The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (112 page)

She held tight to her, making sure Lisa felt the warmth of her cheek, a desperate attempt to show her the difference between what she had just embraced and the living human that held tight to her now.

Ultimately, Charlie knew it was not only relief and love that made her hold Lisa; it was to keep her turned away from the cage, where Red Dress lay destroyed in a puddle of oozing red-black mess.

“What’s – what’s going on?” said Lisa, her eyes swimming back into focus.  “What happened?  Did you get the sample?”

“It’s okay, Lisa,” said Charlie, pulling away to look into her eyes.  “It’s fine.  He got it just fine.”

Not two seconds after she asked the question, Lisa’s expression changed, metamorphosing from confusion to horror.

She turned to look at the zombie on the table.  Blue Eyes stared at the body on the floor of the cage,  the usual, lifeless expression on her face now replaced by one of agony, if such an expression could possibly be identified on the face of the living dead.

“Hemp,” Charlie whispered.  “Look at her face.”

Hemp stared at her.  No words were necessary.  Had the creature begun to cry, Charlie wasn’t sure she’d be surprised.

This was
not
the face of a idle zombie when there was no food source near; that face was more similar to someone with severe brain damage.  The eyes remained open, yet no brain activity guided the features.

The zombie stare.  It was something that Charlie found strangely fascinating, because in Hemp’s earlier experiments, it had been difficult to be near them or conduct experiments on them because of their extreme hunger.  The relentless attempts to advance on humans, the gnashing of teeth, the sheer need for the food the zombies craved, just feet away from them.

Not to mention the vapor that would knock you out cold.  It was their primary offensive tool that allowed them to catch what they hunted.

They once needed to wear gas masks just to be near them; just to run their experiments that had yielded so much information.

Now it was possible to see them in their native condition, so to speak.  But Charlie was pretty sure their native condition was to be eating human flesh.  When they were not eating, they were no doubt craving the only thing that drove them.

This was not that expression.  This creature detected no food sources.  This monster on the table was in …
mourning
.

“I … I was hugging her,” said Lisa.

Charlie nodded.  “Yeah.  You were.”

Her eyes grew desperate.  “Why?”  She turned to get answers from the all-knowing Hemp.

Hemp continued to stare at Blue Eyes as he spoke:  “There is a communion of sorts happening, Lisa.  Somehow, the vapor you inhaled permeated your system.  How, I don’t know.  What exactly it affected, I don’t know either.”

“But why was I hugging her?”

“I think it was a command by Red Dress,” said Charlie, stepping aside.  Lisa looked into the acrylic cage and gasped at the ravaged face and head of the dead creature.

“Oh, my God!”

“I killed her,” said Charlie.  “She was making some weird sound, and you said something.  I thought she was … well,
controlling
you.  So I killed her.  I didn’t like what I believe she was making you do.”

Lisa started to cry.  “I need to get out of here,” she said.  “Is Gem still in the house?”

“She told me she was going to sit on the porch with the girls and shoot any zombies who passed by,” said Hemp.  “I haven’t heard any gunfire, so I’m not sure if she was joking or not.  But she should be there.”

“Can I go?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Hemp softly.  “Charlie’s going to take you back in the house.  Charlie, when you get her settled, come back out when you’re done, would you?  We need to talk.”

Charlie looked at Hemp and nodded.  “I know.”

As she walked Lisa back to the house, Charlie wondered if there were any words for the emotions that had guided her actions.

In her heart, she knew she had to try to find them.

*****

Chapter Nine

“Did you hear?  Did you hear what Lisa mumbled?”

“I couldn’t hear a thing,” said Hemp.  I noticed the throat vibration, but no.  Nothing else.”

“Lisa said two words.  Comfort Ann.”

“Ann?” asked Hemp.  “Are you sure?”

“I heard it.”

“I believe you,” said Hemp.

He rushed to the wastebasket and pulled out the bundle of shredded clothing they had removed from the former prisoner.  He located the shirt and turned the collar inside out.

“There’s a name sewn in the collar,” said Hemp.  “It says A. Carson.”

“Ann,” said Charlie.

“Are you sure about what you heard?” asked Hemp, looking at the creature once more.

“I am,” she said.  “Very.”

Hemp paced back and forth, occasionally looking at Blue Eyes on the table.  “I need to figure out why Lisa would have been affected and Dave wouldn’t have.  It can’t be genetics, because they’re siblings.”

“Half-siblings,” said Charlie.  “Would that matter?”

“I can’t see it making much of a difference,” said Hemp.  “It’s got to be gender-related, but as far as you know, Lisa’s not pregnant, right?”’

Charlie shook her head.  “No.  She’d have told me and Gem.”

“Well, according to their stories, they both took the same blast of vapor.”

Charlie walked to stand beside Hemp.  “Babe, you said this was estrogen-related, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“What happens to estrogen levels as a woman’s period ends?  It goes up, right?”

“It increases through the period,” said Hemp.  “Keeps climbing right on through, then plummets when ovulation begins.  Why?”

“Because I think Lisa had just finished her period.  The week before she was complaining about heavy flow.”

Hemp rubbed his chin in thought.  “You might have something,” he said.  “Good, Charlie.  If her estrogen levels were far higher than normal when she was exposed, it might explain why Dave didn’t experience any physical effects and she did.”

Charlie smiled.  “That’s why you keep me around,” she said.

“Among other things.  Now let’s talk about why you killed Red Dress without bothering to consult with me.”

She shrugged.  “I was pissed,” she said.  “I was pissed because there was a connection between the zombie and Lisa there shouldn’t have been.  I didn’t like Red Dress fucking with her like that.”

“Charlie,” said Hemp.  “I’m not confused as to why you did it, but don’t you understand that this telepathy or whatever it was has to be investigated?”

Charlie tipped her head toward Blue Eyes, who was still strapped on the autopsy table.  “We still have her, babe.  I’m sorry.”

“As they say,” said Hemp, “it takes two to Tango.  We need another.”

“We’ll just go back to that building where they saw all of them last night.”

Hemp shook his head.  “Dave and Flex were going to stop by there on the way to the State House.  I don’t know that any will still be alive to capture.”

“Radio them,” said Charlie.  “Ask if they went there.”

The banquet hall that Lisa and Dave had described was about a block away.  The State House was only a few blocks beyond it, which is why they chose the homes they did.  In fact, they only went as far as they had to get out of the lower-end homes near the government buildings and into a nicer neighborhood.

Hemp pulled the radio from his lab coat pocket and pushed the button.  “Flex, Dave?  Do you read?”

He released the button and waited.  Nothing.

Hemp tried again.

“Hey, Hemp.”

It was Gem’s voice.

“Hi, Gem.  I’m trying to get the boys.”

“He radioed about half an hour ago,” said Gem.  “They’re at the girls’ bar.”

“Why?”

“Meeting.  It’s close to the brewery, so they figured it was as good as anyplace.  They haven’t had much luck getting people to turn out.”

“People are scared to leave their homes,” said Hemp, knowing very well that was the reason.

“Hey,” said Gem.  “What happened to Lisa?”

“Where is she?” asked Hemp.

“Upstairs.  Taking a nap.  Girl just got up a bit ago.”

“We’ll tell you later, but suffice it to say she was doing a bit of what Star Trek’s Mr. Spock might say was mind melding with the zombies.”

“Holy fuck.”

“Exactly, Gem.  Look, we have a lot to do.  If you hear from them again, let us know, would you?  I need to know about the zombies in the hall.”

“Sounds like a fucked up teen sitcom.”

Hemp smiled as Charlie shook her head and did the same, despite the tension.

“You’re one of a kind, Gem.”

“That’s why you love me,” she said.  “I’ll let them know if I hear.  Keep your radio on and you’ll hear too.”

“Got it.”

He released the talk button and stared at Charlie.

“What, babe?”

“Charlie, there are so many things going round my mind, that I don’t know where to begin.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“I was never mad.  You know that.”

“But I reacted.  The shit I always do.”

“It’s you.  You can’t be anyone else, and I wouldn’t want you to.  I don’t know if what you did was a good thing or a bad thing.”

“But you said you needed her, so it was a bad thing, right?”

Hemp shrugged and walked up to Blue Eyes and looked down.  “Lisa was being controlled somehow.  That is dangerous, no matter how I try to look at it.  It means that Red Dress was psychically connected to her somehow.”

“So why didn’t you do something?”

“I’m sorry.  I’m a scientist, and the sheer fascination of something of that nature sends me to another place where I sometimes forget the risks and analyze the here and now.  I sometimes forget about consequences.”

“’Cause you’re fuckin’ smart,” said Charlie.  “You know you’d take the risk to discover something important like that, and you don’t consider that others might not be as willing.  It might be a flaw, but it’s how you’re so good at figuring things out.”

“You’re right, but there’s no excuse,” said Hemp.  “I hope there are no long-term effects to Lisa’s mind.”

Charlie stared at him, her big eyes shaded by a furrowed brow.  “Could there be, baby?”

“I don’t know the nature of the connection, so the answer is I don’t know.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s it?” asked Hemp.

“What are we doing next?  Why are we in here?”

Hemp looked again at Blue Eyes.  “Put on some music.  I want to cut off her head.”

Now Charlie’s eyes narrowed, something Hemp fully expected.  The left corner of her mouth turned up in a mischievous smile.  “Are you bullshitting me?”

Hemp shook his head.  He had been considering it for some time.

“No, I’m serious.  Their heads don’t die when they’re severed.  We know that from long ago.”

“Didn’t Flex call them bowling balls with teeth?”

Hemp smiled at the memory.  “Yes, he did.  He told the group at the 7-Eleven that.  But for that reason, if I want to keep Blue Eyes here, there is no reason I need her to be a full body.  It just gives her the potential to be dangerous.”

“I think we need a little … hmm.   Jethro Tull.  Aqualung.”

“Do the honors,” said Hemp.  He walked to the drawer containing his tray of surgical equipment, opened it, and removed the stainless tray.

Charlie removed the Aqualung CD from its plastic jewel case and popped it in the player.  She used the remote to start the disc.

As the opening guitar of Aqualung floated across the RV, Hemp continued sorting through the various scalpels and other cutting devices.

Charlie turned the radio  to face them and her hand knocked into a three liter glass bottle, causing it to topple to the floor with a shattering crash.

Blue Eyes flinched, her eyes looking toward them.

Hemp spoke to Charlie, his eyes fixed on the female zombie.  “Did you see that, Charlie?  Did she hear that?”

Charlie hit the stop button on the CD player. “Yes,” she said, her voice soft.  “Shit.”

“Shit is right,” said Hemp, gently putting the scalpel in his hand back in the tray and approaching the table.

“Did that just happen?” asked Charlie.

Hemp turned to look at her eyes, wide and beautiful.  “If so, then we saw the same thing.  Auditory senses?”

“If that means the ability to hear, I hope the hell not.”

“Only one way to find out.  Do it again.”

“Break something else?”

Hemp rummaged around in the drawer and found a glass beaker.  He moved behind her, standing beside Charlie.  “We’ll be very quiet for a few moments, so she settles again.”

They stood beside one another and Charlie took Hemp’s free hand in hers.  She squeezed it and Hemp squeezed back.

Suddenly, even causing Charlie to jump, Hemp hurled the beaker to their left, where it smashed against the cabinet.

The zombie’s head, restrained, but able to move mere millimeters, struggled to turn, her body tensing.

“This is not a good development,” whispered Hemp.

“No shit,” said Charlie.  “She can hear.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Hemp.  “They’ve never had this ability before.  I’d always assumed their eardrums rotted away.”

“But her brain, babe.  Her brain is … healthy, kind of.”

Hemp’s mind was spinning.  A million thoughts hit him at once, and he knew what he had to do.

He snatched his portable Dremel saw and hurried into the acrylic cage.  He grabbed Red Dress’s arm and spun her body through the sticky, dead fluids of her own body until her head was facing him.  Most of the work he needed done had already been achieved by Charlie’s bullets, but he still needed to make some additional cuts.

“Charlie, would you bring me some new gloves, please?”

“What are you doing?”

He stared at the zombie corpse on the floor in front of him, his mind whirling too fast to comprehend Charlie’s words.  She gave him the gloves.  He removed the others and pulled on the new ones.  “And a scalpel, please?”

“Multi-tasking?” asked Charlie.

“In a sense, yes,” said Hemp.  “Turn away if you need to,” he said.

“Not in a million fucking years,” said Charlie.

The saw started up, and Hemp cut the part of her skull away that hadn’t been shattered by the 9mm rounds.  He put the scalpel on the floor, grabbed the crown of her skull with both hands and twisted.

It snapped in two and fell out of his hands.  Hemp removed an LED penlight from his pocket and shone it on Red Dress’s brain.

He looked up at Charlie.  “It’s pretty destroyed – good work, by the way – but it’s the same as hers, Charlie.  Parts look vibrant.  Healthy, like Blue Eyes over there.”

“What does it mean, babe?”

“Hold on.”

Hemp had to know two more things.  He picked up the scalpel and began cutting around the least destroyed ear.  He jabbed it just behind it and cut around.  When his last cut met his initial one, he pulled on the ear, and the ear canal itself became visible.

He touched it.  It felt soft, pliable.  Not dried out and dead.  Upon further investigation, he found that some of it, the outer portion mostly, was less fleshy.

But none of it should have been.  The brain should have been shrunken, wrinkled and dry like a prune, yet it wasn’t.

He looked up at Charlie, who could not seem to look away.  Her eyes held the anticipation of a coming revelation, but what Hemp had to tell her was closer to doom.

“I think,” he said, “that they’re developing more offensive and defensive mechanisms, Charlie.”  He turned back.  “Last thing I have to know.”

He put his hand on Red Dress’s stomach, pressing in, moving his palm up and down as he applied pressure.

“There,” he said.  “I feel it.”

Charlie stared, her eyes fixed and wide.  “What?” she whispered.  “The baby.”

Hemp nodded.  “Yes.  Exactly.”

“Are you taking it out, babe?”

“No,” he said.  “I see no advantage in that.  I can kill it in place, or destroy it with her body.”

“I hate the thought of burning a baby alive,” said Charlie.  “Fucking horrible.”

“It’s not a baby, Charlie.  “It’s no different than its full-grown mother.  It is a creature with the same craving for human flesh and the instinctual drive to satisfy it.”

“But it doesn’t have the ability.”

“They are mindless,” said Hemp.

“Not all of them,” said Charlie.  “Red Dress made words come out of Lisa’s mouth.”

He stood up and looked into her eyes.  “And that should be a harsh reminder that we’ve more to fear that ever before, I’m afraid.”