Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (37 page)

“Monsters,” I said.

“Yep,” said Dave.  “I figure that’s what they are.  I also think of it another way.  I’m doing a favor to the f
amilies of these things and to the
creatures themselves.  I’m putting them out of their misery, and giving the families closure.   You know what it was like, right?  For Flex to see his sister that way?”

“
Yeah,” I said.  “Flex acts like a tough bastard, but it was very hard on him to see Jamie like that.”

“What about you?
Anyone you love turn?
”

“Nobody I loved, but I did see
my
asshole cheating
boyfriend that way,” I said.  “I’ve only seen someone I love killed by them.  I never want to see that again.”

“
Well, no family member should ever have to lay eyes on someone affected like that.  No one should have to be afraid of someone who used to love them.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“
I have a good feeling about this, Charlie,” said Dave.  “And maybe whoever has Hemp never intended to hurt him.  He’s smart, and they probably want his ideas and expertise, not his life.”

“They’ve taken
my
life
from me
,” I said.  “And that is goddamned unacceptable.  I want him back.”

N
ow we were thirty minutes out. 

“All I know is that his house is on
a bay
on
a big lake
,” said Dave.  “I’ve seen pictures of it on the news, but where exactly it is, I don’t know.”

“Life without Google,” I said.  “It’s a bitch.  Guess we’ll just follow signs.”

“Hey, Charlie. 
Right here,” said Dave. 

The sign said Exit 13, Shelburne.

“Well,” I said.  “We’re here.  Now we need to find a place to get some food and make a plan.”

“We need to pinpoint where Carville’s house is,” Dave said.  “If he sent a team to
Concord
to get Hemp, then he’s got resources
that might be patrolling
.  We need to move around in the dark and we need to be quiet.”

 
I nodded agreement.  “We’re on the same page.”

I followed the exit road around in a circle, and ended up heading west on the 189.  Cars were thick here.  Overturned, parked, and burned.   I slowed, moving around them where I could, sometimes driving the grass shoulder to get around.  There were several points where we thought the winch was going to be necessary again, but we were able to get through the mess with some three-point-turns and some damned good driving, if I say so myself.

Obviously it wasn’t my primary concern, but
I was a bit worried about scratching Gem’s baby.  She could forgive a lot, but besides her original Uzi and Flex and Trina, not much meant more to her than this Crown Vic.

We got through
and
reached
Shelburne Road
.

“Shit,” said Dave.

There were bodies everywhere.  The stages of decomposition were so severe, it was impossible to tell whether they were once human or zombie.  Now they were just horrific.  I pushed the
recirculation
button on the air conditioning to make sure we didn’t have to smell it.

“Somebody’s doing a job on them,” I said.

“
If these are all dead zombies, g
ood for us, I guess,” said Dave.  “
If not, they seem to be winning. 
Wonder how many people lived in Shelburne.”

“
Turn left onto
Shelburne Road
.  Then proceed
2.9 miles to
Bay Road
.”

The GPS bitch had spoken.

“
Where should I go?
” I
asked
, looking at Dave.

He scratched his chin and smiled at me.  “Go right for now.  Let’s do some recon.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

Dave checked his watch. 
“
Almost three ‘
o clock. 
Let’s find a hotel or something.  We can grab a room and figure out our next move.”

“Creatures of habit, aren’t we?” I said.

“Locked rooms are good in a place like this. 
I could use a nap anyway,” said Dave.  “
Plus, they’ll have a candy machine.  Once I’ve got some sugar in me, we can
make
a plan.”

“You might have to skip
the nap
,” I said, making the right.  I drove less than a
three blocks
and hit
Hadley Road
, where there was a Liberty Inn & Suites.
  “Bingo,” I said.

I pulled the truck into the lot and
around to the back side away from the street.

Instantly a figure emerged from around the corner of the hotel. 
It was formerly
a woman, her once blonde hair dark at the roots, her skin almost a
brownish-
green color.  She looked at the ca
r and shambled slowly toward us, her coral colored pants tattered, one white canvas shoe on her left foot, the other a mass of blood and bone, but obviously enough to keep her mobile.

Dave nudged me and pointed at his rear view mirror. 
“There’s
another
.
  Pretty strong pink in the eyes.”
  This one was approaching from the rear of the car, more bones than meat.  It’s face was half devoid of skin, and the eye sockets were dark, save for the iridescent, pink vapor hovering there, telling us it had eaten recently.
  It was a male.

“This one has the vapor, too,” I said.

“I wonder who the unlucky meal was,” Dave said. 

“Long as it wasn’t . . .”

I didn’t finish what I began to say.  I didn’t even want to let my mind go there.

“This is a job for
Urushiol
!” said Dave, in the voice of some infomercial ad man
or comic book superhero
.

“You’re hilarious,” I said, handing him a spray b
ottle from under my seat.

He held up a bottle.  “Got one.  That one’s for you.”

“Okay, let them get into position, then I’ll coun
t to three and hit the down buttons.”

“You get yours,”
said Dave.  “No offense, but I’
ll feel better controlling my own window button.”

“None taken,” said Charlie.  “For the record, I’d rather be making this kill with the crossbow.”

“Hereby recorded for posterity,” said Dave. 

“I fucking hate this,” I said.

“Me, too.”

“Are we stalling?”

The creatures were literally pounding on the side of the Crown Vic, and we could hear their guttural moans and growls as their
teeth gnashed and their
useless fingers tried to penetrate the glass and get inside the car.

“We might have been stalling,” said Dave, rolling down his window and hitting the man, who had been dressed in a suit, indicating he was a digger, directly in the eyes with the urushiol spray.
  “But not anymore.”

When I heard his window go down, I had to watch.  The eyes bubbled in the sockets, and the face imploded on itself, then disintegrated.  As we had seen in the past, it began to melt down into the body of the digger, but there
apparently
wasn’t enough
meat in the chest cavity
to hold it up or slow its progress.  The head
appeared
to drop inside
the body
, and as the creature’s legs staggered involuntarily away from the car and turned sideways, the body literally split in two,
splitting front
from back, and fell in different directions to the asphalt parking lot
with a dull splat
.

Only the moldy, patent leather dress shoes kept the two pieces together.

“
That
was weird. 
Now you,” said Dave, rolling the window back up.  “No more spectator shit.”

“Gotcha,” I said.  But the female zombie’s face was pressed so hard against the glass on my side, that I didn’t want to open it at all.  Her vapor looked strong, too, and as if on cue, it began puffing out in clouds, the mist clinging to the glass.

“Just crack it and knock her back,” said Dave, growing impatient.

“Okay, okay,” I said.  I hit the down button for a split second, and the vapor came in as I pumped the spray bottle.

“Fuck!” I said.  The bottle didn’t spray.  I held it up and tried it again.  Nothing.  Click. Click.  The pump mechanism was broken.

“Here!” said Dave, holding his bottle to me.

But suddenly I was dizzy, and I couldn’t hang onto my bottle.  I felt myself falling toward the side window, my head hitting it as the spray bottle dropped into my lap.

The last thing I remember were filthy, bony fingers with some sort of meat beneath the fingernails reaching inside the window toward me.

****

I awoke with Dave sitting on the bed beside me.  His hand gently slapped my cheek, and his face swam into focus.

“Dave,” I said.  “What happened?”

“You got gassed girl,” he said, smiling.  “How do you feel?”

I pushed myself onto my ass and realized I was wearing different clothes.  I looked down at my shirt and glared at Dave.

“What the fuck?”

“Sorry.  You threw up, and I had to get those nasty clothes off you.  Don’t worry, Charlie.  I respect your relationship with Hemp.  Nothing happened.”

“Well, I fucking know nothing happened,” I said.  You put me in a fucking Hall & Oates tee shirt?”

“I just grabbed my bag,” Dave said.  “It’s Lisa’s.  She went to a reunion concert a while back.”

“Okay, tell me what happened.  I remember my spray bottle wasn’t working.  I think we need to stick to top quality sprayers from now on.”

“No doubt,” said Dave.  “The bitch’s fingers were in the window
trying to scratch the top of your head.  You passed out from that vapor shit, and I pulled you away and rolled up the window.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure.  Then I grabbed my bottle and jumped out my door to come around and take her out, but I slid in that slime from the one I killed, landed on my ass and almost brained myself.”

“You okay?” I asked.

Dave turned his right arm.  It was covered with bloody scrapes.

“Fine.  We’re both fine, which is good.  Anyway, I got back to my feet and ran around.  She was trapped in the door by her fingers, so I just sprayed the shit out of her until she was a blob of shit.”

“Thanks,” I said.  “I owe you big.”

“No scores,” he said.  “I have other good news.”

“What?”

“I have Reese’s Pieces, M&Ms, and some Cheez-Its.”

“Find some change in the car, did you?”

“Smashed the machine.  Thank God for preservatives.”

“Yep,” I said.  “
That’s right. 
God
did
make preservatives.”

“I have other news, only it’s not good.”

“What is it?”  I didn’t need bad news.

“It’s great
news actually
, Charlie.  I know where Carville’s house is.  Exactly where.”

“How?”

“There are only four attractions in town,” he said.  “The
Vermont Teddy Bear Company, the
Shelburne
Museum
, and Shelburne Farms.”

“And the fourth?”

“It’s a drive-by tour of the home of billionaire Ryan Carville.”

“No shit.”

“None at all,” said Dave.

“Can we take the tour?”

“Yes,” said Dave.  “It’s officially closed, but I’m thinking about another approach.”

“What do you mean?” I said, sitting up, and holding out my shirt again, shaking my head.

Dave pulled from his back pocket a brochure. He opened it, and an aerial photograph of the home of Ryan Carville unfolded. 

“It’s on the lake, like I thought.  We should find a boat and approach by water.  At night, of course.”

“
What about noise?”

“Electric motor,” Dave said smugly.

“
Is that all?”

“Is what all?” Dave asked.

“The plan.  We can get there.  Any plans after that?”

“Geez, Charlie, I was waiting for you to wake up.”

“How long have I been out?”

“That shit happened yesterday.”

“Fuck,” I said.  Then I looked into Dave’s eyes.
 
“And Flex and Gem aren’t here yet?”