Dead Hunger VI_The Gathering Storm

by Eric A. Shelman

  *****

  Chapter Seven

  The new band of rain pounded the highway and our car, and the shattered rear window was allowing the water to soak many of our supplies in back.

  Lightning lit up the roadway before us, darkened by a thick blanket of black clouds.

  Highway 31 became US 21, and it snaked beneath I-77 over and over until we were very close to the hospital. We weren’t comfortable at the small convenience store we’d seen back a few miles, so we had waited. There had been something strange there. Something about how the boards were over the windows and what might have been knotholes in the plywood, but what also might have been gun turrets.

  Maybe uninfecteds inside, laying in wait. Both Punch and I had felt the same, so we kept moving. Our instincts might have been nothing more than paranoia, but either way, we were still breathing. Better safe than sorry.

  Now we reached Highway 160, and there was an Exxon station on the corner with two roll-up bay doors and a pretty nice store attached. Looked like they had some specialty peach preserves, a small restaurant and western wear for sale, too.

  I thought if nobody else had robbed the store of the clothing, that I might be due for a nice cowboy hat. If I found a little one for Flexy, I’d damned sure pick that up, too.

  I swung the car in and backed it into a space. We were immediately approached by a group of rotters, so I spun the AK-47 in their direction and promptly turned their heads into a black-red-blood mist explosion, the unimportant, lower part of their bodies falling away. Two were on the store side, and I didn’t want to break the front glass, so we just got out. WAT-5 was in effect, so we could handle them as needed.

  “Still not too sure about this stuff,” said Punch, nervously eyeing a walker three feet away from him. The thing walked up to the Land Cruiser, moving around Punch. It stood there, staring through the windshield.

  “Good time as any to shoot it,” I said. “You can get a clean shot.”

  Punch nodded and raised his pistol, which was one of Tony’s Smith & Wesson .40 calibers with hollow-point rounds. He kept the weapon 10” or so from the creature’s head and fired. It unceremoniously dropped.

  “Another one bites the dust,” said Punch. “Let’s get some food.”

  We moved toward the entrance. I pulled on the door and it opened, but the broken glass told me it wasn’t that way to begin with. Someone had arrived to locked doors and had broken in. They likely unlocked the door from the inside to make their exit.

  Inside, it stunk like putrid, rotting vegetables and rotted flesh, but musty, too. That was an indicator of how long ago the fruit and flesh had deteriorated.

  “Let’s clear it,” said Punch, waving me to the left. He went right.

  I moved down the aisle and found a body almost immediately. It was nothing more than torn clothing over skeletal remains. The head had been smashed against the ground, for I saw chunks of the skull with hair still attached, scattered around it.

  It reminded me of my brother-in-law’s body, back on the very day this all began. I’d never forget seeing his ravaged corpse lying on the floor torn open, and the realization that I did not know the condition or whereabouts of my sister, Jamie, or my nieces, Jesse and Trina.

  I stepped past it and kept going. I reached the window at the front of the store and saw more of the mindless, hungry things outside. We were okay. The wafers were making us just a part of the furniture, as it were.

  “You clear, Flex?” asked Punch.

  “Yep,” I said. Now I flipped on my headlight and scanned the aisles. There were a bunch of bottles of apple and peach cider and other natural juices in well-sealed bottles. I took one from the rack, looked at the expiration date. Not until 2015. I looked up and saw Punch on the next aisle. “Fresh fruit juice, brother,” I said. “A year ago, anyway.” I tossed him the bottle and he caught it.

  I grabbed another from the rack and shook it. I tore off the seal with my teeth, twisted the cap off, and tipped the bottle to my lips. It tasted just like nectar from Heaven running down my throat. The bottle was 750 milliliters, but I drank the whole goddamned thing. When I lowered the bottle, I saw Punch finishing off the last of his, too.

  He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Good shit.”

  “Hell, yes it is,” I said. “I want to clear this rack. Flexy’d love this stuff.”

  “Baskets over there,” said Punch. He went and pulled one from a row near the door and rolled it over. He started loading bottles into it.

  I found some breads sealed in vacuum-packed cans with pull tabs. I dumped them in the basket, too.

  “Anywhere to rest up for the night?” he asked. “Maybe go in the morning?”

  “I don’t know, Punch. The girl already died, like I said.”

  “Is your son showing any symptoms?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No, but Hemp says that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got it.”

  “Hey, man. I’m cool,” said Punch. “I’ve stayed up for three days straight under some pretty stressful conditions.”

  “I’ve only been under stress since this shit started,” I said. “And yeah, I’m tired. It has been a long day.”

  “Sometimes you operate more efficiently if you take the time you need to rest before you start out,” said Punch. “I say we stop and do this by the light of day. We can start out at 0500 hours.”

  I thought about it. He was right of course. I’d be better off if I just approached this like we’d approached everything else; with patience and good preparation. Okay. Maybe sometimes with guns blazing and no plan at all, but that was usually when all our other options went out the window.

  “Okay,” I said. “Looks like there might be an office or something up those stairs. Let me find a hat first, and I want to get back on the radio to let Gem know what we’re doing.”

  “A hat?” asked Punch.

  I pointed. “Over there. A Stetson. Hemp always calls me a John Wayne, so I’m gonna give him a reason.”

  Punch laughed. “Sounds good. Get your hat. I’ll see if the office is open.”

  I nodded, and found a display of several hats. I might be a good guy, but with the blood flying around, I needed something that would hide bloodstains. Or at least let me wipe it off. I looked at some of the nicer, straw models.

  A black Stetson fit just right. It settled nicely on my head and didn’t touch my ears. I turned to look for a mirror.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, staggering backward. A walker was four feet behind me, its arms outstretched, its mouth opened in a silent bite. As my eyes fell on it, it let out a creak that mimicked a rusty door hinge and moved past me, uninterested.

  My heart drowned out the distant thunder and I said a quick thanks to God, WAT-5, and Hemp Chatsworth was in there too, just for good measure.

  Any motherfucker coming up behind you will scare your ass. Now make him look like the damned crypt keeper and you’ve got yourself some Fruit of the Looms that are full of shit.

  I hadn’t heard the rotter come in, and that surprised me. I looked down, and saw the creature had on a tattered pair of Reebok running shoes. He was pretty stealth for a bumbling zombie.

  I shot him in the face, and felt the cold blood spatter me, the stink of it reminding me the thing was already dead. I always close my eyes in close combat to avoid the introduction of that shit in my bloodstream.

  Take no chances. Shit that smells that bad just had to have legs, even when its host was down.

  “You all right down there, Flex?” shouted Punch.

  “I’m good,” I answered. “Stray rotter down here.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Scared the shit outta me up here.”

  I grabbed a shirt off the rack beside me and removed my new hat. I wiped it thoroughly with the shirt, turned it inside out and swiped it quickly over my face and put the Stetson back on my head. Tossing the shirt aside, I regained my composure and went to the door, locked it, and spotted a large fixture that I thought I could move. With only one goo
d grunt, I got it sliding on the wood slat floor. With two more caveman growls, it was in front of the broken glass door, providing adequate protection for the night.

  Then I turned to see my reflection in the mirror. I pulled off the headlamp – because the fucker was blinding me – and shone it sideways at my image in the mirror. The hat looked good. Damned good. On the other side of how good it looked, my face looked kind of haunted and strange with the leftover, blackish blood smeared on it.

  Fucking polyester shirts suck for cleaning windows and bloody skin. It just isn’t absorbent enough and I guess I was more worried about the new hat than my mug.

  I grabbed another shirt, still smiling at my earlier scare. I gave myself another wipe down as I headed upstairs and saw that Punch had discovered a pair of couches that would do just fine.

  *****

  I was awake by 4:00 in the morning. Punch was on the other couch snoring, but I could tell his sleep was fitful at best, as it had been through the night. Storms had rolled through every hour it had seemed, and some powerful enough to make me wonder if the main storm was approaching. When they passed after an hour, I knew I was mistaken.

  Nope. Not the most restful night of sleep I’d had. I switched on my headlamp and got up.

  I’d seen some chicken wire fencing rolled up in a storage area and had an idea. I liked the Land Cruiser a lot, but with that blown out rear window, it was a break in our defenses that made me nervous. I checked Punch once more, then headed downstairs, trying to be quiet.

  “Where you headed, Flex?” he asked, after I’d taken two steps. He sounded sharp; not like a guy who’d been asleep.

  I turned, smiling to myself. “I should’ve known better trying to sneak out of a room occupied by a U.S. Marine,” I said. “I need to take care of that rear window, Punch. Go ahead, brother. Catch some more Zs. I left a handheld on that table beside you. If I get into any shit, I’ll call.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” he said. “When I’m up, I’m up.”

  “Cool.” I continued down the steps and went into the main store.

  The storage room we’d searched last night was under the stairs, and inside were a lot of displays and other sale supplies. I tugged on the roll of chicken wire, caught behind two melamine signs that said, “Peach Sale!”

  “Perfect,” I muttered to myself, pulling out the larger of the two signs. Now I needed to find some tools. That wouldn’t be too hard, because there was also a service station attached. I pulled my radio.

  “Punch, you up?”

  “Yeah, brother,” came his voice. Not over the radio. He was halfway down the stairs.

  Punch wore a pair of camouflage pants that looked like military issue, and the boots definitely were. He still moved like a ghost in them. His shirt was just a standard, white tee.

  “Check your watch, Flex,” he said. “Time for WAT-5?”

  Gem would be pissed if she even knew I cut it that close. We had about twenty minutes left on our five-hour dose. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bag of wafers. I passed one to Punch and popped another in my mouth.

  He ate his down with the grimace I was waiting for.

  “You’ll get used to it,” I said.

  “Hey,” said Punch. “It beats what those fucks out there want to eat.”

  “Makes ‘em a nuisance for the most part,” I said. “But they can still accidentally scratch you, so it’s best just to take ‘em out if they get too close.”

  “That board’ll make a good rear window, Flex.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I said. “I had my sights on the chicken wire, but that might come in handy for something else. Let’s see if those bay doors will roll up. We can pull the Toyota inside.”

  Punch walked around the stairwell and I followed. We came to another windowed door marked SERVICE. He wiped at the glass and turned his head from side to side, scanning. “Nothing’s moving in there.”

  “Be my guest,” I said.

  Punch pushed the door open. Because the shit hit the fan on a Sunday – which had come to be a blessing for a lot of the places we needed to go – the garage had been closed and the mechanics weren’t working. We stepped inside, our guns at ready. When the door swung closed behind us, we stopped and listened.

  It was quiet inside. We both turned our heads in all directions, shining the light of safety in every dark corner. Just because mechanics weren’t servicing cars that day, it doesn’t mean some clerk from the store didn’t run in here to escape certain death.

  “So far, so good,” said Punch, moving farther into the 2-bay garage. Parked over the lift nearest to us was a classic Pontiac GTO in what shone back at me as a deep purple. Four nearly flat tires, but the hood was down and it didn’t look like it was in the middle of any work.

  “Is that a ’67 GTO?” I asked.

  “Hell yes it is,” said Punch, whistling. “Jesus, that’s just like my dad’s old car. His wasn’t purple, but same exact one.”

  “Buddy, if you want it and it’s in one piece,” I said, “we’ll pump those tires up and swing by here on the way back. A muscle car like that might come in handy at some point.”

  “Flex, you got more to worry about than getting me a little piece of my past. Let’s do this and we’ll see how long it takes. We make good enough time, I’ll beg you to bring me back.”

  I walked over to the toolboxes and saw the lids down. I tried one. Locked. I looked at Punch. “Hell no, the mechanics aren’t gonna leave their boxes open over the weekend,” I said.

  “Let’s test the strength of Snap-On,” said Punch. He looked around, his light illuminating pegs on the wall. Seeing what he wanted, he went to the wall and pulled down two large hearing protectors.

  “You’ll need these,” he said, handing me a pair. I fitted them over my ears and stood back.

  Punch knelt down in front of the large, red toolbox and raised the barrel of his shotgun, angling upward at the top hatch’s lock.

  Punch fired and the lid of the chest flipped backward, folding around the backside of the rolling treasure chest.

  I was glad I wore the ear protection. The soundproofing in a garage was for shit. We took them off.

  “Good thing they didn’t try that in a commercial,” he said, smiling.

  “Let’s see what we have,” I said. Once the top was open, the sliding rods released all the other slide-outs. We pulled them all open, starting at the larger, lower drawers. Punch reached in and pulled out a hacksaw.

  “Perfect for the melamine,” I said, taking it.

  Next, he opened a drawer with a tin snip set. Punch took the medium-sized pair.

  “Chicken wire killer,” he said. “Bay door?”

  I went to the door in front of the empty service bay and pulled the spring-loaded chain down and out of its slot. The door sprang up immediately, and I left it for a moment while I dropped the Daewoo into a good ready position.

  I pulled the chain, hand over hand, and the door moved easily in its track. I stopped when it was high enough to get the Land Cruiser inside.

  “Keys,” said Punch, holding out his hands. I tossed them to him.

  “Be right back,” he said.

  He wasn’t ten steps out when I heard the boom of his shotgun again. I didn’t hear the thud that I was pretty sure followed, but then again, depending on the range of the rotter, he might have been in smaller pieces than I could hear spattering on the ground.

  I checked again to make sure it was clear, and went to the GTO. I opened the driver’s door and fed my Daewoo inside, sliding into the seat.

  The keys were in the ignition. The damned mechanics locked their precious toolboxes up tight, but left the garage door latched with a spring-loaded chain and the keys in a classic ride.

  Fuckin’ mechanics. I turned the key. A red light shone, so dim it was almost imperceptible. I tried anyway. One click, then dead. Lights out. I reached down and popped the hood as I heard the Toyota’s motor roar to life.

  I wal
ked around to the front of the Pontiac as the Land Cruiser swung around to the open bay door. Punch executed a quick, three-point turn and backed it into the service bay.

  I raised the GTO’s hood. Intact. I shone my light around. Not only intact, but pristine. The motor looked brand new, and all the mounts, belts and everything else shone, too.

  If Punch helped me, he’d have this car. I’d see to it. Hell, it was right off the highway and an easy get.

  Memories of your dad didn’t come along everyday. If it helped him through his days, he could use it.

  Punch pulled the SUV in all the way, then went around and pulled the door closed again, latching the chain.

  “Only one encounter, huh?” I said. “Not bad.”

  “There were others,” he said. “Just not an immediate threat.”

  “Pontiac’s in one piece,” I said. “Baby looks brand new. Got a fuckin’ 400.”

  Punch stepped over and looked down at the engine. “Don’t make me cry, man,” he said.

  “Don’t worry. I have a tentative plan. I say that so we don’t break your heart on the way home.”

  We got to work. I opened the rear hatch door and we knocked away all the remaining chunks of glass.

  I got in the Toyota and turned the key on, lowering and raising the window that wasn’t there, until we heard the remaining glass pieces fall away.

  Afterward, Punch got inside and we closed the hatch again. I handed him a black marker and pushed the melamine board tight against the hole, and Punch marked it from the inside.

  After he got back out, we started cutting along Punch’s lines, adding about an inch on the very bottom. All in all, it took us about half an hour to cut it and fit it into the slot. Once he had it loose, I got back in the driver’s seat and raised it up. It slid right into the slot and it was as tight as the original window.

  As long as we didn’t try to lower it again.

  “Ready to go find some antitoxin?” I asked.

  “God, I hope it’s there, brother,” said Punch. “Something’s gotta be easy now and then.”