The Hunger (Book 1): Devoured (17 page)

The infected woman was less than three feet away, hands reaching for her next meal.

“Fuck you.” Lance watched as she moved in, focusing on her veined face, ignoring the movement of the others behind her.

Her head detached from her shoulders, flying sideways and bouncing into the pile of trash.

Lance blinked. Confusion, exasperation, and pure joy mixing into a unique emotion that he couldn’t have described if he wanted to.

The body stood in place for a moment, the fingers still curling in grasping motions. It crumpled then, falling straight down in a jangle of limbs. Blood spurted from its neck, soaking a section of the brick wall.

A blonde-haired woman stood beyond the collapsed body of the infected.

She held a two-sided axe, similar to the kind seen on the covers of medieval books and video games. Gore and blood dripped from the blade.

A black leather skirt covered half of her thighs. Her exposed midriff, visible because of a torn, gray shirt, had a small tattoo just under her belly button. Thick, dark bracelets wrapped both wrists. She had at least a dozen earrings in.

Lance blinked again.

“Get up, dumbass,” she said, looking back over her shoulder. “I can hear more of them coming.”

Lance opened his mouth to reply when a shriek from the street cut him off. He rolled onto his shoulder and tried to get his feet under him, but the garbage he lay on hindered his movements.

“I can’t.”

She turned back to him. “Why?” Her makeup-lined eyes squinted. “Are you bit?”

“No, I’m tied up.”

“What?” She looked down the alley again.

“I’m tied up. Help me get on my feet.” Lance noticed the open door behind her for the first time. It was the same one he’d tried to kick in.

The woman stepped beside him, axe held in front of her. “Just because I saved your life, doesn’t mean I’ll hesitate to cut your head off if you fuck with me.”

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Don’t say anything, just move.” She grabbed the top of the tape running around his shoulders and pulled, giving him enough momentum to get to his knees.

Lance stood up, seeing the dead bodies of the two infected men a few feet away. A long, gruesome gash split the shoulder and neck of one, running halfway into its chest cavity. The other had a twist in the abdomen, the hips turned to an unnatural angle, as if the spine and stomach muscles no longer held things in place.

“Jesus.” He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t heard her killing them while he thrashed around in the garbage.

The blonde-haired woman moved to the door in a hurry, standing by it and waving him to follow her. “Hurry the hell up.”

Lance didn’t need a written invitation.

They stepped into a dimly lit hallway. A film covered the walls and ceiling, like a heavy smoker’s house that never had a good cleaning.

The woman closed the door behind them, jamming a 2x4 into metal brackets on either side of the frame.

“That explains why I couldn’t kick it open,” Lance said.

“Shut up and move.”

––––––––

T
he sparse hallway led into a broad, cluttered room.

Tubes and vials and glass beakers sat atop wide tables, interconnected in a maze of home chemistry.

The place stunk. Soot covered most of the surfaces.

“Christ, you’re a meth dealer.” Lance stared at the chemistry equipment. He’d only seen this kind of setup on Breaking Bad.

“Keep walking, dickhead.”

“Considering you just saved me from being eaten alive, you aren’t very nice.”

“If you want this axe jammed up your ass, then by all means, keep yapping.”

The woman marched him past the makeshift lab and into an equally dirty living room. A torn couch rested against the far wall with a kitchen chair beside it. Xbox controllers sat atop a scuffed coffee table. A large, flat-screen television was on the floor opposite the furniture, cables snaking around it in a wire mess from hell.

“Sit on the couch.”

“I’ll get AIDS if I go anywhere near that thing.” Lance eyed a large tear in the cushion. Stuffing, discolored from god-knows-what, puffed out of the gash.

She push kicked him in the ass, sending him sprawling face first into the couch. Dust puffed up, filling his nostrils and dusting his skin. He coughed, shaking his head like a dog trying to shed water from its fur.

“Who are you?” the woman asked from behind him.

Lance managed to turn around, sliding into a seated position with a grimace. “You didn’t need to do that.”

She stood in front of him, raising the large axe up and down, letting the handle near the blade smack against her palm.

“I’m Lance.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything.”

“What do you want to know, my social security number?”

“Why don’t we start with why you’re tied up?”

“If I tell you, will you cut me free?”

“Probably not.”

Lance sighed, letting his head lean back against the rear cushion before snapping it away when he felt the grody surface against his neck. “I was staying in a small Italian restaurant down the road when a couple of guys broke in and tied me up. They were arguing over whether or not to kill me when a couple of the infected broke in. I ran out while they were busy fighting.”

She continued staring at him.

“I didn’t get far, obviously, because I can’t use my arms. A few of those things were in the street so I ran into the alley to get away. I didn’t know it had a damn fence in the middle of it. They cornered me and that’s when you came to my rescue. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Some guys tied you up and
then
argued about whether they should kill you? That doesn’t make sense.”

“They were crazy. Said they were part of some militia that’s going around and killing anyone who is sick. Their leader was trying to make some kind of bizarre point to a teenager, forcing him to decide whether I lived or died.”

“And then you decided to lead them to my door. I had a pretty good spot picked out, but now they know where I am.”

Lance inspected the room. “You call this a good spot? You’re living in a meth lab.”

“No, I’m living in a hidden, secure space.” She sat down on the chair, resting the axe on her lap, wiping the blade with a filthy, crumpled paper towel that languished on the floor. “You can’t be completely useless, I guess. You have managed to survive this long after all.”

“Uh, thanks?” Lance wondered what direction this conversation was headed. The last people he’d met decided that he needed to go. He hoped she wouldn’t come to the same conclusion. Her concern and distrust made sense, given the present nightmare the world found itself in, but he hoped that she wouldn’t throw him outside again.

She sat in silence for a while, cleaning the axe and tossing the bloodied paper towel into the corner. “Lance, I’m going to be honest. I’m wrestling with the idea of cutting you loose. Are you some kind of psycho rapist?”

“No.”

“If you try anything, Betsy here will be very upset.” She patted the double-edged axe like she would a pet.

“Betsy? You named an axe?”

The woman stood, went back to the room with the chemistry set, and scrounged through a dresser on the far side. She came back a moment later with a small knife.

Lance focused on keeping his breathing steady as she stepped in front of him, holding the knife in front his face.

“Keep something in mind while I cut you free: I killed all three of those Vladdies out there without breaking a sweat. I won’t even feel bad about having to kill you.”

Never taking his eyes from the blade, Lance nodded. “You have my word.”

She leaned her axe against the wall, telling him to stand up and turn around. After he complied, she cut the bottom of the tape and worked her way up. The edge of the knife cut through his binds with relative ease.

Blood rushed into Lance’s hands, stinging his flesh like a thousand needles. She stepped away from him when she cut through the last loop of tape and picked the axe up again. Her suspicious look made Lance feel guilty, though he hadn’t done anything to her.

“Thanks,” he mumbled. He struggled to move his arms away from his sides, the adhesive still sticking to his shirt and skin. Hair pulled from the roots of his forearms as he tore pieces of tape off. Following her lead, he threw the waste into the corner, thinking that it didn’t make the place look any worse.

He turned back to her, rubbing his sore arms and hands, shaking them out as he tried to get his blood flowing again.

She leaned against the wall, weapon held at the ready in front of her.

Lance pointed at it. “Where the hell did you get that thing? It’s straight out of Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Found it back there in another room.” She bobbed her head toward a door by the television.

“You found Paul Bunyan’s axe in a meth lab?”

“Drug dealers are crazy, what can I say?” She sat on the arm of the couch, giving the appearance that she was relaxing. Lance could see from the thin line formed by her lips and ramrod straightness of her back that she was anything but.

Lance followed her lead, sitting in the chair. He felt relatively at ease in her presence, though he knew that was stupid considering what he’d just gone through with the goons at the restaurant. “What’s your name?”

She didn’t respond.

“Should I just call you Blondie then?”

“Cassandra.”

“Nice to meet you, Cassandra.”

“No it isn’t. The world has gone to hell in a hand basket, I just beheaded an ill woman, and we’re locked in a meth lab. This is anything but nice.”

Lance laughed in spite of himself. “You said that you killed gladdies—why do you call them that?”

“Vladdies. What the hell sense does ‘gladdies’ make?”

“About as much as Vladdies.”

Cassandra lowered the head of the axe to the floor and rested it against her leg. She pulled a small rubber band from her hair, letting the blonde strands fall to her shoulders. “I call them Vladdies because of Vlad the Impaler.”

Lance scratched his head. “Have you been testing the meth? You aren’t sounding so rational right now.”

“Vlad the Impaler is the man Dracula is based off of.”

“You’ve definitely been smoking some good shit. You’ve gone completely off the rails.”

She ran a hand through her hair, fluffing it a bit. Lance noticed for the first time how attractive she was. Her arms and stomach were toned, her skin tan. Her hair was so bright that he thought she might have colored it. The style of her clothing and accessories left something to be desired though.

He averted his eyes before she could notice him checking her out.

“This isn’t an advanced physics problem,” she said. “Those things out there are vampires. Dracula was the first vampire in fiction and he was based on Vlad the Impaler. Vladdies.”

“Wait a minute.
Vampires
?” Lance looked her over again, thinking he’d fallen in with another lunatic. She carried around an axe, believing she was a vampire slayer of some kind. “You can’t be serious.”

She held up her hand, fingers splayed. “They hate light.” She curled one of her fingers to her palm, leaving four remaining. “They drink blood and eat flesh.” Another finger down. “They’re fast as shit and strong as an ox. If you’re bitten, you turn into one of them.” She paused with only her pinky finger still in the air. “OK, that’s all I have, but you get the point.”

“You actually think these are some kind of mythical creatures? The CDC thinks it’s a prion disease. I was in the hospital when all of this fell apart and I heard it right from the horse’s mouth. This was a terrorist attack that’s spreading a plague. They aren’t vampires.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes and smacked her forehead with her palm. “No shit, Sherlock. I don’t think Bela Lugosi is stalking the streets in a fucking cape. Who says vampirism has to be supernatural?”

“I—” Lance stopped himself. She had a point. Even if they weren’t vampires in the tradition sense, the description did sort of fit. Kinda.

“See what I mean? Vladdies.”

“I’ve just been thinking of them as infected.”

“Infected? Nah, that’s what zombies are called. Vladdies.” She nodded as if she’d just finalized the discussion.

Lance said, “Vladdies it is, I guess.” He pointed at her axe again. “So, do you think you’re Blade? You’re running around and killing vampires with a big axe. It’s actually kind of ridiculous to say it out loud.”

“I’m a blonde woman, not Wesley Snipes. Besides, I couldn’t do a karate kick to save my life.”

“You’re pretty good with the axe though.”

“I grew up in the country. Chopping wood for fires was what I used to call Thursday night.”

Lance looked at her short, leather skirt, tattooed stomach, torn shirt, and over-the-top bracelet things. “You grew up in the country?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She dismissed him with a wave. “I have a unique style. I don’t usually wear a shirt like this, but I tore it climbing through a window yesterday and haven’t found a new one yet.”

“It’s unique alright.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t need to take shit about my clothing anymore. Fashion and culture are shitsville, amigo.”

She had another point. Besides, why was he complaining when he had an attractive, half-naked woman in front of him?

“So what’s your deal, Cassie?”

“Don’t call me Cassie. I hate girly shit.”

“Cassie is girlie shit?” The angry wrinkles in her eyebrow told him it was. “Cass then?”

“Fine. Anything but Cassie. And what do you mean, what’s my deal? I’m living like a rat and trying to stay alive, just like everyone else.”

“I haven’t talked to anyone in days, so I guess I’m just looking for a little conversation. Unless you’re planning on booting me out the door, we might be in here together for a bit.”

Cass shrugged. “I’m an Aries, I like to read, I’m a failed artist, and I had to kill my best friend two days ago.”

“Oh.” Lance knew that everyone who was still alive probably had similar details in their short-term history, but hearing it put like that made him feel sorry for her anyway. He hadn’t killed anyone close to him, but his wife ran out with an old friend just as the apocalypse hit.