Human Bait

Chapter 2: The Trap

The Infected with glinting cheekbones galloped toward me, and I swiveled to face him. One of his feet twisted backward, the toe of his boot dragging through the snow, but his wide eyes showed no pain. Unlike Freshly-Baked, this Infected's nerve receptors had already fried. Almost an Overcooked.

My heart leaped in sickening thumps, and the knife quivered in my hand. If I didn't sink this blade into his heart on the first stab, I might not get another chance. As he neared me, I sucked in a breath and steadied my hand. He launched himself toward me, and I thrust the blade into his chest.

The metal glanced off bone, ripped through decomposing flesh...

And missed his heart.

He teetered back a step, blade still lodged between his ribs. His face twisted, skin stretching back to reveal more of his exposed cheekbones. Then he lobbed his arms at my head like swinging a stick at a ball.

I ducked just in time, snatched one of his ankles, and tugged. Decomposing sinew squelched beneath my grip. His arms flailed, and he toppled over backward, loose skin pancaking with the force of the fall.

When he twitched up to sitting, a streak of brown and red imprinted the crisp white behind him. His mouth stretched wide and snapped shut, teeth clacking. 

He lunged for me again.

I lifted a foot and slammed it into his chest. As he tumbled backward once more, I stomped his pelvic bone into the ground. Fingernails clawed at my legs, shredding my already destroyed pants. Fueled by blind desperation, I slammed my foot into his sternum. Ground my heel into his face. Stomp, stomp, stomp...

Crack.

His nose retreated into his skull. Then his head burst open with a bang, and globs of pus sizzled over the snow around him, wafting putrid air. I careened sideways and doubled-over, gagging.

Sweet Ether, wasn't contagious cannibalism bad enough? Why did their brains have to explode upon death?

I planted a foot on the chest of the dead—re-dead? deader?—Infected. Then I grasped the hilt with both hands and wrenched the blade free, staggering back with the momentum.

A scream dragged my attention to the other Infected, who both started with the meatier prize. Greaseball shoved back the Infected with the missing nose, but Maligg jumped onto his back and wrapped her legs around his waist. Her teeth sank into his flesh just above his shoulder. With a sick rip, blood spurted from Greaseball's neck, and he swayed to both sides before flopping over backward.

The hum of the helicopter drew nearer, and search lights swung over distant treetops. 

Maligg shoved the corpse off of her and flashed a smile that oozed blood. Both Infected locked eyes on me.

The helicopter would not reach me in time.

Fear coursed through me in disorienting waves of hot and cold. No panicking, Zafaru, I told myself. Just stay calm and use your brain.

In response, my revered brain summoned the inspirational mantra that had kept me alive for the last eight years.

Shit, I'm fucked. Shit, I'm fucked. Shit, I'm fucked.

I whirled around and darted off through the snow.

I bolted over slopes and grasped tree branches to propel myself forward, chest burning from exertion and frigid air. My eyes scoured the trees for a branch low enough to grab, but the branches around me all loomed high overhead. I yearned for the trusty oak tree where I slept each night in a nest of stolen blankets. Though it could not compete with the fortress my food came from, it had become a kind of fortress of my own. A place where I could enjoy the Recluse's unwillingly shared food in private; a place where I could watch the sunset; a place where I could properly mourn my mother and scoff at my late father.