The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (75 page)

Carville’s people seemed well-equipped.  Needless to say, I kept following the man in charge, eager to learn what I would have to do in order to be returned to my family.

****

We didn’t go far.  We turned right down the next hallway, and came to what appeared to be another
Plexiglas wall.  Thick. 

Carville turned on a light and I jumped back, involuntarily.

Zombies.  Two of them, behind the clear, thick wall.  One was a man, and the other was a woman or a girl.  I couldn’t tell.  They were both in clear cages with several air holes, and a slot that appeared to have been installed for feeding.  The inside of the glass was smudged with blood and smears of other things I couldn’t identify.

The moment the interior room lights went on, the lights in the hall where we stood went dark, but if Carville didn’t want his captives to be able to see observers, the point was moot.  The light from the room still shone through the glass and illuminated us, so the creatures within the boxes had a pretty clear view.

And they showed it, the vapor from their eyes puffing out, creating a coral-colored cloud around them, their mouths and teeth gnashing and chewing, their desperate, dead fingers clawing uselessly at the smooth surface of their cage walls.

“Why have you got these two caged here?” I asked.

“Because,” said Carville, “They’re not just any two.  If you’ve learned anything about me over the years, you know I have a twin brother.”

I looked at him.  “Then how . . . how did he catch it and not you?”

“Excellent question, and expected.  Raymond was bitten, Mr. Chatsworth.  The very first day this began, he was bitten by my wife.”

“Where is she?  Is that her?”

Carville’s eyes flashed anger.  “That,” he said, his voice shaking, “Is my daughter, Veronica.  I think you know Celina wasn’t a child.  She was in her fifties.”

The name brought it back to me.  I had seen Celina Carville on the news many times, and she was older.  Carville himself was in his early sixties, so she was younger than him, but not much by celebrity standards.

“You said
wasn’t
.  Is your wife dead?”

The moment I asked the question I wished I hadn’t.  Of course she was dead.  She was dead when she bit Carville’s brother.

Carville nodded anyway.  “Raymond killed her when she bit him.  He reacted out of fear, and I don’t blame him for what he did.  He told me she had gone insane, and she had bitten him several times on the face and neck.  I saw the wounds, and knew he was telling the truth.  In fact they’re still there.”

I looked through the glass at the male creature.  Indeed, his face and neck had several deep gouges that had never healed.  The girl, by comparison, looked as though she had merely mutated into one of them, as so many had at the onset.

We’d not seen anyone turn from being bitten.  Gem had been bitten and we were able to halt any infection by heavy submersion in urushiol oil at the bite location.  It was luck we’d done that, or we’d have lost  Gem.  I was still somewhat surprised it worked, and I’d still to work out in my mind exactly why it did.

“Mr. Carville, how long did it take for him to turn once he was bitten?”

“That is the curiosity I was hoping for when I got the idea to bring you here,” he said.  “It was roughly forty-eight hours.  Two of my men were killed by him afterward.  He …. ate them, essentially.   A lot of them, anyway.”

“It’s what they do,” I said.  “But I can’t help you, sir.  If you’re looking for a cure, I can’t reverse this.”

“You’ll do it,” he said.  “You have to.”

“You can say it as often as you like,” I said.  “But I can tell you there’s no way to reverse this condition.”

“You’ll find a way, Mr. Chatsworth.  That’s my daughter and my brother in there.  I’m keeping them well fed.  I’m preventing them from harming anyone else or anything else from harming them.  I’m preserving them so you can cure them.”

I looked at him, incredulous.  “Sir, do you really believe that if I couldn’t cure Flex’s very
sister
, that I can do anything for these two?  We shot her in the head, for Christ’s sake.  We put her out of her misery, which is what you should do for your brother and daughter.”

I didn’t see the backhand coming.  Carville was both faster and stronger than I had expected.  I reeled backward and nearly into the two guards, who pushed me back to steady myself on my feet.

“I don’t tolerate defeat, Professor Chatsworth.  Now I suggest you eat something and get some sleep if you need it.  You have a lot of work to do.  When you’re ready I’ll introduce you to your assistants.”

I said nothing.  Carville waved at the two pseudo-soldiers, who led me away in the other direction. 

I was taken to another similar room on the same level.  Plexiglas room, no privacy.  Only scrubs and lab coats in the small wardrobe.  There was a small partition in front of the toilet, but the shower was exposed to passersby.

I was a caged animal once the door was closed and the key turned.

There were several bottles of water on the table next to the bed.  I picked one up and drained it.  They I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I thought of Charlie, and begged she wouldn’t come looking for me.

Carville didn’t need any more leverage.

****

I awoke at some point; I’m not sure when.  There were no clocks anywhere, and my wristwatch had been removed in the chopper.

The sterility of the rooms, both the laboratory and the cage, as well as my new home, was obvious and stark.  The thick, acrylic walls were perforated with holes so I could hear noises from the hallway, and vice-versa.

It might have been the sound of footsteps approaching that had awakened me.

I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the comfortable bed, which was saying something, at least.  In those brief periods where I could actually fall asleep without my mind racing back to Charlie, Flex and Gem, the rest was quality.

When I turned around, the light from my room fell on the dark hallway, but the reflection was too great, and I saw nothing beyond the wall. 

Then the light switch was flipped, and I saw two familiar faces.

Rory and Pete.  Smiling.

“Good morning, Professor Chatsworth,” said Rory.

I stared at them, unsure why I wasn’t more surprised.

“If you’re here, then he’s got the urushiol.  I don’t know what more I can offer.”

“A cure, is what he wants, and I think you know that,” said Pete.  “Plus, I’m sure he’s gonna want you to make some more of that oil stuff.  Shit works great, by the way.  Even on the rats.”

Rats.  I kept putting them out of my mind.  I’d had quite enough, thank you, considering the zombie problem.  Now we had rats to contend with as well.

“We saved you and this is how you rewarded us?” I asked.  “Stealing our vehicle and protection?  Is this what your boss stands for?”

“He’s not our boss,” said Rory.  “We have an arrangement.  We’re free to leave at any time.”

Rory was the more sensible of the two; I’d known it from the moment we met.  Pete was a loose cannon.

“Have you tried it?” I asked.

“What?” asked Pete, his face set in a scowl.

“Leaving,” I answered.

“We’ve gone and come back.”

“And I’ll bet Mr. Carville wanted complete tracking  of your every move, as well as communication at regular intervals, didn’t he?”

“He had to know where we were to extract us if we got into trouble,” said Pete. 

“Whatever.  But I do have a question.”

“Go ahead,” said Pete.  “We’ll answer if we want.”

“How the hell did you find us in
Alabama?”

“Easy.  We followed you.”

“I don’t understand.  Where were you to follow us?”

Pete rolled his eyes.  “Mr. Carville’s been monitoring short wave radio signals for months – practically right after this shit started.  You guys have been transmitting on the Hams for almost as long.  We’ve been on your trail since you left
Georgia.”

“So why didn’t you come after us in
Alabama?”

“We did, if you recall.”

“I recall us saving your rear ends at the church.  That’s it,” I said.

Rory spoke up.  “Look, Chatsworth.  You guys set up your short wave broadcast out of
Alabama a couple of days before you left.  That gave us plenty of time to take the chopper down to Alabama, find a car, and follow you.”

“You were following us when we left the steel warehouse?” I asked.

“Yep,” said Rory.  “We were just waiting for an opportunity to grab you, but then we got mixed up in that mess at the church.”

“Yes, I was curious.  That was actually very fortunate for you.  People were so grateful to be rescued, they overlooked the fact that you two came out of nowhere.”

“I suppose that’s right,” said Rory.  “We were just trying to lay low while you folks were at the gas station.  We knew where you were headed, so figured we could fill up after you and get back behind you.  Unfortunately, we decided to duck inside that church and … well, you know what went wrong from there.”

“How would you have filled anything without power?  We used hand pumps.”

“Duh,” said Pete.  “12 volt marine bilge pump and a long hose.  How dumb are you?”

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that.  I guess as a scientist, I sometimes miss the more practical solutions to problems.  No worries.  Our crank pumps worked just dandy, and they don’t even require a 12v power outlet.

“Get Mr. Carville for me.”

“He doesn’t get up yet,” said Rory.  “Couple more hours yet.”

“What time is it?” I asked.  I wasn’t sure why.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Pete.  “All you need to know is you can’t talk to him for two more hours, at least.”

Pete spoke again.  “We’ll get someone to bring you food.”

“A Popular Mechanics magazine would be good, too,” I said.  “Run along, now,” I said, as though speaking to two children.

“Fuck you, Chatsworth,” said Pete.

“Jesus Christ, Jase,” said Rory.  “You are a dick sometimes.”

“You’re a dick,” said Pete.

Rory shook his head.  “See you around,” he said, and nudged Pete.  The two men made their way down the hallway, but did not extinguish the light.

Breakfast arrived a half hour later.  I assumed that Carville arranged the menu, because it was an upper crust affair if I’d ever seen one.

Two eggs, over easy on English muffins.  Crispy bacon, along with home fries.  Orange juice, water, and coffee.

No tea.  Apparently Mr. Carville wasn’t a tea drinker, and while he clearly wanted me well-nourished, he did not follow stereotypes when laying out the menu.

I never stopped thinking about Charlie.  Even when I was thinking about how I would get out of here, she was on my mind.  As I ate, she was there. 

When I was done, I went over to the door.  They keyhole was only accessible from the outside of the door, and I could not reach it from inside, as there was nowhere to reach my arm though.

I wondered how Harry Houdini would’ve approached escaping from this room.  I looked up, but the acrylic box was complete, and there was no way out.

I looked down.  Linoleum. 

So, the acrylic box wasn’t entirely complete.  I stomped my heel lightly on the floor.  A slight echo.

I tried to remember when this mansion had been built, and it wouldn’t come to me.  Of course I had known of Carville from years and years of news reports on the real estate market, but I wasn’t one to follow every detail, as some who are impressed by the wealthy will do.

The look was from the late forties or fifties.  I didn’t know how this would help me, but my mind will run over everything until it stops on a possibility.  That possibility is analyzed and turned over this way and that, and is either discarded as too improbable, or filed away for later use.

It’s how my brain has always functioned.  I, for one, was glad to know it was still working in that familiar way.

I got in the shower then.  As I described earlier, there was no partition preventing anyone in the hallway from seeing me.  I didn’t care any longer.

I could see the pipes and valves running up from the floor and into the wall and to the shower head.  The engineering of this prison was actually quite amazing and impressive.  I wondered when he’d started building it.

There were no other clothes for me to wear other than the ones I had picked poison ivy in, so I put on the scrubs and the lab coat, as I’m sure Carville had intended.  There were several sizes of white, loafer-style walking shoes against the wall, so I chose the size elevens and slipped them on.

An hour or so later, I heard the footfalls of several people coming down the hall.

The two guards – different guys from yesterday – came down the hallway, with Carville in the lead.  As he approached my cell, I heard a mechanical click, and the door snapped open an inch.