Dead Hunger VI_The Gathering Storm

by Eric A. Shelman

  She was right, of course. Talk about resolve. My husband had that. I put my worry away and thought about my current situation instead.

  My back hurt. My neck hurt. I had pain in my left leg and as I tried to move it, I found I couldn’t. The wind gusted again and I heard something out of my line of sight crash to the floor.

  This was bad enough. Tornados on top of everything else was just insult added to injury. The events that occurred just prior to everything going black as I cowered beneath that sofa cushion flooded back.

  The ravaging, swirling twister splintering the corner of the house first, then attacking the roof. I recalled the massive, stormy sky that had appeared overhead as the sound of destruction filled my ears and the roof started to peel away. I remembered hearing the sound of timbers squealing, nails pulling out of wood, followed by the enormous beam coming down against the basement door.

  The beam that I now rested beneath.

  A dog barked from somewhere below me. I smiled again. The dogs! Bunsen and Slider had made it in. That was the story here. I was alive. The dogs were alive. My family was alive.

  I didn’t give a shit who else thought so, because I knew I was a hero right then, at least to Trina and Taylor. And maybe to Charlie, who loved Bunsen like no other animal that ever walked the earth.

  I would celebrate my heroine status later. For now, as always, there was more work to do. Plus, I had a distinct feeling Flex would not approve of my heroic actions one little bit. Much as he loved those dogs, he would remind me that they were not humans and they were not as important as me.

  Because the timber I had crawled beneath was around a 6x10, it had prevented some larger limbs, boards and trusses from landing on me.

  But not all of them. With movement, my neck became more flexible and I could now effectively look downward to see what prevented my leg from moving. A 2x4 with a nail protruding from it had fallen on me, and I could see that all but perhaps a half inch of the nail had plunged through my left ankle.

  What was worse, the nail appeared to have embedded itself in the hardwood floor, essentially nailing my leg down. I could not tell by looking how deep it had entered the floor, but I guessed it could not have been much. I looked around. Nothing else pinned my body, but I would need some ingenuity to free myself.

  I lay there on my back, craning my head forward enough to see the culprit nail. With all my strength – which I’ll admit wasn’t quite up to snuff at that moment – I tried to jerk my left leg up and off the nail.

  A bolt of pain ripped from my foot all the way up to my waist. I felt dizzy, as though I might pass out.

  Breathe. Just breathe a moment.

  I looked again, my vision, momentarily having gone to black spots from the pain, now cleared. Nothing had changed. No progress. I was stuck.

  My eyes darted around and I searched for anything that would help me.

  A huge gust of wind came then, followed by a sustained current of air that moved at least twenty miles per hour faster than previously. Debris whipped around and smacked into everything in its path, and I knew that my time would soon be gone. I could not simply lie here in a supine position, waiting to be crushed by a flying tree or a falling wall.

  There was another 2x4 to my left that appeared to be around five feet long. I strained as I reached, stretching my left arm toward it until I was able to throw my upper torso outward and curl my fingers around the tip of the board. I snatched it and pulled it in.

  Looking at it, I could see it had once been connected to the other one that had nailed me to the floor like Jesus on the cross, only in this case I was the sinner, not the savior.

  Now the tricky part.

  The radio on my belt clicked. “Gem, can you read? Gem, do you read us?”

  It was Charlie’s voice. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the radio, and wasn’t sure exactly where it was. Hearing her voice gave me renewed resolve, however, so I pulled back on the 2x4, dragged the base of it along the debris-riddled, rain-soaked hardwood and jammed it beneath the piece of wood through which the nail protruded into my ankle.

  Sort of a fulcrum, but using just me, the floor and the board. I used both hands to push upward with leverage.

  I felt the nail withdraw from my leg and I screamed at the unexpected pain, but I could not sustain it. Prior to that, I had not been able to feel anything. Until the board moved, I had believed my leg was numb. Wishful thinking. It felt as though someone had heated the nail in my ankle up to 1,000 degrees.

  Breathing hard, I kept my arms raised and my shaking hands on the 2x4, waiting for the pain to subside. I took ten deep breaths and resolved to try again – just one more hard lift.

  I squeezed my eyes closed and tried again, ignoring the tears that came as I forced my weakening arms all the way up. I again felt the galvanized steel nail slide against raw meat.

  My raw meat.

  A different sound met my ears and I bristled. I turned my head to my left and saw her standing there, beside that massive tree, ten feet away from me. Her red eyes glared and a hand steadied herself against the rough bark of the tree that lay atop the downed sliding glass door. The tatters of her dress whipped behind her, and as I watched with dread and amazement, I saw her fighting the wind that buffeted her slight frame.

  She was the blaring alarm clock. She was the bank of speakers mounted to that high pole that blares sirens when the nuclear facility has suffered a catastrophic meltdown.

  This red-eye was my motivation, and I can tell you that nothing bolsters Gemina Cardoza’s survival instinct more than the prospect of being eaten alive or gassed into subservience at the cost of my family.

  I pushed again on the board in my hands, but I had reached the top of my range-of-motion. I could not lift the board any higher without repositioning, and that meant only one thing.

  I looked back at the creature. She had moved another foot toward me, finding another handhold on the large, downed tree.

  Looking down at my drop holster, I realized it was pinned beneath me. Again I looked at the red-eye. I was on WAT-5 but we knew that was spotty at best, and she wasn’t there for shelter, that much I knew.

  She senses your strength, Gemina. She wants to consume you.

  The words had entered my mind, and from the small voice and eerie confidence with which they were transmitted, I knew they must be true.

  Isis had spoken them.

  Did the strange child see what was happening? How could she know?

  The creature took another step toward me. Again I tried to push up another fraction of an inch, but gained nothing. No choice. I braced myself for the pain.

  I released my arms and the nail plunged back through my ankle. I cried out, and my show of weakness only emboldened the red-eye, for she let go in the gusting wind and gained yet another step toward me.

  With no time to allow myself time to recover, I slid the 2x4 in my hands further beneath the board holding the nail. At least it was out of the floor now, but I had to get it out of me.

  With a grunt and one eye on the advancing, intelligent rotter, I pushed both arms outward like double pistons. The board lifted and the nail pulled free, and I immediately pulled my left ankle toward my body and allowed the board to fall.

  Then I slid out the 2x4 and drew back my arm, throwing it at the creature whose face had changed. She stared at me, her dead expression now somehow angry, no longer patient and calculating.

  I had pissed her off. I felt precious, warm blood running from the hole left behind and wondered if she sensed it, even with the WAT-5’s influence.

  Red-eyes took another step toward me, but this time she did not pause. She released the tree trunk and staggered a second step, then a third.

  Panicked, I tried rocking myself onto my left side to free up my drop holster, pinned beneath my right thigh.

  She was four feet away from me now. I hooked my left arm over the beam just above my head. Twisting my body, I felt my right leg flat against the floor and my holster
free.

  I reached down with my right hand and pulled the Glock from the holster. A round was always chambered.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe as the intelligent zombie curled her fingers around my throat, her mouth opened in a gory display of black gums, brown teeth and putrid breath.

  I raised the weapon and jammed it against her skull so hard I heard bone crack. Just as a bright red vapor began to pour from the creature’s red eyes, I forced all the air from my lungs and pulled the trigger.

  Her brains exploded from the right side of her head and she collapsed atop me, but not before the recoil sent the semi-automatic flying from my hand, landing with a thud somewhere on the floor to my right.

  But my single round had been effective. Seconds after firing the weapon, I heard screams from below.

  She no longer squeezed, but her nasty fingers still lay curled around my neck, and I threw her hand off of me and pushed her body aside. She flipped over and lay on her back, her black lifeblood leaking from her wasted body.

  I started the painful process of sliding out from beneath the beam. I moved into a sitting position and put a little weight on my ankle. It was already clotting, telling me my body was functioning well. I leaned forward, adding a bit more weight to the leg.

  After another five minutes, and lots of searching the room for threats, I pushed myself to my feet and stood there wobbling. Next move: let go of the wall.

  Finally I stood on my own two feet again. I tore off a piece of the red-eye’s gauzy dress and tied it over the wound on my ankle. It was wet, but the pressure felt better than nothing at all. I hoped infection wouldn’t set in.

  Once up and stable enough to continue, I found the dropped gun and checked my surroundings again. No more rotters had emerged. I holstered the Glock and looked for my Uzi. It was not in clear sight, but nothing in the room was where it had been before the twister. Stuff was either moved, hidden by debris or completely gone with the wind.

  I worked my way around the room in the pouring rain, grateful the Ham radio was now in the basement with my family of fortunate survivors. I spotted my gun. Just the tip stuck out from beneath what was once the nook dining table.

  I worked my way there and wiggled the Uzi from side-to-side until it came free, careful to stay out of its line of fire just in case something out of sight pressed against the trigger. The gun finally did come free, and I was happy to see it looked intact.

  Clipped to the shoulder strap were four full magazines, too.

  I had an idea. It was all I had, so I hoped it would work.

  I needed to get my family out of their prison below. If anything happened to me, they would be trapped down there forever.

  *****

  Chapter Ten

  I pulled open drawer after drawer while Punch looked on. “What the hell are you lookin’ for, Flex?” He asked.

  “Syringes,” I said. “Hemp said to find them and bring as many as we could.”

  Punch did not respond. Instead, he went to the front counter and started yanking drawers open beneath until he said, “Got it.”

  I turned, and sure enough, in his hands were cardboard dispenser boxes with syringes. Two unopened, and one open. Both contained 100 syringes.

  “This outta do it for bit, you think?” he asked.

  “Take ‘em all,” I said. “Give me one. Your bag’s looking a bit full.”

  He did, and I crushed the box as much as I could before stuffing it in my canvas bag. Then I undid my belt, slid it through the handles of the bag, and re-fastened it. My supplies now dangled, eliminating the need for me to hold on to the bag. I reached for a stapler on the desk and stapled the top of my bag closed. I never knew when I’d be sliding along the floor or jumping out of windows, and I didn’t need to be losing any of what we’d risked life and limb to obtain.

  “Good idea,” said Punch. He followed suit, freeing up his hands for battle. One held his baseball bat, the other held his crazy shotgun.

  “Okay,” I said. “I sure wish we had WAT-5 that would keep uninfecteds from seeing us, but one way or another we gotta get the hell out of here and get to this Yancy Road address.”

  “How we set on WAT-5 anyway?” asked Punch.

  I didn’t answer. I just tucked the baseball bat between my legs and reached into my shirt pocket, withdrawing the baggie. I gave him a wafer and I took one myself and chewed it up.

  “Time flies in zombieland,” I said. “Better overly cautious than gourmet food for the undead.”

  Punch opened the door to the lobby again and the one-armed zombie shuffled over to us. Punch casually raised his super soaker on its bungee cord and gave him a little shot in the middle of his face.

  I turned away this time, but heard the sounds of zombie skin and flesh dissolving into mushy badness. I heard and smelled what was happening as the monster’s body collapsed to the floor with a swish rather than a thump, and became clothing sunken in goo.

  “Shit works,” said Punch. “You guys are geniuses.”

  “Little genius, little luck. Lots of Hemp,” I said. “You’ll meet him when we get back.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” he said. “Time to go for it?”

  I nodded. We had our headlamps off as he opened the door. We wanted to check the corridor for light and sound first. We both leaned out into the hallway. I looked left and he looked right.

  “Nothin’,” I said.

  “Same here,” he said. “Hear anything?”

  I listened to the whistling and low vibration. “Just the wind,” I said. “Sounds crazy out there, considering the size of this building. We shouldn’t be able to hear anything.”

  “What did you call this? Hurricane George?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “George is a mother fucker,” he said. “I say we go back the way we came in. See if they found your truck.”

  “I’ll let you lead with your big gun,” I said. “If you hit any trouble, feel free to deal with it as you see fit.”

  “Will do,” said Punch.

  He moved down the hallway, me directly behind him, watching the rear. We were forced to walk on top of some of the bodies in between the glass doors, both now shattered, but doing that, as disgusting as it felt beneath us, minimized the noise of crunching over chunks of tempered glass.

  We passed the pair of zombies I had sprayed with urushiol, and I was relieved to see they were beneath other bodies and were likely not noticed by the unknown visitors.

  Once clear of the segmented portion of the hallway, bodies were strewn all over. Bullet holes riddled the walls, along with blood spatter. The reek had to have been as bad or worse than any other enclosed space with similar death and decay, but to be perfectly honest, I just didn’t notice much anymore.

  I had once done an electrical job at a factory that produced a polyurethane glue. The process created a sharp, pungent odor that was very strong in the factory proper, but still permeated the air within the offices. I remembered asking them how they stood the smell for an entire work day.

  Their response was unanimous. “What smell?”

  Goes to show you … you can get used to anything.

  Punch stopped up as we reached the door leading back into the main hallway that connected building two with building one.

  “I don’t know where they went, Flex, but we look to be in the clear so far.”

  “Could be lucky, or they could be stakin’ out my truck.”

  “It’s a big building, Flex,” said Punch. “If they’re searching for us, it’s gonna take ‘em a while.”

  I didn’t see that we had much choice. Hiding wasn’t an option, and if we did come across them, we’d play it by ear from there.

  I nodded toward the main lobby. “Go on, brother. Side-by-side from here on out.”

  We moved along, his tactical shotgun in his hand, my Daewoo in mine. Nobody accosted us as we moved around the circular partition in the reception area, and through the doors leading back to the hall where we en
tered the building.

  “I gotta take a leak,” said Punch. “Like now.”

  “Go ahead,” I said. “I’ll go on to the door and see if anyone’s scoping it out.”

  Punch rested his bat against the wall and prepared to do his business. I moved down the hallway to the end. Once there, I put my ear to the door and listened.

  The wind raged, and the rain pounded. Above the howling wind and showers, I heard voices, yelling. Two men.

  “How long they been in there?” said one.

  Another, younger voice answered, screaming at what must have been the top of his lungs in order to be heard. “I ain’t got a watch,” he said. “You know that.”

  “Yeah,” said the other voice again, lower-toned, deeper and stronger. “Still don’t get why he made us wait outside instead of just in that door.”

  “He said in case someone tries to take this truck. He really wants it.”

  I was done listening. I pulled a Glock from my drop holster, and flung the door open hard. The wind caught it and did the rest. I heard it impact something solid, and I guessed it was one of the sentries.

  I stood in the open doorway and spun around to snatch a rifle from the unprepared hands of a very shocked kid of perhaps nineteen years. I put the Glock to his head, glancing toward the heavy door that flapped in the breeze behind me.

  “Inside and on the floor, spread eagle!” I ordered, with more forcefulness than I liked to use, what with being a lover rather than a fighter and all. “Move!”

  Apparently it worked, because the skinny kid practically dove into the hallway and lay on his stomach, his arms stretched out in front of him.

  To be honest I felt kind of bad, but not for long.

  A round pierced the metal door and I felt my pant leg ripple, and not just from the breeze.

  “Punch!” I screamed. “Watch this guy!”

  “Where the hell did he come from?” asked Punch, zipping and running at the same time.