The Dead Hunger Series: Books 1 through 5 (94 page)

Charlie drove Gem home.  She got her out of there before we tended to Jen’s body.  I didn’t want Gem to see any of that horror in her condition.

I’ll never forget that day.  Despite all we’d been through, this was a reminder that there were some horrors we hadn’t yet faced that were worse than any in our pasts.

I’ve got to stop now.  I’ll be back.  Just recounting it for you was harder than I ever thought it would be.

*****

Gotta take a deep breath. 
Breathe, Flex.  Breathe.

First off, let me say that Gem has been tended to enough and the baby’s heartbeat monitored regularly, so we are confident our baby is alive and well.   Gem is six months along.  The doc says that Jen was just about in her sixth month, too, but she’d never come to him for any pre-natal care, and hadn’t really been showing very much for a pregnancy that far along.  She was from the next town over, so nobody knew what she looked like before.  Maybe she’d been skinny as a rail.

But the doc also said that she could have been in her sixth month when this thing began.  This zombie shit.

How, you ask?  I asked the same thing. 

He said that the baby could have died in the first week after the gas started coming out of the ground.  Jenny would feel it moving, and would automatically assume it was okay.  Hell, she might even be happy that she
wasn’t
gaining too much weight, as many young women are.

The development of the fetus told Doc Scofield how long it had survived, because sure as shit, they stop growing when they die.  But for fuck’s sake, the damned things don’t quit moving.  So, believing her baby was kicking and healthy, the young, immortal Jenny took a pass when Doc Scofield had offered his pre-natal care to any pregnant women in town.

Jennifer should have been a bit more cautious, because her boyfriend – the one who got her pregnant in the first place – had turned into one of them.  Which meant her little one only had a fifty percent shot at immunity.  If it even works that way.  I don’t know if Hemp even knows that yet.

Gem took it hard, and so did Charlie.  Charlie was more involved, even though she came in at the last, after I’d put Jenny out of her fear and misery.

As for Gem and me, we get to the doc too much, maybe.  Hey, it’s free.  We don’t know and we don’t want to know the sex of our baby.  Just like old times, we’ll let the old women use their wives tale methods to determine the gender, and no matter how wild their theories of prediction, they’ll still have a fifty percent chance of being right.

Okay.  I’ve calmed a bit.  I need to get past that horrible memory, and I gotta apologize for hitting you with that so soon.

But it’s part of it.  So now you know.

*****

Now, a little history.  If you’re new to our chronicles, then all of this, including the Ratz must be explained.  Please allow me to gather myself and continue.

When we first came across the zombie rats, hence the name
Ratz
, with a z, we thought they were sleeping.  In fact, they had fallen into some sort of a coma, and upon awakening, they had become just like the human zombies.  They have an insatiable hunger and crave human flesh, tissue and organs.

While the brain is the strongest scent that draws the rotters, it is not all they crave to eat.  It’s just the source of the aroma – sort of like the garlic in Italian cooking; the most fragrant part.  Nobody comes sniffing around the kitchen because they smell spaghetti cooking; they come because they smell the sauce with the garlic in it cooking.

The brain is the sauce.  But they like to eat everything.  Right down to the gnawing of the bones if no easier meal presents itself in the meantime.

So, the Ratz are harder to kill than the zombies, even with our Urushiol oil solution.  Urushiol is the poisonous oil found in Poison Ivy, Poison Oak and Poison Sumac, as well as in cashew shells and mango skins.  We refine it, essentially extracting the oil, at an old microbrewery.  When blended with water, it creates a solution that when sprayed on the zombies, renders them a popping, hissing, melting pile of goo.

Nothing gives me more satisfaction that watching a zombie melt like the fuckin’ Wicked Witch of the West.

But given the choice, I like my Daewoo K7.  It’s a machine gun with lots of killing power.  Like nearly everyone else, I carry a couple of 9mm semi-automatics, but I like the accuracy of the machine gun.  If I’ve taken WAT-5, then it doesn’t matter.   Most of my kills are point blank.

But I digress.  Get me started, you know?

Concord
is mostly clear.  Two months have passed since we finished our previous chronicle, after getting Hemp back.  Nobody was happier than Charlie, let me tell you.

But in the meantime, we’ve taken to watering down the cemeteries with those water spraying trucks they use on construction sites to keep the dust down.  It works great with our little solution, and we’re fairly certain that as it soaks into the soil it’s making its way down to the diggers trying to claw their way out, melting them where they lie.

Now let me tell you a bit about Charlie and Gem.

Gem, as you might recall, is one Gemina Cardoza Sheridan.  She is Guatemalan by birth, has long, dark hair and deep, brown eyes.  She is, and always has been, one bad-ass woman.  She demonstrated it in different ways prior to the zombie problem, but since she found me in
Gainesville, she has proven to me again and again that I don’t really need anyone but her by my side. 

Gem and I had split up some time before, after dating around two years.  I don’t want to get into the reasons why, but we did, and I think from the moment it happened, we had both known it was a mistake.  I missed her so much, but pride kept me away.  She’d really been the one to end it and I’ve never been one to go begging.

But I should have.  I know that now.

In the end she came back to me.  When her world shattered, along with the rest of humanity’s, she could only think of me. 

Fate brought us back together.  Or kismet.  Or God.  Give anything or anyone the credit – I don’t care.  I have her back.

Gem loves the shit outta me, and she would lay down her life to save mine or Trina’s, and of that I have no doubt whatsoever.  Hemp or Charlie, too.  I’m not even sure she wouldn’t do the same to save Bunsen or Slider.

And when our baby is born, mark him or her down for double the sacrifice if needed.

Gem’s weapon of choice is an Uzi 9mm.  She is damned proficient at it, too.  For a while she missed the hell out of her first Uzi – she lost that one, the one she’d named Suzi the Uzi – in a heated fight.  Well, let me announce that she’s gotten over it.  Her replacement is Uzi Q, and she just calls it Queenie.  She said it’s what she thinks of when she hears the letter Q.

It’s her business.  It seems to make her happy, and I never get between a woman and her gun.

Gem’s gained only about five pounds with the baby.  The morning sickness has passed now, and despite my awareness that it is a major cliché, the woman glows.  Her skin looks like pure cream, as smooth as silk.  There is nothing that is not sexy about her, and she turns me on like a switch.

Charlie is another story.  She’s in her late twenties, but looks as though she could be just of legal drinking age.  She’s got wavy blond hair and big, intense, brown eyes that when challenged, can burn through you.

When we found her, she was hiding in a hospital linen closet.  Hemp was back at my house, and Gem and I were out trying to find an EEG machine for him.  Along the way, we passed a zombie with an arrow through its eye socket.  Then we heard a door close, and eventually found Charlie, coiled inside. 

I’ll never forget the first words she said to us.

“What if I hurt
you
?”

It was classic Charlie.  She sat there in that closet, her crossbow trained on us.  Yeah, that’s right.  Her damned crossbow.  But the one she had back then was practically child’s play compared to her Parker.  Gem got one, too.  The Tornado is a hell of a weapon.

As for Charlie threatening us when we found her, hey, we couldn’t blame her; all people were doing was hurting people since the zombie bullshit all began, so who to trust?  We’re glad she trusted us, though.

So is Hemp.  He married her.

Speaking of which.  Through Hemp, our resident genius, we’ve uncovered many ways to stay safe and even ways to walk among the waking, walking dead.

Yep.  WAT-5.

It is a freaky feeling.  I can’t even put that shit into words.  Hell, you could wear a brand new tuxedo and douse yourself with Ralph Lauren Polo cologne, then walk right in the middle of these rank-smelling rotters and they wouldn’t give you a second sniff. 

Then you simply withdraw your 9mm from your drop holster worn over those tuxedo pants, and blow the fuckin’ brains out of the zombie to each side of you.

See, they can’t hear so well.  Seems their eyes ain’t all that bad, but their ears go to shit once the eardrums rot.  So no matter what George Romero tried to teach you about zombies, he never really dealt with a real one.

We have.  We do.  Pretty much every time we go out on a supply or a zombie run.

Yeah, we collect zombies to a degree.  They are necessary test subjects, and we often need to harvest their eye vapor.

Shit.  Didn’t I mention that again?  I really do need to start from the beginning again, but I’m not going to do it.  Instead, why don’t you just go back and read my first chronicle, then Gem’s, then Hemp and Charlie’s.  Then you’ll be caught up as hell.

I’m just here to introduce what’s been going on and where we are now.  This part of the story can’t be recounted by one person because too many things happened in too many places for anyone to be able to adequately cover it all.

So this time around, the voice telling our story will be, let’s say, all-seeing and all-knowing.  There
was
lots to see.  More to know.

Discovery.  That’s what this story is about.

And evolution.

Remember when I started telling you this story?  That wasn’t that long ago.  Remember what I said at the beginning of my chronicle?

It’s fucked up.

Well, we’re working on it, but it’s still fucked up.

Just not as much.  We’re beginning to get the feeling that someday we’ll have a countryside littered with the bones of the dead zombies, and a real life again.

More like the old west, but a life. 

Hey.  I’ll take the old west over this shit any day.

*****

Chapter One

January 24, 2013

The two families, of Flex, Gem and Trina, and Hemp, Charlie and Taylor still shared the corner house, and they enjoyed it, especially the girls.

Dave had taken Cynthia and Todd’s old house right on the opposite corner.  He was sharing it with Serena, whom he’d met in
Shelburne, Vermont, and his younger half-sister Lisa.

It was just after seven in the morning, and Flex was still upstairs dressing.  Gem worked on breakfast and lunches for the guys and Charlie.

“Mommy, this milk sucks,” said Trina, scrunching up her mouth.

“Oh, something new,” said Gem.  “Have we covered repetition in home school yet?”

Trina looked at Gem.  “You were never a real teacher were you, mommy?”

“I can teach
you
a few things,” she said, glaring back at her from the propane stove.  Gem used a small, two-burner stove to prepare breakfast, because while they had a full underground tank of propane, they saved it in case a real emergency came and they found a need to hole up for a while.

Today it was just fresh fried eggs, laid by the chickens they’d caught and penned.  It was like heaven, every time they cooked them.  Smelled like civilization to anyone who caught the scent. 

But Trina ate cereal with powdered milk, as usual.  No matter how cold and how thick Gem mixed it, it wasn’t the same.  Trina said it sucked every time.

Bunsen trotted in with Slider right behind her.  They both stopped by Trina.  Bunsen gave her a quick lick, glanced at the cereal in her bowl, then decided better of it.  She went by the back door and spread out on the floor.

Slider lowered his head to her bowl and took a big slurp, then chuffed and shook his head.

“I heard that,” said Gem, without turning her head, but with a smile on her face. “Slider, no!”

Trina laughed.  “See?  Even Slider thinks that powdered milk crap sucks!”

“It’s that or eat it dry.”

“I’m full, mommy.”

“Okay, leave it.  I’ll clear it away.  Go get
Tay up, would you?  And buzz Uncle Dave.  He’s going to help the guys with the lab supplies.”

Dave Gammon was one of the people they’d picked up at a church in
Alabama that had been overtaken by zombies.  Zombies that seemed to have a plan.  Disconcerting, to say the least.  Flex had found him inside an inner office of the church with some others.

There weren’t many people that Gem would say fit right in with them, but Gammon was one of them.  He and his sister had gone through some hard shit, but they’d come out stronger and closer for it.  Gem had taken Lisa under her wing to a point, trying to prepare her for their trip to
California.  She’d need all the defensive skills she could attain, and
that
Gem knew.

Trina pushed the button.  “Uncle Dave, come in.  Uncle Dave?”

A tired-sounding voice came on.  “Yeah, hey, is this Trina?”

“The only one,” said Trina.  Then, her hand over the radio, she whispered to Gem, “I am pretty much the only Trina around, huh?”

Gem smiled.  “The one and only.”

“Okay, I’m up,” said Dave, a yawn in his voice.

Gem turned.  “Radio, quick.”

Trina gave it to her.

“Hey, Dave?” asked Gem.

“Yeah.  Morning, Gem.”

“Hi.  You were going with the guys today, right?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, we’re getting breakfast going now, so if you want any eggs, better hurry.  I think they’re leaving in a half hour.”

“How you doing, Gem?”

“Awesome,” she said.  “I’d be better if I could go hunting.”

“Zombies or supplies?” asked Dave.

“Yes,” said Gem.  “Being pregnant can make a girl want to kill people under ordinary circumstances.  The cool part is we can actually do it.  Guilt-free.”

“They
are
already dead, Gem.”

“Exactly,” said Gem.  “Okay, later on, we’re taking the girls to the range for more firearms training, so if you guys get back and need us, that’s where we’ll be. 
Tay and Trini seem to like that after a day of home schooling.  Tell Lisa.  She told us she wants to be prepared, and it is pure preparation.  Plus I want to shoot Queenie and the new Tornado Charlie got me.”

“I know,” said Dave.  “That thing kicks ass.”

“Hurry,” said Gem.

She hung up and smiled. 

Trina smiled at her.  “What, mommy?  Did Uncle Dave say something funny?”

“Yeah.  As usual.”

Trina frowned.  “Was it an awkward moment joke?  I don’t understand half of ‘em,” she said.

“Make that two of us,” said Gem, smiling again. 

Gem was going to miss Dave when he left.  Not to mention Lisa.  And while Gem had no idea whether Serena Castaneda had committed to go with them yet, it was pretty clear she was attached to Dave.  She was awesome, and reminded Gem of herself with regard to her determination and fighting spirit.  Concord would seem emptier without them.

There was some uncle of Dave’s and Lisa’s in
California they were going to try to track down if he was still alive.  Dave said he’d be a legend by now, so he shouldn’t be that hard to find if he did live through the zombie apocalypse. 

Gem’s mind went back to the day ahead.  She’d already decided – but hadn’t told Trina yet – that they would skip home school today and get straight to shooting.

She and Charlie had been holding a bunch of regular trainings at the range, and surprisingly, there were more women and kids in them than men.  The crew of kids that came, led by Jimmy Dickson, were not allowed the use of crossbows or anything larger than a .22 caliber rifle.  They had to prove proficiency in shooting, and their final test before being issued the firearm was that they could hit the bulls eye eight out of ten shots.  All but one of them, Paul Whitman, whose parents had died in the most horrific way, had already achieved it, but continued coming to the range to grow their skills further.

There was some scuttlebullshit about Trina being able to shoot other than .22 caliber weapons, but she could outshoot them all at this point, and in a police-style course where you had to choose whether or not to shoot, depending upon whether it was a good guy or a bad guy, she was perfect.  Seems her little mind worked fast, and she had become a crack shot. 

Hemp had to modify the trigger pull for her on a Ruger 9mm, but she could empty the magazine without a missed shot.   Loading it was another story.  Her little fingers weren’t strong enough to push more than four rounds into the magazine, so she relied on the adults to provide her with full mags.  She had no issue ejecting and slamming a new one in.

Hell, it was like she was a damned child shooting prodigy or something.  Gem was a proud mama, but the jealousy that was intrinsic to the seven-year-old being grandfathered in, remained. 

Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.  That was Gem’s philosophy.  She’d never forget the day when Flex and Hemp were surrounded in the woods and Trina failed to hold her own in her own zombie fight.

That would not happen again.  Not on mommy’s watch.  Her little Trina would be like steel next time.

After all, there was no guarantee they’d always be in a place like Concord.  The weather sucked ass, and while not as bad as some spots, it was no Miami.  No Georgia.

Hell, Gem thought.  I could cut diamonds with these nipples some days.  She wasn’t sure how long she could deal with it, especially after the warmth of the baby inside her was no longer keeping her toasty.

“So what the hell is that?” a voice said.  Flex appeared around the corner.

“What the hell is what?”

Flex walked in wearing jeans and black sweatshirt.  He stretched, throwing his arms out to the sides and arching his back.  Gem took the cue and slipped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck.

“Mmm,” she moaned.  “You smell good.”

“That’s just me,” said Flex.

“Bullshit!” said Trina.  “That’s Marco Polo.”

“Guilty!” said Flex, smiling.  He leaned over and kissed Trina’s pursed lips.  “But it’s just Polo.” 

He turned to Gem.  “How’s my girl this morning?”

“She’s pregnant,” said Trina.  “But I’m good.”

Flex laughed.  “Damn, you’re funny for a little munchkin.”

“The Yellow Brick Road!” shouted Trina.

“It’s The Wizard of Oz,” said Gem. 

“Can we?”

“No, we can’t watch it now, baby,” said Gem.  “We’re skipping school and going to the range.”

“Yippee!” she screamed, and jumped out of her chair.

“Yippee what?” said
Taylor, coming around the corner, Charlie and Hemp trailing behind her.

“We’re goin’ shooting!” she said.  “No school!”

“Cool!” said Taylor, a smile spreading over her tired face.

“Bad teacher,” said Charlie.  “Very bad.  I can’t wait.”

“I don’t know,” said Hemp, shaking his head.  “I am a great believer in education.”  He looked at Gem.  “How is Taylor going to become a great scientist?”

“I’m going to learn all that stuff from you,” said
Taylor, hugging Hemp.

“Jesus,
Tay,” said Gem.  “You have really learned how to work him, haven’t you?”

“I am
not
sure what you mean by that,” said Taylor, smiling.  “I’m not sure I want to be a scientist anyway.”

Hemp and Charlie sat at the table, and
Taylor sat in the chair beside Charlie.

“I’m not that hungry this morning, but damn those eggs smell good,” said Charlie.  “Thanks for cooking, Gem.”

“You can fit a couple in,” said Gem.  “Need ‘em for the little bundle.”

“Forget what I said,” said Charlie.  “The minute it was out of my mouth I realized it was bullshit.  Put me down for three.”

“What I’d give for a fucking cheese omelet,” said Hemp.

Gem turned, put her hands on her hips, and smiled.

Hemp looked at her and smiled back.

“What?”

“I’ve got a surprise,” said Gem.  She held up a can.

“Cheese?” asked Charlie.  “No shit.”

“Canned cheese.  I have no idea what it tastes like.  It’s called Bega Cheese.  Supposed to taste like cheddar.”

“I’m in,” said Flex.  “One three-egg cheese omelet.”

“Comin’ up,” said Gem.  “I take it I’m making four?”

“If you’re having one,” said Charlie.  “Awesome.”

Gem pulled out the biggest pan they had that would still fit on the burners, and made one giant omelet using a dozen eggs.  Taylor sat picking at her cereal, and Trina had put Charlie’s MP3 player on her ears, and was currently jamming to something that Gem knew was probably punk-rocky or metal.  It was impossible to tell with Trina’s young rhythm.  She wasn’t quite one with musical timing yet.

“I’m excited to go shooting,” said Charlie.  “I want to dial in that Parker.”

“My bow’s coming, too,” said Gem.  She’d wanted to get as proficient as Charlie was for a long while, but they’d been so busy settling in over the last couple of months that it just hadn’t been in the cards.

“By the way, this isn’t an announced training,” said Gem.  “It’s just gonna be us four girls today.”

“Cool beans!” said Taylor.  “Four girls and their guns.”

Charlie shook her head, smiling.  She took a big bite of her omelet, and with a big piece hanging out of her mouth, said in Taylor’s face, “You sure you’re not my kid?”

Taylor laughed and leaned forward and bit the egg out of Charlie’s mouth.  Everyone else got a laugh too and to a number, they cherished those moments when the girls could just be kids.

They were all relieved to see that
Taylor was adapting so well, so soon after her mother’s death.  They’d had a very nice memorial for Todd and Cynthia, and Taylor had cried, but by the time the town had settled enough to have the service, nearly two weeks had passed.  She’d begun to cling to Charlie, and Gem was glad.  There was no better, no stronger role model. 

And Charlie loved the shit out of that kid.  Gem could see it in her eyes every time she looked at
Taylor.

“I need a strong male, and a female in good condition,” said Hemp, reaching into his pocket.  He put a wafer in front of himself and Flex.  “Eat up, friend.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” said Flex.  “But I hate the sleepy part.”

Hemp looked at his watch.  “Sooner we wake up, the sooner we go.”

“Hold on,” said Flex.  He pulled the radio from his belt.  “Dave, you there?”

“Yep.  Just finishing breakfast.”

“What are you having?”

“Pop tarts.”

“Pop tarts!” screamed Taylor and Trina together.

It was fucking ear-piercing.