Dead Hunt

CHAPTER 16 – Defeated

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.

“Anything else I can get you, Hank?” she asked.

“That’s all, Rosie,” he said, watching the cup fill. “When are you going to play some different music in here?”

“You know how it is. Damn radio signal doesn’t get past the mountains and the local station is all French. Parlez-vouz Francais?”

“What?”

“Exactly. So we play tapes…”

Rosie stopped talking when the sound of the screen door grunted against its rusty hinges then slapped shut. Hank was about to say something to Rosie, but his sentence was cut short by the look on her face.

“Rosie, are you Ok?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. She stood frozen in place as the coffee she was pouring spilled over Hank’s cup.

Hank noticed the sudden quiet. Forks and knives were not clinking on plates. The handful of diners were not chatting. He turned on his squeaky stool and saw that everyone in the restaurant was staring at the door. He followed their stunned stares.

There, in the doorway, stood a young girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, holding a giant, blood streaked knife. Her shirt was half gone, her tanned legs were covered in scratches, too numerous to count, and she was covered in blood. She looked like she had walked to hell and back. The young girl stared at them silently.

“Are you Ok, dear?” Rosie asked in a shaky voice.

The girl blinked, looked at Rosie and mumbled something that sounded like “Don’t drink the water,” then collapsed to the floor.

Everyone rushed to help the poor girl. Everyone that is, except Hank. He didn’t move, his eyes fixed on the door behind the mysterious girl.

Lucy’s eyes fluttered open, and she found herself staring at a water-stained ceiling. A fluorescent bulb flickered. She could hear screaming and crying. Her eyes tried to focus. She turned her head to the side to see a woman lying on the floor next to her, a look of horror frozen on her lifeless face.

“Is that blood?” Lucy wondered.

She turned her head to look in the other direction. Bright sunlight hurt her eyes as it poured in through a giant window. A shadow moved in front of the light, blocking her view. She couldn’t focus on it. Lucy couldn’t make out any details of who stood in front of her like a giant eclipse.

She took a slow and deliberate breath. Something burned in her nose. It was that smell. She knew that smell.

The eclipse leaned down towards her, and the smell grew stronger, that smell of death and decay.

She closed her eyes. Like a familiar old rerun, she knew what would happen next.