The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (72 page)

That morning, I stood in the bathroom, the shade on the window up and my eyes peeled for any movement outside. 

I looked in the mirror, the scissors in my hand.  My hair was down to the middle of my back, and during my tousle with Tommy, I realized it was a possible hand hold and something to get in my way when I went to withdraw arrows from my quiver.  I would not be prepared at every moment with a rubber band to tie it back, and I didn’t have any fucking idea who I was trying to impress with my long, flowing locks anyway.

I wasn’t a complete amateur, and the scissors – to my credit – were actual hair-cutting scissors, not your standard office scissors. 

I put it in a low pony tail, and pulled it as even as I could get it.  Then I divided it in thirds and carefully cut it, letting it fall into a wicker trash can below.  When I was done, I pulled the rubber out of my hair, and it fell nicely just to my shoulders.  It was then that I thought I should’ve done that shit a long time again.

Again, it was Tommy.  He loved long hair, and if you recall, I was trying to keep the peace.

I’d never do that for another person.  And I don’t just mean men.  When I’ve got a bitch, or I want to do something, it’s going to have to be what’s best for me.

I went over my bow with a fine-toothed comb and made sure all my arrows were in good repair.  Sharp.  True. 

Then I took my iPod, stuffed the ear buds in my ears, and hopped back in my Wrangler.  I rolled the selector around until AC/DC’s High Voltage was there, and I quickly rolled down to She’s Got Balls. 

I hit play.

The Jeep fired right up and I felt comfortable in it to a degree, but to be honest, I preferred something with a hard top at this point.  Tommy had been nothing if not aggressive, and if others out there were like that, I could see them attacking that soft top and making headway through the vinyl windows and canvas.

Yes, tempered glass and steel was the way to go.  Granted, I hadn’t had any confrontations other than with Tommy, so I wasn’t all that sure they were the same as he was, but I felt pretty sure they were.  And also remember that my first arrow went into Tommy’s head – and that was just pure luck.  At this point in my story, the poor Charlie we’re speaking of doesn’t realize a head shot is all that will kill the zombies.  I did know they were tough to stun.

Okay, damned near impossible to stun.  Tommy’s header into the shower wall tile didn’t phase him, but I’ll bet he lost some teeth.

I buckled in and hit the gas, the bow and quiver stuffed with arrows on the passenger seat and floorboard.

Flex did a pretty good job describing how rural Lula is, so I won’t get into that all too much. 

With AC/DC jamming in my head, I headed out on my supply run.

****

I realized very quickly that I couldn’t kill any of these things from inside my Jeep; not with the crossbow.  This made me wish I’d worked on becoming more proficient with other firearms.  I could handle most rifles, because the barrels were long and the sight was similar to a crossbow sight.

The difficulty I had was with handguns.  Short barrels, small sights, and a slight kick would send my shots off the mark, which was a source of real frustration for me, because I’m damned good with a crossbow.

And with regard to me learning the crossbow, let me just say that when I was very young, I watched The Princess Bride, and I fell in love with bows and arrows.  I soon discovered all the different types there were, and somehow I set my sights on a crossbow.  The one I had when Flex and Gem found me wasn’t fancy, but I could shoot that sucker with deadly accuracy and consistency. 

As I said, I’d begun to pass some of the afflicted in the road, and as I passed, they changed direction.  If I drove around three miles per hour, I’m pretty sure it would have eventually looked like a fucking parade.  But that wasn’t my style.  I left most of them behind.

Then I hit a portion of the secondary highway that was only one lane in each direction, with heavy cable guard rails on each side.  The lanes were completely blocked, and there was no way to pull the Wrangler over to skirt around the mess with some creative off-roading.  I was very close to the main shopping and services in Lula, and since I wanted to switch to a hard top vehicle of some kind anyway, I didn’t worry too much about leaving the Jeep behind.

I’d drained the last water from my bottle, and saw a crossover SUV of some kind with the door standing open.  I leaned in and saw a half a case of
Crystal Springs water, and pulled it out.  As I stepped backward, I tripped over something, and fell into the vehicle behind it.  My shoulder slammed into the side mirror of a crew cab pickup, and I yelped in pain, steadying myself.

When I saw what caused my fall, I threw up onto the ground, dropped the water, and ran.  Not far.  As I turned, I angled straight into the torn metal edge of a door panel on the next car over. 

Blood ran down my thigh where I’d ripped it pretty good right through my jeans, I looked back to stare in horror at the reason I ran in the first place.  My hands quickly went to the security of the crossbow.  I locked an arrow in place.  It wouldn’t leave my hand again.

I’d tripped over a woman who was so horribly mauled, I couldn’t recognize any facial features at all. 
Because
there were none left.  Only her tattered dress told me her sex.  Her face was gone, and all I could see was the inside of her empty skull, filled with maggots and flies. 

They
had to be responsible for this. 
Those things
.  Nothing else could do this.

I looked at the back of the strange, tinny-looking car I’d ripped my leg on.

A VW Thing. 

What the fuck
it
was, I had no idea.

I cursed to myself.  I couldn’t be doing shit like this.  The world was clearly nothing like it had been a month ago, and I needed to be careful.  Infection.  Loss of blood.  Lack of doctors.

And nobody to help should I just pass out on the roadside.

I realized, with the blood gushing from the gash that I needed to get my ass to a hospital.  Banks County General, which sounds much bigger than it really was, was about three blocks from there.  I tried running three or four steps and realized I could still do it.  Apparently it wasn’t as horrible as it looked. 

I looked back toward where my car was parked, and saw someone coming in my direction.  A black man.  He wore a pink button-down shirt that was torn open, and he staggered up the road, his face turned toward me.

At first my heart leapt.  Was this someone to join forces with?  Maybe another person to cover my back?

I waved at him.  He didn’t wave back.  Just kept coming.

I looked down at my leg, then went back to the SUV and grabbed a towel I’d seen.  I ripped it down the middle and tied it over the cut on my leg.  When I was done, I looked up again.

The man was closer now, and he was moving faster.

But something was wrong.  As he drew to within fifty yards or so, I realized his shirt wasn’t pink at all.  It was white at one time, but now it was covered with red blotches, the rest of it a lighter color that I’d mistaken for pink.

And he wasn’t a black man either.  His skin was dark and scabbed with patches and areas that looked raw and open.

Thirty yards.  I could see part of his jaw was gone, and his teeth – all the way to the molars – were visible on the left side of his face.

It was one of them.  One of Flex’s abnormals, one of the zombies, as we’d resolved to label them for a while, anyway.

I raised my crossbow and got the thing in my sights.  I judged the distance even as he closed it, and went for center mass.

Fifteen yards.  I pulled the trigger, and the bolt went directly through his heart.

He jerked back with the impact, his eyes never moving from me.  One quick stagger back, and he resumed his forward progress.

I wasn’t sure what happened.  It should have killed him instantly.  I’d taken Tommy out with one arrow.  

I took an involuntary step backward, away from him, and reached into my quiver and retrieved another arrow. I quickly mounted it, locking it in.

I raised it once more.  Took aim and fired.

Two in the heart.  He was fifteen feet from me now, and still coming.  I could see his eyes now, strangely pink, and there was a bone sticking out of his right arm near the wrist.  It was tweaked almost at a ninety degree angle, and the hand flopped, useless.

But it sure didn’t seem to bother him.   He was focused on me, and I quickly reached back for another arrow and turned to run. 

As I limped at the fastest speed I could muster, I knew that I could easily stay ahead of him.  But I couldn’t afford to allow him to keep the arrows I’d already fired.  This was my only weapon, and I would literally be damned if I were to waste them like that.

I charged forward, glancing back when I was certain I wouldn’t trip on something.  He was still coming, but I’d gained enough ground that he was again about thirty yards back. 

The bow was loaded.  I stopped and turned.

And I waited.

Twenty-five yards.

Fifteen yards.

Ten yards.

I sighted in on his head. 

Five yards.

I fired.  The bolt flew from the bow, straight and true, and it pierced his cranium, nearly splitting it in two.  The thing took three more involuntary steps borne of momentum, and then crumpled to the pavement just four feet in front of me.

I saw movement again.  Three more were coming up the street.  I felt chills run over every pore of my skin and I started to cry.  I glanced up occasionally as I kicked the body of the man in the blood-pink shirt from his side onto his back, and reached down to retrieve my arrows. 

I wiped them on the dangling piece of towel that sealed up the wound on my leg, and tucked two of them back into my quiver.  The other I mounted back in the crossbow.

Then I ran as fast as I could toward the hospital.  No more of this.  Not now.  I didn’t have it in me, and I never wanted to be inside a car or a building more than at that moment.

Or under a bed.

Or in a closet.

As I ran, I saw the hospital building.  The main crossroad upon which it sat was wide open.  When I got a car, it’s where I would make my escape from this haunted town.

****

Chapter 8

My lungs ached.  I was thirty feet from the hospital door when I realized the affected humans were closing in on me from all sides.

There must have been twenty of them:

A woman to my right, stumbling toward me, her right shoulder jerking spasmodically, her neck bent at an odd angle, and her arms reaching out to me.

Two men were cutting off my intended route – probably unintentionally – on the left side, one from the hospital entrance, and the other from along the sidewalk.  The one coming from the front of the hospital was bald and stout, his short legs moving him toward me slowly but surely.   His mouth did the old gnashing thing we’ve come to know so well these days, but which, at the time, only served to toss more chills my way. 

The other one was taller, and moving toward me at a good clip.  He wore a pinstriped suit that looked as though it were covered in barf, but if the truth had actually been known, what that lumpy stuff
really
was might have disgusted me far more than a few blown chunks.

I angled to the right, using high-aim steering.  Looking far ahead of me so that I could begin changing my trajectory – something my arrows couldn’t do mid-flight. 

I begged my legs to move faster, despite their tremendous muscle fatigue.  They obliged.  I picked up speed before another three appeared from behind a pillar, and these creeps were in my direct path. 

I pulled up sharply and stopped moving for a moment, taking quick glances in all directions.  It was as though I were a magnet, and them the tiny bits of steel.  They were coming to me as though I called to them in a language they knew very well.

Because I
was
calling – with the very scent of my blood that poured from the soaked bandage tied around my leg to the pavement – and they understood it, no translation required.

I quickly dropped to my knees.  The nearest was fifteen feet away and closing.  I loaded a bolt into the bow, cocked it and raised it to my eye. 

I fired.  It was a direct hit, angling up from below the nose, exiting through the back of the skull.

Pinstripes dropped.

I had reloaded before he hit the ground.  Raised it, fired again.  Baldy was down with an arrow in his eye and beyond, undoubtedly.

Open path.  I loaded another bolt and ran.  When I reached them, I yanked one arrow, then the other, and forged on.  On the move I fired at one of the three that had moved directly in front of the door.

The closed door.

The arrow struck that one in the neck, and it fell against the door and slid to the ground, only to crawl to its knees and get back on its feet.

Quickly, I dropped down to my good knee and loaded another bolt.  It was one I’d pulled from the other zombie’s head, and it was slick with slime.  I was having difficulty mounting it in the bow.

Putting it all on the ground, I wiped my hands on my pants, but the blood from my leg made it wetter.

I wiped my hands on my ass.  Still dry enough there to get me some finger grip.  I picked up the bolt, wiped it on my ass too, then put it in the bow and cocked it.

This time I got very close.  I wore steel-toed boots, as any tough bitch that dated Tommy would do.  Sure, I wore sandals when I was kickin’ it on
Main Street, but when I really had to do some kicking, I wore my steel-toed boots. 

And it just so happened I was glad to have them on.  I couldn’t take the chance of another slippery arrow.  I needed to get into that hospital fast, because I wasn’t going to stop bleeding anytime soon.

I ran up and fired into number two, point blank.  Head shot.  I swung the bow hard at the legs of number three, and he toppled backwards.  One eye on number one with the arrow in his neck, I pulled back my leg and slammed that steel toe into the skull of number three and heard a crunch.  Easy as one, two, three.

Only I had to finish off number one.  His right arm had somehow hooked awkwardly over the arrow protruding from his neck, and looking at his situation, I realized the arm had to be broken for that to happen.  Still, that neck shot, in any other creature would have been a direct kill, so no matter the condition of his arm, he was dangerous as hell.

I threw my right arm over my shoulder and my fingers curled around another bolt.  It was dry.  I cocked it and dropped it into the bow.  I was one inch from him when I reached forward with my right arm, yanked the arrow out, and raised and fired.

“Trade you,” I said.

Then I reneged on my promise.  After he was down, I reached down and pulled the kill shot out, tucking it back into my quiver.

So far, I think I was only down one or two arrows.  I was proud of myself.  I’d known I’d need to keep as many as I could, and I had.

I went to the doors, but they didn’t open.   I was surprised, then wondered how fucking stupid I actually am, because I was aware there was no power.  Nevertheless, when you walk up to automatic doors, you just expect what you expect.  It’s like the power going out in your house and you still walk into every room and hit the light switch.

Old habits die so fucking hard.  Just like these fuckers.

I tried pulling them apart with the palms of my hands on the glass.  They wouldn’t budge. 

I looked behind me.  There must have been ten more within twenty feet of being a problem for me.  I pulled out an arrow and stuck it between the doors.  Pried hard.

Nothing.  Not even an inch.

I’m not big, but I do generate some adrenaline, and I had a shitload of it going right about then.  I grabbed the steel trashcan from beside the door, got as far away from the largest pane of plate glass window I could without rushing into the arms of the pursuing zombies, and ran as fast as I could toward it.  When I was three feet away I pushed my arms forward, and let the trash can fly.

In my mind there was no way in Hell that door wasn’t going to shatter into a million crystalline pieces.  I was so sure I followed the can.

To my surprise, the can bounced cleanly off the heavy pane of glass, causing it to shudder briefly with a low modulating hum, then fall still and silent once more as the trash flipped harmlessly off to the side.  The new problem in my world was that I was still under the influence of forward momentum.  My body slammed into the glass that I was so sure would not be there by the time I reached it.

I hit it hard and fell to my back on the hard concrete, momentarily stunned.

And when I saw the shadows of the walking dead begin to fall over me, I scrambled to my feet and ran, zigzagging as best my bum leg would allow, and I used pure athleticism that I didn’t even know I had to circle that hospital until I found a door.

A service entry door had been propped open.  I went in and pulled the broomstick away, letting it close behind me.

It was damned dark.  I was suddenly even more frightened in here.

The glow saved my life.  It was all that allowed me to see them at a distance.

The pink glow.  What we now know is one of the weapons in their arsenal, also prevents them from hiding in the dark, and that’s just fine and dandy by me.

My eyes had adjusted a bit, but it took nearly a full minute.  The pretty, oh-so-feminine, pink luminescence allowed me to see them when I was almost dead sure they could only
smell
me.

I stayed perfectly still as the first one approached.  I let her come to within eight feet before I fired, aiming right between the two almond-shaped beacons.

When she went down, I retrieved my arrow.

My leg was throbbing then.  I worked my way down the dark hallway, looking for a supply closet or a small room with a table or something.  There had to be some emergency flashlights around somewhere, too, I just knew it.

But I knew a lot of shit that didn’t really pan out, didn’t I?

As I passed a gurney, I saw a body on it, face down.  I moved away from it and kept walking.  More pink ahead.  This time I was faced with two of them.  As I was focused on them, I slipped in something that was thick and pungent.  I went down on my ass, hard, my hands becoming slick with the sticky goo.

I could smell the coppery tinge of blood.  I tried so hard to keep what little I had in my stomach down, but I failed.  As the pink dots drew closer to me, I threw up, adding to the mess.

Then behind me, the thing on the gurney moved.

Sat up.

The glow.  I was maybe twenty feet beyond it.  I turned and took aim.  I fired and made a direct hit.

No time to get that arrow.  Not now.  I had two more right in front of me.

I had reloaded my bow many times in poor light.  This wasn’t the challenge.  The challenge was doing it while covered in someone else’s blood.

But I sidestepped my way out of the muck on the floor and slid my feet along the corridor until my boots were gripping again.  I wiped my hands, one by one, on my ass again, this time less effective.

Another bolt mounted.

I turned and walked back toward them.

They seemed to startle at this.  I didn’t think it was possible, but I thought I saw hesitation at my advance.

Five feet and I fired.  Dead hit.

Did I really just type that?

I backed up, reaching for an arrow, and in another three seconds it was cocked and loaded.

I moved toward this one, toward the glow.

And fired.

It went down in a pile of dirty ass zombie clothes and gore.

I got my arrows and heard voices.

I turned.  Whispers.  Down the hallway.

Flashes of light?  Why was I frightened?  Zombies didn’t carry flashlights, nor did they whisper.

It didn’t matter if they were friendly or not – I didn’t have a light of any kind, and if they saw me moving, they might just shoot.  I had no idea what knowledge of these things they had, and even saying something might not be adequate to prevent a bullet from being fired in my direction.

As quietly as I could, I slid along the wall another fifteen feet.  They were busy behind me, talking in low voices, and I couldn’t make out what they were saying.  At least their low conversation helped to mask any noise I was making.

Then they resumed their forward movement.

Avoiding dead bodies I found myself nearly stepping into along the way, my hand finally fell on a doorknob that turned.

A small storage closet.  I pulled open the door.  It was hard to make out at first, but then I could see it was filled with towels.  Clean towels.  I ducked into the closet and closed the door as quietly as I could.  Sitting there in the dark, I untied the filthy, blood-soaked towel from my leg and pressed a clean one against it.  I tried to slow my breathing.

Apparently I didn’t close the door quietly enough.

Flex and Gem, to my great relief, found me there.  And from that moment forward, it’s been privilege and pleasure to know them and to have grown to love them like family. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m tough.  I’m just not as tough as I let on.

Together, we’re far tougher.

Now back to
our
story.