Dead Hunger VII_The Reign of Isis

by Eric A. Shelman

  They were the threat.

  The walk took them two blocks and into an industrial area on the north side of town. Flex found himself walking through another set of gates, passing a sign that said Martinez Lumber. This time the steel fence, identical to the material the maze was made of, looked to be no less than eighteen feet tall. It was topped with angled bars that attached a rat’s nest of twisted, barbed wire that ran up another three feet.

  This must have been the yard that once held the stacks and stacks of lumber, but it had long since been depleted. Now it was just an expansive prison yard. There was no shade and obviously no bathroom facilities.

  Some of the folks in this lockup might have an issue in an hour or two.

  Hell, Flex had to pee already.

  *****

  Isis recalled the map of the town in her mind, and knew that while the handlers, if that’s what they could be called, were guiding the horde along 8th Street, 9th Street, which ran the same direction a block north, was the safer route to follow. She and Max could stay out of sight until they determined their destination.

  After the ever-conducting Maestro, his chain gang of captive Hybrids, and the horde of Mothers and Hungerers passed, they again slipped out of the small, cinderblock building and took a path through the grass behind the bleachers toward 9th Street. They crouched on the corner until they saw the last of the group; Maestro and the others.

  “So, we just follow them?” asked Max.

  “No,” said Isis. “Max, did you ever see Nelson? Even once after our people moved to the field?”

  Max shook his head.

  Isis removed the radio from her belt and turned it over to channel six, which she remembered was Nelson’s channel. Isis then hit the transmit button eleven times.

  She waited five minutes and when no response came, she clicked eleven times again.

  “Let’s start walking. I’d just tell him the hell to answer, but if he’s being held captive, it’ll tip them off he’s not alone.”

  “Wouldn’t the radio itself do that?” asked Max.

  “Good point, but he could always say he monitors it just in case he finds people. The clicks could be anything.”

  Isis always used very specific timing between clicks so it sounded almost machine-driven.

  “Okay,” said Isis. “They’re probably far enough ahead now. Let’s go.”

  The street they walked was besieged by weeds, growing up through every crack and pothole in the asphalt. At one point, they came across a sinkhole that was perhaps eighty feet around. Several of the buildings around it had fallen victim, sliding into the bottomless pit, the earth reclaiming its own.

  Max had read the encyclopedia as well, so he knew instantly what it was. “Sinkhole,” he said. “Wow. First one I’ve seen.”

  “Not surprising, since you’ve only been to Wichita and Kingman.”

  “Yeah,” said Max, smiling. “I gotta travel more.”

  They walked north, finding they had to get on the sidewalk to avoid being too close to the ledge, and still uncomfortable that near. They could not see down inside in the gloom, but dirt slid into it even as they walked alongside it, so it was still doing its thing.

  Once past it, Max stopped. “Wait, Isis,” he said. “Hear that?”

  Isis stopped and listened. “It’s them,” she said. “The horde.”

  “What’s our plan?” asked Max. “I’m beginning to believe having them get under that mist was not the best idea.”

  Isis sighed. She respected Max, but his abilities were no match for hers – at least not in attack strategy. She had also read the book, The Art Of War, by Sun Tzu, many times. Not so much for the psychological aspects of warfare, but to learn strategy. Not everything came naturally to her.

  Hungerers were the most instinctual of all opponents. They had only one desire and one focus. Eat flesh and blood. Go to where it is. They were predictable and easy to kill.

  The Mothers were a different story. They did have some ability to strategize, even if in the most basic sense. They also had an army of followers in the Hungerers, whom they could command. For this reason, Sun Tzu’s text was helpful; part of it, anyway. In a world of dark threats, having too much knowledge was impossible.

  She not only had the benefit of being a female – and the Mothers were among the most powerful of the transformed, dead creatures – estrogen charged every cell of her body when she became.

  It was how she thought of the process that occurred in the womb; becoming. It seemed to describe the process well.

  She finally addressed Max’s statement. “Your parents and the others were not harmed by the vapor,” said Isis. “They are now among the horde and in disguise. What isn’t working out like you thought it would?”

  “Wait,” said Max. He reached beneath his ragged coat and unhooked the small crossbow he carried. His mother had taught him how to shoot it like a pro, and he could beat Isis in a contest. He had done so many times, in fact.

  In a fluid motion, he had it in his hand and turned to his right. He raised it to his eye and loosed an arrow. It buzzed through the air like a sonic fly, and a shadowy figure, its pink eyes glowing in the gray distance, stopped in its tracks and fell over sideways.

  Isis held her breath as she watched the eyes, their pink glow as clear as if right in front of them.

  The pink slowly faded to black. She released her breath.

  “Max,” she said, feeling her own powerful heart pounding in her chest. “I know you think I constantly ride you, but it’s because we are all we have. We are all Kingman has, at least for now, as far as I know. I’m going to say this one time, and I know I won’t have to say it again.”

  He hung his head. “Don’t,” he said. “I know. It struck me the second that bolt left my bow. That could have been Nel. I’m sorry, Isis.”

  “Impulse is a hard thing to fight,” she said. “But Max, you’re too good a shot with that bow to be impulsive, at least while Nel’s unaccounted for. Now go get your arrow.”

  Max did.

  They walked until the noise became quite palpable. It was just off to the south, and it was loud enough that Isis became immediately concerned about what it meant for their fellow travelers.

  They turned left onto Court Street and stayed in the shadows of some residential homes there. When they came around the corner of 9th and Court, at first they weren’t sure what they were looking at.

  A swath had been taken out of the town. Piles of rubble stood seven and eight feet high all around a steel fence that appeared to be of similar construction to the maze.

  “Unless the destruction came by way of bulldozer, a tornado did this,” she said.

  “I can hear them,” said Max. “They’re behind that fence.”

  “Agreed,” said Isis. “Now let’s go find your parents.”

  *****

  Flex accounted for everyone for the twenty-second time. Worried about Nelson, Max and Isis, and fearful of someone else disappearing, his eyes darted back and forth, taking in his family and friends.

  There were eight of them.

  It was an oddly disturbing scene, and a situation in which none of them had been before. The horde of Hungerers moved constantly, like sharks swimming in their hunting grounds. The red-eyed Mothers sat, some on their haunches, others on their rear ends. They stared straight ahead, like robots awaiting execution of their next program command. The fenced area was huge, but it was packed with the walking dead nonetheless.

  Flex leaned in toward Gem, making sure no Mothers were near them. The coast was clear.

  “To the fence,” he whispered, nodding. “Over there.”

  She nodded. She, in turn, nudged Trina and tipped her head toward the fence. Trina got it and nudged Taylor. Before long, everyone was moving toward the far fence.

  A noise came from behind them. It was the sound of a bell’s peal. At once, the Mothers stood and turned, not toward the source of the sound, but toward another part of the fence.

/>   Flex looked, but he could not see what was happening. He whispered to Gem, “I have to go see why they’re moving. Go to the fence with the others. To the corner. Stay low, out of sight. If anyone notices you’re not moving with the rest, it might spell trouble.”

  “The fuck I’ll let you go alone,” she said.

  She fell in beside Flex. Trina came up to her and said, “I thought we were going to the fence.”

  “Go, Trini,” said Gem. “Make sure everyone’s there, and stay as low as you can. We’ll be just a minute.” Gem’s tone conveyed that there was to be no argument.

  That applied to Flex, too, and he knew it.

  They followed behind the Mothers, staying clear of them. Flex began moving toward the east as the crowd pushed inward.

  “What is it?” whispered Gem over the din of the snarling abnormals.

  Flex did not need to answer, for as the last word left her lips a fence rolled open and the screaming began.

  At first, Flex did not realize what was happening. There was an influx of new bodies flooding in, but they were running and screaming.

  Hemp was suddenly beside him. “Flex, these people are alive,” he said. “And something else is wrong.”

  “What?” asked Flex.

  “The Mothers,” said Hemp. “There are far too many of them. Their numbers are completely out of ratio.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Flex, wishing he were one quarter as smart or observant as Hemp.

  “I may have figured it out already,” said Hemp. “Look at their necks.”

  Flex looked around, trying to spot one of the Mothers. It did not take long. Keeping his voice down to a whisper, he said, “The … what is that? A bite wound on her neck?”

  Hemp nodded. “Yes, and I believe it’s relevant. Now find another.”

  Flex scanned the crowd of voracious rotters that grew more animated as the screaming people intermingled with them.

  An old man came face-to-face with a completely nude male zombie. The senior citizen was feisty, screaming at the top of his lungs as he pistoned both frail arms outward, trying to knock the creature off balance. It did not work. The naked rotter spun slightly to the left and leaned in, sinking its teeth into the old man’s left cheek, its gnarled fingers seizing his gray hair and jerking it back.

  By the time it got its arm around the old man’s waist, he was down on his back and four other Hungerers fell upon him and began consuming him.

  Flex’s eyes went back to the cage door. It had rolled open, but Flex wasn’t sure why the prisoners would leave it and run inside where these monsters waited.

  Their faces were etched with pure terror as they realized what was to be their fate. Among them, dozens and dozens of elderly men and women, all screaming or crying. Once inside, most ran to the best of their ability, but the majority tripped and tumbled to the ground when either their bodies or their spirit gave way to the reality of their fate.

  “Hemp, what can we do?” asked Gem, her eyes darting back and forth, her hand planted firmly on the barrel of her pistol. Flex could not see this, but he knew where her drop holster fell and her hand was beneath her ragged clothing and prepared to pull it out.

  “Nothing, Gem,” said the professor. “Absolutely nothing. If you give us away, we’re all dead.”

  Flex looked around and his eyes fell on another nearby Mother. On the right side of her neck, centered on her jugular vein, was a large, oval bite mark. Where the individual teeth had torn through the skin was obvious; centered within the ragged, oozing black wound was raw, rotted flesh. His eyes then found yet another. She had the same bite wound, and judging by her stomach, she had been in the early stages of pregnancy when her transformation had occurred.

  “So it is the neck wound,” he said. “Is this Maestro … creating Red-Eyes?”

  Hemp nodded but didn’t answer. Charlie’s voice rose above their thoughts.

  “Oh, my God,” said Charlie. “Oh, my God.” Her eyes were fixed on the cage. All of the elderly were now inside the large pen.

  “Shh, Charlie,” said Hemp. “Please keep your voice down. We cannot help these people.”

  “Then what good are we?” she asked. “Can we help the people of Kingman?”

  The screaming intensified, and everyone turned toward the flood of humanity pouring into the yard filled with the walking dead. The holding area where they had been was getting smaller.

  “They’re being pushed out,” said Hemp, pointing toward the pen. “That rear wall is moving.”

  As Hemp had pointed out, the rear fence was set on roller wheels identical to those within the maze. A chain gear turned, mounted to the top of the fence. The long chain disappeared beyond where they could see, and as the gears spun, the back wall of the pen moved farther and farther forward, shrinking the holding area.

  It was now around half the size it had originally been, pushing the living human beings toward the single door that led into the cage filled with the hungry dead.

  As the last of the old men and women entered their living Hell, the sounds of the screams changed. Now boys and girls staggered inside, ranging in age from six to around twelve years old, all screaming and crying. As they tried to stop or cling to the side fences, the moving fence behind them crashed into their backs, forcing them forward into a living dead horror from which there was no retreat.

  Something happened then. The horde around them settled as suddenly as if a switch had flipped, and stopped attacking. The feeding Hungerers fell still, most of them on their hands and knees, formerly consuming the flesh of the elderly men and women. For the moment, none of the children had been attacked.

  “Hemp,” he whispered. “Why not the kids? How can they tell the difference?”

  Hemp did not answer. He shook his head and stared. Between the many crouched and formerly feeding Hungerers, the Mothers moved through the crowd as though floating on a thin layer of air. It almost seemed they were positioning themselves.

  Flex crouched low and pulled Gem down beside him. Together, they peered through the legs of the dead and saw the Mothers stop.

  The children, many of them at least, cried out in sheer terror as they continued to push deeper through the throng of zombies, as if they would ultimately reach a clearing where they could run to freedom, escaping the nightmare.

  The Hungerers remained motionless for the moment; crouched over ripped-open bodies in a partially eaten state, their faces staring down, awaiting some expected command to resume feeding.

  Flex saw that many of their eviscerated victims were nowhere near dead as their quivering flesh was being consumed. Their agonized moans filled the still air as the masses around them waited, deaf to their agony.

  Suddenly the Mothers moved. If one had been hovering overhead and looking down, it would have appeared to be a coordinated action. All at once, as though by silent command, each Mother moved at lightning speed toward a young, terrified child near them.

  Flex wished he could gouge his own eyes out, but instead he watched as a red-haired Mother to his right rocketed toward what might have been a six-year-old girl in her Sunday best. Her dress was dirty, but had once been a bright Easter yellow and still held some of its former gaiety.

  The little, brown-haired, nameless six-year-old had been born into this world long after the apocalypse had wiped out most of her ancestors. She was a child of this apocalypse.

  No more. The Mother snatched her from the ground and lifted her body as though she weighed nothing. The jagged fingernails of the Mother tore into the young girl’s flesh as she brought the child’s neck to her mouth, opened wide, and tore her open.

  Gem started to get to her feet and Flex grabbed her with all his strength and threw his hand over her mouth. She struggled, but Flex could not look at her. His eyes were transfixed on the Mother who now tore the child’s head open with one strong pull and reached in to the skull cavity to tear out the brain in one chunk.

  She put it to her mouth and in two bites, consum
ed it.

  She dropped the body onto the ground and fell to her knees, tearing open the now blood-soaked yellow dress.

  All of the Mothers were down now, and as they buried their heads into the young, human meat, it was again as though a silent command was issued.

  All the Hungerers around them resumed killing and eating the residents of Great Bend, Kansas.

  Flex knew now what had happened.

  The bodies they had found in Great Bend were either very, very old or very, very young. They would not have made even a 10-mile walk to Hoisington.

  They would not serve as food for Maestro’s army.

  Flex tugged on Gem’s shirt. She met his eyes and he nodded toward a nearby corpse, one with only two of the Hungerers consuming it.

  They were too close to the front not to appear to be feeding. Flex was afraid that right now they stood out like a sore thumb.

  “No,” she whispered, barely moving her lips. Her red eyes told the story.

  Flex crawled to the corpse, pushed one of the other Hungerers aside, and made room for Gem.

  Kneeling side-by-side, they lowered their heads just inches from the warm, steaming human carcass.

  Flex and Gem cried there, as they grieved the lives of the hundred or so men, women and children that had died around them. They steeled their nerves and waited until it was safe to make their way back to the others.

  *****

  CHAPTER TEN

  Isis and Max crouched just outside the fence. The design made it difficult, but not impossible, to see through. You had to get close and peer between the uprights.

  “Start at the south corner,” said Max. “I’ll start at the north corner, and we can work our way toward one another.”

  “Good,” Isis said, ducking down in the weeds, making her way to the southern edge of the corral.

  Both put their eyes to the steel slats and looked through. Isis saw a mass of moving bodies in front of the spot she had chosen, and moved five more uprights north.