Dead Hunger_The Cleansing

by Eric A. Shelman

  Nelson appeared on his right side climbing easily out of the water.

  “Nelson! Help me out, man!”

  Nelson put his gun down and hurried to Flex, reaching down to take his hand. He pulled hard and Flex found himself being dragged over the edge and onto the stone floor next to his skinny, but unusually tough friend.

  “Thanks,” he breathed, and glanced over to see Hemp, Hannah and Taylor paddling toward the edge of the churning pool. The child’s eyes were wide, but in typical Hybrid fashion, she did not cry.

  “Be goddamned careful!” Flex screamed, his eyes fixed on his niece. “The damned pool is full of zombies!”

  Trina lay as still as death. Her chest did not rise and fall. In response, Flex’s heart tripled its speed, infused with adrenaline.

  Doc Scofield reached the edge and Nelson helped him out, too. He lay face down breathing hard and said nothing.

  “You okay, Doc?” asked Nelson.

  Wheezing, Doc Scofield nodded, but made no attempt to move or speak. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath.

  Flex grunted to his knees and straddled Trina’s supine body. He pressed his hands to her chest, pumping, pumping. He leaned down and pinched her nose, tilted her head back, and blew several breaths into her mouth.

  Nothing.

  “C’mon!” Flex shouted, and continued pumping on her chest and praying to himself until the young woman coughed and water erupted from her mouth and nose. He quickly moved off her and turned her onto her side where she spat out more water and gasped for breath. She coughed again and impossibly, more water expelled from her lungs.

  “Trini!” he shouted. “Baby, you okay?”

  “I couldn’t … stay … and then something … my head hurts.”

  Flex helped her sit up and felt the back of her head. A huge knot there seemed to be growing larger under his touch. He stood and pulled her away from the edge, resting her in a sitting position against the tunnel wall. He reached down and pulled her gun from its holster and put it in her hand.

  “Here. Be ready.”

  In the wildly flickering torchlight, Flex saw her glazed eyes fall to the bite mark on his right arm. “Daddy,” she said, her voice cracking.

  It broke Flex’s heart. She called him that when she was at her most vulnerable. Her eyes fixed on the bleeding wound. “Oh, my God,” she whimpered.

  “Can’t be undone,” said Flex. “Be strong, baby. I love you.”

  “Daddy …”

  He turned to look into her eyes again and saw they were brimming with tears. He squeezed her arm and turned back to the pool to help Nelson pull Taylor and Hemp out of the water.

  “Oh, shit!” came a familiar voice from above, and in the still pouring torrent of water, Punch plunged into the now sloshing pool. He dropped head first, his Saiga clutched in his hand, and when he surfaced moments later, he was a foot from the edge. He reached it, rested the weapon on the bank and easily crawled out. The water level of the pool now matched the height of the pathway beside it, even as the torrential flow continued.

  The water crested the pool and began to build.

  “We need to move!” shouted Hemp. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Where the hell is Lola?” said Punch. “Lola!”

  Flex looked around. She was not in sight. “Is she still up there?”

  “No!” shouted Punch. “I held on like a motherfucker until nobody else was up there!”

  He ran to where Jim lay and irreverently rolled the old man over. Jim was startled, but Punch reached into his shirt pocket and yanked the bagged flashlight out.

  Leaving the light inside the sealed baggie, Punch turned it on and dove into the water head first. His feet kicked twice and he disappeared beneath the surface.

  A moment later he reappeared, his left arm curled around the bone-thin neck of a female rotter that he had clearly believed was Lola when he’d plucked her from the bottom. He held the flashlight between his teeth for a moment, pulled a knife from somewhere, and stabbed the abnormal through the skull before shoving her away where she sank back into the depths. Throwing his knife onto the now flooding walkway, he dove back down to find his wife.

  Flex’s eyes fell on what appeared to be a body that had surfaced toward the south end of the pool. Air pockets beneath the fabric of its clothing provided buoyancy, and the motionless form floated toward the entrance of the trough and lodged there, undulating as the water flowed around it.

  That it was a body was not in question; the royal blue color of the top it wore caused a lump to form in his throat.

  Beside him, Charlie screamed, “No!” causing Flex to spring to action.

  “Nelson, help me!” he called, already up and running toward where the body floated.

  Glancing to see if Nelson was responding, he saw a figure flash by him and realized Nelson must have seen it a split second before him. As Moore drew beside him they both reached the body together.

  Nelson reached for her first and rolled her over. Her eyes stared skyward.

  It was Lola. She was dead, her eyes open and sightless. Blood ran down a massive wound on her forehead.

  Punch surfaced a moment later, his head turning quickly in all directions, his eyes panicked.

  They locked on Nelson and Flex, now dragging Lola’s limp form from the water.

  Punch’s scream became a wail of agony.

  *****

  Isis had instructed Wayne and some of the others to bring as many torches into the underground armory as possible. When six were lit and illuminating the large room filled with weaponry, she said, “Find a trigger. There must be a way to close this door from here.”

  “But when Flex and the others get here, they won’t know where we’ve gone,” said Gem. “Isis, we can’t close it.”

  Isis stared at her for a moment, clearly thinking of a solution.

  Max said, “Isis, she’s right. It could be their death sentence. Way more rotters were following this group and there’s no way this was all of them.”

  “Then we must hurry,” said Isis.

  Max called, “Giles, did you find anything yet?”

  “No!” came the answer from above. “We’ll start pounding. Call out when you can hear it the loudest!”

  Dull thuds came, but all sounded too far away to be any kind of access. The noise continued until one knock reverberated with a hollow echo.

  “Giles! Right where you were! Back up!” shouted Gem. “Slowly!”

  The dull pounding came again, but changed once more. The echo returned.

  “Stop!” shouted Max. “Keep pounding right there. Can you find something to break away that wall?”

  “Hold on!” shouted Giles.

  Gem paced among her exhausted neighbors and friends, Colton keeping pace. A moment later the light pounding they had heard was replaced by a sound of something breaking away.

  “That’s it!” said Max, running to the mid-point of the room. “Keep going!” He moved to a center ammunition rack and Gem went to stand beside him. The wall behind the rack was crumbling away.

  “Everyone move,” ordered Isis, her voice soft but firm. “Away from that rack, and clear the entire floor to the opposite wall.”

  They did. She stared at the rack and it shuddered. Her eyes blazed red for a brief moment – an intense red – and the rack tilted forward, falling flat with an enormous crash. Just when Gem believed she was finished, it moved again, sliding across the floor with a screech, the top of the rack slamming into the east wall.

  The wall was now fully visible and accessible, the cracks and broken stone still appearing quite impenetrable to Gem. “This is progress, but it’s still going to take a good goddamn while to get through, I imagine,” she said.

  “Everyone okay down there?” called Giles.

  There was a small hole, and a second later, a flash of light appeared behind it. “Can you see my light?” called Giles. “Is that where you are?”

  “I saw it!” shouted Ben. “You
sound really close!”

  Isis, Max and Gem stepped forward, toward the wall. The light had disappeared, but as they drew to within two feet, an axe head broke through the wall, dust settling to the floor as it became lodged in the stone.

  “Shit,” said Gem. “Bet it’s stuck now.”

  “Hold up, Giles!” called Max. “Leave the axe where it is!” He moved forward and took a pinch of the debris below the blade. He held his hand up and let it drift to the floor. “This isn’t rock,” he said. “Right here, it’s plaster or something, painted to look like rock.”

  “You shitting me?” asked Gem. She walked along the wall and knocked over the hole Giles had made. Two more feet to the right, she rapped on it again and said, “Ouch!”

  “What happened?” asked Colton.

  “It’s rock again, right there. This is a hell of a camouflage. It all looks the same.”

  Gem stepped around the fallen rack and tapped on the wall away from where the axe had penetrated.

  “It’s definitely some kind of plaster,” said Max. “Painted to match the stone.”

  “I’ll guarantee there are no vertical beams here,” said Isis. “This is intended to be a doorway.”

  “Go, Giles!” said Max. “Pull that sucker straight out and lay into it again!”

  The axe disappeared as though sucked away by a huge vacuum cleaner. A moment later the red and steel head broke through again, and this time a two-foot section of the well-built façade fell away.

  Giles Batchelor’s face appeared through the hole as he stared at them. “Well, aren’t you all a sight for sore eyes?” he said. His glasses were coated with plaster dust as he pushed in farther. “My, my. What have we here? The real armory?”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” said Gem, smiling and hugging Colton to her side. “Now slam that head a couple more times and let us out.”

  Cheers erupted from inside and now Gem and the others could see several people behind him, all smiles and tears of joy.

  *****

  Punch wouldn’t stop administering CPR to Lolita Lane, even though it was clear she was not coming back. The big United States Marine was in tears, spittle running from his nose and mouth as he worked on the woman he had likely loved from the day they’d met.

  “Buddy, stop,” said Nelson. “I’m sorry. She’s gone.”

  As if he had only been awaiting someone else’s confirmation, Punch collapsed atop his wife’s body, and broke down into sobs. It was the first time Flex had ever seen the man cry.

  Charlie, Trina and Taylor were all in tears. Scofield joined them. Flex tried to remain strong; the voice and mind of reason.

  The noise from the still rushing waterfall masked the agony of those who mourned Lola, and all of them moved against the north wall where they rested, allowing Punch the time he needed.

  There would never be enough time, Flex knew. He sat against the wall and stared at the burning torches ahead, and felt someone press against him. He turned to see Hemp. He held a flashlight that he turned on.

  “Let me see your arm, chap,” he said.

  “Fuck,” said Flex. “I damned near forgot about that.”

  “That’s because you’ve got a big heart,” he said. “You were more concerned for others than yourself.”

  Hemp studied the bite wound while Flex did his best not to look. A moment later, Hemp turned the light off and Flex felt his friend grip his hand and squeeze it. He said nothing.

  Flex whispered, “I’m fucked, huh.”

  Hemp did not answer. That wasn’t like him.

  “We always knew it could happen anytime to anyone,” said Flex, his voice still low. “I had a hell of a run.”

  Hemp’s sobs were soft at first, but a moment later he burst into tears, scrambled to his feet, and walked quickly away from where Flex sat.

  “Daddy?”

  Flex turned. Trina was on his other side. “I had a first aid kit in my backpack. The adhesive bandages are wet, but I have antibiotic ointment that’s only a few years expired, and some Ace bandages.”

  He looked into her eyes and said, “Trini, baby. You know it won’t do any good.”

  “It’s something!” she said. “It’s something and it will make me feel better, so you need to let me wrap it!” Now her tears flowed, and Flex put his arm around her.

  “Baby, shhh,” he said. “Okay. It’s okay, yeah, go ahead. I’m sorry.”

  Sitting up straight, Trina scooted in front of him. He felt someone on his other side, and turned to see Taylor. She took his hand in hers and squeezed it as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

  The tears came without warning, and Flex did not fight them. “I love you two so much,” he whispered.

  Now Taylor broke down, seemingly unable to get close enough to him. The water had now receded down the tunnel, and Trina knelt before Flex, resting the first aid on the stone floor in front of him. She opened the rusted, white box and set to work, wiping her eyes on her soaked sleeve every few seconds.

  Flex watched as the once little girl he’d rescued from certain death more than once, rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic.

  She took her time, and when she was done, she squeezed it. “Don’t let this get dirty. When it does, you change it, okay?”

  “Okay, Trini,” choked Flex. “You can change it for me.”

  “Daddy?” She squeezed her eyes together and hugged herself. Flex leaned forward and squeezed her hands.

  “Yeah, Trini?” He felt Taylor’s shudders beside him as he waited for his only little girl to say what she had to say.

  “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, baby girl.”

  *****

  When his wound was tended and Punch finally got to his feet, everybody stood. Nelson walked over and plucked a torch from the wall and turned. Hemp now carried Hannah, and Punch carried the limp body of his dead wife in his arms.

  Nobody tried to convince him to leave her.

  “As fast as we can,” said Hemp.

  They moved through the tunnels. Dead rotters lay here and there, and they came across several in chunks and pieces. The group had done its damage, but several other former residents of Kingman lay dead along the way, too.

  Flex cringed each time they approached another body, afraid it would be his Gem.

  Trina stayed beside him. She did not say anything, but she held his arm and never moved away. It was as though she intended to spend every remaining moment of Flex’s life beside him.

  A calm fell over Flex as they reached a door in the stone wall. A mound of bodies lay outside it, and so many had washed into the trough that it blocked the flow, causing a roostertail of water to spray into the air near the entrance.

  Hemp and Nelson led the way, stepping cautiously into the room. Inside, they found carnage unlike anything they had seen in years. Bodies stacked several feet high; mostly dead abnormals, but among them were faces that Flex knew they all recognized.

  Tim Feely. James Sullivan, who was Hannah’s father. Flex quickly glanced at the man’s body and back up at Hemp, who shielded the girl’s eyes from her father’s dead body.

  “I saw my papa has died,” she said. “I am going to miss him every day.”

  Hemp hugged the girl as the group pushed through the muck to reach the room beyond. A bright, brass gun with several barrels sat just inside the room.

  “So that’s what did this,” said Flex.

  “Flex? Flex?” It was Gem’s voice.

  “Gem! Where are you?” he shouted. “Gem!”

  “I’m here!” she said, and Flex searched the back of the deep room.

  “There!” shouted Nelson from behind him. “Look!”

  Nelson leapt out of the last of the bloody goop, his feet slipping and sliding on the stone floor as he ran to the opening that Flex hadn’t noticed in the torch lit cave. Nelson charged through and disappeared.

  More cheers rose from somewhere, and a moment later, Gem stood there, not ten feet from Flex. She leaned a
gainst the wall in a jagged opening and stared at him, her eyes brimming with tears. He ran to her and took her in his arms. She drew back and kissed his mouth, his cheeks and his eyes. He kissed her back and pulled her to him, holding her tight.

  They both broke down.

  After a few moments, Flex felt Gem’s grip on him ease, and she pulled away. “Oh, my God, Punch,” she whispered, staring behind Flex. “Not our Lola.”

  With her words, Punch broke down and dropped to his knees, resting Lolita Lane’s body on the stone floor. His body heaved with his grief as his tears fell, and Gem hurried to him and knelt down beside him, putting her arm over his shoulder. She said nothing.

  Eventually, everyone made their way into the armory. Hemp convinced Punch to leave Lola’s body in the cool ammunition storage room for the moment where it would be better preserved and out of sight of other survivors.

  *****

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I think it’s safe to say you can stop your call, Travis,” Dave whispered to the boy. “Draw your shade.”

  “I already did,” the boy whispered back. “Since we came up here, even I cannot tell the difference anymore.”

  Dave wanted to ask him what he meant; he did not understand. Maybe it had something to do with the diminishing earth gas and what was happening to the rotters all around them, but it would have to be sorted out later.

  Dave Gammon walked down the center of Main Street with Travis on his shoulders. Beauty walked on his left, and he cautiously eyed the hundreds of bodies lying on the ground all around them. He knew that if he were to have visibility for miles, that figure would become thousands.

  Silently thanking the night, Dave forged onward, toward the south end of town and the armory. He hoped they had made it.

  Some of the abnormals still stood, but just barely. They almost teetered there, heads turning toward the trio as they passed by, their eyes somehow desperate. It was likely his imagination, but something important was happening.