Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (26 page)

“
I feel like we’re bullshitting about nothing, and meanwhile we have no idea what’s happening to him,” I said. 
I can’
t just sit here. 
I need to find him.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” said Gem. 
“This is the first step.  We have to brainstorm over what we know.” 

She turned to Reeves.
 
“Kev, we need like a town hall or something.  Anyone who saw that helicopter, we need to talk to.  We have to at least figure out what direction it was flying when it left town.”

“
It cut south when we saw it,” said Reeves.  “but it needed to gain altitude, and the trees were much shorter on the south side.  Flex had fired on it, so they were probably in a hurry.”

“Yeah,” said Jacko.  “Doesn’t mean he kept going that direction.”

“Let’s get in some cars and hit the streets,” said Dave.  “I’ll go all night if we need to.”

Flex slapped his hands on his jeans.  “Guys, have you forgotten we have a little rat problem and a zombie problem?  What we need before we start combing the streets is urushiol in bottles.”

“Then let’s get back to the brewery and drain off what’s extracted so far,” I said.  “Can we do that?”

“Yeah, Charlie,” said Gem.  “But there’s something else that needs to be do
ne.  I think you need to be the one to do it.”

I looked at her.  I knew what she meant.  Right now, Trina and Taylor were with
Lisa,
Vikki, Kim and Victoria, in the study of the
governor’s mansion
. 

Taylor
had her shitty, bent
-
to
-
fuck
-
all cards, and I was sure they were playing a game of Fuck Off, shocking the onlookers, in particular, the three ladies in charge of their keep.
  Lisa could handle it.

“Why me?”

“Because you can relate to her right now, and you’re going to tell her what you’re going through, and you two are going to cry together.  But not for long, because once I know you’ve told her, I’m coming over, too
, to help soak up some of that horrible sadness
.  I’ll take Trina
away
first.  This needs to be between the two of you.”

“Where the hell did you come from?” I asked, looking at this
tough,
beautiful woman who seemed to know the heart of a child so well, not to mention mine.  “Do you really know what you’re talking about?”

“Not half the time,” said Gem.  “But this time, I think so.”

I nodded.  “Okay.  But I want everyone else to get to the brewery except the five of us.  Dave?  Are you okay with it?  Fill some bottles with the zombie killing stuff?”

“Yeah, Charlie.  But hurry.  We’ll be looking for you.”

I got up and hugged Dave.  He was my favorite of the new people we’d found, him and his kinky beard and easy smile.  If I passed him on the street in
San Francis
c
o
, I’d just ask him for some weed, and I’d know he’d have it.

What’s more, I know he’d give it to me.

He hugged me back and smiled.  He nodded, his eyes perceptive.  “You’ll do fine.  Go help her through it.”

****

I watched from a distance, my man on my mind.  Gem leaned over and whispered in Trina’s arms, with
Taylor
watching her, curious.  Trina got up and took Gem’s hand, and they came to me. 

“Go,” she said.  “It’ll come to you.”

I walked over and went to the couch by the fireplace where they’d built a nice fire with the enormous stock of wood stacked on either side.  I patted the cushion beside me.

“Hey,
Tay
.  Come here, okay?  I want to talk.”

She finished a difficult shuffle with her shitty cards and put them on the table, then ran to me.

Her red hair gleamed and shone in the flickering firelight.  Her mom had washed it just last night, and I think had given it a trim, too.  She looked adorable for a child living in the time of zombies.

“
Tay
,” I said.  “I want to talk to you about your mom.”

“Is she here?” she asked, her eyebrows lifting, her very aura growing brighter.  “I feel like she’s been gone for days!”

“Well, she just left this morning with us,”
I
said.  “We went to … well, we went investigating around town.”

“What were you investigating?”

“Just getting the lay of the land.  Seeing how our new home was.  That’s all.”

“Is she here?” she asked.  “Or can I talk to her on the radio?”

I looked at her, then I knelt on the floor in front of her.  I swiped her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear and leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

Tears came then.  I couldn’t stop them.  I looked at this child, her beautiful face, her intense green Irish eyes, and I hated to bring sadness into them.  And there it came anyway, seeing my tears.

“What’s wrong, Charlie?  Are you okay?”

I shook my head.  “I’m not okay,” I said.  “Neither are you,
Taylor
.  We’re not okay right now.”

I put my arms around her and hugged her.  She shuddered under my grip.  In the hug, I turned to see Gem standing just around a distant corner, watching.  I shook my head just enough so she could tell I hadn’t done my job yet.

I pulled back, and held
Taylor
’s face in the palms of my hands.  “
Taylor
,
something happened to your mom and Todd this morning.”

“Something … something terrible?” she said, the innocence of those words stabbing my heart.

I nodded.  “I wouldn’t know how else to put it,
b
aby,” I whispered.  “Something terrible.”

The tears fell down her cheeks as her eyes bored into mine.  “Is she okay, Charlie?  Can I see her?  She’ll need me to be there with her, Charlie!”

I felt her muscles tense, and I slid my hands down her arms and held her firmly.  “Taylor, your mommy and Todd …. They didn’t make it.  They’re not alive anymore, baby.”

As I stared into that beautiful, innocent face, it went slack.  Then her eyes pleaded, and she shook her head.

“No, Charlie.  They didn’t
die
, did they?  When you said they’re not alive, are you saying they
died
?  My mommy is
dead
?”

“
Tay
, I’m sorry, baby
–”

She leapt from the couch and clenched her fists, standing in the middle of the room.  She stared at me, her face, her entire body suddenly tensed.  Her face turned red, and she screamed, “Mommy’s not dead!  My mommy’s not dead!  Bring her to me now!  I want to see my mommy!”

She screamed, and Gem ran over. 
I ran to
Taylor
too,
and we both knelt before her and wrapped our arms around her, squeezing her tight.  She fought us, but we held on,
the three of us in a tight cluster,
and it had to be more than half an hour before her body went slack and she
withdrew into herself.

Taylor
had checked out.
 
Some great fucking job I did.  I never even shared
with her
that Hemp wa
s missing, and I was sad and lost, too.  I vowed that I
would not
give up.  I would stay with her, talk to her
and hold her
until she started feeling again.  I would make her better.

I hoped
, in time,
we would all be better
.

Chapter 10

The helicopter felt as though it were flying fairly low to the ground. I’m not sure why, because as far as I knew, there would be nobody attempting to track it.

The men who had abducted me kept the hood over my head.
  No landmarks, no
indicators of where I was being taken.

I sat there,
the muffled beat of the rotor blades unable to
drown out my sorrow.  My friends were behind me.

Charlie was behind me.  The only thing I could cling to was that no matter what, I knew where she was.  She was in
Concord
,
New Hampshire
.

Of course I worried.  She would not stay there indefinitely; that woman would hit the road with that bloody crossbow of hers and look for me. 

But she’d never find me like that, I knew.

I have an almost mechanical timer that runs in my head, and I can calculate time
pretty much
perfectly.  I remember doing it when my father went into the back rooms of those pawn shops.  I always felt he was in some danger there, because often the men scheduled to meet him there were not like him; they were not good men. 

So
,
I would walk around the outer area of the usually closed shop and look at everything, a counter going off in my head.  Fifteen minutes … a half hour … beyond.  I had no idea what I’d do with the information, or when I’d ask about him, but he always came out before I had to make the decision, so it was a moot point.

But the talent stuck.  We’d been flying for
thirty minutes or so, and I felt as though we were nearing our destination.  I could feel the men moving around me, preparing.

The floor was heavily padded and carpeted.  The interior of the chopper was fairly plush, I could tell, just from the acoustics.

I was sure it was a Sikorsky, either an S-75 or an S-76.  I could easily tell it was a four-blade copter, just from the beat of the blades against the wind.

This was an executive helicopter, likely privately owned.

I felt the rotor angle and we began a sideways descent.  In a few more moments, we touched down and the rotors began to slow.

“Mr. Chatsworth, we’re going to lead you inside now.  You’ll have to continue to wear the hood for now.”

“I’m not really in a position to argue,” I said.  “Who are you?”

“Assistants,” he said. 

“Very informative, thanks.”

I could hear a generator running, because the helicopter engine had been cut.  It might have been multiple generators.  I smelled propane on the mild breeze.

This time only one man took me by the arm.  “Walk straight ahead,” he said.  “I’ll tell you if you need to turn.”

T
he man expertly directed me inside, and I was taken into what felt like a larger room.  Well-insulated, with soft carpet beneath my feet.
  I was lowered into a chair.

“Your host will be with you in a moment,” the man who’d guided me inside said.  “Can I get you some water?”

“I can’t very well drink it wearing this thing, so I’ll pass.”

“Sorry,” he said.

I felt him untying the loosely tied drawstring at my neck. 

“I’m
Gary
,” Mr. Chatsworth.  Allow me to apologize right up front for the way we got you here.”

He lifted the hood off, and the room swam into view.
 
I was in a mansion.  No other way to describe it. 
Columns, gleaming
brass
accents,
in a room that had to be at least twenty-four meters square.  The floor
featured
multiple levels and a sunken center section
with
an enormous
fireplace that would
probably
accommodate a six-foot man standing up in its opening
.  No fire burned in it now.

A large portrait hung over the fireplace, its gold lea
f
frame echoing an old-style elegance, and a smiling, yet serious face staring out at the room, erasing the mystery of the owner of the home in which I was being held captive.

It was
Ryan Carville
.  The multi-billionaire.

I was in
northern
Vermont
.

I
stared in disbelief
at the man
called Gary,
who’d led me in and had removed my hood. 

“
You’ll pardon me if I don’t accept your apology. 
What does Mr. Carville want with me?”

The young man
smiled in response.  “I’ll wait for him to tell you that,” he said.

I estimated
Gary
to be in his late twenties.  He
had a goatee with no mustache, and his
blonde
hair was lightly stiffened with some hair product or another.  I imagined Gem and Charlie would either directly or privately scoff at him for bothering with it when staying alive had become
primary and paramount
to most of
the remaining population
; vanity was somewhere far down the list.
His hands were soft-looking and clean, the nails manicured.