Chapter 8
Hermione stared in horror, her heart beating quickly in her chest as behind Draco lurched the form of a blond woman, her arm hanging in a bloody mess down the side of her. There were several more chunks were missing from her body, the clear signs of teeth marks around the wounds.
She was wearing an active wear shirt and bike shorts, though now the bright colored material was tainted with the blood of the woman wearing it.
Hermione's body was still feeling exhausted, from barely getting any sleep since the night she found Ron's corpse eating his mother's flesh, to the night back at the Leaky Cauldron, then the long broom ride with Malfoy to the moorland she had already felt worn out.
Now she had depleted what was left of her energy trying to heal Malfoy.
Why had it taken so much of her strength? She had never felt this way using magic before. It was like it had been ripped out of her, and the well that held it within her was drying up more and more.
Hermione didn't have time to think about that.
"Draco! Move!"
The woman was reaching out gnarled and to grasp his shoulder. Malfoy unfroze and jumped to the side, narrowly missing the rabid corpses snapping teeth as she lunged at him.
"Where the bloody hell did she come from!" Malfoy exclaimed, wincing on his barely healed leg as she scrambled back up to his feet, the woman changing directions for him again.
He backed up into a tree, a dire mistake he realized instantly, as the woman started towards him again, and he had nowhere to go.
Hermione glanced around desperately, looking for something, anything. There was a large branch sitting on the ground that could do some damage, but she would need to lift it with both arms.
She looked down at her arm cradled to her side.
She couldn't just do nothing. Malfoy was an arse, but he was all she had.
Ducking down as the undead woman approached Malfoy, caging him in as she frantically tried to maneuver out of her hold, pushing her back with his hands and just barely keeping her snapping jaws from reaching him.
Swallowing down what she knew would be a scream of pain, Hermione gripped the heavy branch, grinding down her teeth as she swung it around, knocking the woman away from Draco,
But, with her struggling hold and her now excruciating pain in her arm, it had not been forceful enough to stop her. Hermione dropped the branch, feeling the bones in her arm separating further and letting out a cry of pain.
Unfazed the woman stood back up, turning and latching her eyes on Hermione. Hermione was still letting out small moans, cradling her arm to herself as now she found herself trapped. She looked up to see Malfoy's large grey eyes watching her, then flickering out to the trees.
Escape. Malfoy was going to escape.
She was alone.
Readying herself for her fight, knowing that she way now alone, Hermione clenched her fists. She had nothing, and now she had stumbled too far to even try lifting the branch again.
Not that she thought she could.
The woman was gurgling in her throat, her eyes having gone dull in her death. Little red veins were burst in the, and her face – which might have at one point been pretty, was twisted in a snarl as she snapped her teeth in Hermione's direction. She reached out her good arm, grabbing a fistful of Hermione's top, the clothing ripping in the woman's hands as she tried to dive away.
She couldn't escape.
Hermione chanced a look up, Malfoy was gone.
Knowing that she had no other hope, Hermione raised her fist, bashing it into the woman's head. But, the woman had been freshly killed, and her skull was still hard.
She staggered, yet continued towards Hermione again.
Hermione's wand was heavy in her pocket, yet she already knew there was no hope in using it. Even saying Avada Kedavra did nothing. They just got back up – they were already dead.
Readying herself for another punch, Hermione took a deep steadying breath. She tried to focus, but her blood was pumping too quickly through her veins. She was vibrating with fear as the monster in front of her advanced again.
There was a blur of movement, then Hermione saw a large stone rock come down on the woman's head.
The woman fell down, then there was Malfoy, smashing it into the woman repeatedly. He was breathing heavily, and a line of sweat glistened down his face.
His dress shirt was torn and blood splattered, the head of the woman a mess on the ground as she finally stopped moving, her brains exposed through her smashed skull. He lifted his eyes to Hermione.
"That's for healing my leg."
He then turned around and lost the contents of his stomach on the ground beside them.
Hermione shook her head, feeling the rush of adrenaline leave her and tears welled in her eyes. She turned away, sniffing in the fresh air, and wiping her face before Malfoy could see.
She had been certain he would leave her, and she was incredibly relieved that he hadn't.
Maybe it had been for his own reasons, reasons Hermione couldn't contemplate, but somewhere in her thoughts, the idea that Malfoy wasn't so bad after all started to bloom.
Before she could think too deeply on that, however, she looked out into the trees and took a step back.
"Malfoy! We need to get going. Now."
"Just give me a second Granger, I'm only recovering from saving your arse." he replied sardonically.
Had it been under different circumstances, she would have pointed out that she saved him first.
"Seriously Malfoy," she said turning, "we need to go!"
She reached to him, grabbing him by the shoulder to lift him to his feet.
"What the hell are you talking about Gr..." he started to ask then looked up and saw what had her scared.
"We just can't get a fucking break, now can we?" he said in a monotone, reaching his feet, and now grabbing on to her, pulling her as her started to move away.
For, behind them now was an entire family of campers. All four of them, the parents and their teenaged children were advancing through the trees, bloody bowels hanging from their stomachs, mouths twisted in an unsatiated need for human flesh.
"How did they even find us?" Malfoy asked, pushing away tree branches, making them rustle and snap as they ran, his hand gripping hers in a tight vice-like grip as he pulled her along. She looked ahead, seeing the fear plain on his face.
"I think they can hear us, would you stop making such a racket?" she replied between her rapid breaths.
"That doesn't make sense."
"Well, what else do you have, Malfoy? I'm just as confused as you are," she grumbled.
She shook her head.
Any books they had made about these things, she had not been reading. She felt like it was the day she had learned she was a witch all over again.
The branches continued to whip by them as they ran, but Malfoy did not release Hermione's hand, his fingers digging into her flesh, unwilling to let her go.
She didn't want to be alone, either.
Small cuts gathered on her face and arms, as they tried to take careful steps and choose routes less populated by trees. The problem was, the easier for them that it was to move; the easier it was for their pursuers to follow.
Hermione glanced behind herself. Even though they had gained some ground on them, the lifeless family continued after them. The young daughter could have only been thirteen, her mouth a bloody mess as gore dripped down her chin, her eyes set hungrily in Hermione's direction.
A branch came out of nowhere under her feet, causing Hermione to stumble forward, knocking into Malfoy as they both crashed to the ground.
Her face was an inch from his as she looked into his eyes, the pupils dilated in fear. He made a growl of frustration. "Watch where you are going, Granger!"
Malfoy jumped back to his feet, reaching down and pulling her with him as they started running again.
"I don't have time to with you dragging me along like a stuffed animal, you dolt."
He grunted, but his breaths were too rapid now as he increased his speed to answer.
Hermione looked behind them again. Their pursuers had gotten closer.
"How are they moving so fast?" she gasped as she struggled to breathe.
"They aren't Granger. You bloody slowed us down!" Malfoy wheezed.
A painful cramp stabbed into her side, and her injured arm swung out bumping into a tree as they passed. She let out a cry of pain, yet snapped her lips together, trying to hold it inside of her as they continued to run.
She felt it more than anything when Malfoy started to slow, his hand sweaty where in held her, his grip slipping on her wrist.
"I can't keep going, we have to try to kill them Malfoy," she sputtered when they stopped, bending over in an effort not to vomit. There were now in a small clearing, a trailer beside them.
The blood on the ground indicated that if the campers following them hadn't originated at this site, there were more just like them to come.
Malfoy was breathing heavily through his nose, looking around at the trees and the grass for something. Anything.
They needed a weapon.
The bushes rustled and she looked up to see the teenage girl and her older brother just reaching the edge of the clearing, their steps stumbling as they walked over the thick greenery towards them.
The boy's chest had a screwdriver through it as if he had been the first to turn and one of his family members had been the ones to try to fend him off, not realizing it was a blow to the head that would stop him.
Hermione didn't have time to sympathize with the family's tragic tale, though she could sense there was one.
Hermione and Malfoy backed up. She looked side to side, seeing the camping gear strewn around the site. There were the remnants of a campfire beside it.
"Over there, maybe we can use something from that."
Malfoy looked at her with a moment of hesitation. There was also a great amount of blood splattered all around the area.
"It's that, or we keep running," she said turning and moving towards the gear. She heard Malfoy's steps following her as they reached the grisly camp site. She saw a body mostly eaten lying on the ground and had to look away or risk throwing up. She didn't have time for that.
The thing that really got her was that it was smaller, and looked like a child no older than eight.
Under a pile of tarps, she saw what she was hoping for, and she threw aside the blood-soaked covering and pulled out the small set of tools which was already opened. There was already a screwdriver missing, confirming her assessment that the campers currently after them had started out here.
She pulled out a hammer, the other screwdrivers too small to wield as a weapon. Then she looked over, seeing a stump on the ground and nearly shouted with glee.
"Malfoy, grab the axe!"
"The what?" He looked at her confused, his eyes lingering on the family which was now dangerously close.
"That sharp thing! Over beside you, in the stump of wood!"
He looked over, his eyes widening. He bent down, using a foot to unlatch it and it hung heavily in his hand as he gazed down at it.
"Do muggles usually keep so many sharp things laying around?"
She shook her head in exasperation. "Count your lucky stars they did!"
The family was nearly on them now, and Hermione knew they were outnumbered.
Bracing herself, Hermione stepped forward. She looked into the eyes of the girl and for a moment the image of her. The real image of her, the alive human one flashed before her eyes.
She hesitated.
Beside her she could make out Malfoy lunging forward, his axe raised as he sunk it down into the older boy's skull.
But still, Hermione couldn't do it. The hammer hung in her hands as she backed away.
She had been alive. She had only been a girl. Her teeth snapped at Hermione as she moved closer.
Ron had been alive, and she had loved him.
Just because she was this way, didn't mean killing should be any easier.
Hermione took another step back.
"Hermione! What the hell are you doing!"
Snapping out of it, she looked up to see Malfoy's pale frightened eyes as he gripped the axe tightly in his hand, the father of the family advancing towards him. Hermione looked ahead to see the girl nearly on her, her mother close behind.
She moved back, nearly tripping on something squishy under her feet. Her stomach lurched realizing what it was.
They weren't human, they weren't alive. If they were, the indistinguishable child behind her wouldn't be a bloody mess on the ground.
With a hard swing, Hermione brought the back of the hammer down on the girls head. It smashed through her skull with a large splatter of blood as it shot out to spray across her face. Hermione kept her mouth firmly shut.
The girl fell, Hermione having bashed right through to her brain in the one hard strike.
She reached down to pull the hammer free. She pulled, but it was stuck. Looking up she saw the mother only a few paces from her. Draco was busy fighting off the father, which was dangerously close to him as well.
She didn't have a weapon. She pulled again desperately on the lodged hammer, but it wouldn't budge free.
"Malfoy! Granger! Over here!"
Hermione's eyes darted to the side, never having expected to hear that voice again.
There was Blaise Zabini, broom in hand and standing next to the trailer.
