The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (152 page)

As we moved into downtown proper, I was beginning to get a bit uncomfortable.  There were abandoned cars that we could easily get around, but the streets were empty.

Dead empty.

“Don, what are these buildings?” I asked as we came to a spot where we had to stop and figure out a detour.

“Hospitals, mostly,” he said.

I looked at him.  “So then, where is everyone?” I asked him.  “This is a big city.  Where the hell are all the dead ones?  And the survivors?”

“Beats me,” said Weston.  “I didn’t know what to expect.  We pretty much stuck to rural areas outside of town, killed off a few stragglers at the AFB, and any we saw on our property when we went back.”

“David,” said Serena, her voice thick with tension.

“Wha – ” I began, but the word caught in my throat as I followed her gaze. If I would have screamed like a six-year-old girl at what I saw, I don’t think anyone would have blamed me.  The deserted roadway I had looked at just seconds before was in the process of being filled from both sides of the street with the walking dead.

“Jesus.  Did we reload the Uzis?” I asked.

“I took care of it,” said Nelson.

As I watched the shambling, undead creatures moving into the street from between the buildings, my heart sunk.

We had never before faced so many at once that I could remember – perhaps not even in Concord – and worse yet, there was a method to their madness.  This could mean only one thing.

Zombies didn’t have methods.  They were now stationed there, an army of them.  A solid wall of the standing dead, numbering in the hundreds.  Quiet as a graveyard.

I felt a presence to our right and slowly turned my head.

And there she was: A perfectly preserved, naked creature with eyes that glowed as red as those of the devil himself.  She was no more than fifteen feet away and appeared to be staring directly at me, but could have been watching all of us.

“David, we need to back out of this mess,” said Serena.

I didn’t want to take my eyes from the creature.  “I know.”  Our bikes were facing the wrong direction to use the machine guns, and I had the distinct feeling that by the time we changed position it would be too late.

“What’s happening?” asked Rachel.  “Where did they all come from?” 

Weston was quiet.  I swore he was holding his
breath behind me.

“Nelson, I want you to very slowly turn your wheel hard right.  You’ve got room.  Use your gas a little and balance with your feet, but when you get turned around, you need to go like a motherfucker.”

Nelson didn’t ask any questions.  He started to do what I said, but when I looked behind me, I realized that would not work, either.

“Wait, Nel,” I said.

Behind us were five more red-eyed females, almost arms length apart, walking toward us.  They were still forty feet away.

When she saw me watching them, one crouched low, preparing to spring.  We’d seen their speed and ability before, but now, as we looked back at them, we heard the motion of hundreds of dead, yet animated legs, dragging, stepping, and shambling toward us.

Nelson apparently saw the female crouching, too, and he had heard the stories from the prison in Concord.

Straddling his bike, he shook out his right arm and reached into a pocket.  He withdrew one of his stars, and without thinking and barely aiming, he drew his arm back and flung it at the crouching red-eye just as she began her launch, or whatever it was.  I saw him adjust mid-throw, and with a ringing-buzz, it flew toward her at speed, hitting the dead, pregnant fiend in the center of her forehead.

She stopped mid-motion and her hand went up to the star immediately, pulling it back out.  Black ooze ran down her face and her gaze found Nelson Moore.

As her red eyes stared toward him I held my breath, but a split-second later, her intense, red eyes faded to black, and she crumpled to the street.

I almost shit my pants.  I had, for a brief moment, believed they had become invincible.

With the cars blocking the road and the solid wall of walking dead ahead of us, we didn’t stand a chance.  Even if we exhausted all the rounds in the machine guns, we’d just die a little bit later.  I had to make a quick decision – something I wasn’t fond of.  I liked time to consider options, but it seemed most of them had flown out the window.  So I acted on instinct.

“Follow me!” I shouted.  I gunned the engine of the Harley and let out the clutch, spinning my rear tire and sliding around toward the building.

“Hold on, Don!” I shouted.  “And tuck your head down against my back and close your eyes!”

I rode toward the glass doors of what I assumed was a hospital.  As I got to the curb I gunned it and pulled hard up on the handlebars, lifting my front wheel in the air in a low wheelie.  With my left hand, I grabbed the Uzi and fired at the glass front, panning the machine gun as low and high as it would go. 

I prayed the others would be able to maneuver behind me and keep up.  I knew Serena could, but Nelson wasn’t as experienced, and poor Rachel probably had no idea what to expect. 

I rode across the threshold into the building, bounced three times over the debris and slid the bike sideways, slamming into the opposite wall.  The foot pegs had protected my right leg from being crushed beneath the motorcycle, and I felt Weston bailing off just before impact.  He landed on his tailbone on top of the small trailer, which was now flipping sideways as the bike went down.  Weston rolled off and skidded along the marble floor, coming to rest about six feet behind the bike.  He jumped to his feet immediately and reached for his gun, a large caliber pistol.

Serena came through next, and as soon as she rode over the debris, she braked hard, turning sharply left, then gunned the accelerator.  She shot free of the debris, pulled her bike to an easy stop and hopped off, letting it fall to the marble floor.  I crawled out from under my twisted bike, disgusted that Hemp’s innovative work on it was now trashed.  I saw everything had spilled out of the trailer, including the gas cans, some of which had had popped open and were now the source of the odiferous,
flammable fuel that poured onto the floor around us.

Nelson brought up the rear, and I saw immediately that Rachel had doubled her grip on his waist.  His front tire punctured and popped the moment he hit the glass, throwing his handlebars sideways, the bike going down hard.

It landed atop my fallen trailer, preventing the heavy machine from landing flat and crushing their legs beneath it.  I ran over to help Nelson  to his feet, seeing that Weston had already recovered and had begun helping Rachel.  We pulled them and they staggered after us, both apparently without serious injury or broken bones.

I looked outside, and the five females were on the move, along with their shuffling horde.  They had closed in fast, and now threatened to block any way out.

“Run!” I shouted. 

“Wait!” said Serena.  “There has to be a back way out of here.  You figure a path.  I want to let some of them get in, at least a few feet.”

“Nelson,” I said.  “Run up and see if that fire exit door is unlocked.”

Nelson nodded and said to Rachel, “Come with me!”

She did.  Weston also followed.  Nelson ran thirty yards down the hallway and pulled open the door.

I kept one eye on the walking rotters pushing closer to the door of the hospital, and one on Nelson, Rachel and Weston.  As Nelson held the door open, watching us, something came out of that door.

“Nelson!” shouted Rachel, and whipped her six-shooter from her pants, raised it and fired in a quick motion.

The hands that had curled around Nelson’s neck fell away and the body lay on the floor in front of the door.  Rachel yanked Nelson away from the opening, the door automatically swinging closed, hitting the zombie on the floor.

“What are you waiting for, Serena?” I asked, frantic.  “Let’s just go!”

“Grab the ammo box and the urushiol canisters at least, David.  Hurry!”

She was right.  I was in panic mode; not thinking properly.  We were screwed right now, and we’d need our weapons and ammo to put in them.  I dove to the floor and pulled out a half-empty can of fuel, throwing it toward the shattered door.  The ammo box was on the bottom, and my fingers curled around the handle.  I pulled it out and slid it away from me across the floor.  Then I reached in and grabbed all four of the canisters.

“Nelson!” I shouted, and he ran back toward me, holding out his hands.  I tossed them to him one by one and he caught each of my wild throws, quickly placing the last caught canister on the ground, emptying his hands for the next.

The WAT-5!
I had less than half my supply in a baggie in my pocket, but the majority had been in the bike seat compartment, which had popped open.

I searched frantically, and saw it.  The baggie had dissolved and the scattered wafers were in the process of melting into mush on the marble floor, soaked in gasoline. 
I stared at them for a brief moment, then at our pursuers moving toward us.  I could do nothing … they were destroyed.

I then scooted clear of the fuel, grabbed the ammo box and stood, taking Serena’s arm, pulling her away.

She yanked her arm from my hand and said, “Not yet, David.  Your pants are soaked with gasoline.  Get over there with the others, for God’s sake!”

“Serena,” I said, but she was pulling a Bic lighter out of her pocket.  “Go, David!  I’ll be a second!”  Her face was stern and set.

“Serena, will you listen to me?”

“David,” she said, glancing from me to the advancing horde.  “I’m certain there are other exits from this building, so I intend to put this gas to good use. 
Please
go over there and wait for me.”

I put my hand up and carried the ammo box toward the stairwell door.   The four of us stood in silence and watched her.  I thought my heart was going to jump out of my throat if I opened my mouth again.

Serena stood there and waited, but the females she wanted did not come inside.  No doubt using their strangely powerful minds, they sent their minions inside, dozens of them flooding in toward their certain deaths, driven there by the smartest of their kind.

“Serena, they’re too aware!” I yelled.  “They know you’re up to something, so just do what you can and get over here!”

She looked frustrated.  “Fine.  Just stay where you are.”

She ran and pulled another of the leaking cans out.  With one eye still on the advancing zombies, and one on her work, Serena removed the cap completely and threw the open gasoline can toward the door, splashing the legs of several of the rotters.

Dozens of them were now inside.  Six feet from Serena.  She moved slowly backward, watching the floor.  She had gasoline on her feet, and I was freaking out that she would go up in flames herself.  

She stood clear now and put her thumb in her mouth.  After a moment, she peeled her thumb away, then took something from her teeth.  She struck the Bic, lighting it, stepping backward at the same time.  Whatever it was in her fingers, she worked at jamming it into the lighter.  She held the flame up in front of her for a moment, took one more look at the zombies, now just three feet away, and tossed the lighter at their feet.

Flames ignited in a fifteen-foot high plume as she retreated toward us, and sure enough, the soles of her shoes were flaming as Serena reached the door where we waited. 

“Jesus!” I shouted, and Weston thought fast.  He ripped the shirt off his back in a split second and dove to the floor, snuffing out Serena’s burning shoes. 

The zombies moved through the flames, and burning brightly, advanced toward us. 

“C’mon dudes!” shouted Nelson, and yanked open the fire escape door.  “Mind the zombie!”

Mind the zombie?
 

At first I wasn’t sure he’d said it, but if Nelson was proving to be anything more than an amusing stoner, it was that he was more astute than we’d ever given him credit for.

We all stepped over the dead creature, and being the last one in, I put the ammo box down, bent down and spun the dead thing’s legs free of the door, and yanked it closed behind us.

We ran up the fire escape.  I knew we needed to find a secure place to ingest some WAT-5.  Beyond that, I didn’t have much of a plan.  I found myself asking:

What would Flex do?

*****

“Hold on!” I said, and we all stopped, breathing hard.  “I’ve got a mix of ammo in here, but mostly 9mm.  There are some .45 rounds, too, and I think a box or two of  .38.  If you’ve got a gun, load it up.  If you’ve got extra mags, load them up, too.”

The fire must have caught quickly outside the stairwell, because I could hear a deep roar.  In my mind it grew hotter, and sweat poured from my face and arms.  It might have been my imagination.

Within less than a minute I slammed the lid of the ammo box closed again and grabbed it.  We took the steps two at a time.

One, two flights.

There was a click down below us, and I stopped, as did everyone else.  I went slowly to the edge of the stairs and peered over.