The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (62 page)

I wanted to make love to Charlie so bad it was distracting me.  Unfortunately, with this guest list it wasn’t possible, so I held her to me and we just enjoyed the closeness and warmth of our skin against one another.  It would have to do for now.

This was my wife.  I know I mentioned that we got married, right?  On this very trip?

Her breath grew steady, even as I stroked her back with my fingers.  I rested my chin on her head and that smile returned to my face.

That smile that meant I loved this woman and no matter what we faced, I wanted to face it with her beside me.

****

The next morning we fired up an emergency generator in the facility and found it to be running top notch.  It allowed us some lights and a microwave, and we even found some more canned foods in a small area used as a break room.  So far, all the expiry dates were well in the future, so we could be eating Dennison’s Chili and Libby’s vegetables for years to come.

The smell of food cooking was glorious.  The small microwave that remained in the mobile lab was fine, but the two-burner electric stove allowed us to make a pot of food that filled the metal warehouse with the aroma of the old days.

Neither Charlie nor I could stand it any longer.  We had to have our family back for just a short while, and because we’d all been required to drive, we couldn’t ride together.

So, we relegated the three sisters to the Crown Vic with Cynthia and Taylor, which wasn’t even a tight fit with that car, and Todd drove the big pickup.  Rory and Pete offered to ride with him, which worked out just fine.

Slider rode with us in the mobile lab.  He was growing into quite a big pup, and he was like glue at Gem’s side.  I know she’d mentioned he was her boy in her chronicles, and I can verify that.  As much as Slider was attached to Gem, Bunsen had taken to Charlie and often seemed desperate to be where she was.

Both dogs were curled up together sleeping to the sway of the behemoth motor home, and Gem had the wheel for the final leg of the journey into
Concord.

So we had some space in the motor home, but just barely.

Flex sat in the passenger seat with his seat halfway spun toward the back, with Trina practically laying down in his lap.  The seat belt was stretched over both of them. 

Not likely one hundred percent legal by old standards, but Gem kept her speed down in case we happened upon any roadway obstructions, so it wasn’t a problem in our eyes.

Me, Trina, Flex, Gem, our dogs, and Charlie.  The old gang.

Our family.  I really felt that.

We’d taken a far more rural route through, and had seen several distant hordes of zombies and even more dog packs out there.  Luckily, we didn’t run headlong into very many, and our need to open up with our weapons was minimal.

Dave was driving the school bus, and while he’d been bringing up the rear initially, at Rory’s suggestion, we put the Chevy crew cab in the rear in case the bus had any mechanical issues.  The pickup was almost new, so we didn’t worry about that, and while the bus appeared to run well, there were too many people riding in it not to have some protection.  We’d already mounted a gun and cow catcher on the pickup, so we felt good about having a fortified vehicle at both ends.

The turrets on the mobile lab still sported guns, because while we felt adding some urushiol jets would be very effective, we hadn’t had time to engineer all that just yet.

I already knew what I was going to do, and Gem had even sketched out the plans, but so far the gun turrets would have to do.

Everyone had two-ways in their vehicles in case something went wrong, so we were a pretty content convoy and I think everyone was anxious to get to Concord and see what the situation was.  The population was only around 46,000, so at worst, if the percentages held out as I earlier predicted, we’d have fewer than 42,000 zombies to contend with.

But we weren’t in the clear yet, and all hell broke loose an hour outside of
Concord.

“Hemp!  Flex!  Do you read?”

It was Dave Gammon’s voice over the radio.  “Stop!”

Flex grabbed the radio from the counter.  “What’s wrong, Dave?”

Gem pulled the lab to a stop.  The road we were on was two lanes in each direction surrounded by forest.   There was a deep median between the east and westbound lanes with a rare break between the guard rails, running into a somewhat deep gully.

“Todd!  He’s on the ground, and the truck is gone!”

“What the fuck?” yelled Flex.  He grabbed his gun and jumped up.  Gem got out of her seat and threw Suzi over her shoulder.   Charlie and I followed suit.

“Trina, stay inside.  Lock that door when we get out.  Understand?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Do it.  I love you, Sweetie.”  She patted her cheek and we all jumped out and ran toward the rear of the caravan.  It seemed to take forever just to get past the mobile workshop trailer.  Dave was right.

Todd lay on the edge of the road, writhing in pain.  He held his knee and alternately, his shoulder.

“Todd!” I shouted, reaching him and kneeling down.  “What the hell happened?”

“I was driving, watching the rear of the bus like I’d been doing the whole time, and Rory was in the passenger seat.  He pointed to something out his window, and as I glanced over, I felt arms around my neck.  Next thing I knew, my door was open, my seatbelt was unlatched, and Rory pushed me out.  It happened in less than a few seconds.”

“Was it Pete?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, he grabbed me, but they must have been planning it for a while.  We’d come around that corner and slowed a bit.  Plus, the guardrails opened there.”

Flex and Gem were at the Crown Vic.  They hustled all the ladies out and jumped in, firing the engine.

“Hemp, Charlie!  Be ready!  We’re chasing them down.  If anything goes wrong, get everyone in the lab and use the turret mount guns!”

They cranked the wheel and turned the car around.  The truck had driven across the median where the guardrails had opened.  It was pretty steep, and would require some tricky driving on Flex’s part.

Charlie cradled Todd’s head and I watched their progression.  The Ford reached the opening and Flex slammed on the brakes, cut over, and gunned the engine, tearing down the rocky, steep incline.  At the bottom the front right tire dug in, and he spun the wheel, somehow breaking free and accelerating to the opposite bank, which unfortunately appeared to be steeper than on our side of the highway.

The moment the car hit it, the cowcatcher dug into the small hillside, and the car was going nowhere.  Flex gunned the engine trying to gain traction, but to no avail.   The Crown Vic’s tires sunk in deeper, and the car began sliding backwards and sideways down the hill almost immediately.  A rooster tail of dust and rock shot in the air,  and it was clear they were stuck.

I heard it from a quarter mile away.  “Fuck!” yelled Flex, getting out of the car.

Gem leapt on top of the hood of the Ford and fired her Uzi at the retreating truck until the magazine was empty.  The big Chevy crested the distant hill and disappeared.

Gem had been too far away to hit them anyway, but I was sure it was more a display of her frustration than any real hope of stopping them that kept her firing.

And now they were gone.

“Can you get up now?” Charlie asked Todd.  “Where’s your pain?”

“I’m fine,” said Todd.  “No numbness, so nothing broken.  Lucky I was able to throw myself onto the grass median when I realized what they were going to do.”

He stood up and dusted off his jeans.  His grey hair was mussed, but other than that and some grass stains, he looked alright.

“Why don’t you and the others get into the lab and wait,” I said.  “I can’t turn that thing around with the trailer, so we’ll use the winch on the Ford to pull it out.”

I walked up to Dave.  “Give me a hand, would you?” I said.  “Charlie, do me a favor and stay here.  Have your gun ready.”

“Gotcha.  Fuck, I’m pissed.”

“Yeah,” Dave said.  “We’re down one hell of a vehicle.”

“No shit,” said Charlie.  “Those top-mount machine guns don’t just fall off trees.”

Flex and Gem leaned against the car, as we approached them, but when they noticed us walking and not driving, they put two and two together, and Gem started pulling out the winch cable.

“Fuck!” said Flex. 

“Look, we lost some supplies and another vehicle.  We can get another, and we’ve got plenty of room to get everyone where we’re going.”

“You don’t understand, Hemp,” Flex said, walking the winch cable up the incline toward us.  “That’s not the worst of it.”

“What do you mean, Flex?” asked Dave.

“The gallon bottle of urushiol,” he said.  “It was in the back of the truck.”

My heart dropped from my chest.  There had been over a half-gallon remaining in the bottle.  “Are you sure, Flex?  That it was in there?”

“I put it there myself,” he said.  He had the cable hooked to the guardrail post and waved at Gem to start the winch.

Gem engaged the motor from a switch inside the Ford, and the car slowly spun around so the front end was pointing straight up the embankment.  Gem cranked the motor and assisted from inside the Ford by steering and giving it assistance with the accelerator.  It then began its ascent up the hill.  When she got over the peak, she hit the switch again, threw the car in park and got out.  She walked up beside us.

“Good job, baby,” said Flex.  Then: “I fucked up.”

“Flex, you didn’t,” I said.  “I didn’t know it was there, but I wouldn’t have objected, either.  It was safe beneath the bed cover.”

“Wait a minute,” said Gem, confused.  “What’s gone?”

“The urushiol,” said Dave.  “It was in the truck.”

“Jesus, are you sure?” Gem asked.

“Yeah,” said Flex, shaking his head.  “After we filled the last extinguishers I put it there myself.  Figured it would be okay.”

“And it would have,” I said.  “Flex, just file this under
shit happens
.  We’ll make more.  At least we have full extinguishers filled with our solution and I’m sure, a few spray bottles.”

“Who the hell are those assholes, and why did they pull that shit?” asked Gem.

Dave patted Flex on the shoulder.  “Now I know why you went after them so hard.”

“Yeah,” said Flex.  “And I have a feeling we’re going to run across those fucks again.  They’d better watch out if we do.”

“I get that feeling, too,” I said.  “They were asking strange questions about Ham radios, other stuff.  I didn’t make too much of it, but I found it odd.”

“I hope they die out there,” said Gem.

Todd and Charlie had walked over, and Todd did appear to be alright.

“Todd, you sure you’re okay?” I asked.

He nodded.  “Yeah.  Guys, I’m sorry.  I thought they were okay.  I didn’t think to worry about – ”

“Todd,” interrupted Gem.  “They overpowered you.  How would you know?”

Her eyes suddenly shifted.  Then Charlie’s. 

And then we all looked. 

“What the hell?” said Flex, voicing what we all wondered.

We hadn’t yet had time to tell them the worst of the news when an inky blackness appeared low on the distant horizon, swallowing the entire width of the highway as it grew closer and closer.  It looked like black paint was flowing along the concrete roadway toward us, some sort of freakish CGI animation.

“What is it?” said Gem, transfixed.

“I have no idea, but it looks like it’s coming this way at a good clip,” said Charlie.

Gem ran to the Crown Vic and leaned in the door.  She came back out with binoculars, and held them up to her eyes.

“What is it, babe?” asked Flex.

Gem gave the binoculars over to Flex.

He looked.  “Are those . . .”

“They’re rats.”

And as the blackness drew closer, we could indeed see that it was not one entity, but many smaller ones, moving together as one, covering the roadway in what appeared to be a solid sheet.

Rats.  Moving toward us like a lava flow.

“Get the hell in the car, everyone, now!” said Flex. 

He didn’t have to tell us twice.  When we were in, he fired the engine and floored it.  Thirty seconds later Flex slammed on the brakes, the car behind the bus.  We all jumped out.

The group gathered around us.

“Everyone, get back in a vehicle,” I said, with as much urgency as I had ever mustered.  I pointed up the highway where the two lanes appeared to be alive.

“Get in any vehicle and be ready to move.  I don’t know why they’re advancing like they are, but that thing on the road that looks like a black lava flow is, in actuality, a mischief of rats.  To put it into language that many of you, and of course, Flex would understand, a mischief translates to a shitload.  I estimate their numbers at more than a thousand, but I could be off by half and I don’t have any interest in finding out why they’re acting in this manner or what they’re after.”