The Hungry 5: All Hell Breaks Loose (The Sheriff Penny Miller Series) (3 page)

Scratch looked at Sheppard, then over at Rat. Adopting a wide grin, he pulled a small object from his pocket and pushed a button. Two chirps came from the garage next door. Scratch looked like a kid surprising his Mom. “Wait till you see what we found.”

Miller had a pretty good idea already.

Scratch ran to the next house, a kid coming downstairs Christmas morning. He pulled the garage door up with a flourish. It slid open easily. Inside, hidden in shadow, was a tall black pickup with tires sturdy enough to drive over molten lava. A shiny supercharger protruded out of the hood. The red and orange flame job down the sides completed the picture. No wonder Scratch was excited. It was one hot ride.

“Damn,” said Miller as noncommittally as possible. “That’s Eugene’s new truck. He was going to let his kid have it when he left for school. It’s one hell of an all terrain truck. I’m surprised that Eugene and his family didn’t take it with them.”

Sheppard looked at the concrete driveway, suddenly refusing to meet her eyes.

“Uh, about that?” Scratch cleared his throat. “We found a couple of bodies with their heads blown off in the living room and another one in the hallway. Looks like the kid turned first and came straight back inside. Dad did the rest. You don’t need to go look, that’s for sure.”

Miller hardened her heart. She had liked the O’Neills. “It’s a good truck. It should do. Nice find, Scratch.”

“You’re okay with this, then?”

“Take it. Gene won’t mind.” Miller nodded to Sheppard. “You’re driving with me in the Hummer. Let’s go.”

Scratch stepped in front of her. “Hey, I thought you were coming along.”

“Cool your jets, cowboy. You can take me for a spin in your new toy some other time. I got something to discuss with Karl anyway.”

“You mean I got to take Rat?” demanded Scratch.

“Don’t sound so thrilled,” Rat replied. “Hell, I’m sure glad I didn’t shave my legs for this date.”

“You’ll be fine, Scratch.” Miller turned to Sheppard. “Remember what I said about staying close. Let’s go.”

Miller and Sheppard walked back to the Hummer. She opened the door and climbed up into the passenger seat. The fabric was already hot on her butt and legs. She almost looked back at her house, but caught the impulse in time.
What’s dead is dead.
Miller waited for Sheppard to climb in. He buckled his seatbelt, looked her way and started the vehicle. The engine roared to life. He pulled out onto the street, avoiding running over the bare skeletons that dotted the road.

“I’m not pregnant, Karl,” Miller said, abruptly.

Sheppard didn’t look at her. “What makes you so sure?”

“The test came up negative. I’m not pregnant.”

Sheppard sped up, now heading for the highway. He remained silent as he drove down to Silver Street and turned on Clark. Miller studied him, puzzled. She had expected some kind of a reaction. Finally Sheppard just said, “I know.”

Miller studied him for a long moment. The town passed by outside seem like a blurred photograph. She was having trouble identifying the precise nature of her emotions, but they were fluctuating somewhere between rage and absolute incredulousness. “You
know?
What do you mean? How could you know?”

“I’m sorry I worried you. I made that up to protect you. It was my last weapon against Rubenstein. I knew if he thought you could become pregnant he would never allow you to die.”

“Allow me to die, huh? There were a couple of really good opportunities for him to allow me to die back at Crystal Palace, remember. I damn near did, as I recall. So did Alex. So did a lot of people. You should know, Karl, you were there.”

“Nevertheless, when it counted, my idea worked.”

“You know something, Karl? You’re turning into a first-class manipulator. Sometimes I wonder if you’re not secretly a sociopath.”

“What kind of thing is that to say?” Sheppard took his eyes off the road to scowl at her. “I’ve always…”

Miller grabbed him by the wrist. She squeezed as hard as she could—which all things considered wasn’t that hard. A few days before she’d been accelerated and given super soldier abilities, but the declerant she had been forced to take made her lose all of the incredible strength and speed she had acquired. “I swear to God, if you say you’ve always had my best interest at heart, I will throw you out of this Hummer and let you walk all the way to Idaho.”

“You’re hurting me, Penny.” Sheppard spoke as calmly as he could. “And there is a car crash up ahead. I need to be able to turn the steering wheel.”

“Good, then you’re getting the message.” But she let go of his wrist.

“What I meant to say,” Sheppard said, as he headed toward the open highway, “was that I think that once we get back to civilization, I’ll need to take what I know right to the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization. It’s the right thing to do.”

Miller leaned back in the seat. The sun bored right through the tinted windshield. She closed her eyes for a moment. “All right. Now we’re back on the same page. The CDC is probably already up to its neck in zombie data. So I’d vote for the WHO.”

“I agree.” Miller felt the Hummer twist and turn as Sheppard maneuvered through a long line of wrecked vehicles. She listened to the huge engine. It accelerated as they headed out onto the relatively open highway. Miller opened her eyes. She glanced in the side view mirror, just to check that Scratch and Rat were still there. She hoped they hadn’t killed each other yet. The answers seemed to be yes and no, in that order.

“We should stop for fuel.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Sheppard said. “We managed to salvage some gas cans from the garage next door to you. I’m sure there are a lot of abandoned stations along the route, and wrecked cars to siphon from. This one has maybe a quarter of a tank left, and the truck is nearly full.”

“We don’t have to wait to top off,” Miller said. “There’s a service station just up ahead. A friend of mine used to own it—that is, before he turned zombie and Father Abraham’s cannibals got a hold of him, and all that.”

“You’re talking about your old friend Luther… something?”

Miller nodded. “Grabowsky.” She left it at that. Luther had appeared in some very disturbing dreams, and though those had finally faded away, Miller didn’t like saying his name aloud.

“Okay, which exit?”

“Two more. Cactus Lane.”

The plague had taken most people before they’d had a chance to get far down the highway. Cars were here and there like lost toys, some had skeletons sitting inside. It wasn’t slowing them down much. Rush hour in any major American city would have been worse. Sheppard drove, sometimes slowing and using the Hummer to shove abandoned vehicles gently out of their way. Scratch and Rat stayed tight on their tail. Sheppard and Miller exchanged looks that spoke of a troubled history. They stayed silent for a long moment.

“Penny?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For everything.”

Miller snorted. “Tell it to the judge, Karl.”

The poor old Gas and Sip had seen better days, most of those a few decades prior to the zombie apocalypse. The four untended pumps were rusty and covered with dust, and abandoned cars littered the cement nearby. The tiny food stand next door was a collapsed wreck. The office roof was sagging. The once-bright colors had faded to a weak pastel. The main building was splintering wood, and several panes of glass were cracked or completely shattered.

There were a few skeletons lying near the door, decaying humans dressed in tattered rags. Miller shaded her eyes. She spotted a few fairly well preserved zombie corpses further out, most missing some or all of their heads. She wondered how long it had been since those zombies had been shot. They looked too fresh. The last time she’d visited Luther Grabowsky’s gas station had been well over six months before. Miller couldn’t imagine why there had been a battle here more recently than that.

That long a time had passed. And yet, here were the bodies of the zombies, desiccated but not really decomposed. The human skeletons, on the other hand, showed little sign of trauma—at least, none that she could see from the safety of their Hummer. No head shots on the people. They were probably just unfortunate humans who’d died without turning.

“Penny?”

Miller did not respond. She pondered asking Sheppard about what might have enabled the zombie corpses to resist the ravages of bacteria, since her ex-husband Terrill Lee was no longer around to drone on about possible explanations. She did not do so, because she had a lot of other things to think about. For example, they had to survive a perilous journey from Flat Rock all the way up to Mountain Home, Idaho. She had given the matter some serious consideration and thought she’d worked things out.

Gasoline was an important part of their survival plan.

“Drive us closer,” Miller said. “Don’t get out.”

They rolled forward. The hot sun had baked the desert floor solid, so the sand and gravel seemed to groan in response to the tires. Sheppard pulled up to the single pump stand. Scratch, driving the pickup, pulled in next to the Hummer.

“Engines off.”

The vehicles went silent. Miller waited a long moment, her tired eyes scanning the abandoned gas station. She’d been ambushed here months back, while peeing alone in a bathroom stall, and wasn’t about to repeat that experience. She listened to the silence. The dead bodies had that customary sweet and sour stench. A wind chime hanging on the porch tinkled in the light breeze. Some papers in the abandoned office rustled. There wasn’t much to listen to.

Miller already had one of her assault rifles out, locked and loaded. She opened the door, and pointed the weapon out toward the main building, the most likely source of a threat. From the corner of her eye, Miller saw that Rat was doing the same thing from her position in the passenger’s seat of the pickup. Rat was closest to the small store. She waited for orders.

Scratch rolled down the window. He smiled and winked at Miller. “Just like old times, eh, Penny?”

“Yeah, it is, but I’m not really in the mood for nostalgia just now, Scratch.”

Scratch’s smile disappeared. “Well, excuse me.”

Miller almost apologized for her curtness but ultimately stayed quiet. She’d need to have a long talk with Scratch, but this was not the time for personal stuff. Miller had never been sentimental, and it bothered her to no end that she seemed to be turning into a romantic. She loved Scratch more than he knew—and that was part of the problem, and also part of the solution.

“What’s the plan?”

Miller looked back at Sheppard, who had removed his hands from the wheel and now held an M-4 rifle, the barrel out the lowered window. She confirmed that he had covered the angle facing out toward the road. The group waited for her decision. Miller nodded. “Get gas, check for nonperishables in the store, and then let’s hightail the hell out of here.”

“Let’s rock,” said Scratch, stepping out of the truck.

Miller looked at his empty hands. “Turds on toast, Scratch. Get armed up.”

Scratch frowned. “I was about to.”

“Hurry it up then. You come outside with me. Karl, you and Rat wait for a moment. Stay frosty. We are officially in enemy territory again.”

Sheppard nodded and raised his M-4 to cover his field of fire. Miller didn’t see Rat’s response, but knew she would comply. Scratch produced Miller’s old Mossberg 500 shotgun from somewhere.

The breeze dropped off and the rustling and the faint tinkling stopped just as Miller stepped down from the Hummer. Now nothing was moving in the entire area. Miller adjusted her sunglasses. She walked forward, weapon at the ready. Gravel and some dead succulents crunched beneath her boots. The place felt like the surface of another planet. It was eerie. Miller didn’t like the complete silence—it made her feel like the whole world was truly dead forever—but she shook off that thought. She had people to protect and a job to do.

“Follow me,” Miller said. Scratch slid into position with the huge weapon gripped in both hands. Miller studied the scene and made her choice. She signaled Sheppard and Rat. They each deployed from their positions in the vehicles. Rat stepped around to view the side of the building. She gave an all-clear signal with her hand. Miller did not relax. She’d seen too many ambushes to let her guard down now. She kept her voice a low whisper.

“Let’s go, Scratch.”

But Scratch ignored her. He headed off to check the pumps. They were filthy and beat up now, but still fairly modern, with credit card readers and digital displays. Unfortunately, that also meant that they were completely useless without power, a valid cash card, a phone line, and perhaps even the Internet. She had none of those.

“Dead here,” said Scratch. “If there’s anything left in the reservoirs, we’d probably be better off pumping it out by hand from the fill points. This can’t be the first time they’ve had a power outage in these parts, right?”

Miller nodded and suppressed a grin. That was Scratch. “Good thinking. There’s a repair station around back, by the restrooms. Scratch, take Rat with you, and see if you can find that hand pump.”

“I’m on it,” he said professionally. He nodded to Rat, and the two of them headed around the corner of the building. Miller had an uncomfortable flashback to her earlier experience with a fat female zombie. Her stomach clenched with alarm.

“Stay together,” Miller called. “And stay the hell out of those restrooms.”

Rat just turned and shushed her.

Sheppard approached Miller, his M-4 still pointed out toward the road. “I’m going to go look in what’s left of the store, see if I can find anything we might be able to use.”

“I’m not real comfortable with that one, Karl. I kind of need to stay out here and keep an eye on the horizon, just in case we get swarmed again. Neither one of us should be alone—that
never
works out. And you know how I tend to attract hordes.”