The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (68 page)

“But they’re moving like ants in a colony,” said Cyn.  “single-minded.”

Suddenly we felt the wind at our backs.  I turned and looked at the sky, and saw dark clouds blowing in on us from the east.

“Want to grab some of them?” asked Charlie.

Before I could answer her question, the rats, as though on command, turned toward us.  Their eyes were blood red with tiny white dots for pupils.  On hind legs they stood stock still, only their whiskers blowing in the new surge of wind.

They flooded out of the holes and moved toward us.  Fast.

“Jesus!” shouted Gem, then began firing her Uzi, blowing rat after rat off of their feet. 

Then we were all firing, backing up as we did so, because the original number of rats, while diminished, had doubled, then tripled, and there were more and more of them pouring from the ground. 

Charlie fired arrow after arrow, and even as I fired my MP5 until it was empty and went to reload, I saw one of her urushiol tipped arrows pierce the back of one of the rats.  It expanded as though it were a balloon on a gas cylinder, and exploded into a shower of fur and blood.

I knew what they were then.  They were what we had feared they were.

“Back, back!” Flex shouted.  “Get to the fucking car!”

They were nearing our feet now.  There were too many of them for our flying bullets and arrows to make a difference anymore.  

Three or four rats had reached Cynthia, who had started to run just a second or two too late.  She turned and caught her foot on a head stone, falling face first onto the grassy grave.   Her shoe had come off, and the rats that had been after her went for the thin sock covering her foot, shredding it to get to what lay underneath it.

Todd ran to her, but as she struggled to push herself up, another hole opened up beside her, and a new stream of rats poured onto her body, the long, gaping teeth ripping into her with terrifying speed.

“No!  My God, no!” shouted Todd, and everyone else turned to see the horror unfolding.

Todd had reached her, and was on his knees beside her, knocking the rats away with his frantic hands, grabbing some and flinging them against the nearby headstones.  Twice he tried to pull her up, but he was now laden with attacking rats, and was in no better position to get up than she was.  They fell back to the ground, only to be enveloped by a thick layer of the swarming rats, which no doubt began consuming their flesh instantaneously.

“Cyn, my God!  Get up!  Get up!”  It was Gem, and her face was contorted with terror as she charged toward them, firing her Uzi at the more distant rats advancing toward them.

Before I realized her error, Flex was on Gem.  He threw his powerful arm around her waist, yanking her backward.  With a primal grunt, he threw her over his shoulder and ran with all his might toward the car.

Charlie and I were off to their left side, with streams of vermin now covering the ground, engulfing all you could see.  I couldn’t imagine where they all came from, these hordes of black, furry, dead creatures, but come they did, and in numbers I never would have believed possible.

As Flex carried Gem, she faced backward, still firing her weapon and screaming, but the few rounds that actually struck the creatures made little difference in the ultimate outcome should Flex stumble; they would be on both of them as they had been on Todd and Cynthia.  Her bullets, for the most part, were merely disrupting the immediate path of the dozens of mud-matted creatures charging in Flex’s wake.

We were almost to the car when her Uzi fell silent and she dropped it, now pounding her savior in the back with her frantic fists, screaming, “Flex!  We’ve got to save them!  Flex, it’s Cynthia!  And Todd!  They’re going to die, Flex!”

But Flex was in his right mind.  Gem wasn’t.

Flex screamed with each giant step that pounded against the earth as he ran with the love of his life on his back toward the car, and I knew he wouldn’t stop until she was safely inside.  Charlie had reached the car and flung open the door.  I threw my gun in and dove after it, and Charlie was on top of me, pulling the door closed.

As fast as we’d gotten inside, Flex had stuffed Gem in the back seat, sliding her to the opposite side and pulling the door closed.

And the rats were on the car.  Up the tires and along the side, covering the hood and windshield in what seemed like seconds.  Writhing throngs of the undead creatures with a sole purpose.

I fired the engine, but I couldn’t see outside the front windshield.  The side windows offered no purchase to the rats, so we could see what we never wanted to see.  Outside the car there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of rats now.

Todd and Cynthia’s outlines were visible, but only as vague shapes;  they were mounds of crawling bodies, moving and swirling and devouring, seeming to slide along the ground, a foot this way, two feet that way, around and around as they were consumed by vermin unlike any humankind had ever before seen.

The storm that had so suddenly appeared now opened up the sky, in a thunderous clap and downpour as sudden as if giant valve in the sky were opened.  I turned on the windshield wipers, trying to swipe the creatures away, and it worked, at least enough for me to hit the gas and drive.

With one more hopeless glance out the side windows at the carnage that we’d allowed to happen, I closed my ears to the horrible sobs of Charlie and Gem, then realized we were all shuddering with grief and terror.  I pounded the dashboard in anger and floored the car, throwing hundreds of rats off the top and hood of the car as we tore out of the cemetery.

The windshield wipers might have cleared my vision, but God had never conceived anything that would clear the terror of that moment from our hearts.

I made the decision to head for the governor’s mansion.  We had to warn Reeves and the others about what was coming.

Chapter 6

As I drove, the windshield wipers beat away the torrential rain.  I imagined I could still hear some of the rodents still on top of the car, their nails scratching.

Was it my imagination?  They had likely clung to the gun, so I reached up and pivoted it around in a full circle, then aiming at nothing, pulled the handle to fire it, hoping the reverberation knocked a few more of them free.

“We can’t go back home yet, Flex,” I said.

“I know,” he said, grabbing the handheld.  He pushed the button.  “Dave, it’s Flex!  Do you read?”

I jerked my head side to side, then toward the back of the car.  I didn’t see any more rats on the hood or the trunk; I hoped they hadn’t gotten through the undercarriage and were now working their way into the passenger compartment.  We’d had enough horror for now.

Gem sat in the back seat, racked with sobs, her body shuddering.  This strong woman whom I’d only seen break down like this a couple of times before was torn apart.

Flex kept one arm around her, but his embrace could do little to ease her terror, and we all knew the grief Cynthia’s daughter, Taylor, would be feeling when we returned home.

But we couldn’t go there yet, and Flex knew it.

“Yeah, Flex, Dave here.  What’s wrong?”

“Rats, Dave.  Get somewhere alone, fast, okay?”

We heard Lisa’s voice in the background when Dave went to respond.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. 

“Have her stay with the girls, Dave.  Go upstairs.  Tell me when you’re alone.”

Fifteen seconds later he answered.  “What is it?  What’s going on, guys?”

“Cyn and Todd are dead,” Flex said, his voice low, as though the words spoken would send Gem back into hysterics.  Instead, she bit her lower lip and looked out the window at the pouring rain.

“We have to go warn Kev and the rest of them. The rats are walking dead, Dave.  I don’t know how else to put it.  They’re dead, but they’re not.  Just like the people.”

“Holy shit,” he said.  “Those fuckers can slide under tiny door cracks.”

“I know,” said Flex.  “Find anything you can and stuff it underneath.  Then get into a room with only one entry and easily defensible.  Bring food and water, brother.  We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

Gem grabbed the radio.  “Dave, take care of my babies, please?  Please?”   Her hands were white, squeezing the talk button, but she didn’t let it go for Dave to answer.  Flex peeled her fingers from it, and her head fell to his shoulder, her tears coming anew.

“I will, Gem,” came his reply.  “You know I will.”

“We’ll be in touch,” said Flex.  “I’ll call soon.  Radio if you get in to any trouble.”

“I will,” said Dave.  “Out.”

“Out,” said Flex, then leaned forward on the seat.

“We have to get to the governor’s mansion,” I said, rolling down my window.  I stopped the car on the corner where a man with an AK-47 like the one on my car stood.  He was in his mid-forties as best as I could estimate, and he had short, blonde hair.  Medium build, almost six feet tall.  Looked like he probably had two daughters who played soccer and a son who loved baseball.

He had put his gun on the ground and was unwrapping a thin, plastic poncho to throw over his shirt against the rain, which had begun to lighten slightly.

As calmly as I could, but loud enough to be heard over the rain, I said, “Sir, get everybody you can see off the streets and into a safe place.  Do it now.”

The man looked at the top of the car.  “Buddy, do you realize there are a bunch of dead rats on the top of your car?”

Before I could answer, two of the rats the man thought were dead leapt from the roof of the Ford onto his chest.  Their tiny claws shredded the material of his khaki button-down shirt in seconds.  From there, they were on his neck, chewing and squealing, and he flailed his arms, trying to wipe them away with quickly bloodied hands as his raincoat fell to the ground.

“Jesus!” I shouted, powering the window back up before more of them slithered down and came inside.

“We gotta help him,” said Flex, jumping out of the car and slamming the door.  I threw him a towel that Cyn had used to wipe up the girls’ spills on the long trip from Alabama, and he took it, wrapping his hands in it.  He went up to the man, pushed him to the ground and grabbed a rat in each hand, slamming them together like cymbals. 

Flex threw them onto the sidewalk and stomped his boot heels onto their skulls, crushing them and rendering them dead for the final time.

He tossed me the towel, and I swiped the rest of the dead rats from the top of the car, and crushed their heads against the asphalt street, just for good measure.

They’d already been caught in the pivoting base of the mounted gun, their heads crushed, but I wanted to be sure.  With my H&K in my hands, I went around the back of the car and saw there were no more.

Flex yelled, “Charlie!  Pop the trunk!”

Charlie reached forward and pushed the trunk release on the key remote.

“What, Flex?”

“We’ve got a spray bottle of urushiol in here, Hemp.  I want to see if we can . . . I don’t know.   Help this guy.”

I knew what he meant.  After checking to make sure there were no live – rather moving – rats in the trunk, I reached for the spray bottle what was only about 1/64
th
urushiol.  I shook it, turning toward the man, who’d laid his gun on the ground and sat there, panting.

“I don’t know, Flex.  The solution we used on Gem was pure urushiol oil.”

“Hemp, it’s better than nothing.”  He looked at the women in the car, who were staring out at us, desperation on their faces.

“Rip your shirt off, quickly now,” I said.

He didn’t hesitate.  He tore his shirt off and I sprayed him all over, rubbed his wounds with the towel, then sprayed him some more.  Half an inch from the wound, the dial turned to stream.

“What is that?” the man asked, his breathing staccato.

“It might be something that keeps you from turning into one of those things you carry that gun for,” said Flex.

“Anywhere else they bit you?  Your head, under your hair?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said.  “Just on my chest and neck, and my hands.”

“Hold up your hands.”

He did.  I sprayed his hands.  “Rub them together and keep doing it.  I can’t promise you anything, but I can say you’ve got a better chance now.”

“Mister, why are the rats attacking?”

“Because they’re as dead as the people that attack,” I answered.  “And just as hungry.  Do you have a family?”

He nodded.  “My boy’s dead, but my wife and daughter are at home, gardening.”

“Get there now and get them inside.  Then do whatever you can to seal up any cracks beneath your doors.  If you have a basement, seal the cracks there, too.  If you have a safe room, get in there.”

“Oh, my God,” he said.

“Exactly,” said Flex.  “C’mon, Hemp.  We gotta go.”

“You got a radio?”

“Yeah,” said the man, unclipping it from his belt with badly shaking fingers.

“Get on it and tell as many people as you can what I just told you to do.  We’re heading to see Mayor Reeves.”

“Yes, sir . . . thanks.”  He picked up his gun and ran, holding the towel to his chest.

We jumped back into the car, which I’d left running, and I hit the gas.  I got us to the governor’s mansion in another three minutes.  The guards rolled back the cars and let us in, and we parked beneath the trees closest to the steps.

The rain, very bad just moments before we left the cemetery, had cleared the streets of most civilians, but when we saw people rolled down the windows and yelled at them to run for their lives, get to a building, and seal themselves inside.

Gem had quit sobbing, and had her window down, warning people of the danger along with me, Flex and Charlie.  I knew it wouldn’t take her long to work her way back to the needs of the immediate world. 

“Are these really dead rats that are alive now, Hemp?”

She never called me Hemp.  It was sweetie or honey or baby, but never Hemp.  I knew she was scared.  My punk rocker was scared, and that scared me just a little more than I was before.

“They’re alive, Charlie.  You saw what your urushiol-tipped arrow did to that one.  The one we saw.  It exploded.”

“There aren’t enough arrows,” she said.

“There aren’t enough of us,” said Gem.

We were silent for a moment.  The moment seemed to stretch to infinity.

“We just don’t know how many there are yet,” I said.  “And we don’t know if they’re the same as the abnormals; if they’re going to constantly be on the hunt.”

“Hemp.  This is worse than the zombies,” said Flex.

I nodded.  “What I do know is we need urushiol, and we need it fast,” I said.  “We need to find the plants, and we need to get to the brewery.”

“Before we go to the fucking brewery,” said Gem, her teeth gritted, “We’re going to the house to get Trini and Taylor and Dave and Lisa. 
And
the dogs.”

“That was always my plan,” I said.  “Family first, as it should be.”

I looked outside the car and saw no black pavement rushing toward us.  The rats were distant, for now.

“Let’s get inside, guys,” I said.  “And bring your guns this time.  And the urushiol we do have.”

“I lost my gun,” said Gem.

“We have another Uzi,” said Flex, touching her wrist.

She looked at him.  “It’s not Suzi,” she said.  “But I’ll fucking train her right.”

“Yeah, you will,” said Flex.  “Here.”

She took the spray bottle that was half full. 

“It’s set to stream, babe.  Shoot from six feet, you’re good.”

We mounted the steps to the Capitol Dome and Reeves met us at the top.

“What the hell happened?  Word’s already gotten around!” he said, his face panicked.

“Keep the basement door closed,” said Charlie.  “Don’t go in there.”

“It’s closed,” he said.  “What is this about rats?”

“They’re . . . they’re reanimating,” I said.  “And they crave what the zombies crave.”

He stared, his mouth hanging open.

Whit and Dan walked up beside him, followed by Jacko.

“Guys, this is serious shit,” said Flex.  “Serious enough that if we don’t get our solution made in a hurry,
Concord is done.  Every one here, and that includes us, is done.”

“What the fuck you mean done?” asked Jacko.

“Dead as fuck,” said Gem.  “You, too.”

Jacko was suddenly speechless.

“I need to know where to find poison ivy, oak or sumac in town.  And I need it in a big hurry.”

“There’s lots of poison ivy off Little Pond Road, by
Walker State Forest.  There’s hiking trails there, and we had to approve signs warning people away from the stuff.   Kids were getting it on them all the time.”

“How far?” asked Flex.

“Ten minutes, max.”

“Is it near the cemetery?” asked Gem.

“Southwest of there,” said Whit.  “Why?”

“You don’t want to go there,” said Flex.  “Nowhere near there.”

“You need help?” asked Jacko.

“All we can get,” I said.  “Bring a dump truck if you have access to one, and men wearing long sleeves and gloves.  We’re going to need more vehicles to move enough people.”

“And get some people to the brewery,” said Flex.  “We need someone to be cleaning out one of the stills.  Empty the beer and any other materials out of it so we can use it once we get there.”

“You guys go to get the stuff,” said Gem.  “Flex, give me your gun.  I’ve used it before and I’m comfortable with it.  Kev, you got another one for him?”

“Sure, we have plenty,” he said.

“Okay, no argument, Flex,” she said.

He looked at her for a moment, then put his hand behind her head, pulled her face to his, and kissed her mouth. “I love you, Gem.”

“I know you do, Flexy.  Let’s execute this goddamned plan.  I don’t like being afraid.”

“I’m going with Gem,” said Charlie.  “We’ll see you at the brewery.  We’ll supervise.”

We didn’t argue.  I kissed her goodbye and we separated for the moment.

I missed her the second she was out of my sight.

****

We’d left the governor’s mansion in a Hummer that Reeves had been using, and drove to an equipment yard about a half mile away, protected by a 12-foot fence.  Large dump trucks and other construction vehicles were parked in several rows.

Reeves jumped out first and began organizing the other men who’d showed up at the yard.  Then he ran to a small metal building, opened the door and hit a switch.  A motor started, and we saw a large generator shake to life just outside.