by Lundy, W. J.
“Well, at least these runs bring us out to the wilderness, and we get to see some wildlife instead of dirty city streets. What do they need all of this gas for?” Deena asked innocently, trying to distract the old man from his current line of thought.
“Why, you planning on stealing it?” Sam asked, eliciting a punch in his arm in response, to which he laughed. “First off, it is not gas; it’s fuel. All kinds of fuel, and I don’t know why they’re collecting it out there in the middle of nowhere. It’s not my business. Turn on NPR and let’s see what’s going on in the world. I heard there’s some kind of flu or syphilis outbreak not too far from here.”
“Syphilis, Grandpa? Really? Don’t be gr—STOP!” Deena shouted as she reached for the radio, but instead put her hand on the dash. People were rushing the road from the tree line, screaming. Their faces were twisted into masks of tormented rage as red fluid that she guessed was blood seeped from their eyes and noses.
Sam slammed on the brake, hearing the familiar hiss of air and the shudder from the anti-locks working overtime to stop the fully loaded tanker. Tires shuddered and smoked, as did the brakes since they weren’t designed to withstand such a hard stop. It still wasn’t enough, as three of the screaming people were slammed hard to the ground and the big rig passed over them.
“FUCK!” Sam looked at his granddaughter, who stared back at him, speechless. He popped the door open as he watched more people rushing toward them, screaming. He knew he should get out and check on the three that he’d hit, but something stopped him. Something told him to wait, so he closed the door and locked it. Deena copied his actions.
“Go, Grandpa. We gotta go,” the fifteen-year-old pleaded.
“I can’t, Deena. I just hit some people. This could cost me my license. Grab your .22 out of the glove box, and put that box of shells in your pocket,” he directed, watching the first of the crazed people jump on his truck like a rock star on a mosh pit.
“They’re attacking us! Why are they attacking us?”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” he said, pulling his 1911 out from the console. He loosened the strap over the pistol’s butt and popped the snap on the holster compartment that held his extra magazines before staring dumbly out the window at the scene before him. The people didn’t have weapons, but they were all crazed like his friends got after smoking angel dust back in the seventies. They looked the same, except for the blood streaming from their orifices.
Now it was meth.
Is that what this is? he wondered. Were these just meth heads trying to rob them? Did they want the fuel? He would take his granddaughter and just walk away if they did, but somehow, he knew that wasn’t it.
A man jumped up and banged on the window next to Deena’s head, and two more climbed up onto the hood. When a fist slammed into his own window, cracking it, Sam got the hint and pushed his thirteen speed into low third gear, taking off with as much authority as he could muster.
The C15 shuddered, and the front end rose as the eighteen-wheeler rolled over bodies and pushed the crowd around them. The people outside seemed to have no compassion for their fallen comrades, only the incessant need to get into to the cab. They started to gain speed, and Sam smiled at the calm demeanor of his granddaughter as she sat quietly, holding her gun in two hands, her trigger finger on safe-ready. He wondered if the jujitsu training she’d been through for most of her life was helping to keep her calm. She might have panicked when they were sitting there under attack, but as soon as they moved, she focused on what was happening.
Deena jumped a little when the woman on the hood slid off, then she smiled when the man who’d been next to the woman soon followed. Her grandfather was an excellent driver, and she knew he could get them through this if anybody could, although, she would feel better if the guy on her running board fell off.
“When I tell you to, open your door as wide as you can,” Sam said. “Can you do that, sweetie? Okay, in three…two…one…Now!” He took a hard left-hand curve heavy on the shoulder.
Deena pushed on the door hard enough that she almost followed it out with the man. She pulled herself back just in time to avoid the door, which was suddenly slammed shut by a road sign. The man was gone. So were the mirror and the window, but the man was gone.
The shattering of glass caused her to turn her head. A large woman and a man had come through Sam’s window at him, scratching and biting. Sam fought back, trying to push them away, but they were too frantic, too vicious, and too…rabid. Deena screamed when she saw them trying to pull her grandfather out of the truck through the driver’s window, his lower half barely keeping him inside. Deena jumped up on the console and pointed her gun outside the window, where she hoped it wouldn’t hit her grandpa.
Two short reports from the .22, and the woman fell away, allowing Sam to drop back into his seat. Then the second fiend redoubled its efforts, tugging on him harder. “Take the wheel!” Sam shouted.
Deena slid in between the shift and console to stand next to him, trying to steer the giant machine. Sam had both hands on the man now, and he pushed out from the window, holding him in the path of a group of signs. Deena tried to steer away from the signs, but Sam needed them, so he stretched farther.
It happened so quickly that he didn’t even realize it had happened. A quick jerk, and he was looking at the stub of his left arm that now ended at the elbow. His blood spurted out with the pounding of his heart, twice, before he felt the pain, but it didn’t matter. In just minutes he wouldn’t have enough blood in him to sustain life.
All that mattered was Deena.
“Deena, get your pack out of the back. Be quick, girl!” he snapped when she hesitated. “Throw the food in and come back here.”
She did as instructed and gasped at her grandfather’s pale coloring. “Grandpa, your arm.”
“I know, dear. They’re still chasing us, and I only have a couple minutes left. Shh, shh, shh,” he hushed her. “Now listen to me. There isn’t much we can do. I’ll get you as far as I can, but then you’re going to have to run and leave me.”
“No.”
“Yes, take both guns and your pack, and run. There’s a lake over there; go hide on a boat or…shh,” he said, suddenly only having eyes for the road.
The engine was winding out at around forty-five, so Deena figured he was stuck in eighth, but his eyes were locked on the road. His one remaining hand was clamped on the one o’clock position, unable to leave the wheel. She saw the stump of his left arm and wanted to scream but knew it would only incite more panic within herself. She had to be cool and react when needed. Her grandpa still breathed, but his reactions to the road were sluggish, as his energy was focused toward the front.
Deena thought they were going off the road until she saw it—a small, twin-tire track road that was likely meant for logging trucks. They were usually soft sand and not accessible to highway trucks. They left the road at forty-five, barely maintaining their upright position.
The bounce forced Sam’s foot off the accelerator, and the soft sand slowed them to a stop. His head lolled toward her. “Go!” was all he managed, his eyes already glazed with death.
Deena grabbed her pack and ran. Behind them, she heard the raging screams coming for her, overwhelming her tears. She ran through the canopy of trees, listening to the furious shrieks that spurred her legs to do more than she could imagined them capable of.
Something shimmered in the distance, water… A lake? Did Grandpa know there was a lake back here? Yes, he said so.
The sound intensified as the crazies cleared the truck with only a few slowing to check the body in the driver’s seat. She could hear them gaining on her with every step, and she felt like the sole rabbit being chased by hundreds of hounds.
There, a man in a boat—or was it two people?
“Help! Help me!” she screamed through her sobs and ran toward the shore, hoping there was a dock—and that he’d hear her.
Even more, she hoped that he’d be willing to help
.
14
Lake Fontana, Nantahala National Forest, Tennessee
March 27th
She exited the trees at the end of the logging road, into the clearing along a small beach with several cabins stretching ahead of her in a line that mirrored the shore. She was going to yell to the men in the boat but thought they were too far away and could never get to her in time, anyway. The freaks pursuing her were manic—a term her friends used, but she never knew the full meaning of until this moment.
In a sudden inspiration, she turned and ran behind the cabins instead of onto the beach as she’d originally planned. The people behind her were faster and stronger than she was, and she knew they wanted to kill her. Having something between them, like a cabin for instance, was in her best interest.
Deena heard a screen door slam, and she froze in place as a man spied her between the houses.
“Hey! What are you doing back there?” he shouted.
“Run! Hide!” Deena screamed before she continued to run toward the opposite end of the row.
Over there. Lattice filling the gap between the cabin floor and the ground was broken just enough that she felt she could fit through. A quick look behind told her they hadn’t broken into line of sight behind the building yet. She hoped she had enough time.
Holding her pack in front with both hands, as well as her .22, she crouch-ran toward the opening.
It’s big enough. It has to be big enough…it has to be. She put her feet through the opening and turned to face out before she completely disappeared under the structure.
It was too late. One of them had seen her, and he rushed toward the cabin where she crawled. There was a loud scream from out front, followed by the slamming of doors and shoed feet running inside. She heard the splintering of wood from several buildings and more screams as the crazed lunatics broke into the vacationers’ homes.
Deena ducked inside and crawled deeper, knowing she had to keep moving. She’d barely gotten to the other side of the cabin before she heard her pursuer hit the lattice, practically tearing the ages-old dry wood from its fasteners in one surge with the force of his arrival.
She saw another opening that looked as if the homeowner had simply run out of lattice six inches from the stairs, leaving a flimsy piece swaying in the breeze. The obstruction didn’t slow her as she broke out into the yard and made a beeline for the trees.
Something hit her hard from behind, rolling her over. She came up, holding her gun in a shaky grasp, pointing at whatever was behind her.
She saw a face, a man’s face, enraged with adrenaline. She fired, and he pulled his head to the side as part of his ear flew off to his left.
“Jesus, kid! What are you doing?” the man screamed in panic as he pressed his hand up to his mangled ear. Deena realized her mistake, but there was no time to apologize or talk. They were coming. They were still coming. She could hear them and the screams of the dying all around her.
“What were you doing under my house, and why do you have a gun?” he screamed, as his fear morphed into rage when he realized it was just a scared, stupid kid facing him.
Deena turned and ran. He made as if he was going to follow but stopped. He never had the chance to scream as he was overwhelmed from behind. She kept running, knowing the result. Then she suddenly stopped.
My pack!
It’d been knocked from her hands when the man tackled her. She turned, seeing the man on the ground with several of the bloodied humans sinking their teeth into his shoulders and neck, clawing at him with their nails. He was the gnu on the nature program struggling for one more step as lions attacked it, wanting just one more step to keep death at bay long enough to grasp another breath before succumbing to the pride. His eyes looked at her, pleading for help, and all Deena could see was the bloodied ear on the left side of his head that she’d created with her pistol.
At the feet of the man’s attackers lay the pack, which they stumbled over as if it didn’t exist. There was nothing in it to interest them; it might as well have been dirt, something to collect the blood that they spilled and whatever fluids drained from them.
Deena needed that pack. The clean gear, food, and her grandfather’s gun could mean her survival. She had to get it… But how? One of the slayers pulled his head from the dying man’s body and locked his bloody eyes on hers.
He screamed at her. It was the same one who’d seen her crawl under the cabin. She turned and ran, knowing it would follow. The pack being gone lessened her burden, resulting in her easily outdistancing him by running a zig-zag pattern between the trees. She knew she couldn’t keep it up, though, and she had to find something soon.
As if summoned from the gods above, it appeared within her view.
A tiny shack sat high up in a tree, but she had to get to it. It was across a clearing, which would expose her to her pursuer before she could get there. That didn’t matter, though. She had to go for it. Her breathing was already becoming labored, and she could hear the man crashing through the brush behind her in frustration. She ran.
There has to be a way up there. Please, please let there be a way up there, she pleaded. She was just beginning to think her prayers had been answered as the tree line loomed larger on the approach, when distant grunts of excitement behind her said that she’d been spotted again.
She stuck out an arm to slow her speed against the tree, only to have a rusty nail catch her sleeve and stop her dead, swinging her around face-first into the trunk. She poked her head out from behind the tree to see the creature less than a hundred yards away and approaching fast. She looked up the tree to the tiny shack just above her. Wooden crosspieces had been nailed into the tree as some sort of makeshift ladder, the first being just a couple of feet above her.
She tucked the pistol into her waistband in back and jumped as high as she could to grab the first rung. The wood was old and dry, and the nails were rusty with some starting to come out of the board, but it held, and she pulled herself up.
Deena wanted to peek around the tree again but knew that would expose her, so she climbed two more rungs. She was above his head now but still within his jumping range, so she needed more. Four at least would see her into a safe range. The thing broke through the tree line and froze. So did Deena.
He looked around, not knowing where she’d run, and she held perfectly still, not even daring to breathe. His head surveyed the scene, not picking up on anything. Then he stopped moving as if to listen. Nothing. He sniffed the air before starting to search more frantically, as if he smelled something. A quick glance at the back of the tree would expose the teen to the blood-crazed fiend. He looked at the tree, but he never looked up. It seemed like the concept had never occurred to him, and he simply continued to scan the ground and brush around him.
When his eyes grazed over the base of the trunk, Deena felt like she was going to wet her pants, and she struggled to stay still, restraining her breath as much as she could. It trotted into the trees behind her, searching. Deena turned her head in that direction, and she waited.
With distance came perspective, and she knew he would eventually spot her. And she was right. Deena watched the man struggle to focus as he stared at her back, possibly unable to decipher what he was looking at. She held on, staying perfectly still. Suddenly, it shrieked and started to run. She could hear its motion and the ferocity with which it lunged toward her. She screamed and started to scramble up, managing to maneuver two more ladder slats before the man reached her.
She panicked and screamed again just before a wet, meaty slap hit the tree beneath her. A hand swung out, knocking a foot from the rungs, but her other foot remained secured. Deena heard a sickly scraping sound as he slid down the trunk along his belly, disintegrating the wooden ladder slats to leave only the remnants of rusty nails behind.
Deena kept climbing with only a quick glance down to see the man trying to shimmy up the tree trunk like it was a pole, only to get caught on the nails. She reached the opening in t
he shack’s floor and noticed the smell of gunpowder mixed with the stench of strange animal piss. She sat on the edge then swung her legs up before she peered back down the hole.
He can’t climb. Hopefully none of them can climb. He can’t seem to do much of anything other than chase and bite. What’s going on? Her panicked mind searched for an answer as her hands reached behind her to her waistband. With her .22 in hand, she looked back at the insane man who’d torn into a living person with his teeth. He was an animal, and if she left him down there, he would find a way to get to her; she knew it.
He’ll bring more. Oh, Grandpa…what should I do? She pleaded with the unseen entity that she knew was dead, killed only minutes ago. Are you here? Are you watching out for me? Please, Grandpa, tell me what to do. All of these things raced through her mind at once. She slowed her thoughts and calmed her breathing, trying to listen to what was in the air. A feeling of resolve came over her.
“Well, if you’re here, then you’re telling me to kill that fucker, because that’s what I want to do,” she said to the empty shack and didn’t hear any argument. Hooking her shins under a secured bench, she folded herself backward and upside down out of the hole in the floor.
She extended her pistol in a two-handed grip and pointed it toward the base of the trunk, waiting. The mindless thing was trying to run up the tree trunk like a sprinter, with a final lunge upward that always sent him right back to the ground. His chest and stomach were torn open from the rusty nails. The deep gashes created a vertical pattern down to a waterfall of blood coating his pants, and, still, he relentlessly lunged at her.
“You can’t jump, you stupid S.O.B. Come over here and talk to me,” Deena coaxed in a sweet, singsong voice, hoping he would hold still.
He stopped and looked at her hanging upside down from the deer shack’s floor. She imagined that he cocked his head like a dog, but he hadn’t. Instead, he stood there silent. His muscles tensed as his body quivered with rage.
