Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (49 page)

I was almost certain they
were dead.  Pangs of guilt took me.  Those men seemed like good fellows in a bad position.

“Let’s go,” I said.

The gurney that had held Veronica had flipped onto its side, facing away from us.  A moment later, we heard scraping, and scuffling.

Veronica stood shakily from behind the overturned gurney.  Her eyes w
ent immediately to her father,
just feet away.

“V,” he said.  “Baby V.  You’re okay.”

She moved toward us, and I took an involuntary step back.  I could see her left arm was broken, as it dangled uselessly from her shoulder.  She’d lost an eye, and her clothing had been blown from her body.

Still, she advanced. 

“Baby, it’s
daddy
,” Carville said, a slight smile on his face.  “Hemp’s going to cure you.  I’m going to have my baby back.  You’ll have your daddy.”

Three feet away.

“Mr. Carville, come!  She’s not your daughter anymore.  Run,
now
!”

Instead, he stepped toward her.  I stood for a moment, horrified and unable to process why he didn’t heed my warnings.  Still in shock, most likely, and perhaps deafened by the explosion.

In an attempt to move her away, I
moved behind her,
put my hands on her shoulders and
pulled her backward
, but she fought me,
breaking away from my pull with ease,
her
one good
arm clawing, reaching out
for her father.

And I had gripped her tightly and leaned backward.

Horrified though I was, even at that pivotal moment for Ryan Carville, it occurred to me that none of us had ever felt the power of these creatures, and for good reason.  We had never physically battled with them for fear of being bitten or scratched, but now, with this new weapon I’d created purely by accident, they did not fight us.  They did not attack us.

It was, put simply, as though we were a chair, or a table.  It was not movement that drew them.  It was solely scent and their hunger.

Their dead hunger.

This time I
ran
through the gaping hole in the acrylic cage and stepped into the hallway, wading through the rubble of aluminum, plastic, stainless steel and glass.  Reaching the bodies of Billy and Frank, I knelt down and rolled
Billy’s
body over.

He was breathing.  I made note of it and took his gun from his side holster, then ran back to the lab.

Carville now
held out his arms as if to embrace
the girl-thing who was once Veronica Carville, and there was no fear in his eyes.

In fact, watching the two, arms outstretched, walking into one another, I could almost have imagined they would embrace and hold one another, an expression of love.

It was when her teeth closed on the meaty flesh of Carville’s cheek ripping it away, that the illusion died, as surely as she had all those months ago.

Carville’s agonizing scream filled the destroyed lab, but it was short lived.  When her rotted jaws closed on his throat and ripped it from his neck, his life spilled in flowing, scarlet rivulets to the floor and his screams became gurgles.  Seconds later, as I watched in fascinated horror, Carville fell limp, only remaining upright by the grip of her oddly powerful arms.

I
walked up behind her, put the pistol to her head, and fired
a single round
into her brain.

S
he collapsed atop of the man who’d fathered her.

It was over.

I ran to where
Billy
lay and tried to wake him.

****

Rory sat on the floor and leaned against the wall beside
Gary
, his expression revealing that he was more pissed off than scared.  He was wrong, in my humble opinion.  He should have been an equal amount of both.

“
Gary
, there are two ways this shit will end.  Not one.  Not three,” said Flex.   “Way number one is that you’ll be dead.  Way number two is that you’ll be alive.  What’s it gonna be.”

Gary
stared at
us, his eyes moving from one to the other.  His blonde hair was neatly trimmed, and he looked as though he should be wearing a damned sweater tied around his neck.  A preppy
dickhead
.

“I need to radio upstairs.  It’s where they keep your friend.”

I looked at the others.  “Should we just go up?”

“There are doors you’ll need to get buzzed through.  Mr. Carville’s not stupid.”

“He’s gonna die if he’s lying,” said Flex, with a shrug.  “What the hell.  Give him the radio.”

I did.  He turned it to channel 22 and put it to his lips, his eyes on Dave’s gun, which was pressed against his temple.

He pushed the button and said, “Code Z.  Let them go.”

Flex punched the little blonde prick square in the nose, sending his chair flying backward, him in it.

Dave put his gun away as Flex’s arm was completing its follow through from the blow he’d administered to
Gary
.

At the very moment the gun bottomed out in the holster, the l
ow thumping that had been just barely audible since we’d gotten inside stopped
, and was
followed by a bone-jarring blast.

It knocked us all
off our feet
and the ceiling above us collapsed, chunks of drywall and insulation raining down on top of us
.  The front doors, heavy mahogany, blew
outward
off the hinges as if they were made of paper, and we lay there among the debris, stunned.

My ears rang.  Loud.  I saw Gem, and vaguely wondered about the baby she carried inside her.

I held my nose and blew, trying to pop my ears, but nothing happened.  It only hurt.

Everyone was climbing back to their feet.  Serena was slower than the rest to get up, and Dave went to her and helped her to her feet, then steadied her.

“Serena, are you alright?”

“I can barely hear you,” she said.  “Muffled.”

“I think it’s getting better,” I said, and it was.

“Jesus Christ
,
”
said
Dave.  “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t have
a
clue,” said Gem
, rubbing her ears, her Uzi hanging from its strap
. 

“Baby, are you alright?” asked Flex, going to
Gem
, his hand moving to her stomach.

“Yeah, I’m fine
– at least I think so
. 
Ears are screwed, just like everyone’s, but
I just got knocked down, is all.  I’m really fine, babe.  Something tells me we need to move.”

Flex went to Rory, who was moaning as he rolled on the floor.  “Get off your ass and take us to where Hemp is.”

“My damned leg is busted,” said Rory.

Flex pulled him up, and Rory’s left leg flopped to one side, clearly broken at the knee.  Flex searched the floor, then looked up at the ceiling.  “Shit.”

I looked up.  Half of an air conditioning unit was visible, and the other half was three feet from where Rory writhed on the floor.  It had apparently fallen and smashed his knee.”

“Leave him, Flex.”  I turned away from them, searching through the sprinkling dust and debris. 
“Hemp!” I called, running down the hall,
barely able to hear my own
voice
.  I had
my crossbow back in my hands and ready.  I didn’t bother dusting the crap out of my hair.  I was going to find my husband, and if I didn’t look my best when he saw me, so what.

I
barely heard the footfalls of
everyone running
behind
me. 
Suddenly, t
wo men came
charging
around the corner.  They both had
camouflage on, and carried sub-machine
guns.  I took the first one out with an arrow to the neck, and
dropped quickly
down. 

We’d surprised them. 
Dave was right behind me an
d took my cue.  His silenced pistol laid down the other one as his center mass collapsed inward, blowing through his back.  His weapon, which had only seconds before been trained directly at us, clattered harmlessly to the floor.

“Hemp!  We’re here!  Where are you!”

We all shouted now, running through the hallways that led into large and small rooms.  Hemp was not here.

“Upstairs?” I asked anyone.  “Is there a basement?”

The lights were on, but I didn’t know that we could trust an elevator in case Carville or his crew cut the power.  “Open every door.  Find some stairs leading up or down,” I said.  “Let’s stay together, though.  We’re a powerful force that I sure wouldn’t want to come across.”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” said Tony, awe in his voice.  “One fuckin’ night and you did what we couldn’t do for months.”

We pulled open a door and found stairs leading down.  The stairwell was lit only by three low wattage bulbs, but we could see.  There were three flights down, and I’m not sure about anyone else, but I took them three steps at a time.  I reached the bottom door first and pushed it.

I wouldn’t budge.  I got back and charged it, ramming it with my shoulder.  The latch wasn’t engaged; I could tell that, but it wouldn’t open more than an inch.

Everyone stood on the landing behind me now.  “Let’s shoot the shit out of it,” said Gem. 

“One at a time,” said Dave.  “Everyone else, cover your ears.  I’m pretty sure they’ve had enough damage, and it’s going to echo in here.”

“Flex, you go first,” I said.  “Empty it in a straight line.  Let’s see if we can cut this thing in half.”

He looked at me.  “That’s a damned good plan, Mrs. Chatsworth.  Allow me.”

I covered my ears, and Flex stitched a straight line across the door, and dots of light appeared from the other side.  He reversed his direction, and ran out of rounds.

Gem moved in next, her replacement Uzi in her hands.  “Plug ‘em,” she said, then waited until we’d all complied.

She held down the trigger and followed Flex’s perforations.  The solid wood door now looked as though it could, with another good burst, be broken through.

“If I didn’t get to help out, I think I’d regret it for along time.  Please,”
said Tony.  He raised his MAC-10 and ran a line of bullets slowly along the path that Gem and Flex had cut.  When he was done, he kicked his leg out, and the bottom half of the door fell away, dangling from one hinge.

He ducked through the hole and we followed.
  When we got inside, we saw what appeared to be an enormous wall of Plexiglas leaning against the top of the door we’d just blown in half.

The floor was a disaster area, and clearly where the explosion had originated.  Every tile was blown from the ceiling, and the walls were pocked with shrapnel.  A man lay dead on the ground, and inside a large area that appeared to have once been enclosed by Plexiglas or some other clear, thick material, lay two dead bodies.

The rest of it was impossible to decipher.  It might have been a lab, based on the stainless steel and what looked like equipment, now in pieces.

“I hope the hell he wasn’t in here,” I said, taking it all in.

Then a voice.

“Charlie!”

My heart dropped.  I didn’t want to turn around, because I was so
damned
afraid it was my bum ears playing tricks on me.  It sounded so damned British, and it sounded so much like Hemp Chatsworth.

I squeezed my eyes closed, the fear gripping me.  When I opened them again, I saw all of my friends, and they were smiling.

“Charlie,” said Dave.  He put his hands on my shoulders.  I looked at him.

“Turn around.  Go ahead, girl.”

I
hesitated too long, and Dave pulled one shoulder and pushed the other, and suddenly I was turning.

“Oh, my Charlie,”
said my husband
again
,
as my eyes met his.

There he was
, limping toward me, a man’s arm
over
his shoulder. 
My battered husband gripped this man’s hand and kept him on his feet. 
His face was battered and cut, his clothes were in rags, but he was smiling at me, and I dropped my bow and ran to him as fast as I could.

I don’t know what everyone else was doing behind me, because when I saw his face, they all disappeared.  I reached him and had to stop myself from pushing the man he helped from his arms to pull him into mine.

I put my arms around both of them, and I kissed his face, his lips, his forehead, his eyes.  I kissed him everywhere our faces touched, and I told him I loved him over and over.  I don’t even know what he said to me.  It didn’t matter.  I had my husband back.