Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (52 page)

We will continue to document all of this for future generations.

****

Several things happened over the coming months.  The society in
Concord
had grown, and it had grown safer.  I had re-created the wafer recipe, and now had a constantly running manufacturing facility.  We even had zombies – four of them – that we kept and fed well for their vapor.  I think it was a fair trade, and I also believe it was the first excellent reason for keeping them alive.

Bollocks.  It was the only good reason.

As I know Charlie mentioned in her portion of the Chronicles, T
rina and
Taylor
got in a bit of trouble, but it all worked out.  Not with the zombies.

Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.

There were several young boys and girls – and when I say young, I mean thirteen to sixteen years of age.  All in all, their orphan group had grown to around eight, with five boys and three girls.  All of their parents had died, either at the first onset of the disease, or at the hands or teeth of zombies.

Jimmy Dickson and his friends
insisted on being on their own.  Reeves, Whit, Jacko –
least of all the sisters, who did try to mother them a bit –
none of them could convince these kids that they needed adults.  They wanted to survive on their own, and it didn’t seem to matter that it was hard.

It was something they wanted to do.  Nobody in town thought it was a problem, so long as they didn’t steal, threaten, or endanger themselves or others.

So far they hadn’t.  And important to all of us was the fact that the boys seemed to have great respect for the girls; they didn’t harass them or treat them any differently than their male counterparts.  As far as
any of us
could tell, they were all equals.

Imagine if the world started that way.  Reset. 

I was certain there were crushes between a couple of the boys and girls.  You didn’t get to be an adult without the ability to recognize flirting, no matter what form it took.

The trouble came when
it was discovered that
Trina and Taylor
had been
stealing food from the house and
delivering it to the back door at predetermined times of night.

It had been going on for
at least a few days
when the girls
, who were not nearly as slick as they imagined,
were caught up at two in the morning, bags filled with boxes of macaroni and cheese, butter buds and powdered milk.

They spilled the beans – literally – and while they were scrambling to clean up their mess, Flex and Gem caught them red-handed. They told us right away, because we were on the other side of the house and had slept right through it. 

We all still shared the same house, and for now, we liked it that way.  It was a great family.

Anyway, Flex and Gem found out where the kids lived.  It was actually a great house, a two-story just three blocks deeper into the abandoned part of the city.  Flex didn’t give them guns, nor would anybody in town allow it, but we did teach them various methods of self-defense, including how to use a baseball bat effectively against a zombie, and they always had a good supply of urushiol, should they need it.

The wafers were in everybody’s home.  If anyone was going to a location, either within or outside of the town limits, they’d take enough to get them through.
  I was working on a combination of caffeine and aspirin to somehow blend with the wafers to prevent the sleeping, but as of this writing, it hasn’t yet been worked out.

So, to wrap it up
, the band of kids was learning.  And they even taught us a thing or two now and then.  It was going to be kind of cool seeing how they grew up; what kind of young men and women they became.

Dave and Lisa have decided to head out on their own.  I was sad to hear it, but nobody was sadder than Charlie.  She had grown to care for Dave, and I knew why: he was a bit like her, and a bit like Gem, and just a touch like Flex.  I still didn’t know what she saw in me, so you might notice I didn’t put myself in that bunch.

In private, Dave came up to me and said he was going to head out and try to find his own Charlie.  I don’t blame him, but she’s one in a million.

Since he told me that I’ve noticed him and Serena becoming close, and Charlie told me yesterday that Serena announced she wanted to join Dave and Lisa on their trip.

That’s good.  Serena reminds me a bit of Gem and my Charlie, and she might just be the one for Dave.  His Charlie.

They’re
heading
to
California
, at least for a while
. 
Dave and Lisa
have an uncle there, and they’re fairly certain, based on their known family history, that he has the immunity gene.  According to them, he’s a tough bastard, and is more likely a zombie-killing machine than a victim.

Either way, they’re going to find out.  They leave as soon as the weather warms up a bit.  Right now we’ve had snow every week, and it is, as Charlie says,
butt cold
.

I think about April we’ll be saying good bye.

While Gem and Flex have verbally stated their intention to settle down a bit, what with the new baby due in July and Trina really seeming to enjoy the daily routine, it’s hard to imagine.  They’re a true family now, and they deserve peace.

We all do.

As far as Flex and Gem becoming Ward and June Cleaver, we’ll just have to see about that.  Maybe Ward and June
with
cleavers.  Meat cleavers.

If you’ve been reading all of our chronicles, you might want to keep up with the
Sheridans
– they are
quite
a family, though hardly traditional. 

But then again, just what is traditional these days?  Perhaps they
are
the new definition.

Either way, Charlie, Taylor and I will be here in
Concord
for the foreseeable future
, because we like it here.  We like the people and the idea of rebuilding a society from the ground up.  It’s almost like a small town in 1950s
America
where everybody
knows everybody, and of course
Flex and Gem are
here for now and they’re our b
est friends
.

S
o there’s that
, too
. 

I guess I didn’t mention that my Charlie’s pregnant,
did I?  Don’t know why not; it’s practically all I can think about besides the work ahead of me. 
I never would have believed it. 
Taylor
’s going to have a sister, and I’ve lost twelve pounds
since I found out about
it.  Charlie says she knows where my weight went.
  It looks great on her.

I’ve got a lot of work left to do, as I mentioned in my list earlier.  All those things have to be sorted out, and I intend to build a group of assistants and get them done.  Charlie loves the work, so she’ll be my right hand girl.  The rest will fall into place.  We’ll be sure to let you know about any new discoveries.

So we’re all settling down a bit, aren’t we? 
As I said earlier,
I think we deserve it.

Hell.  We might have actually saved the world.

That’s a
bloody
good reason.

T
HE END

Eric A. Shelman lives in
Southwest Florida
with his wife, Linda, and his two dogs, Beau and Brody, a pair of Whippet brothers.  He was born in
Fort Worth
,
Texas
, and left there as a teenager
in the early 1970s
when his widowed mother remarried and his new stepfather moved the family to southern
California
.

Eric has always written poetry and when he was a young longhair living in
Laguna Beach
and Dana Point, California, he’d write ridiculous short stories with no plot and no end, all with his friends’ names in them.  In fact, you’ll find the names of many people Eric knows today in his stories and books. 

Eric has an author fan page on Facebook – and it’s the best place to find out when his next release is coming – just search for Eric A Shelman Author, and you should find it just fine.
  You can also check out his website – what else?  www.ericshelman.com.

If you enjoyed this book, please do the author a
BIG
favor and visit Amazon.com to write a review! 

Try
retyping this damned
link:  (You
will
have to sign into Amazon.com to actually write a review!)

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=eric+shelman

MORE BOOKS BY

ERIC A. SHELMAN

AND DOLPHIN MOON PUBLISHING

O
ut of the Darkness: The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson

Dead Hunger: The Flex
Sheridan
Chronicle

Dead Hunger II: The Gem Cardoza Chronicle

A Reason To Kill

Generation Evil

Case #1: The Mary Ellen Wilson Files
– 2012

Dolphin Moon Publishing Books By Other Authors

A
Pilot’s View of Flying Machines: 1900 – 1909

by Ed Middleton
–
2012

Keep an eye out for more books in the Dead Hunger series . . . coming soon!

This page intentionally left blank.

(
W
hich is a total lie, because now there are words on it, which completely ruin the blankness of it all.  Sorry.  Turns out the author is a bit of a bullshitter.  Which, of course, makes for some excellent fiction, since that’s what storytelling is … right
?  But I digress.  And I apologize.  For Eric.
  Okay.  Eric wrote this.  There he goes again.
)