Dead Hunger II: The Gem Cardoza Chronicle (13 page)

“Understood.”  He walked toward the loading dock and we got back to the business of shopping.

“Hey, guys,” said Hemp.  “How about a bunk bed for the girls.  Save some space and they’ll love it.”

I pointed to one of the floor models.  “They’re boxed up right here.  They’re platforms, so no box springs required.” 

I walked up to Flex and spoke softly.  “I won’t miss the headboard, babe.”

He chuckled.  “I get it.  I’ll try to make sure you don’t just fly off the end of the mattress, okay?”

“You’re so sweet.”  I squeezed his arm.  “I’ll take a look outside; make sure we’re still clear.”

I went to the front door, checked the Suburban and everything looked okay.

In all we gathered a bunk bed with mattresses, twin mattress sets and frames for Bill, Cynthia and Max, a queen sized set and frame for me and Flex, a full sized set for Charlie and Hemp, and finally, a single twin mattress for Bunsen and her pups.

Hemp found a hydraulic pallet jack and rolled it over.  We loaded up everything we needed onto the wood pallet starting with the larger of the mattresses.  The metal frames and the box containing the bunk bed frame and ladder went right on top.  It teetered, but as we rolled it to the loading dock it was holding its own.

We were about halfway across the store when the radio clipped to Flex’s belt clicked once.

Then the gunfire started.  Continuous rounds, like panic firing.  Max wasn’t conserving at all, and at that rate he’d be out of ammo in mere seconds.

We left the stuff behind and ran for the dock.

Seconds later as we pushed through the doors and ran onto the concrete floor of the loading dock, Max was nowhere in sight and his H&K had fallen silent.  The bay door had been opened and the rear of the truck filled the space, pressed tightly up against the thick rubber bumpers.  The bay door beside it had been opened too, but only about three feet. 

A zombie’s hands appeared on the concrete just inside that roll-up door and next his head and torso appeared as he began to crawl up onto the platform.

All three of us fired at once, knocking the thing back in a spray of bullets, blood and flesh.  He dropped out of sight.

“Max!” Hemp screamed, running toward the open bay door.  Flex and I followed, and we saw Max’s body on the ground beside the van.  Five of the creatures were huddled over him, their faces buried in various parts of his body.

“My God, Max!” shouted Hemp.

Six other creatures lay on the ground nearby, and blood and chunks of gore had splattered up against the side of the white box van in a gruesome, dripping display.

There was nothing that could be done for Max.  His legs twitched as he was being consumed, but there was no saving him.

Hemp ducked under the rolling door and leapt off the dock onto the drive below.

“Hemp, no!” shouted Flex.  But Hemp heard nothing.

Screaming in rage, he ran toward them with his H&K and efficiently exploded the brains of each of the body eaters, careful not to hit Max.  Clearly it would not have made any difference, but we knew Hemp pretty well at this point, and it was out of respect for his friend and former colleague that he avoided hitting him.

By the looks of the creatures they were also from the cemetery.  This was getting worse, and we all knew it.  Poor Max must have found the key, gone down to start the van, and when he’d gotten back out he was overwhelmed.  Just time enough to take a few of them
out
before he was overrun.

Smoke was puffing out of the tailpipe of the van.  Max had started it up and the key had to be in the ignition.

Hemp grabbed Max by the shoulders, his hands struggling to find purchase through the gore, and began to pull him toward the dock.

Six more of the creatures appeared at the entry to the driveway and shambled down the
concrete ramp
toward us
, the downhill giving them more speed than they’d ordinarily possess
. 

“Hemp!  Get back up here!” I shouted, and he reluctantly looked up at me, then back down at Max’s body 

“Now!” shouted Flex.

Hemp gently rested Max’s bloody corpse back down on the concrete.  Looking back one last time, he ran toward the dock, leapt up and rolled once.  Flex was already on the chain and pulled the door closed when the zombies were still fifteen feet away.

“I’m going to make sure the front door’s locked,” I said, and ran.  I didn’t think.

“Gem, damn it, no!” shouted Flex, I heard his feet hitting the floor as he chased behind me.

As I ran I shouted, “Flex, we’re getting what the fuck we came for because Max isn’t going to have died for nothing!” 

I rounded the corner and Flex came up beside me matching my speed.  As the front entry came into view we saw thirty or more of the creatures outside the glass.  The door was still closed, but two of them, a man and a woman looking horribly wasted away had made it inside.

I raised my gun but Flex screamed before I pulled the trigger.

“No,
Gem
!  You’ll shatter the glass!”

I held my fire and ran full speed toward the woman and put a single round in her head as her teeth gnashed and her mouth opened in a moan-scream.  She fell, black ooze running from her broken skull.  Flex was on the other one, slamming his boot into its stomach.  It fell backward and he put his MP5 barrel to its face and put it out of its misery.

I reached the door as it began to pull open.  I let my gun hang from its strap and grabbed the door handle with both hands, pulled it closed again and
Flex
turned the dead bolt.

The creatures pressed against the glass, hungry faces, ragged clothing
and
mouths open in
ravenous
, eager displays of rotting teeth.

“Fuck, Flex.  Fuck!”

“Let’s go, now!” he shouted.

We ran back through the store and as we reached the cart I steadied the load as Flex pulled the pallet jack behind us and through the swinging doors into the dock area.

The van filled the opening to the bay, so no zombies could get in on either side.  I didn’t want to think about how many were outside, but there was no need.

Hemp had rolled up the back panel of the empty truck, its engine still running.  He’d found a crowbar and was busy frantically prying the metal grate from the front wall of the truck that would expose the rear window of the cab.  He was screaming as he pried the diamond mesh metal grating off the old wood of the inside of the van, and when he got it three-quarters of the way peeled back, he dropped the crowbar and curled his fingers around it.

With one last scream, he ripped it from the wall, reached down and grabbed the crowbar and smashed the rear window, allowing us access to the cab.

“We got this stuff, Hemp!  Jump inside and make sure those doors are locked!” shouted Flex.

Adrenaline pumping, I pulled the metal bed rails off the pallet stack and threw them inside the van.  I got behind it and pushed the bunk bed box off the top and it toppled inside.  Flex started grabbing the mattresses and together we unloaded all of the stuff in less than a minute.

Hemp was in the driver’s seat now and had the doors secured.

“Get through the window, babe!” shouted Flex, and I ran toward the opening.  He slid the truck’s door closed behind us and followed me.  I practically dove through the rear window head first and slid down, Hemp helping me into the passenger seat. 

Flex slammed his hand against the back of the box and said, “Go!  Go, Hemp!”

He saw what we saw.  What must have been thirty or more of the creatures
had surrounded the van, many of them clamoring onto the hood and side steps.  They scratched and clawed, trying to get through the glass at us.  They pounded on the doors and side windows in a frenzy.

Flex passed my Uzi through the opening, and I grabbed it, gripping it so tightly my knuckles were
white.  I shook uncontrollably
and looked at Hemp, his face
wrenched by
anger and grief.

He jammed the shift lever into first gear and eased the clutch.  Our forward momentum could not be stopped as we drove over the ghouls that stood in front of the truck.  The transmission whined as we made our way over their emaciated bodies toward the top of the ramp.

By the time we reached the top
of the loading dock ramp, they seemed frantic
, pounding on the sides of the truck, filthy, abscess-ridden hands as thin as bones leaving smears on the glass on both sides.

Could they feel frantic?  Could they know they were about to lose and apply extra effort?  I’m sure none of us had any idea, but our assumption would be no.

At the top Hemp shifted into second, cranked the van left, and gave it more gas.  The things were everywhere.  He maneuvered the big truck expertly around, through and over them, and we were finally clear. 

Hemp didn’t need the GPS to get us back.  He drove with abandon, and kept us moving as fast as he could until the gates of the steel
supply
came into view.

“Stay inside,” said Flex, as we pulled up to the gate.  We’d gotten the key from Bill, and Flex had it in his pocket.  He slid the rear door of the van up, jumped out and ran around, quickly unlocking the gate, rolling it open, and waving Hemp in.

Hemp drove the truck through the gates and Flex closed and locked them behind us.  As we approached the bay door Hemp honked the horn.  The door began to slowly rise, and I felt urine soaking my pants.

I don’t know what happened.  We’d made it back, and I just lost it I guess.  I started to cry.  It got worse when I felt Hemp’s arm over my shoulder.

I sobbed.  Hemp’s tears fell too, as he pulled the blood-streaked truck inside our safe haven and the door closed behind us.  I felt every ounce of pain in his heart, saw it in his face, in his eyes.  My body was racked with convulsions as I shuddered uncontrollably.

I didn’t notice anyone inside at that moment, staring at us in shock at the sight of the blood and gore streaked truck.

When my door opened, Flex lifted me out of the van and held me in his arms.  My heart was so heavy.  I had become, for that instant, certain that Flex had been right.

We didn’t stand a chance.

*****

We told the others what had happened; that the diggers had come out in massive numbers and it was way more fucking crowded than it once was out there.

Bill seemed worse at the news, too.  Like he’d just given up.  I didn’t blame him for one second.  He’d lost his wife and most likely his kids, too.  Hope was in short supply, so much so that even Flex, who had rarely had an extended period of melancholy, seemed to be at a loss.

But things still had to get done and we all knew it.  The mood was understandably solemn as we assembled the beds and planned out the division of the space for each room.   Hemp was busying himself with other projects to keep from thinking about Max, and it was obvious and sad.  He had some legitimate tasks ahead of him, though.  The zombies he had captured were still secured in the rear room of the lab, their knockout vapor nearly non-existent now because of a lack of food, but they weren’t in danger of dying; something that distressed us even more and reminded us of what we were up against.

The fuckers would never die unless someone killed them, and there weren’t near enough people out there doing the killing.

So it was my opinion that the freaks in the motor home either needed to be shot in their heads or the experiments be done.  None of us liked having them so near, and they had begun to moan.  In the middle of a long silence, their harrowing voices would drift through the enormous building like a wail carried on a breeze.  I got chills every time.

I worked
on
the building modification plans when measurements were provided.  While I longed to express myself – my way of releasing tension in the old days was painting and working with clay and almost any other medi
a
I could get my hands on – there was a need for my architectural illustrating skills, and I was good at it.  Once I finished drawing the plans, we’d set about assembling the materials we needed.  Then we could physically create the surroundings that would provide a more lasting sense of comfort and if possible, normalcy.

As I sat at the picnic table using supplies from the office to draw the plans on a large sheet of paper, Hemp strolled over and sat beside me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.  Flex was checking out some of the other vehicles in the lot, trying to pick a decent replacement for the Suburban.  Once he chose, Hemp would need to outfit it with weapons.

Hemp sat in silence and watched me lay out the blueprint.  I couldn’t stand to see him so sad.  I put down my pencil and took him by the hand.

“How are you, Hemp?”

He just shook his head.

“We can’t do any of this without you . . . the old you.”

“I’m not sure where he is right now, Gem,” he said.