The man hit the ground and his body trembled, reminding Jon of when his own childhood best friend Jake had had a seizure during a hockey game. The shaking now continued for a few moments before the body stopped moving, and the infected man lay there motionless.
Jon had never killed a man. He stood there staring at him, trying to convince himself that it was no longer a man. But Jon didn’t have time to mourn his first kill.
He picked up the case of water, keeping hold of the bat. He tossed the water into the bed of the truck and then got into the driver’s seat, putting the bat to his left and keeping it close.
His family was safe. Now, all that mattered was getting them to the cabin.
He started the truck, throwing it into reverse, and sped out of the neighborhood.
8
Jon waited until later in the day to go hunting. It had started pouring not long after Brooke had left his cabin and hadn’t let up until early in the afternoon. He thought about how it must have felt for the woman to be hiking back to her settlement with the storm pouring down on her, but that wasn’t his problem. She should never have shown up at his door.
He’d spent the rest of the morning trying not to think about the visit from Brooke. While the rain had come down outside, he’d cleaned his clothes and repaired a wobbly leg on the dining room table, mostly out of boredom. But it had done little to make him avoid thinking about the woman, so he’d decided to get out on his bike despite the weather.
Only two things could keep the demons from haunting Jon’s mind, if only temporarily.
The open road and bashing in the brains of the dead.
He came to an intersection and stopped the bike. Resting his feet on the ground, he glanced in both directions, deciding which way he wanted to go. It didn’t matter. The world was dead in either direction. Without thinking much more about it, he revved the engine and turned right.
Jon hopped onto the long stretch of country road and opened the throttle, feeling inertia pull him as the bike accelerated.
As he sped away, he hoped his mind would open up as much as the road, but he couldn’t clear it. His thoughts jumped all over the place, mostly fixating on Brooke but also flashing him images of Carrie and Spencer. It all overwhelmed him.
He began wishing the previous day had never happened. That he had never run across Brooke and the guy getting his ass beat out in the woods. Something terrible might have happened to them, but he would never have known it. And, sometimes, not knowing the truth at all was for the better.
Raindrops fell in only a drizzle now. He thought of a time when he and Carrie had been caught out in the rain while swimming in a hotel pool during their first weekend trip together. It had started raining, and a family sharing the pool with them had gotten out in fear that lightning might come with the storm. But Jon and Carrie had decided to stay, having not heard any thunder.
Jon had wrapped his arms around Carrie, caressing her bare back and reaching down to grab her bikini bottoms, squeezing her partially exposed ass. Carrie had moved her hands up his chest to his face and kissed him as Jon pulled her closer to him, pulling her over his aroused crotch.
For the next twenty minutes, they’d made out in the rain, their hands all over each other. No one had been around to see her hand slide into his swim trunks and stroke him until he finished.
The memory overcame Jon now, and he gripped the throttle tighter. As he rounded the next bend in the road, he gave the bike more gas. But the rush of speeding down the country road did little for him. Taking risks was only thrilling when you had something to lose.
Coming to his senses, Jon slowed the bike down. He wasn’t sure how much he’d decreased the speed when the deer crossed the road in front of him.
“Shit!”
Jon cut the bike, narrowly avoiding the deer that had stopped to stare at him. He nearly grazed its backside, but managed to get around it.
With the deer avoided, he fought to regain control of the motorcycle. He swerved off the road, but the cruiser slipped out from under him.
He laid the bike down in the dirt, letting go and sliding as he yelled. The bike fell into a ditch, but Jon fought for control of himself now. Even with the leather jacket on, the dirt burned. By instinct, he lifted his hands onto his head to protect it since he hadn’t worn a helmet. He rolled a few times as he slowed down.
When he finally came to a stop, Jon lay on his back with his hands still protecting his head. He tried sitting up, and that’s when the pain hit him. Grimacing, he felt paralyzed. The sharp pain cut into his legs, arms, back, and ribs. He tasted the blood as it hit his lips and managed the strength to turn his head. Fifteen feet away, he saw smoke billowing and figured it must be coming from his bike. Three different clouds and trees blurred together alerted him that his vision was fucked up.
Then he heard the snarls.
Even with a cloudy mind, he knew what that meant.
Fuck.
Jon managed to fight the pain and flip himself onto his stomach. Everything burned, and it felt like every bone in his body had broken. But he had to find a way to get to cover. He laid his elbows on the ground and tried dragging himself through the mud and into the ditch, but he
