The Hunger (Book 2): Consumed (21 page)

Lance wanted to hug them.  Hot coffee was a dream from another life.

After thanking the cooks, they dug in like a pack of dogs.  The warm, seasoned food assaulted Lance’s taste buds.  He’d been eating straight from cans for weeks.  Eating eggs was a luxury he’d assumed was lost.

“You bring up a good point,” Brown said through a mouthful of toast.  “We’re going to have trouble telling Ralph’s men from regular survivors. Fortunately, some of the people here will recognize them.  And this is also why I want everyone to be armed.  One person won’t be able to topple what we have here.  They might kill a few of us, but the others will take them out.  Nathaniel was able to take Ralph’s crew out because they were the only ones armed.”

Cass devoured the food in short order, a grin stuck on her face as she worked through the eggs.  Lance smiled back at her, glad to see her relaxing for a change.  He was still shocked that she hadn’t forced him to pack up and leave the area with her already.

She’d been so against being around a large group of people that he never thought she would relent.  But she seemed content here, even though she still expressed some unease.

The compound was like a taste of the old world, but without the baggage the four of them had before.  Their debts, failed marriages, and piled-up bills were gone.  They had each other and they had food and shelter.

In a world where going out at night meant certain death, what more could they ask for?

“What about Ralph?” Lance asked after awhile.

“That’s something else I wanted to ask you about.”  Brown stacked their empty plates and moved them to a bench by the door.  “We can’t sit around and wait for him to attack us.  If we’re going to beat him, we have to strike first.”

Cass belched and rubbed her stomach.  “But we don’t know where he is.  Kind of hard to take someone out if we can’t find him.”

“We don’t know where he is, but someone else might.”  Brown pointed at a radio in the back corner of the room.

“The Wildman of Monroeville.”  Lance snapped his fingers.  “You think we can get a hold of him on that thing?”

“Probably.  He’s said before that he’s been in contact with people all over the world.  How else could he be doing that?”

“Maybe he could help us set a trap for Ralph.”  Eifort shrugged.  “He seems to hate these Minutemen assholes as much as we do.”

They agreed that they would try to contact the Wildman.  He came across as a loon, but he tried to help people stay out of harm’s way with his broadcasts.  They could only hope that he would be willing to aid them in their struggle.

Lance also believed they had no choice but to strike first.  Ralph was insane and would do everything in his power to kill every single person in the compound.

Cass got up and walked over to a window, pushing curtains aside so she could watch the people outside as they worked.

“What about the Vladdies?  Doc, you said yourself—they’re going to move out of the city as the food supply dries up.  I can’t imagine there are many people left in Pittsburgh.”

Brown nodded.  “I agree.  They’re going to expand into the countryside at some point, but this place should keep us safe.  The generators and the lights will keep them at bay.”

“That’s not good enough, Doc.  We have pregnant women here now.  If something goes wrong in six months, they’ll be too big to defend themselves.  They won’t be able to run.  And what about when the children are born?  What then?  What if the generators go down and there are kids running around?”

“What are you suggesting?” Lance asked.

Cass continued peering through the window.  “I’m suggesting we wipe them out.”

––––––––

T
hey stared at the ceiling of what used to be Ralph’s bedroom.

Lance found the bed quite comfortable.

It helped that he had a beautiful, if still incredibly bruised, woman lying next to him, her head resting in the nook of his arm.  The spiked top of her mohawk prickled his bare skin.

They’d stripped the militant wall coverings down, freeing the bare, timber-frame design of the cabin.  Cass’ axe and bow sat in the corner by the door.  Lance had his .44 resting on the nightstand beside them.  Someone had dug it out of the pit earlier in the day.

Lance felt guilty about the others having to sleep on the ground or in the tanker trucks.  He made a promise to the people outside that they would get them proper homes soon.  What that would be, he didn’t know.

Maybe mobile homes or campers.

Cass and Brown had gone back and forth for several hours over what to do about the Vladdies.

Brown felt that there was little they could do at that time.  Ralph would come knocking soon, and they couldn’t afford to send any of Nathaniel’s men away to hunt for vampire nests.  They also had survivors, several of which were pregnant, to care for.  Homes needed to be built, crops cultivated, and animals bred and slaughtered.

They simply couldn’t spare the manpower to send people off into what he felt would become a suicide mission.

Lance thought he had valid points.

Cass, on the other hand, argued that they couldn’t afford
not
to go on the offensive.  Why wait until the force that wiped out the entire planet descended upon their tiny little compound?  What if the Vladdies grew desperate as their hunger drove them further into madness?

She felt that waiting for them to leave the city would be the equivalent of committing suicide.

Brown countered that they didn’t even know where the Vladdies were hiding.  Were they in a central location, or spread across the city, hiding in apartments and schools?  They just didn’t know.

Cass pointed out that they couldn’t find them if they didn’t look.  She kept coming around to the pregnant women.  Her fierce protection of them inspired a sense of awe in Lance.

It made him care for her even more.  She was normally independent, so concerned with her own survival, that seeing her stand up for people she’d only just met deepened his feelings for her.

They’d left the impromptu meeting without coming close to an agreement.

Lance understood the arguments for both sides.

Wiping out the Vladdies made sense—they just didn’t know how to do it.

He could feel the tension in Cass’ muscles as they lay on the bed.  She’d been quiet for the past hour or so, but he could tell by her breathing that she hadn’t fallen asleep.

“You agree with me, right?” she asked after awhile.

“Yes.”

“But you also agree with him, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”  He sighed.  “We need to do something to protect this place—I’m with you there.  But if a bunch of us goes looking for nests, we’ll leave everyone here open to attack.  Damned if we do, damned if we don’t, you know?”

“I do.  But I can’t just sit here and wait.  I have to do something.”

As if on cue, the siren song of the damned echoed through the clearing.

“We’ll never get a moments rest,” Cass said.  “Not until they’re all dead.”

Lance held her close until sleep finally took him an hour later.

The next day was more of the same.

They worked outside, setting up defenses and developing lookout schedules.  Small groups ventured away from the compound, searching for survivors and scrounging for supplies.

They reported that the amount of daywalkers had dwindled dramatically.  There were many of the newly infected from the safe zone in Greensburg, but the numbers were much smaller in every other direction.  While that meant that the day had grown safer, Lance understood that the numbers of Vladdies increased as the daywalkers fully converted.

Ten more people came into the camp by noon, begging for sanctuary.  Brown never hesitated.

Two motor homes were pulled beside the trucks and a dozen people piled inside, sharing the beds and couches.  People hung cloves of garlic from the windows and doors.

They tried to hail the man on the radio in the afternoon.  He didn’t answer.  His broadcast went out at the same time as usual, but they couldn’t get through to him.  He warned about the escalating activity of the horrors that roamed the night.  The Vladdies were broadening their range as they searched for food, just as Brown had predicted.

Cass continued to argue that they needed to do something about the vampires.

Brown held steadfast that they couldn’t spare the manpower until they took care of Ralph.

On their third day at the compound, Cass grew quiet.

Though he tried, Lance couldn’t get her to say more than a few words to him.  She moved about the area in a sullen silence, her eyes glassy as if her thoughts were elsewhere.

When he asked what was wrong, she mumbled and walked away, refusing to engage with him. As noon passed, his concern deepened because she still hadn’t opened up to him.

There had been no word from Ralph, which had Brown on edge.  He slept little, constantly in contact with the people standing guard around the fence.  Eifort rarely left his side after that.  Though she never said it aloud, Lance knew that she feared Ralph would come for them soon.

Lance, on the other hand, felt more at ease with each passing day.  They had something positive going at the compound.  They were building a community.  Building a future.  If not for Cass’ sudden silence, he would have been content to rest on his laurels and wait for Ralph to appear.

The Wildman of Monroeville answered their hails early in the evening.

They stood in the back office with Brown at the radio.  Cass stood over Lance’s shoulder, leaning against the doorframe.

“
Who is this
?”  A voice crackled through the tiny speaker on the radio.

“My name is Emmett Brown.”

A pause.  Then, “
I don’t have time for games.  Stuff your jokes up your ass
.”

“I’m not playing around. That’s my real name. I want to talk to you because we have a common enemy.”

The Wildman didn’t respond.

Brown pressed on.  “Ralph and his Minutemen.  My friends and I have captured his compound outside of Greensburg.”

“
So you’re the one who stormed the castle?  Some badass work there, no doubt.  Punched the king right in the dick
.”

“You know about us taking over?”

“
Of course, I have eyes everywhere
.”

“Then why haven’t you answered us before?”

The Wildman laughed, high and screechy. “
And who are you?  I don’t know what kind of man you are or what you want with me
.”

“I want to help you kill Ralph.”

“
And how do I know you aren’t someone pretending to hate him?  How do I know you aren’t trying to set me up
?”

“I—”

“
Even if you were serious, you’d have to realize that piece of shit is probably listening to us right now
.”

“I do, but—”

“
Besides, I’m like Switzerland, baby.  I don’t get involved in other people’s bullshit, even if it seems like I might make out like a pig in shit
.”

Lance frowned.  He wasn’t sure that he even understood what that meant.  The man was bizarre.

“
You’re doing good stuff, so it seems.  Keep on the path of righteous, or some shit, but don’t come to me for this kind of garbage.  I pass along information and that’s it.  I’m the Internet of the world. Oh, and Ralph
? 
I know you’re listening, you piece of shit.  Suck a dick.
”

A series of clicks came over the airwaves.  The Wildman didn’t respond again, despite more pleas from Brown.

Cass stormed from the room without a word, leaving Lance with Eifort and Brown.

“Well, I guess he isn’t going to help us.”  Lance turned to them.  “Do you know what’s going on with her?  She won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Brown and Eifort shared a glance, but didn’t respond.

“You’re going to give me the silent treatment too?  What the hell?”

“It’s not my place to tell you,” Brown said.  “You’ll have to talk to her.”

Lance felt his frustration rising. He didn’t like that everyone knew some secret, yet refused to confide in him.

He went back to their bedroom and found Cass lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling again.

“What’s wrong with you today?”  He removed his .44 and tossed it to the nightstand.

“I have a lot on my mind.”

“We all do, but what you’re doing to me right now is bullshit.”

Cass lifted her head and looked at him.  “You’re right, I’m sorry.  I’m trying to figure out what I need to do.”

“What do you mean?”  Lance stripped his clothes off and threw them in the corner.  He climbed into the bed beside her, propped on his elbow.  He was exhausted from the hard day of work.  His muscles relaxed as soon as he hit the sheets and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay awake for long.

“I—” She shook her head.  “Nothing.  I’m sorry.”  She rolled over, throwing an arm across his chest.

Lance wanted to ask her more about what bothered her, but he felt himself slipping away.  She kissed his cheek as he neared the precipice and he smiled faintly.

He awoke the next morning to an empty bed and a heavy pounding on his door.

“Lance!  Get up!”  Brown repeated himself from the other side of the door and continued beating against it.  “Let’s go!”

“What?”  Lance rolled out of the bed and slipped his pants on.  He’d lost a significant amount of weight over the past month and had to tighten his belt another notch.

“It’s Cass.”

“What about her?” Lance’s head snapped toward the closed door. 

“She’s gone.”

Then he noticed that her axe and bow were missing from the corner.  She hadn’t worn either one during the day since they’d arrived at the compound.

He crossed the room in two giant steps and unlocked the door, pulling it open.

“Gone where?”

“We don’t know.”

Lance grabbed his pistol from the nightstand and stuffed it in his belt.  He followed Brown out of the room. “How do you know she’s gone?  Maybe she’s just scavenging for supplies or something.”

“She took a truck, a pair of night-vision goggles, a shitload of flares, and a bunch of explosives.”