Hungry Series: Tomes 1 & 2

by Tide, Lawrence Herbert

  "Not necessarily," replied Red, who was much more concerned, resuming, "These creatures are all in synchronism knocking the same weak area of the wall."

  A new collision was followed by a sound of falling.

  The girl and the big black man walked to another side looking out on the inner part of the rampart and the inner courtyard, and then they looked down. The cracks had widened on the surface of the wall from which dust began to fall.

  The next clash enlarged visible cracks, dust and pieces of concrete fell, joining other pieces that had accumulated on the dusty interior floor.

  Two technicians were leading two new robot builders by voice, joining the previous one to spray the cracked surface with more wet concrete.

  "My God, quick, or it'll end up giving way!" shouted one of the technicians while pointing to the surface, which under a new blow coming from outside had moved.

  "It's up to us!" exclaimed Red, and she then ran towards the stairs to go down the ramparts, followed by her friend.

  ***

  Frail

  Hiroto, eyes closed, was lying on his back on his futon bed.

  Mei was beside him, sitting cross-legged on a mat, and she was looking at him anxiously. Slowly moving closer a bowl of water, she poured some liquid into her father's half-open mouth while supporting his head with her free hand.

  The old man moved his lips when they felt the cold touch of the liquid. This started to get him out of unconsciousness... and he then felt that his throat was burning. Painfully, he tried to drink.

  He swallowed and coughed brutally, shaken by violent muscular spasms.

  Then his cough calmed and, swallowing his saliva, he cleared his throat. Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. It seemed vague in the darkness of his room, lit only by a small bedside lamp on a small table next to him. His gaze drifted at random, trying painfully to discern the details in the room.

  That's when he discerned a face.

  A face with fine features, which he recognized as being his daughter's, who smiled warmly at him.

  "Mei..." he murmured with difficulty.

  "I'm here, Dad," his daughter said, smiling, before adding, "I never thought I'd see you again!"

  "It's the same thing with me," he told her, giving her one of those discreet smiles she was used to.

  "And I'm so glad that you're staying with me now," the young woman exclaimed shyly, hardly containing her joy.

  "Not for long, I'm afraid," he replied, his smile disappearing.

  His daughter's smile faded when, moving his clothes, he showed her his wound.

  The young woman was horrified as she discovered the black veinlets spreading on his body in all directions from the wound, traces of necrosis having vaguely the shape of lightning. She knew what it meant, having watched with interest numerous medical documentaries on the Community's unique channel.

  The transformation process was initiated.

  Mei could not help but allow a tear that slowly trickled down one of her cheeks.

  Hiroto, laboriously, gently raised his right hand toward his daughter's cheek that he touched with his fingertips. The tear came to die on his fingers, the ends of which were beginning to darken in their turn.

  The old man whispered, "You know I've always felt that the truth must be told, Mei."

  He swallowed hard before continuing, "It is no use hiding one's head in the sand, you know it has always been my opinion."

  Mei remained silent, contemplating him with sadness.

  "We already knew that I was doomed by science in the next few years, because of my cancer, let's say this incident just accelerated things."

  The young woman nodded, finding nothing to say while facing the evidence.

  "There is another unmistakable fact," continued the old man, "and this fact is that, of all my students, you will have been the best, and the one who is the worthiest to succeed me."

  The emphasis he had just put on these last words made his throat ache and he couldn't help but cough.

  "May it be done as you desire," replied his daughter, infinite sadness on her face.

  Her father gave her a smile, the warmest smile she had ever seen him give to her... A smile that made her feel engulfed in a burst of warmth and tenderness, which reminded her of their distant moments together with her mother...

  "Now, let me rest, please," said the old man, with a soft but firm intonation.

  She nodded and stood up, giving him a small smile and whispering, "Yes, take some rest."

  Seeing that he was face up now and had closed his eyes, she came out, closing gently the door of the bedroom behind her.

  No sooner had she closed the door than Hiroto opened his eyes.

  Pointing at the ceiling, they drifted toward the door as he turned his head toward it.

  He listened. No noise.

  She was gone...

  Turning around with some difficulty, he put his hand along the edge of the futon and, having found what he was looking for with his fingertips, he pulled.

  The big drawer under the bed came out halfway, and he looked at the contents. Kimonos, belts that had never been used. His diplomas dating from his studies in the dojos of the Land of the Rising Sun…

  He thought of his native country, which he had left so long ago to come and educate the Americans. How many Japanese were still human? The epidemic caused by the Scourge had spread there as everywhere else in the world. And this not only because of the passengers of the international airlines, but also because of the flocks of birds which had spread the virus.

  With a deep heart, he looked at a picture of his late wife, Akiko, Mei's mother.

  Her joie de vivre, despite her setbacks, and her confidence in herself... She looks so much like her!

  He took a deep breath and decided, all of a sudden, to forget the past and to think about the future.

  The near future...

  Still fumbling in the drawer, he removed from a corner a bag that he opened, revealing dried plants. He took a handful and threw it into the bowl of water next to him.

  The herbs dissolved very quickly in the water, giving it a curious green color.

  Hiroto then drank as quickly as he could the contents of the bowl, which had now become effervescent.

  He then backed away suddenly and lay on his back. The arm holding the bowl began to shake, the same as the fingers clutching it.

  Suddenly the bowl escaped him.

  The almost empty container fell silently on the soft carpet at the foot of the bed and, emptying its contents, rolled a little further.

  Trembling now and spitting some of the green liquid from his half-opened lips, his eyes wide open towards the ceiling, the old man emitted groans of pain. Then the groans stopped and, calming down, he found a calm breath...

  An affirmed breath.

  Without feeling the slightest effort he rose slowly from the bed and, walking noiselessly, as his ancestors had learned to do for centuries, he approached the door of the room.

  He then pressed his ear against it and listened.

  No noticeable noise.

  He opened the door, which moved without a sound. Welcoming the fact that he had always wanted their apartment to be impeccable in every respect, among other things by making sure to grease its doors, he entered the corridor and, with a thousand precautions, closed the door of his room behind him.

  Then he began to walk along the corridor. He then heard a humming that made him stop.

  Nobody came to him. Still walking with a step as light as a feather, he passed the half-open door of the kitchen and, stopping near the frame, glanced inside.

  Mei was alone in the kitchen, preparing a meal while humming. Standing in front of a table on which she was preparing the meal, she began to sing an old Japanese song.

  A song about the fall of the snow...

  Hiroto felt at once an impulse, an irrepressible desire to go to her. His eyes began to tinge with red. He smelled the smell of his daughter's fle
sh, very attractive. The smell of her blood, so fresh, so young, so tasty, according to the aromas he sniffed, even at this distance.

  He advanced a hesitant foot, already clumsy...

  And he stepped back sharply, hiding behind the door as Mei was turning around.

  He breathed as silently as possible, but the sound of his own breath seemed deafening, it was as if it was totally invading his mind, annihilating anything else he could have heard.

  Looking now through the thin interstice between the wall and the door, he saw that the young woman had returned again, completely focused on her task.

  The old man withdrew a small sharp knife from his belt and looked at the metal point, the blade reflecting the light of the corridor where he was. His hand trembled as he held the handle of the dagger.

  Suddenly he planted it in the back of his other hand, emitting a small groan of pain when the flesh was pierced.

  The slight moan made Mei turn to look behind her.

  Looking at her discreetly, he saw his daughter frown, an interrogation replaced by a frown expressing doubt. She turned around again to continue her work.

  The pain made Hiroto's eyes close.

  Then his breath became calmer again.

  Yes...

  The ancestral drug that his ancestors had taken for centuries, to ease the pain and stay lucid during the most frightful battles. This drug, which was one of the many family secrets transmitted down inside his Samurai family, from father to son...

  The drug, added to the pain of the wound, had managed to make him emerge from this animal consciousness, monstrous, that he had felt. His eyes had almost completely lost their disturbing reddish color.

  He pulled back slowly and then felt something, which touched his back...

  Turning suddenly he found himself face to face with a demon. His heart sped up and then, calming down, he could not help but smile.

  It was just the monstrous, predator-fanged mask that adorned the front of the helmet of the Samurai's armor that was in the hallway. This monster mask, worn by his ancestors during armor fights, was once intended to frighten enemies. Without realizing it, he had stepped back and almost hit this multi-secular armor inherited from his ancestors.

  And he began to meditate while looking at it...

  ***

  Intrusion

  "We won't hack it for long facing such a swarming mass," exclaimed Johnny, who, with his hand on his sword still in its sheath, saw the crack widen visibly under the impressive blows of the zombies.

  He and his friend stood ready, standing in front of the crack.

  His father had left them momentarily to go further back in the Community, to look for gravel lying along a building. He had told them that the strange weapon he had acquired would be more effective with hard and sharp pieces to mix with the dust that it would project.

  "Let's hold on, however long it will take to give Hoffnung the time he needs," Red said, holding in her hand the hilt of her crystal blade, for which she still had no sheath. "Hoffnung's Korean assistant has assured me that as soon as they have finished machining other blades, they will pass them on to the most experienced Kendo students, who press them and wait for them. They're resolutely waiting for them!"

  A new knock stronger than the others sounded with such intensity that the sound echoed on the walls around them, cement plates falling from the wall in front of them, mixed with the liquid concrete that the robots were projecting.

  Each time, the high-speed cement plugged holes in the gray surface, as if the fissure was a purulent wound that was being cauterized by any means…

  At least until now.

  "As long as the robots inject cement, we'll save even more time, and they will not manage to get through," a technician said, standing beside them, trying to bring joy into his voice, having had to yell to be heard over the sound of the robots' projection pumps.

  The technician, who controlled the robots, smiling, moved closer to the wall to make sure that the machines he controlled were aimed at the crack.

  A deafening assault was then heard and it was not a few pieces of cement that fell, but a whole section of the wall.

  Red saw that the technician was going to be crushed and dropping her blade on the ground she jumped on him, placing him on the ground just in time before a big block of cement fell where he had been.

  Carried away by their own momentum, the red-haired girl and the technician went further. Both finally stopped in a cloud of dust.

  "Whew!" exclaimed the girl, helping the man in work clothes to get up, to which he replied with a shy "Thank you", so much he had been shaken by what had looked like a tackle worthy of one of the greatest rugby teams.

  He coughed, having swallowed some of the dust which had not yet completely fallen, still enveloping them, and then, turning his head in all directions, he began to look everywhere.

  "My controller? Where's my remote controller?" the technician asked, eyes now full of fear, looking for it, while mechanical noises were heard.

  "There!" shouted a guard, pointing at something on the ground while holding a flamethrower in his other hand. The technician followed where his finger was pointing and then he jumped, gaping, eyes wide.

  On the floor, a few pieces of plastic that had been the remote controller protruded from dusty rock rubble.

  "No!" exclaimed the horrified technician as, close to him, Red, and others, the mechanical noise grew louder. Turning his head, just as the others, in the direction from which these noises came, he was flabbergasted by what he saw.

  Near them the robots had become crazy, uncontrollable, moving erratically, and throwing cement jets at high speed and randomly in all directions.

  "Hey!" exclaimed Red, throwing herself on the ground and making a roll-and-go that allowed her to escape one of the jets, having a close shave.

  The technician who was standing near her was less fortunate and shouted in surprise as he received a large pour of ultra-quick-setting liquid cement on the legs of his pants. The grayish liquid ran down to his feet, flooding his shoes very quickly, imprisoning him in a gangue of stone.

  The man tried to lift a foot to try to get his shoe out but it hardly moved, the gray matter clinging to it. The technician tried to lift the other foot, also without success. Then he tried to move the two alternately as fast as he could, but he looked like an insect trying to extricate itself from a big flow of super glue.

  "Aaaah!" shouted the man as he fell while the robot finally changed its spear's direction to send the cement in another direction, but it was too late. The man was now lying on his stomach on the ground, hands flat on it while his feet were completely caught in what had become a block of cement.

  A younger technician arrived and ran to the two robots, miraculously dodging their jets. He finally reached each of them and, with a regular hand, deactivated a switch. In turn he finally managed to halt the two crazy robots that finally stopped, their cement spears still spitting a few jets of gray liquid on the ground, before the flow completely dried.

  "I'll quickly get the other remote controller to put them to work!" shouted the technician before slipping away to one of the nearby buildings, leaving his unfortunate colleague on the floor with Red and Johnny.

  More thrusts, even stronger, were heard at the wall. The pressure this time was too strong and another whole area of the wall at ground level, mixed with partially hardened cement, began to collapse.

  Johnny and his red-haired friend watched with morbid fascination one part of the wall collapse on the ground like a castle made of gray cards, leaving a wide gap.

  A gap filled with a cloud of dust through which they could now see many skeletal silhouettes, moving forward toward them with slow but sure steps.

  "Well, that's it, the moment of truth has arrived!" exclaimed Red, holding her blade firmly by its now finely cut handle, that happily no longer hurt the hand that held it.

  "Yeah," Johnny replied, sweat dripping from his forehead while holding his
Japanese sword firmly in both hands, while he was also on guard.

  The man who was holding the flamethrower near them said nothing but swallowed, opening wide and frightened eyes as indistinct silhouettes began to emerge from the gray cloud.

  The intruders ranged from living skeletons wearing the remains of clothes made grim by years of decomposition of their flesh, to other more recently "converted" undead. These were still properly dressed, and the only thing that distinguished them from a living human being was a blued skin and dark veins on their faces. They were all advancing, passing through the gap in a synchronized, almost military way.

  Something controls them, Red thought, a collective intelligence, really?

  "Help!" shouted the technician lying on his stomach near them, still trapped in the gangue of cement.

  Red turned her attention to the prostrate man, blaming herself for having forgotten him, and she was not the only one to notice him. Numerous nightmarish creatures stared at him and growled with pleasure.

  An immobile and defenseless prey, which was offered to them...

  One of the zombies, probably no more than two meters away, advanced much faster than the others with its arms out, its hands with knuckles crooked. The thing uttered a deafening roar, opening an oversized mouth that showed rotten teeth mixed with dried blood.

  It walked over to the prisoner on the ground, obviously intending to shred him into pieces.

  Red stepped in and stood ready, her crystal sword raised.

  A loud beep made her jump as the face of the undead was hailed with projectiles. Its red eyes, at least what was left of them, rotten and resembling dry black grapes, were pierced, then ran down its rotten cheeks.

  Turning around Red and Johnny smiled while looking at Harry, who had come back with the futuristic rifle in his hands.

  "I was able to recharge it in a few minutes, Hoffnung is a real genius!" Harry said with joy in his voice. Once again, he was like a little kid opening his new toy.

  All of a sudden his smile disappeared and he pointed the gun in front of him.