The Hunt Chronicles (Volume 1): Awakening (7 page)

And lastly, no mistakes.  Sarah made the error of not looking where she was going.  I could not afford to do that.  One mistake could be my last.  I had to pay attention.  Being brave also meant being stupid.  Being stupid was a mistake.  I was probably still alive because I didn’t help that man at the intersection.  I also could have been killed if I had tried to drag Sarah away from Dave.  Maybe I was being cowardly, but as long as I was still alive, that was okay.

I probably shouldn’t have to say that the last rule didn’t last too long.  I made plenty of mistakes over the past year.

Over those few days that I took to heal, I gathered the gear I thought I would need for scavenging.  It consisted of a multi-tool, (which contained of a set of pliers, a screwdriver, file, a couple of blades and more), a small crow bar, Dave’s handy K-bar, which was basically a large sturdy knife,  a web belt for my Glock’s holster and other attachable equipment, and spare ammunition and magazines.  I would also use my backpack to hold any supplies that I found.  I still had my old army boots, and put on a pair of Dave’s cargo pants.  I decided to stay light, just in case I had to make a quick getaway. 

On day five, I was feeling much better.  My wound seemed to be healing great and my muscles were no longer sore from the fight with Dave.  My shoulder still hurt, so I couldn’t put my backpack all the way on and had to leave it dangling around one side. 

The sunrise made it over John’s house and beamed through my window.  That was the sign I had been waiting for.  It would give me enough time to scavenge a few houses in my neighborhood, and get back home before noon.  I made sure all my gear was secure and prepared to venture out for the first time in days.

I checked the street through the front window.  It was all clear.  I opened up the door, just a crack, and peered out.  All clear again.  I had decided the day before that I wouldn’t lock the front door, or the back for that matter.  If I had to make it quickly back in my house, I didn’t want to fumble with keys.  If I was being chased, I could run around to the backyard and jump the fence.  It seemed like a sound plan.

I walked out front and quietly shut the door behind me.  The street was empty.  I had decided to go to John’s house first.  His kids had moved out long ago, and I had seen him and his wife leave.  His house should be clear. 

I sprinted across the street as quickly and quietly as I could.  I stopped by his garage door.  His home was newer and had a large two car garage.  The rain had washed away the blood that had spilled in his front yard, but I could still see some flesh on the shattered glass of his bay window. 

I tried the door first and it was locked.  I thought that might be the case, and almost started to pry it open with the small crowbar but stopped myself.  That violated one of my rules of being quiet.  I didn’t know if zombies could hear, let alone how well they could hear.  The streets were dead silent and any noise above a whisper might as well be an invitation to some zombies that might be hiding nearby.

I snuck over to the window.  As I climbed in, I cringed as I did my best to avoid the chunks of flesh still on the shards of glass.  I told myself to get over it. 

The smell in the house was pretty bad and there was blood splattered in random locations.  I could make out where his wife had been killed.  It was on the tile where the living room met the kitchen.  A few flies buzzed around, and I swatted one that came too close.  I was still a little squeamish, and sucked in a breath as I avoided the dried pools of blood on my way to the pantry.  You would think after what I had to do a few days before with Dave and Sarah, I would be beyond such a trifle thing.

The smell was awful as I neared the kitchen, and I soon saw why.  John had two little dogs, and both had been ripped to pieces.  Their partially eaten bodies were festering with larva from the flies.  I looked away and tried to ignore the canine massacre. 

The pantry was only part way full.  I found about ten cans of food, a couple of boxes of pasta, some spaghetti sauce, and a box of dog treats.  There were other little things too, like granola bars, chips, and a box of separately packaged brownies.  I was excited.  There was enough food to fill up my backpack right there.

I made my way home without incident and it wasn’t even close to noon yet.  I ventured out one more time that day, hitting a house just down the road, and scored a few more cans of food.  After all was said and done, I had enough food, besides the MREs, for at least another week. 

The next day, I decided to do another scavenging run.  After all, a week’s worth of food was only good for a week.  I decided to check on the next street.  There weren’t any houses left on mine that didn’t have the windows knocked out, and pretty much everyone had a car in the front.

The sun was blazing, and I only saw one zombie.  It was standing in the shade of a house a few hundred feet away from me.  I stayed quiet and moved along the side of the houses and privacy fences.  It was far away, but I didn’t want to take a chance at how well these creatures could see.  Either way, it didn’t notice me.

I saw a new house, probably only two years old, and it looked perfect.  It had a large wooden privacy fence and had to be over two thousand square feet.  The front window wasn’t knocked out, but there wasn’t a car in the driveway either.  The landscaping was beautiful, which usually meant money.  Money could mean a good stock of food and maybe some other things I could use. 

I tried the front door, but it was locked.  Breaking a window was out of the question, so I moved to the door of the privacy fence.  It had a padlock on it, but they had forgotten to lock it.  I took off the lock and proceeded into the backyard.  With any luck, they didn’t lock the back door either.  Privacy fences were a deterrent from would-be thieves.  Dave and I left our back door unlocked plenty of times, and we only had a chain link fence. 

The backyard had a large wooden swing set in the corner.  The screened in patio ran the length of the back of the house.  A stone table with a built in grill ran across a third of the patio.  There were two sets of French doors.  I guessed that one went into the master bedroom. The other had a door cocked part way open, allowing me to see into a dining area.

I cautiously approached the open door and peered inside.  I cringed at the smell of rotting flesh.  I hadn’t gotten used to it yet.  My house still carried the odor, but the one at this house was stronger. 

I looked around the dining area, which opened into the living room.  I could see the doorway to the kitchen not far off.  Along the floor, I saw a trail of blood.  It was dried red blood, not the blackish goo the zombies leaked.  The odor of decay was pretty strong, so I stopped and listened.  I thought I heard something, but it must have been coming from somewhere deeper in the house.

Against my better judgment, and even though my mind was screaming that continuing was a mistake, I went in.  Do you remember when I said I had to be smart and not make stupid mistakes?  Yeah, that was one of those times.  Like that time when you yell at the idiot on the TV for walking down the dark alley alone.

I made my way toward the kitchen.  After all, that’s what I was there for.  I could hear bumps and small moans coming from the other side of the house.  I thought that must have been where the bedrooms were.  I was sure whatever was in there couldn’t hear me because the house was so large. 

I rounded the doorway and saw what I had smelled earlier.  Just like John’s house, these people had a dog.  I thought it looked like a German Shepherd, but it was so bloody and mangled, I couldn’t be sure.

The canine must have given a tough fight.  The dog’s blood was everywhere, but there was also zombie goo to match.  The dog’s teeth had chunks of rotten flesh stuck to them, and there were three human fingers scattered across the floor.

“Good for you, pup,” I whispered out loud.

I heard a bump.  Not in the kitchen, but elsewhere in the house.  The moaning seemed to get a little louder.  Not like it was coming closer, but like it was a getting little more desperate.  It was time to leave.  I didn’t want to face off against one of those things in here or draw attention to the house with a gunshot. 

On my way out, I saw the hallway that led to the bedrooms.  There was a trail of black slime that led into it.  That must have been where the zombie went.  I was halfway out the door when I heard another noise.  It was quiet, but distinctive.  It sounded like a whine.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t coming from the zombie. Whenever it made noise, the zombie moaned louder.

I had a sudden image of a child hiding under a bed, whimpering. 

Holy shit
, I thought.  I was conflicted.  I didn’t know if I could leave a kid to his death.  I watched the man at the intersection get eaten alive and did nothing.  Sarah died ten feet from me, and all I did was watch in horror.  Could I leave here and have this on my conscience too?  Going farther in was a mistake.  Mistakes meant death.

A little voice in my head was saying,
Leave now!  You can’t save the world.  Hell, you can barely take care of yourself
.  After all, I did tell myself a few days ago that I would have to change if I were to survive. 

That’s when another familiar voice interrupted. 

Yeah, you have changed, son.  The old you would have already left with your tail between your legs
.  It was the voice of my dad.  It was the same voice that had spoken to me a few days ago.  I knew he wasn’t there, but he was whispering to my conscience.  If he were here, he would not have even hesitated.

“Damn it!” was all I could manage to say as I turned and went toward the hallway.  I had my gun in my left hand because I was hoping I could just stab the piece of shit in the head without making a sound.  I drew the K-bar with my right, ready to plunge it into that thing’s skull when I found it.

As I rounded the corner, I could hear that the moaning was coming from the half open door at the end of the hallway.  I heard the whimpering again.  I continued down, being sure to stay silent. 

There was enough ambient light to make out a line of pictures and plaques in the hallway.  Besides a few family pictures of a man, woman and two kids, I saw a half dozen photos of a police officer and a dog.  There was no doubt that the dog in the kitchen matched the canine with the cop.  One of them was an award picture that said “Sage’s Retirement”.  I wasn’t sure if the former K9 officer lived in this house, but I put together that the late German Shepherd was a K9 police dog.

I saw a pair of legs kicking on the floor just inside the room at the end of the hall.  I peaked in and saw that a giant hutch had been knocked over, pinning a zombie to the floor. 

This wasn’t a bedroom at all, but an office.  Badges and awards lined the walls showing that this was either a former or current Palm Bay Police Officer, undoubtedly the owner or handler of Sage, the dead Shepherd in the kitchen.  There were trophies with small statues mimicking the duo fighting crime or standing proudly.

The zombie trapped underneath the hutch was probably the woman in the pictures I had seen in the hallway.  I didn’t yet know for sure because the head was out of sight on the other side of the fallen furniture.

I squeezed past the hutch and got a look at the face.  It was her, the lady in the pictures.  I couldn’t tell if she changed from a bite or from the initial outbreak, because she was mangled.  I knew why too.  Her dog had shredded her face and parts of her arms.  I clearly saw four fingers missing.  I figured the mutilated dog in the other room had swallowed one because the other three were still lying on the kitchen floor. 

Both of her arms were outstretched, reaching toward the desk on the other side of the room.  I couldn’t see underneath the desk, but heard something scurry from that direction as I banged my shin on the side of the hutch. 

I cursed, which drew the attention of the zombie at my feet.  She was trying to grab my leg, but the hutch made it awkward for her to reach in my direction.  I rubbed my shin, and cursed again.  There was no need to waste a bullet on her, but I could use this opportunity to learn something. 

I holstered my gun, eyeing the desk to see if whoever was hiding was going to come out.  I didn’t see any movement and whoever had made the noise was now silent.

I grabbed my K-bar with both hands and drove it down toward its skull.  Well, I hit her skull at any rate.  It deflected off the side and nearly went into my foot.  The grinding of the blade on the skull sounded like I was dragging it across concrete.  I quivered at the sound.

“Jesus,” I said aloud.

The human skull is tougher than Hollywood makes it out to be.  It probably didn’t help that my aim was off, which caused it to glance off the side.  A slice of skin came down with the blade, but it didn’t seem to hurt her at all. 

I tried again, this time making sure I was aiming at the flat part of the back of her skull.  It drove deep, almost to the hilt.  But she didn’t die.  Instead, she writhed around like she was having convulsions.

I took a step back, horrified.  At first I thought it was feeling pain, but that wasn’t it.  It was more like a seizure.  I yanked the blade out, and drove it down again.  The shaking didn’t stop, so instead of pulling it out, I twisted and wiggled it ferociously around like a blender.  She finally stopped and slumped over, motionless.

              I took a deep breath.  That was harder and a lot more taxing than I had anticipated.  I retrieved my knife and wiped it on the sleeve of her shirt.  Blackish red blood oozed out of her mouth.  I also noticed her throat had been ripped open by the dog in the kitchen.  The canine knew to go for the throat.  The poor dog just didn’t know that it wouldn’t make a difference with a zombie.