The infected was five steps away.
“Behind you,” I said.
Without even looking first, Torben readied his knife and span his body, connecting with the stomach of the infected and slashing a deep gash through its skin. Through the tear in its abdomen the infected’s rotten guts slipped out and slapped onto the floor. Torben sprang to his feet, hooked his right leg behind the infected and pushed it to the ground. He walked around to its head, lifted his boot in the air and brought it down with all his weight. The infected’s skull caved like a watermelon and sprayed bits of blood and bone onto the road.
Somewhere behind me, I heard the sound of someone retching. I couldn’t move my head because that meant taking the effort to reposition my whole body, and this would draw Torben’s attention to what I was trying to look at. I knew who was being sick behind the barricade. It had to be Justin. I just hoped he had the sense to keep quiet.
In front of me, Torben lifted his leg, propped it awkwardly on his knee and tried to balance. He picked at the grills of his boots with his knife and dug out a piece of flesh that had lodged between them.
“These are great in the snow, but they’re a bitch to clean,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, what’ve we got here?” He walked toward my rucksack, unzipped it and began to look through it.
The sight of the stranger fishing through my things made my blood run hot. I tried to pull my leg toward me, but the metal wouldn’t budge. As Torben looked through my bag, I slowly moved my body so that I could get a view of the other side of the barricade. I managed to do it without him seeing, and on the other side of the barricade, there he was. Sure enough, it was Justin, and his face was pale.
I flicked my head to the side, trying to tell him to run. Justin took a few seconds to comprehend my instructions, but he got them wrong. Instead of running, he started to climb the barricade. He put his foot onto a metal dustbin and began to work his way up.
To my left Torben pulled his hand out of my bag, and he had my GPRS in his palm. My heart pounded.
“Haven’t seen one of these in years.” he said excitedly. “Good thinking, using one. Course I remember once getting rerouted fifty miles and almost driving into a lake on account of one of these buggers.”
He pushed the on button. For a second, I worried that it would work, and that the route to the farm would flash on the screen. I didn’t want Torben to know where we were going.
“Broken?” he asked.
“It’s a piece of shit,” I said.
He put it in his jacket pocket. The sight of him taking what was mine made me want to get up and beat the crap out of him, but all I could do was grind my teeth and keep calm.
“Where were you headed?” he asked.
“Just wandering.”
“A fella from the town, leaving behind those cushy walls with a GPRS and a bag full of food? I’m no Sherlock, but to me that ain’t just wandering. ”
What could I say to him? That I was a scout sent by the town to see what I could find? That I just fancied a road trip? I needed something to tell him; anything but the truth.
“I got kicked out,” I said.
Torben walked over to me. He raised his boot and then brought it slowly down onto my arm, pinning it to the floor. I could feel the moisture on his boots from where he had stomped on the infected’s head, and the pressure of his foot made me drop my knife. I was powerless.
Behind him, the three remaining infected were closing in on their meal.
Torben’s eyes narrowed on mine now, and his voice was rough. “Don’t fuck with me. Nobody leaves that town – nobody. And to do it with a bag full of beans, means you got a plan. It must be pretty damn important to risk the wilds.”
He pushed down a little harder on my arm, and I started to feel it go numb as the blood drained from it. I said nothing.
“Now either you tell me where you’re going, or you can talk to the freaks behind me instead,” he said, gesturing toward the infected.
As I contemplated what to tell him, there was a clang of steel from the top of the barricade and Justin leapt off it, slamming straight into Torben and knocking him to the floor. The man led there for a second and tried to suck in a deep breath, but he was winded.
Justin was the first to his feet. He readied his knife in his hand with an awkward grip. Torben looked up at him from the floor. A smile spread across his face, and he laughed.
“Look at the little stalker boy,” he said.
Justin looked like he was shaking, and his face was still white, but he didn’t take his eyes off Torben.
“Come to rescue your dad?” said Torben.
“He’s not my dad.”
“No, you got more guts than him by the looks of it.”
Torben took a step toward Justin, but as he got closer, he held his hands up to show there was nothing in them.
“Come now, let’s play nice. No need for us to get off on the wrong foot.”
I was about to tell Justin not to trust him, but Justin had already dropped his knife, suckered in by Torben’s gesture of peace. Torben took another step, raised his fist and clocked Justin in the face, sending him to the ground.
I tugged at my feet but the metal wouldn’t budge. I still had my knife, but it wasn’t going to help much. My thoughts were flying through my head as the blood rushed through my skull. What was I going to do? Was he going to kill Justin in front of me and leave me for the infected?
Somewhere in the distance, there was the drone of an engine. I tried to reposition myself to see where it came from, but the effort was too much for me. Justin sat up now, and he shuffled away from Torben. The sound of the engine got louder. Torben turned his attention toward it, and a vehicle drove round the corner. It was a four-by four pickup truck with two guys sat inside and a man and a woman sat on the back. Next to them were lots of bags and crates. The truck smashed into the three infected, sending their frail bodies flying.
The driver wound down the window. “We found it, Torbs,” he said.
Torben nodded. He turned and looked at me, and gave me a smile so cruel that it froze my blood.
“I have to go now. But don’t think this is the end for us. I still have this,” he said, and patted his pocket where he had the broken GPRS. “I’ll find out where you’re going, and whatever it is you’re looking for, I’ll take it for myself.” Then he looked into my eyes. “As for you, you’re too good to waste with a bullet. You belong on my belt.”
He patted his belt and I saw the animal parts sway. He walked over to my rucksack on the floor, picked it up and threw it onto the back of the pick-up truck. Then he turned back to me.
“Get your little boy to help you loose, and then go. We’re going to play a game, you and me. You’ve got a head start, but you’re going to need to hurry. From now on, you’re hunted. Try and give a better game than this one,” he said, and pinched the human ear on his belt with his fingers.
He walked to the truck, put his foot on a tire and heaved himself onto the back. He gave the side of the vehicle a knock with his hand and the driver started the engine.
“Been a while since I got to hunt. Good luck!” he said, and smiled.
Chapter 9
I needed to find shelter before the sun completely disappeared and covered the countryside in darkness. We left Blackfoot as far behind us as we could, and as we climbed a muddy hill I looked over my shoulder from time to time, checking there was no movement coming from below. There was no sign of Torben and the hunters.
I didn’t know where they were headed but I knew one thing – they were hunting us now. Torben wasn’t just a survivor in this world, I realised; he actually relished it. The trophies that hung from his belt said as much. Everyone in the wilds had to hunt to survive, but I hadn’t yet met anyone else who wore the spoils of their hunt around their waist.