The Hike (Book 1): Survivors

by Quentin Rogers

  Mackenzie shot two more times into its shoulder and upper chest, then turned her head and violently vomited blackberry jam all over the lawn. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and turned back towards the creature. She was sure that the image of that thing lying in the grass would forever be burned into her memory, but she somehow struggled to look away from the creature. The creature’s body was lying in a heap with its back arched and its legs bent behind it. Wherever the man-thing’s skin was exposed, its dark veins shown through its semi-transparent white flesh.

  She slung the rifle over her shoulder and ran back into the house. She grabbed her back pack and hefted it onto her back. The creature must have been down in the root cellar getting food the same as she had been, because there really was no sign that it had been in the house other than the door to the cellar being left open.

  She walked as fast as she could back out of the house and back to her bike. She tried not to look at the creature as she walked by, but she couldn’t resist herself from staring at it one more time. She swung her leg over her bike and headed back down the driveway, and then down the gravel road back towards the boat. This time she stayed standing as she wanted to put as much distance between her and that thing as possible; and she had not bothered to go get her shorts, so the seat was uncomfortable in her underwear.

  As she left the gravel road and started down the dirt path back towards the river, she saw a large shape coming towards her from the direction of where she had landed the boat. She skidded the bike to a stop and unslung the rifle from around her back. By the time she shouldered the gun and looked down the open sights, she recognized the shape as unquestionably her dad on his bicycle heading towards her. She put the rifle back on across her back and headed towards him.

  They were still a hundred feet or more from each other when she heard him start yelling at her. “Just what in the world do you think you’re doing?” he yelled. As they got closer to each other and he realized that she was half-naked and her shoulder was bleeding profusely, his tone turned from anger to worry. “What happened? Are you okay?” he asked.

  She stopped just in front of him and said “I’m okay Dad. We have to get out of here.” She stood back up on the pedals and headed towards the boat.

  “What’s going on?” Patrick asked, more worried than before. “What happened?” he asked as he turned his bike around and followed after her.

  Mackenzie reached the boat first and slung her backpack and the rifle onboard. Patrick was right behind her and put both bikes on the boat as she climbed on board. He pushed them off and climbed into the middle seat with the oars.

  When they were almost half-way across the river, Patrick stopped rowing and lifted Mackenzie’s chin with his hand so that he could look into her eyes. “What happened? Where did you go?” he asked her gently. She started crying, then began to sob. She knelt forward and put both arms around him and they held each other in that embrace as they slowly drifted down the river.

  When the sobbing stopped, Mackenzie leaned back and sat in the front seat facing her dad. “I’ll tell you about it when we get back to camp, so I don’t have to tell it a second time to Stuart,” Mackenzie said.

  “You sure you’re all right?” Patrick asked her.

  “I think so,” she said as she started inspecting her shoulder. This was the first that she realized that there was a deep gash on the front of her left shoulder a good inch or two long.

  Patrick began to paddle back to camp and Mackenzie dipped her hand into the river and scooped water out to put into the wound on her shoulder.

  Once back to camp, Patrick helped Mackenzie out of the boat and grabbed her backpack. Stuart had come down to the edge of the river with a sleeping bag wrapped around him. When Mackenzie got to him, she hugged him tightly and he wrapped the sleeping bag around her as they walked back to the tents. Stuart coughed a few times on the way back and he clearly wasn’t feeling well.

  “Let me get that first aid kit before you start your story,” Patrick said as he headed into his tent. After a few moments he came back out with what he wanted and sat down in front of his daughter.

  “Okay, now let’s hear it,” he said as he began to clean up and bandage the wound on her shoulder. She told the story front to back and by the time she was done, the sun was beginning to set. Stuart walked over, opened the back pack, and rifled through it. He found a large jar of pickles, opened it, stuck one in his mouth, and offered the jar to the other two who declined.

  Patrick leaned in and hugged his daughter. They both cried for a few minutes and Patrick told her “I’m glad you’re okay Darlin’.”

  “So they’re zombies huh?” Stuart asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed that from the one that I saw.”

  “I don’t think that they’re zombies,” Mackenzie said sounding somewhat offended by the comment.

  “Sure sounds like it,” Stuart said.

  “The creature that I saw had definitely been human, but I don’t think that he was dead. I definitely wouldn’t have even thought to have called him a zombie before you said that,” Mackenzie said sure with surety.

  “You said that it looked sick. That he moaned. That his flesh was rotting from his bones. Sure sounds like a zombie to me,” Stuart said.

  “It wasn’t a zombie, alright? I know that I said those things, and the way that you say it; it does sound like a zombie, but it just wasn’t okay?” Mackenzie said. Her voice was rising and she was becoming agitated at Stuart’s insistence.

  “Hey,” Patrick said to Stuart. “Back off.”

  Stuart took the hint and didn’t say anything more, but fished another pickle from the jar instead. Mackenzie couldn’t let it go though. “No. No, it wasn’t a zombie. He moved more like an ape. Powerful and fast, not like a corpse ready to fall over,” she said almost to herself.

  “It’s okay Darlin’. If you say that it wasn’t a zombie, it wasn’t a zombie,” Patrick said to her. Then to Stuart he said “You can just claim those pickles for your own.” Stuart coughed as he fished a third pickle out of the jar.

  Chapter 18

  His daughter’s blood curdling scream woke him from his sleep. Patrick grabbed his belt knife from the side of his pillow and jumped to his feet slicing through the side of the tent in one fluid motion. Mackenzie’s tent was just two steps from where he was standing and after seeing nothing out of the ordinary from the moonlight, he leapt forward and unzipped her tent. He could see her clearly sitting upright in her sleeping bag with her hands over her face. His mind flashed back to those nights when she was younger and used to wander into their bedroom with the remnants of a bad dream still lingering.

  He stepped in and sat down next to her. He put his arm around her and said “Shhhh…” Stuart stuck his head in the open tent doorway, and Patrick waved him off. “You want me to lay down with you for a while?” he asked. She just shook her head yes and laid back down.

  Patrick got up and retrieved his sleeping bag through the man-sized gash in the side of his tent wall. Stuart came up to him before he reentered Mackenzie’s tent. “She okay?” Stuart asked in a low voice, but with a real level of concern.

  “I think so. She just had a bad dream,” Patrick said. “You staying awake okay?” Stuart nodded and headed back over to the rocks where he could see out across the bend in the river. He coughed a few times on his way over and picked up his jar of pickles on the way.

  Patrick climbed into Mackenzie’s tent and laid his sleeping bag out next to hers before zipping the tent. He climbed into his bag and Mackenzie rolled over and snuggled tight to him. His mind was racing with the story that she had told him earlier, and his heart was breaking that she had to go through such a thing without him. He knew that he wasn’t going to fall asleep again that night, and decided to just enjoy his daughter wanting to snuggle with her dad.

  Stuart sat with his back to the large rock and his sleeping bag wrapped around him like a shawl. He munched on the last bite of the last pickle from the jar
that Mackenzie had brought back with her. The pickles were awesome, and their sour juice soothed his sore throat. He felt a little selfish that he had eaten the whole jar, but they were good. He held the jar up to the moonlight and seen that there were pieces of dill, garlic, and other things floating and tossing around in the bottom of the jar. He braced himself, and then took a swig of the pickling juice. He flinched at first due to the strong taste, but then realized that he liked it just as good as he had the pickles. Maybe even better.

  He felt bad. His body ached, his throat was sore, and he could feel something settling in his chest. He knew his cold wet walk across the bridge hadn’t been good for him, but he was paying the price for it now. Stuart thought back to how Patrick had cared for him and waited on him all day, trying to make his day better. He knew that Patrick felt guilty for not crossing the bridge instead of Stuart, but Stuart could tell that it was more than that. He could tell that Patrick genuinely cared for him. Stuart didn’t understand how someone could be so against him being gay, yet still care about how he felt.

  Stuart also thought about the creature that Mackenzie had met. Mackenzie was a whole lot tougher than what Stuart had originally given her credit for. To have the guts to run for the rifle when that thing was headed straight towards her was something that Stuart didn’t know if he would have had the courage for.

  Stuart continued to think about Mackenzie’s adventure. He thought about how Patrick had taken care of him all day, the burial that they gave his parents, and whatever else that he could think of to try and keep that image of that creature slamming into the window at the hotel out of his mind. No matter how hard he tried, every now and then when his mind would go idle he still saw that hairy thing leaping through the air towards the window and crashing into it.

  After first light, Stuart wandered back to the camp and opened the backpack that Mackenzie had brought back with her. The thing must have weighed sixty pounds or more and was stuffed with mason jars and cans of food. As he was digging around in the pack, he heard the zipper on Mackenzie’s tent open and he turned to find both Patrick and Mackenzie stiffly climbing out of the tent.

  “Morning,” Stuart said to both before digging back into the backpack.

  “Hey,” Patrick responded. “How you feeling?” he asked.

  “Still kind of rough,” Stuart said honestly.

  “Oh, hey,” Mackenzie said with some excitement in her voice as she came over beside Stuart. “I found something special for you,” she said as she peered into the bag and shuffled jars around. She pulled out a metal can from the bottom of the bag and handed it to him.

  Tears filled Stuart’s eyes when he realized that it was a can of his favorite raviolis. He wasn’t sure what the tears were about, but he leaned over and gave Mackenzie a big monster hug.

  Patrick handed Stuart a spoon from his mess kit and said “You feel up to traveling? We were thinking that we should get down the river a ways and see if we can find a bigger town with some camping supplies.” He pointed towards the side of his tent for emphasis. Part of the tent wall was flapping in the wind from the large gash up the middle of it.

  Stuart smiled some and said “Yeah, I can hack it.”

  “What else you got in there kid?” Patrick asked Mackenzie.

  After some digging in the backpack she pulled out a smaller jar; she smiled, and tossed it to her dad. “That stuff is good, but I don’t think that I’ll be able to stomach any for a while,” she said as he read the label – ‘Blackberry Jam’. They all chuckled and headed over to the rocks to watch the sunrise and eat some breakfast.

  After breakfast, they packed up camp and stowed all their gear back on the boat. They left Patrick’s wounded tent standing where they had set it up, and they all turned to look at it as they drifted down the river in the crowded boat. They sat in their familiar places with Mackenzie in the bow, Stuart in the middle seat, and Patrick bringing up the rear.

  They drifted and rowed mostly in silence until the sun was nearly overhead. Patrick then broke out in a low and out of tune chorus of American Pie by Don McLean. Stuart joined in with him, just as low but much more in tune. Mackenzie joined in the tune for the few words that she knew, and they sang what they could remember of the song a few times through before it got old and they stopped.

  “How can such a depressing song make you feel better?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Patrick answered. “That one just always did.”

  They drifted and rowed for the rest of the day without seeing towns of any kind along the river. Every few miles or so they would come across a campground or some dirt roads that would come down to the river’s edge for access to a beach or a nice coolie for fishing, but other than that it was just the river. The river was beautiful. Green grass grew tall on both sides of the river, with sweeping hills breaking up the scenery on the horizon. If it hadn’t been under such dire circumstances, Patrick probably would have spent a paycheck on taking a trip like this down the river with his daughter.

  They camped on the south side of the river again as soon as the light started to fade. Patrick slept in Mackenzie’s tent again with her even though it was somewhat crowded. They had a cold camp with no fire or stove; they just rested and were up again at dawn and back on the river. Patrick and Mackenzie took the watches, as Stuart was still not feeling well.

  Patrick was beginning to worry about Stuart. The cough that he had was now settling in his lungs, and Patrick could tell that Stuart was beginning to lose strength. He was worried that his cold had turned into pneumonia or something worse that could end up really injuring the boy.

  “Land Ho!” Mackenzie yelled and startled the other two passengers. She had been looking through the binoculars off and on all morning trying to spot somewhere that they could refresh their supplies, and now she was holding them up to her face while pointing at a spot on the horizon that neither of the two others could see.

  “I don’t think that is what that term is used for,” Patrick said.

  “I know Dad. I was being funny,” Mackenzie said as she leaned back and handed the binoculars to her dad in the rear of the boat. “It looks like a larger town over there.”

  It took Patrick a couple of moments to find what Mackenzie was talking about as he panned the binoculars around in the direction that she had been pointing. After getting a good look at the town, he handed the binoculars to Stuart who just waved them off and showed no interest in looking through them.

  “That town is quite a ways off,” Patrick said.

  “How far would you guess?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Patrick said pondering the distance. “It looks like it is at least a good three or four miles away I would say.”

  “We should be able to get there and back by lunch then wouldn’t you think? There’s a campground with a dock just up there a little ways,” Mackenzie said pointing down the river. She turned in the boat to look at her dad to gage his expression and caught the glazed look of Stuart’s feverish eyes instead. Her heart sank when she realized just how bad he was feeling. “Besides, we can look around for some medicine for Stuart,” Mackenzie added. Without waiting for a response from her dad, she began paddling to the dock that she had spotted. Patrick didn’t argue and started paddling with her after he set the binoculars down.

  Patrick and Mackenzie pitched Stuart’s tent on a small beach near the dock while he sat on a nearby picnic table with his sleeping bag wrapped around him. After he was laying down in the tent and they made sure that he was comfortable, they loaded up their bikes with their rifles and empty backpacks and took off up the paved road toward the town that Mackenzie had spotted. As they pulled away, they heard Stuart making a hollow and vibratory coughing sound that made them both cringe.

  “Do you think that he’ll be okay Dad?” Mackenzie asked when she was sure they were out of earshot.

  “I don’t know,” Patrick replied. “Let’s make this trip quick so we can get back to him, but we
have to be careful and quiet. If we run onto anymore of your creatures, I would rather that they not even know that we’re here.”

  Chapter 19

  After they arrived in the town of Idleville, they realized that it wasn’t nearly as big as it had looked from the river. The population sign they saw as they pedaled past said 2,300 people, but the town didn’t seem like it was near that large. There were two stoplights in town on the main street that looked like it had originally been built many years before. On one of the corners with the first stoplight was a rather large drug store. They had stopped well short of the intersection and looked over the whole area through their riflescopes and binoculars before approaching the drugstore. One of the large windows by the front door had been broken, and the inside of the store looked ransacked. Intact and broken items were strewn all about the aisles, and more than one of the large shelving units was tilted off its base.

  “I don’t like this Dad,” Mackenzie said in a low voice.

  Patrick looked over to his daughter and ruffled her hair with his hand as he had done when she was a small child. He then turned and made his way across the intersection alone while Mackenzie hid in a doorway near the bikes that were kitty corner from the drug store. Patrick had his AR locked and loaded as he briskly walked across the pavement. Mackenzie had her .22 at the ready and swiveled her head back and forth looking for any movement or anything else out of the ordinary. She caught herself holding her breath when her dad was a little more than half way across the street, and made herself exhale quietly.

  Once Patrick reached the other side of the street, she could see him standing in front of the broken window for quite some time looking around in the store the best he could. He opened the door and went inside. Mackenzie thought that she heard something a few doors down to her right and immediately looked in that direction. She didn’t see anything moving, but continued to stare in that direction. Her heart was pounding up in her throat now as she began to quickly shift her field of view back and forth from where her dad had just entered the drug store and where she thought she had heard a sound. She wasn’t sure that she had heard anything. She felt the rifle shaking back and forth in her hands, and looked down to find her hands and arms shaking from nerves. By the time that her dad came back into view in the doorway, she had convinced herself that she had imagined the sound. He was waving for her to advance to the doorway. She looked one more time down the street to where she thought she might have heard the sound, then padded quickly across the street to the drug store.