Ferocious

by Jeff Strand

  Honestly, this was working pretty well. If the rest of the animals outside kept trying to get in through this window, he and Mia could probably subdue them one or two at a time, like a crowd of bad guys in an old martial arts movie. They just needed the burning cabin not to collapse upon them first.

  The smoke was becoming an issue. Rusty's eyes were starting to sting and he couldn't defend himself against undead creatures if he couldn't see properly. He slammed the chainsaw blade directly between a wolf's eyes, spraying fur and brain matter all over.

  There were still plenty of animals surrounding the cabin. Excluding the need to not catch fire or perish of smoke inhalation, this was a terrible time to abandon their home.

  Mia returned to the window, carrying but not wearing her backpack. "How long does it take a cabin to burn down?" she asked.

  "Not long. We can't carry the shotgun, so we should just use up all of the ammunition. Do as much damage to these things as possible before we're forced outside with them."

  Mia nodded and went to retrieve the weapon. While she did that, Rusty sliced off a wolf's snout, leaving only the back of its jaw to snap open and closed. A squirrel leapt over the blade, landed on the floor, and scampered up Rusty's leg. He swung the chainsaw blade at it and missed. Then he scolded himself for coming within a couple of inches of hitting his own leg with a chainsaw. It was important not to do things like that.

  The squirrel ran up Rusty's back. He let go of the chainsaw with his right hand and reached behind his back to swipe off the squirrel with his left. He winced in pain as its tiny teeth clamped down on the back of his neck.

  Mia knocked the squirrel off his shoulder with the barrel of the shotgun. It struck the floor and immediately ran at her. She slammed her foot down upon it. Rusty knew he couldn't actually hear the loud crunch over the chainsaw, but he certainly imagined it. The squirrel, spine broken, rolled on its side, frantically squirming.

  Rusty slashed at a wolf with the chainsaw blade. He had to stay focused. They knew absolutely nothing about how these creatures worked, and so a bite might be nothing more than an ordinary squirrel bite. It didn't hurt that bad. It was nothing to worry about. And if it turned out that it was something to worry about, they could at least save the worrying for later. They had more than enough problems to deal with right now.

  Mia shoved the barrel of the shotgun through the gap in the boards. A wolf chomped down on the end of it. Though they wouldn't argue that it was a good thing that all of these animals were frantically trying to get inside, it was conducive to more accurate shots.

  She squeezed the trigger. Much of the wolf's head disappeared.

  She squeezed the trigger again, putting a significant hole in the wolf behind it.

  While Mia reloaded, Rusty kept waving the chainsaw and tried not to think about the bite on his neck.

  Mia fired off two more shots, both going point blank into wolves. They all kept moving, but they had less body mass with which to pose a threat.

  Even with its broken back, that frickin' squirrel was crawling toward Rusty. He knelt down and sawed it in half, and then into quarters. He would've liked to saw it into eighths or even sixteenths, but there were much larger, more dangerous animals trying to get into the cabin that required attention.

  Rusty glanced back for a moment. Flames were visible underneath his bedroom door.

  Mia reloaded and fired off two more shots.

  It was starting to get uncomfortably hot in the cabin.

  Mia shouted something at Rusty that he couldn't hear. He shut off the chainsaw.

  "Throw some burning wood at them," she said. "Or burning whatever."

  That was a good idea. Rusty went over to the bedroom door, hoping his gloves were sufficient protection against the hot knob. They were. As he opened the door, a massive amount of smoke billowed out. He couldn't see in there well enough to grab a burning object, so he picked up a couch cushion and held it in the flames until it caught on fire. Then he returned to the window.

  Mia shot two more wolves, then moved out of the way as Rusty tossed the burning cushion out the window. The animals backed away from it. They didn't run off the porch, but they left plenty of room between themselves and the fire.

  It was working!

  Rusty grabbed the last two cushions. He set them on fire then tossed them out the window, one at a time, trying to land them away from each other to cover more territory on the porch. One of the wolves backed down the stairs.

  Now the trick was to scare away the animals with fire without trapping themselves inside a burning cabin. Being burned alive was quite a bit more agonizing than being mauled by teeth and claws, or so Rusty had been led to believe. He hoped to never acquire first-hand information on either method.

  Rusty placed a couple of thin boards halfway into the bedroom. He'd use them as torches when it became time to flee, which was going to happen any minute now. Then he grabbed a jacket, set it on fire, and flung it out the window.

  Mia fired two more shots. "That's it for the shotgun ammo," she said. "But I made every shot count."

  "Perfect. Let's get the rifles."

  Mia tossed the shotgun aside and they each picked up a rifle and slung it over their back. It felt really heavy. Rusty wondered if he might have to dump some of his weaponry before their hike was over.

  He hurriedly put both the axe and the chainsaw in his backpack. Hopefully he'd never have to access them—he could just keep the predators away with fire. He put the backpack on over the rifle. Oh yeah, the journey to the truck was going to suck in a big way. But at least they might survive for longer than twelve seconds.

  Mia put on her backpack as well. They gave each other a quick nod, like warriors about to go into battle where the odds were overwhelmingly against them. This would've been a good time for a hug, though Rusty wasn't much of a hugger. However, they were weighed down and a little off-balance and an "I hope we don't die" hug might topple one or both of them over.

  Should he tell her he loved her? It wasn't unheard of him to speak those words, but it wasn't normal, either. It might make things awkward and put too much of an emphasis on the idea that they might be moments away from a horrific, gruesome death. Then again, if he found himself lying on the ground, blood spurting from six different wounds, a bobcat gnawing on the stump that used to be his left arm, he'd regret not saying something nice to Mia before their tragic demise. He kind of hoped she'd say it first.

  "I love you, Uncle Rusty," said Mia.

  "I love you, too," he said, coughing.

  "I think we need more fire out there."

  "Okay."

  They set some more of their possessions on fire and tossed them out the window. By the time they were done, they'd cleared the front porch of zombie animals, though several of them were still lurking nearby.

  Rusty went to get the thin boards, which were burning on the ends. Mia picked up the boards they'd use to (hopefully) free the truck.

  "You ready?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Me either."

  "Let's go."

  They climbed out the living room window.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Rusty held a burning board in each hand. Suddenly the torches seemed kind of pathetic, as if he were trying to frighten off the animals with a cigarette lighter. Still, they'd been on the front porch for nearly three full seconds and no zombie wolves had charged at them yet.

  They carefully stepped around the many fires, some of which came from headless wolves that were now burning, and then went down the two stairs. They no longer had the protection of the cabin walls. One advantage to the cabin being on fire was that Rusty couldn't second-guess their decision to leave. Since they did not want to become charred skeletons, there was no question that it was the correct plan of action. It was just as well that the cabin was going to burn to the ground; they'd never get the smell of burnt fur out of the place anyway.

  Rusty took a quick inventory of the dangers surrounding them. Ma
ybe nine or ten wolves, though at least half of them were injured. The one favoring its left front paw was still a threat, while the one with no remaining eyes was probably not going to cause them any problems. Two of the four bobcats remained mobile. So the situation was bad—very, very bad—but not as bad as it had been before they made use of the shotgun, axe, and chainsaw.

  The animals were keeping their distance, in that their jaws were not currently within biting range of Rusty and Mia's throats. Using any other measure, they were too fucking close. Rusty swung the torches in front of him, which was enough to keep the animals out of torch range but not much further.

  "Get the hell out of here," he told them, as if the command might cause the undead creatures to reconsider their choices.

  Rusty lunged at the closest wolf with the torch. The flames got close enough to sear its snout a bit, yet the wolf didn't flee. Mia waved her boards in an effort to be menacing; it was enough to keep the animals out of range of getting whacked, but just barely.

  Rusty took a step forward. The closest wolf growled. Rusty took a step backward.

  "This isn't working," he told Mia, as if she'd been under the impression that everything had been working out in a perfectly delightful manner. He'd been saying a lot of unnecessary shit since they'd left the cabin.

  "Maybe the chainsaw is better than the fire," said Mia.

  A couple of the other wolves began to growl as well. But, again, they weren't pouncing and trying to tear the humans apart. As long as there was an element of "Perhaps we shouldn't be so hasty in devouring our prey" in their behavior, Rusty felt that his and Mia's saga might have a happy ending.

  He didn't want to switch out the torch for the chainsaw quite yet. Yes, the chainsaw was much better at grinding up their faces, but the animals hadn't demonstrated any actual fear of it. The torch was keeping them away. Not far away, but away. If they lost their fear and all decided to charge at once, the chainsaw wasn't going to extend his life by more than a few extra seconds, and those extra seconds would be filled with terror and pain and quite honestly wouldn't be worth living.

  A wolf got too close to Mia and she lightly bopped it in the face with a board. Another wolf snapped at Rusty's torch. Several of the wolves were growling now. None of them seemed like they had any immediate plans to step aside and let Rusty and Mia pass.

  Rusty really, really wished his cabin wasn't on fire. That would be so wonderful right now.

  He and Mia stepped back onto the porch. The animals didn't follow.

  "Are we fucked?" asked Mia.

  Rusty shook his head. "We'll figure something out."

  Granted, they'd spent quite a bit of time waiting for daylight and hadn't come up with a more elaborate plan than heavily arming themselves. Presumably there was some sort of brilliant scheme that could get them out of this mess, but Rusty had no idea what it was. He just figured at some point he'd have to whip out the chainsaw and start severing things.

  Almost all of the wolves had walked to the edge of the porch, blocking the steps.

  "At least they're..." Rusty trailed off, fear making him completely forget what he was going to say. He wasn't even sure if it had been a joke or not.

  The porch was not going to be a semi-safe place to stand for very much longer. The wood was burning in several spots and though the foundation seemed solid, Rusty couldn't tell what was happening underneath and the whole thing could collapse with very little warning. One of them would probably have caught on fire before that, but still, they needed to be aware of the porch stability while they tried to work out an escape plan.

  Mia didn't ask him to complete his sentence. She seemed to realize it was a comment that his brain had erased.

  "They're too scared of the fire to come up here with us," said Mia. "But they're staying right on the edge. That means we can hack them up some more."

  She was correct. Rusty set down his torches. He reached behind him, unzipped the top of the backpack, and tugged on the axe handle. The axe wouldn't come free; it was wedged against something, probably the chainsaw. He tugged more vigorously. It remained stuck. Shoving everything into the backpack in a rushed panic apparently had a downside.

  This was the kind of thing that would impede his ability to whip out a weapon and fire off a snappy one-liner—that and not being able to think of a snappy one-liner. Fortunately, the animals were still staying away from the fire, so this setback was embarrassing but not yet fatal.

  He took off the backpack and got the axe out of it. He handed it to Mia, who'd set her boards down where they wouldn't catch on fire, at least for the next couple of minutes. Then he removed the chainsaw.

  He tugged the cord. The chainsaw didn't start.

  He tugged it again. The chainsaw didn't start.

  He cursed and tugged it a third time. The chainsaw sputtered but didn't start.

  Mia slammed the axe into the skull of a wolf.

  Rusty set the chainsaw down so that he could pull the cord with both hands. No way was it out of gasoline already. It was just being a dick.

  The axe would not come out of the wolf's skull. Mia yanked on it repeatedly, but all she was doing was dragging the wolf up the steps. Rusty took a quick break from his chainsaw predicament to kick the wolf in the face as hard as he could. The axe popped free. The wolf continued to snarl. Rusty realized that he was getting used to the idea that a wolf could take an axe to the brain and still maintain all of its motor functions. Better to accept the impossible than to succumb to the black void of madness, he supposed.

  Mia took another swing at the wolf, lopping off one of its ears. A squirrel grabbed the ear in its mouth and ran off with it, whether for a meal, blanket, or souvenir, Rusty couldn't be certain. A different wolf snapped up the squirrel, clamping its jaws tightly down on the rodent's writhing body, then vigorously shook its head back and forth. The squirrel dropped the ear. The wolf bit down even harder. Blood sprayed upon its muzzle, then it let the squirrel fall to the ground, missing a good-sized chunk of its torso. The wolf licked its chops and then chewed. The one-eared wolf gobbled down the rest of the squirrel.

  Though this ten-second display of carnage was not a pleasant sight, the victim was clearly a regular living squirrel. That meant that whatever was creating the zombie animals had not impacted every single animal in the forest. It wasn't a hugely comforting thought, but right now Rusty would take whatever morsel of hope the universe was willing to toss at him.

  Meanwhile, the fire was getting really frickin' hot.

  He knelt down and tugged the cord. The chainsaw didn't start.

  He tugged it again. The chainsaw didn't start.

  Mia did not ask if he needed help. In pretty much any other set of circumstances, he would have turned her down and felt a mild blow to his male pride, but right now he did kind of want help starting the goddamn chainsaw. He wondered if he'd have to use it as a bludgeoning weapon instead.

  Rusty couldn't keep squandering time and energy on this thing. They had other weapons; they simply weren't as effective and personally satisfying as the chainsaw. He gave the cord one last half-hearted tug...and of course it roared to life.

  He picked it up with both hands. There was a sudden burst of adrenaline. The energy didn't quite reach his brain, since the only thing he could think of to say was, "That's right, you bastards, my chainsaw is working again!" and he elected not to say that out loud. It was lame and the chainsaw noise would drown it out anyway.

  Mia slammed the axe into another wolf's skull. Before she'd finished wrenching out the blade, Rusty sawed off its head. The headless body ran up the steps and toward the open window to the cabin, though it veered off-course, smacked into the wall instead, and flopped onto a burning part of the floor.

  Rusty thrust the whirring blade at another wolf. He missed and it snapped at his hand. Fortunately, it missed as well—Rusty's gloves weren't going to offer much protection against getting his hand bitten off. He swung the chainsaw at it again. The wolf somehow dodged
this attack as well. But then Mia struck it in the side with the axe, and the wolf didn't dodge Rusty's next chainsaw swing.

  With the axe and the chainsaw, Rusty and Mia made a pretty damn good team.

  Sure, they were still surrounded by undead animals and trapped on a burning front porch. But it was starting to feel as if they might be able to significantly reduce the zombie wolf population before he and Mia died a horrible death in a fire.

  They exchanged a glance, and the message was clear: let's fuck these things up.

  Rusty and Mia went absolutely batshit insane with their respective weapons. Not to the point where one of them might accidentally chop/saw a limb off the other, but to the point where pieces of wolves and bobcats literally flew into the air. Rusty even let out a battle cry. None of the animals worked up the courage to join them on the porch—excluding the headless one that was still burning and slowly dragging itself across the floor—but they also didn't flee the scene. So it put Rusty and Mia in a nice position to be able to hack them apart.

  There were no stunning, impressive moves. Nothing where Rusty decapitated two wolves with one swing, or where Mia chopped an entire wolf in half, lengthwise. But as they stood there, bodies covered in sweat, eyes watering from the smoke, skin hurting from the heat, they were doing some serious damage to these creatures.

  Chunks of wolf and bobcat were scattered all over. Most of the pieces were still moving, but they wouldn't be a threat unless accidentally stepped upon.

  Rusty's arms were starting to ache from swinging the heavy chainsaw around. The wooden armor also wasn't helping his fatigue, but he didn't regret it, especially when a wolf managed to slash its paw diagonally across his chest. As with the wolf from before, this tore open his shirt but not his flesh.