*****
“This one is a US built weapon, the Calico M960,” Hemp said. His sandy, almost white-blonde hair hung into his eyes and he shook it back to the side. “The beauty of it is the high-capacity, helical-feed magazine. This firearm holds . . . hold on.”
He went back to the cabinet and sorted through a few of the boxes. When he turned around again he had a round, steel magazine in his hand. “This one holds 100 rounds. There’s a fifty in there too, but I thought this one might make us all a bit happier. With a full magazine it’s going to be quite heavy – not something you’d want to run too far with.”
Gem looked at me. She was holding Trina again, who was more awake, but nodding off now and then. She shrugged, then asked, “And you know all this because you do what for a living?”
“Scientist,” he said. “Biology degree with a focus on epidemiology, primarily. That’s why I’m so interested in this infection, or whatever it is. Everything I learn and observe might help me understand more about it. How it spreads, what it does.”
“So you study human epidemics, that sort of thing?” I asked.
Hemp nodded. He was just under six feet tall, and a good looking guy. I liked him immediately.
“But how do you know about guns?” I asked. “That’s the obvious question.”
Hemp smiled. “I’ve had a fascination with guns of all kinds for years. It’s part of the reason I got my second degree in mechanical engineering. My father used to pick me up broken guns from pawn shops – got them for next to nothing. When I was six, I’d break them down, figure out how to re-bore the cylinders, steel wool the rods, and I’d basically restore them. By the time I turned thirteen I was more interested in machine guns. They were much more interesting and complex, and being a teenager, my dad felt I was responsible enough to start breaking them down. I got a part time job and started paying for them myself, but my dad still had to go make the purchase.” He smiled.
My eyebrows could not have gotten higher. Gem said it first. “So you’ve got degrees in epidemiology and mechanical engineering. Flex, our stories suck compared to his. Hemp, Flex Sheridan there is an electrician, but don’t sell him short – he does do commercial work, too. I’m an artist. I work in several mediums, but none of them will immediately help us out of the shit storm that has befallen the state of Florida, and I’m assuming the entire world. So if I could, I’d handcuff you to Flex now and keep you with us, because I think you are going to be very helpful.”
“You said a bad word,” Trina said in a very soft voice.
“Sorry, baby,” Gem said, stroking her hair. “Gemmy’s had a hard day.”
Hemp threw his hands out to his sides, the magazine still clutched in his left. “I don’t have to be convinced here,” he said. “You are the only uninfecteds I’ve seen, and the fact that we’re not all victims of it means there’s a reason. I don’t know what it is, but it might be something we have in common, or maybe it affects people at different rates, based on diet, physiology, whatever. But as for me, I just drove down to Florida from Atlanta all by myself to check out the Kennedy Space Center. I’ve got no wife or kids, and I don’t even have a girlfriend right now. So don’t take this wrong, but you will do just fine.”
“Safety in numbers?” Gem pulled up a wooden chair and sat in it with Trina resting against her shoulder, awake still, but staring into space.
Hemp nodded. “You already saved me once. I might have starved to death in that cell.”
“I’d like to chit-chat all day,” I said. “But we need to find out which weapons we have matching ammo for and stack ‘em in that cart right there. Then we need to work our way down the stairs somehow, get back to the Suburban and get out of here. I think it’s about as weird as hell that we haven’t run into more of these things, but we’re bound to hit some big numbers sometime. The sooner we’re mobile, the better I’m going to feel.”
“Especially with this one,” Gem said, bouncing Trina on her knee.
We all got to work. Soon, all of our weapons carried the weight of full magazines.
And we had plenty of ammo and firepower to spare.
Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle Page 13
