Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle

Dead Hunger is a work of fiction By

Eric A. Shelman

All characters contained herein are fictional, and all similarities to persons living or dead
are
purely coincidental.

This text cannot be copied or duplicated without author or publisher written permission.

©2011 Dolphin Moon Publishing

Cover Art By Gary McCluskey

Prologue

Jamie Leighton.  Redhead, 5’8” tall.  Fair skin, slight build.  Pretty green eyes, and long fingers.

Anything – no, everything – but ordinary.  But to the casual observer,
there was
nothing extraordinary about her.  Most of the time she was
Baby
to her husband Jack,
Mom
to her two girls,
Jesse
, 8,  and Trina
, 6, and she was
just beautiful to me.  I miss her.

When she first
turned
, the aftermath was terrifying.  I swore I’d
help
her if it was the last thing I ever did.  Turns out it wasn’
t
the last thing or the first thing or any goddamned thing
, because
there was and is
a shitload of stuff to do and it never seems to get to be a smaller shitload.

I’m Flex Sheridan.  Jamie used to share my last name with me. 
My
baby
sister.

I’ll tell you how this started
.  It’ll introduce you to me and my friends, but your guess will be as good as mine as to what comes next for us in this bizarre new world
.  Any other time I’d sound crazy as shit, but if you’re reading this, then you know I’m not.

The dead have risen.  Either that or they never
quite made it into the ground, but either way
I’ll tell you this: They’re out there and they are
hungry
. 
And getting hungrier every day. 
They are persistent.  And they have more ingenuity
and instinct
than I’d have ever given them credit for in the beginning.
 

And they have some abilities that concern us greatly.

I’d started using the term
abnormals
to describe them
because
Jamie’s
one of them.  As much as I knew they were similar to – fuck that, they
were
zombies and there’s no way to get around it – I couldn’t bear calling them that name.  It seemed to be disrespectful to my sister.  Hemp and Gem humored me in that respect
initially, but we all eventually gave up the ruse.  Zombies they were, and zombies they would ever be until intense brain trauma.

But even in the beginning,
in the heat of a good fight, we all slipped
the Z word
occasionally.  I sure as hell didn’t treat any of
these zombies with any semblance of the kindness that I gave my sister.  Not even close.  And my sister was so
not
my sister anymore. 

I’ve been
reluctant
to use the word
z
ombie, because I don’t want to give this recount of
our
experiences anything like a comic feel.  There’s nothing funny about it, and again – if you’re alive to read this, then you know that already.  There is not much laughing going on these days.

Nowadays the only person who
can
make me laugh is Gem. 
Gemina
Cardoza
is her full name, but she hates it.  Says
her name
sounds like a syrup spokesperson.  So she goes by Gem, which is fine by me, because she is
my
precious gem, that’s for sure.

She’s out rounding up supplies
with Charlie
right now.  You might wonder, in a world where zombie-like creature
s are wandering the earth, why
I’d let her go
with someone else besides me
.  That’s because you don’t know Gem
, and you don’t know Charlie
.  If you did, you wouldn’t wonder.  I’m wearing the other half of our two-ways, and if
they get
in
any
trouble, I’ll get a double-tap on the talk button.  That means
they’ve
run into some of
them
.   If I get a triple tap next, that means
they’ve
dispatched them
by bullet or arrow,
and we’re back to cool. 

But if I get a single tap first, or after the double tap, that means COME NOW WE’RE FUCKED and that means no time for punctuation or mixed case letters. 

We carry automatic weapons
and other fun toys,
and we’ve got
pretty good
experience using them. 
Heck, we’re even teaching the six-year-old how to handle a gun,
and
surprisingly,
she’s coming along
pretty well
.  Nonetheless, n
one of
us
have gotten killed or wounded yet, and we’re skilled enough that w
e don’t waste a lot of ammo
.
 

Fuck if I didn’t
knock on some wood after I wrote that just now.
 

If I hear a single
tap on that walkie
, or even
think
I heard one, then as many of us as are left at the base
head out fast.  We have an itinerary.  I know where
they’re
going.  We have flare guns, too.  I know where to look and when I see the flare, I head for it.  Our vehicles are fortified and fast, and we make good time. 
We’re
always heavily armed
when we’re out in the wild world.

We got each other’s backs.  In this world, you need a partner or you’re dead.  Gem is mine.   And I’m hers.

And now we have little Trina and of course Bunsen and her brood.  But that’ll come later.  That part should be told a little at a time.

Hemphill Chatsworth is
one
of us, part of our posse, if you will
.  He goes by Hemp and he’s British.  That doesn’t mean anything to you or me, but I’m telling you to explain his name. 
He’s
definitely not southern born.

Hemp’s
32 years old and he’s
a scientist.  He’s got two degrees that have come in very handy since the plague, or whatever you want to call it
,
came along.  He’s got a Biology degree with a major in Epidemiology.  He couldn’t have gotten that shit more perfect except that he also got his Engineering degree.  Mechanical engineering.  So not only did the son-of-a-bitch want to know how the human body worked, he wanted to know how machines wo
rked and how to design them.  His mind works in images.  We talk about something we need –
in particular,
something to wipe out large numbers of zombies
at once, and he visualizes it; creates it in his mind.  We’ve yet to build any of them, but Gem, our resident artist, has laid out some sketches of his equipment, and I know they’ll be effective.  These raw
blueprint
s are
structured
in
his mind’s eye, and Gem’s hands help make them a buildable reality.

With
Hemp’s
two degrees, c
learly his parents had too much money, but now he’s
ours;
mine and Gem’s, and nobody
better
ever
try to take him away from us.

And it’s only
recently that
we met.  But i
f he tries to leave, we’ll either follow him or kill him. 
Okay, I’m kidding there.  Killing him would do no good, but that’s how strongly we feel about Hemp.  We’ve got a good partnership, though, and if he needs something, Gem and I are going to do our damndest to get it for him. 
Either way, he’s not going anywhere without us.
  The guy is a genius, and we can use a good genius for like – forever.

Go ahead.  Picture him.  Y
ou’ll be wrong.  The
guy looks just like a So-Cal surfer.  He’s
around
5’
10
”, sandy blonde hair, muscular.  His father was
half Irish and half Indian
, so he has dark skin, but his mother was a
petite blonde, so he’s got that to
w
head thing going on.  And
he got his mom’s
blue eyes.  So far he’s
borderline single
, but it looks like that’s about to change
.  The right woman
for a guy is definitely
harder to come by these days, but Gem and I
are thin
king that’s worked itself out.

Yep.  Charlie’s a girl.  I think I’d like to tell that part of the story in order, too. 
But suffice it to say she loves her heavy metal rock, she is proficient with a crossbow, and we’re pretty sure that Hemp digs her.  And besides that, Gem and I are convinced that her apprenticeship with Hemp in the lab isn’t solely because she has a fascination with science.

Wow.  All
that shit
happened in
less than
four days
.
  Unbelievable.
 

So you’ll meet
Charlie
later.  But
with or
without a woman,
Hemp
has
his lab, and it
really
is his world.  Like a kid at
Disneyland
, he has to force himself to leave it
, or be dragged out
.
 

No radio taps
from Gem
or Charlie
so far, and that’s good.  If
they double tap
me,
I won’t be
good for shit until the triple comes.  In fact, I’m
already about
to jump out of my skin and in
to
my truck.

So while
Gem and Charlie are
out
hunting-gathering
, Hemp’s in the mobile lab,
and I’m working on this, you ought to get to know me. 
I’m writing this down, and I’m trying to include all the words exchanged between us along the way so you can see how we dealt with things.  This was all new, so we had nothing at all
upon which
to base how we should react to anything that happened. 

Now, we’ve got lots to do
, so there’s not a ton of time for me to get into the beginning of this – well,
my
beginning.  Everyone’s is different.  Equally horrible, I’m sure – I don’t have any copyright on that shit – but different.

With a name like Flex, people remember me.  
But just because of the name.  Physically,
I’m nothing too oddball.  S
ix feet tall, m
edium build.  45 years old.  I got a square jaw and a goatee
, green eyes
.  I keep my hair trimmed short because Gem or I do the cutting and it’s easier. 
  Overall, I’m your generic
c
aucasian
male
.