Dead Hunger_The Cleansing

by Eric A. Shelman

  The crowd murmured, and the first man descended the aluminum rungs. The rest followed. In fifteen minutes, it was just Flex, Gem, Hemp and Charlie on the roof.

  As they all peered down, the battering ram broke through. Moans came from the injured below, some of pain, others of relief. Several more impacts and the hole was large enough for a man as large as Flex to duck through easily.

  Flex called for Vikki, who remained on the hobby shop roof for the time being. She unlashed the leg of the ladder, climbed up and reached the top with Flex’s help.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “Reeves have any room?”

  “Not sure,” said Flex. “Maybe your sis is there.”

  Vikki nodded and stepped aside as he and Hemp lowered the ladder down through the cavernous hole in the roof and extended it more, until it rested on the third floor walkway.

  The dead did not move.

  Yet.

  *****

  The heavy, wooden door had this symbol carved in the dead center:

  Isis ran her fingers over the image of the all-seeing eye with the rays of the sun around it, and knew they had either found the entrance, or perhaps just another decoy designed to discourage the curious.

  The lock pick had been useless on the frozen padlock. No matter how Max worked the picks inside, the parts would not shift. They had used what power they had remaining to heat the lock into molten steel.

  Max kicked the melted glob of metal aside as he and Isis swung the heavy door, made of rough-hewn 4 x 4 beams, wide open. In front of them were stone steps leading down into the gloom below. It smelled musty, and they could hear water running somewhere below them.

  “I’ll go first,” said Max, turning to look at Isis. “You know, to protect you in case something goes wrong.” He winked at her, then quickly moved his face toward her and kissed Isis on the lips.

  Isis tried to contain her smile, but could not. Max had a way of doing that; in the most dire of times, his easy-going attitude and flirting reminded her that both of them were mostly human. It felt good to feel that.

  She started down behind him. “One little push and I could just meet you at the bottom,” she said.

  “Yeah, with red tears in your eyes for hurting me,” he quipped. “Hey, I think I’m here.”

  “This is as black as pitch,” said Isis.

  While their eagle-like vision was far better than that of an ordinary human, it had its limitations, and the kind of darkness that stretched out ahead of them qualified.

  Isis withdrew her headlamp and turned it on, holding it up. She pointed. “It curves around to the left up there.”

  Max stepped forward and she followed. The narrow hallway then curved to the right and went beyond where her light would penetrate.

  Moving through in silence, they walked for a long distance before the wall on their right stopped. The tunnel was arched stone around seven feet high. Ahead of them, the tunnel resumed, but the overhead stones grew steadily lower; perhaps just under five feet high as far as they could see, but Isis knew it could quite possibly be much lower in other sections of the tunnel.

  To their left, a river ran. Max went over to it and knelt down. He put his hand in the water. “It’s cold.” He drank from it. “Wow,” he said. “It’s like from a spring.”

  Isis scanned upward from the flowing water, and said, “C’mon. Follow me.”

  Max did. They walked perhaps another fifty yards, the dryness they had felt in the main basement now gone; the air was moist and cool.

  Isis stopped and pointed. “There. That stone channel is the source.”

  The water flowed smoothly over the edges of what appeared to be a stone cylinder protruding from the earth.

  “It’s probably an Artesian well,” she said. “If they had to use this tunnel to hide in, it would have been what they used as their water source.”

  “It’s like I’m in love with a freakin’ genius,” said Max. “Where does it come out?”

  “The flow likely follows the passable tunnel systems,” said Isis, “running past all of the access points in and out of the system.”

  “That makes sense, so they’d have fresh drinking water wherever they were,” said Max. “Okay, where to?” he added, before Isis could acknowledge his comment.

  She shook her head. “It branches off in other directions from here. See how they’ve diverted the water? Anyway, City Hall is closest. Let’s see if there’s an entrance to that building.”

  *****

  Gem stayed up on the roof for the moment. She did not intend to climb down into Kings Inn and have Flex tell her she needed to stay in the bunker. Not while Trina and Tay were out there somewhere.

  Instead, she sat on the ledge, her feet dangling over the side, using her Glock to take out rotters below. Each recoil, as seemingly insignificant as they were in comparison to her Uzi, still sent a bolt of lightning through her damaged rib.

  From what Gem understood, the main City Hall building was empty now; everyone was in the bunker and not visible or detectable by the Mothers, so the crowd in front of the building had scattered.

  More and more were feeding into the town from all points, though. It looked almost like the street outside her aunt and uncle’s home in Miami probably looked like a few hours later on that first day, only then she hadn’t been perched high above them; she had been running from them.

  “Mom!”

  Gem recognized Trina’s voice instantly. She searched the street first, saw only zombies, then turned her eyes to the rooftops and saw Trina immediately, waving her arms. She was across the street. Tay was beside her, blowing her kisses.

  “Where were you guys?”

  Trina pointed to West B Avenue, and Gem spotted the rear of the golf cart.

  “Doc Scofield’s cart is over there,” said Trina. “We hauled over a 20-gallon drum of urushiol, so maybe we can use it.”

  “Why are you up there, anyway?” called Gem.

  Trina held up some towels and Taylor held up a small paper pail. “We wanted to get off the street to test our theory,” said Trina. “It’s horrible, mom. God, so many people are dying.”

  “I know, baby,” said Gem, feeling as though she could see Trina’s tears even at that distance. Perhaps it was just the sorrow she heard in her daughter’s voice.

  Gem called, “Hurry and try it, Trini, and I’m so glad you’re safe. I’m coming over, too.”

  “Don’t you dare!” said Tay. “If Uncle Flex thinks we made you do that, it’s our asses.”

  Gem settled again with a big sigh. “Then I’ll watch for now.”

  “Good plan,” said Trina. They knelt down and got to work. The rotters moved below the shredded store canopy, providing the girls easy targets.

  *****

  Flex knelt down over a man with a broken and jagged piece of wood protruding from his midsection. His arms wagged and his feet twitched as he lay on his back, his pink eyes staring upward. Flex recognized him as the man who had driven the bulldozer through the door.

  Apparently, when the roof had fallen in, it had snapped the last bit of stair railing, and a spindle from the banister had ripped through his right side, exiting his body just under his left armpit.

  Flex followed the blood trail beneath him; it was no longer flowing, but before clotting, he had lost what looked like gallons. His mouth gnashed almost imperceptibly.

  “Hemp, come here, buddy,” Flex said. “Hold on, move to your left.”

  Hemp sidestepped, making sure the coast was clear, and Flex withdrew his Glock and fired four shots that took down three advancing rotters.

  “They’re all slower, man. For sure,” he said.

  “Good,” said Hemp. He stopped quickly and checked on a man whose leg appeared broken, but who was otherwise okay. After instructing two of Reeves’ assigned workers to get him on a gurney from one of the ambulances at the fire station next door, he came to where Flex knelt.

  “Thank you for watching my back,” said Hemp.

/>   “It’s what we do,” said Flex. “Check it out.”

  “Is he dead?” Hemp asked, reaching forward to feel his neck for a pulse. Flex snatched his wrist and pulled it away. “It’s the guy who drove that bulldozer through the front door. But look at his eyes. Dots for pupils. Just slightly pink. He’s barely gnashin’. He still turned, man.” Flex felt defeated.

  Hemp pulled out a light and shone it into the man’s eyes. He halfheartedly attempted another gnash of his teeth, his tongue flitting between them. He bit down on it, splitting the skin, but the blood clotted there; it didn’t flow.

  “Flex, they’re changing, but there’s not enough of the earth gas to energize them. They’re still turning, but they’re extremely weak. That woman over there,” he said, pointing. “She broke her neck and leg. She’s like this fellow.”

  Flex pulled out his knife and turned his head as he slid it into the man’s eye socket, burying it deep within his brain.

  All tension left the body as it went limp. “You already handle her?” asked Flex.

  “No,” said Hemp. “Please.”

  Flex moved over to her and saw that it was Laurie Mault. She had been a regular singer over at Three Sisters Bar, and Black Velvet was her specialty.

  “I’m sorry, Laurie,” he said, pushing his knife into the base of her skull. “But you’re already gone.” Her body tensed for a moment, the hands jerking once, then twice, before stilling forever.

  “She was a good girl,” said Hemp, looking at Laurie. He was quiet for a few brief seconds.

  “Hemp, you okay, buddy?”

  “I got used to these people,” he said. “We’d finally built a place where we had time to get to know everyone. It hurts even more to lose them.”

  “I get you, man,” said Flex.

  Hemp appeared to shake it off for the moment. “Flex, remember some of the testing I did in those first days? I determined that each individual cell within their bodies craved flesh. It became the sole focus of every entity within their physiology. Somehow, that focus mobilized the limbs, and the small portion of brain remaining must have directed the instinctive movement necessary to bring them closer to sources of food.”

  “I remember,” said Flex, shaking his head. “Hell, I’ll never forget.”

  “Well, from here on out, I don’t believe we have to worry as much about reanimation. They may turn, but actually moving may no longer be possible for them. At all.”

  “It’ll just keep shiftin’ more and more in our favor as less gas comes out, right?” asked Flex.

  “That’s what I believe, but in the meantime, we still have the Mothers and Hungerers out there. Their conversions are complete, and with the Mothers pushing them, they’re still plenty dangerous and mobile.”

  “Agreed. So what’s next, buddy?”

  “We need to get over to the museum,” said Hemp. “We haven’t received anything from Isis and Max since they said they might have found the tunnel entrance.”

  “We’ve been a tad busy,” said Flex. “I hope they have been, too.”

  Charlie ducked through the hole leading from the fire station. “Hey,” she said. “I brought you guys some of our homemade granola bars.”

  Flex and Hemp each took two of them, opened the baggies and stuffed them into their mouths, one after the other.

  “Don’t choke on that shit,” said Charlie. “Gooey, remember?”

  “It’s the natural honey,” said Hemp, almost unintelligible, his mouth was so viscous.

  “I have more ammo just in case,” said Charlie, slapping a sack hanging over her shoulder. The Parker crossbow was over her other shoulder. “And more bolts, too. Can’t retrieve the ones from out front.”

  “Did you have anymore EB-tipped arrows?” asked Hemp, his voice clearing.

  “Ten more,” said Charlie. “They don’t work as fast or as well, but they still eventually do the trick. We going to find our son now? Because we are. It wasn’t a question.”

  Charlie wore a ragged shirt, black with Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album cover on front.

  “Yes, darling,” said Hemp. “Up the ladder with you. We need to get out the way we came in.”

  “Is Gem still up top?”

  “Yeah,” called Gem, her face peering down at them over the top of the ladder. “How many didn’t make it?”

  “Enough,” said Flex, mounting the first rung. “Hold the top, would you, Gem?”

  Gem steadied it until Flex reached the top. Gem smiled and pointed. “Wave to your daughter, papa.”

  “Where?”

  “Over here, dad!” shouted Trina, from the roof across the street. “We’re waiting for you guys. We’ll go with you to find Max and Isis.”

  “Hey, little girl!” shouted Flex, stepping onto the roof and carefully making his way to the west edge of the roof. “Hey, Taylor! You guys get that drum of oil?”

  Taylor pointed. “Right around that corner. Not sure where to put it, so we left it on Doctor Jim’s cart. We have this bucket of it, though.”

  “Does it work?”

  Taylor and Trina both pointed at several blobs of muck on the street below, intermingled with some half-melted skulls and clothing.

  “Turns out the pure stuff really puts them down,” called Trina. “Not enough parts left to pull along afterward. If we douse their heads they’re done.”

  “Good. See if you can find some plastic bottles or something in those shops there,” said Flex. “We need a way to distribute that stuff.”

  Flex’s radio crackled. “Dude! It’s Nel!”

  Flex grabbed it. “Yeah, Nel?”

  “Man, I’m sorry, but Rach and I can’t find Trini and Tay anywhere! We’re at the urushiol storage building and there’s an outline of a missing drum on the floor, so they must’ve been here.”

  “Buddy, they’re here. Sorry. I just found out. You two okay?”

  “Yeah, bro. Just sparked a bowl and I’m ready to roll. Kinda got the munchies, though.”

  Gem said, “Flex, tell him to bring some paper buckets and a bunch of those wood-handled paintbrushes. And a drum pump.”

  “I gotcha,” said Flex. He relayed the message to Nelson and Rachel, telling them to bring as many buckets and brushes as they could carry. “Then load that shit up on Scofield’s golf cart parked on the corner of West B and Main. That’s where the urushiol drum is. Got me so far?”

  “Yeah, bro. I’m stoned, not stupid.”

  Flex smiled. “I fuckin’ know that, Nel. Now listen. Once you got everything in the cart, have Rachel install that hand pump in the drum while you drive down the street to the museum. Can you get there safely?”

  “The museum?” asked Nelson. “Dude, this is no time for an infusion of historical culture!”

  Flex laughed. Only Nel could get him chuckling when the world was crumbling around them. “Nel, I’ll explain when you get there. We’ll be there before you, so just get inside and find the stairs to the basement.”

  “Got it. See you guys there.”

  *****

  CHAPTER SIX

  Max tore off another small piece of the bright orange and yellow plastic fins from one of his arrows. He and Isis had agreed that it would provide a trail of bread crumbs of a sort; not only for them if they should become turned around, but so that his parents and the others could find them, even as they ventured deeper into the ancient tunnel system.

  The fast-flowing artesian well fed the noisy brook more than adequately, making it easy to follow the tunnels, even with the LED light used only on occasion. The sound of the water gurgled to their left, keeping them centered.

  Max turned the light on again. “Let’s start looking. We have to be near City Hall by now.”

  “I agree,” said Isis. “Look for a door of some kind. Or anything that could be a blocked passage.”

  Max shone his light along the wall, moving it over every inch. After several minutes he looked up. “Hey, I. What’s this?”

  Isis went to Max,
kneeling down to take a look. “It’s another Freemason symbol,” she said. “A spade or a trowel. It’s often incorporated into other images rather than used alone, but this has to be it, Max!”

  Max smiled. “Right on, babe. That makes sense, since we should be at about the right place.”

  “Babe?” asked Isis.

  “It’s what Uncle Flex calls Aunt Gem all the time. He loves her, too.”

  Isis shook her head, but could not prevent the smile from touching her lips. “I think you’ve found it,” she said. “Do you see any access panels or anything?” She scanned the wall for any sign of an entrance.

  Max moved his light along the wall. After five more minutes of searching, Isis said, “Here.”

  “What?” asked Max, moving over.

  “Here, feel. By this crack.”

  Isis took his hand and held it by the wrist. She looked at Max. “Feel that?”

  “Cool air,” he said. “From that crack.”

  The stone wall appeared identical to the rest of the walls, but there was a darker gap around the stones on that wall, around forty inches wide by nearly four feet tall.

  Isis centered her hands on it and pushed, not only with her physical body, but with her mind. The entire piece swung in on one side with the low scrape of stone on stone, pivoting at its center.

  Max said, “Hey! It’s like a revolving door or something!”

  “Good design,” said Isis. “Help me push it again.”

  This time, Max leaned into it and pushed with Isis. The stone piece pivoted inward on the right as the left side swung out, perpendicular to the wall now. Thick darkness lay beyond.

  “Fuckin’ A!” shouted Max. “Look! Steps!”

  “Let’s go,” said Isis. “Quiet for now.”

  “Can’t you celebrate our successes just a little bit?” said Max. “It’s not a bad thing.”

  Isis shook her head, but she wasn’t mad. “Max, there will hopefully be time for that later. For now, all we’ve done is find some hidden stairs. We can’t be sure it leads to City Hall.”