Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (6 page)

With a heavy sigh
I
settled onto
the thin mattress
laid over
a concrete bench cantilevering off the wall
.  The
.45 in my hand
s
, my eyes
moved
back and forth between the doors on either side of the block.

It was nearly three hours before the terror revisited me again.  It was the first time I got a good look at the afflicted, and I studied them as closely as I could before it got too precarious for me to try and pretend I wasn’t there.

You’re probably wondering why I didn’t grab keys from the downed officer I’d taken the swipe card from.  It’s simple, really.  He didn’t have any, and I didn’t want to spend any more time roaming the halls until I found one that did.  I was poised to shoot first and ask questions later, and I’m sure most of the officers who hadn’t been converted by the sickness were feeling the same.

I still hadn’t figured out that a head shot killed them, either.  I figured it was adrenaline or something similar that kept them going, kind of like a drug addict on Phencyclidine might respond to a gunshot.  You might know
the drug better by its street name of PCP.

I’d ruled nothing out.  A terrorist act.  I considered the possibility of huge amounts of the drug being introduced into the water supply
, but by that time it was
too late
. 
I’d already drank a lot of it myself.  No matter.  I didn’t feel insane or angrily powerful, and while I was hungry, I certainly didn’t have the strong urge to eat my fellow man.

The officer that burst in through the opposite door was white-faced, dead-eyed.   He was looking toward the
far
door that I had propped open, so while he was distracted, I slid beneath the concrete bed overhang and held my breath.  I watched him and he turned his eyes toward my cell.

I swear his clouded, strangely pinkish eyes looked directly into mine.  I didn’t move a muscle.  His nostrils flared wide, wider than I’d ever seen before.  His dry tongue licked even more arid lips. 

He stagger-walked toward my cell, and I knew it was too late to pretend I was anywhere near safe.

His arms out, reaching for the door, I was certain he’d push instead of pull; his coordination didn’t look to be in tip-top shape.  I couldn’t risk him
locking me in.

I slid from beneath the bed and charged toward the cell door, throwing my body into it with everything I had.  It slammed into him, sending him flying back against the other bank of cells, and I pulled the .45 from my pants and fired.

The bullet tore through his
leg
,
exploding like a cannon in my ears,
and as the bone shattered he fell
onto his side
with a screaming growl
. 

Now while I was an expert in restoring firearms, I don’t use them very often in my daily routine.

Okay, never.

So I
was a bit rusty despite my earlier successes, and
hadn’t checked the magazine to see how many rounds I had remaining.  My eyes on the cop, who seemed stunned for the moment, I popped it open and saw only
four
rounds remaining. 

When this bastard sat up, I knew he was in need of another, and his own holster was empty.  I wouldn’t be able to restore my supply with
this officer’s gun
.

I rushed him and fired into his face.  It disintegrated
in a mass of bloody meat
and the second round
I fired
in that metal and concrete place sent my
ears ringing
. If I had
put my hand
s
up to them, I
swear
I’d have felt warm blood trickling out of them both.

I was down to three rounds, if you’re keeping track.

Two more of what I could
now only consider creatures
burst through the same door this one had come
through
. 

I turned and ran back inside the cell.  I wasn’t an ace
shot.  I’d gotten pretty lucky
taking
down
the ones that I had
,
and I was feeling
pretty
confident, but I was going to need two well-placed shots to send these two to oblivion, and I
was going to have to be
either extremely
fortunate
or take control
my own destiny.

Three choices.  Lock myself in a cell and possibly s
tarve.  Get torn apart and eaten alive.  Take my own life.

My apologies, but the last choice
–
and it was the last thing that entered my mind
–
just isn’t in my nature.  The second option was
even more
d
istasteful.

To me, that is
.

So I charged for the cell again and slammed the door behind me.  I’d done it.

I was a prisoner.

But as it turned out, I wasn’t in the clear yet, for this cop
had something in his hand. 
One
steel
key.  I don’t know where he got it, or how he remembered how to use it.  Perhaps it was a remainder of who he’d been, a small piece of intelligence his
not-quite-completely-
destroyed brain clung to, but as he held that key
out
toward the cell door, his unsteady hand moving forward, I
covered one of my battered ears with my left hand and with my right, taking as careful aim as possible, I fired.  The round hit him in the neck from what I could see, admittedly with my eyes nearly squeezed closed in anticipation of the blast.  The impact sent h
im back
flying backward
four feet.

I heard
the key as it slipped from his dead fingers and clattered across the concrete floor of the cellblock
, but didn’t see where
it went.  It didn’t matter.
 

I fired at him again.  Another damned leg shot.  I cursed myself for wasting it. 

Down to one bullet remaining. 

I was soaking wet with sweat, though the
row of cells
had to have been
ice
cold.  I’ve heard in movies that they’re always cold.  And
yet my shirt was soaked,
my face
dripping
sweat as I watched the thing on the ground, lying still.

The other
lunatic
had
initially
focused on the first creature I’d shot, perhaps believing it was not one of them. 
To that point, I hadn’t noticed
them attacking one another, so assumed there was something telltale about a living human’s scent that drew them.

I held my fire.  One round left.  I couldn’t waste it.

The other one never saw me, nor did he look at me.  I stood stock still in the corner of my cell.  It didn’t matter anyway.  He wasn’t likely on the ball enough to find the key, open my cell, and avoid the bullet in his brain that I would surely administer.

So I was okay.  Still, I didn’t like looking at him, I knew I wasn’t going to use the last round on myself, so I just walked up to the bars, thrust both my arms through, sacrificing my hearing for the last time, and aimed for the head.

I fired. 

I missed.  The bullet went into the body of the one I’d already gotten in the head.

I spent the next twenty minutes staring out of my cell as the creature tried and tried to push himself through the bars.  He wasn’t successful.  I sat there on that crappy mattress and watched him.

And eventually, to my great surprise and pleasure, he gave up and staggered out.  Perhaps that last part of his ravaged policeman brain told him that I was locked in a cell, he had no way of getting to me, and there might be easier pickings elsewhere.

All that happened in just about an hour.

It was ten minutes later
when
I heard a woman’s voice.

Gem’s voice, I’d later come to discover.  My heartbeat tripled, and I stood up and grabbed the bars of the cell.  I screamed,
“Help!  Help me, somebody help me!  Can you hear me?” 

There was no answer.  In the far distance, I heard what sounded like a deeper voice on a radio.

I called out again,
and
again.  Eventually I hea
r
d
quick
footsteps coming in my direction, growing louder.

And then I saw the
m come through the door.  A big, goateed
man holding a little girl, and a haggard but beautiful woman with corn silk black hair.  Both held automatic weapons.

I stuck my arms through the bars and called, “Hey, down here!  Down here!”

And you know the rest.  That’s the beginning of my story
–
the start of Hemp Chatsworth’s journey from the everyday sane world, straight into the apocalypse.

I love Flex and Gem.  They were first to save my life, and I could
save theirs a thousand times over
and never feel as though the debt
has been
repaid.

They are the reason I live and breathe today.

They are
my family.

****

Chapter 2

I drove, to start out.  Charlie had her feet up on the dash as she bit her lower lip and listened
to
The Sex Pistols
cranking out  Sub-Mission
.

Y
es, I know.  Married just six
hours and already whipped, you’re saying.  In my defense, allow me to admit
that the band didn’t suck as horribly
as I’d remembered when they’d released their only studio album years before. 

Perhaps it’s in comparison to what Gem would call the shit out there today.  Or yesterday.  I don’t really have any idea what kind of bands will emerge in the time of zombies.

“You like it,” said Charlie, punching me in the arm. 

I turned to her and smiled.  “Not as bad as I remember it,” I said, voicing my thoughts.

“They’re f
uckin’
great
,” she said.  “Clash copied them.”

“I like The Clash
alright,” I said.

Charlie closed her eyes, her head bopping up and down.  Her crossbow lay across her lap
as she applied lubricant to the string. 

“Then you like The Sex Pistols,” she said, not looking up. 

I was leading the
caravan of vehicles
to
Concord
and the GPS was working beautifully.  I was glad for that technology.  I wasn’t a slouch with directions, but I wasn’t any tracker, either. 
Three lefts and two rights
and I could be turned around
, hopelessly lost
.  I led the way because everyone knew that if my mobile lab could get past the mess, they could, too. 

With my cow catcher on the front, I had the ability to push through
al
most anything.  What I couldn’t push through could be winched out of the way.
  We’d already stopped three times to winch vehicles away in order to make a clear path.

“Think we’re doing the right thing,
S
weetie?”

I glanced at Charlie, who’d set the bow aside, apparently s
atisfied it was in top condition
.  I saw she’d mounted an arrow in it.

Locked and loaded.  That was my girl.

Hell, that was my
wife
.

“I have no idea, Charlie,” I said.  “I hope so.  The earth
there should prevent the
seepage of
the
gas.”

“Completely?”

“No,” I said.  “Perhaps not.  But maybe enough that dilution with oxygen would render it ineffective.”

“What would make your idea wrong?” she asked, her face all skewed.  She looked pretty cute when she skewed her face.

I sighed, but not from frustration at her questions; just because I’d been thinking the same thing. 

“
If
the gas doesn’t dissipate. 
If
it’s not absorbed into the atm
osphere. 
If
it doesn’t lose it
s strength after a while.”

“Jeez, I only asked for one thing,” she said.