Wildfire Book I - Survival Instinct

Smoky Mountain

"Let us go, for the length of our journey demands it."

― Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

"The only thing we gotta do is kill every last one of 'em.", mumbled Daryl.

"Daryl, I know you're upset, but just listen! That sounds like a whole lot of 'em! We need to go now. Gather up as much as you can and meet me at the truck!", he instructed his nephew and Grace, who looked back and forth between the two men with irritation and a slight panic in her eyes. She saw Daryl's jaws clenching, but she also heard the rumble and the gurgling growl that came in from outside. It was hard enough to stand up to one of these freaks - but a whole group?

Daryl's hands were clenched in fists so much that she could see his knuckles turning white. He was furious, but then snorted and grabbed a leather vest hanging over the back of the chair and swung it around his body. It was pitch black and had an intricate wing design on it's back.

"Grab some food and water, everythin' ya can carry and get to the car.", he instructed Grace in a harsh tone.

"What? No! Are you crazy? We can't just leave you here!", she returned, and at the mere thought an icy cold feeling ran down her spine. Those lunatics would probably just tear him apart! No one deserved to die like that.

"Calm down Barbie. I'll be right behind ya. Gonna go grab some fuel for the ride. Let's go then, c'mon!", he demanded.

"Daryl! Remember what we learned 'bout 'em. Head trauma. Attack the brain, remember? Only thing we know that kills 'em. And be quiet sneaking out the back door. Don't let 'em see you!", Jess reminded his nephew. He just nodded, and then he already made his way to the door, through which he sneaked quietly like a mouse. Amazing how not even his footsteps seemed to make a sound.

"Come on, girl!", Jess tore her from her thoughts. The two of them hastily set about stuffing everything they could carry from the shelves into an aged backpack.

They hurried out of the house but were already greeted by an approaching group of freaks. Jess reacted quickly and ripped open the passenger door of the dirty white single cab truck.

"Get in! Come on!", he barked in a commanding tone and swung the backpack onto the loading area, shotgun in hand. Grace didn't think twice and did what she was told. Again and again, shots echoed loudly and penetratingly through the mountain panorama and the forest around her as Jess fended off the approaching lunatics with very skillful shots. But as the shots kept coming, the scene became more and more familiar to her - it was the same with her father. At some point he was just surrounded and then... then...

She closed her eyes and pressed her hands over her ears, she couldn't stand it. She couldn't watch it again. Only the very loud, metallic crash behind her brought her back. Roughly she was pushed further to the left as Jess squeezed into the truck alive and apparently well.

Daryl also pressed himself against her from the driver's side. Nobody buckled their seat belts, instead, the redneck pressed the accelerator very bravely so that the horde quickly disappeared in the rear-view mirror. Relieved, Grace pressed the air out of her lungs. At the same time as the momentary feeling of relief and safety, she became aware of the closeness that existed to the redneck. As well as the significantly elevated body temperature of his uncle. He clearly had a fever. The wound that she noticed earlier he had on his arm must've gotten infected.

They drove silently for a while along the dirt road that led up to the wooden hut through a dense forest and finally ended up on a road that was apparently used very little. Daryl turned right and seemed to know exactly where he was going. Grace was silent, surely his first act would be to drop her off somewhere so she wouldn't be a burden to them. He had expressed his displeasure with her presence more than clearly. Soon a wooden sign announced "Welcome to Cabot Ridge", a very rural small town, which surely was quite nice to look at once.