The Hungry 4: Rise of the Triad (The Sheriff Penny Miller Series) (18 page)

CRYSTAL PALACE

Alex shot a dead child in the head. He tried to act callous but winced a bit. He pointed to his left. “Sheriff, I think that’s a gate.”

Miller encountered a decaying woman in a golf shirt and skirt. She slammed the creature in the head with the butt of her rifle, skillfully saving another bullet. “It had better be a way out. We’re getting buried by the unburied here.”

They were both panting. Even at their super speed, dodging and killing dozens of zombies had taken a lot out of them. Miller figured Rat, once she got mobile, wouldn’t need more than ten minutes at the base to mount a deadly response. They didn’t have much time.

Alex had found a way out.

Miller studied their next problem. A stout chain and a pair of large padlocks secured the gate. Without hesitating, Miller shot the locks away with her rifle. She figured it was a good use for some of their remaining ammunition. After the third round, the old locks came apart. Alex watched and nodded approvingly. He threw a metal trashcan at two pursuing zombies to buy them time. Miller kicked the gate open.

“How are we going to be sure enough these smelly bastards actually follow us all the way into the base?”

Miller closed her eyes. She was in physical pain. The persistent, macabre voices of the undead were still loud and clear and burning a hole in her mind. “You let me worry about that part of it, Alex. Let’s head for that small outbuilding.”

Miller turned to face the remaining zombies, who were flowing out of the corral and out onto the base. She reckoned there were only a couple hundred at most. Those who’d gone the other way were now wandering aimlessly among the scrub. That part was fine. Miller only needed a diversion, not a wholesale slaughter. She and Alex ran for the outbuildings. The sky above them was darkening and the wispy clouds were sprinkled with the faint glow of evening stars.

The horde of zombies following them was hungry, angry, and out for vengeance. Miller knew that their rage was growing. Somehow they sensed that Crystal Palace was the source of their suffering. Their individual brains were weak and virtually useless. In triads they could just function, set traps and kill. But as a group mind, they had become dangerously close to intelligent. Not quite there yet, but damn close.

Miller had no way of knowing if her idea would work, but figured if she could feel their anger and frustration, then maybe the zombies could also feel hers. She concentrated on all the sorrow, anger, heartbreak, frustration, fear, and unabashed
hunger
that she had felt nearly every moment since the first night of the apocalypse, and then she channeled that toward the zombies like a clarion call. The monumental effort gave her a searing pain behind her eyes, but Miller ignored it. Whatever the zombies felt while existing in a dead body was a thousand times worse. She needed them to listen to her, connect with her, support her.

A wave of grief nearly knocked Miller over. She took a breath, and reminded herself to channel her feelings
toward
them, rather than becoming the unwilling recipient of their sorrow and pain. She sensed their response, slow but steady. Their focus shifted to the base at Crystal Palace and the soldiers and scientists within. Miller felt a fleeting twinge of guilt, but felt she had no other choice. Scratch’s life was at stake.

Miller willed the zombies to charge the hangar doors. She directed their anger toward the creators of the virus, the people who had created their living hell on earth. She gave them marching orders. They were to rush the doors and head down into the base, where she promised them both revenge and an easy dinner.

The zombies responded. As a group, as one, they turned toward the base—and both Miller and Alex. The stragglers waited for the horde. Even though there were only a hundred or so coming their way, the gigantic wave of damaged bodies was formidable. Unfortunately, Miller didn’t think she had it in her to make the creatures bypass her, or somehow spare Alex.

“Uh, are they supposed to be doing that?” asked Alex. He paled and took a step backwards. “Holy hell, they’re all charging us.”

“Follow me,” said Miller. She and Alex took off at their best possible speed, but they ran clumsily now, as their energy had diminished. They trotted down a dark alley and around the back of the building where Miller and Scratch had been quartered. The zombies did not follow. The entire horde was moving as a unit toward Crystal Palace. Alex and Miller approached the main entrance from the side. Miller could see that the big hangar doors were retracting, the immense space now appearing, a low metallic sound booming and echoing. Combat helicopters were spinning their blades, rising up from the underground base.

The horde wouldn’t make it in time. The Army was on the move.

“They’re coming up to wipe out the horde, and likely us too,” Miller called. “Probably mean do us all in with napalm.”

Alex stopped running. He bent over at the waist, panting, hands on his knees. “Was that part of your plan, Sheriff?”

“Well, it is now.” Miller also paused to catch her breath. Her head was packed with alien, highly disturbing images and thoughts. She saw bloody teeth and open wounds, smelled the weirdly delicious stench of entrails and gore, felt her stomach rumbling and aching for red sustenance. Miller pushed the zombie group mind away. She focused on her predicament. They were in trouble. She had to figure a way to stop the Army. She had to think fast. She looked around, and found what she was seeking a few yards to Alex’s right, half buried in dead sage.

“I need that big boulder. Help me get it out of the ground.”

Alex had learned not to question Miller. He pried the boulder—a foot across and two feet high—out of the dry hardpan. Miller was impressed. The boulder had to weigh 250 pounds. It made an odd sucking sound as it left the rocky ground. Alex walked it over to Miller and hefted it even higher. Miller took it from him easily. She braced herself and waited. The choppers were rising. The air became turbulent and shimmered with heat. The sunset had darkened the sky and the air began to chill. Miller stood for over a minute without moving. Alex watched with something akin to admiration. The world trembled at the coming military power.

The first of the helicopters ascended out of the hangar.

As the chopper appeared, Alex looked back and forth between the rising craft and Miller. “What are you waiting for, the napalm? Throw it.”

“Just hold your horses, Marine,” Miller said. “I know what I’m doing.”

Miller blocked the shrill voice of the zombie horde from her dizzy mind. She knew that some had split off to approach the two of them, not a good situation. Miller steeled herself for the effort. She had no intention of going out that way. She concentrated on the chopper. It rose up out of the ground. She counted in her head, waiting critical seconds for the right moment.

Seconds later the huge Apache lifted gracefully above their heads, and tilted forward to pick up speed. The pilot spotted them down below. He somehow sensed the danger, because the helicopter twitched and began a graceful turn. He wanted to bring its weapons to bear. The chain gun turned too, seeking them. They had only seconds left.

“Throw it, damn you!” shrieked Alex.

Miller took aim. With a twinge of regret for the pilots inside, she heaved the massive boulder at the rising craft. The huge rock sailed gracefully across the void between them. The pilot looked panicked. The gunner screamed as the rock smashed right through the rotor arc of the big helicopter. The rotor exploded, sending shreds of carbon-fiber blade in every direction. The chopper fell heavily to the ground, crushing the cockpit like a beer can. The wreckage scattered.

“What the hell was all that about?” Alex was furious. “You almost got us both killed.”

Miller turned angrily, “There are people down there, Alex.
Humans.
If I had crashed the helicopter a moment before that, it would have fallen inside the base and killed a hundred innocent soldiers.”

Alex snorted. “Innocent?”

“As far as
we
know they are,” Miller said. She shook her head wearily. “Alex, I just wiped out two pilots and unleashed a zombie horde on an unsuspecting military base. Pardon me if that’s as much as my beat-up conscience can handle at the moment.”

Alex squinted at the flaming chopper. “Okay, but what are the zombies streaming down there going to do? Play board games with those folks?”

“Not likely, but the Army will have contingency plans for something like this. They’ll have a fighting chance.”

“You want my opinion? Let those ugly motherfuckers go to go to town on the Army and Rubenstein too, if we’re lucky. Sheriff, I thought that was the whole damn point. This is an awfully interesting distinction you’re making.”

“It’s not exactly that simple to me, but I don’t have time to explain. Come on.”

They moved again. The sun finally crossed the horizon and black night fell. An inky darkness overtook them.
Perfect,
thought Miller.
More cover for us.

Miller and Alex ran across the desert scrub. They sprinted to the outbuilding, found the entrance and looked back. The enraged zombies were now pouring down through the hanger entrance. They dropped like a long stream of red ants on the cement below. A few milled around as if unable to home in on the group signal. None of the remaining creatures had followed them.

I’m coming, Scratch,
Miller thought. She motioned for Alex to follow her and trotted over to a camouflaged entrance she knew led to a staircase. Once they arrived at the right spot, Miller practically tore the disguised door off at the hinges. Alex went to the left, Miller to the right.

They took the corners of the metal staircase in long strides, both hanging on to the thick railing for support. The racket in the stairwell was borderline deafening. Once they were five flights down, Miller stopped. She kicked open another door. Alex went left and Miller went right. They emerged into a chaotic gore fest in the hangar, and stood watching from the northwest corner. Miller was stunned by the carnage she’d unleashed.

The Army had completely flubbed their response. It was a disaster inside.

The zombies were everywhere. A large group of scientific personnel had been caught in the open. For some reason they had gathered in confusion on the hangar level. Many of them were unarmed. Miller was stunned by the lack of organization. Who was in charge? None of this made any sense. Surely they’d had protocols set up in case of another zombie outbreak? Those instructions wouldn’t have included running around and screaming while being eaten alive. Perhaps she had given the Army too much credit. The soldiers were reacting inefficiently and far too slowly. They’d completely failed to handle the crisis. In point of fact, they were now getting slaughtered.

As if reading her mind, Alex said, “Sheriff, you couldn’t have known they’d fuck up like this.”

Miller didn’t answer.
What have I done?

“Sheriff?” said Alex, touching her shoulder to snap her out of it. “You okay? You’ve been standing there a long time.”

Miller shook his hand away. “Leave me alone, I’m fine.”

“Good, because we need you.”

Miller knew that all too well. She pointed. “See those doors across the tarmac, underneath that big window? We need to get in there first, before the zombies.”

“Okay, but how the hell are we going to find anything or anyone in this mess? This place is a maze even when it isn’t under attack by a horde of the undead. And right now it’s getting worse by the second.”

“One thing at a time.” Miller gripped her rifle. “Follow my lead and let’s haul ass. On three. One… Two…”

Miller paused. She raised her hand for Alex to wait. She squinted. She was a good seventy-five yards away from the window to Colonel Sanchez’s old office, currently Rubenstein’s lair, but she could still see well enough to recognize the occupant.

“Son of a bitch.”

“What?”

Miller shook her head free of cobwebs and alien voices. She turned to Alex, who was staring at her. “Okay. Three!”

They took off, moving as fast as they could through the steadily increasing carnage. The pathway was relatively clear, but they couldn’t just take off at a dead run. They had to bob and weave. The zombies weren’t the problem. The panicked crossfire was the problem. Metal insects swarmed everywhere, as the ricochets clanged off of vehicles and doors and cement flooring. Miller and Alex made good time anyway. They bent in half, dropped down and crawled, jumped up and jogged towards their goal. Miller debated simply jumping over the fray, like she had at the zombie enclosure fence, but that might have drawn too much attention from the freaked out snipers. No sense in risking a bullet wound at the last second. By staying low and pounding out the yards, Miller managed to cross half the distance to Rubenstein’s office in less than one minute, with Alex two yards behind.

The base was imploding. It was a madhouse. The zombies were winning easily, or more accurately the pathetic defenders were losing. They had just panicked. They were shooting each other by mistake.

“Jesus,” said Alex. “They’re completely out of formation and shooting at shadows. This isn’t professional at all, it’s total pandemonium.”

Miller shrugged off another sting of guilt. She had done her best to protect the living and coordinate the battle so that the humans below would have a fighting chance. If they chose to be fools or cowards, she couldn’t protect them.

WHAM.
A bullet tore at the tarmac not far from Miller’s feet then skipped away like a pebble on water—maybe a stray round, but maybe not. Miller spun to face the source. She aimed her rifle at a terrified young sniper who was crouched on the steps one floor above. “Save your rounds for zombies, cowboy, or I’ll shoot your dick off.”

The soldier stopped firing recklessly. He just ran away. Miller tugged Alex by the arm. She took off again, boots pounding the cement, and ran the rest of the way across the hangar floor without taking her eyes off Rubenstein’s office window. Miller was still vaguely aware of the chaos around her. A group of medical personal carrying plastic containers full of drugs and first aid supplies was ambushed by a triad the second they emerged from a freight elevator. The first zombie attacked the doctor, while the other two bracketed the nurses and tore them to pieces. The doctor screamed the loudest and longest as he was eaten quite thoroughly. The nurses appeared to be just bitten and left to turn.