Dead Hunger IV: Evolution (54 page)

The door was almost all the way open, and the rush was on;
Flex wondered where the other female had gone.  It troubled him, because they had moved quickly through the corridors and had seen no trace of her.  There was always the chance that she’d gone out the door they’d come in, but they were only aware of some of these evolved zombies’ abilities, and nothing would surprise Flex now – not much, anyway.
  Every once in a while he took a quick glance down their exit path just in case.

No more time for his brain to focus on anything else but the actions necessary to save their lives.  The door was open, the kid was behind it, his pistol held up to the barred window.  Eddie
was filling his prescribed role
.

Single rounds, fast and true.  Each man utilized his weapon in just that way.  A greasy-haired, skeleton-thin zombie with pustules oozing from his lanky, tattooed arms; the complete opposite of that – a man who might have weighed over 300 pounds when alive, still appeared to have clung to 280 pounds of it.  He barreled forward, and Eddie’s pistol took him out with a clean shot to the temple from about a foot and a half.  The blood spattered the opposite wall and his body lurched left as he dropped
in a heap
.

A pulsation began to sound.  Or vibrate.  Or come from within his own body.  Flex wasn’t sure which it was, but five seconds did not pass before all of the creatures advancing through the door appeared to drop at once.

They dropped to their dead stomachs and began crawling on hands and knees.  Fast.

Everyone backed up except Eddie, who was still behind the door.

“Where did they go?” he asked, his voice panicked.  “I can’t see any!”

Flex knew now what the vibration was.  It was Red Eyes, come to direct the action like a zombie Spielberg, knowing exactly how she wanted this particular scene to play out.

He spun around and saw her, standing there dead center in the corridor, her eyes staring at the creatures now skittering on hands and knees through the door.  She did  not advance on him.

Flex raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened
.

Jammed.

“Keep firing on them, everyone!” shouted Flex, and Red Eyes stepped toward him.  Flex stepped back, fumbling with the magazine, which
would
jiggle, but
not
eject.

He looked at her.  She looked back.  Her eyes shone red; as red as blood.  Then she turned
again toward her charges
and the vibration coming from her throat grew in intensity.

Something changed.  Half of the creatures now rose to their feet, and half crawled forward, staying low.  The strategy made it twice as difficult to take out the advancing horde.
  Shoot high or shoot low, but a miss would be less likely to hit another in a crucial, kill spot.

“Waylon!  Take out this bitch!”

Waylon Bell turned and fired, but the Rangemaster
just clicked,
empty.

Fucking timin
g!
  Flex
pivoted
his weapon,
seizing
it by the barrel.  He raised it over his head and ran toward Red Eyes.  With every remaining bit of strength left in him, he brought the weapon
arcing  down toward her
skull.

She jerked to the left and the heavy stock of the weapon glanced off the side of her head, tearing her right ear completely off. 

She seemed not to notice, but t
he vibration stopped as her attention
apparently
turned to survival rather than attack.
  She spun around so fast she might have ended up behind Flex, but he matched her moves, and raised his weapon again in another attempt to shatter her skull and destroy the enhanced brain that
squirmed
within.

She moved again just as he began his downward sweep with the heavy gun and Flex tried to adjust mid-swing.  It was pointless.  By the time he’d applied the pressure with his left wrist to swing the gun in a flatter arc, she was behind him again.

Flex knew he would not have enough speed to stop whatever she chose to do next.  His muscles tensed in anticipation of her teeth on the back of his neck.

In his peripheral vision, Flex saw West and
Bell
ejecting, then slamming in new magazines
, and decided giving up was not an option.  So she had outmaneuvered him; so what?  
Flex let his knees collapse as though his legs were jelly.  He dropped straight down as the sound of a
gun
discharging filled the room.

Red Eyes fell forward hard and fast, landing atop
Flex, her rank blood and brain leaking from her massive head wound.

Flex quickly rolled over and pushed the dead zombie off him, and the gunfire filled the small space once more.  He scrambled for his Daewoo, and stood up.

Flex hadn’t seen who had come to his rescue, for he was facing the opposite direction.  His initial assumption was that
Bell
or West had reloaded and found a clean shot when he’d dropped out of the way.

When Eddie stood facing him, the pistol held straight out in front of him, a wisp of smoke leaking from the barrel, Flex smiled and nodded at him.

“In front of you, Eddie!” he said, seeing a zombie
jerking
on
the door
that protected
the kid
, obviously seeing him
and clearly
wanting him.

Edd
ie
saw him immediately, holding his
weapon
up and firing
, but
like everyone else just had,
Eddie
had fallen victim to the patron saint of bad fucking timing
.

There had to be one.  There was a patron saint for everything else.

Eddie’s gun was empty. 
The seventeen-year-old
raised the weapon
up to bring it crashing down on the skull of the creature
, but in seconds, his head was engulfed in pink vapor.  This creature
must have
eaten recently,
for he
had plenty of knockout vapor to administer.

But who had he eaten?  Had it been Jimmie?  Nikki?

Eddie
choked and coughed and went down
, out cold
;
Flex
hammered the
K7
with the palm of his hand and the magazine finally ejected, the single jammed round falling to the floor.
  He
carefully fitted in
a new, full
magazine, hoping it wasn’t the slot on the weapon itself that was damaged.  It slid right in, locking in place.

Flex raised the
Daewoo
,
rushed
forward, and blew the brains out of the creature that had gassed Eddie
, just as it bared its rotted teeth, pulled the door clear and dropped to its bony knees for a feast of flesh and blood.

T
he
remainder of the attack squad had
lost all organization the moment Flex had
taken out Red Eyes with the first blow of his gun stock
.  While it did not kill her, it did stop her from whatever psychic communication she
initiated, controlling the males of her species
who were not as gifted as she
and many of her female counterparts
.

Or, Flex thought, perhaps
the males
are merely receivers;
the females, transmitters
.  And never the twain shall meet.
  Without her kind, the males and many of the other females are the George Romero zombies, slow and lumbering, staggering after their prey the way six-year-old soccer players cluster wherever the ball is.

With the females in charge, they’re MLS players.

Flex moved forward, his
K7
spitting out
single
rounds with deadly efficiency.  As he lined up with Bell and West, he saw three more.  In true positional fashion, Bell took the one on the left, Flex shot the one in the center, and West took down the creature on the right.

Silence once again filled the corridor.

Then:  “Mr. Sheridan?”

“What the hell was that?” asked Bell.

“Sounded like my name, and it sounded like a girl,” said Flex.  “Nikki!  Is that you?”

“Hello?  It’s me!”

The voice
came
from somewhere
close
ahead.

“Nikki, are you safe?” asked Flex, moving between the piled creatures, his gun barrel pointed downward to take out any biting heads.

“I’m okay,” said Nikki
from somewhere up ahead her voice shaky.  “Where’s
Jimmy?  Did you find him out there?”

Flex looked at West
, who was directly behind him, and shrugged.
 
“
We didn’t find him
, Nikki,” said Flex.  “Hang on, we’re coming toward you.  Keep talking.”

They left Eddie on the floor of the outer room.  He would be no good to anyone for a long while, based on
the dose they’d seen him take, and
even if it was
forced rest
induced by a zombie, the kid
could use a little snooze.

Flex
thought about Jimmy, and the odds that he was safe. 
At that moment, Flex decided he would make a very big deal about Eddie saving him. 
It could change his meager standing in the group, and from what Flex saw, Eddie
had the quick decision-making skills and what’s more, the balls to lead a group.
  The othe
r kids would need to be able to
turn to someone else, and that could be Eddie or Nikki, if Jimmy hadn’t made it.

Nikki’s weak voice came again: 
“
Jimmy got bit,” she said, as Flex and the others walked slowly down the darkening corridor.

That solidified Flex’s plan for boosting Eddie’s standing.

A holding cell on the left side was where her voice originated.  Flex tiptoed and looked through the barred window.

“What do you mean by bit,” asked West.  “Was he attacked?”

“It was
the ones I guess
you just killed,” her voice came again.  “You didn’t see him out there?  He was going for help.”

Flex shook his head as he tried the door, then motioned to
Bell
to try his keys. 

Waylon Bell stepped forward.  He looked carefully at the lock, then thumbed through the keys.  Two looked to be the right shape. 
Bell
tried the first.

The key turned and the latched clanked. 
Bell
pulled the cell door open, and
F
lex went inside.

It stank.  A dead zombie lay on one side of the cell, with no fewer than six bullet holes in him.  They appeared to be mostly chest and shoulder shots, but there was only one in its head, just above the left eye.

The frightened girl stood there crying and Flex walked to her and pulled her into his arms.

“It’s okay, Nikki.  “We’ll try to find Jimmy.”

“He … he left
a long time
ago,” she said.  “I guess.  It seems long.  I don’t know, though.  It’s dark and I don’t have a watch, and –”

“Shh,” said Flex.  “It’s okay, Nikki.  We gotta get you out of here.   The fire is spreading.”

“It was getting hard to breathe,” she said.  “And hot.”

“Let’s go.  Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

Flex looked at
Bell
and West.  “We gotta try to wake Eddie,” said Flex.  “
She’s right – it is getting hotter in here, which could mean this building is engulfed.  We fuck around much more and we could be trapped.”

They eased Nikki through the room littered with dead bodies, and stepped into the next chamber of the corridor.  Eddie lay on the floor, unmolested. 

West did not hesitate.  He leaned
forward
, lifted Eddie up into a sitting position and lightly slapped his cheeks.

Nothing.  West
then
knelt down, threaded Eddie’s arms
beside
his neck and hoisted him up onto his shoulder.  In a smooth motion, Lawrence West stood up.

“Let’s get the hell out of here
,” he said.  “
I think adrenaline can help me get this boy to the
truck
.”

*****

The vibration grew louder and louder as they each held tight
to their lines, dragging the netted zombie toward the black panel van.  They were fifty yards away when Hemp looked up and saw the glow.