*****
“Where the fuck did they all come from?” I called out, and Gem, already firing into the group, answered.
“Not sure babe, but I plan to send as many as I can to Hell!” She took aim and blasted the heads off of three of them that were within twenty feet.
Hemp did know his weapons. He charged forward toward them for a good, predictable shot, and in six short bursts, took seven of them down. For my part, I’d taken five out, and from our first estimate, we should’ve had right around thirty-five to go. We were wrong. There were dozens of them outside of our line of fire, making their way toward us along the shoulder behind the many cars that either crashed or had been hastily parked there. In my peripheral vision, I could see a few of them flanking us, and that didn’t make any sense at all for things with just one emotion – hunger.
“Hemp, do you see what’s happening?” I ran back to the truck and yanked open the door. “Trina, no matter what you hear, you keep your head down, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Uncle Flexy,” she answered from under her comforter.
“Okay, sweetheart.” I pulled the key and leaned over and pushed the lock down on the passenger side, then locked the driver’s door and slammed it. I wanted to leave the rear doors open for quick access to the other weapons and ammo in case we needed them.
“Hemp, what do you think?” I called. Gem was focused. I glanced at her every now and then, in between shots.
“I think I’m glad we got these high-capacity magazines,” he said. “It’s going to be close.”
“Gem, watch! There’s two on your right!” I had my share of them working their way on my left, too, so took careful aim in the lightening sky and brought down six more in a spray of crimson that painted the gravel red.
We were in a isosceles triangle formation with Hemp out front, Gem on the right side of the Suburban, and me on the left. Hemp was using his M960 efficiently, and with minimal use of rounds, he was taking them out down the middle, leaving the side trackers to us. There was a car just to Gem’s right, and that’s how they got so close to her.
Gem turned and blew the heads completely off the two closest when they were just feet away from her. The light breeze blew the blood spray back toward her and she turned away momentarily to keep it out of her face. As she did so, she saw two more behind her. I had ducked down low to see beneath the Suburban, and saw their legs moving toward her. I heard her gun click.
“Run toward Hemp!” I shouted at Gem, and dropped to my stomach on the pavement. I fired a long burst, turning the creatures’ legs into stumps. Then I ran around the truck and turned their gnashing faces and heads into pulp. “That’s the fucking way we do it, asshole!” I shouted. This fucker had almost gotten the jump on my woman, and that shit was NOT acceptable.
“Gem!” She turned toward me, gratitude on her face. I threw my gun to her and she deftly caught it. In one swift motion she turned and took out no fewer than ten of the slow walkers on her right. I was back at the car, yanking the rear door open to grab another fully loaded rifle. This was one of the newest machine guns in the mix, A Daewoo K7 from the early 2000’s. It only had a 32 round magazine on it, so I set it to the three-round burst mode. With speed, I could take out two or three of them per burst.
I slammed the door in time to turn and find one of them almost right behind me. Behind him were four more, coming out of the ditch from behind an old Nissan Sentra. I shot him in the mouth, and his head broke into two sloppy halves that slid down his body. As he fell, the others came into my sights, and I used two more quick bursts to take them down.
One of them could have been no older than sixteen years. I stared at the body on the ground for a moment. Somebody’s son. Maybe they’d been on their way down to Orlando to see Disney World for the first time.
But this was no longer that family. These were not people now, and it was becoming clearer to me with every one of them I . . . murdered.
Stop that shit, Flex. Stop it.
Subconsciously I heard the gunfire all around me grow more and more infrequent. I shook off my heavy thoughts and ran around the rear of the trailer, scanned the freeway exit we’d driven up as far as I could see, then ran around the other side of the Suburban where Gem was in the process of shooting what used to be a woman wearing a “I’m With Stupid” shirt featuring an arrow pointing up. Stupid went down in a pool of muck.
“How we doin’, guys?” Gem called, her eyes peeled for movement, her head moving side to side as she focused on the fading shadows around her.
I respected that woman more than ever. I never knew what was inside her, her strength, the pure will she possessed. I knew she had all the things I wanted, but I had no idea she also had what I needed. Everything I needed. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but we hadn’t had the time since this whole thing began. When we got back to my house, I’d make the time.
“Good,” Hemp said. “I’m thinking . . . almost afraid to say it, but I’m thinking we’ve got them.”
I checked the area behind the cars again, and walked forward. Hemp followed while Gem stayed near the Suburban and peered inside to check on Trina. Hemp and I scouted about fifty yards or so out in front of our vehicle. We both got to our knees and searched under the cars. All the bodies we encountered were either half-eaten human beings or abnormals with serious – and I mean deadly serious – head trauma.
“Hemp,” I said, pointing at a Toyota Highlander that was rocking back and forth. I used hand motions to him as we separated and approached the vehicle from two sides. I saw the cause of the rocking almost immediately. Feet stuck out of the rear passenger side door. We’d been unable to see it as we walked by earlier on the other side of a crashed minivan.
I walked slowly, gun held at ready, and moved closer so I could see what was happening inside. When I finally could see, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.
It looked like a man in the throes of a fight with a polar bearskin rug. He moaned and thrashed, and I stood there for a moment in shock at the sight. But if he was alive, I needed to get to him. I leaned my gun against the van and reached down and grabbed both his ankles. Before I realized that his skin mashed like putty in my grip, I was pulling him out of the SUV. When his body rolled over as he slid off the seat and onto the ground, I saw his gnashing, bloody teeth, and massive bite marks in his vein-riddled face.
Faster than I could have imagined possible, he leaned forward, his hand snatching for my wrist, and he had me. His grip was much stronger than I could have imagined, and he was also far more flexible, bending almost in half to bring his horrifying face to where his hand held me. His mouth stretched open, his nose wrinkled and his lidless eyes grew wide as he prepared to take a bite of me.
An explosion rang out beside my ear, and I felt the burn of hot powder, followed by a high-pitched ringing, like a fucking tuning fork was embedded in my brain.
The hand loosened, and I fell back hard. I recall thinking I was going to hit my head on the pavement and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
It was the last thing I remember until I felt the wet towel on my face.
Only it wasn’t a towel.
Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle Page 15