Dead Hunger_The Cleansing

by Eric A. Shelman

  Charlie, Hemp and Flex were up in seconds. Flex had the ladder in his hands and was already extending it before they reached the wall of the Kings Inn. He locked the spring clamps into position and leaned it against the adjacent building, over the more than six-foot gap between the structures.

  “Do you think it’s stable?” asked Hemp.

  “I’ll steady for you guys,” said Charlie. “I’m the lightest. When you’re all up, just hold the top in place for me.”

  It went like clockwork. Gem, with Flex behind her, and Hemp following the pair, all climbed up and made it to the roof.

  “There are soft spots up here,” said Hemp. “Be careful. The roof hasn’t seen one ounce of maintenance in over a decade, remember.”

  “Good call,” said Flex. “Okay, let’s get into position and start takin’ them out.”

  They moved to the front of the building. There was only a low ridge around eight inches tall, but it gave them a place to rest their elbows and fire from a prone position.

  The zombies milled around – now numbering more than Flex could keep track of – and seemed to be pushing hard against the glass of the City Hall building.

  “Looks like you were finger painting with rotter blood down there,” said Charlie, staring at the smeared path of bodies on the ground, the other rotters trudging through the dismembered limbs and fluids of the dozen or so that Flex had run down.

  “Couldn’t resist,” said Flex. “That fuckin’ Ford may be on her last leg, but she’s still like a missile.”

  “Bite your tongue,” said Gem.”

  “Let’s get busy,” said Charlie, raising her crossbow.

  “Mothers first,” said Hemp. “Charlie, I know you have your EB-filled arrows, so we’ll direct you to the position on the clock if we spot them.”

  “None of you fire yet, then,” said Charlie. “Let’s use a scalpel rather than our usual wrecking ball.”

  “Charlie, sweetie?” said Gem.

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “At 10:00. And that’s PM, by the way, if it matters. There’s a Mother there. Yellow pants, topless.”

  “Oh, that’s attractive,” said Charlie, raising her crossbow. “I’d describe those tits as rocks in socks.” Less than a second after the sarcasm and insult left her lips, the arrow penetrated the side of the pregnant Red-eye’s head.

  Her eyes went dark and sank into her head. The corners of her mouth drooped and pulled downward, and it was as though the weight of her sudden frown detached the remaining face from her skull.

  It slid down and her entire body responded seconds later; she imploded and dissolved onto the sidewalk. The horde closed in around her, filling the void her absence had created.

  “Bull’s eye,” said Hemp. “Darling, we’ve got another at four o’clock.”

  Charlie raised her head. “It’s more 4:30, but I’ve got her.” She mounted another bolt and raised it, firing the arrow. This took her four seconds.

  “You’re slipping,” said Gem. “I remember when you could have mounted and fired at least two in that time.”

  “I’m older, so it’s more about quality these days,” said Charlie, nodding to the Mother below, who reached up to tug at the arrow in her chest. As her hand touched it, the hole that had been the diameter of the shaft expanded to thirty times its size, and her left shoulder and arm separated from her and fell away.

  Her face turned upward and her fading red, pinpoint eyes met Charlie’s. She clawed into the gaping hole where the arrow had once been and staggered. Charlie raised her middle finger. “Bye-bye, bitch.”

  The Red-eye’s clothing sucked in over her frame, and she dissolved to the ground, her eyes fading as her flesh and bone dissolved behind them.

  As they watched her, the Mother’s skull dropped to the ground, immediately trampled by her former minions.

  “See any more?” asked Charlie, scanning the horde below.

  “Not for the moment. Let’s thin the herd,” said Flex.

  Flex, Gem and Hemp opened fire, but Charlie put her crossbow aside.

  “Saving those bolts for Mothers,” she said, withdrawing her Ruger .22 Single-Ten revolver.

  Flex had seen her fire the gun several times at the range, and she was as accurate as they come.

  “Jesus!” said Gem, after emptying one magazine of the Uzi, taking out several rotters below. “This hurts like a bitch.”

  Charlie held the revolver out to her, along with several speed loaders, ready to go. “Babe, you use this. Give me Suzi.”

  Gem hesitated only a moment before taking it and handing the Uzi over, along with her bag of additional magazines. “Thanks, sweetie. You know how I hate to admit when I’m hurting.”

  The conversation over, the four sent a barrage of bullets into the shuffling, undead crowd below.

  *****

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Isis and Max found the basement entrance to the museum. As far as they could tell, the items in the museum had been devoted to the military history of the town and its people. There was a mockup of a military tent with a deteriorated canvas cot, canteen, and lanterns, among other items.

  They moved down the stone stairway, and found the basement to be fully finished.

  “We’ll check the east wall first,” said Isis. “Any identifying symbols marking the passage should be on that side if they exist at all.”

  “It didn’t lead us to an entrance at the courthouse,” said Max.

  “Which is why this is more likely,” said Isis. “That may have been a decoy designed to discourage further effort. This building was constructed approximately twenty years before the courthouse. They clearly connected the tunnel systems, based on what Flex was telling us he could see, but perhaps there was a reason they didn’t allow access there.”

  “What reason could there be?” asked Max. “Why not have as many access points as possible?”

  Isis pressed forward and reached a wall at the end of a north-south running hallway on the east side of the basement. She put her open palms on the wall. “It could have been for no other reason than the architect, Washburn, did not have a Freemason associate who could provide enough cover at the time.”

  “That makes sense,” said Max. “Can’t have all the guys knowing about the tunnel and a way in.”

  “Not non-Freemasons, anyway,” said Isis.

  Max walked up beside Isis.

  “This wall is out of place,” said Max, also touching the plaster. “Look over there. The building continues south, but this hallway stops.”

  “Exactly,” said Isis.

  Max knocked on it. “Hear that?”

  “An echo,” said Isis.

  Max stood back and kicked the wall with his boot. His foot went all the way through. “Whoa,” said Max. “That was too easy.” He withdrew his foot and kicked again, this time beside the original hole. The material practically fell away.

  “This is just a facade,” said Isis. “Look at those boards. They’re barely enough to keep the plaster up.”

  “It’s like a fake, breakaway wall,” said Max, as Isis turned around, now facing away from the divider. She raised her foot and slammed her heel into the plaster behind her. Max joined her, and in five more kicks, they had a three-foot tall by four-foot wide hole.

  The pair stood back. Isis knew they had found it. She smiled and said, “This is it, Max. We’ll find the entrance behind here somewhere.”

  “Hope it’s as easy to open as this wall was.”

  “As you said, this was a façade; it was clearly meant to break away,” said Isis. “The tunnel entrance won’t be designed in the same way.”

  They ducked their heads and entered the corridor behind the wall. The sides of the tunnel were a light-colored stone, and torches were mounted every few feet.

  “The primitive lighting is probably so they didn’t have to worry about power outages,” said Isis.

  Three feet after they entered, they came to a wooden door on their left. A heavy padlock
hung from the thick, brass hasp attached to the door.

  “I’ll try the lock picker, but this thing’s gotta be frozen by now,” said Max.

  “Try it,” said Isis. “But don’t work on it too long. We’ll just melt it if it comes to that. For now, I’d rather save that energy in reserve.”

  Max pulled out his lock picking set and got to work.

  *****

  “They keep coming,” said Hemp, replacing his spent magazine yet again. “This is beginning to appear pointless. And dire.”

  “I know,” said Charlie. “Look up the street. They’re pouring in.”

  Flex stared out at the building horde of rotters and began to feel doubt creeping in. He wondered how everything went to shit so quickly.

  Searching for any point of optimism he could focus on, he said, “They do look slower and weaker, though. Some of ‘em look like they can hardly put one foot in front of the other. At least when the Mothers aren’t around.”

  “Maybe so, but they’re gnashing like always, and they can still kill,” said Charlie.

  “If it’s the lack of the Earth vapor causing it, they may well be associating their weakness with a need for food,” said Hemp. “I think it’s the primary reason the Mothers led them all here. To feed and regain their strength.”

  Gem pulled out her radio and turned it to channel 19. Pressing the transmit button, she said, “Isis, Max? You guys read me?”

  Crackling came through the radio, with a voice beneath the static. “Aunt Gem? It’s Max. Yeah, we think we’ve found the way into the tunnel.”

  “Seriously?” said Gem, looking at the others. “Can you tell if there’s enough room for everyone?”

  “We’re not in yet, but almost. I gotta go. I’ll buzz you when we’ve got a clear path.”

  “You better,” she said. Gem waited for a response, got none, and clipped the radio back on her belt. Below, the sounds changed. A crowd of Kingman citizens appeared where the horde of zombies had milled about fifteen minutes earlier.

  “What the fuck?” asked Flex. “They’re not safe out here yet. What are they doing?”

  Flex plucked the radio from Gem’s belt and switched it to channel 9. “Kevin! What the hell’s goin’ on? Get everyone back inside! Hurry, man! You’re not in the clear yet!”

  Below, dozens and dozens of people barreled out of the doors of City Hall onto the sidewalk, some with weapons, but others entirely unprepared, holding children by the hands and carrying infants. Some had bottles of water and food.

  Before long, their numbers increased to a hundred or more, and it was clear their panic was growing; as their terror escalated, they trampled one another while the advancing, growing horde of walking dead began attacking them from all sides. Flex and the others watched in horror as their friends and neighbors fought to get in the clear.

  A woman Flex didn’t know, wearing a white blouse and a pair of red pants, held a little girl who could have been no more than two years old. As Flex watched, a huge male rotter, who must have been at least 6’5” tall, ripped the baby from her arms as she tried to turn and run back inside the building.

  Gem screamed, and Flex turned to see that she was watching the same horrible scene unfold. The enormous zombie stretched his jaws open and tore into the infant’s throat as the mother turned, screaming at the top of her lungs and scratching at his burrowing face with her fingernails.

  As she did this, a Mother came behind the distraught woman and put a hand on top of her head, jerking her head back so that the snap of her neck was audible.

  The woman was dead and dropping, but the red-eye caught her and buried her teeth into the woman’s throat, drinking in the gushing blood.

  As Flex watched in horror, more citizens of Kingman pushing through the crowd, he saw a single arrow pierce the skull of the Mother.

  She and the woman she had been consuming dropped to the sidewalk, disappearing as the panicked crowd closed in around the space they had occupied.

  “Get back inside!” screamed Charlie, to the people below. Many jerked their heads upward, spotting them. As if they were a flock of birds, one began running toward Rick’s gift shop and the rest of them followed.

  The horde seemed to blossom and the hungry dead appeared like flowing water from around every corner and alcove within view. There seemed to be hundreds of them below them, but that correlated to thousands within the city, as it was clear the fences had come down all around them.

  The crowd continued to flow out of City Hall as the zombies pushed inside, and soon, Flex knew the only safe haven within City Hall would be the bunker.

  It was now far beyond their control.

  The hordes advanced down the street. Their numbers seemed to grow exponentially which was bad enough, but what made it far worse was the fact that Flex saw several Mothers among them.

  The doors to the inn were locked because the interior of the building had suffered a fire at some point, and it had been dangerous. The blaze had clearly been extinguished before it reached the upper floors, but no repairs had been done and it was a black, sooty, dangerous mess inside.

  Many of the fleeing townspeople pushed into Rick’s, next door.

  “No, no!” shouted Hemp. “Please, go back inside! Back!”

  Reeves’ voice sounded over the radio. “I can’t stop them! They’re panicking!”

  Dozens of other people ran past Rick’s, confronted by Mothers or Hungerers of every age, gender and size. The carnage was everywhere, but it was not all to the advantage of the advancing horde; many of Kingman’s citizens had been battle trained and were holding their own, if only barely.

  They spread into the town of Kingman and disappeared into buildings and down alleys, out of view.

  Flex grabbed his radio. “Kev, you need to get as many folks down in that bunker as you can and shut the fuckin’ door! The City Hall door’s breached!”

  One of the men that had exited City Hall ran to the small bulldozer and climbed into the seat. Flex didn’t know him.

  As he got into the seat and moved to start the engine, a rotter staggered up to him from the left, and he threw a foot out and kicked the creature in the head. It fell away and he fired the diesel engine.

  Slamming his hand against the heavy-duty joystick, he spun the mini dozer around as he raised the bucket, then dropped it atop the rotter he had kicked away. It was a direct impact, and before the zombie’s emaciated body hit the ground, its softened, rotted head exploded in a blackish spray, painting the brick roadway.

  The dozer operator then spun the machine east and drove forward, raising the bucket high as the blood dripped from it. He ran over the curb and plowed straight into the brick wall of the Kings Inn. The bucket broke through and bricks toppled from the front as a cloud of black dust blew out into the street below them.

  “He broke down the fucking door!” shouted Gem.

  The dozer operator backed out again and spun the wheel to the left, cutting the engine. He then jumped off the rig and ran into the ruined inn. The crowd of former City Hall refugees turned and ran behind him, now flowing into the building.

  The horde followed. Gem leaned over the edge and tried to fire on the rotters in pursuit, but could not; she would hit some of the living people of Kingman.

  “They’re going to be trapped,” said Hemp.

  A noise came from behind them, and Flex turned to see the ladder leading from the roof of Rick’s Hobby Shop shuddering. He got up and ran to the edge and looked down.

  “Hold the ladder, please!” shouted the man, with a woman behind him. She held a baby.

  “It’s not safe here!” shouted Flex, holding the ladder anyway. “You need to get back into the City Hall building until we –”

  “We couldn’t breathe in there, Flex!” shouted the man, whose name Flex did not know. Almost everyone knew him, Gem, Hemp and Charlie because of the work they had all done to secure Kingman.

  The man got halfway up, then reached down to take the baby from the wo
man behind him. He cradled the infant in one arm and made his way the rest of the way up. Flex reached down and took the child as he reached the top.

  The woman scrambled up behind him and stepped onto the roof, taking the child from Flex.

  “Go sit down somewhere out of the way,” said Flex. “Toward the back. This wasn’t part of the plan.”

  The crowd had moved through Rick’s, and had clearly gotten another ladder. They were pouring onto the roof of the lower building and running for the ladder to mount the top of Kings Inn.

  Flex shook his head and ran back to where Hemp, Charlie and Gem lay firing into the street, away from the fleeing citizens. “They’re comin’ up,” said Flex. “Too many to stop.”

  *****

  The crowd below was now so intermingled with rotters that none of them could utilize their guns. Charlie was accurate enough with her crossbow that she took out any Mothers she spotted, but the mass of people and abnormals was too tight to pick most of them off before they attacked.

  They all sprayed as much urushiol into the air above the shifting, flowing crowd as they could, but it no longer completely disabled them. Flex had seen it at the pit; they continued to forge onward, even after mostly dissolving. Slithering along the ground, they would then sink their teeth into the ankles of the fleeing people around them, sending them to their eventual doom.

  Ear-piercing screams came from the crowd below as they ran; some fell to the ground and were trampled. The muck was collecting fast on the brick sidewalk, making movement difficult.

  “Vikki!” shouted Gem, seeing her friend below, a small caliber handgun held aloft. The youngest of the three sisters managed to stagger over several downed bodies and get to an area to the south of the horde that was open.

  Gem breathed a sign of relief, but saw something that immediately put her on alert.

  “Charlie, there!” She pointed at Vikki Solms. “Behind her. Take her out! Hurry!”