Karina Halle - Donners of the Dead

The monster was right at us, its dead, leering eyes fixated on Jake. Just as it was about to reach him, Jake finished slicing through the other monster’s head. He turned and threw the knife at the attacker, getting him right through the eye where it remained lodged. I was free to move, and it gave Jake enough time to get back and swing the axe. This time the axe went right down the middle, splitting the head and brain into two neat halves.

We watched, our breaths in our throats, before the monster fell to the side, dead.

All victories were short-lived. The monsters kept coming, still about a dozen of them. Jake did what he could with the axe and I tried to save my shot for when it really counted. After he beheaded three more and still more came after us, he threw a crazed look back to the cabin.

“I can’t keep this up,” he said breathlessly. “We need to get my revolver reloaded. There are paper cartridges in the pack inside. If we bar the door, perhaps we can buy some more time before we take the rest of them out.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. We turned back into the cabin and slammed the door behind us. There wasn’t much in the cabin to prop against it, but Jake ripped up a loose wooden plank and stuck it between the handle.

As soon as he did that, the door began to shake and blue fingers appeared under the door, wiggling at us, taunting us. It was only a matter of time before they decided to come through the window.

Luckily Jake was fast. He loaded up all the chambers of the revolver and then spun it around. He kissed it quickly and gave me a shy look. “It may not take someone’s head off but it’ll help. The Texas Navy made this gun. They’ll never let you down.”

“There’s no time to rhapsodize about your gun!” I admonished.

“Even after last night?” Jake asked with a wag of his brows.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Pine Nut,” he said quickly, “nothing wrong with a little joke before victory.”

“You better be certain about that,” I said just as the glass on the window shattered with a monster trying wildly to climb in.

Jake took aim and shot the monster in the head. The bullet barely did anything but it was enough to get him to pull back. Unfortunately, he was replaced by another monster.

At the same time the boards on the broken window—the one the first monster had crashed through all those nights ago—began to groan and splinter from the deathly hands pulling from the other side.

It was followed by a clunk above us and the frantic sound of the roof being ripped apart. They were mad and through with waiting—they were coming in.

It happened all at once. The door broke down, the windows were busted through, and a jagged hole appeared in the ceiling above us, two blue eyes peering down at us with hunger. We staggered backward toward the far wall and Jake started swinging.

I really thought he was going to kill them all. Despite his injury, he swung that axe like a god, his muscles great and straining, his strength seeming to be too large for the cabin to contain. He managed to decapitate nearly all of them, their heads and lifeless corpses scattered about.

He almost made it.

But it just wasn’t enough.

The monster from the ceiling dropped onto his back just as the two others went for his legs. He fell to the floor, collapsed under the weight, the axe under him and immovable.

“Eve!” Jake screamed. The terror in his eyes was unmistakable as they clawed their way into him. “Leave! Get out of here! Go!”

But I wouldn’t do that. I aimed the rifle at the monsters, trying to get a good shot, but it was nearly impossible.

“Eve, go!” he yelled again, fighting back against them with kicks and punches the best that he could. “Please leave, I can’t keep you safe if you’re here! Go, NOW!”

But I couldn’t.

“You promised me!” he bellowed in anguish.

I took aim at the one on his back, the strongest one, the one doing the most damage.

I pulled the trigger.

The gun blasted with a puff of black smoke.

And I missed. The bullet went flying into the door instead.

I couldn’t believe it.

I missed.

And that was the only shot I had.

Jake was screaming again. I gave him a sad look.

“I am so sorry,” I whispered, unable to process that we were going to lose this battle. I was going to lose him before my very eyes.

“I can’t lose you too!” he cried out as he flipped onto his back and punched the monster in the face. “I won’t lose you. Please go!”

I found strength somewhere deep inside me, coiling around my heart and guts like a steel cage. I could do this. I could save him.

I looked down into the flash pan on the rifle, still full of gunpowder.

I ran over to the fire, picking up a lit log.

“Jake!” I screamed. “Cover yourself.”

Jake figured out what I was going to do. He managed to punch the monster in the face enough so that he was able to crawl away a few feet.

I threw the rifle at the monsters. It landed at their feet. One even picked it up. I couldn’t have asked for better than that.

As the monster stared down the barrel in demented curiosity, I threw the flaming log over at him.

It collided with the rifle.

And everything exploded.

I went flying backward, landing on the ground in a heap. My head spun, wasting precious seconds while I tried to get my bearings. Once I did, I was up on my feet and making my way over to the wreckage.

Two of the monsters were fully engulfed in flames, writhing on the ground, while the other had exploded into charred crisps.

Jake was twitching, face down, his arm on fire.

I screamed and ran over to him, throwing off my cloak and wrapping it around his arm to put out the flames.

He groaned and I knew he was alive.

“I take it all back,” he said, his voice cracking in agony.

“Take what back? Jake, Jake are you going to be okay? Oh God.”

He tried to sit up, his eyelids fluttering. “I take it back, that you’re a good shot. You’re lousy. And you’re right stupid. You should have run.”

“I’d never leave you,” I told him, trying to get him to his feet.

“Don’t let that be your downfall,” he said.

“Can you get up?” I asked, still holding the cloak around his arm. The fire was out, but now I was afraid to look at the damage underneath.

He nodded and got up, clearly in pain. “I do think we need to get out of here. There’s no telling if this was all of them.”

“I sure hope it was.”

“I never saw Hank,” he remarked grimly.

I swallowed hard. “Neither did I.”

We exchanged a heavy look. It wasn’t over yet. We had no choice but to keep running.

I grabbed the pack and the weapons, and we left the bloody, smoldering massacre behind.

We ran for a long time, through the black night, through the rain that picked up again, until there stopped being snow beneath our feet. It didn’t relieve me—nothing would. I kept grabbing onto Jake every few minutes, knowing he was in pain from his burn but so grateful that he was alive. It was as if I had to keep making sure that he was safe and with me and that we had survived.

But I felt like our survival so far meant nothing until we got off the mountain. Yes, the monsters were all dead, but how did we know that was all of them? We had never seen Hank. Was it possible that he was still behind us, scavenging on his brethren? Was it possible that he was trailing us in the shadows?

We walked until we found the shelters that we had built our first night out. One was destroyed, the makeshift roof caved in, perhaps by the snow that had fallen, but the other one, the one I had slept in with Donna, was still standing. It pained me to think about Donna, and of course Avery, how long ago it felt in some ways, yet in others it felt like just this morning. Donna’s kind words, Avery’s comfortable presence.