Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles (44 page)

“It’s frighteningly good logic.”

“Of course it is.”

“How long you giving Tony’s guys to get here?”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“
Quarter ‘til one.”

“I’ll give them until one, then we’re gone.”

A light knock came on the door, and we both started.

“Guess we go now,” said Dave.

I smiled.  I was ready.  I wish
ed
Hemp knew we were coming, but it couldn’t be helped.  Dave went to the door and looked through the peephole while I strapped on my weapons.

“Charlie,” he said.

I turned. 

He pulled the door open.

“You pieces of shit,” said Flex.

“You giant pieces of shit,” said Gem, “I’m fucking preggers and you make me chase your ass
es
across two states!”

She barreled in and grabbed me, pulling me into a tight hug.  I hugged her back with everything I had, and she pressed her cheek against mine and spoke in my ear.

“I’m not pissed, Charlie.  I knew in my heart you couldn’t wait.  I lied to myself and you proved me right.  Fuck I’m glad you guys are okay.”

She pulled away and kissed me on the lips, and we gave hugs all around.

We sat on the bed in the dark, just the
hazy
moonlight barely lighting the room
through the heavy curtains
.

“So you guys were on your way out,” said Flex.  “Ryan Carville’s?”

“Yep,” said Dave.  “Damn, I’m glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you didn’t beat the crap out of my car,” said Gem.

“We found your truck, Flexy,” said Charlie, smiling.  “Gun’s still intact.”

“No shit,” said Flex.  “I know what I’m drivin’ home.”

“You’re gonna have to take it from Rory and Pete first,” Charlie said.

“Those pieces of shit?” said Flex. 

“I thought we were the pieces of shit
,
” said Dave.

“Not anymore. 
You’re officially
superseded.  Where the hell is it?”

“Probably at Carville’s.  They’re with him.”

“Surprise, surprise,” said Flex.
  “That means Carville’s got urushiol.”

“Just what’s left of what we had,” said Gem.  “What they stole with the truck.”

“Goes a long way,” said Flex.

“If they know how to use it,” I said.  “Maybe they overused it and they’re out now.  Didn’t know how little it took.”

“Doesn’t work on us anyway,” said Flex.  “So tell us your plan, and we’ll shoot holes in it.”

We did.  And they did. 

But not many.  Turns out it was a pretty good plan.

****

Flex and Gem had brought fire extinguishers
filled with the urushiol blend, both heavy on the active ingredient
.  That was good.  Their arrival put us back about an hour, but since we’d decided we weren’t going to stop until Hemp was
safely in our custody
, it didn’t really matter.  Night
or
day
, we were saving his ass
.  Seems all of us grew a dozen more pairs of balls when we were all together.

Nothing could stop us.  I really believed that.  I think we all did.

“No matter what, we have to cross that bay in the dark,” said Dave.

“Right,” said Gem.

“How are you, Gem?  The baby?”
I asked.

“Good, Charlie.  Really good.  We lost Todd, but there are two more doctors who survived in
Concord
that we know of, and one is a OB GYN.
  The baby’s perfect, and not showing any strange tendencies or abnormalities.”

“God, Gem, that’s awesome.”

Gem smiled.  “Look at this belly.”  She lifted her top.

“Oh, my, you have an outie,” I laughed. 

“Used to be an innie,” said Gem. 

“Ladies,” said Flex.  “You mind?”

“Just talkin’ about little Flexy,” said Gem.

“I know your tricks,” said Flex, smiling.  “Let’s go.”

A knock came on the door, soft.

Flex jumped up, his Daewoo against his shoulder.

“Relax, Flex,” said Dave.  “We were expecting help.”

Dave went to the door and peeped again.  He opened the door and Tony, Serena and Nick came in.

“Sorry we’re late,” said Tony.  “Damned ratz are out tonight.  Like a sea of ‘em.”

He watched as Flex slowly lowered his K7 and held out his hand.

“I’m Flex
Sheridan
.  This is
my wife,
Gem.”

Tony smiled big, his bright, white teeth prominent even in the dim light.  “Ah, you guys.  Dave and Charlie told us about you.”

“Sorry for the gun, said Flex.  “I’m afraid we were having our reunion and they neglected to tell us about you.”

“I’m Tony Mallette, this is Serena Castaneda, and that’s Nick
Desante
.  His son Jason is with us too, but he’s back at the house.”

“They’ve put together a good plan.  We made a couple of changes based on the shit we brought from
Concord
.  Nick, would you be willing to drive our Crown Vic back from the marina somewhere near Carville’s place?”

“If that’s what you need me to do, sure,” he said.

“It is,” said Dave.  “We’re heading to the marina first.  Let’s get there.  We have to cross the lake before daybreak.  Once we see what our watercraft options are, we’ll take it from there.”

“Perfect,” said Tony
, smiling from ear to ear
.  “This is exciting, huh?”

His grin was infectious.

“Wipe that shit eatin’ grin off your face, Tony,” said Flex
, his face stern
.

I stared at Flex.  This wasn’t like him at all.

Tony stopped smiling instantly, his face growing angry.  “Fuck you,
Sherman
! 
Who are you to come to this town and –”

“Oh, relax, relax,”
Flex laughed, and patted Tony on the shoulder.  “I’m kidding, man,” he said.  “
And it’s Sheridan, not
Sherman
. 
Those damned teeth are so white
they’re
like
a mouthful of
spotlight
s
!
  You’ll get us caught for sure.
”

Tony laughed way harder than the joke was funny, but I was relieved to see the tension had gone. 

Damned Flex.

“You’re funny, you,” said Tony, still smiling.  He looked relieved Flex wasn’t really a dick. 

“Are we done?” I asked.  “Can we go get my man now?”

“Absolutely,” said Gem.  “I’d normally volunteer to drive the getaway car, but since Nick’s doing that, I’ll go in for the fun part.”

“You’re bringing up the rear,” said Flex.

He wasn’t kidding this time
.

Gem didn’t argue.

Chapter 17

There was no way to know what time it was, but the fact that I couldn’t sleep was all that mattered.

My mind was
reeling
.  I thought of the MRI machine, of the two zombies
on the gurneys in the lab
, and of the neutralizing wafers I needed to manufacture more of.

And a plan, forming in my mind.  An immediate one.

I decided to be a nuisance.

I went to the wall of the acrylic prison and pounded on it.  I began screaming, “Mr. Carville!  Mr. Carville!  I need to get to my lab!  Now!  I’ve had a breakthrough, Mr. Carville!”

I pounded my fists on the wall, causing the entire thing to shudder and reverberate.

Lights flickered on down the hall out of view, and I heard footfalls in the distance.  Running.  Billy and Frank, with an exhausted looking Carville walking behind, emerged in front of my cage.

“What in God’s name do you want, Professor Chatsworth?  It’s almost two in the morning!”

“I have things to do,” I said.  “I’m sorry.  So sorry.  But I get these ideas, and if I don’t get into the lab to put them to task, I’ll lose them.  I used to do this all the time when I had free reign at the CDC.”

Carville waved his hand at Billy and Frank, who stilled looked 100% asleep. 

Zombies
, I thought, with an internal chuckle.

“Get him out of there and into the lab,” he ordered. 
“What’s this breakthrough?”

“It involves the MRI machine, Mr. Carville,” I said, not exactly lying.  “I believe if I get a detailed look at their internal physiology, which of course I’ve not had the ability to do as of yet, that I might have a method to revive the dead tissue.  It’s based on some experiments done in the CDC with the flesh-eating virus.”

“I’m very encouraged, Professor,” he said, yawning. “Unfortunately, I had a late night due to circumstances beyond my control, and have barely gotten to bed.  So I’m going back.”

He turned to Billy and Frank.  “
You two stay with him.”
  He waved and retreated down the hall, his slippered feet sliding tiredly.

“Yes, sir,” they said together.  Frank unlocked the door and waved me on.  I walked ahead toward the lab.  I knew the way by now.

When we arrived, they unlocked the door and as they did so, I analyzed the hinges.  Steel, four screw.  Standard.  Nothing beefy about them.  I didn’t know if the information would come in handy, but I wanted to have it anyway.

“Feel free to doze,” I said to the men as they locked the door.  “I’ll be here until tomorrow sometime.”

“It’s already tomorrow,” said Billy, rubbing his eyes.

“Sorry,” I said.  I meant it.  I actually liked these boys just fine.  They’d never treated me wit
h any disrespect other than what they were ordered to do, and by that I mean locking me in various cages.

I’d asked that the zombies be kept in the lab.  They didn’t really care where they were, and they ate just fine
regardless of location
.  I did put goggles on them, however, because invariably, when I walked into the room, they began puffing out the
diffused,
scarlet knockout gas, and I wasn’t looking for a sleep aid.

I opened the top of the Liquid Nitrogen and withdrew one of the slides, placing it on the stainless steel workbench.

I lifted the top glass off the slide and got an eight-inch
P
etr
i
dish
, of course named after German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri
.

I know.  Typing that just now reminded me how Charlie would slap me for showing off, then try to have sex with me on the spot for being so damned hot-smart, as she calls it.

I smiled as I scraped the frigid sample from the slide into the center of the Petri dish.  The warmer surface of the dish warmed the vapor and gas mixture, and it began to grow, to multiply almost instantly.  I glanced back up at Billy and Frank.

Both dead asleep, sitting in two chairs against the hall wall.  I smiled and repeated the process with another slide and another Petri dish.

Now I had two compounds growing exponentially.  I’d let them get as large as the dish then stir in urushiol to set it up.

I wasn’t sure of the exact amount of urushiol.  I’d not really expected much to happen when I’d added it before; it was just something to try.  But I had some sort of idea of the amount based on the tool I used to apply it, and I’d run some calculations. 

I didn’t know if the roughly five hour lifespan the neutralizer had on the rat was due to the urushiol or the other components.  It was important that I keep it as close to the same as I could.

Within ten minutes, the compounds had grown to the size of the dishes.  I measured out the correct amount of urushiol, and mixed it in with a glass dropper.

They crystallized and solidified. 

My baking was
complete
.  Now I
only
needed to cut the cakes
and stash the goods
.

I found a silver dollar sized stainless tube, and stamped down into the hard crust of the cakes, cutting perfectly round, albeit somewhat thicker wafers than I’d estimated it would take to affect a grown human being, but too much was better than not enough. 
When I finished
I had approximately fifteen of them.  I put them inside the drawer by the door, inside one of the latex gloves in the box.  I hid the one I had before in my room.  It was still there.