The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (121 page)

Dave quickly pulled his tee-shirt over his head, wrapped it around his fist and punched the glass.  It was louder than he’d hoped, but the shards of broken glass fell outward and he unwrapped his hand to pull out the sharp pieces jutting from the edges of the window frame. 

“I think we can get through,” Serena said, looking out the window again. 

Dave turned once more to the opposite window just as that glass broke, too.  Pink vapor immediately began pouring in.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Dave, looking at Serena. 

“Lift me up,” she said, putting her hands on the high, concrete sill.

Dave gave her a boost, and she pushed her head and shoulders through.  She struggled to clear the remaining bars on the left side, but managed it in under thirty seconds.  Serena worked her right leg through, and Dave held her hands as she pulled her left leg through and dropped to the ground below.

“Now you.  Hurry, David.”

“Take this,” he said, holding her gun out.  She snatched it and leaned it against he wall as he gripped the other intact bars and pulled himself up on to the sill.

“Just lay back, and I’ll pull you out,” said Serena.

“Can you?”

“Now,” she said, and he did.  Serena caught his upper body and dragged him out the rest of the way.

“Girl, you are strong,” he whispered as his feet hit the ground.

“Every day is a workout.  Let’s run.”

They kept the building between themselves and the ghouls on the other side and their feet ate up the pavement with every ounce of strength they had.  The pure adrenaline from having escaped their prison kicked in, and by the time they stopped, Dave’s lungs burned.  He rested his hands on his knees and he tried to catch his breath.

The building was a dot in the distance.  He looked at Serena.  “We need to find a vehicle.”

“Shouldn’t be hard,” she said.  “There are some over there,” she said, pointing.  “We’ll split up and find one with keys in it.”

They ran into the parking lot, which thankfully, was farther away from their starting point.   Dave took the cars on the north side, and Serena the ones on the south.

Sentra.  Locked and empty.

Dave ran to the next one.  A Jaguar of some kind.  He peered through the tinted glass, and a face sprung up to meet his, its teeth smashed against the glass. 

Dave reacted, jumping backward, his heart pumping. 

The word face wasn’t necessarily accurate, though; the skin hung in flaps on the right side, the eye staring out from what appeared to be bare skull. 

In the passenger seat of the car was a near skeleton, ripped to shreds, the remaining meat as dry as jerky.  Dave would not have been able to tell its gender aside from the clothing, as tattered as it was.  The remains of a short leather skirt and a sheer blouse caked with dried blood. 

Dave was a thinker.  He didn’t vocalize things, rather he considered them, and if in the right company, he shared them if he found them interesting or funny enough.

The hungry thing in the Jaguar that had once been a well-to-do man, now could not figure out how to open his own fucking car door; the door to the very vehicle the rotter had clearly used to impress young women enough to elicit from them hand jobs and oral sex within and upon the sedan’s fine leather interior.

Perhaps like the woman in his passenger seat that he’d eaten.  And while the zombie had lost four of his ten fingers, the ring finger on his left hand was intact and bare, feeding Dave’s imagination.  The gold Rolex on his wrist, no doubt still keeping perfect time, told the rest of the story.

Dave knew that many of the young women who found the man irresistible because of his wealth sought rewards of jewelry and fine dining for their willingness to please him.

It wasn’t that Dave generally thought this of women, but he had known girls like that all his life, just on a much smaller scale.  They went for the guy with the car, the guy with the rich parents.  The guy who had something to offer besides the kindness and humor that was often all Dave could afford to give in his younger days.

These thoughts took perhaps two seconds to play in Dave’s mind.

“Serena!” he called.  She looked, and he waved her over.

She got to him.  “Keys?”

Dave did his best to ignore the zombie inside, and cupped his hands against the glass.  “Yes!”

“I’ll pull the door.  You take care of business.”

Dave stood back, and Serena grabbed the door handle, pulling it open with a quick yank.

Dave did not want the fresh, bloody muck inside the car.  The female’s innards had dried up, so should be fairly easy to remove, or perhaps cover with something found in the trunk, a blanket maybe. 

He waited for the creature to crawl out, and double-gripped the Walther.  He put one round through its forehead and it dropped to the ground.  Dave then ran around to the other side, holstered the Walther, and grabbed the ribcage of the passenger and pulled the skeleton out.

It broke into several pieces, and he hurriedly swept them all from the seat.

“It’s the best I can do,” he said.  “Get in!”

He ran around the car and jumped into the driver’s seat.

Serena slid into the seat with an involuntary retch, her nose wrinkled.   Dave turned the key.

Nothing.  Not even a click.  The lights on the dash lit, but it would not turn.

“Put your foot on the brake, David!”

Dave did, and tried the key again.  This time it gave two weak turns, then the engine fired to life.  He pulled it in reverse and gave it gas. 

“Goddamn,” he said.  “Holy Goddamn.”

“Keep moving, sweetie,” said Serena.  “Get us home.”

Dave didn’t answer.  He watched the asphalt in front of him and looked for open paths.  They had to come within a couple hundred yards of the small building, and as they got a clear view of it, they saw that the entire thing was now surrounded by the searching undead.

As Dave cranked the steering wheel toward the access street that would lead them from the complex of buildings, the Costco parking lot came into view.  It was dark, so he could not see it, but Dave knew that parked askew, near the entrance to the retail warehouse was the truck where Lisa had died so horribly.  It sat there idle in the darkness, like a terrible monument to one of the most devastating moments of Dave’s life.  Tears once again leaked from his eyes, running down his cheeks.

“I’m coming back for her … what’s left of her, anyway.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Serena, her voice soft and soothing.

“I know,” he said.   “Thank you.”

She squeezed his hand and said nothing.

“I don’t know where we’re going,” he said.  “We don’t have a radio.”

“Go back to the house then,” she said.

*****

Gem reached the corner and turned before she saw them.

The street was filled with the staggering walkers, coming toward them en masse.  There was no room to get around them, for they blocked the street from curb to curb, and covered the lawns of the homes on both sides.

“Where the fuck are they all coming from?” asked Charlie, swinging the gun around to the front again. 

“I have no idea, but you had better jam a full magazine in there while you have a chance,” she said.

Charlie dropped the half-expended magazine out and slid a full one in.  “Got it,” she said.

“Can I turn around?  Get out the other way?  I can’t see.”

Charlie looked out the rear window.

“No, Gem.  They’re coming from the other direction, too.  You’re going to have to go through them.”

Gem hit the brake, slowing the Ford to a stop.  The amblers shuffled toward them, almost as though they knew the vehicles and their occupants had no path of escape, and that the creatures alone controlled the conditions of the coming engagement.

Eddie and Emma had been quiet in the back until now.  In a very soft voice, Eddie said, “Can you get out of this?”

Gem turned to look Eddie in the eyes.  Then her eyes fell to Trina and Taylor between the older kids.

She had no doubt she would get them out of this.  She would not let any harm come to those beautiful girls.

“Of course,” she said, with more confidence in her voice than she felt in her heart.  “Charlie, radio.”

Charlie gave it to her and she pushed the transmit button.  “Louis?”

“Yeah, Gem.” 

He sounded scared to death. 

“I want you to drive forward until your front bumper is touching my rear.”

“Okay.”

They watched as the GTO pulled up until they felt the Crown Vic lurch forward slightly.

“Okay, Louis,” said Gem.  “I’ve got ballistic steel and bulletproof glass.  Nothing can get in this car.  Compared to this, yours is made by Playskool.”

“That’s comforting,” he said.

“I’ll do the work.  You stay with me like I’m towing you.”

“Okay, Gem.  I don’t see we have much choice.”

They were interrupted by a voice.  “Gem?  Where the hell are you?”

“Flex!” she screamed into the radio.  “Oh, my God.  I’m so fuckin’ happy to hear your voice.”

“Are you at home?  Are you okay?”

“We’re … actually surrounded by what could be up to a thousand rotters.”

“Where?”  His voice was intense.

“On the kids’ street.  We went to help them find Jimmy and Nikki.”

“I’m coming to you,” he said.  “Jesus, Gem.  Where are the girls?   Charlie’s with you?”

“Yes, and yes.  Also Slider, Eddie and Emma.”

“We’ll be there in ten minute, max.”

“Flex, I have to go, but don’t come here.  You won’t be able to do anything.  I’m going to try something, so do what you’re gonna do, but as soon as we get out of here, we’re heading back to the bar.  Louis, if you’re listening in, when I punch it, you stay right on my ass.”

“Gem, what the hell are you talking about?” asked Flex.

She put the radio down.  “Ready?” she said.

“No,” said Charlie.  “But go anyway.”

Gem gassed the Crown Vic, and even through the fortified glass she heard the roar of the GTO’s motor behind her and it bumped the Ford, backed away, then bumped it again as Louis stayed right on her tail.

Slider began to bark.  Loud and agitated.

“Shh, boy.  It’s okay,” said Charlie, but it did not settle the dog.

Gem narrowed her eyes and the car came to within fifty yards of the horde in the street.  Twenty-five.  Fifteen.

“Hold the girls!” shouted Gem, but she did not have time to turn and see if Emma and Eddie had.

Impact.  The wedge-shaped cow catcher split the mass of reanimated bodies, but it wasn’t long before Gem felt the car straining, as the crowd of walking dead engulfed the car like displaced water returning to its former space.

“Mommy,” said Trina in a sleepy voice.

Taylor’s sobbing filled her ears next.

“Don’t slow down, Gem,” said Charlie.  “Push through.”

Gem never let her foot off the gas.  She drove forward, feeling the tires rolling over body parts that no doubt crushed to pulp beneath the heavy, fully laden vehicle.  Bodies pushed up so tightly against the side windows that seeing out was impossible.  Two had flipped onto the hood, but rolled off trying to find purchase with their tattered fingers.

The Ford hit another thick blockade of the creatures and lost forward momentum.  The smell of rubber filled the cars as the tires spun.

“What’s going on behind us?” asked Gem, feathering the gas pedal trying to lurch the car forward.

Charlie spun to look.  “He’s still behind you.  But the car’s surrounded.”

“Tell him to throw it in reverse!” shouted Gem.

“Reverse it!” said Charlie, into the radio.

“What?” said Louis.  “Why?”

“Because we’re not moving, Louis.  Do it now!”

He did, and the car moved about three feet behind them.  Gem cranked the car into reverse, and felt something disengage from the front undercarriage of the Ford.

“Got it!  Tell him to get back on my ass!” said Gem, gunning the engine again.

Seconds later they again felt the GTO slam into the back of the Crown Vic as they once again pushed through the mass of bodies.

“I see the end!” said Charlie.

“Gemmy, what is happening!” cried Taylor, her voice wild and frantic.

“Hold her and hide her eyes, Emma, please!” said Charlie.  “We’re almost safe, Tay.  Almost, baby.”

They felt a sharp bump from the rear.

“They’re not there!” said Eddie, looking out the back window.

Charlie turned.  “Gem, he’s right!”

Gem looked in the rear view window.  The car had fallen back, and wasn’t moving.  The creatures closed in on it, and it was almost no longer visible at all.

Charlie put the radio to her mouth.  “Louis!  What’s happening?  Move that fucking car!”