Hunger Chronicles (Book 1): Life Bites (29 page)

Wish I could share it. I’m just plain hungry. The first day after we’d left the shallow cave John had found to “resuscitate” me in had been riddled with hard decisions. Logic dictated we head for the base. The problem was, after the Alcatraz debacle, neither of us want to get everyone’s hopes up again. I mean, what if my theory is wrong? So, when we found the truck, its bed filled with over a dozen cans of gas, and in quasi-working order, it seemed like a sign: Wait on going to the base and check things out on our own first.

So here we are, rattling down Interstate 40 toward my old home. And the only thing making more noise than the growling engine is my growling stomach. I’d survived so far on that one mouthful of John’s blood, the rich human component of his red blood far more nutritious than any zombie could ever be, but not been nearly enough to regain all that I’d lost in the desert. But since we’d found the truck and started our trek east, the zombies have been harder and harder to find. Like, try impossible. I don’t want to hazard a guess as to why that is, though I suspected I already know the answer, and the reasoning is enough to have my palms going clammy.

We are well into Arizona, and Arizona is the base of my queen’s territory. She may have a live and let die policy regarding the zombies outside of it, but she would not be able to stand them messing up her pretty state. I really hadn’t wanted to go back, but here we must go. Home is where my father’s basement lab is. And there we hope to find his notes. Notes I hope will tell me what had been in that concoction he’d all but forced on me that morning. I’d felt weird all the rest of that day and then, after… well, no other vampire I know can actually live off the blood from a zombie. I can think of only one reason for that.

“So explain to me why, if your dad developed this vaccine you think he did, that they didn’t make it through the first wave of infection.”

I look over at John. For the most part our trip today has been silent, but every occasionally his emotions peak enough that he yells above the roar of the engine to ask another question. Not surprisingly, they’ve been coming more often as we get closer to our destination and what we hope to find there is on our minds more often than not.

I swallow, forcing myself to answer. “My parents were never infected, just killed.”

He glances over at me. “How do you know this, if you were still recovering from the change?”

I’d told him it was the same day I’d drunk the concoction that I’d been turned. The same day as the San Francisco outbreak. So this is a logical question.

“Because of the queen. She had one of her vampires take pictures, and then had them shown to me.” I pick at a broken nail, trying to block the images that come to mind with the memories. The shredded flesh. The rough bone-white edges of twisted limbs. The blood. God, the blood.

“I’m sorry.” I barely hear him over the ambient noise. More, I feel his pity. I hate pity.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

“Not so long.”

“Seems like a lifetime,” I say, folding my hands carefully in my lap.

We stop soon after. The gas-gage isn’t working, but John seems to know well before the choking chug of the engine warns us that we need to refill. I wait in the cab as he steps out into the night and works the screw top off the tank. He’s back in the cab well before the remembered images of my parent’s violent death fade.

“That’s it, last can.”

I nod. It might not get us all the way there—the truck is a gas guzzling beast—but it should get us close.

John has yet to start the engine. I frown, looking over at him. “What’s wrong, John?”

He shakes his head, but his hands remain on the wheel rather than turning the key in the ignition. “Nothing. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around this.”

I twist in my seat to face him better. “What part?”

“The why drinking from me, a were, is not so much different than drinking from a zombie part. I mean, your dad wouldn’t have been trying to develop a vaccine for lycanthropy, so if it is the vaccine that allows you to drink from the zombies, then what allows you to drink from me?”

I frown, the skin of my forehead pinching together as I work this out. “I don’t know, but maybe it’s because your blood is human with a dormant element to it. Maybe that element is turned on during a full moon, or in the case of an older were, they learn to turn it on and off directly. Yes?”

He nods.

“That’s possibly it then. I can drink from you as well as I could a normal human, but the zombies are actually changed, no longer human. Though much of them remain human in appearance, it is, indeed, an infection that genuinely alters their DNA.”

“So by giving you the vaccine the day before you were turned, you think your body developed an antibody that now allows you to drink their blood?”

“Exactly. Or, well, close enough. Who knows what the effect would have been if I hadn’t gone through the change so soon after. Maybe nothing. Maybe the same. I don’t understand that sort of stuff. Not on that level anyway.”

He winks at me. “Okay there, Miss Valedictorian.”

“I was in the
race
for valedictorian. I hadn’t been named it yet.”

I still can’t believe I’d let him know that. But he’d quizzed me in depth when I’d first told him my theory and I, geek that I am, couldn’t help but throw in all sorts of scientific terms. He started ragging me, asking if I was “making it up” and I’d had to defend myself. Well, maybe not
had
to, but an explanation was necessary.

I guess my explanation works this time too because he twists the key in the ignition, revving the engine to give “Old Betty” the “TLC” John says she needs to move up into a full rumbling purr.

I will never understand why guys feel the need to name their cars. Nor why, more often than not, they are female. Especially if they are temperamental.

We drive on. I try to concentrate on the landscape flashing past us rather than the guy sitting next to me. It’s hard though when the scenery is so monotonous and the small space of the cab is permeated by his very essence. His scent, his pulse. I feel like an alcoholic, one who’s fallen off the wagon.

A sign—exit here—flashes by on the far side of the highway. I latch onto the words like I would the first step in a twelve-step pamphlet, and clear my throat. “Take the next exit. If we get off here, it will take us right through Williams. It might be a good place to hunt up some food and rest for the day.” And get out of this cab. I need fresh air.

John glances out the driver’s side window. He has an uncanny ability to tell time based on the position of the moon and stars. Must be a werewolf thing.

“Flagstaff is only about a half hour, forty-five minutes, beyond that, right?” he asks.

“In this tank? More like an hour and half. Regardless, it’s going to take time to search my dad’s stuff, and if there is nothing there, then we’ll probably have to check out both his lab at the hospital and the one down in Anderson Mesa.”

“And you’re thinking it’s better to have a whole night to do that in.”

“Right.” And I’d like a breather before sneaking up on the backside of the queen’s home-base territory. And just forget having to sleep there. No overnighters please. In and out and gone before anyone is the wiser. That’s the plan.

“Okay,” he says, steering around another stranded car on the highway. We are traveling on the westbound lane because it’s the only one that is somewhat clear. Whether the drivers of the abandoned cars blocking the eastbound turned into zombies or whether they simply ran out of gas as people tried to flee the west coast is probably about a fifty-fifty guess, but it makes that side pretty much impassible now.

A mile later John swings our tank down the entrance ramp and onto Rt. 64. It’s harder to maneuver here and he has to duck and weave between the cars. These ones I know for a fact were abandoned for a reason more pressing than lack of gas. Hard to miss the broken windows or the skeletal remains that are often laying half-in, half-out of the cars.

John nudges a car out of the way with the nose of the truck and inches forward another half block where he stops behind a pile up of cars. Empty. These ones were either the zombies, or the ones that got out and ran as the zombies bore down on them.

“Far as she goes.” John pushes the door open, grabbing his rifle from the seat between us, and steps out onto the street. I scramble after him—my door is stuck shut—and stand beside him as he sniffs at the air.

“Nothing.”

“I could have told you that.” There hasn’t been anything in the whole state of Arizona. I scan the car-strewn streets, look back over my shoulder. “Maybe out of town a bit?”

“Your wish is my command, my lady. Can’t have you fainting away on me again.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.” I climb back into the truck, scooting over so he can get in too. The engine roars to life and John has us turned around and heading in the other direction.

We pass over the highway to the northwest. A small subdivision on the left, a lake off to the right, a golf course.

“Think they’re out playing a round of golf?”

I shoot him a disparaging look.

“Right. Want to head back to that small subdivision?”

“Did you smell anything?”

He shakes his head.

I sigh. John’s nose is as reliable, if not more so, than my ability to sense heartbeats. Especially as we fly by so fast in our rattling truck.

We travel for another half mile. It’s far enough to see that we’ve passed the boundaries of civilization.

“Go ahead and turn around,” I say to John.

“Wait, I thought I caught a whiff…” He trails off, jerking the steering wheel to the right. The tires spin and spit as we skid onto a side road.

I clutch the dash, shaking my head. “You and Herbie.”

“Shh.” He hits the brakes, cuts the engine. And there it is: the heartbeat.

I scan the trees around us; think of the long stretch of national forest we’ve driven through. “Survivor?” It’s possible. If the person had enough survival skills to make it in the woods. There is certainly enough room to get lost up here.

“Not with that body odor.”

I inhale deeply through my nose, closing my eyes as I try to decipher the smells of forest, animal, and… yes. Zombie.

I practically jump over John in my eagerness to escape the cab. He chuckles, quickly getting out of my way.

I spin around, zeroing in on the heartbeat. North. No more than a few hundred yards. Even better, it’s downwind and heading in our direction. Too eager to wait, I push into the forest.

“How has it survived? How can there just be one?” I say to John as he keeps pace with me.

“I imagine it survived how anyone else would in the wood. By hunting. As far as how there is just one?” He casts a sidelong glance at me.

A shiver runs down my spine, almost ruining the excitement of this find. “The queen. I’m sure her followers are on order to keep the territory clean… from all annoyances.”

But she missed this one or it has wandered in recently. And now it’s mine.

A snuffling moan breaks the stillness of the forest. Ten yards ahead the zombie—a one- time hiker, judging by the outfit and boots—stumbles around from behind a tree.

I smile.

32.

I lean back against the wall of the garage, my hands folded over my contented belly as John raids the large white box freezer in the corner. Not only had it been a good hunting day for me, but our luck just keeps on holding. I mean, what are the chances of finding a house that still has power a year and a half after the demise of civilization? But we have. This house, this eco-friendly mansion on top of a hill, was never connected to the mainframe and therefore has its own solar panel unit that covers all the creature comforts in life. Hot water, heat, power for the lights, stove, and fridge—a very stinky fridge I must say—and this rumbling freezer.

John tosses aside a bag of ice, followed by an icepack, a pint of ice cream, a bag of lima beans, cauliflower, peas and pearl onions. And then holds up a package triumphantly.

“Eureka.” He smiles. “Frozen hotdogs.”

“Is that it?”

He digs some more. “Mostly, yeah. There’s a bunch more vegetables, some lean cuisine dinners and some frozen lasagna.”

I crinkle my nose.

His lips curl up at the corners. “Not a big garlic fan?”

“That’s a myth. I was just hoping for some steak.”

“You just fed.”

“So? By the time it’s thawed I’ll probably be hungry again.”

“And steak will do it?”

“No, but a good rare steak will help take the edge off.”

“Huh.” He digs deeper, until his brown head disappears below the white lip. Finally he comes up announcing, “Sorry, no meat. Well,” he holds up the package in his hand, “other than the hot dogs.”

He jerks his head toward the door that leads to the kitchen inside. “Come on. I want a real dinner tonight. No more cereal or army rations.”

I didn’t think he actually had army rations left, but I can understand about the cereal. It’s one of the few foods that are good beyond its expiration date and found in almost every convenience store we’ve passed.

He rummages through the kitchen cabinets, comes up with a blue box with orange lettering. “Oh yeah, this will be perfect.”

Whistling happily, he turns on the electric stove and fills a pot of water, adding more than a dollop of salt. I suppose werewolves don’t have high blood pressure.

And then it’s time to wait. He stays by the stove, staring down impatiently at the water that has yet to boil.

I reach over and pick up the box on the counter, tracing the large bold K. “You know, just because I’m not a lasagna fan, doesn’t mean you can’t eat it.”

“Why? This is better.” He takes the box from me and peels back the top of the cardboard. Removing the package of cheese, he dumps the noodles into the pot that’s barely simmering.

“Impatient?”

He smiles and grabs a plate from the cupboard. He cracks the seal on the thawing hot dogs and dumps all five onto the plate and promptly pops them into the microwave. Two minutes, on medium-high.