We turned the headlights off as we rolled into the area where the police station was located. It was a somewhat residential street, East 7th Avenue. The police station was on the corner of that road and Officer Ponce Avenue, and a sign indicating PARKING featured an arrow pointing down the latter.
It was now almost 2:30 in the morning, and neither of us was familiar with Tallahassee. We had put the radio on and heard static on too many stations. There was a news radio station out of Orlando that was still broadcasting, and they had a pretty strong signal, because it was still coming in.
They were calling it a virus, and they said it started as a migraine-like head pain, then attacked the temporal lobe of the brain first, and quickly. This was, they reported, the portion of the brain that held memory. Destroying that first made the victims forget who they or their loved ones were.
This worried me, because it was the logical first step in making anyone fair game. No sensitivities or emotions, no soft spot for anyone. Husband. Wife. Child. All just food. As for what exactly made them hunger for flesh, it wasn’t really being talked about – not openly. It was inferred but not specifically mentioned, because it was essentially cannibalism, and people frowned on that shit even if you were in a plane crash in the mountains in the snow and had to eat your pilot.
The next thing destroyed by the virus was the hypothalamus portion of the brain, where hunger and thirst were controlled. Only it did not destroy it, per se, rather it ramped it up to the extreme. This portion of the brain, according to the reporter, who seemed to have learned a ton of brain info in the last several hours, also controlled the heart, lungs, and other involuntary actions we humans so easily perform.
But it stopped these. Again, not so much spoken, but implied by the talking heads. So the virus killed off your memory, shut down your involuntary bodily functions, and made you ravenous.
Sorry, but sound the buzzer please. BZZZZZZZZT! Symptom number two should kill you dead, and nobody seemed to have an answer for why the fuck you could continue to walk around without breathing and with no heartbeat. And I swear, from my confrontation with them in the store, I saw their nostrils flaring as they held their eyes on me, so they could smell. They can smell.
And did this disease affect the actual dead? And if the answer was yes, did they reanimate? What happened if you just died naturally? Did this act like a safety net?
Not so fast, partner. Heaven can wait, ‘cause I gotcha. Now get out there and eat, because you’re starving!
If it did affect the dead, did it only do this prior to embalming? There were too many questions running around in my head, and to be honest, the fucking radio was freaking me out a bit. I had enough just looking at some of these victims on the side of the road. Gem had a death grip on the butt of that 9mm, and I had the .38 between my legs.
Lights still out, I turned left on Officer Ponce Way, and the parking lot entrance was about 100 yards down on the left. I stopped at the pivoting barrier and realized in seconds that the power was out, and pulling the parking card was not going to get me anywhere. I gunned the engine and slammed through the flimsy pressboard arm with the stop sign painted on it, and flew into the parking lot, the trailer bouncing over the speed bump behind me. I cringed, remembering Jamie on that trailer.
No cars moved in the lot and nobody crept around that we could see. The parking lot served three buildings, and snaked between them.
“We’ll need more ammo for the Uzi,” said Gem. “Maybe at the station.”
“If we can get in,” I said. “The three of us are okay, so maybe some of them are, too.”
Gem nodded agreement. “But it doesn’t mean they won’t help us, either. If things are as bad as we believe, they may welcome the assistance of any . . . well, normals out there. They must realize there’s nothing to do but kill –”
Gem stopped talking suddenly, and looked ashamed. I touched her hand. “Look. I said when we left Jamie’s, I had hope. I still hold onto some of it. Hell, I’ve got this fantasy that I unwrap her from that pool cover shit, and she’s back to normal, like I made her some sort of cocoon or something, but I know in my heart . . . well, I don’t even want to vocalize it.”
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to give up yet, Flex. I love her, too.”
“Okay. I know you do, Gem. Now, the game plan. This is it.”
The building on the left was large and concrete. There were several police cars parked in front. No activity. No fewer than eight dead bodies lay on the stone steps leading inside. All had massive head wounds but three of them. Those three had no heads at all.
Gem pointed. “There’s an alley. Turn in there.”
I did, and it was even darker here. But it did curve around and run behind the main building. There were three open spaces in a row, and I pulled the Suburban and trailer combo into them and threw it into park.
Gem had installed batteries in the flashes and the walkies while I drove. Twice along the way I’d had to run the truck/trailer combo off the road to get around stopped vehicles, and the flashlights came in very handy to see just where an open path was.
I clipped a radio on my belt. We’d already chosen channel 19 and tested them. Range was advertised to be over twenty miles, but I doubted it. Besides that, I didn’t plan on ever being that far away from Gem again.
“Let me go,” Gem said.
“I don’t think so.” I reached for her arm as she leaned Trina against me and opened the door. She wasn’t smiling.
“You can’t stop me, babe. You’ve got Trina to consider and I made it all the way from Miami to Gainesville on my own. That’s quite a story, and when we finally do stop and sit and have a nice cup of coffee, I’ll share with you some of the shit I saw and dealt with on my way to find your ass, including where this innocent little girl of yours got this kickass gun.”
She got out and held the door, the rifle slung over her shoulder and the Glock in her other hand. “So pardon my rant, but if you think you’ve got some advantage on me mentally, I’ll remind you that you don’t. As for physically, you are nicely built, but pound for pound, I am quite powerful myself.”
She shut the door and before she could walk away I waved at her to open it again. She did.
“What?”
“You’ll need this.” I unclipped the walkie from my belt and handed it to her. Then I unclipped the other one off the visor. “Won’t do you too much good if I’m talkin’ to myself, will it?”
“Smartass,” she said, slamming the door and throwing me a sarcastic salute as she headed into the station building.
I watched her walk away. I was worried, but I smiled. Damn, I loved that woman. It was good to have her back.
Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle Page 10