Charlie walked over, saying, “She’s going to be fine. Nice touch with the whole dick thing.”
Despite herself, Gem laughed, and Flex found a smile on his face, too. It was probably just shock and relief, but soon Trina was laughing. All of their laughter turned to tears, and by the time they headed down the trail, the dead man behind them was already becoming a distant memory.
Flex knew they would not waste any time thinking about the dead tyrant.
Soon they would have time to mourn their son.
*****
The battle raged below, with the Mothers pushing the Hungerers into a frenzy within the compromised enclosure. The surviving, uninjured Magas were paralyzed with emotional pain and terror, as seventeen of their sisters had been impaled by the hammering hydraulic shafts or torn apart by the driven flesh-eaters.
Isis heard Hemp’s voice from across the pit, but she could not spot him or Flex, to whom he called, “Dump it, Flex! Dump it!”
Water had been flowing into the pit, but it had no effect; there was no urushiol mixed in.
Now, as Isis saw the rush of water change in appearance, the creatures near the inflow seemed to blend with the water and disappear. More and more of them escaped over the north, south and east sides of the fence pouring into the town. Mothers were among them, directing the battle.
Isis climbed back up the side of the fence to where the catwalk once stood, and clung there, holding out her hand. Max saw her, climbed up behind her and passed her, crawling out onto the fence where the Magas lay, clinging to the chain link just out of the grasp of the reaching creatures below.
One by one, they helped them to the edge, and eased them down to the ground, where Megan and Beauty had recovered enough to receive them.
Many were dead or dying. When those in condition to survive were all safely away from the caged pit, Isis stared down inside, most of the pit still dry and teeming with the ever-hungry dead things.
Isis remained on the fence, staring down at the now oily water within the pit. Her eyes grew redder as her focus increased. She vaguely heard the screams of dying townspeople, and it was the last straw.
The pool of urushiol and water exploded into flame below her, the sudden flash shocking Isis, sending her flying backward from the fence. Dave and Nelson had been watching and charged to a position to catch her, but in the end all three went down.
The burst of heat had been so unexpectedly powerful that even Isis was not sure what she had done.
Scrambling back to her feet, Isis shielded her face from the firestorm within the pit. Every creature was aflame; not just the ones within the pit itself, but also the monsters that had already escaped. They ignited mid-step, falling and burning as hot as jet fuel. The Mothers exploded into torches and burned a vivid blue, then a dazzling white.
Then they were scorches on the asphalt.
In twenty minutes, it was all over.
It was time to count the dead.
*****
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
The pit had been rebuilt, and the motor supplying rotation to the hydraulic and pneumatics was converted into a magnetic-driven, energy-free design that Hemp and Flex had been experimenting with.
Flex had a lot of input, as years earlier, he had enjoyed toying with magnetic motors, always with the hope that he would invent one that could be brought into the mainstream. Free power. Who wouldn’t want that? He knew it even before the true need arose.
Taylor’s gunshot wound had been clean through and missed any major organs, but it struck a nerve running from her spine, which caused her to lose the feeling in her left, lower leg. Her gait was noticeably off, but if called upon to do so, she could muster a run.
Doc Scofield told her she was lucky. Another quarter inch, and she might have been paralyzed. She had begun medical training under Scofield, and was becoming quite a nurse practitioner herself. Her dexterity was not affected, and she had good hands, or so Doc told her.
All in all, twenty-two citizens of Kingman had been killed in the onslaught driven by Maestro’s need for power; many of them by head shots administered by other townsfolk.
The many funeral services were well-attended, including that of Kimberly. Her sisters, Vikki and Victoria, sobbed uncontrollably as several patrons of Three Sisters Bar and Karaoke Lounge spoke about her and her caring ways.
The service for young Flex Sheridan Jr. was held a week after the death of Maestro. It had been necessary to cremate his body well before that, but the condition the Mother had left it in was not suitable for an open casket anyway.
At the service, Gem and Flex sat in the front row of the small church beside Hemp, Charlie, Trina, and Taylor.
The statue of Jesus Christ on the cross stared down at them, and Gem wondered for the millionth time if she had just believed or disbelieved with more conviction, if anything would be different today.
If all of humankind had believed in this God, might he have spared them this horrible apocalypse? Were the non-believers and the sinners to blame?
Gem did not know. Her son was gone. It didn’t really matter now.
Isis and Max, two of Flexy’s greatest friends with whom he had grown up, spoke at the memorial.
“Flexy and I were tight,” she said. “I remember every second growing up with him, and when I say that, I think most of you know I remember literally every second.”
The crowd laughed at this, even as they wiped away more tears.
Isis continued: “There were lots of mornings when I’d look in the mirror and curse how fast I was maturing because I had such a crush on him it was stupid. I knew, without anyone telling me, that because I was aging twice as fast as he was, we never stood a chance other than to be close friends, which is what we were. I know he never really accepted it, but in time, he would have. It wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of girls in Kingman chasing him, because he did. I would have been one of them had things been different.”
She paused a moment, looked like she was ready to speak again, and took another few second before reaching down and holding up a picture that Gem had given to her.
“Gem gave me this,” she said. “Flexy drew it of me the morning he died. You know how you see yourself a certain way? Maybe you ignore certain qualities in yourself and you only see the faults and blemishes?”
Tears streamed down her face now. “When Gem gave this to me, I looked at it and I cried. Flexy saw me this way,” she said. “He thought I was beautiful, and I’d never seen myself that way.”
She looked out across the silent, tearful audience. “I thought he was beautiful, too. I’ll miss him every single day.”
Nobody had ever seen Isis cry before that day. Nobody has seen it since.
Max stood and walked to the front of the church.
“Obviously Flexy was just a little older than me, but I have the same physiological condition that Isis has, so he always seemed more like a cool kid brother to me. I considered him my best friend.”
Max looked up at the sky and said, “Flexy, buddy, if you can hear me now, I want you to know something without any doubt in your mind.” He pointed at Isis and said, “I’ve always seen Isis as beautiful, just like you. I’m pretty sure you and I talked about it a few times. I sensed her inner beauty from the time I was born, and she’s only gotten prettier since.”
He stopped and looked at Isis for a long time and she smiled at him, her face red. Max nodded and turned his face toward the sky again.
“I’m telling you right now buddy, I’m going to marry Isis one day, and we’re going to have a kid. Come hell or high water, that kid is gonna be a boy, and his name is gonna be Flex Chatsworth. If the first one isn’t, the second one will be, and if the second one isn’t, the third one will be. And Flexy, he’s gonna be a Hybrid 3.0, so you can rest assured that your namesake will be the kinda guy that my dad calls a John Wayne.”
Max slapped the podium and pointed toward the sky. “Flexy, I kinda see that as com
ing full circle.”
It was not only the first and last time anyone saw Isis cry; it was the first time anyone ever saw her blush, too.
When they were done, Gem was unable to stand and speak of her dead son. Her grief, and Flex’s, was shared through their silent tears at the service and with close friends in private.
Kingman soon returned to normal. The program to create more Hybrids was discontinued, as twenty-one of the Magas had survived Maestro’s final onslaught.
Beauty had Maestro’s child. The entire pregnancy lasted three months. She had a beautiful boy whom she named Travis. He is five months old and he is amazing. He’s nothing like his father.
Together, the citizens of Kingman concocted a plan to send them out to strategic points across the country. It was voluntary, and once there, they were to develop a system to summon, then annihilate the Mothers and Hungerers. Logic dictated that if they were strategically located, every part of the continental United States, at least, would be reachable.
It was the only way that they could significantly reduce the numbers of the millions of rotters that remained in the country.
Life without Flexy was hard, but Flex and Gem still had one another, and they still had Trina and their family of friends.
As a result of their great loss, or possibly just because they were so well loved in Kingman, Flex and Gem Sheridan also had lots and lots of requests to be Godparents to many, many Godchildren.
Kingman thrives.
THE END
(Keep going … there’s news.)
YES, THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DEAD HUNGER.
Dead Hunger VIII: The Cleansing
Coming in early 2015
*******************************************
Other Books By Eric A. Shelman
And Dolphin Moon Publishing
Out of the Darkness: The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson (1999)
Case #1: The Mary Ellen Wilson Files (2005)
A Reason To Kill
(2010)
Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle
(2011)
Generation Evil
(2011)
Dead Hunger II: The Gem Cardoza Chronicle
(2012)
Dead Hunger III: The Chatsworth Chronicles
(2012)
Dead Hunger IV: Evolution
(2012)
Dead Hunger V: The Road To California
(2013)
Shifting Fears
(2013)
Dead Hunger VI: The Gathering Storm
(2014)
“Like” Eric A. Shelman’s Author page on Facebook!
(On Facebook, Search “Eric A. Shelman, Author”)
*******************************
ONE LAST THING.
You clearly need to be chastised. If you look above, you’re going to see some books you haven’t read before, like Shifting Fears and Generation Evil. This brings to mind a question: If you’re so freakin’ hung up on my zombie books, and you love the characters, can you PLEASE tell me why you ignore my other shit? I ask you this because I am a Dean Koontz fan and a Clive Cussler fan. I read EVERYTHING they write. I suggest you do the same with Eric A. Shelman and quit makin’ me sad. ‘Nuf said.
*****
Dead Hunger VII_The Reign of Isis Page 37
