Dead Hunger VI_The Gathering Storm

by Eric A. Shelman

  There was some murmuring at the appearance of a stranger – that would be me – and some hopeful looks as their leader once again made an appearance.

  I looked at them and ran a head count. The doctor was right on the money, so clearly knew his little community. I noted a large number of women, all with a certain amount of athleticism to their builds. I wondered if they had a fitness center at Piedmont, and decided they probably did.

  The men were either on the younger or older side. I wasn’t sure why that was, but speed and agility would keep you alive, as would seasoned-citizen street smarts and common sense. None of the men and women appeared harried or sunken-eyed. All appeared healthy and just curious as to our presence.

  “How is everyone?” Perry asked.

  An older, grey-haired man stood up. He was medium build and had some good biceps on him. Definitely a gym in the building somewhere.

  He said, “John, we’ve been told by Todd, Ben and Joe that you killed Cole. We heard the gunshot from up here. Mind telling us why?”

  “I can,” said Perry, “but first, allow me to ask all of you a question. The question is this. Any of you who has been afraid of me – even one time – since you arrived here, please raise your hand, but not now. I’m going to turn around first, so that I can’t see you. Then I want you to answer honestly. Now’s your time to bump me out the door if you have a mind to.”

  He turned around and Punch and I looked out over the crowd. Benny, Joey and Todd raised their hands. Nobody else did.

  “Okay, you can turn around again,” I said.

  Perry did. “I’m going to guess that Benny, Joey and Todd raised their hands. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I blame them. I did something in front of them that should have been done in private.”

  Perry walked to the center of the room and said, “Cole put everyone here at risk. You all know from witnessing my previous dealings with him that he was unwilling to cooperate with my direction, which is wholly intended to keep us alive, and he refused to leave.”

  “So you did it for us,” said the man.

  “I did,” said Perry. “I may have gone about it wrong, so for that I’m sorry. You all know you’re free to leave here if you start to feel it’s not right for you.”

  The crowd murmured again. I felt it had been put to rest. I still didn’t completely trust the doctor, but he had something we needed, and at the moment, I wasn’t sure where it was stored, and I doubted my ability to recognize it if I saw it.

  “Doc,” I said, looking at my watch. “It’s almost 10:00 in the morning. Can we go to where you keep the vaccines and other stuff so we can get back to my family?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. He turned back to the crowd. “Another half an hour and it’ll be time to start preparing lunch, everyone. I think chili is on the menu.”

  My stomach growled. Chili was one of my favorites.

  *****

  Perry led us to an upstairs room and opened the door. He turned on the lights, which was almost so alien to me that I felt I’d gone back in time.

  “Your generator run all the time?” I asked.

  “We limit the power usage so we don’t waste the fuel we have on hand, but it’s always running.”

  The room appeared to have formerly been a break room, because there were vending machines lined up on one wall. I was surprised to see they were fully stocked with candy bars, gum and some hard candy, but no pretzels or chips. I assumed they had either been eaten or had gone stale.

  “How long you been here, doc?” asked Punch.

  “Almost from the start, but I can tell you it was a mess when I got here,” Perry answered. “Deadheads were everywhere and the people they’d eaten were scattered throughout this blood-soaked building like racetrack-discarded greyhound carcasses in the desert.”

  “Who cleaned it up?” I asked.

  “If you’re referring to the deadheads, I cleared the building myself. I raided local pawn shops and firearm stores,” he said. “I’d never fired a gun before all this started, but I sure got to be good from around five feet away. Took me forever to figure out that a 1911 was actually a .45 caliber.”

  His comment again reminded me of what he’d done to Cole downstairs. “John,” I said, “I know we talked about this already, and I don’t mean to tell you your business, but nerves are fragile these days. Shootin’ that guy down there can only make these folks turn on you down the road. The townspeople might just rise up when you least expect it.”

  “I was never a violent man,” said Perry. “I felt myself getting harder and harder with every one of the things I killed, and when people started showing up here, I staked my territory and told each and every one of them that my rules were the rules and if they didn’t like it, they could find somewhere else to live.”

  He walked over to the line of small, apartment sized refrigerators that hummed on the far wall and turned back to face us. He shrugged and said, “I was willing to let almost anyone in who agreed to my conditions, and I even gave the rest of our people first right of refusal. I always agreed to allow newcomers to stay the night and introduce themselves to everyone so they could form a consensus.”

  “How’d that work?” asked Punch.

  “You saw,” said Perry. “I can tell you that almost everyone who got the nod is still here.”

  “What’s the arrangement?” asked Punch. I wondered if he were interested in staying here.

  “I may make it sound like a dictatorship, which I suppose it is, but everybody has their duties. Cleaning, cooking, washing. We’re not a bad community, but as I told you outside, Cole was a loose cannon. He was repeatedly asked to leave and he refused.”

  “You couldn’t just get a group consensus and forcibly remove him?” asked Punch.

  “We’re over half women and the men here are either on the younger side or the older side. Nobody wanted to ruffle feathers, particularly Cole’s. If it turned out he didn’t leave, they didn’t want to anger him.”

  “What kinds of things did he do that disrupted the place or put you in danger?” I asked.

  “Several times he didn’t secure the gates. Other times he got into fights with the others, and I don’t mean arguments. I mean fisticuffs. I spoke to him about his anger issues and even offered him some Prozac, which I have in pretty good supply, but he scoffed at that. I’d tell him he was dangling from his last thread and he’d promise to comply, but I knew he said it to placate me. What he pulled at the hospital caused that thread to break. I don’t know if he shared it with you Punch, but I told Todd and his boys that if Cole wouldn’t leave on his own, I was considering eliminating him.”

  “Not what they said,” said Cole.

  “People hear what they want to hear,” said Perry. “I think I’ve told you where I’m coming from. I’m not a bad guy, otherwise I could’ve given a crap about all the medicines and vaccines. I want the old world back. I’d give my eye teeth for a justice system with cops, attorneys, judges and the works. Military. What I wouldn’t give for some military expertise and someone who could clean up the streets.”

  “There’s lots of cleaning and not many of us,” I said. “My friend Hemp says it’s around 90% conversion, plus the diggers. Subtract everyone that became food for the rotters, and I guess you can see why it’s each man for himself, at least when it comes to organizing an army.”

  “Well,” said Perry, “I want society to rebuild. I’m hoping this hurricane helps wipe out a good amount of the rotters, as you call them.”

  “They are kind of sparse in the streets right now,” I said. “But there’s a lot you probably don’t know about them.”

  “Like what?” he asked. “I know you have to take out their brains.”

  “You’ve seen the red eyes?” asked Punch.

  “Yes,” said Perry, seeming very interested now. “I’ve noticed they’re faster than the others.”

  “Man,” I said. “I wish I could un-know some of the shit I’ve learned. I’d sur
e sleep better at night.”

  “You indicated you’re in a hurry,” said Perry. “But are you sure you want to drive back in this storm?”

  “I don’t have a choice, doc,” I said. “My son’s been exposed to Diphtheria, and so has another little girl. A woman and her daughter showed up and brought it into our home before we knew what she had.”

  Perry nodded. “It happens. I hate to change the subject, but I have to ask about your truck. Nice setup.”

  “Custom built cow catcher and AK-47 courtesy of Professor Hemphill Chatsworth,” I said, smiling for the first time since I’d arrived.

  “Let’s get the stuff you need and get you back on the road then,” said Perry. “I hope you’re satisfied that everyone here is well taken care of. You’re also welcome to return for more meds. I intend to continue to collect them from wherever I can to preserve as much as possible.”

  I counted along the wall. There were fifteen of the low freezers, all ringing slightly with the rattle-hum-whistle of the compressors.

  “These electric?” asked Punch, looking around.

  “No,” said Perry. They’re all running on natural gas.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Where the hell did you get them all?”

  “Well, it’s been hurricane season, and the big box hardware stores stock up on these things this time of year. Some of them I got myself early on, using a forklift at Home Depot. The others I got later when I had more help from new residents.”

  I looked at Perry. “John, has all the stuff been kept refrigerated? The important stuff?”

  “It all was,” he said. “Never a moment, except during transport, that it wasn’t. Nothing’s gone bad.”

  “I have a list from Hemp. He’s a former CDC guy we ran into in Florida.”

  “Give me your list,” said Perry. “I’ll fill the prescription. How many doses do you need?”

  “For the regular vaccination boosters, we’re gonna need it for at least … let’s say, ten infants. Everything they’ll need until adulthood, if you’ve got them. We grabbed quite a lot from the pharmacy, but if you’ve got an immediate need for anything, you can certainly have it.”

  “You’re not going to need it?” asked Perry.

  “The main reason we’re here at all is because it’s one of the two closest places to Whitmire. They don’t keep the Diphtheria antitoxin everywhere. As for pain meds, antibiotics, stuff like that, we’ve got pharmacies near us where we can get it.”

  “Ah,” said John Perry. “True. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, anyway, the antitoxin is freeze-dried and doesn’t have to stay cold anyway.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I was afraid all the other vaccines and booster shots would have gone bad. Can’t tell you how happy I am that you took ‘em.”

  “Just to further ease your mind about me,” said Perry. “Let me tell you a little story. The moment this all crap started, over fourteen months ago now, I started to plan. My wife and daughter changed. Both of them tried to kill me, and I was psychologically comatose myself for two days after having to end their lives.”

  Perry walked to one of the chest freezers on the south wall of the room and lifted the lid. He reached down to retrieve something.

  I saw Punch’s gun barrel lift up, the speed almost imperceptible, but the barrel dead on the doctor.

  Perry continued speaking as he pulled out a plastic box. Punch lowered his weapon before the doctor noticed.

  “I guess I was waiting, but for what, I don’t know,” said Perry. “Once the power went out and I realized that nobody was going to swoop in and airlift me to a place this wasn’t happening, all I thought about was the medicine. I knew they were what allowed humankind eighty-plus years of life in a world where our life expectation was once under 40.”

  He moved to another freezer and opened the lid. As he reached in, I saw Punch eyeing him and watched his gun barrel raise again.

  “A 40-year lifespan doesn’t sound like such a bad thing in a world like this one,” said Punch, lowering his gun when he saw that Perry only held a plastic rack full of small, glass test tubes.

  “I’m an optimist,” said Perry. “Aside from what you’ve seen so far, I am. We’ll get back to normal, and until we do, we’ll need all of this. I only hope others have taken the same precautions that I have.”

  “So do I, doc,” I said. “How long before we can hit the road? And don’t forget to go through my bag,” I said. I took the camouflage backpack off and dropped it on a counter, unzipping it. I pulled out the two canvas bags Punch and I had filled.

  “I’ll get you everything I know I have, and we’ll go through yours. And Punch, you don’t have to keep pointing your gun at me. I do not keep weapons in my freezers.”

  “Sorry, doc,” said Punch. “I’m former military, so I don’t tend to take chances.”

  “Understood,” he said.

  After pulling several items from the many freezers, he went through my bags from the pharmacy.

  “What’s with the estrogen blockers?” he asked.

  “Ongoing experiment,” I said. “I’ll fill you in before we leave. Believe me, it’s stuff you want to know.”

  “Your people have a Ham radio?” he asked.

  “They do,” I said.

  “Let me know if you’d like to talk to them before you start heading back.”

  “That’s a definite yes,” I said. “I know their standard frequency.”

  The doctor removed what I could only describe as a large cold sack from one of the freezers and put all of the medications inside. He got a rubber band from the drawer, rolled the pack into a cylinder, and secured it. Perry turned to me and held it out. “This will keep the pharmaceuticals cold for up to twelve hours. Beyond that, I’m not certain how long the vaccines will last, but try not to push it.”

  “Thanks, John,” I said. “Now put this whole thing back in that freezer there, and I’ll tell you what you need to know to kill lots more of them and preserve your ammo rounds.”

  He agreed, and I shared everything we knew. He rewarded us further by taking us to his Ham radio station.

  Nobody answered my repeated calls, and I tried for longer than I should have. I didn’t know if it was the storm, or if they were in trouble. Talking to Gem would’ve gone a long way toward putting me at ease. I worried for my son, too. He needed me more at that moment than he probably ever would again in his life.

  Before we left, we wolfed down a bowl and a half of chili each. It was pretty damned good, even without cheese and onion.

  *****

  The layout of the basement was a bit different than the floor above because several additional walls had been built below. A corridor ran alongside the wall where the sliding glass door was above, and here, the floor was partially collapsed from where another tree had slammed into it.

  The massive girth of the tree’s midsection now stuck about two feet into the basement and water was running down the bark, flowing fast into our concrete sanctuary.

  Hemp stood and looked up at the light streaming in and pointed. “This is not a bad thing, actually,” he said, “assuming the storm isn’t moving too slowly.”

  “What’s not bad about water pouring into our temporary home?” asked Nelson.

  “Well, we’ve put down buckets to catch it,” said Hemp, “so we’ll have additional drinking water if necessary. And we’ve already got a hole started here that I only have to enlarge with the chainsaw in order to free us.”

  “But I take it you’re not going to start that work until we know the door’s blocked, right?” I asked.

  “Correct,” said Hemp.

  “Good. The fumes would choke us out,” I said.

  Doc Scofield came down the hall carrying little Flexy, and at the sight of his little pink face I felt my heart flutter and as always, I missed my husband. “Gem, I need you to see something,” he said.

  His normally sparkling eyes were not joyful. He added, “Hemp, you need to take a look, too.”


  “What is it, Jim?” I asked, hurrying to him. Hemp was right behind me.

  “His throat,” he said. “He looked like he was having trouble swallowing. It’s just red now, but what do you think, Hemp?”

  Hemp took a penlight that Scofield held out and touched my son on the chin. “Open your mouth, little guy,” said Hemp.

  It wasn’t in response to Hemp that Flexy yawned, but it served its purpose. Hemp shone the light in and said, “Hmm.”

  “Good hmm or bad hmm?” I asked.

  Hemp switched off the light. “Symptoms for Diphtheria shouldn’t begin for a minimum of two days after exposure. Still, I would have to consider the redness in his throat a symptom.”

  “How fast could it progress from here?” I asked.

  Hemp looked at me for a moment before answering. “Gem, it’s different in every case. As I said before, sometimes there are no symptoms. This could be unrelated, but since we don’t have the antitoxin yet, it’s all academic anyway. Nothing can be done until Flex arrives with it.”

  “Could there be something different about this one that makes it advance more quickly?” asked Scofield. “A new strain?”

  “I hope not,” said Hemp. “A new strain might take a new antitoxin, and I’m afraid there’s not one.”

  “Where the hell is Flex?” I said, not expecting an answer. “If he’s not here in a few more hours, I’m going to go out and find him.”

  A sudden crash came from over our heads, and as we all involuntarily ducked, Bunsen and Slider went nuts barking.

  The noise continued, like splintering wood and collapsing walls.

  “It’s not above us,” said Hemp.

  “Sounds like it’s near the stairs,” I said.