Dead Hunger V: The Road To California (26 page)

“We have to get her,” I said as we picked the bikes up.  It was much easier now without the extinguishers filled with gasoline.

We rode across the grass, for the street was filled with smoking, and in some cases, squirming rotters in the throes of a high-Fahrenheit death.  Rounding the corner, we could no longer see the female.

Our legs pumped.  The apocalypse had ensured that we were in good shape – more fit than either of us had been before all this crap went down – and we cranked those pedals for all they were worth.

“There she is!” said Nelson.  I saw her at the same time.

Then we heard crying.  It came from a house to our right.  I looked over, and saw the figure of a woman drop out of sight behind a broken window.

“Jesus, Nelson!  There’s a woman over there!  In that house!”

Nelson looked.  “Where?”

“Blue house.  Go!  I’m going after the red-eye!”

Nelson peeled to the right and I stood on those pedals and pushed them hard.  When I reached the corner of a brown clapboard house, I turned right, and saw her eyes glowing.  She stood there.  Still.  She did not run.

I recognized her as the tallest of the three who had been manipulating the large group we had just dispatched by fire. 

Vapor began pumping from her eyes and she began a slow, deliberate trek toward me.  I stopped and watched her.  If she knew what her vapor was capable of, perhaps instinctually, like a porcupine or a skunk – to use some of Hemp’s examples – then she must know they were ineffective on me.  It was about mind control with these monsters, not about knockout vapor.

In the end, it was everything but anticlimactic.  She spewed her vapor, her eyes big, her hair almost healthy-looking.  As she drew to within five feet of me, she seemed to bend her knees, and I didn’t realize her plan.

It was good I had the gun in my hand, because even as I began to raise it, she sprung off those bony legs and leapt six feet in the air – in my direction.

Even as I fell backward, two hands on the Walther, firing round after round, I believe I was just lucky to put one through her right, red eye and one into her frontal lobe.

I rolled quickly off to my right and her body splatted down where I had been moments before.  I looked at her, raised my Walther, and fired two more shots into her head.

I lay there for at least five minutes, never taking my eyes from her.  I didn’t move.  Not until I heard Nelson’s voice.

“Davey, you alright?” he asked.

I waved my arm.  “I’m resting,” I said.

“Get up,” he said.  “You need to meet Lolita Lane.”

I rolled over.  Nelson stood beside a harried-looking blonde girl of perhaps twenty-four, who raised her hand in a shy wave, a canvas pack slung over her shoulder.

*****

We’d gotten Lolita inside the helicopter with Rachel while Serena, Nelson and I finished siphoning nearby cars until the chopper’s tank was full and ready to go.  Everything we had done had taken us just over four hours.  It was almost 6:00 PM.

It had seemed like a lifetime.  We were all exhausted and nightfall would be coming soon.  Even if we flew just a short distance to a remote farmhouse or something, I wanted to get the hell out of whatever damned town we were in, and I kinda wanted to locate our night’s resting spot in daylight.  We didn’t have a hell of a lot of time.

“I’d ask you how you came across the name Lolita Lane,” said Serena, “But I’ve always thought it was the stupidest question ever.  Of course your parents gave it to you.”

“Flex has had his share of that, I’d imagine,” said Nelson. 

“Guys, we’re taking off.  Get your headsets on and you can chat in the air.”

“Is this thing safe?  Do you know how to fly it?” asked Lolita.

“Rachel’s a pilot,” said Nelson.  “She’s gotten us all the way from Knoxville, Tennessee.”

Lolita Lane stood about 5’7”, her figure thin, but her arms and calves muscular.  Her eyes were brown, and when we found her, her long, blonde hair had been dirty and matted.  Her clothing, worn over her obviously diminished frame, appeared to have been changed recently, for she wore a relatively clean, blue and white striped spaghetti strap tank top and black cotton capris pants.  Her shoes were suede hiking boots that my dad used to call waffle stompers because of the pattern the soles left in the mud.

When we’d first brought her to the women, Serena had agreed to give her body the once over for bites or scratches.  Lolita seemed reluctant at first, but we explained all we knew about the creatures out there, and that if she did not agree, she would not be welcome to stay with us.

It was even tougher because Rachel held her revolver at ready the entire time.  When it was done and we were allowed back inside the helicopter, we came in to find the filth cleaned entirely from her face and arms, and her hair combed through.

She was pretty cute, and I thought that Nelson might be a little shy around her, but that just proved to me I didn’t know Nelson very well.  He was unfazed and just like he always was.

“We used your brush from your backpack, Nelson,” said Serena.  “Hope you don’t mind.”

Nelson looked at Lolita and smiled.  “Nah, not at all.  She’s my first rescue.  You’re kind of special to me that way, Lolita,” he said.

“My friends call me Lola,” she said.  “One less syllable.  Rolls off the tongue easier.”

“Well, around here,” said Nelson, “if someone’s not trying to eat you, they’re your friend.  So it’s Lola then.”

She smiled and nodded as the rotors reached their maximum RPM.  The helicopter lifted off and as I knelt down in front of our new charge, I steadied myself on the back of Rachel’s seat.

“So you’re bite free,” I said.  “No scratches, either.  Do you have a weapon?”

“I’m mostly a runner.”

“Wow, a runner,” said Nelson.  “So you’ve just been running from them?”

Lola shrugged, then nodded again.  “I can run a long time, as long as I’m hydrated.  Hours.  I haven’t had any need to stand and fight as long as there was a path to get away.”

“So Lola,” I said.  “What happened back there?  We saw the abnormals surrounding that house you were in.”

“Abnormals?  You mean the biters?”

I nodded my head.  I guess we all had our names for them.  “Yeah,” I said.  “Biters, diggers, rotters, infecteds, abnormals … zombies.”

Lolita looked at me and nodded.  “That’s what they really are,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.  “So tell us what happened.  Do you mind?” 

She shook her head and uncapped a bottle of water we’d given her, taking a sip.  As she screwed the cap back on she spoke:  “They came to the house and I was watching from the window,” she explained.  “When I saw them go by, I was confused, because I watched them pass by earlier, you know, and I was glad to see them keep walking.  I couldn’t figure out why they were coming back.”

“What did they do?”

“It was pretty sudden,” she said.  “You saw there weren’t any curtains in that house, or blinds or anything, so I was afraid to run out of the front room thinking they’d see me – like you guys did from your bikes.”

“So what did you do?” asked Nelson, his mouth hanging open.

“I dropped to the floor,” she said.  “Carpeted.”  Just tucked against the very front corner below the window and prayed.  They broke the glass out, and the next thing I knew they were just gone.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean I woke up and they were gone.”

“What do you mean, you
woke up
?”

“I don’t know, I just … one minute they were there, like a hundred of them, and the next they weren’t.  I don’t know.  I guess I fell asleep, because how else could that happen?”

I thought about this.  The regular, pink zombie vapor could make you fall asleep, but you wouldn’t awaken on your own, so I wasn’t convinced that was what had happened.

“Lola, do you remember seeing any pink or red vapor coming from their eyes?”

“I know what that is!” she shouted, her eyes wide.  Nelson winced as her voice boomed in his headset.

“It puts you to sleep.  They drag you away when you go out, or they just eat you right there, but it’s like a weapon.  I’ve seen it a few times, especially in the beginning when there were a lot like me.”

“Where is everyone?”

“Mostly dead,” she said.  “But we’re off the subject, right?”

I nodded.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to get back on the subject, because it wasn’t good news no matter how we sliced it.

“Lola, this is very important,” I said.  “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three,” she said.

“Can you have children?” I asked.

Her brows furrowed together, and she said, “Not that it’s any secret, but why do you ask?”

“It’s important,” I said.  “And don’t worry, we’re not looking to use you in a baby factory to repopulate the world or anything.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” she said, looking at Serena for help.

Serena smiled kindly, and said, “No, we don’t want to kidnap you to be a baby maker.  The vapor from the females with red eyes,” she said.  “It’s dangerous to women and girls of child-bearing years.  It can put you under their control.”

Lola stared at her.  “Are you serious?  How?”

“There’s a telepathy thing going on with them,” I said.  “It’s real, and they can apparently use it for a significant distance.  And for different things.”

“Like
how
different?  Do you think I’ve been sprayed?”

“He doesn’t know, and neither do I,” said Nelson.  “You were wide awake when we saw you.”

“Lisa didn’t fall asleep when she got doused either,” I said.  “The red gas doesn’t knock you out, remember.”

“I don’t feel any different,” she said.

“The red-eyes are all dead, and we’re up here in the air, so you wouldn’t,” I said.  “And we don’t know how long it lasts, if it’s permanent, or it acts similar  to the pink gas where it goes away in time and leaves you normal.”

  “So tell me what they can do with this … control,” said Lola.  “With the red vapor.”

Serena answered.  “The telepathy and the vapor are two separate things, we think.  With their mind power, one thing they can do is call their minions, the dumber ones, to come to them from a distance of about a mile radius.”

“No shit?” she said.

“None,” said Serena.  “But even the dumb ones have some innate abilities, like recognition of things that can hurt them, like firearms, swords, knives.”

“I’ve seen stuff like that, but I could never give them that much credit!” she said.

“We probably wouldn’t have put it together except for our scientist buddy, Hemp,” said Nelson.  “But the red stuff is way different,” he said.  “If you’re doused with that stuff, they can make you do stuff.  They think it and you just start talking out loud and next thing you know, you’re doing what they made you say, like a command.”

“Guys, there’s a nice spread below us,” said Rachel.  “Looks like a good place to stop, and we’re getting near sunset.”  Rachel pointed below and we all looked.

“Fenced, with plenty of room to land,” I said.  “Go for it, Rachel.”

“To answer your question – and I’m sorry for the runaround,” said Lola, “Yes.  I can have children.”

I nodded.  “Okay.  We’ll talk more when we get inside and settled,” I said.  “You’ll find it all very interesting, I’m sure.  Plus, we have some special wafers for those of you who can bear children. I don’t know how well they work if you’ve already been hit with the vapor, but to me, it’s worth using one to make sure we can sleep without worrying.”

Serena looked at me.  “You have the red-eye wafers?” she asked.

“Just a few,” I said.  “They were in my pocket, separate from the others.  I thought you knew.”

“No, but that’s good,” she said.  “I haven’t had any close encounters with them yet, but if I do, one of them is on the menu.”

“There are six,” I said.  “But believe me, if it gets hairy and there’s any chance you’ll come face-to-face with them, I’ll force that damned thing down you.”

“You sure know how to give a girl the tingles,” she said.

“Always been one of my strong suits, and you know it.”  I stroked my beard and smiled.  I’m not sure Lola knew what to make of us just yet.

The helicopter dropped, and settled into a dirt yard.  The six-foot fence around us appeared to be made of galvanized, corrugated steel, and you could not see through it.

Privacy.

From prying, red eyes.

*****

The front door of the house was wide open, which we hadn’t seen from the air, of course.  There were two bags of bones in the house; one in a bedroom, which was badly stained with old, dried blood.  This one had been badly ravaged, either in the throes of death or just after.  Looked like a multi-pronged attack of the zombies. 

Some of the bones were not there.  I always pictured an infected walking across a field holding an arm like it was a goddamned turkey leg at a Renaissance Faire.  Just one of my visuals that I couldn’t shake.