Dead Hunger | Book 10 | The Remnants

by Shelman, Eric A.

  Everyone stared at him as he pulled out a small calculator. He punched in some numbers, then looked up. “Nelson, what time did the other horde arrive?”

  “It was about 11:15 or so,” he said. “They fought for around four-and-a-half hours.”

  “So, if they arrived at that time, they likely departed at sundown. I would say their origin point would be around three-and-a-quarter miles north of the hot springs, along the path Gem spotted.”

  “That means it would take a horde roughly 16 hours to travel to Lula if there really are some in Demorest.”

  “That’s if they decide Lula is even a destination,” said Isis. “If not, they would just wander as the hordes do, until something sparked their interest.”

  “Did,” said Trina. “Wandering is what they used to do.”

  “She’s right,” said Hemp. “With the Red-Eyes’ senses tuned to blood and flesh – and we do not know their current abilities in that regard – they could direct them right to us.”

  “Wait,” said Max. “That may not be what draws them now.”

  “I think I know where you’re going,” said Isis.

  “You probably do,” said Max, squeezing her hand. “Before, we know they were driven by human population. The smells, the noise, movement. They didn’t have any awareness. They traveled 24/7, no concern about being seen, about day or night. Now they have awareness, which we know as fact because they don’t move in the daytime.

  “Nelson, Koko and Dave said the hordes broke off their battle. How? Why? In the old days, they’d never fight one another. Hell, they didn’t even notice their own kind except when the Red-Eyes directed them. Things are way different, and we need to figure out every way they are.”

  “Hemp?” said Flex, turning to the scientist. “I know we’ve already talked about it, but you need yourself a Red-Eye, pronto.”

  “Words I never wanted to hear again,” said Hemp. “But I still have the containment room in the lab.”

  “You need the powerful one,” said Dave. “The one we saw running the show at Peachtree Hot Springs.”

  “Let’s check Demorest first,” said Flex. “It’s closer to home. If there are any there, there’s bound to be another head honcho runnin’ that show.”

  “You’ve got something else on your mind,” said Gem. “Spill it.”

  Flex breathed in and let out a long slow sigh. “We need to figure out the best way to fortify Lula. If you know me, you already know what I’m thinking.”

  “The school bus graveyard,” said Hemp. “Every time I drive past it, I think what excellent barricades they would make. I always follow that by thinking how happy I am that we no longer need them. Now, sadly, we’ll find out if we do or not.”

  “Gotta be a couple hundred buses there,” said Nelson. “Not sure how they shifted them around in that huge lot, but there must be equipment for that. I’ll check it out tomorrow and we can figure out what kind of length we can expect to have –”

  “The barricade will need to be two buses high possibly,” interjected Flex. “Bolted together and with tilt-up wall braces on the inside.”

  “Where can we find those?” asked Taylor.

  “There’s a contractor who did a lot of tilt-up buildings in Atlanta. Trafford Construction. His signs used to be everywhere. His place is about ten miles west of here, but whoever does it will need a crew and some equipment to get them; they’re heavy.”

  “Okay, let’s organize our teams,” said Isis. “I get the feeling we have to attack this hard and fast. As for the Red-Eye, I’ll work with Max on heading to Demorest and grabbing her. We’re best equipped for it.”

  “Me and Gem are goin’ with,” said Flex. “We’ll be in decent shape with the WAT-5. Hemp, you need to organize your group to find poison ivy to make more urushiol blend. Lots of it.”

  “Mom? Dad?”

  Flex and Gem turned to see Colton standing in the doorway.

  “Hey, baby,” said Gem. “What is it?”

  “Can we talk? Just us three?”

  Flex shrugged and got up, and Gem followed him and Colton inside the house. Colton dropped down on the rustic sofa. “What’s going on? Everybody’s planning. Like back in Kingman.”

  “There’s a little situation, my man,” said Flex. “Not as bad as before, but it looks like the damned zombies are back.”

  Colton had been born into a world with zombies. Until they were gone – at least temporarily – he had not lived in a world without them. There was never a need for a conversation between Flex and Gem regarding what to tell Colton if they ever returned.

  The boy could handle it. His mother had turned, and Gem had killed her. He knew that, and he still chose to call her mom.

  “Sweetie, it’s different because they only come out at night it looks like. So during the daytime, if we stay in well-lit places, everyone will be fine. We’ll hunt them at night.”

  “I want to go,” said Colton, brushing his long hair out of his eye. “I can shoot really good.”

  “You can shoot well,” said Gem.

  “Damn well,” said Flex. “But not this time. We’re just getting back into this thing and we have to recon the situation first.”

  “Recon?” asked Colton.

  “Reconnoiter,” said Flex. “It means patrol, scope out.”

  “Scope out?”

  “He means we need to figure things out. Understand what we’re up against. When we need you, Colton, you need to be ready. For now, I want you in school and I want you at the shooting range.”

  His face went sour at the mention of school, but when she added the range to the equation, his face lit up.

  “Really?”

  There hadn’t been much need for weapons since their return to Lula, so he enjoyed using the lever-action Henry Golden Boy .22 rifle whenever he got a chance. He was damned good and really fast.

  “Really. Get back there and you shoot every damned day, for at least two hours. I got tons of .22 ammo.”

  “A shitload?”

  “More than that.”

  “What’s more than a shitload?” asked Colton, smiling now.

  “A fuck ton,” said Gem. “Now go back to what you were doing. We’ll finish up our meeting and eat something.”

  *****

  There was still half a day remaining by the time they let everyone in town know what was going on via the main broadcast channel they used.

  There were currently 227 people living in Lula proper, but the town was once home to 2700 residents. That meant plenty of housing, though much of it had fallen into disrepair over the years while everyone in the world was running from the walking dead.

  Lula wasn’t alone. Whether people lived in houses or not, pipes froze and burst, paint dried out and peeled, grass and foliage grew. By the time they had returned to Flex’s house, it had almost been completely obscured by the wild nature that had reclaimed the spaces between structures.

  One thing that had come back big time since the fall of the zombies had been deer and other wildlife. There were also packs of wild dogs, wild hogs that could kill you with a charge, and other unexpected things.

  Foxes were everywhere, and black bears were a common encounter.

  Meat was plentiful. Flex had even begun to make his own jerky, which Gem also liked. Isis practically swooned when she heard. He always brought her a nice-sized bag when he knew she’d be where he was going.

  That evening, Flex and Gem retired to their house. Flex got on the radio for a planned announcement at 7:00 PM.

  He pressed the button and started speaking: “Hey, folks. Flex here. Just wanted to share some thoughts with y’all. First off, I know our initial reporting of these new deadheads probably freaked you out. If I know me, I made it sound like there were a thousand zombies marching toward Lula right now.”

  “You kinda did,” said Gem. “In fact, that’s exactly what you sounded like.”

  Flex looked at Gem and said, “You mind?”

  “Be honest and
I won’t have to jump in,” she said with a wink.

  Flex pushed the button again. “Gem says I even freaked her out.”

  Gem rolled her eyes, shook her head no, and flipped him off.

  “That might’ve been a mistake, because it’s not a new development; it’s just something we didn’t know about. Now, I realize we’ve had a few people go missing in Lula since we got back here. Three, at least. We didn’t connect any dots because we have freewill, and it turns out all those who went missing were more introverts. Now, a guy like Nelson Moore goes missing, we’re all gonna be alarmed. The guy can’t pack a bowl without a news conference. No offense, Nelson.”

  In his mind, he saw Nelson shrug, take a hit off his pipe, and say, “No prob, dude. You’re right.”

  “Anyway, we’re going to start some fortification just in case. We’re not gonna worry about mine and Gem’s house, ‘cause we’re too far out here. We’ll set up the woods around us with cameras, razor wire and traps. We’re planning to use the buses from the graveyard. We’ll focus on your town center and your residences. Anyone on the outskirts will have to relocate to within the perimeter or be on your own.

  “If you have questions or concerns, hit me up later tonight. We head out in the morning. If you want to volunteer for a supply run tomorrow, it’s the day. Poison ivy, oak or sumac, tilt-up wall supports, a Red-Eye. You know, the usual.”

  After another few words of encouragement Flex was done. He put the transmitter on the clip and got up.

  “You share too much,” said Gem. “Our core group can handle anything. Anyone who didn’t go through what we did I see as soft.”

  “They made it through. They’re still alive, so they’re either lucky or they’re good. They just got their own stories, Gem.”

  “I know luck runs out after a while,” she said. “Usually when you need it most. Doesn’t it constantly blow your mind how much more we learned about these things than most people?”

  “Sure, but we had Hemp. I am always kinda surprised they didn’t hear certain things on the grapevine, though. Hell, in all those years, we shared our knowledge with a lot of folks.”

  “Maybe 90% of them died before they got a chance to share it with anyone else,” said Gem.

  They heard the sound of an engine approaching.

  “I’d know Max’s pickup anywhere,” she said.

  They went outside and dropped into the bench swing, waving at Max and Isis. They’d told them earlier they would come and stay the night so they could head out early in the morning.

  The couple was married about two months after their arrival back in Lula. There was a lot of clean-up to do on Flex and Gem’s place, and they wanted it ready for the big day.

  Not too many people had returned to Lula yet by that time – just the 21 who had driven from Kingman and maybe twenty others who had never left the town. They had played hide-and-seek with the zombies over the many years. A great number of them had died, but the younger, stronger children of the former residents stood their ground.

  The townsfolk who remained to see Flex, Gem and company return home welcomed a wedding, and most came out for the event just for the sheer joy of feeling normal again.

  Nelson, who had announced he was a notary because he read a written training book and had taken the test at the end, married the couple. He was stoned at the time, but his words were poignant, and as the young couple sealed the ceremony with a kiss, the tears flowed like the tequila did afterward.

  Since their return, people had been filtering in, all closely vetted to be sure they wouldn’t make trouble for other people just trying to survive. The town’s population had expanded to almost 230 people since their homecoming.

  Since the town had accommodated over 2,500 people in the years leading up to the apocalypse, there was plenty of housing for everyone.

  Another stipulation was they must be willing to fight to defend the town. That did not apply to zombies at the time, but to other bad actors – of which there were many roaming the countryside – who might try to steal all they had preserved and what they’d built.

  So, the wedding was the official re-christening of normal life in Lula, Georgia. Not too many people outside their core Kingman group knew about Max and Isis’ origins, and that was by design. They could be treated like outcasts if pegged as creatures borne of the apocalypse.

  Their history and abilities were revealed to others only on a need-to-know basis. Not many people had needed to know before now, but that could all change with the revelation of a zombie resurgence.

  Isis and Max’s announcement of their coming marriage first threw Hemp, Charlie, and Isis’ uncle, Dave Gammon, into turmoil. Isis had only walked the earth for 17 years, and Max, only 16. But nothing about them was normal – using the term’s meaning as it applied to the world in 2009 or so – and they were entirely well-suited for marriage.

  Their affection and love for one another was undeniable, and their maturity to handle the relationship, clear. Isis and Max had the appearance of a couple in their mid to late twenties, but that was only part of it. Their psychological maturity matched or exceeded most thirty-year-olds.

  The adults had to accept that the couple were adults – no matter their biological ages. Their intelligence dwarfed even Hemp’s. They retained anything they read, and since neither one of them ever slept, they had time to take in whatever text they could lay their eyes on.

  Both had read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Over the months since, they had discussed the book with others, often referring to it as crucial knowledge to have. They further described its approach to war like a complex board game, which it essentially was.

  It was better to be on the attack – the goal then is winning, while one’s goal while defending an attack is not to lose. Attacking indicates a superabundance of strength, while waiting to be attacked indicates insufficient strength.

  All these things seemed logical to most of the people Isis and Max shared it with, but in the end, the finer details of the book would guide them.

  Especially now. They could have used the knowledge years ago. Rather than seeing a zombie horde gathering and wondering how to fight them off when they attacked, it was better to destroy them where they stood.

  It was not that far off Flex and Gem’s philosophy since they had known the couple – which was, of course, their entire lives.

  With weed provided by Nelson, one night they sat around with Flex and Gem, both of whom had actually read the book. They talked about the more interesting aspects of it, and all agreed the tactics were sound.

  And while they never seriously believed they’d ever need that knowledge again, it was a damned good thing the information was rattling around in their heads.

  Little did they know they would put it to use in Demorest.

  Flex took a two-hour power nap and got up for the remainder of the night. The woods around his place weren’t yet fortified, and damned if he’d be caught by surprise if a horde was moving through them.

  Gem slept, her Uzi nearby.

  Max and Isis sat in their room and read.

  And listened.

  *****

  Hemp lay there, staring at the ceiling under the light of an oil lamp he and Charlie kept by their bed. His eyes glistened with tears.

  Charlie, lying beside him, heard his light sobs. She turned to him, her brow furrowed. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  He put his hand over his eyes and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “It matters to me.”

  “I fucked up. I saw what I wanted to see.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Hemp wiped at his eyes and turned to her. “I told everyone the gas had stopped. I remember the conversation. I was so damned sure.”

  “Maybe it had, for a while. Why are you blaming yourself?”

  “Because I was not analytical. I was not curious enough. I saw the Red-Eyes falling and let myself be lured in by hope, not science.”


  “I remember what you said because I was there. You told us the monitoring tube in Kingman was half full and stagnant,” whispered Charlie.

  “Only had I looked close enough, I would have noticed a fine line of bubbles. There is no way the Red-Eyes could have crawled away as Nelson verified if I had been correct.”

  “So, what do you want to do? It’s not your apocalypse. You’re not to blame for it. You make mistakes because you’re fucking human, so get over it. The bitches are back and it’s not your fault.”

  Hemp took a deep breath. “We’re going to take our time with this Red-Eye. Learn all we can. If we can attempt communication, we’ll do that, too.”

  “Why? You think a truce can be reached?”

  “Not a chance. They can only be driven by a desire to feed, no matter how their minds work.”

  He pushed himself up on one elbow, his tears no longer falling. Charlie’s husband was now back in scientist mode, thinking about his coming analysis.

  “Remember at the steel warehouse? When we conducted the testing on them? Injecting the pieces of meat?”

  “I’d never forget any of that. It was crazy. Each cell moved toward the point of injection and attacked the protein.”

  “Yes, so even if they’re now driven by a partially thinking brain, or a brain with some inconceivable psychic abilities as we know they have, they still cannot fight their cellular makeup.”

  “So that means no truce.”

  “You didn’t believe that was possible anyway, did you?”

  “Hell no. Just tossing it out there.”

  “I’ll make it up to you. To everyone. We will figure them out. Tomorrow I want new test cylinders all over the city. The emission of gas may be minuscule everywhere, but we need to know if what we are seeing within the tubes is restricted by its location.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A baseline, Charlie. If I place one of those tubes in clay, we’ll get nothing. It will be sealed, like that cave they discovered in Romania – pestera Movile.”