The Hungry 5: All Hell Breaks Loose (The Sheriff Penny Miller Series) (10 page)

Rolf reached over to snatch the torch out of Brandon’s hand. Rolf’s face looked manic in the torchlight. He sucked in his stomach and puffed out his chest. “Be advised that the approach is treacherous and filled with great peril…”

“Just fucking get us the hell out of here,” Miller said. “That’s an order.”

Dudley shot ahead. Rolf followed. Miller brought her team closer. She left Scratch to watch their rear.
We’ve been in tight spots before,
Miller told herself,
we are not going to die down here today.

Scratch was staring. “Penny?”

Miller turned to face Brandon. “Listen, kid, the next time you suggest we follow a raving lunatic and his dog into the very bowels of the zombie-infested earth, I get to pick the lunatic. Just saying.”

Brandon shrugged and nodded.

Miller turned to follow Rolf and his cadaver dog.

Rolf and Dudley led them through the dark cave at a run. To Miller, their passage seemed incredibly noisy, but when they paused to catch their breath, the soldiers following them seemed even louder. They did not seem at all concerned about being overheard or running into a trap. That part worried Miller. The enemy knew they were virtually unarmed and not much of a threat, and apparently had a pretty damned good idea where they were headed. That did not bode well for their future. Again, she wondered if they were being driven, this time back to the surface where they could easily be killed or captured. They had no reason to believe that the Army wouldn’t be waiting at the other end of this tunnel with a gigantic butterfly net big enough for the six of them plus the dog. Had she allowed them to be led into a trap? It was too late to worry about that. They had no choice but to keep going.

The rush of water now came from their left. Miller could smell something acrid, dirt with the taint of sulfur, and assumed it was the stench from an underground spring. But then she smelled something else, something far more disturbing. Her skin rippled and her heart beat faster. She sniffed the air and caught it again.

The stench of the undead.

Miller felt her pulse jump. She hurried forward to close the distance and somehow convince Rolf to slow down. If he didn’t know about the zombies working in triads, he might accidentally run them right into an ambush.

Miller sensed their presence again before she reached Rolf.

Zombies.
She was sure of it.

Rolf stopped walking. The dog sat down by his side. Dudley had sensed them too. He was growling low and wet from deep down in his chest.

Rat called out, “Penny, what’s going on?”

Miller did not answer right away. She approached as carefully as she could. Her posture alone placed the others on alert. She made it to where Rolf and Dudley stood.

The others closed the gap. Brandon reached them first. “Why are we stopped?”

“Huskarls,” whispered Rolf and Miller in unison.

Scratch, Rat, and Sheppard gathered nearby.

“Penny, I think the Army is closing the gap,” said Rat. “We’re going to have to make a decision and move quickly. If you want, I can take point. This isn’t the first set of caves I’ve been in. I can…”

“Walter says that we must be cautious,” Rolf pronounced. The dog whined as if in support of that statement. Miller studied the animal in the waning torchlight. The fire was beginning to fade. The dog seemed to feel, much as she did, that the danger was close but not yet a direct threat. They had to keep moving or soon they’d be in complete darkness as well as caught between two enemies. Things kept going from bad to worse.

“Cautious?” Scratch whispered. “He says be cautious?”

Rolf nodded.

“Wow, damn good thinking,” said Scratch. He turned to Miller. “Penny, we don’t really have time for this shit.”

Sheppard said, “Penny, listen.”

More racket, more voices. Their pursuers were gaining on them.

Miller nodded. “Rolf, he’s right. I’m afraid that now is the time to throw caution to the wind.”

Rolf turned to face Miller. At once she felt like they were two old souls, tormented to the edge of madness by a world they’d inherited. Something strange seemed to pass between them, something deep, but Miller couldn’t have said what it was if her life depended on it. Especially considering that it pretty much did.

And now they could hear the shuffling, grunting sounds. A horde of zombies was approaching. The creatures seemed to be coming from all sides, their eerie voices echoing all around the caverns. They were out there in the darkness and closing fast. Miller could hear one of the soldiers shouting something, this time with panic in his voice. The pursuers seemed to quiet down a bit. Perhaps they sensed it too, or had heard, or seen something using infrared goggles. There was no time to think about any of that now. Miller would just have to choose and live with the consequences.

“You must rid yourself of your torches now,” Rolf whispered, almost in Miller’s ear.

Then Rolf surprised Miller by handing her the torch he had taken from Brandon.

“I don’t understand,” said Miller. She could feel her frustration with Rolf—and her fear of the soldiers pursuing them—rising to a crescendo.

“You must choose for yourself. But you may not keep the torches in the lair of the huskarls.”

Miller considered blowing it out, or snuffing it under her shoe. But the sounds of the soldiers coming for them made her realize that it didn’t fucking matter what she did, as long as she did it right away.

She threw the torch in the direction of the shuffling sound of zombies that approached them.

The torch shattered into sparks and fingers of white fire flared up the filthy cave walls. The flame revealed shapes and eyes in the shadows.

Something was out there watching.

Miller saw their faces, those dead eyes and missing limbs and gory wounds.

The dying torchlight revealed that the place was packed with zombies. In fact, they were entirely surrounded. The hulking shapes stood motionless against the walls, staring dumbly at the intruding group of humans. They were dull appetite, ravenous rage, and mindless brutality. The eternal hunger of death personified.

“Yes, yes!” Rolf raised his arms. “Throw the fire. Throw it or die!”

Both Scratch and Rat still held their torches. Rat threw hers into the darkness in the opposite direction. It splattered flames that ran down the rocks. Many more zombies packed into that area like cattle in a chute. Strangely, they all stepped forward. They seemed fascinated. They crowded around the dying torch, almost ignoring the humans. Miller found that very odd and weirdly chilling.

A child zombie in footie pajamas caught on fire, and it was soon burning brightly. The little zombie watched itself go up in flames without complaining. It spun in circles, watching the flames. The others stared at the new disaster as if hypnotized. Their once tortured faces were devoid of empathy or fear. Whatever lived in there was intrigued by the blaze.

Another zombie bumped into the burning one, and it also caught on fire. Soon several of the monsters were burning, standing there like a clump of stinky undead human torches. Thanks to all that the humans could see well enough now. There were dozens and dozens of the creatures coming at them from all angles. If they attacked all at once, it would be over within a minute. They did not, but the fire would not last forever. What should they do next? Miller felt pretty much out of ideas.

“Throw it!” Rolf said. “You must.”

“Scratch,” Miller said, “do it.”

“Just what are we going to do for light when we get wherever we’re going?” demanded Scratch. “Rub some twigs together?”

“Just throw the torch, Scratch,” Miller ordered. “They are hypnotized.”

Scratch threw the torch hard, aiming directly for a zombie woman with long white hair and bony features. He struck it squarely in the head. The thing’s hair lit on fire immediately. It stood still as if fascinated by the brightness and heat. The other zombies swarmed toward her like moths. They stood in groups, calmly watched as the flames consumed her decaying flesh.

They reminded Miller of men standing by a holiday bonfire waiting to toast their hot dogs.

“Follow me,” Rolf whispered. “We can go now.”

“Rolf, we’ll stick to you like snails on a mirror,” Miller said.

“Dudley.” Rolf called. He then added something in a guttural voice. It wasn’t German—Miller would have recognized that. Hell, she might have recognized it if it were Klingon, after having lived with Terrill Lee and those constant Star Trek reruns for all those years. But whatever the language was, the dog responded to it immediately. He jumped up and led them away.

The burning zombies around them cast enough light to see their next destination. The group crowded forward. Together, Rolf and Dudley headed into the middle of the biggest cavern they’d yet encountered. The size was jaw-dropping. At the top some sunlight broke through cracks to help their vision a bit.

Miller, Scratch, Rat, Sheppard, and Brandon followed. Miller had been concerned that they would be blind without their torches, but now with the zombies continuing to burst into flames all around them, and a tiny bit of light from above, the larger concern was whether there would be enough oxygen for both the fires and the exhausted, panting humans. The idea of suffocating to death underground did not appeal to her. Of course, neither did the omnipresent stench of burning flesh.

“Where the fuck did all these zombies come from?” asked Scratch. “How did they get way down here?”

“The cult used to worship them, remember?” replied Sheppard.

Rat chuckled. “
Used to?
Think again.”

They paused to catch their breath. One of the zombies, a compact man in a torn business suit, stumbled closer to Miller. It chewed at the damp air and raised its hands like claws. Miller got ready for the kill. She still held the pry bar, so she raised it over her head.
Once through the brain.

Rolf gave a sharp order in that odd-sounding new language, and Dudley leapt out of the darkness. The dog tackled the zombie that had been about to attack Miller. All of this was done without a sound from the dog. The zombie went over backwards and its skull shattered on the sharp rocks. Dudley returned to stand beside Rolf. He was panting and seemed perfectly happy and kind of excited.

Rolf put his hand on Miller’s arm. “Come, Chosen One. We are now on the threshold of the Well of Souls. You must prepare yourself for the first trial.”

Scratch was at Miller’s side in an instant. “What do you mean by the first trial? I thought the point was to get the fuck out of here, not to play more silly-assed games with those pet zombies.”

“Silence,” hissed Rolf. “The Chosen One
must
face the trial.”

“Is she still, like, protected?” asked Scratch. “Just let me in on that much.”

“Not in the Well of Souls,” Rolf replied. “No one is.”

“Is there any other way out of here?” Sheppard asked Brandon.

“Not anymore.” He pointed. Several of the cult members and soldiers following them were emerging into the larger chamber at their rear. Two soldiers spread out intending to flank the opening. Big mistake. A flaming zombie fell on the first one almost immediately, biting him and quickly setting him on fire as well. The man started screaming for help. The zombies swarmed the soldiers, perhaps because the fires were dying down. Another soldier fired but went down under two starving creatures. He shrieked and fired once into the air. Blood shot straight up from his torn carotid artery. The burning zombies and dying soldiers lit the area nicely. Then a third soldier ran for the flanking position and was immediately attacked. The horde closed in at the smell of blood. Gunfire erupted as the soldiers tried to save the others, or perhaps merely fight back.

The zombies are attacking them,
Miller thought,
when they didn’t attack us. Maybe this Rolf guy knows what he’s doing… Or Walter does, anyway.

The cavern filled with smoke that obscured their view as the soldiers and the cult members leading them fought back against a zombie onslaught. It sounded like a massacre. Perhaps the zombies were winning just by their numerical superiority. It was hard to tell with all the flames and screaming and thrashing around. Everything echoed and boomed off the high walls. One thing was for sure, the humans were not going to last long at this rate. It was a slaughter.

“Penny, we gotta go,” said Rat. “It’s your call.”

Miller nodded in the fading light of the closest, slowly extinguishing zombies. “Okay, Rolf, show me the trial.”

Rolf hurried them through another opening.

“The Well of Souls.” Rolf said it proudly. “There is only one way across.”

He paused. They waited.

“And that would be…?” asked Miller, finally. She looked down. Something had caught her attention. It was a bright red dot on her shirt.

A laser dot.

One second later, Scratch tackled her, his weight sending them both sideways. They fell roughly to the ground with a whoosh of escaping breath. The popping sound was barely audible above the combat noise to their rear.

Miller stared up, dazed. The bullet struck the wall right where Miller had been standing just a split second before. Rock fragments rained down. Scratch had saved her life again.

Sheppard and Rat crouched down behind some boulders for cover. They opened fire. The booming noises were horrendously loud. It was like standing near the drum section of a marching band. The two of them went for covering fire only, shooting randomly and quickly, firing fast enough to keep the enemy’s heads down. The red dots appeared but then vanished again as the Army snipers found safer positions.

Miller scrambled to her feet but stayed in a crouch behind a boulder. She looked ahead of them and up high. The faint light from the world above stopped at the lip of the next cave. It was completely dark. Miller barked an order. “Enough of this Well of Souls crap. Everyone, we’re all going through together.”