Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (25 page)

She stood facing me in the bathroom.  I said nothing, but looked into her deep brown eyes and searched them.  I did not have to look very long to see the love she felt for me. 

M
y arms hung limp by my sides.  Gem hooked her fingers beneath my tee shirt and pulled it up and over my head
, then began unbuc
kling my belt.  Just her touch
aroused me in a way I couldn’t explain.  After all we’d been through, our thorough exhaustion, this woman being near me was almost enough to wipe it all away
.

As she opened my belt and undid the button on my jeans, lowering the zipper and dropping them down around my ankles, I reached up and began to unbutton her sheer cotton blouse.  I pushed it back off her shoulders, revealing her light brown, cotton bra.  I unsnapped the front hook and peeled it away.

She had begun to undo her own jeans, and slid them easily off.  She put her foot on my jeans, heaped around my ankle
s
, and I stepped out of them.  I reached out for her and pulled her warm, bare body against mine, only our underwear preventing full contact top to bottom.  Warm.  Soft.  I hadn’t felt her for so long, I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm.  She looked down between us.

“Flexy, we have to free this.  Too constricting.” 

She turned and opened the door of the bathroom cabinet and withdrew a pair of scissors.  She pulled my boxer briefs out on the side and cut slowly down with the scissors until they popped free of my leg.  Then she repeated the same thing on the opposite side and they fell away.

“You don’t do anything the traditional way, do you?” I said, smiling.

“What’s the fun in
that?” she
said. 
“
Now come in.  You’re a dirty boy and I’m going to get you nice and clean.”

And she did.
  She used lather.  Lots of lather.

*****

I
slid on a fresh pair of jeans
and
walked out to check on Hemp after I recovered from my lovemaking session with Gem – the first in far too long, and an extended one at that.   We fell back in bed
afterward
and Gem produced one of the packs of smokes that I’d grabbed from the pharmacy.  W
e both lit one.  It felt good; the stress of the past couple of days had taken its toll on
both of us
.

Hemp was standing, leaning against one of the porch
columns
, his Calico M960 hanging loosely in his hands.

“You probably want a shower and some rest,” I said,
opening the screen door and walking up next to him
. 
“I guess I’d have heard if you’d had to use that thing,” I said. 

Hemp had
clearly become fond
of
that weapon
, and not just for its 50 and 100 round magazines.  Because it blew the shit out of the enemy and was lightweight.  Almost every fifth sentence
out of Hemps mouth
was how damned light it was.

“
No need to shoot anything yet, and y
es, about two days of
sleep should do it,” he said.

“Hemp, do you have a family?  Here, I mean?”

“Don’t have a family anywhere, Flex.  No siblings, both parents passed away when I was just out of my teens.”

“Sorry,” I said.  “But they did a good job with you.  Likeable, smart.   Were you ever married?”

Hemp laughed
softly, but a deep sadness touched his eyes, too. 
“I was, my friend.  I was.  A beautiful woman, too.  Too good for me.  Married her when I was 24 and she died during childbirth.  Along with my baby boy.”

“Shit,” I said, fishing a smoke from behind my ear.  “I’m fuckin’ sorry I brought it up, Hemp.”

“No
, she was the love of my life,” he said.  “Just the time I had with her was worth all the days before them. 
I haven’t found anyone as good as her since, so I just . . . well,
took a couple of years off, then
just kind of played the field, as you Americans say.”

“There’s something to be said for that,” I said.  “But I
just found Gem
again
– rather she found me – just before we found you.  I’d been with her a couple of years and it ended over a year ago.  When this shit hit the fan, apparently the only person we could think about was each other.”

Hemp smiled and tossed me a pack of matches from the table
beside the railing
.  “She’s good for you.  And you’re good for her.  And she’s beautiful,” he said.

I nodded.  “No shit.  Fuckin’ beauti
ful.  And a heart as big as
Texas
.
”

“I think I need someone,” Hemp said.  “This world is going to seem lonely enough from this point on.  I have this longing all of a sudden to find someone I can’t live without.”

“
Speakin’ of that, w
e gotta make a plan I suppose,” I said.

Hemp nodded, s
canning the yard again.  “
Yes, sir.  Back to reality. 
If we’re going to be here a while, I’m going to want to pick up a couple of security camera sets and motion activated alarms and such. 
Battery
backups, that sort of thing.”

I nodded and
slid down in the
Adirondack
chair
on my front porch and
Hemp
plopped down in the chair beside me.

“I don’t see a whole lot of value in hitting the road and leaving ourselves exposed.  Things will likely only get worse as this thing goes along.”

“I know,” said Hemp.  “The first group of people we found was frightened and cooperative.  Grateful for our help.  There will be others that want to take what we’ve accumulated and creat
ed.  And that’s aside from the a
bnormals.”

We hadn’t seen any activity around the house since our arrival.  That wasn’t to say the wind couldn’t shift and alert a nearby
abnormal
or twenty
, or a hundred for that matter,
with an appetite, and we could become a destination for them at any time. 

“My feeling, too.  I think protection is our fi
r
st rule of orde
r.”

“I’ve got some ideas for some equipment – weapons systems, I suppose.  I’ll need some of Gem’s artistry skills, and since you’re an electrician, you’ll need to help with the wiring schematics
for the powered machines
.”

“Shouldn’t a lot of this stuff run without electricity?  In case we’re in a situation where we don’t have that option?”

Hemp waved off my concern.  “Absolutely.  And I’ve got some ideas for crank-wound
, kinetically-powered
weapons systems th
at can either catapult or eject
projectiles.  Damaging projectiles.”

I laughed out loud.  I suppose the sex with Gem and the shower had brightened my outlook. 
I think I’d place the influence both things h
ad on my demeanor in that order
, leaning heavily on the sex with Gem. 
At the same time
– and for the same reasons –
I felt like I could collapse in a blissful heap at
a moment’s notice
. 

But it felt good to be having this conversation about
our protection and our plans.  Hemp’s mind must have been devising and designing the entire time he was driving, because he’d filled six pages of tightly written notes in a legal pad he’d found in the kitchen just since Gem and I went in to get wet. 

“Gem’s getting some sleep now, Hemp.  Why don’t you get in and get a shower and some shuteye.  At least three or four hours.”

Hemp shook his head.  “I won’t need that much, Flex, but thanks.  My mind is
racing
at
150
kilometers per hour, and I can’t stop it.  I’m thinking about your sister, how there’s so much I need to do with regard to her, more weapons and surveillance systems –
”

“Hemp, Hemp, slow down.  You’ve done a lot – a fucking shitload of stuff so far.  My aunt would’ve said we couldn’t have done that in a month of Sundays, and she’d be right.  So go in, have the shower, close your eyes for a while.  We need that brain of yours to be fresh.”

“I don’t like the sound of that anymore, Flex.”  Hemp was smiling, but the truth behind that particular joke gave me, and I’
m sure him, a bit of a shudder.

“Okay, let’s say
sharp
,” I said.

He stood
and passed me the Calico
.  “Okay.  I’ll do it.  Stay awake now, and fire
that thing off
if you see anything. 
I’ve got my
MP5
to keep
by my bed.  Speaking of that, where am I sleeping?”

“There’s a spare bedroom, end of the hall to the left.  Only a full size, but I spent money on a good mattress for when Jamie and
Jack
– well, it’s comfortable.”

“Got it.  Thanks.  I’ll go check on the
pooch
before I hit the shower.”

“Name’s
Bunsen
.”

“
Bunsen
?”

“Yep.  After the burner.  Apparently our Trina spent a tad too much time with Max when deciding what to name the girl.”

“
Bunsen
.  Sounds like a boy name.”

“If it works for a six-year-old girl and makes her happy, I think
Bunsen
will do just fine.”

Hemp smiled, waved, and went inside.  I propped the
M960
on my leg, leaned back in the
Adirondack
and scanned the dark horizon for any moving shadows.

Or any flickers of eye shine.

The July night was hot and muggy, but
the
Georgia
weather was the last thing on my mind that evening.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

We slept in shifts, and there were no incidents through the night.   By the time 8:00 AM rolled around, we’d all had enough and felt like drinking some coffee and feeling normal for the first time in a couple of days. 

The spaced-out feeling of being up for two days hadn’t completely left us, but Gem sure looked better, and Trina was chattering to Bunsen as th
ough she were entirely human.  That she was as big as a human
was a fact.  Pregnant, she was bigger than most.

Hemp came in through the front door and laid his gun down beside the table. 
“I’ll have it with two sugars,”
He
said,
apparently
assuming I’d deliver the
coffee
to him as he plopped
down into the wood spindle
-
back chair
.  He found the remote
on the table
and clicked it.  I had satellite, so if anyone was broadcasting at all, there might be some chance we’d get it.

But nothing showed up.  Static on every channel.  He clicked it off again, not wanting to waste generator fuel on nothing and took the cup of coffee I handed him.

“I’d have taken you for a tea man,” I said.

“
Most t
ea is for pussies.  American tea, that is.”  He looked suddenly at Trina.  “I’m sorry, young lady.  That was rude of me.”

“What’s a pussy?” Trina asked, her eyes curious.

Gem stepped around the table and sat beside her.  “It’s a bad word for someone who’s not brave,” she said.

“Well put,” I said.

She turned her head quickly toward Hemp and gave him that little girl’s
you said a bad word
face.

He nodded and patted the top of her head.  “
I only meant that Earl Grey is about the only tea you can find here that a real man would drink.  Trina, d
o I need to put a quarter in some jar somewhere?”

“Not this time,” Trina said.  “I didn’t know that one.  But I will next time,” she added matter-of-factly.

“So what’s the plan?  We
feel good enough that we don’t
need a
lookout
right now?”  Gem
glanced back and forth
between me and Hemp.

“Gun’s right here,” Hemp said.

I patted mine, leaning against the kitchen island.  “Mine, too.”