Zombified (Book 1): The Head Hunter

by Sowder, Kindra

  “Mom! Dad!” Joshua cried as he collapsed to his knees twenty feet away from the fire that now burned where his parents had been standing. He heard nothing except the cries around him and the impact of even more meteorites crashing to Earth, throwing clots of dirt and pieces of rock at Joshua and his companion as they watched in abject horror.

  “There’s nothing we can do, man,” came Mark’s voice from behind him. “They’re gone.”

  The boy removed the stilts from his legs as he watched Joshua whom he had only seen but never actually met fall apart at the sight of his fallen family, knowing that every single person inside or directly around that tent had been obliterated, crushed, and turned into nothing. He took a step forward and placed a hand on his new companion’s shoulder, feeling them shake as he sobbed at the loss of his parents despite the chaos surrounding them. He kneeled down beside Joshua and bowed his head, taking a moment to say a silent prayer for those that they lost, knowing they had to act fast to make it out of the fairgrounds alive and in one piece.

  As they watched, a red mist began to snake its way from the center of the flaming crater. Joshua couldn’t help but think that the mist looked as if it had a mind of its own and could sense their life not even fifteen feet away, and it wanted it.

  “What’s that?” the boy asked as they kneeled in silence, the screams floating from those in the distance and through the air to greet their ears with an echo.

  “I have no idea, but we need to get out of here,” Joshua answered, not knowing the answer, but knowing that whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

  It reminded him of the evil that you saw in the movies, moving towards them as they rose to their feet in an attempt to take them and drag them into the dark pit of nothingness. They grabbed onto each other and ran away from the gliding fog that only wanted them dead. That was all they knew of that crimson fog as they ran, making their way into the wilderness as meteorites still collided with the Earth, turning their home into the scene of a horror movie.

  Chapter 3

  Lawrenceville, Georgia

  May 2020

  Two days after meteorite strike

  Misty ran, her hand clenching her mother’s as she tugged at her, attempting to get away from her despite the fact that she knew there was no safety when alone. Her auburn hair whipped across her sun-kissed skin as they weaved amongst the trees, getting as far away from the town center as they could without being spotted. The mist that came from the meteorites that had crashed into the once sleepy town had taken over quickly, spreading over everything and everyone. Her mother became dead weight as they moved, falling to the ground and taking Misty down with her. She fell hard, her palms being bitten and torn apart by the small rocks that had been broken apart from the ground by the meteorites. It stung with intensity from the heat of the space junk that was still hot.

  “Ahhhh!” she cried out as she inspected her palms. They were scraped bloody and raw, and her knees ached from the impact with the hard ground. “Mama!”

  She heard her mother’s ragged breaths from behind her, and she turned to see her kneeling on the ground, staring into the horizon that was now turning pink and orange as the sunset as the fog swam along the ground towards the trees they had been hiding in.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I can’t run anymore.”

  Her mother’s red hair was the same hue as Misty’s, but her skin was pale from hardly ever going outside, and when she did, she slathered sunscreen all over herself to prevent from turning as red as the roses she tended to in her garden.

  Misty scooted to sit next to her mother, mirroring her position and staring at her raw flesh. “Mama, we can’t stop. We have to get somewhere safe. The rocks finally stopped falling, but whatever that fog is, it’s still hangin’ around.”

  Her mother placed her hand in her daughter’s, the warmth and contact sending a stinging pain through Misty’s hand. She had to fight the urge to pull away, a hiss escaping from between her teeth at the contact. It was like the woman didn’t even notice.

  “It’s okay, Misty. Yerr daddy is comin’ to save us. We just have to stay right here.” She shook Misty’s hand and plopped it down into her lap. She sighed. “We just have to stay right here.”

  “Mama,” Misty said as she turned to look at her mother, whose gaze never once turned away from the setting sun. The incoming darkness and fog that neared the forest’s edge, as far as she could tell. “We can’t stay here. Daddy’s gone.”

  A single pair of blue eyes glared into hers, her mother’s lips turned down in a snarl as anger filled her and caused her body to become tense and stiff. She had never seen her mother like this before. The closest she had ever seen to this level of rage was the time her father had come home late drunk and hadn’t called. That was a far cry from what she saw now, her mother’s pale skin becoming flushed and red with the emotions she could no longer hide. They had been running ever since the meteorite strike that killed most of the people Misty had grown up with, taking everything from them in mere seconds—her father, included.

  “He isn’t gone,” her mother spat, tightening her grip on Misty’s injured hand, causing her to cry out in pain. “He’s comin’ for us. We just have to wait.” She turned to look back at the sky through the trees again, not moving from her position on the ground.

  Misty jerked her hand away from the only person she had left, rising to her feet and watching her mother crumble before her. She had to break the cycle. Her mother was sick, and she had to bring her back to reality. Not only had they lost everything, the stress of that loss only exacerbated the one condition her mother had that they could no longer keep under control. Paranoid schizophrenia was something hard to battle before, but now it was unbearable.

  “We watched as a meteorite took out the house,” she said. She fell back to her knees. Pine needles poked into her jeans as she tried to bring the reality of the tragedy that had transpired back to the woman she cared about. “He was inside, Mama. He’s gone. Daddy’s gone.”

  Before Misty could even blink, a stinging heat that caused her to cry out spread over her cheek as her mother slapped her in an attempt to make sense of the reality that she couldn’t process. Her world was full of those who wanted nothing more than to see her dead, and the new world she was living in without her antipsychotic medications didn’t make that any less true. If anything, it was even truer than it had been before. Now so many people were dead and so many others would be soon enough, and Misty couldn’t help her mother keep her sanity long enough to realize that they would die because she refused to get up and continue to run toward perceived safety. Misty’s hand shot up to her cheek, both her hand and face stinging as she touched it. She was hurt, and she knew it wasn’t completely her mother’s fault. She couldn’t control herself without her medication, and there was no way to get more.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” her mother cried as she placed both hands on Misty’s cheeks, attempting to be comforting as she looked deep into her daughter’s eyes with the utmost sincerity. “We just have to wait. We can’t leave without him.”

  Misty sighed and her shoulders sagged, the woman who had raised her sighing as well as her arms dropped to her sides. Misty had realized when she was young that her mother was different, but she wasn’t sure exactly how until she got old enough for her father to tell her that her mother was sick. That it was something there was no cure for, and that sometimes she may seem a little strange. She would see her mother take pills. She wanted to ask what they were but knew she wouldn’t understand their purpose no matter how simply they explained it to her. That was until she got older and, at the age of twelve, went roaming through her parents’ medicine cabinet and researched each one she had seen her beautiful and brilliant mother take every day. That was when she finally understood what it all meant and knew that her mother would never be normal no matter what she took. She also realized that there could be a day when she would suffer the same fate.

  Her mother gasped and stood, reachi
ng her hand out toward the oncoming mist that had now inched beyond the forest’s edge to reach them, following them like a living being. Misty stood, unsure of what her mother was about to do. Those with paranoid schizophrenia were unpredictable, the voices in their heads or the things they saw could talk them into any action no matter how dangerous it was, and Misty was waiting for the other shoe to drop at any second.

  Moans came from within the crimson lake of fog headed in their direction. It had come upon them quickly, now only a mere twenty feet away and Misty’s urge to run was strong, but she couldn’t leave her mother behind. Her mother took a couple of sure steps toward it; her hand still reached out in an attempt to touch it even from a distance. The moans from within the fog stopped, almost as if whatever lived within had retreated.

  “Mama, no. Don’t go that way,” Misty said as she reached out in a feeble attempt to grab her mother’s arm. Her hand missed her as she took another step away from her and toward the floating ocean of crimson.

  “Don’t you hear them, Misty? They’re calling to us,” her mother whimpered as she took yet another step away from Misty’s outstretched arms. She gasped again and continued, “I see him, Misty. I see him. He’s callin’ to us, tellin’ us to come with him. Where?” she spoke to the invisible man within the fog that only she could see.

  Misty looked into the fog just to be certain, seeing nothing. “Mama, there’s nothin’ there. We’ve gotta go. Now!”

  She reached out again and this time, she was able to close her hand around her mother’s forearm, knowing that wasn’t the best course of action when she was in this state, but she had to do something to stop her even if it were for only a moment. Frustration and fear caused a solid pit to form in her stomach, and somehow she knew that her mother wouldn’t be leaving this spot with her. Her delusions and hallucinations had too great an influence. The thought crossed her mind that it would be easier if she left her mother behind, but it was something she just couldn’t do. She had always been taught never to leave anyone behind no matter the circumstances, and she was trying so hard to hold onto that principle despite the urge to run and never look back.

  The red mist was now mere feet away. It had sped up its progression toward them as if it sensed what they were and that they were living, moving along the ground like a serpent. A small tendril of it rose from the ground and walked itself toward her mother’s outstretched hand as Misty looked on in terror, not sure what to do now. She pulled on her mother’s arm, but she was an immovable force. Her mother jerked her arm away and took yet another step, this one more sure than the last. Misty took her hand and tried to pull her away, but she refused to budge as she only had eyes for the mist.

  “Mama, please,” she begged. “You’re all I got left.” Tears were beginning to stream down her cheeks, leaving track marks in the grit and grime of the last couple of days.

  The fog caressed her fingertips then, and she cried out, pulling away but not fast enough. The fog wrapped around her arm, tightening to a painful grip as her mother screamed and Misty pulled her mother with frantic movements, attempting to get it to release her. No such luck. Her mother’s skin began to turn a disgusting shade of red as the mist pulled, not letting go. Her mother cried out in pain and with one final tug, the fog had won, taking her mother from her with the deafening sound of her screams and the noise of a million insects moving in tandem within it. Her mother disappeared from sight altogether.

  “Mama!” Misty shrieked, peering into the fog as best as she could but unable to make out anything, even though she could hear her mother’s struggles within it.

  There was a sickening crunch and then the screams stopped and with absolute certainty, Misty knew her mother was gone.

  ***

  Misty was running again. After the mist had taken her mother, it began to move in on her, but her legs had frozen in terror until the fog was only a mere inches away. It was still attempting to reach her, but didn’t move as fast as she assumed it could.

  She hadn’t stopped running once she started again, imagining what her mother’s death must have been like and not wanting to meet the same fate as her. She was afraid that one day her mind could succumb to the disease that had contributed to her mother’s demise.

  She looked behind her, seeing nothing following, and decided it was time to stop. She needed rest and, as she slowed her steps and leaned against a nearby tree attempting to catch her breath, she saw smoke rising in the near distance. Its black color separated it easily from the crimson fog she had come to know since the meteorites had stolen everything she had in her life. Friends and family were all gone, no one to watch over her any longer. It tickled her nose and smelled like the pine trees surrounding her. Pine trees and the sickening stench of burning hair and flesh. She knew what the scent meant now. She tried to hold down the bile that burned its way up her throat, knowing that there was someone who had burned to death in the forest, but there was no longer any evidence of the flames that she could see, meaning the fire was dying down to embers now. It reminded her of the smell that greeted her when she had gotten home with her mother from a day out shopping. The meteorite strike had begun minutes before they arrived and the house was completely obliterated, fire and smoke billowing into the darkening sky as the sun set. It was a smell she would never forget as long as she lived.

  The nausea that crept up her gullet didn’t cease. The smell of a burning human being caused her stomach to churn until she leaned against a tree and retched. Only stomach acid came up, soaking into the ground as she watched. When she stood, dizziness overtook her sight. The world spun as vertigo took hold and then evened out as she blinked it away. She was tired, and she was dehydrated, but she couldn’t stop moving. She couldn’t let the mist catch her because she had no clue what it would do to her. What she heard of her mother’s demise was enough for her.

  Misty realized she could hear the crackling flames, meaning she was a lot closer to the source of the smoke than she had initially guessed. The smoke began to flood toward her, and it looked so much like the mist except for the color that she was startled for a moment, but then took it upon herself to investigate the fire. Hope filled her that she wouldn’t see the body of the person who had burned to death in whatever structure had come down, possibly being struck by a meteorite.

  She made her way slowly toward the flames, following the trail of smoke that floated on the breeze. Another scent joined the smell of burning pine trees and people. It was the smell of ozone, the heat of it burning the back of her throat. She swallowed, trying to rid herself of what felt like acid reflux, but couldn’t get it to dissipate. She was so thirsty and began to think that a drink of water could get rid of the offensive feeling, but knew that there couldn’t be any water close enough to where she was to make that dream a reality.

  Once past a line of trees, she found a gravel driveway, the home that was burning not even yards away from where she stood. From the damage, it looked as if a large enough meteorite had crashed into the home. It created a small crater where the house once stood, the only part of it left being the brick chimney and a few of the logs used to build it that still burned.

  “Oh my God,” she breathed. The air forced out of her lungs by the sight in front of her.

  Her feet moved on instinct, taking her closer and closer to the wreckage, the smell and the sensation of the heat causing her to sweat and to gag. The dehydration and exhaustion weren't helping matters, but she couldn’t stay away. The urge to explore the debris was strong within her as her heart raced and the adrenaline coursing through her veins caused her to sweat profusely. Just as she had suspected, a charred body lie closer to the debris, but she kept moving, stepping around pieces of smoldering wood or household items that she could no longer identify. Not even the person she had seen lying on the ground was recognizable in any capacity.

  Tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to spill over as she took in the scene, nothing left of what she was sure had been a loving home bu
t bits and pieces. It reminded her of what her house looked like when the meteorite struck as she and her mother pulled into the driveway. They should have been dead at that moment but were somehow spared, just to have her mother ripped from her a couple of days afterward because of a hallucination of her deceased husband. There was no doubt that her father had been killed in the strike. The house had been demolished, and the car had been thrown with them inside of it. They came out with no bumps or scrapes to speak of.

  A creeping feeling slid up her spine, and she turned, finding the red fog slowly moving in her direction. It had followed her and was seeking her out; trying to take her like it had her mother. There was a cry in the distance and then everything was silent, not even the sounds of birds being heard as the scream faded off into the distance, but it was still coming. She turned only to find that she had unwillingly walked into a dead end, a cliff behind the burning cabin and surrounded by nothing but steep hills covered in trees, leaving her no real direction to go in. Her gaze moved back to the fog, mixing now with the swirling smoke and intertwining as it made its way toward her feet. Misty took a step back, tripping on a piece of the cabin and falling to the ground, landing on her backside hard enough to cause searing pain to ricochet up and down her spine.

  Panic took over, and she thought it would be the end of her as it continued to advance on her, but something happened that she hadn’t expected. The red mist began to fade, evaporating into the air like it had never been there and leaving the smoke from the remaining fire behind her the only thing left floating in the air around her. She watched in abject fascination as the mist faded from a dark, crimson red quickly followed by a bright red and then pink, until there was nothing left but her and the smoldering embers of the cabin.