The Hungry (Book 2): The Wrath of God

by Booth, Steven

  “Got you.”

  “And don’t take any unnecessary risks,” Miller said. “We need the wheels. If you have to circle the block to be safe, do it.”

  “Yeah, but don’t take too long,” said Sheppard. “You be careful, Penny. We still have a lot to do today.”

  “Fifteen minutes tops,” Miller said. A crash caught her attention and she whirled around with the crowbar raised high. Scratch cocked his gun and aimed at the alley. Rat hunkered down a bit, the shotgun raised. The sound did not come again. A low, moaning wind stroked Miller’s face as she watched and listened. She decided it had been one of the carrion birds, or perhaps a cat that had somehow managed to stay alive.

  “Let’s do this.”

  Miller went up to the entrance to the main building. The sun-weathered tan structure squatted in place, a sullen giant. She waved quickly and led Rat and Scratch closer, over to the entrance. Miller was ready with the crowbar just in case it was still locked. No lights, noises, or movement, which was as it should be, of course.

  The front door was open a crack. Miller shoved gently with the crowbar. The door opened easily and they entered. The interior was only half lit by waning sunlight, messy, and incredibly dusty. Perhaps the staff had simply rushed out without closing up. It appeared the wind had blown dirt, trash, and other detritus inside for a long time, uninterrupted. Miller studied the floor. There were no obvious footprints. No one had been inside for at least a couple of weeks.

  Miller and Scratch exchanged glances. Scratch wiped his sweaty forehead, clearly relieved. Rat and Miller nodded and moved away from one another for safety. Miller felt relieved too. She really didn’t want to run into anyone, living or dead. They simply didn’t have time to deal with stragglers or fight another nasty battle.

  “Over this way,” Miller said. “Charlie’s office and the station are over on the left, the jail cells are on the right. Everything we need is in the back of the station.”

  They approached the door to the sheriff’s office. This one was open too. The interior was dark, lit only by an open window. A few hungry flies buzzed over some decayed dog droppings. Shadows stroked the walls. The place seemed fairly orderly, just rapidly abandoned. Miller guessed that when the zombies arrived, everyone had rushed out to confront the threat, and in the end no one ever made it back. There was a glassed-in reception area just inside the door, open at the top, and beyond that, the operational part of the station. No bodies or zombies to be seen.

  “Let’s get this door open, and we should be in pretty good shape.” Miller stuck the crowbar in the door jam and pulled. Nothing much happened beyond the squeal of thick wood and dense metal.

  “Here, Penny,” Scratch said, “let me give you a hand.” Instead of coming up beside Penny and standing next to her, he wrapped his arms around her. He held on for a second like she was some big-titted barroom bimbo he was going to show how to shoot pool. Miller half expected to hear a jukebox playing.

  Miller sidestepped him neatly and efficiently. She cut him down with a look. Rat pretended to study the hallway. Miller shook her head at Scratch and handed him the crowbar. “Why don’t you just do it?”

  “All right,” said Scratch. He flexed his shoulders, inserted the crowbar and pulled. Just got a loud noise. Nothing else happened. He pulled again. “Just give me a second, this bitch is tight.”

  “Fuck this,” Rat said. She slung the shotgun over her shoulder and climbed up on the counter in front of the reception area. Miller watched approvingly. Scratch reddened with embarrassment. Rat just slithered over the top of the barrier, turned her body smoothly and hopped down to the floor on the other side. Unlocking the door from the inside, she opened it and let them in.

  “Thanks,” said Miller. She moved quickly to the gray metal weapons locker. “I don’t think we are going to find anything that useful left around here but sure it won’t hurt to have a look. We always need more weapons and ammo. Scratch, do you think you can handle that part on your own?”

  “I’m on it.” Scratch stuck the pistol in his waistband, twirled the crowbar expertly in one hand, like he had been doing that kind of thing all his life, which may have been true. He grinned and began attacking the door to the locker.

  “Come on, Rat,” Miller said. “I can’t bear to watch.”

  Miller led Rat back into Sheriff Robinson’s office. His door was unlocked. She opened it just enough for Rat to get a peek inside, shotgun first.

  “Clear,” Rat said. She pushed the door open the rest of the way. This one squeaked a bit, a mouse in the claws of a kitten.

  The office was surprisingly neat, and barely dusty, because it had been left tightly closed. Old Charlie was that way, an ex-Marine. There were only a few papers stacked carefully next to the out-of-date landline telephone. The funky old computer was shut down and dark as a politician’s heart. One of the desk drawers was open a little as if Charlie had been surprised while doing some paperwork. Miller said a quiet prayer for Charlie. He’d been a good man and a decent kisser.

  A stained wooden cabinet, some kind of a wardrobe, stood off to one side.

  “In there,” said Miller, pointing to the wood cabinet. “If it’s here, then we should find it in there.”

  Rat walked up to it and opened the door. Inside was hung Charlie’s ballistic vest and uniform jacket. Miller felt bad for him. There were also a few sliding drawers, a police radio, and then an even smaller door. Rat looked back at Miller. She reached down, opened the smallest door and peered inside.

  Rat smiled. “Bingo.”

  “Get it spun up. I’m going to see if Scratch has made any progress.”

  Feeling calmer, Miller went back into the main part of the office. She damn near whistled as she sauntered over to where Scratch was still struggling with the weapons locker.

  “You need some help?”

  “If there’s one thing I understand, Penny,” Scratch said, “it’s breaking and entering.” He gave one final, mighty tug on the crowbar, and the locker door popped wide open. Scratch smiled triumphantly. “See?”

  “Nice job.” She patted him on the shoulder.

  “What? No kiss?” Miller couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  “In your dreams.” Miller said. “Stand guard for a minute.”

  Miller figured the men and women had left the station intending to come back for the rest of their supplies. No one had made it. She turned her back to inventory the new weapons. She found an M-4, a couple of high-powered rifles with scopes, and enough shotguns to go around. There also seemed to be enough ammunition left for their purposes.

  “Hold out your arms,” she ordered.

  “Penny,” said Scratch, a bit too seriously. “We need to talk.”

  Miller was taking the weapons down off the rack. She stacked them in Scratch’s arms. “What is there to talk about?”

  “What is there to talk about? Penny, did you hear what I said to you when you were back there at the fucking zombie Thunderdome?”

  She pulled one of the shotguns off the rack, slung it over her shoulder. “I heard you.”

  “Have you forgotten about last night?”

  “Jesus,” said Miller. She scratched her chin. “Was that only last night?”

  “So…?”

  Miller picked up the last and biggest ammunition box. It was heavy, but not quite too heavy to lift. She grunted and moved it to the top of the counter. It thumped down, puffing up dust. “Scratch, don’t you think we can have this conversation another time? I’m a little preoccupied with trying to keep us all alive.”

  “All the more reason to talk about this now,” Scratch insisted. “It doesn’t have to take long. I just want to know how you feel about me.”

  She looked into his eyes for the first time in a long while. Damn, they were nice eyes. Scratch had a sexy growth of beard and his lined, reddened eyes only made him look more interesting. She held them for a long moment then dropped her gaze. “Scratch, I’m still trying to work out what t
o do about Elizabeth’s accusation.”

  “Elizabeth?” Scratch shifted uncomfortably. He was now carrying about forty or fifty pounds of weapons, and struggling to look bored, so he wasn’t able to make any dismissive gestures. “Look, I’m sorry that little girl became zombie chow and all, but you can’t really take what she said about me seriously, can you?”

  “Actually, I can,” Miller said. “I’m an officer of the law. I have to.”

  Scratch reddened again. He scowled. “I didn’t kill her family, okay?”

  “How did you know so much about it, then? How come she identified you, immediately, and without hesitation?”

  “Maybe all us badass killer biker types looked the same to her.”

  She stared at him, trying to discern the truth.

  Scratch looked hurt. “I’m beginning to believe we all look the same to you.”

  “Scratch, wait…”

  Scratch spun in a small circle, peering over the top of the guns in his arms, looking for a way out of the room. Finding no escape, he turned back to her. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

  “Look, Scratch,” Miller said, this time with a kinder tone in her voice. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about this right now. We have to go.”

  “You think I killed them, don’t you? You think I had it in me to murder that little girl’s parents and rape and kill her sister right in front of her. You think I did that?”

  “You see,” said Miller. “There you go. How did you know that’s what happened?”

  “Nothing I say is going to make you change your mind,” Scratch said. “If I tell you I didn’t do it, you won’t believe me. If I tell you it was my crew who done it, I’m an accessory after the fact. So I’m guilty either way.”

  “Is that what happened?” she asked softly. “Was it your crew?”

  Scratch hesitated.

  “You can tell me,” Miller said. “I have to know.”

  “Fine,” Scratch said. “I will tell you and then we get the fuck out of here.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Here’s the way it came down. We were initiating some new blood into the crew. This one guy, Top Notch, had been hanging around for a while. We sent him to rob that house. I swear, that’s all we told him to do.” Scratch lowered his eyes to the weapons gripped in his hands. “But he was some kind of nut job, a real loose cannon. He went and killed that little girl’s family, came back and bragged about it. The way he laughed about what he done, it almost made me lose my lunch.” Scratch looked up. “Funny thing is, I was gonna tell him to take a hike, but then you and your deputy picked Needles and me up, and I never had the chance to make things right. That’s the truth, nothing but the truth, I swear it.”

  “And this Top Notch, what did he look like?” Miller asked.

  “Kind of like me, actually,” Scratch said, as if it had just occurred to him. “Well, if it makes you feel better, later on my crew told me that you and T. L. ran him over coming out of that garage.”

  Miller thought back to the first day after the zombies came. She and Terrill Lee had left his home, backed out of his garage and squashed one of the bikers like a rotten watermelon. In her mind, she could still hear his skull pop. She had been wounded and too dazed to focus at the time. She shuddered. Maybe there was justice after all.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Rat came out of Robinson’s office.

  “We’re all set?” Miller asked. She was glad for the distraction.

  “It’s done,” Rat said. She relieved Scratch of some of the weapons and left him holding the ammo box. “That satellite phone worked perfectly. General Gifford agreed to meet us in West Wendover just as you said he would.”

  “Very good,” said Miller. “Now let’s get back to the Winnebago and get our asses back on the road.”

  “You got it.” Rat headed toward the door, already examining the new weapons. She had a gleeful look on her face. It was pretty clear that she was glad that they were finally going back into action, and looking forward to having her revenge. Miller and Scratch didn’t follow right away. They continued to look at each other. Miller finally nodded.

  Rat paused in the doorway. “Are you two coming?”

  Miller broke eye contact. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  She and Scratch followed Rat back out into the waning daylight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  5:34pm – 0 hours 26 minutes remaining

  “Incoming,” announced Terrill Lee. He peered out the streaked front window. Miller peeked over his shoulder as he pointed. A bright star hung unnaturally low on the horizon, a blaze of light in the rapidly darkening northwestern sky.

  “That’s got to be them.” Miller looked at each of her companions in turn. There was so much at stake tonight. “Okay, everybody out of sight. If they figure out there’s more than Rat and me in here, the party’s off.”

  “No way in hell they can see this far,” replied Scratch. He was still sitting comfortably on the sofa. As one, they all glared at him. Scratch eventually withered under their gaze. “Well they can’t, can they?”

  Terrill Lee said, “Believe me, Scratch, they’ve got optics nowadays that can count the zits on your ass through a rip in your jeans from ten miles out. Come on. Let’s be smart and just go hunker down in the bedroom.”

  “How do you know so much about all this military shit, T. L.?” Scratch rose, reluctantly but smoothly.

  “It’s one of his many hobbies,” Miller said, sourly. “The garage is full of his magazines. Hell, you should have seen the house when he was on his electric train kick.”

  “Jesus, now you’re telling me that you didn’t really like my trains all those years?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Rat said. “Come on, T. L. You can fight with your ex-wife later.” She pushed Scratch and Terrill Lee toward the back of the Winnebago. Lovell followed with a sullen, bored expression on his face. Miller guessed he’d pretty near had enough of Terrill Lee by now. Damn, who didn’t feel that way?

  Miller glanced at the dashboard clock. They had twenty-odd minutes, maybe a little more, before the big bomb went off. Not a lot of time to make this all work. She didn’t like their chances all that much. Raging zombies Miller could handle. A narcissistic asshole such as General Gifford, on the other hand, could be infinitely more unpredictable. Nevertheless, she had skulled this out as well as she could. Miller remembered an old saying from somewhere: “No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.” Truer words had never been spoken, and the thought did little to comfort her.

  “It’s time.” Rat’s voice yanked Miller out of her own little world. The evening was turning chill. The time had arrived. Miller licked her lips.

  Rat stood in the doorway, ready and armed. She was always the consummate professional, cold and efficient as a flash-bang grenade.

  Miller smiled at her. Rat nodded. Miller had an uneasy feeling in her gut but she didn’t want to rock the boat when a wave was coming. She picked up one of the shotguns, hefted it, and felt its weight. It made her feel good to hold on to something she could rely upon.

  “Okay, Rat, let’s mosey on out and shout howdy.”

  Rat and Miller stepped down onto the ground, closed the door to the Winnebago behind them. A light wind tickled the hair on her neck. Shadows crawled rapidly across the deserted buildings and empty streets. Tension filled the air. Rat seemed to feel it too. They stood side by side, as the wind grew wilder, waiting for the big chopper to land.

  Miller had almost forgotten how loud the Super Stallion could be, especially when it was sailing right overhead. Miller craned her neck to watch it pass. The wind lashed her hair around and blew up a cloud of sand and dust. Even Rat was covering her eyes. Miller took a deep breath. She paused to look at the famous West Wendover, Nevada landmark, a giant mechanical neon cowboy, long gone dark. It was standing in the middle of the main drag across from the open field, near where the chopper was set to touch down. That meant the proud state of Utah
was only a few hundred yards away.

  The two women started across the street just as the chopper turned to land. Wind from the rotors slapped at Miller’s face and hair. It was getting colder by the second, and she was hungry as hell. She tugged Charlie’s uniform jacket tighter around her and tried not to shiver. She needed to be in control of herself for this meeting. It had all come down to a few weighted minutes here at the edge of Nevada. Rat stood still as a park statue. Miller took a deep breath. She let it out slowly as the monstrous helicopter touched down about a hundred feet away. The blades began to slow and the big engines quieted down to idle. The pilot left the overhead lights on, so the area nearby stayed bright as a normal day. As they moved across the street their dark shadows melted around them like black streaks of death on the cooling asphalt.

  The chopper’s exterior lights almost blinded Miller at first, but she and Rat had been expecting that, and they shaded their eyes. The contrast between the bright glare and the dark sky made it difficult to see, but Miller still registered when the side door opened to let Gifford, Ripper, and Brubeck exit the helicopter. The military men stood still for a yawning moment. They looked around carefully, eyeballing the alleys and roof tops, checking for an ambush. Ripper and Brubeck were heavily armed and understandably cautious. General Gifford carried only a sidearm and a duffel bag supposedly loaded with the money. Unless this was all just a trap.

  “Guess it’s on,” said Rat.

  “Guess it is.” Miller turned to her. “You were right. Gifford brought the goons along.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t bring an army,” Rat said. “That’s because he has to keep his part in this shit on the QT.”

  Miller squinted. “What about the pilots?”

  Two men appeared in the wide opening, their faces covered by flight helmets. The co-pilots dropped down to the ground. They strolled toward the back of the craft. One proceeded to unzip and piss in the dirt.

  Rat rolled her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”

  Miller nodded. There wasn’t anything else to say.

  Gifford, Ripper, and Brubeck walked forward through the dead grass. The chopper noise covered the sound of their progress. The two pilots stayed behind. It felt like high noon in an old western movie. The men walked steadily forward as Miller and Rat closed the gap. The mercenaries kept a wary eye out, but for his part Gifford marched straight ahead as if unconcerned. Finally, Miller and Rat met the men about halfway between the Winnebago and the chopper, close enough to be heard over the idling engines. Miller could almost hear the clock ticking in her head. Time was a’wastin’.