The Hunger (Book 2): Consumed (19 page)

The woman’s forehead wrinkled for a moment.  “Oh, you mean Doctor Brown?  He went down the road with that burly man to check in on a child.”

Though Lance’s confusion didn’t abate, his shoulders relaxed.  That made sense, even if everything else he’d seen didn’t.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked.

She pointed at the spatula on the floor.  “Cooking breakfast.”

“Oh.”  He lowered the pistol.  “Sorry.  I’m a little jumpy.”

“I was supposed to tell you to meet the strange-looking woman outside when you woke up.”

There was only one person that could mean.

Kalena backed down the hallway, keeping her wary gaze on Lance.

He didn’t blame her.

“I’m cooking for a hundred people, so I need to get back to it,” she said.

Lance watched as she disappeared into the kitchen.  Pots and pans clanged around a moment later.

After securing the pistol in his waistband, Lance opened the back door and cautiously walked outside.  People walked past, giving him nods and smiles.  A few of them called him Mr. York.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been called that in his entire life.

“What in the hell?” he mumbled to himself.

After watching people shuffling about for a few moments, Lance walked around the side of the cabin, looking toward the tanker trucks.

“Hey, dumbass!”

Lance looked to his left and spotted Cass standing before a group of ten people or so.  They all held rifles of some kind and they turned their heads in his direction when she called out to him.

She waved him over.

He made his way across the field, feeling his muscles loosen a little more with each step.  He estimated that he’d be back to 100% in roughly a year or two.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” she said when he was ten feet away.  The swelling around her eye had gone down quite a bit, but the surrounding skin was horribly discolored.

She’d changed her clothes too.  Dark green cargo pants replaced her tiny shorts and she wore a white tank top with a red insignia on it that Lance didn’t recognize.  Her short hair was pushed up and in at the top, creating a pseudo mohawk.  She still had her trademark belt on.

“A mohawk?  Nice.”

“You like it?”  She flipped at it with her hand, putting a stray piece back in place.  “They had some gel in the bathroom so I said fuck it and threw some in.”

Lance nodded at the people standing around her.

“Mr. York,” two of them said.

“Please call me Lance.”  He grabbed Cass’ hand and led her a few yards away.  He whispered, “What’s going on around here?  And why in the hell is everyone calling me Mr. York?”

She gave him a big smile, her beauty shining through the damage to her face.  Lance, even in his confusion, wanted to reach out, pull her close, and kiss her.  Infection be damned.

“We’re getting people armed and prepared.”

“OK... why?  These were
Ralph’s
people.”

“No, they’re victims who went along with Ralph because he threatened to kill them if they didn’t.”  She looked back at the group she’d been standing with.  “They aren’t like the men who were standing guard when we got here.  Those guys are pieces of shit.”

Another gunshot came from the woods.

“
Were
pieces of shit, anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“That sound was probably one of them being shot.”

Lance shook his head and immediately regretted it as a spike of pain jabbed him behind the eyes.  “How about we pretend that I don’t know what’s going on around here.  The last thing I remember was putting my head on the table last night.  I woke up a few minutes ago to everyone carrying guns and calling me Mister.”

“Hang on.”  Cass went back to the group of people and gave them a few instructions before coming back.  “You missed quite a bit.”

“No shit.  Why does everyone have a gun?”

“It was Brown’s idea.  By the way, you were right—he’s a natural leader.”

“I don’t care whose idea it was, why do people who were trying to kill us yesterday have guns now?”

“Easy there, dumbass.  Don’t get all butt hurt because you’ve been asleep for twelve hours.”

Lance stared at her, waiting.

“OK, OK.  Keep your panties on.  After you fell asleep, we carried you back to what used to be Ralph’s bedroom.  Doc said you needed some rest.  After that, he went outside and told everyone to go into the tankers until sunrise.  Most listened, because they were afraid of us, but a few didn’t.  This morning, he brought everyone together and told them who we were and what his plans are for the compound.”

“Which are?”

“He wants distributed power.  We found the weapons cache late last night.  This morning, he told everyone to go inside and get a gun.  He figures that no one can get away with the awful things Ralph and Tony were doing if everyone is armed.  That and it lets them defend themselves against the Vladdies.”

“Makes sense, actually.”  Lance looked around at the field.  “And no one started shooting right away?”

“Nah.”

“So what do I keep hearing?”

“Brown told everyone that the fate of the guards was up to them.  If one of the women was assaulted by them, then that person was allowed to make a choice—let them go, or walk them into the woods and shoot them.”

“That’s pretty harsh.”

“Have you ever been raped for the sole purpose of getting pregnant?”

Lance considered her point for a moment before relenting.  What could he say to that?

“So all the guards are being executed, I take it.”

“Most have been let go, actually.  Disarmed first, which probably means they won’t get far anyway.”

That surprised Lance.  Surprised him and gave him a bit of hope.  Maybe the few people left alive weren’t as terrible as he expected.  He’d assumed that everyone who rode with Ralph would be a monster.

Cass continued, “Most of the shooting you’re hearing is coming from small groups standing guard around the fence.  There have been quite a few daywalkers in the woods this morning.  They’re coming from the safe zone in Greensburg, we think.”

Lance watched as three women loaded shotguns by the driveway.  One of them manipulated her weapon with ease and then helped the others.  They spoke quietly for a few minutes before heading into the woods.

“He’s given everyone a purpose,” Lance said.  “Empowered them in less than a day.”

Cass nodded.  “It’s pretty incredible.  Some people took off this morning, not trusting us, but the majority have stuck around.”

“So why do they keep calling me Mr. York?”

She smiled up at him.  “Brown has been talking us up.  Telling everyone that we saved him and Eifort.  Called you a hero, actually.  Blah, blah.  He suggested that they pay you respect by calling you Mr. York until you tell them otherwise.  Not everyone is doing it, but a lot are, obviously.”

Lance didn’t know what to make of that.  He didn’t consider himself a hero, or even a brave man.  He was even more surprised when Cass stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, looking up into his bruised face.

“What is it?” Lance asked.

“I thought you were going to be torn in half last night.”

“Me too.”

“We’re a team now, you know?  I need you to stay in one piece.  You hear me, dumbass?”

His stomach clenched.  He squeezed her to him, his mind focusing on the bite on his arm.

He had to tell her.  Things had calmed enough now that he wouldn’t put them in danger by revealing his fate.  They had to discuss what they would do as the infection scrambled his mind.

How they would spare him from devolving into the terrors that slinked through the night.

He opened his mouth to tell her, but she spoke first.

“I think this place could actually work out.”  She released him and stepped back, her brow furrowing.  “I know that I said I didn’t want to be around people because of the danger, but seeing all of those pregnant women... I don’t know.  I would hate myself if I abandoned them.”

“I hear you.”

“We could secure this place, I think.  Make it safe.  Safer than having them go it alone, anyway.”

Lance looked up at one of the large streetlamps over them.  “We could make this work.”

“The problem is that there is an entire city not far away that’s crawling with Vladdies.  How secure can we truly be while Pittsburgh is full of those damn things?”

“And Ralph is going to come for us.”

“Exactly.”  Cass waved her hand at a group of a dozen women by the cabin.  “Knowing that there will be children here is fucking with my head.  My brain tells me we should leave, that we would still be better off on our own, but my conscience says this might be our last chance to start over.  I mean, there will be
kids
here, you know?”

Everything she said made sense to Lance and he agreed with her.

But that didn’t change the fact that he wouldn’t be around to help.  Soon, he would become a part of the problem.

“Cass.”

“What?”

“I—”

The words caught in his throat.  His Adam’s apple bobbed.

Unable to say it, he reached for the bandage on his arm.

“Lance,” a soft, female voice said from behind him.

He turned around, agitated at the horrible timing of the interruption.

Liz stood behind him.

––––––––

“O
r should I call you Mr. York?”

Lance stood before her, dumbfounded.

He’d expected her to be in the camp, but seeing her in the flesh still brought up a torrent of emotions.

Most of them were of the negative variety.

“I think we can probably stick with Lance.”

She walked the distance between them in short, hurried steps.  Her hair was knotted and straggly.  Dirt spotted her cheeks and forehead.  Shoulders slumped.  Lance had never seen her in such shape before. During their marriage, she always frequented beauty salons and kept a decent tan year round.  It always pissed him off because of their tight financial situation.

Now she looked like a woman on the brink.

Then again, who didn’t?

She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tighter than she had in over a decade.

“I thought you were gone,” she said.  “I felt so horrible when we left you at the hospital.”

The memory of their last encounter shoved its way to the center of his mind.  His hand rubbed his sore face absentmindedly as he thought of Don’s punch.

He gently pushed her away, wanting to keep her at arm’s length.

“You felt horrible, just not enough to keep from leaving me in the gutter while you jaunted off with your new boyfriend.”

Her eyes lowered.  “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“You didn’t stop it though.”

“What did you want me to do?  Stay with you?  Leave him?”  Red flooded her cheeks.  “Even at a time like this, we can’t get along, can we?  Don was just trying to protect me.”

Lance expected the old emotions he always dealt with when Liz was around to bubble to the surface.  He looked her over, taking in her haggard appearance, and braced himself for the wave of resentment, disappointment, and inadequacy to wash over him.

It never came.

It had only been a few weeks since the episode outside of the hospital, yet he had little anger toward Liz.  Instead, he felt sorry for her.

“I saw Don yesterday,” he said.  “I’m sorry.”

A sheen glossed over her eyes.  “Me too.”

“What happened?”

“
They
happened.”  Liz looked over the clearing, her lower lip quivering.  “He went along with them—the men who ran this place.  They went out and rounded up people.  Did terrible things.  And he helped them.”

Tears spilled over her cheeks.  “He
liked
it!  The bastard!  He liked the power of it.  The control he had over people.  I lost him to them almost immediately.”

Lance put a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off.

“Don’t—I’m OK.”  She wiped her cheeks, smearing dirt.  “They went out a few days ago to raid a police station in Greensburg.  He got bit.  When he started to change, they threw him in the pit out back.”  She paused, her mouth twisting as she relived the painful memory.  “They put him in his expensive suit and threw him into the pit like an animal.  I guess that’s what he was at that point.”

“I’m sorry, Liz.  Honestly.”  And he was.  The anger, the hate, he’d felt for them a month ago had evaporated.  Nothing of his former life remained, except Liz, and he felt no attachment to her anymore.

“Me too.  I’m sorry for what I did to you.  For all of it.”

“Water under the bridge.”

Liz looked past him at Cass.  “It is for you, obviously, but not for me.  What’s left for me?  I’m alone. Alone at the end of the world.”

Lance didn’t know what to say so he remained quiet.

“Where did you find her?” She nodded at Cass.

“In an alley outside of a meth lab.”

“I see that you’re still a smart ass.  Even the apocalypse can’t beat that out of you.”

A smile cracked his face.  “No, honestly.”  He turned back to Cass and motioned for her to join him.

She stepped forward and laced her fingers into his, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

Liz’s eyes darted to their joined hands before rising back up to meet Cass’ gaze.

“This is Cass.  Cass, this is Liz.”

“I’m the bitch,” Liz said.

Lance said, “Liz, don’t—”

“It’s true though.  I screwed everything up between us.”  She looked at their hands again.  “I’m happy for you, Lance.”

Her mouth opened as if she wanted to say something else before she turned and walked toward the driveway.

“Liz?” Lance took a step in her direction.  “Is there something I can do?”

She stopped and peered over her shoulder.  “I can’t stay here.”

“But—”

“You’re different than you were before.  Confident.  Strong.”

“If you go out there on your own, you’ll die.”

“I just don’t care anymore.  Please don’t try to stop me.”  She shuffled down the driveway, disappearing in the shadows of the surrounding forest.

“That’s a broken woman.” Cass gripped his hand a little tighter.