The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (97 page)

“She’s sitting down.  Flex, Dave.  Have you ever seen one resting?”

“No,” said Dave.  “Unless they’re feeding, they walk.  Always walking.”

“Exactly,” said Hemp.  “Always.”

Flex looked at her closely.  She was hard to see, but slowly her head raised and her face turned toward them.

With their three lights shining in her face, there is no way she saw anything but the beams.  Silently, she placed her hands flat on the floor and pushed up against the wall, sliding up it and onto her feet.  As she walked toward the three men, they all took an involuntary step backward.

Her hair was dark brown, long and tangled.  Mostly there.  She walked in typical zombie fashion, with little control of her extremities as she moved.  She walked up to the bars, hit them, and stopped moving.  Her nose, which was still intact, as was the rest of her face, poked through the bars.

Her eyes were vivid blue, tinged with an almost bright red.

“I want this one.”

Dave pulled his gun and held it out., pointing it at her.

Before he even got the gun in position, she retreated.

“Fuck!” said Flex.  “Is she . . . alive?”

“No,” said Hemp.  “Not even a little.  Okay,
a wee bit
, maybe.  Like all of them.”

“So what’s with this weird awareness?” Dave asked. 

“Her brain is different than the masses.  Sort of like the one over there,” he said, indicating the first cell.  “but more advanced.  Or less destroyed.  I’m not sure which yet.”

“Okay, let’s get one and get out.  I could be here all day and not be able to ignore this smell,” said Flex.  “You want her, right?”

“I hope she just allows us to lead her,” said Dave.  “But I think she seems too smart for that.”  He turned to Hemp.  “Is that the right word?  Smart?”

“Maybe,” said Hemp.  “Which is why taking the handcuffs was a good idea.  I’m going to open the cell.  Keep your weapons holstered.  If she doesn’t come out, we’ll have to go in after her.”

“This shit is like living a comic book.  A really dark, excellent comic book,” said Dave.

“So you’re wondering why you’re not having more fun?” asked Flex.

“Dude, you are a mind reader.”

“If you two are done, I’m opening the door now,” said Hemp.  “Be ready.”

*****

Gem drove as fast as she could back to town, pressing the talk button on the radio the entire time, trying to reach anybody.  The horizon surrounding their makeshift shooting range had been lined with zombies for as far as the eye could see, and it had really gotten into her head.

“Yeah, come in, Gem.  We read.”

“Whit?”

“Yeah, what’s going on, Gem?”

“We got surprised,” said Gem.  “Whit, zombies are surrounding
Concord I think.”

“Ratz or people?”

“They were too far away to say, but they’re tending to come together, so I’d just guess both.”

“Jesus,” said Whit. 

There was silence for some time.

“Whit?” asked Gem.  “What the hell are we gonna do?”

“Hold on, Gem.  I’m talking to Kev.”

“I’m heading there now,” said Gem.  “Serena’s ahead of me on her bike and I’m with Charlie, Lisa and the girls.  You need to figure out something fast.  There were a lot of them, Whit.  A shitload.”

He came back on.  “Kev said we need to have a quick gun handout and every able-bodied man and woman in town has to defend.”

“I don’t know if they’re on the other borders,” said Gem.  “They came from the woods behind the range.”

“That’s open forest,” said Whit.  “They would’ve had to walk for miles and miles to come through that way.”

“Well, Whit,” said Gem.  “We know one thing if we know anything.  These fucks have nothing but time.”

“We’ll see you here.”  Whit clicked off.

Gem turned to Charlie, who’d taken shotgun.  “Fucknuts, Charlie.”

“I kinda just wanted to have the baby and see what hanging with Hemp was like for a while,” said Charlie.

“Did Doc Scofield give you a due date?”

Charlie shook her head.  “Sometime in August is the best he can do.  You’re due in July, right?”

“Yep.  So I guess we don’t get to settle like we planned,” said Gem.  “Not in the cards, babe.”

“That sucks, but on the bright side, you’re not showing at all.  Is the doc concerned about that?”

Gem shook her head.  “Not at all.  He says with the first kid that’s normal.”

Charlie looked down at her own stomach.  “Nothing here yet, either.”

“Give it time, babe.  I have a feeling this is a time we’ll look back on fondly, and not too long from now.”

“No doubt,” said Charlie.  “I can’t wait, actually.”

Gem’s mind turned back to the horde emerging from the woods at the shooting range.  “Charlie, were there as many of those bastards as I thought?  It seemed like fucking hundreds.”

“You should have let
me
shoot at them,” said Trina.  “I wouldn’t be scared this time.”

“Sure,” taunted
Taylor.

“I know, Trini, but there were too many,” said Charlie.  “We’re gonna need backup.  The whole town.”

“Me, too?”

“Maybe,” said Gem.  “But at first, no.  Not you.”

“Fucknuts!” said Trina.

“Relax, Trina” said Charlie.  “You’ve got to take care of Bunsen and Slider.  And let them take care of you.  When it’s your turn to help, you and
Tay can have your guns, but your job is to protect our house.  Make sure if someone’s outside making noise that they belong there.”

“Yeah,” said Gem, swinging the car into the drive of the state house.  “We’ll have a password, and if you ask them and they don’t know it, or they can’t make sounds that sound like words, you can shoot.”

“But,” Charlie said, “We’ll tell you when you’re on duty.  You only get the guns then.”

Trina sighed.  “Fine.”

Whit and Kev ran out to meet them.  When they opened the door, the flood of information came pouring out.

“We’ve got word the roadblock on
Loudon Road is overrun.  They shot as many as they could, then just jumped back in their vehicles and headed back to town.”

“What’s happening, Kev?  Jesus, why now?”

Kev shook his head.  “No clue.  I thought we had a pretty good grip on things here.  Those things aren’t going to take very long to get here.  Not long at all.”

“Crop dusters,” said Charlie.  “Don’t you have them filled with Urushiol?”

“Out of fuel.  They’re all bone dry.  We didn’t think we’d need them at this point.  We thought we had a handle on them.”

“Some handle we really had,” said Serena, who had gone in for a bottle of water before coming back outside.  She took a big drink and passed it to Gem, who drank deeply from it and handed it off to Charlie.

“We need urushiol, but we can’t let them get that close,” said Gem.  “Way too many for that.  We’d be overrun, period.  Have you heard from Flex?”

Whit shook his head.  “No.  We think Hemp said something about going out to the women’s prison to get a specimen.  If they’re on the way back they should be in range before too long.  It’s not that far away, and they’re on WAT-5, so they should be okay.”

“Keep trying them, please.  We need Hemp’s brain on this.”

Gem thought for a second, then took Kev’s hand and squeezed it.  “Kev.  How do we know they’re not overrun?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t think of that,” said Kev.

“We need some idea of how widespread this is.  This attack.”

“They don’t attack,” said Whit.

“Well, that’s what the fuck it looked like to me.  They weren’t carrying sticks or anything, but it was like a Civil War battle the way they emerged from the woods in a line.”

Kev took his radio off his belt and pushed the button.  “Hemp, Flex?  Do you read?  Gammon, you read?”

A click.  “Hey.  Dave here.  What’s the scoop.”

A swell of relief washed over Gem.  She peeled the radio from Whit’s hand.  “Dave.  We’re surrounded by zombies here.  We saw them come out of the trees behind the range, but we’re thinking they’re coming from all directions.”

“What the hell?” Dave said.  “Gem, are you sure?”

“Sure?  How the hell sure do I have to be?  There was a line of over a hundred of the fuckers coming out of the trees, Dave.”

There was no sound on the other end.  Gem waited, tapping her foot and looking between Charlie, Lisa and Serena.

“Dave, are you there?” Gem asked, impatiently.

“Holy shit,” said Dave.  His voice had changed.  Awestruck.  “Jeez, Gem.  You were dead on.  They’re here.”

“Put Flex on,” said Gem.  “Please.  Now.”

“Baby,” said Flex’s voice, seconds later.  “We’re about ten miles from town.  These things weren’t on the road when we left, but they sure as hell are now.  It’s like being at a fuckin’ Stones concert.  They’re everywhere.”

“How many hours do you have left on the WAT-5?”

A pause.  “About two and a half.”

“Okay.  Get back here.  Have Hemp start figuring out why they’re here now.”

“He already said it.  The moment he saw them all.”

“What did he say?” asked Gem.

“He said we’re a beacon.  The only flesh and blood smells for miles, and concentrated in one place.  He said he worried about this.”

“Nothing we could’ve done about being alive.”

Gem looked at the car where the two girls sat inside, preoccupied.  Then she looked at Serena, Lisa and Charlie, their faces stern and serious.

Hemp’s voice came on the line.  “Tell Kev and Whit to get on the loudspeakers and have them radio everyone they can.  Defend from your homes, tell them.  Everybody blockade themselves in and get the weapons ready.  Preserve doors and windows and kill them when they get close.  Urushiol when possible, guns when necessary.”

Charlie took the radio.  “What about us, babe?  Hemp?  Should we go home, too?”

“Yes, go, Charlie.  Go home and wait for me.  I’ve got to drop this girl off at the lab and I’m coming straight away.”

“What girl?”

“I’ll tell you about her later.  She’s one of them.  Now get to the house, Charlie.  You and Gem.  In your condition you don’t need to be getting hurt or exhausted.  Barricade in and have a lot of ammunition and urushiol ready.  There’s WAT-5 in the kitchen drawer.  If it gets hairy, everyone take it.  Got me?”

“I gotcha, babe.  Thanks,” said Charlie.  She released the talk button.

“Let’s go, Gem.  We need to get the girls to the house and let these guys handle this from here.  Serena, you and Lisa can stay and help them, but Gem and I are out.”

Lisa nodded. “Kev, we’ll go with you.  Whatever you need.”

“I’m in, too,” said Serena. 

Gem ran back to the car, Charlie behind her.  They jumped in and the girls asked a thousand questions in the short time it took to drive to the house.

Gem swung the car forward and backed into the driveway, right up against the garage door.  No zombies lurked around the exterior of the home, giving them a clear path to refuge. 

Once inside, Gem and Charlie secured the doors and windows and opened the front blinds.  They waited for the horror show to begin.

*****

Flex used the cow catcher to toss them aside as they appeared in the roadway.  The massive host of dead men and women were accompanied by hundreds of ratz that milled about their feet, seemingly drawn to them like remoras to larger sea creatures.  They flowed like a rotted, stinking tide toward the
Concord city limits. 

Not wanting to risk a scratch from a thrown arm, the men kept the windows rolled up and did not fire on any of them yet.  They knew where the creatures were headed.

“They’re drawn to this wonderful assembly of scents in Concord,” said Hemp, staring out the window at the arriving guests.  “Hundreds and hundreds, as drawn to us as we are repulsed by them.”

“What the hell are we gonna do?” asked Dave.

“I’m hoping Kev and Whit are working on something,” said Flex.  “He’s got to mobilize everyone.  Almost everyone, anyway.”

“I’m sure he is,” said Hemp. 

The zombie was strapped, and sat in the back seat next to Dave.  Whenever Flex looked in the rear view mirror, he could see Dave checking his watch and glancing at the creature. 

“Nervous, Davey?” asked Flex.

“If the WAT-5 wears off and she scares the shit out of me, yeah.  Other than that, not nervous.”

“You’ve got over two hours left,” said Hemp.  “In fact, once we’re ahead of this pack a bit we should stop and take out as many as possible.  It’s either here or in town.”

“Good point,” said Flex, knocking another two zombies aside with the cow catcher.  They fell onto their bony butts on the curved, steel grid, then rolled off in opposite directions, unable to get caught beneath the tires.