The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (106 page)

When he was done, he turned off the saw and put it down on the counter.  The screaming stopped.

“That’s better,” said Hemp. 

“Oh, yeah.”

Hemp moved around to the back of the skull, slid off the cloth gloves, leaving the nitrile gloves on.  He gripped the crown of the female’s skull, and twisted it.

As he did so, he said, “The self preservation is clearly separate from the connection phenomenon.  They all seem to have a danger awareness to some degree.  But the strategizing and connection – that’s not the same.  I’ve only seen it in these two, and that’s not to say it wasn’t evident in others.  I very likely missed many signs along the way.”

The crown detached with a wet, sucking sound, and as Hemp pulled it away from her skull, the straggling hair dangled down like a jellyfish’s tendrils. 

He pulled a retractable light down from the ceiling and turned it on.

“My God, Charlie.”

“What?  Do I wanna see?”

“It looks . . . my God, Charlie, half of it looks healthy.”

“The good half or the bad half?” asked Charlie.

“The half that recognizes threats and stores fear memories.  The Amygdala.  It almost appears swollen, enlarged somehow.”

Hemp put his hand inside and felt the brain, pushing on it.

“Fuck, Hemp.”

“Okay, now I’m Hemp.”

“You’re not honey right now.  That’s fuckin’ gross.”

Hemp concentrated, his hand inside the zombie’s skull, squeezing and pressing, rolling the gray matter between his fingertips.

“Yes.  It’s enlarged.  But the part that concerns me is the neocortex.  It looks downright vibrant.  It should be withered and rotted, by all accounts.”

“What’s that part for?”

Hemp pulled his hand out and looked at Charlie, his face grim.  “Logic for one, Charlie.  The neocortex, while it has many other purposes, is quite instrumental in enabling logic.”

*****

Within two or three tries, Flex had been able to back the Chevy from the metal building, the tires and gun intact.  After Dave finished testing it to make sure he could still move it all the way around, he sat back in the seat and took Lisa’s hand, who sat in back.  He put a WAT-5 wafer in it.

“Take that now, before we get started.  I’m so relieved you’re okay, sis.  I was scared as hell,” said Dave.

“
You
were …
I
was.”  She popped the wafer in her mouth and took a bottle of water from the seat beside her.  She chewed the wafer with a sour face and chased it with water.

Her head drooped.  Dave gave her two minutes before softly shaking her shoulder.

“Wow,” she said.  “The ultimate sleep aid.”

“Where were Whit, Jacko and Serena when you saw them last?” asked Flex, dispensing with the small talk.

“Around the building,” said Lisa.  “There’s another big parking area with a bunch of Jeeps and Humvees.  I saw the door I ran in when we drove around the buildings earlier, scoping things out.  They parked on the other side, but when trouble came, I thought it was the closest place to hide.  I guess they ran back toward the car.”

“We’ve been around the building, except in back,” said Flex.  “Their car is gone, but I’m still not sure why they didn’t try to radio you.”

“I hope they’re not in trouble,” said Lisa.

“Me, too,” said Dave, “but I would like some damned excuse why they didn’t come back for you.  Or at least look for you.”

Lisa shrugged.  “Let’s just find them.”

Flex turned the wheel sharply and rounded the rear corner of the building.  What he saw made his foot drop off the gas pedal, and as the three of them stared at the melee, the truck idled forward until Flex hit the brake.

“My God,” whispered Lisa.”

“Lisa, I want you to stay inside this truck.  You know how to reload the AK?”

“Show me.  I’ll learn fast.”

“This one is full auto.  You eject the magazine like this.”  He pressed the release button and the magazine dropped into his hand. 

“Then put the next one in as fast as you can.  It slides in, and only goes in one way.  Once it’s in, you pull this knob back and let it spring forward.  Now it’s ready.”

“Okay, move.”

Flex moved, and from the back seat Lisa reached up, dropped out the magazine, had a bit of trouble getting the next magazine in, but finally it snapped into place.  She pulled the knob back, preparing the gun for full auto.

Dave hit the B button on the GPS.  “Here’s your sight.  360 degrees.  You spin, the camera moves with the gun.”  He moved it.

“Pretty clever,” said Lisa.  She was not smiling.

“It’s effective.  Good job on changing the magazine, but remember that it’s a lot harder when they’re coming at you.”

“I know.”

“Okay,” said Dave.  “Now eyes peeled and stay put, Lisa.  Please.”

“Davey, I’ve had enough excitement for one day,” she said.  “Not going anywhere.”

“Keep a close eye on the building you were in,” said Flex.  “There are still a few of them moving around in there, I’m pretty sure.  If you do need to fire, make sure we’re not in the distance.”

Lisa nodded.

Dave reached back and took her hand.  “We’ll get them back,” he said. 

But Lisa’s eyes were focused beyond the windshield and on the pair of boot soles hanging out of the jeep.

“Some of them,” she said.

“Maybe.  Be careful,” said Dave.

They prepared their weapons.  Dave had his MP-5 like Hemp’s and his Walther PPKs, and Flex prepared the Daewoo K7 with which he had become confident and familiar.  Both Glocks were once again fully loaded and in the drop holsters on each thigh.

“Here,” said Flex.  “Take another WAT-5, ‘cause I don’t know how long we’re going be out there and I don’t want us to get caught shorthanded.”

They swallowed the wafers without chewing.  If unprotected and in a hurry, chewing them was recommended, as it shortened the amount of time between consumption and protection.  If you already had it in your system protecting you, it was a choice.

And nobody chose to chew WAT-5 unless they had to.

Dave looked at Flex.  “Let’s get this done,” he said.

“I’ll go around the driver’s side,” said Flex.  “You circle around the back and go to the passenger side.”

Flex hit the unlock button and both men instinctively scanned all horizons for trouble.  Nothing moved nearby, but Flex pointed to a line of perhaps fifteen of the creatures making their way across a bridge perhaps a half a mile away. 

“Shit gives me chills,” said Dave.

“I’m just glad there aren’t any ratz around now,” said Flex.   “But it makes me worry that they’re right around the corner.”

“Bite your tongue.”

They swung their automatic weapons around to firing position, then as a simultaneous afterthought, both men reached back inside the truck for their bottles of urushiol spray.  These bottles were equipped with clips, which both men connected to their belts.

A double slam and the doors were closed.  Flex watched as Lisa engaged the door locks, and nodded at her.

She gave him a thumbs up from inside, her face pinched with worry.

The two men approached the scene.  Blood ran from a hole in the floorboard of the camouflaged jeep, pooling underneath.  A man’s legs and feet hung out of the open door of the vehicle, and Flex could tell just from the amount of blood and the stillness of the body that its soul had abandoned it forever.

The boots looked familiar, but they were so blood-smeared it was impossible to tell if they were indeed whose he thought they were.

Flex stepped over body after body of the many downed and dead zombies, careful to watch for movement.

A round fired off, startling him and Flex jumped.  “Jesus,” said Flex, looking at Dave. 

“It was just a head,” said Dave.  “But it was gnashing.  I hate that.”

Flex nodded.  As Flex approached the body in the Jeep, he stepped over another dead zombie.  All had been killed by gunshots to the head.

Three bodies had fallen closely to the vehicle, in front of the driver’s side door.  One by one, Flex leaned down, lifted and pulled the legs of the dead creatures, sliding them several feet away from the truck.

Even as he did this, he told himself he was stalling.  There was no time for it, he knew.  Take action.  Find the others and get as many people home safely as possible.  He already missed the hell out of Gem.

As he pulled the door of the Jeep open wider, he saw the dead occupant’s clothing for the first time.  The plaid shirt told him part of the story.  The carved, leather belt told him the rest.  A marijuana leaf right in the middle of the back, and Jacko carved on both sides.

He lay with his knees on the ground outside, and his torso and head on the driver’s side floorboard.  Flex looked up to see Dave staring at the body as well.

“Damn,” said Dave.  “Poor son-of-a-bitch.”

“Yeah,” said Flex. 

The shirt was shredded, and gouges and bite marks were evident on Jacko’s exposed skin.  Despite his apprehension, Flex had to be sure.  He slid his K7 over his shoulder and leaned in to turn over Jacko’s body.

His face was gone.  Pulp. 

“But he was on WAT-5, Flex,” said Dave.  “How?”

“Maybe he couldn’t get to it when he needed it.”

Flex felt his stomach churn as the gun on his truck clamored into action.  Both men whirled to see what had instigated Lisa’s fire.

The gun was pointed back toward the building in which she had been trapped just minutes earlier.  Six of the creatures were moving toward them from the corner of the building, and her fire had taken three of them out with clean head shots.   Two had escaped completely, while one of them was riddled with chest shots and had been thrown down onto its back. 

Dave raised his weapon and held it for a moment on the two younger female zombies who now walked toward them.

“What are you waiting for?” asked Flex, pulling his K7 around to do what Dave had not yet done.

“Look,” said Dave, pointing.

As they watched, the two females separated, one moving left, the other coming right, on either side of them.  One burst would no longer take both of them out.

“I swear they’re gauging our positions,” said Dave.

“I don’t know about that, but you take the one on the right,” said Flex, raising  his weapon and firing, hitting the one on the left directly in the forehead, sending a blackish liquid jettisoning out of the back of her dead skull.

Dave fired off two shots as well, and the chest, followed by the head of the other one, became a horrible, sticky memory.

Dave fired again, and the one Lisa had wounded fell still in a pool of its own muck.

“Where the hell are Serena and Whit?” asked Dave.

“Somebody killed the fucks that were eating him,” said Flex.  “Had to be them.”

“We need to find them now, Flex,” said Dave.  “Toss me your radio.”

Flex unclipped it and flipped it to Dave, who turned it on and pressed the talk button.

“Come in.  Whit?  You there?   We’ve got Lisa.  Where are you?”

Nothing came back.

“What the fuck was he driving?” asked Flex.  “Do you know?”

“He usually drove the Suburban.  The green one they had in the yard of the state house,” said Dave.  “It was kind of Whit’s car.”

“Okay, let’s get back in and drive.  Should be pretty easy to spot.”

The two men ran back to the truck and Lisa unlocked the door.  They jumped in and Flex turned the key, firing the engine.

He punched the gas and accelerated out of the lot, heading straight toward three of the creatures they’d just taken down.  The cow catcher caught two of them, sweeping them off to the side, and their wheels bounced over the third.

“Runnin’ over that one was just a precautionary measure,” said Flex, a half smile on his lips. 

They arrived at the entry again, and Flex stopped the truck.  “Which way?  Jesus, if we leave and they’re still in here, we’ll have the whole town to search.”

“They could be back by now,” said Dave.

“We can’t know that.  Besides, if they’d gotten out of here, wouldn’t they have let someone know Lisa was lost?”

“You got the binoculars?” asked Dave.

“In the glove box.  Good idea.”

Dave popped the box open and pulled out the high-powered binoculars.  He looked through them, scanning the area within the compound.

“Straight!  Go straight.  I think I see his truck!  They’re fucking surrounded!”

Flex straightened out the steering wheel and accelerated, the tires breaking free and squealing as he took off.  “Where!”

“Right here, make a right.  Here!”

Flex turned at the corner, narrowly missing  an overturned red car with all the doors closed.

Flex did not want to think of who or what might be inside, longing for release into the world where it could satisfy its craving for human flesh.