Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (9 page)

Then I saw Charlie
, and my breath escaped me in a huge release
. 
My mind’s eye
fully expected to see her with that crossbow in her hands, letting arrow after arrow fly with deadly accuracy, but instead, she had the gleaming, chrome fire extinguisher, the nozzle held straight out in one hand, the handle of the tank in another
, her feet moving fast as she practically flew toward Flex and Gem
.

“I couldn’t get out of there
!
” she shouted
on the fly
.
 
“I was blocked
in the back, and I couldn’t get to my bow or
the
tanks
!”

“
More are
coming, Charlie!
” I yelled.
 
“
Five or six,
from the brush behind
the Ford!” 
I pointed to the other side of the Crown Vic, and sure enough, there were
at least ten
of them
now
. 

Charlie
reached Flex and Gem. 
Gem
was on her back
, fully alert now, but in the grip of the zombie.  She twisted like a gator attempting a death roll in a swamp
.  She had no weapon in her hands, yet
the monster had such a grip on her leg that she couldn’t spin a full revolution. 
Flex
stood
over the creature
clamped to
her ankle,
kicking it in the face with his steel-toed cowboy boots.  With each blow, he screamed
“Let! Her! The! Fuck! Go!
,” y
et
its
determined fingers
never unclenched
.
  I turned and ran toward the new
deadly
arrivals,
firing
along a straight line, just about
head-height.  Some
wild
shots
ricocheted
off the Crown Vic’s bulletproof glass and impenetrable body, and as I saw Cynthia, Taylor and Trina inside, staring with wide eyes, I was
gladder
of the car’s defenses than ever.  I hadn’t
had a clue
they were
still
inside.

I looked back at Charlie, who had
reached
Flex and Gem, quickly dousing the
old zombie thing with a
blast of the deadly oil.

Sh
e didn’t wait to see the effect.  She knew as well as we all did what would happen next. 
Next thing I knew, sh
e was running fast behind me.
  I cut around the driver’s side of the Ford and waved her along the passenger’s side.  I fired, emptied my clip, grabbed another, slammed it in, and took out four more of the lumbering menaces.

And then
Charlie had that nozzle open and a fine mist of oil and water doused the rest of the rotters.
  Damned adrenaline must have been jamming through her veins at the speed of one of her arrows.
   They went down where they stood, creating a mush pile of bone, flesh, blood and of course, the ever-present muck.

To my credit, I had taken out about
seven
of them
with my
MP5
before she took out the other six or so.

When we were sure they were all dead and there were no more ready to spring from the weeds surrounding the station, w
e got to Flex, who was bent over Gem.  Her eyes were open, and she stared up at us, looking embarrassed.

“Fuck.  How did I get caught short like that
?
”

“Must have been a lingering euphoria from knowing you’re married to me now,” said Flex, smiling.  “I’m just glad you’re okay.  You are okay, aren’t you?
  You feel okay?  Any internal pain?
”

She nodded and went to get up.  “
I’m fine, and the baby’s fine, Flexy.  I think I’d know if it wasn’t. 
Is everyone else okay?”

“Yes.  We need to get moving, though.  Fast.  Did you get everything filled?” asked Charlie.

Flex nodded.  If the bus is full, they’re all topped.”

“Wow.  Matt must have had a good scare.”

We all walked around to the door.  Matt had opened it and Dave sat beside him, the
digger
ghoul
still sprawled out on the seats across from them.

“You okay Matt?” asked Gem.

Dave and Matt both looked up at her and smiled at the same time.

“That was awesome!”
Matt
said, the smile growing wider on his face.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it was awesome, but it was a bit of a takedown, wasn’t it?” said Dave.
  “Is Lisa okay?”

“Yeah,” sai
d Charlie.  “She’s in the lab. 
Safe and sound.”

“Good.”

“
Dude,” said Matt, slapping Dave on the arm. “Y
ou blasted that fuck in the face and sent him ass over applecart!”

Flex looked at Gem, then at me.  Finally he looked at Matt.  “Ass over applecart?  I say the word liniment and Gem has me 80 years old.  How the hell old are you, 90?”

Matt laughed.  He didn’t seem
at all traumatized
by the experience.  “My grampa used to say that.  I
t
stuck, I guess.”

“Cleanup on aisle 2,” said Charlie.  “So let’s get that shit done and get moving.  I don’t like it here anymore.”

“
Why don’t you and Hemp c
lear
those folks
out of the lab and get some more
Urushiol
tanks ready and in the hands of the capable,” said Flex.  “We’ll get this bus cleaned up and ready to roll.   We’re going to need about a half hour, thanks to fuckin’ Quick Draw McGraw here.”

Charlie and I nodded and I think we both smiled a little.  We sure as hell did not want to be on
shattered glass and exploded
zombie brain
cleanup
detail.

We rolled in forty minutes.  No more zombies made an appearance, but I swear I felt them watching from somewhere out of sight.

Call me paranoid.  But I think they
were
watching.

****

Chapter 3

The road trip was long, and we’d known it before starting out.  But just how long it would be we had no idea.

My radio clicked.  It was Flex.

“Buddy.  We aren’t planning on going right through
the middle of
Newark
, are we?”

“I know,” I said.  “
Manhattan
is a bit densely populated for what’s going on.  I don’t want to be there, either.”

“Gem’s been mappin’.”

“Napping?”

“No, checking out the map.  She’s thinking she’s got a route that’ll steer us clear of
New York City
, but it might involve some more elevation.”

“All our vehicles will take some hills, Flex,” I said.  “But we’ll use more fuel.”

“These look more like mountains, but you’re right – all our stuff’s in good condition, including that jammin’ bus.”

Then I heard
Gem’s
voice in the background.
 
“I’d rather
our vehicles
guzzle
some more
fuel than
face off with the rotters again
, if
you
don’t mind!”

Flex’s voice:  “Hey, Mrs. Sheridan.  I marry you and you start getting all domesticated on me?”

I heard a slap, and Flex again.  “Ouch
!”

Flex came on again.  “She’s bitchy.  Complaining for two, you know.”

Another slap.  Other ouch.

I clicked on.  “
Better quit while you’re behind, Flex, but point taken
.  Where to?”

When you get to a town called Pluckemin, look for the 287 North.  Or East.  It’s going to be one of the two.”

“Okay.  The 287 it is.”

“How far
does the
GPS
say it is
from here
to
Concord
,
Hemp
?” asked Flex.

“We’re already around
Annandale
,
New Jersey
,” I said.  “So around 330 miles or so.  Depends on what we run into along the way, but if we were living in a normal world, it would be around seven hours.”

Gem’s voice again, only softer, her humor mostly gone. 
“M
y mind is working overtime. 
What the hell are we gonna find
there
?”

“It’s the question
for
the ages,” I said.  “Everyone turn on your CB radios and set them to scan.  Copy that, Cynthia?”

“Gotcha,” she said from the
Ford.

“Gotcha, Uncle Hemp!”  It was the sound of Taylor and Trina sounding off together.

“They aren’t sleeping?”

“Really?” asked Cynthia.  “Are you serious?
  Do they have a stock of Red Bull under the seat that I don’t know about?
”

“Thanks, Cynthia,” said Gem.  “We’ll trade some passengers for a while when we stop.  I know
Trina
wanted to ride with
Taylor
for a bit.”

“It’s been fine, really.  Todd and I have been talking about the old times. 
The not-so-long-ago old times.”

I
got everyone back on track.  “Back to the CB radios on scan . . .
If anyone gets a hit – and I’m hoping it’s more likely as we get closer to New Hampshire – then
lock in on the channel and tell everyone else what it is.
”

“Got it, Hemp
,
”
said Flex.

“Out,
”
I said.

I turned to Charlie, who
had positioned a short, padded stool between the front captain’s chairs and plopped down on it.  She had one arm curled around mine and her crossbow leaned against her real seat.  She liked being close to me, and I liked her that way.

She gave me a quick peck on the lips.

“So seven hours?”

“Barring any
obstacles
.”

“Zombie barriers?”

“Bodies, vehicles, zombies.  Some stuff I can push away, other stuff I can pull.”

“Some shit we shoot.”

“Yes, we do.”

She flipped her blonde hair over one ear.  It was much longer than when I’d met her, and with each inch it grew, it seemed to get wilder.  Flyaway, gorgeous straw.

“How you doing back there, ladies?” she asked.

“We’re playing blackjack,” said Vikki.  “If we had money, I’d have taken these two to the cleaners by now.”

Charlie turned her head
to see the women sitting around the small collapsible table
and I saw her smile.  The
simple things could do that to you nowadays.  A game of cards.  A bottle of warm beer.  A conversation about the mundane things you used to do before the dead walked.

And then we hit the 287 and headed north.  It seemed like a turning point.  I thought again how much trouble I’d put everyone through if my hypotheses about the solid, granite substrate didn’t pan out. 

While one place was possibly as good as another if these things were as great in number as we believed, the greater our numbers the better we could begin to rebuild society and eradicate the living dead.  We’d left
Birmingham
– the relative safety and security of it – to assure ourselves we weren’t just hiding out while the world around us died.

Died and came back to life.

There was, as we now knew, a damned good chance that we could use this amazing new weapon we had to water down cemeteries and prevent new diggers from making their way among the true living.   They were undoubtedly down there now, literally thousands of them.  They had been awakened for the last time from their eternal slumber; awakened by a strange, toxic gas that rose from somewhere deep in the earth and carried with it, for them anyway, a gift of eternal life; of eternal hunger.

It reanimated them, each cell within their decomposed bodies with a new purpose – devour
the living.  And to further that goal, mobilize the entire body to allow it to follow, chase, overtake and eat those out there who did not react to the gas that had created them.