The Hunger (Book 1): Devoured (18 page)

“Yeah. Shit happens when the world ends, I guess.”

“I take it your friend was sick?”

“She was my roommate, and yeah, she caught the Xavier virus. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Cass grabbed a handful of her long hair and inspected it. She grabbed the knife from the floor and starting cutting chunks out of her hair.

“Uh, what the hell are you doing?” Lance asked, stunned. He considered trying to stop her, but he didn’t want to take an axe to the face.

“Like I said, fashion and culture are gone now. There’s no reason for me to have long hair because it looks good or it makes guys want to fuck me. Now it just gets in the way when I’m trying to run or save some dumbass in an alley.”

“Dumbass?”

“Yeah. You’re a dumbass to me until you prove otherwise. Being wrapped in tape and lying in a pile of trash while Vladdies are about to chow down on your legs makes you a dumbass.”

And Cass scores another point.

“Fine. I’ll concede that I wasn’t in the best of positions when you came by.
But
I have managed to stay alive until now so that has to count for something. You said so yourself.” He watched as she continued butchering her hair, hoping his wit would elicit a smile or a giggle.

It didn’t.

Concern over her state of mind lingered with Lance. He’d never encountered a woman who would purposefully chop off all of her hair. Liz obsessed over hers.

“And I’ll go on record to say that I never wanted to have sex with a girl because of her hair.”

She sliced another handful away, dropping it to the floor. “Please. Blonde hair is a homing beacon for guys. They see it and coming running like the dogs that you are.”

Lance stayed quiet for a bit, not wanting to argue with her about the merits of men while she carved large chunks from her hair. Her comment about men being dogs made him wonder who had screwed her over in the past. Then again, who was he to try to figure out someone else’s life? His was nothing short of a disaster.

She finished what could loosely be described as a haircut, and looked at her reflection in the blade of the knife.

“That’s better.” She dropped the knife onto the large pile of hair and leaned back in her seat.

“It, uh, doesn’t look so good.” He stared at the uneven, gouged appearance around her head. All of the front strands stopped above her eye line. Some were only an inch long, while others on the back or sides were close to four.

“Who gives a shit? It’s not like I have to impress anyone at the gym anymore.”

Though she made him more than a little nervous, Lance liked her attitude and view of things. She came across as a no-nonsense kind of woman. Still, he decided not to push about the hair or the comments about his sex.

“So why did you come out and save me? That was a big risk.”

“To be honest, I almost didn’t. I heard you kick it or run in to it, but I thought about just staying inside and ignoring you.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Guilty conscience? I don’t know. Just seemed like the right thing to do. You should feel privileged by the way. I’ve heard worse things happening to people in the past week and I never went out for them.”

“Thanks, honestly.” Lance leaned back and peered through the doorway by the TV. “What’s back there? Other than a weird armory with crazy axes. Any food?”

Cass stood up, axe in hand. “Let’s go. You walk in front though. I haven’t decided to fully trust you yet.”

Lance stood and crossed the room, looking through the door. Another dim hall extended away from it with three doors on either side and one at the opposite end.

“Go to the door on the right,” Cass said.

He eased it open a moment later, wincing at the chemical odor that came from inside. After fumbling around the wall for the light switch, Lance stared at unmarked barrels and boxes upon boxes of lab equipment.

“Jesus. You don’t know who lived here?”

“Nope. I came running down the alley, looking for a place to stay at dusk last night and found the door unlocked. No one’s come back since.”

Jugs marked paint thinner lined one of the walls, each with a nozzle built into the container.

“This is a major operation,” Lance said. “If someone comes looking for it, they’re probably going to be armed to the teeth.”

“Anyone who would cook meth at a time like this is a moron. Those things have a hell of a sense of smell.”

Lance remembered the thing at the hospital sniffing as he approached it from behind. “I’ve noticed.”

They went to the room on the other side of the hall and opened the door. A bedroom, filthy and ragged as the rest, lay beyond. Twin beds, both without sheets, sat in the middle of the room. Dark stains ruined the carpets. Yet another door led to a small bathroom in the back right corner.

A pistol rested atop a thoroughly scratched dresser.

“Don’t even think about it,” Cass said. “The pistol stays right there.”

“Shouldn’t we move it to the front of the apartment, in case someone comes back?” A wave of relief ran through Lance at the sight of the gun. Nothing was more valuable anymore.

“Don’t worry about it. Go further inside.”

A chest resided next to the farthest bed, hidden by the height of the mattress. At Cass’ request, Lance opened it, whistling at what lay inside.

“Who the hell were these guys?”

Machetes and long knives with curving blades filled the chest. Sheathes and belts wrapped around some. The handle of a katana was visible at the bottom, the business end hidden under the mound of weapons.

“I have no idea, but they had some crazy shit in this apartment.”

Lance reached for a leather harness of some kind when he felt Cass nudge his shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to see what this leather thing is.”

“Slowly.”

“You need to relax. If I wanted to make a play for a weapon, it would have been the pistol.” He pulled the object out, holding it in front of him. It had long straps with a few buckles and clasps for adjusting the lengths. A sheath-like harness had a large opening at the top, with a small one on the bottom. A flap of leather with a snap on it could cover the upper hole, keeping whatever was inside from spilling out.

“I think this is a harness for that axe.” He held it up to the blade, making sure the weapon would fit. “Yeah, this is so you can carry it around on your back.”

She took it from him. “Interesting. Nice find, dumbass.”

Lance ignored her snide comment. “Who makes this kind of shit? I mean, honestly, who would walk around with an axe on their back?”

“I’m going to from now on.”

They went into the last room at the end of the hall. It was a kitchen, barely. Filthy counters and appliances made the room impossible to eat or prepare food in. A refrigerator hummed in the corner. The entire room reeked of spoiled dairy.

Lance said, “I take it there isn’t any food in here?”

“Some leftover boxes of Chinese food that appear to be from the turn of the century.”

“Is that what the smell is?”

“Yup.”

“So why did you just give me this tour if I’m not allowed to touch the weapons and there isn’t anything to eat?”

“Because we’re going to setup some ground rules and I wanted you to see what we have to work with.” She gestured toward the door with her axe. “Let’s go back to the living room.”

“Ground rules? Maybe the first one should be to stop threatening me with decapitation.”

“Maybe dumbasses aren’t allowed to make requests.”

––––––––

L
ance found a sheet of plastic in the meth lab and spread it over the couch.

The cover was anything but comfortable, though it kept him from shivering in disgust every few minutes. Cass sat in the chair and watched him.

“Better now, princess?” she asked.

“Much. Thanks for the concern.”

“OK, rule number one is stay the hell away from me. I’ll sleep in the bedroom with the weapons and you’ll stay on the couch. If I hear you anywhere near the hallway or the door to my room, you’re toast.”

“What if I have to piss?”

“Go in a container in the lab for all I care.”

Lance smiled. Cass might be crazy, he hadn’t decided on that topic yet, but she sure was interesting.

“I’m not joking,” she said. “Don’t go back there.”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s rule number two?”

“Follow rule number one.”

“That’s it?”

“Yup.”

Lance shook his head, still smiling. “You’re a weirdo. So what do we do about food? Unless you’re a cannibal, we’re both going to get really hungry in the morning.”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“So there isn’t some master plan you’re working from?”

“I’m thinking about one, but it isn’t finished yet. The first step of the plan, though, is not getting taped up and eaten in an alley like a dumbass.”

Lance grunted. “Does that TV work?”

“Dunno.”

“Wait a minute here. You broke into this place yesterday, but you haven’t actually found any food or even tried the TV? And I’m the dumbass?”

“I’m already starting to regret saving you.”

Lance found a remote stuffed in the couch cushions. The expedition he mounted to discover it was something he’d rather forget. The pizza crusts and condom wrappers stuffed in there came straight from a nightmare.

The cable still worked, a pleasant surprise, and he found WTAE again. The feed from the station was still live though no one stood in frame anymore. Blood covered the desks and flooring.

“I guess Jim the Intern didn’t make it.” Lance cycled through more of the channels until he found another local channel, though no call signs overlay the image.

“Jim the who?”

“Some kids were still broadcasting the news this morning.”

“Oh.”

The new station showed a feed from a helicopter. No one spoke or reported on anything. Hundreds of the infected roamed the streets of Orlando.

“I’m surprised there aren’t more,” Lance said.

“Everyone else is in hiding, has been eaten, or is so far advanced in the change that they can’t be out during the day.”

“Already? Mankind has succumbed in a matter of days?”

“Fucking Vladdies.”

The stream switched to a shot from inside a building, the camera pointing out of the window of a high rise in a city that Lance couldn’t place. Police cruisers, empty and destroyed, filled the area below. Red splashed across everything.

“How can we survive this, Cass?”

“Don’t think we will.”

“So we’re just prolonging the inevitable?”

“Probably.”

They sat and watched the video for an hour or so, the utter devastation never failing to shock them. St. Louis burned. It was an inferno the likes of which Lance had never seen. Flames licked the sky above tall buildings and streets, as if napalm covered the entire city.

“I heard that the country is relatively safe,” Lance said after a while. “The low population means there are a lot of less of the infected... I mean, the Vladdies, running around.”

“And how the hell would we get there? They own the night, and the still-turning rule the day. We’re just a footnote in the Earth’s history at this point.”

Lance thought about it, running through different ideas. Everything he could dream up boiled down to two basic options.

“We could starve to death here in the safety of this shithole, or we can try and navigate out of the city, past all of them, and hide in the forest or the mountains.”

Cass stayed silent for a bit, her fingers rubbing the side of the axe in absentminded swirls. “Starving to death would be less painful. Besides, we can probably steal enough food from the neighboring buildings to last a few days.”

“Maybe. Or we might get killed just trying to cross the street as we search around.”

“Yeah, it’s a maybe. The chances of pulling that off are a lot better than catching a cab and leaving the city. And what’s this ‘we’ shit? There is no we.”

Lance’s grin returned.

“Stop smiling at me,” Cass said, though her voice lacked conviction. “You’re like a stray dog that I’ve fed. I save your life once and now I can’t get rid of you?”

“I sleep a lot and I
never
piss on the carpet.”

Cass’ hard exterior finally cracked. “Dumbass.”

“Look,” Lance said, smile sliding away. “We have a gun and a chest full of swords and other weird shit. If there was ever a chance of us getting out of here, it’s with this stuff. Besides, the last I heard, the military hadn’t lost Heinz Field yet. Hell, they might be airlifting people out of there. There will be lots of armed men, if nothing else.”

“The military is at the stadium?”

“Yeah. It’s been all over the news—you haven’t kept up on anything?”

“I’ve been a little busy killing friends and such.” Her face stiffened again. “The last thing I saw on the news said they were calling it the Xavier virus. I fell off the grid after that.”

“Well, the military blew a lot of the bridges around the city and setup a few outposts to filter the sick from the exiting population. Apparently two of them have fallen, but Heinz Field is still good.”

“And you think that’s a good way to escape? Going to a place with a ton of people? I can’t imagine how many of those things are attracted there by the lights and noises of all those refugees.”

They discussed it for the next hour, weighing the pros and cons of staying or leaving. The dangers apparent in each decision made it difficult. Lance found himself pushing the idea of leaving the city, even though he wasn’t certain that was the best course of action. He just didn’t like the thought of spending the next couple of weeks in a dingy meth lab without any food.

He found it interesting that he talked about the two of them doing everything together, as if they’d formed a partnership in survival. Cass seemed hesitant about setting off with him, but she didn’t fight it as much as he expected.

Knowing that he might not have to go through this hell alone made Lance push the subject even harder. Having someone to talk to, as tense as some of their encounters were, eased the feeling of isolation he had over the past few days.