Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (21 page)

Human flesh was tasty and they wanted it.  No argument.

CHAPTER
NINE

Gem and I grabbed the Jerry cans and untwisted the caps.  We doused each side of the porch and moved inside the house.  We’d gotten all the living out.   Some did not make it beyond the front yard before succumbing, but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about burning anyone alive.

Together we
moved through the front two room
s
, one eye always on the front of the house.
  We splashed the pungent gasoline on the remaining bodies, the walls,
and the
floor.  Plenty left.  Our plan might work.

They were only fifty yards away now.  Coming fast.  Well, fast for
them
.

And then we saw it.  The bodies of the dead were beginning to move.  Almost imperceptible at first.  A twitch of a finger.  Neck.  A foot.

“Shit!  Do you see this, Gem?”

Her face was aghast.  “I checked those three for a pulse, Flex.  All dead.  All of them.”

“And I checked the others.  The one on the far side of the room, almost in the hallway, started to get to his feet.  His face turned, and the skin was pallid, the lips drawn, the eyes white and unseeing.

The nostrils flared.

I walked fast toward it and fired one shot into its brain.  It fell in a heap.

I
hurried
back to the porch and with the blade, drew another long cut down my forearm.  I wanted to keep them coming at all costs.  That one hurt.   I ran back inside.

“They’re here, babe.  Put some coffee on,” I said.
“Oh, did you get that pastry pack at Costco we talked about?”

“Very fucking funny, sweetheart.  Focus,” Gem said, the humor in her voice imperceptible.

We
walked cautiously through the front rooms, cognizant of the twitching, awakening things on the floor, but believing we had the time advantage.  They’d already been soaked in gasoline, so should torch easily when we started the fire. 

We
moved down the hallway.  I splashed the gas on the left wall, and Gem on the right.  We came to an open door and Gem involuntarily jumped back.

I whispered, “The other side rooms were empty.  This is the feeding room, apparently.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Gem. 

The man I’d seen earlier had died now.  I could tell because half his brain, accessed through the gaping hole in the back of his neck, was in the creature’s mouth that lay atop him.

Behind us the zombies had entered the house and were now crowding into the hallway.

“Let’s clear a path, I said.”

We put the gas cans, now 2/3 empty, on the ground, swung our machine guns around, and began to blow the brains out of the feeders.  That took all of eight seconds. 

Twelve feet behind us the thrum of zombie moans was loud, vibrating our eardrums.  We grabbed our gas cans and continued the dousing of the house, as we stepped over zombie and human bodies on our way to the rear windows.

I reached the back wall, and with the last of my gas, splashed it as far as I could in all directions, then threw the can.  Gem followed suit.  She tossed her can then smashed out the lower half of the window with the butt of her gun and jumped out into the back yard.

I shattered the window behind me and waited.  I wanted to see them come into the room.  I wanted to know they were in here, because I wanted all hundred or so of these fuckers to fit inside this house for the big show.

When they were three feet from me, I turned and leapt out the window.

“I like it when a plan comes together,” Gem said.  Her face was tired, and her eyes never left the windows.  She’d moved about eight feet away from the house, her gun leveled at the window she’d jumped out of.

“Let’s light that sucker,” I said.  We fired our guns simultaneously through both windows.

Nothing.

We looked at each other.  We fired again.

Still no fire.

“Fuck!” I shouted.  “This always works in the movies!”

“I’ll run to the suburban and get matches
or a lighter or something
,” Gem shouted over the incessant hum-moaning.  Some of them had reached the windows and were starting to come through.  I used a quick burst on them, blowing their heads apart in a spray of gore.  “Go!” I shouted.

I crouched down and kept moving my gun between both windows.  Gem was running hard when she disappeared around the corner.

I picked off three more. 
My radio squealed.  I pulled it off my belt and said, “Gem?”

Her voice came back on, low, but calm.  “Flex, they’re almost all inside now.  Can you hold them in back there?”

I pushed the button.  “Yeah, for a bit.  I’ve got two
magazines
with me.  How long?”

“Any second.  There are about a dozen . . . there they go . . . okay.  Okay.  Get ready to get back, babe.”

I shot five more as they fell from the window and attempted to get to their feet.  I was getting very good at the cranial shots. 

As I fired at another
, a woman this time,
that had tried to step out and fell on its face, I heard Gem’s voice on the radio.  “Okay, Flexy, jump back NOW!”

I fired
once more, then
turned and charged away from the building.  An eruption went off behind me as the
fume-filled house went up in an instant
fireball with a
phfwooomph
!  The
sudden heat
blasted
my body and I smelled singed hair even as I put more distance between the house and myself.

I
landed in
the grass
,
and
still gripping my gun, rolled
onto my stomach.  The last one I’d fired on had not been hit, but
she
did catch fire with the ignition of the house. 
She
came toward me
, her hair on fire,
and I raised my weapon again.  I shot
her
square in the nose
and the back of her head blew apart, like a biological firework
packed with
flesh, bone and hair
.

Two more fell out of the window, scrambled – as much as they could scramble – to their feet, and staggered toward me.  I cut them off at the legs, then walked easily up to them and fired a single round into each of their brains.  I was fucking sick of the theatrics.

I just wanted the assholes to stay down and die already.

I heard gunfire from the front of the house as two more zo
mbies dropped from the window.

“Give me a goddamned break, would you?” I shouted, getting irritated now.  Gem might be in trouble, and I did not have the time for this shit, two-by-two.

I turned at looked at them. 
They weren’t making much progress toward me – they were already in flames – but I provided final head shots to both of them just the same.

I turned, then stopped.  Glanced at the windows again.  Waited.

I reached for my radio to tell Gem I’d be coming and not to shoot me.  But it wasn’t there.

I scanned the ground.  It must have fallen off my belt.  I ran back toward the house and the four zombies I’d just taken out, and didn’t see it. 

More gunfire from the front.  As long as I heard that I knew Gem was still okay.

I walked up to the prone zombie closest to the window.  It was the most likely spot.  I leaned back and kicked the squishy body over with my boot.

And there it was.  A tad bloody, but still intact.  I ripped a piece of the nearest zombie’s shirt and used it as a insulator.  Fucking wished I had latex gloves.  That would be on my next shopping list at Walgreens.

I brought the radio close to my mouth, but not too close.  I hit the button.  “Gem, what’s happening?”

I waited only a split-second before she answered.  My heart immediately slowed
when I heard her calm voice
.

“Baby, I’m fine.  Just some stragglers.”

“Same here.  I think I’ve got
‘em
all now,” I said.

“Bastards stink,” she said.

“Smell better when they’re on fire,” I answered, wa
l
king back around the house
.  “I’m coming around now. 
Don’t shoot me
.”

I clipped
the radio back on my belt.
 
When
I reached her she swung around with her rifle pointed at me.

“Whoa, Nelly.”

“Need to announce yourself,” she said.  “I almost blew your head off.”

“I thought I just did, on the radio.”

“Sorry.  Must have missed that part.”

We stood together and looked out
at the street leading to
the 7-Eleven.  There were no bodies in the
road
.  Apparently the group of escapees had helped the fallen and continued to their destination.

“Let’s go see what we can do to get them set up and get back to the CDC,” I said.
  “Hemp’s got to be worried by now.”

“Do we know if one of that group is Cynthia’s
mother
?”

I shook my head.  “We’ll let
Taylor
tell us when we get there.  I sure hope so.”

When we got back to the vehicles,
Taylor
was still under the blanket.  She was fine.  Gem drove her to the store, following behind me in my armed Hummer.

They had made it.

The cheers were subdued, but cheers nonetheless when we opened the door to the walk-in cooler and saw the tired, frightened eyes of our new friends.

It was a good feeling to see so many of
us all
at once.

“If you don’t mind, we’d like to spend a few minutes with Marion and
Bobby,” I said, addressing the crowd of approximately twenty-five.  “Only because they’re military trained.  Not to say there aren’t others of you, but for now we’ll go over some things with them and they can pass it along to you.”

Everyone nodded tiredly, and Bobby and Marion stepped outside the cooler with us.  “Look, we don’t want to stay out here too long.  Smells, you know.  But there are some things you need to know to make it.
”

“First off,” Gem said, “
g
et more guns.  You’ll need as many as you can all carry and handle.  Next, head shots.  In the brain.  It’s the only thing that will kill them.”

I nodded as Gem shared information.  “Headaches.  It seems to either come on with a massive headache, like a migraine, or how I just saw it happen.  Upon the death of the uninfected.”

Bobby and Marion stared at us.  Bobby spoke.  “When they . . .
die
?”

Gem nodded. 
“Within ten or fifteen minutes they’re back.  But not the same.  Not at
all
the same.”

“And the heads can live without the bodies, so
we can’t stress enough to inflict massive trauma on the brain.
  Cutting off he head just makes a dangerous bowling ball with teeth.  You get bit, you become one.  Scratched, we’re pretty sure you become one.  There’s a lot we don’t know, but just act like what we’re telling you is gospel, and you should live to tell your grandkids about this.”

“Where are you going?”
Marion
asked.  “Can we come with you?”

I shook my head.  “
Guys, I’m just like you are.  I’m not suited to be part of a big group.  I don’t have big plans at this point, and for Christ’s sake, I don’t want to be a leader.  I think we’d like to remain a foursome.  Well, plus our dog.”

Gem stared at me.  “They need help, Flex.”

I stood at looked at Gem’s eyes, the concern there.  I looked back
at the sunken eyes of Bobby, a short but solid, stocky
man with a round face and dark hair parted at the side with his share of cowlicks. 
Marion
stared back, her wire-rimmed glasses
askew
, hair pulled back in a pony.  She was about 6’3” and towered over all of us by at least three inches.
  She scratched her freckled nose.

“Okay, look.  What we’ve just
shared with
you will help you a lot.  Get food, water,
medicine
whatever you can
and stock up on non-perishables
.  I’m going to leave you with the Hummer we brought.  It’s set up with dual machine guns and should give you a hell of a fighting chance to get wherever you’re going.  But you – as a group – need to decide where that
is.  You must understand that w
e
haven’t got a clue w
here we’re headed, much less
where
our next stop will be.”