Dead Hunger VI_The Gathering Storm

by Eric A. Shelman

  I checked my watch. It was just after six o’clock, and the sun was waning. I needed to get home, but we were here now, and it wouldn’t take too long to drop the stuff to Cara.

  We exited our vehicles and locked them both. I wasn’t positive the other survivors from Buckfield wouldn’t make their way down.

  “Hold on a sec,” I said. I went to the back door of the Toyota and unlocked it again. I tore the floor mat off the side window and threw it in. Then I reached for the bag of meds and dug around inside it until I found what I was looking for; the Diphtheria antitoxin.

  I took four containers of it and stuffed them into my pocket. I closed the door and re-locked the SUV.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  From the bushes to my left, a staggering rotter burst toward me and I stumbled away from him, swinging my Daewoo toward it and firing a single shot into its forehead.

  It toppled backward. The clothes looked familiar, though his face was vastly inhuman. I analyzed his corpse for a moment.

  “He’s from Cara’s group,” I said.

  “Don’t know ‘em by sight,” said Punch. “I made excuses to sit it out when Krauss sent guys down to fuck with ‘em.”

  I looked at him. “I’m still not sure why you stayed,” I said. “Seems to me a guy like you could’ve outsmarted a bunch of pricks like them.”

  “Krauss wasn’t as dumb as you think. Like I think I told you, he suspected me from the start. He took leaving as an insult – which to him, was punishable by death. Or undeath.”

  I shook my head. “I’d rather die than live like that.”

  “I made my move when the time was right Flex,” he said, rubbing his hand over his short-cropped red hair. “Please don’t mistrust me. I’ll prove myself if that’s what it takes. Been lookin’ for a good group to settle in with, and so far, I like what I see.”

  I nodded. We looked down at the ground for the path and continued our progress along a flattened area of grass. It was so tall and overgrown everywhere, that if any group passed through an area frequently, the mashed down foliage was all that was needed to find one’s way.

  We stayed on the path for a good ten minutes. Ahead, we saw some clothing hanging from some trees, a couple of tents and a few camping tables with lanterns on them.

  Punch threw his arm against my chest. “Hold up, Flex.”

  He bent down and began moving some leaves away, revealing a tripwire, like the one Hemp had used with his snares.

  “Good defenses against the zombies, but not bad against Buckfield guys, either,” said Punch. “Over this way.” He moved about three feet away and I moved with him, making sure to stay in his path. He looked around, then poked at the tripwire with the stick.

  I heard something spring in the distance, and a large, cut branch hanging from a rope high above our heads pivoted down, a 10” railroad spike protruding from the end. It swung back and forth and finally fell still.

  We both stood. The metal spike had been sharpened to a fine point. It would have penetrated at a height of around 5’7”. That would get the average person in the head, though it might miss the brain of a taller person.

  “Good,” said Punch. “They’re careful. Now if we can get through without another one of these to the head.”

  “I don’t like this,” I said. “I don’t hear anything, and –”

  “Flex, look,” said Punch, interrupting. He pointed ahead. I could see a body, partially obstructed by low branches. I say it was a body even though it was standing. It hung limp.

  We walked toward it, sure to step over any ground abnormalities. Before we reached the person, I said, “Oh, God.”

  “Who is this?” asked Punch.

  The woman with the spike through the top of her skull was not human at the time of her death. This particular trap was designed to come down at an angle, but utilized the same railroad spike technology, if it could be called that.

  The branch had pivoted downward, the long, sharpened spike entering at the girl’s ear and coming out of the right side of the base of her neck. The blood that had run from the exit wound was black and crusted.

  It was Cara. In the center of her chest, a swarm of flies had lighted, milling around what I could see was a wound likely made by a shotgun. She had apparently reanimated shortly after being mortally wounded, and had walked into her own trap.

  A sound came from our right. Punch swung his shotgun around and fired in one motion. The creature flew off its feet and sank into the bed of leaves. We walked over to have a look.

  “That’s Cara in the trap,” I said, nodding my head toward her. “This is her brother. Can’t figure out why Krausse’s guys did it this way.”

  It made no sense to me that the Buckfield people would leave them in this condition, only to possibly threaten them in the future.

  Punch said what I was thinking. “Krauss looked at this like punishment. Eternal punishment. He was more frightened of living people than he was of the goddamned zombies.”

  “So he never went for head shots?” I asked.

  Punch didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and started inspecting the campsite. “Here,” he said.

  I walked beside him. Five bodies lay together, all riddled with gunshot wounds. Head shots, too. These people would not be coming back.

  “If showing mercy is killing you good and dead, he did it here,” said Punch. He pointed. More leaves had blown on top of the corpses since their deaths, but the scene before us was as gruesome as it was horrifying in its complete devastation of a family.

  Cara’s two sisters lay on their backs, their faces staring blankly toward the treetops. Their eyes remained open and their mouths, as if in the middle of a silent scream, hung open as well.

  Their gray skin was showing early signs of decomposition, but it was not riddled with the streaking veins of the abnormals.

  Holes peppered their blouses, tinged with black, bloody stains. The younger of the two girls had lost her eye in the battle – a telltale pistol just out of the reach of her fingertips, half-buried in the leaves. I bent down to pick up the revolver and opened the cylinder. I dumped the rounds into my hand and found them all to be expended.

  On the ground beside her was a box of ammo, spilled out among the pine needles and leaves, along with the urushiol bottle we’d given her, smashed on the ground, the top popped off and the bottle empty. She likely never had the chance to use the spray because her attackers weren’t susceptible to its properties, what with being human and alive and all.

  Cara, at least, appeared to have been ready to reload when all of their lives came to an abrupt end. I could see only this gun. A knife lay atop one of the men, but it was a useless weapon against Krauss and his marauders.

  The girls and their brothers had fought until they had nothing left with which to defend themselves. Either way, Cara Blake was dead now and the remainder of her family had suffered brutal, and more immediately permanent deaths.

  Then I remembered something. “Hold on Punch. We gotta go, but there’s something we need to do first.”

  “Sure,” he said. “You alright, man?”

  I shook my head. I realized I was crying as I walked back to where Cara stood, the spike splitting her skull. I looked down at her stomach. Not sure why I hadn’t noticed it before.

  The baby within the pregnant woman churned and roiled beneath the thin material of her maternity top.

  I was no doctor, and I didn’t even play one on TV. I could no more deliver a baby with a Cesarean than I could beat Gem in a game of Battleship.

  “How long you figure they’ve been dead?” I asked Punch.

  Punch went to one of Cara’s brothers and rolled him over. He cut his shirt and looked at his back. A second later, he came back to where I stood before the hanging Cara Blake.

  “About a day, I’d guess,” he said. “Just a rough estimate, though.”

  “So right after we blew the barricade they probably came over here and just fuckin’ attacked them.”<
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  “Yeah, sounds like Krauss. Why?”

  “So the baby inside this girl’s stomach can’t be alive,” I said. “Right?”

  “It’s a pretty good bet,” said Punch. “She was pregnant, huh? I didn’t even look at her belly, I was so focused on the rest.”

  “Dead a day or not, I’m compelled to check to make sure,” I said. “I’m guessin’ the baby would’ve died the moment Cara did.”

  “Trust me,” said Punch. “Whatever’s in there, it’s dead. Now put a final end to it and let’s get our asses back to your place.”

  Punch was right and I knew it. I was fighting the guilt for the fact that her entire family was dead. Had we not blown Krauss’s barricade and killed his men, it likely wouldn’t have been the case.

  But the big son-of-a-bitch had shot Tony, so I’d have never chanced a second of my time with the man in charge of men like the ones who had manned the barricade.

  I stood back and raised my Daewoo. I fired for a good three seconds into Cara’s stomach. Her body danced from the spike as the bullets ripped through her, and black-red blood leaked from her stomach wounds.

  The baby within her womb fell still.

  A sound came from our right and we both swung our weapons toward it.

  I looked at Punch. “That sound like a radio to you?”

  “It did,” he said, walking toward the sound. I followed.

  Beneath a branch, we found a low, one-man tent. It was the type shaped like an A that stood less than three feet from the ground, and it had been hidden pretty well. Wires streamed from a hole in the top of the tent, and we followed them to see them snake up the tree.

  “Wonder what this is about?” I said, picking up the wire.

  I lifted the front flap and looked inside. There was a Ham radio setup on a low, plastic table. Beside it were two of the two-way radios that Punch and I carried. Both of their short-distance aerials were connected to the wires leading in from outside.

  I ducked into the tent and pulled my radio off my belt. I switched the channel to 16 and pressed my button.

  “Test,” I said.

  My voice came out of the other radio. I turned to Punch. “Charged and working.”

  “Should have good range, too,” said Punch. “Looks like they’re wired up to that antenna over there,” said Punch, standing upright again.

  I got out of the tent. He pointed. “There, see?”

  About ten feet away, an old TV aerial stood around twelve to fifteen feet tall. It was in a clearing and guy wires anchored it to the ground. They had dangled leafy branches from it, most of which were now on the ground at its base, but some remained hung from the aerial rods.

  It had apparently been installed very securely to withstand even the hurricane force winds that George brought with him.

  “They must’ve been here a while,” I said. “I assume these other wires lead to solar panels or something?”

  Punched looked up. “Don’t see ‘em, but the wires run high enough in that tree to make sense,” said Punch. “Want to see if you can get your family on the Ham?”

  “I may not need it with that antenna,” I said. “Hemp did something similar at my old place, and we could talk on it for miles.”

  “Go for it,” said Punch.

  I slid back into the tent and picked up the small, two-way handheld. Even with the solar juice available, it was my best shot if they had lost generator power back home.

  *****

  My baby boy struggled to breathe. It was darkening outside, and soon would be night. With the heavy cloud cover, the moon would be nonexistent and the black would be pure.

  I now had to keep the oxygen on Flexy all the time, just to force the air into his lungs. Hemp came to me.

  “How’s the little guy doing?” he asked.

  I looked at him. “He’s struggling, Hemp,” I said. “I don’t want to … to cut him, Hemp. Isn’t there another way?”

  “I need to check his throat again,” he said. “Doc, come here, please?”

  “Yeah, Hemp,” said Scofield. “What can I do?”

  “Well, you could deliver that baby right now, but barring that, I need you to shine that flashlight here.”

  Scofield pulled out the flashlight and I removed the oxygen bottle from Flexy’s nose and mouth. Hemp ran his finger down my infant son’s lower lip and he opened his mouth wide in a yawn, attempting to pull in air that he could not get.

  We all saw why instantly. The black, fibrous area in his throat had grown, now extending so far down we couldn’t see where it ended.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered, even though I wanted to scream it.

  “Is he still struggling when you give him the oxygen?” asked Scofield.

  “No,” I said. “He seems okay. As long as the pressure’s there.”

  “Then we have a bit more time before any drastic measures,” said Hemp. “Doc, do you agree?”

  “From what I know about it, when the time’s here, it’ll be pretty clear,” he said. “But Gem, we can’t hold off too long. The procedure takes a few moments, too, so he can’t already be in trouble when we start.”

  While all of this was going on, sapping me of more of my resolve and inner strength, the vibration from the red-eyes had grown so intense it no longer just assaulted our ears. It rattled our goddamned teeth and our brains, not to mention that it felt like I was using a pocket rocket vibrator all over my body.

  “I can’t fucking take this anymore!” shouted Charlie. “I didn’t want to have my baby this way!”

  We had intentionally kept from Charlie the seriousness of Flexy’s condition. And with the noise from the vibration, sound didn’t travel very far within the mobile lab, so she could stay blissfully unaware.

  Hemp squeezed her hand. “Charlie, there’s nothing we can do about it. You need to remain calm.”

  “Dude, I got my weed,” said Nelson. “I know it’s not like an epidermal or anything, but it’ll help.”

  “Epidural,” said Hemp. “And yes, I believe it will.”

  “Will it hurt the baby?” asked Charlie.

  “Not in the slightest,” said Hemp. “One or two tokes should take the edge off and relax you. I’m sorry I don’t have more drugs in here. I keep them in a cooler inside, and there was no time to fetch them.”

  “Ha ha,” said Nelson. “Tokes. Reminds me of the Steve Miller Band. Anyway, you sure you don’t mind? I could use a hit, too.”

  “Get over here, Nel,” said Charlie. “Like yesterday.”

  I wanted to join them because I was about to lose my shit, too. I didn’t. Charlie had an excuse and Nelson functioned like a well-oiled machine on weed, but I’d just be stoned and useless. And likely more paranoid.

  In five minutes, Charlie actually turned toward me and smiled. “How are the walls holding up?” she asked.

  “Yeah, like you care,” I said, jealous. “I’m almost afraid to check.”

  “It’s starting to get dark,” said Rachel. “If you’re going to let me go up there, I need to do it before the walls are so weak they won’t support my weight.”

  “It’s a good point,” said Hemp. “But you still haven’t presented us with a plan for when you get up there.”

  “Dude, I can help her,” said Nelson. “She’s my chick anyway, so I should go with her, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty skinny. I’m pretty sure I got through some smaller holes that than one in my time.”

  “Nelson,” said Rachel. “There’s no reason to go.”

  “As much as there is for you to go,” he said.

  “I … Hemp’s right,” she said. “I don’t even have a plan. I only knew I could get out.”

  “Let’s make a plan, then,” he said. “Hemp. You’re the professor. What all kills them? Gunshots to the brain, urushiol for the dumb ones, and what for the smart ones?”

  “Gunshots still work,” said Hemp. “But they’re sharp and they hide behind the others.”

  “Not if we take the other
s down,” said Rachel. “We take out all the regular rotters and we can shoot the red-eyes.”

  A voice came over the radio on the counter. “Gem? Hemp? Do you read?”

  It was Flex. My heart stopped and I ran to the counter and grabbed the radio. I mashed my thumb on the button and said, “Flex? Baby, is that you?”

  I knew it was, but I wanted him to acknowledge it. I needed to hear him say my name again, and I needed to know he was almost here.

  “Gem!” he said, relief in his voice. “Gem, how is everyone? How’d you make it through the storm?”

  “Flex, it’s not good,” I said. “The house … it’s gone. Destroyed. Rogue tornado tore it to shit and we got caught in the basement for a while.”

  “Where are you now, Gem? Is everyone safe? Is Flexy okay?”

  “We’re in the mobile lab, but it’s disintegrating. Flex, he’s showing some advanced symptoms. Where are you? Please tell me you’re close. You’re on this radio, so you have to be close, right?” I could hear the desperation in my own voice.

  The door shifted in its frame, and the wall suddenly began flexing inward and outward, as though it were a cardboard house with no roof.

  “Jesus Christ, Flex,” I said. Then: “Someone get that door! Hold on to the door!”

  Dave and Serena were already there. Dave held the handle, and Serena pushed on the wall next to it to prevent it from flopping inward, its sandwiched foam center likely dissolved to dust.

  “What the hell is goin’ on there, Gem?” asked Flex, his voice rising.

  “We’re trapped, Flex. Charlie is having her baby, the red-eyes are outside vibrating our walls into nothing, and we’re trapped in here. All of us. Can you get here? Can you do anything?”

  “Give the radio to Hemp,” he said. “I got some stuff he told me to get. The estrogen blocker. I just need to know how to use it.”

  “I love you, babe,” I said. “How far away are you?”

  “I can be there in half an hour if I drive like a motherfucker.”

  “Then you need to drive like a motherfucker, babe,” I said. “Our situation is deteriorating like this goddamned lab.”