Dead Hunger II: The Gem Cardoza Chronicle (40 page)

“Let’s get it out, fast, Flex. 
Then we’ll spin it around.”

I sprayed them with my Uzi, emptying the magazine in seconds. 
Five
down, but the rest still
mobile
.  By the time Charlie exhausted her five arrows, four more of them were down, but another
twelve
were on the staggering march toward us.

“Flex!” I shouted.  “They’re coming!”

“
We’re getting there!
” shouted Hemp, as they got the machine down the ramp and spun sideways.  Hemp pulled the spring handles back and reached inside the trailer for a stack of blades. 

“Flex, I’ll get the front.  Load up the rear!”  He gave half the stack to Flex and ran to the front.

They loaded each blade pad as fast as they could.    Now the freaks were within thirty feet
and more had joined them
.  I had a death grip on the fire extinguisher in case they got close enough to use it.  I could think of nothing but little Trina in the truck, but I couldn’t go to her yet.

“Get behind us!” shouted Hemp. 

Charlie and I ran between the Ford and the trailer, and as we reached a safe zone, Hemp pulled the release lever.

And the blades flew.

Fast.  The lower blades angling up and all of them fanning out, covering a swath forty feet wide or more.  They spun through the air in deadly silence and almost all of them hit their marks.  Heads flipped in the air as blades cut through rotting necks.  Chests were sliced deep and legs were severed.  Brains were ripped in two as the blades performed just as Hemphill Chatsworth, designer extraordinaire, had known they would.

They were all down.  No need to turn the machine and fire off side two.

Hemp looked at us, breathing hard.  “I was going to leave this here,” he said.  “But after seeing that, I’m inclined to keep it.”

“I fucking agree,” I said, panting.  “I’m going to Trina.”

I ran to the truck and opened the door.  Trina reached for me.  “Baby, stay put just a few more minutes.  I’ll be back.  I love you, baby girl.”

Her desperate face tore my heart wide open.  I closed the door and ran back to help them load the stuff inside the trailer.

Suddenly, Hemp snapped his fingers.  He reached into the trailer and pulled out a large knife from the closest drawer.

“That one’s a digger,” he said, pointing at one of the bodies still squirming on the ground.  “And he looks like he was buried quite a long time ago.”

“So what?” asked Flex.

Hemp said nothing.  He walked to the head, severed with the blade still jutting out of a portion of its ragged neck, and stomped his foot on the side of it.  He jabbed his knife into the skull and pried.

Even Charlie turned away for a moment, nearly retching.

With a sawing-prying motion, he removed the cap from the skull and flipped the head upright.  With his huge, razor-sharp knife, Hemp dug inside until a small, round chunk popped out and rolled onto the concrete parking lot.

He then poked the blade tip into the thing and carried it over to us.  He didn’t even have any blood on his hands.

“This,” he said, “is how much brain they can have left and still come back.”

It was slightly smaller than a golf ball.

“That sucks,” I said.

“Yes,” he replied.  “It really does.  Now let’s get these winches installed.  Charlie, you okay?”

“Dude,” she said.  “I don’t know where you got those balls of yours, but you keep surprising me.”

Hemp shrugged.  “It’s the British stiff upper lip,” he said, smiling.  “I approach these things from a scientific perspective.”

“No criticism,” she said.  “You just grossed me out, but I still dig the shit out of you.”

*****

I sat in the car with Trina while Flex and Hemp, with Charlie’s help, installed the 10,000 lb winches to the front of the mobile lab and the Sil
verado.

It wasn’t easy with our cow pushers, but Hemp ended up mounting the winches behind each pusher and the cable ran through the grid.  When not in use, the hook clipped onto the pusher itself.

Flex ran the power cable to the batteries of
the
vehicles and secured them to the battery terminals
.

The process took nearly an hour and a half, but time taken now could save our asses later, we knew.

Trina trembled in my arms, and I wondered to myself how much more this little girl could take.  In her seven years she’d seen more horror than any soldier in any war throughout history.  Maybe all the soldiers combined.

While I comforted my little girl, Cynthia got Bunsen cleaned up using some old towels from the RV storage.  When that was done, she leashed up all the pups and she and Charlie got them out.  Charlie had three leashes in one hand and had opted for the Glock in the other.  She never stopped scanning the surrounding area while the pups did their business. 

Those goofy fur balls were, of course, entirely oblivious to the craziness we’d just gone through.  I wished that I was as oblivious.  I still wish that everyday.  I wish we all were.

We got back on the road.  There would be no more stops from here on out unless for fuel or rest.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

We were just outside of Knoxville, a four-hour run, when we had to break, pee, stretch our legs, and figure out how much further we’d be going that day.  We got off at an exit that said there was a Denny’s somewhere. 

Now, we weren’t delirious enough to believe we’d actually be getting a Grand Slam Special, and the flies in that place had to be worse than the most ill-kept porta potty you’d come across.

A large pack of dogs caught our attention immediately.  There were several breeds represented, but not surprisingly, a Great Pyrenees was not among them.  They looked at our vehicles slowly passing by, but made no effort to turn around and pursue our caravan.

The 75 had been straightforward and pretty wide open since we’d gotten on it, relatively speaking.  It was my guess that either we weren’t heading in the direction of the general fleeing population, or this thing had started so early in the morning that most infecteds were zombiefied before they had a chance to head to church.

With Flex driving and me writing, I’d completely caught up with this chronicle.  When I’m done with my portion, Hemp’s going to begin his.  We’re doing it this way because we want you to learn who all of us are, how we got where we got, and what our stories were before we became a family.  Nobody can tell Flex’s like him, and you’ve probably guessed by now that nobody except Flex knew much of my story before I shared it with you.

Talking about my aunt and uncle sends me to tears, so when I think about them, I keep it tucked inside until I’m lying beside Flexy at night, and that’s when I let my fears out and my tears flow. 

So this last bit is my burden and my privilege
to share with you.  It’s got it
s ups and downs.  But it’s part of my chronicle, so this is what happened after the dog pack.

We found a gas station that had diesel, and we were desperately in need of fuel for all the vehicles.  After checking to be sure the coast was clear of zombies, Flex found the dip stick for the in-ground gas reservoirs and found them to be three-quarters full. 

And finally . . . finally we were able to use our hand pump, and it worked like a goddamned charm.  The diesel tank was a bit lower and getting the pump to initially prime wasn’t a breeze, but we were able to get the flow going and the motor home back to full.  We even filled his spare jerry cans with diesel, as it might be a tad more difficult to find down the road.

It was Flex who saw them first, but it was also the moment that we actually began to fulfill the mission we had set out on when we abandoned our safe haven.

“Gem, look!” he shouted, hitting the brakes.

He was on the radio immediately.  “Stop, Hemp.  You too, Cyn.”

We were heading back toward the onramp, but the road coming out of the Mobil station had been blocked with three overturned cars.  We had to detour on a side road, which brought us by a small Baptist church that looked like it had been built for a movie set.  It was the perfect wood frame gem that appeared to have been around for at least 70 or 80 years, with a nice metal cross on top.  Down the roof ridge was a weather vane complete with rooster.

The white paint was peeling, and the dark wood door stood open.

Because a zombie was dragging a man outside to the porch.

“Jesus, Flex!” I said.  “There’s more over there!”

Bodies
were stacked against the lower church steps.  I
couldn’t make out how many.  I’m not sure
how I missed them when I first glanced at the church
, but it’s probably
because it was the last thing I expected to see.

“
I’d guess t
hey’re gassing them,” said Flex.  “Babe, we have to stop it.”

“No shit,” I said, taking the radio from him.  “Hemp, turn into this gravel turnout, then flip it around.  Then look
at the front of the church porch
and I don’t
need
to say any
more.  Cyn, you, too.  Follow Hemp and stay in the car.  We’ll bring Trina over.”

We swung the vehicles around and pulled to within about fifty yards of the church.  The ground was level, and if they noticed us, they didn’t show any signs of it.

“Everyone get a fire extinguisher,” said Hemp.  “We’re going to have ourselves a mass extermination.”

I looked at Flex.  “I almost forgot they do this,” I said.  “I mean, I didn’t forget about the vapor.  I forgot they coordinate.”

Flex looked at me and took my hand.  “
We only told Hemp about it.  Once he
sees it he might have a better understanding of what we were talking about. 
Maybe he’ll
read something about their behavior that we didn’t.”

“Ready?”

“No.  But let’s go anyway,” he said.

We met the others outside, put Trina in the Ford with Cynthia and Taylor, told them to lock it tight, and keep the canister ready in case the impossible happened.

We’d driven past the weather that had been brewing further south, and while the sky was overcast, no rain had hindered our progress.  There was a light breeze blowing, and we were upwind.

The first of the zombies saw us.  It was a male, and he turned to stare.  The front of his ragged tee shirt was coated with blood, with much of the rest of it stained from past meals.  Of that I had no doubt.

We continued forward, walking slowly toward the church, now less than forty yards away.  The zombie maintained his grip on the shoulders of the man he was carrying out of the old church.  Its victim wore the clothing of a minister.  The dark suit, the clerical collar.  His body was limp, clearly dead weight.

“I wonder how long they’ve been out,” I said.

“Probably not long,” answered Hemp.

We drew closer, and another infected came through the door pulling a woman in blue jeans and a red and white blouse.  He, too, stopped when he saw us.

“This is strange,” said Hemp.  “I’m guessing they’re trying to determine whether these cylinders pose a threat.”

“Do you think this is retained memory?” Flex asked.  “They know what guns look like, but can’t figure these things out?”

“Wait,” I said.  “There’s another.”

But it wasn’t one.  Instead, it was one after another, and now six more victims were on the wood
en
deck
of the church.  The abnormals
who just came out dragged their victims
toward the
growing human
pile, ignoring the others who watched us.  When one of them dropped a boy of around ten years old on top of the stack, the youngster’s body rolled down the side, landing face up in the grass.

“Fuck this,” said Charlie.  “Time for a goddamned
zombie
bath
in our essential oils
.”

We
started toward them, walking a
t speed.  The beautiful part of this new weapon was we could use it without fear of harming living humans.  If Hemp was right, the urushiol wouldn’t cause either rashes or blistering
; a complete lack of collateral damage
. 

“Run?” asked Hemp.

“Run,” said Flex.

We took off, legs pumping, each of us with one hand on the hose and the other on the
valve
handle.

The zombies visibly changed; they knew somehow that our increased speed meant danger, and the vapor began pumping in crimson clouds from their eyes, even as they moved away from the porch and toward us.  They clearly didn’t
comprehend
the fire extinguishers
were
weapons the way they had instinctively related firearms to a threat to their safety
in Hemp’s earlier testing
.  With no
ability to communicate this from one brain eater to another – at least not that we knew of –
this was something these fucks would be learning moments before their
own rotting
brains dissolved.