The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (116 page)

“Fire your gun, Whit!” shouted Dave.  “Shoot them!”

Whit looked back at him.  “We’re okay!  The WAT-5 –”

“It’s not working!” shouted Dave, reaching the truck and jumping inside, watching Serena and Lisa to make sure they, too, were safely inside.

They all flipped the door locks instinctively, and watched Whit.

He was overrun, firing his gun haphazardly, but too crowded now to get any clean shot that would help him in any way.  Tattered hands at the ends of destroyed arms tore at his face and body, and teeth found his bare skin, tearing into his flesh as he sank down and disappeared into the horde of undead creatures.

The sound was muffled from inside the car, and the three were in tears as they watched their friend, and indeed, a mentor of sorts, die in the most horrific way.

Then Dave realized he did not have the keys.

They were in Whit’s pocket.

*****

They were almost all females.  Some had clearly been in advanced stages of pregnancy when they transformed into monsters, but not all of them.  And none of that select group of mothers-to-be had the vapor of the old days; the pink stuff. 

The good old days, he now believed.

No.  Their eyes were scarlet red.  And this wasn’t the only change.  He swore they moved faster than before – markedly faster.  They did not seem to differentiate between a human on WAT-5 and an unprotected human.

Bad news.  The worst news.

Serena was in the front seat this time, and Dave sat in the driver’s seat, staring at the empty ignition switch.

“Okay, so this got really shitty just now,” said Lisa, wiping tears from her eyes. 

“It’s getting worse,” said Dave, his eyes on the horde outside.  “They’re finishing with Whit.”

Several came toward the truck.  Others were down on their knees, most in regular, everyday clothes, but a few – the ones that appeared to have been in the advanced stages of pregnancy – wore maternity clothes.  One of the females looked emaciated in all other areas of her body, but her stomach was so large, she appeared to have been close to delivering her baby when she turned.

Now they all rose from Whit’s carcass, some clutching pieces of their dead friend in their hands, bringing them to their mouths, gnawing. 

But Dave noticed something else then:  The males did not continue to eat him once the women left Whit’s body.  In fact, when the females abandoned his remains, the males with the pink eyes seemed to no longer find Whit’s flesh desirable.  They wandered away, as if awaiting their next assigned task, or having had their fill.

But they never do get their fill, do they?
thought Dave. 
They are forever ravenous.

As the zombies pressed against the truck, bloody hands and faces smearing the glass, it became impossible to see anything beyond the bloody, hungry faces pressed against the windows of the truck.

“What if they break the glass?” asked Lisa, her voice quivering. 

“They can’t,” said Dave, hoping his words were true.  “It’s tempered.  Strong.  They’d have to use something other than their hands, and I don’t think they know how to use tools yet.”

“God, I hope not,” said Serena.  She grabbed the radio.  “Flex!  Kevin!  Anyone read us?”

No answer came.

The truck began to rock back and forth as the number of creatures increased to at least a hundred, pushing and pressing their faces into the glass.  The smears became so thick that even when they pulled back for a brief second, it was like looking through a finger painting on glass.

Only with biohazard finger paint.

“Keep trying them,” said Dave.  “We’re going nowhere if someone doesn’t come.”

“If we were only in Gem’s car,” said Serena.  “Poor Whit.  He was a good guy.  A really good guy.”

“He was,” said Dave.  “I remember him at the gate when we got to Concord.  He told Jacko where to stick it.”

“And they both turned out to be pretty good guys,” said Lisa.  “Now they’re both gone.  At . . .”

Lisa stopped talking suddenly.

Serena and Dave stared outside their respective windows at the clamoring crowd of blood and flesh-hungry creatures, and Dave said, “What, Lisa?”

There was no answer.  He and Serena turned at the same time as Lisa uttered one word.

“Open,” she said.

Dave looked at Lisa, who stared at the window.  A female zombie stood directly outside the door, and in spite of the bright daylight, her eyes shone a vivid red.  She did not claw at the glass, or bite or gnash. 

She stared at Lisa through the glass, her throat moving up and down like a singer practicing vibrato.

“Lisa,” said Serena.  “Hey, look at me.”

Lisa did not look at Serena.  She stared at the zombie outside and mouthed two words now.

“Open . . . door.”

Then Lisa pulled the door handle.

It happened so fast there had been no time to react.

Dave spun around and screamed.  “No!  No, Lisa!  Close the fucking door!”

But it was too late.  When the door cracked, the creatures capitalized on the gap, their rotting fingers curling around the jamb, pulling the door open all the way, falling in on top of Lisa.

Everything was muffled in Dave’s ears, as though the rest of the world had become background static, and things were unfolding on a movie screen rather than feet away from him.  Dave stared at the pregnant zombie just outside the door; something about the one with glowing, red eyes held Dave’s gaze for a brief moment, and he saw her dissolve back into the rushing horde, as though consumed by the mass of pushing, rushing bodies.

Nothing seemed quite real.  Lisa would not have unlocked the door, so how did they get in?  The world spun in slow motion, and Dave was not sure how long he was lost in his daze of confusion before snapping out of it.

Serena screamed and screamed, grabbing the urushiol bottle from the seat beside her and spraying it into the back seat.  Dave turned, still baffled and unable to act, merely watching as Serena’s fingers pulled the pump as fast as she could, the mist soaking the zombies piling  on top of Dave’s younger sister.

And still the rotters attacked.  Not all.  Some disintegrated on contact, and melted out of the way, allowing more of them to claw their way in, but now struggling themselves, through the muck and gore collapsing beneath them and running out of the car door.

Dave’s brain clicked.  Focus returned suddenly, and he heard himself screaming out loud as he swung his gun around and sprayed the back seat, exploding the heads of creatures mere inches away from him, the roar of gunfire and spray of flesh and bone covering him and Serena. 

Serena cried, “Dave!  She’s gone.  We have to get out somehow or we’re going to die!”

She held her fire, but pressed herself nearly against the windshield, helplessly watching the melee in the back seat.

Lisa had not been visible for some time, buried beneath a pile of the dead and living zombies.  The group that had formerly been pressed against the passenger side of the truck had migrated around to the driver’s side rear door to clamor in on top of Dave Gammon’s sister, so Serena, seeing the open path, flipped the lock, pulled the door handle and kicked the door open hard, knocking two of the creatures that had remained there away.

“Come on, David, now!” she shouted. 
“Now, now, now
!”

She jumped out and ran, but Dave kept firing until his gun fell silent, then he dropped the weapon, wiped the muck from his face and scrambled across the seat to plant his boot in the face of a creature who had begun to crawl into the front seat through the open door. 

When his boots hit the pavement, he pulled his Walther and fired into the skull of the female he’d kicked, then ran.  Dave kept his eye on Serena, who had made it about fifty yards away, and was safely in the clear.

Dave fell into heavy sobs as he ran.  Now his legs felt as though he had forty pound weights strapped to each one, as the realization of who he had left behind slammed into his brain with a vengeance.  What had just gone down.

This wasn’t a bad dream.  It wasn’t a nightmare.  It was real as hell, and his little sister was dead.  The creatures had controlled her.  That bitch had controlled her.  The thing had gotten in Lisa’s goddamned head and made her give herself to them.

Serena stopped up ahead and waited for him, and it gave him the strength to run harder.  He glanced behind him and saw some of them in pursuit, but the truck appeared to be absolutely jammed with the creatures, and rocked back and forth on its chassis as they feasted on the flesh of perhaps his only remaining family.

The sobs came harder, and his eyes blurred.  Dave slowed to a walk, out of ammo and out of resolve.  He staggered forward unable to see, when he felt arms around his shoulder, moving him. 

And a voice urging him to keep up with her.  Serena.

“Please, David.  Please stay with me and be strong.  Lisa would want that.  She would want that.  You know it in your heart.”

“But … I couldn’t save her,” he said, trying again to run.  “I couldn’t fucking save her.”

“You’ll live to save others,” said Serena.  “Just as you’ve done before.  She will always be in your heart, and mine.  Be strong for now.  There will be time for grief when you’re safe.”

Dave found himself at a door.  The building was small, concrete block.  There was one visible window, and it was barred.

The females were approximately 100 yards away, and closing fast.

“Headlight, babe.”

Dave turned it on.  So did Serena.  They looked inside, and it was bare.  Concrete floor, four windows – all barred – and nothing else.  It didn’t matter what the building was for; only that it would serve as a fortress.

They moved in and slammed the door behind them.

There was a deadbolt.  Dave turned it.

Seconds later, they heard bodies slam against the door, and the relentless pounding and scratching began.

Dave thought about Lisa and the horrible death the zombies had put her through.

Then he thought about the vapor.  The new stuff.  The red vapor that did not so much incapacitate you, but rather allowed them to control you.

Like they had controlled Lisa.

Dave said nothing, but walked slowly to the concrete block wall and put his hands against it.  The tears came again, this time in a flood.  He had killed Lisa’s father, and while it was necessary and justifiable, it had been hard for Lisa to understand at first.  And while they had grown closer –
so
much closer – since they were rescued by Flex, Gem, Hemp and Charlie, he’d only just begun to feel they were going to become inseparable as they headed out on the road to California.

The trip would still happen, because in his heart he felt his uncle was still alive.  He would do alone what he told his sister they would do together.  Maybe with Serena by his side.  He simply didn’t know if she would agree to go.

Serena, as though reading his thoughts, approached him and put her hands on his back, sliding up onto his shoulders.  At her touch, he fell into sobs, crying out loud and unrestrained for the first time in his distant memory.

Except for the comforting contact of the woman behind him, Dave felt terribly alone.

He turned around and put his arms around her, and his body became wracked with grief as the dam of emotions cracked, then disintegrated. 

“Shh, David,” she whispered, and her tears came in a rush, along with his own.  The grip they had on one another became symbolic of their desperate cling to reality in a world that had become anything but rational.

Dave Gammon slid down the blocks, dropping to the cool concrete, and Serena dropped with him.  He sat there leaning against the wall with his legs extended, his breath coming in fits through his weeping, and she rested her head in his lap, feeling not only his pain, Dave knew, but hers as well.  She had grown to love Lisa.  He stroked her hair and cheek as the horrible clawing and scratching of the creatures outside, tireless and relentless, did their best to eat away at his sanity.

The persistent monsters whose new ability, whose new offensive weapon had allowed them to control his sister.

To kill his sister.

Dave prayed for the first time in a long, long time.  Then he opened his eyes and looked around the room, at the windows.  The dirty glass in front of the bars was comforting.  That glass would prevent the vapor from coming into their prison.

He felt detached from everything.  Everything but Serena, who somehow seemed like another part of him, lying there in his lap, her body shuddering at the loss of a sweet eighteen-year-old girl; a girl who was just beginning to find her own voice again after having only recently moved from childhood to adulthood to an impossible world of almost constant fear. 

The woman whose arms gripped his legs tightly, and whose body was curled into a fetal position shared his pain, but from a completely different perspective.  Dave knew Serena felt her own agony, along with the sting of witnessing the spirit of someone she loved being wholly consumed by loss.