The Hungry 5: All Hell Breaks Loose (The Sheriff Penny Miller Series) (29 page)

Rat looked back at her. “I can vouch for that, Penny. What happened?”

“I don’t know. I think I need about two months of training to get used to these controls. The light just blinked off. Any luck with the engine?”

“No,” shouted Scratch. He turned to Rat, who was reaching for a bank of switches. “Would you knock that shit off?”

Frustrated, Rat unstrapped herself from her seat in the front and came aft. “I think now would be a good time to start discussing that plan B, Penny.”

“All right,” said Miller. She stood from her chair in the low cabin of the aft section and went to the hatch. There was a big wheel that presumably opened it up. She tried turning it, but it wouldn’t spin. She slapped the wall in frustration. “Screw it. We cannot stay in this junk heap any longer. It’s going to get us all killed.” Miller thought for a few seconds. “Is there any way out of the garage other than through the front doors?”

Rat appeared next to her. “We found some cellar doors in the back corner while you were sleeping, but none of us wanted to know what the hell was down there. They had a chain and padlocks on them.”

“Likely for a good reason,” Miller said.

“Exactly.”

“That may be our only shot.”

Scratch stopped fumbling with the electronics. He interjected his opinion. “I say we take our chances here in the
Land Shark
. I can get this damn thing started, just buy me some time. We don’t even know for sure if those cellar doors lead anywhere.”

“They
have
to go somewhere,” Brandon said. His voice was high pitched again from the rising sense of fear and helplessness. “At least we’ll have a fighting chance that way.”

“Sure, they could be they lead somewhere,” Scratch said, “but maybe into a situation that’s even worse.”

“That’s why we left them all locked up, dumb ass,” Rat said. “Opening them had ‘bad idea’ written all over it.”

Sheppard said, “Let Penny decide.”

“That’s it?” Miller asked. Her head was spinning. “No back door? No helicopter pad? No teleporter pad? Nothing?”

“I can’t tell if you’re being funny, Penny, but yes, there is a back door.” Sweat was streaming down Rat’s pretty face. “The problem is, it leads to a big, open, empty field with no cover whatsoever. We can’t risk that. They will have laid down fields of fire for sure, and those men are heavily armed. All we could do is make a suicide charge like a bunch of Zulu warriors. We’d never stand a chance in the open. You think that is a better choice?”

“No, at this point, our best choice is still getting this truck running,” Miller said pointedly. “But it’s starting to look grim. Our next best option would be to still have access to those two shot-up police cars, but they are outside with the bikers.”

Rolf said, “Walter thinks we should leave now.”

“Thank Walter for me,” Miller said. “Rat, I’d say the big, empty, open field is a very close third choice, suicide or not. But I just don’t see any advantage to going down into the cellar. It might just be nothing but a big box full of zombies, for all we know. Hell, maybe that’s where the one that got our mysterious mechanic came from in the first place. The only possible plus is the bikers might be afraid to follow.”

“Penny?” Sheppard said, weakly. Miller ignored him. She watched Scratch and listened for the slightest sign the vehicle was going to get moving. She got not the slightest whisper of encouragement.
So we are down to the cellar and a suicide charge. Great.

“What a fucking disaster,” she said. She immediately wished she hadn’t said that aloud, but it was too late.

“Penny?”

She looked up. “What is it, Karl?”

“I need you to look at Rolf.”

Miller turned to see Rolf. He was holding up some rolled up paper tubes.

“Here, Chosen One,” Rolf said, moving closer. “This is what I meant.” He handed over a set of blueprints. They had been splattered with what appeared to be dried blood. “Walter told me these were probably in the mechanic’s desk but they weren’t there, so I just kept looking, and I finally found them in his tool kit.”

Miller and Rat unrolled the plans and studied them for a moment. They exchanged looks. Miller deferred to Rat’s expertise. “Does that say what I think it does?”

Rat nodded. “It says that there is another way out of the cellar, an exit set way over by the tree line across the road. If I’m reading this right, it looks like there will be some kind of a sloping driveway that leads up and then out into the woods. Whoever designed this place probably built and repaired race cars. The underground garage allowed him to move projects back and forth without screwing up his view or defacing his farm property.”

“Or getting busted by the cops after a drag race,” Miller said. “The road here is pretty straight and flat.”

The bikers were regrouping. Miller heard noises outside. “Talk to me, Scratch.”

Scratch looked back over his shoulder. He shook his head, defeated at last. “I’m sorry, Penny. She’s toast.”

Miller stood up. “We won’t last long against those bikers out in the open, not without transportation. Short of waiting here in the Land Shark like a can of tuna waiting to be opened, I’d say we’re going to
have
to go down into the cellar. We could at least clear it for zombies and try to find the exit that’s shown on the plans. I don’t much like it, but that’s the hand we got dealt.”

Scratch agreed. “It’s our best shot, assuming it is still there, and that the exit isn’t already covered by snipers.”

“We have the plans,” Miller said. “They don’t, so far as we know.”

“Yeah, it’s the best of our bad options.” Rat crossed her arms defiantly. “The bikers may take one look and come to the same conclusion we did about going down there. They might write us off and choose to let it be.”

“Calling it a bad idea was dead right,” Miller said. “We’ve got a lot of weapons in this crate. So how about we don’t try that move until there is no chance of survival up here in the warehouse, not one second before. If we can put up a fight, we do it.”

“I say take the cellar, but I’m with you either way,” Scratch said.

Miller looked around at the faces of her friends. She hoped their trust was well-placed. At that moment, she wasn’t so sure. “Rolf, you want to weigh in on this?”

Rolf stopped chewing. He listened to the wall. “Walter and I follow you, Chosen One, but he says to tell you that he’s not afraid of a few zombies.”

“Let’s get into the cellar and lock it, Penny,” said Sheppard. His voice was frail but his intentions clear. “Strategically it’s probably the better move. We just can’t stay here any longer.”

“Strategically, right now all we have to deal with are the living,” Miller said, “Adding the undead to the mix doesn’t… Ah, shit.”

Most of the lights in the truck went out all at once. Only a few switches remained lit. They sat quietly in the dark.

“Okay, Scratch. We’re now officially done with this piece of shit. Everyone get the hell out. Make for the cellar doors.”

“I think the hatch is released with that switch near your head, Penny,” said Brandon. He was pointing to a large green and red electric switch mounted next to the door. It was one of the few items in the aft section that still had electricity. Miller pushed that, and the wheel spun and the hatch lowered itself down, thus immediately becoming a staircase. They were free.

Miller stuck her head out of the open hatch. Someone shot at her through the broken window so she ducked back inside again. She studied the monitors. The warehouse door rattled, and someone started kicking at it. Miller gathered her thoughts, weighed her shitty choices and made an executive decision.

“Time’s up. Let’s go.”

Miller picked up one of the M-4s. They were all loaded when they had arrived at the warehouse, so she didn’t bother to check it, except to make sure that a round was chambered. She poked her head out of the side hatch. One of the bikers outside the window saw her and fired. The round broke some of the remaining glass and pinged off the hull of the aft section, right next to Miller’s head. Miller took up a defensive position and fired a three-round burst at the biker. One or more of the shots clipped him, and he went down. Two others pulled back.

“Come on, I’ll cover you,” said Miller. She waved Brandon and Sheppard out of the truck. “Move your asses, everybody head for the cellar doors.”

Sheppard made his way down the stairs as quickly as he could. About halfway down he looked out the window at the steadily brightening morning. “Penny? Look at this. I don’t believe it.”

They stared outside. Their enemies had doubled in size. Patrol cars now swarmed the property, lights flashing red and white and blue. The state police poured out of the cars with weapons drawn. They swept the area and took positions surrounding the building. They did not aim at the bikers, but at the garage. Worst of all, the bikers ignored them entirely.

“Penny, are you seeing this?” Rat was crouched low on the cement floor, shading her eyes against the glare.

“Fuck a duck,” said Miller. “They’re working together for some reason.”

“Why on earth would they?”

Miller said, “Someone big is offering one hell of a lot of money. The Army, maybe, or the government that wants us to shut up and go away.”

“Let’s do this thing,” Rat said to Miller.

“Scratch, bring the bolt cutters. Rat, you take point. Let’s get everyone else the hell out of here. Down below you can argue as much as you want, assuming we’re still breathing.”

They took their positions.

Miller called, “Go, go!”

Rat raced for the cellar doors, staying as low as she could, her combat boots slapping the cold floor. Miller went down the hatchway stairs and out of the Land Shark, followed closely by Rolf and Dudley, then Brandon and a limping Sheppard.

They heard a squawking sound from outside. A loud voice came over a speaker system. “Attention in the warehouse. This is the Idaho State Police. You are surrounded. You have one chance to get out of this situation alive. Throw down your weapons and come out now.”

Rat stood near the padlocked doors, with her weapon at the ready. She cupped her hand and called out. “Penny, I’m thinking the damn cellar is looking pretty good right about now.”

Miller jogged over in the direction of the cellar doors. “Show me.”

Rat led Miller to the cellar doors, which were made of metal and padlocked and chained. Rolf, Dudley and a weary Sheppard were already waiting. Brandon was still looking around on the tool rack. Scratch arrived and began to cut the chain. Brandon arrived seconds later with a couple of beat up flashlights.

Reluctantly, Miller went to a knee. “Okay, this is it then.”

“Looks that way,” Sheppard said. “So what are your orders?”

“I only see two options,” Miller said. “If we don’t find any zombies, we beat feet for the exit and try to slip away without a fight. If we do find zombies, we flush them out, kill most of them and try to guide the rest to our rear. We’ll let the cops and bikers deal with them instead of us.”

Sheppard nodded. “Make them our cover, like you did back at Crystal Palace. That way, the bad guys will think we’re already dead.”

“Or so we hope.”

The police speaker system started up again. “You have ten seconds to comply.”

“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a shot of zombie juice right now,” said Miller, mostly to herself. Superhuman strength sure would have come in handy. Scratch had finished cutting the chains. He stood back. Miller waved everyone away from the entrance. She looked over at Rat. “Open it up.”

Rat lowered her weapon and shot the lock off. It took her a moment to get the ruined mess off the hasp. Someone outside fired nervously in response, then a few of the others. The man with the bullhorn ordered everyone to cease fire and it got quiet again. An assault was definitely coming. Rat threw the cellar doors open, revealing a short staircase that led down into absolute darkness.

“Rolf and Dudley first, Scratch and me, then Karl and Brandon, and Rat closes up behind us. Everyone got that?”

“Got it.”

Rolf and the dog headed out. Miller went next, carrying her M-4. The others quickly followed as instructed. When Rat pulled the doors closed behind them the world down below went pitch black, except for a few emergency lights that seemed way too far away.

They waited at the bottom of the cellar stairs while Rat chained the doors closed. She made enough noise to wake the dead—or to attract the attention of the living, which was just as big a concern at the moment. Brandon held the flashlight on her. When she was done, she came forward into the weak beam of light.

“Okay, done. Penny, here’s what I was thinking…”

Miller’s mind was three moves ahead. “Rolf, you and Dudley are on point. Let’s move out.” They all began walking into the nearly pitch black cellar. That is, all but Rat, who remained behind. Miller didn’t notice at first.

“You know something Penny? I don’t say this very often, but you’re wrong.”

Miller stopped dead in her tracks. She went over to Brandon and snatched the flashlight out of his hand, and shined it directly on Rat’s face. “You want to say that again, Francine?”

Rat took two steps forward, bringing her face to face, nose to nose. The flashlight pointed up at their features, giving them an eerie, ghost-stories-around-the-campfire kind of look. “I said you’re wrong.”

Miller considered her options. She didn’t have time for a mutiny. But she was also tired and hungry and she wanted to be anywhere but in a deep dark pit. “What’s your problem, exactly?”

“Do you remember what I told you about how I got the handle ‘Rat,’ Penny?”

“If I ever knew, I forgot. I just figured it’s because your name is Hanratty.” Miller was too exhausted to remember that far back. Months ago now seemed like decades.