The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (56 page)

Now the outbreak was no longer just the mystery of the miners.   It is the mystery of our time.

So I suppose it was easier to tell Flex and Gem that my parents had died, without really specifying when or how.  I knew they had too much consideration to ask, assuming I’d tell them when I was ready.

I love them, so I’ll probably tell them sometime.  In the meantime, I can talk about everything with my Charlie, and that’s good enough.  It’s hard not knowing if your parents are alive or dead, even when, in your heart, you believe the latter to be more likely.  It occasionally takes hold of my emotions and distracts me from the many tasks ahead. 

I’ve got no brothers or sisters and with my parents likely dead, I would be utterly alone if not for my wife and my new friends. 

Now I suppose it’s time I stopped dawdling and got on with telling you about my beginning in this new world.

Chapter 1

After hanging up the phone, I was a bit worried about my Mum.  Dad sounded okay, but she sounded irritable, tired and in pain.  I hoped she took my advice about some painkillers and went to bed.  If so, it might have been the first time she ever listened to me.

It was the weekend, the Saturday before the proverbial shit hit the fan, and since I’d lived relatively close to it for so many years without seeing it, I decided that alone or not, I was driving down to Florida to see the Kennedy Space Center.  Bruce Willis was also going to be performing with his blues band, so it seemed like worthwhile trip.  Plus they were going to have an open air showing of the film Armageddon after.  I was up for a movie too, and since I thought Willis was a pretty good actor, I was interested in hearing what kind of musician he was.  I decided to go all out, so I arranged a hotel for the night.

I like the blues as much as any Brit.

I lived in Fort Valley, Georgia, in a nice two-story brick house, and while it was a beautiful tree-lined area that really felt like a neighborhood, unless I was working I tended to get bored to death.  I mean, a guy can only take so many walks by himself.

I decided that since there were only a few minor roads before I hit Interstate 75, before I knew it, I’d be pulling into
Orsino, Florida and climbing around on a space shuttle for some stimulation.

I put the story my mum had told me in the back of my mind, resolved to call and check on her later and I packed a cooler and hit the highway.

I didn’t drive anything near as cool as Flex and Gem.  My car was a 2004 Toyota Camry, but it was in good repair and it got decent miles per gallon of petrol.  It was silver with just a bit of peeling paint on the hood and new halogen headlights.  There was good rubber on the tires and I was ready for a road trip.

Since I left on the Saturday, not the Sunday when everything really went to crap, things seemed mostly normal.  Some things, some early indicators if you will, caused me to stop at the police station.  I’ll explain.

I never made it to Orsino.  Turns out some of this began the day before.

The drive was uneventful for the most part.  I had brought an MP3 player loaded up with my favorite music, mostly The Who and lots of Beatles.  My favorite album was Revolver, and that, along with The White Album, usually got me where I needed to go.  But in this case I had to get into a bit of Who’s Next, particularly
Going Mobile
.

The first sign of trouble appeared to me more of a domestic dispute, and the police were already on the scene when I passed.  There was a man outside of his car leaning inside, and from his movements I could tell me was angry.  Thrashing about, he was, and a woman in the passenger side of the car was slapping at him.

He seemed undeterred.  The police car had pulled up and the officer was approaching the car shouting warnings with his gun drawn.  I would’ve snapped a quick picture, because it’s rare to see an officer with his gun out of its holster, but as usual I was too late and already well past by the time my phone was in hand.

I can guess now what was happening.  As I sat in that jail cell, having discovered in earnest that the situation was widespread and quite serious, I thought about that woman in the car a lot.  I hoped there were no children in the back seat.  I hadn’t see any.  While it still prays on my mind, the fact is I hadn’t thought of it at the time, and regrets are useless for things you cannot change. 

With that in mind, everyone is pretty well screwed now, and if there were children there, they are likely out of their misery, one way or the other.

I was still in
Georgia when I came across that vehicle. And then I saw what I first thought was some sort of disorganized flash mob at a park as I was getting ready to turn onto the freeway.  I only gave them a glance, and suppose I even smiled.  I found flash mobs cool, but beginning to get passé.  Kind of like the funky dances couples were doing at their weddings these days.

So I kept driving.  Had I stopped I’m sure I’d have seen what might now be called a feast mob.  The rotting, walking dead feasting on picnickers who had no idea they’d just learned that ants were no longer the biggest pests during a day at the park sitting on a spread out blanket.

Ah, but again, I took no real notice of it.  Looked like a bunch of people acting silly.

So I drove on.

And before I hit the interstate, I’d already had a change of plans.  I’d heard that in Tallahassee, they had an antique car museum.  I’m not a huge fan of cars, but I am a fan of history, and I’d heard they had the hearse that carried President Abraham Lincoln.  Horse drawn.  That was something I decided I had time to see.  I’d left the house at 7:00 in the morning and the drive to Kennedy Space Center was only an 8-1/2 hour run.  I didn’t stop for many restroom breaks and I was planning to eat on the road, so I said screw it and took the southernmost route heading towards Tallahassee.

Plus, they had the Batmobile from the 1995 film, Batman Forever.  One of my favorite cars of all time.

If we’re ever in the area, I’m going back to steal it.  I could probably even get away with it these days.

So the trouble didn’t begin in earnest until I arrived at the museum.  I paid my attendance fee and went inside.  Lots of Prowlers, which were pretty cool cars, but they were not the Batmobile.  The hearse was cooler than the Batmobile, if only for the history factor, but just by a tad.

While I was leaning as far over the velvet rope as I could to look at the detail of the horse-drawn hearse that carried one of the greatest United States presidents of all time, a man pushed me.

He actually tried to grab me.  Security was lax, and nobody was near at the time.  I turned and scolded him.

“I’ll be done in a minute sir!  There’s no need to push.”

Admonishment complete.  Then he stared through me.  At me.  I didn’t really have any idea what he was looking at, but he stopped and smelled.  His nostrils flared, his eyes bore into me.  And he came forward again.

I backed away this time.  He looked absolutely mad.  When he kept coming, I turned and ran.

The museum was somewhat deserted.  Not very many visitors at that time.  It’s not exactly in a busy part of town, but it is a draw, from what I understand.  Not enough.  There were perhaps four other people in the room, but they were on the far side, and behind an old 1931 Dusenberg and a row of various Ford Model T cars.

“What in the bloody hell is wrong with you?” I asked him, turning back to shout at him.  Then he noticed the others by the Dusenberg and changed direction.  He was moving fairly fast, but seemingly with little coordination.

I know why now, but it was baffling then.

I’d had enough.  Moved to the door and encountered a security guard outside. 

“There’s a man in there I think you’re going to have to get hold of,” I said.  “He’s gone over the edge, I think.”

The older man looked confused.  “How so?  Dangerous?”

“My guess is yes.  You might want to call 911 if you’re not armed.”

The sixty-something man smiled.  “I think I can handle him, sir.”  He removed what appeared to be a pepper spray canister from his belt.  “Thanks for visiting.”

I shrugged him off and headed toward my car.  A woman lay on my hood, her arms spread out.  She was face down as I approached.

“Ma’am, what are you doing?” I said as I moved between the cars, approaching from the rear.  “This is my car.”

I fully expected she’d just get up and smile embarrassedly, and move on.  But that’s not what happened at all.  When her face turned toward me, her face was ashen and gray.  Her eyes were dead, yet they saw.

They saw
me
.  The instant she got me in her sights, she slid off the hood and came around.

A chill ran down my spine.  The man inside the museum hadn’t been this far gone, but they were clearly afflicted with the same thing.  Some bug.  Something was affecting them in a severe way.

“Ma’am, I’m going to call 911.  You need to sit down.”

She didn’t sit down.  Her arms outstretched, she rushed toward me, her purple, mid-length dress bunched and caught in her knee-high panty-hose.  She was in her early sixties as far as I could tell, her hair died red and the gray roots in need of color.

And she came at me growling.  She was saying something that at first I believed was “good, me.”

But what she was saying, I would figure out in my lonely jail cell.

“Food, meat.”

I’m sure of it now.

You see, in the beginning of this disease, after the migraine and before one loses completely the power of speech, the words they can say are like that of a baby’s.  They can say “hungry,” and “food,” and “meat.”

Unfortunately, they are the former and we, the uninfected, are the latter two.  Within an hour or so – I’m not really sure how long it takes – they lose all ability to articulate language at all, but the terrible craving remains.  The insatiable hunger is all that’s left. 

Just then, a woman carrying a small Chihuahua in her arms came out of a porta-potty set up for some event that had taken place or was to take place later in the day.  There was a line of eight of portable restrooms, and she came out of the one nearest the row of cars.

When the door slammed, the woman-creature that had been calling me names like food and meat, turned toward her.

It stagger-ran toward the unsuspecting woman, gurgling, “foo, me, foo, me!” and the lady who just exited the porta-potty stopped and looked at me, a confused look on her face.

“Run!” I shouted.  “And keep running!”

The thing’s attention off me now, I hit the remote to unlock my car door and yanked it open, my heart pounding in my chest.

But the damned woman with the dog didn’t run.  She stood there, dumbfounded, clutching the small dog tightly in her arms.

“Listen to me!  Run!” I yelled.

“What on earth is wrong with her?” she called back, but the time it took her to ask the question sealed her fate.  The infected woman-creature was just feet away from her when the confused, soon-to-be-victim bent over to lower the dog to the ground on its leash.

As she lowered the yapping, quite disturbed dog to the ground, the woman screamed as her attacker’s jaws clamped down on the back of her neck and sank deep.  Even from where I stood I could see her tearing into the woman’s flesh like a cowboy at a barbequed rib eating contest.

I ran toward them, unsure what I would do when I reached the pair.

“What in the bloody hell are you doing?” I cried  as I ran full out, but she took no notice.

The dog had reached the end of its extend-o-leash, then had run around and around the pair until it was only a foot away from them and unable to distance itself further.  Now on the very short leash and frantic, it spun in the air like a pinwheel in a wild attempt to get as far away from the melee as possible.

I reached them and grabbed the ill woman by the shoulders and spun her away from the badly bleeding victim, who had now collapsed onto the pavement.  The poor woman had fallen onto her back and was writhing in pain, her knees pulled involuntarily up to her chest as she tried to untangle her legs from the now retracting leash. 

Her cries of terror and pain were constant, like a horrid siren that pierced straight through to the brain.  But for me, I could only stare into the face of the thing I held, and it took everything in me to keep it from biting my face.  Its jaws snapped like a rabid dog and I was more afraid to let it go than to hold on.

So I pushed out hard, heaving it away from me with all I had.  The thing staggered briefly, then fell to the ground.  The crazed thing did not land near the woman, for I had pushed away from her on purpose.  I vaguely recall that the victim, who was bleeding quite profusely from her neck by that time, had freed her legs from the leash in time to scramble back to her feet and run. 

As for the creature-thing, it had landed beside the dog.  It seemed to move very fast in that moment.  It quickly snatched the canine into its clutching fingers, and in mere seconds the animal was in its jaws.  Both hands dug into the thin fur as it buried its face in the
Chihuahua’s soft belly, ripping mouthfuls of meat away as it moaned with some sort of sick pleasure.

I was aghast.

The creature squealed in horrible pain as its life drained from its tiny body.

“Daisy!  My little Daisy!” I heard, and the fool woman who had only moments before had the right idea, turned around and ran back toward the thing eating her precious companion.  I threw my arms around the woman’s neck to pull her to safety, but she was now as pumped with adrenaline as me, and she slipped free, instead falling to the ground with a defeated cry.

But it was the chance I needed.  With quite possibly my last burst of strength, I yanked the woman from the ground, hefted her over my shoulder without a moment’s hesitation and ran her to my car, my legs burning with each pump of my knees.  I went directly to the driver’s side rear door and opened it, essentially throwing her into the back seat.  I slammed the rear door and jumped in the driver’s seat, pulling my door shut and locking it manually before firing the engine.