The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (12 page)

Eleven would not be moving.  They were already dead.  Heart attacks, strokes, whatever.  Their fear was over.

“Damn, Gem.  Good.  Unbelievable.”

She was exhausted.  “What did you find?”

“I found the nine you saw earlier.  The back room is the feeding room, clearly.”

“Feeding room?  What the fuck?”

“I don’t know.  All I know is all nine are there, and they’re eating.  One guy is still alive, but I couldn’t put him out of his misery.  Let’s get the rest of the ones that are going to make it out of here.”

We worked for another fifteen minutes.  None of the creatures in the back of the house were apparently willing to leave their meals to investigate.

“Did you leave Hemp a radio?” Gem asked.

“I couldn’t.  You have the other package in the Suburban.”

“Shit!  Okay.  I just don’t want him coming here now.  I hope he trusts us to take care of ourselves.”

I nodded.  “Nothing we can do, but yeah.  I hope so, too.  He’s got enough to occupy him there.  And he’s armed, so I think he’ll be okay just in case there are some abnormals we didn’t find.  That garage was a mess.”

The crowd of near-victims we’d freed were making their way toward the convenience store at a speed I would have liked to triple down on, and they’d picked up the first woman we pulled out.  Before they took off, I’d gone to the Suburban, checked on Taylor and pulled two AK-47s we’d acquisitioned from the Tallahassee evidence locker and given them to two of the more qualified survivors.  One was a woman, Marion, in her mid-forties, and the other was a young man in his early thirties, Bobby.  Both were ex-military.  They brought up the front and rear.  I knew with hustle, they could be at the 7-Eleven in ten minutes, but hustle was in short supply within the group of refugees.

Then we heard it.  The low moan.

It sounded like a low, deep hum.  I looked at Gem.

“What is it?” she asked.  We both stared out into the now bright day.

And then we saw them.  They were coming from both sides of the neighboring houses.  Pouring from around the corners, some turning toward the departing group, and some toward us.

“There are too many of them,” Gem said.  “If they get to that group they’ll slaughter them!”

I watched helplessly.  We were now upwind from the zombies and the group of people heading out.  One or two of the group had now noticed the creatures behind them and had screamed.  Those screams now turned into a cacophony of screams as the entire group started to run with all they had.  Several of them fell, and were being trampled by the others in a desperate attempt not to be taken back to that house under any circumstances.

“Gem!” I shouted.  “Here!”   I pulled out my pocket knife.  I flipped the blade open and ran a long cut down my forearm.  Then another.  The blood flowed immediately.  I then switched hands and cut my other arm in the same way.  “Now you, Gem.  Hurry.”

Gem took the knife, pulled up her sheer long sleeves and ran two long, quick cuts, deeper than I would have done it, down both arms.  “We’ll draw them to us with the smell of fresh blood,” she said.  “Good idea.”

And it didn’t take long.  With the warm blood running from our arms in rivulets, dropping onto the worn porch’s wood slats
, the wind carried the scent to the creatures, and now they had all turned toward us.

The hum intensified.  Low moans of hunger and the anticipation of ecstasy.

“You wanted to torch it,” I said.  “Let’s draw them in.”

The creatures were moving faster as a single unit now, their motions erratic and unsteady, but unwavering.  There must have been at least a hundred of them.  Men, women, children.  All now the same.  No political differences, no religious differences.  No races.  Finally, Rodney King’s ancient comment “Why can’t we all just get along?” had come true.  They all agreed on one thing.

Human flesh was tasty and they wanted it.  No argument.

CHAPTER NINE

Gem and I grabbed the Jerry cans and untwisted the caps.  We doused each side of the porch and moved inside the house.  We’d gotten all the living out.   Some did not make it beyond the front yard before succumbing, but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about burning anyone alive.

Together we moved through the front two rooms, one eye always on the front of the house.   We splashed the pungent gasoline on the remaining bodies, the walls, and the floor.  Plenty left.  Our plan might work.

They were only fifty yards away now.  Coming fast.  Well, fast for
them
.

And then we saw it.  The bodies of the dead were beginning to move.  Almost imperceptible at first.  A twitch of a finger.  Neck.  A foot.

“Shit!  Do you see this, Gem?”

Her face was aghast.  “I checked those three for a pulse, Flex.  All dead.  All of them.”

“And I checked the others.  The one on the far side of the room, almost in the hallway, started to get to his feet.  His face turned, and the skin was pallid, the lips drawn, the eyes white and unseeing.

The nostrils flared.

I walked fast toward it and fired one shot into its brain.  It fell in a heap.

I
hurried back to the porch and with the blade, drew another long cut down my forearm.  I wanted to keep them coming at all costs.  That one hurt.   I ran back inside.

“They’re here, babe.  Put some coffee on,” I said.
“Oh, did you get that pastry pack at Costco we talked about?”

“Very fucking funny, sweetheart.  Focus,” Gem said, the humor in her voice imperceptible.

We walked cautiously through the front rooms, cognizant of the twitching, awakening things on the floor, but believing we had the time advantage.  They’d already been soaked in gasoline, so should torch easily when we started the fire. 

We
moved down the hallway.  I splashed the gas on the left wall, and Gem on the right.  We came to an open door and Gem involuntarily jumped back.

I whispered, “The other side rooms were empty.  This is the feeding room, apparently.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Gem. 

The man I’d seen earlier had died now.  I could tell because half his brain, accessed through the gaping hole in the back of his neck, was in the creature’s mouth that lay atop him.

Behind us the zombies had entered the house and were now crowding into the hallway.

“Let’s clear a path, I said.”

We put the gas cans, now 2/3 empty, on the ground, swung our machine guns around, and began to blow the brains out of the feeders.  That took all of eight seconds. 

Twelve feet behind us the thrum of zombie moans was loud, vibrating our eardrums.  We grabbed our gas cans and continued the dousing of the house, as we stepped over zombie and human bodies on our way to the rear windows.

I reached the back wall, and with the last of my gas, splashed it as far as I could in all directions, then threw the can.  Gem followed suit.  She tossed her can then smashed out the lower half of the window with the butt of her gun and jumped out into the back yard.

I shattered the window behind me and waited.  I wanted to see them come into the room.  I wanted to know they were in here, because I wanted all hundred or so of these fuckers to fit inside this house for the big show.

When they were three feet from me, I turned and leapt out the window.

“I like it when a plan comes together,” Gem said.  Her face was tired, and her eyes never left the windows.  She’d moved about eight feet away from the house, her gun leveled at the window she’d jumped out of.

“Let’s light that sucker,” I said.  We fired our guns simultaneously through both windows.

Nothing.

We looked at each other.  We fired again.

Still no fire.

“Fuck!” I shouted.  “This always works in the movies!”

“I’ll run to the suburban and get matches
or a lighter or something,” Gem shouted over the incessant hum-moaning.  Some of them had reached the windows and were starting to come through.  I used a quick burst on them, blowing their heads apart in a spray of gore.  “Go!” I shouted.

I crouched down and kept moving my gun between both windows.  Gem was running hard when she disappeared around the corner.

I picked off three more.  My radio squealed.  I pulled it off my belt and said, “Gem?”

Her voice came back on, low, but calm.  “Flex, they’re almost all inside now.  Can you hold them in back there?”

I pushed the button.  “Yeah, for a bit.  I’ve got two magazines with me.  How long?”

“Any second.  There are about a dozen . . . there they go . . . okay.  Okay.  Get ready to get back, babe.”

I shot five more as they fell from the window and attempted to get to their feet.  I was getting very good at the cranial shots. 

As I fired at another
, a woman this time, that had tried to step out and fell on its face, I heard Gem’s voice on the radio.  “Okay, Flexy, jump back NOW!”

I fired
once more, then turned and charged away from the building.  An eruption went off behind me as the fume-filled house went up in an instant fireball with a
phfwooomph
!  The sudden heat blasted my body and I smelled singed hair even as I put more distance between the house and myself.

I
landed in the grass, and still gripping my gun, rolled onto my stomach.  The last one I’d fired on had not been hit, but she did catch fire with the ignition of the house.  She came toward me, her hair on fire, and I raised my weapon again.  I shot her square in the nose and the back of her head blew apart, like a biological firework packed with flesh, bone and hair.

Two more fell out of the window, scrambled – as much as they could scramble – to their feet, and staggered toward me.  I cut them off at the legs, then walked easily up to them and fired a single round into each of their brains.  I was fucking sick of the theatrics.

I just wanted the assholes to stay down and die already.

I heard gunfire from the front of the house as two more zo
mbies dropped from the window.

“Give me a goddamned break, would you?” I shouted, getting irritated now.  Gem might be in trouble, and I did not have the time for this shit, two-by-two.

I turned at looked at them.  They weren’t making much progress toward me – they were already in flames – but I provided final head shots to both of them just the same.

I turned, then stopped.  Glanced at the windows again.  Waited.

I reached for my radio to tell Gem I’d be coming and not to shoot me.  But it wasn’t there.

I scanned the ground.  It must have fallen off my belt.  I ran back toward the house and the four zombies I’d just taken out, and didn’t see it. 

More gunfire from the front.  As long as I heard that I knew Gem was still okay.

I walked up to the prone zombie closest to the window.  It was the most likely spot.  I leaned back and kicked the squishy body over with my boot.

And there it was.  A tad bloody, but still intact.  I ripped a piece of the nearest zombie’s shirt and used it as a insulator.  Fucking wished I had latex gloves.  That would be on my next shopping list at Walgreens.

I brought the radio close to my mouth, but not too close.  I hit the button.  “Gem, what’s happening?”

I waited only a split-second before she answered.  My heart immediately slowed when I heard her calm voice.

“Baby, I’m fine.  Just some stragglers.”

“Same here.  I think I’ve got ‘em all now,” I said.

“Bastards stink,” she said.

“Smell better when they’re on fire,” I answered, walking back around the house.  “I’m coming around now.  Don’t shoot me.”

I clipped
the radio back on my belt.  When I reached her she swung around with her rifle pointed at me.

“Whoa, Nelly.”

“Need to announce yourself,” she said.  “I almost blew your head off.”

“I thought I just did, on the radio.”

“Sorry.  Must have missed that part.”

We stood together and looked out
at the street leading to the 7-Eleven.  There were no bodies in the road.  Apparently the group of escapees had helped the fallen and continued to their destination.

“Let’s go see what we can do to get them set up and get back to the CDC,” I said.
  “Hemp’s got to be worried by now.”

“Do we know if one of that group is Cynthia’s
mother?”

I shook my head.  “We’ll let
Taylor tell us when we get there.  I sure hope so.”

When we got back to the vehicles,
Taylor was still under the blanket.  She was fine.  Gem drove her to the store, following behind me in my armed Hummer.

They had made it.

The cheers were subdued, but cheers nonetheless when we opened the door to the walk-in cooler and saw the tired, frightened eyes of our new friends.

It was a good feeling to see so many of
us all at once.

“If you don’t mind, we’d like to spend a few minutes with Marion and
Bobby,” I said, addressing the crowd of approximately twenty-five.  “Only because they’re military trained.  Not to say there aren’t others of you, but for now we’ll go over some things with them and they can pass it along to you.”

Everyone nodded tiredly, and Bobby and Marion stepped outside the cooler with us.  “Look, we don’t want to stay out here too long.  Smells, you know.  But there are some things you need to know to make it.
”

“First off,” Gem said, “
get more guns.  You’ll need as many as you can all carry and handle.  Next, head shots.  In the brain.  It’s the only thing that will kill them.”

I nodded as Gem shared information.  “Headaches.  It seems to either come on with a massive headache, like a migraine, or how I just saw it happen.  Upon the death of the uninfected.”

Bobby and Marion stared at us.  Bobby spoke.  “When they . . .
die
?”

Gem nodded. 
“Within ten or fifteen minutes they’re back.  But not the same.  Not at
all
the same.”

“And the heads can live without the bodies, so
we can’t stress enough to inflict massive trauma on the brain.  Cutting off he head just makes a dangerous bowling ball with teeth.  You get bit, you become one.  Scratched, we’re pretty sure you become one.  There’s a lot we don’t know, but just act like what we’re telling you is gospel, and you should live to tell your grandkids about this.”

“Where are you going?”
Marion asked.  “Can we come with you?”

I shook my head.  “
Guys, I’m just like you are.  I’m not suited to be part of a big group.  I don’t have big plans at this point, and for Christ’s sake, I don’t want to be a leader.  I think we’d like to remain a foursome.  Well, plus our dog.”

Gem stared at me.  “They need help, Flex.”

I stood at looked at Gem’s eyes, the concern there.  I looked back at the sunken eyes of Bobby, a short but solid, stocky man with a round face and dark hair parted at the side with his share of cowlicks.  Marion stared back, her wire-rimmed glasses askew, hair pulled back in a pony.  She was about 6’3” and towered over all of us by at least three inches.  She scratched her freckled nose.

“Okay, look.  What we’ve just
shared with you will help you a lot.  Get food, water, medicine whatever you can and stock up on non-perishables.  I’m going to leave you with the Hummer we brought.  It’s set up with dual machine guns and should give you a hell of a fighting chance to get wherever you’re going.  But you – as a group – need to decide where that is.  You must understand that we haven’t got a clue where we’re headed, much less where our next stop will be.”

“And get
some of these,” Gem said, unclipping the radio from her belt.  “Cell phones, as you already likely know, don’t work anymore.  Use channel 19.  It’s what we normally broadcast and listen on.  Alternate is 16.  These claim to have a range of thirty to thirty-five miles, but that’s only if I’m standing on a mountain looking at you down in the valley.  Otherwise, 1-3 miles on a good day.  But on that good day, if  you pick up any other groups in the area you can play it by ear.”

“Find out the talents of the people in your group,” I said.  “Engineers, scientists, teachers,
police, military.  It’ll tell you how to organize them.  They’re understandably traumatized, and right now they just have an overwhelming need to be back with their families, to rejoin their old lives.  But those lives are history.  They’re gone forever.  They have to realize it, or they’ll die, and you might, too.”