The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (181 page)

We all stepped into the room.  The entire group on the floor – the ones who were awake, anyway – had turned away from the red-eye trapped beneath the door.  It had turned its head toward them now, and was pushing out a light, crimson mist, though not nearly strong or dense enough to reach them or affect them in any way. 

They did not want to look at her, and they did not want to watch her watching them.  Who could blame them?  I’m sure any one of them would have jumped at the chance to be the one to kill her when the time came.

Serena walked closer to her, standing off to her right.  Still, she focused on the larger group, and did not turn her head.  “Should I wake her?” asked Serena.

“Stand back a couple more feet,” said Bug.  He grabbed his hair and pulled if up off his neck.  “Sweatin’ bullets, guys.”

“It’s nervous work,” said Nelson.  “Go for it, Serena.”

Serena, now a good four feet away from the ensnared red-eye, began rubbing Isis’s cheek gently.  The baby did not awaken right away, apparently unwilling to forfeit the first nap of its life.

Serena then kissed Isis’s cheek, and I had to smile.  She was so tender with her that I found myself looking forward to the day she told me she was carrying our child.

Isis finally stirred, her mouth opening in a yawn, those major teeth looking a little strange as her eyes fluttered open.

We were all watching when the silken-haired, living dead bitch with the red eyes jerked her head sharply toward the baby and again became singularly focused.

“Okay, that’s enough,” said Bug.  “I think we’ve figured this shit out.”  He walked forward, withdrew a small carry pistol from his side holster, and held it down toward her head.

“If you’re jumpy, close your eyes and ears.”  He didn’t wait.  He fired, and the last enemy in the room finally passed beyond.

Now the body continued to move.  She was clearly dead, but the head and shoulders slowly gyrated.

“What the hell?” asked Nelson.  “Why’s she still moving?”

“The baby,” said Serena, turning to carry Isis back to the nursery.  “It’s still alive inside her.”  She disappeared through the door.

“Not for long,” said Bug. He went back to his armory cabinet and withdrew what appeared to be a large caliber handgun of some kind.  He grabbed a magazine for it, put it in the gun and chambered a round.  Without looking anywhere but his destination, he knelt down, placed the gun barrel gently against the very crown of the dead zombie, and fired three quick rounds.

He stood and looked down.  No movement.  Then he looked at me.  “Killed my first baby,” he said.  “Oh, what a feeling.”  He wasn’t smiling.

We just looked at him and nodded.

“What’s next?” he asked. 

“Bug, is there any other way out of here?” I asked.  “Any weak spot?  Somewhere we can punch through, using some of this artillery of yours?”

“He’s got a trash chute,” said Albert.

“What?” asked Rachel.”

“At first I couldn’t figure it out,” said Albert.  “When I used to come up here, I just didn’t go far enough to find the upper hatch.  I did turn on that other trail, Dave.  The one at the fork?”

“Yeah, I remember. Bug, you said it led to a dropoff.”

“A hell of a dropoff, man.  About four hundred feet down into a river canyon.  Rocks and brush.”

“I was there once, and something below me caught my eye,” said Albert.  “I held onto a tree and leaned over the canyon and there was water coming out of this pipe.  And some paper and stuff, too.”

“Dude, you’re littering?” asked Nelson.  “That was your plan?”

Bug almost laughed.  “Nelson, I didn’t think I’d be in here for a year,” he said.  “Had no clue my trash would have an environmental impact – and with the scenarios in my head at the time, not to mention this one – I don’t think a little garbage in a canyon is gonna change the world for the worse.”

“Where’s the chute,” asked Rachel.  “Show me.”

Bug walked into the kitchen area and opened a smaller, aluminum door in the wall.  Behind it was a round chute.

Rachel peered inside.  “What is that, around twenty inches?” she asked.

“Good eye,” said Bug.  It’s exactly twenty, inside diameter.”

“Where exactly does it come out?” I asked.

“Just where Albert said.  Just below that path at the fork, in the canyon wall.”

Rachel looked at us.  “I have a crazy idea.”

“Go on,” said Serena.  “I think we’re all open to crazy, if we can get these people out of here.”

“It involves a couple of us at first.  Maybe three.”

She told us her plan.  It sounded insane and plausible at the same time.  I wasn’t too sure about the second part – we weren’t likely the best judges of what made any sense anymore.  Our brains were probably twisted beyond the ability to recognize what was or wasn’t common sense. 

In the end, we decided to give it a go.  None of us were getting any younger, and Bug, while far from convinced, didn’t have anything better to offer.

*****

             
Chapter Nineteen             

“There,” said Bug, tearing off the last piece and turning Rachel around to inspect.

It was a good thing Bug had as much duct tape as he did.  When we were done, Rachel stood there with that infant taped nine ways from Sunday to her chest.  We made sure it wasn’t too tight, and that little Isis could easily breathe, but the tape was eight layers before Bug felt comfortable that she wouldn’t be going anywhere without Rachel.

“Okay,” she said.  “You have cameras on that trail?”

“I have one,” he said.  “But it’s where we need it,” he said.  “I put it there to monitor if anyone found my trash disposal.  Never saw Albert because I pretty much forgot I’d installed that camera.”

He went to the monitors and hit a button marked TCC.  It was a wide shot, but the 20” diameter tube in the wall could easily be seen, and the ledge about a foot above it.

“How the hell are you going to get from the chute to the ledge?” asked Bug.

“Time to practice what Don taught me,” she said.  “I need a length of some stiff rope.  I’ll prep it before we leave.  Bug, you’ll need to tape it over my shoulder.”

Rachel worked with a length of rope, probably twenty-five feet long.  When she had it configured and threw a couple of practice tosses, she nodded, coiled it, and Bug taped it in place.

“Nelson, I need you,” she said.  “You’re skinny enough to come with me, and I need another set of hands.”

“I’m in, Rach,” he said.  “I told you that.”

“Just making sure,” Rachel said, smiling.  “Let’s go then.”  She planted a kiss on the back of Isis’s head, whose eyes were on her father, her gleaming teeth exposed in a toothy smile that was still as cute as could be.

“You each got a little Ruger .380 auto,” said Bug.  “Should get you down the hill, but you only got seven rounds each, so use ‘em sparingly if you need ‘em.”

“Break a leg,” I said.  Bug and I lifted Rachel and tucked her, head first on her back, into the trash chute.  A rope was looped around her right ankle, and further up, was looped around Nelson’s.  Once we got her inside we lowered her down about ten feet and did the same with Nelson, sliding his thin body in the same way; head first and on his back.

“I coulda used a hit before this,” he said.

“You’ll have to run on residual THC,” I said.  “This is too important, Nel.”

“Gotcha.  Pray for us, dudes,” he said.

“Feed it slowly,” called Rachel from the tube.  “Isis is quiet … she’s fine,” she added.

Bug shook his head.  “I’m worried as shit,” he said.

All faces were turned toward us.  Their lives depended on our success, too and they all knew it.

Albert and Serena watched the monitor while Bug and I kept feeding in the hundreds of feet of fine, hemp rope.

At least Nelson could take comfort in that.

*****

“There they are!” shouted Serena, and several people got up and moved over to the monitors.  My uncle and I were still holding the rope, and when we got word that Rachel, Isis and Nelson had reached the edge of the canyon, I saw that we only had about thirty feet of rope remaining.

“Close,” I said.  “So what now?”

“We watch,” said Bug.  “She told us what she could do.  Let’s watch her do it.”

On the monitor, we saw Rachel’s shoulders emerge from the pipe.  Bug’s fingers tightened on the rope, as did mine.  With each inch she scooted out over the nothingness that could swallow up both the woman and the baby, our tension grew.  Rachel reached up and pulled the coiled rope from her shoulder, then struggled to get both her arms over her head.

She had it. Looking up, she peeled the remaining duct tape from her makeshift lasso, and eyed the tree hanging over the canyon above her.

You could hear a pin drop in that room.  Nobody breathed.  We stared at the monitor.

Rachel held the rope in her right hand and rotated her entire arm several times.  I could see that it was not as easy for her in a supine position while suspended over a canyon – the rope must have been weighted much differently than when standing upright.

She made her first attempt.  In the camera, we clearly saw the rope fall short of the large branch above and drop back down, threading into the gaping mouth of the canyon.  She held to the end and began coiling it back up, using both hands.

She was patient and careful.  I wanted to offer her some encouragement, but for now there was no way to communicate with her.

“She’ll get it,” said Serena, meeting my eyes with her own.  She nodded.  “She will.”

Rachel prepared again.  She wound her arm and threw, and I could see it was with all her strength.  The rope caught around what looked to be a pretty substantial branch, and this time it drew closed and cinched.

“She got it!” shouted Bug, a huge smile on his face.  “Damn it, she fucking got it!”

I watched the scene unfold and marveled at how every little thing that happened to us along the way turned out to be for the best.  Situations that seemed like sacrifices at first turned out to be the best decisions we could have possibly made.

To bring Rachel.  To bring Lola.  These strangers who seemed to offer nothing but additional burden at first, ultimately saving our lives.  Maybe there was a God, and maybe this was his way of saying,
See, Davey?  I may throw a zombie apocalypse at you, but I don’t pull every rug out from under you.  I help those who help themselves – and others.

Well, good on ya, God.  Thanks. 

We watched as Rachel secured the end of the rope around her waist.  We couldn’t tell what was happening next, but we imagined that she was getting Nelson to unhook her ankle tether.  She had to be free to get out of the pipe and onto terra firma.

Next, she came out farther, and though we could not see her from our angle, Isis was still in place as Rachel looped her hand on the rope and pulled herself free of the pipe.  Her legs automatically found the bottom of the now dangling lasso rope, and she shimmied upward.  Five shimmies and she had her elbows on the earth.

Two knee pushes and she and Isis were safe.

We still had Nelson on our tether, and now we saw his head and shoulders emerge from the chute.  Rachel got clear of the rope and lowered it to Nelson.  We could see her issuing some instructions.  Before we knew it, our rope went slack, and Nelson was dangling over four hundred feet of nothingness, his legs windmilling frantically as Rachel wrapped the other end around a tree and pulled him up.  He wasn’t doing much climbing.

Again, I thought of this woman’s ingenuity, overcoming her lack of strength.  Rachel Reed was an amazing woman.

Nelson was on the ground.  With a quick wave, they disappeared from view, running down the path toward the fork.

*****

We checked five minutes later, and while what we saw was comforting in some ways, it was frightening in others.  The zombies at the main entrance were drifting away, toward the fork in the trail where Rachel, Isis and Nelson had been. 

They were following the siren.  Little Isis.

All we could do was wait until we heard from them again.

“Dave, come in!” came a voice on my radio.  It was Russell’s voice.

“Russell,” I said.  “What’s happening?  Is Lola okay?”

“I got her to the road,” he said.  “Down to five rounds of ammo left.”

“Is she awake?”

“Nope, but she’s breathing steady,” he said.  “Got a pretty nasty head wound, but it’s clotted.  I got her on my back and hauled her from the riverbed up to I-5.  If any come now, I’m fucked.  Not enough energy for anything at this point.”

“Can you see the chopper?” I asked.

“I can see it from here, but it’s about a quarter mile down the road,” he said.  “It’s locked, right?”

“Not for long, Russell.  Are you near the golf cart?” I asked.

“No, it’s the other way,” said Russell.  “I’ll carry her.  I’m still running on adrenaline.  I’ll get her to the chopper.”

“Okay,” I said.  “Good.  Rachel and Nelson are on their way there now.  Hurry.”

“I’ll try,” he said.  “Talk to you later.”

He was gone.  I was thankful that Lola was alive, but who knew in what condition.  Man.  We all deserved to come out of this thing. 

Twenty minutes passed before we heard Nelson’s voice on the radio.  “Dudes!  We’re in the chopper and we have Russell and Lola!  We barely made it past the garage!  There were two red-eyes there, and when we showed up with this baby, it was like a freakin’ blue light special at K-Mart.”

“Is Isis okay?”

“She’s fine, I shot two of ‘em, plus a whole bunch of the normal rotters.  Glad I got used to this gun,” he said.  “Anyway, I don’t know if there were any other red-eyes at the garage doors, but we didn’t see any and they didn’t come after us.”

  I could hear the noise of the rotor blades winding up as he spoke.  “Is Lola awake?”

“Dude, she’s not,” said Nelson.  “She’s breathing steadily, though.  Her eyes are fluttering, so there’s something going on in there.”

“Keep an eye on her,” I said.  “She hasn’t met Isis, and those two might have some sort of kinship.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was worried about, but any unknown was bad unless proven otherwise.

“Did you find the rescue harness?  Can it be modified?”

“Are you sure it’s necessary to hang her outside?” asked Bug.  “Goddamnit, can’t you just have her in the helicopter and fly low?”

“The trees are too canopied there,” said Rachel.  “I can’t get it low enough.  We have one shot at this thing if we want to draw them over,” she said.  “Isis will be safe.  I promise.”

Nelson came back on.  “We’re adjusting the harness now,” he said.  “There’s one for a kid, but it’s still kind of big.  We’re using clips and rope to make it snug.”

“Make damned sure it’s more than snug,” said Bug. 

I immediately thought of a bug in a rug.  That was just me, and I didn’t say anything about it to anyone.  I felt crazy enough and I didn’t need anyone confirming it for me.

I stood there holding Serena’s hand in mine, watching that monitor for all it was worth.  When I heard the sound of the Eurocopter’s rotor blades beating through the camera’s paltry speaker, my heart quickened to match the
thwumps.

*****

We couldn’t see the skids of the chopper, but we saw little Isis, dangling in that modified rescue harness, directly in front of the trail that led to a sheer drop hundreds of feet into jagged rocks and a trickling creek below.  As the copter hovered above her, the rope swung back and forth, and with every pendulum motion of his child, I watched Bug’s body sway to match it, his eyes never leaving the image on the screen.

Far below her was where we hoped to soon create a massive zombie graveyard.

Bug held his breath and tears streamed down his cheeks.  I wondered how Isis was handling it.  Some things that we think will frighten infants just make them laugh, and I hoped that was the case now.  Perhaps her little laugh would draw the hungry creatures with even more fervor.

Bug had initially forgotten to turn back on the garage monitor, but did so then.  Now all three, the entrance camera, the garage camera and the canyon monitors were powered on and our eyes constantly shifted between them.  The creatures left alive at the garage were now making their way up the trail, and as they left, I saw the dead bodies that Nelson and Rachel had left behind.

In the camera, beyond the dangling child, we finally saw them emerge.  The trail filled with zombies.

We waited for the next step.  It would have to be done soon.  The hungry dead pushed in the narrow path, approaching the edge of the steep cliff.  They were fifteen feet away now. 

Throw it, Nelson!  Throw it!

“Why isn’t he fuckin’ throwing it?” asked Bug, in a panic.  “Jesus!”

Something flew toward the path, landed a foot from the ledge and began billowing smoke.

“Yes!” shouted Bug.  The smoke in the monitor grew thicker and thicker, and completely obscured the trail.  But it also served to obscure the danger from the rotters, who had a way of realizing when something could hurt them.

Seconds later, we watched as bodies began emerging from the thick haze, toppling over the sheer ledge and plummeting from the trail into the empty space beyond.  The damned drone zombies, for the most part, dropped silently.  The red-eyes, in sharp contrast, shrieked in haunted frustration, their shrill, harrowing cries diminishing as they dropped away  from Isis, the helicopter and the microphone that allowed us to hear them, down into the deep canyon – perhaps all the way to hell.

There hovered our little siren, our goddess of the zombies, our little Isis.  She beckoned them into nothingness, and they continued to pour forth from the path, staggering into the vacuum that sucked them downward to crash onto the toothed rocks below.  Shattered bones, skulls and brains would put an end to even the most powerful red-eye, and we now knew the draw toward little Isis was not something they could fight.