Outbreak: The Hunger (9 page)

As I reach into the pack, I remember that I removed the knife right before we jumped.  I quickly run my hand along my waistband.  The knife is gone.  “Fantastic,” I accidentally say out loud.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”  Fi doesn’t miss a thing.

“Nothing, sweetie. I was just looking for something.”

“Are you looking for that knife?” she asks.  I roll my eyes and can’t help but laugh a little.  Nothing. She misses nothing.

There is no point lying to her.  “Yes, sweetie. That knife.”  She joins me in my search for it.  It could be anywhere, and the fact that my eye is slowly getting cloudier doesn’t help in our search.  We are wasting precious moments. Whatever it was that killed and maimed those people on the train is still out here.  It isn’t attacking us right now, but I have no doubt that it will be back.  If it could take off a person’s head while the train was moving, then God only knew what it could do to a group of people just standing around.  “You know what, sweetie? Let’s not worry about the knife right now.  Let’s go see if we can help anyone else.”

About twenty feet from the main wreckage, I see a mother and daughter.  They, too, jumped before the train hit the curve, but off the wrong side.  They got lucky though.  It looks as though one train car rolled and bounced right over them, missing them completely.  As Fi and I walk closer, we see that the mother was knocked unconscious but her daughter is fine.  We approached slowly, so as not to scare the daughter.  The daughter is shaking her mom, trying to wake her up.  She looks about a year or two older than Fi. 

“Hi,” Fi says as we get closer to the girl.  “My name’s Fiona, but everyone calls me Fi.  What’s your name?” 

The girl looks up.  She is scared and her eyes give away her sense of fear.  “I’m Amber,” she answers.  “My mom…” Her words trail off as her gaze goes back to her mom. 

“Hi, Amber,” I say.  “Why don’t you come over here and keep Fi company while I help your mom.”  I can see her mom’s chest moving.  Thank God.  The last thing I want is to have to tell this poor girl her mother died.  As I kneel down beside her mother, I glance over and see Fi sharing her water with Amber.

I can see the bump on the woman’s head, and though I’m no doctor, it doesn’t look too bad.  A discolored lump has formed, but it isn’t too large of a injury.  Further back toward the top of her head I notice that a lot of her hair is clumped together.  I gently feel around her scalp until I found the source.  She has a four-inch cut on the top of her head, but I am relieved to find it has already clotted on its own.  She is going to be fine.  She’s lucky.

I ask Fi and Amber to bring over some water and gently pour some on the mother’s forehead and hair.  The coolness starts to bring her around. 

“Come here, Amber,” I say.  “I want you to be the first person your mom sees.”  The woman slowly regains consciousness.  She has trouble opening her eyes in the sunlight, but I can see her smile weakly as she makes out the silhouette of her daughter.

“Mommy,” Amber almost screams as she throws her arms around her mother’s neck.  She looks disoriented.  When she sees me kneeling beside her, she immediately starts grabbing at Amber and wildly swinging her arms in self-defense.  I can’t blame her.  Not everyone saw those things attack the people on the train, but those who did knew we were in a lot more trouble than just this train derailing.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I say.  It is hard to get a good look at her.  My eye is getting cloudier by the minute, but she looks to be in her mid-thirties 

“Bullshit it’s okay,” she says in a raspy voice.  She stops swinging around her arms when she realizes I am no threat.  She quickly sits up and tries to scan around, but the blood she lost makes her dizzy.  “Go slow, Be careful,” I say.  “Your daughter’s right here with my little girl.”

“How can you say that?  Did you
see
what happened before the train wrecked?”  It is amazing what adrenaline can do.  She is regaining her strength by the second.  She isn’t panicking. She just knows we were all in a very fucked up and bad situation.

“Yeah,” I respond, lowering my voice.  “Did you get a good look at what it was?”

“No.  All I know is that it’s really fast and seems ‘f-ing’ pissed off.”  At this point, she realizes we aren’t in any immediate danger and she focuses her attention of Amber. Mother and daughter are happy to see each other alive. “I’m Cassie, and this is Amber,” she finally says.

“I’m John, and this is Fiona,” I respond.

“But everyone calls me Fi,” Fiona quickly adds.

“Thanks for the help.”  She holds her head as she looks around at the wreckage.  “Now what the hell do we do?”

“Fi and I have already been around the wreckage.  The survivors are gathered over there.” I gesture behind me.  “There’s not too many of us.  We should go join them.  Can you stand yet?”  I’m looking at the wounds on her head.  “The cut’s not too deep and has already stopped bleeding, and that bump on your head doesn’t look too bad either.  I’m sure you have a bitch of a headache, but at least you’ll be all right.  You probably rolled over a tree root or a rock.”

As I help Cassie up, I whisper so only she can hear, “
Don’t go over by the main wreckage.  There’s some pretty horrible things in there.  A lot of people stayed on the train
.
They didn’t make it
.”  Cassie looks me in my eyes and I can feel her asking me how anyone could’ve remained on a train headed for doom.  I have no answer for her.

We avoid the main wreckage so Amber and Fi won’t be exposed to more of the aftermath.  We join up with the other survivors.  There is a mom with her kids (a son and daughter,) a mom and dad with their son, a father and grandfather with their son/grandson, and a single man.  I realize I haven’t see the girl in the floppy hat.  I could have sworn I saw her jump off the train before we did, though can’t remember from what side.  I scan the main wreckage looking for her within the twisted metal, but my one eye is so cloudy that my vision has been reduced to about five to eight feet in front of me.

I turn to say something to everyone when I notice a figure sitting down next to a tree stump.  I squint and realize it was her. The floppy-hatted girl alive and well. 

Minus her floppy hat.

9

As the four of us walk over to join the others, I notice the floppy-hatted girl is holding something in her hands in an almost protective manner. 

“Is everyone alright?” I ask, realizing it is a stupid question.  I see one of the fathers begin to say something back and cut him off before he can get a word out.  “I mean is anyone seriously hurt?  Broken bones, bad cuts or bumps on the head?”  Everyone just kind of mumbles that they are all right. 

Their reactions make me angry, but I bite my lip and don’t say anything.  I am just glad that Fi and I are alive.  Besides the train derailment, there is something, or some
things
, out there.  What is really pissing me off was that the adults aren’t being strong for their kids.  The children are scared shitless, and you can see it in their eyes.  They thought they were going on a nice outing to the zoo with Mom and Dad and, out of nowhere,  are standing in the middle of a train wreck, surrounded by dead bodies and creatures who’re hunting them down.

These parents need to get their shit together
, I think, getting angrier.

“We need some kind of plan, and we need one fast,” I say, trying to relay to the other adults the seriousness of the situation.  “My name’s John, and this is Fi.”

Ignoring our introductions, one of the fathers quickly responds:  “I think we should just stay here with the wreckage.  I’m sure the conductor made a call back to the station that the train was out of control.  They’re gonna look for us where the wreckage is.”

All the other parents look at each other in silence.  Did this guy not see what happened on the train before it derailed?  Did he not see something tear off the conductor’s head?  Finally, one of the mothers speak up.  “I’m Susan, and these are my kids, Karen and Tom.”  Then, turning to the man, says, “Maybe you didn’t see what happened before the train derailed, but there was no call to the station before the wreck.  Something…” Her sentence trails off as she tries to find the right words.  “Something disabled the conductor right before we crashed.”

Nice choice of words
, I think.  We all look back at the father, waiting for his response.

“What’re you talking about, ‘disabled?’” he shoots back.  “She was careless and got knocked off the train by a branch.  So fine, if you don’t think she got a call out before she fell off, I’ll call the zoo right now.”  He pulls a cell phone out of his pants pocket.  “I’m not just gonna stand by and hope someone comes looking for us.” 

I want to be angry with this idiot, but I can see just how scared he is.  He is around forty-five years old and has the physique of someone who works behind a desk.  He is there with his wife and two kids, all of whom appear calmer than their dad.

“Look,” I say. “We all need to remain calm and work together on a plan of action.”

“You guys can work on a plan of action. I’m calling the zoo right now to tell them what happened.”  He punches in the zoo’s number and lifts the phone to his ear.  “Hello,” he says. “Hello?  Is anyone there?” 

I can see him getting red in the face through his frustration and fear.  We are all watching him as he makes the call.  Then the flash comes.  It isn’t as fast this time, but it is just as ferocious.  An orange-brown streak appears out of nowhere and rips off the man’s arm, most of his shoulder, and part of his neck in one vicious attack.  The rest of us stand there, stunned.  Half of the man’s body is practically gone.  The rest of his body remains standing upright.  Blood bubbles out of his torn neck and shoots out of the socket where his arm and shoulder used to be.  His eyes are wide with fear, almost like he knows what happened.

His wife and kids and just about everyone else starts screaming.  I grab Fi and run over to the tree.  The girl-minus-the-floppy-hat still sits there.  The color has drained from her face.

“Everyone get over here,” I scream.  Some of them run over immediately.  Others are frozen in fear. 

The man’s body finally gives in to gravity and collapses to the ground.  Then, in another flash, the orange-brown blur races in, grabs the lifeless body, and disappears.  Everyone seems to stop making noise at the same time.  The cries and panicking cease.  Everyone is stunned and trying to make sense out of what they’ve just witnessed.  We look at each other, silently affirming what everyone is thinking.

The orange-brown
thing
wasn’t a thing at all.  It was a tiger.  One of the very same tigers housed in this very zoo.

10

“Did you see that fucking thing?” one of the fathers asks.  “It … it looked like a tiger, but it moved so fast.”  Then, turning to the rest of the group, asks, “Can tigers move that fast?”

We all just look at each other, waiting, and hoping that someone will offer up a plausible explanation.  I have to break the silence.  “I’m no expert, but I really don’t think they can move that fast.  I mean, maybe if they had a lot of open space where they can run and build up speed.  But…” I gesture around us to finish my point.  We are surrounded by dense woods.  There isn’t enough open space for an animal to build up the amount of speed that tiger had.

Everyone gets my point.

“Well, we all saw it.  How the hell did it get so fast?”  The father is looking for some kind of answer in order to retain his sanity.  He needs some kind of anchor in reality, but right now, things seem to be very far from real.  The older man he is with (I assumed it was his father) comes, stands behind him, and rests his hand on the man’s shoulder.  That seems to calm him down for now.

“Look, everyone,” I say. “We need to face the facts.  There are creatures out there hunting us down.  They’ve killed three people so far and we have to assume they aren’t done yet.  Now I think…”

“Creatures… you mean there’s more than one of those things?  How they hell do you know that?” the same father asks.

“Look… what’s your name?” I ask.

“Kyle,” he responds.

“Kyle, right before we jumped, I saw a monkey running around on the train.”

“What makes you think it killed anyone?” Kyle asks.  I can see him trying to connect everything, but his brain won’t let him.

“Right before the monkey jumped off the train, and I know this is gonna sound ridiculous, I could swear it turned around and stared at Fi and me.”  Before Kyle can say anything, I continue:  “I know that you’re thinking the stress of the situation is making me imagine things, but that monkey stopped and stared at us as if he was saying, ‘I’ll see ya later.’”

“Okay, so the monkey fucking looked at ya.  So what?  At least it didn’t kill anyone like that goddamn tiger.”

“That’s not completely true.  There’s more.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Kyle is beginning to piss me off.

“Remember the older guy on the train that tried to get to the breaks?”  Mostly everyone nods.  “Well, that monkey had his hand in its mouth.  I think it was the monkey that dismembered and then killed that man, not the tiger.” 

“What are we going to do?” asks Kyle in a broken voice.  He puts his hand on top of his son’s head.  I realize I shouldn’t be angry at this man.  He is scared like the rest of us and is worried about protecting his son against an enemy we know nothing about.