Dead Hunger IV: Evolution (62 page)

On
one particular stop during
the bus ride, Hemp had
come onto the bus to share with the refugees
all of the information he had learned about the plague, the resulting zombies, and their prospect for a long and hungry life. 

As the bus
sat on the side of the road, miles and miles of
desolate countryside
ahead
of
and behind them
, Hemp had explained to the tired but mesmerized group that from his test with the hyperbaric chamber, he
had determined with some amount of certainty
that once the gas
stopped and dissipated
, the creatures would all die. 
The relief on everyone’s faces was clear; they
were sustained by the knowledge that
they would not have to individually kill each one in order to be safe
.

Trina asked a very good question; she wanted to know if it was
just
like those front yard inflatable Santas and snowmen; when the air that blew into them stopped, they just deflated and collapsed to the ground.

Hemp said it was something very much like that.  It was a way of looking at it that Trina could understand, and it
did
work as an analogy.

Hemp further explained that with regard to the smart, semi-telepathic females,
he now believed they were
likely
all
pregnant at the time of their transformation
.

Because pregnancy was the only condition that created
a uniquely supercharged
production of estrogen, this made sense, he explained.  However, there was still a strong chance that
women on the last couple of days of their menstrual cycle when the gas began
emitting from the earth transformed into a different breed of walking dead; the kind with
some
increased awareness initially
, subject to a steady evolution as the months rolled by. 

Hemp warned that perhaps someday these creatures would achieve the intelligence of those who had been pregnant at the time of their metamorphosis.  Best to focus on and kill any females who exhibited any of the signs of higher thought processes.

Hemp let everyone know what he knew
to be
fact, and what still remained to be determined.  He told them to write it down in this order:

1.
                        
Look for a physical response to the sight of a weapon
; backing up, dropping down.

2.
                       
Look for resting or sitting.

3.
                       
Look for any indicators
that
they can hear.

4.
                       
Be aware of red eyes, versus pink.

5.
                       
Watch for strategy
while attacking
; flanking, splitting up, organizing.

6.
                       
If you see males doing the things mentioned in number 5 above, seek out a red-eyed female and kill her.  Monitor the males to be sure you terminated the correct female.

7.
                       
Monitor the eyes of the female members of your group; they may have been exposed and are understandably afraid to say so.  If they wear sunglasses in inappropriate places, have them remove the eyewear to check their eyes.

8.
                       
If a girl or woman beside you says or does anything strange, as though in a trance, restrain them immediately.

9.
                       
Be particularly careful at night.  Part of their new, walking dead strategy involved a realization that they could more easily move within a given area under cover of darkness.
  It was how so many had hidden at once – while most of Concord had been sleeping.

Had Hemp known it at the time, he would also have shared that an arrow, or even a tiny needle tipped with Anastrozole, or even Flaxseed Oil – both estrogen inhibitors – would work similarly to Urushiol on the smart females, and presumably, their babies within.  No matter where you pierced their skin, they would pretty much cook from the inside out and become harmless and dead,
basically
in that order.

Before
Hemp, Charlie,
Flex, Gem and
the rest of their
tight knit
group parted ways
with the
remainder
of the Concord refugees
, t
he
caravan
that had
once contained
just over three hundred souls
upon departing
New Hampshire,
had
dwindled
down to just under two hundred
and
sixty
. 

With the knowledge that Hemp had shared
with
the survivors of Concord
,
it seemed most of them were
now
convinced  that
less was indeed more
; keeping the
flesh footprint small was the safe way to
live another day
.

Several people
had decided
on
particular farm houses and other
structures
along the way
and
had
asked their drivers to let them off
. 
These people
had made their choices
,
bade their farewells, and
exited the buses.  They then
ho
ofed it to their new homesteads with barebones
weapons and
provisions in hand.

A new frontier.  Again.

This also held true for the sisters. 
Vikki
,
Victoria
and Kimberly had not asked
to come with Flex and company, and they had not invited anyone, either.

So with that option apparently off the table, about five miles east of where Gem ultimately spotted the home in which she wanted to live,
the
three ladies
had
noticed
a small, isolated brick home tucked in
the woods along a gravel side road.  When nobody else spoke up to call the home their own,
Victoria
did, nervously asking Tony to stop the bus.

The ladies scratched Bunsen and Slider between the ears, hugged the girls, and thanked Hemp, Charlie, Flex and Gem for all they’d done.

Vikki still had the weapon she used to take out Jimmy Dickson, and she was confident
in her ability to use it.

The
remaining kids
had dwindled to Amy Wilson, Nikki Haley, Eddie Palmer, Emma Love, Lo
uis
Snyder, Mason Peters and Rebecca Dovorany, who had decided that the kids were more her speed than the adults.  Plus, that put her as the oldest of the group, and she seemed to feel that might afford her some power
and influence
.

Hemp knew that
Rebecca’s
attitude would make or break her there, just as it would with an older group.  And while Rebecca had
already
seemed to
drop some of the bitchiness that
had
turned off the three sisters, nothing changed overnight.

On the bright side, her eyes had cleared, and she hadn’t uttered any remote commands on behalf of the zombies since that day in the bar
. 

The kids had still been on the bus
when Gem
saw
what would become her family’s new home
.

Hemp knew that his
own
group had
never
wavered in their opinion
that smaller was
best
, least of all Flex
. 
Concord had seemed so promising and safe, and he had been willing to give it a try, but n
one of them had
ever
considered the intense appeal of massive numbers of the living to
stoke
the
taste buds
and attract the attention
of the living dead.

Along the way,
as the buses began to empty to the point where there was plenty of breathing room, Flex
had
appealed to Tony, for
all intents and purposes the true owner of
all
the buses,
to consolidate to a single bus
. 

Bec
ause the
entire group’s numbers had thinned out so drastically
, it was an easy request to grant. 
There were several smaller homes in the area
where Gem had spotted her new home
, mostly rural farmhouses, so there seemed to be plenty of room in the neighborhood
for Nick, Jason, Nelson Moore, and of course, Doc Scofield.  And while Dave and Serena kept talking about
California
, they were content to stop and rest of a while, too.  They stayed in the big house with the Sheridans and Chatsworths
. 

Tony remained with them,
too, sending the other buses down the road with a recommendation that they do the same thing; find a good, strong home near water, and live your life in peace as long as you can.

But that was then.

Since they settled in, they had discovered that with the arrival of Spring, they were able to see vegetables sprout and grow, despite the noxious compound the earth produced, and when tested, Hemp found them to be perfectly unaffected. 

Nearby apple orchards provided fresh fruit, and
not far from their homestead
were
other
sources of various berries, corn, cucumbers,
pecans, sweet potatoes and
tomatoes
.  Not all at the same time, and many of them needed pruning and a bit of tender loving care to survive and produce their bounty.  Without the ability to water them regularly, it was going to be hit and miss, which of course they all knew.

As far as the urushiol was concerned, they had located a source of poison ivy, and Hemp currently produced small amounts of the crucial oil.  Thanks to some determined diggers making their way down from a cemetery eight miles north of them, they were able to
harvest their vapor and
produce the wafers again, making it a top priority.  Having
reverted back to his mobile lab, things were done in a somewhat more crude way
than in
Carville’s lab or the one in
Concord
,
but
there was enough equipment to get by, and
the most important component – knowledge – was intact in Hemp’s mind.

*****

It was nine o’clock at night, or thereabouts, and candles lit the room with a flickering glow.  They used the generator only when necessary, and bottled propane for whatever possible.

Like their precious coffee.  There
would
be coffee.

At present, Gem was
reclined on the sofa, holding her one-month-old
son.  The pregnancy had been an easy one right up until the birth, and the eight-pound child was born
breech
.
 
Doc Scofield was there to make things right, and after fears that a cesarean section might be the only option, he was able to
avoid that procedure and
deliver them both from the evil that was death, but not quite
a
final
one
.

After the birth, G
em had been in bed for a long time
.  She had been getting out of that bed and
sneaking cigarettes
,
and everyone knew it
.

The
baby was strong.
 
Flex Maxwell Sheridan. 

Who the hell else had two “x” names?

Probably just little Flex.  But not so little.

They lived in a remote
house on
Shelton Ferry Road
in
Whitmire
,
South Carolina
.  When Gem had seen the
roaring
river
below them
as the bus drove across the bridge, she had a feeling that their new home was near.

The house and land nearby was abandoned – not a soul, living or dead, and none of the living dead nearby.  Deer were plentiful, and firewood appeared to have been stacked up for a multi-year supply.