The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (117 page)

Love.

It was then that it became clear to David Gammon that Serena Villanueva loved him. The dominant emotion that made them cling to one another in silence was not borne of friendship, but of a passion far more powerful.

He looked down at Serena as her tears wet his blue jeans, and prayed harder. 

Dave was sure that should she become exposed to this new threat, they would both die in this room, for eventually he would have to sleep.

And she would be unable to disobey the command issued by the female creatures just outside.

Open the door and let us in.

*****

Flex drove his truck, the AK-47 on the roof fully armed with extra magazines on the passenger side floorboard.  Hemp rode shotgun with his H&K MP-5 between his legs, eyes peeled for action.

Several times along the way, they had encountered what they’d begun to call
ratzphalt
.  The name was self-explanatory to those familiar with the condition, and Dave Gammon had coined the phrase. 

Ratzphalt, or
shimmering ratzphalt
, was a roadway completely covered with Ratz whose feet, and in many cases, legs, had completely dissolved; they had no ability to do anything but move their heads back and forth, and the residual urushiol had not yet eaten away enough of them to terminate their pseudo-existence permanently. 

The ratz were dark in color and were so tightly packed on the streets, that from a distance it looked like the roadway was shimmering, or fluid.  When these areas were discovered – usually by driving over them, especially at night – the street sweeper trucks were dispatched to that area to douse the creatures with the final, killing application.

Hemp knew the ratz were still a great threat.  Many of them still occupied basements and attics where they were shielded from the urushiol spray, and there were many alternate ways to get around Concord, New Hampshire on sidewalks and overgrown lawns that had not been sprayed.

So far it did not seem the ratz were adapting.  Hemp was relieved that the increase in intelligence he’d observed in the young female human zombies did not cross over to the rodent population.  Anything in the survivors’ favor was a gift.

Charlie crossed his mind.  She was home with Gem.  Hemp felt good about that.  The further along in her pregnancy she got, the more he became protective of her.

And while he would have liked to be with her at the moment, Hemp was glad to be free of the lab and the house; it was good for him to get out on the road for the equivalent of busy work.  Killing zombies was the new world, post-apocalypse busy work, but this time he had a deeper motive:

The creatures were changing, and he needed to understand how and why.

“Striking out so far,” said Flex.  “I’m starting to wonder if our imaginations ran away with us.”

Hemp shook his head.  “No, Flex.  Not at all.  The changes in them are absolutely real, and they’re more dangerous.  We need to find where they are hiding, and destroy them where they wait.”

“I say we burn it down and shoot anything with a head that tries to flee.”

“That’s fine, but remember they won’t die quickly.  If they happen to be on fire and move into other buildings, we might find the city of Concord engulfed in flames.”

“Shit,” said Flex.  “Good point.”

“Our fire department is gone,” said Kev from the back seat.  “Back to people with buckets, for the most part.”

“Kev, where’s the next building?”

The map crinkled in back, and Kev spoke up.  “Two more streets, turn right.  It’s an auction building.”

“What did they auction?” asked Hemp.  It didn’t matter.  Just conversation that one still needed to have in order to maintain some sort of normalcy, even if they were on the hunt for estrogen-charged, once pregnant zombies.

“Used cars.  It’s a pretty big building,” said Kev.  “I don’t know if they had many cars in there when this crap hit.  Auctions are on the weekend and this hit on a Sunday.  It might have been over.”

The last building on their route had been empty, but was quite large and well-secured.  There would have been no way for the creatures to get inside, but every building had to be investigated anyway.  Upon the men’s departure, they had secured it again.  It was part of the plan; if the building was empty, it had to be locked tight so it could not be occupied by anyone who did not possess a fully functioning brain.

“This is it, Flex,” said Kev.  “On the left when you turn in.”

“Okay,” said Flex, spinning the wheel.  They’d run into two streets of ratzphalt on the way, and the steering still felt mushy to Flex, as though the bodies had stuck to the tires.  It was more likely his imagination, he knew.

“Park back here, Flex,” said Hemp.  “Don’t get too close.  And cut the engine fast.”

“Why?” Flex stopped and put the truck in park.

“You know from my recent lab experiences that some of them – I’m assuming only the formerly pregnant females – are recovering their auditory capabilities,” said Hemp.  “We need to be as stealth as possible.”

The men got out of Flex’s truck and Hemp slung his MP5 over his shoulder.  Flex did the same with his Daewoo.  Kev had gone a completely different route, choosing an AR-57 PDW, designed by Rhineland Arms, but recently built in Tacoma, Washington.  The beauty of it was it came packaged with four fifty-round magazines, and the weapon decimated zombies like no tomorrow.

Hemp actually considered switching from his H&K when he first saw Kev fire it.  All in good time.  There were plenty of weapons to consider, and unfortunately, there would be a need for them for a good, long time.

“Everyone ready?” asked Flex.

The men scanned the area around the building and answered in the affirmative. 

“Close the doors quietly,” said Hemp. 

“Just leave ‘em open then,” said Flex.  “If they didn’t  hear the engine, then we don’t need to chance losing our edge.”

Hemp wondered what edge they actually had.  Everything depended on how fast the women were changing, and how fast he was able to discover all the changes taking place.

Surprises were not good.

“Keep the radio with us, Kev,” said Hemp.  “But turn the volume all the way down.  We don’t need that giving us away.”

“Okay, let’s go,” said Flex.  “All this shit and we don’t even know if anyone’s inside.”

The men approached the building.  It was metal, with three bay doors on the broad side of it, and two small entry doors.

The men walked around the building, listening.  No shuffling, moaning or other sounds met their ears, and they rounded the far corner. 
Basulto Auctions
was painted in broad, blue and red box letters on the side of the end wall. 

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Flex led as they moved along the wall, with Hemp in the middle and Kev bringing up the rear.  Flex stopped, looking down.

He turned to Hemp and Kev and pointed to the ground.

Hemp removed his gun and placed it carefully on the concrete beside the object to which Flex had pointed.

It was a right hand, and appeared to belong to that of a woman or girl.  It had likely fallen off its former owner and had landed palm down.  It was severely rotted with the five fingers intact, but missing all but one of the fingernails.  The one remaining nail was on the thumb, and was badly chipped and scraped, but clearly painted red.

Hemp removed a pen from his shirt pocket and used it to flip the hand over.  The palm was badly scraped, but there was no sign of blood having leaked from the fairly deep wounds.

The body part had come from one of the walking dead, having been largely deteriorated before severing.

Hemp looked up at Kev and Flex.  “I imagine the owner is inside this building.  It’s important that we do what we can to avoid being observed.”

They nodded and Hemp stood.  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a baggie.  From it, he took three WAT-5 wafers.  “We only have an hour left, give or take.  I don’t want to take any chances.  Here.”

The men took their wafers and ate them.  Hemp did the same.  Should they run out of protection inside the building, the enhanced abilities of the creatures within might allow instant detection of their presence.  The ensuing attack could be different than anything they had previously experienced.

They were essentially a new breed, these hiders.

Having swallowed their medicine, Hemp retrieved his weapon from the ground, took the lead and waved the men behind him.

Just around the next corner, a door stood ajar.  Hemp held his hand up and crouched down low, peering through the crack, into the dim interior.

The odor within assaulted his senses.  It smelled like rotted flesh, morgues and morgues full of it.

At first he saw nothing.  He waited a few seconds while his eyes adjusted to the diminished light and scanned the room.  It looked empty.  There was a low wall, approximately three feet high, separating the outside edges of the building from the center area where the auction cars would be parked.  Hemp could see a few of the tops of the cars – there were only four visible – and not much else. 

Hemp almost stood up, but thought better.  Instead he got on his hands and knees, pulling the door open wide enough so they could all crawl inside, single file.

“Stay down,” he whispered.  “Smells ripe.”

Kev and Flex nodded.

If you imagine a hockey rink, the low wall was approximately in the same configuration as the boards, minus the glass that sat on top to prevent players and pucks alike from flying over and out of the playing area.  Hemp again turned and held his finger to his lips, then motioned toward his gun.  He hoped the message was clear:

For Christ’s sake, keep quiet and don’t let your gun knock into anything.

He crawled as silently as he could.  Hemp reached an opening in the wall and peered around the corner.

A bright red mist coated the floor.  It had to be twelve to eighteen inches deep.  Hemp saw no creatures, and the reason why was implausible.

But it had to be true.

The creatures lay on the floor beneath the crimson mist that they themselves produced.

*****

Chapter Eleven

Gem’s eyes were closed, but she wasn’t sleeping.  Slider and Bunsen were nestled against her and Charlie, who lay on the other side.  They had just finished watching a newer Disney movie with the girls on the portable DVD player, and for the life of her, Gem could not remember the title.

Now the girls were napping, and Gem was waiting for Flex’s voice to interrupt the silence that seemed to encapsulate the house.  She lay on her back, her hands on her tummy, occasionally smiling at the feeling of the child inside of her stretching, playing soccer, boxing, or whatever the hell it was doing in there.

“You awake?” said Charlie.

“Hell yes.  This shit drives me crazy.”

“Me, too,” said Charlie.  “I feel better that Flex and Hemp are together, but where the hell are Dave and Lisa?”

“Maybe just out of range,” said Gem.  She was sure that was it.  The radios tended to work fine on the road from car-to-car, but since they’d gotten to
Concord, it had been spotty at best.  When the wind was just right, or when the stars aligned, you could actually get that 20-mile connection.

But it was rare.

“Hey!  Anyone!  Can you hear me?”

“Who the hell is that?” said Charlie, jumping out of bed and grabbing the radio off the nightstand.

“We read,” she said.  “Who is this?”

“Jeez, is this Charlie?  Is Flex there?”

“No, he and Hemp are out.  Who is this?”

“It’s Eddie.”

“Are you guys in trouble?” asked Charlie. 

Gem knew why Charlie asked the question.  For Eddie to be on the radio was not typical.  Jimmy ran that group of kids pretty much unopposed, and if Eddie was calling, something was wrong.

“I’m sorry to say, but yeah.  We’re all a little freaked out here, and you know that Jimmy likes us to do things on our own, so …”

“We can’t help if you don’t tell us,” Charlie said.  “You called for a reason, right?”

“Jimmy and Nikki are missing.”

Gem sat up on the bed and the two dogs followed suit, their ears pricked and their eyes watching Gem and Charlie.  It was what they did when they sensed tension in their human family members.

“When did you last see them?” asked Charlie.  “Where did they go?”

“I was playing Uno with Ian and Mason this morning.  You know, we were laying low because of the threat you guys warned us about.  Emma came in and said she searched the house and they were gone.”

“Without telling anyone?  Do they do that?” asked Gem.

Charlie shook her head.  “How long have they been gone?”

“Since about ten this morning.  That’s what Louis said.  We thought we’d give them a chance to come back, you know, see if maybe they just made a run outside somewhere.”

Gem looked at her watch.  “That’s almost seven fucking hours ago.  Jesus.”

Charlie pushed the talk button.  “Are the rifles missing?”

Eddie’s voice came back:  “Hold on.” 

In the background, Gem and Charlie heard, “Hey Mason!  Check the living room.  Are the guns there?”

Gem stood up and put her hair in a ponytail.  She would be ready to go in five minutes if those kids needed them.

“Yeah, Mason says the guns are gone.”

Gem opened the nightstand drawer and grabbed the other handheld.  She turned it on and said, “Eddie, what’s been going on there lately?  Have you guys seen anything weird?”

Hesitation.  “Yeah … but Jimmy said we can handle stuff on our own, or the adults will just take over,” he said. 

“You can’t fuck around, Eddie,” said Charlie.  “People die when that happens, and we know you are very aware of that.  Tell us what happened.”

  Gem and Charlie could hear the sigh over the airwaves.  “Last night, or early this morning, I guess.  There were … well, a bunch of them outside the house.  Something woke a few of us up.  I got up first and went to look out the window.  When I lifted the shade, they were right there.”

“What do you mean right there?”

“It was weird, Gem.  They were standing right outside the house.  It musta been fifty or sixty of them, and it was weird because it was mostly women and girls.  Some males, but I’d say it was 90% women.”

“Who saw them?”

“Me, Emma, Mason and Ian.”

Gem felt the color draining from her face.  “Eddie, I’m going to ask you a strange question.”

“Okay, I guess.”

“You guys don’t know anything about this I know, because Hemp is just now researching it, but … did any of them appear to be pregnant?”

“
Zombies can get
pregnant
?” asked Eddie, incredulously.

“No, they can’t,” said Charlie.  “Gem means from before the gas.  Before they changed.”

“Hold on a sec,” said Eddie.

They waited.  Fifteen seconds later he came back on.  “Emma just said yes.  She said some of them looked like those starving African kids in those sad commercials you used to see on TV.”

“You mean their bodies, arms, everything else skinny except their stomachs?”

“Exactly,” said Eddie.  “Yeah, I think they call it distended.  Like that.”

Gem was again impressed with Eddie.  Kind of the nerd in the group, but a kid who had gained respect from his peers for his intelligence and analytical mind.  Very much like Hemp might have been as a child.

“Okay,” said Gem.  “And you’ve talked to everyone in the house?  Does anyone know where they went?”

“They all said no.”

“Alright, Eddie,” said Charlie.  “Do me a favor and get everyone by the radio.  Now.  We’ll wait.”

“Charlie, they’re all here.  They’re worried about Jimmy and Nikki.”

Gem looked at Charlie and shrugged.  “If you’ve got an announcement, might as well go ahead,” she said.

“Hell yes I do,” she said, then pressed the button.

“Listen up everyone.  This is Charlie.  New shit is going down in Concord, and bullshit loyalty can only make your friends dead.  Gem and I can help, but you’ve got to set aside any lame ass notions of independence and tell us what you know.”

Silence came from the remote house, and Gem smiled at Charlie and gave her a thumbs up.

“Someone knows where they went.  Who the hell is it?  I need to know now, because next time I can tell you those bitches might not be content to just stand outside your house and smell you.”

“Hold on,” said Eddie.

“Your friends’ lives depend on how fast we know,” said Gem.

“Okay,” said another voice.  “I know what they went to do.  But Jimmy told me not to say anything.”

“Who is this?” asked Gem.  She didn’t know all the kids by voice and for the most part, it was limited to Nikki and Jimmy.

“Louis.”

She remembered him then.  About five and a half feet tall with shoulder-length, almost black hair with a side part.  None of that might not have stuck in her memory, but for his name, which wasn’t all that common.  He insisted on being called Louis, and wouldn’t respond to Lou or Louie or any other variation.

“Okay, Louis.  It’s for his own good,” said Gem.  “We’re ready to head out and find them, but we can’t do it if we don’t know where to start.”

“They left last night, right after everyone went back to bed.”

“What time?”

“Like three in the morning.”

“I thought you said Jimmy didn’t wake up.”

“He was watching it from his room.  He heard it, too.”

“Heard what?” asked Charlie.

“I don’t know,” said Louis.  “This vibrating.  Coming from
them
.”

Charlie released the button.  “Gem,” she said.  “That vibrating is some kind of speech.  It’s some kind of communication, like what we saw in the lab when Red Dress controlled Lisa.”

Gem’s blood turned to ice.  “Charlie, what the hell are we going to do?”

“Pardon me, but I usually ask
you
that.”

“We have to try to find him.  We need to reach someone, but if we can’t, we still have to go.”

“Then we all go,” said Charlie.  You, me, the girls and dogs.”

“They could come in handy.”

Gem’s mind whirled.

“Gem?  Charlie?”  It was Louis and he sounded worried.

Gem answered.  “So they left at three.  What did they tell you?”

“Nikki didn’t want to go,” said Louis.  “But he told her he didn’t want to go without her, that she might not ever see him again, stuff like that.  So she went.”

“Jesus, Louis.  Where?”

“No specific place, Charlie, they were just gonna follow the women.”

“Had the zombies started to leave when you went back to bed?”

“Yes, it was weird … almost like someone called them and they all started walking away at once.  Just started moving back into the street.  It was crazy as hell.”

“Louis, did you try to talk Jimmy out of following them?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell him what to do, and when he makes a call, we respect it.  He’s been a pretty good leader for us.”

Charlie cut in.  “You did the right thing telling us, Louis.  You guys stay put, and stay on your radio.  If you hear anything from him, let us know right away, because we’re going to be on the street, and sundown is coming in a couple of hours.  We don’t need to be out there after dark if they come back.”

“Wait a minute, Charlie.”

“Why?”

“Just hold on,” said Louis.

Charlie looked at Gem and shrugged.

Gem was just about to get back on and re-stress the urgency when Eddie’s voice came on.

“We’re going with you, or we’re going on our own.”

“Not a good idea, Eddie,” said Gem.

“Sorry,” he said.  “If we’re going to make it – if we’re ever going to become really self-sufficient, then we have to stop relying on adults.”

“It’s okay to ask for help,” said Charlie.

“Help’s one thing.”  It was Louis again.  “Total reliance is another.  We’ve got the .22 rifles, and we’ve all been practicing.  That means
all
of us.  I can tell you that any one of us can hit the equivalent of a head at thirty yards.”

“Under duress?”

Silence.

Gem lowered her radio and sighed.  “Charlie, they have a point, right?”

“They do,” said Charlie.  “It is a fucked up new world, and you can’t stay alive if you’re treated like a pussy.  Can we hook them up with a few of those Rangemaster .308s?”

“Nobody else took them,” said Gem.  I think there are six in the garage.”

“Ammo?”

“Tons.  Scopes too, and 10-round magazines for each.”

Charlie pushed the button again.  “Eddie?”

“Yeah, Charlie?”

“You guys can really shoot?”

“Hell yes, Charlie.”

“Okay.  We’re coming over, and you’re getting an upgrade.  With scopes.  Anybody drive?”

“Louis.  He’s really good.”

“You have a car?”

“It’s an old GTO.  It runs good and it’s full of fuel, though.”

“What year?”

“I don’t know,” said Eddie.  “It’s a boat.”

“The best kind,” said Gem, smiling.  “Probably a 70’s model.”

Charlie sighed.  “Okay.  Be ready.  We’ll be over in twenty.”

“You won’t regret this you guys,” said Eddie.  “We’ll be smart.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.  We need to do this for Jimmy and Nikki.”

“Alright,” said Charlie.

“Stay inside, and wait until we pull up to make sure it’s clear.”

Gem looked at Charlie, and she knew what they were going to do was dangerous.  Had Flex been able to hear the transmission, she knew he would head over, but he had not cut in on the conversation.

“We have to be smart about this, Charlie.”

“I already feel stupid.”

“Do we have a choice?”

Charlie shook her head.  “I don’t think so.  When did the girls last take WAT-5?”

“They’re off it.  They need a fresh dose.”

“Okay,” said Charlie.  How about this?  We get them in the car, then we give it to them.  I’d rather them be asleep.”

“Perfect,” said Gem.  “But it’s going to be a tight fit. I want to take Bunsen and Slider.  If we have to leave them in the car, those dogs will fight to protect them.”

“Good plan.  Let’s do it,” said Charlie.

“I’ll bring enough WAT-5 for the big kids.  In case they’re out.”

“Good idea.”

Fifteen minutes later they had the six Rangemasters stocked in the trunk with plenty of magazines and ammo, the girls laughing in the back seat with Slider struggling to find space between them, and Bunsen in the front, smothering Charlie.  The roof-mount AK-47 was loaded up with another ten full mags in reserve, and the GPS screen was set to scope mode.