace’s blood is sticky under my feet. Kerry hovers there.
Kerry rega
ins her footing at that moment and begins to shuffle over to us. I take a step back, not knowing what to do. I'm just about to turn around and run, when someone comes up from behind her, and knocks her back to the ground.
Paul is standing over her, just before he thrusts a broken PVC pipe through her eye. She goes still just like when Emily killed the last two. He walks over to us, and I can see concern in his eyes. The feeling that courses through me, is a bit scary, so I just push it back down. Paul takes a look from Kerry’s prone form to the quickly gathering blood around Grace’s corpse.
"Are you guys hurt?" he asks, and I just silently nod. He then wordlessly leads us away from the bodies of our group members. I turn back to look at Grace’s body one last time, before Paul leads us around the corner.
I then see that everyone else is gathered with the new vehicles ready to go. There are no infected around, so I wordlessly head right over to one and slide into it, but my mind never leaves Kerry alone in the parking lot. What is happening to my life? I just watched two women die. Why am I not falling apart? Why is it that all I care about is Paul?
NINE
Just as I'm opening the car door, Emily shouts out from behind. I turn to see Emily jumping into a different one, and we're off. The last thing I see is her smile.
I look out the back window, as the bodies of the women I watched die fall further behind us. I look forward finding that I managed to get into Paul's car with his sister and him. I pull out my phone and begin to scroll through the pictures; just trying to make myself scarce.
I open up my Facebook and see with shock that things are just as bad back home. I read the first few posts on my newsfeed.
Megan Elizabeth Carter (19 Minutes Ago)
It doesn’t seem real that you’re gone. You raised me to be the person I am. You encouraged me to follow my heart and now, I’ll never get to see you again. RIP dad. Stay off the road guys. These monsters are dangerous.
Seth Samuels (42 Minutes Ago)
PSA: Walmart is out of bottled water. If you need supplies, go to Publix. Me and the fam are headed out of the city. Stay safe. Don’t be stupid.
Zoey Elizabeth (47 Minutes Ago)
Has anyone heard from my sister’s kids? They went on a college tour road trip yesterday and now all of this crap is happening. Ben, Riley, Ryan, Emily, Drew? If any of you see this, please call me or your dad.
Suzanne Meyers-Stuart (3 Hours Ago)
Does anyone know why the roads are blocked near Kmart? Is there a bad wreck or something?
Seth Samuels (8 Hours Ago)
I was coming home from work just now and over by the gas station on 3rd Avenue, there were some shady looking people stumbling around. Watch out guys.
"Your brother said you guys have a hotel room, we can go to for now?" he asks me, never looking away from the road. I look up from my phone, closing out of Facebook anxiously. I study what I can see of his face in the mirror, before answering.
"Yeah, it's going to be right down this road, if you turn right" I try to explain. He nods silently, before turning where directed. I'm just looking back down at my phone, when he curses in anger.
"Shit!" he yells. I look up to see a street packed with hundreds of people. It looks like another riot scene. Some of the people are infected, while some are running. I watch as an elderly woman tries to get out of the street, but one of the hungry beasts pulls her down by her ankle, and crawls on top of her. I watch in horror, as it takes a chunk out of her face. Looking away, I find myself meeting his gaze. He's looking through the rearview mirror. For that moment, his blue eyes radiate through the space between us, and I feel a warmth spread through my bones. He breaks the piercing connection, just as we turn down a side road to avoid the riot.
I look all around, but the other two cars containing our group are nowhere to be found, I really hope they're okay right now.
"Turn up here, and we can bypass the whole thing" his sister suggests, and he nods, before taking a sharp turn down another road. I immediately recognize it as the other side of the street our hotel is located on.
We're driving down the road, and just as the hotel comes into view, Paul speeds up slightly. He is just turning into the parking lot, when I feel something hit us from the side. My teeth gnash together, and the seat belt locks, as we're sent spinning from the impact.
My head hits the back of Lana’s seat, but that seems to be the worst of it, until I hear the screeching of the brakes. Looking to Paul, I see that he's slumped forward against the steering wheel, and we're spiraling out of control. I reach down to unbuckle my seatbelt, but it won't unlock.
I look ahead, just as two things happen at the same time. Paul returns to consciousness, just as we hit a pole in front of us. I close my eyes, just as we collide. My body is jostled all around, but my eyes stay tightly closed.
*****
I never even realized I had lost consciousness, until I open my eyes at the sound of her voice.
"Ben, Benjamin oh my God!" I hear, before opening my eyes weakly. What the hell is going on? I open my eyes, and groggily look around. Riley is standing outside of the car, and it looks to be a bit later in the day. How long was I out?
I look forward, and see Paul is unconscious. I look behind me and see that the car that hit us is still behind us, and the driver is still in there. Then I hear the sound of Lana crying. I look forward. She doesn’t have any injuries visible.
"What the hell happened?" I asked, and Riley looks around for a clue as to what might've occurred.
“We’ve been so worried about you guys. We finally remembered the tracking app for losing your phone” she explains, continuing to look around behind her.
"Drew, come help. I found them!" she calls behind her. A few minutes later, everyone is here, and we're being helped from the car. I reach up and wipe some blood off of my cheek, when the door is finally opened, and Chase cuts the seatbelt off of me, I go to lift myself out of the car, but my entire body groans in protest.
I collapse back into the seat. That's when I remember Paul again. I force myself into a sitting position, and then lean up to the front seat. Paul is lying suspended by the seatbelt, hanging over the middle console slightly. He has three streaks of blood that dried down his face, but the good sign is that he's breathing. The others finally manage to free Paul, and Lana. Paul wakes up at that moment. Once we're all out of the car, the group turns behind us. I turn to the car that hit us and take a few steps toward the driver's door.
"I'll go, like check it out really quick" Lana says, and we all look at her cautiously. She ignores the apprehension in our eyes, before turning to the vehicle. I follow behind her, my body working fine, even if it is sore and cramped from the accident. We head to the car. It's a silver Chevy Silverado, but it's completely totaled. Taking another few painful steps, I look right into the window over Lana’s shoulder.
The glass is broken, so I can hear, and see into the driver's seat. The man driving is moving. He's feebly struggling to free himself from the binds of the locked seatbelt, so I lean in, stepping past Lana’s frozen form, and assist him in getting free, just as I'm reaching for the buckle, he whips his head around, and snaps at me ferociously. I jump back in fright, when I realize that he's dead. He turned into one of them, maybe that's why he crashed. I hop down from the truck and turn back to the others. They all look at me expectantly, but I just shake my head sadly. That's when Ryan comes up to me and hoists my arm over his shoulders. That's when I realize how weak I am right now. I’m not injured, but my whole body hurts.
We slowly make our way into the hotel parking lot, and I avert my gaze, as we pass the man that was demolished before my very eyes. I do happen to see that he's little more than a pile of bloody bones now. Ryan helps me up the stairs, and we make our way to the room. The door to our second room is still ajar, so Riley and Drew head over there to get the rest of their stuff. We're not going to sleep in there because of all the infected blood that is on the floor and bed. I turn to our door and
reach into my pocket for the key. Producing it instantly, I swipe us inside, and we find ourselves in the room. I head right over to the bed, and plop down on it. Emily comes over, and sinks into the bed next to me, she runs a cool hand over my forehead, and it feels so nice. I close my eyes tiredly, and just relax there for a few moments.
“What can I do honey?” Emily asks, continuing to run her long cold fingers through my hair. I sigh in relief. I can smell her lotion again. It makes me feel at home. I feel myself starting to doze.
“Nothing, you’re doing amazing already. I love you Em” I say suddenly, as if only to not fall asleep in that moment. She smiles at that, I can hear it in her voice.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks me. I pull myself from the memories, reaching up to wipe the tear from my cheek, before speaking.
“My grandpa’s old hunting cabin. I wish it were still ours” I tell her. She stops moving her fingers through my hair.
“I remember when you brought me with that one time” she says, remembering the same day as I was a second ago. Riley joins us on the bed then.
“We used to go up there every summer and every Christmas” Riley says, joining in the conversation.
“We used to hunt all the time. We used to get away and just be there, just be happy” I say wistfully.
“Remember when you were obsessed with archery?” Emily asks suddenly. I smile at that. I loved archery. I worked so hard and now, I can hit a bullseye anytime I want.
“Remember how much you sucked at it Ry?” I laugh, my face breaking into a light smile. I’m not aware of how loud our conversation has gotten, until Paul breaks in.
“Yeah, you didn’t hit the target even once I don’t think. It sucks that you guys lost that place” he says. It reminds me of when we brought him with us, the night we went for a walk and saw the bear. The night he told me he wanted to marry me one day.
We Are The Hunted (Book 1): We Are The Hunted Page 6