The Hungry (Book 3): At the End of the World (13 page)

“Okay, what the hell are
they
doing here?”

Sheppard smiled, trying hard not to react to the harshness in her voice. “It’s nice to see you, too, Penny.”

Despite how frazzled he felt, what with all the stress going on around the lodge, Sheppard knew that Miller had had it worse that morning. Sheppard didn’t want to exacerbate her already bad mood. The lobby was shadowy and cool and a light breeze flowed through the open window. The lovely lodge seemed like the safest possible refuge, but they all knew that was only an illusion.

“How are you feeling? Are you hungry?”

Miller pulled Sheppard aside into the hall. “I’m fine, Karl. I keep telling you that. Look, I know that we may be stuck in this hotel for the duration of the winter, but we’re sure as hell not opening the place up for new business.” She scowled at the two women sitting in the kitchen, talking with the storekeeper, Michelle. “Do you want to explain what they are doing here?”

“I really wish I could. They’re Michelle’s sisters, and she invited them here. They just arrived, and as you can see they’ve brought suitcases, weapons, and what looks like some welcome bags of food. I’m not sure what else because I really haven’t had a chance to check.”

“So we have even more people to worry about?” Miller’s mood darkened. “What the hell are we going to do with them?”

“With all due respect, Sheriff, that’s the kind of decision we all usually leave up to you.” Sheppard stared at her, his gentle eyes wide and innocent.

Miller shook her head. “Karl, you can’t be serious!”

Sheppard continued to look at her without saying a word.

Miller ran her hand over her face. “I really don’t have the patience for this right now. So guess what? I hereby deputize you.”

“What?” Sheppard was completely taken aback.

“You heard me. There. Now
you
can go figure out a polite way to kick their skinny asses right out of our comfortable little lodge and somewhere back down the mountain.”

“Kick whose asses where?” Scratch asked. He approached cautiously from the kitchen, trying to read Miller’s expression.

Miller glanced at the strangers, and Sheppard followed her gaze. Terrill Lee had wandered over and was now standing nearby. He was warmly chatting with Michelle and her sisters like it was the most natural thing in the world to have three new women around. He seemed to love it.

“I mean those two ladies who just arrived, Scratch. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that your ex-girlfriend and her kids are going to be staying with us. Now we have
two more
hungry mouths to feed, right as a shitload of zombies are about to turn this into Colorado’s newest ground zero.”

Sheppard looked at Scratch with a keen gaze. “You didn’t tell her?”

“Tell me
what?
” Miller demanded.

Scratch hesitated. “I was waiting for the right time.” He gave Sheppard a foul look that spoke volumes and quite distinctly promised an ass whipping.

“The right time for
what?
” insisted Miller.

Scratch turned his back on Miller and Sheppard. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the top of his considerable lungs. “Hey, Jimmy. I need you to come down here for a minute.” That last word bounced off the rafters and echoed off the angled ceiling.

Slow footsteps came from above. The boy emerged from the darkness and came to the second floor railing. “Why?”

“Just get down here, okay?” Scratch shook his head. He turned back to Miller and Sheppard.

Sheppard watched Miller very carefully. He really had no idea of how Miller would take the news. The teen boy stomped down the stairs, making sure to express his rebellion with each heavy, reluctant step. Jimmy finally stopped a few feet away from where Sheppard, Miller, and Scratch were standing.

“What?”

Scratch went to stand next to the boy. He surprised Sheppard and Miller by putting his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “Sheriff Penny Miller, I want to introduce you to Jim Bowen, Jr. He’s my son.”

Miller took in a deep breath. She let it out noisily through her nose. “Of course,” she said. She shrugged and smiled weakly. Then she stuck out her hand and said, “Howdy, Jim.”

The boy ignored her. He shrugged off Scratch’s hand. “I came down here to meet
her
? What a waste of time.” And with that, Jimmy turned and headed back toward the stairs.

Sheppard didn’t hesitate. He left Miller and Scratch to talk, and ran after the teen. “Hey, Jimmy. Would you like something better to do than look out the window?”

The sullen boy turned and looked at him. “Like what?”

“We have plenty of gunslingers here. I need someone to help me patch up injuries. How would you like to be our medic?”

Jimmy stared at him.

“Go get your brother and meet me over there,” he said, pointing to the sitting area of the main floor, where he had already started sorting their medical supplies. “We can use Lex as a test subject.” He smiled broadly.

Jimmy continued to look at him, apparently making up his mind. “All right,” he said finally. He turned and headed up the stairs, his footfalls light on the steps. Not quite the same upset teen that had come down the stairs a few moments ago.

Sheppard looked over at the others, who were speaking in low tones. Terrill Lee introduced the sisters to Miller and Scratch. Lynn was a strawberry blonde and slightly younger than Michelle, with a lovely face dusted with faint freckles. She stood up and offered her hand to Miller, who shook it. Brandy was raven-haired, slightly older, anorexic skinny, but with real fire in her eyes. She ignored Miller.

A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead. The sisters reminded Sheppard of the beginning of a joke.
A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead were trapped in a hunting lodge in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. The blonde turns to the brunette and says, let’s go to town and grab a bite…

But it was Brandy who turned to Scratch and said, loud enough to be heard throughout the building, “Guess it took the end of the world to get you to visit your own damn kid? Have you got any idea how much back child support you owe my sister?”

Jimmy and Lex appeared next to Sheppard as Brandy said, “Fifteen years’ worth. My sister Michelle had to work her ass off to support your son all this time. And when you and your
parole officer
here,” she said, gesturing toward Miller, “finally do show up, you spray her store with Greta’s brains and ruin her life once again. You’re not making a good impression, Jim. Not at all.”

“What are they yelling about?” asked Lex.

“Grown up stuff. How’d you like to be our guinea pig, Lex?”

“I don’t know what that means,” he replied.

“Never mind. Sit there.” He turned to the older boy. “Jimmy, I’m going to show you how to bandage an arm.” He picked up a makeshift bandage that he tore from one of the bed sheets upstairs. “Now, pretend he has a superficial wound in his bicep. Watch what I do.”

Sheppard could see the small boy react to the angry but low tones coming from the adults. He decided to make small talk as he bandaged the fictitious wound.

“So, are you Lex Luthor?”

Jimmy answered, “Our last name is Kent. Mom wouldn’t let him call himself Clark. His name’s Alex.”

“It’s Lex,” he insisted. “Don’t make me angry, Jimmy. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”

“Maybe I don’t like you now. Did that ever occur to you?”

Sheppard smiled broadly. “I think that’s the Hulk. Different universe.”

A loud pounding came from the closed front doors. Scratch jumped back and pulled his side arm. The pounding stopped, then resumed again. Everyone turned. No one spoke.

Scratch looked at Miller, who nodded. Scratch headed for the side window, where he’d have an angle on the door.

Sheppard didn’t wait for orders. He stood and drew his pistol. “Wait here, boys,” he said, and ran to answer the door. “Who’s there?” Sheppard called through the thick oak doors. He kept his weapon pointed down at the wooden flooring.

“Karl, it’s me, Crosby. Let me in!”

Sheppard turned to Miller for permission.

“Why the hell not?” Miller said. “We seem to be hosting a damned convention this weekend.”

Sheppard holstered his side arm and unbolted the door. Crosby rushed in, ignored Sheppard entirely, and ran directly to the kitchen, to where the women were now standing again. Miller stepped up to meet him.

“We’ve got problems, Sheriff,” Crosby said. He looked pale and sounded short on breath.

“No shit, we have lots of them.” Miller raised an eyebrow. “What exactly are you referring to, Constable?”

“I found someone broadcasting updates on a ham radio. First good signal in days. Anyway, the guy said he’d heard that there have been zombie sightings in West Desolation and over in Beaufort.”

Scratch said, “Uh oh.”

“Exactly,” Crosby said. “Sheriff, those are towns right down the road from us. Again, let me apologize. I’m sorry I misjudged you. I should have believed you. It’s on. We’re likely going to be flooded with zombies within a day or two.”

“Hours,” Sheppard corrected him.

Miller’s expression didn’t change. “Well, then, what the hell are you doing up here, Crosby? Shouldn’t you be out warning your own citizens? Creating a defensive perimeter around town? Doing something?”

“I am doing something, Sheriff. I’m here to learn. I want to pick up everything there is to know about zombies from you.”

“What?”

“You’re the teacher, I’m the student. I need a crash course in zombies.”

Terrill Lee looked puzzled. “Crosby, we already showed you pretty much everything you need to know.”

Crosby snorted. “Give me a break. All you taught me was to smell them, check if their eyes are white, and shoot them in the head. There’s got to be more to learn than that!” Crosby stood planted with his hands on his hips, right one resting on the butt of his pistol. “That turkey shoot didn’t teach me anything I couldn’t have figured out on my own.”

“If you
lived
long enough on your own,” offered Scratch.

Miller sighed. “No, Crosby’s right.”

“What?” Terrill Lee and Scratch spoke in unison, their heads turning in surprise. Even Crosby seemed surprised.

“He’s right, guys. He’s the constable here. He has a duty to protect the citizens of Hope Springs, which now includes us. He can’t do that job if he makes some damned fool mistake that we could have warned him about. He might get himself killed.”

Sheppard understood. “It’s either that or we have to be the ones who protect the village ourselves. I don’t know about you two, but I don’t have a burning inclination to take responsibility for every human being left in this town.”

“Thank you,” Crosby said.

“The sooner we teach this man what he needs,” Sheppard said, “the sooner we can go back to the serious business of fortifying the lodge.”

Crosby beamed, satisfied. Terrill Lee seemed distracted. Scratch caught Miller’s eye and shook his head imperceptibly.

“Terrill Lee and Scratch, you two please go back to work.”

“But…”

Miller cut Scratch off with a wave of her hand. She nodded to Sheppard and then turned to the Constable. “Crosby, follow us.” Miller led Crosby to the café and waved him into a seat. She turned to Sheppard. “We’re going to have to make this quick, so listen up.” She pointed at Sheppard and said, “Okay, you’re on first, Karl. Please give him a quick biology lesson.”

Sheppard stood in front of the table. He was tense and resisted the urge to pace. “How well did you do in science class, Constable?”

Crosby smirked. “In case you didn’t notice, I didn’t run off to become a brain surgeon. Just say whatever it is in English. If I don’t understand something, you can bet your ass I’m going to ask questions.”

Sheppard considered his words carefully. He knew he had a tendency to run on when it came to this subject. The zombie virus was his baby. He needed to be informative and clear, but also had to stop short of admitting the whole truth. No point in confessing to Constable Crosby that Sheppard was intimately involved with the creation of the super-soldier serum that started the end of the world as they knew it. That wouldn’t be likely to endear him to anyone.

“Okay, think of it this way. It’s a virus, like the flu. It reproduces by inserting its DNA into the cells of its host. In the case of the zombie virus, it attacks the mitochondria, which are the power plants in our cells. The virus’s DNA snippets then do two specific things. They overclock the energy production of the mitochondria, and they rapidly make more virus. You have seen the result up close. The effect is very fast and quite irreversible.”

“How fast is fast?” asked Crosby.

Miller interrupted. “I’ve seen some victims go from healthy human to undead zombie in the space of about two minutes.”

Crosby whistled. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Sheppard continued. “The virus can be found in any of the body’s tissues, but is transferred most effectively by bodily fluids: blood, saliva, semen…”

“So it’s sort of like the ultimate sexually transmitted disease,” said Crosby. He winced. “Remind me to use two condoms from now on.”

Sheppard turned to Miller. He wore his big brother look. He obviously hoped that Crosby’s poor joke had hit home with Miller and that she would stay away from Scratch romantically, for his sake if not her own.

Crosby was shaking his head. “Is it always fatal?”

Sheppard hesitated. He almost looked at Miller again. “Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well,” Sheppard said cautiously, “we’ve seen cases where someone who is infected survives for hours, or even several days before turning. There has to be an event that causes the victim to die, like blood loss.”

“Or getting their throat ripped out,” said Miller casually.