Dead Hunger II: The Gem Cardoza Chronicle (14 page)

“You’ve got Charlie,” I said.  “She needs you.”

He nodded. “I know.  I need her, too.”

I turned toward him and looked into his eyes, and the sadness in them tore me apart.

“Max respected you, Hemp.  A lot.  He’d want you to do everything possible to find out what this is, so don’t check out.  We all need you.  Not just Charlie.”

He nodded.  “I’m afraid to leave this building now.  I can’t shake the feeling that every time we go out, one of us isn’t coming back.”

I felt the old Gem coming back.  “Bullshit, babe.  Bullshit.  We’re tougher than a bunch of scrawny walking dead fucks, and we will take them down one by one.  Mark my words.”

I waved my arm, motioning toward the outside world.  “All that stuff out there, all those supplies, they’re there for the taking, and we’re going to take them.  And we’re getting back here every time.  Fearless, Hemp.   We have to be on guard and fearless at the same time.”

“You’re amazing, you know that?” he said.

“Yeah, I kinda do.”

“You’re like that coach, that American football coach.  Lombardi.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Really, Gem.  You’re right.  Thanks.”

He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, squeezed my shoulder, and walked away.

I don’t know how I did it, but I was glad he felt better.  Now if only I could believe my own bullshit, everything would be hunky dory.

*****

That night we all slept on our beds, but we weren’t able to get any bedding, so it was comfortable, but not exactly cozy yet.  I snuggled into Flex, Charlie snuggled into Hemp, and we all crashed like demolition derby cars.

We listed out the bath and bedding stuff we needed and added everything to our shopping list along with drywall and plywood.  We had plenty of steel, but we’d need the other materials to be comfortable.

Nobody was in a hurry to go out again, but it couldn’t be avoided.  So far no zombies had made an appearance at the steel
supply
, so there was that to be thankful for.

We had enough important work to get done and the
materials to do it
without leaving our haven, but after three days, our food supplies were showing signs of waning, and we had to finish up our building projects.  Luckily Bill’s generator was in excellent repair and the water came by way of an on-site well.  He’d installed an on-demand hot water heater for the only shower in the building, and we decided to limit ourselves to one shower every three days.

Hey, we smelled better than
them
.

And you know who I mean.

Over meals we discussed our game plans.

Since Charlie wasn’t there when the last horror occurred, she seemed better than the rest of us.  Her inner strength seemed to bolster Hemp’s mood, and he was getting back to his old inquisitive self.  He’d even come up with a plan for a more permanent lab in the far corner of the building.  We’d need an independent generator for it, but those plans were underway, too.

Charlie and I had begun training Cyn on the various weapons, and before too long she had the hang of it.  Turns out she hunted with her dad when she was a pre-teen, so she knew the basics, and we were able to get her up to speed on the weapons we had at hand.  She was better than me with the crossbow, which frankly pissed me off just a tad.

I don’t think any of us would’ve had any idea what day it was had it not been for our day and date watches.  We were now looking at
mid-September
.  The days were tolerable, and the nights were dropping into the 60s now, which was good for sleeping.  The metal building clung to the heat of the low 80s daytime temps, and inside it stayed in the mid 70s after the sun set.

All of Bill’s trucks had GPS units in them, so getting around wasn’t going to pose a problem, aside from the obvious.  There was a beefy
black
Silverado
with a crew cab
in the back lot that Flex took a liking to; it was
brand new with only 250 miles on it.  There was a bed cover leaning against the wall of the office that Bill had said he purchased for the truck but had never installed.  We’d probably use both.

Hemp promised to mount another gun on top like on the Crown Vic, but we’d depleted our stock from the
Tallahassee
evidence locker, and nobody was wil
ling to give up their weapons.

We had to hit a gun shop and fast. 

So my Crown Vic was the vehicle of choice for that run, which was to be the first since Max’s demise.  It had a hell of a gun on top and with the ballistic steel body and bulletproof glass it would get us safely where we needed to go.  Five of us could easily fit inside if necessary, but we needed to take the box van for our supplies.  We’d rolled it back into the yard and cleaned all the gross stuff from it so it was no longer a visual reminder of that horrible day.

On day four we girded our loins and readied ourselves to execute our plans.  Over the previous couple of days Hemp had welded up the framework for our bedrooms using thin-walled rectangular tubing from the stock.  Those suckers were built like panic rooms inside of our panic building, so if by some crazy chance we were penetrated, we’d have a place to lock ourselves in and die a slow, agonizing, but preferable death to get eaten alive.

There I go again.  Who the hell said that shit?  Not this Gem.

“Time to shop ‘til we drop,” said Charlie.

“Bad choice of words, I think,” I said.

Charlie shrugged.

“Okay,” Flex said.  “Everyone gather around.”

We did.

“Load up your weapons and get extra
full magazines.  And even though we’re going to a gun shop, I also want extra ammo in the car in case the place has been ransacked and we can’t get our ammo.”

He pointed to a far table.  “
We’ve got tool pouches over there, so I
suggest you put all your full mags in there and strap them on before we go into any unknown space
.”

Everyone nodded.

“Where
to
first?” Hemp asked.

“Gun shop.  There’s one two miles from here, according to the GPS.  Bud’s Firearms.   Bill says they’ve got some decent stock and also had a consignment section, so no telling what we’ll find.  Then we hit the hardware store.  I’ve got everything mapped out, so we’ll be going in a nice, short loop.  Hemp’s agreed to drive the box van so we can haul the construction materials and maybe another generator for his new lab.”

We all looked at Hemp.

“I’m good,” he said.  “Charlie, want to ride with me?”

“No duh,” she said.

“I don’t know what that means, but good, I think,” said Hemp.

“I know you’re probably getting stir crazy, Cyn, but if you wouldn’t mind staying here with Bill and the girls, I’m sure he can use your help.  I’m sorry, but even with your new skills, you’re still the best choice,” said Flex.

Cynthia smiled.  “I have no problem with that.  Just get back here safely, all of you.”

I hugged her.  She had lost a lot of weight, and I could feel her bones. 

“I’m getting lots of high calorie food for you, girl,” I said.  “Chili,
Vienna
sausages, whatever we can find that’ll put some meat back on those bones.”

“It’s stress,” she said.  “The wonder diet.”

“You’re done dieting.  Time to fatten you up.”

“Like I said – just get back here.”

She walked to the bay door and pulled the chains until it was up high enough for the van to get through.  Flex drove my Ford – which always made me laugh – and we led the way, Hemp and Charlie following close behind.

We made it to the gun shop without seeing one moving dead man or woman.  It was located in a very small strip mall well on the outside of town.

Because of the dangerous nature of the merchandise they carried, we were cautious approaching the door.  If the owner of the shop had survived, we didn’t want to get shot when barging in.

With Charlie and Hemp facing outward, eyes peeled for the living dead, Flex banged on the door.

No answer.  He tried the door.  Locked.  Flex turned to me and the others.  “Hemp?  Want to try these?”

“I’ll cover
you
, Hemp,” I said.  I joined Charlie and Hemp
moved
his MP5
behind
his shoulder and retrieved his lock picks.

“Shit,” he said after a full minute had passed.  “These are good locks.”

And in another thirty seconds he had the third deadbolt turned and the door swung inward.

“Not that damned good I guess,” said Flex.

“Not as good as me,” Hemp said, smiling.

I still loved his accent.

We put our headlamps on and lit the room.  Our guns at ready, we walked around and saw everything we could ever want or need.  They even had some crossbows in stock, and Charlie turned the locks back into position and went straight to them.

Hemp and Flex made their way to the long, glass counter filled with handguns of all types.  We’d discussed the fact that we needed
drop leg
holsters and backup carry weapons to supplement our larger automatics.  With two handguns you could effectively shoot in two directions simultaneously, and with the direction the epidemic was taking it might be important.  So would high capacity magazines.

Hemp jumped the counter.  There were no bodies in here, nor any sounds other than those we were making.

“I keep wondering where the other survivors are,” said Charlie, lifting a bad looking crossbow from the wall rack.

“Gem,” she practically whispered.  “This is a fucking Parker Tornado.”

I didn’t get it.  It looked nice, but I wasn’t sure what the big deal was.  “It’s nice,” I said.

“Nice?  This is over a thousand bucks!  It fires an arrow at 330 feet per second.  Check out this scope!”

“Well, if they have two then get me one.  And if they have three get Cyn one, too,” I said.  “We may not get back here for Christmas.”

“Indeed,” said Charlie.  She held it like it was a baby she was ready to nurse.  I think she would have if the thing had lips.

I looked outside again and it was all clear.  There wasn’t even a breeze today, and we had cloud cover so the temp was hanging in the low 70s.  Perfect.

We didn’t want to push our luck, so Hemp picked out a wide selection of rifles and of course, several submachine guns.

“Flex,” he said, lifting one in particular.  “This is a Heckler and Koch HK416.  It’s what the Norwegian army uses now.  A 5.56 mm replacement for the M16.  As you and Gem might say, a kickass gun.”

“Take all they’ve got,” said Flex.

And we did.  The coast was still clear outside the store, so we hauled all of our guns,
crossbows, ammunition, holsters
and everything else we thought might be useful back to the Ford and put it all in the trunk.

By the time we left, the Crown Vic
looked
like Cheech and Chong’s
low rider.  We realized pretty quickly that we’d need to move some of
the weight
over to the box van when we got to the hardware store, our next stop.

So far, it was a good trip.  I knew better than to vocalize that or even think it at the time, because I knew how fast things could go to shit.

It wasn’t perfect, though.  While we weren’t attacked by zombies, we did attack them.

Or more accurately, Hemp attacked them.

*****

The hardware store – it was an Ace Hardware, not one of the big box chain stores – was small and deserted, just like the gun shop.  We could tell somebody had been through and ransacked the place, and it didn’t appear to have been rotters.  The front door had been smashed, and the shelves in places, were empty.  No matter.  Whenever we see evidence of
other
survivors, we feel a bit better.

But in a world like this one your mind wanders all over the place, like a nomad in a vast desert.  I tended to think a lot about Stephen King’s book,
The Stand
.   In it, a disease called Captain Trips wipes out most of the global population, and the remaining people are drawn to either dark or good forces.  I worry about people out there who might be like Harold Lauder, who was never the cool kid before the world took a shit, so when he saw an opportunity for power and control over others, he took it.  And not always obvious, either – acting like a friend, but in the end having dark, ulterior motives.  The opposite of another character, Stu Redman.  A truly good man who just wanted everyday life back like it used to be.

The reluctant hero.  I see Flexy that way.

I am an optimist, though.  In my heart I’ve always believed there were way more good people than bad, and counted on running into more Stuart Redmans than Harold Lauders.

But there’s bound to be a Harold or two, and I suppose we might run into one or the other eventually, but for now we seemed to be eerily alone.