In ten hurried minutes, they were on the road, walking north at a good clip.
Gem tried the radio far too soon. There was no answer, and all it served to do was make her anxious. Flex walked beside her and held her hand, and she let him. Nobody spoke, but Flex knew that all seven sets of eyes were on the road ahead, hoping to be the first to spot their loved ones.
*****
They had no idea how far they had walked, but after entering and leaving an industrial area, where Hemp pointed out several tanker trucks that appeared to have propane symbols on them, the buildings became fewer and farther between.
Hemp passed around what was the equivalent of an energy bar, developed by him and Charlie. They actually tasted good, but unlike the old pre-packaged type loaded with preservatives, these never quite dried enough not to be sticky as hell. They had used honey for a sweetener and they filled you up fast, providing the necessary energy.
Flex said, “Is that them?”
As they watched, what appeared to be just a light pink spot in the distance rose from ground level to a few feet off the street ahead. It was a person, to be sure, and judging from the color, it was a girl.
Three more figures entered the roadway from the east, and all four began waving their arms.
“There’s no need to run,” said Flex, but before the words were out of his mouth, Gem and Charlie started running as fast as their tired legs could carry them.
“Aw, shit no,” said Flex, shifting his pack on his back.
“This is why I didn’t bring Serena,” said Dave. “What is it with women and their emotion-induced desire to run to people?”
“Can’t fight City Hall,” said Nelson, breaking into a jog and laughing as he passed them. The others followed him.
Nelson turned back, smiling. “Just be glad you didn’t bring Lola, Punch. That chick can run.”
“Wasn’t easy to chase her down that first time,” he said.
“As I recall it, she chased you down, buddy,” said Flex. It was true. Lola had been drawn to Punch the first time they laid eyes on one another. They had gotten married six years ago, but both had decided they did not want to bring children into a world mostly populated with zombies.
Flex wasn’t sure about that. By the time the world was clear of them, Punch and Lola would probably be dead. Maybe they feared it would happen by other than old age and they would leave their children without parents.
Flex’s mind returned to his son, but by the time that happened, they had reached the girls and he thought about how they would break the news to them about what had happened to Flexy.
By the time Flex and the others reached them, Gem was in tears again, her arms wrapped around a sobbing Trina. Gem must have blurted out the horrible news the moment she reached her daughter.
*****
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gem cried as though she had just received the news of her son’s death for the first time. Her tremendous sadness ripped Flex’s heart apart, but she had to let it come. Coupled with his own, he wondered how they would bear it.
Now, with no rotters nearby, was as good a time as any to feel the pain and let it come. Shared grief healed broken people more quickly – at least that’s what Flex had always believed.
Taylor and Charlie were in an embrace so tight Flex could not imagine either of them could breathe. Taylor had loved Flex Sheridan Jr. like a kid brother, and she taught him how to play Fuck Off – the renamed card game, Go Fish – as soon as he could hold five cards in his little hands and say the words.
After Hemp released him from a relieved hug, Flex, Nelson, and Punch greeted Max Chatsworth, who, like Isis, had not a tear in his eyes. While clearly devastated, neither he nor Isis could cry. It was not a part of their physiological makeup; just another thing that made them unique from unaffected humans. Hemp said it was because of the compound leaking from their tear ducts that caused their eyes to appear red. The ducts had clearly been repurposed in the womb.
Flex knew from watching both of them grow up that they felt the pain of loss very deeply, perhaps more deeply than anyone else did.
Their grief was a heavy burden on their shoulders, with no way to express it.
Flex finally got his arms around Max and hugged his Godson long and hard. He pulled back and put his hand on Max’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re okay, kid,” he said. “Thanks for taking care of our girls.”
“You know they don’t need much taking care of,” said Max. “We haven’t run into much trouble – Great Bend aside – but when we did they were on top of it.”
Max looked so much like Hemp that to Flex, it was like going back in a time machine. He did have a bit of Charlie, particularly in his nose and cheekbones, but his hair, eyes and chin – even under that beard – were all Hemp.
Dave and Isis, who had been very close since the day he arrived to rescue them from that underground bunker, held one another in silence. She was his cousin, and family meant more than ever on a post-apocalyptic planet Earth.
They had found Max, Isis, Trina and Taylor well before nightfall, so they had time to sit and grieve together. It was necessary, though it would never be enough time, Flex knew.
*****
“I don’t know if I can do this now,” said Trina, wiping her eyes in a fruitless effort to dry them. Her tears continued to come, and occasionally, the 21-year-old would revert to sobs again.
Isis put a hand on Trina’s shoulder. “What’s happened is more serious than we sensed from Kingman, Trina,” she said. “Now that we’re so close, we have to learn the motives behind the inhabitants of Hoisington.”
“She’s right,” said Max. “We need your skills, Trina, every bit as much as we need everyone else. I’m glad you all came.”
Charlie said, “Did you come up with a plan?”
“A few options are on the table,” said Isis.
“Now would be a good time to talk about it,” said Gem. “The sun’s starting to set.”
“Agreed,” said Isis. “Before you arrived, Max and I were talking about what we feel from the town.”
“How do you feel a town?” asked Nelson. His hand subconsciously moved to his pocket and he withdrew a glass pipe and a Zippo.
“It’s what’s in the town, Nel,” said Isis. “As you know, since I was around a year old, I haven’t been without Max. I recall feeling his presence then, the moment he was born and took his first breath. There was a kind of connection, a sense of light and presence.”
“And I’ve never known a world without Isis’ energy,” said Max. “But since we started feeling the Mothers and Hungerers in the northwest, there’s been something darker. We didn’t say anything to you because we knew we had to come and we didn’t want to worry you.”
“Color me worried,” said Flex. “But I’m glad we’re here, too.”
“You brought WAT-5?” asked Isis.
“Does the pope shit in the woods?” asked Punch.
“I imagine he does if he’s on a camping trip,” said Nelson. “That’s what I do.”
“Yeah, we brought it. Lots of it. Why?”
“Isis and I need to go out for a few,” said Max.
“Out, like unconscious?” asked Dave. “Why?”
Isis looked toward Hoisington and got on her feet. Flex followed suit, standing beside her.
The sun had now dropped below the horizon and now, faint glows had appeared in the town.
“Okay, so that’s where they are,” she said. “I thought there might be a chance they came from somewhere else and wiped out the people in Hoisington, too.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Gem. “So why do you need to go out?”
“They want to see what it feels like without the other,” said Trina, sniffling. “Right now, the darkness they sense is masked by the goodness of Max. If he’s out, she won’t sense him.”
“We did that in Bug’s bunker,” said Dave. “Gave you some WAT-5 dust we had left in the corner of a baggie, and you were o
ut like a light.”
“It’s the only blacked out spot in my history,” she said, “which is how it sits in my memory. I remember, in vivid detail, every other second of my life. All but that one.”
“When you were out, the red-eye didn’t pay any attention to you,” said Dave.
“Exactly,” said Isis. “Give Max a WAT-5, please.”
“Are you guys on it now?” asked Nel, looking at Trina and Taylor.
Neither answered, but they looked guilty and a bit embarrassed.
“Trina, Tay?” asked Gem.
They shook their heads.
“Seriously?” said Gem.
“Then it’s nap time,” said Flex. “Max, take the whole thing. You might close that fuckin’ mental gate of yours, but let’s call this backup.”
As they did when they were kids, Trina and Taylor sat cross-legged, back to back. When they took their doses, Nelson went over and steadied them so they didn’t topple over sideways. Everyone else took theirs, too, but all were already on it so they did not sleep.
Isis took none for the moment, and Max was ready to pop the wafer into his mouth.
“Okay,” said Isis.
Max lay on his back in the grass beside the roadway and took the wafer. Two chews and a swallow, and his eyes rolled back, his eyelids fluttered.
Isis gasped. She sat, cross-legged, staring straight ahead; not at anyone or anything. In the waning evening light, her eyes appeared glossy.
Gem scooted to her and Dave moved to her other side. They held her hands and she slowly closed them, squeezing their fingers in hers. She stared into an abyss that none of the others could see, but all could feel.
“Isis,” said Dave. “Tell us what … what do you feel?”
“Terror,” she murmured. “And … anger. Power and evil.”
“It’s me,” she said. “But not me. It’s pain and fear and … anger. The fear rises above all.”
Isis stood slowly and turned again toward the distant town of Hoisington. Nelson woke up the girls, and Trina said, “What’s wrong with Isis?”
“Shh,” said Punch, his finger to his lips. “She might be figuring things out.”
“If anything, I am more confused,” she said. “I feel as though something that had the potential to be very good has turned very bad. Not one, but many. Wake Max, please. It’s enough.”
“Are you sure you can’t –”
“Now, please!” shouted Isis.
It was rare. Isis never raised her voice; never became agitated. Never.
Flex felt the hair on the back of his neck rise to attention. Whatever they faced was even more serious and frightening than a town full of corpses could convey.
Trina hurried over and shook Max awake. The moment he sat up, it was as though Isis had been freed from a prison cell. She dropped to the ground and said, “Max, I don’t know if you should feel what I just did.”
“I don’t have a choice,” he said. “You know it’s true.”
Isis nodded. She held out her hand and Gem put a wafer into it.
Before she took it, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Max.”
*****
The moment Isis’ eyes rolled back in her head and closed, Max’s face turned frightened.
“Oh … my God,” he said. His hands shook so badly that Flex noticed him interlace his fingers together to keep them still.
“What do you feel, Max?” asked Charlie in her most soothing voice.
Max did not answer immediately. He slowly stood and turned toward the town, rotating his head to the right as if to position one ear to listen to whatever sounds he heard in his mind.
“There’s anguish,” he said. “Not from the Hungerers, but from the Mothers.”
“Are the Hungerers capable of anguish? Of feelings?” asked Taylor.
Max moved his head side to side very slowly. “No,” he said. “They hunger and do the bidding of the Mothers. None can obey now.”
“Obey who?” asked Taylor, her eyes fixed upon the transfixed boy who did not look like a boy.
“Mothers, Hungerers. None have freewill,” said Max.
Flex looked at the others. “Hemp? Go ahead.”
“Max, do you feel the same darkness that Isis felt?” he asked.
He turned to look at his father, as though the voice that had soothed him while he lay awake in his crib so many long hours brought him out of his trance. He nodded. “I do, dad. Not from the Mothers, and not from the Hungerers. I hear it from …”
He trailed off. Flex wanted to discuss his current mental state with Hemp, but he did not want to talk about him as if he was not there.
Max certainly heard or felt something they could not, and Flex wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was. Still, if they were to go into Hoisington, they had to know.
“From what, son?” asked Hemp.
“I … I feel as if it’s just out of my reach,” said Max. “I feel Isis … but not like her at all. Threatening.”
Nelson walked up and touched Max’s arm, and the boy jerked away as though receiving an electrical shock. He spun away from Nelson so fast that it caused the ninja star expert to stagger backward for a moment before catching his balance.
“Whoa, dude, I’m sorry,” said Nelson. “I thought a human touch might calm you down, bro.”
“There are others like me. Others like Isis,” said Max. “They do not have freewill, and I … I …”
This time Charlie stood again and moved beside Max. She took his hand in hers very gently and he turned to look down at her face. “Mom,” he said. “They feel us too.”
“Lower your shade, Max,” said Hemp. “Now.”
‘Yeah, right,” he said, closing his eyes for a long moment. “It’s done.”
“Do you feel them sensing you now?” asked Hemp.
“Confusion,” he said. “We shouldn’t call. They might understand what we are.” He looked at Dave, his eyes suddenly clear. “Wake Isis, please Dave?”
“You got it,” said Dave, and knelt down beside Isis. He shook her shoulder and her eyelids fluttered open. She sat, then stood.
“Max,” she said. “Did you feel it?”
“The darkness,” said Max. “The confusion at us … the feeling it was us.”
Isis said, “Max, I think we both know the truth now. They stared at one another for a long moment, then each of them nodded.
“No closed door meetings, you little shits,” said Gem.
Flex realized they had been using their telepathic communication, which was something nobody could believe when they were infants.
When they played one another at chess, it was impossible to determine who would win. Each player anticipated the other’s moves right through the very end of the game. Ultimately, one of them always had to make a move they knew would be their demise. As adults, they had taken to blocking one another to make for a fair game, but there were many intense, mental battles when they were young, to be sure.
Both had explained that they were aware of the perceived pointlessness of playing one another back then, but they used it intentionally to sharpen their abilities.
“There are more there like us,” said Isis. “My gender allows me more connection with them, but they are like us only in how they were created.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Hemp.
“They don’t have any self-purpose,” said Isis. “They’re slaves.”
“Who the fuck’s slaves are they?” asked Trina, dropping her crossbow down into her hand, her eyes flashing anger.
That little girl who used to charge us a quarter for a curse word would be dead broke if abiding by her own rules.
“I heard a name,” said Max. “I’m not sure it’s anything to do with it, but it kept floating into my mind while you were sleeping, Isis.”
“What’s the name?” asked Punch.
“Maestro,” said Isis.
“Master,” said Dave. “In Spanish.”
“Anything else?” asked Flex.
“Angus maybe?”
“No,” said Isis. “The only name I associated fear with was Maestro.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Nelson, reaching for his pipe.
“Is this a good idea?” asked Dave. “Going in there? I mean, has anyone ever heard of letting sleeping dogs lie?”
Isis looked back toward the town of Great Bend, where Irene Danner waited for her salvation, hiding in her home in a town occupied only by her, some wayward zombies, and stacks and stacks of dead bodies. She turned back to Dave.
“Clearly the dogs around here aren’t sleeping,” said Isis. “What happens if we don’t act? They can just as easily venture south until they hit Kingman. There’s dark power amassing here, and it has to be stopped now.”
Hemp looked at the sky, now dark, moonless and starting to fill in with a billion flickering stars.
He looked at the others. “It’s impossible to make a plan until we reach the city proper and have a look around,” he said. “We’ve got the night-vision goggles in the Crown Victoria. Bring binoculars and all of our radios. Most importantly – Max and Isis, I hope you are listening – we stay together. If you need to separate from us, then please explain your plan beforehand.”
They both nodded.
“Let’s load up,” said Gem. “And if we can finish this tonight, that’s what I’d like to do.”
Flex looked at Gem, her eyes tired, her shoulders slumped. In short, she looked defeated, but he wasn’t fooled.
Gem Cardoza Sheridan was never defeated. Ever. When the time came to put her fierce intensity to the test, Gem would dazzle.
As always.
*****
The group of eleven walked along the edge of the road toward Hoisington. It increased the risk of being observed, but after a short time trying to approach on smaller, overgrown paths that ran parallel to the road, it was necessary. Without a lead team with sickles, or machetes, or a John Deere tractor, it was too arduous a process.
Dead Hunger VII_The Reign of Isis Page 12