The Survivalist - 02 by Arthur Bradley Page B

to catch his breath while staring down at the three bodies, Tanner was reminded of the second of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. Suffering is caused by desire and ignorance . In this case, he thought, their suffering was due to an uncontrolled desire to inflict harm on a man twice their size and meaner than a honey badger.
    He squatted down next to the woman. Dried blisters covered her face and hands. Her eyes shone in the night, a web of black ink streaking down her face like mascara at a pool party. Tanner wondered if the change to their eyes was the reason the infected seemed to prefer the dark. Certainly, every time—
    Something smashed into him from behind, knocking the rifle from his hands and sending it skittering away in the dark. He stumbled forward, barely managing to keep from falling. Blindly spinning around and pivoting off his back foot, he shot an elbow up at the attacker’s jaw. The man’s teeth smashed together, and his head whipped back. Stumbling back, his attacker began to wobble from side to side as he struggled to stay conscious. Tanner immediately swept his legs out and followed him to the ground with a series of brutal punches to the face.
    Before Tanner could stand back up, another of the infected jumped on his back, pulling a blistered forearm across his throat. He twisted his hips and flipped the man over his shoulder, slamming him into the pavement. As Tanner stepped in to finish him, four more of the infected swarmed around the corner. He glanced back to see if Samantha was within sight. She wasn’t.
    Facing a seemingly endless stream of berserkers, Tanner decided to lead them away. He screamed and charged directly into the oncoming group, barreling through them like a linebacker going for the quarterback. Hoping to draw their full attention, he paused long enough to add insult to injury by shouting a colorful expletive about their mothers having fornicated with a wheel of cheddar cheese. They screamed and tore out after him.
    The chase was on.

    Samantha lay flat on her back, staring up at the grimy undercarriage of a 2008 four-door Jeep Wrangler. She had no trouble fitting underneath, because, as she often told people, she was small for her age. The night was black and the fog thick, and she couldn’t see much of anything, except for the engine block above her. She lay there, breathing heavily, as she listened to Tanner fight the zombies. Footsteps. The pop of a gunshot. Then a second. More scuffling. Three more gunshots in quick succession. The sound of a foot stomping something solid and wet. Then nothing. She wondered if it was over. Before she could make up her mind, there were sounds of more fighting. Then Tanner screamed something about cheese and there were sounds of footsteps racing away. Then nothing.
    She waited. Were they still nearby? Did they know where she was? Had they killed Tanner? No, of course not, she thought. He was meaner and tougher than anyone she had ever met. Her bodyguard, Oscar, had been big and strong, and was probably some kind of kung fu master. But he was nothing compared to Tanner. Tanner was like a donut without the jelly filling—just hard through and through.
    She waited for a few more minutes, listening. The only sounds were her breathing and the steady drip of water from a nearby drain pipe. Then she heard something else. A soft weighty pat of someone, or something, walking without shoes. It reminded Samantha of how her own footsteps had sounded when she wore moccasins at summer camp. And there was an odor too, a powerful musky stink that was so pungent that it seemed to soil the air.
    It must be some kind of animal, she thought. Maybe it was one of the gazelles? The smell grew so strong that her stomach heaved. Certainly, something as cute as a gazelle couldn’t smell so awful. Images of monsters of every size and shape came to mind. Werewolf? Maybe. They stink, right? Maybe a troll. Surely, they don’t bathe regularly. She closed her eyes,