Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (11 page)

I moved Trina into one arm and reached out and took the Uzi from her.  “Here.”  I put Trina in her arms.  “I got this.  Relax.”  I walked over to the
body lying directly across the narrow block, up against the opposite bank of cells.  With my foot, I kicked the body over so it rolled onto its back.  Yep.  It was a
one of
them
.  The teeth were pulled back, the eyes staring blankly and sunken, the black veins running over every inch of its body. 

T
here were two bullet holes.  One in
its
forehead, and the other in
the now destroyed
chin.   I
lowered the barrel of the Uzi to his cranium
to make
sure.  I
gave it a short burst and felt better.

“Okay,” I said.  “Let’s get our friend out of
that cage
and go get us some evidence.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Hemp was no pussy.  I could tell right away.  He grabbed the
empty
.45 from the cell floor and tucked it in his pants.

“Popular gun,” Hemp said.
 
“
If we don’t find any ammo in
evidence
, I can find
a bit
on some of
the police
officers.”

I led this time, and once we got on the second floor through a stairwell, the signs directing us to evidence were pretty clear.  It was on the third floor.   We stayed keenly aware of sounds other than ours, and kept our gun barrels high.  Only head shots were of any value.  This had become instinct now.  I imagine even Hemp – especially Hemp – had learned that lesson.  He brought up the rear as the only guy without a
loaded
weapon. 

Then I remembered.  Hell, how could I forget?  I reached into my waistband and handed him one of the Berettas.  “Check the clip.”

I hadn’t
considered that Hemp may have never handled a gun before except during his emergency in the cell, but
he
quickly
pressed the clip release button, dropping it into his hand.  He looked at the side of the clip at the view slots
counted the rounds,
and slammed
the clip
back home.

I shook my head. 
“Good.
  You seem to know your way around a pistol.
  Now just r
emember to aim high and
don’t shoot
if we’re in the general direction
you’re pointing
.”

“Understood,” Hemp confirmed. 

I took Trina from Gem again.  She was getting awfully heavy, and I was ready to get this done and get back on the road.

“This is it,” Gem said.  She put her key in the lock and turned it.  The lock spun and the door clicked open.  Our crew of Ghostbusters, or whatever we were these days
,
walked in.  The power was out – not sure why, but the emergency lights were running on fast fading batteries and were no longer very bright.  The lighting was equivalent to that of a romantic restaurant and the more time that passed, the worse it would be come.   Flashlights were effective, but they also screamed “I’M RIGHT FUCKING HERE!” to anyone within view.

“
I’ll get the back wall and first couple of aisles.  Hemp, get these two.  We’re looking for badass firearms and ammo of any and all kinds.”

Gem found a two-tiered rolling cart with
a
rubber-lined surface.  Perfect to transport our
swag
.  I headed down the far wall, and Gem hit the middle. 
I could hear her sliding some drawers open, and
Hemp was already investigating
his rows
.

I reached a
wide,
metal two-door cabinet around
three-quarters
of the way down the aisle.  It was locked, but it did not appear to be designed for strength, because I was able to force the flimsy
knob
to turn
. 
I yanked
hard
on the handle
and
the door
popped open.

I stood back and whistled, throwing my caution of the
things that ate people
to the wind.
And then I laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants.  Trina started to stir in my arms and I tried to contain myself.  But I had a damned good reason.

I’d hit the
m
otherload.

*****

“This one is a
US
built weapon, the Calico M960,” Hemp said.  His sandy, almost white-blonde hair hung into his eyes
and
he shook it back to the side.  “The beauty of
it
is the
high-capacity, helical-feed magazine. 
This firearm holds
. . . hold on.”

He went back to the cabinet and sorted through a few of the boxes.  Wh
en he turned around again he had a
round
, steel
magazine in his hand.  “This one holds 100 rounds.  There’s a fifty in there too, but I thought this one might make us all a bit happier.
  With a full magazine it’s going to be quite heavy – not something you’d want to run too far with.
”

Gem looked at me.  She was holding Trina again, who was
more
awake, but
nodding off now and then
.  She shrugged, then asked, “And you know all this because you do
what
for a living?”

“Scientist,” he said.  “
Biology degree with a focus on e
pidemiology, primarily. 
That’s
why I’m so interested in this infection, or whatever it is.  Everything I learn and observe might help me understand more about it.  How it spreads, what it does.”

“So you study human epidemics, that sort of thing?”
I asked.

Hemp nodded.  He was
just under six feet
tall, and a good looking guy. 
I
liked him immediately. 

“But how do you kno
w about guns?” I asked.
 
“
That’s the obvious question.”

Hemp smiled.  “I’ve had a fascination with guns of all kinds for years.  It’s part of the reason I got my second degree in mechanical engineering.  My father used to pick me up broken guns from pawn shops – got them for next to nothing.  When I was six, I’d break them down, figure out how to re-bore the cylinders, steel wool the rods, and I’d basically restore them. 
By the time I turned thirteen
I was more interested in machine guns.  They were much
more interesting
and complex
, and
being a teenager, my dad felt I was responsible enough to start breaking them down
.
I got a part time job and started paying for them myself, but my dad still had to go make the purchase.
”
  He smiled.

My eyebrows could not have gotten higher.  Gem said it first.
 
“So you’ve got degrees in
epidemiology and mechanical engineering.  Flex, our stories suck compared to his.  Hemp, Flex Sheridan there is an electrician
, but don’t sell him short – he does do commercial work, too
.  I’m an artist.  I work in several mediums, but none of them will immediately help us out of the shit storm that has befallen the state of
Florida
, and I’m assuming the entire world.  So if I could, I’d handcuff you to Flex now and keep you with us, because I think you are going to be very helpful.”

“You said a bad word,” Trina said in a very soft voice.

“Sorry, baby,” Gem said, stroking her hair.  “
Gemmy
’s
had a hard day.”

Hemp threw his hands out to his sides, the magazine still clutched in his left.  “I don’t have to be convinced here,” he said.  “You are the only uninfected
s
I’ve seen, and the fact that we’re not all
victims of
it means there’s a reason.  I don’t know what it is, but it might be something we have in common, or maybe it affects people at different rates, based on diet, physiology, whatever.  But
as for me,
I just drove down to
Florida
from
Atlanta
all by myself to check out the
Kennedy
Space
Center
.  I’ve got no
wife or
kids, and
I don’t
even have a girlfriend right now
.  So d
on’t take this wrong, b
ut you
will do just fine
.”

“Safety in numbers?”  Gem pulled up a wooden chair and sat in it with Trina resting against her shoulder, awake
still
, but staring into space. 

Hemp nodded. 
“
Y
ou already saved me once.  I might have starved to death in that cell.”

“I’d like to chit-chat all day,”
I said.  “But we need to find out which weapons we have matching ammo for and stack ‘em in that cart right there.  Then we need to work our way down the stairs somehow, get back to the Suburban and get out of here.  I think it’s about as weird as hell that we haven’t run into more of these things, but we’re bound to hit some big
numbers sometime.  The sooner we’re mobile, the better I’m going to feel.”

“Especially with this one,” Gem said, bouncing Trina on her knee.

We all got to work.  Soon, all of our weapons carried the weight o
f full clips and magazines
.

And we had plenty of ammo and firepower to spare.

*****

We
left the police station without incident at
around 4:30 in the morning.  We made it to the Suburban without
encountering any people or any infected
s
,
and I had them all get inside
the SUV while I checked on Jamie
.

My
gun at ready, and
found Jamie
still in her
cocoon
, undisturbed.  I thought again about her
hunger.  She wasn’t moaning now.  I placed my hand on the bundle and said “Sis, if I can somehow wake you from this nightmare, I will.  I promise you.”  I g
ot back in the driver’s seat.  I was s
till wide awake.

A
fter stopping at a gas station that clearly still had power, and being surprised that my swipe credit card still activated the pump
, I got back in and started the engine.

I
told Hemp what the situation was as we rolled along
Thomasville Road
,
AKA Interstate 61,
heading north
.
  Gem volunteered to sit in the back seat with Trina, while Hemp sat in front.

“I want to warn you, Flex,” said Hemp.  “
I’ll talk about this with you, fully realizing it’s sensitive.  When
I refer to your sister, I am going
use the same terminology and analyses that I would
with regard to
any of the infected, so please, do your best to forget that she is so closely related.  It’s not my intention to offend.”

“I got it,” I said.  “Understood.”

“Okay, the first thing I want to tell you is that the likelihood that there will be a cure anytime soon for such a widespread, fast-moving
disease – we’ll call it that for now for lack of a better term – is almost nil.” 

He paused for a moment, as though to allow it to sink into my thick brain.  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, so it was probably smart of him.  I said nothing, but nodded at him.

“Okay, now
, think odds
.  Of the people who are capable of finding the cure to this, scientists such as myself – and many of them far smarter than me, I might add – a large portion are inevitably becoming infected.  It’s the odds playing out, which means there is at least a 50/50 chance that the person who was going to discover the cure for this, if one can be found, is one of the infected.”

Gem added,
“And judging from what we’ve run into already, I’d say it’s much greater odds than 50/50.  I’d put it at
closer to
90/10.  And that’s conservative.
  We’ve literally run into nobody alive who was calling for help but you.
”