Kenn Crawford - Dead Hunt

“Hello?” Lucy asked sheepishly, barely louder than a whisper.

The employee didn’t move.

“Hello?” Lucy said again, slightly louder. “Is everything Ok?”

The employee turned his head sideways but didn’t look at them. His mouth was covered in blood as he continued to chew. Lucy’s breathing quickened as she lowered her eyes to what he was holding in his hands. It was… an arm. Her eyes widened, her heart pounded in her chest as she looked back to the man’s face in horror. He opened his mouth for another bite and a finger fell to the floor. Lucy screamed. The employee turned towards her and let out a weird, groaning yell.

Lucy stood frozen in horror as Michael pulled on her elbow. Another employee appeared from behind a stack of boxes, chewing on a severed leg. He let out the same groaning yell as Michael pulled Lucy through the door, dragging her to a run. They raced out of the store and towards the van.

“Go! Go! Go!” Michael yelled as he pushed Lucy into the van.

“What’s wrong?” Wade asked as Michael slammed the door shut.

“Go!” Michael yelled again.

Wade raised an eyebrow questioningly, then looked towards the Co-op. Two blood-soaked people wearing Co-op aprons came out. They were both covered in blood, one still chewing on a half-eaten arm.

“Christ!” Wade yelled, flooring the van, throwing the teens backwards, and spraying the approaching employees with rocks.

Michael looked out the back window at the grotesque people. He noticed they barely flinched when Wade showered them with rocks, they just kept walking towards the van. They didn’t run, they staggered slowly after them.

The van went over a steep blind crest, lifting all four tires in the air.

“Slow the fuck down!” Paul yelled. “Who the hell were those people?”

“They were… eating… people!” Michael responded, trying to collect his thoughts.

“They were eating people?” Lauren and Emma asked in unison.

“What the fuck kinda hillbillies live here?” Paul asked as he looked in the rearview mirror.

“Something’s wrong,” Lucy mumbled to no one, her eyes still wide in disbelief.

“No shit, Sherlock!” Paul growled. “How the fuck do we get to your cabin?”

“Something’s wrong,” Lucy repeated.

“Oy! Bambi!” Wade yelled. “We know that already. How do we get to your cabin?”

Lucy did not answer. Wade cut the wheel hard to keep from going off the road, then slowed the van down to a manageable speed. As the van raced up along the winding, country road he spotted a few dozen cars parked by a building next to a church.

“Oy, car park up ahead is full. Looks like there’s something going on there.”

“Thank God!” Lauren answered. “Civilization!”

Wade slowed the van down and pulled into the parking lot as the tires crunched in the thick gravel. The large community center that sat next to the church didn’t show any signs of activity. They stared at the quiet building skeptically.

“Somebody has to go check,” Wade suggested.

“You go check,” Paul said as he moved to the back to sit with Lucy.

“I’m driving!” Wade answered.

Lauren shook her head. “My heroes. Big on muscles, short on courage.”

She opened the van door, looked in the direction they had just come, and stepped out of the van. She looked back at her friends. Nobody moved.

“Y’all just gonna sit there and let a girl go by herself?”

Michael swallowed a lump in his throat.

“I’ll go with you,” he said as he stepped out of the van. “Keep the door open and the engine running,” he ordered, looking at Wade.

Wade nodded in agreement.

Michael turned to Lauren, “All right then, let’s go.”

Emma jumped out of the van. “I’ll go too.”

The three teens looked once more in the direction they had come from, then back at the van where Lucy rocked back and forth in Paul’s arms, mumbling “Something’s wrong. Something’s wrong.”

They hesitantly walked towards the door of the building. The sign on the door read, “St. Patrick’s Ceildh. Admission: Good Will Donation.” They stopped, staring at the sign.

“Awfully quiet for a party,” Emma suggested as she pulled the door open.

The stench hit them like a slap in the face. Bodies covered in blood lay everywhere. Emma and Lauren covered their mouths to keep from gagging. Michael noticed that not everyone was lying on the floor; some were kneeling over the bodies, just like at the Co-op. One of the kneeling people was a small child, a little girl. She didn’t look to be more than ten years old. Her little face was covered in blood.

Emma noticed it first. “Is she eating a…”

Lauren finished her sentence. “A baby. Oh my God, she’s eating that baby!”

Emma let out a piercing scream. The little girl turned to face them, still chewing. Michael heard the same groaning yell from the little girl. The rest of the people in the hall turned to look at the teens standing in the doorway.

“We gotta go! Now!” Michael shouted as more of them emitted their groaning yell. He pulled on the arms of the stunned girls as the people in the hall started to move towards them.

“Run!” he shrieked, dragging them out of the doorway.

They raced across the parking lot as a hoard of blood-soaked people flooded out the door, walking towards the van in the same unsteady swagger as the employees from the Co-op.

Emma was still screaming uncontrollably as Michael shoved her into the van. Wade floored the accelerator. The tires spun in the deep gravel.

“Go! Go! Go!” Michael yelled.

“I’m fuckin’ trying!” Wade yelled back as the tires finally grabbed hold and the van peeled onto the road.

The sound of screeching tires drowned Emma’s screams. Michael watched the people barely flinch as they were showered with rocks. The van fishtailed down the road as Wade tried to bring it under control.

“It’s like they don’t even feel pain,” Michael mumbled to himself as the van sped away.

Paul returned to the front seat and looked at Wade who shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know what in the hell was happening either.

Emma’s screams were replaced by a steady stream of tears and sobbing. Lauren looked as if she was about to throw up. Michael looked like Michael always looked. He had that weird, dazed but concentrated look on his face, the kind people get when they run into somebody they know and their name is right there on the tip of their tongue, but they can’t quite say it. That’s the look Michael had on his face.

“Turn at the fork in the road,” Lucy announced weakly.

“Look who’s back,” Paul said. “Welcome to Margaree. I hope you know coming here was your fuckin’ idea!”

“Leave her alone,” Michael glared at him. Paul stared back.

“Don’t look at me with your macho, He-man bullshit,” Michael argued, “we’ve got bigger problems right now than your stupid jealousy.”

Paul said nothing. No one said anything. They all knew Michael was right. They did have bigger problems. Bigger than anything they could ever have imagined.

“Christ!” Wade yelled, slamming on the brakes and lurching the teens forward in their seats.

They all stared out the front window. A small child, maybe only six or seven years old, was standing on the road next to a crashed car, her tiny mouth covered in blood.

“She’s one of them. What do I do?” Wade asked.

Paul stared at the little girl, then answered in an emotionless, monotone voice, “Run her the fuck over.”

“What?” Lauren yelled. “She’s just a child.”

Paul spun his head glaring at her.

“She’s just a child that eats people!” He turned back to Wade. “Listen to me. Those things are everywhere. We can’t stay here waiting for little miss I-want-to-eat-your-fucking-heart to get out of the way. So floor it and run her the fuck over.”