Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (12 page)

Thomasville Road
turned into Interstate 319.  Along the way we came across several of the
dead-but-not-dead things, but we encountered
no living human beings. 
This was dashing our hopes, encounter by encounter. 
By the time we passed, they were too far behind us to be a threat.  Most were . . . eating, and a little distracted.

“I don’t know about leaving them all alive.  They
’d
kill any of us, so aren’t they the enemy?”  Gem looked at me.  “I’m sorry, Flex.  But –”

“Gem, you don’t have to walk on eggshells with me.  But I don’t want to call them zombies, or creatures
or monsters, or anything like it
.  How about . . . let’s call them
abnormals
for now.”

Hemp no
dded.  “Abnormals.  That works.  And Flex, let me share with you that I think it’s good we have one of them subdued.  The only way a cure of any kind will be found is if they can be a
nalyzed, examined.”

“I don’t want her hurt in any way, Hemp.   Not one hair.  I’m worried about her hunger.  She could –”

I stopped talking.  I wasn’t sure she
could
die.  I didn’t know enough.  I looked at Hemp.  “Can she die?”

“She can be killed, as you know already, with trauma to the head – most likely the brain.  But as for starvation?  It’s too soon.  They are clearly ravenous.  This is what drives them.  And that’s important for
you
to remember about your sister.  This is not a vindictive or vengeful thing, what they’re doing.  They are hungry, and that’s all they are.”

I nodded.  “Wolves and bears can’t be blamed for killing, either.  It’s a survival instinct.  But they kill just the same, and when their populations get too high, it’s hunting season.  Gem’s right.”  I felt her hand on my shoulder.  I was glad for it.
  What I said next, I didn’t want to say.  But I knew it was true.

“We’ve got to kill them all.”

But when we reached the state line, that seemed next to impossible.  We needed fuel
again, saw a Texaco sign brightly lit,
and h
ad gotten off at the first exit inside
Georgia
. 

At least 50 of them blocked the road, some hunched over bodies, feasting.
Others moving toward our truck.  Some moved slowly, lackadaisically, but others, if
it
were
possible, seemed excited at the prospect of us
, and moved at a faster clip
. 
I hoped it was
just my imagination.

“Holy fuck,” said Gem.

“You said another
really
bad word, Gemmy.”

“Baby, you get on the floor. 
Now
.
”

“Get the 100-rounders,” I said.  “We’re going to need them.”

Hemp already had one in each hand and Gem’s was leaning against her door.  With the abnormals
twenty-five
feet from the Suburban, we opened the doors and stepped into our biggest battle yet.

*****

“Where the fuck did they all come from?” I called out, and Gem, already firing into the group, answered.

“Not sure babe, but I plan to send as many as I can to
Hell!”  She took aim and blasted the heads off of three of them that were within
twenty
feet.

Hemp did know his weapons.  He charged forward toward them for a good, predictable shot, and in six short bursts, took seven of them down.  For my part, I’d taken five out,
and from our first estimate,
we
should’ve
had right around thirty-five to go
.  We were wrong.  There were dozens of them outside of our line of fire, making their way toward us along the shoulder behind the many cars that either crashed or had been hastily parked there. 
In my peripheral vision, I could see a few of them flanking us, and that didn’t make any sense at all for things with just one emotion – hunger.

“Hemp, do you see what’s happening?” I ran back to the truck and yanked open the door.  “Trina, no matter what you hear, you keep your head down, do you hear me?” 

“Yes, Uncle Flexy,” she answered from under her comforter.

“Okay, sweetheart.”  I pulled the key and leaned over and pushed the lock down on the passenger side, then locked the driver’s door and slammed it.  I wanted to leave the rear doors open for quick access to the other weapons and ammo in case we needed them.

“
Hemp, what do you think?” I called.  Gem was focused.  I glanced at her every now and then, in between shots.

“I think I’m glad we got these high-capacity magazines,” he said.  “It’s going to be close.”

“Gem, watch!  There’s two on your right!”  I had my share of them working their way on my left, too, so took careful aim in the lightening sky and brought down six more in a spray of crimson that painted the gravel red.

We were in a isosceles triangle formation with Hemp out front, Gem on the right side of the Suburban, and me on the left. 
Hemp was using his M960 efficiently, and with minimal use of rounds, he was taking them out down the middle, leaving the side trackers to us.  There was a car just to Gem’s right, and that’s how they got so close to her.

Gem turned and blew the heads
completely
off the two
closest when they were just feet away from her
.  The light breeze blew the blood spray
back
toward her and she turned away momentarily to keep it out of her face.  As she did so
, she saw two more behind her.  I had ducked down low to see beneath the Suburban, and saw their legs moving toward her.  I heard her gun click.

“Run toward Hemp!” I shouted at Gem, and dropped to my stomach on the pavement.  I fired a long burst, turning the creatures’ legs into stumps.  Then I ran around the truck and turned their gnashing faces and heads into pulp.  “That’s the fucking way we do it, asshole!” I shouted.  This fucker had almost gotten the jump on my woman, and that shit was NOT acceptable.

“Gem!”  She turned toward me, gratitude on her face.  I threw my gun
to her
and she deftly caught
it.  In
one swift motion
she
turned and took out no fewer than ten of the slow walkers on her right.  I was back at the car, yanking the rear door open to grab another
fully loaded rifle.  This was one of the newest machine guns in the mix, A Daewoo K7 from the early 2000’s.  It only had a
32 round magazine on it, so I set it to the three-round burst mode.  With speed, I could take out two or three of them per burst.

I slammed the door in time to turn and find one of them almost right behind me.  Behind him were four more, coming out of the ditch from behind an old Nissan Sentra.  I shot him i
n the mouth, and his head broke into two
slo
ppy halves that slid down his body
.  As he fell, the others
came
into my sights, and I used two more
quick
bursts to take them down. 

One of them could have been no older than sixteen years.  I stared at the body on the ground for a moment.  Somebody’s son.  Maybe
they’d been on
their way down to
Orlando
to see Disney World for the first time. 

But this was no longer that family.  These were not people now, and it was becoming
clearer
to me with every
one of them I . . . murdered.

Stop that shit, Flex.  Stop it.

Subconsciously I heard the gunfire all around me grow more and more infrequent.  I shook off my heavy thoughts and ran around the rear of the trailer,
scanned the freeway exit we’d driven up as far as I could see, then
ran
around the other side
of the Suburban
where Gem was in the process of shooting what used to be a woman wearing a “I’m With Stupid” shirt featuring an arrow pointing up.  Stupid went down in a pool of muck.

“How we doin’
, guys
?” Gem called, her eyes peeled for movement
, her
head moving side to side as she focused on
the fading shadows around her
. 

I respected that woman more than ever.  I never knew what was inside her,
her
strength,
the
pure
will
she po
s
sessed
.  I knew she had all the things I wanted, but I had no idea she also had what I needed. 
Everything
I needed. 
There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but we hadn’t had the time since this whole thing
began
.  When we got back to my house, I’d make the time. 

“Good,” Hemp said.  “I’m thinking . . . almost afraid to say it, but I’m thinking we’ve got them.”

I
checked
the area behind the cars again, and walked forwar
d.  Hemp followed while
Gem
stayed
near the
Suburban
and
peered inside to check on
T
rina.  Hemp and I
scouted about fifty yards or so out
in front of our vehicle
.  We both got to our knees and
searched
under the cars.  All the bodies
we encountered
were either half-eate
n human beings or a
bnormals
with serious – and I mean deadly serious – head trauma
.

“Hemp,” I said, pointing at a Toyota Highlander
that was r
ocking back and forth.  I used hand motions to him as we separated and approached the vehicle from two sides.  I saw the cause of the rocking almost immediately.  Feet stuck out of the rear passenger side door.  We’d been unable to see it as we walked by earlier
on the other side of a crashed minivan.

I walked slowly, gun held at ready, and moved closer so I could see what was happening inside.  When I finally could see, I wasn’t sure what I
was
seeing.

It looked like a man in the throes of a fight with a polar bearskin rug.  He moaned and thrashed, and I stood there for a moment in shock at the sight.  But if he was alive, I needed to get to him.  I
leaned
my gun against the van and reached down and grabbed both his ankles.  Before I realized that his skin
mashed
like putty in my grip, I was pulling him out of the SUV
.  W
hen his body rolled over as he slid off the seat and onto the ground, I saw his gnashing, bloody teeth, and massive bite marks in his vein-riddled face.

Faster than I could have imagined possible, he leaned forward, his hand snatching for my wrist, and he had me.  His grip was much stronger than I could have imagined, and he was also far more flexible, bending almost in half to bring his horrifying face to where his hand held me.  His mouth str
etched open, his nose wrinkled and
his
lidless
eyes
grew wide
as he prepared to take a bite
of me
.

An explosion rang out beside my ear, and I felt the burn of hot powder, followed by a high-pitched ringing, like a fucking tuning fork was embedded in my brain.

The hand loosened, and I fell back
hard.  I recall thinking I was going to hit my head on the pavement
and there was nothing I could do to stop it
. 

It was the last thing I remember until I felt the wet towel on my face.

Only it wasn’t a towel.

*****

“Flex.  Flex, baby, wake up.” 

It was . . . could it be?  Gem’s voice?

“C’mon, baby.  You’re the one who’s always on a time schedule.  All your structure and
bullshit
.  We gotta go.”

Something wet slid across my mouth and cheek.  Was Gem licking me?  I tried to open my eyes, and found they worked.  Light flooded into them, and I saw a white and pink blur over me.    I squeezed them closed again, flushing away the haze, and opened them.
  Another lick.   A big one.

“Jesus, you two, get that thing away from me!”  I wasn’t even sure what it was yet, but it was
licking
me.

“C’mon,
now
,” said Hemp’s voice.

I opened my eyes again, and this time I saw Hemp pulling the collar of a giant white dog with blood matted in
the fur on
its chin and all along its front legs and chest.

“Is he okay?” I asked.   “Where the hell did he come from?”