Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (27 page)

I moved around the edge of the row and made my way down to electrical, grabbing one of the light plastic
shopping carts along the way. 
The kind with the long pole on top so you
can’t
take them out
through
the door.  Damned staff
was
too lazy to go retrieve them from the parking lot.

And now there was no staff.  Good move, maybe.

I
grabbed four motion detectors along the way, then
came to the cable wire and pushed all the rolls off the hanging rods into my cart.  Same with the connectors.

Then I had a thought.  I knew the walkies were okay for
a couple of miles at best with obstacles in the way.  A
super tall antenna would be a big help.  The area where we were located wasn’t too hilly, so if I could get an extension antenna wire up high enough, it would open up our distance, perhaps closer to the 28 miles promised by some of the newer walkies.
  I decided to get the cameras first, then look for something that I could build a makeshift antenna tower with.
 

“Nothing over here,” Hemp called.  “I’m going into the back to see if they’ve got extra stock.  There’s a hanger and price for the 50 lb, but it’s empty.
  I’ll use 30 lb if I have to, but I prefer stronger.
”

“Gotcha.  I’m getting what we need here.  Hey, Hemp!  They have video surveillance kits!  6-camera, easy setup.”

Hemp didn’t reply.  I unloaded three full sets for 18 cameras.  That ought to do it.  Hardware stores sure tried to cater to everyone’s needs these days, and I was glad.  Radio Shack was officially off the list.

Next, I went to the lock section and found a beefy, 2” hasp master lock with a four-number combination.  I didn’t figure the number would have to be that complex considering what we were trying to keep out.  I dropped two of them in my basket, too.

Now for the antenna.  I was thinking some ½” copper pipe, joined by couplings to a height of 100’
might do it.  So ten 10’ sections were on my list.  Along with the proper flux and solder and a nice soldering torch
to sweat the pipe together
.  It could be assembled in less than an hour.  Standing it up might be a trick, but I was sure Hemp would be able to figure it out.  He was an engineer, after all.

I dropped the couplings, solder and torch in my basket, and grabbed the ten lengths of pipe and hefted them out to the Crown Victoria.  They clearly weren’t going to fit inside, so I put them down, ran back inside to grab some more rope, and headed back out.  Gem helped me bundle them, then we used massive strips of duct tape to secure them to the top of the car just to the side of our mounted AK-47.

Okay, Gem’s AK-47.  She loved that thing.

The day was hea
ting up.  It was already around 80 degrees.

“Hemp!”

There was no reply.  It had been over
eight
minutes.  “Hemp!”

Still nothing.

I left my cart and swung my K7 around to
kill position
and stood stock still.  I heard a
bumping sound
from the back of the store.

And I ran.  I ran to the stockroom door and yanked it open, my headlight bathing
each place I turned my head.  The room was rectangular, and had several rows of shelves that ran nearly floor to ceiling.  My light was nearly absorbed by the room, and o
nly
directly
ahead
of me
was illuminated. 
Hemp was not
anywhere in sight, and so far he hadn’t answered.  Chills began their trek up and down my spine
. 

“Hemp!  Where are you?   Can you hear me, man?”

Still nothing.  A shuffle.  Off to my left.  I yelled again.  “Hemp!  Answer me or I might shoot you!”

I didn’t think for a second that Hemp would think this was anything like funny.  He wasn’t a stupid man.

I turned left and walked
quietly
, looking down each aisle, my headlamp exposing anything that might move.

Nothing did.

A grunt. 

I screamed
like a
native
warrior
and ran to the last aisle, turning the corner
at speed
.  A large man
, formerly alive but no longer,
with peeling skin and
reddish-pink
glowing eyes
, stood right there, stopped dead center at the beginning of the
fifty-
foot aisle.  To stop my forward momentum so that I didn’t crash into
the
thing, I dropped my gun to hang awkwardly from the shoulder strap
, windmilling my arms
madly as I
struggled
to reverse course. 

The nostrils flared wide – very wide – and in its moment of
what must have been surprise
, it just
stared down at me. 
He must have been at least 6’7”
,
and because he was wearing basketball shorts and a
jersey I assumed he’d bee
n playing
a little b-ball
when his world changed
. 
I felt like I was facing Larry Bird with flesh-eating virus.

His white-yellow teeth shone in my light, and he came at me the
next split second, just as I began to make some progress away from him. 
He didn’t physically move fast, but his sheer size made every step like two of mine. 
I was startled; he was too close.  I
continued my stagger backward, lost my balance again and fell, and as I looked
up,
he appeared to be ready to
drop right
on top of me. 

I scrambled to my feet
again
and my gun clattered to the floor.  As I scurried away, my left foot caught
t
he
weapon
, kicking it in
my intended
direction of retreat
.  I turned my head back to see what chance I had of getting away when my light fell on a disturbing sight.

Hemp
’
s shoes.  The
soles shone in my light
.  He was unconscious
on the floor in the middle of the aisle
.

I kicked the gun
hard
forward
again as I continued to put distance between me and the lumbering zombie, whose eyes, even without the
illumination
from my headlamp, glowed after me.  Then
, in one fluid motion, I scooped the gun from the ground, rolled onto my back and blasted
no fewer than 20 rounds into that huge, deteriorating, fat head of
his, laying him
down like a pile of bricks smashed by a wrecking ball.
 

As I watched the mass of meat and gore that used to be his face, I saw his eyes slowly fade to black.
 
I stared for a moment.  The shine was life.  Somehow.  In their eyes.
  I had not given it enough thought, I now knew. If Hemp was still alive, we woul
d give it the analysis it deserved.

If he wasn’t, I had no idea what we would do.

I knew
the creature
was gone
, finally dead
, therefore no longer a threat
.  I ran down the aisle
closest
to me, all the way to the end, and turned left. 
I
still
didn’t want to skirt past
the thing, no matter how sure I was that it
was dead.

I got to the end aisle and saw Hemp on the floor.  Kneeling down beside him, I
took his arm
and gently
turned him over.
  He was out cold, but breathing.

He
looked
unharmed. 
Externally, at least. 
No blood.  No injury.  No scratches or bites that looked human inflicted.  Tucking down, I pulled him
up by the waist and somewhat to his feet.  I bent forward and rested him over my right shoulder, then
struggled to stand up.  After nearly going over backward, I regained my balance
and walk
-
jogged to the door of the stockroom, pushed through it, and back into the aisle where my cart was.  I
lowered
Hemp inside the cart and he folded up on top of the cable. 

Not wanting to make Hemp’s trip in vain, I pushed over to his
basket
and loaded
the stuff in his cart into mine, on top of him.  T
hen I ran for the door.

I’m not sure why I was still spooked.  I
was almost certain
that one creature was the only
danger
here, but it was like I was eight years old again, and
I was conjuring up goblins and ghosts and a thousand arms reaching out to grab my shirttail and drag me into hell.

But I made it to the door.  It did not occur to me at that moment, since I lacked complete and utter sanity, that the cart would not fit around the body in the doorway,
or that the fucking metal rod that was sticking up would
hit the door frame.  So, in a perfectly logical scenario, I pushed that overloaded cart full speed through the entry door, the wheels slamming into the torn-up body on the ground and the 1” metal pipe attached to the cart slamming into the glass wall above the door.  As a result, the cart containing Hemp and our precious supplies went into a stutter-flip
, sending
Hemp and all the crap piled on top of him
tumbling
to the ground.

I realized at the last second what had happened, and I tried to hang onto the cart, but all I did was slow it ever-so-slightly. 
Gem saw what
had
happened and practically leapt from the Crown Vic.  She looked at me
, her eyes wide
.

“Jesus!” she shouted.  “Are you guys alright?”

“I’m fine! 
He’s unconscious. 
Get him into the car!”

I stopped, my breath burning my lungs with each draw, and looked behind me.  Nothing in the store moved.

I
realized she wouldn’t be able to do it alone since Hemp was dead weight.  I
ran to Gem and helped her lift Hemp into the car.  Then I slammed the door and went back to right the basket and pick up our strewn supplies.
  I would not sacrifice this stuff that we needed for self-preservation.

Less than thirty seconds
later I had
the stuff
in the trunk of the Ford.  I jumped back into the car and fired the engine.

“Fuck this.  Let’s get back to the house.”

Gem was slapping Hemp in the face, and not softly.  He would not wake up.

“Baby, he’s not coming to!” she said.  “What happened in there?”

“I can’t talk right now,” I said. 

And nobody said a word until we got through the gate and into the security of my house again.

We stared at Hemp, who we’d laid on the couch.

And we waited.

With our guns at ready.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Hemp
didn’t wake on his own.  About 65 minutes after his encounter, Gem sat on the couch beside him and shook him gently by the shoulders. 
His eyes fluttered
open and
he moaned.

When he started to stir, Gem got quickly off the sofa, picked up her gun and held it, barrel pointed
toward the floor
.

“Man.  What happened?
  Gem, why do you have your gun?
”

We looked at him.  We’d never heard the creatures speak other than in early stages and only to tell us how hungryhungryhungry they were, so we figured he was okay.

“You got got by a zombie,” Gem said.
  “Sorry, but until I heard something intelligible out of you . . .”

“I got . . .
got
?”

“In the hardware
store,” I said.
 
“
You went into the stock room, I started to worry, and next thing I knew you were out on
the floor and I was running from a dead
basketball player.
”

Hemp tried to sit up, then abandoned the idea.  He put a hand to his head.  “I don’t remember any of it.  Just putting some things in my basket, and thinking I’d look in back for more stock.”