Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days (6 page)

Growls rose from the darkness and shook Jason and me into a state of panic and fear. The wolves still stalked us after all. We failed to notice them because they used the woods to camouflage themselves. The lack of grass, because of the season, assured their silent movements wouldn’t be muffled and untrained human ears could still catch smaller sounds like dry leaves breaking. They were all around us.

By this point, growls of multiple wolves surfaced. They were ready to attack.

“RUN!” Jason yelled at me, which effectively sent me into a sprint behind Jason who ran ahead of me. 

Wolves came out of their hidden locations; some jumped out from behind trees and dried up bushes while others that blended into the dirt and boulders in plain sight, left their camouflage to join the chase. I could barely see Jason ahead of me, but I tracked the flame in the lantern and followed that.

To not get caught by the wolves while I tried to keep up with Jason, I jumped over fallen trees, dashed around the ones that still stood, and turned as often as possible just to keep them at a far enough distance so they couldn’t lunge at me. I cut through the air like a newly sharpened knife.

The wolves around me kept to the shadows, but I still tried to be aware of where the wolves were which was when things went the wrong way. Some barked, some growled, I ran, others howled. Approximately six wolves behind me, when I managed to get closer to Jason, he had as many wolves chasing him, but because I was also behind him, the wolves that followed him were technically in front of me. This took a few moments for me to realize. It left me with wolves both in front and behind, they would not attack one at a time. Regardless of what was ahead, because of what was behind I wouldn’t be able to stop without being turned into some nutritionally challenged wolf meal.

Up ahead, Jason was caught on some vines and fell to the ground. He dropped the lantern and on its way down it hit a large rock and broke into a million pieces (give or take a few), and once again a sheet of darkness fell over me. The light, the guide, abandoned me and left me to the wolves…literally.

I yelled as loud as I could and for as long as my lungs allowed me to in my attempt to get a response from Jason and use that to locate him in the darkness.

“JASON! WHERE ARE YOU?!” I never ceased my race away from the wolves but the darkness was too thick to identify anything. The little bit of moonlight over the woods covered the unlit areas with blankets of shadows. Nothing was a solid figure till you came face to face with it.

“JASON!” My search served no response or reward. I managed to find the exact spot he fell before I lost him, but he was no longer there. I got caught on the same vines he did and just like Jason, I fell to the ground which allowed the wolves to catch me, unable to escape. I tried to remove the vines from around my ankle and the wolves used the opportunity to surround me. They circled me repeatedly and phased in and out of the dark as they walked around.

I frantically struggled to get the vines off of me, when the wolves realized this one of them lunged to bite me and successfully broke through my jeans;its teeth went straight into my calf. The pain shot up my leg and took over my whole body, I could no longer think straight. Another one of the wolves attempted to bite me too and missed my shoulder by mere centimeters, although it still managed to catch and tear through my jacket and shirt.

I repeatedly kicked the face of the wolf that locked onto my leg till it faced no other option than to let go. When the wolf finally let go, two others from the pack attacked from the same direction. I kicked aimlessly to scare them away and the wolves went back into defense. It gave me enough time to get up and run from them. Because of the pain that came from my leg I moved much slower than I did before, but I still fought through and blocked off as much of it as I could. Thankfully, they didn’t break any bones or ruin any nerve that I could tell while I ran. The adrenaline that coursed through my body allowed me to ignore the pain with more ease and focus mostly on the escape.

My persistence allowed me to build yet another gap between the wolves and me. Anything more than a few feet in front of me went virtually invisible but that was enough range to be sure I wouldn’t trip again.

The wolves were more cautious now than they were before. Because I fought back, they knew I would hurt them if I could, so they kept their distance from me but also kept me in their sights to wait for the best time to make their next move.

Being chased relentlessly by wolves, in the darkest black night, in the middle of nowhere, dilemma? During a zombie apocalypse, I am the one person in the world that can’t deal with just zombies. No, I deal with bored and hungry wolves. Little to do was left other than run without a destination and I did not plan to quit until my body gave out and it was time to meet my maker, which looked as though it would happen soon enough.

Something came from ahead. It was a few hundred feet in the distance but my eyes adjusted to the dark. It was an open area in the woods. A small field with no trees in it which allowed the moon to paint its light over the dirt that made up the area. If I was to have any chance of survival against the wolves’ attack, I would need to see them. A little hope came over me and I slightly adjusted the direction in which I ran to head towards the open area. The closer I became the more my heart pounded in excitement.

The wolves seemed to slow down the closer I was to the light but I didn’t notice this immediately. The field was small. It was just big enough for the moonlight to illuminate, no more than two hundred or three hundred feet of open ground before the woods continued on the other side. All I did was make myself a more visible target for the wolves. I didn’t know what I expected on my way to the field.

In the middle of the field I prepared to fight the wolves with my only weapon, the knife. I looked around ready to fight but no wolves stood around. They spread out in the shadows outside the field to surround me. I kept my mind clear and my focus on sight and sound as I scanned the area.

The wolves stopped their growls and their barks again and I took this as a bad sign. Either something bigger and more dangerous scared them away or they were ready to make a move. I hoped they became bored and left me alone, but something made me doubt it would be that easy. As I prepared for my last stand I noticed on the side opposite to which I found the field there was a wooden cabin right where the woods continued. I wasted no time or thought before I reacted and sprang into action. I made a run for the cabin.

The wolves dashed out of the woods and made their final run at me. A few of them came at me from the front. I was ready for anything and as they came close enough to attack and did so I dodged accordingly. The first wolf jumped at my right arm and I dodged left. The next two came from directly in front of me and my left; I dodged right then left to avoid them both. The wolves I dodged from the front slowed down the ones behind me when they slammed into each other and scrambled to get up and back into the chase. I was nearly at the cabin but since it stood under several trees and inside their shadows, the front door wasn’t in view. This was not going to discourage me though; I made my way there regardless and hoped I would find it when I reached the cabin.

Once I was close enough the true small size of the cabin was revealed, approximately the size of a bedroom, and the door was at the far left. At the door, I touched around in search of the doorknob. The wolves closed in as I found the knob. I ran inside and closed the door behind me. The wolves slammed into the other side of the door like large bullets shooting at me and scratched it as they tried to get inside.

There were no windows for the wolves to break in through but that also meant no way for me to check when it would be clear and safe for me to leave the tiny cabin. The wolves continued to bark and scratch the door. I thought their failed scratches were much less resourceful than huffing and puffing till the wooden cabin came down, but I wasn’t going to rule that out yet; not with everything else I thought impossible being fact.

I wished for some bricks; not to build a brick house and be safer, but to knock wolves out and escape. All I had was a kitchen knife to fight off a whole pack of wolves with, fantastic. And the little light bulb in my head lit up. The light wasn’t bright enough to allow me to see inside the cabin, but it would help me see outside. It made sense to use the knife to cut a hole through the wood in the cabin so that I could look outside and know when it was clear. This way I wouldn’t have to open the door and risk another encounter with the wolves.

I grabbed the knife and stabbed at the same spot in the wall repeatedly. While I cut a hole through the wall, piece by piece, I couldn’t help but to chuckle at the thought of a light bulb implanted inside my head so I could at all times see in the dark. A bright idea would always light the room up.

The new mission was to find a way to lose the wolves and track Jason down in the woods. The wolves became quiet as I tore through the wall with progressively more ease. They were probably focused on the sound the knife made against the wood. Blindly but surely I made it through the wood. After some time I managed to get to the point I wanted to and made a hole big enough for some of the moonlight to fill in the darkness of the cabin and see outside. By the time I made the hole, the barks completely stopped and the wolves no longer scratched at the door. I looked outside through the hole to know if the reason it became so quiet was because they gave up and left, but the wolves were still outside. They no longer tried to get inside for a reason far worse than boredom. Out in the woods, from every side, there were dozens of shadows in the shape of people on their way out of the woods and onto the field. But those weren’t people anymore. I knew what they were; they were the infected that followed the howls and barks of the wolves.

The wolves were positioned near the door; ready to attack the wall of infected that headed towards the cabin. Fifteen or sixteen wolves prepared to square off against a number of the infected that continued to grow. Dozens upon dozens continued to flood out of the woods.

The infected continued to get closer and the wolves became tenser. I watched helplessly as I came that much closer to death. I wished I didn’t dig that tiny peep hole in the first place.My death would have come as more of a surprise that way. Instead, I dug the hole just to witness two large groups fight over me as a meal (how flattering). I couldn’t help but look though the peep hole and watch it happen. The suspense was too much to look away for even a second. Sounds surfaced from behind the cabin. The infected came from every direction, and those that couldn’t see the wolves, because the cabin was between them, planned to tear right through it. To make things worse, the infected didn’t have much difficulty when they grabbed wooden panels thanks to evolution and thumbs, so they would use their fingers and finger nails to do exactly what I did with the knife, the difference was their small army of help which speed up the process.

They began to rip through the wood and take out large chucks after a few minutes. The infected on the side of the wolves already moved in and attacked the wolves that fought back. Wolves ate the infected that ate the wolves that ate the infected, so on and so on. The wolves eventually broke through their muscles and bones and tore off complete limbs from the infected, but like something out of a horror movie the infected continued their attack like they felt nothing. They weren’t fazed by the lack of a limbs or their loss of blood. Their whole goal was to eat. This was undeniably the most horrible experience in my life up to that point.

For the millionth time in my amazingly terrible adventure I was being left without time to think or time to react. The infected freaks from behind the cabin and the mass of infected in the front were both too much to make a path and run out through. And even if I did somehow cut through the infected, I wouldn’t be able to outrun the wolves for long. I was once again trapped, this time my way in was also my way out, and my way out led straight to a horde of infected and a pack of wolves, both ready to tear into me.

The ultimatum here was to die in the cabin or try not to, but possibly die outside the cabin. I decided to run out the back as soon as the infected that slowly tore down the panels made a path big enough for me to squeeze through. It made sense, the number of infected in the back was less than the mass in the front that faced off against the wolves. And my chances of dealing with the wolves if I ran out through the back were much less if they didn’t realized I left in the first place (assuming there weren’t others still out there). While the infected were almost done creating their way in, I readied to make my escape though the infected, which was going to be no easy task.

I stayed conscious of the knife at all time as to not fall over it and turn it into my death. It was too dark to tell how much of the cabin the infected took apart until light poured in. The holes grew in size and soon enough the infected clawed and tore bigger and better ones, eventually becoming big enough for the infected to squeeze through but they didn’t seem to figure that out. I, on the other hand, was aware of the fact that big enough for them meant big enough for me, my time to make an escape arrived (how excited I was).

Once the infected saw me through the hole they were no longer interested to make it to the other side of the cabin, instead, they were interested in me, their new meal. I walked over to the hole but kept a safe enough distance to not get touched by the infected while they reached out. I stabbed all the ones in close enough proximity to make a clear path that lasted for seconds before another one of the infected attempted to grab me and plugged the path in doing so. The rest of the cabin was still being taken apart. By that point I already forgot about the wolves on the other side of the cabin.