The Hunger (Book 5): Decayed

by Brant, Jason

  Cass led them through the arena. They climbed the stairs leading to the concession area in silence, their flashlights illuminating the floor in front. The eeriness of a vast, dead building bathed in darkness pushed Cass through the pain of walking.

  As they entered the concession area, they passed a t-shirt stand with a drying puddle of blood beside it where Emmett had tended to Greg. They followed a brown trail leading from the puddle to the front door.

  “I’ll catch up.” Emmett jogged back to the t-shirt stand. “We’ll need more of these for bandages.”

  “Be quick, Doc,” Lance said.

  Cass stepped outside first, noticed the rain had changed to sleet. The sidewalks were slick, the air colder. “It might snow.”

  “This weather is crazy.” Lance shivered as he stopped beside her. “We need to find some jackets before I freeze my nuts off.”

  “We wouldn’t want that.” Cass glanced at the sky, frowned at the dark clouds. She couldn’t even guess what time it was. It had to be after noon, but she wasn’t quite sure. “Now what do we do? Should we head back to The Light? Look for Higgins?”

  “I think we should—” Lance’s words cut off midsentence.

  Cass looked over at him.

  Saw the muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head.

  A Bandit grinned, shoved the end of the barrel harder into Lance’s scalp. “I don’t give a damn what you think you should do. The two of you are coming with me. And if you even think about doing something dumb, you won’t have to worry about this guy freezing his nuts off cause I’ll paint the sidewalk with his brains.”

  Cass froze.

  She considered her options, realized she didn’t have many.

  If she made a move for the Bandit, Lance was toast. There wasn’t a chance she could move fast enough to pull that off. But if she dropped her weapon, they would be defenseless.

  “Toss the guns.” The Bandit’s finger moved up and down the trigger of his rifle as he sneered at Cass. He stood several inches shorter than Lance, but he was thicker. And younger. He wore a weathered leather jacket and an old Orioles baseball hat. The brim was bent at an odd angle, creating a narrow, off-center point.

  A scraggly, patchy beard covered most of his face.

  One of his brown eyes twitched as he looked Cass up and down.

  He licked his lips.

  Cass suppressed a shudder.

  Lance didn’t drop his rifle.

  Neither did Cass.

  “I won’t ask twice,” the man said.

  Cass knew he wasn’t bluffing. Higgins wanted her, not her husband. If executing him made her retrieval easier, he wouldn’t hesitate. She grimaced as the gun fell from her hands.

  It clattered to the sidewalk.

  Lance followed suit. “Technically, I think you just did ask twice. You didn’t say the exact same words, but you basically gave us another chance.”

  “We got a comedian, eh?” The Bandit rapped on the back of Lance’s head with the muzzle. “We’ll see how funny you are when we hand you over to King.”

  Lance winced from the blow. “Can’t wait to see that idiot again. We’re old pals.”

  “Shut up and beat feet.” The Bandit shoved Lance forward, but he kept his eyes on Cass. “I’m watching you, blondie. Keep your hands to yourself.”

  They shuffled down the sidewalk, Cass glancing through the windows of the arena, searching for Emmett. She spotted him peeking over the top of the t-shirt stand. When they locked eyes, he raised his hands in a what-should-I-do? gesture.

  Cass gave him the smallest shake of her head she could, then turned her attention elsewhere before the Bandit followed her gaze. If he saw Emmett now, they were toast. She needed him to stay hidden until they were out of sight.

  Maybe he could follow them, get the jump on the Bandit.

  That plan didn’t sit well with her, because the doc was terrible with guns. The idea of him winning a gunfight was laughable at best. But they didn’t have many other options at the moment.

  “What about the rifles?” Lance asked. “You’re just leaving them here?”

  “We’ve got hundreds of the fuckin’ things. Raided that military base up the road and stocked up.” The man shoved Lance again. “Now pick up the pace. Higgins has a date with your woman.”

  22

  “Get that thing in the air, Paul.” Megan stood next to the concrete railing that lined the top of The Light, pointing at the cloudy sky. The rain had soaked her hair and clothes. A thin layer of ice had formed on her shoulders now that the weather had shifted to sleet.

  “I already told you the drone ain’t waterproof. If I put it up there, it’ll come crashing down like the stock market in ‘08.” The Wildman stood beside her, the tiny aircraft stuffed under a baggy blue windbreaker. He cradled it in both hands, as if he were pregnant. “And then we’ll just be three jagoffs standing up here with our thumbs up our asses.”

  “It’s not raining anymore. It can handle a little ice.”

  “Oh, really? And you know that how? From all your drone expertise, n’at?” The Wildman looked to Brandon for help. “Will you talk some sense into her, for Christ’s sake?”

  Brandon lifted his hands in surrender. “Don’t bring me into this.”

  “Do it.” Megan leaned closer to The Wildman, her eyes narrowing. “Or so help me God, I’ll—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine.” The Wildman yanked the drone out from under his jacket. “But when this thing falls outta the sky, I don’t wanna hear one goddamn thing about it.”

  A gust of wind chilled Brandon, making him pull his jacket tight. They’d only been on the roof for a few minutes, but the weather had seemed to degrade by the second. It felt too early in the season for snow, but he wouldn’t be surprised to see some flakes falling soon.

  Ice had already covered the roof, making their walk to the edge of the building treacherous.

  Brandon had checked the solar panels when they’d first exited the stairwell to make sure the ice wasn’t impeding their ability to generate power. The Wildman had mentioned something about them having built-in heaters to keep snow and ice from accumulating on them, but Brandon wasn’t sure if he should believe him.

  The Wildman, a stupid nickname Brandon couldn’t get out of his head now, talked a big game. He yammered on and on about all the things he knew about communications equipment and government surveillance systems. Brandon couldn’t tell if the guy was just making stuff up or not.

  He wasn’t the kind of person anyone would expect to work for the CIA or NSA. In fact, he seemed more like a nutjob than anything else.

  But he’d been right about the ice not sticking to the solar panels, so at least there was that. They were clear and operational.

  Megan held a rifle with a long barrel and a high-powered scope attached to it. The size of the gun made Brandon’s shoulder ache just looking at it. If he fired something that big, it would knock him on his butt.

  As she set the gun on a bipod atop the concrete railing, Brandon scanned the city with a pair of binoculars.

  Other than the clearing dust, he didn’t see any movement. No one raced down a street. The Bandit’s van didn’t drive into view.

  Nothing.

  As The Wildman pissed and moaned about getting the drone wet, Brandon thought he’d heard distant pops that sounded like gunfire. The howling wind made it hard to tell exactly what the sounds were, let alone which direction they were coming from.

  If he were being honest, he didn’t think the whole drone thing would work out. Flying such a small, light aircraft in the inclement weather didn’t seem like a great idea. If The Wildman managed to keep it in the air, Brandon didn’t think they could see much anyway. Between the precipitation and the dust, visibility was poor.

  Even if they found the Bandits, which would take a minor miracle, he doubted Megan would get a decent angle to take a shot anyway.

  Brandon kept those thoughts to himself.

  Megan wasn�
�t the kind of woman he wanted to cross, even if she’d been nothing but nice to him since they’d met. She’d proved herself an ass kicker and he didn’t want his ass kicked.

  Grumbling to himself, The Wildman bent and put the drone on the icy roof. He thumbed at the touchscreen of the controller for a bit before the four propellers whirled to life on the drone.

  The blades almost disappeared as they spun.

  An annoying buzz filled the air, as if one had kicked a beehive.

  It lifted off the roof, hovering two feet above it.

  Then it crashed into the railing beside Megan.

  The electric motor died.

  One of the propellers popped off.

  “I thought you knew how to fly these things?” she asked, toeing it with her boot.

  “I do, for the most part.” The Wildman picked it up, jammed the blade back in the right place. He wiggled it up and down, testing it.

  “For the most part?” Megan glared. “That doesn’t sound too convincing.”

  “Get off my ass, will ya? Every one of these things flies differently. Can’t expect me to know every little nuance about every damned drone on the planet, do ya? Gimme a minute to figure it out.”

  Megan seemed like she wanted to say something else, but held her tongue. She turned her attention back to the rifle, feeding bullets into it. When she finished, she worked the bolt action and placed the butt against her shoulder. “I’m ready.”

  The Wildman managed to get the drone airborne. It ascended ten feet in the air, hovering above them. The wind made it wobble several times before it leveled out.

  After fumbling with two joysticks on the controller, sending the aircraft careening left and right, he seemed to figure it out. The drone tipped north, flew away from the building.

  They watched it swoop over the next city block, swaying from the heaviest wind gusts.

  “Think I got it,” The Wildman said. “Got the flight and camera controls mixed up.”

  Brandon shifted closer to The Wildman, peering down at the LCD screen in the middle of the controller. It showed the street below it, slicked with ice, the remnants of the dust cloud obscuring the finer details of the vehicles, businesses, and apartment buildings.

  “We’ll check out the bomb site first.” The Wildman angled the thumb sticks right, guiding the drone over a courtyard with overgrown grass and bushes.

  “Anything?” Megan asked as she stayed by her rifle, watching the city with her naked eye.

  “I’ll tell ya if we got something. Hold your horses.”

  Brandon squinted at the screen as the drone flew over a massive crater in the street. “Holy crap. That was a big bomb.”

  “Yah. Would have done a number on our little hovel here.” The Wildman let the small aircraft hover over the crater, panning the camera around its edges. “Oh, damn.”

  “What?” Megan turned back to them. “What is it?”

  “We got a body.”

  “Is it Emmett?” Megan’s face tightened as she stared at The Wildman. “What do you see?”

  Brandon hadn’t even noticed the body right away.

  It lay flat on its back, covered in dust.

  The head was missing.

  Part of it, anyway.

  The Wildman lowered the drone, stopping it within a dozen feet of the body. “It ain’t him.”

  Megan’s shoulders sagged. She collapsed against the railing. Her chest heaved. “Oh, thank God.”

  “Can’t tell who it is,” The Wildman said. “Not dressed like one of those Bandit sons of bitches. Probably someone from The Light.”

  With half the head missing, Brandon couldn’t tell who it was either. He knew a lot of the people in the building, and he might have recognized him if not for the damage.

  “Is there anyone else?” Megan asked, regaining her composure. A tear fell from one of her eyes, disappeared amidst the rainwater covering her face.

  Brandon wanted to give her a hug, but thought it would come across as weird and creepy. Crying women always made him feel awkward and useless. It didn’t matter who it was—he felt the obligation to comfort them.

  He settled with stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “Not yet.” The Wildman angled the drone back to the site of the explosion and panned the camera around again.

  The surrounding buildings had suffered extreme damage. The front walls were heavily damaged, or missing, their interiors visible from the street. Debris covered the sidewalks, the road.

  “I don’t see anyone else,” Brandon said.

  “Same.” The Wildman let go of the control with one hand, stroked the stubble on his chin. “But where did everyone else go?”

  The two of them moved closer to the LCD screen, hunched over it like a couple of kids who’d found their first Playboy. As the camera panned over a building missing its front wall, they caught sight of a barbershop.

  The drone paused, giving them a view inside. They could see through an open door in the rear of the barbershop, all the way to the street behind the building.

  Brandon pointed at the screen. “You see that? All the doors are open leading through the building.”

  “Nice catch, kid.” The Wildman goosed the drone’s altitude, checked the rear of the building. As he lowered it again, he pressed his lips together until they almost disappeared. “That’s brass.”

  “What does that mean?” Brandon asked.

  “Gunfight.” Megan returned to her rifle, situated it against her shoulder. “That’s the shooting we heard.”

  The Wildman said, “Can’t tell which way they went. Just gonna fly around in each direction, see what we see.”

  The door opened behind them, voices spilling out of it.

  Brandon watched Fred exit the stairwell with Bill coming up behind him. The newly released prisoner didn’t look particularly happy, but he seemed to be in a better mood now that he wasn’t locked up.

  “What’re you doing?” Fred asked. He carried a shotgun in one hand, a can of soda in the other. “It’s cold as hell out here.”

  “Looking for my husband,” Megan said without turning back.

  “Think you’ll spot him from here?”

  “We’ve got a drone,” Brandon said. “The Wildman, err, Paul, is flying it over the city to search for the others.”

  Fred nodded his head in approval. “That’s a pretty damn good idea.”

  “Damn right it is,” The Wildman mumbled.

  “They finally let you out?” Brandon asked Bill.

  The big man lurked behind Fred. His size intimidated Brandon every time he stood near him. “Guess they figured risking my life for you people is good enough to earn my freedom.”

  “Emily let him out, but she assigned me as his babysitter.” Fred moved to look at the LCD screen. “Wish we could help you, but I can’t have my people out there roaming the city with those killers.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Megan said, still watching over the city.

  “What do you know about them?” The Wildman asked without taking his eyes off the screen. He glided the drone down a street, not seeing anything.

  “Who?” Fred asked.

  “I’m talking to him.” The Wildman finally glanced up, pointed at Bill. “What do you know about the Bandits? Who are they? Where did they come from?”

  “Not much.” Bill scratched the back of his head. “Valerie dealt with them mostly. I just helped unload the truck when they came by.”

  “The trucks full of women, you mean,” Megan said.

  “Yeah.” Bill inspected his feet. “Those.”

  “We can yammer on about your past-life decisions later,” The Wildman said as he went back to flying. “Tell me what you know, n’at.”

  “What’s n’at mean?” Bill’s brow furrowed. “Was that English?”

  “Here we go again.” The Wildman threw his hands up, almost dropping the controller in his exasperation. “And that. It’s a goddamn contraction, people. Yinz act like I’m speaking M
artian.”

  “Yinz?” Bill’s confusion deepened.

  “I’m gonna jump off this goddamn building. I swear it to our Lord and Savior Bill Cowher, I’m gonna—”

  “Just answer his question about the Bandits,” Megan said. “He’s only going to fall further into Pittsburghese if you keep winding him up.”

  Bill gave The Wildman a sideways glance before returning his attention to Megan. “Like I said—I don’t know a whole lot. They were prisoners somewhere up in Pennsylvania when it all went to hell. No idea how they got out or ended up down here. I heard one of them say they were in a gang while they were locked up.”

  “That explains why they all look the same.” Brandon was glad they’d finally made the right decision to let the big guy out. He’d saved a lot of people just a few days ago, and he deserved a freaking medal as far as Brandon was concerned.

  “I do know Higgins was locked up for murder. Killed a cop during a drug deal gone bad.” Bill held Brandon’s gaze. “I never talked to him much. He weirded me out. Like he was always examining the situation to get a leg up on you. He’s a schemer, that’s for sure.”

  “Got another body here.” The Wildman jabbed a finger at the screen. “He’s all kinds of fucked up.”

  Brandon looked down, saw the prone form of another Bandit in the street. One of his legs was bent at a horrible angle. Blood had pooled around the body. A car parked half on the sidewalk next to the dead man had the roof and hood smashed in, glass shards from the windows scattered everywhere.

  “No sign of the doc or the others,” The Wildman said.

  Brandon couldn’t help but wonder if they would ever find their friends. Baltimore wasn’t a massive city like New York or Los Angeles, but it was spread out enough that searching for someone was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.

  And they didn’t have enough batteries to search for long.

  Then again, he didn’t have any suggestions about what they could do next.

  He sure wasn’t going to tell Megan they were wasting their time.

  “Good luck with the search,” Fred said. “I’ve gotta make a run through the building, try to get everyone calmed down. We’ve got a few dozen people talking about jumping ship. They want out of here before things get any worse. It’s as if they expected life to be all sunshine and rainbows once they moved in here.”