We hit the row of cabins first.
“Think there are any survivors?” Mack said anxiously.
I shook my head. “There’d be zombies trying to get into the cabins if there was anyone left alive.”
It was easy to tell which cabins were currently occupied. The steady thumping of fists on wood was an undead giveaway.
So, ladies and gents, we definitely have flesh-eating prizes behind doors number one, three, and four.
Kai jerked his head toward the second cabin.
“Ashley, how ‘bout you and Mack check out that one. Kaitlyn, you wanna cover me here?”
Kaitlyn took her place without argument.
I raised an eyebrow at Kai.
“Who died and made you Mister In-Charge?” I said with mock indignation.
He shrugged.
“I’m just going with the flow, baby girl.”
“Did he just call me ‘baby girl’?” I asked Mack.
“Yes, he did,” Mack replied.
“I’ll have to kick his butt for that later.”
Ignoring us, Kai moved purposefully toward the door of the first cabin, kicking it in with one booted foot and then quickly leaping to one side, back flat against the cabin wall, so Kaitlyn had a clear shot.
“Very macho,” I commented. “Mel Gibson would be proud.”
Kai grinned.
“Thank you for noticing.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
There was method to his macho madness, however, because his kick had knocked a zombie ass over teakettle. As it struggled to its feet, Kaitlyn stepped up and shot it in the head. Kai nodded his approval and the two went inside.
Mack and I turned to the second cabin.
“You wanna kick it open, or shall I?” I asked.
Mack grinned.
“How about we try the doorknob instead? I’d rather leave the showy stuff to other people.”
“Works for me,” I said.
Putting my hand on the doorknob, I paused, listening for any movement inside. Nothing. Water dripped into my eye from my forehead, where moisture had condensed under the rim of my helmet. I wiped it away, turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, copying Kai’s evasive move just in case Mack needed a clean shot.
“Looks clear.” Weapon ready, he entered the cabin and I followed close on his heels.
There wasn’t much space inside—a bedroom, bathroom, and an indentation in the wall with a clothes pole running the length of it. The bed was queen-sized, with its headboard against the wall to one side. No sign of occupation and, thankfully, no body parts, either.
A quick peek in the bathroom, and we moved on to the next cabin while Kai and Kaitlyn took care of number four. He kicked the door in on that one, too.
Several headshots later, the four of us met outside and headed across the parking lot to the three remaining units. A painfully skinny and totally androgynous zombie wandered out from the trees and I shot it almost as an afterthought.
“Is it just me, or are we getting used to this?” I asked Mack quietly.
He shook his head.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever get used to it. But what’s the point of jumping every time one of them staggers up? We know what they are, and we know how to stop them.”
We reached the last three cabins. A couple of weathered glider rockers sat in a small clearing to the left, a little table in-between. A wine bottle lay on its side, its contents having long since trickled away.
Somewhere on the periphery of my hearing there was the sound of sobbing. The placement of the cabins, along with the tricks played by the fog, kept me from pinpointing it.
Kai and Kaitlyn headed to the cabin on the far left, so Mack and I took the middle one, both grinning when Kai kicked his cabin door open. Then I put my hand on the doorknob and listened. With an inward hiss of surprise I realized that the sounds of sobbing were coming from within, intertwined with a human voice muttering something over and over. It was too faint for me to make out the actual words.
“Mack,” I said, “I think we have a survivor!”
Mack’s face brightened with excitement. Nothing made him happier than finding someone alive in the midst of all the chaos and death.
I turned the doorknob, but the door wouldn’t budge. I rapped on the wood with my knuckles.
“Hello?” I said. “Hello, can you hear me? We’re here to help!” I put my ear to the door. The sobs continued, along with the muttering. Stepping back, I used the barrel of my gun to knock, in case they hadn’t heard me the first time.
“Hello?” I said, louder this time.
Still no answer.
I looked at Mack and frowned.
“What’s up with that?” I said. “You’d think whoever it is would be jumping with joy about now.”
“They might be too scared to answer,” Mack offered. “Or injured.”
Kai and Kaitlyn emerged from the first cabin. I motioned to Kai.
“You feel like kicking down another door? Sounds like we have a survivor inside, but he or she isn’t answering, and the door’s locked.”
Kai nodded enthusiastically.
“Oh, yeah! I’m likin’ the door kickin’.”
I put a hand on his arm.
“Let me take point after you get it open. If whoever’s in there is scared, I’m probably a little less intimidating than you.”
“You find me intimidating?” Kai looked pleased at the thought.
I snorted.
“As if,” I said. “But someone else might.”
“You know how to knife a man’s self-esteem right in the gut, girl.”
I knocked on the door again, and raised my voice.
“Whoever’s in there, we’re going to break open the door. We’re here to help you, okay?”
Still no answer.
Without further ado Kai stepped back and kicked with enough force that the door swung inward, hit the wall, and bounced back to a nearly closed position. I winced, hoping he hadn’t just given the person inside a coronary.
“Thanks a lot, Lando.”
He gave me a little salute and dashed off to the third cabin. Kaitlyn followed, shooting me a little smile over one shoulder. I nearly fainted with shock, but managed to smile back.
“I’ve got you covered, Ashley.” Mack kept his gun trained on the door as I pushed it back open with my free hand. When nothing appeared, I slowly stepped inside.
The smell hit first—the coppery, thick stench of blood and other bodily excretions. I choked and almost grabbed for my nose plugs, but quickly forgot about them when I took a good look inside.
Blood splattered the walls and floors in thick, viscous smears. A trail of bloody handprints, followed by more smears of blood, led from the far side of the room to the closed bathroom door, as if someone had tried desperately to crawl away from an attacker.
It looked like they never made it.
The sobs continued, rising from the other side of the queen-sized bed. The words continued as well, only now I could hear what they were.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
The same six words repeated over and over, interspersed with the choking sobs and... some other sound I couldn’t quite place. Blood and other things were thick on the white crocheted bedspread. My heart froze in my chest and the hair rose on the back of my neck.
Something was seriously wrong here.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
“Hello?” I slowly walked over to the bed, conscious of the blood making sticky sounds beneath my feet, and peered cautiously around the corner.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
Two partially devoured bodies lay there on the floor, of a woman and young boy, still a toddler, clothing in shreds. A man in blood-soaked jeans and a blue flannel shirt now dark with gore crouched over them, sobbing and muttering. He showed no yellowing of the skin, or decay—no symptoms at all of having turned.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
Then, as I watched in disbelieving horror, he lowered his face to the woman’s abdomen and took a bite of flesh, wrenching the meat away from her body with a feral snap of his jaws.
His sobs didn’t stop as he chewed and swallowed.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” he repeated as soon as he could.
I made a choked sound in my throat and stumbled backward, yelling as I backed straight into Mack, who’d come up behind me. He braced me with his hands on my shoulders. Looking past me, he made a gurgling sound in his throat.
The sound of my yell was enough to distract the man. He looked up at us, eyes red and swollen with tears, mouth and teeth dripping with blood and pieces of flesh.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” he whimpered. “I didn’t
want
to do it. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help myself. I was so hungry, and I could feel myself rotting... the inside, everything decaying.
“Oh, god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry...”
He curled back up over the bodies of what must have been his wife and son, rocking and crying and muttering and eating.
“He’s bat-shit crazy,” I whispered, willing myself not to throw up.
“You’re not kidding,” Mack agreed, sounding as sick as I felt. “Question is, what do we do with him?”
I swallowed hard.
“We’ll have to get him back to Big Red, I guess.” My gaze was drawn almost against my will back to the weeping man. “Where are Kai and Kaitlyn?”
The sound of gunshots answered my question before Mack did.
“Cleaning up incoming.”
“Let’s get this guy outside and find Gabriel.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Mack asked doubtfully. “He’s dangerous, no doubt about it.”
“I’m a good husband,” the man said suddenly, as if in response to Mack’s words. “A good father. I love my family. I tried to save them when those... those things attacked us. But they... they smelled so good and it burned inside.” He started rocking again, but the tears seemed to have stopped for the moment.
I took a deep breath, and immediately regretted it.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Jake,” he said slowly. “Jake Konig.”
“Mr. Konig... Jake, how long have you been trapped in this cabin?”
He thought about the question for a moment.
“I’m not sure—maybe a week?”
Oh, god.
The combination of hunger and the sheer horror of seeing the dead walk must have taken his mind right over the edge.
“You really need to come with us now,” I said, struggling to maintain a calm, neutral tone.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” He shook his head. Drops of blood flew off his lips. I did my best to suppress a shudder.
“Jake, you’re ill,” I pressed. “You need medical attention.” I spoke as soothingly as possible, as if trying to calm a spooked animal. Mack stood stock still behind me, but I could feel the tension thrumming through him as he waited, poised for trouble.
“I can’t leave Shanna and Tyce.” He shook his head again. “They need me.” He tenderly stroked his son’s
forehead, then leaned over to kiss his wife’s lips... before taking a bite out of them.
I nearly lost the battle with my rising gorge, but somehow managed to keep everything down.
“They’ll—” my voice cracked. I pulled myself together. “We’ll bring them with us, too. You can all go together and get some help, okay?”
“All of us?” Jake looked up at me, pale blue eyes sincere in the bloody mask of what had once been a pleasantly handsome face under a shock of curly brown hair, now matted and tangled.
I nodded, wanting nothing more than to get out of this claustrophobic cabin with its smell of death.
“All of you, I promise.”
Mack and I backed up a few feet as, ever so slowly, Jake got to his feet. I hoped he didn’t need a helping hand because I didn’t know if I could touch him without throwing up. Besides, I didn’t trust him not to attack me, too.
He managed it on his own, though, swaying slightly as he stood up all the way. He put a steadying hand on the bedpost, his shirtsleeve pulling up to reveal his forearm. A circle of teeth marks stood out against the pale skin, crusted with dried blood.
I inhaled sharply.
“When did you get that bite, Jake?”
“This?” he rubbed his arm, a vague look on his face. “Those things... first day here. I got Shanna and Tyce back into the cabin, but one of those things bit me. I got really sick. Shanna, she took care of me, nursed me until I felt better. But then I started rotting inside.”
Great. What we have here is a totally loony wild card. Super strong, super senses, and super psycho.
I gestured toward the door, trying not to be too obvious that I had my gun aimed in his direction. Just in case.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ll send someone in to get your family. Okay?”
He nodded hesitantly.
“Yeah... yeah, that’d be really good. I think Tyce needs a doctor.”
Mack and I backed away slowly to give him space to exit the cabin before us. I didn’t trust him at our backs.
He neared the door, then paused, glancing toward the bed and what lay on the other side.
“You’ll bring Shanna and Tyce?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Yeah, we will.” I held my breath when he took a step back toward his dead wife and child. “Jake? You just need to come outside now.” My eyes flickered back to the bite on his forearm.
He heaved a huge sigh, and all the tension seemed to run out of his body.
“Yeah, okay. That’s probably a good idea. It smells funny in here.” He again moved toward the cabin door, his gait stiff and unsteady as if he hadn’t moved a lot in the last few days.
Kai chose that moment to poke his head in the cabin.
“Hey, everything okay in here?
Jake’s head snapped up and reared back on his neck, looking freakily like a human cobra as he bared his bloody teeth and hissed at Kai.
Kai took one look at Jake’s gory face, hands, and clothes and immediately raised his M-4, pressing the trigger.
“
No
!”
I lunged forward and knocked the barrel to one side. The shot missed Jake by inches. He yelped and cowered down against the bed, hands and arms over his head.
“Damn it, girl,” Kai snarled, “Are you fucking crazy?”
“No,” I snapped. “But he is.” I jerked my head toward Jake. “He’s human, Kai. He’s not a zombie.”
“But his mouth...”
I shook my head.
“Look, we have to get him back to campus. He was
bitten and he’s still alive. He’s a wild card.”