The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (66 page)

“Right,” I said.  “They transitioned.  The rats may be doing the same thing, but who knows how long they remain out, in a comatose state.”

“It’s interesting,” said Flex.  “But what good does this do us?”

“It tells us,” I said, “that we need to find and kill these comatose rat populations fast.  We need to have the people of Concord put together rat-killing parties to get out there and crush them, burn them, anything so they don’t all wake up.”

“If that happens,” said Cynthia, “I don’t know if we’d stand a chance.”

“It can’t be that bad,” said Gem.  “Hemp, I don’t expect you to know everything, but how many rats in a typical city?”

I smiled.  I hated to seem like a know-it-all, but they were getting used to it by now anyway.  I liked to read.  I used to read anything I could get my hands on, especially if it dealt with life; with living things. 

“I read something years ago that said there were 1.3 rats to every human, but that was in the UK.”

“Translate that shit,” said Charlie.  “It’s 390,000,000 zombie rats.”

“It may not apply here.  There are some places with no rats at all, such as Antarctica and Alaska.  But I have heard that the general accepted number is that it’s a one-to-one ratio.”

“Baseball bat sales need to go through the roof,” said Dave.  “I think I’d be comfortable doing it that way, along with a protective mask, of course.  And waders.”

“Ooh, what if they get down inside your waders?” asked Gem, smiling big.

Dave smiled.  “I never thought I’d say this, but fuck off, Gem.”

“She deserved that,” said Flex. 

“We’ll get it figured out,” I said.  “But in the meantime, we do need to cage a couple of them.  Maybe five or so.  I’d like to be watching when they come around.”

“Ready?” asked Cynthia.  “I need to get to Tay before she’s bouncing off the walls on sugar.”

“Too late with Trina,” said Gem.  “I know that in my heart.”

We all got up and left the sanctity of the Governor’s former office.  I looked at the picture of the POTUS on the wall, and wondered if he lived still.

I doubted it.

We made our way back out of the office and found Reeves, Dan and Whit waiting for us.

“Need some snacks?  I think the rest of your group is about snacked out.”

As we followed the men, this time the armed guards stood down, even smiling and throwing a brief, friendly salute to us as we passed.  They weren’t even military, after all.  Just people trying to survive. 

Like all of us.

Chapter 5

The neighborhood Reeves had mentioned was actually perfect.  I knew we needed to hit a pet store to pick up a cage or two, but it would be nice to know where we were going to be living.

With the massive reduction in afflicted human beings here, it was as good a place as any to defend the rest of humanity.  The houses on
School Street and Kensington Road were vacant, and very roomy.  I think we all felt better sticking together – at least our core group, and we found a five bedroom home that had a sub-panel for a generator. 

The generator had been stolen, but we’d already located another.  Plus we’d brought a couple with us besides the one mounted on the tongue of the workshop trailer.

To be honest, I was happy to be parking that behemoth for a while.  I wasn’t sure people realized how tiring it could be driving a 38 foot motorhome with a thirty foot trailer.  It was like that old 1954 movie starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz that I thought was so funny when I was a child in the UK, “The Long, Long Trailer.” 

But this damned trailer was over thirty feet longer than theirs was, and I wasn’t guffawing, let me say.

As Flex might say, “All that shit’s funny when it ain’t you.”

There was plenty of room to park both the motorhome and the trailer in the yard, something we couldn’t have done in the smaller properties closer to the
State Building.  We were only about a mile and a quarter away, but where we ended up was a much higher end part of town. 

Reeves had told us that many of the people of
Concord had abandoned their homes to cluster closer together, which explained the vacancies in this neighborhood, but we were quite accustomed to being on our own, and preferred it that way.

Some of our group, thankfully, decided to make their own way.

Vikki, Victoria and Kimberly hung with us, and took a house together one street over.  Just about a thirty second walk if you cut across the yards, and nobody was complaining.

Dave wanted to come with us, and of course so did Lisa, and they took a nice little home right next door to ours that might have been a bit too large, but proximity was perfect.

The dogs, heretofore, had hung out in the motorhome and in the bus.  When everyone split up, many of the formerly lost souls from that church in Alabama clung to the dogs, as they were their initial therapy after accepting the prospect that they weren’t necessarily going to die soon. 

In the end, after attachments were established and requests were made for the pups, three were denied.

Bunsen, Slider and Rabbit wouldn’t be going anywhere.

Not anywhere far, anyway.  Because Rabbit was named after Trina’s older sister, Jesse, we couldn’t part with her.  Dave and Lisa took her as their own.

Of course Slider and Bunsen lived with us in the big house, because they belonged to Gem and Charlie and there was never a question.

If I’m being honest, it was a relief to be down to just the two animals in the house.  They kept one another company without seeming to fill any room they were in with over-the-top energy, as they could tend to do when all together.

Todd also decided to join us, and in a bit of a surprise, he and Cynthia told us they had decided to take the home on the opposite corner from ours.  He was a good guy, and a doctor.  A bit older than her – I’d guess twelve years or so – but you could see the connection between the two instantly.

And he was clearly fond of Taylor, who laughed a lot when she was around him.  That’s a good thing.

Children should laugh.

As for Cynthia and Todd, in this wild world, we all needed a little love.  I sure as hell didn’t take it for granted – not at all.  Charlie was the most important thing in this entire world to me, and I’d fight to the death to protect her. 

At the drop of a hat.

And so here we were.  In
Concord, New Hampshire.  A place where I’d guessed we’d be a bit safer, and we’d have numbers on our side. 

Turns out we do and we don’t.  They’d already done the hard work.  We just had to ultimately clear them from the rest of the
United States.

And if that weren’t enough, we were bordered by
Canada and Mexico.

I don’t even want to run the numbers.  It’s far too depressing.

One country at a time. 

One day at a time.

****

We settled in.  We didn’t have much in the way of possessions, and many of the sleeping bags and quite a few of the guns had been in the back of Flex’s truck. 

Which brings me to Rory and Pete.  I had a nagging suspicion – right from the moment I first began interacting with them – that something about them wasn’t quite right.

I wanted to get our Ham radio set up right away.  It was the only way to keep up on survivors around the country, but I had other reasons.

The strong interest expressed by the two strange men in Ham radio communication led me to believe it might be beneficial to keep an ear on those airwaves. 

Perhaps I could warn others away from them if they popped up somewhere.  I had a feeling they wouldn’t, because of their brazen move on the highway.

We had a new Yaesu FT-950 radio in the box, and another Kenwood handheld that I could use when I was on the move and had time to check into it.  It was our connection to anyone left alive, and if they were within a few thousand miles, we might be able to pick them up.

Charlie and Gem were getting a room fixed up for Trina, and it was coming along nicely.  It was on the second floor, and for some reason that I couldn’t fathom, the little girl loved going up stairs.  It was all well and good, though, because Charlie and I had a bedroom on the first floor and Flex and Gem’s room was upstairs, too, just down the hall from Trina’s. 

The women had found some red paint in the garage, along with a can of white, and with a little mixing, they made a hotter shade of pink that sent Trina into what I can only describe as fuckety-shit land.  I don’t know how it’s possible for a child to spin around as fast as she did, at the same time hurling excited profanity like a whirling dervish with Touretts Syndrome.  I will say, however, that it was the hardest I’d laughed since the zombie apocalypse set upon the world.

Old habits die hard, and I sat on the porch in one of four old wooden rocking chairs, cradling my H&K.  It felt safe enough here, but I’d looked at some maps and wasn’t all too comfortable with what hadn’t yet been addressed by the remaining inhabitants of
Concord.

They had the water running, which was a greater blessing than I could possibly express.  Flex was upstairs in the shower, and thanks to functioning natural gas, we had hot water.  It was almost like the old days.

You don’t know how much you miss hot showers until they’re gone.

Ten minutes later, Flex walked out with Slider at his heels.  Bunsen was already knocked out on the wood porch beside me.  I had my feet up on the railing, and looked up at Flex and he came out, toweling off his hair, which Gem had just cut that morning.

He sat in the rocker beside mine and likewise, put his boots up on the railing.

“How’d it feel?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes and smiled.  “You really gotta ask?  Fuckin’ amazing.  I almost fell asleep in there.”

I smiled.  He didn’t have his shirt on yet, but his K-7 that had been strapped over his shoulder when he walked out was now resting in his lap.  Just like me, he might never feel completely secure without it again.

“Hey, Flex.  I was looking at the cemeteries in town, and I’m not real thrilled.  They’re huge.”

“How many?” asked Flex.

“There’s a combo,” I said.  “Blossom Hill and Calvary.  Together they have thousands of bodies, but many would be beyond reanimation.  Place has been around since the 1800s.  There are still several hundred newer graves that we need to be concerned about.”

“Small favors,” said Flex.  “We need more urushiol, don’t we,” he said.

“Yes, we do.  I figured you and I could get on it tomorrow.  Go down to that brewery Kev told us about.  Charlie wants to go with us, I think.  For some reason she wants to pick out the cage for the rats.”

“Have you gone into the basement yet?” asked Flex.

“No.  Why?”

“The rats.  Wondering if we have any in there.  And what state they’re in.”

“Jesus, Flex,” I said.  “There’s still so much to do.  I do need a specimen, and I need it fast, but out of sight and out of my mind for the moment.  The door to the basement is closed and I don’t really want to encounter them until I have what I need to contain them.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

“First thing,” I said.  “Tonight I’m setting up the Ham radio and doing some monitoring.  I want to see if I pick up anything from our friends, Rory and Pete.”

“If those are their real names, which I doubt.”

“I know their voices.  I never forget a voice.  Did you know that about me?”

Flex laughed.  “No, Hemp.  But it doesn’t matter, because you’re kind of a mental Superman to me.  If there’s some shit I wanna know, I’m coming to you.”

“If they’re communicating on the Ham, I’ll find them.  Pisses me off about the truck.”

“Pisses
you
off,” said Flex.  “That’s truck number two I lost.  Hey, while we’re out, let’s hit a car lot.  Is stuff free here, or are people all trying to earn a living still?”

“I’m pretty sure the car lots are closed, Flex.”

“Hope the Chevy dealer has a nice pick’m-up for me.”

“Fucking John Waynes,” I said.

“Ah,” said Flex.  “I see Trina’s rubbing off on you.”  He smiled.

“Yeah, it’s
her
who’s rubbing off.  Hey, I’m going up for a shower, then I’ll be at the Ham.  Come on up if you want.  Spare bedroom between yours and Trina’s.”

“Got it,” he said.  “But this is nice.  If you see Gem, send her out, would you?”

****

To my surprise, I wasn’t joined by only Flex, but by everyone.

The room was large – around fifteen by fifteen, and there was a writing table, twin beds, another small desk, and two occasional chairs.  Crown molding adorned the uppermost edges of the walls, and plush, thickly padded carpeting made any surface comfortable, as was evidenced by the snores coming from Bunsen.  Flex and Gem sat in the chairs, and she was sprawled out at their feet.

Dave and Lisa had scooted onto one of the twin beds and leaned against the wall, and were immediately utilized as body pillows by Slider, who stared up at Lisa and batted her arm whenever she stopped petting him.

Gem had spoiled him.  No doubt.

I was seated at the writing table, and Todd and Cynthia had taken the other twin bed.  Charlie sat on the end of that one near me as I dialed in the Ham.

The girls had come in carrying a deck of cards, and sat at the only remaining chairs, at the desk.  Trina dealt, and the first move was Taylor’s.

I didn’t hear what
Taylor asked Trina, because she had her cards against her mouth, but Trina must have, because she bit her lower lip and peeled through her cards.

“Fuck off!” she said.

Gem jumped to her feet as though startled from a nap, stared at the girl and said, “Trina!”

Bunsen was up on her feet in an instant, on guard.

Trina jolted, clearly surprised by Gem’s sharp tone.  “What, Mommy?  What’s wrong?”

Bunsen looked at Gem, clearly wanting to know the same thing.

“Unless you want me to retract your permission to express yourself using any words you feel fit the moment, then I suggest you not use it against your family.  Expression, not aggression, Trina.”

“We’re playing a game, Mommy!”

“What game?”

“It’s called Fuck Off.”

Despite herself, Gem smiled, teeth and all.  She tried to hide it, but it was too late.

Trina smiled.  Everyone was smiling, but so far nobody laughed out loud.

Taylor was pan faced.  I think she was waiting to see how the whole thing played out.

“I’ve never heard of a game called
Fuck Off
, Trina.  Did this game have another name at one point?”

“Yes, mommy, it was called Go Fish.”

Now we laughed. 

Gem sat back in her chair and rested her forehead in her hands, shaking her head.  I could see her broad smile and even feel her embarrassment. 

“I knew what was going on,” said Flex, laughing, “but I had to see how you were going to deal with it.  Fucking priceless.”

The Ham crackled.

“
CQ Seekers, CQ Seekers, CQ Seekers
.”

I looked at Flex.  “What the hell are they saying?” he asked.