Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (3 page)

With that in mind, e
veryone is pretty well screwed now
, and if there were children there, they are likely out of their misery, one way or the other
.

I was still in
Georgia
when I came across that
vehicle
. And then I saw what I first thought was some sort of disorganized flash mob at a park as I was getting ready to turn onto the freeway.  I only gave them a glance, and suppose I even smiled.  I found flash mobs cool, but beginning to get passé.  Kind of like the funky dances couples were doing at their weddings these days.

So I kept driving.  Had I stopped I’m sure I’d have seen what might now be called a feast mob.  The rotting, walking dead feasting on picnickers who had no idea they’d just learned that ants were no longer the biggest pests during a day at the park sitting on a spread out blanket.

Ah, but again,
I took no real notice of it.  Looked like a bunch of people acting silly.

So I drove on.

And before I hit the interstate, I’d already had a change of plans.  I’d heard that in
Tallahassee
, they had an antique car museum.  I’m not a huge fan of cars, but I am a fan of history, and I’d heard they had the hearse that carried President Abraham Lincoln.  Horse drawn.  That was something I decided I had time to see.  I’d left the house at 7:00 in t
he morning
and the drive to
Kennedy
Space
Center
was only an 8-1/2 hour run
. 
I didn’t stop for many
restroom breaks and
I was planning
to eat
on the
road
,
so I said screw it and
took the southernmost route
heading towards
Tallahassee
.

Plus, they had the
B
atmobile from the 1995 film, Batman Forever.  One of my favorite cars of all time.

If we’re ever in the area, I’m going back
to steal it
.  I could probably even get away with it these days.

So the trouble didn’t begin in earnest until I arrived at the museum.  I paid my attendance fee and went inside.  Lots of Prowlers, which were pretty cool cars, but they were not the Batmobile.  The hearse was cooler than the Batmobile,
if only for the history factor,
but
just
by a tad.

While I was leaning as far over the velvet rope as I could to look at the detail of the horse-drawn hearse that carried one of the greatest
United States
presidents of all time, a man pushed me.

He actually tried to grab me.  Security was lax, and nobody was near at the time.  I turned and scolded him.

“I’ll be done in a minute sir!  There’s no need to push.”

Admonishment complete.  Then he stared through me.  At me.  I didn’t really have any idea what he was looking at, but he stopped and smelled.  His nostrils flared, his eyes bore into me.  And he came forward again.

I backed away this time.  He looked absolutely mad.  When he kept coming, I turned and ran.

The museum was somewhat deserted.  Not very many visitors at that time.  It’s not exactly in a busy part of town, but it is a draw, from what I understand.  Not enough.  There were perhaps four other people in the room, but they were on the far side, and behind an old 1931 Dusenberg and a row of various Ford Model T cars.

“What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?” I asked him, turning back to shout at him.  Then he noticed the others by the Dusenberg and changed direction.  He was moving fairly fast, but seemingly with little coordination.

I know why now, but it was baffling then.

I’d had enough.  Moved to the door and encountered a security guard outside. 

“There’s a man in there I think you’re going to have to get hold of,” I said.  “He’s gone over the edge, I think.”

The older man looked confused.  “How so?  Dangerous?”

“My guess is yes.  You might want to call 911 if you’re not armed.”

The sixty-something man smiled.  “I think I can handle him, sir.”  He removed what appeared to be a pepper spray canister from his belt.  “Thanks for visiting.”

I shrugged him off and headed toward my car.  A woman lay on my hood, her arms spread out.  She was face down as I approached.

“Ma’am, what are you doing?” I said as I moved between the cars, approaching from the rear.  “This is my car.”

I fully expected she’d just get up and smile embarrassedly, and move on.  But that’s not what happened at all.  When her face turned toward me, her face was ashen and gray.  Her eyes were dead, yet they saw.

They saw
me
.  The instant she got me in her sights, she slid off the hood and came around.

A chill ran down my spine.  The man inside the museum hadn’t been this far gone, but they were clearly afflicted with the same thing.  Some bug.  Something was affecting them in a severe way.

“Ma’am, I’m going to call 911.  You need to sit down.”

She didn’t sit down.  Her arms outstretched, she rushed toward me, her purple, mid-length dress bunched and caught in her knee-high panty-hose.  She was in her early sixties as far as I
could tell, her hair died red and
the gray roots in need of color.

And she came at me growling.  She was saying something that at first I believed was “good, me.”

But what she was saying, I would figure out in my lonely jail cell.

“Food, meat.”

I’m sure of it now.

You see, in the beginning of this disease, after the migraine and before one loses completely the power of speech, the words they can say are like that of a baby’s.  They can say “hungry,” and “food,” and “meat.”

Unfortunately, they are the former and
we, the
uninfected
, are
the latter two
.  Within an hour
or so – I’m not really sure how long it takes –
they lose all ability to
articulate
language at all
, but the terrible craving remains.  The insatiable hunger
is all that’s left. 

Just then, a woman
carrying a small
Chihuahua
in her arms
came out of a porta-potty set up for some event that had taken place or was to take place later in the day.  There
was
a
line
of eight of
portable restrooms
, and she came out of the one nearest the row of cars.

When the door slammed, the woman-creature that had been calling me names like food and meat, turned toward her.

It
stagger-
ran toward the unsuspecting woman
, gurgling
, “foo, me, foo, me!” and
the
lady
who just exited the porta-potty stopped and looked at me
,
a
confused
look on her face.

“Run!” I
shouted
.  “
And
keep
running
!”

The thing’s attention off me now, I hit the remote to unlock my car door and
yanked
it open
, my heart pounding in my chest
.

But the damned woman
with the dog
didn’t run.  She stood there, dumbfounded,
clutching
the
small
dog tightly
in her arms.

“
Listen to me! 
Run!” I yelled.

“
What on earth is
wrong with her?”
she
called back
,
but
the time it took her to ask the question sealed her fate
.  The
infected woman
-creature
was just feet away from her when the confused, soon-to-be-victim bent over
to
lower
the dog
to the ground on
its leash.

As she lowered
the yapping, quite disturbed dog to the ground,
the woman
screamed as
her attacker’s
jaws clamped down on the back of her
neck
and
sank
deep.
  Even from where I stood I could see her tearing into the woman’s flesh like a cowboy at a barbequed rib eating contest.

I
ran
toward
them, unsure what I would do when I reached the pair
.

“
What in the bloody hell are you doing?” I cried
 
as I ran full out
, but she took no notice.

The dog had
reached
the end of its extend-o-leash,
then
had run
around and around the pair until it was only a foot away from them and unable to distance itself further.  Now on the very short leash and frantic, it spun in the air
like a
pinwheel
in a wild attempt to get as far away from the melee as possible.

I reached them and grabbed the
ill woman
b
y the shoulders and
spun
her away from the
badly bleeding
victim
, who had now collapsed onto the pavement
. 
The poor woman had fallen onto her back and
was writhing in pain, her knees pulle
d involuntarily up to her chest as she tried to untangle her legs from the now retracting leash.
 

Her cries of terror and pain were constant, like a horrid siren that pierced straight through to the brain
. 
But for me, I could only stare into the face of the thing I held, and it took everything in me to keep it from biting my face.  Its jaws snapped like a rabid dog and I was more afraid to let it go than to hold on.

So I pushed out hard, heaving it away from me with all I had.  The thing staggered briefly, then fell to the ground.  The crazed thing did not land near the woman, for I had pushed away from her on purpose.  I vaguely recall that the victim, who was bleeding quite profusely from her neck by that time, had freed her legs from the leash in time to scramble back to her feet and run. 

As for the creature-thing, it had landed beside the dog.  It seemed to move very fast in that moment.  It quickly snatched the canine into its clutching fingers, and in mere seconds the animal was in its jaws.  Both hands dug into the thin fur as it buried its face in the
Chihuahua
’s soft belly, ripping mouthfuls of meat away as it moaned with some sort of sick pleasure.

I was aghast.

The creature squealed in horrible pain as its life drained from its tiny body.

“Daisy!  My little Daisy!” I heard, and the fool woman who had only moments before had the right idea, turned around and ran back toward the thing eating her precious companion.  I threw my arms around the woman’s neck to pull her to safety, but she was now as pumped with adrenaline as me, and she slipped free, instead falling to the ground with a defeated cry.

But it was the chance I needed.  With quite possibly my last
burst
of
strength, I
yanked
the woman from the ground, hefted her
over my shoulder
without a moment’s hesitation
and ran her to my car
, my legs burning with each pump of my knees
.  I
went directly to the driver’s side rear door and opened it,
essentially throwing her into the back seat.  I
slammed the
rear
door
and jumped in the driver’s seat, pulling my door shut and locking it manually before firing the engine.

The thing eating the dog never looked at us.  I pulled out my cell phone as I peeled out of the parking lot and headed back
onto
Mahan
Drive
toward
s
downtown.

I needed to get this woman to a hospital and fast.
  I didn’t plan to wait there for an ambulance.

What I saw on
Mahan
D
rive
wasn’t much better.  I drove west as fast as I could, having no idea where the hospital was.  I knew I was heading in the direction of city hall from the signs I saw, so the police station would have to do if I didn’t pass a hospital along the way.

My head was spinning, and I couldn’t catch my breath. 
“Ma’am, just keep calm, okay?  You’re safe now,” I
said, dodging stopped cars and
blowing through traffic signals.  “I’m taking you to get help.”