by Hilaire, Tes
The Hunger Chronicles
A collection of shorts
Tes Hilaire
The Hunger Chronicles: A collection of shorts
Copyright © 2013 by Tes Hilaire
Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc., http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from the author, Tes Hilaire.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Excerpt of Life Bites copyright 2013 by Tes Hilaire
Books by Tes Hilaire
The Paladin Warrior Novels:
Deliver Me from Darkness
Deliver Me from Temptation
Deliver Me a Paladin for Christmas (A Paladin Warrior Short)
Prince of Shadows (Dec 2013)
Other Series:
Life Bites: Hunger Chronicles Book one (June 2013)
Fifteen Forever (Aug 2013)
To Brian and Darin Angelo, my first zombie fans
Imminent Contact
The gun popped out of its holster, the cold metal sliding like a lover’s caress against my outer thigh. More reassuring than a lover, though. A gun never let you down. And unlike a man, was still there in the morning.
It was morning now. Pre-dawn, actually. I watched as the shadows dissipated, revealing the soot covered and crumbling face of what had once been bustling downtown San Francisco. Another night survived, another day to reclaim our world. We did it building by building, street by street, city by city.
Today the goal was three blocks. That would make the rest of the once glitzy Chinatown ours. Next week? The rotting remains of Fisherman’s Wharf. From there, it was a hop, skip, and jump across the bay to Alcatraz where the lab was. If we could just get to the lab…
I raised my head, my gaze settling on the burgeoning sun that peeked over the roof of the Chinatown YMCA across the street. It was time.
I looked over my right shoulder. Nod. My left. Nod, Nod. Looking forward again, I lifted the communications bud pinned to the lapel of my jacket.
“Penski, you and Sanchez have that back alley secured yet? We’re about to go in and give them a little wake up call.”
“Already in place,” came the tinny response through the bud.
With a jerk of my hand, my task force of four moved out across the empty street, the ghosts of thousands of chattering Asian children driving us forward. Entering through the half-framed shell of the construction, we stepped into the “new” lobby that would never see its first members. A quick sweep yielded what I’d expected. No one here. They preferred the dark.
Two fingers up, slash to the left. Jones and Meriwether broke off, taking the airy frame of an unfinished remodeling project as their area to sweep.
Richards moved beside me through the connecting hall to the old building, his baby blue eyes never still as he scanned the dark recesses, gun always at the ready as he vigilantly covered my ass.
We always partnered. Sometimes I thought it would be better if one of us transferred to a different team, or better, another division. The puppy-dog interest he had in me sometimes made things uncomfortable. Nothing had ever happened. Nothing ever would. I’d lost enough to know it was easier not to care.
Idiot probably wouldn’t leave me even if I tried to force him to.
Probably a good thing. Not many other men would put up with my cold-bitch attitude. Besides, his skills complemented mine. He was the boisterous brawn and I was the silent finesse. That combination had saved not only us both, but the whole team on more than a few occasions, and made up for the constant stream of innuendoes and occasional wistful stare he sent my way.
We advanced through the dim hall, each step bringing us further into the darkness. I flipped on my flashlight, holding it steady against my gun. Richards clicked on his own. His was bigger, just like the semi-automatic rifle he carried. I personally liked the maneuverability of the hand gun in these tight corners, and it fit my slight frame.
We approached the first exercise room, flanking the door. It was a perfect place for a sleepover and we expected to find more than a few of them here.
Richards looked at me from across the three feet separating us and winked. No need for dramatics, I pushed down on the handle, the door creaking slightly as it drifted open. Silence.
With a tap from my gun the door opened the rest of the way. I stepped in, quickly followed by Richards. Light-beams bounced across the long stretch of open wood flooring, revealing a half dozen forms slumbering in small packs throughout the room. Huddled masses of eerily familiar limbs.
The Z-virus changed a person. Making them more animal than human. Feeding on flesh, hunting at night. During the day they slept, making it easy to sneak up on them. At least until the first shots were fired. Then you had to lay down crossfire and run. Luckily, there was another good thing about them. They were slow on the uptake and easily distracted.
Richards caught my gaze, a trim brow lifting in question. I nodded. Simultaneously our guns lifted and dispensed twelve rapid pops, two for each head, before any could fully waken to register what was going on. I’d made the mistake before of only shooting once. The bullet had barely grazed through the top of the skull, leaving enough brain intact for the thing to function. If not for Richards, I wouldn’t be here now.
“Game on, time to kick some zombie ass,” Richards said, crossing the room to the back door.
We had to move fast now. Our gunfire would have awoken the dead, let alone the z-infected humans who, funny ha-ha, had been dubbed zombies by the members of my team. We pushed through into the next hall, immediately entered another room where Richards laid down crossfire as I ensured the ones he tagged wouldn’t get back up.
“Oh, yeah! Take that, assholes!”
Richards was a blood-thirsty bastard when he got going. Too many computer games in his youth.
“All right, pretty boy. Move out, we want to get ahead of them, draw them into the back alley.”
Straight white teeth gleamed in the beam of my flashlight as I shifted past him back into the hall. He was really enjoying this. I, personally, felt nothing. Get the job done, get out. Don’t think about the fact that the bodies you’re shooting were once human.
We started toward the back of the building. I was a damn good shot and kept our path clear as we breezed through the hall. Richards laid enough fire on our six that the ones pouring out of the rooms behind us never got too close, but not so far as to lose interest and start feeding on the flesh of their fallen.
Fresh flesh was always better.
We hadn’t made it halfway through the building when screaming and gunfire erupted from far behind us—back toward the new lobby. Which wasn’t right, having confirmed that section clear, Jones and Meriwether should have already been out and in the alley with Penski and Sanchez, ready to cinch the net, as it were.
I ducked my head, yelling into the mike. “Jones, what’s going on back there?”
His answer came between bursts of staccato gun fire. “Shit. There was no one there. Then they started pouring in from an opening from the next building over. They’re like a fucking swarm of bees, hundreds of them.”
“Get out of there! Go back through the front lobby.”
“Can’t, they’re coming in from there, too.”
I cursed under my breath, popped of
f two more shots, all the while listening to the firefight going on a hundred impossible feet from us. Then there was nothing. No screams, no gunfire.
“Jones? Meriwether?”
Nothing but static.
“Damn,” I hissed under my breath, slapping in another magazine. “Damn it!”
Richards glanced over his shoulder, his face somber for once. No going back. Only choice was to go forward—and hope Jones’ radio had just cut out.
The bud crackled. “Um, Commander? We got a situation out back here.”
“What is it Penski?”
“This is one major FUBAR, Commander. The defecation just hit the oscillation out here. They’re pouring out of every fucking building in the area.”
“Yeah, it’s raining crap in here, too.” I scanned the hallway behind us. They were still far enough away, but Richards was going to have to reload sometime. Damn, now I knew why the last dozen blocks had been so easy. They’d all been holed up here, in Chinatown.
“You and Sanchez pull back, Penski. Looks like Richards and I are going to go up and out.”
Richards nodded to indicate he’d heard me even as he continued to pop off rounds. I started back up the hall—had to be a stairwell here somewhere—gun poised and ready as Richards continued to hold them off our six. Odd that they weren’t pouring out in front of us anymore. We hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps before we found out why. The floor gave way beneath us. We plunged down into the dark, crashing with a smack into the basement.
I must have blacked out for a moment, because when I came to, it was to a pounding symphony of mismatched drums in my head.
FUBAR, indeed. I tried to sit up. Pain sliced through me, originating in my leg.
My flashlight lay beside my gun a few feet away, illuminating the jagged bit of wood that stuck out of my thigh. Technically, I knew I should leave it—blood loss and all—but it was a bit awkward to drag an eighteen inch hunk of floorboard when you were trying to run away, and we had to get the fuck out of here.
“Richards?” I asked as I grabbed hold of the wood and yanked.
Damn that hurt. I bit my lip—will not cry.
There was a moan from behind me, which turned abruptly into a scream.
I twisted around to find that we weren’t the only ones who’d fallen through the floor. Richards was trying to push off a z-infected who’d latched onto his shoulder.
I yelled, grabbed my gun off the floor, and popped off two shots. The creature fell.
“Richards… God, Richards.” I couldn’t stop staring at the jagged wound. He’d been bitten.
He didn’t answer. Simply pushed off the dead body and locked in another clip. Above us, more shuffling as the others tried to figure out how to get down to the tasty meal below.
“Go, Amy, get out of here. I’ll keep them occupied.”
I shook my head. “Richards.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously, those too pretty lips contorting in a growl. “Go. Now. It’s my last request. So GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
With a roar he was up, his gun sparking red backfire as he went to work on decimating the rest of the floor above us, and anything else that happened to be up there.
Last request. Damn. Not Richards. If only we’d already reached the labs. Maybe there I could have saved him. The vaccine was supposed to be administered before you’d been infected, but maybe…
Stop it, Amy. You can’t survive on hopes, dreams, and maybes.
With a pain I didn’t want to identify chasing me, I stumbled blindly through the dark, cursing each time I found one of the steel posts that held the floor above us up.
Had to be an exit somewhere.
And then I found it. A slim glimmer of light twenty feet or so away. I lurched forward, found a narrow set of cement stairs leading up to a walkout basement door. The door had seen better days and was half hanging off its hinges, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the alley beyond. No one moved. At least not in the slim patch of pavement I could see. Had Penski and Sanchez come through for me?
Either that or the infected are all off chasing them.
From deep in the dark depths of the cavernous basement, silence stretched ominously. Richards had stopped shooting.
Half dragging my left leg, I pulled myself up the stairs. My hand closed down over the metal knob and pushed. Nothing. Though off its hinge, the door wouldn’t budge.
Jammed … it was stuck.
I threw my body against it. Behind me there was a shuffle, boots scrapping gritty cement. Swearing, I rammed myself into the door again. It shifted—an inch.
Grunt. Shuffle. Grunt.
With a howl of agony, I braced my arms against the narrow walls of the stairwell, lifted my legs, and smashed them into the top half of the door. Pain ripped up my injured leg from the impact, but the door fell outward, top half first, the bottom hinge still remaining stubbornly stuck.
I scrambled through the opening, made it partway out when a hand latched around my ankle.
I screamed. Kicked my foot. Connected with—oh, God—Richards’ face. But not Richards. Not really.
He looked down at his hand that grasped the ankle of my boot. He seemed more confused than hungry…still in transition.
I lifted my gun, took aim.
My finger trembled on the trigger.
Shit. Fuck. Just shoot, Amy. It’s not Richards. Richards is already dead.
He looked up at me. Blue irises widened, drowning out the black centers, his blond hair glistened in the bright morning light.
Unresponsive pupils were one of the definitive signs of the Z-virus. His had constricted.
Isn’t gone yet.
I choked back a sob, unable to force the muscles in my hand to clench.
Richards pulled himself up my leg, opened his mouth as if to speak, but then looked down at the bloody hole in my pant leg, and…panted. Oh shit.
A gun blast resonated in the alley. Richards’ head jerked back. The neat hole seeping dark, almost black, blood.
I watched in shock as he crumpled down on top of my legs, pinning me down.
Okay, not a big deal. Just keep his head toward the right side so that none of his blood gets in your wound as you slip free, and…
A low moaning echoed from the bottom of the stairs, the narrow cement chasm channeling the sound and amplifying it.
I pushed and shoved at Richards’ bulky shoulders, had just managed to roll him off when the first head appeared in the stairwell. I didn’t hesitate this time, popped off two shots.
And down.
Only there was more. Lots of moaning, more shuffling.
Ah, fuck. No way would I have enough bullets. And with my leg…
Then an arm was around me, dragging me up and pulling me along. My gait was graceless, my hand pressed tight against the gaping wound in my leg. My rescuer was half twisted around, gun raised as he lay a smattering of cover fire behind us. Tall, broad. His dark hair was too shaggy to be regulation, yet he wore a uniform like mine. His gun was better.
Which division are you from? ‘Cause whichever it was, I wanted a transfer.
No time for introductions, just to run.
We reached the corner. He yanked me east, opposite to the direction I, and presumably Sanchez and Penski would have gone, but our path remained clear ahead of us and the rumbling moans and growls of our pursuers fell further and further behind.
I didn’t think I could run—make that limp—much further when he took an abrupt left, pushing me into the yawning entrance of an old souvenir shop. Windows. No door. Not the safest place to hide, especially with the blood trail I was leaving behind.
“In here!” he ordered, then unceremoniously shoved me through an open doorway that led into a small back room. I tumbled inside the old storage room, landing with a plunk on the cement floor. Behind me, the heavy metal door slammed closed, a scrape and a loud clank announcing we were sealed in.
I took my time pushing myself up from my sprawled position. A small
cot, a couple crates of canned goods, a series of shelves and hooks holding various guns and ammo… and a ham radio set up.
Must be his hidey hole.
I scooted around on my ass, keeping my left leg as straight as possible—it was throbbing like a bitch—curious to finally get a good look at my rescuer. He stood above me, hands planted on his hips as he scowled down at the bloody wound in my leg.
My heart skipped a beat.
Josh.
The last time I’d seen him had been just days before the outbreak had swooped down on the city. That was thirteen months and another lifetime ago. During that life, I had been a doe-eyed girl who would have squealed and jumped into his arms. I wasn’t that girl anymore. Time. Life. A shit load of blood, guts, and immeasurable pain lay between me and her.
He crouched down, gingerly pulling back the torn material of my uniform. “Doesn’t look like a bite. Remarkably clean, too.”
I was too astonished to respond, just watched as he yanked a strip off my pant leg and tied it tight around the wound.
“Will have to do for now. I ran out of thread last week.”
When I didn’t say anything he raised his head. At first, nothing, then brown eyes widened, his mouth parting and tugging at a new scar that split the upper lip on the right side.
“Amy...” He reached for me, his hands opening as if he were about to grab on and pull me against him.
The imminent contact jarred me out of my shock.
“You left,” I spat out the accusation before his hands could reach their goal.
His hands dropped, clenching into fists at his side. “I had my orders.”
“Mom and Poppa, dead. Your brother, his wife, gone. The twins…” I couldn’t say it. Gone. Dead. Bullets to the head.
A world of pain filled his face. “I know.”
“Where were you?” I demanded, long suppressed anger coiling and punching the words into a scream.
“On a mission.”
“Where on a mission?”