Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (42 page)

I parked the car and we got out after reloading the Walthers.  Dave carried the PPK in his hand and had the Glock stuck into his pants.  He was such a skinny bastard there was plenty of room for more guns.  The pants he’d gotten from the gun shop weren’t a perfect fit.

We flanked the house, coming at it from the side.
  We could no longer see the flickering light, because the hole, or whatever it was, was only visible directly in front.

We reached the front corner of the house, and looked.  The windows were indeed boarded up, and at regular intervals, high and low, we could see pairs of approximate one-inch holes were drilled through the plywood.  No light was visible through these, only darkness.

As we looked, one of them lit up.  The same yellow glow as the one from the street.  Then it went dark again.

“Peepholes?” whispered Dave.

“Maybe,” I answered.  “Turrets, maybe, too?”

“I can’t tell if there’s any glass.”

“Me either.  Let’s move,” I said.

We crouched low and walked across the yard, keeping tight against the building, but watching for any more holes to open up, indicating someone was watching.  We reached the front door.  It was not boarded.

“I’m going to knock,” I whispered.

Dave shrugged and nodded.

I knocked softly.  Inside, we heard scuffling and low whispers.

“We’re friends,” I said, my mouth close to the door.  “If you were just over by the gun shop, those guys shooting at you stole our truck between
Alabama
and
New Hampshire
.”

“Go away,” a voice said from the other side.  “You’re going to give us away.”

“Let us in,” Dave said.  “And you’ll be safe.  As long as we’re out here, you’re in danger.”

Whispering inside.  An argument?

There was silence for almost a minute, then we heard several clicks.  Finally the doorknob turned and the door opened.

A voice from someone out of sight said,
“Get in here.  Make it fast!”

We went inside and the door was quickly closed
behind
us.  Ten people stood and stared as we stepped inside the living room, lit with dozens of candles.
 
Their faces were haunted, but determined.

I looked to our lef
t, and a man holding a large caliber handgun with a noise suppressor stood there, his eyes
unwavering as he held the gun’s
barrel
directly
between us
; just a quick motion to kill either of us at his disposal
.

“P
ut your weapons down,” he said
, breathing hard
.  He was thin but muscular, a full, dark beard and hair
interspersed with gray
that stuck out on top of his head in a shaggy spike.  “
Just until we find out your s
tory.”

“I’m Charlie
Chatsworth
and this is Dave
Gammon
,” I said, my voice
soft and
even.  “We’ll put down our weapons now.”

Dave and I bent over and placed the PPKs on the floor, and Dave pulled the Glock from his waistband.  He still wore the empty side holsters and belt, and
put them on the floor
as well. 

We both stood up straight and met the man’s eyes.

“We good?”
Dave
asked.

“Yep,” the man said, lowering his weapon.  He wore a black, long sleeved, button down shirt, the first fastened button maybe the fourth one down.  Gold chains adorned his neck, and gold rope bracelets were on both wrists.

“I’m the one you followed just now, along with Serena over there.”

A woman, also dressed in dark, subdued colors, her hair raven black, and her keen eyes reflecting the candlelight, nodded to us.

“
I’m Tony Mal
le
tte
, and this group right here’s my family – at least what qualifies as family these days
.
  Welcome to Zombie-Free-Zone number
4
.
”

Chapter 16

I had a lot to ponder, my escape having moved further toward the back burner, now that I had potentially developed a replacement for the BSN
.  The Brain Scent Neutralizer was the equivalent of the first Apple computer
, in a way.  It was merely
a starting point
to be
continuously revised by further discovery until
the original
device bore such a tiny resemblance to the latest incarnation that it became virtually impossible to even explain the similarities between the two.

The most obvious difference was that the BSN was an electronic solution and the wafers were a biological one.

The wafers had to
have some sort of
direct affect on the pituitary gland, causing the secretion of some biological component that either entirely masked the scent of brain, blood and flesh, or – the only other possibility – a secretion that made
us
smell like
them
.  It was one or the other, and I had no idea which.  I realized I should have taken a blood sample from Monty before putting him in the cage with the ratz, but now all I wanted to do was test it on myself.

I was and am an ethical scientist.  I would never test something on a human being unless I felt the result would be either no result at all, or success.  I would never test something that had the potential for harm, even
on
a
fully willing
volunteer.

I had known, upon testing the
zombie eye
vapor on Flex, that it didn’t kill; I myself had already been taken down by it.  The wafer was a similar story.  I’d tried it on the test rat Monty, and had
h
e not been in the cage with the ratz, he would have survived.  I had
no
doubt
whatsoever
. 

I lay in my bed in the darkened room, just the dim hall lights visible along the side of my enclosure.  I thought of Charlie and all my friends.  I wondered when all hell would break loose.

They would find me.  I had little doubt of it.  I knew they wouldn’t stop until they did.  This did nothing but make me wonder how much time I had.

What was Charlie doing right now?  Was she in
Concord
?  Was she here, in
Vermont
?  Who was she with?
 
But most of all, I wondered what was going through her mind
, and how she was coping
.

But she wasn’t fragile.  Not at all, my Charlie.  Tough as nails.  Her softest side came out during our time alone together, and every night in my dreams I held her to me and cherished that part of her.

I wondered about Gem and the child she carried inside her.  Was it okay?  Would it be okay?  Or would the terrible biological reaction occur the moment it took its first breath, transforming the child into a tiny demon intent on devouring human flesh?  How wrong or right had we been in our assumptions about new life and how it would be affected?

I was more determined tha
n
ever to use this lab to
the world’s
advantage – not Carville’s – until I was freed.  I needed to stockpile the wafers, but I first needed to test them.

And
I was the only possible subject
.

I lay awake there in my bed and slipped my hand beneath the mattress, feeling the silver dollar-sized wafer I’d created before calling for someone to escort me to my room.  I needed a dozen more.

Ultimately
, I
would need millions more, if everything worked out as I hoped.  The beauty of it was that the base for the wafer – the vapor and the gas coming from the earth – when combined, grew exponentially until neutralized by the extreme cold of the liquid nitrogen.   This meant that as long as we had any of it, all we had to do was remove it from the LN
2
and let it expand until I had a large enough base to which to add the urushiol, at which time it would solidify into the end product.

I still had no idea why the two components reacted in such a manner, or if it would weaken in any way the larger it grew.  My intuition said it would not.  It multiplied, plain and simply, creating more of itself in its exact same form.

It was my hope.  I forced myself to remove my fingers from the only wafer I yet had in my possession and go to sleep.  I would need a sharp
mind to accomplish all of my plans.

I failed miserably.

****

We sat on the floor of the house, and
Tony told us what had been going on in
Shelburne
,
Vermont
.

They had several houses marked with ZFZ and a number throughout the area. It was always written in very small letters, always at the lower right of the furthermost sheathing piece, whether it be plywood or some other material.
  They currently had twelve Zombie-Free-Zones in Shelburne, and another five in neighboring towns.  Each home held as many people as could sleep comfortably, and everyone pitched in to gather supplies.  All of the homes had ham radios, and they only allowed click symbols for communication.

They didn’t
use standard
Morse
code.  One of the other ZFZ organizers had come up with a tap code and had distributed it to everyone.  Mostly if Carville’s men were on the prowl and someone else knew where they were headed, someone would tap it out, notifying everyone.  Or if an excellent stock of food was located.  That was
tap worthy
, too.

“We can’t go out as much anymore,” said Serena.  “Not since the rats.  If we fire at them, we give away our loc
a
tion to Carville’s guys.”

“The urushiol will take care of that once you get it going,” I said.  “Is the problem bad here?”

“Just getting there,” said Tony.  “Mostly they run out of the fields, one or two at a time.  We get the odd horde, but normally smaller numbers.”

We mentioned that we hadn’t seen that many boarded homes in our short search for Tony and Serena.

“Not true,” said Tony.  “There are eight homes with boarded up windows up and down the streets you drove to find us.  Can’t see them at night.  Lots of folks boarded up from the inside.  Too dangerous to be outside.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” said Dave.  “We saw the light here, and that’s the only way we knew.  You should watch that.”

“We normally do,” he said, glaring at a man sitting on the floor with a younger man who looked to be in his earlier twenties.  “Jason here left the peephole cover open.  Nobody noticed it until we heard your car, and then only after the doors closed.  We’ve never had any close calls at all until you showed up.”

They explained that many people had boarded up their homes around town when the craziness began.  Most of them had turned, so were trapped inside their own prisons with nothing else to do but terrorize their families, ultimately kill and eat them, and then be forever unable to escape to hunt for more food.

Well, fuckin’ bully for them.  As long as they didn’t start writing ZFZ on the outside, I was cool with their current status.

“Sorry, Tony,” said Jason.  “I was looking out, and I thought it pivoted back down.

“You have to be sure, son,” said Nick, his arm around him.  “It’s important.”

“Be careful, Jason,” said Tony. “We all make mistakes, but we can’t afford them now.”

“We’re glad he made that one,” said Dave.  “Otherwise we wouldn’t have found you.”

Tony nodded.  “True.”

“So what’s your plan?” asked Dave.

“Our plan’s to survive,” said Tony.  “What do you expect the plan to be, Dave?”

Dave stared at him and I put a hand on his arm as he said, “Just survive, Tony, or take the assholes out?  You know, for your
family
?  Their action’s criminal, no matter what’s happened to society.”

Tony looked defensive and guilty at the same time.  His next words sounded more like an excuse than a reason.

“I get that.  Carville’s guys are heavily armed,” he said.  “Did you see that damned truck they have with the AK on top?”

“Hold off, that’s our truck,” I said.  “I can almost guarantee you they don’t have anywhere near the intelligence it would take to design that roof-mounted system.  My husband designed it, and he’s who I’m here to
rescue
.
  If you saw our car, you know it’s true.  Same gun, same design.
”