Down: The Fall

Chapter Eleven: The Wanderer

Four days after the event:

Gray limped quickly from tree to tree progressing through the woods towards the gravel drive way ahead. He heard a twig snap behind him and turned to look. Nothing. Something was behind him he knew it he could sense it.

It was the fox, it was hunting or better yet had been hunting him.

After escaping his car and traveling down the road a bit he'd ran into other people. A few had escaped their cars already, some had to be helped to get out. There were fifteen people altogether. Eight women, a toddler, and six men made up their group. There would have been one more but they hadn't gotten to the last vehicle in time. They found a small pickup in the ditch with a young mother and her son. They could tell the mother had tried to get out because of the blood on the window. She must have tried beating through as a frustrated last resort. They'd managed to work together using a srew driver to leverage the door handle up. Gray and two other men had hung by shoestings and pushed until the door came open slightly. Then they'd used the screw driver again to prise the door open. They found the mother dead laying crumpled in the drivers seat. She'd suffocated from the heat as she had fervently worked to get out if the car.

The little boy was still breathing and once he had time to rest and get a little water he was up and moving around. The group headed towards the town Graydon had originally been heading to, in search of help.

They walked for most of the day until they came to a cross road. This had been were Graydon had been heading before the event took place. County road thirty five with a small green sign saying 35 lay ahead of them. They traveled for a few hours until darkness set in. Gray used his matches to start a small fire as two of the other men gathered twigs to burn. They ate a small portion of what little food they had and went to sleep.

Later that night Gray woke up to a rustling noise behind him. The fire had burned out long ago and it was dark. The moonlight was bright and illuminated the night enough for Graydon to see what made the noise. A large racoon, maybe the one he'd seen while in his car sat close to their campsite. It was eating something that he couldn't see. As the racoon turned its head to the side illuminating its meal it was all Graydon could do not to cryout in horror. He seen a pair of legs sticking out of its mouth.

Apparently Gray wasn't the only one awake a loud scream came from behind followed by cursing and more screams. Everyone had glimpsed the horrible sight he had.

The screams caught the racoons attention and it hissed loudly at the group of little people before it. Blood sprayed across them causing more screams. Graydon had never had a weak stomach but he threwup right there.

The racoon let what was left if the body fall with a splat to the ground. Gray didn't even have time to see who it was as the racoon came barreling towards the group. Everyone took off running as the racoon snatched up yet another of the survivors. A young woman named Ilene wailed as the racoon lifted her towards its mouth. It bit down tearing her body in two just below the chest. The muffled screams abruptly stopped, and strangely the flailing legs kept kicking as the racoon sat chewing on the body growling as it did so.

Everyone ran, not really paying attention to where either. They ran for a while befor finally stopping. Only eight were there, not only had they lost two to the racoon, but now five had gotten hopelessly separated in the dark woods at the roadside. They'd left all their supplies in the haist to escape the racoon. They had no way of starting another fire. Deprived of even that simple comfort and security no one slept the rest of the night. They just sat quietly, jumping ever so often as they heard rustlings and twig snaps in the dark.

The next morning eight weary, frightened, and exhausted travelers wandered through the woods. Soon after the sun after the sun rise the toddler began to cry from hunger. No matter how they tried to comfort him he wouldn't stop. No one seen this as a huge probablem until Neil, a tall blond lanky fellow spotted a flash of orange behind a bush. " what was that " he'd cried, right before the fox had pounced on the members of the back of the group and carried away an old man named Larry. Yet again they'd screamed and took off running until they found a hollow in a tree trunk to hide in. They stayed there all night and didn't come out till the next day.