Hunger Chronicles (Book 1): Life Bites (5 page)

“Hey guys.” John steps forward, arms down at his sides in a relaxed, non-threatening pose.

“John.” The soldier on the left nods, clicking on a penlight he’d been holding in his other hand. “Heard you were part of the rescue team.”

“Yup.” John suffers through the pupil test. He passes, and when the soldier drops the beam, steps aside.

The soldier gestures with his chin toward me. “What’s with her?”

John glances over his shoulder at me, his brown eyes holding all kinds of messages that I can’t read. “This is Eva.”

He doesn’t expand. Probably smart. Marine hasn’t released his statement yet, and trying to explain who and what I am, and why I’m covered in blood, might get complicated. It’s hard not to notice, though, and both men tense.

“You look like you’ve been through some serious shit,” the talkative soldier says.

“Nah, just the standard.” I step forward, hands clasped in front of me as I present myself for the pupil test. Soldier one shines the light back and forth, back and forth. It spears into my skull like a laser beam and I swear my brain starts to fry. I know I look bad, but come on, my pupils are constricted. Way constricted.

“Huh.” The soldier clicks off the pen light. A couple feet away his partner’s grip eases on his rifle. “Shouldn’t she be down on C-level?” This is directed at John. As if I’m not even there. Love a guy like that. Not.

“I’m showing her around,” John replies, neatly avoiding any real explanation.

The soldier’s gaze falls to the Sheriff knife strapped to my thigh. Busted. Though maybe not. If I were Marine, after the latest fiasco one of my first orders would be to make sure everyone—including child, mother, elderly, or ill—have at least one weapon for the hell in a handbasket scenario. Must be the case because the soldier turns and punches in the code to open the door. John and I step through, two sets of eyes still studying me curiously. My Glock itches like a witch’s mark where it’s tucked into my jeans and lays against the small of my back. Knives might be common accessories to everyone down here, but the gun isn’t. If the soldiers are astute enough to notice it, there are going to be more questions.

I relax a little when the door closes behind us. I look around the near-empty mess hall. Mid-morning and I’m guessing that most peeps living down here are either up on command, out on missions, or in the training areas. My presence still draws the eyes of the few men here. Marine warned me from the beginning that there are only a handful of women among the ranks of soldiers. Weaker sex and all that. No matter how independent, how smart or athletic, when all other things are equal and it comes to mass and muscle comparison, a man is going to have a greater chance of survival in this kind of environment. There are simply not that many kick-ass women left alive to serve, and the rest of the fairer sex are coddled commodities down on C-level. It’s obvious where these men think I should be. It takes all my restraint not to curl my lips back at them.

John leans in close, his voice pitched low for my ears alone. “So what do you say?”

I glance up at him. He gestures over to the counter of non-perishable goods that are left out for between-meal snacks.

I shrug. “Whatever.”

I move across the room and lean my hip against the counter, watching “Yes, Sir” John slough off the rest of his killer mask and tie on the apron strings of domesticity. He plucks out two strips of jerky from a cracked Tupperware container, handing me one of them, and then grabs two mugs off the hooks on the wall, fills them in the sink, and pops them both in the microwave.

Three minutes on high. We remain silent the whole time, each of us gnawing on the tough strip of dried out meat. I wish it were fresh. Bloody and rare. But beggars can’t be choosers.

While we wait, the other men in the room finish with their meal. With a last curious glance at me, they leave. John and I are alone. I’m not sure if this is better or worse.

“So,” I say, “how do you want to do this?”

“Do what?” He pulls the hot mugs out of the microwave.

“The interrogation. Are we really going to play this buddy-buddy getting-to-know-you routine, or can we just cut the crap and move on to the list of questions.”

“Paranoid?” he asks, dumping two heaping spoonful’s of dark powder into the hot water.

“You going to tell me that Convict, uh, Brice didn’t put you up to this?”

The spoon clinks against the side of the mugs as he stirs. “Why would Brice do that?”

I tick off the points on one hand. “Because he doesn’t like me, doesn’t trust me, and would like nothing better than a reason to have me kicked out of here… preferably in the middle of the day.”

“You underestimate Brice.”

My brow wings up.

“Brice may be all about Brice, he might find working with you a tad unnerving, but as long as you can make his team, and hence him, look good, you’re golden.”

“So what you’re saying is that it’s just idiots like Roy I have to worry about.”

The spoon clatters. His hand comes up. I flinch, automatically sinking into a bent-knee position. For a moment, we both remain suspended mid-motion, then he reaches forward, his fingers light as he brushes the wound on my temple.

“This isn’t healing very fast.” He glances down at my shredded shirt and the creamy skin beneath. “Comparatively.”

“Head wounds are a bitch.” And despite the few sips I’d gotten, it isn’t enough. My metabolism is slowing. Lethargy slipping in. The jerky will help, a little, but what my body needs is blood. Human blood. Or zombie blood at least.

He drops his hand, folding his arms across his chest. “Must hurt.”

I straighten, lifting then dropping my shoulders as I tear off a hunk of jerky. “Vampire, remember?”

“Vampires don’t feel pain?”

I squirm. We do, but I like to keep that secret. Easier to impress your enemies if they think you’re tougher than you are. And since I’m not sure where John falls yet on the finding me useful or tossing the freak out scale…

“Vampires eat, obviously.”

“We drink, too.” I bare my fangs for effect.

He ignores me, opening a cabinet over the microwave. “Cream? Sugar?”

“You’re a strange one. And no, neither.”

“How am I strange?” He closes the cabinet door without grabbing either powdered substance.

“Well let’s see, let’s start with you standing here alone in a room with a hungry vampire trying to strike up conversation.”

“Going to bite me?”

I shake my head.

“Then why should I be worried?”

“Most people would be.”

“I’m not most people.” He hands me one of the mugs, handle first. “So what’s up with your hive? Why’d you leave?”

And the inquisition begins. I need to be careful here. Yes I’d come to warn these people about my queen’s plans, but I need to prove myself first. A useful tool is harder to throw out, and these people have more immediate things to worry about than what is going on a few states away. As long as things stay that way I have time to earn their trust.

“I thought you weren’t up on your vampire research.” Not exactly an evasion, but not a direct answer.

He shrugs. “I’ve seen my share of vampire movies. Hives, covens. I had a 50-50 shot.”

“Hmm.” I take the mug, turning the hot ceramic around in my hand as I watch the dark liquid slosh against the stained rim. “Let’s just say my hive queen and I don’t see eye to eye.”

“Want to expand on that?”

I lift my gaze, meet up with the quiet intensity of his earth-brown eyes. Not a muscle in the rest of his body gives away the importance of the question he’s just asked, but I understand that this is a test I have to pass. And it can only be passed with truth. So be it.

I set my untouched coffee down, leaning in close enough to be within striking distance of his throat. A lesser man would have flinched, or reacted by attacking the threat. John doesn’t. Not even a change in his heart rate.

“You have no fear,” I say, purposely angling my head in a posed viper tilt.

“You already said you weren’t going to bite me,” he says, his hot breath fanning across my temple. My heart-rate spikes. Not afraid, something else. Kind of like how I’d feel on the starters block during a relay race.

Or how two gladiators might feel before a battle.

I tip my head up, looking John straight in the eye as I let him see the intensity of my beast. It is right there, residing somewhere between the region of my stomach and my heart. Ours is a love-hate relationship, but I need it as much as it needs me. A girl doesn’t go from vegetarian to craving raw steak without giving that beast some leash. And right now mine is yanking at the lead.

John is not the enemy, though, so I say, “A vampire doesn’t need to bite a man to break him. And that is exactly what my queen would do with the likes of you.”

“And is that what your queen tried to do to you? Break you?”

I shift back, taking a step away. John is watching me with a casual intensity that reminds me all too much of the queen I’ve fled. There is danger in that gaze: lethalness and cunning assessment.

My earlier assessment was wrong. John is not the simple guy he pretends to be and I’ll be smart to watch my back.

“No one breaks me,” I tell him, then start for the door on the east side of the mess hall that leads to my assigned room.

5.

No. No one breaks me. When the going gets tough, I run. I’d spent the rest of the day tossing and turning in my bed, replaying the conversation with John. I might be a kick-ass kind of chick when I am the big fish in the little pond, but put me in a larger pool of water and I turn back into the bookish teenager who fled from everything and anything. Queen bees with a disciplinary agenda, guys I can’t scare off…and a mess hall full of trigger-twitchy men: these are all situations that send me scurrying.

Play nice. How in the world am I supposed to play nice with a bunch of men who’d rather see my head on a pike than talk to me? Roy and Herbie had had a busy day. By the time I woke up, everyone knew there was vampire amongst them, and none of them liked the situation. Thank God for John. The very guy I’d fled from last night had been the one to step forward and stop the impending violence in its tracks. Or at least slowed it long enough for me to sprint to my room and lock the door.

I fume and curse as I pace across the seven by ten room—aka my cell—again. I came here to fight. To help save the very people who want to lynch me now. And here I am stuck in my room like a caged animal. John had sent me off with the assurance that he would call Commander Derwood and straighten things out. I guess the fact that there isn’t a mob banging down my door yet means John reached him, and that Marine has managed to contain the situation, but damn if the whole thing doesn’t grate on my nerves.

I’ve about worn a trough in the middle of my floor when the intercom finally beeps. I leap across the expanse, smacking the button. “Yeah?”

“Open up, Private Harper.”

Marine. I reach over and code off the lock. The door opens to reveal Marine, John, and a third man—a rather scruffy looking soldier—standing on the other side. By the blankness of John’s features and grim set in Marine’s mouth, I’m betting that the discussion with the rest of the soldiers didn’t go all that well. The only question now is whether the other soldier weighted down with guns is here for my protection or as an additional hand as I’m escorted out of here. Given the less than friendly look in his eyes, I’m betting on the latter.

I fold my arms across my chest, swallowing down my disappointment. Shouldn’t bother me. There are other places I can hole up and plenty of zombies to go around. I don’t need the approval of a bunch of gun-loving, testosterone hyped primates.
Yeah, but you want it, Eva.

“Don’t suppose you boys will give me another hour or so. Last I checked sunset wasn’t until 19:30.”

Marine gave a shake of his head. “It will take that long to iron out the specifics of the mission.”

“Sir?” I ask, trying not to give away the fact that my heart is galloping down the backstretch in a race between anxiety and hope.

John must have gotten me, because as Marine stares at me with a furrowed brow, John speaks up. “One of our teams is having some transportation difficulties, grounding their helicopter. They’re stranded in a building in downtown Bakersfield.”

Oh that’s not good. Bakersfield is dab smack in Zombie central. Route 5 was the beginning of the end. Like a Ford assembly line, the virus had made its way along the California coast, spreading east. From Route 5 to the Pacific Ocean is a virtual walking-undead zone. And Bakersfield is less than a hop, skip, and jump from it.

“What is your team doing there? There can’t be any survivors in that area.” Best strategy for the zombie wars: Save whom you can and avoid contact with the others. Zombies will die out, eventually. Simple inability to reproduce really does that to a species. If we could keep their food sources away from them, they’d die a lot quicker. From all indications thus far, Marine agrees with this strategy. When he’d recruited me, all he talked about was finding survivors, creating safe havens, and holding the line. Yeah, I’m sure he’d love to do more. Who wouldn’t want to partake in a little kick-ass revenge binge? But I had thought Marine to be above all that.

Marine jerks his head toward the hall in the general direction of the lift. “We’ll discuss that later. Right now we need to assemble the rest of the team.”

I nod, grabbing up my sack from the metal frame of my extra-long twin, and follow them out. The halls are not as empty as I would like, but though I receive some prolonged stares, I don’t receive any knives in the back. I wonder if the hospitality will extend to a time when Marine is not around.

We don’t speak until we’re in one of the meeting rooms on the command floor. Herbie is there, along with another bull of a man who doesn’t even look my way. Juanita and Roy are notably absent. One I’ll miss, one not so much.

“All right. Here’s what we got.” Marine rolls out a large map onto the table, using his knife, gun, and two hunks of cement to hold down the corners. He points to an area smack dab in the bustling part of Bakersfield. “The team managed to put the helicopter down at Mercy Hospital. It wasn’t secure so they bailed and made it up Truxtun Ave to the police station where they were able to reload and use the radios there to contact us.”