“I’m right here, darling,” said Hemp. I watched him watching his Charlie, and I loved him. I loved that he loved her. I loved that Flex and I found her and brought her home to him.
Charlie blew out, then drew in a big breath and pushed with all her might. She screamed and the girls cried and I smiled and cringed at the same time.
“Here he comes,” said Scofield. “Okay, the head’s out.”
I wanted to go over, but Flexy had fallen asleep in my arms finally, so I sat there and watched, tears rolling down my face.
“Yuck!” said Trina, looking at me with a look of disgust on her face. “Is that what I looked like?”
“I’m sure it’s pretty close,” I said. “But I wasn’t there, sweetie.”
Scofield worked his hands and said, “Shoulders are out now.” He gave the baby an easy twist, and with one hand, took the towel from across his leg and filled it full of brand new baby. He looked at Isis, who had walked clumsily over to where he sat. She was smiling.
Jim examined the newborn as Hemp gave him the scissors. He clipped the umbilical cord and quickly wrapped a rubber band around it.
“Is he okay?” asked Charlie, sitting up on her elbows, the girls still squeezing her hands. Her brows were raised, and there was love and hope in her eyes.
“Good lookin’ boy,” said Scofield. “And he’ll be fine, once we get him crying.”
Doc Scofield carried him quickly to the sink and lay the child inside, rubbing it briskly with the towel. A moment later, we all heard the tiny cough, followed by the new cry of a living, breathing baby.
“So it is a boy?” asked Charlie. “Isis? You did know.”
“I knew you would be happy,” she said, her mouth opened in a big smile, her oversized teeth gleaming. “His name’s Max.”
We all stared at Hemp and Charlie for confirmation.
*****
I drove as fast as I could down Highway 72. We’d made quick work of saturating the flechettes within the shotgun shells with the estrogen blocker-enriched aloe vera gel. Now we just had to figure out how to efficiently take down all the red-eyes with our limited rounds.
I got on the radio to Punch. “Tyger River’s coming up,” I said. “We had it cleared on the way here, but I don’t know if Cara and her crew blocked it off again.”
There were a lot of rotters crossing here when Tony and I were heading north. I didn’t see any now. We’d done our little part to decimate them, but that didn’t mean much; there were nine times as many of them as us.
I knew at that point that I was a mere five miles away. The trip north had taken much longer, but most of the work we’d done to clear the roads on the way north was still in effect. No new crashes, no washed out roads other than what we’d already dealt with.
The bridge came into view, and we could see all the cars on it that we had pulled out of the way to allow us to pass. The hurricane’s force must have been tremendous for a while, anyway. As I approached the bridge, I saw one car on its side against the rail, and as we looked down, we saw another two had somehow been blown off the bridge.
Maybe from that tornado that Gem had told us about.
“Must be a good feelin’, Flex,” said Punch.
“It is,” I said. “How’s the grape runnin’?”
“Sweet,” he said. He zigzagged behind me as I maneuvered around the cars, following the sole open path of roadway across the bridge.
The river below was nothing like the Catawba had been. It still churned and roiled, having overflowed its banks by probably ten feet on either side, but I could see where it had already receded around three feet from where it had been at full tilt boogie.
I got that from Janis Joplin’s last band name. Always liked it. To me, it’s always been the equivalent of “the max,” and describes pretty well how Hurricane George blew through the Carolinas at exactly the wrong time.
Once we cleared the bridge, we were open again. Within another two miles, the parade of walking dead came into view.
Staggering shamblers in filthy, rotted clothing, their sunken eyes and skeletal bodies reminding me of their goddamned immortality without a bullet or ninja star or knife to the brain.
They emerged as if materializing from the woods on the sides of the road, and I slowed the Land Cruiser to fifteen miles per hour and just mowed them over. I yanked on the AK-47’s firing rope, blasting the crowns of their heads into a chunky mist until I was out of filled magazines for the weapon.
They pushed against the vehicle and slid away as I rolled past them, some of their legs slipping beneath the Toyota, and I’m sure the GTO behind me. I ran these over like bleeding speed bumps. Bleed bumps.
“Another mile, Punch,” I said, pressing the pedal down more. Ahead was some kind of natural wash. The zombies that had been moving along the street had bunched up there, and I saw that some had moved into the forest, probably taking a deer trail.
The draw to Whitmire, where my family was, was undoubtedly stronger than their ability to ignore it. Some stepped into the wash, which appeared to be around three feet deep, and were whooshed away by the flowing water. I was fairly certain I could get through, but I wasn’t sure about the GTO.
I got on the radio. “Punch, park that thing. You won’t make it through this, and I can’t stop to hook you up to the winch cable and pull you across. Too big a hurry.”
“Not a problem, Flex,” he said. He pulled the car off the road and hopped out with his shotgun and backpack. He got to my car, opened the rear door, threw his pack in and got in front.
I looked at him. He stared back, on his face what I might call a grateful smile. Sure. I recognized it. We’d saved quite a few people along the way since the zombie problem started, and it was a familiar look. Maybe Punch, with his military skills, had only been a prisoner in his own mind, but Tony and I showing up that day had flipped some switch that made him realize that inaction was his only barrier to obtaining freedom again.
“You’re gonna have to pardon the first impression you’re gonna get there,” I said. “Sounds like the shit has not only hit the fan, it’s smashed it. Being a Marine, you know where shit rolls, and you and I are downhill, brother. It’s on us.”
He hefted his Saiga and said, “All twenty flechette rounds are in here.” He reached to the floorboard and brought up the super soaker. “And we filled these at our last stop. We’re good to go.”
“We’ll play it by ear when we get there,” I said.
“You should call them,” said Punch. “Tell ‘em we’re almost there.”
“Good idea,” I said. I picked it up and pressed the button. “Gem, Hemp? You there?”
“You are so not military,” said Punch.
“Flex?” came a voice. It was not very familiar, but sounded kind of like Dave Gammon.
“Bug?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Flex, we thought we had the fire out, but I guess a wheel caught, and now the undercarriage is burning. Floor’s starting to get hot, man.”
I floored the vehicle and if a zombie got in my way he’d just get cut in half. I made a left onto our access road.
“I don’t see any flames, Bug,” I said. “I’m coming down our road now.”
“It’s underneath,” he said. “We can’t even see it, but we can sure smell it. We’re getting choked up in here.”
“Nothing Lola can do to draw ‘em somewhere else?”
“Maybe there would be, but she’s trapped inside, and she can’t fit through the ceiling vent like Rachel can.”
The house came into view. I stared. Punch said, “Wow. They were inside when that happened?”
I pushed the button again, a million things on my brain, and I just started spewing them. “Bug? How’s my son? How’s Gem? How’s Charlie? Did she have her baby yet?”
“They’re fine,” he answered. “We’re all lying on the floor now to stay out of the smoke. Floor’s hot, Flex. We gotta get out of this thing or we’re all roasted.”
He was keeping his voice low, but I knew the girls were listening to everything he said.
We rounded the corner of the house and a large tree had fallen in our path.
“End of the line, bud,” I said. “Grab your toy gun, your shotgun and every handgun you have. And remember to preserve the flechette rounds. Only use them on red-eyes.” I threw the SUV in park.
“Got it,” he said.
“Hold on, Bug,” I said into the radio. “We’re coming around the corner. I smell the fire, too.” It smelled like burning plastic and rubber.
“You should be in here,” he said, his voice strained.
We approached the corner. I reached into my pocket and drew in my breath.
I’d never been called on to estimate a crowd size. I’d put the one in front of me at a thousand. Hundreds must have been pressing in on the motor home.
It was now full dark, and the moon was trapped behind a thick cloud cover. The wind still blew at probably twenty-five miles an hour, but it was like mere trade winds compared to its former power.
“Put Gem on the line,” I said into the radio.
“I’m here, babe,” she said. “I couldn’t help myself. I had to crawl over to get the other radio.”
There was a pause. “Flex? I’m so glad you’re back. My mind was beginning to do stupid stuff.”
“I wouldn’t leave you guys,” I said. “You’re what got me back. Is Flexy okay?”
“You’ll see. What’s your plan?” she asked.
“Hold on, Gem.”
I talked it out with Punch. We moved through the rubble of the house and worked our way to the only remaining wall; the one that stood five feet from the mobile lab. Both of us were on WAT-5, so we didn’t worry about detection from the masses. The red-eyes had a sixth sense, but so far, none had turned to spy us.
“They need out of there,” said Punch. “Only one door, right?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Okay. I got something.”
He told me his plan.
“That might work,” I said. “Fastest way to get them out.”
I got on the radio and told Gem and Bug what needed to happen. Neither argued.
*****
The generator had died, and there was no ambient light except for several LED flashlights that some of us had in our pockets. It had become a staple item in our survival inventory. I had a headlight on, as did Hemp and Dave Gammon.
“Everybody, lie as flat as you can on the floor. Girls, no heads raised, not even an inch, you got that?”
“Yes, Gemmy,” the girls said together.
“And keep Bunsen and Slider down, too,” I said. “It’s very important.”
“I got Slider here,” said Dave. “Serena’s holding Bunsen down.”
Rachel and Nelson had taken a far corner. The floor was hot, and I swore it would burn through and scorch us all if something didn’t happen soon. It was easier to breathe down on the floor, but not by much.
The rain had stopped, and now only the wind whistled past the open vent above us. Some of the wind made its way to the interior, helping move the air inside, but it wasn’t enough. There were too many of us consuming oxygen and the fire below us seemed to pre-heat it before it reached our lungs. It felt like I was breathing through a smoldering sock.
A huge explosion sounded, and the mobile lab dropped on one end, throwing the floor on an angle.
“That was the tire blowing out!” yelled Hemp. “Front left, from our angle.”
“That’s where the fire I couldn’t get to was burning,” said Rachel. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t lean out that far.”
Then we heard hissing, popping and muffled, animalistic shrieks. The walls began pushing in farther, for we could no longer hold them back and be on the floor at the same time.
In the light of our headlamps and LED flashlights, we watched the walls in flux, moving in and out, cracking and bending.
The hiss-popping continued, and above our heads, water began to pour in on us.
*****
“Spray it up as high as you can, Punch!” I said. “Make it rain, buddy! The more you wet ‘em the more we take down and the quicker we can get to the red eyes!”
“Got it,” he shouted back, and we separated. I saw a red-eye to my right and spun my Daewoo toward her, firing as I turned to avoid giving her a chance to make a defensive move. I’d seen that trick in the waiting room at the prison in Concord and so many other places.
The rounds blew her red eyes through the back of her head and she collapsed into the crowd of melting zombie bodies. The three-round burst punched the same number of holes in the mobile lab’s now thin sheathing. I hoped everyone was on the floor as we’d instructed them.
I told myself I didn’t have to worry, but I backed toward the destroyed house again and pulled the radio from my clip as I watched Punch water down another twenty or so rotters.
“Gem, are you guys down?”
When she came back, her voice was shaking and she sounded frightened. Not like my Gem. “Yeah, Flex. That last one rattled the blinds, but that’s all.”
“Stay there. It’s gonna get messy. When we give you the go-ahead, I want someone to kick that fucking door open and you all get the hell out of there as fast as you can, okay?”
“Yes!”
“Just wait, then,” I said. I put the radio back on my belt.
“Get over here, Punch,” I said. “Right in front. Hurry!”
Punch had done well. Most of the standard-issue rotters were now on the ground, bubbling like the La Brea Tar Pits. As they melted, bubbles in their muck would expand larger and larger before popping, sending small spatters into the air.
“Clear enough?” he asked, moving beside me, his eyes ever watchful. More of the zombies moved in where their brothers and sisters had fallen, and now it seemed the majority was of the more intelligent variety.
“Time to try this fucker out,” he said. “Flex, is that one over there?”
I followed his pointing finger. The creature stood with her back to us, but her straight hair blew in the wind, untangled. She was five feet away.
“My guess is yes,” I said. “Don’t shoot her in the head. Hemp says just introducing the blocker into her system should be enough.”
“Good,” he said. “It’ll tell us if this shit is gonna work.”
He raised his gun. She turned and launched herself toward us simultaneously.
“Fire!” I shouted.
Punch fired. The booming explosion shattered the night, dominating the howling wind and the hiss-popping of the melting zombies around us. What happened next amazed me.
She dropped in mid-flight, smashing into the sticky, wet pile of the dead creatures around us. Seconds later, she pushed herself from the muck that clung to her hands and arms like rubber cement and got back to her feet.
She looked downward, her attention on the wound in her distended stomach, and as we watched, the skin there peeled away and the fetus within her slid from its cold, dead chrysalis, dropping with a sodden thud into the mass of melted, black-red slime at her feet.
From her belly, she began splitting up to her chest, her neck, then her face. Her skin peeled away, revealing only her skeletal framework beneath, and finally, her oh, so lovely hair and scalp fell from her frame and slid down what remained of her body.
The bones began to disintegrate, and she dissolved into the ground. She had not made a sound. Her destruction was complete.
I slapped Punch on the back and said, “Let the fucking flechettes, fly, but focus on a path out of that goddamned lab first.”
I pushed the button on my radio again. “This is it! Everybody flat on the fucking ground! Stay below the one foot high mark!”
Punch stood back dead center from the entry door to the lab. No more of the standard issue walking dead remained, having been reduced to a sea of goo.
All that were left on their feet were red-eyes. It seemed that they turned toward us all at once. Punch stu
ck to the plan.
“Now!” I shouted. He let flechette round after flechette round fly. I took as many out with the Daewoo as I could, until we had cleared a path about ten feet wide, centered at the door.
The goddamned mobile lab started to look like Bonnie and Clyde’s 1934 Ford on the day they died. I hoped everyone inside had followed our instructions or they’d be dead, too.
*****
As Flex and Punch fired away outside, the blinds, upholstery and walls blew into fragments that rained down upon those of us cowering inside. The side window had blown out with the onset of their attack, and directly in the line of fire, the chair Charlie had just used to deliver her baby was peppered with bullet holes. Tiny metal rods stung our exposed skin as they hit the opposite wall of the lab, bounced off and dropped. They were hot and sticky and I had no idea what they were at the time, but they didn’t seem to pose a threat.
The onslaught continued for at least five solid minutes before things outside fell silent. The smoke was thick and smothering and I could hardly breathe. I worried for my son and all of us inside, but mostly for him. The little tube in his neck was his only airway, and what he had to breathe wasn’t what I’d consider up to the EPA’s clean air standards. I also worried for Charlie’s newborn son, facing this battle in his first minutes of life.
“Gem!” came Flex’s voice over the radio. “Get out of there! Kick that fucking door open and prepare to step in some sticky crap, but keep going. Got me?”
“Everybody!” I shouted. “You heard. Up, up!”
“We just go?” asked Lola. “I still hear them,” she said. “Still in my head. There’s lots of them,” she said.
“Flex is right,” said Isis. “They have cleared a path.”
Nelson, skinny as he was, scooped up Trina, and Dave grabbed Taylor. Neither child cried or argued. Their expressions were fixed, determined and watchful.
Our girls had come quite a long way over the past months, and almost seemed unfazed by anything that happened. Sometimes they lost it emotionally, but we were seeing children grow up in madness for the first time in our lives. They were adapting.
Dead Hunger VI_The Gathering Storm Page 35
