The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (39 page)

“They’re at the cemetery.  More diggers coming up with the wet earth.”

Charlie’s face went stern, her body tensed up.  It was like she had suddenly become a coiled spring.

“Do they need us?”

I shook my head and touched her shoulder.  “Relax, Charlie.  Not now.  They’re fine.”

“They taking them out?”

“Yes.  As needed.”

“I want to be ready.”

Charlie turned and walked straight to the crew cab.  She pulled the crossbow from the back seat and checked her quiver for ammo.  When she was satisfied, she went to the bay door and pulled the chain to raise it up.

I shook my head and said to Cyn, “I love her, but she can get kind of intense.  I thought I was a badass.”

“Shit!” called Charlie, staring out the bay door, the rain splashing in.  “Gem, Cyn!  Come here!”

I jumped up and ran, with Cynthia right behind me.  When I got to the door my breath caught.

“Cyn, get the girls inside the mobile lab and tell them to lock themselves inside!”

“Okay,” said Cynthia.  She bolted to the office where the girls were playing Farkle on the floor.  As they were being hustled to the office I called, “Listen to Cyn, you two!  Stay put!”

I turned back to the scene outside.  Along the fence line there were dozens of them.  Dozens and dozens.  Their clothing hanging in tatters, filthy with blood, dirt and God knew what else.  They ran into each other like ants in an ant farm, oblivious of everything except the three women who now stared at them, and who undoubtedly smelled succulent.

Their moans came as steadily as a long roll of thunder, and their mouths moved in that eerily familiar side-to-side gnashing that seemed to be a universal trait.  As before, much of their clothing was torn almost completely off; shirts hung down to knees, having been torn away during their climb from their deep, muddy graves.  In several cases, neckties still hung around the emaciated necks of the creatures, the polyester or silk not as easily degraded as the cotton shirts and other garments.

This whole area had been clear just forty-five minutes earlier.

“The girls are inside,” said Cynthia.  “Locked in.”

Charlie had her crossbow, but I looked her in the eyes and shook my head.

“Charlie, screw the crossbow for now,” I said. “Grab one of the AK-47s and extra magazines, and Cyn, get whatever you’re most comfortable with.  We’re not leaving this mess for the boys to deal with.”

I didn’t wait for an answer.  I grabbed Suzi – the name I’d given my Uzi – from the floor beside the canvas, glanced once more at the image there of me and Flexy, and ran toward the door.

I stopped and turned again.  I looked at the radio.

I’d promised Flex.  Hemp, too.  I went to it and hit the talk button one time, quickly.

That was it.  It was the “GET HERE NOW!” notification.  I hesitated. 

Then I hit it twice more.  Three clicks meant we were okay.  We’d be okay.  We just had some work to do first.

“Cyn, strap on some of the magazine belts and load them up,” I said.  Cyn followed instructions, but Charlie already had several magazines for the AK in her cargo shorts, and had another five clips for my Uzi.  She gave them to me and I stuffed them in my pockets.

“Let’s go kill some zombies,” I said. 

We all ran into the pouring rain toward the fence.

*****

It was, if I were asked to explain it later, similar to shooting animals in a zoo.  Wild animals, intent on eating us.  It was as much their fault – this craving of theirs – as it would be the wild animals’ fault for wanting fresh meat.  But sometimes, if you really allowed yourself to think about it, what they would do to you didn’t make the task any easier on your psyche.  Sure, it was becoming second nature to shoot them without consideration of their pasts, but if you didn’t numb yourself to it, it would play out in your head something like this – an example of my first five kills that day:

A housewife in her mid-forties.  About 5’3” tall.  Bullet in the eye, blood and bone flies from the back of her head.

A boy of perhaps fifteen years; a few wisps of light brown hair remaining.  Probably loved baseball and his new girlfriend.  Errant gunshot tears through his throat, and the kill shot shatters the remaining teeth from his head and cuts him down in a heap.

A grandfather.  Once dressed in his Sunday best, now in that new fashion look, pants and wrist cuffs with just the necktie, like a past-his-prime Chippendale’s stripper.   As he clung to the fence with both hands I put two three-round bursts through his head just for slamming his elbow into the face of the woman I was going to kill next.

A woman, still oddly pretty despite her horrid affliction.  Bone structure, high cheekbones – I could see this because I could see the actual cheekbones – and long hair that somehow refused to fall out.  Nearly 5’10” tall, barefoot but for the most part still wearing the tattered pantyhose she’d been buried in.  I stitched her with eight rounds in the neck, and her head toppled off her shoulders, indicating she was farther along in the decomposition department than she appeared.

The head lay face up, the once pretty eyes looking directly up at me, the remaining eyelid batting, her teeth moving as they bit into the swollen, flitting tongue.  I put one bullet in the center of her forehead and all the flirtatious shit came to a quick end.

And last of my first five kills was a toddler.  He could only have been three years old.  If you’ve ever seen an old man – really old who had shrunk to the size of a boy, then you might have some idea of what this thing resembled.  His moans seemed singled out in my mind; in my ears.  I heard them in a little child’s voice, and I killed him fast.  I could not stand there and see this destroyed little boy struggling against all these adult zombies, fighting for his meals of human flesh and brains, and hardly strong enough to ever win.

I turned away when I put the Uzi through the fence to his nose and pulled the trigger.  A two-round burst did it.

I didn’t want to over do it.  I wasn’t heartless.  I know he was essentially a sick kid.  A sick kid who had died and rose from the dead and was now dead again.

Dead again.  Words I only thought I’d utter about fiction or movies.

The rest of them were a blur for me.  When my last magazine was exhausted, I stepped back and evaluated our progress.

Cyn was doing very well.  She was crying as she fired her weapon.  Screaming, actually.  She was screaming “Fuck you!  Fuck you!” every time she killed another.

Maybe it was her way of dealing.  “Fuck you.  You killed my mother.  You took my baby’s grandmother.  Fuck you.”

Whatever it took.  I was okay with it.  But I wondered if she could use some one-on-one counseling later.   I’m not trained, but I’m a good ear.

Charlie was a killing machine.  Her shirt of choice today said “If I Had Balls They Would Be Bigger Than Yours.”

I think she was right.  She was a machine.  Tap-tap-tap.  Tap-tap-tap.  Tap-tap-tap.  Three triples, five zombies down.  She was actually entertaining to watch when you kept your eyes on her.  The rest of it was as disturbing as fuck, but again, it had to be done without emotion.

When the group at the gate was heaped in a pile, and I had refreshed my ammo, we ran in opposite directions along the fence line taking out others who had spread out.  There were maybe a dozen more all around the perimeter, and we took them out easily.  As we finished up and met in the back, Charlie and I walked back to the front gate together.

“Jesus,” she said.

“Yeah.  Jesus.”

I pointed as we rounded the building.  “Hey, the boys!”

The Crown Vic pulled up to the gate, stopping about twelve feet back.  There was no way through.  Hemp hadn’t put the cowcatcher on the Ford or the crew cab yet, so had no ability to use it to push the bodies away.

“I’ll get gloves,” I called.  “Hang tight.”

“I got it,” Cyn said.  She was closest to the door and went inside.

Flex just stood outside the car and looked at me.  “You triple tapped.”

“I know.  You had enough on your hands.”

“Damn it, Gem.”

“Hey, I’m your fiancé.  You shouldn’t talk to me like that.”

“Where the hell did they all come from?” he asked.

“I don’t have any idea.”

“I opened the bay door and they were just there,” said Charlie.  “I’m glad I did, or you guys would’ve driven right into the mess.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “At least we had the fence for protection.”

“Fine, but never do this again without telling us what’s happening.  What if they’d have broken through.  Pushed the fence in?”

“They didn’t, Flex.” I said.

“Not this time,” he said.

“Shit,” said Hemp.  He fired his gun into the pile of bodies.  “A live head.”

“Sorry,” said Charlie.  “Still getting proficient with the AK-47.”

“Glad you’re okay, sweetie.”

“Thanks, Hemp.”

Cynthia came back out and gave us some gloves, then tossed the box over the fence to Flex.  He took a pair, and gave a pair to Hemp.

The guys cleared a path to the gate, unlocked it, and rolled it sideways.  Careful to make sure we didn’t get scratched, Charlie, Cyn and I focused on the smaller bodies, all with bandanas tied over our mouths and noses.  This was nasty, stinky work.

“I want to burn them,” said Flex.  “Hemp?  Any ideas?”

“We’ve got two five-gallon cans of turpentine inside,” he said.  “Can’t use it for much else, and we shouldn’t need it all anyway.”

“Okay, let’s make two nice piles on either side of the gates, far enough away not to compromise the fencing.”

The rain had stopped midway through our zombie killfest.   Their bodies and remaining clothing were wet, and I had some concerns that they wouldn’t burn.

“Don’t worry, Gem,” said Hemp.  “Their skin is so dried and porous that at this point it should soak in pretty well.  I think they’ll catch.”

“Fine, but when all this is done, Flexy, can you use that little dozer to dig a nice hole so we don’t have to look at them whenever we come or go?  I don’t want the girls seeing this.”

“I planned to all along, babe.”

When the path was cleared, Hemp drove the Crown Vic inside the building through the bay door and parked.  He retrieved the 5-gallon can of turpentine and walked back out to where Flex waited.  Together, they doused the two piles of bodies with the flammable fluid and Flex touched a lighter to the base of each pile.

The men came back through the gate and locked it up.

We watched the zombie pyre from just inside the bay doors.

We watched until the smoke went from black to white, and the bodies melted into a sunken pile of dark sooted ash and bone.

In the end, the guys had taken out twenty-six of them at the cemetery, and had filled three bags with poison ivy.

We had killed sixty-two of them just outside the gates of our safe haven.

I still felt okay about the place.  So far defending it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Big, human-shaped, stinky, flesh eating fish with bad complexions.  Never thought I’d long for piranha.

Piranha are easy.  Just stay out of the water.

At least the fuckers couldn’t fly.

*****

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Everybody was upbeat over the next few days, and I’m still not sure why.  Trina and Taylor were enjoying Cynthia’s school and the watercolors, I was enjoying painting again, and Flex and Hemp were working on the vehicles and figuring out the whole poison ivy thing.

As I worked on my painting of me and Flex – which was almost finished, by the way – Flex and Hemp came over to me with Charlie trailing behind.  Cyn was currently holding classes with the girls, but whatever was discussed she could be filled in on later.

“Hey, babe,” said Flex.  “Hemp’s got some ideas we need to go over.”

“Painting is coming along,” said Hemp.  “Is it done?”

I looked at the canvas.  The image of us was soft and flowing, and everything I’d envisioned it to be.  I held the brush for another moment, then put it down.

“You know what?  It is.”

“Just decided that, huh?” said Flex.

“Yes, I did.  I’ll fuck with it until doomsday if I don’t quit sometime or other.  So yep.  It’s done.”

Charlie looked at her watch.  “Doomsday has come and gone,” she said, smiling.  “But there’s nothing more to do with it anyway, Gem.  It’s amazing.  Kinda makes me squirm a bit.”

“In a good way, I hope,” I said.

“Oh, yes.”

Flex stared at it for a long time, his eyes far away.  “It’s beautiful, babe,” he finally said.  “I’ve been there.  I know the way he feels.”

“I was inspired,” I said.  “I’ve been there, too.”

“Okay,” said Hemp.  “Down to business.  To the table?”

We moved over to the picnic table.  Cyn and the girls were holding school inside the office lately, leaving the table available for meetings, reading, whatever.

“Okay,” said Hemp.  “I want to discuss the poison ivy plants and the implications behind our immunity.”

“Everyone at this table so far,” said Flex.  “What are the odds?”

“Exactly, Flex,” said Hemp.  “That’s what got me perplexed.  This apparent immunity to urushiol is astronomically
against
the odds.  Right now with four of us tested, we’re at 100%.  The immunity rate among the general population, give or take a few percentage points, is around 10%.  So only one in ten should be immune.  At worst, we’re already at 57% if none of the others have the immunity, too.”

“But you don’t think that’s possible?” I asked.  “I mean, that they’re
not
immune?”

“100% is an awfully convincing statistical number, so I’d like to test Cyn and the girls, but if I’m wrong we’re going to have some traumatized kids.”

“Really, Hemp?” said Charlie.  “Worse than what they’ve already been through?”

“Point taken,” he said, smiling.  “I suppose we’ll test them, then.  But I can still carry on with my urushiol tests on our subjects in there.  Under the assumption that we’re all immune.”

“Hemp,” I said.  “I don’t get what this means.  Are you trying to tell us that this whole thing was caused by poison ivy – or this urushiol?”

Hemp shook his head.  “Let me get into what immunity is in a situation like this before I get into my point about the urushiol.  There is, in all of us, the innate immune system.  This is the first line of defense and comprises the cells and mechanisms that provide us with immediate defense against infections.  Part of this is an automatic mobilization of immune cells to the site of a potential infection.”

Hemp swiped his hair away from his eyes again.  Charlie watched him, her eyes sparkling as he spoke.  She was a proud girlfriend when he got all sciency on us.

“Now, the other thing we’ve got is the adaptive immune system, which is very impressive.”

“You’re impressive,” said Charlie.

“Shut up,” said Hemp, smiling.

“You shut up,” said Charlie.

We all laughed, and Hemp squeezed Charlie’s hand in his and continued.

“The adaptive immune system is composed of highly specialized, systemic cells that can eliminate or prevent pathogenic growth.  It’s triggered when the evolutionary older innate immune system gets overwhelmed.  When triggered, the adaptive immune system actually modifies the DNA to protect the host, and each time a particular pathogen is encountered, it mounts stronger attacks against the invader.  It basically prepares the host for future challenges.”

“Okay,” said Flex.  “So that explains how we might be protected, but using that beautiful voice and crisp British accent of yours, tell us how the immunity ties in.”

“I have to be very specific explaining this because I can see how people would initially think I’m saying the virus was caused by urushiol.  The simple answer is no.  The reason obviously is that poison ivy, oak and sumac aren’t even found in all parts of the country.  And while there are several ways to contact minute amounts of it, such as in the skin of mangoes, it’s not how it happened.”

“Really?  Mangoes?” I asked.

“Yes, and also cashew nut shells.  But it’s still not possible for everyone to have become infected from direct contact, even assuming something has happened to the makeup of the plants to cause this reaction in people.  Plus we’ve got the digger phenomena.”

“Maybe the oils soaked into the earth with all the rain?” asked Charlie.

Hemp shook his head.  “Still wouldn’t happen like this.  But to me this is the first evidence that immunity to urushiol – the biological T-cell arrangement in one’s body that prevents it from affecting that person – is what is preventing us – part of the 10% – from becoming one of them.”

“So,” Charlie said.  “Of over three hundred million people in the
United States alone –”

“Two hundred and seventy million of them could be infected,” finished Hemp.  “With roughly thirty million like us.  That’s a lot of killing to do and bodies to dispose of, too.”

“Hey, you’re like a sick Dr. Seuss,” said Charlie.

“Thirty million like us minus the people who’ve been killed by them,” I said.  “I’d hate to be in
New York fucking City right now.”

“Okay, good.  Let’s take
New York City,” said Hemp.  “There were, at last count, approximately 8.3 million people living there at the time of the outbreak.  That would put over 7.5 million of them in the zombie category.  That leaves around 840,000 uninfecteds there.”

“These numbers,” I said.  “Make me want to puke.”

“But Gem,” said Hemp.  “This discovery could lead to the cure.  Tests have been done – immunity testing – with urushiol.  Other testing can be done.”

“By you?  Just you, Hemp?”

“No, Gem.  There have to be other scientists out there.  Others may discover this.”

“Fat chance,” said Flex.  “I don’t know how.  You stopped short in a cemetery to find them.  Who else is going to do that?”

“I’m going to try some tests with the hope there are others like me out there making discoveries of their own,” said Hemp, determined.  “I’ve already got the first batch of oils processing, thanks to our little propane freezer in the office.”

“How’d you do it?”

“Basically the way you’d get oil out of mint leaves.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I do that all the time.  Suzie fucking homemaker, I am,” I said.

Hemp laughed.  “I thought Charlie told you what I was up to.  It’s why I needed the vodka.  You basically tear the leaves and grind the stems from the plant, stuff them into a jar, packed very tight, and cover them with some strong alcohol, in this case the vodka.  The alcohol works as an agent to pull the oils out of the leaves.”

“Yeah I helped,” said Charlie.  “But sweetie, I gotta ask you again - where did you learn all this shit?  And what the hell do you see in me?”

“You’re smart, Charlie,” he said.  “And don’t act like you’re not.  You guessed why I was putting the jar in the freezer before I told you.”

“Because you’d already told me the booze pulled the oil out and I know that vodka doesn’t freeze.”

Hemp looked at Flex and me.  “Exactly.  The vodka doesn’t freeze, so when it’s done, the oil is what’s frozen.”

“So what do you do with it?” asked Flex.

“I test it on them,” he said, nodding his head toward the lab. 

“Do you have enough?” asked Flex.

“When it’s done I should have enough for a few tests.  I won’t know if I need more until I see what I can do with it.  If you want a lot of it you need a lot of leaves and four to six weeks using this method.”

“And when do these tests take place?” asked Charlie.

“You know me, babe,” he said.  “When I’ve got a toy, I’ve got to play.”

Charlie blushed.  I swear she did.  And I don’t think Hemp meant it like that.

Or maybe he did.

“I should have enough by tomorrow morning,” added Hemp.

“I wanna see,” I said.  “Gonna try to give ‘em poison ivy?”

“I have no idea what will happen,” said Hemp.  “But it should be interesting.  Or not.  Maybe nothing will happen.”

“God I hope not,” said Flex.  “We need to make some kind of progress and I feel good about this.  Hey, Hemp.  I have a question.”

“At the risk of sounding like a John Wayne, shoot.”

“How many people in Birmingham?  You know?”

“Just over 210,000 in the city,” said Hemp.  “Over 1.2 million in the metropolitan area.  And don’t call me a genius again, because it’s part of the data on the maps from the CDC.”

“Sure, it is,” said Flex.  “So we’re looking at just 21,000 probable survivors at the beginning of the outbreak.  Fewer now, obviously.”

Charlie did her quick math.  “Leaving 189,000 zombies to deal with.”

“Our numbers are way off,” said Hemp.  “The diggers make it impossible to determine how many there actually are, but it also means something else.”

“I get it,” said Flex.  “It means we’re even more outnumbered.”

“That about covers it,” I said.

We sat around the table without speaking.  The door to the office opened and Trina and Taylor came running out and slid onto the seats beside us.

“Your picture is really pretty, Gemmy,” said Trina.

“It is,” said
Taylor.  “But it’s naked,” she added.

“It’s what I’d call a boudoir style painting, somewhat abstract.  Meant to be what adults call sensual.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” said Taylor.

“Hey,” said Trina to Cynthia, her eyes narrowed.  “Are you a good teacher?”

“I am, but I think it’s up to your art teacher to get into what she’s just described.”

“She’s right, girls,” I said.  “And when I start the painting of the two of you, I’ll give you a rundown of all my methods and styles.”

“Go wash your hands now and get ready for lunch,” said Cynthia.  The girls ran off.

“We’ll have to bring you up to speed on Hemp’s poison ivy theories later,” said Flex.  “It’s good stuff.”

“Hemp,” said Charlie, “I know we thought we were done for now, but what about the vapor?  How does this tie in with that?”

“I’m going to take a look at the data breakdown I have for the vapor and see if any components of urushiol or related toxins are represented.  That might tell me a lot.”

“I’ll help,” she said.

“Time will fly,” said Hemp.  “Always does when you work with me.”

“You really are a sentimental bastard, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and I like your shirt.”

“It’s true,” said Charlie.  “Who needs big tits when you’ve got an ass like this?”

“Ah, but you’re lucky.  Having both is a plus,” said Hemp.

“Aww, thanks,” said Charlie, feigning a blush very well.

“Okay,” I said.  “To the lab with you guys, and Hemp, I’ll tell Cyn what you told us.  Flex, don’t you have some gun cleaning to do?”

“I do,” he said.  “Let me know when you want to hang the picture.  I’ll help.”

I winked at him.  “I bet you will.”

“Got something in your eye?” he asked, smiling.

“Yeah I do.  You.”

“I thought so,” he said as he walked away.

“Watching you two makes me miss having someone,” said Cynthia.

“Having him makes me realize how much I missed him when he wasn’t around, so I know that feeling.”

I filled in Cynthia on all of Hemp’s information, and she seemed to become a bit more hopeful.  I didn’t bother mentioning how outnumbered we were, whether we considered all the diggers or just the census figures of people that were alive when the infection hit.

I’d gauged Cynthia carefully since the beginning, and hadn’t really felt she was ready to talk about her mother yet.  I thought now might be a good time, so I broke the ice.

“We never really talked much about things after we brought
Taylor back from the house.”

“I know,” said Cyn.  “It was pretty raw emotionally.”

“It still is,” I said.  “Right?”