Hunger Chronicles (Book 1): Life Bites (20 page)

Blaine grumbles but backs off, eyeing me with a look that says we’ll take up this conversation later. No we won’t. Even if Convict doesn’t kick me out, I’ll be leaving as soon as we get back to the base and I can give my explanations to Marine. He deserves that at least.

John shifts in beside me, bringing my attention back to the clear and present. “Not that I need to worry about your hand, but…”

“I’m fine,” I say more sharply than I’d intended. Why does his concern make my chest hurt almost as much as the thought of leaving?

John gives a stiff nod and moves off. He doesn’t return to the group but starts prowling around the warehouse, his agitation rolling off of him in waves.

Seems I’m pissing everyone off today.

I settle back down, unobtrusively watching John out of the corner of my eye. He seems truly agitated. That or pumped up. And he must look out the crack between the sliding doors at least twice during every lap.

It’s definitely getting darker out there. Late afternoon I’m guessing.

Finally, John spins back around, marching over to the front of the truck where Herbie is buried up to his elbows in grease and Rodriguez and Convict are both watching him. Rodriguez at least is helping by handing tools over. Convict is just scowling over Herbie’s shoulder.

“We need to get out of here, like now,” John says.

“Think I’m not trying?” Herbie snaps then wraps his wrench on the side of the truck, mumbling another “Goddamn piece of shit” under his breath.

John looks at the roof above us, as if he can see the sky through it. “If we don’t get out of here by nightfall, we’re going to be in some serious shit.”

“Really, Einstein?” This comes from Brian. He’s been slouched against the wall, his forearms draped over his raised knees and his head tipped down as if sleeping. Resting up for tonight, no doubt.

John shakes his head, resumes his pacing. I watch him, brow puckered, until five minutes later he lets out a string of swear words, ending with a goddammit as he strides over to the side door.

“Where are you going?” Convict asks sharply.

His hand hesitates on the knob, but he doesn’t look back, growling over his shoulder instead. “I’m not waiting here to get picked off when those bunkers of zombies wake up.”

“So what do you think you’re going to do?”

“Make sure they don’t wake up.”

And then he’s disappeared through the door. A moment of stunned silence fills the warehouse. I can’t believe the idiot is actually going to go down there on his own. I mean, my earlier enthusiasm aside, even I know that’s crazy. Sure, it could be that we’re worrying over nothing. That there are no zombies down there, but if there is? I must actually expect him to turn around and walk back through that door because a minute later, when I’m still staring at it and he hasn’t, I find my heart racing in alarm.

Idiot! Stupid macho-man thinks he can go into a bunker filled with hundreds, possible thousands of zombies and survive?

I leap up, brushing off my behind as I start for the door. Jerk could have at least asked me to come along.

For the second time in an hour someone grabs my arm. I jerk away but spin around to confront the a-hole who’s dared touch me. It’s Convict. Some of my anger leaks away. Guess I’m still feeling repentant.

“No way.” Convict shakes his head. “You’re staying here.”

I gesture towards the door. “You’re going to let him go in there by himself?”

Convict folds his arms. “Well I’m certainly not going to let him go with you at his back.”

My face burns with heat. Ouch. Anything else I could have ignored. But not that. Convict has just thrown down the gauntlet. He thinks I’m traitor.

I stretch tall, un-intimidated by the fact that I come all the way up to Convict’s shoulders as I lean into his personal space. A snide retort, with the promised punctuation of fang is but a lip curl away when Convict says, “Private Harper, do I need to remind you where your responsibilities lie? Or were you not serious when you signed on for this job? Maybe you’re only willing to play along when the benefits are all for you. Should I be questioning what your purpose is here, Harper?”

I rock back on my heels, not sure what to make of all that. Them don’t seem quite like fighting words, just a challenge to prove that I
can
be trusted.

“What about John?”

Convict’s mouth thins, his gaze darting over my shoulder to the door. “John can take care of himself.”

I bite my lip. Maybe…especially if our concerns are for nothing… “But I can at least go with him to see what we’re actually dealing with. It could be that everything down there is already dead, but I’ll know without getting too close.”

Convict shakes his head. “Bad enough I have one soldier MIA, I’m not going to have two missing when I might need them here.”

I clench my jaw, fighting back the snippy retort that wants to come out. Convict’s concern is valid, to a point, but he doesn’t seem to get the big picture. If we knew what we were dealing with, wouldn’t it be so much better?

He must see my reluctance because he continues on. “The only way into those bunkers is climbing down an access ladder in the old lift shaft. That or going into the desert to find the tunnel entrance. The latter will take too long, the first… well, you tell me, Harper. Can you handle it?”

I blanch, all that heat from before rushing from my face down into the floor below. A narrow cement shaft that goes down, down, down into the earth with just a precarious rung of metal between me and… nothing. A clammy sweat breaks out over my skin just thinking about it, my breath whistling between my teeth. Crap. It
is
heights I’m afraid of. Funny how I’m the last to realize this.

“It’s your decision, Harper. But if you’re really part of this team, then I need you here.”

Convict leaves. I remain. Standing. Staring at the door. The urge to go after John and help him is almost greater than my fear. Almost. But what is greater is my need to prove my loyalty. I’m still not sure I’m going to stay after we get back to base. Guess it will depend on what Marine’s reaction is—and Blaine… going to have to do something about Blaine. But I feel strangely compelled to prove to Convict and the others that I’m irrevocably on their team. And if it takes being a yes-man to do that, then I can shout it out with the best of them.

I don’t sit down this time, but move over to the door, grabbing a crate on the way. John is right, it is getting late. Time to take some precautions. I slam the door closed and jam the crate behind it. It’s heavy and should keep a half dozen rotting zombies from pushing it open. I can always add more later if we need them, but this will buy us time.

After this I’m not sure what to do with myself, so I take up John’s task of finding out what’s in the crates. Nothing much of interest. Lots of building materials actually. The box of nails might have been interesting if zombies were at all deterred by minimal pain. A spread of them around the outside of the building, ouch on the feet. But given that they don’t care, all it would accomplish is bursting one of the truck’s tires if we ever manage to drive the sucker out of here.

I manage to occupy another hour or so opening crates. I find nothing useful, but ripping and tearing off the lids is somewhat therapeutic. Now that Convict isn’t right in my face, shouldering me with a mountain load of guilt, I’m angry. Angry at John. Angry at myself. Angry at Convict too. Scared of heights or not, I should have gone after John. He obviously hadn’t been completely sound of mind when he’d run out that door. Maybe I could have talked some sense into him, if not I could have…
what? What could you have done, Eva girl?

Kept him alive. If I’d gone with him I could have kept him alive.

A sharp pain pulls at my ribs and I slide down my latest victim of emotion—a crate full of electrical boxes. I’m not sure what this phantom ache is all about other than the fact that I’m thinking in the past tense means I suspect he’s dead. I don’t want John to be dead. He’s become a friend, of sorts. And God knows I don’t have many of those. Even
before
I hadn’t been the overly popular. Oh, I’d been liked, but never had I been part of the clicks that roamed the school. My real friends had been few and far between, and worth more than a dozen Abercrombie & Finch dress-a-likes combined. Maybe John and I hadn’t reached cross-your-heart, needle-eye status yet but there had been something about him that I had instinctively been drawn to. Probably that damn yes, man attitude of his. Stupid or not you had to love a guy with that much loyalty and honor. The thought of that sort of heart and courage being wiped out?

“Who-yah!”

I look up. Herbie is doing a victory dance in front of the propped hood of the truck.

Convict leaps up from where he’d settled on a pallet of rolled wire. “Is it fixed?”

“Not yet. I jury-rigged a new cam belt, plus fixed the loose bolts on the manifold and finally managed to straighten the bent gear in the transmissions… although the thrust bearing is shot on the second clutch so we’re going to have to skip around a bit.”

Convict frowns the same confused frown I’m feeling. I know I’ve heard those terms before, but I have no idea what those various parts do.

“So what does that all mean?” Convict asks.

“It means that we’ll be able to actually drive it out of here once I get it running.”

And there goes the last of Convict’s eagerness. “That’s nice. But how do you propose we get it to a point where it can actually start?”

Herbie grunts. “I’m working on it.” He turns back to the truck, grumbling under his breath.

I lean my head back against the crate, closing my eyes as I try to breathe through the tight anxiety in my chest. The others start talking amongst themselves again, the tension high in their tones, but hidden behind a bunch of meaningless conversation. Trying to hide from reality. I can understand that. I’m trying really hard not to think about where John might be right now. What he might be doing. If he’s all right.

Metal bangs on metal as Herbie tries to work loose a particularly stubborn bolt or something. He’s being so loud I almost miss it. But there it is again, a softer muffled counterpart to Herbie’s rhythmic whack. A heartbeat.

My first thought is John and I scramble up, easing over to the gap between the sliding doors. I peer out but the ambient light created by the teams’ strategically placed flashlights restricts my line of sight to only a hundred feet or so. And with the wind still howling around out there, I know I won’t be able to catch anything that is downwind of us, which the cement bunker entrance is.

I turn my ear to the door. Out of the corner of my eye I watch as Herbie gives the truck another whack, then grunts as he pulls something out of its innards. “Work a miracle, but all I get is flack. I mean, it took God seven days to make the world, didn’t it?”

And then I hear what I’ve been waiting to hear. I straighten, my gut heavy with regret. I hate to be the one to tell them, but… “You don’t have seven days.”

Everyone turns to look at me, a line of tense jaws, tense shoulders, and clenched fists.

“You don’t even have seven minutes.” I jerk my head toward the door. “They’re coming.”

21.

The heartbeat I hear is not John. It’s just the first of many heartbeats. I will not think about what this really means. Because John is
not
dead. He probably went the desert route, or these zombies did and he’s currently on one of those levels down below, working his way up on the backend of the beast.

Regardless, I have other things to worry about than John’s state of health, like, oh, how to keep my team alive. And they are
my
team, whether they like it or not.

I stack another crate against the side door, grab and pull another into place behind it and then work on a third level of barriers. I’m using the heaviest crates I can move. Hopefully that will be enough. The zombies are already throwing themselves at the door. Stupid, but human in their makeup, they’ll try to get through here first.

“How many are out there?” Brian demands as he pulls back on belt after belt of ammo and grenades that he’d taken off while resting.

I shake my head. “You don’t want to know.”

He eyes me balefully.

“Let’s just say that we’re thoroughly surrounded and leave it at that.”

As if he couldn’t tell that by the rattling sheet metal and the general symphony of moans. Matt and Rodriguez are already having a blast blowing away anything that sticks their nose in the slit between the sliding doors. We’re going to have quite a pile-up to drive over when Herbie gets that truck up and running.
If
Herbie gets that truck up and running.

Convict must be thinking the same thing because he asks, “How much longer there, Herbie?”

“Goddamn. I don’t know.” Herbie takes a two second break to pant and pull at his hair with his grease-stained hands. “Ten, fifteen minutes?”

Convict grunts and turns away so he doesn’t hear the muttered “if this works” that Herbie tacks on. Probably good no one but me heard that. It’s always better to have hope.

“Roy, Blaine, you help Eva push those crates against the walls. The more that’s between us and them the better.”

And so we start stacking the remaining crates along the walls. Convict helps too, and Brian joins us as soon as he’s got his last armament strapped on.

The entire building is rattling by the time we’re finished. Not from the wind, though that is a factor, but by the sheer pressure of zombies throwing themselves against the sheet metal. Convict was smart to suggest the crates. I don’t think the walls would be holding without the support.

“Things are getting a bit hairy up here.” Rodriguez calls from the front door. “Bullets are getting low. Zombies keep coming.”

I look down to see him slash his knife through the door, a spray of blood erupting over his head as it sinks into a zombie’s eye socket. Matt’s gun clicks and he reaches for his own knife.

Holy hell.

I race across the warehouse, yanking out my knife. “Back up! Wash that blood off. Now!”