Free Dead Hunt by Kenn Crawford Page A

explained, “think about it. If
they don’t hear that well and don’t see that well, then how do they
find food?”
    “How?” Emma asked though she was pretty sure
she didn’t want to know.
    “By smell.” Michael let his words sink in
before continuing. “They must be able to smell food.”
    “Then why didn’t they smell us when we opened
the doors?” Lauren asked.
    “I don’t know,” Michael answered. “That place
reeked from all those dead bodies. Maybe that smell was so strong
it hid our smell. It’s starting to get dark and we don’t have any
lights. We won’t be able to see them coming. They could be right
outside the door and we wouldn’t even know it.”
    They all looked at the shattered door.
    “We’re sitting ducks here,” Michael told
them. “Even if we did see them coming, you saw how bad the tires
spun on the gravel. When the sun goes down it’s gonna get chilly
and damp, and then we’ll be spinning tires on wet grass trying to
get away. It’s not safe here.”
    “Where do you suggest we go?” Lucy asked.
    “We can’t go back the way we came because
there’s too many of them on the road. I don’t think the van could
plough through them all. On top of that mountain, I saw lights.
That means there’s somebody up there.”
    “What if there’s not?” Lauren asked.
    “Then at least we know there’s electricity.
Lucy, do you know what that place is?”
    “There’s a hunting lodge up there. My dad
said some doctor bought it a few years ago.”
    “A hunting lodge means guns,” Michael
stated.
    “Oh great,” Paul interrupted. “Stay here and
get eaten or go up there and get shot!”
    “No, he’s right,” Lucy said, “If someone is
up there, I don’t think they expect those…” she hesitated and said
reluctantly, “those zombie things to drive up in a van.”
    “What if they are… zombies too?” Emma
queried.
    “It’s pretty secluded up there,” Michael
explained. “We didn’t come across any of those things coming into
Margaree, so it should be safe up there.”
    “Should be!” Paul laughed. “That’s
comforting.”
    “I think we should do what Michael says,”
Lucy suggested.
    “Oh I see how it is,” Paul said sardonically.
“Everything lately is Michael and Lucy. Where you go he goes. What
he says you agree with. Something you guys want to tell me?”
    Lucy shot a dirty look at Paul. “Grow up.
You’re such a dick.”
    “I’m telling you guys, we have to get out of
here,” Michael continued, ignoring Paul’s jealous comment. “We are
surrounded by houses and cabins and God knows what else. If one of
them senses we are here, how long do you think it will take for
more of them to figure it out?”
    Nobody said a word.
    “We know they don’t move very fast,” Michael
added. “So the quicker we get out of here the better.”
    Michael looked impatiently at his friends. It
seemed like it took forever for them to make up their minds, but it
was really only a few seconds.
    “Ok, then,” Wade sighed, “let’s head up to
the top of the mountain. That way we’ll be closer to heaven when we
die.”
    Lauren laughed. “If that’s the case, Wade,
you’re going in the wrong direction.”
    Everyone chuckled nervously as they headed
out the door.
    Michael noticed a butcher block and grabbed a
large kitchen knife. As he was leaving he spotted a machete hanging
above the door. He dropped the kitchen knife and pulled the giant
machete out of its sheath imitating Crocodile Dundee, “That’s not
knife. Now that’s a knife.”
    Wade poked his head back in the door,
smiling. “I heard that!”
    Michael returned the machete to its sheath
and followed his friends to the van.
    As Wade pulled onto the road they noticed
people covered in blood were coming out of their houses, all
walking in that same unsteady swagger, all walking towards
them.
    “They’re all coming out at the same time. I
wonder why?” Emma asked.
    “We are why,” Lauren told her.