Dead Hunger | Book 10 | The Remnants

by Shelman, Eric A.

  “I think those rotters were passing through,” said Cole. “Maybe on their way to Springfield. We’ll chat later. We’re heading to Lula, Georgia. Interested?”

  “What’s in Lula?” asked the woman.

  “Some damned fine folks,” said Scofield. “Including my grandson.”

  They looked at one another, then at the two men. “You have room?”

  “We’ll make room,” said Scofield, looking at Jim. “Good thing we traveled light.”

  “We’re full up, though,” said Cole. “We run into anyone else, they’re gonna have to find their own transportation.”

  “We appreciate it,” said Steven. “I’ve always said it’s a big country. Never been to Georgia, so it’s about time, I guess.”

  “Me either,” said Eileen, twirling a finger in the ringlets of hair cascading down across her shoulders. “Sounds southern.”

  “About as much as southern can get,” said Scofield. “Number one producer of pecans, peaches and peanuts. Maybe toss in Vidalia onions, too. Least they were. I know it grows there – not sure if anyone’s harvesting it, but now that I mention it, my mouth’s waterin’ and I’m gonna get me a goddamned peach when I get there.”

  “If they’re in season,” said Cole.

  *****

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Hemp was inside the lab with Charlie, who had left Beauty to her own devices after Nelson and Jax dropped in to tell them which area of Lula they intended to fortify. Beauty would direct all the volunteers there so they could join the two men when they returned with the first buses.

  She sat on a stool staring at the ravaged Red-Eye. The creature had long ago dropped her blouse back over the empty cavity of her belly, and Charlie was glad.

  It had been horrible staring into the chasm that once held her child. If she had any consciousness or memory left, it had to torture her, too.

  She now stood, her head down, eyes cast forward directly at Charlie, her arms limp, hanging down by her sides. Her fingers moved in a constant clawing motion, as if she were picking at raw meat.

  She still emitted her low growl.

  “I’d like to knock her out again,” said Charlie, her own voice sort of a growl. “Flex said the WAT-5 knocked her out. Max stuffed it into her mouth on the way to keep her from calling her horde. When she was wrapped in the cargo sheeting.”

  “She’s not immobilized now,” Hemp said. “Kind of impossible at this point.”

  “Can you inject WAT-5?” asked Charlie.

  “No.”

  Charlie turned to him. “How do you know that answer so fast, smarty-pants?”

  He looked back at her. “I’ve tested it,” said Hemp. “Charlie, you do recall this went on for years. I actually used myself as a Guinea pig. My intention was to see if it knocked you out in injectable form. Turns out it doesn’t work at all.”

  “Okay,” she said, chewing her bottom lip as she stared at the growling female. “If it’s daytime, why is she calling them?”

  “Just because they won’t move in the daylight doesn’t mean they can’t hear her.”

  “So they’ll have their marching orders once the sun drops.”

  “It can be the only reason she never stops,” said Hemp. “Feeling bold?”

  Charlie glared at him. “Always. Why?”

  “We could force feed her a wafer.”

  “Why not just put it in meat like you would with a German shepherd?” asked Charlie.

  Hemp’s mouth fell open. “That’s a good idea, Charlie.”

  “Damn,” said Charlie. “Hope she can’t understand English.”

  “Her eardrums are shot,” said Hemp. “When I unwrapped her head I used an otoscope to inspect them.”

  “That would’ve been a great time to jam a wafer down her throat,” said Charlie.

  “I didn’t have the benefit of your wisdom then,” said Hemp.

  “So you didn’t think of it.”

  “No but wait here. I’ll go get some of the venison we thawed yesterday.”

  “No way. I’m waiting out front.”

  They both went to the door. Glancing back, Charlie shuddered to find the Red-Eye’s gaze following them.

  “She’s trouble,” said Charlie, stepping down.

  “She’s no different than they were before, which is troubling on its own merits. Their powers do not seem to have diminished.”

  “How strong her telepathic abilities are remains to be seen,” said Charlie. “But when the horde arrives, it’s too late.”

  “Then you were right. Putting her out is the best plan. Plus, that opens other doors.”

  Charlie dropped into a lawn chair while Hemp went to the house to get one of the bloodier pieces of venison. When he came out and began to mount the steps, she said, “I’ll go in. Can’t trust you alone with that skinny bitch.”

  “Her, or me?”

  “Either.” She patted her stomach. “Not the washboard it once was.”

  Laughing, Hemp went inside. The growl the Red-Eye had been emitting was constant now; it had taken on an almost otherworldly tone now, a low vibration that could rattle teeth.

  “Jesus, feed her fast,” said Charlie.

  “I ground it into powder and coated the inside. She could just spit out the wafers like Isis used to do with vegetables.”

  “Good idea.”

  Hemp opened the exterior drawer and dropped the raw meat inside. It was a good double-handful.

  He closed the drawer, and when he pushed it inside, the lid sprung upward by design, creating access to the meat.

  The creature looked at them, her red eyes intense. There was an intelligence there that Hemp had seen in the past, almost a preternatural knowledge. What he would give to have a readout of her thoughts to study.

  Her eyes dropped to the meat. As she took it in, her lips began to curl back, exposing her teeth. Some were rotted and others had been damaged. Many of them were missing, but the broken ones were pointed and sharp, which meant she should have no trouble tearing into it.

  “She’s not moving toward it,” said Charlie.

  “Let’s go outside for a moment.”

  “Why not.” said Charlie.

  They turned for the door and heard a sound behind them. When they spun back around, the drawer was empty and the Red-Eye was staggering backward, her mouth full of meat.

  “Shit, how much did you put in there?”

  “Four wafers,” said Hemp. “Just to be sure.”

  She slid down to the floor of the box.

  Whispering, Hemp said, “Let’s prepare the gurney. I should have done it before.”

  They quickly readied the gurney, giving the head and ankle straps a couple good tugs, testing them for strength before laying them aside.

  Hemp gave Charlie a pair of nitrile gloves, which she put on as he pulled on his pair.

  “Okay, Charlie. I want you to be very careful when we –”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get the ankles, you get the dangerous end,” she interrupted. “But know if she wakes up and makes one false move, she gets a bullet in the brain.”

  “Deal. Just don’t shoot my hand. C’mon. Hurry.”

  Charlie reached behind her and pulled a small Smith & Wesson .380 from the back of her jeans, placing it on a stainless table near her.

  Hemp shook his head and unlocked the cage door. Easing it open, they walked inside, eyeing the supine creature carefully. Hemp hurried around to her torso and Charlie moved to her feet.

  Both looked at each other and nodded. They bent, clutched, and lifted.

  She was dead weight, but that did not amount to very much. “She feels like a husk,” said Charlie, her voice a whisper.

  Hemp nodded as Charlie walked backward to the door of the cage. Hemp followed, swung around and they rested her emaciated body on the gurney.

  “Get the ankle straps. Hurry,” said Hemp, watching the thing’s eyes.

  Charlie made quick work of them. With a flip, a sl
ip, a pull, and a tuck, she buckled each strap. By the time she finished, she looked up to see Hemp had completed the wrist straps.

  Next, he pulled the chest straps across as Charlie fastened the strap in the midpoint between her knees and hips.

  “She didn’t wake up.”

  “That was a lot of WAT-5,” he said.

  “What about the eye vapor?”

  “I’ve thought of that,” said Hemp. He turned to the drawer behind him and opened it. From inside, he withdrew a flexible clip that he slid onto the table near the sleeping monster’s head. On the other end was an alligator-type clip.

  Reaching up, he uncoiled a surgical tube connected to a small turbine fan mounted near the ceiling vent. There was a flared fitting on the end, and the scientist clipped it so it was positioned just at the bridge of her nose between her eyes.

  “Suction,” said Hemp. “Like at the dentist.”

  “It vents outside?”

  “Yes, of course. But I can turn the valve and collect some if I wish.”

  “Of course you can,” said Charlie. “Wanna try and wake her up?”

  “Not yet,” said Hemp.

  A squishing sound came from the body before them.

  Charlie scrunched her face and looked at Hemp.

  Hemp stared down at the creature. “Let’s cut away her clothing.

  “We can probably just pull it off her,” said Charlie. “It’s rotten.”

  They both reached down with gloved hands and pulled at the ultra-thin fabric. It tore away easily, and soon she was fully exposed.

  In her gaping stomach was the venison, only it was no longer solid meat. Instead, it was ground finer than hamburger.

  “Easy access,” said Charlie. “Kinda like a pachinko game. She can eat it, wait for it to drop, then feed it in again.”

  “Charlie,” said Hemp, disgusted. “Speaking of that, though,” he said. Turning, he opened a drawer and removed a glass slide and a stainless-steel instrument with a concave tip. He dipped into the pulverized venison exposed in her stomach cavity and smeared it on the slide.

  “Okay,” said Charlie. “Meatballs later?”

  He shook his head but did not respond, withdrawing a scalpel from the drawer and turning back toward the female.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  “I need a piece of her. Keep an eye on her face.”

  Charlie picked up the gun and stood back, dropping into a shooting stance. She held the gun in both hands and aimed it at the Mother’s cranium.

  “That might be overkill.”

  “Might is the operative word. There’s no downside. Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast, sweetie.”

  Hemp plunged the tip of the scalpel into her thigh and quickly drew it into a circular shape, cutting it smoothly.

  The legs tensed. So did the arms.

  “What’s happening? Her eyes are still closed!” said Charlie.

  Hemp didn’t answer. He angled the scalpel sharply downward and cut again. Reaching in with two fingers, he withdrew the cylindrical piece of meat.

  As he deposited it into a glass jar and screwed on the lid, all hell broke loose.

  The door opened and Flex and Gem came in. “Hey, guys –” began Flex.

  “She’s awake!” said Charlie.

  “I’ve been awa–” said Gem, stepping in behind Flex, but she never got the rest of the sentence out.

  The creature on the table jerked upward into a sitting position, as though the straps weren’t there. Her wrists twisted once, tearing the leather like it was paper. Her hips and legs were still secured for the moment.

  The speed and force of the Red-Eye’s movements were so violent in the small lab that Charlie was jostled into the wall causing her to drop her gun. Hemp tried to reach her, but the supercharged Mother wasn’t done yet.

  “Run!” shouted Hemp, as the Mother violently jerked again and the gurney’s wheels lifted off the ground, then the entire table flipped over. Hemp leapt out of the way and Gem and Flex stumbled and fell back out the door, onto the thick, rubber mat leading up to the steps. Charlie and Hemp jumped out right behind them, stepping carefully to avoid landing on the pair.

  “Get up!” screamed Hemp.

  Both scrambled to either side, moving as far away from the door as they could.

  “Keep moving!” shouted Charlie. “Gem!”

  Gem rolled over and got to her feet and ran toward Charlie. “What the fuck’s going on?”

  Behind them, the Red-Eye burst out the door, leaping at least eight feet from the mobile lab. She landed in the grass beyond the mat and spun around, her eyes cast toward the sky.

  Toward the sun.

  It wasn’t vapor. There was a red smoke of some kind pouring from her eye sockets. She opened her mouth and the stuff billowed from that orifice, too. The scream that she let out was ear-piercing.

  Then she turned toward them. None were on WAT-5 and none had weapons at the ready now that Charlie had lost hers in the initial moments. They ran.

  The shriek echoing behind them rose to an impossible level, then died as suddenly as it began.

  The four stopped running and turned around.

  She was still charging toward them, but her epidermis appeared to be dusting away, the fine ash drifting to the ground with each step. Suddenly, with a final, staggering footfall, she became a figure frozen in space and time; for just a moment the debris that once comprised her body hung in space as though defying gravity.

  The four stared, mouths agape.

  What remained of her flittered to the ground.

  Dust and ash.

  The Red-Eye was dead.

  *****

  When the process of the Mother’s disintegration was complete, they walked over to where the remains of her body had settled. Hemp knelt down.

  “Don’t touch it,” said Charlie.

  “It’s only ash,” said Hemp, reaching down and rubbing the remains between his fingers, analyzing it. He still had his nitrile gloves on. “And dust.”

  “A conversion that’s long overdue,” said Flex, still breathing hard.

  “You okay, Flexy?” asked Gem, putting her arm over his shoulder. Her chest rose and fell quickly, too.

  Flex nodded. “I’m fine, Gemina. This is a good thing. If the females are vulnerable to sunlight, they all are. Now we can figure out creative ways to kill ‘em dead.”

  “I have a good chunk of her inside,” said Hemp. “Charlie, are you okay?”

  “My heart’s pumping, but otherwise, yeah.”

  “Okay, darling. Back into the lab with us. We’ll need the UV light.”

  “Dah-ling,” said Flex, smiling as he emphasized the British accent. “Y’all sound like Thurston Howell III and Lovey.”

  “Oh no,” said Hemp. “I would be the professor, and this one here? She would be my Mary Ann.”

  Gem slapped Flex on the arm. “Yeah, the professor, dipshit.”

  “My bad,” said Flex.

  He turned to Gem. “Do the kids even say that anymore?”

  *****

  Eileen Plover leaned her rifle against her legs, put two dirty fingers in her mouth and whistled. “Carly!”

  Jim and Jim saw movement from the corners of their eyes, then spun toward it and raised their weapons, only to see a wrinkle-faced something or other charging toward them.

  They guessed it was a dog. It moved like a dog.

  “That a Shar Pei?” asked Scofield. “My daughter had one like that right after she moved to New York. Funny lookin’, but a friendly bugger.”

  “Carly’s great,” said Eileen. “She’s protective.”

  “When did you get her?”

  “Found a whole litter in a warehouse after the apocalypse ended. Not sure where her mama was, but me and some other people waited for a buncha hours. When she didn’t come back, we each took one. I got the best.”

  “Pick of the litter?” asked Cole.

  “Nope. Runt. Best ones. They try harder.”
>
  They all looked down at Carly who had taken a seat, her eyes locked on Eileen’s face. The woman moved her open palm – facing down – in a downward motion and the dog went into a lie.

  “Good girl,” she cooed, then looked back at the others. “Got room for one more of us?”

  “How’d you get here?” asked Scofield.

  “You passed our piece of shit down there,” said Steven, pointing down the street to an old, dust-covered green Peugeot. “It’s a diesel. Barely got us here. We’ve just been scavenging for the past couple of days. Haven’t needed to get another working yet.”

  “Got much in the way of carry-ons?” asked Scofield.

  “I’m wearing my new duds. I just have one bag with Carly’s stuff in it. Me and Steven are just friends, by the way. In case you were wondering about our dynamic.”

  “Natural curiosity,” said Cole. “It’s always interesting to learn how travelers come together.”

  “Now we’ll have a real story to tell,” said Eileen. “I’ll get my bag.”

  They pulled out of town, continuing toward Lula, ten minutes later.

  *****

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  “Awesome,” said Nelson, when the fifteenth bus was placed. It only accounted for around 630 feet of the barrier, but it was really beginning to feel like progress was being made.

  Several people of Lula who were not capable of assisting with the harder physical work were using shovels to fill in small gaps that could allow access to crawlers, and others were running small earth movers – also powered by propane – to fill in the larger gaps beneath the buses. With the flat tires on a lot of the buses, and with many of them missing wheels, not all of them required it, but where necessary, it was done.

  “What about the grease, Nel?” asked Jax. “They can start with that, right?”

  “Totally,” said Nelson. “It’ll be easier to get to the other side before we close it up and make entry points. Tell them to hit the Tractor Supply. They’ve got a bunch of 5-gallon pails of wheel bearing grease on the shelves.”