Fight the Hunger: A Hunger Driven Novel

by William Allen

  “What you got, hoss?” Bill asked, his voice low-pitched and barely carrying.

  “They lit us up from up there,” I nodded, rather than pointing, “and had the truck ready to cut us off. Too slow, though.”

  “Anybody still up there?” he asked, and I shrugged before answering. I kept my back to the duo as I continued to scan the area ahead.

  “Haven’t spotted any movement, but they could be waiting for another bite.”

  While Bill was talking, Casey moved in closer and I heard a gasp before she spoke. “Brad, what the heck happened? You get shot?”

  I shook my head, dreading what might happen next. “No. You see any blood?”

  A long pause followed. An agonizing second or two before she spoke again. “No, but your jacket is all torn up and the strap on your magazine carrier is … chewed up. Brad, what the hell happened?”

  “I got careless,” I replied truthfully. “I was so focused on the assholes trying to kill us, I forgot about the assholes trying to eat us. Ran into a crawler over there. Actually, I think I dove headfirst into him.”

  “Shit, boy,” Bill said conversationally, “that does tend to get the blood pumping. Why don’t you head back with the little miss, get that looked at, and I’ll keep an eye out here? And send Mike up here when you get to the trucks.”

  “Sure thing,” I replied. When I bent over to pick up the salvaged rifles and the extra magazines, my shoulder gave a strong protest at the stretching, but I ignored the ache and filled my hands. Casey looked at what I was trying to carry and took part of the load without saying anything.

  Likely, Bill would do more than just keep an eye on things, but that was just his way. Probably get Mike to actually watch the road while he proceeded ahead to check the site. My gut was telling me the attackers were long gone, cutting their losses when the ambush failed, but right now I wasn’t trusting my own senses that much.

  Back at my truck, I saw Heather and another one of the rescue squad, a short man in his twenties, maintaining watch on either side of the road while Mike was attaching a tow cable to the reinforced bumper of the Ford. Casey stepped around Mike and dumped the rifles and spare magazines in the truck bed and gestured impatiently for me.

  “What?”

  “Get your jacket off, grandpa, so I can take a look.”

  “Sure thing,” I replied, then looked over at Mike. “Mike, Bill asked for you. I think he wants you to watch the road up front while he scouts the ambushers’ setup.”

  “On it. I swear, that old man thinks he’s still a kid. I’ll check, if he’ll watch my back.”

  I shrugged, painfully, and started stripping off my magazine carrier and then unzipping the heavy leather jacket. God, I was dreading the summer to come when this outfit would have me sweating like a whore in church. Again, provided I wasn’t dead.

  Casey helped when she saw I was maybe having a few issues with the muscles on that side. I wanted to protest, but getting full extension on the arm seemed to be evading me at the moment. Fortunately, it was my left shoulder, so I could still shoot. Well, if it was my right shoulder, I’d still shoot if needed, but I imagined that would hurt like hell. Then I felt my young assistant push up my tee shirt and I waited.

  “Well, doc, what’s the prognosis? Am I going to live?”

  “No blood, Brad.” She said the words in a rush. “Looks like one heck of a bruise, or bruises, but I can’t see any that break the skin.”

  Well, I guess I would live to fight another day. Somehow, I didn’t know if that was something to celebrate or not.

  After all that had happened, I thought I was mostly over the depression, and the miserable self-pity that threatened to kill me so many months ago. As I have said, in the ZA, lots of people lost loved ones, and in many cases their whole families. I was no different than those others, but the reality didn’t make my heart hurt any less. And now, I realized that despite all the healing on the surface, the break inside went all the way to my soul. I was still pretty much okay with the idea of dying. Of rejoining what I lost.

  Fuck. I needed a drink.

  “All right,” I said, lifting my voice up to all those around me that could hear. “If you got vests, get them on. Right now. These assholes have automatic weapons and don’t seem shy about using them. These ain’t Brother Zed, and they have fully functioning brains.”

  “What we facing?”

  That was Fletcher, and he was all business.

  “Don’t know, but I think they were using an M-249, or something like it. Small arms caliber, anyway. Just started up right before I committed to the turn. Jumped the gun, maybe.”

  “What about that truck?”

  I stuck my thumb out at Casey. “My assistant took it down. Trying to close the door on us and failed.”

  By the time I got my jacket back on, I was wearing a Level 3a vest over it with inserts, and Casey was likewise outfitted. Fletcher already wore body armor, and about half the group hauled theirs along as part of the baggage. These people were survivors almost six months into the apocalypse for a reason.

  Bill came back shortly, and his features remained unreadable. Unlike Mike, who looked pissed and more than a bit worried. In the interim, I’d pulled the Ford out of the ditch and the convoy made ready to roll out. Before the older gentleman could speak, I remembered the maps and hauled them out for his inspection. I should have done it earlier, but to be honest I was still rattled at the time.

  “Got these from the truck,” I said with a touch of apology in my body language, if not my voice. Bill tilted his head but offered no comment as he quickly scanned the folded and wrinkled papers.

  “All right, people. Looks like the little shits that mounted that piss-poor ambush have moved on to greener pastures. We are not going to take any chances, though. We’ll keep going straight, bypass this neighborhood and cut back at the next opportunity. That’s at Research Forest, and we will need to backtrack a bit on the feeder road. Not a big deal and it will let us throw off any tails, too. Let’s get mounted up and moving!”

  With that, the convoy got back on track. Again, we ranged further ahead, but Casey was like a bloodhound on a trail and didn’t engage in any idle chitchat. She was practically vibrating with unspent energy and it was tiring to watch, so I focused on the road. We continued like that for nearly ten minutes.

  “You want something to eat?” Casey’s words caught me off guard, and I flinched despite myself. A quick glance over showed the young lady with a black messenger back clenched between her knees, one hand inside fishing around blindly while her eyes swept the ditches and her other hand remained wrapped around the pistol grip of her M4.

  “Not right now. I’ll wait until we get to a stopping point. I could use a bottle of water, though.”

  “Got it,” she replied, and reached down to snag a liter bottle from the floorboard. She handed me one and then got one for herself. I cracked the top and took a sip, then set the bottle in a cupholder. Casey tipped the bottle up and drank nearly half of the liquid in a greedy gulp. I guessed she was suffering from that post-action cotton mouth some folks complained about.

  “Thanks for the water,” I said softly, and waited to see what she might do next.

  “You are welcome. That was crazy, the way you were driving full speed in reverse. Did you learn to do that somewhere?”

  I shook my head. “No way. I told you, Casey, I was an accountant before all this. Not Jason Bourne. Pure blind luck, and lucky I saw the culvert before we went splat. That was good shooting, by the way. If you hadn’t done that, well, they might have caught us.”

  “Not going to happen again, Brad,” she said with a surprisingly deep growl. “I’m never going to let anybody take me prisoner again. I’ll go down fighting before I let that happen. Or make them kill me first.”

  “Yeah, I can see that. For what it’s worth, I’ll be right there with you. I’m not keen on being tortured, so we’ll just go down fighting. Not like anybody is going to miss me.” />
  Casey gave one of those little girl giggles that seemed so out of place with her G.I. Jane demeanor and pulled out a can of cashews from the bag, nibbling. She seemed suddenly younger, and a faint smile tugged at her lips as she looked at me.

  “I’ve got a secret,” she whispered in a lisping, little girl voice that made me jerk my head around. “Someone’s been asking about you.”

  I forced myself to focus on the asphalt again. Whatever she was talking about, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. So I left it alone. I’m sure that would drive Casey crazy, but she let it drop.

  We were approaching an intersection, another four way stop, but this one was unobstructed by any greenery or conveniently ditched vehicles, so I slowed but did not come to a halt.

  Casey, sensing the change in my mood, brought her rifle up, butt tucked into the cup of her shoulder and barrel pointed at the floorboards.

  “See something?”

  “No, but we need to call it in. This is Point Sassafras, I think.”

  Bill came up with all the waypoints and used nonsense words and phrases so no one could track our progress that way. We weren’t even supposed to progress this far in the original route, but Bill Harrington was apparently a man accustomed to making contingency plans for his contingency plans. This was no different.

  Casey called it in while I eased across the median and snaked a trail through a nearby gas station, avoiding the middle of the road. I saw some metallic trash in the street and wanted to avoid a potential blowout. Mobility remained one of our best assets against the zombies, until they discovered, or remembered, how to drive cars. I tried my best to squash that thought as I steered around the island and back toward the road we needed to take.

  Easing on the brake, I glassed the streets in all directions, not overlooking the way we came. Maybe if I’d been more observant, that delivery truck would not have gotten the drop on us. I saw nothing but abandoned commercial buildings, a scattering of zombies drawn by the sound of our idling engine, and signs of a civilization in a crash of decay.

  Satisfied everything was as it should be, I turned to watch Casey as she fussed with her gear bag. That reminded me of something, and I slid the truck in park and cracked the door. Casey looked up, her eyes like lasers as she zeroed in on the source of the noise.

  “Watch out for a second. I gotta get something out of the back,” I said, and Casey gave me a roger.

  The radios were short range, attached to your belt at the waist with a pair of Velcro straps, and had a tiny headset that fit, with adjustments, even with our helmets in place. Getting them situated took a few minutes, but when we finished, Casey and I had comms.

  “Why didn’t we have these before?”

  “Because they eat up batteries like peanuts and they are a pain in the ass to recharge,” I replied defensively, and then added more softly, “and I forgot I packed them. We aren’t supposed to get separated. So keep them turned off unless we need them.”

  “All right already. I get it. One little ambush and you turn all candy ass on me,” Casey muttered that last part and I felt my temper flare.

  “We got room for zero mistakes out here, little miss,” I fired back, “and you know what happens if we screw up. Torn to pieces and eaten by the dead, if we are lucky. Yes, I already made one mistake by not getting the radios lined out from the start. Let’s try to avoid making any more.”

  Casey held up her hands in surrender, and I let it go. We were both still a bit antsy from the earlier contact, and I wondered if that was the first time Casey had taken human lives. For me, zeds don’t count. Being already dead, they didn’t have souls, or loved ones waiting for them back at the ranch, or any of that nonsense. I decided to keep my curiosity to myself and didn’t ask.

  When we started back out again, I noticed the road narrowed down to two lanes and the shoulders disappeared. Our route from here would intersect with Research Forest then pass under I-45 to head back north on a hopefully clear feeder road. We had about two miles on that before we reached the Tractor Supply Store and the self-storage units fortified by Isaac’s crew.

  “Are we there yet?” Casey piped up, some of her earlier good cheer returning.

  “Don’t make me turn this car around. We’ll get to the zombie zoo when we get there, and not a moment sooner.”

  As comebacks go, that was pretty lame on my part. Also a bit prophetic. The zoo part, anyway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I spotted the milling mass of deadheads a mile up the road, a horde well into the thousands and growing by the minute.

  “Charlie One, this is Charlie Three,” I called into the radio microphone. “We have upwards of two kilo weight here onsite. Going to need to duck and cover, over.”

  As previously mentioned, our radio codes weren’t complicated. They couldn’t be. Fletch’s folks, for instance, used a four-page codebook that changed based on the days of the week. I still don’t understand what the NG troops are saying, half the time. We didn’t have the luxury of a complicated code system picked up on the fly since we all came from different backgrounds. So we improvised.

  “Negative, Charlie Three. Engage at long range and draw them to you. This really is one of your kinds of jobs, now. We’ll find an alternate and advise.”

  “What does that mean? Suicide by zed?” Casey asked, and from her tone I could tell she was back to her old sassy self. Not terrified like a normal, well-adjusted person would be.

  “No, Hard Case. That means we are going to act as a distraction and draw them to us while the rest of the relief convoy finds another way to reach the stores. My guess is a back road. Most of these places will have truck access with loading docks in the rear. Mike probably knows a route. We’ll just sucker them down the way and cut into their numbers a bit. Then back up and repeat the process.”

  Casey shrugged. “How do you want to do this?”

  “You get behind the wheel, watch for trouble, and radio me if you see anything out of place. I’ll get up top, use the cab to get a little elevation, and shoot zombies for a while to draw them this way. The goal is to uncover the entrance or back door enough to let Bill and Mike make entry. With our radios on now, this should be easy enough.”

  “Just don’t fall off the truck when I back up. I don’t think I can pick you up.”

  “I’ll be careful. Just keep your eyes peeled. This would be a great chance for those assholes from the ambush to get a little payback. Now we’ll move up to two hundred yards of the outer edge of that horde and gradually move back. Just wait for my call.”

  And that’s just what we did. I took all four of our Rugers and as much in the way of spare magazines as I could carry and took up a semi-prone shooting position, my upper body sprawled across the top of the truck. The edges of the steel door would have dug into my torso, but the vest I wore reduced the ridges to a mild pressure. I might get bruises after a couple of hours, but that was it.

  I couldn’t wear hearing protection with the helmet on, but the tight-fitting cushions did a decent job of shielding my ears. And I could hear Casey just fine as she critiqued my shooting. The little 10/22s functioned flawlessly, and pretty soon I was firing six aimed shots a minute. This time I wasn’t trying anything fancy, so no windrows or barrier walls to hold up the dead, and I allowed myself to just shoot.

  The zombies reacted predictably at first to the stimuli, turning and shambling to the sound of the shots. Casey, helpfully, started playing some kind of pop music on the CD that made my teeth hurt with the Autotune vocals and childish rhythm. So the zombies not only wanted to eat me, they also wanted those damn kids to turn down that infernal music.

  Six shots a minute meant a maximum of sixty down in ten minutes, and I think I was pretty near that figure as Casey dropped the truck in reverse and slowly put another two hundred yards between us and the leading edge of the crowd. Straight-on headshots with enough of a crowd to trap the dead into a forward approach. That part was fine.

  What was not so fin
e was the gradually increasing trickle of zombies approaching us from the businesses to our left. And from the freeway on our right. A row of Jersey barriers conveniently lined up gave us a bit of cover on the interstate side, but the stragglers continued to loop around the front and back of the four-foot wall of pressed concrete.

  Casey tried to keep them swept back, using her rifle to take down any that got too close on the driver’s side. On the passenger side, I knew I was on my own. For every six shots or so I sent straight ahead, I had to spare one or two for covering that side. If I wasn’t vigilant, they could pile up two or three in quick order and build enough of a ramp to get hands on me. Not something I wanted to chance.

  In fact, I had to order Casey back before the approaching horde got within fifty yards because of the pressure of those troublesome zombies wandering in off the highway. This was yet another occasion I wished the majority of my race wasn’t made up of limp dick pussies. All I needed was one other shooter to cover that side, a reliable gunhand who wouldn’t crack under the grind, and we would be able to hold this position indefinitely. Well, until the ammo ran out, anyway.

  Roxy could do it. Most folks who tried to exterminate zeds just lacked that special something necessary to kill man-shaped monsters for hours or days at a time. They started looking at he faces and noticed those dead white eyes, and eventually froze. After that, I couldn’t ask them to go back out with me again.

  Roxy had the sheer mental tenacity to do the job for hours at a time. Unfortunately, her body wasn’t up to the rigors of this lifestyle. At her age, though, crouching over the parapet back at the compound was about the limit to what she could physically do. Scrambling up on top of trucks or jumping across rooftops was not something Roxy could manage for long. She couldn’t risk a broken hip, after all.