AJ: The Hunter

I had been watching him for three days so far. I had been making the usual rounds, scouting making bigger loops each time I went out. The mass of creatures that I had led away from town were still thronging on the road, and showed no sign of turning back.
It was when I was going through the Stirling when I spotted him. At first I thought it was another drooler. He was wearing a pair of plaid sleep pants, and a letterman jacket. He was dirty, and covered in what looked like dried blood. He was sort of limping along, and it looked like he was going for the old stirling mall. It was when he turned around and I saw he was carrying a baseball bat did the hair rise up on the back of my neck. The car was across the road, and behind a restaurant. He couldn't see me or even hear me. The Stirling was a pretty active drooler haunt. The militia base had been used to house refugees from the planes, and it had gone badly here. There were signs of destruction everywhere. burnt out cars, houses with all the windows smashed out.
He was shuffling along towards the mall. Baseball bat sort of limply dragging along behind him. There was a crowd of about 5 or 6 of the things around the doors of the mall. He shuffled up to them, and they never even gave him a second glance. He got within about three feet of the first one, what looked like an army guy, only there was no shirt, only camo pants, his chest was ripped open in a number of places. When our baseball bat wielding friend got within range the bat slowly cam up, almost to shoulder length. Thats when I noticed the spikes, big nails were nailed through the end of the shiny aluminum bat. The bat came down quickly on the soldiers head, immediately dropping him. What happened next was almost funny. The droolers turned to look at what the noise was, and just saw one of their own. He got two more like this before he dropped the ruse. He would shuffle to the outskirts of the group, whack one with the bat and shuffle off slowly. The droolers were so intent on the door that the only ones that paid any attention were the ones immediately next to the fallen one. He did this silent deadly schtick for about an hour, and I quietly watched him. I wasn't sure if he was some sort of new kind of drooler, or some scary freaky person. To come up with this plan a person would have to be nuts to begin with.
When he finished with the group, he made his way to the door. He reached over and pulled the door open. I waited outside for about a half an hour. Not exactly knowing what to expect, but kind of hoping to see him come out. Unfortunately the droolers were starting to come again, and another crowd started to throng around the doors. I made my way back home by way of the long route, to lead any of those things away from the real direction I was going. It was hard and a long process leading them away while trying to get back home, but so far i was pulling it off. I didn't tell anyone about what I had seen, I didn't want to worry anyone. They would either be scared of droolers that used tools, or scared for a real man out there alone.
It was about 6pm when I got back. I parked the car in its usual place. and went into the building. The guards had settled into a familiar routine, watch the cams, do the rounds, and make sure things were secure. WE had grown to about fifty people since rescuing Maria and her crew. A few were stragglers that came in through my scouting the area, others had simply driven by the building and stopped to check out why it was barricaded. Some of them had been careless, and led a few droolers to the building. We took them out as quietly as possible. We were working on a way to get people here, but not attract those things. The main suggestion was to barricade the streets around the building so that if they did lead them here they wouldn't get as far in. Sort of widening out the perimeter as they went. I was for that, but in a more honeycombed way. Make more than one line of defense to breach.
We were starting to come together as a community. While I was the only scout, so far. There were groups that went out into things once I got the way clear. They had so far gotten a bunch of furniture from close by houses, and schwartz furtiture. The fifth floor was coming together as a sort of living space. The old communal sleeping on the hard floor was gone, replaced by a nice almost comfortable sleeping space. The cubes had been almost totally dismantled. some rooms had been set up separating into different privacies, family rooms, single rooms, different things for different people. These rooms were different than the first ones we set up, the cube walls were extended, doubled, all the way to the ceiling. Personal privacy was back in some ways. There was still a communal sleeping area on the front of the building, sort of like a firehouse barracks now. This was for new arrivals. The fourth floor in the back was broken down for a sort of rec room. Games for the kids, couches, TV's, anything that could be salvaged from nearby. It was afar cry from home, but it was far better than what it was.
What all four floors had in common was one thing. The planters. Along all four sides of the building were long windows. and inside along all of these windows were the planters, some build using wood and plastic tarps, others simple drums of containers. These were filled with potting soil take from stores and houses. The planters were just bare earth now, but the seeds had germinated and were ready for full planting. We had tomatoes, potatoes, carrots. And a few pots of strawberries. It wouldn't be enough to feed us all, but it would be enough to provide some fresh variety to our diet while we lived out of cans for the next little while. There were plans to lay tarp and plywood on the roof and cover it with soil and plant there too. An idea I had gotten from a TV show on environmentalism before things went to hell. They were planting grass on the tops of skyscrapers to offset air conditioning or something. Right now we were using the roof for our outdoor space. Things were starting to get nippy so fewer people were going up there. Any talk of farming the roof would have to wait for spring, and depend on how winter went.
In the main room on the ground floor I marked more spots on the map. Showing where I saw activity, where there was the most damage. Where there were supplies and things that could be used by us. These things were compared against what we needed, what we were going to need for winter, and what we could reasonably carry. We had regrettably found little in the way of arms. Apparently when everyone had gone nuts guns were the first thing people looted for. I kept scouting around, hoping to find something though.
The things that were marked with red on the white board were places to steer clear of. Places where droolers outnumbered cockroaches. There were only a few places like that, the road out of town, the stirling, down south St where the hospital was. They were all do not fly zones. Blue, blue was another story. Those were areas that had things we needed. Grocery stores, convience stores, big houses with big pantries. Sometimes if something of note was there, something like a generator, or something I would mark that on the map. It was quadded off in sections, and out of the 20 or so sections of town I had scouted only 7. The scavenger teams would look at the map, see what I had marked, and go hunting. The team usually consisted of a five member team. they had similar armour to mine, and the younger guys had taken to modifying theirs. JJ was known for the red stripes he had with red electrical tape over the duct tape. They rarely saw action, I only sent them into clear green zones. places where drooler activity was nonexistent. They were for the most part kids, but they were training, and learning how to take care of things. There were plans for the future to train them in every type of weapon and fighting we collectively knew. Which at this point amounted to some karate, some gun play, some archery. Just the general stuff people pick up. In the common room Karate classes had already started.
The other two times I saw the hunter, what I've taken to calling my stirling enigma he was walking down the street the same way as before. Slowly shuffling. But this time he had a full backpack on him, and his bat was different. He slipped into some bushes, and I lost him again. The third day I saw him he was slipping into a building. A house with the windows boarded up. IF he lived there or was squatting it was impossible to tell. Exactly what he was is still impossible to tell.