The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (88 page)

“Why you running, Hemp?” he asked.

“I’m doing an experiment,” I lied.  “Time is the most crucial component of any test, and I performed a similar one earlier, and I must match the speed.”

I had no idea what I’d just said, so questions would be a bad development.  Frank just nodded and yawned.

I kept my eye on him until he was out again.  When his head bobbed forward, I slid into the MRI machine and quickly stuffed one sheet, wadded into a tight ball, into the ventilation shaft.  I pushed it as hard as I could, then wadded the remaining sheet similarly and stopped.

I pulled it back out and ran to the sink.  The water on, I ran the sheet beneath it until it was soaked and heavy.  The water would fill in the pores of the material, making it more dense and less able to allow the helium to pass through.

I was back at the machine in less than two minutes, had it stuffed up behind the other sheet, and compacted in.  I set to work screwing the cover plate back on.

Twenty minutes and I was snapping the plastic housing back over the plate.

Voila.

Now to figure out how to either stay awake after taking the wafer or coming up with something to wake me up.  I could not afford to go out, and if it were unavoidable, then I mustn’t be out long. 

I had awakened Monty after giving him the wafer, but I had nobody to awaken me.  I needed some sort of physical alarm clock.

Looking around the lab, an idea began to form.

I knew at that moment that I would make my escape tonight.  I had the wafers, I knew how to make more.  I checked the clock on the wall.  I’d been in the lab for two hours.  That put it at near a quarter to three, give or take.  Nobody usually stirred until at least six.  They usually brought me my breakfast around 7:30 in the morning.

This could work.

I went to the MRI machine and went through the power up sequence on the touch screen monitor.  I looked again at the thick acrylic walls, hoping the clear but thick material would keep all the metal from flying toward the machine from all points in the room, while at the same time, allowing the resulting explosion to shatter the walls of my prison.

After, of course, I figured out where to hide.

The machine began to hum.  It would take a while.  I had set it to standby mode, but it would begin the process of activating the powerful magnet, therefore engaging the cooling system.

The minuscule idea that had sprung up in my mind had blossomed, as ideas in my head usually did.  I pulled the Bunsen burner from below the work table and a nine-inch burner tripod along with it.  I looked at the floor alongside the workbench.  I needed a location where I would not be noticed immediately.  There were some places in the lab where I had sometimes been out of view, but it wouldn’t do if anyone saw me lying on the floor.

You see, I’d given up on not going to sleep.  There was no way for me to stay awake if the transformation between aromatic and neutral required it physically.

Knowing the wafer would knock me out for a time, I simply had to create a tool to wake me again.

This would work.

I slid the contraption to the very edge of the work bench.  Then I got a fifty milliliter borosilicate beaker from the shelf, filled it to within an eighth inch of the top with water, and placed it on the burner, the spout side facing the edge.  Pyrex, if you insist.  But that is a brand name, and you realize, of course, that I like to be very specific for the purposes of posterity.

I opened the propane valve, squeezed the striker and lit the burner.  The flame licked the bottom of the glass beaker.

I peered over the table once more, saw Billy and Frank were still out, and reached into the drawer to withdraw a single wafer from the stash inside my latex glove.

I put it in my mouth and chewed, watching the tiny bubbles beginning to form at the very bottom of the beaker as the water within warmed.

Kneeling at first, I lay down on the floor in the fetal position, my back to the counter.  I didn’t know how long it would take me to fall asleep, but when the water within the beaker began to boil, it have expanded enough to sputter in significant enough quantities to splash me with scalding hot water, just on the floor below.

If that didn’t wake me, then I was never to awaken.

Something began to churn within my stomach.  I felt my hands tingle, so I flexed them, squeezing my fingers, curling my hands into fists, trying to suppress my gag reflex.  I shivered.  My eyes felt as though they had both been pierced by tiny needles, and I had a dull ache at the base of my skull.

I hadn’t noticed any of this with Monty – just that he had gone to sleep.  It was the folly of working with animals.  You had to be keenly aware of their ordinary behavior; you could not simply grab them and begin testing.  A baseline was required, as with any test subject.

I yawned.

Because I don’t remember anything more, I’m assuming that is the very last thought I had before succumbing to sleep.

****

We’d found three aluminum john boats, all stacked together.  Inside the storage building, there were several electric trolling motors.  They would be silent and swift, assuming we could find batteries that still held a charge. 

Flex said he could wire some together in parallel and create the capacity we needed, at least to get us by if necessary.  Turns out it wasn’t.  There were about six AC/Delco deep cycle marine batteries with the little green ball floating center in the little eye, telling us they were charged and ready. 

It seemed as though years had passed.  A world like this one didn’t allow for the ordinary passage of time in the minds of survivors.  Each day could be such a struggle that it seemed like a week had passed as you reflected on all the hardships faced in those twenty-four hours.

It was just never that hard in the old world.

Okay, sometimes it was.  But it was rare.

So that these damned batteries still had a charge, surprised all of us, but it shouldn’t have.  It hadn’t been that fucking long.  It was, but only in
our
lives, from
our
perspectives.

   I’ll bet it was just a blink for the zombies.

“We ready here?” said Flex, watching Dave mount the last trolling motor on the john boat and snap the alligator clips to the batteries. 

“Think so,” said Dave, lifting the rear of the boat and gunning the tiny throttle.  The propeller spun silently, and he released the handle.  It stopped.  “Good to go.”

One by one, the guys carried the boats to the water’s edge and put them in.  They pulled all three of them over to the low part of the dock and tied them up.  We all stood there in the dark, and Flex took mine and Gem’s hands in his.

“We’re going to get our boy,” he said.  “I don’t care if you pray or not, you might want to say a few words to whatever god you think runs things.  I know who I’m talkin’ to.”

He closed his eyes and squeezed our hands.  I felt Dave take my other hand, and when I opened my eyes, Tony and Serena held hands, too.  With all this begging for help, whether it was from the universe or God, something had to work for us.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We carried all the guns at our disposal and put them into the boats.  I loaded Hemp’s MP5 last.  It had a full magazine, plus I had three more in my cargo pants, along with mine.  My bow was over my back.  We would need it tonight.  We needed silence.

And we needed luck.

We stepped into the boats.  Flex and Gem in one, Me and Dave in the other, and Tony and Serena in the last one.  Nick had already taken the car away after a quick lesson on how to use the top-mount gun – with out actually using it, of course.  With the GPS sight, it was foolproof.

The water in the bay was as smooth as glass as we cut across.

I felt Hemp growing closer with each passing second.  I couldn’t help wondering if I were fooling myself, just a stupid girl dreaming about something that would never come to be again.

I don’t know why, but I began to cry.  Dave noticed, but he didn’t say anything.  I saw determination form in the line of his jaw, his mouth.

Because he knew why I cried, and he would do everything in his power to make sure my tears were for no reason at all.

****

I awoke to severe pain on my left leg, and I jerked it forward, grabbing it with my hand.  My pants were soaked, and I groggily sat up and pulled my pant leg up to see several small blisters.

Then it came back to me.  The wafer. 

I looked, counting at least twelve small blisters, my entire leg red.  Above me, the water had boiled beyond the point of splashing out of the beaker.  I struggled to my feet and extinguished the flame of the burner.

The zombies lay on the gurneys, a mere ten feet away.  I walked over to them and stared down into their faces.

Carville’s daughter, Veronica, stared straight ahead.  The scarlet mist trapped within the goggles I had strapped over their eyes was thick, so that I could not see hers or Raymond’s eyes.

I remembered them both very well, having seen them on television many times.  Ryan Carville had produced a television show where he was the star, a real estate mogul in charge of big projects in
New York, looking for candidates to head his projects.  Veronica joined him in more recent seasons, though I did not watch the program, and had known by seeing her next to him in the board room as I clicked past it with my remote.

His brother never did join him.  He was the black sheep of the family, and the word was Carville had tried to help him many times, but he didn’t have the drive of his brother, a mere forty seconds older, nor the intellect.  Perhaps, I thought, Ryan Carville sucked all the oxygen from the womb.

Very much as he still did.

I went behind Veronica.  She did not struggle against her restraints, nor did Raymond. 

Could it be? 

I walked quickly to the drawer and withdrew two of the latex gloves, pulling them onto my hands.

Returning to the gurneys, I slid the goggles from her head, then Raymond’s, and moved to the front of them.  Their eyes did not follow.

No mist.  No vapor.  Just the minute leaking that occurred naturally from their tear ducts.  A hum in the background caught my attention.  Followed by a shudder.

The magnet was heating up.  My trained ear and mind may or may not be able to detect when it reached critical mass; I had not experienced the explosion of an MRI machine before.  There had been a previous situation in Salisbury, Maryland in 2006 where the machine suddenly exploded, but it appeared to have strewn aluminum particles everywhere, rather than causing any catastrophic damage.

I needed a good explosion.  I was happy the opening of the machine faced the acrylic walls, for when the concussion from the blast eventually materialized, it would take the path of least resistance.

I needed it to take out that wall.  And I needed Carville to be in the room with me.

I looked at the clock.  It was almost half past four in the morning.  I had been out for half an hour.

I leaned over the gurney, my face in Raymond’s.  He did not react.  I touched his face, his arms.  This was all new, for nobody had ever handled them with out resistance or attack.

How easily could they be manipulated?  Would they allow themselves to be moved?  Walked somewhere?  Perhaps the old carrot and stick method, using a piece of meat?  I had to be careful.  I was likely still vulnerable to the mist, should it appear.

Best I keep food away from them.  I began to unstrap Raymond’s restraints, then stopped.  I had to restrain his wrists, at the very least.

Knowing I would eventually perform an MRI on one or both of them, I had made a list of additional supplies.  The flex cuffs were in the drawer with my gloves, and I got a pair of them and carried them back to the gurney.  Working the ratcheting nylon strap cranks in reverse, I loosened the straps holding Raymond’s arms down.  Once it was loose enough, I reached down with both hands and pulled his wrists together over his body and slipped the plastic cuffs over each hand and over his wrists, then zipped them tight to his skin.  I didn’t tighten them very much, but even so, the plastic cut the zombie’s skin where the tie met its wrist. 

It felt strange, touching this creature.  The body was cold – as cold as the temperature in the room, which currently read forty-five degrees Fahrenheit.   This was, of course, too warm for an actual cadaver in a morgue, and even the typical temperature of thirty-six to thirty-nine degrees would not prevent decomposition, but it did effectively slow it long enough for a forensic pathologist to carry out any typical tests.  The only way to halt decomposition entirely was by freezing the body, but that had other ill-effects, and made them difficult to work with.

I looked at Raymond. 
Those bastards don’t know difficult,
I thought.

Before I committed, I had to make absolutely sure that I was entirely invisible to the creature.  I knew that when they walked among one another, it was as though they were unaware of each other – bumping, pushing each other, but only as a result of pursuing the same food source; not to dominate one another or win a battle.