The Hunger (Book 2): Consumed (24 page)

“Brown said the pin in the middle was the North Side Station.  When he said it was underground, everything clicked in my mind.”

“Maybe you aren’t such a dumbass after all.”  She reached out and gave his hand a quick squeeze.  “I didn’t say it earlier, but thanks for coming.”

They walked for two blocks in silence, listening to the squawk of pigeons and the whistling wind as it blew between the buildings.  Only two daywalkers were visible, but they were far enough away that they didn’t notice Lance and Cass.

PNC Park came into view ahead. They couldn’t see Heinz Field yet because of a row of tall buildings lining the street.  The burned-out husk of a helicopter was in the parking lot beside the baseball park.  Lance remembered watching it tumble from the sky as a major tried to flee the Vladdies.

“Maybe your SyFy movie could have been called ‘The Mohawked Avenger vs. Sharktopus’ or ‘Blonde Bitch vs. Nazi Zombies’.”

“Jesus Christ, Lance.  Will you stop with the—”

A scream from down the street cut her off.

––––––––

C
ass ran to a car that had run over a fire hydrant.  She kneeled down behind it, peeking over the hood.

Lance took shelter behind concrete steps that led to an apartment building.

“Where did that come from?” Cass asked.

“I don’t know.” The scream had come so quickly that Lance didn’t have time to locate the direction of its origin.

Another shout came a few seconds later.

Cass pointed down the street.

Crouching low, Lance moved forward, joining Cass behind the car.  “Should we check it out?”

“It’s coming from the direction we’re going in, so we might not have a choice.”

“At least it sounded human.”

“Yeah, but what are they screaming about?  Anyone who has survived this long can’t be shouting for the hell of it.  That draws too much attention.  Something must be wrong.”

“I’m going to move up a bit.”

Lance jogged to a series of wrecked cars ahead, doing his best to stay low.  The weight of the bag on his back made it difficult.  His chest heaved by the time he crossed the fifty yards of pavement.

He dropped down behind a minivan, cursing Cass for bringing so much gear.  He glanced around the side and saw a man further down the road.  A messenger bag hung from his shoulder like a purse.

The man bent into the broken window of a car and dug around inside.  A few seconds later, he pulled his head out and kicked at the door, loosing another scream.

Lance waved Cass up to join him and turned back to keep his eyes on the man.

“What’s going on?” Cass asked as she jogged up.

“Take a look for yourself.”  Lance slid down the side of the van so she could kneel by the end.

Cass turned back to him a few seconds later.  “The guy is a nut.  What the hell is he doing?”

“No idea.  He must have a head injury or something.  There’s no way someone this stupid could have survived for so long.”

Lance looked through the busted windows as Cass stuck her head around the back end again.

The man went through another car, swore, kicked it, and moved on.

“What’s he even looking for?” Lance asked.

“Keys?  Maybe he wants to drive out of here.  The idiot is going to bring every daywalker in the damn city down on us if he doesn’t shut up soon.”

After searching through another car, the man cried out in joy.  He did a little dance in the middle of the street, spinning around in a circle and pumping his arms.  Music, barely audible, escaped from the broken windows of the car.

Cass shifted her weight and reached for her bow.  “We need to do something or he’s going to blow our entire plan.”

“You want to shoot him with an arrow?”

“We need to ask him to shut up, at least.  If he doesn’t, then we might have to.”

“Let me see if I can talk to him,” Lance said.  “Watch my back.”

He stood, grimacing at his creaky knees.  His entire body ached from the weight of the pack.  He would need to shift it to his other shoulder soon.  Moving on the balls of his feet, he crept around the front the van.

“Why are you sneaking?  I thought you were going to talk to him?” Cass asked.

“I...” Lance paused, realizing his creeping around didn’t make any sense.  He straightened his back.

“Dumbass.”

Lance stuck his tongue out at her and took a step toward the stranger.

Another man walked out of the front door of a bank half a block ahead.

“Shit!”  Lance dropped down again.

The man from the bank looked at the dancing man.  He broke into a sprint, heading straight for the first guy.

Lance backpedaled to Cass, hiding behind the van again.  “How many of these guys are there?”

They watched as the dancer reached into the car again.  The volume of the music cranked up, filling the street with the techno.

Lance gaped at the gyrating man, unable to believe that someone could do something so impossibly stupid.  If the noise didn’t abate soon, they would have to take the men out.  That or they would have to come up with another plan.

The man from the bank ran past the dancer and dove into the car.  The music died a second later.  He climbed out and berated the fool, shouting and pointing, stomping around the street.  They argued for the next few minutes.  The dancer appeared confused by the banker’s anger.

“The second guy seems a little smarter, at least,” Cass said.

“How smart can you be if you’re hanging around an idiot like that?”

“I hang around you.”

“You’re such a douche.”

“You shouldn’t talk to the mother of your child like that.”

Lance mumbled another insult under his breath.  He took the pack off with a grunt and swung the loop over his other shoulder.  “I should let you carry this shit around for awhile.”

“Stop being a pussy.”  Cass nodded at the men ahead.  “They’ve quieted down a bit.  Let’s see if we can—”

A shriek pierced the quiet ahead of them.

Instinct made Lance duck.  He slowly lifted his head and looked through the broken windows again.

A daywalker ran from an alley and stopped in the middle of the street, wailing at the sky.  It was halfway between them and the men by the car.

“Damn!  I knew they would attract some of these things.”  Cass kicked the tire of the van.  “Morons.”

The two men spun around and spotted the daywalker.  The banker broke into an all-out sprint in the other direction. The dancer cried out and followed his friend down the street.  His feet made loud clopping sounds against the pavement as he fled.

It lurched along the yellow centerline, chasing after them.

Lance stood taller, trying to get a better view.  His mouth dropped open when he saw the dancer’s footwear.

“That dipshit is wearing sandals!”

“How is he still alive?”  Cass stood beside him.  “How did he not step into traffic as a child?”

“You got me.”

The men stopped after only running for a few seconds.  Their attention was focused straight ahead of them.

“Why did they stop?” Lance asked.  He couldn’t see what they were looking at.

“Another daywalker just jumped onto a car ahead of them.  They’re in some deep shit now.”

“Should we help them?”

“How?  They’re too far away for me to use the bow, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to start shooting the guns.  That’ll just bring more of them down on us.”

The men ran to their right, disappearing around the edge of a building.  The two daywalkers followed.  Another flew after them, howling like the mad man that it had become.

“Oh no.”  Cass jogged down the middle of the street.  “I think they’re going for the subway!”

Lance stumbled after her, the weight of the pack swaying from side to side, throwing him off balance with each stride.  His shoulder fatigued before they even made it a block.  By the time they reached the last building before PNC Park, he wanted to lie down in the middle of the street and cry.

“This bag is killing me!  I can’t go much further.”

Cass ignored him and kept going.  She rounded the corner the men had disappeared behind and accelerated.

Lance came around the bend to see Cass sprinting through a small patch of trees.  She crossed a highway, pulling her axe from its place on her back.  The rifle fell from her hand, clattering on the road.

Pushing his muscles to their limits, Lance pressed on.  He sped through the trees, ignoring the burning sensation in his legs and shoulder.

As he cleared the small patch of vegetation, he watched Cass cleave the head from one of the daywalkers.  She pivoted on her heel and swung the axe again, embedding it in the back of the next.

Its body fell face first, the axe stuck in its ribs, pulling Cass forward.

She released the handle and backed away from the third infected.

It wailed at her, raising its arms up.

Cass pulled an arrow from the quiver on her back and flipped it with her fingers until the arrowhead jutted from the bottom of her closed fist.

The daywalker lunged for her.  Spittle flew from its mewling mouth, dotting the pavement.

Cass jammed the arrow into its empty socket, driving it through until her fist made contact with its vascular flesh.

It staggered sideways, high-pitched cries escaping from between its still-gnashing teeth.  Its feet tangled on the sidewalk and it fell over, limbs splayed. Spasms racked its body as Lance crossed the highway.

Its jerking slowed before it finally lay still.

Lance stopped beside Cass, his lungs threatening to burst in his chest.  He bent over, resting with his hands on his knees, trying to slow his wheezing.

“Thanks for waiting up!”  He coughed and beat on his chest.  “I could have helped.”

Cass pulled the arrow from the creatures head and swung it in a tight arc, slinging the blood from the arrowhead.  She placed it back in her quiver.

“I handled it.”

“Yeah, but it would have been easier with two of us.  What if you’d tripped when you swung the axe?”

“You don’t have a silent weapon to use, so I took care of it.  Everything is fine.  Relax.”  She grabbed the handle of her embedded axe and placed her foot on the waist of the dead daywalker.  With a grunt, she tore it free.  “And how are you not in shape yet?  How many weeks have we been on the run now?”

Lance waved her off.  “I’m in better shape now, but you have me lugging an entire armory on my back.”

Cass picked her rifle up from the highway.  She walked over to the stairs leading down to the subway. “They were standing here at the top of the steps.  I think Dumb and Dumber ran down there.”

Lance looked down the stairs at the darkness below.  They could see to the bottom, barely.  Light flickered on the floor, as if someone had lit a fire somewhere in the terminal.

“Are you sure you want to go down there?” Lance asked.  “This is crazy, you realize that?”

“Yes and yes.”  Cass turned to him, pursing her lips.  “Can we raise a child in a world where monsters might come crashing into our home at any moment?”

“It’s not ideal, I’ll give you that, but even if we somehow pulled this off, it wouldn’t kill all of them.”

“No, it wouldn’t.  But I have a feeling it’s going to cut the population
way
down.  We can handle a few here and there at the compound.  What would happen if a horde like the one that destroyed Heinz Field came at us?  Do you really think those streetlights will keep them at bay?”

Lance didn’t respond.  She was right, but that didn’t make this a good idea.

“If we can take care of Pittsburgh, we might have a shot at surviving the winter.  We’re far enough away from Philly that we shouldn’t have to deal with them.  At least not for a long time.”

Closing his eyes, Lance took a long, deep breath.  “OK, let’s do it.”

“Now we’re talking.” Cass slapped him on the back.  “Way to man up.”

“This is such a stupid plan.”

“You said it was good a few minutes ago.”

“That was before we were about to actually go through with it.  Being caught in a giant tube with a few thousand Vladdies doesn’t seem so smart anymore.”

“Do you ever stop bitching?”  Cass started down the stairs, holding her rifle against her shoulder.

Lance’s fingers fidgeted at his sides.  They were descending into hell and he had no idea what to expect.  The stairs were slick so he used the railing to make sure he didn’t spill down the steps with a hundred pounds of explosives on his back.

They reached the bottom and stopped.

Flames consumed a garbage can in the middle of the station.  Shadows danced across the ceiling and walls.  The two men were nowhere to be seen.

“For their sake, I hope they didn’t go into the tunnels.”  Cass lowered her rifle and turned to Lance, lifting the bag from his shoulder.

He let out a dramatic sigh and rolled his shoulder.  “So what’s the next step in your master plan?”

Cass dropped the bag on the floor and unzipped it.

“Hey, could we not drop the explosives?”  Lance knelt beside her.

“They won’t blow up from impact.  They’re plastic explosives.”

“Oh.”

She pulled a pair of night-vision goggles from the bag and loosened the straps hanging from them.  She secured it to her head, cinching the straps in place.

“I don’t suppose you have another pair, do you?” Lance asked.

“Sorry.  I thought this would be a solo mission.”

“No problem.  I’ll just stumble along behind you in the fucking
dark
.”

Cass pulled a handful of flares from the bag and handed them to Lance.  “We’re going to use these most of the time.  Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Lance took the flares.  He didn’t like the idea of using these as his only light source.  They would allow him to see, but they weren’t designed to be bright.

Next came a bundle of black cylinders with rings at the top.  She handed those over as well.

“Put these in your pockets.”

“Are these grenades?”  Lance held them at arm’s length.

“Flashbangs.  Just put them in your cargo pockets—they won’t bite.”

Lance gingerly stashed them in his pants.  He didn’t like being surrounded by so many things that were designed to blow up.  “Brown didn’t say anything about you taking these.”