The Hunger (Book 2): Consumed (10 page)

“You OK?” she asked.

Struggling to suck wisps of air in, Lance shook his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Balls,” he whispered.

“Your balls?”

He nodded.

“Christ, I thought you were shot.  Get up, you big sissy.”

She lowered the bow and walked over to the man, nudging him with her foot.  He didn’t move.

With a mighty effort, Lance pushed himself to a seated position.  He cradled his groin as if he was trying to ward off another blow.  His mouth worked like a landed fish.

“Where’s the other guy?” he asked at last.  His words came out clipped, forced.

“Doing a porcupine impression outside.”

“What?”

“He has two arrows sticking out of his chest.”

“You can use a bow and arrow too?”  Lance stared at her, amazed at the ridiculous number of talents she possessed.

“No fooling you.”

“Help me up, ya bitch.”

Cass stuck her hand out and grabbed his, heaving him to his feet.  His stomach clenched as one of his testicles squeezed between his legs for a second.

“What happened in there?” Lance asked, still grimacing.  “I turned around in the kitchen and you were gone.”

“I was coming up behind you when I spotted the bow underneath the reloading bench.  I went back for it, but then I saw the guy at the back was almost at the door.  By the time I got rid of him, you were in here getting your ass kicked.”

“I wasn’t getting my ass kicked...”

“You were holding your balls on the ground in the fetal position with a gun pointed at your face.”

“Yeah, well, I was just playing possum.”  Lance rolled the shoulder that had struck the table.  He was finally getting feeling back in his hand.  “OK, fine.  He beat the shit out of me.  I’m not much of a fighter.”

Cass clopped him on the shoulder.  “It’s a good thing you have me.”  She grabbed a quiver of arrows from the floor and threw its strap over her shoulder.

They went back through the kitchen on their way out.  Lance picked his pistol up from the floor and stuffed it back in his waistband.  He grabbed the dead man’s rifle and checked the ammunition.

It only held two more bullets.  They didn’t find any others in the man’s pockets, or in his truck.

Cass took her axe and its cradle from the back of the Corvette and reattached it to her back.  “That feels better.”

Lance looked to the east, staring at the vacant road.  “Ready to get our friends?”

“Fuck yeah, I am.”

––––––––

L
ance downshifted the Corvette, slowing their descent down a steep hill.

The keys to their truck were nowhere to be found—Cass guessed they were still in Eifort’s pockets.  The truck the men came in on was almost out of gas.  Rather than siphoning fuel from the Chevy, they decided to take the muscle car.

They didn’t want to waste time and get too far behind the caravan.

Cass held the bow and her axe in her lap.  Her fingers drummed on the blade.

“Hurry up, Lance.  We can’t lose them.”

“And if we get too close, they’ll spot us.  I got this.”

“You drive like an old woman.”

A sharp bend in the road made him slow down even more, carefully steering the car around a dark splotch on the pavement.

“I’m driving like someone who doesn’t want to—”

A daywalker jumped onto the hood of the car, its eyeless face mashing against the windshield.

Lance shrieked and jerked the wheel in surprise.

The car careened into a drainage ditch, tipping so far to the left that it threatened to get stuck in the rut.

“Get back on the road!”  Cass grabbed her door, holding herself in her seat.

Gravel cascaded behind the Vette as Lance floored the accelerator.  The daywalker pulled its arm back, readying a swing meant for the windshield.

The tires gripped the road, rocketing the muscle car forward.  The momentum threw the infected forward again, its gaping maw slamming against the glass.

Blood poured down the windshield as its turgid teeth shredded its lips and tongue.

Lance slammed the brakes, locking the tires.  They slid forward, the steering wheel jerking back and forth in his grip.

Flesh squeaked as it slid against the metal hood, flinging it from the car.  It landed in the road, rolling and sliding.

Mashing the gas again, Lance angled the car at the upper body of the daywalker as it struggled to a seated position.  The grill smashed into its head and shoulder as the Corvette ran it over.

Cass jostled in her seat as the tires bounced over the body.

Lance’s pulse slowly went back to a more normal pace as he stared at the twitching monstrosity in the rearview mirror.

“You screamed like a girl back there,” Cass said.  She ran a hand through her short, butchered hair.  “And I think I might have squirted a little pee out.”

A nervous laugh escaped Lance.  “Where the hell did it come from?”

The road was empty.  No houses were visible on either side.  Woods and empty fields surrounded them.

“Maybe the doc is right.”  Cass put her window down, letting the breeze rustle her hair.  “They’re going to start moving into the country when the population of the cities dies down.”

“Already?  Christ.”

“Just a guess.  But we really haven’t seen many of the daywalkers lately.  Maybe there aren’t enough of us left to be turned.”

“If that’s happening, we’re screwed.”

“At least the day is becoming safer, even if it means the nights will be worse.”

Lance drove faster, angry that the random infected had slowed them down.  The countryside was so spread out, that they couldn’t afford to lose the trail of the caravan.  They knew the Minutemen wanted to go to a compound of some kind, but that didn’t give them any indication of direction.  Finding them would be incredibly difficult.

They crested another hill.  The landscape grew increasingly rocky and sloped the further they drove into the Appalachian Mountains.

“Stop here,” Cass said.  She had her door open before they finished slowing down.  “Kill the engine.”

She stepped out and stood quietly at the top of the hill.  Her hand blocked the still-rising sun as she scanned the sprawling fields below them.

“Do you see them?”  Lance followed her gaze, looking for reflections from the multitude of vehicles they trailed.

“No, but I hear them.”

Lance focused, blotting out the sounds of chirping birds and the rustling of weeds in the wind.  And he heard them—engines droning quietly in the distance.  “Shit.  That sounds pretty far away.”

“Which direction is it?”

“I can’t tell.”  Lance peered at the sun in front of them.  “The sun rises in the east right?”

“Duh.”

“And Greensburg is south of us.”

“Yeah.”

“So let’s keep the sun on our left and see if we can close the gap.  We’ll get out and listen again in a few minutes.”

“We don’t know if they’re heading toward the city though.”

“No, but what else can we do?  I’m assuming those dicks want to take out another safe zone.  Maybe that means the compound they were talking about is fairly close.”

Cass got back in the car without replying.

Lance floored it, not worrying about what they might hit anymore.  He hoped his guess was right.

They slid around tight turns, Lance gritting his teeth a few times as he pushed the car to its limits.  Cass remained silent beside him, her brow furrowed in concern.

“We’ll find them,” Lance said.

She nodded.

They drove a few more miles before sliding to a stop beside an abandoned gas station with a clear view of a valley below it.

The rumble of the trucks was closer.  The sound came from the southeast, echoing through a small patch of woods beside the main highway.

They continued for almost ten minutes before Lance spotted a glint of metal in front of them.  They slowed as they passed a sign that told them Greensburg was five miles ahead.  Houses and businesses were sporadic, with large swathes of countryside between them.

That was when they noticed the smoke.  Large spires of billowing black rose above the trees on the horizon, cutting through the clear sky.

“That isn’t promising,” Lance muttered.

Cass switched on the radio, speeding through the dial until she found The Wildman of Monroeville.  He sounded more insane than usual.

“
... survivors are scattering everywhere!  Get away from the city!  Infected are all over the place.  I’m on the horn with ‘Big Bill’, who has a pretty clear view of the fallen safe zone and—
”

Lance’s stomach clenched.  His throat worked as he listened to the man on the radio describe the loss of the final safe zone in the area.

Western PA’s last stand against the mutation had fallen.

Cass’ knuckles turned white as she squeezed the handle of her axe.  Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“
... thousands of people were taken throughout the night.  If anyone is listening, do
not
go anywhere near the city.  Bill is telling me that he’s spotted several groups of survivors heading to the north.  Find solace in the mountains, my friends.  It’s probably your only hope.  For any of you keeping score, that makes it six billion to zero with the vampires winning by a landslide.  Humanity just got butt fucked again.
”

The rising smoke bothered Lance more than he would have expected.  Had Liz and Don escaped before the safe zone fell?  What about Ashlee and her baby?  Did they make it to her uncle’s cabin?  He tried to recall the address she’d given him, but he couldn’t remember the street name.

They passed several cars, all pulled off to the side of the road.  Their tires were gone.  Most had their hoods propped open.  It appeared to Lance as if someone had been stripping them for parts.

“Pull over,” Cass said.

“What?”

“Pull over!”  Her cheeks puffed as she raised a hand to her mouth.  “Now!”

The car slid onto the shoulder of the road.  Cass opened her door and bent over, vomiting into the dirt.

She sat up a few moments later, the color drained from her face.  She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

“You all right?”  Lance watched her closely, surprised at her reaction to the news of Greensburg’s demise.  He was used to her taking everything in stride.

“Fine.  Keep going.  We can’t lose Eifort and Brown.”

Lance didn’t move.  “But—”

“Go, dumbass!”

They drove toward the smoke again, riding in silence for several minutes.  A large roadblock cut off the two-lane highway they followed.  Barrels and barbed wire ran across the pavement, standing six feet high.  Thick, concrete barriers straddled the shoulders on either side, butting up against the trees.

Lance stopped at an intersection before it, letting the car idle.

“Well, they didn’t go that way.”

To their left, the road meandered between hills, leading to nothing of consequence within sight.  A sign on their right pointed the way to Leechburg.

They got out and listened again, but didn’t hear anything.

“Go left,” Cass said.

“Why?”

“Because Leechburg is the wrong direction.”

The hills rolled by as they continued to search.  Lance’s desperation grew with each passing minute.  What would Ralph do to them?  Would he kill them as he had so many others?  But why had he taken them hostage then?

They passed more abandoned cars.  They were all missing parts.

After several minutes, Cass spotted a thin, weed-covered driveway leading from the road.  Lance stopped in front of it, turning his headlights on to illuminate the underside of the tree canopy.

Twenty yards in, a white mobile home stood at the end of the driveway.  As the headlights reflected off the side of it, the curtains in the front window moved.

“Someone is in there.”  Cass opened her door.

“So?”

“Maybe they heard the trucks go by.”

“You want to knock on someone’s door in the middle of no—”

“Freeze.”  The voice came just outside Lance’s open window.

Cold metal pressed against his head, just behind his ear.

Cass started to lift the bow from her lap.

“Put it down, or I’ll put
you
down.”  The voice was aged and husky.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Lance said.  “We’re just driving through.”

“Don’t look like yinz are driving through.  Looks like yinz are parked in front of my house.”

Cass said, “We didn’t know anyone was here.”

The man grunted.  “What are you wearing?  Look like a hooker.”

Lance let out a nervous snicker.  He had a gun pointed at his head, but he just couldn’t help it.  He kept his hands on the steering wheel, making sure they were in plain sight so he wouldn’t be shot.

“You ain’t from around here.  Why are you stopped in the middle of the road, bringing attention to yourselves?”

“We’re looking for a large group of vehicles.  We were following them, but they got away.”

“Trucks and big rigs?”  The man’s tone hardened a bit, the gun pressing harder against Lance’s head.

“Have you seen them?”  Lance felt a pang of hope, despite the increased pressure behind his ear.  He fought the desire to turn around and look at the man.

“Maybe.  The hell you following them for?  You with ‘em?”

“Shit no,” Cass said.  “They took some of our friends.  We’re trying to get them back.”

The gun pulled away from Lance’s head.

Slowly, Lance turned around and looked out the window.  A middle-aged, bearded man stood by his door.  Deep lines were etched in his face.  His hair and beard were a mixture of gray and brown.  He pointed a silenced pistol at Lance’s face.

And he wore camouflage.  Standard issue for the Minutemen.

“You ain’t getting ‘em back.  If Ralph took ‘em, they’re as good as gone.”

“You aren’t a part of their group?”

The man shook his head.  “I ain’t no psychopath.”

Lance’s shoulders dropped a few inches as the tiniest bit of relief set in.

Cass leaned toward Lance, looking through his window.  “I’m getting out.”

“Do it slow.”  The man gestured at Lance’s door.  “You too.  Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”