Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (15 page)

“We saw something on the way here,” said Gem.  “A – Hemp calls it a mischief – of rats, hundreds, maybe thousands of them, inking along the highway toward us.”

“Inking?”

“My word,” said Gem.  “They covered the roadway like spilled ink on a piece of paper.  Flowing like water, at least that’s what it looked like from where we stood.  Like a single organism.”

“Shit’s sake,” said Reeves.

“Shit’s sake is right,
”
said Cynthia.

“
I guess there were maybe
a hundred of them when we last ventured down, day before yesterday. 
I thought it was strange; they were all huddled together, perfectly still.”

“Did you check them out?  See if they were alive?” asked Dave.

“Whit poked the pile with a stick – ready to run and wearing full coveralls, of course – but they didn’t move.”

“Any smell?” I asked.  “The ones at the warehouse we stayed overnight had no odor.  I just thought they’d recently died.”

“Come to think of it, no.  Just the normal musty basement stuff for a building this old.  Plus, it’s obviously
big enough that a few rats wouldn’t be a big issue
, because we wouldn’t necessarily have to clear the entire thing
.  But when we saw them down there, we just didn’t feel like dealing with them right away.  Closed it up and decided to put it off.”

“
I’ll need you to t
ake me to where they are,” I said.  “I need some
specimens
for testing
.”

“Okay, but
first
we need to figure out housing for your people and get some stills constructed to extract some more of that oil.”

“Got a microbrewery in town or two?” asked Flex.  “We used a whisky still.”

“Just the sheer volume would be
fantastic
,” I said. 

“Yeah.  The
Manchester
Brewing Company, down on
Old
Turnpike Road
.  Owner’s been killed, but the equipment should do what you need, I
imagine
,” said Reeves.

“Charlie, you wanted to help me build a maze
,” I said.  “
I’d like to get settled somewhere
and
then we’ll
get a
pair
of rats.  Preferably before they
reanimate
, if that’s what they’re going to do.”

“Absolutely,” said Charlie.  “Let’s get
‘em
while they’re still dead.”

“Do you mind if we stay in here and talk a bit before we go back out.  In your office?” asked Flex.

“Just you guys?  I don’t have a problem with it.”

“Yeah,” said Flex.  “And thanks.  I know we’re going to have a tradeoff, but can you recommend a place where we can get a few generators and a few good houses that are available?”

“That’s not a problem,” said Reeves.  “You guys talk.  Whit and I will get with Dan and brainstorm.  I think I already have some ideas, and the neighborhood is
real close
to this building.”

“Perfect,” said Flex.  He stood and took Reeve’s hand and shook it.  “Kev, we’re going to be working together pretty closely here, and I think everyone is going to be better off and feel a lot safer when we’re done.”

“Based on what you’ve told me, I agree.”

He swiped a hand over his short hair and said, “Take your time.”

“Thanks, Kev,” said Dave, standing. 

Eve
ryone else followed suit.  W
hen Whit and Reeves left the room, we all sat again.

“Hemp,” said Gem.  “Now that we’re not on the run and we actually have some privacy again, what are your real thoughts on the rat situation?”

Dave leaned forward, his face intense.

Cynthia put a hand on his knee.  “Are you terrified of rats, Dave?”

I looked at Dave and smiled.  I didn’t like them much myself, and they were one of science’s most common test subjects.

He nodded slowly.  “I’ve hated ‘em since I was a kid.  Loved reptiles, snakes, lizards, anything with a forked tongue.  Rats … give me the heebie-j
eebies.”

“Fuck,” said Gem.  “Heebie-jeebies.”

Dave laughed.  “Hey, I’m sorry.  Fucking rats are skanky and they have big damned teeth.”

“Okay, guys,” I said.  “I know it’s nice to be relaxed enough to shoot the shit as you John Wayne
types
say, but let’s get to the rats.”

“Thought we were,” said Dave. 

“The meat
of it
.  As you may or may not know, we share 99% of our DNA with rats, which is why they make such good test subjects for human disease.”

“Okay, then let me throw a fuckin’ wrench into that theory right away,” said Flex. 

“No, let me,” said Gem.  “If they’re so much like us, or we’re so much like them, then why didn’t they turn immediately?”

I looked around.  There were five people staring at me, waiting for me to give them the answer.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

They all nodded, and Charlie said, “Fuck yeah, baby.  Tell us.”

“I don’t know.”

Gem slapped me on the arm.  Hard.  Then Charlie.

“Anyone else?” I asked.

Flex hit me, followed by Cynthia.
Dave took a pass.

I had to laugh out loud.  I really did love these people, because even when things were a scary as hell, they were still themselves, which made it all tolerable.

They all laughed with me.

“Seriously,” said Dave.  “What is it
?
”

“I seriously don’t know,” I said.  “There could be any number of reasons, all relating to the final 1% of DNA we don’t share with
Rattus
Norvegicus.
”

Charlie hit me again, then leaned in and kissed me.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“You’re throwing around
big
scientific names and shit, so you’re a showoff.  But I dig how smart you are, so
that made me wanna kiss you
.”

I shook my head and silently thanked whatever God put this woman with me.

“First off,” I said, “There’s no
strong
evidence yet that these are any
sort
of
reanimated rats.  If there was no odor, then it could mean they were in a sort of coma.”

“
It still m
akes sense,” said Dave.  “You didn’t pick them up and listen for heartbeats, or hold a little mirror up to their mouths.  They could’ve been in a coma.  That state between normal and zombie life.”

“Shit, that’s right,” said Gem.  “The first wave in humans was to transform us from normal people into those things.  They never actually died.”

“Right,” I said.  “They transitioned.  The rats may be doing the same thing, but who knows how long they remain out, in a comatose state.”

“It’s interesting,” said Flex.  “But what good does this do us?”

“It tells us,” I said, “that we need to find and kill these comatose rat populations fast.  We need to have the people of
Concord
put together rat-killing parties to get out there and crush them, burn them, anything so they don’t all wake up.”

“If that happens,” said Cynthia, “I don’t know if we’d stand a chance.”

“It can’t be that bad,” said Gem.  “Hemp, I don’t expect you to know everything, but how many rats in a typical city?”

I smiled.  I hated to seem like a know-it-all, but they were getting used to it by now anyway.  I liked to read.  I used to read anything I could get my hands on, especially if it dealt with life; with living things. 

“I read somethin
g years ago that said there were 1.3 rats to every human, but that was in the
UK
.”

“Translate that shit,” said Charlie.  “It’s 390,000,000 zombie rats.”

“It may not apply here.  There are some places with no rats at all, such as Antarctica and
Alaska
.  But I have heard that the general accepted number is that it’s a one-to-one ratio.”

“Baseball bat sales need to go through the roof,” said Dave.  “I think I’d be comfortable doing it that way, along with a protective mask, of course.  And waders.”

“Ooh, what if they get down inside your waders?” asked Gem, smiling big.

Dave smiled. 
“I never thought I’d say this, but fuck off
, Gem.
”

“She deserved that,” said Flex. 

“We’ll get it figured out,” I said.  “But in the meantime, we do need to cage a couple of them.  Maybe five or so.  I’d like to be watching when they come around.”

“Ready?” asked Cynthia.  “I need to get to
Tay
before she’s bouncing off the walls on sugar.”

“Too late with Trina,” said Gem.  “I know that in my heart.”

We all got up and left the sanctity of the Governor’s former office.  I looked at the picture of the POTUS on the wall, and wondered if he lived still.

I doubted it.

We made our way back out
of the office and found Reeves, Dan and Whit waiting for us.

“Need some snacks?  I think
the rest of your
group is about snacked out.”

As we followed the men, t
his time the
armed guards
stood down, even smiling and throwing a
brief, friendly
salute
to us as we passed
.  They weren’t even military, after all.  Just people trying to survive. 

Like all of us.

Chapter 5

The neighborhood Reeves had mentioned was actually perfect.  I knew we needed to hit a pet store to pick up a cage or two, but it would be nice to know where we were going t
o be living.

With the massive reduction in afflicted human beings here, it was as good a place as any to defend the rest of humanity.
  The houses on
School Street
and
Kensington Road
were vacant, and very roomy.  I think we all felt better sticking together – at least our core group, and we found a five bedroom home that had a sub-panel for a generator. 

The generator had been stolen, but we’d already located another.  Plus we’d brought a couple with us besides the one mounted on the tongue of the workshop trailer.

To be honest, I was happy to be parking that behemoth for a while.  I wasn’t sure people realized how tiring it could be driving a 38 foot motorhome with a thirty foot trailer.  It was like that old 1954 movie starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz that I thought was so funny when I was a child in the
UK
, “The Long, Long Trailer.” 

But this damned trailer was over thirty feet longer than theirs was, and I wasn’t guffawing, let me say.

As Flex might say, “
All that shit’s
funny when it ain’t you.”

There was plenty of room to park both
the motorhome and the trailer
in the yard, something we couldn’t have
done in the smaller properties
closer to the
State
Building
.  We were only about a mile and a quarter away, but
where we ended up
was a much higher end part of town. 

Reeves had told us that many of the people of
Concord
had abandoned their homes to cluster closer together, which explained the vacancies in this neighborhood, but we were quite accustomed to being on our own
, and preferred it that way
.

Some of our group, thankfully,
decided to make their own way.

Vikki
,
Victoria
and Kimberly hung with us, and took a house together one street over.  Just about a thirty second walk if you cut across the yards, and nobody was complaining.

Dave wanted to come with us, and of course so did Lisa,
and they
took a nice little home right next door
to ours
that might have been a bit too large, but proximity was perfect.

The dogs, heretofore, had hung out in the motorhome and in the bus.  When everyone split up, many of the formerly lost souls from that church in
Alabama
clung to the dogs, as they were their initial therapy after accepting the prospect that they weren’t necessarily going to die soon. 

In the end, after attachments were established and requests were made for the pups, three were denied.