Lightning flashed on the far horizon. Central Utah was fixing to get some rain.
Gifford moved closer. Ripper and Brubeck stood on either side of him, their fingers brushing the triggers of their M-4s. They were clearly pissed off, and Miller knew why. She’d double-crossed them good.
“I have to say, I’m impressed.” Gifford stood before them, perhaps five feet away, and nodded appreciatively. “You are clearly more resourceful than I gave you credit for, Sheriff.”
Miller wanted to spit in Gifford’s face. “I’m not interested in hearing your compliments, General. My friends are dead, and so is Rat’s team. Your ‘milk run’ cost the lives of seven good human beings.” She looked him up and down. “You lied to me about everything. You’d damned well better not be lying about the money.”
“I’m not.”
“Open it.” Miller used the barrel of her shotgun to indicate the large duffel bag. The men tensed up. Miller didn’t even look their way. She was careful not to point her weapon at the mercenaries, as much as she would have liked to blow their brains to mist.
Gifford reached down and opened the bags. Inside were stacks of money, more than Miller had ever seen in all her years on earth. Her jaw dropped open like a teenaged boy seeing his first porn magazine.
“One million dollars,” Gifford said, “exactly as promised.”
“Back away,” Miller ordered.
Gifford stood his ground. He turned to Rat. “I had your assurances that this would be a trade, Major.”
“Oh, she knows the codes all right.”
Miller thought of that ticking clock. She showed her frustration. “We don’t have time for this. Your little firecracker is going to go off in about fifteen minutes. I’d like to get this over with before then, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m glad you are also eager to conclude our business,” Gifford said. “As soon as you decrypt the data we retrieved from TK-508, you can have your money. You will be free to go wherever you want.”
“That’s the deal.”
Gifford nodded. “Speaking of which, if you will do the honors, Sheriff?”
Ripper reluctantly lowered his weapon and moved closer to Miller. He reached behind him into a backpack and produced a laptop computer. Miller watched carefully. Ripper popped the machine open. The screen came on a moment later, a soft glow in the shadowy light. Ripper held the computer out for Gifford, who immediately tapped the track pad. A file opened.
“Give me the decryption key,” Gifford said.
Miller let a little more of her nervousness show. “We have your word that you’re going to both give us the money and fly us both to safety, right?”
“You have my word.” Gifford held his hand out, palm up.
Miller lowered her shotgun. She dug into her pocket. She moved a bit too quickly. Ripper and Brubeck both pointed their weapons at Miller. Rat covered them in a heartbeat. The tension rose four notches in one second.
Miller froze. “Take it easy, boys.”
“Just a precaution, Sheriff,” Ripper said. “I’m aware of your reputation. We can’t have you doing anything heroic.”
Miller moved very, very slowly. She pulled out a small, thumb-sized device; red and blue with an LCD screen that flashed a long series of numbers. It had a USB connector on one end. She held it where Gifford and his guards could see it. “This is it.”
Gifford took the device. He inspected it carefully. “Good.”
Without warning, the door to the abandoned Winnebago banged open. The hinges squealed. Everyone jumped and Gifford stared at the entrance and metal stairs. The interior light poured out. Ripper and Brubeck tensed up again. They pointed their weapons toward the vehicle’s side door. Miller and Rat exchanged glances and quickly stepped away from each other. Then they turned to look as well.
Karl Sheppard limped outside with a sour expression on his face. He was followed closely by Lovell, who held a shotgun pointed at Sheppard’s back.
“What’s this, Sheriff?” demanded Gifford. “They don’t seem like zombies from here.”
Miller said nothing. Rat’s shocked expression said everything.
“Don’t make the swap, General,” Lovell shouted. “They’re lying.”
“God damn it.” Miller thought Rat looked mad enough to shit barbed wire. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Lovell?”
“It was all a setup, General.” Lovell shoved Sheppard forward.
“Explain, soldier,” Gifford called.
“They were going to wipe the data,” Lovell shouted. “If you put the wrong password in, it self-destructs. And as I understand it, only Sheppard here knows the correct password.”
Miller couldn’t help but notice that Brubeck now had his machine gun pointed directly at her boobs and that Ripper had Rat similarly covered. After a time, Miller sagged. She bent over slowly and placed the shotgun on the ground. She straightened up and held her hands high. Scowling, Rat did the same. Those machine guns were too damned close for comfort. The last thing Miller wanted was for these two macho assholes to start shooting fish in a barrel. Her arms threw lengthy, insectile shadows across the Winnebago when she turned halfway around. Sheppard, muttering obscenities, was now closing the distance with Lovell close behind. He walked with that sloppy limp.
“Where’s Terrill Lee and Scratch?” Miller shouted. She was now more worried about them than the lie that had gotten them this far.
“I cut their fucking throats,” Lovell said. “They’d outlived their usefulness.”
Yards away, Ripper smiled like a twisted jack o’ lantern in the dark. “That’s my brother.”
Miller shook her head. “Why you slimy, two-faced, double-crossing, lowly piece of rancid lizard shit.”
“Save it,” replied Lovell. “You’re boring me.”
“Ripper, Brubeck,” said Gifford. “You may kill the women. They too have outlived their usefulness.”
Brubeck chuckled. “My pleasure, sir.”
Miller and Rat dropped their hands in unison.
Two shots rang out from the Winnebago. One bullet struck Brubeck in the throat and the second Ripper square in the chest. Brubeck coughed. His neck gushed blood. A fountain of dark fluid splattered Miller’s exposed skin, the warm, wet blood a startling contrast to the cold night air. Brubeck went down hard and fast. Meanwhile, Ripper was flat on his back, dazed and grunting with pain. His weapon lay just beyond his wiggling fingers.
Miller and Rat drew their pistols from the backs of their waistbands. Miller aimed at Gifford while Rat covered Ripper, who was still writhing on the ground.
Scratch and Terrill Lee appeared in the doorway of the Winnebago. They were both still holding their high-powered sniper rifles.
Gifford watched them exit the vehicle. He spat in the dirt his face contorted. “So this was all just a setup?”
Sheppard wasn’t limping any more. He reached out. “Hand over the laptop, General.”
“Do it slowly,” said Miller. She pulled back the hammer on Scratch’s Colt. Even with the steady racket from the chopper’s engines it was a menacing sound.
Gifford hesitated. He held on to the computer like a man afraid of drowning will cling to a bit of driftwood. Sheppard approached him and pulled the laptop from his hands.
“Now the key,” said Sheppard, reaching for the USB device.
Gifford put out his trembling hand. He almost placed the key in Sheppard’s palm. But then he dropped it on the hard ground and crushed it under his left boot.
“It appears neither of us got what we came here for, Sheriff. You have me at your mercy but you’re going to lose, too. It is such a shame that there will never be a cure for your sad condition.”
“Nice try, General,” Miller said. “However, I think you wanted this USB thingy.” She held up a second key, its small numbers flashing quietly.
Terrill Lee closed the gap. He stood next to Miller. “What are we going to do with this asshole, Penny?”
“We stick to
the plan. He comes with us.” Miller turned to face Gifford. “And if you want to live much longer, General, you’ll tell us just what the hell this has all actually been about. For example, who you are working for.”
Gifford chuckled, though his eyes had gone bleak. “You don’t understand, do you? I can take you to safety. I can cure you, Sheriff. But if you do this your own way, I promise you there’s nowhere you can go that we won’t be able to find you.”
“Back the hell up. Who’s we?”
Gifford stared at Rat. “Ask her,” he said. “She knows.”
That was not the response Miller was expecting. She turned to face Rat. Said, “What’s he talking about?”
Gifford didn’t hesitate. As soon as Miller took her attention off of him, he drew his sidearm and shot her in the chest. Terrill Lee screamed. Sheriff Penny Miller fell in slow motion, her red hair fanning out as more gun smoke rose up into the cool evening air. She landed hard.
Gifford dig a jig in the air as a hail of bullets tore through his body. Enraged, Rat continued to fire until the General’s face and head were shredded like the remnants of a bad Italian meal. Meanwhile, Terrill Lee dropped the high-powered rifle he was carrying. He kneeled down at Miller’s side. Sheppard, still holding the laptop, watched helplessly, brown eyes wide with concern. The two helicopter pilots stood stunned in the distance. One dropped his cigarette. They exchanged glances.
“Penny, can you hear me?” Terrill Lee unzipped her jacket. He felt her chest, searching for the wound.
Miller coughed. She took a deep breath but it hurt. She coughed again. She closed her eyes and thanked Charlie Robinson’s ghost for the loan of his top notch ballistics vest.
“Shit, that hurt.”
Rat stepped back with a wide grin. She stood next to Sheppard. “Your boobs all right, there, Penny?”
“I’ll be fine.” Miller coughed a third time and winced. She sat up slowly. Terrill Lee tried to pretend he hadn’t been crying after all. Miller looked around. “Goddamn, that actually worked.”
Rat turned to Lovell. “Go secure that helicopter. Tell the pilots to clean out their underwear and suck it up. They’re working for us now.”
Lovell trotted off with a wide grin on his face.
Terrill Lee, seeing that Miller was safe, sat back on his heels. He cleared his throat. “Let’s not ever do that again.”
Rat laughed and flipped her dark hair back. Miller looked up at her, smiling. Then there was a quick, sharp sound. Rat looked a bit puzzled. She suddenly coughed up blood and dropped to her knees right next to Miller, who quickly realized that was happening. The wounded Ripper had shot Rat in the back with a hidden pistol. Miller tugged Rat out of the way.
“Motherfucker!” Scratch brought the rifle up to his shoulder. He shot Ripper in the head from two yards back. The bullet passed right through Ripper’s skull, leaving only a small round wound in the forehead. His skull evacuated onto the cement. Ripper flattened sideways. His left foot kicked twice and then he lay still.
Terrill Lee had moved from Miller to Rat’s side. He felt her body all over, his eyes worried. He held up his hand. It was covered with dark blood. “Might be her liver.”
“Rat!” cried Miller. “Say something, Rat.”
Rat opened her eyes. She said, “Ouch.”
“Hang in there, you hear me?”
Rat tried to smile. Her lips were streaked with bloody phlegm.
“Let’s get her on the helicopter and get out of this shit hole,” shouted Terrill Lee. He checked his watch. “Jesus, it’s almost six o’clock.”
Terrill Lee and Scratch lifted Rat carefully. They carried her to the waiting helicopter. Unsteadily, Miller stood up too. She and Sheppard lifted the bag of money and carried it between them toward the Super Stallion. They crossed the dead grass, helping each other along. Lovell lifted them one by one into the waiting aircraft. He strapped them all in, shouting at the two terrified chopper pilots. “Let’s go, damn it! Go!”
The whine of the engines increased. The spotlights dimmed down. The world shook and trembled as the huge helicopter lifted gracefully off the ground. It rose quickly and flew east, toward Salt Lake City. Wendover floated down and away like a ghost town.
Miller sat on one of the long benches, headphones now covering her ears. Terrill Lee stood over Rat’s prone body on the other side of the helicopter. Miller could hear him speaking softly to her to keep her awake and focused. Telling her she would live, that it was nothing, that she would be okay. Sheppard was right next to Rat with the helicopter’s medkit, working feverishly to save her life. He and Terrill Lee got all medical. Their discussion was too technical to keep Miller’s interest. Instead she now wondered what Gifford meant when he’d said that Rat knew what was going on. Had she been holding out on them? Probably. And if Rat died, then Miller would never know. Her chances of a cure could dwindle down into nothingness.
Miller looked at Lovell. The big man stood at the cockpit, covering the pilots with a machine gun. He never looked away. Not once.
Scratch got up from his seat. He sat next to Miller. He put his hand on hers and squeezed.
Miller was only a little surprised. She permitted his closeness, but didn’t reciprocate.
Scratch spoke without conviction. “Rat’s going to be fine, Penny.”
Miller thought for a moment, then just said, “For all our sakes, she’d better be.”
EPILOGUE
6:00pm – 0 hours 0 minutes remaining
Despite having dreaded and anticipated the moment for nearly twenty-four hours, the nuclear explosion still somehow took Miller by surprise. The sky outside their helicopter went from pitch dark one instant to as bright as the summer sun the next. They heard no sound, but the flare was both magnificent and horrifying.
Miller shut her eyes as tightly as she could, and tried not to picture her hometown disintegrating in a millisecond, splintering boards and broken glass and cracked cement and rotting bodies burned to ash and blown to dust forever. Or all those stupid zealots being showered with radioactive particles that would kill them, slowly or quickly or somewhere in between. Miller hoped it would be quick for them. No one deserved that agony, except maybe Abraham, and he was already a corpse.
Nevada stopped being home in that one instant. Now it wouldn’t be anyone’s home for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Miller was an orphan, a transient. She doubted she would ever find a home again. As the harsh light faded in the distance, Miller couldn’t help wondering what would happen next. What they’d do now. They had money, a helicopter with a limited amount of fuel, and no idea of what the rest of the world was going to be like in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. She wasn’t certain she wanted to know. Only one thing was certain.
Somehow, some way she’d keep her friends alive.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Steven: I owe a lot to my sister, Jenny, and my father-in-law, Ron, for pummeling this story to death, catching every gaff and unclear thought, and still wanting to read on. It is a much stronger story for their efforts. I would also like to thank our contest winner, Vanessa B, for lending her name to us. Enjoy the dress, Vanessa.
Harry: Thanks to those who supported The Hungry from the outset. You helped motivate the authors to bring Sheriff Miller and her friends back to life, and I mean that in a good way. I also have to thank my patient wife Wendy and my daughter Paige, who tolerate Dad spending long hours out in the “man cave” making stuff up.
The Hungry (Book 2): The Wrath of God Page 24