Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle (7 page)

“Jamie’s in the
equipment hauler hooked up to the Suburban.”

“How?” asked Gem.

“Wrapped in a
big bubble wrap sheet.
  A piece of the pool cover.
  Like a mummy.”

Gem stared at me.  I knew the question in her eyes before she vocalized it.

“Because
, Gem,
I can’t leave her.  I have to see if she can be cured . . . something.  I can’t just shoot her, and I won’t leave her to do what she did to – well, I just can’t.”

“I get that, babe.  If you’re sure she’s secure, that’s good enough for me.”

She had the sub machine gun slung over her shoulder and with her crazy long locks, she reminded me of a female Rambo. 

“I miss hearing you call me babe, Gem
,” I said
. 
“
I’ve missed it for a long time.”

“Well, you won’t miss it anymore, babe.  Because I’ve felt exactly the same since the last time I saw you.  Now let’s get out of here.  I smell fire.”

CHAPTER THREE

With Trina
out cold
between
us, I drove.  I turned toward
Georgia
.
  There were two reasons.  Gem had said
Miami
was a mess, and it was also a dead end.
  Without a boat you couldn’t get anywhere from south
Florida
– but I suppose hiding out in the
Everglades
wasn’t the worst of ideas.  Who knows?  Maybe the Seminole tribe had some ideas of how to deal with this crap.

The C
enter for Disease Control was on
Clifton Road
in
Atlanta
, and I knew exactly how to get there, even without the GPS.  Plus, it was my stomping grounds, and the location of my house seemed like a benefit right about now.

Gem had been
right
about fire
.  The air was thick with smoke
and the horizon glowed with the light
of several
of them burning all around us
.  Perhaps some people were trying to dispatch the zombies by burning down the buildings that contained them.  I knew we needed more firepower to deal with this.  At least I did.  Gem’s gun was perfect
ion
.

“We need to get off at one of the downtown exits and hit a pawn shop,” I said.  We’ll find some guns there, I’d imagine.
”

“You really should think bigger,” Gem said, smiling at me.  I couldn’t help but return it. 

“Bigger?”

“Police station.  Evidence locker.  Big city.  Lots of confiscated automatic weapons in evidence lockers.”

“What
have
you been up to since I last saw you?” I asked. 

“This and that,” she said.  “I’ve got some friends on the force, and the best guns and the best weed comes from the evidence lockers.”

“So we’re kind of counting on this epidemic having taken out these police stations so we can get in and get the weapons, right?”

Gem shrugged.  “You should have seen
Miami
, Flex.  I’m lucky to be here now.  Uncle
Rogelio
was gone –
gone
.  I should have killed him – I really should have, I loved that bastard, and I couldn’t.   I had stayed overnight at his place, and when I woke up in the morning, he . . . it was . . .”

I put a hand over hers.  “Later, Gem.  You don’t need to go over it now.  Let’s worry about staying alive first.”

We decided to stay on the
semi-
deserted side roads
as much as possible, which wasn’t that difficult from
Gainesville
.  I75
, the main highway through
Florida
, was packed to the gills – all four lanes. 
I wasn’t keen on stopping the car at all,
much less sitting in traffic.  And I knew I’d need gas a
couple of times before reaching h
ome again. 
We’d have
to look for either somewhere entirely unaffected
by the zombie problem
– as best we could judge, or
a place where
the devastation
was complete
and
everybody was already dead.  We clearly preferred the former.

Either way, I had zero intention of sitting on the freeway for days on end, as if a Category 5 hurricane was bearing down on the state and every soul was leaving.  
The satellites were still
orbiting
around
the planet
Earth, and Gem had brought he
r GPS with her, so it got us quite effectively off the main grid and onto State Route
24
to State Route
26, eventually dumping us out onto US-19, where we would hit Tallahassee.  And with 181,000 people, there might be a decent
cache
of lethal street weapons
in the main downtown police station. 

But again, we were counting on some easy way in and out, and if it proved to be a mess, we would not risk little Trina.  We’d make do with the guns we had
to get us
to
Atlanta
. 
The CDC seemed like a logical place to start
.

*****

It was impossible to stay completely off the grid, and as we encountered people, everyone was
either
freaked out
and fleeing,
or freaking someone else out
, causing them to flee.  Or
causing them to
die
.  We had talked a bit when we first left Jamie’s house and had decided not to be heroes. 
The world had changed today, and p
eople were pretty much on their own
.  We’d just have to
worry about us for now.

If we saw a child being pursued by one of
them
, or
if one
was in immediate danger, we’d play it by ear.  We knew that.  But around us, right here just in the state of
Florida
, there were thousands of children in danger right now.  Logically
, we
knew we’d better
just
worry about the
little girl sitting
between us
at the moment
. 

When we hit the city limits it became obvious that we were going to have
trouble shielding Trina from what was happening around us
.  A child could only take so much horror, and this one had seen enough
from
her own mother to carry her for the rest of her life. 

I pulled t
he car over in a secluded spot.  Jamming the gear lever into park, I looked at Gem and
m
outhed the words, “We need something for her
.” 
I put the palms of my hands together
and
put them to my cheek
with my eyes closed. 
I quickly looked down at Trina, who was staring blankly through the front windshield.
 
We
needed to put this kid
to sleep.  Even on the floorboard of the truck
she could hear what was happening, and at this point I don’t know what
exactly
I expected
would
happen.  I
just had a feeling
that stuff
would
be happening.

Gem nodded and punched the GPS a few times, pulling up Points of Interest.  She entered
Pharmacy
and got several.  There was one just five minutes away.  A Walgreens.

“Okay,” I said.  “Let’s get there first.  Then after we’re done getting what we need – or trying a second pharmacy, you use that trick to pull up a poli
ce or FBI building in this area.”

The GPS worked flawlessly.  We pulled up to the Walgreens in the exact time it estimated. 

Gem looked around, scanning the parking lot and beyond.
  I did the same.  There were
seven
cars in th
e lot, so it had to be a 24-hour location.   I guessed at least three or four of the cars belonged to employees
. 

I looked at my watch and
saw
it was 1:30 in the morning
.

“You go inside, Flex.  Take my gun.  I’ll take your .38 and stay here with Trini.”

“
If
the employees
know what’s happening with these
things
, I might be able to convince them to
help
.”

“And if not?”

“You’re my secret weapon.  If I
can’t
convince them
with charm and good looks, then
I’ll show t
hem your gun and tell them that for fucking sure
they’d rather deal with me
than
you
.  Of course, that wo
uld carry more weight if they actually knew you.”

“Good cop, bad cop.  Got it.  Go get the stuff, but don’t be stupid.  There are lots of pharmacies.”

“Here.”  I handed her the .38
and she passed me the Uzi
.  “There are only three rounds left in it, but I’ve got a box of
fifty
in the glove com
partment.
”

“Check.  Reloading now.” 
Gem popped open the glove compartment.

After closing the door, I banged on the glass with the heel of my hand and said
in a loud enough voice to penetrate the glass
, “If everything goes to shit, I want you to take off.  The keys are in the ignition.  Just go if you see trouble.  I won’t say not to check on me later if you can, but don’t wait
, Gem
.  G
o
.”

Gem nodded, and I didn’t believe her for one second.

Walking to the entrance of the store, I looked back at the truck and scanned the parking lot again. 
I pulled
on
the
door
handle, but it was locked. 
Slinging the rifle over my shoulder, I put
my cupped hands to the door,
and peered in.  T
he fluorescent lights
blazed
, lighting up ever
y
aisle like daytime, but nobody
was visible
inside.

At first glance, that is. 
Then I saw it.  Near the entrance to aisle 5.  A foot
on the floor sticking out of the row of merchandise
.  I’m sure it was connected to a body, but I could
only see the foot from outside.  I could see some blood by the foot, but not much.  I imagined there was much more near the source of the deadly wound – if the owner of the foot was indeed dead.  It didn’t move, so it was my conclusion that it was so.

Now I scanned the rest of the store
more carefully
. 
On the same wall as the entrance door, to my extreme right, wa
s a middle aged
woman who had apparently
been pouring coins into the machine that tallies how much change you saved
in your peanut butter jar
over the last year, and gives you a receipt to
convert
that change into
paper money
.  She never got her receipt.  Her throat was ripped open, and she lay on
her back.  Had it been just her
throat, I might have been able to lie to myself and make up some other reason she was dead, but her eyes were . . . gone.  The two sockets had been torn at
and – what? 
h
ammered on
? – u
ntil
the skull beneath cracked
and pushed inward
, and the two individual sockets joined
together
.
 

I
turned and headed back to the Suburban and motioned to Gem to roll down the window fast.  She did.

“Dead people inside.  I’m not comfortabl
e leaving you out here.  This is
getting
sketchier
by the minute.”

“Babe, it got sketchy for me in
Miami
, but I know you’re just getting used to all of it.  Did you see anyone alive . . . or, well, moving?”