The Hunger Chronicles: A collection of shorts

by Hilaire, Tes

  Shit. I clenched my leg, trying to stench the flow of blood. This was déjà vu all over again. Me. Bleeding out in the sand. And Joe free to keep on killing.

  Starting with you, fool!

  Gritting my teeth I forced myself to crawl for the rocks ahead of me. Just a couple feet…

  Something hard and cool pressed against the back of my neck.

  “Roll over so I can see your face, you yellow bellied fucker.”

  I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath as I obeyed and looked straight into the face of the man I hunted to kill and who would now kill me instead. Irony, that.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t my good friend Sergeant Jesser.” His lips peeled back into a rotten tooth grin. “Aren’t you a sight for a sore eye,” he said, then brought the gun down across my temple.

  ***

  I woke with my hands tied, Crazy Joe leering over me, and the sound of a knife being sharpened somewhere nearby.

  Not exactly the best way to start the morning…or afternoon as the case may be. Hard to tell for sure other than the sun was still blazing like a fire-ball at a relatively high position in the sky and I hadn’t bled to death yet. Bonus, that.

  I turned my head, taking stock of the rest of the situation. Joe doing his crazy-eye thing, his two live lackey’s sitting like book ends with the two dead bodies piled up neatly between them, and not a dog in sight.

  Good, maybe the mutt made it out of here.

  The first psycho minion I figured for Joe’s recent kicking bag. He had a decidedly pale cast to his skin that no amount of sweat could conceal. Rifle or not, I could take him. Especially since the hand clutching the rifle on his lap was swollen, as if he had a broken finger or two, and his other was pressed gingerly against his ribcage. The other asshole though…our eyes met, his mouth curling up into a smile as he fingered the blade of the knife he’d been sharpening. How lovely. And now I could look forward to being filleted by my own damn knife.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Joe said, drawing my gaze back to him. “Sargent Jesse. I thought you’d be dead by now.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Oh no. This is hardly a disappointment. Why, I consider this a real gift, isn’t that right boys?”

  Gimpy grunted. Psycho Minion two smiled and twirled my knife around his hand before jamming it forcefully into the body by his feet. Point made.

  I strained my wrists in their ropes, testing them for slack.

  “So what brings you here to my doorstep, so to speak?” Joe asked, ignorant or uncaring of my struggles. Not that they were doing me much good. “And don’t bother trying to convince me you want to join up. That’s my con, not yours.”

  I stared Joe right in the eye, seeing again the smile he had on his face as he mowed down my men and women. “I’m here to kill you.”

  “Really?” He drawled and looked back and forth at his two remaining men, then nodded pointedly down at my tied hands. “And how’s that going?”

  “I’ll let you know in a little while.”

  He laughed, throwing his head back towards the sky, his hand clutching at his belly as if I’d just said the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard. Sad thing was, it was pretty damn funny in a morbidly ironic kind of way.

  I almost missed it at first, so loud was Joe’s laughter, but then the sound came again. A low rumbling growl. Crap, go back, Stupid. Only there the dog was, slinking along the edge of the low shrubs at the edge of the valley, a short length of gnawed off rope trailing between his legs. Crap, crap, and more crap.

  “Why don’t you shut up and fight me,” I yelled, trying to cover the sound of Stupid’s increasing growls. “No guns, no knives, just you and me, mano a mano. Or are you going to stay there, squawking like a stupid chicken?”

  Joe stopped laughing. His face turned beat red, his features tightening as he pulled his lips tight to his mouth. Psycho and Gimpy stared just as intently upon us, their eagerness for violence, any violence, radiating out from their taught stances. More important though, Stupid had stopped in his tracks the moment I’d said stay. Rollover, Einstein. What a smart fucking dog.

  “Fine,” Joe snapped. “I’ll even give you a handicap to make up for the bum leg. You have ten seconds head start. You can run. Or you can try and find something to even the odds.”

  My gaze snapped to the two bodies currently acting as holsters for my weapons. No way I could get away, but if I could get my knife or axe…

  “I can grab anything? And your men won’t stop me?” I clarified.

  “Anything you can get in ten seconds. And my men won’t touch you as long as I’m alive.”

  “And the hands?” I raised my bond wrists.

  Joe just smiled. “Ten…nine…”

  Grunting, I pushed myself onto my feet. My left leg tried to buckle but I grit down on my teeth, forcing the leg straight and doing a kind of hobble lurch across the sand. Psycho bared his teeth as I drew near, but didn’t stop me as I half collapsed on the body with my knife and began to saw at my bonds with the edge of the blade.

  I’d gotten only partway through the rope when Joe’s countdown ended. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Joe make his move. Palming the knife I rolled to the side, trying to ignore the burn of my calf as I scrambled for footing…and fell over the second body.

  Joe slowed, stopping at my feet. If he’d just gone for the kill, I would never have survived, but he didn’t, unsnapping his own knife and drawing it from its sheath instead.

  I cocked my brow, watching him shift the knife in his grip. “So much for my handicap.”

  Joe shrugged. “I gave you ten seconds.”

  “What say you give me five more?” I suggested as I frantically worked the bit of slack at my wrists, feeling the pull and pop of the weakened threads.

  “Oh I think I’ve been generous enough,” Joe said, slashing out with his knife at my face. I raised my left arm in defense. Our blades clashed. Alone it wouldn’t have been enough but Joe had also overcompensated, leaning too far forward with his weight. Enough so that my booted foot in his knee sent him tumbling to the side. He rolled, and I rolled the other way, my free hand grabbing for the axe lodged in the bullet-ridden body as I did. Pure adrenaline had me on my feet and spinning around in time to meet Joe’s next charge.

  We danced. Okay, he barreled around like an angry boar and I managed to hobble out of his way. It wore me down, the adrenaline leaking out of me as first five, then ten, then twenty seconds passed. I needed to end this, and end this now. So the next time he charged, I didn’t hobble out of his way.

  I feinted with the knife for his face, causing him to shift his own blade up defensively, then went in on his blind side, swinging the axe with every last bit of energy I had. I think it was as much a surprise to me as to him when the axe sank deep, slicing through fat and skin and intestine alike. Joe roared, smashing his head into mine. Stars exploded in my vision as I reeled back.

  Blinded, I raised my weapons, only nothing happened. And when the stars cleared it was to see Joe standing there panting, his hand clutched to his stomach, blood and something else I didn’t want to name sliding through his fingers at an alarming rate. I’d done it, I’d killed him, even if he wasn’t actually down yet.

  My legs shook. Relief. Weakness. Disbelief. All of that factored in. To have waited so long, come so far, this seemed almost…anticlimactic.

  “What are you waiting for, you bastards. Shoot him,” he gasped, then keeled over onto his face.

  Or maybe not.

  I spun, knowing it was too late. No one could outrun a bullet, and only a blind man could miss me at this distance. Only it wasn’t too late, because as I spun, watching the blur of two men lifting their weapons, another offensive player leapt into the equation.

  Stupid smashed into Psycopath, shiny white teeth clamping down tight on the man’s arm. The man screamed, his handgun falling. At the same time a shot rang out and something whizzed by my ear.

  I tucked and rolled
, using the momentum to put power behind my axe as I threw. Bone crunched as I watched it sink deep into his sternum. His mouth gaped open, doing the fish move before he toppled in an almost exact replica of Joe’s earlier nosedive. Whatever glow of satisfaction I might have had was cut off when Stupid yelped. I spun in time to see his matted brown mass skid across the gravel and smack up against the Humvee’s tire.

  Fury slid through my system. I didn’t even think. Instinct took over, my knife traveling blade over hilt as it flew in a straight path from my fingers into the organ most apt to bring a man low. Unfortunately it didn’t hit in a way to result in immediate castration, but rather with the blunt side. Enough to do the trick though.

  Psycho toppled, his hands clutching at his injured pride. I took my time crossing the expanse. Not that I could have moved much faster. Stupid also hadn’t moved. Nor had he made so much as a sound, though it was possible this man was making so much of his own noise that I couldn’t have heard him.

  He’s not dead. But he’s hurt. Bastard hurt my dog.

  I stopped before the man writhing on the ground, reached down, picking up the gun he’d dropped.

  “Hey, asshole.” He stopped groaning long enough to open his eyes, his pupils widening as he looked straight into the barrel of his own gun. “Nobody kicks my dog,” I said, and pulled the trigger.

  ***

  I must have passed out. How fucking embarrassing. I’d killed the bastards and ended up keeling over myself. But it was the only explanation as to why I didn’t remember how I got from standing over Psycho’s dead body to waking face down in the sand with a big pink tongue being dragged across my cheek.

  “Ugh.” I turned my head, dragging one leaden hand up to wipe at my face.

  Stupid whimpered, butting the side of my elbow.

  “Hey there, Bud.” I laid my hand on the mutt’s head. “You did good. You really did.”

  His tongue lolled out, his mouth curving back into a perfect doggy grin. I smiled back. The dog jumped up, whipping around in an excited circle and then stopped to bark at me. An unmistakable get-up-let’s-go if I’d ever seen one.

  “Yeah, about that.” I tested my leg: numb, deadweight. “I’m not sure that’s happening.”

  The dog whined, bowing low over his front legs as he inched across the expanse until he was close enough to tug at my belt.

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  The dog growled this time, tugging insistently at my belt.

  “Okay. Fine. Just…” I groaned, biting my lip as I maneuvered my legs under me and pushed up off the ground. Black dots swam in my vision, the world tilting under my feet. But then something pressed solidly against my bad leg, giving me balance and direction.

  “You’re a smart one, aren’t you?”

  The dog sat back on his haunches, his tongue lolling in happy answer.

  “Okay then.” I looked around, focusing on the first step: take care of the leg, then we’d see. Stumbling a few yards across the gravel road, I pried up the rifle from Gimpy’s dead hands, testing it out as a makeshift crutch. It would do. More sure for the support I worked my way to the Humvee and began rifling through it for supplies. Food, water…and Eureka, a first-aid kit.

  Ten minutes later, with my leg cleaned and bandaged, I took a deep breath, and turned my attention past the useless Humvee to where the sun was dipping further and further down on the horizon. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do now that I’d fulfilled my mission, but I did know one thing: This road was going to take us there.

  “Come on, Bud.” I slapped my thigh, sinking my hand into his fur as he sidled up against me. “I think that’s our sunset.”

  The Fittest

  In front of the door stands a bull of a man, the type of Goliath that might have once sent me running home to my mommy. Only I no longer have a home, or a mom. What I do have is a desperate need to get into that building.

  Sunrise is coming and the boarded-up dive is perfect for my needs. At least, it is the only structure in town that doesn’t seem like it will collapse on me while I rest. When I’d stumbled off state route 190 in this direction it was because of the mines. I’d figured, wrongly, that I could find an empty shaft and ride out the deadly Death Valley sun. But just because I know the mines are supposed to be in the area, doesn’t mean I can find them.

  So here I am, having a stare down with Black Beard across the moon-drenched dirt Main Street of Darwin, California. Two years ago I suspect the ghosts of this town far outnumbered the heart-beating citizens. Now? Well, it is a tossup.

  Hard to believe, but this ghost town is one of the largest zombie free zones I’ve come across in my last few months of traveling. Yet there is no denying the heavy traces of human foot traffic that are too purposeful to be mindless. I suppose it isn’t all that surprising that this town should flourish in a time like this. When the virus spread, the smaller a town’s population was, the better chance they had of shutting down their borders, digging in deep, and letting the danger blow over. And Darwin seems like the perfect example of how that methodology worked.

  I scan the other buildings: the dilapidated Post Office, the crumbling convenience store, the rusted out gas pumps. They yawn back at me through missing doors and windows, indifferent to my need. Hard to believe these are the best of the best in this hell hole. Yet this town is aptly named. Survival of the fittest. Darwin is surviving by guns and grit alone. And judging by the twelve-gage Black Beard has slung over his shoulder, strangers aren’t all that welcome.

  Tough crap. They’re just going to have to make an exception this time.

  Driven by desperation, I square my shoulders and step forward. I’m across the street and less than five feet from the door when Black Beard shifts in front of me, the shotgun dropping from over his shoulder to a braced against his hip position, which, conveniently, puts the tipped up barrel at my head level. “Hold it right there.”

  I stop, wait as he pulls a small flashlight out of the pocket of his flannel shirt and shines the beam first into one eye, then the other. I pass the pupil dilation test because he grunts, his grip easing off the trigger.

  “Too young. Go somewhere else, kid,” he says, slinging the gun back over his shoulder.

  I look up past the platter-size silver buckle, past the mountainous pectorals, past the braided black beard and scowling mouth, and line up my gaze with the take-a-hike glare of the bouncer.

  “You’re kidding me, right? Carding people went out of style last year.”

  The giant sighs, a spark of sympathy in his blue-green eyes. “Listen, kid. Nothing against you, but you go in there and there’s going to be trouble.”

  My entire skin itches at being called a kid. Between my short stature, thin, angular frame, and pixie hairstyle I may look younger than my perpetual seventeen, but I’m not a kid. Haven’t been a kid for one year, six months and counting.

  I shift, planting my feet apart as I lay my hand on the knife strapped onto my thigh. I have bigger guns, so to speak, in the heavy sack I carry slung over my back, but I’m trying to make a point, not kill the party-pooping bouncer. “I have to stay out here and there’s going to be trouble.”

  “Those are some balls you got there.”

  “Thank you.”

  His eyes narrow, the blue-green orbs flash-freezing so that icicles glare out of them. My hand tightens around the knife as I contemplate my retreat versus the lightening sky. I really, really need to get into that building. All of a sudden he laughs, shaking his head as he pushes open the door. “Go on. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I hold back the sigh of relief and strut into the building as if I own the place. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light cast by a few randomly placed candles, but it looks like my grand entrance goes unnoticed. Fine by me.

  I make my way to the counter at the back, scanning the other occupants of the bar. I decide that Darwin’s booming population is due to an influx of a biker club. There
are over a dozen men, and one lone woman, trussed up in jeans, boots, and leather and only a smattering of grizzly, flannel-type locals. Must have been out on the road when the virus hit and found the nearest haven to hole up in.

  Slinging my sack onto the floor, I do a scramble slide onto the high stool, folding my arms on the grimy counter. I don’t care. Five nights of travel, five days of hiding in small caves and begging shelter from other burrow dwelling creatures, I’m tired, hot, and hungry.

  The barkeeper ends his conversation with a timber man covered in tattoos and idles down the bar toward me. He doesn’t speak, just tosses down a stained and warped cardboard coaster and looks at me expectedly.

  “Do you have any meat in your stores?” I know I am asking for a miracle. A simple glance at the room’s occupants confirms there are men here who know how to use a gun. Men like this also like their meat and I don’t doubt that they hunt the Mule deer and Bighorn that can be found in the area. But given this is summer, the wildlife populations will have either migrated up into the peaks and/or reduced their ranges to areas with ready water, which means that if there is any meat to be had in town now, it will have to be stored in an icebox. And since planning doesn’t fit into the stereotypical makeup of the migratory biker dude, chances of them having an icebox are slim.

  The barkeeper considers me, deep-set brown eyes darkening as he wipes his hands on his grungy pants. He smells—another bad thing about scarce water, washing and bathing are luxuries. “We do. But not much.”

  “Then slice me off a steak, and don’t cook it longer than needed to thaw it out.”

  His gaze travels over me, tongue tucked into a cheek covered in a greasy mange of tangled beard. “You got a way to pay for it?”

  Not the way he’s thinking. I lug up my sack from the floor. It lands with a heavy rattle and bang on the counter.

  “Bang or Battery?” I ask. There are a few things worth anything now days: food, beverage, energy products, and ammo. Obviously a place like this has their own supply of food and beverage.