The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (114 page)

“Around four o’clock.”

“Around?”

“Okay, four ten.”

“Take it at four,” said Flex.  “And even if you can’t get through, try to radio us when you’re there.  With the antennas Hemp installed here, we might be able to get you.”

“We might stop and try to find more food along the way,” said Charlie.  “Running low at the house.”

“Fuck this,” said Flex.  “Dave, would you go with them?”

“Dude, two pregnant chicks?  That car will be so jammed with estrogen, I’ll suffocate!”

“Hilarious.”

“Yeah, I’ll go,” said Dave, smiling.  “How are you set on gas?” he asked Gem.

“We’re at about a quarter of a tank,” said Gem.  “Got the pump in my trunk, though.”

“We’ll take care of that while we’re out, too,” he said.  “See, Flex?  This is a very important trip.  Gas, food, guns and ammo.  Sounds like Ted Nugent’s shopping list.”

“I’d feel better if Ted was along for the ride.  Be careful and hurry back here.”

“When we get back, have me assigned to whatever team you got going out to hunt for them,” said Dave.  “I might need a can of chili, but after that, I’ll be good for a few hours of zombie hunting.”

Flex watched his wife and a good portion of his family leave, and he realized how much they meant to him for the thousandth time. 

“Gem!” he called, and ran after them.  He caught up with them just outside.

“What, Flexy?”

He put his arms around her and kissed her lips.  “I love you, Gem.”

“I know that, baby,” she said, sliding her arms around his waist.  “I love the shit outta you, too.”

Flex Sheridan stood there and watched them pile into the Crown Vic, and didn’t go back inside until their tail lights disappeared from view.

*****

The road was eerily empty.  No more incoming zombies, at least not on this particular highway.   Gem drove the car with the expertise Dave had come to expect, swerving at speed around the stalled and crashed vehicles. 

Most of the cars had already been gone through by the scouts from
Concord.  Many of them once contained live walkers, but not any longer.  They had been killed, hauled out and burned in enormous piles, the assistance of backhoes necessary on several occasions.

And yet, Dave thought, there were always more.  An endless supply of the reanimated dead, many of which once believed all they had was a terrible headache.  Little did they know that headache was the harbinger of a new path; a new dead life.

“Almost there,” said Gem.  “We’ve gone nine miles.”

“Good,” said Charlie.  “I love shopping.”

“I know,” said Dave.  “I’ve become somewhat of a gun collector.  I totally dig when I come across something cool and unique.”

“Like your Bond guns?” asked Charlie, smiling.

Dave returned the smile and nodded.  Looking at Charlie reminded him of the relationship he was so desperate to get started with Serena.  She was with the sisters at the bar, and he wanted to ask her to go with them, but there wasn’t a valid reason – only that he dug her.  Not good enough, he knew.  Better she stay behind where she was sure to be safe anyway.

“I wonder where the hell they all are,” asked Gem.  “The women.”

“They went from the hordes we never expected to see in Concord to completely fucking absent,” said Charlie.  “Makes me nervous.  Out of sight, always on my mind.”

“That awkward moment when you’re singing Willie Nelson and Gem plows into a damned zombie,” said Dave, bracing himself.

Gem had sped up and Dave saw why.  A male of the new species was crawling across the road, one arm and one leg missing.  His right arm clawed the pavement and his left knee made the next move. 

“Fucker’s seen some battle,” said Gem, squinting her eyes as the cow catcher on the front of the Ford came to within three feet.

Dave got a look at the speedometer.  They were doing fifty miles an hour.

The catcher hooked him under the waist and threw him sideways like a rag doll, his one remaining arm and leg ripping from his torso, the three parts splitting up like a clay pigeon at the mercy of a crack shot.

“Gem one, zombie fuck, zero!” she said, then laughed.  “Damn, I missed this.  Remind me never to let pregnancy keep me indoors again.”

“I love the shit out of this car,” said Dave.  “Thank God I got to drive it in Vermont,” he said.  “It may have been my only chance.”

“I know,” smiled Gem.  “It does kick ass.  Best thing I’ve gotten since this crap started.  Hey, I think we’re here.”

“Hope they have arrows,” said Charlie.

“Well, to quote AC/DC, hell’s bells,” said Dave.  “Riley’s Guns.”

“Somewhere in a nondescript building on the edge of town,” said Gem.  “Hope they’re full of inventory.”

They parked the car and got out. 

All three of them scanned the surrounding area and found nothing moving.

“I keep forgetting about the WAT-5,” said Dave.  “You’d think I’d get overconfident and not worry about them at all anymore, but man, they creep the crap outta me.  Even when they can’t smell you.”

“Yeah,” said Charlie.  “And it’s probably a good idea that we never get too comfortable anyway.”

They walked around to the street entrance and climbed the five steps to the door.  They’d all brought their handguns for easy handling.  Even Charlie, who had initially reached for her crossbow, thought better of it.

Dave loved her attachment to that weapon.  And damn, even pregnant, she was smokin’ hot when she drew back on that thing, her eyes focused on her prey.

Dave pulled the door and it opened.  They switched on the headlamps and cautiously stepped inside, but found there was enough ambient light to see without them, so each switched them back off.

“Whew!” said Gem.  “Look at this.”

Before them, in racks and stands on the walls and floor, were guns of every size and type.  Nobody had ransacked this place.  Not even close.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Dave.  “They are an RCBS Procenter Dealer!”

“Whatever the fuck that means,” said Charlie.  “but they do have a shitload of ammo.”

Behind the sign was an entire wall stacked with red, green, yellow and blue boxes of every type of round they could ever need. 

“Glad that car’s fortified,” said Dave.  “We’re gonna need the weight capacity I think.”

“I like guns as much as the next girl,” said Gem, “but I don’t know anything except my Uzi.  These look like rifles, mostly.  And handguns.”

“Accurate anyway,” said Dave.  “Let’s focus on ammo first.”  He looked around.   “Fuck.  No shopping baskets.”

Charlie laughed.  “So you just proved you’re not the big gun shopper, either.”

Dave shrugged, smiling.  He went behind the counter and grabbed a handful of plastic bags.  “Let’s start filling them up.”

“Jeez,” said Gem.  “Get started.  I need to get the radio out of the car.  I said I’d call Flexy right away when we got here.”

Dave and Charlie busied themselves filling the bags.

“Hurry, and be careful,” said Charlie.

Dave watched Gem walk out and thought twice about it.  Flex sent him to be another pair of eyes, and this probably isn’t what he meant.

“She okay?” asked Dave.  “Alone?”

Charlie looked up at him.  “Seriously?  You have to ask?  Flex used to write on his chronicles while we went out shopping.  Yeah.  She’ll be fine, sweetie.”

They stacked the bags by the door, as the shelves grew emptier.  When they’d moved probably three hundred pounds of ammo, Dave looked at his watch.

“Where the hell is she?  It’s been like fifteen minutes.”

Charlie looked up, her expression pinched.  “Really?  That long?”

They looked at one another for a brief second and moved fast toward the door.  Charlie pulled her 9mm from her drop holster, and Dave did the same, only he wore his western holsters, each cozying his Walther PPKs.

They pushed through the door side-by-side and flew down the steps, turning hard left toward the lot.

Gem was nowhere in sight.

Dave’s mind reeled.  “Is she in the damned car?” he asked.

They ran to the Ford, but it was empty.  Charlie peered inside and saw the keys dangling from the ignition.

She opened the door, reached in and snagged them.

“Where the hell is she?” she asked Dave.  “We need to find her.  Now.”

“Is the radio in the car?”

Charlie opened the door again and looked on the seats and on the floorboards.  She reached down and picked it up.

“Shit,” said Dave.  Shit fuck shit!” 

“We’ll find her.  Where the hell could she have gone?”

They both looked around.  There was another building just behind Riley’s.

Dave looked at Charlie.  “It’s worth a shot.”

She nodded.  “Let’s go.”

*****

“Charlie, look,” whispered Dave, pointing.

Charlie turned, and saw the body crumpled on the ground on the passenger side of the Crown Vic.  For a split second, her breath had caught in her chest as she realized it wasn’t Gem.

“Human or zombie?” asked Charlie.

“Either way, he wasn’t here when we got here,” said Dave, approaching the body slowly, his gun trained on its head.  He knelt down beside it.  “Wow.  A Ninja star.”

“Are you shittin’ me?” asked Charlie.

“No.  Buried about halfway into the dude’s skull,” he said.  “Wonder how far away the thrower was when they heaved it.”

“Suddenly I wish I was wearing head protection,” said Charlie.  She scanned the buildings, and looked for movement.  Dave followed her lead, doing the same.

A loud bang came from the distance.  Not a gunshot, Charlie thought.  It was the sound of something hitting corrugated metal – hard.

“That way,” she said as low as she could so that Dave could still hear her.  Charlie pointed at the small building in the back.  It was a metal building, and it was her guess that Gem was inside, under someone else’s control.

A high pitched sound suddenly assaulted Charlie’s ears, followed by a clang as a circular piece of metal with points all around it hit the door of the Ford and ricocheted off, landing harmlessly a few feet away.

“Get down!” shouted Charlie, and she and Dave hit the dirt and gravel of the parking lot, their guns pointed in the direction they guessed the thrower was hiding.

“I’m not tryin’ to hurt you, goofballs,” called a voice.  “I’d have taken you down.  And yeah, I got your friend.”

Charlie looked at Dave, who gave her a shrug.

“Should we get up?” he asked.  “He’s right I guess.  He could’ve hit us.”

“Yeah, I could’ve.  Watch this!”

The whizzing sound came again, followed by a wet thud as the head of the dead zombie twitched toward the Ford.

“Ha!  Dead hit!”

“The guy’s a real joker,” said Dave, standing and brushing off his pants.

“What are you doing?  Get down!” said Charlie.

Dave cocked his head at her.  “Charlie.  The guy could’ve hit either one of us and he put another one in the zombie.  I’d say he’s not interested in killing us.”

Charlie realized Gammon was right.  She stood, dusting off her jeans.  She was not a fan of games, and intended on letting the dick with the Ninja stars know it.

“Why do you have Gem?”

“Gem’s her name?”

The voice sounded like the stereotype of a southern California surfer.  If Charlie didn’t know better, she might think it was Jeff Spicoli from the old movie,
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
. 

“Dude, here’s the deal,” said Dave.  “You don’t want to fuck with that woman you’ve got there.  Her husband will kill you several times over, and there won’t be much conversation beforehand.”

“Alright!” he said, sounding perturbed for the first time.  “Come over here.  Just lower your weapons.”

Charlie waved her hand and started walking toward the building behind Riley’s Guns. 

“Over here, dudes” he said, and we saw him for the first time.

Charlie shook her head and laughed to herself as she approached him.  He looked like a stoner.  His dirty blond hair was center-parted and down to the middle of his back, still in dreadlocks from God knew when.  He had a thin face with a sharp nose, and darting eyes that probably didn’t miss much.

“Sorry,” he said.  “Can you guys talk to zombies, too?”

“Talk to zombies?” asked Dave.  “No way, bro.  Haven’t done that yet.”

“Your friend did.  That Gem.”

“Enough of the bullshit,” said Charlie.  “Who are you and where the hell is Gem?”

“Name’s Nelson,” said the dude with the dreadlocks.  “Nelson Moore.”

Charlie and Dave now stood directly in front of the man, who looked no more than twenty-four.  He was unarmed.