Dead Hunger | Book 10 | The Remnants

by Shelman, Eric A.

  She knew these things.

  After walking for twenty minutes, she felt a surge of power within her. Stopping, the horde stopped behind her.

  They were as silent as the air around them. It had been a command she had issued to her near-equals; those who had been like her at her strongest. The longer they went without food, the more the guttural moans and constant chewing increased, and only she could control it.

  Now she was the most powerful of them all.

  The distant pool of water sat like a black mirror on the earth, steam rising into the air. She approached the edge and stepped in.

  The others followed, and she turned suddenly, using her mind to command them to stop. Stop they did.

  She resumed walking, taking ten, then fifteen, then twenty slow strides into the water. The steam rose around her and she closed her bloody eyes and breathed through partially destroyed lungs.

  The energy within her surged. Her mind became clearer. She turned and beckoned them in.

  With each slow step, she saw them gain more strength. It was powerful here, whatever rose from the depths of the water at her waist. As the steam engulfed the massive horde, the water cleansed the dirt from their ravaged fingernails and washed the blood from their trunks.

  They would resume their trek as soon as darkness fell. The pull to the west was still strong, and Lilith knew she had no other choice but to follow.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder, as the gas pouring from the earth, warm and potent with life-giving nutrients that sustained them, leaked from the very fissure that warmed the water in which they now stood.

  They waited for something only April understood, and she, only by instinct.

  Nightfall.

  *****

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “If you’re going, then you should not delay. Remember it’s still nighttime, so they may continue to be active until dawn. We don’t know their patterns yet. God, I’m sick that I have to hear myself saying these words!” Hemp swiped a hand over his forehead and shook his head.

  Charlie reached up to rub his back. “Honey, did you forget about the WAT-5?”

  Hemp turned to stare at her, then reached into his pack and withdrew a ziplock baggie.

  “You got the WAT?” asked Flex. “And you didn’t say anything until now.”

  Hemp shook his head. “What the hell’s wrong with me? It’s amazing how quickly things like that cease to be second nature!”

  “I’ve heard about this WAT-5,” said Koko. “Over the radio – more than once. Where did you get it?”

  “We make the stuff, Koko,” said Nelson. “Have from the start. Hemp invented it when he was being held captive by this billionaire dude.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” said Hemp. “Here.”

  He held out three wafers and each man plucked one from his open palm. “Sit down before you take them,” said Hemp.

  “Why?” asked Koko.

  “Knocks you out cold,” said Nelson. “Don’t worry. They’ll wake us up. Once they do, we’ve got about five hours of protection.”

  “Not 100%,” said Hemp. “Remember that. The Red-Eyes could often detect you anyway. Not always, but don’t let down you guard.”

  “Fucker’s already out,” said Flex, chuckling.

  “You were serious?”

  “I believe it’s the eye vapor that causes that aspect of it,” said Hemp. “We’ve taken it from a gaseous form to a liquid by super cooling. Once it mixes with the earth gas and begins to react, we stabilize it with the urushiol.”

  Koko plopped down and leaned back against the tree beside Nelson. “Here goes nothing.”

  Koko went night-night.

  Dave didn’t say anything. He just sat down on Nelson’s other side and put the wafer in his mouth. One swallow and he was out.

  “It’s easier to wake them if we give it a few minutes,” said Gem, mainly for the benefit of Manuel. “How much do you have, Hemp?”

  “Charlie and I cut a hundred of them. We were out of practice, so our initial mixture expanded faster than we recalled. There’s more I haven’t cut into wafers yet, back in the lab.”

  “We expected this to be a very short trip, so I’m glad you thought to bring it at all,” said Flex. “Okay. Let’s shake ‘em awake.”

  “Oh, let me,” said Charlie.

  “No, Char –”

  She reached out and jarred Dave and Nelson on the shoulders, grabbing them and shaking them furiously. “Dave! Nel! Wake up! We’re surrounded by rotters!”

  Both men woke up scrambling, instinctively searching for weapons that were resting a few feet away. “What’s going on? Who –”

  “It’s cool, I was just messing with you. Keeping you on your toes,” said Charlie. “Sorry.”

  “And to think I used to have a crush on you,” Dave said, his voice groggy. “How do we know it still works?”

  “If you don’t die, it works,” said Max. “Get going, and don’t stay out more than a couple hours.”

  Flex shook the men’s hands. “Keep your radios on with the volume down. Call us every half hour if the situation permits.”

  “Gotcha,” said Nelson, pulling his pipe from his pocket.

  “Some things never change,” said Koko.

  “And some stuff should never change,” Nelson said, holding his hit. He held out the pipe to Dave and Koko. Both shook their heads and he put it away. “Fine,” he said, blowing out the smoke. “Let’s get rolling.”

  As Flex, Gem and the others headed to the Super 8 Motel, Dave, Nelson, and Koko followed the remnants of death, as well as the clumps of hair and rotted body parts shed or ripped from the zombies as they ravaged the remaining population of the residents of Covington, Georgia.

  *****

  The air began to get more humid as the men moved along the forested trail. There were still plenty of signs of the horde that had moved through to keep the small team of scouts headed in the right direction.

  Passing a faded sign, Nelson pointed it out. “Hot springs. That explains this humidity.”

  “And the fact that the temperature has increased about fifteen degrees,” said Dave.

  Koko had already shed his shirt, and his still ample stomach hid his belt as he glistened under the moonlight with sweat.

  They moved another hundred yards into the woods before Koko stopped the men ahead of him – not with his words, but by placing a large hand on each of their shoulders.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “Don’t speak. Just look to your left, through the trees. Wait for your eyes to adjust.”

  But Nelson didn’t have to wait; he saw clearly why Koko had stopped them.

  “This Mossberg won’t be enough,” he said, his voice low and serious. “A hundred Mossberg’s wouldn’t be.”

  The figures stood in the rising mist and steam, the moonlight casting a glow over them through the trees above. The smell of rot hung as heavy as the humidity. The creatures, while not asleep – they did not sleep – were not drawn to the men because of the WAT-5, but it sent chills down the spines of all. They all stood in the water, unmoving with their heads cast downward.

  “You can say that again, but please don’t,” whispered Dave. “I can’t see the end of them.”

  “What are they doing? See the steam?” asked Koko. “This must be the main body of water for the Peachtree Hot Springs. The sign back there.”

  Nelson put a finger to his lips and moved around Dave and Koko, hurrying back down the trail in the direction they’d come. Both men followed.

  When they got to a point where Nelson was comfortable, he pulled the radio off his hip. “Guys, this is serious shit here. What we’re seeing is a horde that just filled their bellies, and now they’re recharging. The earth gas doesn’t have a smell, but I’m betting that steam is chock full of the stuff. It’s warm because of the heat generated from the earth’s mantle, so it’s coming from pretty damned deep. The earth gas is probably way more highly concentrated in places li
ke this.”

  Koko stared at his old friend. “Did you get smarter since we last met? I don’t mean that as an insult, either.”

  Nelson laughed softly. “I was always smart, dude. Technically, since I don’t forget anything, I do actually get smarter every day.”

  “So, they’ve found their charging station,” said Dave. “That’s not good.”

  Koko said, “What now? We go back home to report?”

  “Wait,” said Nelson. “You hear that?”

  The men seemed to hold their breaths as a distant sound, like a thousand people shushing somebody at once, droned on. It sounded far away, but it was close enough to hear.

  “What is that?” asked Dave. “It’s constant.”

  “It’s also getting louder,” said Koko. “From that direction, it sounds like.” He pointed to the north.

  “Let’s move farther back into the forest,” said Dave. “Maybe we can burrow in like they do and wait for the sound to manifest itself into whatever’s making it.”

  In silent agreement, they moved back into the woods, again following the trail the dead had taken on their trip in. Before they reached the point they had stopped before, Nelson said, “Holy cow!” His voice was low, but in an even lower voice, he added, “Which they do have in India, by the way.”

  Koko shook his head, but his attention was drawn by what they all saw. Another horde, easily as large as the one that now stood seemingly dormant, moved south directly toward the other horde standing in the water.

  “Down, down!” whispered Nelson. Then he looked up and saw a giant tree beside them with low, thick branches at its base.

  “If you guys think you can handle it, we need to get up this tree now. We can watch whatever happens from a bird’s-eye-view.”

  Koko and Dave quickly evaluated whether they could climb the tree, and both men moved toward it.

  “Koko, you go up first, since you’re the biggest of us.”

  “And?”

  “And if the branch will hold you, it’ll hold us.”

  “Great plan.” With a shake of his head, Koko reached up, took hold of the lowest handhold, and stepped the three feet up to the first low branch.

  By the time the new horde made it to within 100 feet of their tree, each man had found a branch to perch on for a good view. The lowest was around fifteen feet high, and the shadows cast under their canopy were adequate.

  What happened next blew their minds.

  The southbound horde was led by a nude woman with straight hair, as well as at least three others the same as her. If one of them was the actual leader, there was no way of knowing which one. When they drew to a stop, a gap of approximately 25 yards remained between the nearest contact points of the two groups.

  Nelson wondered if any of them had come from Kingman, Kansas. That was a long trip, but these things had nothing but time. He now realized many of them had risen after what they had called The Cleansing, and made their way back into the lands beyond Kingman.

  He still chastised himself for making assumptions back then; had he followed his instincts, he might have found evidence they had risen on their own and walked away.

  “What are they doing?” whispered Koko.

  Dave and Nelson just shook their heads. “We’ll see, I guess,” whispered Nelson in response.

  As they stared downward, the mouths of all three leading Red-Eyes opened, and a shriek emitted from them, simultaneously. With that, pinpoints of eyeshine turned from the misty swamp toward the oncoming horde.

  To the shock of all three treed men, they charged one another.

  Slogging out of the swamp, moving with much more vigor and intensity, the creatures that had been immersed in the gas had the immediate advantage.

  Many of them cried out while in the midst of the fight, but they were mostly guttural grunts. These flesh-eaters did not masticate constantly or emit regular growls

  It looked like a Civil War battle, with the opposing sides fighting to the death at every contact point. It was like nothing they had ever seen before; one horde fighting for dominance over the other, when in the past all they had done was merge into one larger horde.

  They’re smarter now, because they’re kind of alive, Nelson said to himself. They seem to be defending their turf, and what’s more, the other horde seems to understand why it’s valuable.

  Below the treed trio, the battle raged. As each monster met another of their kind, one would kill the other by ripping out its neck and throwing it to the ground, smashing its head open on the many low rocks near the springs.

  Destroying the brain, Nelson thought again. They know how to kill their own kind. Is it instinctual or did they learn this somehow? Damn, Hemp! Why aren’t you here when I need you?

  Nelson also noted in his mind that in almost every encounter, the wet monsters that emerged from the hot springs would reign victorious.

  Pulling out his radio, he felt a hand on his arm. “Volume, Nel,” said Dave, nodding. “Tell them we may not get back until tomorrow.”

  Nelson got on the horn, turned the volume to the point where he could not hear anything unless it was pressed against his ear. “Hemp. Come in, Hemp.”

  “You got Charlie,” came the tinny voice. “What’s up, cakes?”

  “What’s up is we’re in a tree looking down on what might be two thousand zombies in the midst of a battle.”

  “Damn, two thousand! Who are they fighting and how are you in a tree?”

  “That’s just it – they’re fighting each other!” he said. “I’m only able to call you guys because of all the noise they’re making.”

  Hemp came on the radio. “Nelson, explain what you see.”

  “Okay. We came across the horde from Covington all just standing in the middle of a hot springs fed lake. Lots of steam and naturally occurring heat. As we were about to leave, here comes this other huge horde. We got up a tree to watch the crap unfold.”

  “Were they led by Red-Eyes as well?”

  “Hell yeah, they were. Oh, by the way, these guys aren’t dumb anymore and they sure aren’t taking all comers.”

  “I do not know what to make of it,” said Hemp. “Maybe it has to do with their limited brain function, as you said. They’re no longer entirely without cerebral function, relegated to only their instinct to satiate their hunger. Before, they had abilities but no real thoughts. Now when energized, it appears they protect their numbers.”

  “How can they tell the difference between their horde and deadheads from other hordes?” asked Nelson.

  “Perhaps they can sense the power – or the lack thereof – in others. It is possible one horde is better managed than the other,” said Hemp. “Better fed, better nourished.”

  “Better dead,” said Nelson. “I don’t mind letting them kill themselves and do our dirty work, so we’ll just stay up in this tree until we have an opportunity to get away.”

  “Yes, for God’s sake, do not move,” said Hemp. “Radio us when you’re setting out for home.”

  “Sooner the better,” said Nelson. “Roger, and out.”

  Nelson checked the volume on the radio once more and clipped it back to his belt.

  After whispering updates to Koko and Dave Gammon, he leaned back, held on, and tried to remain awake.

  *****

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The battle below them continued, but Nelson didn’t see how it would ever be over.

  Not until they ran out of dead.

  The rotters did not retreat, at least in the old days. They would advance on living flesh, make some special moves if controlled by the Red-Eyes, and they would continue attacking until all the humans were dead or all of them were.

  No-siree, the dead did not retreat, but that didn’t mean this new breed of zombies wouldn’t. If it was as Hemp said and they did have more cognitive brain function, they might realize they were losing and break contact for a retreat.

  Nelson checked his wristwatch. They had been tearing each other apa
rt for three hours and twenty-six minutes. But it wasn’t so much fighting as it was swatting flies. The zombies that had annihilated Covington and set up in the hot springs were clearly stronger.

  Occasionally the newcomers would get the advantage, defeat the zombie before them, and make their way past the defenders and move to stand in the center of the hot springs pond.

  On three different occasions Nelson saw this happen, and the head honcho Red-Eye would make her way over swiftly and rip the invader’s head from its shoulders.

  But she did not just release the creature to slink into the water. She would heave the severed head to the opposite side and drag the body to the bank, releasing it only when she was fifteen to twenty feet beyond the water’s edge.

  I gotta remember to tell Hemp about that, thought Nelson. Wait! That means something. She’s protecting something.

  Then it struck him like a sledgehammer.

  Her home! She’s decided this is a place worth defending.

  And there was only one reason for that; something a smart zombie might glom onto.

  The gas was thick here, and it collected nicely beneath the canopy of trees.

  When Koko would start to drift off, Nelson would reach out with his right leg and poke him gently with his toe. Koko’s back was centered in a hollow niche in the tree, so Nelson wasn’t worried about him falling. He just didn’t want him startling awake and giving them away with a yell.

  Dave Gammon was intent on the ground. He never looked away, and occasionally he’d turn and look at Nelson. He always did the same thing – he’d shake his head, point at something below, then continue gazing downward.

  Nelson never had any idea what the hell Dave was pointing at, but he always nodded and furrowed his brow, which seemed like the right response.

  The body parts piled up and the heads, many ripped off whole, began chewing anything in their path; tongues, body parts that had encroached on their masticating jaws, anything, and everything.

  Bowling balls with teeth. That’s what Flex … or maybe it was Hemp … had called them. Plenty of danger below. Heads beneath bodies even if you were careful, could get a chunk out of you.