Karina Halle - Donners of the Dead

Jake was trying to hold her in place, but Donna was wild and even too much for a man like him. I quickly grabbed his coat and tried to hold it on the stump, trying not to breathe in the stench of rot and blood nor look too closely at what was unfolding, while Jake held her back. Soon Tim and Avery were at our side, with Meeks too disabled to do anything but watch a fate worse than his own.

“What the hell was that thing?” Avery shouted. It was rare to hear him curse but I’d be surprised if we weren’t all cursing now. “What was that? A person?”

I shook my head, tears of horror and frustration threatening the sides of my eyes. “I don’t know. It looked like a man, but no man could do this.” And that was true, not only on the moralistic side of things but physical as well. Donna had small hands, but he had put his entire mouth around it and bit it right through like he was eating a carrot.

“Demon!” Donna shrieked, flailing against us. “Demon! The Lord is angry with me!” Then she started babbling too fast to make any sense and began to collapse to the ground. Tim and Jake lowered her gently, and once her head was back against the snow, she promptly passed out.

“Please don’t let her die,” I said out loud, though I wasn’t sure to whom. I liked Donna a lot and she would not have been here in this situation if it wasn’t for me.

Jake felt along her neck and gave me a nod that looked exceedingly grim considering his face was streaked with her blood. “Pulse is weak, but it’s there.” He looked to his coat I was holding around the stump, how the blood kept pooling out underneath. “We need to stop the bleeding right now or she will die.” He looked to Avery. “Avery, I need you to go get the first aid supplies from the mule’s pack. Bring everything we didn’t use on Merv.”

Avery nodded, happy to be useful, and took off back toward Meeks and the mule. Only the crunch of his footsteps stopped right away.

I looked over my shoulder to see Avery standing still in his tracks. Further down was Meeks on top of his horse. Both of them were staring at something that was crawling slowly out of the forest, heading right for them.

While the man who attacked Donna had been partially clothed with disheveled white hair, this man was naked and ice blue. He looked just like the one who had taken Meek’s pinky.

Now he was pulling himself forward on his hands and knees as he came out of the snowbank, struggling to get up. I couldn’t help wondering if he was hurt or dying, even though there was no blood on him. Was this some sort of ruse that these creatures put on, pretending to be wounded or dead to gain sympathy? Surely they had to be smart enough to know it wouldn’t work a second time.

“Meeks, get out of there!” Jake yelled at him. But Meeks seemed too scared to even get his horse to move. Avery reached behind him for his knife, not taking his eyes off the creature who was still crawling forward toward Meeks.

I looked to Jake. “Throw Avery your gun!” I said frantically.

His eyes widened. “I don’t reckon a gun will do the trick.”

“Jesus Murphy, that just can’t be,” Tim swore and brought out his revolver. “This will at least scare the horses away.” He fired a shot at the creature and hit it in the shoulder, the snow around it quickly growing red with blood.

It didn’t stop him but it did scare the horses, so much that Meek’s palomino reared up, and with Meek’s useless hand, he was unable told on. He went flying off the back of the horse, landing in a puff of snow just a few feet away from the creature.

We all held our breath as the creature raised its head to look at Meeks. Then with one last burst of energy, the creature lunged and landed right on top of him.

Meeks screamed, trying to fight him off while Avery started sprinting toward them, his knife out.

But it was too late. Meeks was too injured, too fat, too slow. The creature buried his head into Meeks’ chest and with wet snarls, started feasting on him right there and then. Meeks screamed and screamed and then suddenly stopped. His heart was dangling from the creature’s bloody mouth.

I fought the urge to vomit while Jake was up on his feet and running toward Ali the mule, who was still trotting off in the distance in fright from the gunshot and the screaming. I had no idea what he was doing, and now Avery was at the creature, his knife raised in the air.

The creature cried out as Avery drove his knife into its back, again and again, until it swiped at Avery, knocking him a few feet back.

“Avery!” I yelled, and got to my feet, trying to get to him before the creature did. However weak it was before, it was now growing stronger by the minute.

The creature leaped at him, tackling him into the snow, while Avery tried to hold him back, keeping his snapping jaws just inches away from his face. Blood poured into Avery’s eyes and he was being overpowered with every second that passed.

I wasn’t going to make it to him in time. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do to help him without getting myself killed, but I had to do something.

And apparently, Jake thought he had to do something too.

“Don’t move!” Jake yelled as he came running toward Avery, an axe held high above his head. I didn’t know if he was talking to me or Avery—probably both. I froze and Avery quickly turned his head to the side, closing his eyes tightly.

Jake swung the axe down like some kind of mythical god, his large muscles straining through his thin shirt as he let out a war cry, and the blade met with the back of the creature’s neck.

The axe didn’t go all the way through, just enough so the creature’s head was half off and Avery was able to roll out of harm’s way. Jake pulled the axe out and brought it right back down, this time severing the creature’s head. It rolled across the snow until it settled face up, those glazed blue eyes looking blankly at the sky.

Jake stuck out his hand and helped Avery to his feet. “Are you all right, boy?”

Avery nodded quickly, but I could tell he wasn’t all right, not mentally anyway. None of us were. Meeks was lying in the snow in a pool of his own blood, his heart having been ripped out and eaten by the same creature, man, monster that Jake just decapitated, while Donna was unconscious in Tim’s arms having lost her whole damn hand to another one of the monstrosities.

Jake looked around, his hand flexing on the handle of the axe. “I’ll go gather up the horses, while you guys get the first aid kit and fix her up best you can. We need to keep moving if we want to save Donna, and I reckon we’re much closer to Donner Lake than we are to the our last camp.”

“You reckon?” I repeated. “You don’t know?”

He shook his head and gave me a leveling look. “Isaac and Hank are gone, and we can’t wait around for them to come back. Isaac has the map. If we lose the trail, I’m afraid you’ll have to lead us there. And you’ll have to hurry. We may have killed one but there’s at least one still out there.”

With that in mind, Avery and I quickly got the kit from Ali and tended to Donna the best we could. In fact, all we could really do is apply the same treatment to her that she did to Meeks.

Poor Meeks. I kept looking behind me at his mangled, lifeless body that was constantly being shadowed by scavenger birds overhead. Jake quickly shot one before it had a chance to feast on him, saying it would make a good roast. He then picked off a few more birds that tried to peck at Meeks. I watched him carefully and knew from the pained look on his face that he was trying to be good to Meeks, even in death. It hit me even harder to see emotion on someone as stoic as Jake McGraw.