The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (34 page)

Now Hemp looked up.  “Really?”

“Yep,” said Flex.  “Now we can move all the larger equipment in there and leave this area for your finer detail work.”

“Perfect,” said Hemp, smiling.  “Hey, preliminarily, this looks like it’s going to work.  Watch this,” he said. 

He had the sniffer running off four AA batteries.  He pressed the power button and a tiny fan whirred inside.

“This is drawing the air in, but at a very low velocity,” he explained.  “Take a look.”

He held the sniffer up to my arm, my chest.  The lights remained on green.

He raised it to my head, right beside my nostrils.  The row of lights on the sniffer now moved from green to yellow.

“That shows a moderate degree of detection,” said Hemp.  The odor of the brain coming through your nostrils.  Open your mouth.”

I felt stupid, but I opened my mouth.  He moved the sniffer in front of it, and the green light flickered on, then back off.  When I exhaled, it flickered on again.

“Okay, so you were right.  Did you test a fart yet?”

Flex laughed.  “So now what?”

Hemp was excited.  It was easy to tell when he got that way, because his accent got stronger and he spoke too fast.

“First check this out,” he said.  He led us outside the back room and closed the door.  “I don’t want to tease them, so I’ve left Bill’s brain outside.”

He slid the Playmate cooler toward him on the counter and opened it.  The first green light of the sniffer went on solid.  He moved it to within a foot of the brain, and the lights pegged full green, practically pulsating with the strength of the signal.

“Got it,” said Hemp.  I’ve isolated the odor.  That is what draws them,” he said.  Now I’ve got to use my calculations to reverse the characteristics.  Once I’ve done that, voila!  BSN.”

“What kind of tests have you done on them?” I asked, nodding my head toward the closed door.

“None yet,” said Hemp, “but when I first brought Bill’s brain in here I didn’t think.  The moment I walked in I thought they’d snap their restraints.  It was that powerful a draw to them.”

Flex shook his head.  “We know they’re not particular about the rest of the human body, though.  They eat every part of us, save the bones.  So I guess the rest is the hamburger and the brain is the steak.”

“Let me know when we can kill them, Hemp,” I said.  “I don’t like having them here.  Not just because of the girls, but for the danger to all of us.”

“Gem, the restraints are extremely secure, but I’m aware of the anxiety they can cause,” said Hemp.  “Don’t think I don’t feel it, too.  I don’t intend to use them very long, I promise.  Just another week or two to fine tune the BSN.  After that we can dispose of them.”

Flex looked at me, a crooked smile on his face.  “We need for him to do this, Gem.  We both agreed we need to do more than survive.”

“I know,” I said.  “It’s all necessary.”

Flex turned back to Hemp.  “Good work, professor,” he said, patting the scientist on the shoulder.  “I’m going to grab a little dozer from the industrial supply next door and dig a resting place for Bill in the back corner of the yard.  You don’t need him for anything else, do you?”

“No, Flex.  Thanks.  Let me know before you put him in.  I’d like to say a few words.”

“How long until that thing’s up and running?” I asked.

“A couple of days until I’ve got the characteristics of the odor canceled out electronically, then I need to figure out how to incorporate it into some sort of headwear.”

I nodded.  “I’ll be glad to be rid of them.”

“We’ll go take care of Bill’s body.  We’ll call you before we cover it,” said Flex.

“Then I need to explain to Trina and Taylor what happened to him,” I said.  “Cynthia might prefer vague to honest.”

“Thank you, guys.  Just come and get me when you’re ready.”

*****

The dogs were having a heyday.  The little pups no longer looked like pups.  They were miniatures of Bunsen, and were full of energy.  When they weren’t sleeping or eating they were bounding around playing, both with one another and with Trina and Taylor.  Laughter filled the great steel warehouse whenever they romped and frolicked with the girls, and today was no exception.

All in all, there were five pups left.  The litter had been seven pups, but the last had been stillborn.  Beaker had gotten ill and died later, and Trina had put the little decorated shoebox with him inside in the grave with her mother’s body.

That seems like it was so long ago.  Wow. 

So aside from the proud mama Bunsen, there were her little boys, Slider and Tong, as well as her girls, Pipet, Flo and Rabbit.

Trina had insisted on naming the last girl after her sister.  It broke my heart.  I could barely say the name without breaking into tears.

The trip next door to get the mini-bulldozer was uneventful, and it had plenty of fuel for the job.  Flex dug the hole quickly – about the proper depth of 5-6 feet, and when we were done we used the scoop to lower Bill’s body down inside using two loops of rope to support him.

Hemp came out and stood beside the grave for about ten minutes.  Cyn came out too, as did Charlie, making the trip out in shifts.  Trina and Taylor didn’t need to concern themselves with this; they had seen enough death already, and this was one they didn’t need to spend time thinking about.  There would be more and we all knew it in our hearts.  As I expected, Cynthia decided it might be best to say his son arrived in the night and Bill left with him.  White lies to save the children’s sanity.

After everyone said their goodbyes, we covered him up and tamped down the earth over his grave.

Over the next three days, Hemp began fine-tuning his BSN, and Flex spent a lot of time on the Ham radio, looking for signs of life out there.  Sitting together, we’d both heard brief snippets of conversation, but nothing sustained.  We made note of the frequencies we heard these sounds on, both on the Ham and the Citizens Band radios.  Hemp had put up a hell of an antenna, and we were pretty sure that if anyone was within a hundred miles of us that we could get a bead on their amateur radio signal.

Amidst the static, I walked up and put my hands on Flex’s shoulders.

“So how the hell does this thing work, anyway?”

He spun around in the chair to look up at me, smiling.  “My dad used to operate a Ham,” he said.  “Had the FCC license and everything.  They were a tad more popular back then.  Cell phones killed everything.”

“I’m willing to bet they’re making a comeback,” I said. 

“No doubt, but not enough for my taste yet.  So far I haven’t gotten any response to my broadcasts, except that time from Max.”

“How the hell does that thing work?  It looks primitive.”

“I’m not an expert,” he said.  “But my dad said these radios broadcast in all directions.  I think for around a hundred miles.”

“That’s not very far in a situation like this,” I said.

“No, it’s not.  But there are things called repeaters that bounce your transmission off existing radio station towers and increase the broadcast range.  They’re all over the country and some are bound to still be attended by operators.”

“This shit’s all from memory?”

“My dad was into it, and he made me sit there and learn.  Electrician, remember?  Anyway, Hemp said there were around 700,000 amateur radio operators when this thing hit, which was an all-time high.  Probably because of 9/11.”

“Jesus.  I didn’t know there were that many geeks out there.”

“A lot of them are women, babe.  Anyway, what I’m doing is scanning frequencies from 15 megahertz to 27 megahertz during the day and at night, I scan from 1.6 to 15.”

“Blah, blah, blah.  Get back to it.  You lost me with I’m not an expert.”

“No, Gem, this is pretty cool.  If the space shuttle were flying over, you could theoretically communicate with them if you had line-of-sight.  The good news is this will be the method of communication as life moves forward.  At least for a while.”

I leaned down and kissed his cheek.  “Get back to it.  Find someone.  Just don’t tie into any sex talk party lines.”

“You’re hilarious,” he laughed.  “No worries.  I have all I can handle.” 

Hemp’s BSN helmet, as far-fetched as it had seemed, was nearly ready for testing.  While we had the girls closed in the office with the blinds down, we moved both the infecteds to the permanent lab, keeping them strapped to the tables.  The rolling gurneys had a hydraulic pivoting mechanism whereby they could be moved to a vertical position rather than horizontal, and Hemp thought that would be better for our testing.  Once we had them in the lab, Hemp and Flex put the foot braces up and spun the tables so that they were essentially standing up.

“I’m not certain whether their senses are the same when they’re lying down,” said Hemp.  “They never do it, so in any real-world situation it’s not a natural position for them.  We have to make sure our testing is done with all conditions as they’ll be out there,” he said, motioning toward the door.

“You’re the scientist,” said Flex.  “What’s next?”

The girls were napping, and everyone was interested in this process, so we gathered with Hemp at a monitor just outside the lab door, facing toward the rear wall.  For the time being, Hemp had white sheets over the zombies so we didn’t have to look at them.  They remained relatively still beneath the sheets.

Cynthia seemed more nervous than the rest of us, but she’d been the most sheltered, so it made sense.  I knew she had no desire to be inside the actual lab with them.

“Okay,” said Hemp.  “First test.  I’ll start the digital video recorder and bring Bill’s brain into the room in a standard cooler, placing it near them.  I’ve made two; one has the BSN filtration device attached.  The other is the stock cooler.  I’ll then join you so they can’t smell me, and by their reaction, we can determine conclusively whether it works.  We can watch from here.”

Hemp and Flex went back inside and slid the sheets off of them.  Hemp started the DVR recording and Cyn, Charlie and I watched in fascination as the guys came out.  Hemp went to get the brain.

From their waists to their faces we watched the strange creatures react as Hemp walked back inside the room with the unmodified cooler with the brain inside.  They stiffened at the sight of the meat that was Hemphill Chatsworth.  We didn’t know if they could smell him, the brain, or if it was the visuals that excited them.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Double fuck,” said Charlie.

Hemp drew to within eight feet.  Then six.  Then four.

When he got to within two feet of the gurneys, both creatures began shuddering, almost vibrating.  Hemp put the cooler on the table and came back outside, closing the door behind him.

The raw odor of the brain, even inside the cooler must have been intense, like the smell of garlic sautéing permeates a space.  Their hands, peeling of skin and grey, flexed opened and closed; the gnashing teeth were grinding with ferocity, and it was as though they would eat through their own cheeks if it went on much longer.

But the strangest thing was the almost involuntary shudder of their bodies.  Like an electrical charge had shot through them, and brought every muscle to life.  The base of each gurney was almost jumping off the concrete, and I didn’t like it much at all.

“Hemp,” I said.  “Isn’t that enough?  It looks like they’re going to fall over.”

“Yeah,” said Flex.  “That brain’s like catnip.”

“We’ve never seen them exposed to a brain unless they were actually consuming it,” said Hemp.  “So it’s an involuntary craving.  This is like putting a syringe full of heroin in front of a junkie,” he said. 

“Okay, take it out, Hemp.  Please,” said Charlie.  She bit her lower lip and her skin was pale white.

He looked at her, his expression concerned. “Yes.  Okay.”

He took it out, transferred it to the cooler with the BSN mechanism installed, and carried it back in.

The cooler looked the same except it was sealed on the edges and had a filtration grid cut into the side where the small machine was mounted internally.

The zombies had calmed now.  Back to the same demeanor they’d demonstrated before the brain was introduced.

But as Hemp, wearing a tight rubber shower cap and latex gloves, carried the new cooler over, it began again.  Both creatures shuddered in unison, their violent movements nearly bouncing the gurneys across the floor. 

Then Hemp hit the power button.  Slowly, the crazy movements subsided, but not completely.

Hemp put the cooler on a raised stainless steel rolling table – it was now within 10 inches of them.

They continued gnashing, but not as much as before.

Hemp spoke into a walkie talkie, the other half of the pair sitting on the table beside us.

“I need to come out – they can smell me.”

He left the cooler and came outside.  His broad smile told us everything.  “Fuckin’ A,” he said.

“Fuckin A,” I agreed.

“Now that I’m out of there, look at them,” he said.  “As still and docile as Bunsen while she’s sleeping.”