"What about you, cowboy," said the sergeant to Terrill Lee. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I know less than she does," Terrill Lee said. "Penny here came to me to fix up that shoulder after she got shot and got all that zombie crap all over her face and clothes and that open wound. I cleaned everything as best I could. She was really brave. So I patched her up and gave her something to wear, and right then…"
Suddenly he stopped, realizing that all the soldiers were now pointing their weapons at Miller.
The Sergeant said, "Are you telling us she's recently come into contact with zombie blood?"
Miller stared at Terrill Lee in disbelief. Could he really be that stupid?
The sergeant keyed his mic on his shoulder again. "Marcus, get moving. One of the prisoners is contaminated. Get us back to base on the double."
"Yes, sergeant," came the static-filled reply. The truck lurched forward, steadily accelerating. They had to hang on to the walls to keep from bouncing sideways into the zombie family. The soldiers stayed away, their weapons trained on the prisoners. They seemed far more scared now. Scratch spat on the floor again, then closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep.
"Nice work, Terrill Lee," whispered Miller. "No wonder you're my ex." Then she added, almost as an afterthought, "You are really one dumb fuck."
SEVEN
Young Corporal Wells moved Miller away from the others and shackled her closer to the three zombies. The creatures continuously pulled at their chains, hungry for flesh. "Damn it," Miller said, "Don't do this. I am not going to turn into one of those things."
The spooked Guardsmen remained unimpressed by her certainty. They held their weapons firmly pointed at her head.
"Terrill Lee, tell them I'm going to be okay."
Terrill Lee opened his mouth. He held it like that for a long moment but shut it again. "You will. Maybe. Aw, shitfire, honey, I don't know."
Miller had finally had it. She lit into him. "Why you squirrel-dicked, pasty-faced, whiney, passive-aggressive little two-pump chump! Everyone told me I was a damned fool for marrying you and boy howdy, were they freaking right. You never could stand up to a fight, not when it mattered. You dumb-assed redneck twit, I need your help—right now—and you can't even concentrate on your package long enough to find the cojones to back me up. What the fuck is wrong with you, anyway?"
Terrill Lee continued his fish imitation, opening and closing his mouth. "Babe, I wasn't there."
"Hell, no. Shitfire. You ain't gonna become one of them things, Sheriff," said Scratch. Spoken with conviction. "I was there. That blood you got on you, it's your own. You'll never get close enough to them zombies." He puffed out his chest and shot Terrill Lee a cocky smirk. "Anyways, not while I have anything to say about it."
A pissing contest? Miller stared at him for a long moment. Men. She smiled. "Look at that, Terrill Lee," she said. "Here I was, going to put Scratch in prison for thirty years, making his handsome sweet cheeks hugely vulnerable to even larger crowds of smelly tattooed men, and he has the guts to stand up for me. What's your fucking excuse you sad-eyed, skinny-gunned twerp?"
Some radio traffic interrupted the ongoing soap opera. "Firedog One-Eight, Firedog One-Eight. This is Crystal Palace. What's your status and ETA?"
The sergeant waived everyone to silence. He keyed the mic on his shoulder. "En route to base, sir. Be advised we've acquired three specimens as ordered. Also, we have reason to believe that we have a living, recently contaminated subject who is as yet unchanged. I repeat, unchanged. We've got her restrained and covered. ETA twenty-five minutes."
"That is outstanding, Sergeant! Haul ass. I want you here in fifteen minutes. And I also want that living subject still living when you get here. Changed or not. You copy that, Firedog One-Eight?"
"Roger, Crystal Palace," said the sergeant. He did something mysterious to his radio. Said, "Marcus, skip every red light between here and base and run over anyone dead or dumb enough to be stumbling through the crosswalk. We gotta get these specimens back in fifteen flat."
"Yes, Sergeant," said the driver. They accelerated yet again. The engine screamed like a stuck pig. After a few moments, a wicked shimmy began running through the entire body of the vehicle. They bounced high and low and sideways as the vehicle roared through the rocky desert. Miller looked out of the open back of the military truck. The wide ribbon of road was just a blur with a white line in it. She estimated that they were going just shy of one hundred miles per hour. She had a worrisome thought, Would I even know it if I was changing? If I was about to die and come back?
The vibrations continued then accelerated as they hit the open highway. Miller's teeth began to chatter. Her stomach went cold and clenched with fear. What were they going to do, put her with the creatures? Experiment on her? She looked at the sergeant and said, "You're making a mistake."
"Won't be the first one," he said. He did not look up.
Miller grimaced. Scratch had his eyes closed and was pretending to take a nap again. She knew his mind was working. Terrill Lee studied his shoes as if they held the key to understanding abstract physics. Miller licked her lips. What a shitty couple of days this was turning out to be. With nothing else to focus on, she turned her attention to the group she'd now dubbed the Addams Family—the zombies chained in the opposite corner of the truck, perhaps a yard and a half away. It was the first time she had a chance to really look at a zombie up close and in person, rather than just blowing its fucking head off. They seemed so miserable. So hungry. Part of her felt sorry for them.
One of the zombies was a woman in a dress. Miller guessed her at around thirty years old, though in the condition she was in, she could have been any age from eighteen to seventy when she'd died. The woman had become that emaciated. She looked like she had become completely dehydrated, just shriveled up like a raisin. Her skin had a sickly green hue to it. If this had been a dead body—and Miller had seen more than her fair share of corpses as a small town Sheriff—Miller would have guessed that she had been dead for around a month. Her skin was like parchment, paper thin and torn in multiple locations. The woman also looked as if she had walked through a pane of glass. Her ear was missing, as was part of her scalp. There was a gash where her throat used to be. Miller guessed she'd had her throat torn out by some other zombie before coming back. Not a pretty way to go… or end up. Miller pictured herself, a zombie lady in a wedding dress, wandering through the sand, eternally empty and endlessly moaning. She trembled at the thought.
Miller turned her attention to the little girl. She wore overalls with flowers embroidered on the front pocket. By her height, Miller guessed she was about seven years old. She was in much better shape than the woman. Her skin was pale white but still soft looking, as if she had died within the last few hours. Her only visible wound was on her face. Her nose, lips, and chin were all missing, exposing bare teeth and nasal bones. No blood ran from her face. The ugly sight unnerved Miller. There was no reason for this to be happening, any of this. Miller was used to the damage that humans could inflict on each other, but whatever caused the zombie outbreak was unlike anything she had faced in her worst nightmare. The fact that this little girl was cut down just as her life had begun, well, Miller could accept that. Shit happens. But the idea that the little girl had then been reanimated into this… this ghoul? No, that was almost too much to handle.
Those eyes. So empty…
Nothing left in there but a terrible hunger.
The moment spun away like a dust devil twirling on the hardpan. The little girl pulled at her chains, gnashing her bared teeth, whimpering piteously. She strained to reach Miller. Her dead eyes seemed infinitely sad, and that moment was enough to break Miller's heart. Sorry, baby. She wished she had a gun to just put these three poor fucks out of their misery.
The truck sped on. No one would look at her.
Miller examined the man. He wore a bloodstained white coat and scrubs. Some kind of a doctor, or maybe a lab worker.
Miller peered at what looked like a name embroidered on his coat, but she couldn't see through the gore and splatter. Had he been in the emergency room when the first victims came in? Somewhere trying to patch one of them up? He was even more emaciated than the woman, just a walking skeleton. His eyes were sunken, his grey-green skin practically mummified. Still, the hollow man pulled at his chains and moaned. Guess we can now quit arguing over the state of the healthcare industry.
Miller turned to the soldiers. Her gaze roamed over them. None of them would look back. It was as if she were already dead, or perhaps on the way to some kind of horrific experimentation they did not even choose to think about. Was she already a zombie herself, and just didn't know it yet? Miller sought the eyes of one soldier in particular. Corporal Wells. It clicked. She was sure now. He was the son of her dead deputy. They'd met a couple of times over the years. Yet Wells was pretending he didn't know her. Fair enough. He must have his reasons. But how could she tell him what he needed to know…?
RRRrrrrrip. A tearing sound. Movement caught Miller's attention. She looked just in time to see the dead man's arm come away from his shoulder out of the sleeve of his white lab coat. He then pulled at his other wrist, which was still chained to the truck. That hand came off with an audible pop. And then Doc Zombie fell upon the closest living person, a private who sat stunned though his weapon remained at the ready. The poor kid didn't have enough presence of mind to shoot. He screamed when the thing bit him on the face. The chomping sounds were disgusting. They kind of thrashed and went still. His blood pooled at his feet.
Miller ducked down as the other Guardsmen found their trigger fingers. They immediately unleashed a hell storm of bullets. Both Doc Zombie and the private were blown to hamburger, rendered unrecognizable by the gunfire in a matter of seconds. Miller stayed low, hoping that these undertrained motherfuckers didn't go wild and take themselves and their prisoners out at the same time.
As the last bullets were fired, the truck swerved violently to the left. Uh oh. At the speed they were going, it took less than one pounding heartbeat before the truck began to rock over to the right, onto two wheels. Miller could feel the floor become a wall as the fast-moving vehicle went over sideways. Terrill Lee and Scratch both shouted obscenities, neither particularly clever nor funny. The soldiers panicked and dropped their weapons, scrambling for something to hold on to. They started to roll over. Miller held on with all her might to the rings holding her shackles. Things got very focused and slowed way down. Miller tightened her muscles and held on, just hoping to survive this latest disaster. Change meant opportunity if she could stay alive.
The truck skidded over on its side, squealed loudly as it threatened to roll again, onto its roof. A horrendous metallic screeching, sounds high and low and much like the moan of a horde of approaching zombies, emanated from the truck's frame. It slid down the highway, moving fast. Miller held on, screaming silently. Something sturdy attempted to stop the truck's progress, but merely altered its path instead. Whatever it was then sent the truck spinning violently in circles. Miller just closed her eyes and held on tight. A moment later, the truck crashed into another object WHUMP and finally came to an abrupt stop. She opened her eyes.
You got to be fucking kidding me, Miller thought.
The zombies were loose! The little girl jumped up on one of the soldiers—the sergeant. She bit him on the left shoulder. He screamed. He attempted to shoot the girl in the temple, but instead managed to take the top off the head of his neighboring Guardsman. Meanwhile the zombie woman must have decided that the sergeant was a prime target, because she crawled over to him and bit him high on his left leg. She tossed her head like a big cat, ripping to and fro, coming away with a huge chunk of flesh.
Corporal Wells took them out without killing the others. Two clean shots and both went down.
The Sergeant raised his hands. "No! Wells, I'll be fine, wait!"
Wells shot the pleading Sergeant in the forehead. He went down hard and fast. A wide spray of brains, bone and blood soaked the bottom of the truck. It was over.
Miller looked around. She wanted to see who else had moved. Terrill Lee groaned. He now dangled upside down from the bench he had been sitting on, which was above his head. Scratch lay still, eyes closed. Miller couldn't tell if he were alive or dead. Darla hung from her restraints. As expected, she just sobbed. Two surviving Guardsmen, a man and a woman, lay at the bottom of the truck. Both were struggling to get back to their feet and find their weapons. All the other Guardsmen were toast.
"Willie," said Miller. "Help us."
Corporal Wells looked up. His face changed when she used his first name. "I don't know if I can do that, Sheriff," he said. He spoke with an odd combination of respect and disdain. "For one thing, how do I know you aren't going to attack us?"
"I won't. I give you my word."
Wells sagged. He held his weapon loosely at his side, unsure what to do. "I mean, I'm surprised you're not changing already."
"Willie, I'm not a zombie, I don't know why, but I don't plan on being one. Ever. Now do us all a favor and unlock these chains so we can defend ourselves. Let's try to work together."
"That ain't a good idea," Corporal Wells said, mostly to himself. He seemed to study his options carefully. They weren't great. He could kill them all and be sure. Or he could trust them and take a chance, maybe live another day. Hmmm.
Finally Wells pulled a knife out of his pocket. He cut Terrill Lee's flex-cuffs, who rubbed his wrists and ankles. Then Scratch's—who promptly crumpled to the floor. Wells freed Darla who sobbed with gratitude and went to her knees. Then he approached Miller. Watching her carefully, his hand close to his sidearm, Wells unlocked her wrists. As the blood began to flow back into her fingers, Miller sighed. She rubbed her raw skin. Her arm brushed up against her dress, and it came away smeared with blood. She looked down at herself, checking herself for wounds, but quickly realized that the fine mist of the sergeant's brains and blood now covered her torn wedding dress. She had almost forgotten that she was still wearing the fucking thing. She made up her mind that the first thing she was going to do when all this shit blew over, assuming she couldn't find a new uniform, was to find a proper pair of jeans.
Miller looked around, and her eyes settled on the motionless figure on the bottom of the truck. Scratch. She went over to him, kneeled down and checked his pulse. It was there, weak but there. Miller took a deep breath. She couldn't have dealt with another death. Not right then.
"Terrill Lee," she said, without looking up.
Terrill Lee just sat on the bottom of the truck, stunned.
"Terrill Lee," she repeated. "Get your ass over here and let's help him out." Miller raised her head. She shot him a look that could have boiled raw eggs.
Finally, he looked up and focused on Miller. "Penny?" he asked, as if just recognizing her. "You okay?"
"At least you're consistent," said Miller. "Absolutely fucking useless."
Miller studied Scratch. She knew CPR, but somehow that seemed both gross and inappropriate. So the best she could come up with was to slap him. Hard.
"Scratch, wake up."
"He's dead, ain't he?" demanded Darla. She wailed. "That's just great. Now we're all gonna die."
Miller studied her. Darla's wrists were bleeding. She held her arm, and blood welled up under her fingers.
"No we ain't," Miller said firmly. She turned to Wells and said, "Willie, you do something for her."
"Macumber is the medic," said Willie. He indicated a buff blonde man who was sitting up, holding his buzz cut head. "Do what the lady says, private."
The soldier named Macumber dragged himself onto his feet. He went over to Darla. He bound her arm with some gauze from a green pouch. Then he came over to Scratch, examined him too. "If he wakes up," the medic said, after a few tense moments, "he should be fine."
"If? What do you mean, if? Soldier, is he going to wake up or not?"
"Lady, I have no fucking clue," said
the medic.
EIGHT
The truck stank of offal and blood, fear and dust and gasoline. Wells reached down to pull the radio off the sergeant's belt. He keyed the microphone. "Crystal Palace, this is Firedog One-Eight. Do you copy?" Crackling static responded. Wells repeated the call three times before giving up. His weary expression said it all. He was a young man who looked ready for a rest home.
"Looks like we're on our own," Wells said. His voice came from far away. The skin under his right eye twitched. "Oh, man."
"Willie," said Miller softly.
"Do me a favor, Sheriff Miller. Stop calling me Willie. My lousy, drunken asshole of a father calls me that."
"Called you that," corrected Miller. "I don't know how you're going to react to this, but he didn't make it through that first night." There, she'd said it.
Wells stared at her. He studied her for a long moment. He seemed to search himself for emotion. "Huh," Wells said, finally. "Maybe sometimes them zombies ain't so bad after all."
"W…" Miller caught herself. She pulled his correct first name out of the dense fog in her mind. "Lance, don't say that. Your father was a good man."
"Explain that shit to my Mom. Oh, that's right. You can't. She left us years ago."
"I know," Miller said. She nodded sympathetically, thinking: What the fuck? Like we have time for family therapy in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? Wake up, kid. "Look, we gotta get out of here right now, gotta go get us some help. Too many people have already died. Enough for today. Let's just make sure we ain't going to join them any time soon. Suck it up."
"Right." Wells nodded, responding to her attitude. His voice strengthened. "Fulton, Macumber. Follow me. We gotta get the Sheriff here a sit-rep." Without another word, the three soldiers hoisted their weapons, glad to have something to do. They carefully stepped over their dead comrades and headed outside into the glaring sunlight. The sight was macabre. Carnage in and behind the truck. Out the back Miller saw the surface of another planet. Empty desert, dried sage, cactus. Dust devils twirled around blood splatter and strange globs of purple and red flesh.
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