The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (58 page)

And the answers were the worst imaginable.

“This way.  I’m going to run again, and I ain’t waiting, so you’d better keep up!”

We ran.  We ran through the hallway until we came across another officer running toward us.  He also had his gun drawn.

“You okay, Sergeant?” asked the officer, who’s name badge said his last name was Vaughan.

“I am, but you won’t be if you don’t get somewhere out of sight.  I can’t explain what’s happening, and I don’t have the time to try.”

“Who’s the guy?”

“CDC scientist.  We’re going.  Follow if you want.”

He did.  We made a right down the hall and ran into what were clearly more of the crazies.  Neither I, nor Sergeant Petrie hesitated.  I put a bullet in one, and he quickly pierced the frontal lobes of the others.

“Jesus!” he shouted, his voice faltering. “I knew them both!”

“I think you used to know them, officer.”

We looked behind us, but
Vaughan was no longer there.  We caught sight of his shoe as he rounded the corner.  He was likely heading for the front door to get the hell out of the building.

I didn’t
want to know his fate, but eventually I would; and it was nothing like I would have predicted at that moment. 

A man was on the floor ahead of us in front of an office door, and he was tearing at the insides of a dead man sprawled out on his back.   He was so engrossed in his task that he did not look up for several seconds, as we stood there stunned, watching the horrific scene of one human consuming another like a wild animal in the jungle.

I threw up onto the smooth linoleum floor as Petrie ran forward and shot the creature.

“My God,” I said weakly.

“Step over them and come inside here,” he said.  “It’s my office.”

We both leapt over the bodies and ran inside.  He closed the door and locked it.

We looked at one another.

“I got a fucking headache,” he said.

“Bad?”

“The worst,” he said.  “I don’t know what’s going on, but I wish I’d have been one of the cops who called in today.”

He fell back into his chair and closed his eyes.

I didn’t.  I was beginning to put two and two together, but I wasn’t willing to articulate anything yet.  A lightning fast mental illness that affected the brain was changing these people.

And it was my guess it started with a headache.

A knock came at the door.

“Sergeant!  It’s me, Jackson Vaughan!  Open up!”

“Get that, would you?  Hurry, please,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded tiredly.  “Yes, now, open the door.”

I did, and Vaughan rushed in, his breath coming hard.  He was bleeding from his shoulder.

“Fucker bit me,” he said.  “He drew blood!”

Petrie had his head down on the desk, breathing hard.

“You okay, Sergeant?”

“No,” came his reply.  “I’m tired, I’m hungry, and my head feels like it’s going to explode.  Just let’s be quiet for a few minutes.”

“We need to call for help!” shouted
Vaughan.  “Sergeant, we –”

“Shut up!” Petrie shouted.  “Did you see out there?  Who are we going to call that can get through that?”

“Fucking SWAT comes to mind!  The military?  What’s wrong with you?”

Petrie pulled his gun out and shot him in the chest.  His fellow officer flew backward and slammed into the wall, then dropped like a stone, his eyes wide, staring at Petrie with dying eyes.

Petrie shot him again.  Through the heart.

I know I’d gone white.  My mouth was dry.  I was afraid to breathe, or I’d be shot, too.  I stared at the floor.

And then he looked at me.  “That fuckin’ guy wouldn’t have made it, and I never liked him much anyway.  How do you feel, Doc?”

I was still afraid to answer.  I was more afraid not to.

“I feel fine, Sergeant Petrie.”

“Good.  Get yourself to a jail cell and lock yourself in.  I think it’s your only hope, because I am beginning to think that I want to tear your throat out and . . . and for Christ’s sake, I . . .”

He looked at his gun, then back at me.

I stared at him, clutching the grip of my gun tighter.  My hand was clammy.  The man who just said that to me had earlier saved my life, and he was about to horrify me.

Sergeant Petrie took his sidearm, put the barrel underneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

His blood, tissue and brain splattered the wall behind him in a crimson pattern that would’ve given Dexter himself a day’s work.

I looked at the dead officers’ bodies once more before unlocking the door.  Pressing my ear to it, I heard screams in the distance.

Easing it open, I checked down the hall in both directions.  Empty, save for the bodies piled in front of the door.

And then I went in search of the cell block.  Despite being on the edge of conversion into whatever these things were, I was certain Petrie was right.  It was my only chance to survive.

I ran.

At the end of the hallway, I saw signs directing me to the lockup.  I followed them, and luckily didn’t encounter any more officers, either sick or otherwise.  If they’d have been well, they surely would’ve shot me, carrying a weapon inside a police station, especially when I wasn’t in uniform.

If they weren’t well, then I’d have had to shoot them.  I’d never killed a man before that day, and I wasn’t liking the feeling one bit.  Not one bit at all.  I felt sick.

But not physically.  No headache.  I felt perfectly healthy.

I turned another corner and saw two uniformed men teetering unsteadily across the hall.  They were facing away from me.  I saw a narrow door to my left, which I opened as quietly as I could.  It was a janitorial supply closet no more than three feet square.  I scrambled inside and eased the door closed.  Darkness.  Muffled voices and screams outside now.

I stayed there for a long, long time.  Hours.  Soon it became like a cocoon to me.  It was my dark cave of solace.  I didn’t ever want to leave and encounter more of what lay outside that small room that smelled of bleach and urinal cakes.

I felt around and to my pleasure, my hand fell upon a small flashlight.  I switched it on and saw a string mop hanging on the inside of the door.  I pulled several strings from it and knotted them together, then secured the doorknob to the inside rack of wire shelves, tripling the thickness until I felt that no amount of pulling would allow the door to be pulled open.

I eventually fell asleep, my body drained of strength, adrenaline, and everything else.

According to my watch, when I finally awoke, it was just past ten in the morning – the next day.

And I thought the Kennedy Space Center would tire me out. 

The sounds still echoed through the distant halls.  I was afraid to leave.

But it wasn’t like me to cower and hide, either.

I opened the door, my mouth parched, and saw a water fountain thirty feet away.

I went for it.  I needed it.

****

The gun in my hand, I ran down the hall and checked in all directions.  I could still hear quite a commotion in the distance, but it was far enough away that I felt safe taking a drink.

And I drank and drank.  The power was fully functional, and when I felt I’d had enough, I ran back to the opposite corner of the hallway, peered around it and ran toward the cell block.

As I passed a dead officer’s body, I saw he had a swipe card of some kind on a lanyard hanging off his belt.  I bent over and took it, then continued on.  When I got to the closed steel door with a small window in it criss-crossed with steel wire, I peered through.  A row of cells on each side, all of them empty.

Where were the prisoners?  All the doors stood open.  I didn’t care.  I pulled on the door and it didn’t open.  Holding the swipe card, I saw a black box mounted on the wall with a slot and a red and green light.  The red one was illuminated.

I swiped the card, heard a click and the light turned green.  I pulled the door open and quickly went inside.

The door was about to close behind me, and at the last moment I went back and put my foot in it.

I didn’t know how long the power would remain on.  If it latched, there would be no way of knowing whether I could get back out.

I went back down the hall where I’d seen a metal chair.  I grabbed it and ran back to the door, swiped the card again, and went back inside, propping the door open with the chair.

Then I went into a cell and pulled the barred door closed to the point where it almost appeared closed, but wasn’t.

With a heavy sigh I settled onto the thin mattress laid over a concrete bench cantilevering off the wall.  The .45 in my hands, my eyes moved back and forth between the doors on either side of the block.

It was nearly three hours before the terror revisited me again.  It was the first time I got a good look at the afflicted, and I studied them as closely as I could before it got too precarious for me to try and pretend I wasn’t there.

You’re probably wondering why I didn’t grab keys from the downed officer I’d taken the swipe card from.  It’s simple, really.  He didn’t have any, and I didn’t want to spend any more time roaming the halls until I found one that did.  I was poised to shoot first and ask questions later, and I’m sure most of the officers who hadn’t been converted by the sickness were feeling the same.

I still hadn’t figured out that a head shot killed them, either.  I figured it was adrenaline or something similar that kept them going, kind of like a drug addict on Phencyclidine might respond to a gunshot.  You might know the drug better by its street name of PCP.

I’d ruled nothing out.  A terrorist act.  I considered the possibility of huge amounts of the drug being introduced into the water supply, but by that time it was too late.  I’d already drank a lot of it myself.  No matter.  I didn’t feel insane or angrily powerful, and while I was hungry, I certainly didn’t have the strong urge to eat my fellow man.

The officer that burst in through the opposite door was white-faced, dead-eyed.   He was looking toward the far door that I had propped open, so while he was distracted, I slid beneath the concrete bed overhang and held my breath.  I watched him and he turned his eyes toward my cell.

I swear his clouded, strangely pinkish eyes looked directly into mine.  I didn’t move a muscle.  His nostrils flared wide, wider than I’d ever seen before.  His dry tongue licked even more arid lips. 

He stagger-walked toward my cell, and I knew it was too late to pretend I was anywhere near safe.

His arms out, reaching for the door, I was certain he’d push instead of pull; his coordination didn’t look to be in tip-top shape.  I couldn’t risk him locking me in.

I slid from beneath the bed and charged toward the cell door, throwing my body into it with everything I had.  It slammed into him, sending him flying back against the other bank of cells, and I pulled the .45 from my pants and fired.

The bullet tore through his leg, exploding like a cannon in my ears, and as the bone shattered he fell onto his side with a screaming growl. 

Now while I was an expert in restoring firearms, I don’t use them very often in my daily routine.

Okay, never.

So I was a bit rusty despite my earlier successes, and hadn’t checked the magazine to see how many rounds I had remaining.  My eyes on the cop, who seemed stunned for the moment, I popped it open and saw only four rounds remaining. 

When this bastard sat up, I knew he was in need of another, and his own holster was empty.  I wouldn’t be able to restore my supply with this officer’s gun.

I rushed him and fired into his face.  It disintegrated in a mass of bloody meat and the second round I fired in that metal and concrete place sent my ears ringing. If I had put my hands up to them, I swear I’d have felt warm blood trickling out of them both.

I was down to three rounds, if you’re keeping track.

Two more of what I could now only consider creatures burst through the same door this one had come through. 

I turned and ran back inside the cell.  I wasn’t an ace shot.  I’d gotten pretty lucky taking down the ones that I had, and I was feeling pretty confident, but I was going to need two well-placed shots to send these two to oblivion, and I was going to have to be either extremely fortunate or take control my own destiny.

Three choices.  Lock myself in a cell and possibly starve.  Get torn apart and eaten alive.  Take my own life.

My apologies, but the last choice – and it was the last thing that entered my mind – just isn’t in my nature.  The second option was even more distasteful.

To me, that is.

So I charged for the cell again and slammed the door behind me.  I’d done it.

I was a prisoner.

But as it turned out, I wasn’t in the clear yet, for this cop had something in his hand.  One steel key.  I don’t know where he got it, or how he remembered how to use it.  Perhaps it was a remainder of who he’d been, a small piece of intelligence his not-quite-completely-destroyed brain clung to, but as he held that key out toward the cell door, his unsteady hand moving forward, I covered one of my battered ears with my left hand and with my right, taking as careful aim as possible, I fired.  The round hit him in the neck from what I could see, admittedly with my eyes nearly squeezed closed in anticipation of the blast.  The impact sent him back flying backward four feet.