Dead Hunger

by Eric A. Shelman

  Larry Peale stopped for a long time. He broke down, his shoulders hunched, his entire body shuddering. “I’m so worried about my wife, Nancy, and our little girl, Tamara. I can’t reach them and they haven’t texted me or anything. I hope they’re alright.” He then raised his eyes. “Nance, Tam, if you’re home, please hide. Hide in a closet. These things aren’t smart. They’re like animals as far as I can tell. Hide and don’t open the door for anyone. Someone will come to help us soon. They have to.”

  I knew it was more a wish than a sure thing. We all figured help would come. It always had before.

  He waited until he could continue and said, “I started to run out, but Frank stepped into the hallway in front of me, blocking my way. I turned to get to the fire exit, but Patti Foster was there, and she was the same as Frank. She let out some… I don’t know, this fog or something, from her face. It came from her face somehow! I don’t know what it was, but she was stumbling toward me, Frank was behind me, and I just ran in here, into the studio. I locked the door. That was at around 3:30 this morning.”

  I turned it off. I couldn’t watch anymore. He didn’t know any more than I did.

  I lay back and my head hit the pillow.

  My eyes slammed shut. They didn’t open until I heard the clatter of pots, pans and breaking glass.

  *****

  I sat up and grabbed my shotgun from the bed beside me. A scream broke the silence and I got to my feet and tried to shake the cobwebs from my brain as I bolted for the door. I had to pee and I could barely see. It was morning, but it was also a weird new world.

  I yanked the door open to see a man standing at the top of the stairs. Erica’s door was closed.

  “Erica!” I yelled. “You okay?”

  “Yes! I went out and saw the things on the stairs!”

  “Things?”

  I couldn’t see the rest of the stairs, but a sudden clanging came from behind the strange human-like thing, and I tensed.

  The man with gray skin and blank eyes did not turn at the noise; instead, he stared at me as he took jerky steps, advancing toward me. As he drew closer, the strange, pink gas beginning to pump from his eyes, I slapped my hand on the wall of Erica’s room and yelled, “I’m going to fire!”

  I pulled the trigger. The noise of the explosion overpowered the thing’s moans as I watched it fly backward off its feet and down the stairs. The dozens of pellets peppered the intruder in the neck and chest, pulverizing him from my short range.

  I ran forward and watched him toppling down the stairs, the pots and pans and three more of his sick friends caught by his tumbling body and taking a fast trip to the bottom.

  A woman wearing a red and white polka-dotted dress broke through the railing and landed on one of the split rails. It punched through her midsection and came out her back as she came to rest with a heavy thud.

  I raised the shotgun again as I heard the door open behind me. I pulled out my Sig and gave it to Erica. “You ever used one of these?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve never fired a gun.”

  “Then point it at the floor. If anything gets by me, let it get close to you and point that end at its head and fire. Use both hands.”

  “Tony,” she said. “Tony, they’re coming!”

  “I know, I know!” I said, keeping my eye on the other two thrashed men. At least the guy I’d shot with the Benelli wasn’t moving.

  I heard the door to my right open and saw Erica going into the room where Monica slept. Rattling pots drew my attention to another of the creatures that had now made it three quarters of the way up the stairs. “Fuck!” I shouted, taking aim again. I aimed for the head and fired.

  The round blew his head into shreds and he did a backward somersault down the stairs. To my left I saw the woman with the piece of railing protruding from her belly stand up and stare at me.

  Her teeth gnashed and she growled. She should be dead. So dead.

  But she wasn’t.

  That was when I reached into my brain and said the word for the first time, if only to myself.

  Zombies. She was dead; nobody could live with that giant piece of wood running all the way through them. Nobody. It had to have snapped her spinal cord, so she wouldn’t be able to move.

  I knew a lot about what the human body could take from my own fall. I really had luck on my side when I landed. I should have been dead.

  So should the woman downstairs, now making her way – stair rail and all – toward the steps again.

  I walked to the stairs and hurried down to the midway point, careful not to trip on anything along the way. She was now on the second step. I raised my gun and fired.

  Her facial features dissolved into raw meat as she flew backward, her arms flailing wildly. When she landed on her back, one arm bent behind her and snapped. Just the realization of what the sound was made me nauseous.

  The railing that had run through her middle pushed outward as her back slammed into the floor, tilting to the side and coming to rest against another dead crazy.

  The scream from behind me almost caused me to lose my footing. I recovered and grabbed the remaining rail, pulling myself up. “Erica!” I shouted as I reached the top of the stairs, grabbed the inside of the door frame and practically slingshotted myself into the bedroom.

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Erica held the gun as Monica advanced on her. As she backed away from her changed friend, moving toward the window too fast, I opened my mouth to yell at her to stop, but I had seen the peril too late.

  She crashed through the window, the many small panes shattering as the French window gave way.

  Monica turned toward me. Her face was shredded, as though she had been ravaged by one of the creatures that had come into the house, but when I looked at her fingers, I saw her fingernails were covered in blood and pieces of hanging flesh.

  She had done it to herself. She went for the window and I fired, blowing her against the wall before she reached it.

  I ran toward her. I’d hit her in the chest and she was turning over, trying to get her feet back under her. Instinctively, I ran toward her and kicked her in the face, just as her own version of the knockout mist began pumping out, and I raised the shotgun again, blowing her face into a disgusting stain on the wall.

  Acutely aware that there could be more of the monsters coming up the stairs, I spun around and slammed the door shut, then turned toward the window and looked out.

  “Tony!” shouted Erica. The pitch of the roof was steep; she had a handhold on a vent pipe that looked strong. I turned and looked at the bed. It was queen sized. “Hold on, Erica! I’ll get you in a second, okay? You okay?”

  “I can hold on,” she grunted. “Hurry!”

  I spun around and threw the comforter off the bed, then tore the sheets off. With surging adrenaline coursing through my veins, I ripped the sheet in half and tied the ends together. I repeated that process with the fitted sheet. When I was done I had a good length of makeshift rope.

  I tied one end to the heavy bedpost and pulled the other end to the window.

  It was a good thing I’d slept in my boots. I kicked out the rest of the broken glass; the last thing I needed was my rescue rope to slice through in the middle of my rescue operation.

  Sounds came from outside the bedroom door.

  Moans, sounds of hunger. Growls; animalistic. Not human.

  I stepped through the window, holding onto my sheet as I made my way the nine feet or so from the gable window to where Erica clung. I had the sheet under me and fed it out like I’d seen people do when they rappelled in movies. It got me to where she was.

  “Can you pull yourself up by this? Got enough strength?”

  “I can,” said Erica, her grateful, brown eyes staring at me. “But what about you?”

  “Let’s get you in. I’ll swap you for the vent pipe, and you just tie a knot on the end and throw it back down to me when you get inside.”

  “Okay.”

  “
Ready?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  I held the vent with one hand above hers and felt it give, just a little. It was almost imperceptible. I didn’t say anything. With my left hand, I reached down and got a good grip on the waistband of her jeans. “Okay, take the sheet. I got you.”

  She let go of the vent pipe, got the sheet, and pulled herself up the angled roof shingles. I pulled with my left hand, helping her along. In thirty seconds she was above the vent pipe, and put her foot on it, taking a short break.

  I felt it give again. I still didn’t say anything except, “Hurry, Erica. They’re outside the bedroom already.”

  She looked at me, and I felt her sadness. “Is Monica… dead?”

  “I think she was already, Erica. I’m sorry. Now go, okay? Don’t look down to the left when you get in.”

  She nodded and continued pulling herself up the sheet. She had removed her foot from the pipe and I was glad. I said a prayer. If I could have touched my St. Christopher medallion, I would have.

  As she stepped over the windowsill, I took hold of the sheet and released my grip on the vent pipe. I pulled myself, despite my screaming back, up the sheet and into the bedroom. When I was inside, I pulled the sheet up and spread it open, laying it over Monica’s body.

  “Thanks for that,” said Erica. “Tony, what’s happening?”

  She burst into tears. I fought doing the same.

  I shook my head. “This is serious. I know you know that, but it’s scary serious, Erica. These things. They’re dead. Before I shoot them. They’re dead.”

  “Like… like zombies?” she asked though her tears.

  “I don’t know what else to call them.”

  Erica’s tee shirt was ripped at the shoulder, but still served to cover her. Aside from that and her blue jeans, she had a pair of canvas Vans on her feet, which looked good for any running we might need to be doing. I was glad to have taken my boots when I left my house because I needed something I could move fast in when necessary. I’d been wearing work boots my whole life, so they were like a part of me.

  “Where’s the gun?” I asked.

  “It went off the edge when I fell out the window,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s probably in the back yard in the bushes.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Where are your car keys?”

  “In my room. In my purse.”

  “You hear that out there?”

  “The… things? In the hall?”

  “Yeah. We need to get out of here. That’s the only way, and we have to get to your car, too.”

  “We don’t know how many are out there, Tony,” she said.

  “I know. I’m gonna hold this shotgun at the ready and you need to pull that door open. I’ll take care of any of them, but we need to move our asses. They’ve obviously gotten past our window blockades.”

  “Wait!” she said. She went to the closet and pulled the door open. She leaned in and a moment later she emerged with what looked to me like a pretty high quality croquet mallet. “Will this help?”

  “You okay with bashing your neighbors in the head with that thing?”

  “If they come at me, I think so.”

  “They will, I’m pretty sure,” I said. “That’s what they seem to do.”

  She nodded. “Let’s hurry before more come.” She put her hand on the knob. “Ready?”

  “No,” I said. “Open it.”

  She pulled it wide open and stepped back, gripping the wooden mallet with both hands.

  Luckily, in the hall, just three more of the creatures waited. When the door opened, they poured in like flowing water following the path of least resistance.

  The first one tripped on something and fell to the floor as the woman-creature behind it trounced on his back.

  Erica raised the mallet and brought it down in a swinging arc, slamming into the back of the thing’s skull.

  The monster behind her was blowing the pink mist as she fell in, and I staggered back. Erica was not as prepared, and it engulfed her head. She moved to wave it away, but her eyes fluttered back and she collapsed beside the creature she’d pummeled.

  I knew she’d be out a while. I raised the shotgun and fired again, blowing back the next creature, sending it into Erica’s room where it lay still.

  There was no more rattling of pots from the stairs. I took another glance at the zombies near Erica, made sure none were moving, and charged in to grab her purse off the nightstand.

  Jogging back to the bedroom where Erica lay, I rested the shotgun on the floor and knelt beside her. Slapping her face lightly, I put my other hand beneath her head and lifted it up. Her eyes fluttered, but did not open.

  Fuck it. I needed to prepare. With my messed up body I would not be able to carry her, but with more time maybe I could get her awake.

  I checked the dead zombies beside her once more to be sure, before digging through her bag to find her car keys. Next, I grabbed my shotgun and ran into the hall, pulling the door closed behind me.

  I charged down the steps, barely paying attention to the kitchen obstacles I’d put there, and ran into the kitchen. I’d left my bag of ammo there. Slinging it over my shoulder, I saw another of the creatures slipping through the window on the west side of the house. I fired, blowing his left leg into hamburger. He was down enough for me.

  Erica drove a Cadillac Escalade. Bad on gas, but big and tough. I’d take number two for now. I pulled the door open and jumped inside. Searching the interior, I saw a button on the ceiling. I pushed it and immediately heard the garage door begin to open.

  I pushed it again and it stopped. Once more and it dropped again. Good. We had power, a vehicle and one gun.

  We needed more in a world like this one. I again wondered who the men in the Jeep had been. Were they good guys or bad guys? They sure didn’t seem to care about harming innocent people, so I’d guess they weren’t model citizens. There were a few bad apples in Shelburne before all this went down, and they were just the types to take advantage of widespread chaos.

  I put the key in the ignition and turned it. She had a full tank. Good. Perfect.

  I reloaded the shotgun to capacity again before tucking the ammo bag in the back seat along with Erica’s purse. Then I ran back inside the house and up the stairs, gun in hand.

  The door was still closed, so I opened it and went inside, kneeling down beside Erica again. I put my Benelli aside and lifted her head with my left palm, lightly slapping her cheeks with my right. Her eyelids fluttered and opened.

  She was awake. “Tony?” she croaked. “What… happened?”

  “Can you get up? We have to go.”

  “Help me,” she said, holding out her hands. I stood and pulled her to her feet.

  “Feel alright?” I asked. “You got doused by that pink mist stuff that comes out of their eyes.”

  “How do you know about it?”

  “Same thing happened to me. Linda was putting the stuff out. I got sprayed and went out for double-digit hours. I’m glad you woke up at all.”

  “Wow,” she said, staggering. I caught her arm.

  “We’re between attacks for now, but we gotta move. Steady yourself on the wall on the way downstairs. Anything else you need to get before we make a run for it?”

  “Your gun, Tony. It’s in the bushes still, right?”

  “I won’t need it,” I said. “We’re going to my work.”

  “Where’s that?” she asked.

  I realized she didn’t know. “I’ve been working at Davillo’s Guns in South Burlington. Anyway, Nick DeSante and his son run the place, and there should be plenty of guns,” I said. “I just hope they’re still alive.”

  “I don’t need anything else,” she said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  We got downstairs with minimal hassle, but as we passed a photograph of Erica and her parents, obviously taken some years earlier based on Erica’s appearance at the time, she snagged the entire frame.

  I didn
’t say anything. I knew why she took it. In a crazy world, memories of a time when things were normal and good could get you through.

  *****

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Damned roads are barely drivable,” I mumbled as I cranked the wheel around yet another crashed car. “And what the hell is with all the shot-up cars?”

  “Police?” said Erica.

  “But why? Just because of this outbreak? Cops just start shooting at houses and cars with people in them?”

  I got onto Shelburne Road and headed north toward Davillo’s. It was only five miles, and we’d driven three of them when I saw a vehicle coming up fast behind us. I couldn’t tell much about it except that it was a pickup truck of some kind.

  “Somebody’s behind us,” I said.

  Erica turned to look. “They’re coming up on us fast.”

  “I don’t know why I’m nervous,” I said, pushing my foot on the gas pedal just a bit harder. “Probably from what happened at your place.”

  “They’re still gaining,” said Erica, tension in her voice.

  The rear window of the Escalade exploded in a blast of shattered glass that flew all the way into the front seat.

  “Drive!” shouted Erica, dropping low in her seat. I did the same, cranking the wheel hard right onto a side street, then making another quick left as I straightened back up in the seat. I made my next right and turned left into an alley.

  “Where are you going?” asked Erica.

  “Not sure. Just want enough turns between us and them that they don’t know where the hell we are.”

  I saw what looked like an RV repair yard to my left, the fence chained. “I think I can run through that chain link,” I said. “Sorry in advance for your paint job.”

  Erica didn’t respond to my misplaced joke, but I turned the wheel and floored it. The front of the Cadillac smashed into the fence. Rather than breaking it, the poles bent forward and the entire fence fell flat to the ground. We rolled over it, cleared it and I spun the wheel hard to the right to slide the SUV behind an old Forest River fifth wheel.

  I looked behind me and prayed for the dust to settle fast. With a turn of the key, the engine shut off. I rolled down both windows and we listened.