The Hungry (Book 3): At the End of the World (8 page)

The bright sun split the clouds, glanced off the snow, and momentarily scorched their eyes as Miller, Scratch, and Crosby headed across the street at a jog, only slowing as they approached the crowd outside Kent’s General Store. Miller was already starting to think of the murmuring crowd as a mob, and she reminded herself not to lose sight of the individuals who made up that mob. Her training told her that individuals could be intimidated and controlled; a mob, not so much. She’d do her best. Hopefully, Scratch wouldn’t somehow get in the way and manage to incite a full-blown riot.

The Constable set the tone as they approached the group. “Hey, Fiona,” Crosby said conversationally to the nearest woman. “What did I miss?”

Fiona, who Miller figured weighed three hundred pounds, said, “Carter! Thank God you’re here.” She pointed into the store, up over the heads of the twenty or thirty people pushing to get inside. “Michelle brought in a boatload of fresh supplies last night, and she’s charging ten times as much as usual. That’s downright extortion! It’s profiteering. We can’t let her get away with that! You gotta stop her. I got kids to feed!”

The three closest people in the crowd, also plus-sized women, shouted agreement. They moved forward in concert with Fiona, a sight that put Miller in mind of an NFL offensive line fixing to establish the running game. Meanwhile, the rest of the crowd kept trying to press their way through the narrow doorway into the store. No one got very far, it was all just asses and elbows. The result would have been comical, if one skinny old man wasn’t already nursing a busted nose.

“Let us in, damn it! You can’t do this!”

Crosby stepped back. He paused a moment to look at Miller and Scratch. He seemed exhausted and confused. Miller felt sorry for him but it was Crosby’s village to handle, not Flat Rock and her own responsibility. She had enough to worry about. She shrugged. Crosby took a deep breath and bellowed like a pierced bull charging the matador.

“All right, everyone. I know you’re upset and all, but let’s see if we can’t solve this problem calmly. Buck, Herbie,” Crosby said to the two men wedged firmly in the doorway, “how about you make a hole and let me and my friends here get inside. I’m sure we can all figure this out together.”

The crowd opened up, moving to either side. The guy with the copious nosebleed made it look like the parting of the Red Sea. Miller could see that the General Store was already filled to capacity. With the door now unblocked and the mob quieted, she could hear a woman’s voice shouting hysterically.

Scratch said, “Looks like it’s on.”

Miller heard the shrill voice saying, “I’m telling you, those are the prices. You can take ‘em or leave ‘em.”

Miller pushed steadily forward. When the people inside saw Crosby entering, they made room for him. The noise level decreased dramatically. The authorities had arrived. These people still believed in the local law. They obviously didn’t have a clue what was about to hit the village. Still, they knew something had gone wrong. Miller wrinkled her nose. The bodies in the room were frightened and some of the townspeople clearly hadn’t bathed recently. The joy of a fresh bath hadn’t lasted long.

“Carter!” shouted the harried woman behind the counter. “Get yourself in here and do your job.”

“I’m right here, Michelle. Everybody settle down. Whatever’s going on, let’s talk, we’ll figure it out.”

As Crosby, Miller, and Scratch moved through the rest of the crowd, Miller got a good look at the woman behind the counter. Michelle was average height, with a slim but athletic build and an aquiline face. She sported red hair, one shade lighter than Miller’s own, that flowed down around her shoulders. She wore a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and a green, unbuttoned flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up above her elbows. She looked angry, scared, and relieved all at the same time. The three of them closed the distance, Miller gently moving aside a thin brunette with thick glasses who was maybe a dozen years past pretty.

“Hey, Michelle,” said Carter, as casually as if he had met her on the street. “Wanna fill me in?”

“I’m trying to run my business.”

Before Michelle could say anything else, the crowd started shouting again.

“She’s ripping us off.”

“Extortionist!”

“What gives her the right to cheat us like that?”

Crosby raised his hands, palms toward the floor. “All right, all right! I get that you’re upset. But you’re going to have to behave yourselves. Knock it off, or I’m going to clear the store and have Michelle close her doors until I can sort this thing out.”

Miller thought Carter was doing a decent enough job. She stood back and exchanged looks with Scratch, who was staring at Michelle slack-jawed. Miller registered his expression but didn’t have time to wonder what it was about. Her mind was on the mob. A few of the people didn’t like being told to quiet down. They urged others forward and some started shouting. But most of the crowd—and Miller estimated there were at least seventy people jammed in the little store—got the message. The calmer folks eventually shushed the noisy ones.

“That’s better,” said Crosby. “Michelle, are you okay?”

Michelle brushed some of her long red hair away from her face. “Yeah, now I am. Sorry I yelled at you that way.”

“I hear you brought in some fresh supplies last night.”

“Yeah, I…”

A voice from the crowd shouted, “And she’s selling canned goods for an arm and a leg, the bitch.”

“Look at this, Constable,” said a man standing nearby. He pointed to a sloppy handmade sign hastily thumbtacked above a rack of shelves that stood right in the middle of the room. “She wants thirty dollars for one damn bag of rice.”

“I hear you. You don’t need to shout.”

“Thirty dollars!”

“That does seem a bit much,” Crosby agreed.

“She’s got fresh meat back there, and she want’s fifty dollars a pound for it,” offered a male voice. Miller felt the undercurrent, a coiled spring of rage. She could imagine these folks rioting and lynching someone. They were clearly terrified and really pissed off, and that was a lethal combination. If the woman was profiteering she was likely breaking the law.

“Hey,” shouted Michelle, in an exasperated tone. “You wouldn’t believe what supplies are going for down below in the flatlands. I just paid through the nose and raced back up here. You should be happy that I was able to get this stuff at all.”

“Michelle,” said Crosby, stepping around the counter, “may I speak to you privately?”

“You can speak to me anywhere you like, Carter, but it ain’t going to change my prices, not after what I paid down the mountain.”

Crosby turned to the crowd. “Now, you folks behave yourselves. I’m going to get this straightened out. We won’t be a minute.”

The Constable and Michelle headed towards the back. Miller held Scratch by the waistband of his jeans, one finger hooked over his belt. Scratch was still staring at the woman like a hound trying to understand the MTV Awards. Miller wondered why. She watched as Crosby and the woman disappeared behind a curtain.

Almost as soon as they were out of sight, another shout rose up outside. The crowd surged, moving toward the new distraction. Scratch began to move with the others, but Miller held him back for a second time.

“Let them go,” she said.

“Why?”

“We’re outsiders in this village. Keep your powder dry a while longer. Let’s see how all it shakes down.”

“You’re the boss.”

Scratch still seemed distracted by something. Miller didn’t have time to ask by what. Almost as quickly as the crowd closed in, they opened up again, now pressing against the walls and shelves. Someone started shrieking.

“Help! She needs a doctor! Someone get Carter!”

And then two people came bursting into the General Store. One was a dirty, bruised, bloody woman dressed in torn rags that were splattered with blood. She had dead leaves and spider webs in her hair. The other was helping the hurt woman stay on her feet, urging her on and keeping her from falling to the floor. Miller felt Scratch as he stiffened beside her, shocked and more than a bit pissed off.

The voices in the room were all whispering the battered woman’s name.

“Greta!”

Miller’s head snapped around. She focused on the woman’s face. The figure before her was so damaged and torn as to be almost beyond recognition. Greta? Yes, underneath the grime, it was clearly the woman who had stolen their money and taken the minivan the night before. With all those fresh wounds and open sores, the first thing that came to Miller’s mind was a zombie. But Greta was talking quietly to the person helping her. She wasn’t dead. She was still alive, still human.

Still, that didn’t make Miller feel any better. Greta looked like hammered owl shit.

Greta’s frightened eyes scanned the room. They finally settled on Scratch and Miller.

Greta said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “How could you do this to me?”

“Do what?” Scratch and Miller answered in unison.

One of the cranked up, hostile men came forward from the crowd. “Did this guy hurt you, Greta?” He didn’t even wait for a response. He and two friends, filled with adrenaline and hatred, all large and mean-looking, started right for Scratch, flat out happy to have someone to beat on. One of them pulled a hunting knife. The other grabbed a heavy metal ladle from a rack of kitchen utensils. Things were about to get butt ugly.

“Wait a minute,” Miller said. “Take it down a notch.”

Scratch said, “Mister, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t touch her. She stole from us!”

But the hostile men kept coming forward. They were too high on anger and fear to listen. Greta looked beaten and raped and her arrival had given them a reason to seek revenge. The crowd parted to let them close the gap. The mob mentality had emerged. Some eyes were feral, looking forward to witnessing the violence to come. They didn’t care who won or lost, so long as someone paid a price for their terror.

“Hold on there, everyone,” Miller said, in her best official voice. The men ignored her. Scratch growled and shifted his feet to take them on.

Miller had only a second or two to come to a decision. She unsnapped the restraint on her holster, yanked out her old school weapon, and pointed the .357 at the face of the man directly in front. She focused on the spot between his eyebrows. Her hands were not shaking.

“Freeze,” Miller said. He froze.

As Miller had hoped, her face and tone—and the weapon—brought the men up short. The one who was the focus of Miller’s dead on aim looked ready to pee himself. The other two heroes stumbled over themselves in their attempts to fade back into the crowd.

Miller said, “You need to think this over more carefully, citizen. Let’s both take a deep breath.”

“Carter?” the man with a bloody nose shouted. “You’d best get yourself on out here, right now!”

Miller kept her aim on the bigger man, who licked his dry lips. He was rigid and alert, but also steady. He was taking her measure. Miller took his and instantly knew she’d win. She moved her finger onto the trigger, and could see the man watch her do it. She almost didn’t hear Scratch when he called her name.

“Penny!” Scratch put his hand on her left arm. That finally got her full attention.

“What is it, Scratch?” Her voice held even. “This had best be important.”

“Look at Greta.” Scratch whispered urgently. “Do it now.”

Miller eased back and turned her head. “Ah, shit.”

Greta was having some kind of seizure. The woman was shaking like an old fraud at an Ouija board. Her eyes had turned bad and gotten all clouded over. Drool hung from the corner of her mouth. She moaned
uh hunh hunh huh
, and then she was changed in a finger snap. The human vanished, gone, turned to zombie. Greta snarled. She started stumbling forward with that vapid undead leer on her face, and it all happened fast, Miller wavering from the angry man, reluctant to take her eyes of him, Greta spotting her and moving forward, Miller shifting her stance, but a bit too slowly; Greta closing the gap and reaching out for Miller.
Uhh… hunnh!

Miller didn’t hesitate any longer. She abruptly waved the big man away and he nearly fell to his knees with gratitude. “Everyone back away!” she shouted. Miller turned the revolver on Greta, found a safe shot that wouldn’t put a hole in one of the citizens, lined up smack dab in the center of the dead woman’s filthy forehead, and pulled the trigger.

BAM!
The spray of blood and brains coated the shocked the villagers and sprinkled all the overpriced merchandise. Time froze and silence reigned for a split second.

Someone shouted, “Sweet Jesus!” It was Michelle.

Greta’s lifeless body sagged into a clump of bones and dirty rags. The fresh corpse fell and struck what was left of its head on the hardwood floor.

As one, the crowd screamed and ran, several folks grabbing cans and sacks of rice and other items on the way out. In a few seconds, the store was empty of townspeople—also much of the merchandise. Miller’s hands finally started to shake. She’d feared striking one of the civilians and had known how risky the shot was. She was amazed no one else had been hit. Miller swallowed dryly. She was still aiming at Greta’s corpse, out of habit, just in case it got up and came after her again.

Miller looked up to see Crosby pointing his gun at her. He and Michelle were covered in a light mist of Greta’s blood. A dainty white chip of her skull perched bird-like on the brim of Crosby’s hat.

“Drop your weapon,” said Crosby. “Do it now!”

“Carter,” Scratch said, putting out his palms. “It’s okay. That was a zombie.”

Crosby’s attention never flickered from Miller. “Put the gun down!”

He still has no idea what he’s up against here.
Miller didn’t even bother to look at Crosby. She bent down and placed the revolver on the wooden floor. Miller stood and put her hands on her head.