Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (19 page)

“Flex, I’ve got the binocs from your truck, so I scoped it out from a good distance away.  If they’ve got a
enhanced
sense of smell, then it’s
either not as good as the b
inocular power or the wind is with me, or both.  Anyway, I need you
and Hemp
if we’re going to get this girl.”

“Where is she, Gem?”

There was a long hesitation.  When her voice came back through the speaker, it was cracking and on the edge of tears.  “She’s . . .
Christ
,
she’s
beneath another body
just inside the door, Flex.  She’s keeping her eyes squeezed shut, but once in a while, when one of them is behind her, she opens them.  Fuck, Flex.  I have to get her, but –”

“But you’ll wait.  I’m coming.  I’m going to leave Hemp here to work on this gas line.  We have to get this going so we can keep the promise we made to Max and get the hell to my house where we can start to put together a plan for our future.”

“Okay,” she said.  “But Flex, hurry.  This kid’s going to be scarred for life, and I want – oh, shit.”

I felt like I was wasting time.  I needed to be there with her now.  “What, Gem?  What?”

“The son-of-a-bitch is – holy crap – he’s dragging a body out of the next door neighbor’s house, toward this one.  Can they have that much awareness?”

I didn’t know.  I looked at Hemp and pressed the button so Gem could hear me.  “Hemp, could these things know that preserving the bodies in a cool area would protect their food source?  I mean, from what you’ve seen so far?”

Hemp shook his head.  “I’ve not seen that kind of thought structure so far.  The group movement, which looked coordinated, could have only been them all catching the whiff of a scent all at once.  But self preservation?  Food storage?  Doesn’t sound likely.”

I held the button.  “Did you hear that?”

She came back on.  “I did, but unless this was some sort of
Reverend Jim
Jones
,
Guyana
,
Kool-Aid
mass-suicide
thing,
then these people were captured and stacked by these freaks
.  And I’m
only
seeing a
part of it.  Now Hurry, Flex, o
r I’m going rogue.”

“Got it.  Get back to the truck. 
We’ll
do what
we
can for the girl
when I get there and
y
ou’re
less likely to die in the process.  Promise me?”

“Okay, but hurry. 
Head out the
same
gate we came through
and turn right on the first access road.  You take that same road two miles, then
cut your engine, roll in and
just park on the corner when you get to
Oregon Street
. 
I’ll be watching for you.”

“Got it babe,
” I said.  “Ten minutes.  I’ll radio if it’s going to be longer.”

I clicked off.  “Hemp, let’s check out some of the
beefier
hard tops.  I think I need protection that a ragtop Jeep’s not going to provide.”

*****

The Hummer 2
was
perfect
.  Turns out the government still us
ed them despite crazy gas prices
, even while they preached hybrid technology to the masses.  It had a full tank with six 5-gallon cans of extra gas anchored to a rack on the rear bumper.

Hemp had been running around the large garage investigating.  The space was massive, and the walls that were not bay doors were loaded with racks of black pipe, PVC, flat steel, angle iron, and other fabrication materials.  There were rolling tool chests jammed full of every kind of tool and corresponding cutting bit you could think of.  Upon our first inspection of the stuff I knew he’d be in the Toys R Us of engineering.

He came back, winded.  “Could get pretty crazy out there, Flex,” Hemp said. 
“
If you can spare about fifteen minutes and pitch in, I think I can make this ride a tad
safer and more of what y
ou John Wayne types might call
bad ass
.”

I clicked on to Gem.  “Babe, are you staying clear?  How’s the girl?”

“I can’t see her from where I am now, Flex.  Why?”

“I’ll leave in about fifteen minutes.  You’ve got to wait.  It’s an idea of Hemp’s for the truck I’m bringing.”

“Hurry, Flex.  If you’re not here in twenty, I’m loading up and going in after her.”

I didn’t say anything.  I looked at Hemp.  “
What’s the plan
?”

Hemp used the striker
to light
the acetylene torch,
then
started heating four steel flat irons
around
one inch wide and fifteen inches long.
  When the steel glowed red, he started hammering on them.  He had shrugged out of his
Daewoo
earlier, and now eyeballed the gun
, hammering
on the steel
rods
.  He bent
them
the way he wanted
them
, and w
hen he was done, all were identical.  I was duly impressed.

“These mounts will bolt to the doors on both sides.  You won’t have side windows, but nothing should be able to get close enough to you for you to need them,” he said as he drilled holes in the top of each u-shaped piece with the ultra sharp ¼” diamond-tipped bit.  “They should rest nicely over the door panel when you roll down the windows.”

Wearing leather gloves, he spun open the bench vise and repositioned the pieces, then
pulled the drill press down again and again, drilling m
ore holes at the ends of
all four pieces.
  Then he
unclamped
them again and dropped
the hot steel
into a bucket of water beside the bench.
  They
splashed in
with a quick hiss and sank to the bottom.

“Give them a couple of seconds to cool then roll down the windows
on the Hummer
and center them on the door panels
on both
the driver and passenger sides.  I’m using the Daewoo because the barrel is thick and cylindrical and will mount well using a couple of
beefy
U-bolts.  Take two of these big
metal
screws
for each one
to mount them.
  There’s a good driver drill right here.
”

He handed me a big Makita.

“You did two too many,” I said.

“You don’t think we’re leaving your truck unprotected, do you?  I’m doing it, I might as well whip out four of them.  We’ve got enough of the K7s.”

I shook my head.  “Hemp, you are amazing, man.
”
  I grabbed the steel pieces out of the water and got the bolts and the driver
bit I needed
. 

“When I screw through the door it’s going to break the glass,” I said.

“
It d
oesn’t matter. 
Let
it
shatter
.  Hurry, Gem’s waiting
for you.  I’ll finish the
pivot pieces
.”

The mounts attached perfectly in less than five minutes.  The
windows did shatter
with a loud
pop
as the screw pressure drove the tempered glass
past
its limit. 

By the time I’d mounted them to the Hummer, Hemp had completed four
heavy-duty
U-Bolt mounts.  He had found
oversized
wing nuts for quick installation and removal of the weapon on the pivoting bracket.  Pure genius.

“I’ll mount this one on the passenger side further out on the barrel, since you’ll be the only one in the vehicle
initially.  Y
ou’ll need to be able to fire the weapon from the driver’s seat.  These bolts are hardened steel, and will handle the kick without damaging the pivot or mount.”

Hemp checked his watch.  “You’ve got
four
more minutes to get out of here.”  He finished mounting the gun and tightened the wing nuts with a t-handled wrench that he handed to me afterward.  “Try it out.  Get in.  You’ll have to mount the other
K7
when you get back to your truck.  Do that first, okay?  Before you go in.”

I nodded and got inside the Hummer.  Sitting comfortably in the driver’s seat, I could hold my hand out and grip the weapon.  When the clip was empty, it would easily tilt up, allowing me to eject the clip and put in a new one.

“Bitchen,” I said.  “Fuckin’ bitchen.”

“We’ll do your Suburban when you get back.  Now go.  I’ll get started on the gas line.”

I handed him my H&K and the extra clips.  He dropped his Daewoo clips onto the passenger seat. 

“Thanks, Hemp.  We were lucky to run into you in that police station.”

He nodded and smiled.  “Go get ‘em, cowboy.”

I left with
a minute and a half to spare.

Gem’s directions were easy and perfect.  When I drove up I
parked and cut the engine
.  Gem was at my window in seconds.

“Sweet ride, babe.  You were faster than I thought,” she said, touching the bracket on the door panel.

“Hemp’s quick.  Gem, I can’t even tell you how good he is.  Check it out.”  I leaned back so she could see the submachine gun mounted on the opposite door.

“Wow,” she said.  “Nice.  Now let’s go.”

“Grab me another K7 real fast.  I promised Hemp I’d do this first.  It’ll attach in less than a minute and you said I’m early.”

She nodded and retrieved the gun.  I rested it on the bracket, dropped the U-bolt down on top and slid the lower bracket on to it.  Once the wing nuts were tight I tested the pivot and mount.  It was perfect for either my left or right hand, depending on what the situation called for.

“Ready?” she asked.

I wasn’t.  I’d have rather stayed right there with my double machine gun-protected Hummer, but I nodded anyway.  “Let’s go get that little girl,” I said.

With spare clips for the Uzi and the other
MP5
I’d gotten out of the truck – mainly because I’d grown to like that gun quite a bit – we tested the wind for
directional
change as any
golfer would.  We tossed grass
in the air.

We
would approach the house from
downwind
just to be
safe, and lucky for us
that meant
from
the front
of the house where the captives were being held
.

For a moment I almost ran to check on Jamie on the trailer, but then immediately remembered that Gem had wisely unhooked the trailer from the hitch ball and left it in the parking lot back at the CDC.  I’d seen it in my rear view mirror as I pulled out, and it appeared to be intact and secure.

Gem and I crouched down and stayed under cover.  By the time we were devising a plan, we realized that many of the people in that house were still alive.  Some were feigning sleep or death, we couldn’t be sure.  The old ‘
close your eyes and they can’t see you
’ trick.  The only problem with that was the zombies could clearly smell fresh meat, so your little jig would be up sooner than later.

“They’re stocking them up, Flex.  Like a fucking food
bank
.  I’ve only seen the front rooms.  I have no idea who, what, how many – none of it – from the beginning of the
hallway to the back of the house.”

I knew that we could take a good number out at low risk with our high-powered weapons, but when the clip emptied, there was that damned pesky delay where you had to eject and reload.  That was an opportunity for
them
, and the more there were, the more likely you could be taken by surprise.  And more than once it had seemed these things knew when you were more vulnerable.  Or perhaps when you were
less threatening
.

“Okay, my plan sucks, but I don’t have a better one right now.  I say we start out at the house next door, see if any of
these things
are over there.  That way we’re not surprised if this turns out to be a house filled with zombies. If not, we go back to
the storage
house
, do our best to stay downwind, and we
kill any mot
herfucker that gets in our way.”

“You’re calling them zombies, Flexy.”

“I know, and it’s the only word that works.  Now listen.  W
e make sure
we’ve killed every one of them in the near vicinity, then we s
tart getting the live uninfecteds out of there.  Starting with
Taylor
.”