BESIEGED (HUNGRY Series Book 2)

by Lawrence Herbert Tide

  She then saw his face and felt something like an electrical shock.

  His gaze was steady, devoid of any trace of life.

  Then she heard someone approaching, running towards her.

  "Red!"

  She recognized Johnny's voice. He had come from behind a tree and, opening wide eyes as he saw them on the ground, he leapt towards them.

  The sad face she showed as she was watching him, he liked it not.

  Crazy with worry, his heart pounding, he crouched in his turn near his father.

  "Dad, no!" he exclaimed, horrified, seeing the big hole that the bullet of the gun had formed in his father's forehead. The young man felt anger…

  A ferocious hatred towards Adams and Vlad… and swore internally, One day, I'll make both pay for all of this, a hundredfold!

  "Sorry, Johnny," whispered his female friend, who, still sitting on the floor, had dropped the big man's arm, when the body had been put on its back.

  Tears flew down her freckled cheeks, as she contemplated with her friend his prone, immobile, dead father. The latter had his eyes closed and his face covered with dust.

  She said to herself inwardly, He seems so quiet now, so much away from this world, which has become a nightmare... I almost envy him... but his help would've been so useful for our survival!

  The girl watched the huge man, a so impressive person, so powerful…

  Then she opened wide eyes and looked at Johnny, who had his head lowered, sadness visible on his face, even though, obviously, he resisted the temptation to cry. A male education thing that, like many other girls and women, she always had difficulties to understand.

  "Johnny," she finally dared to say, stopping and remaining silent. Johnny looked at her and asked, "What?"

  "We…" she looked at him, seemingly pleading, and finally she said, "We must burn his body."

  "Have you gone mad?" her friend shouted.

  "I'm sorry, Johnny," answered the young girl, clearly embarrassed, "But if we don't burn him soon, perhaps he will become a zombie. A very, very, powerful zombie! He was infected, and now that he's dead, who knows if the treatment will make him remain human. At least a dead human!"

  The young colored man glared at her while gritting his teeth, obviously ready to insult her, his face purple with anger… and finally he relaxed. Hiroto had taught him self-control, and many other things.

  Johnny breathed heavily while looking back at his father, and croaked, "Well, I admit that… we must find some dry wood and…"

  Suddenly Harry coughed, causing cries of surprise to come from the two young people. Red got up abruptly and stepped back to get out of reach of the giant, imitated by Johnny.

  The tall black rose slowly, as if in slow motion, closing his mouth. He opened wide eyes with dusty lashes, and looked at each of them, one after the other.

  The girl looked Johnny in the eyes and guessed that, like her, he didn't know whether he should rejoice or not about what was happening. She saw that the colossus was beginning to slowly open his mouth, expecting to see his mouth open wide, greedily, horribly, waiting to react when he would leap toward them. Red, starting to feel nervous, tightened in her hand the rough "handle" of her "saber", hurting the palm of her hand even more.

  A quick gesture of her arm would pop the creature's head if it approached, like a cork pops away from the neck of a bottle...

  "Wow, what a headache!"

  Harry Jackson's words astonished his son and the young redhead, who looked at him, their eyes bulging with surprise.

  Realizing that they looked at him strangely, not saying anything, the colossus asked, "Are both of you alright?"

  "Pa... Dad?" Johnny asked tentatively, not daring to believe it.

  "Yes?" the big colored man looked at him with a lot of concentration. Perhaps too much concentration…

  "I... I thought..." the young man stammered, obviously looking for his words.

  "We thought you were dead," Red thundered, looking at him more amused than frightened, now.

  "No kidding?" Harry looked almost surprised.

  "Because of the..." and saying that, she pointed with her index finger toward the center of her own forehead.

  Intrigued, he put his hand on his forehead and, touching with his fingers, one of them eventually fell on the hole formed by the bullet he had received. The kind giant frowned, and with his finger still on the pit, he asked, "What the hell is that?"

  Johnny, who finally came to speak, said "It's a..."

  He had just broken off when he had seen that his father had just thrust his finger into the hole.

  Wet sounds and small crackles were heard, while the two young men watched him with horror move his finger into the cavity, and even began to slip a second finger inside it.

  "No, Dad, you shouldn’t..."

  Too late!

  Harry was already rummaging deeper inside the wound now, while dark, slime-like blood was beginning to trickle down his forehead. Johnny looked away and, meeting Red's eyes, he realized that his friend was also making a grimace of disgust.

  The colossus finally brought his two fingers out of the gaping hole.

  Scarcely had the fingers left the wound, when even more blackened blood began to flow. Johnny looked at this with horror, his heart pounding. His brain is going to be drained completely of its blood, and Dad’s going to really die, for real, this time. Why did he do that?

  It was then that, to Johnny’s great relief, the blood ceased to flow out of the wound. Reporting his attention to his father's two fingers, he saw that he was holding them near his eyes, looking at something inside, which seemed covered with dried, dark blood.

  "But... It's a bullet!" Harry exclaimed, and it was then that the two youths recognized the elongated object. But when they turned their attention to the face of the big black, they opened wide amazed eyes.

  Through the big gap in the middle of Harry's forehead, they could catch a glimpse of something.

  "My God," Johnny shouted, "Dad, we can see part of your brain!"

  "Ah?" said his father, looking vaguely surprised.

  "You should be dead, Dad, how’s all this possible?" cried Johnny.

  His father heaved a deep sigh, then, after a few seconds of silent gazing at each other, he resumed, "I think you have understood now that I am not really cured."

  He paused again, hesitating, before resuming, "I am an undead."

  Adams, sitting behind Vlad on the saddle of the bike, clung as well as he could to him. The motorcycle slipped at full speed between the trees, rushing at a crazy pace.

  "Slow down, Vlad," the old Administrator shouted. "You’ll eventually make us fall, you can slow down now, we’ve outrun them!"

  "Are you kidding? I want to reach the Community as soon as possible, so that Mengele can take care of me!"

  "Take care of you?" the old man asked, pressing harder on the abdomen of the hitman, exposed because of his torn shirt.

  "Yes, I was bitten by zombies, he has to stop the transformation process, and even make it regress!" cried the young man.

  "Ah..." Adams murmured, suddenly disturbed because he was feeling something wet, under his fingers.

  He opened his left hand and, still clinging with the other one, looked at his five fat fingers. They were covered in blood. He had been clinging to a wound made by the bite of a zombie!

  The Administrator quickly wiped his hand on his once beautiful white trousers, smearing them even more, as he felt disgust and fear. He also didn’t want to undergo the transformation, and he very well knew how much the virus could contaminate someone.

  "You think he’ll make it?" asked Vlad, and a trace of fear could be heard in the tone of his voice.

  "Make... What?" Adams replied, barely avoiding falling, when they suddenly passed over a bump. The motorcycle made a beautiful parable in the air. The old man found himself several centimeters above the saddle, clinging nervously to the henchman, tightening his bloody abdominals again. He grimaced; the co
ntact of the contagious liquid disgusted and stressed him at the same time.

  The motorbike finally landed hard on the grassy ground, and the old man pushed a "Phew!" grimacing, when his nuts fell brutally on the back of the saddle.

  "You think Mengele will manage to treat me like he has done for Harry Jackson?" Vlad asked impatiently, turning to cast a bad look at him. Adams then opened his eyes wide as he found the biker's head fearful. Whitish skin, bluish, prominent veins…

  "I am sure," the old man replied, not wanting to panic the rider, and he added, "But first and foremost, we must warn our men about the arrival of Hiroto and his friends. I will have them all fired on sight! "

  The henchman nodded and throttled back fully. The two men disappeared behind a grove.

  ***

  Resurrection

  "What's wrong with you?" the black colossus asked his son and his friend. At the same time, he stepped forward in their direction.

  Red and Johnny recoiled instinctively.

  Noticing their reaction, Harry froze. Then he looked at them for several seconds, an air of incomprehension on his face...

  He then suddenly roared with laughter. A thundering laugh. The two youths looked at each other, hesitating as to what they could say to him, while he continued to laugh.

  Finally he stopped laughing. Then, sighing heavily, the big black resumed, "You're not accustomed to having an undead speak to you, and I understand that very well..." They remained immobile and silent, looking at him with puzzled looks. He resumed, "... the thing is that I remain a human, with the help of Mengele, that bloody devil. Consider me as simply risen from the dead, in the biblical sense of the term..."

  He turned around and added, "Look!"

  That's when he removed his cap.

  His son and his friend cried out, opening wide astonished eyes as they looked, horrified.

  A tiny bottle, filled with a fluorescent green liquid, was literally hung by staples at the back of the giant's scalp. A thin pipe passed through the cork of the tiny bottle, and the two disgusted youths could see that the fluorescent liquid, mixed with small bubbles, went up along the scalp... toward his brain!

  A part of the back of his brain was visible through a kind of transparent window inserted in a hole in the skull. The pipe passed through an inlet in the center of the window, mixing it in an orange cloud with blood bathing the brain.

  "My God," Johnny exclaimed, dropping down on his knees the grassy ground. He was unable to watch the scene and took his face in his hands. He looked down at the floor, unable to contemplate the scene any longer, worthy of an anatomical board.

  "Dad, but what did that mad scientist do to you?"

  Turning back to face him, then hiding the horrible device, Harry replied, "He applied to me the only treatment he managed to develop. It's a treatment that freezes the process of transforming the mind into one of a zombie, but only slowing down the transformation of the body... "

  Red snorted and said, "I thought I felt something, like an odd smell... when we were locked up in the truck…"

  "Yes, a smell of putrefaction," Harry interrupted her, looking sadly at her now, continuing, "I've perfumed myself, following the advice of the ‘Good Doctor Mengele’, but I wasn't able to completely hide the smell."

  "You're actually continuing to transform into a living dead?" Johnny asked, looking at his father with an even greater sadness.

  "Yes, it's making me slowly rot..." and seeing horror appear on his boy's face, Harry quickly added, "But it's a very, very slow transformation process, reassure yourself, and my mind remains intact... "

  He paused a few seconds before adding, "... at least, it is the case if I regularly receive a dose of the miracle drug invented by bright boy!"

  "The product that's injected into your brain, right?" the girl asked, who wasn't as much affected as her friend by what she had just seen. After all, the colossus was not her father.

  And she had already seen so many horrors during her childhood…

  "Yes, if it's injected into me, I'm pretty much the same, but if the product runs out..." he paused to swallow his saliva, nervously, before continuing, "... I will quickly turn into a real zombie, with a creepy craving for human flesh. In fact, the doctor explained that the older, ill, stressed, or injured someone is, the quicker the transformation process happens... Many factors can change the length of time of a person's transformation."

  He smiled at both of them, showing impeccable white teeth, before resuming, "The advantage, as long as the injected product slows down the process, is that my mind remains intact, and controls a zombie body whose strength is, you know, tenfold... And since my mind controls it much better than the damaged one of a living-dead can, its speed is overdriven too!"

  "We saw it!" replied the girl, with a communicating enthusiasm, making a little smile appear on her young black friend's face, who was now sitting on the floor.

  "I brought a large stock of the drug with me, inside my bag, and as long as I receive regular injections of it," added the good colossus, "I should be able to keep control of myself and greatly help you, instead of trying to devour you."

  The two youths sighed while Red remained impassive. Reassured, they approached.

  Harry tenderly put a hand on one of Johnny's shoulders.

  Red's smile, close to them, disappeared quickly and, looking worried, she said to the others, "Speaking of 'Mengele', as he is called by everyone, how are we going to return to the Community without being shot down by Adams’ and Vlad's men?"

  Her question raised an understandable anxiety on her friend’s face, while she resumed, speaking to the colossus, "Harry, I really thought you were going to catch up with them, while they were fleeing with the motorcycle!"

  "Yep," the big black mumbled. "By the way, I got a bullet in my forehead." He contemplated the reddish-blackened ball of blood between his fingers and added, "What a souvenir!"

  "Harry, do you think you can catch up with them, and stop them before they join the Community?"

  "Red!" Johnny shouted to her, looking offended. "After all the things he's gone through..."

  "It's OK, son, don't be angry, she's right, we should try..."

  Thereupon, Harry left them and did a sprint worthy of Usain Bolt. He left behind him a cloud of dust raised by his acceleration, which caused them both to cough and close their eyes and disappeared behind a tree.

  A loud rumble caught the attention of Red and Johnny, who in turn ran behind the tree and discovered Harry, who was lying on his stomach in the dust.

  "Dad, are you OK?" Johnny asked, lifting with difficulty the heavy head of his father, whose face was once again covered with dust. Looking at him through his dirtied lashes, Harry groaned in pain and said, "I feel that that bloody bullet must've reached something in my head... I can't synchronize my movements as well… I can't move as fast as before... "

  He raised himself by pushing the ground with his hands and, kneeling, struck angrily the ground with his fist, raising a new cloud of dust and shouted, "I can't stop them, shit!"

  "I prefer you not to have gone," said Johnny, helping his father to get back on his feet. "I don't want to lose you once again!"

  "Lose me?" The father looked incredulously at his son, as if he couldn't believe what he had heard, and then he went on, "But we're doomed, boy. Adams, that goddamn bastard, arrives to reach his men before us! I bet he's going to pay a premium to bring him back our heads, and he'll let them go like dogs on our heels. And, once they find us, for us, it will be Game Over!"

  "It's a good reason to run to the van and try to catch them," Red said, adding,

  "Harry, if you feel better, I suggest you hurry to go to the van! My grandfather needs to be treated and brought back to the Community as soon as possible. Once we're there, we'll struggle to enter."

  "OK!" the black colossus bellowed. Then they both ran, soon out of sight of Bo and Johnny, who returned to Hiroto, who had now fainted.

  His heart beating ha
rd, Johnny crouched beside his old Master and, putting a finger at the level of his carotid, tried to feel his pulse. The regular pressure he felt reassured him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Johnny?" Bo asked, timidity perceptible in his voice.

  "Yes?" the young black man replied, turning his attention to his friend who was standing beside him with surprise. Johnny hadn’t seen nor heard the young muscular blond man for a moment, until now, asking himself, has he been hiding somewhere?

  But he was curious to know what his old friend wanted, so he repeated, “What’s your question?”

  "You don't find it crazy that Harry and Red left us both alone here?" As he said this, the blond man looked up at the truck cut in half, and at the crowd of zombies continuing to feed on what was left of human and chicken flesh.

  "Oh, that," Johnny replied, smiling, before resuming, "You know, as it seems, zombies are like lions; once they are satisfied, they aren't hungry anymore, and they won't attack for a while. I think that none of these will come to bother us."

  "I hope you aren't wrong!" Bo exclaimed, continuing to look at the creatures not far away.

  "If I'm wrong, I have what is needed to defend ourselves," Johnny replied.

  He surprised his friend with his sabre that he had been able to retrieve, when they had escaped from the truck.

  The van pulled up close to them as its brakes screamed under the tension.

  Harry, opening the window on the driver's side, said to them, "Get in quickly with Hiroto!"

  Reassured, the two young men gently lifted the old Japanese from the ground, while the sliding door of the vehicle opened, revealing Red standing in the opening, who beckoned them to enter.

  As they moved toward the open doorway, transporting cautiously the unconscious old man, Bo and Johnny realized that, besides the sound of the van’s engine, a relative silence had returned.

  No more any grunt, or scream of any wild beast...

  Looking at each other while one of them held Hiroto by the feet, and the other under the armpits, they looked at the truck. At least, what was left of it.