Dead Hunger_The Cleansing

by Eric A. Shelman

  As the human pinball machine-in-action reached Flex, it was too late to steady himself; he realized they would tumble until they stopped, and nothing would change that. His abused body seemed to hit every stone outcropping and every edge of every step on his path downward.

  When he landed, he felt the impact of solid rock against the back of his head.

  Black spots did the Texas Two-Step around his eyes and the sound of gunfire and ricochets brought him back to a defensive posture in a hurry. Flex shook his head and scrambled out of the packed entrance, allowing room for anyone who could manage it to either fall or crawl out behind him.

  He still wasn’t certain whether the gunfire was intentional or if they had been accidental discharges.

  As he pulled himself to his feet and spotted his Glock and the Daewoo, his eyes fell on the winding steps; they weren’t alone. The corpses – there were at least three – were accompanied by zombies so rotted and dusty that it was impossible to understand how they were still connected together.

  “Back, back, dudes! They’re moving!” shouted Nelson. He was back on his feet in a flash, pulling Charlie up as he threw an elbow into the head of a rotter that had basically fallen toward them, gravity assisting its rapid descent.

  Its skull shattered into fragments with the well-placed elbow, and Nelson, his weapons at his feet somewhere, had his hands up, ready to use his more lethal form of Subdudo if necessary.

  Flex pulled Trina and Taylor out and got them on their feet. Both leaned against the rock walls. “You guys okay?” asked Flex.

  “I’m bruised, but I don’t think anything’s broken. You, Tay?” asked Trina.

  Taylor shook her head. “Got some cuts and scrapes,” she said. “But I’ll be okay. We’ve been through a hell of a lot worse than this.”

  “This isn’t over yet,” said Hemp. “Confidence is good, but the worst may be yet to come, so keep your eyes open.”

  “Yeah,” said Flex. “I like your confidence, too, but if you do anything stupid, I can tell you Charlie’s gonna put your ass in time out.”

  Taylor was through listening and had focused on the narrow tunnel ahead of them. “Nelson, get the hell out of there!” she called, impatience in her voice. “This may be one step forward and two steps back, but it’s time to move forward again!”

  Nelson mumbled something and scooted backward, jumping deftly over the fallen dead and still-twitching abnormals. Charlie had turned and bounded after him, her eyes searching the floor as she made her way down.

  Soon they were all out, standing in the larger tunnel again.

  “Well, that was fucked,” said Flex. “Everyone okay? And don’t bullshit. If you’re hurt, you can get someone killed.”

  Everyone took a moment to evaluate. They all swore up and down they were just battered and bruised.

  “Okay, then. Stand back,” said Flex.

  They did.

  “Don’t shoot my goddamned crossbow,” said Charlie. “It’s up there somewhere.”

  Flex adjusted his headlamp and went back inside. Five shots sounded as he worked his way up the stairs. When he was two steps from the top, he holstered the Glock and pulled the Daewoo from his shoulder.

  Flex trained his light downward and inspected the gun carefully. A chip had broken off the pistol grip, but everything else seemed undamaged.

  The upper door was solid timber, but it had swung closed again since the crowd had descended upon them. Flex suspected the reason for it, but he would have to push it open to get his answer.

  “If you’re armed and in good shape, I need someone up here with me.”

  Charlie was up before Nelson could complain. As she made her way up, she bent down and pushed a motionless, thin body to the side and retrieved her crossbow. With another shove, she fished out her quiver of at least forty arrows and strapped that over her shoulder.

  “What’s up, boss?” she asked, reaching the top where Flex waited.

  “That’ll be the day anybody’s your boss,” he said. “Charlie, I don’t know how full this room is, but we need to get on even footing with them – not this downhill shit. We’re on WAT-5, so we’ll push inside. If you see a red-eye, take the bitch out. I’ll search, too.”

  “I’m right behind you,” said Nelson.

  “Me, too,” said Dave.

  Flex turned and saw Trina and Taylor wave to him from the steps. Hemp had his H&K trained on the tunnels behind them, always watching their backs.

  All of the people he’d protected and fought with for so many years, stood atop the crushed zombie bodies as if they were no more than scattered shells on the beach.

  Seasoned veterans of the zombie apocalypse, thought Flex. The best damned group there ever was.

  “Everyone, sleeves down, arms protected.” Flex pushed open the door and elbowed his way inside.

  Everyone else followed.

  The room wasn’t exactly clear, but nobody attacked.

  *****

  There were only eight rotters remaining inside the small chamber, but at least a dozen skeletons and shreds of clothing.

  Despite their advanced deterioration, Flex knew that none of these creatures had been recent residents of the city.

  “How long you think they’ve been down here?” asked Dave, moving along the wall, careful not to crunch the brittle bones scattered on the ground at his feet.

  “I’m gonna say since around 2011 when this whole thing came to a head,” said Flex.

  “These are the best dressed zombies in the history of the apocalypse,” said Hemp. “Of course, the diggers wear similar formalwear, but it is usually tattered from their passage from their graves to the surface.”

  The chamber was shaped like a square with the corners rounded. There was a wooden ladder leading up behind what appeared to be some sort of lip in the ceiling. There were shelves – all empty, and a large trash barrel that was filled with empty packaging.

  “I’m beginning to understand what happened here, if Isis and Max are correct about the Freemasons,” said Hemp. “This was clearly a secret bunker. The fellowship was the most important thing, and preserving the members who knew their secrets was crucial. Therefore, they had enough supplies to get them through a particular period of time.”

  “So what?” asked Trina. “They ran out of food?”

  “And water,” said Taylor. “I guess they started to starve.”

  “And die,” said Hemp. When that happened, they arose and attacked the others, eating some beyond the ability to reanimate, and just becoming trapped here when all the remaining food source was gone.”

  “Dudes, they look like high society zombies,” said Nelson. “I mean, three-piece suits, cuff links, tie clips. Talk about overdressed for the apocalypse.”

  Nelson walked up to one of the abnormals with thin, wrinkled skin stretched over its face, the dead, pink eyes incapable of pumping out the vapor even had Nelson not been on WAT-5. The creature seemed to stare at Nelson, its mouth gnashing, the teeth worn to nubs.

  Nelson reached down and pulled on a tarnished, brass chain, leading from under the monster’s coat, and a pocket watch popped out. He turned it over and pressed the top. The ornate cover popped open and Nelson held it out.

  The watch had the Freemason symbol in the center, Roman numerals marking the time the watch had stopped for the last time: 2:23. There was no date on the watch face, but the moon visible at the top said it had been early in the morning.

  “Wonder how long they survived,” said Nel, tucking the watch away again.

  “Hey, don’t you want to keep that as a souvenir?” asked Taylor.

  Nel shook his head. “Nah. It’d feel like stealing from the dead. Bad juju.”

  “They likely intended to emerge as some sort of heroes – surviving the scourge, proving their own pre-planning had saved them,” said Hemp. “The tunnels and food storage, along with the nice clothing; all of it was meant to demonstrate superiority in the event of a catastrophe. It doesn’t appear to
have worked out as they’d planned.”

  “Wonder why they didn’t just leave when they started to run out of food?”

  “We’ll never know,” said Hemp. “Perhaps they were breached from the other direction. I say we get up that ladder.”

  “Well, the door we came through was solid,” said Charlie. “Hemp’s right. Let’s get our asses up that ladder and figure out where we are.” She checked her watch. “It’s night out there now. Baby, you think their vision is affected?”

  Hemp looked at her. “Yes, Charlie. That’s a good point. The Mothers and Hungerers always seemed to have decent night vision abilities, but with the diminishing earth vapor, that might change significantly. Night could become the best time to move about and rescue others in need.”

  “Max and Isis said they felt weakened,” said Charlie. “For God’s sake, I hope they’ve got enough in the tank to get everyone to safety.”

  Flex nudged his way through the shamblers to the ladder on the wall and started climbing up. “Charlie, use that crossbow and put these guys down. They’ve suffered this second life long enough.”

  Charlie nodded and went to work. As Flex climbed up the ladder, checking as he went to be sure it was structurally sound, the gnashing behind him fell silent and the constant scraping of worn dress shoe soles on stone came to an end with soft, final thuds.

  His headlamp illuminated the wall as he neared the top and the darker gaps around a large, rectangular seam became clear.

  He turned to see all of the once upright bodies, now lying in heaps on the stone floor. Charlie and the others were busily removing the arrows and wiping them clean on the rotted clothing.

  Charlie then returned them to her quiver.

  “There’s an access hatch up there,” said Flex, climbing back down. “Now we just need to figure out what opens it and hope a shitload of rotters don’t pour down when we figure it out.”

  *****

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Gem stayed in front of the group with Isis and Max while several of the other capable men and women of Kingman, as frightened as they were, held off the Mothers and Hungerers in pursuit. The gunfire echoed off the stone walls, making it sound like an artillery range.

  They had been moving quickly; much faster than the rotters could move, especially in their current, weakened condition.

  Suddenly, their single tunnel intersected with four new passageways. Each of the smaller tunnels angled off in different directions, as did the fast-flowing channels of water.

  “I don’t know which to take,” said Isis. “Max, do you have your compass?”

  “Yeah,” he said. Max slung his pack off his shoulders and reached into the front pocket. He removed a small, round disc and twisted the cover open.

  “What direction are we facing now?” asked Isis.

  “Damn,” said Max.

  “What?” asked Isis.

  “It’s not moving. I must’ve knocked it against a wall when we came down that stairwell,” he said. “Needle’s frozen.”

  “This tunnel’s been kind of snaking along,” offered Gem. “I thought I knew we were headed pretty much south for a while, but now I have no idea.”

  Isis looked frustrated, and it wasn’t something Gem witnessed a lot. “If we want out of here,” she said, “we need to follow the channel that is moving the fastest. There is no doubt that all of these channels converge somewhere up ahead – quite possibly a mile or more ahead.”

  She knelt down and put her hand into the channel moving more or less straight ahead. After a moment, she moved to one of the other angled channels and put her hand in the water.

  A few seconds later, she stood again. “Unfortunately, I can’t tell which is flowing faster. The diverted water channels would have to route back into the main trough eventually, which would slow them. The fastest-flowing waterway would most likely be the one that corresponds to the tunnel we must take.”

  Serena came up beside Gem. “We need to move,” she whispered. Gem could barely hear her over the increasing gunfire about twenty yards behind them.

  “I have an idea,” said Colton.

  Gem knelt down. “What is it, sweetheart?”

  She didn’t really believe what he had to offer would be helpful, but she knew the importance of listening to everyone’s input, if only to let them know they mattered.

  Colton mattered to Gem – a lot. He had been a good boy since his mother was killed, and just his very presence had helped both her and Flex cope with the loss of their own son. They had both grown to love the boy in a short time.

  “When my mom and me were just waiting around, I made boats out of paper. She showed me how. She said she used to make them when she was a little girl and they would race them in the gutters.”

  Max moved over to Colton and patted him on the shoulder. “Well, buddy, I have a notebook. Remember how to make those boats?”

  “Yeah, I do!” said Colton, over the gunfire.

  Max reached into his pack and pulled out a spiral notebook. He quickly tore four sheets out. “Fold away, buddy. Hurry.”

  In less than three minutes, Colton had folded up four small, paper boats. He put one on his head. “They can be hats, too.”

  Max snatched it from his head and tousled his hair. “Colton, brother, they’re boats for now. Good job.”

  “Anyone with a watch with a second hand, come up here!” shouted Isis.

  Gem stepped forward. “Flex stole this cheap digital watch for me,” she said. “But it’s waterproof and it has a stopwatch.”

  “Okay,” said Isis. “Same starting point. Max, get ready to write the numbers down.” She took one boat and held it over the water. “One – two – three.” She dropped the boat as Gem hit the start button.

  “Stop it when it reaches the tunnel entrance.”

  Gem did. The boat disappeared ahead. “3.9 seconds.”

  They repeated the process with the remaining three boats. The second tunnel from the left was the fastest running by far, at only 2.4 seconds from release to the arched entry.

  “That’s the one!” said Isis. “Great idea, Colton!”

  Gem looked at Colton and saw the pride on his face. He had been quiet and scared, but none of his previous trepidation was evident on his face. Gem leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You’re awesome,” she said.

  “Thanks, mom,” he said.

  Gem felt her heart skip a beat at the word. She took his hand and said, “Let’s move.”

  A scream came from the rear, and Gem spun around, once again forgetting her delicate rib. As the pain stabbed her, her eyes fell on a man being taken down by three abnormals, their fingers clawing down his face as he struggled to pull a full magazine from his pocket.

  His scream turned into gurgles as the monsters bit into his face and neck, their sheer numbers pulling him down.

  Gem recognized him as Matt Goodspeed, who had run a small press in town. He’d found some old manual typesetters and had figured out how to mass produce a one-page newspaper he called Up To Speed In Kingman. It came out whenever there was enough news to fill a single page.

  Now the creatures tore at Matt’s shirt, exposing his chest and abdomen; they burrowed into him, ripping and tearing at his flesh, and Gem prayed that his twitching, dying nerves were responsible for the jerking movements of the man’s arms and legs. He deserved oblivion in his dying moments.

  Matt’s misfortune had given them a very short reprieve. Several other Hungerers fell down atop his prone body and began to feed.

  Gem watched as Dave Weirs fired three rounds toward Matt from about ten feet away, then turned and ran toward her. She wasn’t certain he’d achieved what he set out to do, but he had clearly tried to put Goodspeed out of his misery.

  “Do you guys have any WAT-5?” he wheezed, reaching them. “We didn’t worry about bringing too much of it into the bunker because we figured we’d be safe there,” said Weirs. “When those dead fuckers broke through the door and forced us into the tunne
ls, a ton of supplies got left behind.”

  Gem shook her head. “This whole attack caught us off guard,” she said. “We told everyone to bring their cache of WAT-5 with them, so keep asking. Someone is bound to have followed instructions. I don’t have any more.”

  “Which means we’re like sizzling steaks to these stinkers,” said Serena, Ben by her side.

  Gem had so much on her hands that she hadn’t even thought about it, but it explained the sheer numbers of abnormals pursuing them; probably half or more of the people of Kingman weren’t on WAT-5.

  Gem, with Colton just ahead of her, thought of Flex, Trina, Taylor and the others, and wondered if they were okay.

  The tunnel ceiling tapered lower and lower until they were all hunched over, jogging south with the sound of the rushing water beside them, moving deeper into the unknown catacombs of the city of Kingman.

  *****

  The same center pivot design had been used in every case so far, if a direct door was not utilized. It was a stone of some sort with a solid steel rod running down its center like a spindle. The stone could then spin on that spindle, opening and closing the passageway. There wasn’t much room to get through this one – twenty inches at best.

  Must’ve been some thin folks that used these tunnels, thought Flex, worried he wouldn’t be able to squeeze through.

  Dave Gammon had succeeded in opening the hatch, and to everyone’s relief, the room behind it was empty. What’s more, the walls were no longer stone, but plaster.

  They all climbed up one-by-one, and to Flex’s relief, they were all able to squeeze into the small, empty room, himself included.

  “Feels like I just escaped from a well,” said Trina. “I can breathe better up here.”

  “I know,” said Taylor. “The air’s like … sweeter.”

  “We need to figure out which wall to breach,” said Flex, feeling along the cool plaster. He put his ear to it. “I don’t hear anything. You guys check the other walls.”