by David Peters
They both came to the same conclusion and began to look around the area. The Corrupted apparently don’t leave bodies behind. Be it friend or foe.
“So the question is, are we alone, and when did they come get them?” asked Dylan out loud.
“Let’s get out of here Dylan. I don’t like this at all. We can talk about this at the Williams’ place.” Niccole said.
“I don’t get it, I just don’t get it. How could they even know Randy was here? We are miles and miles from anything”
“I don’t know, how far do you think the smell of one of these damn things carries?”
They were both scanning the surrounding hillsides as they walked back to the truck.
They drove another ten minutes along the long gravel road to the Williams homestead. Esther and Ernest were both in their seventies and were living in the same home Esther was born in. Her parents had come out west in the late 1800’s.
As they pulled into the driveway Dylan and Niccole could see the front door had been shattered completely off the hinges.
Dylan looked at the house then looked at Niccole “So what do we do now? I can’t leave like we did yesterday. I just can’t, Esther would never hurt a fly.”
Niccole looked at Dylan but didn’t say anything. Part of her wanted to rush in with guns blazing and save the Williams, the more realistic part of her didn’t want to go in and see something that could not be unseen.
“It could be something else” Dylan said, almost as a question. Niccole looked at him like he was crazy.
“How do we do this?” he asked, looking to her for input.
“Rifles won’t work in there, too big, hard to swing around. We take pistols only. If there are any Corrupted in there they know we are here. No need to try and sneak. We go in, look around, and leave.”
They walked up the stairs to the front porch and stood on opposite sides of the shattered door listening for any telltale signs of movement from inside. The stink was almost unbearable.
There were sounds coming from inside “What the hell is that?” Niccole asked in a whisper.
“Sounds like cats trying to clear their throats,” he answered back.
Dylan put his finger to his lips to signal no more words and he stepped quietly in to the house. Whatever the sound was, it was getting louder and sounded agitated.
Niccole pointed towards the Williams’ living room. Dylan nodded his agreement and slowly moved down the hallway.
The living room came into view inch by inch. They could see what must be Ernest’s feet, his body laid out in the middle of the living room. As more of the room came into view, Dylan could see what was making the coughing sound. One Hunter had Esther pinned high on the wall, her legs dangling in the air while it argued with a second Hunter. They watched silently from the hallway.
It became apparent that one Hunter wanted to kill Esther while the second had some other idea. The debate between the two of them became more and more heated until the larger Hunter dropped Esther to the ground and threw its companion down. They wrestled, rolling across the living room floor and breaking an antique coffee table. The smaller Hunter was fast but it was no match for the larger one and gave up his defense, baring his neck like a dog conceding its lack of dominance.
The larger of the two let out an ear piercing roar of victory and turned back to Esther. It hadn’t completed the turn when its body was rocked by the pounding impacts of multiple guns shots. It was thrown against the wall and slid motionless to the floor.
The house was filled with the near deafening sound of Dylan and Niccole firing their pistols into the Hunters.
Niccole’s target attempted to jump out the large plate glass window but became entangled in the delicate curtains that framed it. Crashing to the flower garden below it thrashed about trying to free itself from the silky net. Leaning out the window Niccole put her last two rounds into the head of the Hunter ending its struggle.
Dylan put one more round into his Hunter’s head and quickly moved over to Earnest. He was obviously dead. The Hunters had ravaged his chest. He must have died extremely fast he thought as he could see very little blood.
Both reloaded as they made eye contact and nodded. No words needed to be exchanged. They knew to be prepared for anything.
Esther had an air of vague recognition as she looked from Niccole to Dylan. She was both terrified and confused by the events that had just been thrust upon her. She was bleeding from several wounds and it also appeared that her arm was broken.
Niccole swept the debris away from one side of the couch and she and Dylan carefully laid her on it.
In a tired and old voice the woman questioned the couple, “What are those things? Is Ernie ok?” She was unaware of her own situation and completely lost in concern for her husband.
“How do you feel Esther?” Niccole asked quietly as she brushed her hair away from her face.
“Been better youngin’, arm is hurtin’ somethin’ fierce.”
Dylan leaned in closer and smelled her breath as she spoke, quickly pulling away and giving Niccole a knowing look.
“Esther, do you feel anything else?” Niccole asked slowly, “Any burning sensations?”
“Yes, and it’s getting worse, do you think you could have Ernest get my pain meds sweetie?” as Esther continued to speak she was sounding more and more distant.
“Niccole” Dylan was tapping Niccole on the shoulder and pointing to the wall where the Hunter had pinned her. Still hanging on the wall was the remnants of a knick-knack shelf; one sharp piece of wood protruding out from the wall covered in blood.
“Help me roll her over slightly.”
As they lifted her up they could see the couch cushion was soaked with blood. Esther was bleeding out.
Dylan went to the bedroom and pulled the blankets off of the bed, handing one to Niccole he covered Ernest’s body with the other.
Niccole covered the old woman, using her good arm Esther pulled the blanket up to her neck “I’ll be ok, just need this fever to break. Never felt a fire like this before Ernie. Be a dear and see if you can you can get our guests anything. Maybe some of that fresh sun tea we made yesterday.”
Esther continued to talk, all the while growing more distant and less coherent as the life drained out of her body. The old woman coughed a few times then closed her eyes and let out a single long sigh. Niccole stood and hugged Dylan.
“We need to get out of here; we know they will come to pick up their bodies. I think we should torch the place, we can’t take the time to bury these two.”
Dylan walked out to Ernest’s garage and grabbed two of the gas cans that the old man had kept there. Niccole went around one side of the house spreading the fuel while Dylan went around the other.
Dylan lit and threw a small gas soaked rag at the small puddle of gasoline and the fire nearly exploded as it raced around the small house. It rapidly climbed the walls and curled around the eaves of the old home. Both were surprised by the speed and heat of the fire as it hungrily consumed the structure.
They turned and walked towards the truck. Dylan opened the passenger side door and Niccole climbed into the seat. Her eyes met Dylan’s and they simply stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed like an hour. Niccole sighed heavily and Dylan nodded as if to say ‘me too’. Dylan climbed into the driver’s seat heavily and without a word. He absently started the pickup and turned around to head back the way they had come.
Both stared straight ahead. Neither wanted to look back and see the culmination of a lifelong love ending in a dark cloud of rising smoke. They also didn’t want to confront the fact that their world as they knew it was officially over. As the old pick-up truck rumbled down the road it occurred to Dylan that it didn’t matter which direction they went. As they crested the hill their home came into view. It felt hollow now. Two more friends gone, two more reasons they could no longer feel safe in their own home. They wondered if they would feel safe anywhere.
Chapter 2
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Dylan sat quietly with a cooling cup of coffee reflecting on the darkness of the past few days. He was sitting on their porch looking out over the moonlit landscape he grew up on. He had his favorite coffee mug in one hand and his father’s rifle in the other. Niccole was sleeping quietly on the floor on the other side of the screen door behind him.
After the Williams house had been attacked, he no longer felt their place was safe and he didn’t know how to make it safer. He couldn’t get the image of their shattered door out of his mind. His house was far too old to try and turn into a fortress. He continued to stare into the darkness and turn over their available options in his head.
The drive to Paradise Falls wouldn’t be easy by any stretch but he felt a lot safer moving down the highway than he did sitting on his porch at three in the morning.
As he took another sip of coffee, movement across the street caught his eye. His heart jumped and he brought the rifle to his shoulder waiting for a clear shot. His hands shook with adrenaline as the movement came even with his driveway, his heart nearly ready to leap out of his chest. The coyote jumped out of the culvert and trotted across the road. It made its usual visit up their driveway and was completely oblivious to Dylan’s presence.
Dylan relaxed and silently sat back down to watch the animal go about its nightly search for scraps of food.
As the coyote reached the bend in the driveway that would bring it up to the front porch it startled and stood completely motionless. Dylan smiled to himself thinking the coyote had just become aware of his presence, but it wasn’t facing the porch.
The coyote’s hackles began to rise as if it was watching something in the cow pasture directly in front of his house.
Dylan couldn’t see anything for quite some time. Then off to the side of where he was looking he caught a quick glimpse of movement. The coyote tucked its tail down and turned to sprint off silently into the darkness. It wanted no part of the predator moving through the field. When Dylan looked directly at it, the thing blended into the darkness. Using his more sensitive peripheral vision, he made out the mottled black figure moving slowly and silently across the pasture. It was moving in a straight line directly for the porch where Dylan was sitting.
He slowly brought the rifle into a shooting position while he waited for the Hunter to get to the fence line where it would have to stand up and provide a clear head shot.
As the Hunter reached the edge of the pasture, it looked to its right and left then gauged the height of the fence. With a movement that appeared to defy gravity, it simply jumped over the fence, clearing it in one graceful leap and landing silently on the other side.
Dylan added pressure to the trigger and blew the Hunters head clean off of its shoulders leaving the corpse to fall to the ground like an old bag of laundry.
Niccole let out a startled yelp and stood up blearily looking for her rifle.
Dylan continued to scan for more movement but couldn’t see anything aside from the now startled farm animals and the bright spot burned into his eyes from the flash of the rifle.
Niccole was standing at his side, looking to him for direction.
Pointing at the headless corpse about fifty feet away, Dylan said “I think we are done here, let’s get the generator fired up and turn on the lot lights.”
Niccole disappeared inside and turned everything on. Off towards the shop an engine could be heard spinning up. The lights scattered around the property slowly came to life, bathing the surrounding area in a yellow and green tinged light. The loud buzzing of the sodium lights filled Dylan with an unexpected feeling of safety.
She came back out with a cup of coffee in one hand, rifle in the other. “So I see it is going to be Daniels’s sooner rather than later.”
“Ya, I don’t think I am ever going to sleep again at this rate.”
“I’m with you, I’ll start getting all of our camping equipment in the truck, and I can empty out the tubs in the storage room and fill them with food.”
“Sounds good, when we are done with that, we need to do a little yard work before we go. I’ll knock most of the fencing down with the tractor, the cattle should be fine, the chickens will most likely just make the coyotes fat, but let’s be honest, the chickens kind of piss us off anyway.” Dylan smiled. They really did piss him off. The roosters liked to get into crow-offs when Dylan wanted to sleep in, some dark part of his mind always wondered what a 444 would do, but he tended to keep that part of his mind shut.
“That would work. We can’t leave the horses though, they are our kids Dylan.”
Dylan thought about that, “We can trailer them, don’t know why it would be an issue. They had horses at Paradise Falls when I was there last. We could load the trailer up, fill the entire front walk in with feed and take one of the drums out of the garage for water. That would be more than enough for the trip. Now the question is when do we leave? What do you want to do?”
Niccole turned her gaze out the open field, “I want to go soon. I don’t feel safe here, ever since Randy’s place, it hasn’t felt the same, and the further we can get from everything that has happened, the better. I’m still having a hard time believing this.”
Dylan drained his coffee, “Alright, decision made. Figure out what we need to bring with us. I’ll get the truck together and go from there. Let’s shoot for being on the road at first light. I think one of us should always be on guard until we are out of here.”
--1--
The next few hours were a flurry of activity. Niccole carefully packed their entire camping arsenal into the back of the pickup truck. They had stayed down by the river often enough that it was pretty much permanently ready to go. Empting the storage bins in the spare bedroom gave her lots of travel storage. For once they had more containers than contents.
Dylan had the canopy on the truck and the horses ready to load into the trailer. He had six, five gallon containers of gasoline that he used for the generator. It would go a long way towards keeping them on the road. His biggest concern was fuel and road conditions. They had no clue how many detours they might need to take to avoid people.
Dylan headed in to get a glass of water, “How’s it going in here, Hon?” He said as he rubbed her back.
“Feels like we are leaving so much behind, I grabbed the backup drive from the computer that has all of our financials, photos, and that crap music you listen to. Not that we will have use for them. I just can’t leave them behind, it’s our life history” said Niccole.
“I know how you feel. I wish I could change it, just wake up and roll over to tell you about this wild dream I had. But it isn’t a dream. It is a whole new game now.”
“I can see that, but I sure miss the old game. I think we were winning that one” she said.
Dylan enjoyed hearing her humor again. It meant she was moving on from the previous day, or at least had buried it deep enough that she was able to move forward. “I love you Coco.”
“Love you too Cowboy, but you still have to help load the truck,” said Niccole as she swatted Dylan on the butt.
They spent the next few hours loading the truck and saying goodbye to the house. Dylan spent well over an hour just going from room to room to reflect on its history, paying homage to his long since gone parents and even reflect on the brother he had grown up with and had since grown apart. He and Daniel were inseparable as kids. He always wanted to be just like Daniel, trying to talk the same and walk the same; actually loving getting his hand-me-downs.
Daniel had spent a summer away at camp when he was sixteen and had come back different, changed. Dylan spent a long time thinking he had done something wrong. His brother would spend hours, sometimes entire days, locked in his room. It wasn’t too long after that when he began talking more seriously about moving, what with the world coming to an end and all. Dylan smiled to himself thinking about that argument. He was hoping to get the chance to say, “You were right, Daniel.”
Dylan’s parents died when he turned seven
teen, near as they could tell at the accident scene his dad had fallen asleep and left the road at a high speed. The accident had happened not too far from home and it had left Dylan feeling extremely bitter. His brother took his half of the life insurance and moved to Paradise Falls. Dylan was young, scared, and felt alone and abandoned. Niccole was the only one there for him.
Dylan made his way outside to start a little property destruction. It went surprisingly quickly. There wasn’t a fence standing by the time he was done.
He stepped onto the porch as Niccole was coming out with the last plastic tote.
“Fence is down, cows are too stupid to realize it yet, but I’m sure they will eat our vegetable garden before the middle of next week.” Dylan said with a smirk.
