Lurkers

1

Walking with a limp, Hunter grits his teeth down route sixty-two feeling all sorts of emotions, holding hands with his son Dalton. He takes a look back to see the city of Hillsboro, Ohio, where he was born and raised, in flames and destruction. Wondering to himself that this was far worse than anything he ever imagined when he thought about the end of times. Every time he takes a second to stop because of his ballooned up ankle that he twisted, he hears moaning and horrible screams of torment and savagery. 

“Daddy?” His nine year old son says without looking up because of the sun glaring in his eyes.

“Yes buddy. What do you need?”

“Where’s mom?” He asks with quivering lips, knowing that something bad happened to her. Hunter didn’t answer. He couldn’t speak. He was fighting all these emotions that ping ponged around in his brain. As he tried to answer fighting back tears, he scrounges up enough grit to answer his question. Hunter was a wonderful father, who loved his family with all his being, but sympathy was something Hunter was never really good at. 

“Keep walking boy. We have to find a place to stay the night. We won’t last very long. Not out here. Might get caught by some of those lurkers.”

“Lurkers? Daddy, what’s a lurker?” Dalton said as he stopped on the road still holding his father's hand. 

“They...well...that's what they called them on the news. One of those zombie things that got your....let’s keep moving.” Hunter says, feeling like something just punched him in his guts. Just tell the boy the truth! Tell him! He needs to know what you saw. What happened to your wife and your newborn daughter, Belle. Hunter thought. Hunter wasn’t ready to admit that they were gone, especially to his oldest child. He was still in denial. That his beautiful wife of ten years and his newborn daughter who was two months old were dead. Made him nauseated every time he thought about it. 

“Dad are you alright? Where is mom? Is she meeting us somewhere with Belle?” Dalton asked again, this time he looked up into his eyes. Making sure his daddy was telling him the truth. 

“Son, we have to keep moving or we will...shit get down. That stump. Hurry!” Hunter yelled in a whisper as a lurker caught the corner of his eye. 

“Dad is that…”

“Yes son. It’s one of them. Lurker.” Hunter said as they laid behind a stump on their bellies, watching the lone lurker walk by. Walking ever so slowly, limping with its hands to its side. Groaning quietly to itself as it scurried across the freshly cut corn field. This lurker had hunting clothes on and a twelve-gauge shotgun strapped to his back. If only I could get a hold of that shotgun. He thought.

“Man dad, wish you could get ahold of that shotgun. Could blow his head off.” Dalton says out the side of his mouth. 

“Yeah, damn right about that boy.” Hunter says. As the lurker starts to pass their location, Hunter begins to get lionhearted, and starts to stand up slowly, like a cat in the tall grass. 

“Wait right here son.”

“But dad, what are you doing?” 

“I’m going to get that Goddamn gun.” Hunter says as he tiptoes through the husks and corn stalks. Then he starts to walk faster. Dalton notices the lurker turning around as his dad pulls out a knife that he found in an abandoned car. Then all hell breaks loose. 

2

“You mother fucker! You mother fucker!” Is all the nine year old boy could hear. Hardly being able to watch, Dalton puts his hands over his face behind the rotten tree. He takes a quick glance right in between his fingers and sees the lurker on top of his dad.

 “You killed her! You killed her!” Hunter repeated over and over again. Dalton raced to his dad's side to help him fight the slobbering corpse that was moaning so loud that it gave poor little Dalton cold shivers down his back. 

“Daddy. Hold on!”

“Dalton stay there! Stay where you are boy!” Hunter said as he was straining, fighting to get the upper hand on this living dead carcass, feeling the drool from the lurker splat onto his face. Then suddenly, Hunter felt the lurkers gaze go back to his son. This struck a nerve to Hunter’s nervous system that had never been plucked like this before. Hunter went into a rage. Something came over him so vile that he felt like he was hatching out of his own skin. Like Wolf Man transforming into the wolf. Hunter found some extra strength, wrapped his legs around the lurker’s waist, twisting him to his back where Hunter had finally found himself in the dominant spot, mounted on top of the lurkers chest. He took his knife and drove it right down the middle of the lurkers skull, right between the eyes. He pulled it back out, and drove it back into his skull again, this time driving it deeper, squirting black tar like blood all over his face.

“You killed her! You killed them! You mother fucker!” He shouted over and over again. Driving the blade deeper and deeper into his brain. He even cut the side of his hand from the sharpness of the lurkers' opened skull. He went to cock back the knife for the next blow when he noticed Dalton, standing there, watching him. Hunter saw the tears stream down his face. What have I done? Hunter thought, dropping the knife in the corn, breathing frantically almost to the point of hyperventilation. 

“Dalton...Dalton boy, are you ok?” Hunter asked, but Dalton never said a word. Just stood there crying. Then finally after all of this, Hunter stood up in front of his boy, and walked by his side snatching him up, and cried with him. 

“I’m sorry Dalton. I’m so sorry!” He said as they sat there and sobbed. 

“Is mommy and sissy…” 

“Yes buddy.” He said, not letting him finish. Still hanging on. Still not wanting to admit that his little girl and beautiful wife are gone, dead. I don’t think Hunter ever heard his son sob so much and so hard. Hunter felt useless, worthless. The only thing left to do was move on. Knowing this is not the time and place to mourn. 

“We got to get up son. It’s going to get dark soon. We have to find somewhere and crash for the night. Have to make sure it’s safe.”

“Ok daddy.” Dalton says, still crying in his arm sleeve. Hunter picks up the Remington eight-seventy and carries on. Hoping that they would come across a place to stay soon. As he walked down route sixty-two, he was beginning to recap what happened this morning. Where it all started. The worst morning of his life. 

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3

WKRC Channel 9 News: Trumps Vaccine for COVID-19 ends in terror

Trump continues to put the blame on Dr. Fauci for pushing the vaccine for the coronavirus out to the public too soon. Reports in this morning that over 470,000 people in Ohio took the vaccine. 50,000 people have died from the vaccine and 420,000 are in comas in hospital beds. Almost everyone that has gone into a coma has come out acting sporadically. Biting and killing medical staff in the local hospital here in Cincinnati. We are getting reports by the minute that this is happening in hospitals all over the state. Some reports are saying the staff who have suffered wounds from the patients who have died of cardiac arrest, come back in a dormant state. Showing signs of the patients themselves. Governor DeWine calls for a statewide emergency, urging people to stay in their homes until further information can be obtained. He urges everyone to stay away from anyone that may be dazed or foaming at the mouth. Also, anyone who appears to have white eyes. The government has yet to come out with a name for these things that are roaming the hospitals and our streets. A common name for them has been just zombies, but some are calling them lurkers. We will report back to you with any updates. This is Claire Davis here at Channel 9 News.

“My God Melissa. You see that report?” Hunter said getting ready for work.

“Crazy! My work just called us off. I guess there was a report of some guy showing signs of these very things. You surely aren’t going to work are you?” Melissa said with a what the fuck look. 

“Yes honey. This is a big crock of shit. Just like the Corona-virus. Like wearing these Goddamn masks. Not one of us has had that shit, but yet it is on the news twenty-four seven. I have a meeting today.” Hunter said unamused. 

“Ok. Well there’s Hunter’s school calling. I guess they are calling off school too.” Melissa said as she picked up the iPhone X. Melissa wasn’t mad at Hunter for going to work. She wished he would have stayed with them, but she was not mad in the slightest. “This will all be over soon. I gotta go. Bye honey, I love you. Kiss the kids for me will you? I can’t believe Belle is sleeping all through the night. She is so cute.”

“I can’t believe it either. I can finally get some sleep now.” Melissa said as she rolled her eyes. 

“I helped once by God, now come on!” Hunter said as he wrapped his arms around her hips and kissed her neck erotically. He gave her a thrust on the leg and said “I will see you tonight.” Melissa just laughed and got red faced while kissing him on the cheek. Then it was off to work for Hunter as he hoped into his car and turned on 102.7 WEBN on his radio. His favorite rock and roll station to get him going in the morning, along with his breakfast blend of coffee. It wasn’t two minutes down the road his favorite song Smells Like Teen Spirit was interrupted with an emergency tone that pierced through his ears like a nail going through his ear drum. After the thirty second tone, there was an emergency message; This is an emergency message from the state of Ohio, we urge everyone to stay in their homes. This is a…” Then suddenly in the middle of town, a man who looked like he was in a full panic, ran up to his car at the stop light. 

“Let me in man. Please let me in. I have a family…” He said with fret as he pounded on the driver side window. But before he could finish his sentence, Hunter freaked and drove away. What the fuck? He thought, second guessing going to work this morning. Then his phone rings, it’s his boss. He let it go to voicemail. “Yeah, Hunter I think you need to stay home for the day or least until they figure this shit out. We have a couple of guys outside beating on our doors. Be with your family. Stay safe.” 

4

As soon as he got turned around, he was on the phone trying to get a hold of his wife. “Why won’t she pick up? Pick up the damn phone baby.” He said to himself, trying to dodge traffic. Then suddenly, he was struck by a big diesel truck who looked like the driver was struggling on the inside to get out. This caused him to drift into a Walgreens parking lot. His heart by now was wild, feeling the pumping hitting his sternum made his breathing become very helter-skelter. He tried to call again. “Pick up baby. Pick up! Answer the Goddamn phone.” Still no answer. He sent text messages as well. Nothing. Hunter thought about getting out, but the truck that side swiped him was shaking due to the massive man trying to free himself from the cab. He could hear a slight screaming sound coming from the truck, but he couldn’t waste another minute to help. He needed to get to his family, because in the back of his head something was wrong. Way wrong. He flipped the gear shift back into reverse and punched the gas, making an awful squealing sound from the brake pads that were pushed into the tire weld from the crash. As he turned around, all he saw were...lurkers. Had to be hundreds of them. Going in between cars and walking at a pace that was very unsettling. They never ran, no. They just walked at that perfect pace to latch onto their next victims. As Hunter looked to the left he saw the guy in the truck fall to the ground, finally escaping what was in there. But as soon as he jumped he fell onto the blacktop, making him an easy meal for about fifteen lurkers who pounced on him. The last thing Hunter remembers seeing as he drove away to his house was that guy's intestines hanging from a hungry lurkers mouth. 

Hunter arrives at his home and the front door is already open. He hops out of his car completely expecting the worst. He gets to the front door and all he hears are screams. Oh my God. Oh my God. Not my babies! He thought as he began to run upstairs. He looked in Dalton’s room and there he was under the covers without a scratch. He grabs a hold of him and begins to search for the rest of his family. He then goes to Belle’s room and there is no one there. Shit. He starts to hear a groaning sound coming from his bedroom. He decides to open the door slowly, just in case a lurker was nearby. As he slowly pulls the door open and all he sees is Melissa lying there face down on the floor with Belle in her arms. But as the door opens more widely, he gasps in horror as he sees a lurker chomping at her backside, ripping out whatever he could find. And another lurker eating away at her toes. Hunter froze, unable to fully process what was going on. He took one more look at Melissa and Belle to see if there was any life left in their body. But as he did that the zombie went from her lower back as a kidney dropped out of his mouth to Melissa’s neck. Feasting away at her throat. Hunter looked down at the baby to see if she was alive, but all he could see was blood in the background of her skull. He started to get overwhelmed with emotion. He felt like dropping to his knees and begging God to make it stop. But he was rocked back into reality when he heard his son’s voice, “Daddy? Where’s mommy?” Dalton cried as he began to pick his head up from Hunter’s shoulder. “No son. Just keep your head down. We have to get out of here. Now!” Dad said as he closed the door slowly, not being able to see anymore. As the door closed, Hunter walked back down the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. Hearing the lurkers getting riled up as his bedroom door flew back open. Hunter sprinted back to his car, then fell over Dalton’s bicycle, where he twisted his ankle, causing Dalton to fall down onto his knees. He got back up, lurkers nearly at the opened door, put Dalton in the front seat of his car and drove off. Hunter, in utter shock, bit down on his lip and got back on route sixty-two, wide eyed, like he had seen a ghost, and just drove, never looking back. Until his car blew a front driver's side tire, and that’s where he began his walk where all he saw in front of him were tree’s and corn fields. 

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5

“You think we are safe here daddy?” Dalton said while Hunter was gathering things in the living room of the safe house that they would stay the night in. He was trying to build a fire, but Hunter was having trouble, especially without diesel fuel, like his dad used to use to burn shit. 

“Yeah, yeah I think it will bub.” Dad says. 

“Just need to find some gasoline. Going to get colder tonight. This November weather here in Ohio can get down right nasty. Stay right here. I will be right back.” Dad says to Dalton as he exits the backdoor. Running to a little white chicken shack, full of old junk. Finally, to his surprise, a full jug of gas. 

“Well it looks like we will be warm tonight. Found an old sleeping bag too.” Hunter says to his son, trying to make light of this whole situation. Once the fire was lit and the moon was full, Hunter snuggled in with his son to endure the night. Watching his son get heavy eyed and fall fast asleep. But right before he did, he asked one question.

“Dad, you think mom and Belle...are in heaven?” 

Hunter began to get teary eyed, still trying to grasp what all went down today. He looked down to his son who was wrapped tight into his arms, “Yeah. They are probably watching us right now.” Then Dalton finally fell asleep in front of the warm lit fire. Hunter was sobbing, as he reached for his wallet, grabbing the only thing he had left of them, a family photo. He laid there crying as he pressed his fingers against his wife's face. He mourned his wife and daughter all night. Tried to get it all out, because he knew tomorrow would be the first chapter of his new life. A journey he will take head on, with his son.