Hunger Driven (Book 2): Fight the Hunger

by Allen, William

  “Oh,” Casey muttered, “That’s what he meant.”

  “Yes. Not a great code, but one we’ve used before. If bandits or highwaymen happened to overhear our conversation, they might want to hit us early to take our stuff before we run out, but to do so they would need to get over there”—I gestured to the furniture store across the way—“to pin us down while an assault team comes up from below. Anywhere else, well, there’s not much else around for at least two thousand yards in any direction. Long, long shot even for a sniper.”

  Casey looked around, and I could see her making measurements in her head. Most of the surrounding businesses were burned, as was the apartment building across the street and behind the store.

  “Is that why you picked this store? You were already thinking of somebody trying to take us on. Somebody living, I mean.”

  I shrugged. “Look around. Not a lot of options where to stop. That furniture store has a sloped roof, and is even higher off the ground. Shoot, we’d have to lie down and shoot off the edge of the building to do much good there.”

  After a pause, I continued. “No, this was the best available, but not ideal. Anyway, with the light going, I say we are off the clock. Punching out for the day. We’ll still need to check periodically with the night vision. To make sure those pesky zombies aren’t building a pyramid up one of the walls, you know, but that’s about it.”

  Casey gasped. “They can do that? I’ve seen how they can climb a pile after you’ve killed a bunch, but even the ones still moving?”

  “Oh, yeah. I almost got overrun in Jasper. Two nights before you guys showed up? Or the night before? Honestly, I can’t remember. But yes, they can pile up against the wall and get to the roof if you let them.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before. The thought is, well, terrifying, Brad. I didn’t know they could do something that coordinated. Even with the First Wave getting smarter.”

  “It ain’t smarts, Case. They hear something, try to get to it, then others are attracted and then they start to dogpile. Those on the bottom get crushed but as long as the noise keeps them attracted, they will continue building up the ramp of their own bodies. Ants do the same thing, really. No, you just have to watch for it, then pick off the supporting zeds, if you can. Maybe use what I have in that bag to scatter them some.”

  I gestured to one of the canvas-sided carryalls I’d risked my neck to retrieve. At Casey’s silent question, I gave her the answer.

  “Grenades. Not all that effective when the dead are spread out, but drop one or two in a pile and step back. Makes a hell of a mess.”

  Casey seemed to be out of questions at that point as she wandered off to use the facilities. I dug out two compression sacks, each one holding a small sleeping bag, and set each one on the rubber shooting mats Casey and I had already been using.

  Opening a rugged plastic case, I withdrew a night vision monocle from the foam and checked to make sure the batteries were still in the green. Satisfied, I got ready for bed. I knew I would be up several times through the night to check on the horde below, but I said nothing to Casey about it. The day had already been long enough, and I intended to let her sleep. As I told Bill, this wasn’t my first rodeo.

  “Goodnight, Hard Case,” I said as my apprentice settled into her sleeping bag.

  “Goodnight, old man,” she replied.

  After a few minutes of rustling, I heard Casey roll over. She was several feet away but the night, except for the constant, maddening sniffing by the tide of undead below, remained otherwise quiet.

  “Grandpa, tell me a story.”

  I sighed. It was going to be a very long night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Morning came with no disasters, and no zombie pyramid overtopping the building’s walls. I was feeling the exertions and abuse from the day before, though, and getting up four times during the night to check on the zed level left me feeling grumpier than usual. No, that’s a lie. In truth, I just wasn’t a morning person. Sunrise found me in a miserable mood.

  Instead of taking it out on Casey, I rolled over, shouldered my rifle, and started killing zombies within five minutes of waking. No morning constitutional, no breakfast or anything like that. Just me and the white-eyed horde, and I was happy to see my bullets strike home as more and more of the dead fell to rise no more.

  Vaguely, I noted movement from the other sleeping bag. After a few minutes, I smelled brewing coffee and started to ask for a cup, but then a familiar-looking zed came into view, holding a length of metal gripped in one leathery paw. I tried to never feel anything for the dead when I killed them. This was just target practice, nothing more. These were not really people, not innocent victims of a plague we still didn’t understand. No, just life-sized moving targets. Even the ones that looked like people I used to know.

  Pop, and down went the club-wielding zombie. Okay, that did feel pretty damned good. After that, I forgot about coffee or breakfast for a while as my work overtook me. When Casey started in on the zeds at the front of the building, I registered the suppressed shots of her M4, but little else.

  After eventually emptying all but my reserve pile of my magazines, I set aside the rifle I’d been firing and decided to check to see how my apprentice was doing. My left shoulder ached as much as the right one did, for different reasons, and my ankle registered a sullen protest as I limped over to the other side of the building to check on Casey’s progress.

  Wow. Casey seemed to be really taking to this whole extermination business. The front parking lot of the store was packed with dead bodies, real ones lying motionless on the ground, and my young protégée seemed to be still hard at work.

  When she next stopped to change magazines, I caught her attention. “Take five and reload some magazines. Union mandated coffee break.”

  Casey shook her head, but then stopped at my scowl.

  “We need to get our plan together. Plus, time to let your body get used to this.”

  “What? This isn’t exactly hard, manual labor we are doing. Not like picking corn or snapping beans.”

  “No, but you are still working those tendons on your trigger hand more than they are used to, so give it a break. In fact, go ahead and take off your gloves for a moment,” I directed, and Casey did so with a wrinkled brow to show her confusion.

  As she went to remove the gloves, I saw the first sign I’d been looking for in Casey. She winced a bit as the tight-fitting shooting gloves let go from around her fingers. Like me, she’d ditched the heavier zombie-proof gloves once she hit the roof but retained these thinner ones at my direction.

  Taking off my own gloves, I dug around in the first aid kit until I found the analgesic cream and took a small dab of the slick-feeling white substance and rubbed it between my finger joints with a careful touch. Next, I scooped up a little more and, gesturing, got Casey to hold out her own delicate, long-fingered hands out for me. Starting at the wrists, I gently rubbed the cream in and I nearly smiled as the young woman released a sigh at the sensation.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “Yes, lots better,” she admitted, and blushed a little bit as I continued to work on her fingers. It wasn’t a sexual thing, but I knew it had to be pleasant for her as the medicine did its work. “I didn’t even notice they were hurting.”

  “Yeah, I get like that, too,” I agreed, “which is why I had you stop. You can and will get blisters if you do this long enough, but they heal and the skin toughens. But if you damage the tendons from repetitive motion, there aren’t a lot of surgeons around to perform carpel tunnel surgery. So another of our union rules is to take care of your hands whenever you can.”

  Casey gave me the confused look. “We have a union? Since when?”

  I just returned her gaze with a long look before answering. “Yes, and so far, I am the only member. Zombie Exterminators Local 001. You want in, you need to learn the rules. Take care of your hands is an important rule. I’m sure you can think of some of the others
.”

  “Ah, give me a second,” Casey replied as I released her fingers and stepped back. Then she continued, ticking off some of the things I repeated to her.

  “Always keep extra loaded magazines handy. Never take action without making a plan first. Carry enough supplies to set up the Swiss Family Robinson, treehouses included. Be mindful of where you are shooting to avoid building ramps. Get your terms of payment up front. Don’t take no shit off nobody. I’m sure I missed some, but those are the highlights.”

  She was still a smartass, but I was impressed anyway. Buried in her sarcasm were some really good points.

  “All right. When we get back, I want you to get on your computer and write me a report. Five pages, double spaced, laying out as many rules to exterminating as you can think of, and use examples.”

  “Seriously? School’s out, old man. And I graduated last June, thank you very much.”

  “Congratulations, but think of this as your college-level coursework. You want to learn all I’ve got to teach, then this is the price.”

  Casey grumbled, and I gave her a week to get it done after we got back home. To the compound, I mentally amended. After taking time to rehydrate, we got back to work.

  The day continued warming and by one o’clock, I was rigging up a tarp as a sun shade for my position. Seeing how I did it, Casey wordlessly copied my simple design and got back to the business of killing. Once Casey finished off the ones out front, she shifted her aim and started helping me cull the mass still gathered at the back parking lot.

  Two shooters really did make a difference, and by three o’clock, I was noticing the horde had been reduced to a few scattered pods. Using the suppressors might be cheating, since we weren’t drawing in the neighboring zeds like I normally do, but we still have roughly eight thousand dead on the asphalt and the buzzards were already starting to check things out. Our truck was finally visible under the stack of dead piled over it, but I knew the big truck could be extricated from the funeral mound, given a little time and effort.

  Unfortunately, those buzzards weren’t the only scavengers beginning to stir, and I heard the engines long before the three-vehicle column pulled up in the front parking lot.

  “Here comes trouble,” I muttered. Laying down the Ruger, I switched for one of the M4s Casey had set aside to cool. Dropping my smaller magazines from my pouches, I rapidly began replacing them with ones loaded in 5.56. Despite Casey’s hard work, we still had over 5,000 rounds of the 5.56x45mm, so we had the means to defend ourselves. I also pulled the bag of grenades over where they would be easily accessible.

  “You want to light them up?” Casey asked, and her voice was as cool as the dirt in the bottom of a deep grave. She also wasn’t bothering to use her radio.

  “Not yet. Let’s see what they want,” I replied. “That’s a good idea to stay off the radio until they make a hostile move, though. They might be able to monitor, especially if they have police-issued gear.”

  When I glanced over, I caught Casey’s face redden a bit at the praise. “Forgot I had it,” she mumbled.

  I wondered if the arrival was coincidence, showing up like they did after the heavy lifting was near completed. A little over fifty stragglers remained scattered around the body-clogged parking areas, and I decided they must have someone observing our position. That was unwelcome news, since neither of us spotted their watchers. I said as much to Casey, who tensed at the idea.

  “You think they have guns on us already?”

  I thought about that. As I had mentioned before, aside from the two stores here, the closest spot to get eyes on us was likely across the freeway. Unless they’d dropped off watchers to hide in the burned out shell of the apartment complex behind the stores. That was risky for them, though, unless they’d scouted the area previously and knew a safe place.

  “Casey, I want you to carefully angle your binoculars like you are watching the trucks below.” I spoke softly, but not whispering. “See if you can sweep across the highway into that group of stores where the Advanced Auto Parts is located.”

  “What am I looking for? Oh, yeah, watchers, right?”

  “You got it. Just do it slowly, and let me know if you spot anything out of place. Be aware of glass reflection, especially. If they have spotters, they will be glassing the hell out of us.”

  “Got it,” was all she said.

  They came up from the south, barreling the wrong way up the feeder road like a trio of juggernauts, crushing the thin trickle of zeds already headed our way. No UPS trucks, but two matte-black, ten-wheeled freight haulers up-armored with massive grill guards and reinforced bumpers. I was drawn to inspect the add-on armor also attached to the front wheel wells, apparently designed to direct bodies away from the vulnerable front tires.

  Good guys or bad guys, as soon as we got out of this mess, I was so stealing that design. Maybe I’d ask these guys if it worked. No matter how much we tried, running over zombies still resulted in too many flat tires. And let me tell you, trying to change a tire while being swarmed by zeds is no fun. Usually we ended up driving on, ruining the wheel instead.

  “Hello the store!”

  The loudspeaker boomed, overkill, from the center truck, which started its existence as a heavy truck wrecker. The kind you used to see hauling a Peterbilt or Mack tractor down the highway in more normal times. Now the wrecker, too, had armor added and those extra guards placed over the front fenders. That kind of work required access to welders and reminded me of Mike Brady’s story about where they had sheltered. Another truck yard, perhaps? Maybe a machine shop? Well, none of it mattered at the moment.

  In response to the hail, I raised my hand, waved, and hunkered back down. The three trucks formed a rough semi-circle about thirty yards away from my perch, noses aimed in my direction. Tinted windows concealed whatever was going on inside, but I’d wager they had room for quite a few passengers inside the two big delivery trucks.

  “Come on out! We aren’t dangerous, mister! Just want to talk, is all.”

  With that last statement, the passenger side door on the big wrecker cracked, and then smoothly opened. I’d been waiting, my barrel pointed generally skyward, and I had to resist the urge to center on the speaker’s head. Habit, going for the headshot.

  He was a big man, encased in heavy body armor that made him look even bigger. He was wearing what looked like a police riot helmet, like the one I used to use, and when he took off the helmet, I could see a mass of dark hair in a rough pompadour with gray shot through the sides. I pegged him in his mid-forties, with a beefy, florid face that testified to few missed meals.

  Giving Casey a hand gesture to remain low, I sat up higher so my head appeared over the side of the building.

  “So talk. What do you want?”

  I spoke slowly, pitching my voice to be heard but not yelling. Not that it would do any good. Already I could see streams of dead headed this way. If the roar of the engines hadn’t done it, the loud speaker had managed to call in zeds for miles around. Soon, this plaza would be filled with hundreds, if not thousands, more hungry corpses. Shoot. Well, that’s why we carried up all that extra ammunition.

  “Well, for starters, you folks are poaching on territory claimed by my group. Now, this is a simple mistake, and I’m sure we can work something out by way of compensation.”

  I listened, and decided these folks were not going to go peacefully. I decided to see what else I could find out before the shooting started.

  “Well, I am confused since Isaac didn’t tell us anybody else was laying claim to territory just a few blocks from his stronghold. Maybe you need to have a conversation with him and his people. Also, I don’t see where we’ve taken anything that belongs to anybody at this point. Unless you mean littering the premises. My squad hasn’t even attempted to breach the building.”

  That last part was a little white lie since the first thing Casey and I did after setting up shop was to find the roof access hatch into the structure. The door wa
s locked from the inside, of course, but the little crowbar I packed has many uses besides performing a zombie lobotomy. So yes, the hatch was a broken, but given the amount of zed activity we heard inside, no way did I want to take my chances down there. This little wrinkle had me rethinking our choices.

  “Mister, I think we both know old Isaac and his band of squatters are long gone. Good riddance to that weak-ass bunch anyway. No, they are long gone and they’ve abandoned your little party to take your chances. Come on, Charlie Three,” the man said with a laugh. “You didn’t think we wouldn’t hear your radios?”

  While I listened to the man’s bluster, I motioned for Casey to fall back and to take what she could with her. Fortunately, my apprentice proved once again to be a quick study, and she got what I meant immediately. She still hadn’t indicated finding the watchers, which meant they were better than us, a definite possibility, or they were now gone.

  As Casey stayed low and began to drag bags to the nearby roof hatch, I played for time. Once we were inside, the scavengers would have a free shot at what they could take from our truck, but to get to us, they would have to come into the store for that. Unless they had ladders to reach the roof, too, or found the one buried under three layers of zombies on the ground. Having their own ladders was more likely.

  “All right, so if you heard the broadcast. Yes, I am in charge. My handle is Charlie Three. What should I call you?”

  “Ah, does it matter? Call me Ishmael.”

  “Ah, a lover of the classics, then. All right, Ishmael, you know I have a squad of killers up here, ammoed up and ready to dance. Even if you win, is taking us worth it? You are going to lose people, gear, and time messing with us. And for what? To piss off the biggest government in this part of the state? If you move on us, it will mean war, mister. The colonel doesn’t take raiding his people lightly.”