The room was soundproof and dead quiet, and since he didn’t mind the slight smell of death, he decided it would be a good place to lie down. Ray Dell knelt down, feeling the floor. The carpet was thick and cushy – probably for sound deadening – and it would make a comfortable bed.
Now he understood the appeal to the former occupant. Standing again, he moved to the window and found he could still look down at the seats. There was a coat of dust on the glass, but he saw Jim Cole, the Doc and Eileen sitting in the front row, staring at the stage as though they watched a play.
He didn’t want to join them. He was good in here. Privacy was rare these days.
Lifting his rifle, he stepped back from the glass and sighted in on the old man’s head. Easing the barrel to the right, he found Eileen’s head, then finally, the one named Jim Cole.
“Pow,” he whispered.
Not his style. Too impersonal. He liked to watch the light in their eyes dim, fade out.
Lowering the rifle, he pushed the projectionist’s chair back into a corner and lay down on the carpet, on his back. Resting his gun on his chest, he settled in and closed his eyes.
He dreamt of Georgia girls in short shorts.
They were all dead, of course.
*****
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
The production line was underway. Mark Weir, who had driven over from Kingman shortly after Flex and the others had left to return to Lula, was in charge. He used to work in the natural gas field, so had knowledge of how to create nozzles that would do what was needed.
The pipe was commandeered and brought in by the pickup truckload from multiple warehouses, and he had ten men and women working on the grid setup.
Nelson and his crew continued to work on the buses, placing them one by one around the segment of Lula they had chosen as their safe zone. Whether it would remain safe very long would rely on everything they did.
Lula was 100% working. While Vikki and Victoria remained at Three Sisters Bar to provide refreshment for tired workers, everyone from Colton to Lita was helping place the pieces of ½” black pipe.
Colton had a 1-gallon pail of high-temperature pipe dope and a brush, and as each piece of pipe was placed in its eventual position, he would kneel, lift the end and slather on the pipe dope. Before putting it back down, he would screw the ½” threaded coupling on, then hand-tighten it. He would then lift the next piece of pipe, do the same thing, and screw it into the other end of the coupling by turning the single pipe until it tightened. Then he would give it another ½ turn.
His was a slow process, but so far, they believed they had time.
*****
South of Burton and east of Highway 52 was a forested area. The people of Lula never hunted there because of the proximity to town and the likelihood of a stray bullet making its way to a populated area, but it was a good hiding place for ill-intended rotters.
Nelson had begun thinking about this area a lot and had sent multiple scouts into the woods to ensure the rotters weren’t amassing there.
Nothing yet. That was good news. They had to keep an eye on the woods around Lula. Charlie and Punch had already encountered a smaller horde, but if they were nearby, so could thousands of others be – or on their way.
Either prospect was not good. It felt to Nelson like Kingman all over again, only the threat was ongoing when they had built their defenses there.
In this case, they had believed it was over. To have the world fall into chaos again was hard to accept, and it seemed to have initially broken the spirits of many of the citizens.
But the people of Lula were tough; they didn’t stay back on their heels for long, instead pulling together and doing the work necessary. All were students of Flex, Gem, Hemp and Charlie – the four warriors who had led many of the residents of the city through dozens of battles and showed them just what it took to survive.
*****
There was a WAT-5 distribution center within the safe zone. Hemp had remained in his lab, creating thousands of doses by merely not adding the urushiol to the mix. The patties would grow exponentially, reminding him of the little black tablets he would buy at the fun shop. When lit, they emitted seemingly endless black snakes that seemed to coil out of nowhere.
He filled cookie sheet after cookie sheet, like a crystal meth cook, letting the material expand before adding the single drop that would somehow permeate the entire batch at once, stopping its expansion and solidifying the entire sheet.
The earth gas was still potent enough to blend with the eye vapor, which was disturbing and good at the same time. He used liquid nitrogen, which he also had in good supply, to cool the gases enough to allow them to congeal and blend together, which is when the expansion process started.
Had the earth gas diminished in its properties – or become weaker – he may have attempted to mix the two components under liquid nitrogen to find nothing but an inert blob at the bottom of the beaker.
Hemp picked up the radio. “Charlie, come in.”
“Over at the safe zone,” she said. “Laying pipe.”
“In the metaphoric sense?” asked Hemp.
“No, serious. I’m laying pipe. Not penis.”
Hemp was immediately sorry he’d attempted the joke; it was not like Charlie to miss it – and she hadn’t.
“My hands are all black from this crap, and I don’t even want to touch this radio. What do you want?”
“I have a lot of WAT-5 here. I’ll begin to bag it up, but somebody needs to come and take it to your distribution point.”
“While you’re doing what?”
“Making more. Charlie, I’m already on a roll, and there is a good chance we’ll need it.”
“Red-Eyes don’t care,” she said. “And this crowd seems to be run by them exclusively. Give me the wandering shamblers any day. Never thought I wouldn’t like a smart woman.”
“I can’t argue that they’re not smart,” said Hemp.
“I’ll send Colton over on a golf cart,” said Charlie. “He needs a break anyway.”
“How’s that going?”
“The grid is around 8’ apart. The steamroller was a genius idea because it flattened the pipe in the middle, so we don’t need as much volume of propane, according to Mark Weir.”
“Mark knows his gas,” said Hemp.
“Like Gem knows Flex’s,” said Charlie.
“You went there.”
“I go where I want. Colton’s on his way.”
“I’ll have it ready.”
*****
“Colton, take a break,” said Charlie. “Hemp needs you at the lab. Bring back all the WAT-5 he has ready and take it to the distribution house on the corner of Hood and Main.”
“He doesn’t have any zombies there, does he?”
“I thought you said mombies. Which makes sense ‘cause the Red-Eyes are mothers.” She shrugged. “Nope. Not a one. There was one, but she became a crispy critter in the sun.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Hurry and get back because you seem to like this shit more than me and I think we have a lot to go.”
“Where’s mom?”
“With your dad.”
“Where’s dad?”
The sound of shuddering steel broke up their conversation, and both of them turned to see Flex driving a forklift at nearly full speed. He had a big smile on his face, and when the rear of the bus came into view, they saw why.
Gem stood on the wheel dolly at the rear of the bus, her hands clinging to the frame of the rear window, long ago broken out. On her face was a huge smile, too.
As that bus rolled by, another came right behind it, but this time it was Nelson, and he looked like he was in a race with Flex.
In about five minutes, Flex placed the bus, backing it up until it smashed the bus behind it, then dropped the forks, lowering the front.
He backed up, rolled to the front, and lifted it. Gem kicked at the dolly, which rolled smoothly away, and Flex
dropped the forks fast, letting the bus dig into the dirt.
Slipping the forks beneath the dolly, he lifted it up and rolled back, setting the parking brake.
“Hey, Charlie!” said Gem. “Got my son to work I see.”
“I’m heading over to get WAT-5 from Hemp,” said Colton. He took off his gloves and hopped on the golf cart parked across the street. “See you in a few, mom.”
“Come here and kiss me, you jerk.”
“Jerk?”
“Yeah, what boy doesn’t kiss his mama?”
Colton visibly blushed. “How embarrassing,” he muttered.
“Get used to it, kid,” said Flex. “She’ll never stop treatin’ you like you’re a baby. Still treats me that way. Only thing is, I like it.”
“You’re both weird,” said Colton, but he came over anyway. He raised his chin and Gem lowered her cheek for the kiss. Flex held out his hand and Colton shook it, then ran back to the golf cart.
“Where’s he goin’?”
“Get WAT-5 from Hemp.”
“Worthwhile trip. Pipe’s coming along great,” said Flex, looking around. “Mark figure out the nozzles?”
“Yeah,” said Charlie, walking over. “He’s using those conical brass sweeper nozzles you see on water hoses to make them spray a crazy hard stream. Modified somehow. Said he got like twenty cases of them at the garden supply.”
“Where is he?”
“Modifying them, I presume,” said Charlie, shrugging.
Colton drove off with a wave.
“Okay, back for another bus,” said Gem.
“Let’s take a count, see how many more we need,” said Flex. “Hop on, Gemina.”
“You’re using my full name way more than you used to,” she said.
“Like music to my ears.”
“We are weird. Colton’s right.”
Flex just smiled and drove the fork truck down the gap. “Get a rough count of how many more buses we need while I drive.”
“One … two … three … four,” Gem counted as he drove, doing her best to estimate the 34 to 36 feet each bus would fill.
They finished. “I see about twenty-one,” said Gem. “We have to get the rest from Cornelia. They’ve been feeding them in already. Some of the buses here are too dug in to pull out.”
“Damned good work,” said Flex. “Let’s roll.”
*****
“Hey, Colton,” said Hemp. “Good man. I’ve got quite a load of WAT-5 for you.”
“I brought a duffle bag on the cart, Uncle Hemp.”
“Perfect. There are fifty doses per baggie,” he said, looking up. “The sky is looking a little ominous, so don’t let them get wet if it rains. Once I load you up, drive like the wind and get them where they belong.”
“Can I help?”
“Yes. Here. Take this dropper. This has urushiol in it. Once this tray is filled – meaning once this material has expanded to all edges, I want you to hold this over the center and release one drop.”
“How’s that stuff growing out of nothing?”
“The components respond to each other in a sort of symbiosis,” said Hemp. “It’s a form of chemical reaction. While I do not necessarily know how these two, blended together, do what they do, I understand the process. Just not the behind-the-scenes stuff.”
Colton stared at him. “Why not? Aren’t you curious?”
Hemp chewed his bottom lip for a moment and thought about it as he stuffed more baggies of wafers into the larger duffle.
“I was excited at first, but when I created it, I needed it to save my life. I had other things on my mind, and the nitty gritty behind what made it work wasn’t important. It was only important that it did work.”
“So even later, you didn’t want to find out?”
“Life got in the way? Zombies got in the way?”
“And mombies?”
“Mombies?”
“Yeah. The Mothers.”
Hemp actually laughed. “Did you come up with that?”
“Kinda,” he said. “Me and Aunt Charlie.”
“Now it makes more sense,” he said. “Okay, watch it now, it’s getting full.”
Hemp moved away to get more baggies from another table. But the time he returned, Colton had used the dropper and the reaction had ceased.
“Okay now, bring me that cylindrical thing-a-ma-jig.”
“Huh?”
“That black, roundish thing.”
Colton looked at it. He picked it up and carried it to Hemp.
Taking it, Hemp said, “It’s a cutter. See how this side is sharp? We take our first cut as close to the corner as we can so none is wasted.”
Hemp placed the sharp end down against the cookie sheet-sized wafer and twisted it. It sunk in, cutting the first one. He moved over a sixteenth of an inch and cut the next.
“Okay, move around this sheet until you’ve cut it all into wafers. I’ll supervise.”
He watched as the boy did as he was instructed.
“Okay, now pick up the main piece from the edge.”
Colton peeled the edge off the sheet and lifted the hole-filled main piece out.
“Okay, I’ll take that one, heat it until it’s soft, flatten it, and I’ll be able to cut more. You get these over to the distribution center and I’ll let you know when we have another batch ready.”
“Thanks, Uncle Hemp. I like science. It’s fun. More fun than laying pipe.”
“You won’t say that one day,” said Hemp with a wink. He didn’t bother explaining the metaphor.
A drop of rain hit Hemp in the head. He looked up. “Hurry now. Keep the bag beneath the canopy and drive straight there!”
*****
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
The interior of the theater was so dark – by design – that Ray Dell didn’t know whether it was really dark outside. Of course, he couldn’t go out there. People would ask why, and he didn’t really have a reason yet.
Not yet.
He had used his radio to let the others know he was up in the projection booth and would be sleeping there for the night, the radio on standby. Call if anything happens. The man named Jim Cole said good night, and that they would be leaving at first light.
The projection booth was lit by a small lantern Ray Dell kept in his backpack, fueled by cranking power. While hanging out, he would often just continuously crank the little charger, rotating the plastic crank handle to make the friction sound that generated the alternator capabilities. If he did it for thirty minutes or so, he could sometimes get a couple of hours of light out of it if he kept it on the dim setting.
Stretching, his arms behind him, he arched his back and yawned, then noticed something.
A door. It was black, painted to match the wall, but dead center in the middle of it was a small plate with the word ROOF.
“Hell, I’m up for some exploration,” he groaned, getting to his feet. Sliding his pistol out of his backpack just in case, he tucked it into his pants, and grabbed his smokes and a lighter, too.
He side-stepped past the massive projector and reached the door, pulling on the knob. It didn’t come at first, then he noticed two latches – one at the top and the other at the bottom. He slid them out and eased the door open.
A spiral staircase came into view, and as he looked up, he saw it was black, then leaned back in to retrieve his lantern. Holding it out in front of him, he saw the corridor was just big enough to accommodate the stairway itself.
That was good. No nooks and crannies for the dead to hide in. He mounted the steps and steadily took each step until he reached a hatch. There was no lock, so he turned the spring-loaded lever 90 degrees and pushed the hatch up. It creaked slightly but was much quieter than Ray Dell thought it would be.
The hatch up and locked into position, he climbed out and stood on the roof, staring out at the town beyond. It was twilight, the sun having already dropped below the horizon, but still glowing enough to cast a yellow-pink hue on t
he world.
He looked out, then turned in all directions, taking in the landscape. It was mostly flat here, and he could see the rows of buildings on the street, dark windows more obvious as the sun made its exit.
Steven Smith or Ray Dell Doughty – he was comfortable with either identity – pulled out the pack of Marlboros – these had been sealed and protected from the elements by virtue of a carton pack and the individual wrapper, but the tobacco had dried out over the years, making them raspy.
The nicotine must’ve had a half-life that never quit, though, because when he smoked one, he still caught a buzz.
Lighting the cigarette, he looked up and exhaled, watching the smoke drift away on the breeze. As his eyes followed it, a distant, yellow light framed the interior of a window a block away.
Ray Dell squinted. He stood up and walked to the edge of the building and watched.
A figure filled the window, creating a shape on the shade. It was a two-story house, and the window was the highest one, centered at the peak of the front elevation of the building.
No doubt the attic. Many of the living took refuge in the highest areas of the vacant homes. Maybe their scents wouldn’t drift on the breeze, bringing the dead.
The figure that centered in the window appeared to be female, because he saw long hair, but it was hard to get perspective on the size until a larger figure came over and pulled the smaller one away, once again leaving the shade blank, but glowing.
She’s young.
The man strangers knew as Steven Smith felt a chill run down his spine.
A moment later, the light dimmed, then extinguished.
“One … two … three,” he said, pointing at each home with his index finger. “Third house from the corner, one block over. The white two-story.”
Closing his eyes, he smiled. He turned to walk the edge until he found the fire escape ladder. It looked pretty rusty and dilapidated, but it was on the opposite corner from the main theater, so he could fiddle with it a bit and still not alert the others. Even if they heard it, they would probably attribute it to the mischievous dead outside.
Dead Hunger | Book 10 | The Remnants Page 28
