The Hunt Chronicles (Volume 1): Awakening (18 page)

I pushed my knee up with all my strength, just to keep him from getting a bite out of me.  Suddenly, his head smashed sideways and he slumped over to my left.  I rolled him off of me, and saw Fish lifting the sledge one more time to smash its head on the deck of the van.

I was about to thank him when he gripped the sledge with one hand, and pulled his .45 out with the other.  The end of the oil filter was about three inches from my eye.  I swear I almost pissed my pants right then and there.

“Are you bit?” he asked sternly.

“What… no!” I returned, flabbergasted.  I instinctively started to crab-crawl toward the front of the vehicle and away from Fish.

“Show me your arms!” he commanded.

I stopped and raised my hands, twisting my arms so he could see they were clear of any bite marks.

He looked me over, eyed my arms and neck carefully, and then slowly lowered his gun.  The sound of a moan could be heard to his right. He lifted the gun back up and took a shot off to the side of the van.  I heard a body slump to the ground.

“Hurry up, kid, we don’t have all day,” he said as he moved back out of view.

Wow
, I thought.  He went from being ready to shoot me in the head to ‘hurry up’?  I was shocked.  It took me a couple of seconds to recover from the whole ordeal.  Fish had my heart racing more than when the zombie was on top of me.  I truly believed he would have blown my brains out if I had been bitten.

“How much longer?” he said, trying not to shout, but failing.

I gathered the supplies, made my way to the truck, and dumped them in the bed.  I looked around as I headed back to the van.  I saw Fish had put down at least seven zombies so far.  Some had been smashed with the sledge while others were collapsed on the ground with a pool of black goo around their heads.  I rushed and grabbed whole drawers of miscellaneous crap.  After three more runs, and six more dead zombies, I gave Fish the go-ahead. 

He jumped into the driver’s seat as more were either making their way out around houses, or lumbering down the street.  Fish went into reverse and smacked into a zombie right behind us, then sped off toward Headquarters.

The drive home was pretty quiet, up until the time we made it to the middle school.  I couldn’t hold it in anymore.  Originally, I was scared shitless by Fish, but now, I was angry. 

My mind raced with visions of the oil filter on the end of his .45 just inches away from my eye.  What would he do next time?  Would he even check to see if I was bitten?  How could he be so cold? 

Granted, we had only been together for a week, but a week was a long time in the apocalypse.  I thought we had formed some sort of bond the previous night at the fire station.  My blood started to boil, and I slammed my hand on the truck door.

“What in the fuck were you thinking?” I said, loud and angry.

Fish looked at me curiously, and then turned his eyes back to the road, seemingly not knowing or just not caring what I was talking about.

“Hey, fuck head, I’m talking to you!” I shouted. 

Fish slammed on the brakes.  I should have had my seatbelt on but, of course, I didn’t.  I crashed into the dashboard, and before I could recover, his hand gripped my vest and pulled me face-to-face with him.

“If you get bit, you better fucking believe I’m going to put a bullet in you before you change!  I would expect no less from you!” 

I was frozen and in shock.  His words were scary.  But it was the look in the eyes that really got me, they were heartless.  There was nothing but fire and brimstone behind those dark green eyes. I was sure he would kill me and not think twice about it.

Fish tossed me over into my door and caused my head to smack against the windshield.  He turned back to the road, and pressed on the gas.  Those demons Fish had were starting to show, and I didn’t like being in the way when they did. 

I was quiet the rest of the trip home.  I thought about the bite on my shoulder, there was no way I could tell him about it now because there would be no compromising with him.

After that encounter in the truck, I was sure I could put together most of his story, but I didn’t want to think about it.  I knew that trying to stand my ground with Fish was a useless undertaking.  He was a hardened man, who had succumbed to this new world of hell.  I realized that when he talked about Judy being a different person than what she used to be, he had been referring to himself.  Either that or he had always been like this.  That last thought was even scarier.

We had just entered our neighborhood when our radio chimed.  Fish looked at me, as if it was my job to answer.  It was still on our personal frequency, so I knew it was Judy.

“Hey Judy, what’s up?  We’re almost back,” I said, and then remembered, “Over.”

The radio clicked.  “I think someone’s outside near your car, Christian.  I was just checking to see if it might be you.”

Fish and I looked at each other.

“Judy, how can you see in front of the house?” I asked, perplexed.  The hurricane shutters were still on the windows and the tall privacy fence blocked the view of the front yard.

“Oh, Boomer was acting funny when we were in the backyard, and he kept going to the side gate.  I just decided to see what he was worried about.  Don’t worry, honey, I don’t see any of the dead walking around.”  Judy sounded so sweet and innocent.  She also sounded naive and careless.

Fish looked at me and yelled, “Tell her to get inside now!”  At first I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.  If she didn’t see any dead…

I lost my thought as Fish slammed on the gas and repeated, “Tell her!”

“Judy,” I said, “get in the house now!”  My mind started slowly piecing together what Fish already knew.

“There’s a girl,” she said.  “She looks lost.”

Finally, it all came together.  The scab.  Fish said she would come back.  But we had moved.  How did she find us?  The answer came to me as we rounded the corner, almost tipping the truck over.

My car.  The scab knew what vehicle I drove.  I remembered her studying it intensely when she first attacked me at my old house.  Now, it was parked on the curb, just outside the front gate.  Why didn’t I think of that?  Fish told me these creatures were smart.

We screamed into the driveway, almost banging into the iron gates as we screeched to a halt.  Fish jumped out of the truck before I could, and leapt over the fence.  I finally got out, and opened the gate.  I wasn’t nearly as nimble as Fish, even though he had twenty years on me. 

I ran to meet him at the garage where he had started to open it.  We left our rifles and most of our gear behind in the truck.  There just wasn’t time to grab anything.

I noticed, running up to the garage, that the gate to the privacy fence was open.  As Fish opened the garage door, I could hear Boomer barking, followed by a bloodcurdling scream.  We darted into the house and heard ferocious snarling and growling coming from the master bedroom.

Only one of the French doors to the master bedroom was open and Fish kicked the second one in, causing the hinges to rip out of the frame.  I was close on his heels.  Boomer jumped into view as he lunged across the room.

When I finally made it to the doorway, I saw Fish raising his .45 at the scab that had attacked me days earlier.  Her clothes still bore the marks of the previous gunshot wounds we had inflicted, but she seemed to be as nimble as ever.  Fresh scars lined her face, adding to the bloody scabs she had when we first fought her.  Judy was crouched in the corner behind a nightstand that she must have pulled in front of her. 

Boomer had just ripped cloth and skin from the scab’s side, which made her shriek in annoyance.  Judy was screaming and Boomer was snarling, preparing for another attack. 

My hand finally found my Glock, but I couldn’t get the belt that secured it to my leg unfastened.  Everything was moving too fast.  The scab spun around to the new threat.  In her hand, she wielded a long stick.  It looked like a broom handle that had been splintered, giving it the appearance of some barbaric spear.  Fresh blood dripped from the tip.

She nimbly dodged as Fish opened fire and two shots hit struck the wall.  She was crouched near the end of the bed, just six feet or so from Fish when she hurled the stick at his head.  Either she was off by an inch or Fish moved. I couldn’t tell which, but the broom handle plunged into the wall behind him, going at least a foot deep, penetrating through to the other side.

Fish opened fire again, hitting the scab two times, but none of the bullets hit her head.  She was moving too fast.  The power of the .45 did throw her off balance, though, as she scrambled to get out of the way. 

She ran for the bathroom toward the back exit.  I was in Fish’s line of fire now, and he shoved me out of the way.  Boomer dove in and grabbed the scab’s Achilles tendon.  He ripped the bottom part out and caused her to crash to the tile floor and slide five feet into the bath tub.

Fish walked up and fired until his magazine was empty.  At least two of his rounds found her head, causing her to go limp. The rest of the shots peppered her dirty white night gown. 

She laid motionless, red blood spreading across the tile on the bathroom floor.  I ran over to Judy, while Fish reloaded and rolled the scab onto her back.  He then pumped two more bullets through her eye sockets.

Judy was hunched down behind the nightstand, shaking. 

“Judy!  Are you okay?”  I asked, and pushed the nightstand out of the way, taking a knee next to her.  She didn’t answer.  Blood soaked around a hole in her shirt, just above her right breast.

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to calm her down.  “We can fix you up.”

I grabbed her to move her to the bed.  Her right hand came off another wound on the top of her left arm.  It was a bite. 

Suddenly, Judy went silent.  I turned my head and caught my breath.

Fish was behind me.  His expression was ice cold as he raised his .45.

Chapter 15

Judy and the Demons

April 9
th
  Late Afternoon

Determination and resolution were etched across Fish’s face.  He stared at the bite on Judy, and I could see his finger on the trigger tense as he was about to pull it.

Even after Fish had threatened me earlier, and even after I had been told more than once that a bite meant infection, I couldn’t help but try to save Judy.  I cleaned my wound.  I didn’t get infected.  It could be the same for her.  I made a split second decision without thinking of how it could have cost me my life.

“No!” I screamed and pushed the gun, causing the round to hit the headboard of the bed. 

Judy screamed, Fish gave me a death stare, and I was lost as to what to say next.  I half thought that he would shoot me and then Judy, but he didn’t.  He just looked at me as if he was wondering why, after he told me his rules about getting bitten, I would defy him.

He grabbed me by the vest and slammed me against the wall.  Then he raised his gun again and pointed it at Judy who was cowering in the corner, crying.  Boomer barked at Fish, but kept his distance.

“I told you!” he said, his face turned to me, though his .45 was still aimed at Judy’s head.  “I will not watch someone else change into… into one of those things,” he flicked his head back to the dead scab lying on the floor of the bathroom.

I was sure he was going to pull the trigger.  I mustered all my strength, which wasn’t much, and tried to break his grip.  If he would have had me with both hands, it would have been impossible.  But he only had one holding me against the wall. 

“No!” I screamed again.  I broke free and leapt in front of his gun.  I now realize how incredibly stupid that was, considering I thought he was going to shoot right through me.  “We may be able to save her!”

I didn’t think it was possible, but Fish’s face darkened more.  The end of the oil filter was brought up to my head.

“Move Christian,” he said.  He wasn’t yelling, but sounded completely resolute.  He had also used my name.  That was few and far between with Fish. 

My mind told me that my life was going to end and I better move, but my gut said Fish just showed me a crack in his armor. I went with my gut.

“We haven’t tried to save her.  Give me a chance.”  I was talking frantically.  Not because he was holding a gun to my head, though that didn’t help, but because I felt like I only had seconds before he either shoved me out of the way or killed me.  “Let me clean the wound.  Let me see if we can stop the infection.  Just give me a chance!”  I had already decided not to tell him I had been bitten weeks ago, and that decision didn’t change.  If I did tell him and Judy still changed, I would probably get shot along with her.

Fish stood there for at least a minute.  I could see his eyes darting back and forth as he contemplated what to do.  He then slowly backed up and lowered his gun.  Judy was still crying behind me, asking us not to kill her.  He strapped his gun to his side and looked around, fixating on the bed.

“Fine,” he finally said.  “You can do it.”  He pushed me against the wall and grabbed Judy by the arm that wasn’t bitten.  She started to cry in protest as he dragged her over to the bed and tossed her onto her back.  I started to object, but he spun around and gave me a quick ‘You’re lucky I haven’t killed you yet’ look.  He reached into his utility belt and grabbed a pair of handcuffs.

Judy was still crying, but it was down to just light sobs.  Fish handcuffed her right wrist to the footboard of the bed and backed away.  He then turned and walked up to me, face to face.  I was a couple of inches taller, but for some reason I felt like he was looking down at me.

“When she changes, and she will, you better put her down,” he said harshly.  Fish started to storm out of the room, and stopped at the door.  “If she gets you, I’ll do you both.”  I could have sworn I heard regret in his voice when he said that last part, but I could have been imagining it.

I wasn’t sure where he was going, but I did hear the front door open and slam shut.  I had to think fast.  When I was bitten, I had a chunk of skin and muscle almost ripped from my shoulder.  Judy’s bite was a lot less severe.  The teeth marks of the scab could be seen. It hadn’t ripped a part of Judy’s skin or muscle off, but had broken the skin.  There was black goo around the bite, just like there had been around mine.

I decided to take the exact same steps I took when I was bitten.  That way I knew it would work.  I ran to the kitchen and searched the cupboard.  I knew there was vodka and rum in there. I opted for the rum, since that’s what I had used.  On the way back, I hastily took off my first aid pouch and grabbed a bottle of water off of the counter.  After snagging a towel from the master bathroom, I made my way back to the bed, where Judy lay sobbing.

“It’s going to be okay, Judy, I promise,” I told her as I cleaned up the wound with the towel.  It was barely bleeding, which I thought was good.

“But my chest…” she sobbed.  I could see the blood coming out of the wound under the shirt.  It probably hurt a lot more than the bite, but it was not as important.

“We’ll put something on it to slow the bleeding, but we have to take care of this first,” I said, holding her wounded arm.  She nodded as I took out a pack of gauze and shoved it under her shirt.  Even though I knew I should have cut away her shirt, I couldn’t.  She had a bra underneath, but still, Judy reminded me of my mother.

I poured the rum on the wound, and she instinctively flinched even though it didn’t cause any pain.  After I wiped it up, I took out a small bottle of peroxide that I kept in my first aid kit.

“This is going to hurt, Judy, just bear with me,” I warned her.  She nodded, and I poured half of the bottle onto her arm.  She winced in pain, but didn’t cry out.  Judy was tougher than I was.

“I’ve had worse pain,” she said, and tried to smile.

“Really?” I asked, in an attempt to keep her talking.

“Try giving birth to an eleven pound boy,” she said and let out a slight chuckle between her breathing.

I smiled at her, and lifted the bottle as a warning that I was going to pour some more.  She nodded and held her breath.

I poured the remainder of the peroxide over the wound.  It bubbled, trying to fight off the infection.  After I cleaned up the rest, I put some antibiotic cream on her arm and then a gauze bandage that I placed over the bite wound. I wrapped it up nice and tight and told her I was done.

“What about my chest?” she asked.  I think she could tell that I was hesitant to work so close to her breast.  I must have been blushing.

“It’s okay, Christian.  You’re like my doctor.”  She still winced in pain, but I could tell she was trying to calm me down.  How brave she was compared to how childish I was being.

I nodded, sheepishly.

I cut away her shirt, and realized I really couldn’t see much anyway.  Her bra covered her up fairly well.  It was blood soaked, but she would just have to deal with that. 

I wiped the wound, only to see more blood come from it.  The puncture wasn’t a clean cut, but jagged and shaped like a “J”.  There was no mistaking that she needed stitches, but I had no clue how to properly, or improperly for that matter, give them.  Fish could do some sloppy patch work, and if I could get that guy Daniel here, he could fix her up nice, but neither was an option at that moment.  I decided if she made it through the night without changing, then maybe Fish might do it.

“You need stitches, Judy, but I really don’t know how to do it,” I said as I searched through my kit and found a few patches of clear medical dressing.  They looked like big bandages, and I figured I could take them and somewhat close the wound up.

“Just do the best you can, honey,” she said, smiling.  I didn’t think she was in much pain.  She hadn’t lost enough blood to die, but it probably made her woozy, like Fish had been the day before. 

I bandaged up the wound, closing it as best I could, then taped gauze on top, just in case some blood escaped.  It was actually a fairly decent job.  Maybe I should have gone to school to be an EMT.  God knows I’d be a lot more useful in the apocalypse.

I could hear Fish outside while I worked on Judy.  He must have been using his sledge on whatever zombies heard the commotion from in the house.  From the sound of it, there were quite a few.  I kept hearing him grunt and heard his sledge hit flesh over and over again.  It seemed like Fish was using the zombies as a way to release his tension.

I couldn’t think about Fish’s issues at that moment though, so I refocused on the task at hand.  I did my best to prop her up and make her comfortable.  It wasn’t easy.  The way she was handcuffed, she had to lay her head at the end of the bed.  After a little ingenuity though, I had her as relaxed as possible.  I gave her a couple of shots of rum to calm her down. 

While moving her around, I noticed my .22 Ruger lying part way under the bed.  She must have tried to use it against the scab.  I thought that maybe the scab could recognize guns.  After all, she got a good look at mine and Fish’s a few days before that.  That could have been why the scab bit her. 

An hour had passed since the attack.  She had stopped crying and the pain from her chest wound seemed to lessen.  Boomer must have sensed her pain, because he jumped up on the bed and snuggled next to her.

“Christian,” she said softly, “Do you think any of your family made it?”

The question caused my stomach to drop.  When Judy and I would talk about our families, we always avoided the subject of who may have survived.  I avoided thinking about if they were alive or dead as much as possible.  However, Judy bringing them up at the time seemed okay, even if it did make my heart ache.

“I’m not sure,” I replied.  “I would like to think that they did, but…”  I had a hard time talking about it.  I had needed to discuss that kind of stuff with someone like Judy, but I had been stuck with Fish most of the time.  He wasn’t the type to dive into personal feelings.

“My mom was sick… like the rest.  I’d like to think she made it, but I know better.”  I felt the tears forming in my eyes, but I did my best to suppress them.  I didn’t need her to tell me to keep going, the rest just came out naturally. 

“My dad was with her at the hospital, so I’m not sure about him, either.  But Trinity, my sister, was at home.  Maybe she found a way to survive?  My parents owned a house out in the sticks, well away from any populated area.  There shouldn’t be too many zombies or scabs near her.”  I stopped talking when I realized that tears were rolling down my cheeks.  I hadn’t cried since the day I took off Dave’s head.  Maybe it was something that I needed.

Judy rubbed my arm in an attempt to comfort me.  It felt nice… warm.  How could I have been such a big baby?  I guess I wasn’t as hardened as I thought I was.

“You never know, hun.  Maybe she is alive.  Perhaps one day you will find out.”  She said in a gentle tone.  I looked into her eyes and saw they were bloodshot from crying.  Here she was, hurt and traumatized, and she was comforting me.  But I will admit that I needed it.

I heard Fish come back in the house and something heavy hit the tile floor.  He moved to the kitchen, where I heard the sound of glass clinking against glass.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Judy, as I wiped the tears from my face.  I got up and went into the living room.  Fish was sitting on the couch with his feet raised up on the recliner.  I walked around to get a better view and ask if everything was alright, but instead I sucked in my breath.

Fish was covered with red and black sludge.  I could see the sledgehammer lying by the sliding glass door, coated with the same goo.  He was still breathing heavy.  His head turned and he looked at me briefly, before he turned back to face the blank TV.  He took a long drink out of one of the bottles of vodka that had been in the pantry.

I didn’t know what to say.  I decided that not saying anything was better than bringing up the conversation of Judy’s predicament.  Just as I turned around to go back to the master bedroom, however, he spoke.

“It will happen soon, Christian,” he said, then took another swig.  “I hope you have the stomach for it.”

He was being an asshole like usual, but he had a point.  If Judy did change, I wouldn’t have a choice but to kill her.  I looked in the room and watched her.  She moved around a little, like she was uncomfortable or had an itch on an unreachable location on her back. 

I made my way back into the bedroom and sat down next to her.  I noticed Boomer had moved and was laying on the floor now.  I thought that maybe the bed was too warm for him.

“How are you feeling?”  I asked as tenderly as possible.

“Not so well, Hun,” she replied.  She was sniffling a little, and would cough here and there.  I remembered I had those same symptoms before I passed out on the couch the day that I was bit.  I hoped that her body was fighting it off like mine had.

“Do you need anything?”  I inquired.

“Water.  Can I have some water please?”  I complied and gave her some out of the bottle I used to clean her wound.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.  She shook her head no.

“You know,” she said between short breaths, “my husband was a good man.  I want you to know that.  He may have become a monster, but in life, he was caring and a great provider.”