We got back to the CDC garage without incident and pulled the Suburban and the mobile lab into the garage, rolling the door closed. It was now going on 4:00 in the afternoon. I wanted to get the hell out of here before nightfall. With the speed at which Hemp was capable of designing, fabricating and working, it wouldn’t be a problem. The summer days were long, with daylight sticking around until near 8:30 PM. I figured we could be out of here by 6:00 or so, and Lula was only about 60 miles from the CDC.
We had only to hop on the I85 to the I985 to get there in just over an hour and a half – if all was clear on the road, and we didn’t expect that. No more exits if we could avoid it, though. We didn’t need a repeat of that offramp debacle.
The gas line that Hemp had run was expertly done, held off the ground by several makeshift support platforms placed at strategic locations to relieve stress on the long pipe run. We could rest assured that Max would have with a long-lasting supply of fuel for the generator. He might have to come down and service it a few times, and try to keep his power draw to a minimum, but he should be good for a month or more. There’s no telling what the military might organize before that, or if this thing would run its course, which was my great hope.
We weren’t bad at this, but we didn’t want to do it for the rest of time.
We did our best to keep Taylor completely away from the gory remnants of the massive zombie kill we engaged in at the service elevator, so we took her into an interior hallway and we went up on the passenger elevator. When we arrived at Max’s enclave, all was well.
It was extraordinarily well when Cynthia saw her daughter. She leapt out of her chair and ran to the door, falling down on her knees. She scooped Taylor into her arms and kissed her neck, face, lips and the top of her head. She felt her all over to make sure nothing was broken or hurt, and she pulled her to her again, and wrapped her arms around her in an embrace that I did not believe would end. I didn’t blame her for a moment. This was her little girl.
Not a word was exchanged between them. The child’s eyes were squeezed closed as though the nightmare was over and the good dream from which she did not want to awaken had begun. Over Taylor’s head, Cynthia looked into our smiling faces; Gem, Hemp and I must have looked like three morons, our smiles fixed, our expressions tender.
“Thank you all so much,” she mouthed. Her eyes said enough.
As though on queue, we all nodded and turned to head back downstairs. Before I left the room I said, “Max, I had to give away the Hummer. Found a bunch of uninfecteds about a mile and a half from here.”
“That’s good news,” he said. “A good sign. Did you tell them I’m here?”
“It’s great news, and yes, we did. They might contact you, so keep your radios on scan.” I said. “But I’m going to need another vehicle, if you think you can spare it.”
“We already worked it out, Flex,” said Hemp. “You’ve got to check out the Crown Vic I got you.”
“A fucking Ford?” I asked, incredulous.
“I guess you might describe it in those disparaging terms, but it’s a rolling fortress. We need something kind of nimble and quick, but tough. The cops drive these things for a reason.”
“Okay. You can convince me when we get back down there.”
We waved to Max and Cynthia, who still held Taylor in her arms.
“It’s armored,” Hemp said, smiling. He walked to the tool box and grabbed a small sledge hammer.
“What the hell are you doing?” Gem asked.
Hemp ignored her and raised his arm, slamming the six pound sledge into the windshield glass.
Nothing.
“Jesus,” I said. “Airplane glass?”
Hemp nodded. “Exactly. Tested with frozen chickens fired at it at high speed.”
“Fuck off,” I said.
“True. It’s called a Chicken Gun, but it’s really sort of a cannon. Airplanes are only likely to hit birds in flight, so that’s how they test the most vulnerable part, the cockpit windshield.”
“Cool,” Gem said. She took the sledge from Hemp and gave it a try. The windshield shuddered, but sounded with a dull thud and did not give or shatter.
“No guns,” said Gem. “I’m driving the Suburban.”
“I’ll fix that,” Hemp said. “Of course, but I think we’d feel better that of the three vehicles, you drive this and take Trina. Nothing can get in or penetrate the car, at all. Period.”
“But you’re gonna mount a nice big gun on it, right?” Gem was serious.
“Well, we’re limited right now on what we can mount because of what we have, but I think we’ve got enough to make you feel safe in this car.”
Hemp walked to a work bench on the east side of the room and carried back what appeared to be a compact machine gun. “AK-47,” he said. “The most widely produced assault rifle in the world. I’ve got a ball bearing mount planned, kind of like a Lazy Susan. This will allow the machine gun to sit directly center above the front cockpit area. It’ll lock firmly into place when in the forward position, and that lines up the magazine for easy replacement. I’ll cut a slot in the roof for the magazine to travel in as it turns. You see? I’ve already figured all this out.”
I watched the expression on Gem’s face. It was awesome to see her so interested in this. “Tell us about the engine, Hemp. Anything special?”
“It’s got all you need under the hood. A 4.6 liter V8 delivering around 240 horsepower. But the door panels are lined with B6 ballistic steel. Plus, there’s B4 steel on the roof, which will make it harder for me to –”
“But how do I fire the AK, and how do I know I’m aimed at what I want to kill?” Gem was back to the gun. One track mind.
“Really? You don’t think I’ve thought this through? How long have we known one another?” Hemp laughed.
Gem looked at her watch. “About 20 hours,” she said. “Okay, go on.”
“Alright. I’ve wired up a video sight that I’ll mount to the gun. It’s basically a camera. We’ll essentially have an A/B switch on the dashboard here, and when you hit B, the GPS monitor screen will turn into your gun sight. This gun, on the ball bearing ring mount, will spin all the way around and stay stable in any position.”
“And I fire it how?”
“You pull a handle. Just like an old time toilet flush or calling the porter on the Orient Express.”
“And this will be completed when?”
Hemp stuck a mask on his head and picked up the cutting torch and clipped it to his belt. With both hands, he hefted a circular steel plate about fifteen inches in diameter from the bench and climbed up on top of the car, walking on his knees up the hood, not leaving even the slightest impressions in the heavy duty exterior. He rested his steel plate in the center of the forward cockpit roof and used his striker to light the torch. Lowering his face shield, he said, “Believe it or not, a little more than half an hour.”
He started to cut with a shower of sparks.
Gem was having some fun with the 360 degree submachine gun welded to the top of her Crown Victoria.
At first I had no idea how she was spotting the infecteds in the fading twilight; the trip had taken longer than we’d planned due to road blockages and alternate routes, so day had begun to melt into night, and there was no moon.
Then I remembered. These creatures had a strange, luminescent eye shine that threw me off; I’d seen it in the dead eyes of Jamie’s neighbor, the swimmer who got dead before he could breast stroke his way to my brain for perhaps his first meal of human grey matter.
But when Gem saw the eye shine glimmer in the night, she pushed the B button on the dash and swung her AK-toward the shine using the pivot handle Hemp had rigged up.
In a display – almost a cocky display, if you ask me – of confidence, Hemp had used a sharpie to draw crosshairs on the GPS monitor screen in the Crown Vic, so when she was lined up with the zombie, she’d yank her trigger handle down like a trucker blowing her horn at a passing rig.
And we not only saw crimson-brown sprays of zombie blood fly from their exploding heads as we passed, we saw their dropping bodies fall away, and nothing but Gem’s white toothy smile in the rear view mirror of my Suburban. She was really enjoying this, and was getting quite good at it.
Hemp was bringing up the rear in his mobile lab, which he had equipped with some items he believed he’d need in his efforts to help Jamie and discover a cure for this thing. It was a diesel pusher with a bangin’ motor and a stock turbo system that allowed it to eat up highway, never losing a beat.
I looked beside me. Trina slept, poor thing. I was going to put her with Gem, but she was sleeping anyway, and Gem was so into the gun that I knew she’d want to play with it on the way. Like I said before, when mama’s happy.
I grabbed my radio and pressed the talk button.
“Hey, guys. I want to stop at Home Depot and pick up another generator. I have one at my house, but I’d like to pick up the biggest one they have.”
“I hear they’re on sale,” Gem said. “Free to the living.”
“Walking dead need not apply,” Hemp said.
I thought of Jamie, still strapped to the goddamned trailer. Hemp had suggested we take her out and strap her down on the examination table he’d brought in his lab, but it wasn’t mounted yet, and I didn’t want to take any chances. We’d checked her again before leaving the CDC and she was okay. Alive in her present form of living, anyway. I didn’t want to change anything. We’d gotten her this far.
A siren blared in the distance as we approached Lula. It did not appear to be any nearer or farther away at any given time, so we guessed it was just stuck on. I wondered about, but did not discuss aloud, the police officer who went with the car from which the siren blared. He’d once served his community, and since then he had either become the hunter or the hunted. I wasn’t sure which I wished upon him.
When we arrived at the Home Depot, which was just three miles – three long, desolate miles – from my home, I ran inside, armed with my Daewoo. There was a pallet out front piled high with Generac 17,500 watt cart-mount generators, but the frames had to be assembled, so they weren’t exactly portable yet. One was upended and had fallen halfway out of its box, as if someone had attempted to lift it and failed miserably. These suckers weighed almost 400 lbs, so a forklift would be needed to drop it onto my trailer.
I ran around to the garden center and pulled open the gate. I saw the lime green forklift fifteen feet to my left and ran for it. I jumped on, turned the key until it beeped, then fired the propane burning engine, which caught instantly. I drove that bitch like a bat out of hell through the gate and up to the stack.
I’d had enough fun in large buildings that initially appeared deserted. I didn’t need to have any more.
I’d told Hemp to stay in the land yacht he was driving, but next thing I knew he was beside me, helping me shimmy the next undamaged generator over the tips of my raised forks.
“Thanks, pal. Appreciate it.”
“Pal. Such a John Wayne word.”
We slid the gen completely onto the forks, made sure it was balanced, and I jumped back in the driver’s seat. “Get back in your shoebox. I got it from here.”
In another minute I had the gen lowered onto the trailer. In another ten minutes we pulled up to my house, my ragtag group of survivors. It was time to do some planning, some training, and some learning.
I thought we had the right combination of talents to do just that.
The first order of business when we arrived at my home, after getting our pregnant bitch settled on a soft pile of blankets on the front porch, was to get Jamie off that trailer and onto one of the exam tables in the mobile lab. I didn’t want Trina seeing her.
Now keep in mind, I tried to get that damned dog to come into the house and settle in where it was cooler, but she was having none of it. Despite the tiny buns baking in her oven, she seemed to want to stand watch, albeit lying down.
As I had assumed would be the case, there was no power to my home. Gas was still flowing, and since I had a gas range and water heater, that worked out fine. My house was on a well with its own pump, and my whole house generator was in perfect working order as I always maintained it. There was a full underground tank filled with 500 gallons of propane, so we were prepared for baths or showers. When Gem put Trina down on a couch inside, she fell fast asleep, so Gem offered to help with Jamie. I reluctantly accepted. Gem hadn’t seen her yet, and while she’d seen others like her – or in the same condition anyway, she had known Jamie. She had loved my sister.
Hemp was suddenly very CDC-like. His British accent was crisp and professional. “The most important thing, and I can’t stress this point enough, is to not contact her with your hands, and do not let her scratch or bite you,” he said.
He stood before the roll, and untied the ropes that held her to the trailer. “Flex, do you have any leather work gloves?”
“Of course. Four or five pairs.”
“Get them, would you? I think Gem and I can manage to carry her into the lab.”
I nodded and ran to the detached garage. I kept the K7 ready as well, not taking any chances. Nothing jumped out at me or otherwise tried to eat me. Within two minutes I was back at the converted motor home and Gem and Hemp were just getting Jamie’s wrapped body in through the door.
I followed them inside. “Put her on top of the table and we’ll get her secured before we cut away the bubble wrap,” said Hemp.
“It’s a pool cover, actually,” I said. “It was pretty much all I had to work with.”
“It was fine, Flex,” Hemp said. “She couldn’t see through it, nor could she claw or bite through it.”
I pressed on the shape at both ends, then said, “Give me a hand. I need to end-for-end this. This side is her head.”
Hemp and I turned it. “Gloves?” Gem asked.
“Yes. Everyone,” Hemp answered.
Gem put her gloves on, and I followed suit. After we all had our miniscule protective gear on, Hemp approached Jamie’s unsecured body with scissors.
“I need to cut a strip out of the middle so my cross restraints can be flat against the body rather than over the wrapping.”
He began cutting across the center at what he estimated was her torso, until he’d exposed the forearm on each side and her clothing in the middle. About a three-inch strip was exposed. He took a nylon strap equipped with light-duty carabiners on each side and secured one end to a steel ring on the left underside of the table, brought the strap over Jamie’s body, and clipped the other end to the opposite tie-down ring. Then he pulled the loose length of nylon and drew it tight.
He repeated this further down, between her shins and her knees. When he was satisfied, he took the scissors again and looked at me and Gem.
“I’ve not seen her at all, but Flex, you haven’t seen her since you wrapped her. I want to warn you, she may have changed.”
“How so?” Gem asked.
“I don’t know. But she might have experienced some further . . . well, decomposition or metamorphosis, whatever the case may be. I’ve yet to determine the biological makeup of the abnormals. Regular indicators, such as heartbeat, blood pressure, temperature, and lung functions haven’t been measured. What I’m saying – and I can’t believe I’m saying it – is if this is some sort of reanimation, which the living severed heads seem to indicate it may be – then it might be difficult for you to accept when you see her. Especially considering it’s your sister.”
“I saw a bit of the head thing back at Cynthia’s house,” Gem said. “That shit was disturbing.”
I don’t know why, but I laughed. Then Hemp smiled, and Gem looked at both of us and she burst into laughter.
“There’s not a fucking thing about the past 36 hours that hasn’t been disturbing,” said Gem, rubbing her face with her gloved hands. Her exhaustion was present in her voice – even in her wonderful laugh.
“Baby, that’s an understatement, and I’m having a hard time accepting any of this,” I said. “But I have to, so please, cut this stuff away and let me see my sister.”
Hemp nodded and began cutting from the feet up the center of the layers of plastic. Gem peeled it to the side as he cut from south to north, feet to head. When he got to the first strap, he cut beneath it and poked the scissor blade in above it and continued his cut. He repeated this as he got to the strap holding the chest.
He put down the scissors. “I want to restrain the head before we go on.”
“Understood,” I said. “Got what you need?”
Hemp nodded. He opened the drawer and withdrew a 2” strap, which he placed directly on top of the area where the forehead generally was, and repeated the steps to fasten and tighten it. He then took a large saw and cut away the excess length of bubble plastic that extended beyond the top of her head.
He began his cut from the top of the head toward the feet. Cutting essentially straight down between the eyes. As the plastic peeled away, we saw what nobody wanted to see, but the first thing we were bombarded with was the reek.
I thought it was the clothing at first; we’d not been this close to any of the ones we battled, and we weren’t confined to a small space with them, but did get a pretty good whiff of the ones trying to get in the freight elevator.
But this smell was putrid; the smell of an advanced case of halitosis or gum disease on someone’s breath. No, even that didn’t cover it. The smell was like a dead body that was deteriorating and decomposing in front of us, cysts, pustules, oozing sores, and just plain rotting skin and tissue.
As saddened as I was, I ran to the small stainless sink and threw up. I turned on the water and the pump kicked in, and Gem quickly followed suit.
Hemp was steadfast, looking away to provide us our dignity, but nowhere near sick. Disease, epidemics, these things were his specialty. This is what he steeled himself to deal with, though he’d never dealt with anything like this before.
Returning to Jamie, I forced myself to analyze her. She had become worse. Much worse. I wasn’t familiar with the course of typical decomposition, so didn’t know whether or not what I was seeing fell into line with that. I only knew that nothing that looked like this should be alive in any way, or conscious of anything at all.
And it was at that very moment that I resolved to end her suffering as soon as humanly possible.
And I know that was an ironic choice of words.
Her eyes were dead, but not dead. They peered straight ahead, and as Hemp pulled away the remainder of the bubble wrap, she struggled to turn her head, the skin now rotting from it in patches, pulling away in spots and generally drying out, some of it falling away with the plastic.
And I saw, just briefly, the beginning of the glow that many of the creatures’ eyes we’d seen had taken on. It looked almost like a chemical reaction, or some sort of mist. Then it was gone, and I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t imagined it.
Hemp hadn’t noticed it. He was busy trying to unwrap her further.
Trying to look at anything but that face, I looked down at this thing, no longer recognizable as my kid sister. I stared at the plastic only, and as the three of us tugged and pulled the rest of the wrap away, she was suddenly there on the table, fully exposed.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream, no more skin even pretending to be lips; pulled completely back, her teeth and ulcer-covered gums exposed.
Her face suddenly and inexplicably jerked directly toward Hemp and her gnashing began anew, with a manic speed and force. Her teeth ground together so hard I watched in horror as one of her front teeth shattered, and the other half just fell out and into her throat. She seemed not to notice.
Her black, swollen tongue darted around within the cavern of her mouth, and her wrists struggled beneath the restraints that held her forearms.
I saw there was potential for her to be able to successfully pull her arms free.
There were additional wrist straps we couldn’t attach until the wrapping was gone, so I reached down quickly with my glove-clad hands and seized her right wrist, jamming it through the thick leather loop and cinching it tight around it. Gem did the same thing on the other side, and Hemp hurried around to repeat the actions on her ankles. Her head was pretty well secured, but after Hemp finished with her ankles, he pulled the head strap tighter for good measure.
I turned away then. Took three steps away from the table.
“Flex.” It was Gem’s voice. She said no more. She came up to me, pulled her gloves off, and pulled me against her. I resisted for a moment, but Gem knew me. She knew what I needed right then and it was her. With her cheek against mine, warm and comforting, I felt her breath on my neck and kept my eyes closed as she worked her soothing magic on my very soul. We stayed like that for what must have been five minutes.
Hemp was silent, giving us the time we needed. He was a good guy, and he understood. When I felt composed, I kissed Gem on the lips and touched my forehead to hers.
“Thanks, babe. I don’t know how you do that.”
“It did as much for me,” she said, smiling.
I pulled away and walked back to the table. “Okay, tell me what you see, Professor.” Gem pulled her gloves back on and stood beside me.
“Her fingernails are black, her skin is essentially rotting from its skeletal framework,” Hemp said. “It’s not the absolute norm for death, but for this level of death, it may well be. I’ve not seen any of the others this closely, and under this kind of lighting.”
“How far can this go with her still able to … live?” I asked.
“I’m not sure you can call this state alive,” Hemp answered. “I don’t see any rise and fall of the chest, indicating there is no actual pulmonary function, no breathing.”
I looked at Gem, who remained silent and solemn. “So, Hemp. She’s essentially a dead person who is starving, and driven toward the taste of human flesh.”
Hemp ignored my statement. “I feel odd leaving her like this, but I’m too tired to make any real progress with her tonight. I’d like to do some basic tests in the morning. Check some of those things we discussed earlier.”
Gem removed her gloves again, then lifted my hands and pulled mine off. “Let’s go get Trina bathed,” she said. “I think you could use some cleanup, too.”
She looked at Hemp. “Do you want to put a sheet or something over her?”
Hemp nodded. “I thought of that, and it might actually be a comfort to her rather than leaving her exposed.” He shrugged. “I have no idea. At any rate, go ahead. See you in a bit. I’ll lock this up and stand watch. When you’re finished I’ll have my shower.”
Gem and I planned to shower together, right after we set up a tub for Trina. I sat in a nearby chair as Gem washed her, and the little girl practically slept through the process.
I looked on at the gentleness with which Gem washed Trina’s hair and sponged her back, and I fell more deeply in love with her right there. She would essentially be this baby girl’s mama now, and I’d be her daddy. And I was proud to have this woman by my side. I didn’t know if Jamie would ever be able to reclaim that job from Gem, but I did know that Gem would be the best mother ever.
And my mind turned to my sweet Jesse, Trina’s eight-year-old sister. I thought of her, saw her beautiful smiling face in my mind’s eye, and I fell into sobs. My body bent in half against its will, and I shuddered, tears leaking from my eyes, and I was unable to stop. I stood up quickly and left the room. I couldn’t let Trina wonder where this sadness came from.
But I cried for Trina. And Jesse. And all who would miss her, and all who would never have the chance to know her. I cried for her mother who didn’t mean to kill her little girl, and for Gem, who also loved little Jess. Her little rabbit. Well, now that rabbit would bound along the waving grasses of Watership Down for eternity.
My tears subsided, but when I felt Gem’s hand on my back, I turned and folded into her arms, and we held each other tight. I buried my face in her neck and cried with her, and no words needed to be exchanged. Everything had changed; we’d lost those we loved, and had found each other again.
“I put Trina to bed,” she said. “Hemp is standing watch while we shower.”
She stood facing me in the bathroom. I said nothing, but looked into her deep brown eyes and searched them. I did not have to look very long to see the love she felt for me.
My arms hung limp by my sides. Gem hooked her fingers beneath my tee shirt and pulled it up and over my head, then began unbuckling my belt. Just her touch aroused me in a way I couldn’t explain. After all we’d been through, our thorough exhaustion, this woman being near me was almost enough to wipe it all away.
As she opened my belt and undid the button on my jeans, lowering the zipper and dropping them down around my ankles, I reached up and began to unbutton her sheer cotton blouse. I pushed it back off her shoulders, revealing her light brown, cotton bra. I unsnapped the front hook and peeled it away.
She had begun to undo her own jeans, and slid them easily off. She put her foot on my jeans, heaped around my ankles, and I stepped out of them. I reached out for her and pulled her warm, bare body against mine, only our underwear preventing full contact top to bottom. Warm. Soft. I hadn’t felt her for so long, I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm. She looked down between us.
“Flexy, we have to free this. Too constricting.”
She turned and opened the door of the bathroom cabinet and withdrew a pair of scissors. She pulled my boxer briefs out on the side and cut slowly down with the scissors until they popped free of my leg. Then she repeated the same thing on the opposite side and they fell away.
“You don’t do anything the traditional way, do you?” I said, smiling.
“What’s the fun in that?” she said. “Now come in. You’re a dirty boy and I’m going to get you nice and clean.”
And she did. She used lather. Lots of lather.
I slid on a fresh pair of jeans and walked out to check on Hemp after I recovered from my lovemaking session with Gem – the first in far too long, and an extended one at that. We fell back in bed afterward and Gem produced one of the packs of smokes that I’d grabbed from the pharmacy. We both lit one. It felt good; the stress of the past couple of days had taken its toll on both of us.
Hemp was standing, leaning against one of the porch columns, the high-capacity Calico M960 hanging loosely in his hands.
“You probably want a shower and some rest,” I said, opening the screen door and walking up next to him. “I guess I’d have heard if you’d had to use that thing,” I said.
Hemp had clearly become fond of that weapon, and not just for its 50 and 100 round magazines. Because it blew the shit out of the enemy.
“No need to shoot anything yet, and yes, about two days of sleep should do it,” he said.
“Hemp, do you have a family? Here, I mean?”
“Don’t have a family anywhere, Flex. No siblings, both parents passed away when I was just out of my teens.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But they did a good job with you. Likeable, smart. Were you ever married?”
Hemp laughed softly, but a deep sadness touched his eyes, too. “I was, my friend. I was. A beautiful woman, too. Too good for me. Married her when I was 24 and she died during childbirth. Along with my baby boy.”
“Shit,” I said, fishing a smoke from behind my ear. “I’m fuckin’ sorry I brought it up, Hemp.”
“No, she was the love of my life,” he said. “Just the time I had with her was worth all the days before them. I haven’t found anyone as good as her since, so I just . . . well, took a couple of years off, then just kind of played the field, as you Americans say.”
“There’s something to be said for that,” I said. “But I just found Gem again – rather she found me – just before we found you. I’d been with her a couple of years and it ended over a year ago. When this shit hit the fan, apparently the only person we could think about was each other.”
Hemp smiled and tossed me a pack of matches from the table beside the railing. “She’s good for you. And you’re good for her. And she’s beautiful,” he said.
I nodded. “No shit. Fuckin’ beautiful. And a heart as big as Texas.”
“I think I need someone,” Hemp said. “This world is going to seem lonely enough from this point on. I have this longing all of a sudden to find someone I can’t live without.”
“Speakin’ of that, we gotta make a plan I suppose,” I said.
Hemp nodded, scanning the yard again. “Yes, sir. Back to reality. If we’re going to be here a while, I’m going to want to pick up a couple of security camera sets and motion activated alarms and such. Battery backups, that sort of thing.”
I nodded and slid down in the Adirondack chair on my front porch and Hemp plopped down in the chair beside me.
“I don’t see a whole lot of value in hitting the road and leaving ourselves exposed. Things will likely only get worse as this thing goes along.”
“I know,” said Hemp. “The first group of people we found was frightened and cooperative. Grateful for our help. There will be others that want to take what we’ve accumulated and created. And that’s aside from the abnormals.”
We hadn’t seen any activity around the house since our arrival. That wasn’t to say the wind couldn’t shift and alert a nearby abnormal or twenty, or a hundred for that matter, with an appetite, and we could become a destination for them at any time.
“My feeling, too. I think protection is our first rule of order.”
“I’ve got some ideas for some equipment – weapons systems, I suppose. I’ll need some of Gem’s artistry skills, and since you’re an electrician, you’ll need to help with the wiring schematics for the powered machines.”
“Shouldn’t a lot of this stuff run without electricity? In case we’re in a situation where we don’t have that option?”
Hemp waved off my concern. “Absolutely. And I’ve got some ideas for crank-wound, kinetically-powered weapons systems that can either catapult or eject projectiles. Damaging projectiles.”
I laughed out loud. I suppose the sex with Gem and the shower had brightened my outlook. I think I’d place the influence both things had on my demeanor in that order, leaning heavily on the sex with Gem. At the same time – and for the same reasons – I felt like I could collapse in a blissful heap at a moment’s notice.
But it felt good to be having this conversation about our protection and our plans. Hemp’s mind must have been devising and designing the entire time he was driving, because he’d filled six pages of tightly written notes in a legal pad he’d found in the kitchen just since Gem and I went in to get wet.
“Gem’s getting some sleep now, Hemp. Why don’t you get in and get a shower and some shuteye. At least three or four hours.”
Hemp shook his head. “I won’t need that much, Flex, but thanks. My mind is racing at 150 kilometers per hour, and I can’t stop it. I’m thinking about your sister, how there’s so much I need to do with regard to her, more weapons and surveillance systems –”
“Hemp, Hemp, slow down. You’ve done a lot – a fucking shitload of stuff so far. My aunt would’ve said we couldn’t have done that in a month of Sundays, and she’d be right. So go in, have the shower, close your eyes for a while. We need that brain of yours to be fresh.”
“I don’t like the sound of that anymore, Flex.” Hemp was smiling, but the truth behind that particular joke gave me, and I’m sure him, a bit of a shudder.
“Okay, let’s say sharp,” I said.
He stood and passed me the Calico. “Okay. I’ll do it. Stay awake now, and fire that thing off if you see anything. I’ve got my MP5 to keep by my bed. Speaking of that, where am I sleeping?”
“There’s a spare bedroom, end of the hall to the left. Only a full size, but I spent money on a good mattress for when Jamie and Jack – well, it’s comfortable.”
“Got it. Thanks. I’ll go check on the pooch before I hit the shower.”
“Name’s Bunsen.”
“Bunsen?”
“Yep. After the burner. Apparently our Trina spent a tad too much time with Max when deciding what to name the girl.”
“Bunsen. Sounds like a boy name.”
“If it works for a six-year-old girl and makes her happy, I think Bunsen will do just fine.”
Hemp smiled, waved, and went inside. I propped the M960 on my leg, leaned back in the Adirondack and scanned the dark horizon for any moving shadows.
Or any flickers of eye shine.
The July night was hot and muggy, but the Georgia weather was the last thing on my mind that evening.