Dead Hunt

CHAPTER 10 – Testing Your Theory

“Good evening, this is Clay Buffer with the Atlantic Television Networks Late Night News at 11. Tonight’s top story:

“A sudden wave of violence has struck the quiet village of Margaree Valley early this morning. When RCMP officers discovered the remains of a still yet to be identified female, the RCMP originally surmised the woman was the victim of a vicious bear attack. The partially devoured body was examined by the Sydney Medical Examiner, and his conclusion was that the bite marks on the victim were not of an animal, but rather, by humans. Several humans. Further study of the remains discovered an unknown virus and the CDC was immediately flown in from Atlanta, Georgia, to spearhead the investigation. Our field reporter, Jess Jessup has the story… ”

“Thank you, Clay. The recent string of cannibalistic slayings and the disappearance of the Margaree River Valley residents has local authorities at a loss. The entire population of approximately nine hundred residents has all but vanished. So far, the RCMP have found the remains of approximately three hundred forty-seven residents in various locations, with the largest cluster of victims located in the community hall of St. Patrick’s Parish. The CDC has confirmed in a press conference earlier this evening that an unidentified virus found in the victims may be causing some residents to attack other people in a cannibalistic nature. However, at this time they are unable to confirm that assessment.

“With the exception of the bodies already found, authorities have been unable to locate any of the other residents. The RCMP has set up roadblocks on all rural roads leading to the foothills surrounding the Margaree River Valley. In addition, the Canadian Armed Forces, with the assistance of members of the American National Guard, are planning a full sweep of the entire area. The highlands of Margaree cover approximately three hundred square miles. Details on the sweep will be released at a later date. Jess Jessup, ATN Evenings News.”

“Thank you Jess, and now, the forecast with Jimmy MacIntosh…”

Lucy and Michael ran out of the cellar when they heard Emma’s scream. Paul appeared from the lab just in time to follow them up the stairs with Lauren following behind. They reached the room Emma was in, but she said nothing, her shaking hand pointed towards the window. Cautiously, Michael moved towards the window, unsheathing the giant machete as he looked out.

“Damn things are everywhere!” Michael told them.

The rest of the teens moved towards the window and peered outside.

“Holy shit!” Paul whispered. “There’s so many of them. Maybe they’ll just keep going past us?”

“Anything is possible,” Michael nodded. “Maybe we should all stay really, really quiet, just in case.”

“Thought you said they didn’t hear very well?” Paul asked.

“I said we don’t know what in the hell those people are, and I didn’t think they could hear very well. But let’s not take any chances. Let’s all quietly go back down to the lab where it can be sealed by Robin, and we’ll keep really quiet and see what happens.”

Sitting on the laboratory floor, with the windows secured by the massive shutters, the tiny group of teens sat motionless as the sounds of moaning slowly circled the lodge. The hours ticked by painfully slow. Zombies banged and scraped at the lodge and boarded-up windows trying to get in. Everyone’s nerves grew thinner.

Michael stood up, as he had done several times before, and quietly disappeared upstairs, only to return a few short minutes later. As he took his place with his friends they all looked at him expectantly. He reported in hushed tones that from the upstairs window it now looked like there were at least three or four dozen of those zombie things walking around the grounds, looking for a way in.

Michael stood and announced, “I’m pretty sure those things hunt by smell. We have been super quiet for hours and none of them are leaving. So they must be able to smell us.”

Paul stood up and stretched his arms. “So we can talk now?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Michael shrugged.

“Thank fuck, I was getting a little batty sitting there. So they can smell us, eh?”

“Looks that way,” Michael told him.

Paul scrunched up his face, and a few seconds later smiled.

“Oh, my God!” Lucy's eyes watered as she covered her nose.

Paul laughed. “Just thought I’d give them something to smell.”

“But did you have to try and kill the rest of us?” Lauren asked. “What in the hell did you eat?”

“Beans, beans, good for your heart. The more you eat, the more you…”

“Wait,” Michael interrupted. “That’s it!”

“Huh?” was all the rest of them could say.

“Smell. They are attracted to smell.”

“Here we go again,” Paul rolled his eyes. “More cloak and dagger bullshit.”

“Listen,” Michael informed them, “if our smell is what is keeping them here, then our smell can distract them.”

No one made a sound. Their minds were lost in the maze that was Michael’s logic. Lucy broke the silence.

“This time I have to agree with Paul. What in the hell are you talking about? Why don’t you just talk in plain English?”

“Smell,” Michael repeated, as if it was obvious.

The look on everyone’s face proved it was not that obvious.

“Yeah, yeah,” Paul mocked, “I smell, you smell, we all smell. So what does smell have to do with it?”

Michael explained, “Those zombie things are not too bright. They have been wandering around outside for hours, banging into crap because they can smell that we are in here, but they don’t know how to get in. If we can change how it smells in here, and somehow get our smell out there, that will distract them long enough for us to escape.”

“Great plan,” Lucy said, “Escape to where?”

Apprehensive silence filled the lab again.

“Ok,” Michael announced, “So it’s not a perfect plan, but at least it’s something. Maybe we don’t have anywhere to escape to right now, but if we can just get those damn things away from here we could all have a little bit of our sanity back.”

Paul grinned at Michael, “Getting a little frazzled are we, Mr. Cloak and Dagger?”

Michael ignored his comments and slumped back down on the floor.

“Hey, Emma?” Paul said.

“What?” she replied weakly.

Paul looked at her for a moment. He could tell she was really frazzled by all this. They all were, but Emma looked a mess. Now was not the time for silly blonde jokes.

“We’re going to be all right,” he said with a smile as he sat next to her and put his big arm around her shaking body. “You hang in there, okay?”

She nodded with a sob and buried her face in his chest. Lucy sat on her other side, rubbing Emma’s shoulder to soothe her.

“Thanks, Paul,” Lucy whispered as Paul stood up to stretch his legs. He nodded a smile as Lauren took his place to help comfort Emma.

As the hours passed, all sense of time eluded them. In today’s modern world of cell phones and text messaging, wrist watches had become all but obsolete,; a relic of a not so distant past, worn more for nostalgia than practicality. A relic worn by none of these teens. Their trusted cell phones and Blackberries sat somewhere in the smashed-up van halfway down the mountain.

A loud bang, like a gun shot, startled the teens to their feet. Another bang sounded as they ran upstairs to find Paul aiming a rifle out the window.

“What the hell are you doing?” Michael yelled.

“Testing your theory,” Paul answered.

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lucy asked him.

“Boy genius here said these things are like zombies.”

“What does that have to do with scaring the hell out of us?” Lauren asked.

“Mikey said all we have to go on is what we know, right?” Paul explained.

“And…?” Michael asked.

“And, what do we know about zombies?”

“What?” Lauren asked.

“In the movies the only thing that kills them is a blow to the head. So I shot one of them fuckers right between the eyeballs.”

“You shot him? Are you insane?” Lucy said disgustedly.

Paul ignored her. “It dropped him like a sack of shit.”

“Can you please refrain from your colorful and juvenile descriptions and get to the point,” Lauren ordered.

“Second shot was a chest shot. The impact dropped him, but he got back up. The headshot guy didn’t get up,” Paul explained.

“Interesting,” Michael thought out loud.

“Interesting?” Lucy said in disbelief. “He’s shooting people and all you can say is ‘interesting’?”

Another shot startled Lucy, and she spun to watch Paul reload.

“Stop it!” she yelled. “They are still people!”

“Those zombie mutha-fuckers are not people. They are the reason Wade is dead!” he yelled back at her. “They ain’t human.”

“Neither are you,” Lucy scolded and ran downstairs.

The other girls quickly followed. Michael stayed behind.

“Where’d you get the gun?” he asked.

“I saw this old 4-10 shotgun hanging above the door in the kitchen. It looked like it was in good shape, and there were some shells in the drawer, so I thought I’d test it out.”

“On zombies?” Michael asked.

“Didn’t see any rabbits running around. Did you?”

“Point taken,” Michael said as he looked out the window.

He scanned the area until he found the zombie lying on the ground with most of its head missing.

“Powerful rifle,” Michael thought out loud.

“What? This? Not really,” Paul informed him. “Good for rabbits or pheasants, but not much else.”

“Sure made short work of him,” Michael nodded towards the downed corpse.

“Yeah, I guess they can move around, but the body is still decaying.”

“Interesting,” Michael said more to himself than to Paul as the sun peeked over the horizon, signaling the start of another day.

“What’s the range on that?” Michael asked, nodding towards the gun.

“Not sure. The pellets will travel kinda far I think, but accuracy ain’t worth a shit,” Paul informed him. “They spread out the further they go.”

“I see,” Michael said as he looked out the window. “So, where’s the other one you shot?”

“Oh, he’s around somewhere. Hard to tell because they’re all covered in blood.”

“See that group over there?” Michael asked, pointing towards a group of a half dozen zombies staggering around the outskirts of the property.

“Yeah.”

“Try for a headshot,” Michael suggested.

“Which one?” Paul asked.

“One of the ones in the middle.”

Paul aimed the rifle and squeezed the trigger. Michael was expecting the shot, but it still made him flinch. Three of the zombies went down, while two of them barely flinched from the impact of the pellets. One of the downed ones stood back up.

“Two for one! Not bad,” Michael said…

“So, what’s that prove?” Paul asked, not sure where Michael was going with this little experiment.

“The pellets spread far enough that it hit five of them. Nice shooting by the way.”

“Good shooting,” Paul corrected him.

“Huh?”

“Good shooting. There’s no such thing as nice shooting.”

“That’s kinda profound for you. No offense,” Michael said with a smile.

“Heard it in a movie.”

“Really? Which one?” Michael asked.

Paul looked at Michael and grinned, “Land of the Dead.”

Michael blinked.

“Land of the Dead? Are you kidding me? You’re quoting lines from a zombie movie?”

“What can I say? I’m a huge Romero fan. Would you prefer I quote Shakespeare?”

Michael laughed as Paul leaned out the window and yelled, “Oh, Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou, Romeo?”

“I see your point,” Michael laughed. “You’re a disturbed individual with a morbid sense of humor. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

They both laughed.

“So,” Paul reminded him. “The shots?”

“Oh, yeah. That was a good distance away and five of them got hit. You said earlier that the impact knocked one down but he got back up. I’m guessing he was fairly close.”

Paul nodded and Michael continued, “At the longer distance, the impact was minimal, but the head shot still dropped them. Therefore, it doesn’t have to be a massive blow to the head. So maybe a baseball bat will be just as effective as a gun.”

“Just like in the movies,” Paul smiled.

“Just like in the movies,” Michael agreed, “So, if you were in a George Romero movie and you were stuck in a secret laboratory surrounded by zombies, what would you do?”

Paul thought for a moment and smiled. “Well, first I’d fuck all the girls, then I’d throw the nerdy science geek to the zombies to distract them while I made a run for it.”

Paul laughed, but Michael did not.

“It was a joke,” Paul explained.

“What? Oh, yeah I know.”

“Oh, damn! There he goes again.” Paul leaned the gun by the windowsill, “I’m heading downstairs to get a drink. Try not to shoot yourself.”

Michael nodded.

“And watch out for those little, green men with purple afros,” Paul added.

Michael nodded again.

“Yep, Mr. Cloak and Dagger is off to never-never land again,” Paul said as he headed downstairs.

“Where’s Michael?” Lauren asked as Paul entered the lab.

“Upstairs, having wet dreams about George Romero.”

“What?” Lucy asked.

“Nothing. He’s working shit out. You know Mikey, once he goes deep in thought, you girls could walk by him naked and he wouldn’t even notice.”

“Wanna try?” Lauren laughed.

“If you do, I’m going with you,” Paul laughed until Lucy punched him in the arm.

“I can’t believe you guys would joke at a time like this.”

“Lucy, relax,” Paul suggested, “now is the best time to let off a little steam or else we’ll all go insane not knowing what’s going to happen next.”

“What is going to happen next?’ Emma asked in a frail voice.

Paul looked at her. She didn’t look as bad as earlier, but she still looked like she would jump out of her skin at any moment.

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “But Mikey is working on something. If there’s a way out of this mess, he’ll figure it out.”

“Be careful,” Lucy said with a smile. “You almost sound like you’re looking up to him.”

“Now who’s cracking jokes?” Paul laughed.

“I’m just gonna have to plaster it all over Facebook and Twitter that big bad Paul has grown fond of our little Mikey.”

“Now, that’s fucking funny,” Paul laughed before Emma spoke in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Umm, guys,” she said sheepishly. “Speaking of Facebook and Twitter, has anyone checked to see if any of those computers have internet access?”

They stared at her, speechless.

“I mean, this whole lab is, like, run by computers, and we know there’s no phone, so how did that doctor guy talk to people? There must be someone he needed to stay in contact with.”

“Who needed to stay in contact?” Michael asked as he came around the corner.

The teens jumped to their feet and ran to the keyboard. Michael followed. None of them touched the keyboard.

“Robin, are you there?” Lucy asked.

“Yes, Lucy, I am here,” Robin replied.

“Do you have internet access?”

“Yes.”

“Great!” Lucy said excitedly. “We can log online and get help!”

“I’m afraid that is not possible,” Robin informed her.

“Not possible?” Lucy asked. “Why not?”

“The internet signal we receive from the satellite is currently unavailable.”

“Unavailable?” Paul said. “How the hell can a satellite be unavailable?”

“There is a problem with the satellite receiver,” Robin explained.

“Receiver? You mean the dish?” Michael asked.

“That is correct.”

“What’s the problem?” Michael asked.

“I will show you,” Robin announced as her face on the computer screen switched to the view of a large satellite dish in the middle of a grassy clearing. The dish lay on its side, a broken wire swayed lifelessly above it.

“What the hell happened to that?” Paul asked.

“There was a storm,” Robin informed them. “The receiver was damaged.”

“Well, why didn’t you fix it?” he demanded.

“I will walk outside and get right on that for you,” Robin replied.

The teens said nothing. Then Paul spoke up, “Did that fucking computer bitch just crack a joke?”

A smile appeared on their faces; it disappeared equally as fast.

“Can you fix it, Mikey?” Paul asked.

“You mean go out there? With those things?”

“You’re right, Mikey,” Paul agreed disheartened. “It’s not like we are tricking a dumb ass bear this time.”

“But maybe we can trick them with smell,” Michael said as he explained his idea. Hours passed as Michael and Paul discussed every possible way of reconnecting that wire. None of their plans even hinted at working.

If they were able to distract those things long enough for Michael to try and fix the broken wire the dish still had to be realigned, which would take brute strength, and Paul couldn’t help him with that and watch Michael’s back. The next problem was even worse: they didn’t know how long those things would be distracted or if they even could be. In the end, it was obvious that they couldn’t fix the dish.

The sleep-deprived girls had already slumped on the floor in the lab, though none of them actually slept. The only thing worse than the nightmares they saw when they closed their eyes were the nightmares they saw when they kept them open. Knowing those nightmares walked around outside meant no one was going to be able to get any sleep.