He paused a moment before entering the camp, scanning the area again, wary of stepping out into the open and exposing himself. The hair on the back of his neck rose as he stepped from the thick hillside into the clearing. He carefully eyed the ruined tents and debris, watching for movement, any sign of life, but nothing stirred there. He slowly stepped past the destroyed tents and studied a crude fire pit made of rocks that had probably come from the creek just below the camp. He knelt down and placed his hand over the smoldering coals of the fire. Judging from the faint heat, it had gone unattended for some time and wasn’t far from dying out now.
“Hello? Anybody hear me? John Carl Cobb, are you out there?”
No one responded to his calls; the only sounds he could hear were the creaks and groans of the windswept pines above the hollow. Then the breeze shifted, the coolness of it caressing his sweaty face, bringing with it another scent that invaded his nostrils. A horrid stink he hadn’t smelled since his days in the Afghanistan Mountains: the unmistakable stench of human decay.
The foul scent drew his attention toward a boulder-strewn and leaf-choked meandering stream. As he moved down by the creek, Brayden’s eyes fell upon the ragged, bloating bodies of the missing bear hunters. Gripping the shotgun tighter, he advanced toward them, scanning the scene with darting, wary eyes until he could make them out clearly.
It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Thousands of flies buzzed around the poachers, each demanding their share of the carcasses. When Brayden took a step closer, the flies startled, all of them in unison like some ungodly school of fish, and they swarmed up and away from the dead hunters’ bodies. Brayden took a step backward, cringing. The men’s abdomens and chests had been ripped open; chunks of flesh and muscle were clearly missing, and writhing maggots where the only things moving. The poachers looked half-devoured in the awful heap of death in which they now lay, and Brayden nearly retched from the smell of it all.
Once he had gained control of himself, he began to scan the area, keeping his head still, moving only his eyes, knowing that whatever had done this to these men could be out there watching him, stalking him. Looking behind and to his left, he spotted their hunting rifles leaning against a knotted and knurled-looking pine tree. Brayden figured that whatever had happened here, these men had never seen it coming, or they’d been too drunk to care.
His first instinct was that the men had been attacked by a bear, a mother with her cubs, possibly even rabid. He wondered if the animal was still out there watching, as he couldn’t shake the looming, steady feeling of eyes upon him. He felt it in his bones, the same way he’d felt it just before the ambush of his platoon back in the hills of Afghanistan.
He was not alone. He was certain of it.
He stood, scanning the ridge above him. Slowly, he turned his gaze upon the valley beyond the hollow, but saw nothing. Then Brayden knelt down to inspect the soft, loamy dirt beneath him and around the dead poachers. Surprisingly, he saw no bear or coyote tracks. What he found was footprints. Human footprints. Odd-looking tracks, as if a group of men had been dragging their feet. He didn’t know what to make of it, couldn’t comprehend the carnage of it all, and those strange tracks.
What the hell happened here? he wondered.
These men had been murdered, that much he knew. He figured that surely some animal had chewed them up afterwards, eating its fill and moving on. At least he hoped the damned thing had moved on as he eyed his surroundings.
Brayden tried to call over the radio, but was greeted with a rude, blaring hiss of static. “Damn it!” Realizing the futility of using the out-of-range radio, he tried his cell phone and saw that the phone was equally useless. Cursing his luck, he covered his mouth and nose with his shirt to lessen the wretched smell, deciding to head for higher ground in hopes of obtaining a signal higher up the ridge and out of the deep, thickly wooded hollow.
Turning towards the ridge, he caught movement from the corner of his eye and flinched as a high-pitched, raspy squeal came from close behind him. Turning and simultaneously raising the shotgun, it took a moment for Brayden to comprehend what he was seeing as the three hunters clawed at the creek bank, trying to get to their feet. Brayden watched in horror as the tallest of the three, John Carl Cobb, got his footing and began stumbling toward him, squealing a hair-raising, inhuman howl. His eyes were glazed over and milky; most of his scalp had been torn from his head. His gnawed and ragged body lurched towards Brayden, rotten lips rippled into a bloody-toothed snarl.
Every molecule of his being told Brayden to run, but he couldn’t move. He was paralyzed, as if his feet had taken root in the rocky red soil beneath him, as if the mountain had merged with his body and wouldn’t let him be. Cobb was closing in faster now, moving somewhat fluidly, like some ungodly newborn calf gaining its legs.
Brayden felt the recoil as he instinctively fired two rounds through the poacher’s chest, sending him sprawling back into the creek, spraying the thick underbrush with bone fragments and thick, coagulated blood that dripped and plopped in thick gobs from the wild azaleas and mountain laurel, slow like cold honey.
Brayden let out a stunned breath as the other two once-dead hunters began to awaken and scream. Taking a step back now, Brayden shot the closest one at near point-blank range, disintegrating most of its head into a plume of pink spray. He looked on in horror as the third of the undead hunters began pulling itself along with its one good arm as the other arm dragged along beside it. The horrid sound the thing made reminded Brayden of a squealing wild boar.
The thing was making slow progress in its pitiful condition, and Brayden wondered how it could even manage to move at all, being that it was already dead.
Taking another step backward, he allowed the vile, once human thing to crawl and pull itself across the creek bank as his mind worked frantically to understand what was happening. He could smell the stench of rotting death. Ragged, bloody bite marks stretched up and down the length of the thing’s face and neck as it crawled along toward him, dragging a pile of unraveling intestines in its wake.
But still he let it writhe and squirm along the rocky bank, needing to rationalize what he was seeing, feeling, and hearing. The thing got itself hung up upon a rock and writhed in place for some time, snapping at the air and staring through lifeless eyes at Brayden.
Brayden solemnly shouldered the big shotgun, squeezed the trigger and felt the gun’s bone-jarring recoil four more times before the thing stopped inching toward him. Even then it continued to bob its head, snarling and biting the air. Brayden took a deep breath, raised the gun and shot it once more in the head, ending its misery.
He reloaded the shotgun with shaking, nervous hands as the barks of gunfire echoed and reverberated throughout the hills and hollows surrounding him. Brayden felt it in his soul that whatever these men had become, it was an abomination to humanity, evil and vile, soulless and hungry.
On shaking legs, he began the long trek back up the hollow. A chilling feeling crept over him that something unstoppable had begun, and he felt his lunch and last night’s whiskey trying to rise from his stomach.
The wind stirred again, spindly trees rubbed their branches together and dead leaves scuttled across the forest floor like roaches when the lights come on. Brayden slung the heavy shotgun over his shoulder and quickened his pace, hell-bent on getting back to his truck and getting the hell off the mountain.
“God help us,” he muttered, hoping someone would hear him.
Chapter 3
November 8, 6:00 p.m.
Standing on the front porch of the Pittmon cabin, Harvey Thomas breathed deeply of the clean mountain air, awed by the picturesque view. The withering sun sank low in the evening sky, bleeding its crimson shadows through towering white oaks along the ridges. The velvet black of night had begun stretching its fingers through the foggy, laurel-choked hollows. The first stars were just starting to appear in the purple sky, and a grainy full moon had begun to make a ghostly slide up over the moun
tain. Cicadas, tree frogs, and crickets serenaded the evening, nature’s nighttime chorus.
It had taken a lot of persuasion, hell, outright begging, for him to gain access to this place, but standing there taking it all in, Harvey felt it was worth every bit of it. He had always thought Old Man Pittmon a fool for turning down the endless offers from developers for their family plot, high atop this picturesque mountain, but as he took in the evening scenery, he understood the man’s reluctance now. This mountain was something money could never buy. Priceless, incomparable, Glassy Mountain soared above the landscape, always present, looming in the horizon.
Old Man Pittmon had sold thousands of woodland acres on Glassy Mountain, but only to the state park and the Land Trust of South Carolina. He wanted this place to be here for his children, for his children’s children, and for the public to enjoy, not for the wealthy to build their mansions and gated communities. However, the old man had never sold this plot, the enormous granite mountaintop and the cabin that had been in the Pittmon family since the early 1900s.
Harvey’s friend, Scott Pittmon, grandson of Old Man Pittmon, had worked to get Harvey’s permission for a weekend stay with his pregnant wife, Wanda. Harvey knew that once the baby came, there would be little chance of the two of them getting away for a much-needed vacation, and his buddy, Pittmon, had come through for him. Scott, Harvey believed, was a true friend.
Behind him, Harvey heard Wanda humming as she unfolded a tablecloth and smoothed it over the hand-carved oak table. He looked back through the bubbly glass window—one of the cabin’s original windows—and through the glow of an oil lantern he watched her wavy form inside the cabin. He admired her long red hair, the color of a warm fire. She was barefoot, wearing one of her summer dresses. He smiled again as somewhere in his mind he heard the song that had played at their wedding a year earlier. Eric Clapton made his Fender Stratocaster cry, and the words to “Wonderful Tonight” played along as he watched his wife preparing the table for supper. Their baby was due in three weeks, and the pride of being this woman’s husband, and soon, a father to their child, filled Harvey with a deep satisfaction. He was truly a lucky man.
He gazed again at the landscape, then was about to enter the cabin when he heard a crash, glass shattering, followed by a moan. Harvey fumbled with the doorknob and finally got it to work as the solid oak door opened with a long creak. He bolted through the living area and into the kitchen. “What is it? Are you okay?” he asked, out of breath.
Wanda was standing there, gripping her stomach. She looked up at him, eyes wide. “I… I think my water broke, Harvey!”
Harvey froze, standing there in the doorway, mouth agape. His eyes followed her body down her dress, her legs, and settled on the clear liquid puddled at her bare feet.
“Get me to the hospital!” Wanda yelped, as fear began to take hold of her. The baby wasn’t due for three more weeks. She was obviously scared, horrified. They were miles from the nearest hospital, out in the middle of nowhere, high atop Glassy Mountain.
She doubled over as a strong contraction gripped her. She looked at Harvey, still standing in the doorway, dumbfounded. “Harvey, honey, we have to go…now!”
Harvey sprang into action, grabbed his keys from atop the kitchen table and bolted through the living area and out the door. In his haste, he had almost left without her. “Shit!” He turned around and ran back into the cabin. Wanda was standing in the living area now, holding her stomach. Harvey took her arm and helped her out of the house.
They piled into his truck. Wanda groaned as he drove the two hundred yards down the rutted path, leaving the cabin behind. He was scared shitless, but tried his best not to show it. “It’s okay. We’re almost to the road now. Hang in there, honey.”
Beneath a now gleaming, bone-white moon, Harvey sped along the tight, winding curves of the narrow road that descended the mountain like a graveled serpent. Next to Harvey, in the passenger seat, Wanda groaned with the pain of another contraction. The contractions were getting closer together now, and he knew from the classes he had taken with her that it wouldn’t be long until their child was born.
Wanda’s long, sweaty red hair clung to her forehead and Harvey couldn’t help but admire how beautiful she looked, even now.
Wanda bounced in her seat as he careened over a pothole, and warned him in a shrill voice, “Slow down, or you’re going to kill us both!”
“You mean all three of us,” Harvey said, trying his best to sound calm, then reached over and patted her protruding belly just as she doubled over again, biting back tears.
“God, it hurts!” She glared at him. “You did this to me!”
The pain brought the devil out of his usually loving bride, and he took her hateful insults like a champ, knowing she was just lashing out from her pain, fear and panic. He wasn’t sure who was scared the most, though, him or her.
With a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, Harvey sped down the mountain, nearly losing control as the rear wheels slid around loose gravel turns, slinging a rooster tail of fine gray dust and rocks behind.
He attempted to be brave, but remembering the long jumble of parked cars at the bottom of the mountain from that ridiculously overcrowded convention, and knowing they had a long drive just to make it down the mountain, and twice as far to reach the nearest hospital, scared the hell out of him. The thought of trying to deliver a baby in the front seat of his truck crept into Harvey’s mind, and the fear of it gnawed at him.
He applied more pressure on the gas pedal, and the truck increased in speed, plowing through thick pockets of fog, which gave way to less dense pockets, like layer upon layer of opening curtains as the truck roared through the night.
Worried, Wanda squealed at him, “Harvey, damn it, slow down! You’re scaring me.” No sooner had the words come out of her mouth than she doubled over again, releasing a long, painful groan as the truck bounced over yet another pothole.
“Breathe, honey! You’re supposed to breathe!”
“Shut the hell up!” she screeched, her face contorted with pain.
Wanda grabbed hold of his leg, clamping down hard as the contractions gripped her belly. As her fingernails dug into his leg, Harvey knew he had to be strong.
“It’ll be all right. You’ll see.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to look at her as he spoke. “We’ll make it to town in less than an hour. We can do this, Wanda.” Then he faked a big smile. “We’re having a baby!”
“Why in the hell did I let you talk me into this?” Wanda said, glaring at him. “Mama told me I shouldn’t go vacationing on top of a damn mountain!”
Harvey tried not to sneer at that statement. Although they rarely fought, the few times they did, the argument almost always began with those words: Mama said.
He frowned. “I… I just wanted us to get away before the baby came. I thought you’d enjoy it. How was I supposed to know the baby would come early like this?”
“Just watch the road, Harvey, for God’s sake!”
“Yes, dear,” Harvey said grimly.
As he came around the next curve, through the thick fog, Harvey saw something take shape ahead of them in the road. Harvey leaned over, narrowing his eyes, as if that would help him see through the thick blanket of fog.
What the hell…
“Harvey, look out!”
As the truck barreled toward the strange shape, Harvey’s breath caught as he realized it was a man, standing in the middle of the narrow gravel road. Instinctively, he snatched the steering wheel, trying to avoid slamming into the man, but he felt a solid thud and over Wanda’s frantic screams, he heard the awful thump, thump of the man’s body slamming into the bumper, ricocheting from the hood of the truck and flailing into the air.
The truck fishtailed through the sharp, steep curve of the road. Harvey’s eyes flew wide as he jerked the steering wheel with all he had, but the truck was skidding on the loose gravel and ignored his commands. Everything seemed to happen in slow motio
n, as if in some awful dream—as if he were trying to run, but his legs were straining against a raging river current, or he was wading through knee-deep sand, never with purpose, and always too late to escape.
Wanda’s startled scream came to a jarring halt when the truck slammed dead center against an enormous, old growth white oak. That was the last sound Harvey Thomas heard as his head bounced hard off the dash, the steering wheel collapsed his chest, and Harvey’s world turned black.
Wanda was wearing her seatbelt, but the force of the collision still jarred her senseless. A cloud of gray dust engulfed the truck, and steam rose from the radiator. The front bumper and hood had crumpled around the white oak, and hundreds of windshield fragments lay scattered around the base of the tree, glowing in the pale, bluish light of the moon.
Wanda slowly raised her head. “Harvey…”
She heard nothing but the hissing radiator and the ticks and pings of what was left of the engine under the crumpled hood. Harvey’s head was resting on the dash, and his blood trickled down the contour of the steering wheel, dripping steadily onto his lap.
Her mind couldn’t grasp the truth. She tried shaking him, “Harvey…”
But Harvey didn’t stir, and her eyes filled with tears as her mind slowly came to grips with what had just happened. Pain pulsed throughout her body, and she held tight to her swollen belly. The baby, oh my God, the baby!
Through the shattered window, she saw movement and spotted a man standing awkwardly in the road, his head cocked to one side. Something about him didn’t seem right, but she pleaded to him anyway. “Help us! Please help!” she cried. “I’m in labor! My husband is hurt bad. Please call an ambulance!”
But the man didn’t help her. He didn’t call an ambulance. Instead, he responded with a raspy, inhuman squeal as he began to hobble toward the truck. His lips curled back in a snarl, exposing yellow, bloody teeth. He made it to her window, where he clawed at the glass with a shrieking, raspy howl, then pressed his face to the window.
Dead Ascent (The Zombie Apocalypse Book 1) Page 2
