Dead Hunger V: The Road To California by Eric A. Shelman Read Free Book Online

somewhere that seemed safe enough, I’d swing in and do a quick fill-up.
     
    *****
     
    Mrs. Steele’s phone was a Droid Razor Maxx, and the son-of-a-bitch really did have all-day battery life, according to everyone I knew that had one.  I was happy to see a solid battery icon on it when I’d pulled it out of my neighbor’s purse, but I also thought it wise to grab the car charger that was tucked in beside it.  I couldn’t afford it to run empty, because as I approached the house, I wanted Lisa to know I was there.  I also wanted to call her and let her know I was safe, like right now.
    Thank God I was safe.
    After getting off East Avenue, I’d gone about sixty miles in just over an hour.  I saw a Racetrack gas station and pulled in.
    To my surprise, a cop car was parked in the lot with its lights on.  The siren was silent, and I rode toward the car with caution, easing my bike to a stop about ten feet back and off to the passenger side.  If the cop was jumpy – and who the hell could blame him if he or she was – I’d feel better if I sat in their blind spot.
    With my left foot I kicked the kickstand down and eased myself off the bike.  I still had the gun stuffed into the front of my pants, and hadn’t even realized it.  I instinctively turned away from the police car in case the officer was aware and watching, and carefully pulled it out of my pants.  I rubbed the painful, dark purple impression the bulky weapon had pressed into my skin at my belt line, forgot it and opened the cylinder.
    Four of the brass cartridges looked different, which corresponded to the number of shots I had fired.  There were five left.  I was okay for now, so I closed the cylinder again and hoped I was on a live round.  I held the revolver in my right hand.
    I looked again at the police car.  The engine was turned off, yet I could hear the tick-tick-tick-tick-tick of the almost silent lights as they flashed.  I moved to the passenger side of the car and approached the back seat, where I pressed my face to the heavily tinted glass and tried to see inside.  The cage separating the criminal element from the good guys eventually came into view as my eyes adjusted.
    I was squinting, trying to see if anyone was in the front seat, when a face slammed into the glass, directly against mine.  An involuntary scream left my throat as I tripped away from the car, falling flat on my ass.  The face slammed into the glass again and again, its teeth shattering with each impact until only cracked, jagged shards remained.  Alternately, it pounded the window with gnarled hands, mad eyes demanding that I come closer, closer, open that door and let it get at me.
    I looked in all directions as I scrambled back to my feet and picked up the dropped revolver. I was freaked out then, I won’t lie. I shook like someone who had no right to hold a gun of any kind, but I gripped that thing like it was a lifeline.
    I moved around the back of the police car to the other side. As I did so, the creature in the back seat, which wore a tank top and tattoos beneath its black, roadmap veins, pounded on the glass, desperate to reach me.  From this side it was more illuminated, and I could that half its chest was ripped away; the musculature – stringy tendons and raw, rotting meat – exposed, making me want to vomit.
    I swallowed my fear and steeled my nerves, moving to the front of the car to see inside the front seat area.  As I did my best to ignore the frantic display of desire coming from the back of the car, I saw the cop.
    It was a woman, and she was lying on her back on the bench seat, her hand hanging down with a pistol still in it. Her brown hair was cropped short, and her eyes were wide open, staring upward. She did not look like the thing in the back seat.  She looked uninfected like me, only female and dead.
    I tried the driver's side door. It was unlocked. I pushed it closed again and walked around the front of the car, this time to the