The Hunger (Book 2): Consumed (22 page)

“She
what
?”  Lance ran his hands through his hair.  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

They walked into the room with maps and schematics.  Lance had started to call it the command center.  Eifort sat by the large map on the table and spoke into a walkie-talkie.  When she saw them walk in, she shook her head at Brown.

“We’ve been trying to get her on the radio since she left, but she’s not answering.”

“So she took a walkie-talkie as well?”  Lance paced by the door, fear settling in the pit of his stomach.

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.  Why would she leave without saying anything?”

Brown stuffed his hands in pockets.  “We think we know why.”  He peered at Eifort.

“Tell him,” she said.  She pressed the button on the side of the transceiver again and tried to reach Cass.  “Lance is here now, please pick up.”

“Tell me what?” Lance stopped pacing and stared at Brown.  “Stop fucking around and tell me what’s going on.”

“I didn’t want to tell you yesterday, because Cass clearly wasn’t handling the news well.  I figured it would be best for her to work through it and then figure out what she wanted to tell you.”

Lance gritted his teeth and waited.

“She’s pregnant, Lance.”

Lance’s jaw went slack.  The room swam before his eyes as a wave of lightheadedness washed over him.  Brown reached out and grabbed his arm, guiding him to a chair at the end of the table.  Lance collapsed into it.

“Pregnant?” he asked, his voice small.

Brown nodded.  “I had her take a test yesterday morning.  The nausea she kept experiencing was morning sickness.”

“But I can’t have children.  Liz and I tried for years.  My little guys have low motility or something like that.”

“She said something similar, but the results are pretty conclusive.  She took three tests.”

The emotions coursing through Lance ran the full gamut.  He was overjoyed that he would be a father, but scared of raising a child in such a harsh environment.  He wanted to laugh, cry, and scream all at once.  It didn’t help that Cass had taken off without telling him about the pregnancy.

His confusion manifested on his face and Brown knelt down beside him.  “I’m sorry for not telling you.  I never thought she would leave like this.”

Lance snapped his head around, his mind clearing.  Cass was gone and he thought he knew what she was up to.

“You realize what she’s doing right?”

Brown nodded.  “I think so.”  He walked over and inspected the map.  “She’s going into Pittsburgh to hunt for nests.”

“You’re goddamn right she is!  She wanted to take care of the Vladdies when she was worried about the women outside.  Now that she’s pregnant too, she’s not going to stop.”

Lance stood, ignoring his still-wobbling knees.

Eifort tried to get her on the radio again, but no answer came.  She tossed it to the table and sighed.  “She’s a real pain in the ass, you know?”

“Tell me about it.”  Lance looked down at the map.  He forced himself to focus on finding her, rather than dwelling on the fact that she left without saying a word to him.  Without telling him he would be a father.

He leaned forward, focusing on the circles and the pin in the map.  “Did anyone ever figure out what this pin is?”

Brown nodded.  “I think it’s the North Side Station.”

“The what?”

“Remember all the construction the last few years by the stadiums?  They were boring out a tunnel under the river for the subway.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that.”  Lance snapped his head up.  “The subway?  Of course!”

“It’s safe to assume that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of vampires, or whatever you want to call them, hiding out down there.  It’s vast, it’s dark, and it would allow them to move around the area under the stadiums during the day.”

“That’s where she’s going.”  Lance grabbed the pin and pulled it out.  “She’s nuts.  How does she think she can kill them all by herself?”

They shared a glance, everyone remaining quiet for several seconds.  Though no one said it aloud, they all knew he would go after her.

“When did she leave?”  Lance asked.  He walked from the room, waving for them to follow him.  He grabbed a walkie-talkie from the table on his way out.

“About an hour ago,” Brown said from behind him.  “Someone came in and said that they saw her carrying weapons to a truck.  They waited to tell us until she left because they were scared of her.”

Lance grunted.  He understood that.

They walked outside using the front door.  A dozen men and a few women stood around a handful of trucks beside the driveway.  The hoods were up, each with at least one person bent over the grill, working a wrench.

Two women holding pistols in their hands walked by, calling him Mr. York as he went.

Lance stopped at the driveway and turned around.  “I need a truck and a rifle.”

Brown stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled around them.  The people by the trucks perked up at the sound.  One banged his head on the hood above him.

“Barrett, Tarpley, we need you two over here!”  Brown turned back to Eifort.  He nodded at her rifle.  “How many more of those do we have?”

“A shitload, but they need cleaned and oiled.  They’ve been down in the bunker for a while.”  She held her rifle out to Lance.  “Take this one.  I’ll fix up another later.”

“Thanks.”  Lance took it from her and inspected the safety and the action.

She handed over two clips she had in her cargo pants.

Two women jogged over from the trucks, wiping grease from their hands on shreds of cloth.

“Yeah, Doc?”  The first to arrive had red hair and a deluge of freckles covering her nose and cheeks.  Grease covered her hands and one of her forearms.

“We need the most reliable truck you’ve got,” Brown said.

“Well, the Tundra runs pretty good, but—”

“Get it for us, please.”

“But—”

“Time is of the essence, Tarpley.”

“Sir.”  She jogged off, shouting for someone by the trucks to join her as she ran around the side of the cabin.

The second woman, Barrett, stopped in front of Brown.  “What can I do?”

“Do we have any chains we can spare?” Brown asked.

“I think so.”

“Good, get one and put it in the bed of the truck Tarpley is bringing around.”

“You got it, Doc.”  She walked back to the trucks she was working on.

“Chain?” Lance asked.

“In case you run into cars blocking your way.  You can pull them off the road.  If you have to take a detour or go on foot, even for a short period of time, you won’t catch up to Cass.  You’re going to be hard pressed to gain any ground as it is with her having such a big lead.”

“Good thinking.”  Lance hoped the route he chose would be the same one Cass had taken.  If so, they would run into the same roadblocks.  But if she took another road, he could only hope to catch her at the subway station.

Hopefully, the chain would help minimize the distance he had to drive.

An engine rumbled from around the side of the cabin, getting louder as it approached.  A white, filthy truck came around the corner and slid to a stop in the grass in front of Lance.  It had large, newish looking tires on it.  A lift kit had it sitting so high off the ground that Tarpley had to climb out of it backwards.

She ran around the front and looked to Brown.  “Anything else?”

“That’s it, thanks.  You’re doing a nice job on these.”

“Thanks, Doc.”  She looked at Lance.  “Don’t ding her up too bad, OK?  These things are as good as gold to us now.”

“I’ll do my best,” Lance said.

She helped Barrett drag a chain to the truck before they went back to work under the hoods of the other vehicles.

Lance turned back to Brown and Eifort.  “You guys take it easy back here.  Don’t work yourselves to death.  I’m talking to you, specifically, Doc.”

Brown extended his hand.  “Bring her back safe.”

Lance brushed his hand away and gave him a big hug instead.  He did the same to Eifort.

“I won’t be able to convince her to come back unless she feels we’ve killed enough of the Vladdies.  You know that, right?  And the odds of us accomplishing that are slim to none.  This is probably a one-way ticket.”

Brown lowered his eyes and nodded his head.  “I understand.”

“There are three of you now,” Eifort said.  “You bring them back.  I don’t care what it takes.”  She put her arm around the doc.  Her eyes misted, but no tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Goodbye, my friends.”  Lance moved around the truck quickly, afraid he would get emotional if their farewell lasted any longer.  He climbed into the driver’s seat, having to use a handle attached to the body to heave himself up.

He started the engine, listening to the big V8 purr on the other side of the dash.

Brown and Eifort came around to the driver’s side.

Lance put his window down and leaned out.  “Hey, Doc?”

“Yeah?”

“When this baby hits eighty-eight miles an hour, you’re going to see some serious shit.”

A smile spread across Brown’s face.  “You’re a hell of a character, Lance.”

“I had to get one more in there—just in case.”  Lance put the truck in gear and gunned it.  The back tires tore up the grass as he steered toward the driveway.

He honked the horn as he went, making sure no one meandered in front of him.  In the rearview mirror, he watched Eifort wave as he drove around a bend in the driveway.  He prayed he would have a chance to see them again, though he knew it was unlikely.

The truck barely slowed as he swung it onto the road.  Its tires squealed as he mashed the accelerator to the floor, heading west.

To Pittsburgh.

To Cass.

To his unborn child.

––––––––

L
ance weaved through the wrecked cars crisscrossing 356.

He followed the route they’d used to get to Ralph’s compound, just reversing course.  Familiar sights passed by as he drove entirely too fast for the conditions of the roads.

The farm they’d spent several days at rested on the left.  Lance watched it as he went by, remembering standing in the rain with Cass.  He’d wanted so badly to stay there with her.

The house and barns disappeared as he descended a hill and he refocused, pushing the truck even faster.  Even as he drove through the more populated areas, Lance didn’t see a single daywalker.  The morning drive was quiet and calm.

Except for the fear that settled in the pit of his stomach.

The idea of Cass traipsing through the subway system alone tore at his mind.

He had to catch up to her first.

The Presbyterian church, whose parking lot they’d raided gas from, was on the left.  He went past the home he’d taken the Corvette from without giving it a second glance.

The bridge crossing the Allegheny River, just north of Brackenridge, came into view a few minutes later.  Lance looked at the clock on the dash and realized he’d made the trip in less than thirty minutes.  If he could keep the pace up for a while longer, he might be able to catch her.  He highly doubted she would drive this carelessly for no reason.

Cass wanted to exterminate the filth under the city, not die in a fiery crash by the side of a podunk town.

Because most of the bridges in the area had been destroyed, Lance felt confident that he was using the same route Cass had.  If she hadn’t gone this way, it would be difficult for her to get close to the stadiums.

Unless she uses a boat.

Lance shoved the thought aside.  He couldn’t dwell on such things or they would force him into a panic.  He knew her objective.

Knew where she was going.

He would find her.

The Tundra’s tires slid across the pavement as Lance jerked the wheel, bringing the truck onto 28, heading south.  He put his window down as the stench of burning rubber filled the cabin.  The concentration of abandoned vehicles increased.  He cursed as he slowed down, weaving in and out as quickly as he could.

Even as he passed Brackenridge, Lance didn’t see a daywalker.

It was only a week or two since they’d been through this same area on the Duchess and it had been crawling with the infected.  Now it was a ghost town.

Cars polluted the highway less as he got a mile past the small city.  He coaxed the Tundra up to ninety again, hoping nothing would wander into the road.

Though he hadn’t spent much time on this side of the city, Lance felt fairly certain that 28 ran almost the entire way to the stadiums.  The pin on the map showed that the North Side Station sat between Heinz Field and PNC Park.

The memories of the massacre at the safe zone boiled to the surface, but he pushed them back down.  He didn’t have time for the fear that always accompanied his recollection of that night.

As he crossed into Pittsburgh, Lance was again forced to slow down.  Three cars sat across the highway ahead, parked bumper to bumper in an odd way.

Lance eased off the gas and squinted against the sun reflecting off the windshield.  The cars appeared to have been placed that way intentionally.  Almost like a makeshift roadblock.

He stopped in the middle of the highway.

Stuck his head out the window.

Businesses sat fifty yards from the road on the left.  Homes were off to the right.  Trees stood beside the shoulder, between the houses and the highway.

Lance sat there for nearly thirty seconds, scanning the area for movement of any kind.

Seeing none, he eased the Tundra toward the parked cars.  He turned around, backing up to the rear end of a Dodge Neon.  He climbed out and went to the tailgate, reaching for the chain.

“Don’t move.” The voice came from the other side of the cars.

Lance froze, still bent over the back of the truck.  The .44 rested in his waistband.  He wanted to reach for it, but he had a feeling that whoever called out to him had a gun trained at his chest.

“I just want to pass through.”

“Shut up.”

Slowly, Lance turned his head.  A man of roughly forty stood beside the Neon.  He held a pistol in his right hand, the barrel directed at Lance.  His brown hair was long and knotted, sticking up in random places.  Red splotches dotted his face.