Devoured (The Hunger #1)

by Jason Brant

  The night passed with agonizing sluggishness.

  Lance stood by the window as the first rays of sunlight crested the skyscrapers.

  He observed the infected slink into shadows, retreating to unknown locations, hidden away from the sun.

  His backpack hung from his shoulders, the kitchen knife clutched in his hand. The pain in his side had ebbed through the past few restful days. His foot ached when he used it, but there was little he could do about that now.

  After removing his homemade door barricade, he peered into the hallway, making sure no surprises awaited him. He slipped out, starting to lock the door behind him before realizing that he didn’t need to because he would never return.

  Every door in the hallway was closed and locked, save the last one on the left. Lance eased it open and immediately jerked his head away, fighting back a retch. Across the apartment, a window was smashed in, glass littering the carpet. A body rested on the floor in a crimson puddle. Most of the flesh and muscle were torn away, glistening white bone exposed.

  So much of the torso and head were missing that Lance couldn’t tell if it had been a man or a woman. The idea of going inside and ransacking the place to look for a gun or food made him queasy.

  He moved on, taking the stairs down to the next floor. None of the doors opened.

  Success finally came on the first floor. Lance stepped into an apartment that was palatial compared to his. Granite counter tops, stainless-steel appliances, and a multitude of bedrooms filled out the space. LED TVs hung from walls beside watercolor paintings.

  Lance went straight to the master bedroom and rooted through the closet, looking for a gun. Finding nothing, he dumped the dresser drawers on the floor. He grinned at the vibrator that spilled on the plush carpet. The corners of his mouth turned south when he didn’t find a pistol anywhere.

  Though he knew better than to waste precious time, he stopped to look at the pictures hanging on the walls. Most of the images framed a family of four. Lance walked away before he started to feel guilty for ransacking their home. He grabbed bottles of water from the fridge, jamming them in his bag.

  A meat clever in the utensil drawer replaced the flimsy knife he already had.

  The front door of the building was propped open, a cool breeze blowing through. The wind carried the stench of death.

  Lance stepped into the bright street, squinting against the glare from the sun. He stood at the top of the stairs leading to the sidewalk, waiting for his eyes to adjust. From the window of his living room, he’d seen what remained from the chaos of the night, but being in it, standing in front of bloody streaks and overturned cars, made it more real.

  He maneuvered through a real life version of Dawn of the Dead.

  Dabbles and splotches of blood coated the stairs, like a human bomb detonated there during the night. Though he’d seen many people die last night, Lance didn’t see a body for quite a while. Did the infected take the carcasses with them? Store them like leftovers for a meal during the day?

  A few people poked their heads out of windows and doors, looking up and down the street, fear etched into their exhausted faces.

  Lance walked across the street to the building adjacent to his own. The locked front door barely slowed him down as he smashed the glass portion of it out with a brick. He thought back to the man with the shotgun who’d been killed last night, and mentally counted how many flights up he had been.

  “Four, I think,” Lance mumbled to himself.

  This building, slightly nicer than his own, had an elevator, which he took to the fourth floor. Blood streaked the walls and worn carpet, the place looking closer to the hallway of a slaughterhouse than an apartment building. The blood-saturated floor squished under his shoes as he sneaked toward the end of the hall, knowing the man’s place had a window that faced the street.

  An open frame stood without a door, pieces of wood and bent hinges hanging along the left side. The door, smashed inward, rested on the floor of the apartment.

  Lance hesitated at the entrance, wondering if the cannibalistic mutant might be hiding inside somewhere. A windowless bathroom might be dark enough to keep it from wandering too far from such a great source of meat. There could be dozens to hundreds of people still left inside the building.

  His fingers blanched as they tightened around the handle of the cleaver. Sweat stung his eyes, though the temperature hadn’t risen above seventy yet. Tiptoeing around the door, wincing at the pain in his foot, Lance entered.

  The place smelled of old pennies.

  A woman’s body, pale and stiff, sat on the floor, resting against cherry cabinets. Thick blood soaked through her shirt, having run from a gaping wound in her neck. Her eyes were round ovals of shock and pain.

  The living room had a heavy stain on the carpet, lines of scarlet on the walls and ceiling. Small chunks of flesh rested against the front of a couch, but the man’s body was gone. A trail of blood ran up the wall and out of the shattered window.

  Christ, they’re strong.

  The shotgun lay on the floor against trim that used to be white. Lance maneuvered around the majority of the gore and grabbed the gun, wiping away drying smears of bodily fluids.

  He worked the slide until he emptied the shotgun, counting four shells on the floor. After reloading, he searched the rest of the living room, looking for more ammo. He found two boxes in the master bedroom and stuffed them into his rapidly filling backpack.

  The top shelf of the mirrored closet held small bottles of protein shakes and three boxes of energy bars. He took those too, having to throw out a couple pairs of underwear and socks in exchange. After drinking down one of the shakes, he tossed the empty carton back into the closet and went to the bathroom. Some extra bandages and a tube of Neosporin found their way into his bag.

  Lance said a small prayer in front of the dead woman before leaving the apartment.

  Holding the shotgun in his left hand gave him a sense of security he hadn’t felt since leaving the hospital. If a group of those things came upon him, he knew that he wouldn’t stand a chance, but he felt reasonably sure he could deal with one. Maybe two if he got lucky.

  A few people walked down the street when Lance exited the building. Most of them looked bewildered, walking in random directions, scrounging through flipped cars and discarded purses. Some were aggressive, running down the sidewalks, swinging pistols around and shouting for everyone to stay away from them.

  A freshly infected man shambled down the center of the street, muttering about how thirsty and hungry he was. Lance steered clear of him, making sure to head in the opposite direction.

  Traffic clogged the streets, empty cars stretching across lines and sidewalks. An entire intersection ran red. Lance thanked whoever was listening that he hadn’t been around to see this massacre.

  Two motorcycles roared up the cluttered sidewalks, slowing when they hit the traffic jam, working their way through before thundering away. They made incredible progress, and Lance liked the idea of using a bike, but he wondered how far they would get. And what happened if they were in an accident? Good luck finding a doctor to fix your broken leg.

  Still, he would give it a shot if he actually knew how to ride one.

  By noon, the looters came out in full force. Lance shook his head as he saw people carrying TVs and grabbing iPads from stores.

  The world is ending and idiots are still worried about playing their Xbox on a 60-inch smart TV.

  How long would it be until people realized that anything beyond bullets and food was just dead weight?

  Lance paused at another intersection. The traffic light clicked above him, uselessly going through its progressions. Birds perched atop empty cars. A young couple carried a child of five or six past him, watching him with cautious eyes.

  Two fast food restaurants on the left had people shuffling in and out, the sidewalk congested by a small crowd. Lance wondered who was in there frying the food. Shuttered businesses lined the street to
the right. A used car lot was ahead, some of the vehicles damaged.

  He kept going straight, walking down the center of the road to avoid people who came out of random buildings. Those who noticed his gun gave him a wide berth.

  A large gathering of survivors clogged the road ahead. Lance moved to the sidewalk, wanting to listen in on what a man in the center of the group shouted.

  “If we stick together, we can fight them off!” The man, gray-bearded and crow-eyed, stood on a milk crate, waving his arms toward the crowd. “We need to take over this building here!” He pointed to a swanky complex to his right. “If we get a gun in each apartment and post guards at every entrance, we can stay alive!”

  Lance grunted.

  “They come at night, so we need to rest in the morning and scavenge in the afternoon!”

  The crowd nodded and shouted the occasional ‘hell yeah’.

  Lance continued on, knowing these people wouldn’t make it through the night. He envisioned them lighting up the building like a Christmas tree, thinking it would help them see the horrors lurking in the night.

  All they would do is draw them in like moths to a flame.

  The afternoon went by too quickly. Lance checked his watch obsessively.

  He needed a secure place to hole up for the night.

  Dozens more of the infected came out as the day progressed, their numbers growing at an alarming rate. Most of them had deep gouges in their arms, or bite marks on their torsos. Lance diverted his path every time he encountered one, leaving the killing to the tough guys that seemed to be coming out of the woodwork.

  Shortly after four, Lance passed an Italian restaurant. He paused, mid-step, staring at himself in the reflection of the unbroken front window. “Ottaggio’s, eh?” Lance asked himself. “I wonder if you have a decent walk-in freezer, Ottaggio?”

  The front door was locked and he hesitated when he went to smash the small window in it. The more inconspicuous the place appeared, the less likely someone would come in looking to steal his stuff. He walked around to the side, his limp worsening from the long day’s walk.

  A small window nestled six feet above the ground toward the back of the building. Lance grabbed a metal garbage can and flipped it over, rocking it side to side to ensure it was steady. He stepped on the can, hoping it wouldn’t fall over, and peered into the window.

  Inside was a vacant kitchen, stainless surfaces everywhere. Large burners and doublewide refrigerators lined the right wall. Metal counters and a long, slender window were on the left. The dishwasher and sink sat just below the window.

  He broke the glass pane with the butt of his shotgun, grimacing as the sound reverberated down the alley. Two men walked by the entrance of the restaurant, but neither looked over at Lance. He let out a sigh of relief, glad that he didn’t draw any attention to himself. The stock of the gun brushed away the remaining pieces of jagged glass as he cleared the small space as best he could.

  Tossing his backpack and gun inside, Lance wormed his way into the window, grunting and huffing as the sill pushed against his sore ribs. He squirmed until his waist rested on the wood, placing his hands on the cold metal sink, hoping to lower himself enough to get his feet through.

  A gunshot cracked outside.

  Lance flinched, his hands slipping on the steel surface, and plunged inside. He rolled at the last second, shoulder crashing against the sink, arms instinctively protecting his head. His ass landed on unwashed dishes, his back bending the slender faucet arm at a ninety-degree angle.

  “Well, that sucked.”

  Though his shoulder cried out from hitting the edge of the sink, he started to laugh. After everything that happened over the past few days, he never could have imagined that this is how he would have wound up—crammed in a sink at an Italian restaurant.

  He laughed harder as he imagined how silly he must look. Tears ran down his cheeks as he howled, trying to push himself out of the basin, but failing because his continuing chuckles zapped his strength.

  Only the darkening sky sobered him.

  After climbing out of the sink, and rattling too many dishes in the process, he slung his pack over his shoulder and grabbed the shotgun, finger caressing the trigger. He left the lights off as he shuffled through the place, making sure no one else decided to squat there.

  The dining room was split in two parts, one with a bar and smaller bistro tables, and the other for formal dining. The restrooms sat in the middle of a short hallway that led into another kitchenette space. Lance hadn’t worked in a restaurant since high school, but this looked like a kitchen prep area.

  Cutting boards and knives covered the counters. Italian bread, wrapped in plastic, filled shelves. On the other side of the kitchen stood a metal door with a lever-handle on it.

  Lance smiled. “Ka-ching.”

  The door clicked as he pulled the handle, sliding it open. Darkness lay beyond. He found the light switch on the outside of the freezer and flipped it up. The overhead bulb flickered to life, a dull yellow filling shelves and crates.

  Empty meat hooks hung in the back of the room. Most of the food was gone, likely taken by the owners when the plague hit.

  “Shit.” Lance pursed his lips. He would have enjoyed cooking some beef in the morning.

  The temperature inside was the same as the restaurant. He supposed the owners turned the freezer off to save on their electric bill, in case this whole end-of-the-world thing blew over.

  Walking inside, Lance pounded on the walls, listening to thuds, trying to gauge how thick they were. A vent in the top of the freezer had a diameter of only four or five inches, not enough for anything to climb through. He hoped that would give him a solid supply of air through the night.

  The door was six-inches thick, the outside made with metal of questionable strength. Lance rapped his knuckles on it, wincing at the hollow quality of it. He knew it wasn’t solid steel, but probably only had some kind of insulation in between the sides. The hinges held strong when he pulled on the top of the door, not giving at all.

  Locks on both the inside and outside handles lifted his spirits a bit. At least they wouldn’t be able to just open the door.

  The thought gave him pause—how intelligent were these things? They’d been human only a few days ago, but their behavior closely mirrored a wild animal.

  With rabies.

  Even still, did any problem-solving ability linger? Could they use the simplest of tools, like a door handle or a hammer?

  Lance dropped his bag to the floor of the freezer and ventured back to the kitchen prep area. By the entrance, he found a smaller area with timecards and cash registers. Stacks of folded, white tablecloths sat upon several shelves. He loaded his arms with them and went back to the freezer, laying them on the floor to soften the surface. After two more trips, he had decent bedding.

  The front of the restaurant grew darker by the large window and glass door. Dusk drew near. People fled the street, running inside apartment buildings and a 24-Hour Copy store. Lance flipped tables and placed them against the door and in front of the window, hoping to block any light that might shine out.

  Tomorrow he would spend more time shoring the place up, but for now, he had to hurry. He found several serving trays in the kitchen, which he tried to use to block the window he’d climbed through. They were too small, wanting to fall through into the alley.

  He ran back to the prep room and grabbed loaves of bread from the racks, racing to the kitchen and stacking them in the broken window. This was probably moronic, but he felt better knowing that something couldn’t see in if it just ran by.

  A security light above a door on the other side of the alley flashed on as he stuffed the last loaf in.

  The wail of the hungry echoed through the streets.

  On his way back to the freezer, Lance grabbed another loaf of bread, a butter knife, and several small packets of jelly. A large box of candles sat beside the cash register and he took two, snagging a lighter from the counter
.

  Gunshots in the street rattled the windows out front. Lance paused, listening.

  Screams of suffering followed.

  Lance pulled the freezer door shut, securing it from the inside by sliding a pin down through the lock. He left the light off so he could sleep.

  He lit the candles and placed them by his makeshift bed. Jelly spread across bread, washed down by bottled water, comprised his dinner.

  He sat in the semi-darkness, slowly chewing his food and listening to the muffled sounds of the massacre outside.

  Chapter 13