The Hunger (Book 1): Devoured (13 page)

Turning the television back on, Lance lowered the volume to barely above a whisper. He stood three feet from the screen, staring at the warfare displayed.

Tanks fired at a shopping mall in Boston. The front of a JC Penney exploded outward, showering the parking lot with debris.

Apaches fired rockets into the entrance of a subway station in Washington D.C.

Hundreds of the infected stormed down a street in Cincinatti, gunfire cutting them down as they plowed forward. They jumped off the sides of buildings and lunged from the hoods of cars. A line of soldiers waited for them at the base of a suspension bridge, loosing bullets at a maniacal pace.

The beasts hit them like a tidal wave. One moment the soldiers bravely stood their ground—the next they were torn to shreds on national television.

The camera cut to the studio, the newscaster sitting behind a desk, mouth agape.

“
Matt! You’re on!
” The voice came from off camera.

Matt snapped to, shuffling papers in front of him. An Alfalfa spike stuck out from the crown of his head. “
Uhh—
” He looked off to his right, holding his arms out, palms up. “
I don’t know what to say! This is fucking crazy!
”

Lance could relate.

Matt ran his hands through his hair. “
We’re looking at... devastation. The sick that we were told had died during the day have reappeared. They’re attacking randomly... consuming everything in sight. I implore you to stay indoors, turn your lights off, and pray. The military is currently engaging them across the nation and—
”

A shriek came through the TV.

Matt recoiled, his hands jerking up, the papers flittering through the air. “
The hell was that?
”

Someone screamed off camera and Matt stood from his chair, his head snapping around as if on a swivel.

A blur of muscle and claw flashed from the left side of the screen, pouncing on Matt and knocking him behind the desk. Lance couldn’t see what it did it to him, but the screams and arterial spray coming from the other side of the dark mahogany left little to the imagination.

People ran past the camera, casting glances over their shoulders as something devoured their co-worker a few feet away. No one tried to help him.

Lance changed the channel.

The camera pointed at an empty set on MSNBC.

C-SPAN ran footage of a massive battle in San Diego. A tank rambled down a street, rolling over the hood of a car as it headed toward the frontline, tracks sliding on the concrete. It fired into a group of the infected standing by a water fountain. Red mist sprayed through the air.

Transfixed by the strife, Lance stood in front of the TV, unable to decide what to do next. He didn’t dare leave his apartment, but he also felt like a sitting duck by staying there. If anything came through the window, it would be game over.

Needing to do something, he lit a candle and went into the kitchen, refusing to use any lights, fearing that something outside might notice. He checked the cupboards again, hoping that he’d missed some food in the back, but came away disappointed. If fear didn’t drive him from the apartment, hunger would in due time.

If his theory was right and the infected didn’t like light, he might be able to go somewhere during the day. Maybe he could find a more secure location and stock it with supplies.

Maybe a pig would fly out of his ass too.

He knew what would happen tomorrow. Those who survived the darkness would turn on each other, diving headlong into an every-man-for-himself mentality. The day would mimic the violence of the night.

The freshly infected would roam the streets as well, their skin still thick, their minds not completely broken.

Guns, water, and food would become the new forms of currency and security.

Unfortunately for Lance, he had none of the above.

He tried to call some of his old friends from college and past jobs, wanting to speak with someone he knew on a personal level, knowing this might be his last chance. He even dialed Liz’s number, but didn’t get an answer. Everyone was busy trying to survive.

Or they were already dead.

A series of the ear-piercing shrieks came from the floor above him, making him flinch. He changed his mind, deciding that talking on the phone would be too loud. Those things looked strong enough to tear through the damned floor and get him.

Lance grabbed his laptop and went back to the recliner, fighting the urge to peek outside again. He spent the next hour typing a long, heartfelt email to everyone he could think of. His thoughts, desires, and regrets poured out in an avalanche of emotion. Apologies to those he’d done wrong or fallen out of contact with.

He typed a fond story about one of the first dates he took Liz on. They decided to give ice-skating a try, even though neither had ever done it before. Liz twisted her ankle and Lance bruised his tailbone. Despite the pain they suffered through as they left, their smiles and laughter pushed them closer together and they hadn’t parted since.

Until recently, anyway.

He included her and many of her relatives, asshole parents included, in the recipients’ list. If his dying breath rapidly approached, then he needed to get everything off his chest.

Wanting someone, anyone, to understand what drove him to the man he became. He needed his acquaintances to understand that he regretted the things he never accomplished.

Liz should know that he didn’t blame her for the collapse of their marriage. He was still furious over the Don situation, but he left that out of the email.

Once he got going, the words flew across the screen, his thoughts pouring out in a cathartic stream. When he finally hit send, he felt lighter, less frightened.

Whether or not anyone would ever read it, he didn’t know. That didn’t matter though. Everything he’d thought of himself, his friends, and his family finally came out in semi-coherence.

He closed the laptop and reclined again, lacing his fingers behind his head, content.

That wasn’t to discount his fear of a painful death in the night. The thought of it loomed over his head.

He closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep. After a few minutes, he gave up and went back to the window, making sure to turn off the television again.

The fire from the gas station still burned, though it had diminished significantly. No one milled about in the street. They were either hiding, or dead.

He spotted a few of the infected as they dashed past lights, or illuminated windows. They often reacted to sounds, converging on the source of a scream or a pistol shot. Lance watched their movements, seeing how disorganized and aggressive they were. Fast and feral.

He had no chance of fighting them off.

When the sun came up, he would leave his apartment and never return. Staying there only delayed the inevitable.

Taping up the window yet again, Lance decided to watch the world burn on live TV.

––––––––

T
he night passed with agonizing sluggishness.

Lance stood by the window as the first rays of sunlight crested the skyscrapers.

He observed the infected slink into shadows, retreating to unknown locations, hidden away from the sun.

His backpack hung from his shoulders, the kitchen knife clutched in his hand. The pain in his side had ebbed through the past few restful days. His foot ached when he used it, but there was little he could do about that now.

After removing his homemade door barricade, he peered into the hallway, making sure no surprises awaited him. He slipped out, starting to lock the door behind him before realizing that he didn’t need to because he would never return.

Every door in the hallway was closed and locked, save the last one on the left. Lance eased it open and immediately jerked his head away, fighting back a retch. Across the apartment, a window was smashed in, glass littering the carpet. A body rested on the floor in a crimson puddle. Most of the flesh and muscle were torn away, glistening white bone exposed.

So much of the torso and head were missing that Lance couldn’t tell if it had been a man or a woman. The idea of going inside and ransacking the place to look for a gun or food made him queasy.

He moved on, taking the stairs down to the next floor. None of the doors opened.

Success finally came on the first floor. Lance stepped into an apartment that was palatial compared to his. Granite counter tops, stainless-steel appliances, and a multitude of bedrooms filled out the space. LED TVs hung from walls beside watercolor paintings.

Lance went straight to the master bedroom and rooted through the closet, looking for a gun. Finding nothing, he dumped the dresser drawers on the floor. He grinned at the vibrator that spilled on the plush carpet. The corners of his mouth turned south when he didn’t find a pistol anywhere.

Though he knew better than to waste precious time, he stopped to look at the pictures hanging on the walls. Most of the images framed a family of four. Lance walked away before he started to feel guilty for ransacking their home. He grabbed bottles of water from the fridge, jamming them in his bag.

A meat clever in the utensil drawer replaced the flimsy knife he already had.

The front door of the building was propped open, a cool breeze blowing through. The wind carried the stench of death.

Lance stepped into the bright street, squinting against the glare from the sun. He stood at the top of the stairs leading to the sidewalk, waiting for his eyes to adjust. From the window of his living room, he’d seen what remained from the chaos of the night, but being in it, standing in front of bloody streaks and overturned cars, made it more real.

He maneuvered through a real life version of Dawn of the Dead.

Dabbles and splotches of blood coated the stairs, like a human bomb detonated there during the night. Though he’d seen many people die last night, Lance didn’t see a body for quite a while. Did the infected take the carcasses with them? Store them like leftovers for a meal during the day?

A few people poked their heads out of windows and doors, looking up and down the street, fear etched into their exhausted faces.

Lance walked across the street to the building adjacent to his own. The locked front door barely slowed him down as he smashed the glass portion of it out with a brick. He thought back to the man with the shotgun who’d been killed last night, and mentally counted how many flights up he had been.

“Four, I think,” Lance mumbled to himself.

This building, slightly nicer than his own, had an elevator, which he took to the fourth floor. Blood streaked the walls and worn carpet, the place looking closer to the hallway of a slaughterhouse than an apartment building. The blood-saturated floor squished under his shoes as he sneaked toward the end of the hall, knowing the man’s place had a window that faced the street.

An open frame stood without a door, pieces of wood and bent hinges hanging along the left side. The door, smashed inward, rested on the floor of the apartment.

Lance hesitated at the entrance, wondering if the cannibalistic mutant might be hiding inside somewhere. A windowless bathroom might be dark enough to keep it from wandering too far from such a great source of meat. There could be dozens to hundreds of people still left inside the building.

His fingers blanched as they tightened around the handle of the cleaver. Sweat stung his eyes, though the temperature hadn’t risen above seventy yet. Tiptoeing around the door, wincing at the pain in his foot, Lance entered.

The place smelled of old pennies.

A woman’s body, pale and stiff, sat on the floor, resting against cherry cabinets. Thick blood soaked through her shirt, having run from a gaping wound in her neck. Her eyes were round ovals of shock and pain.

The living room had a heavy stain on the carpet, lines of scarlet on the walls and ceiling. Small chunks of flesh rested against the front of a couch, but the man’s body was gone. A trail of blood ran up the wall and out of the shattered window.

Christ, they’re strong.

The shotgun lay on the floor against trim that used to be white. Lance maneuvered around the majority of the gore and grabbed the gun, wiping away drying smears of bodily fluids.

He worked the slide until he emptied the shotgun, counting four shells on the floor. After reloading, he searched the rest of the living room, looking for more ammo. He found two boxes in the master bedroom and stuffed them into his rapidly filling backpack.

The top shelf of the mirrored closet held small bottles of protein shakes and three boxes of energy bars. He took those too, having to throw out a couple pairs of underwear and socks in exchange. After drinking down one of the shakes, he tossed the empty carton back into the closet and went to the bathroom. Some extra bandages and a tube of Neosporin found their way into his bag.

Lance said a small prayer in front of the dead woman before leaving the apartment.

Holding the shotgun in his left hand gave him a sense of security he hadn’t felt since leaving the hospital. If a group of those things came upon him, he knew that he wouldn’t stand a chance, but he felt reasonably sure he could deal with one. Maybe two if he got lucky.

A few people walked down the street when Lance exited the building. Most of them looked bewildered, walking in random directions, scrounging through flipped cars and discarded purses. Some were aggressive, running down the sidewalks, swinging pistols around and shouting for everyone to stay away from them.

A freshly infected man shambled down the center of the street, muttering about how thirsty and hungry he was. Lance steered clear of him, making sure to head in the opposite direction.

Traffic clogged the streets, empty cars stretching across lines and sidewalks. An entire intersection ran red. Lance thanked whoever was listening that he hadn’t been around to see this massacre.

Two motorcycles roared up the cluttered sidewalks, slowing when they hit the traffic jam, working their way through before thundering away. They made incredible progress, and Lance liked the idea of using a bike, but he wondered how far they would get. And what happened if they were in an accident? Good luck finding a doctor to fix your broken leg.