Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (33 page)

“Baby, relax for a little longer.  Do you feel okay?”

“Let me sit up and I’ll tell you.”

She did.  I swung my legs off the gurney and put my feet on the floor.  I stood, felt shaky for a second or two, then gained my footing.

“I’m good, I think.  Hungry as hell, but good.”

“You didn’t wake until we touched you,” Hemp said
.  “Same as me and the group at the 7-Eleven.”

“You said you were paralyzed,” Charlie said.  “Right before you went blank.  Eyes open, but gone.”

“Lights were dim, nobody home,”
Gem
said, smiling.

Charlie
was dressed in one of Hemp’s shirts. 
Cambridge
University
Alumni.  She looked cute, but I was sure she’d rather be wearing a Sex Pistols shirt or maybe The Clash, sticking with the British theme.

“So it seems to be a paralytic agent in the vapor,” Hemp said.  “
Analysis is still underway.
”

“Whatever it is, it’s effective,” I said.  “I didn’t stand a chance, and I’m clearly not susceptible to the plague, virus, or whatever the hell it is.”

Hemp sat down on the sofa and stared into space.  “The virus itself is completely separate from this.  This is some sort of side effect from decomposition and the condition, as far as I can
tell
.  Perhaps like some sort of chloroform gas, but with additional interesting properties.”

“Like the paralyzing effect,” I suggested.

“Exactly.”

“Well, I want some of that bacon and those eggs
I smell
.  After that, I should be back to normal.  Gem?  You still mad at me?”

She shook her head.  “The breakfast I’m about to plate for you should prove that I’m not.  Plus . . . what I’ll serve you later.”

I smiled.  And I looked forward to both.

“Coffee?”

“Of course, baby.  A big mug.”

And I ate enough for both of us.
 

*****

After I fin
ished eating,
Hemp and I
went out to check our snare traps.  All empty.  We were relieved, to say the least.  Finally,
I asked about the video.

“It’s interesting, Flex,” Hemp said
.  “When you were close to her and the process began, I realized
how I was taken so quickly by the one in the hardware store.”

He paused a minute, as though the memory of that day disturbed him.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The mist . . . well, I think you’ve got to see it.  Let’s watch it and talk about it then, okay?”

“Sure,” I said tentatively.  “That’s fine.”

We walked back to the house, our guns at ready, but we didn’t need them.  The isolation of my property had done the trick for now.   For now, but who knew how long that would last.

When we walked in, Gem was playing with Trina.  Playing might be the wrong word; she was showing her a .22 caliber long barrel revolver.  She looked up at me and smiled. 

“I’m introducing her to firearms.  Hope that’s okay.”

“It’s empty, right?”

Gem looked at me, and I knew the look.  I shrugged and laughed.  “Okay, okay.  Sorry.  Yeah, she needs to know how to handle them, and I guess it can’t be too soon.”

“Good little gun, too.  Takes the long rifle rounds.  She should be able to handle this one with live ammo before too long.”

Charlie was sitting on the other side watching the training session, and smiled at Hemp as he came in.

“Is it video time?” she asked.

“It is,” he said.  “I want to show him the vapor.”

Trina held the empty .22 up and Gem instructed her.

“You see the little V shaped thingy closest to your eye?  And you see that little I shaped thing at the end of the barrel?  You want to point at something, make sure the I thing is right in the center of the V thing, and then pull the trigger very slowly until you hear a click.”

Trina held the gun up more easily than I would have
believed she could.  It was a .22 Magnum Taurus revolver with a five inch barrel, and it weighed just under two pounds.  It would be a pretty easy trigger pull, but I was wondering if we’d have to modify the grip to allow her little hand around it.  When I heard the click as she pulled the trigger, and then another five subsequent clicks, I knew I was mistaken.  The true test of he
r ability to handle it  w
ould come later, when we were
actually
willing to let her fire it.

“You have to learn the proper wa
y to hold the gun,
especially when you’re not using it.  The end you point must always be pointed
away
from people, and you never have your finger on the trigger unless you plan to
fire
it.  Got it?”

Trina nodded.  “I always point it away from people.  Dogs, too?”

“Especially dogs,” Gem said, smiling again.

“And my finger on the trigger.”

“No, your finger
off
the trigger.  When you’re not ready to shoot it.”

“Off the trigger.”

“Right.”

Charlie patted Gem on the leg and Gem smiled at her.

“You want to go watch the video with the guys?  I’ll watch Trina.”

“I wanna go!” said Trina.  “I wanna see a video!”

“You and I will watch a video in her
e, okay?  We’ll watch Lion King.
”

Trina’s eyes lit up.  “Can we watch
Little
Mermaid instead?”

Charlie smiled and held out her hand.  “
Of course
.  Little Mermaid it is.”

“Goody!” she shouted.

I watched her holding the gun in one hand, and all the while she held the barrel away from everyone.  I was instantly proud of her, assuming it was intentional.

“I have to put this away first,” she said.  She stood, opened the wood case, and holding the barrel away from everyone, she placed it in the box and closed the lid, spinning the double combination lock wheels.

She looked at every one in sequence. 
“Did I do it right?”

We all applauded.  No more words needed to be said.  Trina jumped in the air, grabbed Charlie by the hand and led her to the television.  She knelt down and got the DVD out of the rack, removed it from the sleeve, and popped it in.

“We’ll see you in a bit,” Charlie said.  “Enjoy the movie.”

“You, too,” said Gem, leading the way to the lab.

*****

Hemp pressed play on the DVD player and the flat panel LCD monitor showed the gurneys.  It was split screen, as there were two cameras and that’s how Hemp manipulated the recording.

One camera was behind our heads and high up, angling down at our faces.  I still had difficulty looking at her, the non-stop jaw-moving, the black tongue visible b
ehind the rotting teeth. 

It was not, and is not my sister any longer, and in my heart I knew it was true.  Even recovery, if it were possible, would leave her a vision of horror to her only remaining child.  I would not, I knew, do that to either of them.

The other camera showed us from the foot of the gurneys, and showed our bodies in their entirety.

And that was the moment I turned my head to face her, and she turned to face me.  I could see on both camera views the sheer vapor,
its
coral-colored mist seeming to become more dense and visible on the screen, rising from her eyes. 

And then, with her face looking directly at me, her mouth
movement
intensifying, the mist seemed to become a spray, but in slow motion, such as a fog machine would billow it out.  The lights were dimmed further in the room.

“I
dimmed the lights
to see if the eyes
created the
phosphoresce
nt glow, or if the mist
carried the properties on its own.”

“Wow,” said Gem.  “It’s the vapor.  That’s why her eyes weren’t glowing before, when she hadn’t eaten, right?”

Hemp nodded.  “It seems
nourishment, either from food eaten
just before death or anytime after entering this state,
is what is required for this particular component to trigger.
  It may evolve, too.  Perhaps it increases in potency as they consume more food.
”

“Brains,” I said.  “Not food.”

As we watched in silence,
the directed mist overtook me, nearly engulfing my entire head.  Suddenly, the image of me on the screen shuddered from head to foot, my neck straightened, and I was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

Conversely, Jamie’s body
twisted
and pulled against the restraints, her back arched
to the extreme.  H
er arms and legs
strained
against the st
raps
so powerfully that
they
cut into her rotting, ever-thinning skin.
  Around these gouges that would never heal, from beneath the straps, a blackish-red ooze leaked out and soaked into the white sheet and pad between her and the gurney.

And
then, as
soon as
the desired effect had been achieved,
the spray-mist slowed, then stopped. 
My eyes had closed, and now my body was limp, my breathing slow, my chest barely rising and falling.

The mist over my head dissipated slowly, the red cloud dissolving into nothing.  I was out cold.

“You see, Flex,
” said Hemp,
“
it’s as though she knew that the creation of the mist itself weakened her, so when it was no longer necessary, in other words, because you had succumbed, she stopped it.
”

“Fuck me,” Gem said.  “
That means they can think.  Like in that house, Flexy.  The fact that they knocked all those people out to fucking eat
their brains when they pleased
tells us they know what they’re cap
able of.”

She snapped her fingers.  “
Un
less
it’s instinctive, like a puppy searching for its mother’s nipples right after
being
born.”
 
She shook her head in disgust
at her own idea
.

“You have something there,” I said.  “Right after they’re born.  These creatures are essentially
born
, aren’t they?  Hemp, could it be a transformation
,
complete with instinctive knowledge, like Gem said?”

“I’ve
thought about it a lot,” said Hemp.  “Because as you know, I don’t think of much else these days.  But I
searched for examples of it in nature,
and about the
closest thing I can come up with would be a comparison to a creature that morphs into something else on its own, such as a caterpillar into a butterfly, that instinctively knows how to fly even though it’s never done so before.”

“
Jesus.  I’m
glad these fuckers can’t fly
,” Gem said.  “
That would pretty much make me throw in the towel.”

“
I guess I’d start practicing my trap shooting,” I said, taking Gem’s hand.  “Hemp, w
hen will yo
ur testing of the vapor be complete?”

“Looks like it’s winding down.  I should have
the results
by tonight
or tomorrow
.”

I nodded.  “Good.  I
can
tell you, and
you probably experienced the same thing
, there aren’t any real after-effects.  I didn’t feel hung over, no headache, nothing.  So whatever it is, it keeps you out until someone shakes you awake, but once you’re awake, you’re fine.”

“
Exactly
,” Hemp confirmed.  “Except for the fact that the entire event seems to be
fading
from my memory.  Though I know I did, I don’t remember going into the stockroom anymore at all.  No real memory of walking to the door, opening it, and then seeing the abnormal.”

“Fuck it,” I said.  “Zombie.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, anyway.  I just said abnormal.”

“
Do you think pushing the vapor like Jamie did weakens them for a time?” Gem asked.

Hemp considered the question.  “She was straining very hard against the restraints, so there is effort involved.  When Flex was out, she stopped and dropped back to the bed, fairly motionless.  So I’d say the answer’s yes.”

“So they’d be vulnerable.  I wonder if they have enough strength to vapor two people in rapid succession.  Or at the same time,” Gem said.