by Joe McKinney
There were two bullet holes. One in its forehead, and the other in the now destroyed chin. I lowered the barrel of the Uzi to his cranium to make sure. I gave it a short burst and felt better.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get our friend out of that cage and go get us some evidence.”
Chapter 5
Hemp was no pussy. I could tell right away. He grabbed the empty .45 from the cell floor and tucked it in his pants.
“Popular gun,” Hemp said. “If we don’t find any ammo in evidence, I can find a bit on some of the police officers.”
I led this time, and once we got on the second floor through a stairwell, the signs directing us to evidence were pretty clear. It was on the third floor. We stayed keenly aware of sounds other than ours, and kept our gun barrels high. Only head shots were of any value. This had become instinct now. I imagine even Hemp – especially Hemp – had learned that lesson. He brought up the rear as the only guy without a loaded weapon.
Then I remembered. Hell, how could I forget? I reached into my waistband and handed him one of the Berettas. “Check the magazine.”
I hadn’t considered that Hemp may have never handled a gun before except during his emergency in the cell, but he quickly pressed the magazine release button, dropping it into his hand. He looked at the side of the mag at the view slots counted the rounds, and slammed the mag back home.
I shook my head. “Good. You seem to know your way around a pistol. Now just remember to aim high and don’t shoot if we’re in the general direction you’re pointing.”
“Understood,” Hemp confirmed.
I took Trina from Gem again. She was getting awfully heavy, and I was ready to get this done and get back on the road.
“This is it,” Gem said. She put her key in the lock and turned it. The lock spun and the door clicked open. Our crew of Ghostbusters, or whatever we were these days, walked in. The power was out – not sure why, but the emergency lights were running on fast fading batteries and were no longer very bright. The lighting was equivalent to that of a romantic restaurant and the more time that passed, the worse it would be come. Flashlights were effective, but they also screamed “I’M RIGHT FUCKING HERE!” to anyone within view.
“I’ll get the back wall and first couple of aisles. Hemp, get these two. We’re looking for badass firearms and ammo of any and all kinds.”
Gem found a two-tiered rolling cart with a rubber-lined surface. Perfect to transport our swag. I headed down the far wall, and Gem hit the middle. I could hear her sliding some drawers open, and Hemp was already investigating his rows.
I reached a wide, metal two-door cabinet around three-quarters of the way down the aisle. It was locked, but it did not appear to be designed for strength, because I was able to force the flimsy knob to turn. I yanked hard on the handle and the door popped open.
I stood back and whistled, throwing my caution of the things that ate people to the wind. And then I laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants. Trina started to stir in my arms and I tried to contain myself. But I had a damned good reason.
I’d hit the motherload.
*****
“This one is a US built weapon, the Calico M960,” Hemp said. His sandy, almost white-blonde hair hung into his eyes and he shook it back to the side. “The beauty of it is the high-capacity, helical-feed magazine. This firearm holds . . . hold on.”
He went back to the cabinet and sorted through a few of the boxes. When he turned around again he had a round, steel magazine in his hand. “This one holds 100 rounds. There’s a fifty in there too, but I thought this one might make us all a bit happier. With a full magazine it’s going to be quite heavy – not something you’d want to run too far with.”
Gem looked at me. She was holding Trina again, who was more awake, but nodding off now and then. She shrugged, then asked, “And you know all this because you do what for a living?”
“Scientist,” he said. “Biology degree with a focus on epidemiology, primarily. That’s why I’m so interested in this infection, or whatever it is. Everything I learn and observe might help me understand more about it. How it spreads, what it does.”
“So you study human epidemics, that sort of thing?” I asked.
Hemp nodded. He was just under six feet tall, and a good looking guy. I liked him immediately.
“But how do you know about guns?” I asked. “That’s the obvious question.”
Hemp smiled. “I’ve had a fascination with guns of all kinds for years. It’s part of the reason I got my second degree in mechanical engineering. My father used to pick me up broken guns from pawn shops – got them for next to nothing. When I was six, I’d break them down, figure out how to re-bore the cylinders, steel wool the rods, and I’d basically restore them. By the time I turned thirteen I was more interested in machine guns. They were much more interesting and complex, and being a teenager, my dad felt I was responsible enough to start breaking them down. I got a part time job and started paying for them myself, but my dad still had to go make the purchase.” He smiled.
My eyebrows could not have gotten higher. Gem said it first. “So you’ve got degrees in epidemiology and mechanical engineering. Flex, our stories suck compared to his. Hemp, Flex Sheridan there is an electrician, but don’t sell him short – he does do commercial work, too. I’m an artist. I work in several mediums, but none of them will immediately help us out of the shit storm that has befallen the state of Florida, and I’m assuming the entire world. So if I could, I’d handcuff you to Flex now and keep you with us, because I think you are going to be very helpful.”
“You said a bad word,” Trina said in a very soft voice.
“Sorry, baby,” Gem said, stroking her hair. “Gemmy’s had a hard day.”
Hemp threw his hands out to his sides, the magazine still clutched in his left. “I don’t have to be convinced here,” he said. “You are the only uninfecteds I’ve seen, and the fact that we’re not all victims of it means there’s a reason. I don’t know what it is, but it might be something we have in common, or maybe it affects people at different rates, based on diet, physiology, whatever. But as for me, I just drove down to Florida from Atlanta all by myself to check out the Kennedy Space Center. I’ve got no wife or kids, and I don’t even have a girlfriend right now. So don’t take this wrong, but you will do just fine.”
“Safety in numbers?” Gem pulled up a wooden chair and sat in it with Trina resting against her shoulder, awake still, but staring into space.
Hemp nodded. “You already saved me once. I might have starved to death in that cell.”
“I’d like to chit-chat all day,” I said. “But we need to find out which weapons we have matching ammo for and stack ‘em in that cart right there. Then we need to work our way down the stairs somehow, get back to the Suburban and get out of here. I think it’s about as weird as hell that we haven’t run into more of these things, but we’re bound to hit some big numbers sometime. The sooner we’re mobile, the better I’m going to feel.”
“Especially with this one,” Gem said, bouncing Trina on her knee.
We all got to work. Soon, all of our weapons carried the weight of full magazines.
And we had plenty of ammo and firepower to spare.
*****
We left the police station without incident at around 4:30 in the morning. We made it to the Suburban without encountering any people or any infecteds, and I had them all get inside the SUV while I checked on Jamie.
My gun at ready, and found Jamie still in her cocoon, undisturbed. I thought again about her hunger. She wasn’t moaning now. I placed my hand on the bundle and said “Sis, if I can somehow wake you from this nightmare, I will. I promise you.” I got back in the driver’s seat. I was still wide awake.
After stopping at a gas station that clearly still had power, and being surprised that my swipe credit card still activated the pump, I got back in and started the engine.
I told Hemp what the situation was as we rolled along T
homasville Road, AKA Interstate 61, heading north. Gem volunteered to sit in the back seat with Trina, while Hemp sat in front.
“I want to warn you, Flex,” said Hemp. “I’ll talk about this with you, fully realizing it’s sensitive. When I refer to your sister, I am going use the same terminology and analyses that I would with regard to any of the infected, so please, do your best to forget that she is so closely related. It’s not my intention to offend.”
“I got it,” I said. “Understood.”
“Okay, the first thing I want to tell you is that the likelihood that there will be a cure anytime soon for such a widespread, fast-moving disease – we’ll call it that for now for lack of a better term – is almost nil.”
He paused for a moment, as though to allow it to sink into my thick brain. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, so it was probably smart of him. I said nothing, but nodded at him.
“Okay, now, think odds. Of the people who are capable of finding the cure to this, scientists such as myself – and many of them far smarter than me, I might add – a large portion are inevitably becoming infected. It’s the odds playing out, which means there is at least a 50/50 chance that the person who was going to discover the cure for this, if one can be found, is one of the infected.”
Gem added, “And judging from what we’ve run into already, I’d say it’s much greater odds than 50/50. I’d put it at closer to 90/10. And that’s conservative. We’ve literally run into nobody alive who was calling for help but you.”
Thomasville Road turned into Interstate 319. Along the way we came across several of the dead-but-not-dead things, but we encountered no living human beings. This was dashing our hopes, encounter by encounter. By the time we passed, they were too far behind us to be a threat. Most were . . . eating, and a little distracted.
“I don’t know about leaving them all alive. They’d kill any of us, so aren’t they the enemy?” Gem looked at me. “I’m sorry, Flex. But –”
“Gem, you don’t have to walk on eggshells with me. But I don’t want to call them zombies, or creatures or monsters, or anything like it. How about . . . let’s call them abnormals for now.”
Hemp nodded. “Abnormals. That works. And Flex, let me share with you that I think it’s good we have one of them subdued. The only way a cure of any kind will be found is if they can be analyzed, examined.”
“I don’t want her hurt in any way, Hemp. Not one hair. I’m worried about her hunger. She could –”
I stopped talking. I wasn’t sure she could die. I didn’t know enough. I looked at Hemp. “Can she die?”
“She can be killed, as you know already, with trauma to the head – most likely the brain. But as for starvation? It’s too soon. They are clearly ravenous. This is what drives them. And that’s important for you to remember about your sister. This is not a vindictive or vengeful thing, what they’re doing. They are hungry, and that’s all they are.”
I nodded. “Wolves and bears can’t be blamed for killing, either. It’s a survival instinct. But they kill just the same, and when their populations get too high, it’s hunting season. Gem’s right.” I felt her hand on my shoulder. I was glad for it. What I said next, I didn’t want to say. But I knew it was true.
“We’ve got to kill them all.”
But when we reached the state line, that seemed next to impossible. We needed fuel again, saw a Texaco sign brightly lit, and had gotten off at the first exit inside Georgia.
At least 50 of them blocked the road, some hunched over bodies, feasting. Others moving toward our truck. Some moved slowly, lackadaisically, but others, if it were possible, seemed excited at the prospect of us, and moved at a faster clip. I hoped it was just my imagination.
“Holy fuck,” said Gem.
“You said another really bad word, Gemmy.”
“Baby, you get on the floor. Now.”
“Get the 100-rounders,” I said. “We’re going to need them.”
Hemp already had one in each hand and Gem’s was leaning against her door. With the abnormals twenty-five feet from the Suburban, we opened the doors and stepped into our biggest battle yet.
*****
“Where the fuck did they all come from?” I called out, and Gem, already firing into the group, answered.
“Not sure babe, but I plan to send as many as I can to Hell!” She took aim and blasted the heads off of three of them that were within twenty feet.
Hemp did know his weapons. He charged forward toward them for a good, predictable shot, and in six short bursts, took seven of them down. For my part, I’d taken five out, and from our first estimate, we should’ve had right around thirty-five to go. We were wrong. There were dozens of them outside of our line of fire, making their way toward us along the shoulder behind the many cars that either crashed or had been hastily parked there. In my peripheral vision, I could see a few of them flanking us, and that didn’t make any sense at all for things with just one emotion – hunger.
“Hemp, do you see what’s happening?” I ran back to the truck and yanked open the door. “Trina, no matter what you hear, you keep your head down, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Uncle Flexy,” she answered from under her comforter.
“Okay, sweetheart.” I pulled the key and leaned over and pushed the lock down on the passenger side, then locked the driver’s door and slammed it. I wanted to leave the rear doors open for quick access to the other weapons and ammo in case we needed them.
“Hemp, what do you think?” I called. Gem was focused. I glanced at her every now and then, in between shots.
“I think I’m glad we got these high-capacity magazines,” he said. “It’s going to be close.”
“Gem, watch! There’s two on your right!” I had my share of them working their way on my left, too, so took careful aim in the lightening sky and brought down six more in a spray of crimson that painted the gravel red.
We were in a isosceles triangle formation with Hemp out front, Gem on the right side of the Suburban, and me on the left. Hemp was using his M960 efficiently, and with minimal use of rounds, he was taking them out down the middle, leaving the side trackers to us. There was a car just to Gem’s right, and that’s how they got so close to her.
Gem turned and blew the heads completely off the two closest when they were just feet away from her. The light breeze blew the blood spray back toward her and she turned away momentarily to keep it out of her face. As she did so, she saw two more behind her. I had ducked down low to see beneath the Suburban, and saw their legs moving toward her. I heard her gun click.
“Run toward Hemp!” I shouted at Gem, and dropped to my stomach on the pavement. I fired a long burst, turning the creatures’ legs into stumps. Then I ran around the truck and turned their gnashing faces and heads into pulp. “That’s the fucking way we do it, asshole!” I shouted. This fucker had almost gotten the jump on my woman, and that shit was NOT acceptable.
“Gem!” She turned toward me, gratitude on her face. I threw my gun to her and she deftly caught it. In one swift motion she turned and took out no fewer than ten of the slow walkers on her right. I was back at the car, yanking the rear door open to grab another fully loaded rifle. This was one of the newest machine guns in the mix, A Daewoo K7 from the early 2000’s. It only had a 32 round magazine on it, so I set it to the three-round burst mode. With speed, I could take out two or three of them per burst.
I slammed the door in time to turn and find one of them almost right behind me. Behind him were four more, coming out of the ditch from behind an old Nissan Sentra. I shot him in the mouth, and his head broke into two sloppy halves that slid down his body. As he fell, the others came into my sights, and I used two more quick bursts to take them down.
One of them could have been no older than sixteen years. I stared at the body on the ground for a moment. Somebody’s son. Maybe they’d been on their way down to Orlando to see Disney World for the first time.
But this was no longer that family. These were not p
eople now, and it was becoming clearer to me with every one of them I . . . murdered.
Stop that shit, Flex. Stop it.
Subconsciously I heard the gunfire all around me grow more and more infrequent. I shook off my heavy thoughts and ran around the rear of the trailer, scanned the freeway exit we’d driven up as far as I could see, then ran around the other side of the Suburban where Gem was in the process of shooting what used to be a woman wearing a “I’m With Stupid” shirt featuring an arrow pointing up. Stupid went down in a pool of muck.
“How we doin’, guys?” Gem called, her eyes peeled for movement, her head moving side to side as she focused on the fading shadows around her.
I respected that woman more than ever. I never knew what was inside her, her strength, the pure will she possessed. I knew she had all the things I wanted, but I had no idea she also had what I needed. Everything I needed. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but we hadn’t had the time since this whole thing began. When we got back to my house, I’d make the time.
“Good,” Hemp said. “I’m thinking . . . almost afraid to say it, but I’m thinking we’ve got them.”
I checked the area behind the cars again, and walked forward. Hemp followed while Gem stayed near the Suburban and peered inside to check on Trina. Hemp and I scouted about fifty yards or so out in front of our vehicle. We both got to our knees and searched under the cars. All the bodies we encountered were either half-eaten human beings or abnormals with serious – and I mean deadly serious – head trauma.
“Hemp,” I said, pointing at a Toyota Highlander that was rocking back and forth. I used hand motions to him as we separated and approached the vehicle from two sides. I saw the cause of the rocking almost immediately. Feet stuck out of the rear passenger side door. We’d been unable to see it as we walked by earlier on the other side of a crashed minivan.
I walked slowly, gun held at ready, and moved closer so I could see what was happening inside. When I finally could see, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.