The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (3 page)

I turned and cupped the knife in my hand and swam to the far edge.  As I reached it, I leaned out and took the bubble plastic in my hand and pushed off the edge back toward the middle of the pool, unspooling it behind me.  When my feet could touch the bottom again, I stood, one eye on Jamie and the other on my work. 
With my pocket knife, I began cutting the plastic off at about an eight foot length.  It was about fourteen feet wide.  Still light and easy to work with.  I had just finished cutting through the last two feet and had started rolling it up so that the width would become my length.  When I glanced back toward Jamie I saw that she was no longer alone.

There was a man walking up behind her.

“Stop!” I shouted.  “Stay away from her!”  The man didn’t falter.  His gait was strange.  Unsteady, jerky.  Jamie, apparently sensing his presence behind her, turned her body and head to see him, but did not step out of his path.  Her movement was enough to allow me to see his face. 

He
was
her
.  They were the
same
.  My God, he had the disease too, and he seemed more determined.  Chills shot so fast down my spine I was surprised the pool didn’t ripple as they sped past the water line.  I pocketed the knife and pulled the gun out of the back of my pants, then shook what water I could from it.  The man-creature walked around Jamie as though he didn’t see her, his eyes on me.  He walked to the pool’s edge, just opposite where I stood.  Jamie had remained at the corner, eyes on me, but had never walked the edge to be closer. 

He may have been hungrier than even she was.  His teeth and jaws also gnashed and worked at chewing nothing, and he had the same eyes.  His feet now hung over the edge of the pool’s coping, and he looked from my face to the surface of the water. 

“Hey, you fuck!  You’re not coming in here,” I yelled, my voice tremulous.  “Get out of here, or I’ll put a bullet –”

And it was as if he
dared
me to do it.  Suddenly he was falling forward, his body stiff as a board, his eyes staring through me as he plummeted toward the dark water and into my sanctuary.  His eyes were somehow black, yet aglow with an internal light of their own.  His jaws working back and forth, up and down, anticipating my flesh.  Mid-fall, I jerked my arm up and pulled the trigger hard, shooting him square in the forehead.  Two more quick pulls of the trigger and his left eye was blown out of the socket and his right cheekbone disintegrated.

The boo
ming sound shook me to the bone as I gripped the bubble wrap in my hands and pushed back away from where his body splashed into the water.  I scrambled to the opposite side and pressed myself against the pool wall.  Jamie still had not moved, or even seemed to have noticed the encounter at all.  As the thing’s body floated toward me, now motionless, I nudged it away from me with the now rolled up bubble wrap.  When I was sure it was floating away – and to the shallow end of the pool, for I did not want it to sink down anywhere near my Jesse – I scrambled out of the water.  I still didn’t know whether this horror was transmitted via air, fluid, or what, but I didn’t want to be in any water this thing might secrete his fluids into.

Once I was out, Jamie started toward me.  It was the water she was afraid of, this woman who was once a hell of a swimmer.  But now I was out, and she was still hungry, because her guttural words came again, and she stepped slowly, erratically toward me.  Not fast, but steady.  I tucked my gun back into the back of my pants and hefted the roll of bubble wrap. 
It was rolled up like a rug, long and stiff enough for me to use as a tool to push her away. 

If I could push her down, then I would execute my plan.

Or try, at least. 

Starting around the back side of the pool, I hurried around it and soon was in the middle of the yard, between the pool and the patio.  Jamie’s eyes stayed on me, and she jerked steadily toward me.

“Hungry hungry hungry . . .”

But it sounded like “ungy
ungy ungy.”

Suddenly I was overwhelmed.  My sister was fucked up, majorly fucked up, and I started to cry.  I backed up as she staggered toward me, and it broke my heart to know she would kill me against her will, that she loved me and she would fucking kill me and never even have any conscious awareness she’d done it.  I prodded her with the bubble wrap, and she staggered backward.  When she was off balance, I pushed her with it again. 

I spun around to her side and pushed her toward the side yard fence with the roll, and this time she did fall over.  As she moaned out loud, and her newfound lack of coordination made it a struggle to roll onto her stomach so she could pull her knees under her and get up, I stood over her and flipped open the roll of bubble wrap like an evacuation slide on an airplane.  Like a lizard’s tongue, it uncoiled on her opposite side, all fourteen feet of it.  Her prone body was parallel to the eight foot length, and I kicked her square in the center of her back, push-rolling her onto the sheeting.  Another kick and she was far enough on the sheeting that I could grab the edge, which I pulled over her flailing arms.  I then rolled her over onto her stomach again.  Her arms were forced down to her sides, and I gained more confidence as I rolled her further and further along the fourteen foot length of the plastic, tighter and tighter.  By the time I got to the end, she was a mummy entombed in the roll, unable to move, and unable to bite or get to me with mouth or hands.

Her moans grew more frantic, but were muffled now.

I lay on top of the roll, feeling her struggling beneath me, but to no avail; my breath heaved and my heart pounded.  I was still crying, but now most of it was with relief.  I had no idea what I’d do with her, but I had her.  I had her. 

Maybe I
could find someone to help her.

*****

Cinching the sheeting together where I ran out of length, I struggled to drag the bundle containing my sister toward the house.   An old garden hose lay coiled there, and I picked it up to test it for usefulness.  The rubber was still soft enough to use for my purposes, so I cut an 8’ length of it and split it lengthwise with my pocketknife.  Now I had two pieces pliable enough to tie like a rope.  I sat on the roll with Jamie’s body inside it, and tied one length tightly around the end where her head was, and repeated the procedure where her feet were. 

I took note that she was quie
t now.  But I felt her shifting within, so could tell she was still alive – if that was even a word I could use to describe her anymore.  At the time, I really didn’t know.

As I did this, I kept my eye on the pool and on the yard beyond where I sat working, because if there
had been one curious zombie-neighbor, there could be more.  And I wasn’t comfortable anymore with just the .38 and three more rounds of ammo.  I needed way more firepower if this was as widespread as I had begun to fear.

Trina was on my mind.  She was locked in the truck, and should be safe if she just stayed put, but she was six
years old and not extremely logical.  I felt a sudden sense of dread and urgency even greater than what had seemed to become the new normal.

I stood and looked down at the roll containing Jamie.  Slight movement.  No insane struggling,
no screaming.  Stillness.  Silence.  I could take a moment and go check on Trina.

My gun was in my hand as I opened the screen door and walked around the corner to the side yard.  The rear of the Suburban wa
s visible, and looked okay.  I broke into a slight jog and seconds later I was at the truck.  I knocked softly on the window so as not to frighten Trina.  A second later I saw her little face appear before mine behind the glass.  She waved her little hand back and forth, her mouth unsmiling.  I pointed at the lock, and she pulled it up.

I opened the door.  “Hey, baby.  Good girl.”

“Did you find Jesse and mommy?” she asked.

I didn’t want to have this conversation, so I lied
to her, the way adults are supposed to lie to kids when what they’ve got to tell them would shatter their worlds.

“No, baby.  I think maybe your mommy felt better and they went and hid.  I’m hoping they took your daddy’s car and drove to
Jacksonville.”  This was a lot of bullshit that she’d likely have trouble sorting through.  I was just talking off the top of my head so had no idea what I’d said the moment it was out of my mouth.  I hoped she wouldn’t ask any questions and test my powers of recall, and I got lucky.

She nodded.  “I hope she’s better.  Maybe she was pretending, like at Halloween.”

“I think you’re right, honey.  Just play-scary, like Halloween.  Now I have something to do that’s going to take me about an hour.  But first I’ve got to hook your daddy’s trailer up my car so we can bring some stuff with us.  I want you to stay right here, just like you were, and if you feel the car bouncing and stuff, it’s just me.  Get back on the floor and see if you can go to sleep for awhile, okay?”

She nodded.  I looked at her for a moment.  “Baby, wait right here, okay?  Just a sec.”

She nodded.  I locked and closed the door again, and ran back inside the house.  I ran right by the scene in the entry and to the girls’ bedroom.   I grabbed the two twin sized Disney Princess comforters from the beds and ran back to the truck.  I unlocked it with my key and pulled the door open.  Her head popped up.

“Here, Trinie,” I said, using my pet name for her.  “I know it’s warm out, but I want you out of sight.  Cover yourself with this and stay on the floor, okay?”

She nodded, her blonde hair bouncing with her cute little head.  “Okay, Uncle Flexy.”  That was her pet name for me.

“On the floor,” I said.  I pushed the lock knob down again and closed the door tight.

The trailer was parked up against the side of the house.  I didn’t want to start the truck’s engine because of the noise, so I lifted the tongue of the trailer and walked backward, rolling it over the uneven ground toward my Suburban.  I passed the truck and spun the trailer slowly around, then dropped it down onto the tow ball, snapping the latch into place.  I plugged in the electrical connector just to be safe.  Hauling what I planned to haul, it wouldn’t be smart to get pulled over, though I kind of doubted that dead running lights were something the police would be concerned with right now.  They’d be more likely to take you for a criminal if you were hunched over somebody sawing the top of their skull off with a steak knife.

That
job complete, I had three more tasks left before I could get my ass on the road.  I was exhausted, but the adrenaline was still coursing through my veins, and sleep was the last thing on my mind.

My next task was to bury
Jesse.  That sweet little girl who loved to play checkers with me.  The one who really taught me the rules of hopscotch, and who could beat me at both even when I wasn’t letting her.

But first I needed to
get Jamie secured in the back of the equipment hauler.  I went back inside the screened pool enclosure and lifted one end of the cylindrical shaped sarcophagus I created for Jamie, then dragged it behind me as I walked backward toward the Suburban.  The plastic slid fairly easily over the ground, and I got her to the trailer in just over a minute.  I lowered the rear hatch, which converted into a ramp, and dragged her up onto it.  There were two coils of nylon rope in on the trailer, so I tied one length around the center of the bundle in case the hose slipped or loosened.  No loud noises from Jamie so far, but I could still feel slight movement, so I knew she was alive – or at least not completely dead.   Afterward, I lashed the bundle containing my former sister to the passenger-side railing of the open trailer using the steel tie-down rings.

She would not be going anywhere.  I didn’t know what to do with her.  This wouldn’t do for very long, but  I didn’t have any choice, and this was all I could do right now.

Before I could lay Jesse to rest, I had to retrieve her from the bottom of the pool, but it would not do to have her body lying exposed in case it drew more of
them
.   I would be better off digging her grave and getting her afterward.

I walked around to the side of the pool enclosure to the small shed.  It wasn’t locked, and inside was everything I’d need.  There was  a tarp, but I didn’t want to wrap her body in that.  I grabbed a spade shovel and took note of the empty space that I believed once accommodated the small axe that was now inside the house – or more specifically, embedded in Jack’s flesh. 

I walked back out and tested the earth in several spots. 
It had rained earlier, so the ground was moist, to my relief.  I started digging the grave for my darling Jesse directly behind the shed.  The rear fence blocked sight of me from anybody who might still be alive, or anyone who might want to come at me for whatever reason – I still wasn’t completely sure, at least at that point, what was happening.  I would love to be as blind to the new dangers of the world as I was at that particular moment in time, but I’m no fool.  The saying used to go ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you,’ but it’s changed in this world.  Now it’s ‘what you don’t know can
eat
you.’

From my vantage point,
I could look around the corner and see the cab of my truck, so that made me feel better about leaving Jamie so close to Trina.