by Raymond Lee
“Spirit?”
She stepped inside the cabin to approach the hauntingly familiar dog but it stood and moved around her to push the door closed then trotted over to the bed where it grabbed a corner of the bedsheets in its mouth and pulled them back.
Raven scanned the cabin. A bed rested in the left back corner next to a dresser. A small kitchen area took up the front left. The right side was the living and dining area. There was a fireplace with the charred remains of the last wood to have been burned in it and a small stack beside it. The door to the only other room in the cabin stood ajar, revealing a bathroom. Raven’s goosebump-covered limbs shook as she took it all in and the fireplace practically begged to be used, but she knew better than to take such a risk. If Cruz saw the smoke it would lead him right to her.
The dog whined, capturing her attention. She turned to see it had pulled the covers back and was pawing at a trunk at the foot of the bed. Raven hobbled over to open it and found a stack of heavy blankets inside.
“Good girl,” she said, laying the katana on the dresser so she could grab the blankets and dump them on the bed. If she couldn’t have a fire she could at least wrap herself in a mountain of blankets.
She paused before crawling into the welcoming bed and looked at the door. It wasn’t much of a barrier, but it was something. She hobbled over to it on aching feet and bolted the locks before moving the curtain aside on one of the front windows to take a peek outside. She strained to see through the trees but didn’t see any shadowy figures lurking about. She hadn’t heard Cruz call out to her since she’d followed the dog on the trail and wondered if he’d gone straight. Could she be that lucky?
“I really shouldn’t stop,” she said to the dog as it sat by the trunk watching her with sad eyes so similar to her sweet Spirit’s it made her chest ache with sadness. “I had a dog just like you. She was the best dog in the world. Cruz wouldn’t have gotten to me if I still had her. She would have torn him limb from limb.”
Raven began to sob, the memory of her sweet but protective dog too much to bear in addition to the events of the past forty-eight hours. Had it been only forty-eight hours? How many hours had she actually slept? The room started spinning as she thought about it, the sickness she’d powered through since Cruz had returned to the cabin holding a dead vulture and talking crazy catching up to her.
“I can’t stop. I have to keep going so he can’t find me,” she said to herself as she limped over to the bed, and crawled in, wrapping the pile of blankets around her. Her body clearly held more authority than her mind because despite the terrible visions in her head of what could happen to her if Cruz found her, she lay down, and once the dog jumped onto the bed and snuggled in next to her, warming her with its own body heat, she closed her eyes and gave in to the pull of sleep.
“What in the hell happened here?” Damian asked, leaning forward.
Hal shook his head as he slowed the truck to a stop and cut the engine. He’d expected carnage. They’d left most of it there themselves, but the dead vultures littering the ground among the bodies of the infected were unexpected. “Let’s get out and take a look.”
“You’re getting out here?”
“This is about where we were when we wrecked,” he answered, opening his door. He glanced over at Trey, still unconscious in the passenger seat. “We need to do something with your friend.”
“He’s not my friend,” Damian told him again as he got out of the truck and slammed his door closed. He opened the passenger door and stood hands on hips, studying Trey. “He’s going to be pissed when he wakes up.”
“No doubt,” Hal said, exiting the truck. He walked to the back and jumped up in the truck bed.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m seeing what we have by way of supplies.” He toed a box of canned goods and water, opened a tool box to find basic tools for auto repair, and opened a bigger metal box to find two gas cans, flashlights, some blankets, and a length of rope. “We got some rope here. I’ll hog-tie him while you find a trunk to stuff him in.”
“You’re gonna do what while I what?”
“We can’t just leave him here while we go looking for Raven and Cruz. If he escapes he could creep up on us and take us out before we can reach her. There’s lots of wrecked and abandoned cars. Find one that you can pop the trunk on and we’ll store him there until we can come back for him.”
“Hal, he could die.”
“He’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing.”
“Is this something else you’ve done before?”
Hal raised an eyebrow as he jumped down from the truck bed, rope in hand, and approached.
“You and I are going to have to have a discussion about who exactly you are and what you were doing before this whole zombie apocalypse thing broke out,” Damian said, backing out of the way to allow Hal room to work. “You’re starting to give me the sceebies.”
“What are the sceebies?”
“It means you’re making my balls crawl.”
“Do you think you can take your balls and the rest of you for a walk and find a trunk like I asked?” Hal grabbed Trey by the shoulders and pulled him out of the truck, rolling him onto his stomach when he hit the pavement. “We need to find Raven as soon as possible. I have a real bad feeling in my gut.”
“Yeah, I’m on it, but if he dies that’s on you.”
Hal quickly tied Trey’s wrists and ankles together as Damian walked away. His gut twisted and his heartbeat quickened. He knew from the dreams he’d had that Raven would not die from being bitten, but the demon inside Cruz was a different story. He’d kept a watchful eye on Cruz during their time in the panic room where they’d spent the winter. With regular doses of his medication and no stress, Cruz had been fine, but he knew from the short time they’d spent on the move between Wally’s Club and the panic room that stress made it harder for Cruz to keep the demon locked down. With the woman he loved bitten and all the fear and worry that came with that, he should have known not to leave him with her. He should have sent the others on to the farm and stayed behind to track Cruz. He’d never forgive himself if Raven or Cruz died before he found them.
“Hey, Hal! You really need to see this.”
Hal checked the knots he’d just tied in the rope, making sure they were tight, and stood. He walked around the front of the truck, carefully stepping over dead, bullet-ridden, slashed, and pecked apart bodies of infected people to make his way to where Damian stood by a white van. As he got closer he noticed the large birds. It looked as if they’d been snatched out of the air, their necks snapped in half before they were tossed to the ground.
“What do you think this means?” Damian asked.
Hal read the message written on the side of the van in red paint and took in the mess on the road around it while praying they hadn’t waited too long. “It means we need to find them now. You find a trunk?”
Damian looked at him, eyes shiny with fear, before pointing at the dusty Ford Taurus ahead of the van. “There were some suitcases in the back. I took them out to make room.”
“Help me get Trey into the trunk.”
They worked together to carry the man over to the car and lock him in the trunk before checking their weapons, including the gun and knives they’d taken off of Trey.
“We can’t use guns unless absolutely necessary,” Hal warned him. “We don’t know what all is creeping in these woods and after my dream and reading that message on that van I’m positive the demon has taken over Cruz. We don’t want to alert it either.”
“I can’t believe those twat-fleas didn’t give me back my rock hammer. I need Dwayne. What the hell am I supposed to do with this little knife they gave me?”
“You’ll do just fine with it,” Hal assured him as he started walking toward the spot Raven had been bitten, figuring Cruz had taken her down the first off ramp they’d come across. “You can even name it just like you did your rock hammer.”
“I already named it,”
Damian said, huffy.
“Let me guess, you named it Blade? Or Slash?”
“Kevin.”
“What?”
“I named it Kevin.”
Hal sighed, knowing he’d regret asking why but after Damian had named the rock hammer Dwayne “The Rock” Hammer his curiosity needed to know how he’d chosen such a simple name for the knife. “Why Kevin?”
“Because it’s totally a Kevin. Kevins are always little assholes that think they’re mighty but really ain’t shit. I hate a damn Kevin and I hate this pathetic knife.”
Hal pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “I knew I’d regret asking.”
“You all right? You got a headache?”
“All the time.” He spotted the off ramp and noted the red footprints leading toward it. “Looks like Cruz left us a trail.”
“Intentionally?”
“No.” He looked back at the mess around the van and the birds littered between there and the ramp. “I’m guessing he somehow got covered in paint and managed to get that message out before the demon took hold.”
“There’s only one set of prints,” Damian said as they followed them down the off ramp. “What about Raven?”
“I imagine she’s still sick from the virus so he might have had her stashed somewhere and came back to the interstate to scavenge, or maybe he thought we left something for them.” Hal clenched his hands, tempted to smack himself in the head for being stupid. “We should have. We had his medication in our packs.”
“We were worried about Pimjai and we had strangers around us. He always carried some on him. I thought he’d have enough to last him more than two nights.”
“He’d be stressed out here all alone trying to take care of Raven, thinking she was going to turn. The demon would use that to its advantage. He was probably popping them like candy trying to fight it.”
“Then leaving the packs wouldn’t have mattered.”
They left the off ramp and crossed the street over into the wooded area, following the trail of red footprints. The body of an infected man rested in the grass, its milky white eyes staring up at the lightening sky.
“What the hell?” Damian walked closer to it, his forearm over his nose. “It looks like this thing was autopsied or something. Who the hell would cut its chest open like this?”
“A person under the influence of a demon,” Hal answered, looking at the other bodies littering the forest floor. One of them appeared to have been skinned.
“Cruz did all this damage by himself?” Damian asked, taking it all in.
“No, not by himself. Not really.” Hal moved deeper into the woods. “The infected were just for practice. We have to find Raven before that thing inside Cruz does.”
“That zombie back there was skinned.”
“I know.”
“Will he do that to us?”
“He might try,” Hal answered, noting the fear in Damian’s voice as he quickly moved through the trees, following the red footsteps. “That’s why it’s important we don’t announce our presence.”
“If we die, Trey will be stuck in that trunk. Raven will be dead. Shit, Cruz will probably continue on a killing spree.”
“I know,” Hal said. “I suggest we not die.”
Richards slowed the SUV as he neared the exit sign he’d seen in his dream and cursed under his breath.
“What happened here?” Sky asked, eyes wide.
“Hell if I know,” he answered as he gazed upon the litter of human remains spread over the interstate, “but it was bad.”
“This is the place you saw in your dream?” Sky’s face blanched as he pulled the SUV off to the side, parked and cut the engine.
“I saw that exit sign,” he answered. “We’ll go down that off ramp. You should stay here. It could get dangerous.”
“I’m going.” She unbuckled her seatbelt, opened her door and hopped out, slamming the door closed behind her before Richards could get out another word.
“Kids,” Richards grumbled, instantly stabbed with guilt. He’d never know how rebellious his son would be. He’d never know what he would have looked like, sounded like, what kind of person he would become by Sky’s age. He’d always be an innocent baby turned into a meal for a bloodthirsty monster.
Richards pushed down the guilt, knowing it wouldn’t help Raven or Sky, and stepped out of the vehicle. He checked his gun and knives, making sure everything was easily accessible while Sky waited for him on the other side of the SUV. “You know how to shoot a gun?”
“Yup.”
Richards opened the back door, rooted around in his backpack and removed the SIG Sauer he’d taken off of his friend Garcia’s corpse the night the last remaining members of his unit had perished, and closed the door. He walked around to Sky and showed her how to safely use the weapon before handing it to her. “Put it in your coat pocket and don’t even think about using it unless I get dead, you understand?”
“What if you need my help?” she asked as she slid the gun into her coat pocket.
“Don’t even think about using it unless I’m dead,” he repeated.
“That’s stupid.”
Richards had no response to that so he just shrugged before turning his attention to the scene around him. From what he could tell all of the dead littering the interstate had been infected. There were vehicles abandoned, some wrecked, others just left for whatever reason but judging by the blood he could see on the windows some bad shit had gone down inside them. He scanned the area, noticing large birds also littering the road and what looked like a huge puddle of red paint that had been spilled behind a dirty white van with its back doors open. He saw a message written sloppily in red paint on the side of the van, read it, and froze. “What the hell?”
Sky turned, following his gaze, and frowned. “What’s that mean?”
Richards read it again.
HAL, RAVEN IS ALIVE. PLEASE KILL ME BEFORE I HUR
Richards didn’t know who the hell Hal was or who had written the message, but his heartbeat quickened as he gathered the intent. He turned around and started to walk quickly toward the exit ramp he’d seen in his dream. “It means we need to find your sister as soon as possible.”
Sky wasted no time falling into step beside him. “She’s really alive?”
“She was when that message was written.” He glanced down at the little girl and noticed her nibbling at her lower lip. “Don’t worry, kid. We’ll find her. We have to.”
She looked up at him and nodded, but appeared sad. It struck him as an odd reaction but he couldn’t put a finger on why. She was just a kid and she was in a seriously screwed up world, he reminded himself. When he was her age a rough day was getting grounded for a D on his report card. He couldn’t imagine dealing with the shit she’d dealt with the past six months at her age, and without her family on top of that.
They reached the off ramp and walked down it, freezing as they rounded the curve to see a large white wolf standing at the bottom. “Shit,” Richards whispered as he fought not to piss his pants. “It’s a wolf. Back up very slowly.”
“That’s not a wolf,” Sky said in a voice much too loud for his liking as her mouth turned up in a smile, her eyes sparkling, and she ran straight toward it.
“What the fucking hell happened here?” Damian asked as they reached a small group of cabins near where the red footprints had stopped, the paint on Cruz’s feet either drying or having all been walked off.
“I think this was where Cruz brought her after she was bitten,” Hal said as he took in the blood on the ground and the hacked apart bodies of the infected outside. He tightened his hand around his knife and gestured for Damian to do the same.
“We’re going inside?”
“Yeah.” Hal noticed the drops of blood starting from under one of the windows and leading into the trees, but needed to make sure Raven wasn’t inside before he followed where they led. The front door was open, allowing easy access.
Knife firmly in
hand and body ready to pounce if necessary, he stepped through the door, immediately noticing the disheveled condition of the living room. The coffee table had been smashed, a dead vulture rested on the floor near the fireplace, and blood stained the carpet.
“Fuck,” Damian said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Yeah,” Hal agreed as he turned left and walked down the hall to the bedroom, his stomach turning as he noticed a bed that appeared to have been slept in but was now empty.
He cautiously entered the room, noticing the pitcher of water, drinking glass, crackers, and bottle of Tylenol on the nightstand. He turned his head to see a dresser had been turned over underneath the open window and a pair of putrid, rotting arms lay on the floor close to it. Judging from the blood dripping down the wall to pool on the wooden floor and the irregular edges of the limbs including the tendons and ligaments sticking out of each bloody stump it appeared as if the arms had been yanked off of the zombie by hand as it reached through for its prey.
Hal turned at the sound of retching to see Damian bent over, spilling vomit onto the floor near the bed. “You all right?”
“Fuck no, I’m not all right,” he replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can see the fucking veins sticking out of those arms like spaghet—” He spewed more vomit onto the floor.
“She was here but she got out. Let’s move,” Hal said, exiting the room and the stench of decayed body parts and fresh vomit before he got sick himself.
Hal stepped out of the cabin and followed the trail of blood drops, thankful they’d arrived as the sun rose in the sky or else they might not have been able to see them. Even with the early morning sun lighting the way the blood was hard to see as they entered the woods but he could tell where the foliage had been trampled.
“What happened back there?” Damian asked, his hand resting over his stomach. “Did she run from Cruz or the zombies?”
