C9 Hunting season – part one

The naked woman was on her way towards him and had covered half of the distance already. She was trailing her bowels like a leash behind her, directly behind her were the puppet like soldiers. The two nurses were meanwhile running to their right and were trying to cut off his escape route.

They were seemingly faster than the dead things but still much slower than a healthy human. The loss of blood and the advanced sickness had weakened them too much. Nonetheless Markus would have to hurry. He raised his battle mace like in a trance and started running. With his left hand he touched the pocket of his pants, asserting that his car keys were still there.

Not all of the Infected were in pursuit of him. While Helmut crossed the yard, walking towards the brown barracks, the doctor started almost with pleasure to systematically gut the dead man’s body. Like a hyena he sank his teeth, no, literally his whole mouth into the wide opened corpse, until he could not go any further.

Markus was spared most of this sight because he had reached the gap between the green and brown barracks. His imagination filled in the rest of those details, something he was devoutly not grateful for. Biting back another wave of bile, he kept moving.

This path would lead him directly to the parking lot and therefore to the Defender, Markus hoped, which should start up with a little luck. Suddenly, however, the nurse with the ripped dress stood in front of him, blocking the passage. He had not reckoned that she would be that fast.

She attacked at once, rushing towards him with outstretched hands and bared teeth, full with furious rage. It was pitch black underneath her red colored nails.

Markus was still in full sprint; avoiding a collision was impossible. The question whether he would be able to use his weapon against a living human being, with the intention of really hurting her, suddenly no longer applied. Like with a baseball bat he struck out with his mace in full sprint, letting it rush forward in a downward swing.

Its iron head collided with a loud splash exactly between the nurse’s exposed breasts, knocking her backwards right off her feet. Her sternum cracked as the back of her head crashed onto the concrete. Markus had to jump over her body in order to not lose any precious time because he knew without turning around that the other monsters were close on his heels.

He took a last brief look over his shoulders, shortly before he dove into the small passage. Five meters separated him from the second woman. The dead soldiers were coming around the corner already as well. But what was worse was what happened by the door of the brown barracks. Helmut, or the thing which used to be Helmut, had opened the door widely.

Horror gripped him as Markus realized that this base had not been evacuated, but instead had fallen victim to the virus. Ten, twenty, thirty, one hundred or more of those dead things were bursting out of the door and onto the yard. The moment they were free, every last one of the diseased maniacs started to chase him.

Soldiers, doctors and civilians were moving clumsily behind him, knowing only one target, one goal – his live flesh. Helmut was acting as a maliciously grinning doorman of death, opening every door on the base to release more monsters.

Because of this revelation Markus’ air pipes tightened up and he knew that it had been a mistake earlier to not have given in and not have taken some puffs. Now that he was running for his life, it was not possible to make good on his error. With his mouth open he was trying to pump as much air as possible through the constricted air ways into his lungs and noticed that it became less and less. The well-known white noise in his ears was starting, announcing the imminent collapse. Suddenly he was in the parking lot and he saw the Defender in front of him. He only heard his loud whistling breath and the rhythmic splashing of the nurse’s shoes on the wet snow.

Only a few more meters, but they were just too close. They would reach him by the time he had to stop to open the car. In a jerking movement he stopped, went down to his knees, turning himself at the same time and twirling the weapon with both hands in a quick circle through the air. The nurse was directly behind him and received the hit with its full force in the pit of her stomach, she collapsed like a jack-knife and fell hard to the side.

The force of the collision had thrown Markus to the ground as well. Stars were dancing like crazy in front of his eyes, but he picked himself up nonetheless. Supported by his body weight, he jerked upwards, ramming the metal head of the battle mace into the upper body of the howling woman. He only stopped when her spine cracked nastily and she sagged backwards.

He could not afford to lose any more time because his other pursuers had reached the parking lot already. Wincing and gasping for air like a fish on land he lifted himself up and unlocked the Defender, crawled onto the driver’s seat and labored to fumble the keys into the ignition lock. The lack of air conjured up more stars in front of his eyes, ordering him to give up, to let everything run its course.

Just let go, lay yourself down and close your eyes.

Marie climbed beside him onto the passenger seat with eyes widened in panic. “Please, please, please, they are all coming this way, please do something, please do something!”

He turned the key and cursed the cranking of the engine. The dead things were only a few steps away from them and would soon start to demolish the car in order to get to the sought-after interior. He turned the key again and the engine came to life with a powerful droning sound.

He swept the windshield quickly with his sleeve in order to get a clear view, put it in gear, and stomped down the accelerator pedal. Motion! They were moving!

As the Defender started to roll, the creatures had reached it already. Grotesque faces were pressing against the windows and fists were drumming on the body panels. One of them even hoisted itself on to the hood, crawling towards the windshield. Markus pushed the accelerator pedal all the way down and the engine bellowed, catapulting the heavy vehicle forward like it was wound up by an elastic spring. The monster‘s mouth opened up, spitting slimy snot, its milky eyes maliciously jumping back and forth between the two passengers. Then it lost its grip and was slowly sliding down from the hood. Piercing sounds from fingernails scratching over the paint and finally breaking off were audible.

Markus had to make a hard turn right after the barracks and had to cross the concrete yard, in order to reach the exit at the edge of the woods. The man on the hood ultimately lost his grip, sliding down at the side, directly under the left front tire. The Defender was shaking heavily as the assailant’s legs were crushed underneath the tires.

Creatures were now wandering around everywhere in the yard, former human beings now devolved to mindless murderers.

Only the ice-cold stare of Doctor Schneider, his blood-red eyes filled with hatred, was following them until they disappeared through the wide open door into the woods. His lips were forming soundless words.

Markus forced his attention from the ominous doctor and back to the road ahead. Even so, he could not shake the feeling that they would meet again. Sooner or later the now-alien doctor would catch up to them, no matter how far they fled.

It was only a matter of time.