The pretty woman shook her head. “I'm just a Deputy Sheriff. I couldn't hold this group together. I went along with Rebecca after she found this place, and she did a damn good job at first. Set guard rotations, figured out how to help some people who were trapped down the road in Bainbridge... She was a leader. She didn't start with the crazy until we figured out there was no help coming. That seemed to hit her hard, and she locked herself in one of the maintenance rooms for two days. When she came out again, she started pushing the whole Good of the Tribe agenda. Spent a couple of weeks explaining to everyone how it would help turn us into a 'united collective focused on rebuilding a strong society', or something like that. I didn't pay much attention at the time because I was focused on finding us more firearms and ammunition, just in case a big pack of those things found us. ”
“Speaking of which: If I can get us out of this room, what kind of weaponry do your people have?” Jake felt for the door hinges, thinking he could maybe pry them off with his handy crowbar, but they were on the outside. He pulled a heavy tool from its sheath along his spine and tried to get its chisel tip between the door and the frame as Penny replied.
“There are a some rifles, hunting rifles, another Remington 700 like mine, nine Ruger 10/22's, two Winchester 1300 pump action shotguns, seven Remington 870 Express shotguns, a few Glock 17 .9mm pistols, maybe five or six Beretta 92s, and two Mossberg .22 LRs, not counting my weapons, Will's, Ben's, or Jerry's.”
Jake frowned and gave up on the door-frame. “That's not much for what, seventy-five people? How are you on ammunition?”
Penny shook her head. “We're down to 500 for the rifles, two-hundred for the shotguns, and maybe twice that for the pistols. We do have almost 5000 for the .22s though.”
“Jesus H. Christ on a flying fucking mountain bike.” Jake was shaken. “That’s all?? I was carrying nearly a thousand rounds when you caught me. Hell, I've got a couple hundred on me right now! What the hell have you people been doing these past few months, sitting around campfires singing Kumbaya?”
“Most of the survivors here don't leave the safety of the grainery,” Penny told him hotly, “That's due to our low stores of ammunition and—”
“Low stores is right.” Jake laughed. “I'm shocked you've managed to stay alive this long. One good sized horde would wipe this place right off the map.”
“—and the fact that most are still hoping the cavalry will eventually come streaming over the hill in Bradly Armored Troop carriers, maybe a bunch of Abrams tanks too, to save their asses,” Penny finished.
“That's not going to happen.” Jake gave a mental shrug and decided to tell her what he and Foster had gleaned from the dying Internet, a month prior. He remained vague about where the information came from, but managed to clue her in about the overall state of the world.
Frighteningly, the human race had been pushed almost beyond endurance.
It had begun when some idiot set off a nuclear bomb outside the pyramids, just after the dead rose. George had informed Jake and the others how every country in the region had responded and now, the entire Middle East was uninhabitable for about forty-thousand years.
Russia teetered on the brink back then, while China and eastern Asia had been overrun. Japan had evacuated everyone it could, but millions had been left behind to become part of the massive, moaning horde currently occupying Tokyo. The rest of Europe was pretty much fucked. Germany, France, and Italy each had a few small areas holding out, but all were largely empty now.
There had been a little hope. The Greek Isles had survived almost completely intact. Ireland, during the initial outbreak, had armed itself to the teeth. All the forgotten weapons of yesteryear, broadswords, axes, maces, and shillelaghs had been taken from its museums, castles, even local pubs, and put to use. The military, backed by every civilian who could swing a sword, had cleared the entire Emerald Isle of the creatures. Then, they'd set every ship they had afloat to England, put their shoulders up against those of Britain’s finest, and—at least according to last update—were managing to hold the ancient line of Hadrian’s Wall.
Australia was, to everyone’s surprise, doing quite well. As was Hawaii, Alaska, New Zealand, Cuba, and the northern half of Canada.
The news closer to home wasn’t good. The East Coast was a slaughter house, and the Mid West wasn’t any better. The Deep South had been fighting a running battle, along with the residents of the Great Plains, as they'd retreated to the Rockies. The west, California, Washington, and Montana, along with parts of Colorado and Nevada, had been cut off by strategically destroyed bridges, providing a safe haven if survivors could reach it. The defenders were sitting tight though, letting the dead splatter against the bottom of the gorges and ravines when they attempted to cross the chasms, not advancing eastward.
“Basically, there's not going to be any rescue forays into the eastern states, and there aren't enough soldiers to even think about attempting to reclaim areas from the zombies. At least, not yet.” Jake pulled an American Spirit and lit up. “From what I managed to learn, the government might have a plan to start eradicating the things, but that won't begin for at least two—maybe three—years.”
Penny's face had paled noticeably, even in the darkened room. “But that means...”
“We're completely on our own.” Jake blew sweet nicotine from his lungs as he spoke. “Sorry.”
“Oh my god.” The shapely woman put her face in her hands and massaged her temples. “If Rebecca manages to hold this pack of idiots together—provided a big fucking pod of zombies doesn't stagger by and think, 'Hey, look. Breakfast!'—she'll never consent to these people being reabsorbed into another community. She, and they at her urging, would fight it all the way. It'll turn into another Waco.”
“It'd be a blood-bath,” Jake told her firmly. “If—or when—the military gets its shit together, they'd roll through with enough manpower to stomp large numbers of zombies, any resistance Rebecca's group mounted, like a jellybean.”
Dropping her hands, Penny looked as if she'd vomit. “I had friends here. I knew some of these folks before the outbreak. They were good people, once.”
“And they just paired you off with the first guy that came along. Nice friends. Remind me not to invite them over for a barbeques when we move into the new house.” Jake's brow creased as he attempted to come up with a plan of escape once more. Nothing. Lack of sleep was taking its toll, and his normally quick mental process was suffering for it. He moved back to the window for a breath of fresh air.
“I just noticed something. You can be a real dick sometimes.” She sniffed, leaned back in the chair, and crossed her legs. “It's not an attractive quality. At all.”
“My girlfriend would disagree. She tells me she likes my sarcastic side,” O'Connor told her dryly.
The deputy nodded, clearly not believing that one. “Yeah. She thinks you walk on water. It shows, by the way she just took off at the school and left you there. That chick with the blue hair is a real piece of work. Great ass, though. How did she just disappear like that?”
“It's done with mirrors. And Kat's not my girlfriend,” Jake clarified.
“What? You've got another one like her stashed somewhere? Huh. Maybe bumpin' ugly with you will actually end up being good thing.” Penny's eyebrows went up.
“Look, it's not like... I'm sorry, what?” Jake gave his head a quick shake.
She gave him a pitying look. “You don't need me to draw you a picture or anything? I'm all out of crayons and Rebecca gets huffy when the other kids doodle on the walls, so—”
“Wait, wait, wait. Full stop. Back up a bit.” Jake held up both hands. “Repeat the first part again?”
Penny frowned. “What? About the crayons?”
O'Connor sighed. “No. The 'bumping ugly' part.”
“Figures you'd hear that part.” She laughed. “Typical male. You'd probably have paid attention if I'd said 'Free Beer', wouldn't you?”
He could feel a migraine be
ginning right there, just behind his right eyeball, so Jake counted to ten. Out loud. He did that when Kat piped up to interject something unrelated into a serious topic during group conversations. It didn't really help to calm him down then either, but he'd long ago decided it couldn't hurt. “You were saying?”
“Door's locked? Can't break out? Can't climb down?” Penny linked her hands behind her head and began spinning lazily in the seat of the office chair.
Jake nodded. “Okay?”
“Then we'll need to 'do the deed'.” She looked at him as the chair continued revolving. “Becca won't tell the others to let us out until we do, and she'll want proof.”
“Proof?” Jake almost squeaked.
“Yup. Hickies, scratches along the back, the inability to walk strait for a day or two. That kind of thing,” she told him.
“You're kidding me.” Jake felt panic begin tickling at the base of his spine.
Penny stopped the chair's rotation and gave him a frank, appraising look. “Not even a little. I'm sure she's got someone out in the stairwell or on the floor below us to report back to her, too.”
“Why?” he asked.
“How do I put this in a politically correct way? To make sure they hear something along these lines.” She half-reclined in the chair, then began rocking her hips forward and back, bouncing her bottom on the seat. “ 'Oh, baby! Harder! Yes…Yes... Yes!' Get the picture?”
O'Connor stood there open-mouthed
“Yeah, okay. Bad dialogue aside, that's pretty much what they'll be listening for.”
Jake still couldn't wrap his brain around it. He realized his jaw was still hanging somewhere down around his knees and managed pull it back up to the general area of his face again, but just barely.
“Look, it's not a big deal.” Penny took off her hiking boots and socks. Jake noted she had cute toes. “It's not like I'm saying we're getting hitched, or gonna go steady, or anything along those lines. We both want out of this place, so we play along. Make them think we've drunk the Kool-Aid. Then we make tracks the first chance we get.”
While her argument did have merit, Jake was still panicking. “I'm not really a fan of one-nighters.”
Penny's eyebrows went skyward in amusement. “Well, you'd better buy the oversized foam 'We're #1!' finger and start cheering for the team if we're going to get out of here.” Then she stood, reached down, grabbed the bottom edge of her tube top, and pulled it over her head.
Several things immediately went through O'Connor's mind. The first was Holy shit! Those are nice! The second was Are those real? The third, which was yelled into his ear by the baser part of his under-brain, was Does it matter? The fourth and final was Nipple-rings!
Prior to the zombie apocalypse the good Deputy Carson had obviously been into some serious physical activity, and it showed. Her shoulders and arms were impressively toned, she had high, firm breasts, and her stomach displayed lines that might just give Kat a run for her money. Jake thought she looked a hell of a lot like that female MMA fighter, Gina Carano. With a small, silver nipple-ring at the hardening tip of each of her breasts.
He noted all this and swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat with some effort. “Um. Don't get me wrong, those are really nice, but—”
“Less talk, more shedding of the outerwear.” Gina…Penny nodded at him to get-a-move-on and deftly removed her duty-holster. Placing it on the office chair she'd just vacated, she undid her cut-off shorts, slid them down her legs, and stepped out of them. Underneath, she wore a basic pair of black high-cut panties. While they didn't possess any of the frilly lace so popular with female underwear prior to the zombies rising, nor were they see-through in any strategic places, they most certainly emphasized Carson's well-toned hips and legs in all sorts of appealing ways.
“Whoa! Seriously now, hang on a second.” Jake backpedaled until his rear hit the wall beside one of the large, wide-open, top floor windows. “We can just make a ton of noise or something to fool anyone listening, can't we? Limp around in the morning like we're sore? You know, fake it.”
Penny gave him a meaningful grin. “I'm not good at 'faking it'.”
“O-o-o-kay. Well, I can try prying the door open again.” She was padding forward with a determined, no-nonsense expression. “We've got all night to come up with something else, you know?”
Jake had to get control of the situation, before things got really out of hand. Once again he wondered if it was the fear brought on from trying to survive the zombie apocalypse, or feelings of guilt because someone had managed to stay alive when everyone they'd known hadn't, or if it was just the 'instant gratification' mindset taking hold of survivors minds which seemed to be sending everyone's libido into overdrive lately. What was it that currently prompted average people to say 'To hell with it!', and act like horny lemmings?
Maybe there's something in the water, he thought.
Penny stopped just out of reach and put her hands on her hips. Jake put forth a mighty effort not to stare at the effect of her doing so had on her front-facing feminine attributes, and he was only moderately successful. Carson slid her thumbs down her hips, beneath the waistband of her panties, and began sliding them floorward. “Well, at least that part's accurate. We've definitely got all night.”
“We really don't,” Kat said mildly.
“She's right, we need to... Huh?” Jake's head snapped to his left at the sound of her voice.
Outside the window, Cho was hanging where the side of the grainery wall met the “ascetically pleasing, decorative building accent” (a useless, three-foot wide wall) that ran up the outer edge of the grainery tower from the near-most silo, seven floors below, to the roof. Her back was pressed firmly into the corner with her arms and legs spread outward, providing support and pressure to hold her tight to the building's face, and her sword was strapped across the front of her chest. Her short, blue pixie-cut ruffled in the breeze as Jake stared at her, bug-eyed.
“Holy shit!” Penny exclaimed, forgetting all about dropping her panties and joined O'Connor as he gaped at the pretty half-Asian clinging to the outside of the wall, just beyond the window frame.
Relief washed over Jake in a physical wave. “Kat!”
“The one and only,” she replied with a grin. “Mind moving away from the window there so I can get it? It's a little windy out here.”
Jake and Penny each took a big step back and Kat pounced. First, she leaned to her right, shifting her weight to her right foot and leaped skyward. As she rose, Kat brought her right leg around, almost pirouetting on her extended left leg while airborne, which spun her body 180 degrees. This momentum turned her leap into a precision jump. Her feet tapped against the narrow window ledge for a moment—
legs bent ever-so slightly to absorb the impact of her landing— then she bounced upwards off the ledge, flipped in midair, and landed soundlessly within the room.
“Hey there, hero. Did you miss me? Oof!”
The last was involuntarily pushed from her lungs as O'Connor bodily wrapped his arms around her waist and held her nearly over his head, spinning them both around briefly. As Jake danced her about, Kat laughed and flung her own arms around his neck to hug him emphatically.
“Woman, I am so glad to see you!” he exclaimed happily.
“I can tell,” she said. “What, no kiss?”
“Maybe later,” Jake told her and set Cho down. “What the hell have you got all over you?”
Every inch of her skin—save for what was covered under Kat's leather pants and a new black tank top she'd acquired from somewhere—had a thin coating of some tacky substance. It was enough to darken her skin unevenly, which would provide her excellent camouflage at night, but not enough to make her look like a living shadow. Jake had seen the same done in a boat-load of military-themed action movies, war games, and even by the rough n' tumble shooters of Britain's SAS when in the field in dangerous locales.
Kat quickly ran a finger over her collarbone and gave it a glan
ce. “This? Shoe polish.”
Jake gave her a calm look. “I have it all over my face now, don’t I?”
“Just the left side,” she told him dismissively.
O'Connor closed his eyes and sighed. “Why shoe polish?”
“Oh. Well, it was kind like this. I ran into some trouble after you got caught at the school. Zombies, you know. I ended up hiding in the principal's office for a while. I searched it for anything useful while I was stuck there anyway and found a tin of old 'Kiwi black' in the desk drawer. I thought it couldn't hurt to apply some and cut down on my visibility.” She nodded to Penny. “Hi there. I'm Kat. Nice tits, by the way.”
Penny blinked. “Uh. Thank you?” She looked a bit numb from watching Kat's entrance.
“I take it she's coming with us?” Kat pulled her lock pick case from the top of her boot.
Jake nodded. “Yeah. There's likely a guard outside or below us somewhere, so let's do this sneaky-like.”
“Have you ever known me to be anything but?” Kat looked offended.
“Alright, alright, I'm sorry. You're still the baddest, totally devious, most stylish, ninja-girl ever. Happy now?” Jake told her.
This seemed to mollify Kat and she turned to Penny with a bright smile. “See? Who says you can't teach guys anything?”
“Some of them do learn occasionally,” Penny chuckled. “You might have to beat them over the head with something large and blunt, but it is possible.”
“We're going to get along just fine. Oh, just so you know: If you try to hurt him? I'll have to kill you. Painfully. So play nice.” Kat told her pleasantly, then skipped over to unlock the door.
Penny began quickly donning her clothing again and gave Jake a quizzical look. “She was kidding, wasn't she?”
O'Connor shook his head in resignation. “Not even a little bit. Kat's the deadliest woman I've ever encountered, and that's saying something. I think I'd rather face a horde of zombies than go up against her with that sword in her hand. Granted, I won't claim to understand how that Manic Panic-saturated brain of hers works most days, but I'd be dead ten times over if it weren't for her. Just don't go pointing any guns in my direction... or hers...and you'll be alright.”
Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) Page 12