Dead Hunger V: The Road To California (36 page)

“More like telepathy,” I said.  “It happened to my sister.”

“And what happened?”

It was the last thing I wanted to talk about, but if we ever wanted to move forward, it was necessary.  “They essentially forced her to sacrifice herself to them,” I said.

“I’m sorry, man,” said Albert.

I shook my head.  “It’s the past.”

“So we’ve got the WAT-5,” said Rachel.  “Right?  We just spot them and kill them.”

“WAT-5 doesn’t work on them so well,” I said.  “They see right through the ruse.”

“Well isn’t that beautiful,” said Albert.

“The present bad news,” said Serena, “is that if she’s feeling the pull, there are probably some red-eyes up here.”

“All the more reason to be watchful,” I said.  “Buddy system.  There are six of us, and I don’t ever want anyone off on their own.  I’d prefer to stay as a group, that way we can … I don’t know … circle the wagons or something.”

“Maybe Lola should hang back,” said Rachel.  “I’m sorry, babe,” she said to Lola, then turned back to me.  “I mean, how can we trust her?”

“Because she might be a mouthpiece,” Nelson interjected.  “She could be an early warning that the females are nearby.”

“Hint, hint,” Lola said.  “They’re nearby.”  She spread her arms apart.

“Listen to me,” I said.  “the fact that she feels them is good.  It’s already the early warning system we hoped it would be.”  I looked the young girl directly in the eyes.  “Lola?”

“Yes,” she said.

“If anything starts to pull at you, makes you want to do something you know is bad for the rest of us, will you handle it?  Run or something?  I know you can do that.  Just get out of here?”

“If I think I’m going to hurt any of you, yes,” she said.  “I’ll run.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” said Serena.  “Just go, okay?  Don’t you do anything stupid.  We’re going to want to see you around later.”

“Promise.  I still feel it.”

“You will,” said Nelson.  “Focus your mind on us,” he said.  “Focus is everything.”  He rubbed her back and nodded, and she nodded back, smiling.

“Thanks, Nelson.”

In twenty more steps we laid eyes on what had to be three hundred infecteds milling around a huge clearing.  There were so many of them you couldn’t see the ground.  The zombies pressed against two enormous, closed plank doors that looked as if they were embedded in the side of a huge hill or mountainside. 

Above that just appeared to be a rocky, timber-covered slope that disappeared into the massive boulders and treetops.  I could not see any other way in besides the two huge doors, but it appeared a substantial trail ran along the north side, disappearing into the woods.

The doors themselves appeared to be made out of rough hewn timbers, thick-looking, like massive, castle doors on the other side of a drawbridge that spanned over a moat.  Impenetrable, as though designed to keep dragons out.  I wondered how the hell we would get inside to get to my uncle.

Albert whispered, “The bunker itself is embedded into the mountainside.  I’ve never been inside, but I heard there are three main chambers – the one you see here, a middle section, and then the highest section is the main chamber.  This garage level in the clearing is where he planned to keep his vehicles.”

“How do you know all that?” I asked.

“He wasn’t completely recluse,” said Albert.  “Not until this hit.  We all pretty much liked him, we just thought he was kind of extreme.”

“
That
he is,” I said.  “Okay.  Everybody ready to put WAT-5 to the test out west?”

“Hope the altitude doesn’t mess with its effectiveness,” said Serena.

“Seriously,” said Nelson.  “You had to think of that now?”

“I have something for you first,” said Albert.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He reached into a large cargo pocket and withdrew several pieces of brown leather.  He handed one to each of us.

I unfolded mine, and saw that it had eye and mouth holes, with a protruding area for a nose, complete with nostril holes.

“What the fuck is this?” I asked.  “A human-sized falcon mask?”

“We do a lot of hand-to-hand when it comes time to fight,” said Albert.  “Your arms are protected, but you can’t just have your face exposed.”

“I think this is a cool idea,” said Nelson, resting his gun against his knee and pulling his on.  “Do I look like a Mexican wrestler?”  His long, blonde hair hung down onto his back, so it would not be an issue knowing who he was. 

“Maybe a little,” said Serena.

“These are awesome!” he said.  “I can see and breathe perfectly.”

“Thank Maddie,” said Albert, pulling his on.  “She worked out the kinks over the year.”

Soon, we all looked like we should either be holding a WWE tag team match or playing important roles in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Judging from the drab colors, the latter seemed more appropriate.

“So we’re all ready to go now?” I asked.

Nobody said anything.  They just stood there looking like a bunch of Leatherfaces.

I led the way.  We reached the outskirts of the shuffling horde of zombies.  The smell permeated my leather cowl.

They paid us no mind.  We moved through the crowd tentatively at first, working our way toward the doors.  We were able to shoulder them aside and soon, we had progressed the fifteen feet through the crowd.  I have to say that the leather protection did give me more confidence.

We stood back and looked up.  The doors were more massive than I had expected.  Once at the front, we all shuffled sideways until we got to where the two large doors came together.   The handles were heavy steel, and no chain or other impediment secured them. 

“We can’t pull them,” I said.  “Not with all these things here.”

“Right,” said Serena.  “We have to kill them all first.”

“Or draw them away,” said Lola.

“How do you propose doing that?” I asked.

“I’m being pulled that way,” she said, pointing.  “I thought you said you saw Hemp leading one around once.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “He was trying to make us feel safe on the wafers.  He just took one by the arm, like this.”

I turned and looked at the crowd just behind me.  I chose one, and curled my hand around the arm of a male to my right. I turned him slowly clockwise, then took three steps, pulling him along behind me.

Like liquid, the zombies filled the space the man had vacated.  Emerging from the crowd, what was once an older man in his living years, turned his deteriorated face toward us.  Albert looked at it and screamed.

*****

“Dad!” he said, bolting toward the creature.  I was too far away to do anything, but Lola jumped into action, rocketing forward and throwing her arms around Albert.  She yanked him away from the reanimated, deteriorating black man whose dead, pinkish eyes stared blankly.  Albert staggered backward, stumbled and fell down on top of Lola, who had tripped.

When I looked down, I saw what all of us had apparently failed to notice before; crushed and broken bones and skulls littered the ground wherever our gazes fell.

Lola noticed them too, and her terrified expression showed every level of her shock.  Albert still stared up at the zombie that had probably once driven him to little league games, but the rotting man did not return his horror-struck gaze.

Instead, the thing again focused on the doors.  They wanted what lay beyond the doors, which meant only one thing: There were still people alive in there.  People they could smell and whose brains and flesh they craved.

Nelson pushed his way through the grey-faced, gore-spattered creatures, reached Albert and physically pulled the large young man up from the sea of bones, his feet struggling to maintain purchase among the shifting ground. 

Lola got up with the help of Serena, and I went to Albert and took him by the shoulders.  He would not look at me; he continued to stare at the thing that used to be his father, now melding back into the crowd of undead and in danger of being swallowed up by its shambling mass.

“Albert!” I said.  “If that is your dad, he’s been gone a long time.  You know that.”

“I saw him go inside!” he cried.  “I swear I saw him go in!”

“You told us you saw your mother, Albert.  There was probably a big crowd trying to get in,” I said.  “Albert, it’s not your fault.  He might have fallen, and you just didn’t see him.”

He tore off his leather mask and shook his head.  Tears streamed down his face.  “I could have saved him … I didn’t try hard enough.  I ran like a coward.”

“You saved
your
life, Albert,” said Serena.  “And look at the reason for that; all those sweet girls your mother and father cared about so much, and now you’ve stepped in to fill their role.  If your father had any awareness of what you’ve done, he would be nothing but proud.”

With one arm, Albert pushed me aside, and I did not fight him.  He stepped forward, toward the place his father had last stood.  He searched the crowd of hungry dead nearby, and as he spotted the man, so did I.

Despite the fact that the young man’s father had been dead for some time, I still saw the resemblance between what he used to be and his son; the profile of the face, his height; the shape of the remaining right ear.

When Albert caught sight of his dad again, he stopped and turned toward me.  “Dave … they really don’t see us as … well, as food?  They won’t attack?”

“No,” I said.  “You’d be dead by now if they did.”

Albert passed me his rifle and his mask, nodded, then stepped toward his dad.   The young man gently put his arms around the thing’s neck and hugged it.  I could see him sobbing as he spoke some words that I could not hear, and I knew at that moment that none of us would ever ask him what those words were.  Time stopped as Albert held onto the abnormal, his eyes squeezed closed, ignoring what had to be a putrid stench emanating from the thing.

I don’t know about the others, but I held my breath, my muscles rigid to the point I found it hard to believe blood could still flow through my veins.  I didn’t want to see anything happen to the kid.  I liked Albert and I felt for him, but despite the shielding of the WAT-5, what he was doing was irrational and foolish.

Around the pair milled shuffling feet and gnashing teeth, a stench borne of death and decay, and yet Albert held his dead father, oblivious to it all.

When he was done, he appeared to be focused.  He walked back to me, nodded and held out his hands.  I gave him back his gun and mask, the latter which he pulled back over his head.

He walked back to where his father wavered, nudging aside the walkers all around him, and stopped three paces away.  Albert raised the .22 rifle and placed the barrel against its forehead.  He fired two times, and the former Mr. Morgan Brookins stood for another two or three seconds before whatever it was that kept his dead body upright and balanced, resigned its post.

The deteriorated, bullet-pierced corpse collapsed to the ground and the crowd closed in on it, beginning the slow pulverization that would soon render it shredded, rotted meat and one day, dried, crushed bones.

Albert came back and stood in front of us.  “My mom’s inside.  I know it.  That’s why he never left.”

I would’ve hugged him, but not after the hug he’d just given.  Instead, I squeezed his arm.  “I hope you’re right, Albert.”

“I am,” he said with resolve.

“Oh, no,” said Lola, and we all looked at her.  She stared into the crowd at something none of us could see, and as we all watched her, her eyes grew redder, a fine mist now drifting off of them like steam from the surface of a lake.

“
Alive
,” she said.  “
Eat
.”

She turned to us and said, “They’re issuing commands.  Be careful.”  Her gaze returned to where she had looked before, and the vapor increased.

Suddenly, the entire crowd of rotters pressed in on us, arms reaching and their throaty groans increasing in volume.

They did not close in on Lola.

“On the ground!” shouted Nelson, and it seemed like a good idea.  We all dropped down to our hands and knees except for Lolita Lane, who stood straight up, still staring somewhere off into the crowd.

“On your backs and fire up at their heads!” I shouted.  “Watch for Lola!”

“Lola, get down!” I heard Rachel call.  Lola did not.

I heard the gunfire start within five seconds of my command, and moments after that, zombies began toppling all around and on top of us.  I was thankful for the leather mask, for many of them dripped their gooey black innards down on me as I scrambled to stay free of them to kill more and reload when my magazines were spent.

“Serena!” I shouted.  I couldn’t see her, but I thought I heard enough gunfire that it had to account for all four AR-15s and the .22 that Albert carried.

“I’m okay!” she shouted, and my heart settled a bit.

“Dudes!” I heard Nelson call.  “Work your way back!  Away from the doors!”

That seemed like another good idea, because we were all getting buried under the weight of the dead abnormals and it was becoming more difficult to move as each new rotter dropped.  Worse, the layer of bones beneath us dug into our backsides, and it was getting harder and harder for me to ignore.