Kenn Crawford - Dead Hunt

“Distraction,” she announced with a smile. “Michael said something back at the lab about distracting them with smell.”

She looked at the road behind her as the zombies approached the foot of the blind crest.

“Let’s see if you fuckers are as dumb as you are ugly,” she said coldly.

She pulled off her sneaker and peeled the blood soaked sock bandage from her foot. The cuts had closed over and stopped bleeding. She winced in pain as she stomped her bare foot hard on the pavement, then hobbled down the road to the left. The road slapped and poked her tender foot without mercy as blood trickled, then poured, onto the hot pavement. She kept walking; more bloody footprints, more pain. She wiped some blood away with the sock and tossed it down the road, but it did not go very far. She tore off a piece of her shirt, sopped up some more blood and then wrapped it around a rock. She threw it as far as she could, but it didn’t go very far either.

“Jimmy Fastball Williams you’re not,” she said with a small laugh as she tore another piece of her shirt, soaked up some more blood and wrapped it around another rock.

She wound up like the baseball pitchers she’d watched on TV and let it fly. It passed her last attempt by only a few yards.

“Yep, you throw like a girl,” she muttered as she looked towards the zombies. They were getting close. Lucy hoped Michael had been right about their sight too.

She quickly tore one more strip off her shirt, which now barely covered her breasts, wrapped her foot again, shoved it back into her shoe and ran to the right.

Her plan was simple. If the zombies took the bait they would be walking away from her instead of constantly being on her ass. When she was a far enough distance away, she ducked into the trees to catch her breath and wait.

Time seemed to stand still. Then she saw it, the first one, the big one that was always ahead of the others, leading them forward. She didn’t think they were smart enough to have a leader. He probably just had longer legs, so that put him in front of everyone else. He stopped at the crossroads as the others came up behind him. Seconds ticked. She held her breath.

The zombies started to walk to the left. She almost squealed in excitement but muffled it back out of fear that they would hear her. It worked! All she had to do was wait for them to be out of sight and then run like hell.

It was a perfect plan.

“Thank you, Michael,” she whispered softly with a smile.

Her thoughts drifted back to Michael, how he had managed to stay calm through this crisis and figure things out, formulate plans, sacrifice himself. She felt a tiny tear trickle down her cheek.

They were all gone. She didn’t know if Paul had made it. He was big, strong, a football player, so chances were he made it, but the rest were dead.

Lucy allowed herself this brief moment to feel sad, to hurt.

As she mourned her friends the smell hit her nostrils a fraction too late as a putrid hand seemed to come out of nowhere and grab her shoulder. In a move that would have made her cheerleading coach proud, she leapt into the air in a ballet-like spin. The move broke her free from the monster’s grip, while adding a tremendous amount of torque to the hand that held her giant knife. Its long blade sliced into the zombie’s gaping mouth, the full strength of her spin causing the blade to easily sever the decomposing skull before digging into the tree behind it. The body fell limp, crashing to the ground, the top half of the head still perched on her blade. The eyes looked at her and almost seemed pitiful before the top of its head succumbed to gravity and fell to the ground with a thud.

Lucy yanked the blade from the tree and scanned for others; there were always others. She bolted onto the road in the direction of Cheticamp and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. Paul stood on the road in front of her.

It was Paul, but it was not her Paul. Not the Paul she had fallen in love with. Not even the Paul who had abandoned her and left her to die.

That Paul was dead, but so was this Paul. It wasn’t really him anymore Lucy tried to tell herself as he drew closer.

She raised the machete for the mighty blow that would finally end Paul’s existence, the blade dripping with the blackish-red blood from the decapitation just moments ago. She stood taut like a cat ready to strike its prey, prey that was walking straight for her.

Her determination faltered, her blade began to shake.

“Stop being squeamish,” she commanded herself. “It’s not Paul anymore. Just cut its damn head off and get out of here.”

She hesitated.

She knew she should not hesitate, but she couldn’t help herself.

It was still Paul after all.

She looked behind her. Her decoy had stopped working. Had they heard her? Had they heard the other zombie moan right before she cut off its head? Was Paul telling them she is here? She didn’t know, she just knew they were heading her way. She was trapped. She looked back to Paul.

“Can I really kill him? I have to.” She cried in desperation, “Please, God, help me!”

She looked behind her again. There were so many of them. She looked back to Paul, his massive frame now only a few feet away. She felt paralyzed.

“Paul, don’t!” she pleaded.

He stretched his arms around her, pulling her close to him.

“Paul, no!”

Tears raced down her cheeks. His head lowered, mouth opened.

“Paul!” she said one final time, then jammed the knife into his lower jaw until the hard steel sank deep into his skull.

He fell to his knees, his eyes still looking at her. She brushed his hair lovingly then wrenched the blade free. He fell sideways like a mighty tree crashing onto the hard pavement.

She stepped over his bulking frame and headed for Cheticamp.

Lucy limped down the road, her pace slowing with each passing hour. Hunger was another pain she had to endure. Images of her friends haunted her thoughts. Her determination all but vanquished, she released the last possibility of hope and fell to her knees, shaking like a thunder frightened dog. She found her tears again.

“I’m not going to make it,” She whimpered.

Her skin was slick in the hot sun, stinking with the sweat of panic. She rose and turned to face them.

Defeated, she raised her left arm towards them, palm facing up. With her right hand she raised the machete above her shaking wrist.

“Fuck you,” she said defiantly, then slowly lowered the blade to drag it across her wrist. The soft skin of her wrist creased around the edge of the blade invitingly. Then Lucy heard something that sounded like a thud. She froze, the blade hungrily waiting for that final cut, as she turned to look for the source of the noise. She could not see anything. The road twisted out of view ahead of her, behind her the groans of the hungry mob grew louder. There it was again. “I know that sound,” she thought. Her mind struggled to focus, attempting to identify the thuds. The mob drew nearer, arms outstretched to take her.

“It’s a car door!” she yelled at them, and then ran. The pain was gone. It shot through her body like a bullet, but she could not feel it, so she just ran. She rounded the corner and stopped dead.

New tears ran down her face.

There, in the midst of the tall, green spruce and the white birch, sat a tiny roadside café. It was an ugly, faded yellow with a ghastly blue trim, and that hideous looking restaurant was the most beautiful thing Lucy had ever seen. She bolted towards it as fast as her exhausted legs could carry her.

Inside the café, a chubby waitress with swollen ankles forced a smile as she poured coffee into a big man’s cup.