Hunger Driven (Book 2): Fight the Hunger

by Allen, William

  “Actually, I did want to talk to you, but that can wait until later,” Mike replied, suddenly apprehensive. Maybe he clued in that bugging me at work wasn’t the best option.

  “Wallace,” I said sharply, “you and Hitchcock take over here. You’ve got this. The rest of you folks, form up and head back down the hill. Go on over to the office and see where Mr. Harrington wants to you assign you first. And thank you for coming out.”

  I tagged that last part on at the end after Casey gave me “the look.” You know the one women use, the expression that says you need to fix that nonsense real quick. Play nice, she meant. I didn’t know they taught that to ladies that young, but Ms. Parleski learned it from somewhere. I realized I missed my wife giving me that reproachful glare and swallowed.

  “Shit, Brad, I didn’t mean to break up your class,” Mike said as the last of the extra shooters departed from the overpass setup. I could hear Wallace speaking softly to Hitchcock in the background and knew they would be fine.

  “Walk with me, please, and tell me what’s on your mind,” I said, forcing my voice to sound a little friendlier that it did before. I’d slung the Springfield M1A, and I waited while Casey did the same with the rifle I’d loaned her.

  It was another Springfield, but of an entirely different design. This was a sporterized 1903A3 Springfield, a five-shot, bolt-action rifle of the type used by the US Army in both World Wars, and fitted with a Leopold scope. To say I was surprised by her choice was an understatement, but she handled the old warhorse like a professional and said her father had one just like it that he let her use for deer hunting. Her shooting results certainly proved this to be true, as she quickly zeroed the sights and did much better than her previous showing with the Rugers and AR-15s lying around the compound.

  “Well, I guess you heard. There were other with holdouts we know about down towards Houston. Our neighbors, I guess you could say. When we left, I wanted them to throw in with us, but at the time we didn’t know if where we were headed was any better.”

  He paused, thinking about how he wanted to approach me with his pitch. I knew why he was here. I felt it in the intensity of his eyes as he stood waiting earlier.

  “I asked the colonel about going back for them. He turned me down. Said he couldn’t cut loose enough men at the moment. I heard about the two companies he had to cut loose, so I can understand his reluctance. With the infected changing the way they are, this is a bad time to be out.”

  “But you want to go anyway,” I said, and it wasn’t a question.

  “But I want to go anyway. Look, we left because the water ran out, basically, and couldn’t keep going out to scavenge more. The infected were all over us, and getting the trucks in and out was just too risky to do every time we needed more water. We kept losing people, despite taking every precaution. So we headed this way, hoping the concentrations would drop enough to let us at least set up somewhere safer. But my—our—intention the whole time was to go back if we found somewhere better. And this is most certainly a hell of a lot better situation than we ever could have hoped.”

  “So now you feel guilty about leaving them?” I asked, my voice neutral.

  “Yeah. If I knew you guys were here, I would have tried harder to convince them,” he replied honestly.

  “So how well do you know these people?” I asked. “You willing to vouch for them? Because, I have to tell you, the dead don’t usually scare me as much as the living.”

  “What exactly do you mean?” Mike asked, his face reddening, and I could tell he knew exactly what I meant, but I decided to spell it out for him.

  “Just what we talked about before. We’ve had groups come in before, acting all nice and polite, right until they tried to take over what we have going here. I know the questioners you talked to in Onalaska would have covered this kind of thing with you, since they had it happen there.”

  Eight convicts, survivors who broke out one of the of Huntsville units early on, tried to talk their way past the watchers in Onalaska. Every new arrival has to submit to a full body inspection, in addition to quarantine, and their tattoos gave them away. One of the inspectors had been a corrections officer, according to the story I heard, and gave the warning to his coworkers.

  Still, in the ensuing fight, three guards and all eight convicts lost their lives trying to take over the quarantine center. Idiots. They would have been cut to bloody ribbons by the militia even if they succeeded in the takeover attempt, but I figured they didn’t recognize threat.

  Mike furrowed his brow, obviously thinking about what I said.

  “Two of the groups, yeah. I know the folks there very well. We worked together several times, taking down an HEB store with a combined team and splitting the proceeds. Good people, and hard workers. Some families, a few singles, but tight, you know? A community.

  “Honestly, we would have probably all formed one camp if we had the space. Well, we had room at the warehouse but no way to heat the space, and several of the folks in the other two groups couldn’t have taken the cold this winter. The other two groups, I know of them, but I can’t say they are all choir boys.”

  Mike’s group ended up based in a trucking company warehouse in Conroe, north of Houston. That’s where they had the trucks and the setup to Mad Max those trucks in the convoy. I knew those big buildings would be hard to heat with improvised wood stoves, so this made some sense.

  I didn’t want to go. I had responsibilities, and Roxy would skin me if I went off on some hare-brained scheme like this. Okay, not really responsibilities, but I owed it to Roxy and Ken and Patty to stick around with so much going on. The zombie apocalypse was at an intersection in the road, and they needed me here to …

  “I’ll go,” Casey said softly, finally joining the conversation.

  “You will not,” I snapped instinctively, and then shut my mouth with a click of teeth. What the hell? This wasn’t my child, nor my responsibility. I turned in shock to see the look mirrored on the young lady’s face.

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” Casey replied sharply, and I could see the color rising in her cheeks. This was bad, I knew. That was a sign she was getting ready to blow. I’d learned to read the signals over the last few days of working together.

  I held my hands out, an act of contrition, and ignored Mike’s look. He didn’t matter at the moment. “Casey,” I said calmly, “I apologize. I didn’t mean to insult you that way. You are free to do what you want. I told you that when we first met. I won’t force you to do anything, or make decisions for you. But please, just listen to me before you make this decision.”

  Mike, having heard the way this conversation was going, decided to step in and throw some gasoline on the fire. “Ma’am, I wasn’t asking you to come. I know you want to help, but this is too dangerous …”

  “Too dangerous? Really? Like how I fought the dead for weeks with a piece of sharpened rebar, trying to hold the doors at the Civic Center, after I ran out of ammo?” She paused for a beat before continuing. “Too dangerous, like when I fought the Mexican mafia with that same spear when they took down our sanctuary? Or how I kept fighting them every time their men came to rape me? Too dangerous?”

  By this time, the young woman’s voice had dropped several octaves and the words came out in a growl. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but somehow I knew it was not in pain or fear but with furious frustration.

  “I’ve killed zombies with a rifle, shotgun, spear and with a knife no bigger than the palm of my hand. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’ve killed men, bad men, and liked it. You want to tell me this mission is too dangerous for little old me?”

  The sound of scattered gunshots and the stink of burning corpses burned our noses as the three of us stood, isolated and separate from everything else around us. I glanced between the shocked-looking Mike to the angry and stone-faced Casey.

  No one said anything for the longest time, but I couldn’t fight the pressure anymore.

  “Meet me to
morrow at the militia HQ. Let’s talk this out with Bill Harrington and see what he has to say. We will lay this out, all of it, and see if he will support a rescue mission made up of civilians. If he says we can go, then we go. All of us.”

  Mike grunted his agreement, and then turned to head back down the hill. I watched him go and wanted to shoot him in the back for what he had done. His guilty conscience was going to get us all killed.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  “You look like you want to kill him,” Casey said, her voice normal and controlled once again.

  “Maybe just a little bit,” I agreed. “Shoot to wound, anyway. Let him limp back to the Zone with a few strays on his tail.”

  “You are a mean man, Mr. McCoy.”

  “We okay?” I asked, turning my back to the young woman as I looked over at the two shooters lying prone, the old man still teaching the younger one the finer points of sniping zombies.

  “We are good, Brad. Sorry for losing my temper. I know you didn’t want to hear all that stuff.”

  I nodded, holding my tongue for a moment, and then figuring what the hell. I kept my voice low, private, so what was said remained just between us. “When I hear about what happened to you girls”—I held up my hand to forestall any complaint—“yes, ‘girls,’ all of you are to an old fart like me, then I just want to go on a killing spree. You said you wanted to go back and kill the rest of the cartel guys that held you. I can believe it. I’d help, for sure.”

  After a moment, I continued and my tone, if anything, was darker, more dangerous than before. “When I hear those kinds of stories, I want to do very bad things to those men. Things that I would never even imagine doing in the old world. Things that involve razor blades and gasoline and lots and lots of screaming. Like that character played by Ving Rhames says at the end of Pulp Fiction. You know, get medieval on their asses.”

  “Shiiiiit,” Casey muttered. Eloquent as always.

  “The idea that filth like that can still walk around and breathe the air and enjoy the spring weather while my family is dead and eaten in that fucking city just makes my blood boil. I don’t know what changed, or when it happened, exactly, but I’m not who I used to be. I would never hurt you. You and those other young ladies and those children Roxy has taken in. I did lie to you about one thing, though.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, and I could tell she was a little apprehensive about my answer.

  “I do know all their names. The kids, I mean. I just pretend like I don’t.”

  Casey managed a relieved smirk as she slapped me lightly on the arm. “I knew it. Don’t worry. It will stay our little secret. Now let’s go home and figure out how we are going to do this.”

  “Do what? Rescue these poor survivors from the hungry dead roaming a destroyed city?”

  “No. How we are going to tell Roxy and Kate about going on this crazy mission. They are going to kill us.”

  I couldn’t help the dark chuckle that escaped my lips.

  “Easy. I’m going to throw you at them so they can take out their fury on you first. Maybe by the time they get through ripping you, I can slip in the back door and go to my room.”

  “Funny,” the young woman quipped as we started down the incline together, “I was planning on doing the same thing, but with you as the sacrificial victim.”

  The drive home was mainly silent, but it was a comradely sort of feeling. Like when Ken and I went out on our infrequent salvage runs together. That’s when I realized Casey was one of us, one of the protectors and providers for our little community.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Bill Harrington stood, looking like he should be shouting at scared young men and teaching them the ways of world according to the United States Marine Corps. In a very real way, he still was. A formidable man, big through the chest and shoulders, he wore his almost seventy years lightly. Oh, his face was seamed with age lines and his buzz cut hair was a solid white, but the sharp blue eyes and the smooth glide of his stride made you think of a much younger man.

  “So you thinking about joining in this clusterfuck, Mac?”

  The old man’s voice sounded like two miles of gravel road, sharp edged and raspy but still strong. Like he was used to shouting over the sound of battle. I didn’t know Bill from back before, but the locals in the militia were quick to tell stories about the old man.

  He grew up in neighboring Woodville, joined the Marine Corps at seventeen and went to Vietnam the first time at eighteen. He found his home in the Marine Corps and spent thirty years in before retiring as a master gunnery sergeant. If the man had mellowed with retirement, you couldn’t tell it now. He’d owned a successful bait shop and convenience store before everything went to pieces.

  “I think I have to, Bill. Sort of got roped into it,” I said, careful to not glance over at Casey as we stood around the map-covered table. Mike Brady had enlisted over a dozen idiots ready to go along with his idea, or at least, listen to the pitch in more detail.

  “Well, let’s see the locations and plot out if it is even doable,” Bill drawled, and that was Mike’s cue to start filling in the blanks.

  Their convoy came over on Highway 105 East out of Conroe, and then picked their way through on Highway 59 up to where Ken and I met them nearly on our doorstep. That was easy, and Bill immediately squashed the idea.

  “Not going to touch Highway 59, kids. There’s way too much activity these days. Zed migration is coming right into your teeth that route. No, we’ll go the other way, west of the lake, like you brought them in, McCoy.”

  “Why didn’t you folks just head north up I-45?” one of the other volunteers asked. He was a tall, slender man who carried himself like a cop. Sort of like Mike did, come to think of it.

  “Scouted that way first,” Mike said, “but we couldn’t find a way past Huntsville. The road was crawling with the infected and there’s nothing but pileups across all lanes about five miles outside the city. Looks like they tried to put up a barricade, maybe.”

  “Somebody did,” another man said, and he didn’t sound happy about it either. He was about my age, short and stocky, with a Red Man ball cap perched on his big head. “Did it just before the Guard got there. Fucked up the roads something fierce. Sorry, I mean, messed them up good. Think it was the sheriff or corrections department trying to slow down the zeds. Just trapped a lot of folks in their cars and turned them into zombie chow.”

  See, I didn’t want to know that. I’d seen the mess scouting that way but I didn’t need to know all those people died because of the living. I would have been just as happy thinking it was terrible wrecks blocked those roads. Ignorance is bliss, at least about some things.

  “Well, we knew we had to go east or west. South was impossible, of course.”

  Of course. Straight into the heart of Houston. Zombie Central.

  After a few minutes, a route was determined, going through Point Blank and taking Highway 156 once again, but this time cutting back through the eastern lobe of the Sam Houston National Forest. Several back roads received a highlighter’s orange touch, and we had alternative roads lined up. The trip was long and roundabout but would eventually link back up with Highway 105 and lead us into Conroe.

  “So, where are we going, specifically?” I asked, looking closely at the fairly detailed map section for that small city. Conroe might rest in Montgomery County, but it was far south Montgomery, and in those days right before the ZA, it was a bedroom community for North Houston.

  Mike tapped the paper quickly in two locations, and I took note. One was actually closer to the Woodlands than Conroe, and the second was only a few miles to the north of that. Definitely not areas I’d been to since this shit started.

  “More details, please,” I continued. “I take it those are the two where you expect to receive a warm welcome?”

  “Yes. The first one there is at a small self-storage unit taken over by some friends of mine. They salvaged from the rooms and the
y are located next door to a tractor supply store. That place had several wood-burning stoves they managed to get set up, so they didn’t freeze over the winter.”

  “Come on, it’s Houston,” one of the few ladies in the room said with a mirthless laugh. “As long as you’re sleeping indoors, not much chance of dying from exposure.”

  She had a had a point. This past winter, we got a little frost up this way and a skim of snow, but I knew from living there over twelve years that Houston probably didn’t even see any snow the whole winter. Too close to the warming currents from the coast had always been my guess.

  Mike shrugged and went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “They are a little over twenty strong, under the leadership of an older man named Isaac. Isaac Bernard. Nice folks with some solid skills, and they are good at taking down the dead. Isaac is a retired firefighter, very sharp, and he’s in there with what’s left of his family and all the folks they’d taken in over the first few months.” Apparently remembering my words from the day before, he went on. “If it’s still the same people, then I vouch for them.”

  The second, further location turned out to be in an old restaurant. More specifically, the upstairs portion of a barbeque restaurant that boasted a large apartment for the owner and his family. This was a group of approximately fifteen, mostly related or in-laws of the owners.

  “They’ve fortified the place and tore down the inside staircase access so the only way to get in anymore is up the back stairs. Or out one of the windows on a rope ladder. This is the Adair family and they are a bit fractious, distrustful of outsiders, but still I call them my friends.”

  “If ya’ll are that close, why couldn’t you get them to come with you?” Bill asked skeptically, and we all saw Mike’s head tilt a bit before he answered.