Dead Hunt

CHAPTER 12 – The Attic

“Upstairs!” Paul yelled as everyone scrambled for the door.

Paul and Lucy stopped at the bottom of the stairs, realizing Emma was not with them. They turned to see Emma frozen with fear.

“Emma! Run!” Lucy yelled but it was no use.

Emma’s eyes were fixed on Heslin, her feet paralyzed in fear. Heslin’s putrid hands reached for her.

“Paul, do something!” Lucy pleaded.

His eyes widened in horror, but he did not move to help her. Lucy tried to run to her friend, but Paul was holding her firmly.

“Do something! Emma! Run!” she screamed, but neither of them moved.

Emma did not run, nor did Paul help.

“It’s too late,” Paul yelled as he pulled Lucy up the stairs.

“No! We can help her!” Lucy pleaded as Heslin pulled Emma towards him.

Emma screamed as his teeth sunk deep into her neck. Lucy screamed as blood gurgled out of Emma’s throat when Heslin ripped a huge chunk of flesh free. Lucy tried to run to her friend, but Paul still held her back, dragging her up the stairs. She struggled and screamed and cried, but it was no use, Paul was too strong. Lucy watched as more of those zombie things appeared and started ripping into Emma’s flesh.

Emma’s screams were deafening; then they suddenly stopped.

Lucy was crying and fighting to help her friend as Paul forced her up the stairs. They tried the first door they came to, but it was locked. Paul threw his massive shoulder into it, shattering the frame. As splinters shot across the room, Lauren screamed and started to climb out the window.

“Lauren, wait!” Lucy yelled. “It’s us!”

Lauren paused on the windowsill, tears running wildly down her cheeks, and ran to Lucy.

“I saw,” Lauren whimpered. “I saw what happened to Emma.”

Paul looked out the window. Those creatures were still outside, but they were headed towards the house, and soon they too would be upstairs.

“Here!” Paul shouted, pointing to the ceiling. “We can get into the attic. They won’t be able to climb up there.”

He jumped and punched the hatch out of the way. He jumped again and slowly pulled himself up into the tiny opening in the ceiling, then reached his muscular arm down.

“Give me your hand, Lauren!” he ordered.

She reached up and he effortlessly pulled her up through the hole.

“Lucy, c’mon!” he yelled, but she didn’t reach up. “Lucy, give me your hand!”

“Where’s Michael?” she asked, looking back towards the door.

“Fuck Michael! Give me your hand,” he barked at her. “C’mon, Lucy! Michael can take care of himself, so get your ass up here!”

Zombies started to pile into the room, and Lucy jumped for Paul’s outstretched arm. One of the zombies reached for her, its decomposing hand grabbing tightly around her ankle. Paul pulled harder, yanking the zombie off its feet and almost into the attic space with them. Its grip slipped, and it crashed to the floor.

“Ok,” Paul said, breathing heavily. “We’re safe for now.”

“We need to find Michael,” Lucy told him, barely able to catch her own breath.

“No problem,” Paul huffed, “we need to be very careful up here. This attic is not much more than a crawl space, so we need to stay on the boards and on the frames. If you go off the boards, you’re going to fall through the ceiling.”

“That’s not good,” Lauren said in a terrified voice.

“No,” Paul said with a tiny smile. “That’s not good. Ok, Lauren, you head towards that light over there. It’s some sort of opening to let the heat out.”

Lucy wiped the sweat from her eyes. “It’s not doing a very good job.”

“Attics get real hot,” Paul explained. “And if we don’t get some air in here, we’ll dehydrate in a matter of minutes.”

“What do you want me to do?” Lucy asked.

“Look for another vent,” Paul suggested. “And when you get to them, kick them open. Do whatever you can to let air in.”

“What are you going to do?” Lucy asked.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes and smiled. “I’m gonna find Mikey.”

The girls slowly started crawling, Lauren towards the light, Lucy trying to find another vent in the opposite direction. Paul tried to follow the power lines in the dimly lit attic. He knew each cluster of wires meant the junction box for an overhead light in one of the rooms below. When he got to the first cluster, he punched a hole in the ceiling. The heat was getting to him, as sweat poured down his forehead and stung his eyes.

“Mikey,” he called, barely louder than a whisper. “If you can hear me, whistle.”

He listened intently but heard nothing. He crawled to another cluster of wires and punched another hole.

“Mikey, you there?”

Nothing.

“Arrgghh!” Paul heard Lauren scream. “Help me!” she screamed again.

Paul crawled along the beams as fast as he could go, sweat pouring down his face. As he rounded the huge, brick chimney, he saw Lauren’s head and shoulders poking up through the floor, her arms flailing like someone who fell through ice

“Fuck!” he yelled.

“What is it?” he heard Lucy shout, but he could not see her in the dim light.

“She fell through!” Paul replied as he reached Lauren and started to pull her back up.

“Damn, you’re heavy,” he grunted as Lauren continued to scream and claw at him. “Stop squirming!” he ordered, but she wasn’t listening. Her screams were deafening. “You’re too heavy when you’re squirming like that.”

Paul pulled again, but he couldn’t lift her.

“Why are you so heavy?” he grunted as he struggled with her weight.

“Why is she so heavy?” Paul wondered.

“Fuck!” Paul yelled as realization set in.

As Lauren continued to scream, Paul leaned over the hole and saw dozens of hands pulling on her. Others were biting. Lauren’s once smooth and sexy legs were pitted with deep gashes and were gushing blood. Paul’s muscles bulged as he fought against the pull of zombies. The awful sounds of chewing and screaming rang in his ears as he braced his feet against the rafters, closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and pulled. This time Lauren popped up through the hole with a wet slushy sound and landed on his chest as he fell backwards.

“I got you!” he reassured her.

Lauren stared at him wide eyed but did not answer.

“You’re ok now. I’ve got you.”

Lauren’s big brown eyes continued to stare at Paul, the look of horror still frozen on her face. Lucy screamed. Paul turned to look at Lucy, her hand shaking violently as she pointed at Lauren. Paul looked past Lauren’s unblinking eyes and over her shoulders. His gaze followed the curve of Lauren’s back down to her supple waist and that was where his gaze stopped; that was where Lauren stopped. Everything below her hips was gone. Paul screamed.

Horrified, Paul flung Lauren’s lifeless body away from him and scrambled towards the tiny slits of light created by the vent. He kicked the wooden vent, shattering it into splinters. Paul stuck his head into the tiny opening, inhaling the air and then threw up. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he spun around violently, pushing it away.

Lucy flew backwards across the attic from Paul’s push and crashed through the floor. One of her feet caught in the roof truss, preventing her from falling all the way through. As she swung like a human pendulum, her eyes could not focus on the zombies below her as they swayed in and out of view.

She screamed, “Paul!” Paul did not answer her.

Lucy tried a sit up movement to grab the edges of the hole in the ceiling. One of her hands grabbed the old plaster, and it shattered in her grip. But the other hand had gripped something solid. Her right arm and leg dangled helplessly just out of reach of the zombies, while her other foot and hand held her to the ceiling.

“Paul, I’m stuck! Help me!”

Paul still did not answer. She could hear him kicking the vent. It sounded like he was tearing the house apart. She managed to pull herself up a bit more. Her arms shook with the strain. She grabbed again with her right hand, and this time got a secure hold. Lucy was wedged between the rafters and trusses in such a way that she could not pull herself up any further. She had to keep her right leg pressed tightly against the ceiling, lest the zombies below reach it. She knew it would not take long for the strain of that maneuver to tear at her leg and stomach muscles, eating her strength. Lucy could not risk kicking her other foot free to try and pull herself out because that was the foot that kept her from falling. She was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place, and her grip was slipping.

“Paul!” she yelled again.

Paul stopped and turned to her.

“I’m slipping. Help me.”

He did not move.

“Paul, I’m slipping! I can’t hold on much longer… Help me!”

Still Paul did not move.

“Get me the fuck out of here!” she yelled as she started thrashing about, trying to pull herself into the attic.

Lucy stopped thrashing when she saw the look in Paul’s eyes.

“Paul?” she questioned in a now quiet voice.

No reply, he just looked through the huge hole he’d kicked in the wall, then back to her in a blank, emotionless stare.

“Paul?” she said again, panic grabbing her soul.

Lucy blinked a few times to see if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Her fingers were growing tired and she readjusted herself, trying to take the weight. Her mind swam dizzily in confusion. She looked down at the monsters reaching for her, then looked back to the hole in the wall where Paul stood just seconds ago.

As Lucy struggled to keep from falling, she kept mumbling the same three words over and over:

“He left me!”