Dead Hunger II: The Gem Cardoza Chronicle (3 page)

I needed to calm down.  I could do this, I knew.  So ignoring the crazed, screaming zombie hanging from my window, I made sure I was on a deserted section of the road before I downshifted and slowed the car to a stop.  I put it in neutral, set the parking brake, and left the engine running.

I calmly picked up the Uzi and removed the magazine.  I opened the metal box containing the ammunition, and found that Uncle Rogelio had restocked.  I filled the magazine, ignoring the pounding and screaming coming from my left side, then closed the box.  I secured the clamp, placed it on the passenger floorboard, and positioned the weapon in the crook of my right shoulder, the
index
finger of my right hand securely on the trigger.

I leaned back toward the passenger seat
, aimed toward the window
and hit the DOWN button.

I fired.  T
he lead that flew from my gun cut the fucker’s head clean off.  It tumbled to the ground as I rolled the window back up. 

I realized my entire body was trembling, and I felt vomit coming back up my throat again, so I dropped the gun on the passenger seat, disengaged the parking brake, pushed in the clutch, and took off again.  When I was five feet forward, I opened the door and the body dropped away.  I rolled another fifteen feet and stopped the car.  I opened the door and puked my guts until I was dry heaving onto the gravel road.

When I was finished, I felt better, but empty.  I got back on the highway, swerved around traffic snarls, more zombies and violated human bodies, and I didn’t stop again until I got to Flex.

When I saw him standing there in Jamie’s yard, I can’t tell you how I felt.  The tremendous sense of relief that I wasn’t alone in this anymore.  And when I saw the kindness and love in his eyes, I knew I was home.

I didn’t even give leaving my new Camaro behind a single thought as I got inside that old Suburban alongside the love of my life, Flex Sheridan and his little, beautiful niece Trina Leighton.

Whatever happened from this point forward, I knew we’d face it together.

CHAPTER
TWO

Charlie, Trina and I stood staring at one another, me clutching my Uzi and her holding her crossbow with an overstuffed quiver of arrows strapped on her back.  As isolated as Flex’s rural
Georgia
home was, it seemed trouble had found us.

The zombies had found us.

The machine gun fire echoed in my ears, endless amounts of it.  If there were that many zombies out there, Flex and Hemp needed our help.  I ran over to retrieve Trina’s .22 pistol and pulled it quickly out of the box.  I fumbled with a box of ammunition and filled it to capacity.  Only eight rounds.

Kneeling down beside Trina, I held the gun out to her.

“Baby, we’re going outside to help Uncle Flexy and Uncle Hemp.  I’m not willing to leave you here.”

“Gem,” Charlie said, worry in her eyes.

“I know, I know.”  I looked back at Trina.

“This might be scary, baby.  There are some men and women out there who don’t really look right, and they don’t act right.  They’ve got the same disease your mama had, and we’re going to have to shoot them.”

“Can’t we just lock her inside, Gem?” Charlie asked.

I shook my head.  “Charlie, I don’t know how many there are, and I don’t know where they are. I want her with us.”

I looked back at this little girl, who hadn’t said a word.  “Baby, can you be brave?  Take this gun and shoot one of these things if it comes near you?”

Trina looked confused.  “But you told me never to point it at anyone,” she said.

“I know I did, sweetie.  But remember, I also told you only if it’s a bad person.  These are bad people.”

“But mama wasn’t bad,” she said, her lip quivering.

“No, she wasn’t.  But this disease can change you, and the people we’re going to see out there are bad.  I want you to aim for their heads.  Only their heads.  Point it right at their faces, and if one gets near you I want you to be very brave and pull that trigger like we taught you.  Do you think you can do that?”

She nodded.  “I can.”

I gave her the gun.  She took it and held the barrel down toward the floor.

“You ready?”

Charlie said “Hold on.  Let’s grab extra magazines for Hemp and Flex.”

“
Shit
, how did I forget that?” I said.  My mind was whirling.  Of course we should bring extra ammo for them.

We grabbed a tote bag and dropped in everything we could carry.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Trina, stay behind us.  Look in all directions all the time, and if you see anyone coming near you that isn’t one of us, then you raise that gun and you aim for the head.  Don’t be afraid, just shoot.  One time.  If it keeps coming, you shoot again.  At the head.  Got it?”

“I got it, Gemmy.”

We headed out the door and ran at a speed that Trina could match toward the tree line.  The machine gun pops had become less frequent.

“They’re running out of ammo,” said Charlie.  “They’re preserving their rounds.”

I wanted to run faster, but Trina was struggling to keep up already.  As we approached the main path where the guys had set up most of the traps, we saw Flex and Hemp standing back to back
.  There
was a circle of zombies around them, some on the ground dead, but others scrambling over
their fallen brethren to get to them.

The air smelled of decaying flesh and gunpowder.  The haze of gun smoke obscured the woods, like a low-hanging mist.

“Flex!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, still approaching the woods.  “We’re here!  Hold on!”

We were just on the outside of the heavier trees, but could see both men clearly now, back to back, shooting one at a time, one round at a time.

Without looking at me he yelled “I’ve only got another couple of rounds left, Gem!  I’m not even sure how many
.”

Flex fired again, taking out the closest zombie with an explosion of decaying brain matter mixed with blood and skin.  Then he turned toward me and
just briefly,
our eyes met.  It was as though he was saying
good
bye
with that tremendously sad gaze, almost the same way he looked over a year ago when I told him I was leaving him.  I knew right then there was no fucking way he was going anywhere.

I’d die before I let that happen.  At least then I’d have no idea I’d lost him; I’d have no thoughts, no remorse, no sadness at all.  Ignorance is bliss.  Death creates ignorance.  Therefore death is bliss.  Fucked up logic, but I didn’t want to live without this man by my side.

“Don’t you dare give up, Flex!” I shouted.

I threw a quick glance back at Trina, who was right behind us, and reached into my bag as we stepped into the shade and within ten yards of the ongoing battle.  Several of the creatures had seen or smelled us, and moved in our direction, shambling over the uneven forest floor.

My hands shook as I pulled a full magazine out of the bag.  It was for Hemp’s MP5. 

“Here, Charlie.  Get this to Hemp somehow.”  I held out the magazine and she snatched it quickly out of my hand. 

I quickly grabbed another magazine for Flex’s K7.  There were around fifteen zombies closing in on them, their progress slowed by the stacking bodies on all sides.  There were now seven more moving toward us.

I heard one of the boys’ guns click.  A moment later, Hemp gripped his gun like a baseball bat, prepared to smash the nearest attacker out of the park.

“Hemp!  Catch!” shouted Charlie, and tossed the magazine toward him, now only
eight
yards from where they stood.  The moment the magazine left her hand, she let fly the arrow already locked in the crossbow and had another loaded within four seconds.  She was the goddamned cup-stacking champion of crossbow loading, firing
and
accuracy.

Two of the creatures, one in front of the other, felt the br
unt of her first arrow’s impact
as it entered directly through the
first creature’s
eye socket – which seemed
to be
her favorite target – and into the
cranium
of the one directly behind it.

Instead of falling forward, they staggered and teetered sideways, falling over like a zombie tinker toy.

A
dead zombie tinker toy.

Hemp swung his MP5 and smashed one of the decaying zombies in the side of the head, sending blood splattering sideways, and the monster to the ground.

“I’m dropping, Flex!”

Flex took a step forward.  They had been back to back, using one another to buffer the kick of the machine guns as they fired.  Hemp bent down and scooped up the magazine Charlie had thrown him.  As he bent down he ejected the magazine from his gun, and as he stood upright again, he locked the new one in place and fired just in time; two zombies were within three feet of him.  The blood sprayed, and the zombies went down.  They began to fall backward, but the two layers of oncoming creatures pushed them forward and they collapsed almost at the men’s feet.

“Flex!  I’m throwing you a full mag!” I shouted, and I tossed it. 
Shit!
I thought.   It was nowhere near where it had to be for him to reach it.  It
landed
five feet away and there were more zombies closing in from
all
sides.

I might have just killed him.

Trina stood, gripping her revolver in both hands, the hammer pulled back.  I looked quickly down at her and prayed with all my might that she would live through this.

“Be ready, Trini!” I shouted.  I ran into the trees behind the zombies closing in on Flex and once I was sure the boys were out of my line of fire, I took out two of them.

Both had been completely nude, their bodies covered in pustules, cuts and welts.  Their skin hung in flaps from their arms, legs and faces, and once my rounds exploded their brains, the damage was complete.  They fell away.

This opened up a path for Flex, who ejected his spent magazine and dove toward the errant one I’d thrown.  He landed nearly atop it, grabbed it and slammed it into his gun. 

But they were nearly on top of him already.  I held my breath and prayed even harder, unable to fire on the threat without hitting him with my spray of bullets.

Lying on his back
he fired up
ward
and took out two that were ready to drop down on top of him.  By the time they did, they were a mass of blood and gore and no longer a threat.

This shit was too crazy.  And my little Trina looked frozen.

“Trina, stand with your back against a big tree, honey!  Now!”

Trina, despite her obvious fear and confusion, obeyed immediately.  She had not yet fired a shot.  She scurried to a large pine and pressed herself against it, her gun held high in her hands.

Charlie ran into the woods, and it appeared she was attempting to flank the remaining zombies.  As I fired and took out another three in four quick bursts of fire, one of her arrows flew and pinned another of the formerly female creatures to a tree.  She’d missed her head, but the arrow appeared to have punched through her shoulder blade and embedded deep into the pine, pinning the human-thing there.

She ignored that one, no longer an immediate threat.  She was using her arrows sparingly, making each one count.

Flex and Hemp were both back in business, and it seemed, gaining the advantage and their confidence once again.

“
I think we’re going to get ‘em!” Flex shouted, bringing down another creature who wore what appeared to be the uniform of a restaurant busboy or dishwasher.  The once-white apron was covered in blood and filth, and now, much of the busboy-zombie’s brain.

The clouds had been building all day, and now thunder rolled across the sky above us.  The day had begun to grow darker,
and shadows closed in on
us, the smok
y
haze combining with the fading sun to make visibility an issue now.

“Gem!” shouted Hemp.  “Trina!”

I looked over, the immediate area around me clear for the moment.

One of the shambling creatures was five feet away, approaching her head-on, and I was too far away to kill it.  Charlie, who was about thirty yards on the opposite side of Hemp and Flex, let arrow after arrow fly, making good progress taking out the moving de
ad things, and as far as I knew,
she wasn’t aware of
Trina’s situation
.

My heart skipped two beats and I held my breath as I watched her, her arms held straight out, both hands gripping the butt of the revolver.  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her; I wanted to call out to her, tell her to
shoot, shoot!
but I didn’t want to distract her for a split second, because I knew if I did, she would look at me in time for me to see her die.