Dead Hunger | Book 10 | The Remnants

by Shelman, Eric A.

  “Hey!” she called as they drove up. Both women got out.

  “Hey, Rach. You know what happened, right?”

  “With Jax? Yeah. There may only be a few people here, but word travels. Nel radioed me a few minutes after it happened. He hurt his knee, but he says it’s okay. He was really shaken up.”

  Rachel was a couple of inches shy of 5’ tall and a badass chick. She could fly helicopters and kill zombies, and she was raising a child who would pose a real threat to her female peers.

  Just eleven years old, Lita Moore was a force to be reckoned with. She was named after Lita Ford, the former lead guitarist for The Runaways. Ford’s song, Kiss Me Deadly, was Rachel’s favorite song.

  Now it was Lita’s favorite, too.

  Lita was proficient in the Ninja stars because Nelson taught her beginning at age five. He had tried when she was four, but she continually poked her fingers with it and began crying – not from the pain, but from Nelson taking them away, realizing she was still too young and uncoordinated.

  But the next year, she got it. When he poked his finger a couple of times in front of her, Lita never let him forget it.

  Not that Nelson forgot anything.

  “We’re going to see Trina now,” said Gem.

  Lita ran out of the house. “Hey, Aunt Gemmy! Hi, Aunt Charlie!”

  She called everybody Aunt and Uncle. Nobody told her to, but she said it made her feel like she had a really big family, and she liked that.

  She had long, straight hair like her father; blond, of course. Her face was angular like her father’s and her once button-like nose was now looking more like her mother’s, rounded at the tip, sized well for her face. Lita’s default expression was a smile, and she always seemed to be anticipating fun right around the corner, despite her life so far.

  Children had a way of adapting to anything and Gem loved them for it. Lita and Colton, the same age, were fast friends from the beginning, and they would often go to the practice range together where he would shoot his Golden Boy .22 and she would throw her stars.

  “Colton’s at Three Sisters,” said Gem. “You wanna go?”

  “I’m done here,” said Rachel. “Two minutes.”

  After clipping the last sheet to the line with Charlie’s help, Rachel went in to retrieve her weapon. She carried a Glock 19 9mm pistol. She wore it on a side holster.

  Lula was an open carry town.

  “Can I bring my stars?”

  “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,” said Rachel.

  “Yay!” said Lita, charging back inside the house to retrieve her belt. She also open-carried. Nelson and she had made the star-belt – that’s what Lita called it – out of leather from a hobby shop, tying each star pouch on with leather string tightly knotted. It held ten stars of varying sizes, though she preferred the smaller stars with longer prongs.

  Strapping the belt on she reached the car, and everyone got in. They were at Three Sisters five minutes later.

  *****

  “There he is,” said Gem, smiling.

  “Colton!” shouted Lita as she got out of the car.

  Colton came out wearing a white apron that tied over his neck. He ran up to the car and Gem rolled down the window. “Hey, mom! I’m doing some glasses for V and V.”

  “You and your work ethic,” said Gem, hugging him through the window.

  Colton didn’t have to help with dishes at Three Sisters, but he regularly did. He liked all the people that came in and out, and Vikki and Victoria treated him like their own kid.

  Vikki and Victoria treated every kid like their own.

  “You coming in? Dad’s here. So’s Hemp and them.”

  “Back in a little bit, sweetie.”

  “We’re dropping you off, baby,” said Rachel, to Lita. “We’re going to see Trina. Like Aunt Gem said, we’ll be back in a few.”

  “Bye, Mommy! Bye, Aunt Gem and Aunt Charlie!”

  Everyone waved as Gem pulled away from the bar and navigated to Taylor’s house. It was a small ranch home she had painted a two-tone orange and pink that Gem thought would be a disaster until she saw it. The colors really contrasted well, and it reminded her of a home she might see in Key West or other parts of Florida.

  “Get ready,” said Gem. “I’m sure she’s reeling.”

  But as they walked up the front walkway to the stoop, they heard laughing. Guffawing, even.

  Gem narrowed her eyes at the others on the porch and knocked. The laughing stopped abruptly.

  The door opened and Trina, her eyes red and swollen, stood there. Her face was sullen for a moment before she burst into laughter and staggered away from the door back to the couch where Taylor sat.

  Taylor was a beauty; she looked almost exactly like her mother, Cynthia, who had died in Concord, New Hampshire. She was killed in a cemetery by the ratz. The rodents had become affected by the earth gas like humans, and while some were immune, most weren’t.

  They died shortly after reanimating. Soon there were none left, though the ordinary rats re-emerged. So, while their existence was short-lived, their presence and the devastation they wrought changed Taylor’s life forever.

  Charlie had adopted her afterward – a natural fit because Taylor had always loved her and the feeling was more than mutual.

  “Hey, Trini,” said Gem. At her words, Trina’s laughter devolved into tears and shudders, and she walked into Gem’s arms. The two women held one another in the doorway for a long time before they broke their embrace.

  Once they were inside, Trina offered them tea, which they all accepted. They sat on the couches and talked about Jax.

  “Taylor just … she started talking about Jax and stuff he said when he didn’t want to shoot anything, even deer or boar.”

  “Not even a squirrel,” said Taylor.

  “Especially not a squirrel!” said Trina. “Excuses, you know?”

  “Ingrown toenail,” said Taylor. “Remember that one? We were going deer hunting.”

  “He wouldn’t take off his shoe,” said Trina.

  “We were assholes,” said Taylor.

  “I … know,” muttered Trina, tears flowing again.

  “Didn’t matter,” said Gem, her hand on Trina’s knee. “He loved you anyway and I don’t think he even heard the jokes or cared. Good guy or not, Trini, not every good soul is a match for another good soul. There’s way more chemistry involved than that.”

  “He was beginning to understand,” Trina said. “He stopped trying to kiss me hello whenever we saw each other. It wasn’t awkward, much. I thought we could settle into a friendship.”

  “Loss is part of this world, sweetie,” said Gem. “It’s a fucked-up part, but it reminds us to look out for our people. Kick ass when necessary and don’t hesitate. Whether you loved him or not, you would’ve stood up to protect him without any thought to your own well-being. It’s who you are.”

  “Our moms are telling you how it is, Treen,” said Taylor. “Meanwhile, all I can do is try to get you drunk. Not sure why you ever turn to me at all. I’m ill-prepared.”

  “You’ve always got wine,” said Trina, smiling now. “Love you, Tay.”

  Gem and Charlie looked on, smiles on both their faces. Rachel stood by the door. She smiled, too, but she clearly had other things on her mind. Her husband was just feet from where Jax was killed, for one.

  “Look,” said Trina, wiping her eyes. “I need to keep busy. Tell me where I’m most needed now.”

  “Me, too. Where Treen goes, I go. At least for today,” said Taylor.

  “Can you drive a forklift?” asked Charlie.

  “If it’s got a pedal and a shifter, I can drive anything.”

  “I can help her,” said Taylor.

  “Okay. Get on the radio. Channel 31. Call Nel and he’ll put you two where he needs you. Bus duty, I’d think. It’s our number one priority.”

  “Me and Lita will go over to the protected zone and start pulling in stock,” said Rachel. “Food, water.
We’ll need to be ready in case we need it. I’ll get more help on that front at Three Sisters. Trina, you have another breakdown you know where to find me. I had my share of loss when all this first started. I think I can offer some wisdom.”

  Rachel had returned home from military service, only to find it empty. A kindly neighbor, a rancher, had at first supported her fantasy that her husband would return, but it never materialized. Finally, he had admitted that he’d known her husband had been a zombie all along.

  Her anger at him at first was understandable, but in the end, he’d helped convince her to accept it and move on.

  Dave, Serena and Nelson had found them on the road and welcomed them into their small, traveling group.

  Nelson did not seem like her type, but Rachel came to love him as much as he fell in love with her. Lita was their living angel, a miracle in a horrible world. Catastrophe makes for strange bedfellows.

  And sometimes they’re not as strange as they first seem.

  The women all stood and there were hugs all around.

  “Tay, Trina, radio if y’all need us,” said Rachel.

  *****

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lilith lay deep in her burrow, the voices of the Mothers entering her mind from distances unknown. Like repeaters, they relayed signal after signal across the miles of terrain across the United States, ravaging city after city, small town after rural village.

  Feeding. Surviving. That’s all it was now. Before there was no fear; there was a mindless forward motion. Now, things had changed. Lilith found herself hesitating, questioning – in the most basic way – her own actions, as well as the consequences.

  She did not care about the Hungerers. They were soldiers, their only purpose was to die for the controlling Mothers. Theirs was an enormous hive, and the Mothers were the queens. No sense of loss, no regret, no ….

  But there was a sense of fear. Survival was all there was when dominance did not seem likely.

  Nightfall would come soon, and the hordes would move toward the next population center. Lilith and her growing throng would continue northward, toward the smells and sounds of people. They were active, for these sounds were apparent as well.

  In the past, this bustle of activity meant opposition when they arrived; it could not be avoided. She knew them to be worthy adversaries. They had killed many, many of her kind, and of the lesser Hungerers.

  Many more would die, but she and the other survivors would feast as their reward.

  *****

  The buses were rolling in at a speed of one every sixteen minutes. The area they intended to protect was being closed in and they were using small earth movers to dig up nearby lawns and use that dirt to fill any gaps.

  Eighteen people, working in nine pairs, now operated the fork trucks and pulled them into town.

  Rachel and Lita opened up the Lula Grocery to use as a staging area. It had long been depleted of most goods – many bottles of salt, pepper, spices, and some less-popular canned foods remained, but they had been on the shelf so many years, nobody had the balls to eat them.

  As Rachel had requested at Three Sisters, everyone available was bringing all of their food stores from their homes to the safe zone. It was more hustle and bustle than Rachel had seen since their work in Kingman. It felt good to be proactive.

  “Mommy, I’m going to stack all of these in a row.”

  “Good, Lita. Start on the bottom shelf and don’t waste any space.”

  Lita was lining up bottles of water – they had continued to find case after case of various bottled waters over the years – the world had been saturated – so to speak – with a hundred brands from private labels to Dasani. Even after all these years it was not unusual to find several cases at once.

  A tall man with a salt-and-pepper beard and mustache came in, and Rachel realized she did not know him.

  “Hello,” he said. “You must be Rachel.” He had an accent she found pleasant and friendly.

  “And you are?” she asked, smiling.

  “Koko. I knew Nelson many years ago. I was down in Athens.”

  “I’m so sorry about what happened there,” said Rachel, stopping what she was doing. “We’re doing all we can to prevent that from happening here.”

  “I have a touch of gout in my right foot and ankle,” said Koko. “For this reason, I’m not worth much when it comes to pitching in on more labor-intensive tasks, but I can walk well enough to help you. Please, direct me. I could use a solitary task now.”

  “I heard another lady came into town with you,” said Rachel. “I also heard you lost your wife.”

  “Yes, Wendy Potvin came with us from Athens. She is helping to move the buses. She drove a forklift in a past life, or so she said.”

  Rachel waited. Koko had not addressed the loss of his wife. He looked at her.

  “Word travels fast here.”

  “It does,” said Rachel, walking to him and taking his hand in hers. “Trina’s ex-boyfriend was killed, too. I was just consoling her. I’m sorry for what you’re going through.”

  “I appreciate that,” said Koko. “It is also why I would rather not do jobs where I might hurt anyone for my inattentiveness. I am distracted by my grief now.”

  As if on cue, a forklift barreled by, the bus it towed rattling on its frame as they made their way to its slot in the chain of dead buses.

  “I think that was her,” said Koko. “Wendy.”

  *****

  Wendy moved the bus into position. It was number 129, which meant they had roughly 50 buses to go.

  As she lowered the forks to release the tension on the bumper and allow the bus to settle into place, an earth-mover came up beside her and began dumping dirt up against the undercarriage.

  “Not sure what good that does if you said they burrow,” said Wendy, speaking loudly over the propane-burning motors. “They can dig right under.”

  “Guess it’s supposed to slow them down?” said the man on the small bulldozer. “Hey, it’s worth a shot.”

  Wendy looked around. There was a wholesale hardware store just across from where the bus was placed. Wendy backed the forklift up, drove to the rear of the bus and lifted it. Punch, who volunteered to work with her, pulled out the dolly that supported the rear axle.

  “Hey, go on back. I’ll be there in a minute,” she told him.

  “Why? What’s up?”

  “How much propane we got?”

  “Nelson said there are a bunch of tanks back at the bus lot. All wrapped and in good shape.”

  “I know we’re tryin’ to hurry here,” she said, “but come with me real quick. I had a thought.”

  Punch shrugged and went to the forklift, jumping in the passenger seat. “Drive.”

  She cranked the wheel hard right and drove across the street to the hardware store. Setting the brake, she got off. “Let’s do some shopping.”

  Punch followed her into the store. She pulled a small LED flashlight out of her pocket, and Punch did the same. In a world without power, it was a standard, as were rechargeable batteries and solar charging stations at each house.

  “Looking for black pipe.”

  “For gas?”

  “Yep. Lots of it.”

  “Doubt they used much. The galvanized and stainless was in high demand for water, but they haven’t been running too many gas lines.”

  “Y’all open to other methods of defense?” asked Wendy.

  “What do you mean?”

  Wendy explained her idea to him. They walked around the aisles of the huge warehouse until they reached multiple racks. ½” and ¾” black pipe abounded, as did the bins of fittings.

  “Elko Gas is around the corner, too,” said Punch. “Commercial supplier. Pretty sure they’ve been out of propane for years, but they got a shit-ton of this stuff, too.”

  “What do you think?”

  “We’ll need to check with Nel.”

  “Let’s check with Nel, then,” said Wendy, smiling.


  *****

  “We’ve still got a lot of work to do, and it looks like we’re going to have to get a few buses from Cornelia. They might have just enough to finish this.”

  “Okay, but I think it’s worth sacrificing this one fork truck, Nel,” said Punch. “Wendy’s not wrong here. Backup, just in case. We’ll need two of those tanks, thereabouts.”

  “That’s not the issue,” said Nelson. “There are plenty of tanks of propane. It’s the manpower.” He looked around as three more buses rolled out of the lot. “We’ve got about 12 more here, then it’s Cornelia.”

  Punch held out his hands, a questioning look on his face. “Don’t want to do this without your blessing, Nel.”

  “Okay, bro. Go ahead. Work fast, though. No telling how much time we have left.”

  “Fuck yes!” said Wendy, pumping her fist. “C’mon, Punch. Let’s knock this shit out in record time.”

  Punch laughed at her enthusiasm and gave Nelson a shrug.

  *****

  Doc Scofield drove the VW now, and the sun was beginning to ease its way toward the horizon. The tension in the car grew as the sun dropped lower in the sky.

  “How close are we to our stop?” asked Eileen.

  “We picked a place called New Albany, Mississippi,” said Jim Cole. “We’re coming up on it in about five miles.”

  “I must’ve been sleeping when you said where we’re stopping,” said Steven with a yawn. “I’ve seen the signs though.”

  They rounded a bend and saw the first buildings. From that point they could also see where the landscape flattened out again beyond the small town. New Albany was nowhere near the size of its namesake in New York state.

  “Find a big, solid-looking building,” said Jim Cole.

  They drove through the middle of the deserted town. Clothing, trash, and clumps of hair littered the streets. The occasional skeleton or random bones blemished the sidewalks, but most were concealed behind weeds that had grown six feet tall, even through the narrow cracks in the concrete. The streets had cracked as well, so it was like driving a bass boat through a reed-filled lake.