The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (28 page)

“Gem, he couldn’t hear us.  These are both the rechargeable kind, and he’s had no power.”

I stared down at the man whose life I’d ended.  It didn’t matter that he didn’t hear us; didn’t know we weren’t a danger.  I took his life, snuffed it out.  I should have been more careful, checked the body before I fired my gun into his brain.  I felt my legs collapsing, and before I could steady myself on the dirty shelf mounted on the wall, I crumpled to the ground, a wave of emotion washing over me.

I felt Flex’s arms around me immediately.

“Gem,” he said.  “C’mon.  Baby, you wouldn’t have done this on purpose, and you know it.  Never.”

I couldn’t speak.  I was bawling.  Maybe the guy had already lost everyone he loved, but he’d made it this long – so long after it all began, only to have Gemina Cardoza, a trigger-happy Guatemalan girl snuff his life out with a single pull of the trigger.

“C’mon, Gem.  Let me help you up.”

When I got back on my feet, Charlie stood at the door.  She looked down at the man on the ground and back at me.  She put her arm around me, too.

“Gem, let me take you back to the car.  I’ll help Flex when I get back.”

I cried harder because I loved Charlie and she’d put two and two together.  She didn’t need to be a psychologist to figure out that I was not fit to protect anyone.  I nodded my head and she took my arm.

I sat in the car, Cynthia beside me stroking my arm as I let out the rest of my tears.  I drank deeply off a bottle of water, and tried to calm myself.

And I realized Cynthia was a warm, caring person.  While comforting me, she never even asked what upset me in the first place.  She only knew what I needed.

*****

Flex walked out of the now rolled-open service bay dragging a cord.  It was nearly an inch thick and it appeared long enough to reach the generator mounted on the tongue of the Mobile Lab.  Once it was plugged in, Hemp fired the generator and five seconds later, the digital display of the diesel pump came to life, glowing yellow.

“Bingo!” shouted Hemp.  “Pump on!”

I smiled.  At least something good was happening.  I noted the other pump on the island also lit, and that was good, because it was gasoline.  We might as well all fill up.  I pulled the car over so that when Hemp moved the lab I’d be able to reach the Ford’s filler pipe with the nozzle.

Flex walked out and tapped on my window.  I rolled it down.

“Doing better, babe?” he asked.

I shrugged, looking up at him.  “It’s going to take a while.  That shit threw me for a loop.”

Flex nodded, patted my shoulder and said nothing.  He went to where Hemp stood pumping diesel into the filler spout in the side of the behemoth.

“What’d you do, swipe your credit card?” he asked.

“Nope.  Picked the bypass lock.  Mechanical engineer, remember?”

“Yeah, but a lock picker?  Guns, lock picking.  Anything else you’re not telling me?”

“I suppose you’ll find out little by little.  Hey, Flex.  What happened in there?”

I heard him ask the question, and I know Hemp was aware I was distressed.

“We’ll talk about it later, Hemp,” Flex said.

“No,” I said.  “It’s okay, Flexy.  Hemp, I shot an uninfected inside.  I didn’t realize he was pretending to be dead, and I don’t trust the dead anymore.  I figured it out after it was too late.”

Hemp nodded, a look of empathy on his face.  It could’ve happened to any one of us.

“I want to bury him, Flex.”

“We don’t have time for that –”

“We’ll make time,” I said.

Flex thought a minute.  “I have a better idea.  Hemp, keep pumping.  Gem, come with me.”

I got out of the car and followed Flex into the service bay.  He pointed at the service pit. 

“Surrounded by concrete.  The tires are off that car up on the lift, so we’ll put him down in the pit and release the hydraulics, sealing him in with that car.  He’ll be more secure than in the ground.”

It worked for me.  We both put on some of the latex mechanic gloves and I got the man’s feet.  I saw his name tag said Donald.

Flex lifted him under the arms and we slid-carried him around and lowered his body down inside.  He was a thin man with short, grey hair.  Somewhere in his mid-sixties from the looks of him.

“Donald, I hope my mistake has taken you to a place where you don’t have to be afraid anymore,” I said.

I stared down at his body in the service pit for what I guess had to be two minutes.  Mentally I was exhausted.  This fuckup seemed to have brought every emotional ball I’d been juggling down on top of me.  I looked at Flex.

“Think you’re ready?” he asked.

“I think so.” I said a silent prayer for Donald’s soul as the hydraulics hissed and the mechanic was sealed in with the old Chrysler sedan.

“Let’s get the other tanks filled and find a motel,” I said.  “I’m beat to shit.”

Flex put his arm around me and we walked back to the cars, finished our business and left the station, all with full tanks.

The cars, that is.  Just the cars.

*****

CHAPTER
SIX

We found an EconoLodge on Oxmoor Road, and it was exactly what we’d all envisioned.  Two levels, one directly over the other, rows of rooms, door by door by door.

We were hoping for available first floor rooms all in a row without a whole bunch of zombie fighting beforehand.  We were dead fucking tired, all of us, and I have no qualms speaking for everyone.  All I had to do was look around.  Blurry eyes, sunken faces, and something I’d describe, if seen on a stranger’s face, as defeat.

That did not apply in this case.  This was not the kind of group to accept or entertain the thought of defeat.  Max and Cynthia had yet to be vetted, but early exit polling was coming out in their favor.  These guys would do just fine as long as they followed our instruction and respected what we’d learned over the past few weeks.

Besides, with regard to exhaustion levels, just the mere act of being awake and aware of the earth as it was now was enough to wear you down.  Forget the added stress of keeping watch, driving, making sure your weapons were fully loaded for the next battle and all that other shit.  This was the Wild West, only it was everywhere and it was immeasurably wilder.

“Baby, you want to come with me to the office?” Flex asked.

I knew he was talking to me, because he typically didn’t call Hemp or Charlie “baby.”

I grabbed my Uzi in response.  “Why?  Am I in trouble, Flexy?”

“Always,” said Flex.  “I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

Tired as they were, everyone smiled at our banter.

I turned to Cynthia, who still sat in the back seat with the girls.  “I hate to treat you like some kind of babysitter, but would you mind?  We’ll work this thing out down the road.”

Cynthia waved off my concerns.  “Gem.  You and Flex saved my daughter and now, not only is she alive, but she has a friend.  Besides that it seems they’re going to be pretty important to one another.”

Cynthia looked down at the sleeping girls with a sad, tender look in her eyes, then back up at me.

“So no offense at all, but how you happen to see me right now couldn’t matter less.  I’ll prove myself down the road, but for now you are an inspiration, Gem.  Now you and Flex go get us some sleeping arrangements.”

“Gotcha,” I said.  I did like her.  Feisty and confident.  She’d be an easy student.

“I’m not armed yet, so I’ll stay with her inside the car,” Max said.  “But I do intend to be taught the trade and mystery of shooting techniques eventually.”

“Consider it done, Maxy,” I said.

“Hemp, Charlie,” I said.  “Can one of you stick near the car?”  I nodded to the three in the back seat.  “Watch out for our unarmed crew?”

“I got it,” Charlie said.  “Hemp, want to see if any of those rooms are accessible?”

“We’ll see if there are any passkeys in the office,” Flex said.  “With these damned electronic locks we’re going to have to do some breaking in.”

Flex and I walked to the corner by the street.  There was absolute silence and nearly pure darkness.  No streetlights, no headlights.  Some faint solar walkway lights were illuminated here and there, but just served to show how much things had changed. 

The office was on the street, and the gated pool area was beside it.  A walkway ran behind the pool fence with the lower level row of doors accessing the motel rooms.

Flex pulled the lobby door open.  It was dark, so he switched on his headlamp, and I did the same. 

“Fuck me,” I said, blowing the stench out of my nose.  “Something dead in here.”

“Oh, yeah,” Flex said.  “I don’t see it yet.”

“The flies do,” I said.  The sound of rapidly moving, tiny wings – thousands of them – filled the air.  The buzz was an assault on the senses, mainly because you knew why they were there and what they were eating.  Road kill is one thing.  Gross, to be sure.  But somehow when it’s a human body, the thought of flies feasting on it becomes ultra-disgusting and mentally draining.

My gun held out, I walked the outer perimeter of the office, checked down the hallway toward the vending area, and found it to be deserted.  I tried to breathe through my mouth, but I never liked that idea much, either.  Felt like the nastiness of the odor was taking a straight path into my lungs.

I’d almost forgotten about the pack of Marlboros I’d had in my pocket since we left Flex’s place.  Since the girls were riding in my car, I couldn’t smoke them, so they slipped my mind.

But when there’s a need to battle the rank smell of death, nothing is more effective than a smell I loved, stale or not.  I pulled the pack out, slid a smoke from it, tucked another behind my ear for Flex, and lit it with my Bic.  I inhaled deeply and blew it back out, the aroma of tobacco permeating the office quickly.

“That’s better,” I said.  “We’re all clear out here, babe.”

“I want one,” Flex said, backing out from behind the counter, a grimace on his face.  “And I found what stinks.”

I walked to the front of the counter, slipping the cigarette from behind my ear and lighting it.  I passed it to Flex who hung it from his lip and took a nice, big draw.  His face was white.

“Jesus, this tastes good,” he said.  “The clerk’s drawing the flies.  No threat.” 

He nodded toward the floor, but now that my headlamp was directed behind the counter I could see the evidence of the clerk’s last efforts not to die.  All over the walls were bloody handprints and places where some kind of arterial spray took place.  I’d describe it as a crime scene, but in zombieland all this shit was fair game.  Do the crime ‘cause you won’t be doing any time.  It’s now acceptable to eat your neighbor when zombies run the court system.

“Clerk’s body is pretty chewed,” he said, nodding toward the floor.

I don’t know why, but I had to look.  As if I didn’t know what a zombie-eaten corpse looked like.  Maybe it was me trying to become less affected by it all; a conditioning trick.  Once you’d seen it all, nothing fazed you.  I couldn’t afford to be fazed.  None of us could.  I hoped for the day when all this would be put so far in our past that a cut finger would send us into queasy spells.

I leaned over and took a quick glance.  The clerk was of indeterminable age due to the face being gone, and the hands having been gnawed down to bones.  The body was such a mass of ripped meat and blood I didn’t even know the sex.  No matter.  There was no need to pop this one; the head was cracked, as so many others we’d seen were, and it was empty.

This one was harmless

“I don’t want to go through the pockets, but I think I  might have to,” Flex said.  “No keys here.”

“Can’t we just kick a door in?” I asked.

“Then we’re vulnerable,” Flex said.

We heard a shaking, a rattling from out front.  Flex looked at me.  “What the fuck is that?”

“A fence shaking is my best guess.”

Flex went to the side window in the office and looked out.  “Fucking rotter inside the pool fence.  He’s caught in there,” he said.

“Shit.  Wonder why Hemp didn’t shoot him.”

“He’s not exactly a threat right now.”

Flex let the blinds close and took another deep drag from his smoke.  “I’m getting a little head rush from this.”

We heard a splash.

Flex and I ran outside and looked between the bars.

The ghoul floated on his back in the brackish, green water of the untended pool, an arrow jutting out of his forehead.  We turned our heads to see a smiling Charlie.

“I guess we’re not swimming tonight,” she said. 

“Let’s get into these rooms,” I said.  “I’ve had my nicotine and now I need some shuteye.”

Hemp and Charlie joined us at room 122.  The curtains were drawn back and a shine of my headlamp showed a made bed and no luggage.  It was empty.  The parking lot only had two cars in it anyway, so chances were that almost all of the rooms were the same.

“Stand back,” I said, waiting until they moved away.  I fired the Uzi at the door jamb, and when I was done, the door stood three inches open.  I kicked it the rest of the way and we went inside.

To our relief there was a pass-through door on each side.  This room was set up to be the center room for three that could be shared.

Hemp was smiling.  “Okay, we barricade this shot-up door from the inside and just keep the other two exterior doors locked.  We can go from room to room without going outside and there’s only one way in that we have to worry about.”

Using the same tool he’d used on the fuel pump, some sort of paperclip looking thing, Hemp picked the locks to both connected rooms.  Flex had to kick in two of the pass-through doors because the inside ones locked on the other side.  Still, once we got in, there was no stench, no zombies.  Both rooms were vacant.

Flex grabbed a wooden chair and propped it under the doorknob.  Using the hotel pen, he marked the floor where the chair’s feet rested, then pulled the chair out again.  He removed his pocket knife and poked it through the linoleum flooring, cutting out two rough-edged holes.

Max grabbed the chair when Flex finished cutting and put it back in place.  The feet sat down inside the holes so the chair wouldn’t slide out if someone pushed hard on the door.

“Done this before, Flex?” asked Max.

“I think this shit up on the fly,” he said, smiling.

Hemp nodded approvingly, but said nothing.  He looked at Charlie and held his hand out.  She smiled and went to him, and they took the north side room.

“Night, all,” he said.  “Let’s see if we can sleep in.”  The door closed with a soft click.

“Cynthia, do you mid sharing a room with Max and the girls?  Take that room there, and we’ll stay in the middle.”

“Not at all,” she said.  “Max, you mind?”

Max laughed.  “We spent over a month together in a small lab on cots, Cyn.  I think we’re okay.  Is it at least a king bed?”

“It is,” she said.

“Then we’re good.  Night, Gem.  Flex.  She held Taylor in her arms, and Trina walked like a little tired zombie herself behind them into the room.  Cynthia held a battery powered lantern that illuminated the room well.  She closed the door behind her.

I looked at Flex and went to him, wrapping my arms around his waist.  I rested my head against his chest and felt the tension drain from my muscles all at once, and for the first time all day.

“I love you, Gem,” he said.  “And I don’t think I can go right to sleep.”

“Want another smoke?” I asked him.

“Give me a reason?”

“Absolutely,” I said.  “Get out of those clothes.   They’re a mess.”

Flex laughed softly and pulled his shirt off.  He may have been in his early forties, but all this work was really toning him up.  It wasn’t quite a six-pack, but I could definitely count three or four 12-ouncers.

I slid my jeans off, pulled the bedspread back and fluffed the pillows.  I pulled my tee shirt over my head and unhooked my bra.  They joined our other clothing on the floor.  Looking at Flex pulling off his jeans, I really wasn’t thinking how disheveled I’d be looking the next day in those bunched, wrinkled clothes, and fuck if we were going to get our clothes from the cars.

I crawled into bed and dropped the pack of smokes on the nightstand.  I slid between the sheets and pulled them back.  Flex slid in, too.

And his arms were around me, rubbing the smooth skin of my stomach, sliding over my breasts and behind my neck.  He lowered his face to my belly, kissing me softly there, working his way up until our mouths came together and our tongues explored one another. 

I felt his excitement growing, and I moved my hand down to meet him, no longer able to contain myself.  He kissed up and down my neck, behind my ears, his gentle, powerful hands stroking my skin, and I had to consciously stop myself from moaning out loud, effectively sounding a FUCK SESSION ALERT! to our companions.

I wrapped my legs around him, arched my back and let myself drift away beneath Flex’s touch.  But it was my turn to take control.  I pushed him off of me and onto his back.  I straddled him and sat upright, my hands stroking his chest, his hands sliding slowly up my sides to cup my breasts, his large hands covering them, gently rubbing the sides, then back down my stomach and around to squeeze my ass hard, pulling me against him.

I lifted up, positioning myself over him, then slid slowly back down, easing him inside.  I closed my eyes, rocking back and forth as I approached the pinnacle, biting my lip as his hips came up to meet me faster and faster, again and again.  As I felt him shudder beneath me, I let go, and we fell together and experienced the thunder of our sexual storm together.

And then I collapsed on top of him, spent and breathing hard.  His arms held me, stroking my back. No words were necessary.  I have no idea how long our lovemaking session lasted or how long we stayed like that; time seemed to have disappeared.  Finally, my senses restored, I rolled off him and fell back onto the mattress, and we lay side-by-side and held hands.

Five minutes later I tapped Flex’s chest and he reached over, pulled out two smokes, lit them both and gave me one.