Dead Hunt (8 page)

“Fuck!” Wade cursed, his eyes watering up.
“Why didn’t you move?”

“Ho-ly shit!” Michael announced as he looked
out the back window.

“What?” Wade yelled back.

“She got up!” Michael explained
excitedly.

“She what?”

“She got up!”

Wade looked in the mirror in disbelief. The
little girl was on her feet, walking towards them as the van sped
away. Wade said the only thing he could think of saying.

“What the hell do these people put in the
water?”

CHAPTER 6 – The Cabin

“Turn here,” Lucy announced.

The van skidded to a stop then turned towards
Centre Margaree. They crossed over Cranton Bridge, a popular
swimming area and salmon fishing spot on the Margaree River, but
nobody was swimming or fishing today. Ahead of them was another gas
station. They didn’t stop for gas. They made a right and headed
towards Portree Road. The road dipped up and down like a roller
coaster. It looked like it hadn’t been paved in twenty years. At
one turn, the edge of the road had caved in where the Margaree
River pounded into the side of the mountain for hundreds of years
until it finally collapsed the road above. They could see a long
stretch of the Margaree River in all its majestic glory. It was a
million dollar view, but right now the only view they wanted to see
was Lucy’s cabin. Wade navigated the turns cautiously.

They crossed a small bridge that opened into
a large, flat valley when Lucy spoke up.

“It’s the little red place on the left.”

Michael noticed a few other houses and cabins
around, but no people. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or
not. The van drove up the grassy driveway then rolled to a stop.
The hot sun was starting to set as the teens jumped out of the van
and ran towards the cabin.

Lauren turned to Lucy. “Do you have the keys,
Lucy?”

“No,” Lucy answered.

Everyone looked at Wade.

“What? Oh I get it, all of a sudden I’m a
B&E expert. I’m insulted.”

“Can you get us in or not?” Lucy asked.

“Of course I can,” he answered with a smile.
“But I’m still insulted that everyone assumed I could.”

He walked up to the door and rattled the
doorknob.

“So who has the lock picking tools?”

They looked at him but said nothing.

“Guess it’s plan B then,” he suggested as he
stepped back and kicked the door below the handle.

The door frame shattered as the door flung
open.

“After you, ladies,” Wade motioned to the
door.

“I could have done that,” Paul shook his
head.

“Ahh, but I did,” Wade answered with a
smile.

“For your next trick,” Paul added, pointing
to the splintered door frame, “I want to see you lock it again to
keep those things out.”

Paul was still grinning as Wade pushed past
him.

“You people expect me to think of
everything,” he mumbled and turned back to Paul. “Instead of
standing there grinning like a dill, go grab the tinnys.”

“Grab the what?” Paul asked.

“Tinnys….the cans of beer.”

Paul looked towards the van. Michael was
standing next to it in the waning light, looking up at the
mountains.

“Hey, star gazer, door’s open.”

“Looks like there’s a light up on that
mountain,” Michael yelled back.

“Yeah, so? We’re down here, not up there.
Grab the beer!” Paul barked as he stepped inside the cabin.

Michael grabbed the cooler of beer and walked
towards the cabin.

“Something tells me we should be up there,”
he thought out loud.

Inside the cabin Lucy flicked the light
switch. Nothing. She turned the main power breaker on and the
lights flashed briefly then went out.

“Fuses are blown,” she announced.

They helped her search for spares in the
failing light, but could not find any.

“Guess we’re camping in the dark,” Emma said
as she turned on the tap.

Nothing came out.

“It’s an electric pump,” Lucy informed her.
“No electricity, no water.”

“Any other good news?” Paul asked. “We don’t
have any electricity, there’s no water, and look,” he pointed to
the old stone fireplace. “No wood to build a fire. Nice place you
brought us to, Lucy.”

“Hey, guys,” Michael spoke up, “we can’t stay
here.”

“Why not?” they all asked in unison.

“This place is too open. We don’t have any
electricity. There’s no food, or water….” Michael started.

“Hey, I have water!” Lauren announced. “Two
or three bottles in my duffel bag.”

“There’s six of us,” Michael told her. “And
we don’t know how much longer we’ll be stuck here. A couple bottles
of water and some beer ain’t going to help us much. I don’t see
anything we can use to board up the windows and,” he looked at
Wade, “the door won’t lock.”

“Well, I didn’t see anyone else coming up
with ideas,” Wade bit back.

“Well, we can’t go out there with those
things,” Paul told them. “We should just stay here the night and
head for St. Peter’s in the morning. Who in the hell were those
people?”

“Zombies,” Emma suggested, not realizing she
said it out loud.

“What?” she asked when she realized everyone
was staring at her.

“She’s right,” Michael suggested.

“Oh please,” Paul spoke up. “Zombies? Gimme a
fuckin’ break.”

“No, think about it,” Michael started to
explain.

“Think about what?” Wade interrupted. “This
ain’t the movies, Mate.”

“No, it’s not,” Michael agreed. “It’s as real
as we are standing here. Those things out there are real and they
are headed this way.”

“You don’t know that!” Paul argued.

“Then let’s go by what we do know,” Michael
suggested. “We saw them eating human bodies.”

“I hate to break it to you, Sherlock,” Paul
interrupted. “But that would make them cannibals, not zombies.”

“When we ran out of the Co-op and out of that
hall,” Michael continued, “they didn’t run after us. They walked.
They staggered like they had no coordination.”

“So?” Wade questioned.

“So, when you pulled away,” Michael told him,
“twice I saw you shower them with rocks and twice they barely even
flinched. Like it didn’t even hurt them! And, what about the little
girl you ran over?”

“What about her?” Wade asked.

“You hit her doing what? Forty, fifty miles
an hour? We all felt the van hit her. And she got up! That impact
should have killed her, but she got up and started walking after
us! I don’t know what they are or how they got that way, but
everything so far points to zombie-like behavior, and that’s all we
have to go on.”

“So, what’s your point?” Lucy asked.

“My point is, we can’t stay here,” he said
again. “When we first saw them, Lucy, you said hello but they
didn’t really hear you until you screamed. It wasn’t until that
first one made that weird growling sound that the other one
came.”

The teens stared at him, trying to follow
along.

“And at the hall, they didn’t even know we
were there. But as soon as Emma screamed, that little kid let out
the same type of growl, and that’s when the rest of them looked. If
they are like zombies then maybe their brains can’t really
distinguish one sound from the next, but that growl they make is
like some kind of sensory communication or something.”

“Sounds kinda weird to me,” Wade offered.

“And people eating people or little girls
getting up when they were hit by a van is not weird?” Lauren
asked.

“They didn’t really see or hear us,” Michael
explained. “But as soon as one of them knew we were there and made
that growl, they all knew we were there.”

“Then that settles it,” Paul announced. “If
we stay here in the dark and be real quiet, they can’t see or hear
us.”

“No,” Michael explained, “think about it. If
they don’t hear that well and don’t see that well, then how do they
find food?”

“How?” Emma asked though she was pretty sure
she didn’t want to know.

“By smell.” Michael let his words sink in
before continuing. “They must be able to smell food.”

“Then why didn’t they smell us when we opened
the doors?” Lauren asked.

“I don’t know,” Michael answered. “That place
reeked from all those dead bodies. Maybe that smell was so strong
it hid our smell. It’s starting to get dark and we don’t have any
lights. We won’t be able to see them coming. They could be right
outside the door and we wouldn’t even know it.”

They all looked at the shattered door.

“We’re sitting ducks here,” Michael told
them. “Even if we did see them coming, you saw how bad the tires
spun on the gravel. When the sun goes down it’s gonna get chilly
and damp, and then we’ll be spinning tires on wet grass trying to
get away. It’s not safe here.”

“Where do you suggest we go?” Lucy asked.

“We can’t go back the way we came because
there’s too many of them on the road. I don’t think the van could
plough through them all. On top of that mountain, I saw lights.
That means there’s somebody up there.”

“What if there’s not?” Lauren asked.

“Then at least we know there’s electricity.
Lucy, do you know what that place is?”

“There’s a hunting lodge up there. My dad
said some doctor bought it a few years ago.”

“A hunting lodge means guns,” Michael
stated.

“Oh great,” Paul interrupted. “Stay here and
get eaten or go up there and get shot!”

“No, he’s right,” Lucy said, “If someone is
up there, I don’t think they expect those…” she hesitated and said
reluctantly, “those zombie things to drive up in a van.”

“What if they are… zombies too?” Emma
queried.

“It’s pretty secluded up there,” Michael
explained. “We didn’t come across any of those things coming into
Margaree, so it should be safe up there.”

“Should be!” Paul laughed. “That’s
comforting.”

“I think we should do what Michael says,”
Lucy suggested.

“Oh I see how it is,” Paul said sardonically.
“Everything lately is Michael and Lucy. Where you go he goes. What
he says you agree with. Something you guys want to tell me?”

Lucy shot a dirty look at Paul. “Grow up.
You’re such a dick.”

“I’m telling you guys, we have to get out of
here,” Michael continued, ignoring Paul’s jealous comment. “We are
surrounded by houses and cabins and God knows what else. If one of
them senses we are here, how long do you think it will take for
more of them to figure it out?”

Nobody said a word.

“We know they don’t move very fast,” Michael
added. “So the quicker we get out of here the better.”

Michael looked impatiently at his friends. It
seemed like it took forever for them to make up their minds, but it
was really only a few seconds.

“Ok, then,” Wade sighed, “let’s head up to
the top of the mountain. That way we’ll be closer to heaven when we
die.”

Lauren laughed. “If that’s the case, Wade,
you’re going in the wrong direction.”

Everyone chuckled nervously as they headed
out the door.

Michael noticed a butcher block and grabbed a
large kitchen knife. As he was leaving he spotted a machete hanging
above the door. He dropped the kitchen knife and pulled the giant
machete out of its sheath imitating Crocodile Dundee, “That’s not
knife. Now that’s a knife.”

Wade poked his head back in the door,
smiling. “I heard that!”

Michael returned the machete to its sheath
and followed his friends to the van.

As Wade pulled onto the road they noticed
people covered in blood were coming out of their houses, all
walking in that same unsteady swagger, all walking towards
them.

“They’re all coming out at the same time. I
wonder why?” Emma asked.

“We are why,” Lauren told her. “It’s feeding
time.”

CHAPTER 7 – Big Ben

Wade swerved around as many of them as he
could. He knew if the van took too many hits, it could crack the
radiator or they could get hung up on one of them. Being outside on
foot with those zombie things was not something any of them wanted
to experience. Within minutes, they had passed the last of them.
Michael looked out the back window and watched them slowly follow
the van.

“Just like before,” Michael said to no one in
particular, though everyone was listening. “They’re following
us.”

The van crawled up the steep, rocky road as
the sun fell behind the mountains, blanketing them in darkness.

“For Christ’s sake!” Wade said shaking his
head.

“What is it?” Paul asked.

“We left the esky back at the cabin.”

“We left the what?” Paul asked.

“The esky.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Doesn’t anyone in Canada speak English?”
Wade asked sarcastically. “The cooler. We left the bloody cooler of
beer back at the cabin.”

“Smooth move, Exlax,” Paul snickered. “Want
to go back for it?”

Wade slammed on the brakes.

“Jesus Wade, I was kidding!”

“Shut up!” Wade whispered. “I thought I saw
something.”

Everyone looked. Wade flicked on the high
beams, and that’s when they saw it: a huge, black bear coming
towards them.

“Holy shit!” Emma squealed, too loud for
everyone’s liking.

“Shhh!” Lauren warned her.

The bear stopped in front of the van, staring
directly at Wade. Wade’s heart pounded in his ears and his arms
started to shake uncontrollably when the bear stood on its hind
legs directly in front of him. A cold sensation raced down the back
of Wade’s neck and shoulders. His breath came in short bursts.

Wade saw two giant paws with terrifying claws
thud down on the hood of the van. Wade froze, too afraid to even
look away. He could not speak. The claws lifted and thudded down
again. Its roaring breath blew spit on the windshield.

“Now what do we do?” Michael yelled over the
girls’ screams.