The Hungry (Book 6): The Rule of Three (The Sheriff Penny Miller Zombie Series)
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The Hungry 6
The Rule of Three
Steven W. Booth and Harry Shannon
Copyright © 2014 Steven W. Booth and Harry Shannon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Author or Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
Cover Photography and Design: Yossi Sasson and Dotan Bahat
Cover Model: Gillian Shure
Published By:
Genius Book Publishing
5805 White Oak Ave #17752
Encino, CA 91416
www.GeniusBookPublishing.com
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Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Dedication
To Gillian Shure, our Penny.
S.W.B & H.S.
Prologue
36 hours, 11 minutes (11:49am local time)
“I’m sure Raymond ordered that missile strike against Sheriff Miller and Captain Sheppard. He’s completely derailed everything we’ve been trying to accomplish for the last six months. And then he had the gall to hand me that memo from the Secretary relieving me of duty. Naturally, Crespi backed him up! Can you believe that, Cecil? Where the hell does D’Amore think he gets off going over my head? You have to help me fix this, Cecil. If the Secretary is siding with D’Amore now, the entire Enhanced Bioweapons program is in danger. I have half a mind to…”
The man on the other end of the phone line spoke in a tone that was almost too soft to hear. “Charlotte, please. Just stop.”
Dr. Charlotte Williams paused, not quite done with her thought. “What’s wrong, Cecil?” She sat forward in her leather executive chair, and listened carefully.
“There are many things of which you are unaware, Charlotte. I ordered that missile strike against Miller and Sheppard, not D’Amore.”
Williams couldn’t hide her shock. “Why?”
“Charlotte,” he said, simply, quietly. “Don’t speak. Listen.” He waited, but Williams knew better than to interrupt again. “I ordered the missile strike to make Raymond D’Amore think he had won. I have been following his maneuvering for some time, and it was important for him to think he had the upper hand.”
“But we need Sheriff Miller, Cecil. We need both of them. You should know that better than anyone. Why would you kill them?” Williams was standing now, angry, ready to challenge him. “We both have our roles in this, and we both have to be successful to make our plans work. How am I supposed to achieve my objectives without Miller and Sheppard?” She had to restrain herself from hanging up the phone. As it was, she picked up a pencil and snapped it in half.
There was a long silence. Finally, Cecil asked, “Are you quite through?”
Williams took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Miller and Sheppard are alive, and they are in Idaho.”
“What?”
Cecil chuckled. “I said I ordered the missile strike to make D’Amore feel he had won. He has no idea that Miller and Sheppard survived. His move to have the Secretary make him chairman of the Select Committee shows us that he feels he is in control. Now he thinks he is in charge. He’s spent the entire afternoon with Crespi building a case against you for the inquiry he thinks you are going to call. He has no idea what’s going to happen next. None of them do.”
Williams felt the urge to ask who they were, but she knew better. Something else Cecil had said had captured her attention. “We have to capture Miller and Sheppard immediately.”
“That won’t be necessary, Charlotte. They are coming to you.”
Williams was beginning to get the hang of this conversation. “Why would they do that?”
“Sheriff Penny Miller is determined to destroy your committee’s ability to continue research on serum 26-alpha. She is in Mountain Home right now. Miller thinks she can take the fight to you. Once she arrives, she won’t be hard to capture.”
Williams snorted. “What makes you think this time will be easier?”
Cecil ignored her question. “When Miller and Sheppard are in your custody, your job will be to secure Miller’s cooperation.”
“What about Sheppard?”
“Captain Sheppard’s loyalties can be manipulated. Once you separate him from Miller, he will come around to our way of thinking, as he always has.”
Now Williams understood. “How soon should I expect them?” Williams began daydreaming about what she could accomplish with Miller and Sheppard in her control.
“They’ll be here soon enough.” Cecil’s otherwise soothing voice became hard and cold. “It’s time, Charlotte.”
Williams was caught off guard. “Time for what?” She began to sit.
“You must initiate Stage Three immediately.”
Charlotte Williams almost missed her chair. “Why? With Miller and Sheppard coming in, we don’t need Stage Three.”
“This is not your decision to make, Charlotte. In thirty-six hours, you will be on a plane, and North America will no longer be your concern.”
“But we’re so close, Cecil. This seems premature.”
Cecil took a deep breath, the air hissing over the microphone of his handset. “I told you that there are many things of which you are unaware. The decision has been made. At midnight tomorrow, Stage Three will go into effect. If you are not up to the task of putting it into motion, there are others who would gladly take your place on the flight to our haven. Which would you prefer?”
Williams thought furiously. Who else was highly placed enough to pull off Stage Three in her place? Who could be trusted with that information? But before she could identify her competition, Cecil spoke again.
“What is your answer, Charlotte?”
“I’ll do it, Cecil. Thirty-six hours. I won’t fail you.”
“I know you won’t.” The phone clicked, and Cecil was gone.
Dr. Charlotte Williams glanced at her watch. It was just past noon in Idaho. Thirty-six hours was barely long enough to complete her assignment. It was finally here, the end game. It meant the eradication of the United States, and perhaps all of North America if things went as planned.
There wasn’t a moment to lose.
Chapter One
28 hours, 17 minutes to Stage Three (7:43pm local time)
“How much farther, do you reckon, Penny?”
/> It was getting dark. The late afternoon air was warm and thick with insects. Sheriff Penelope J. Miller turned to face James Bowen, the biker known to nearly everyone as “Scratch.” The tattooed biker had been her partner, lover, and best friend since the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. He could still manage to surprise her, though not always in a good way. “What are you, five years old? It’s just up the road a piece.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Penny. You’re not carrying all the damn water.”
“You want to switch?” Miller pulled her arm out of one strap of her backpack. She offered it and its lighter load to her scruffy, bearded companion.
“You wouldn’t be able to handle it,” Scratch said with wry confidence and more than a little arrogance. He rolled his big shoulders and picked up the pace.
“I wouldn’t what?” Miller swung her backpack higher onto her shoulder. “How about I carry you and the water, you big pussy?”
As she reached for him, Scratch danced away, smiling playfully. “Look, Penny, you ain’t supercharged with that zombie juice anymore. All’s I’m saying is it would be nice to get back to the barn sooner rather than later. I mean, we’re like five miles from the air base where Sheppard and Rat’s asshole bosses are running the whole damned zombie show. If we get caught out here, who knows what might happen to us. Penny? Are you listening to me?”
But Miller had turned away from him. Something in the brush had caught her eye. Her right hand drifted toward her weapon. Scratch stopped walking, alert for trouble. Miller waited with her senses at the ready.
A squirrel dodged out of the brush and back again. Miller relaxed. She and Scratch turned and kept trudging down the long, well-maintained country highway. Miller shaded her eyes from the setting sun. “Look, how about you do less talking and more walking? I’m sure Karl and Rolf are looking forward to this food and water as much as you are looking for sympathy for your Herculean feat of masculine vigor.”
“Wow, a ten-dollar word. Hey, I didn’t say it was Herculean. All I meant was that we’re a little exposed out here, you know?”
“Hush,” Miller commanded. She stopped walking for a second time.
Scratch also paused again. He frowned. “You don’t have to get all bossy, Penny.”
“Would you just shut up? I’ve got something.”
Scratch was immediately serious. He sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything. What have you got?”
“Vehicle,” Miller said curtly. “It is coming this way.” She indicated to the west, into the setting sun. She stepped off the side of the road. Dropping her backpack, Miller lay flat on the ground. Scratch struggled with his own load, trying to shrug the strap off his shoulder and unbuckle the hip belt at the same time. Miller watched him flounder. She finally just yanked him to the ground.
“Lay on your side. They aren’t very far off.”
Scratch complied. Miller slapped at an insect on her cheek and waited. She kept her eyes on the road just below the sun, still shading her eyes with her other hand.
Scratch, now on the ground, finally managed to remove the backpack full of water and supplies. He whispered, “I hear it now.”
Scratch sidled up to lie next to Miller and quickly followed her gaze. A moment later, a large bus, kind of a touring coach, came over the small rise ahead of them. It was weaving like a snake. As they stared, it drove on the wrong side of the road before lazily drifting back to the right. Miller could see that if it didn’t correct its course within the next several seconds, it was going to be like a banked pool shot headed right where they were hiding.
“Move your ass!” Miller grabbed Scratch by the hand and dragged him to his feet. “Go! Go!”
“What about our supplies?”
Miller shoved the small of his back, right above his cowboy belt. She didn’t have enough time to explain that the supplies would do them no good if they both got smeared across the highway by an out-of-control bus. She tugged and pushed and towed Scratch away from the road and as far into the brush as they could get in the few precious seconds they had left.
The vehicle abruptly shifted to the left. The turn was hard enough to overbalance the top-heavy bus, and Miller and Scratch watched helplessly as the dusty vehicle toppled to the right, landed hard on its side, and slid maybe a hundred feet in a noisy shower of sparks. It spun lazily and groaned like a living thing before finally coming to a halt in the middle of the road. The engine was still running and the rear tires spun uselessly in the air. Miller could smell and hear gasoline spilling on the ground.
Scratch surveyed the scene from where he and Miller stood. “Fuck a duck.” His eyes were cartoon wide.
“You took the words right out of my mouth.” Miller began moving toward the wreck. “That was a close one.”
Scratch hooked Miller’s arm and stopped her progress. “Wait, what are you doing?”
“Somebody may be hurt in there, Scratch.” She jerked her arm out of his grasp and walked forward again. “We can’t just leave people to die.”
“Penny, we’re hiding out for a reason, remember?”
“I remember. So?”
“So someone else may come along. Or there might be more than one bus. They will see us. We really don’t need that kind of attention.”
Miller was becoming impatient. “You wait here and keep an eye out, then.” She checked the road both ways, mostly out of habit, and started jogging toward the wreck.
Scratch did not wait. He was right behind her, as usual. “Okay, how about this? Remember them zombie Girl Scouts?”
That gave Miller pause. “All right, point taken. I will be extra damn careful.” She drew her weapon, a Ruger .38, and automatically checked the load. “You ready to secure the premises, cowboy?”
“No, I most certainly am not.”
Miller hesitated. It wasn’t like Scratch to shy away from danger. Usually he was the one jumping in with both feet. Something had him spooked. She supposed she couldn’t blame him. After all, how often do buses flip over in the middle of the road of their own accord? But that was what made Miller want to see what the hell was going on. The presence of the bus, this crash, out here in the middle of what was supposed to be civilization—or at least the rural version of it—didn’t make any sense. She needed to see what the hell was going on.
Scratch tugged again at her arm. “This is a bad idea, Penny.”
“Won’t be my first.” Miller shrugged him off and cautiously approached the bus with her weapon at the ready. Her boots crunched rocks and displaced gravel. The stench of burning metal, hot oil, and spilled gasoline drifted through the air like an oversized funeral shroud.
The bus itself was painted a dull black and unmarked. Miller went around to the front. She took a careful look inside, peering through the splintered windshield at the front seat. The uniformed driver, an overweight Caucasian male with white hair, was still alive but was clearly hurt. He waived at her with a blood-spattered hand and mouthed something unintelligible. Miller began climbing up toward the driver side. Crumpled at the bottom was another man. Like the driver, he wore a nondescript tan uniform that could have represented anything from the local service station to the United States Secret Service. He was younger and in far better shape than the driver but all that exercise apparently hadn’t done him much good in the end. His head seemed weirdly dented on the right side and he was down for the count. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.
Scratch slid up next to Miller. He stood in front of the windshield, peering inside. He stepped back, and pointed down at the front fender. “Careful, Penny, whatever this thing is doing way out here, it’s got Government plates on it.”
Miller glanced at the front plate. Sure enough, Scratch was right. But that just added to the mystery. She tried to stay focused. “There is a hurt man inside. Are you going to help me or not?” She grabbed onto the recessed headlight and climbed up onto the driver’s side of the bus.
Scratch hesitated for a long moment. “Penny,
I don’t know what you’ve got up your ass, but this is a really bad idea.”
“Didn’t we just have this conversation?”
Scratch put his hand on the bumper and climbed up to squat next to Miller. Their weight made the black metal plating whimper and moan. Scratch sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “On top of everything else, we’d best keep an eye out for fire.”
“I know. Help me get closer.”
Miller searched around and found an emergency release for the driver’s window. She pulled it but the thing did not budge. She yanked harder until she heard a small click and the window popped open and exhaled a puff of rancid smoke like an old man on the porch of a rest home. She pulled the framed plastic away and threw it to the ground.
Scratch held up his hand. Miller listened. She heard soft groaning sounds coming from inside the bus, and also quite a bit of sobbing. Vocalizations that were decidedly not zombie grunts, that dreaded unhh hunhh sound, but that still made her nervous. There was no particular reason to believe there were zombies on the overturned bus, but anything was possible, and Miller’s highly developed sense of paranoia was already working overtime. She was usually leery of taking unnecessary risks. Experience had been a very good teacher. And yet, here she was, preparing to climb into the downed bus.
The wounded driver, still strapped into his seat, had what looked like a broken arm and some kind of stomach wound. Her first impression had been correct. He was in a bloodstained uniform of some kind. He reached out towards Miller and again struggled to speak. Miller waited in the window, listening.
“The prisoners.” That was what the driver said in a hoarse whisper before drifting off into unconsciousness, his big body sagging to the wounded side to hang limply from the seat belt. Scratch moved behind Miller and to her right, his weapon up to cover her next move.