The Hungry (15 page)

Miller leaned over to Wells. "Lance, what's his first name, that soldier?" she whispered.

"Who? Macumber?" Wells turned his head to look at the man. Macumber studied his feet, as if they held answers he lacked. "Dillon."

"Dillon," repeated Miller.

Macumber raised his head. Very slowly. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," she said. "Fulton would understand. You saved her from a horrible fate."

Macumber finally nodded. He continued to stare at her, held her gaze so long Miller broke the connection between them rather than drown forever in those sad eyes. Then he answered, addressed his boots. "Actually, I never liked the bitch," Macumber said. "Not from the first day I met her."

"Dillon…" began Miller.

"Women don't belong in combat," he stated firmly. "No how, no way. Women got their jobs, and men have theirs. A fucking zombie firefight ain't no place for a woman."

Miller opted to let that one go.

"I tried to get into her pants a couple of times," Macumber said, uncomfortably. "She turned me down flat, can you believe it? Even called me a useless, flea-dicked, macho piece of goat turd. She thought she was better'n me, better'n all of us. And then she goes and ends up dead because she's too dumb to not enter a combat zone without waiting for her team. Hell, then she fuckin' deserved it. That's what I say." His voice had risen to take on a hysterical edge.

"Macumber," said Wells. A warning.

"You know, I'm wrong," Macumber said at last. "Maybe what she deserved was to get turned into a zombie."

"That's enough, Private!" Wells was pissed. Everyone twitched.

"Hey," said Terrill Lee, weakly. "Let's settle down."

Macumber turned suddenly. "Stay out of this, you pencil-necked college boy."

"Shut up," said Terrill Lee, now ignoring the soldier completely. He was staring straight ahead. Something else had caught his attention. "Wells, stop the van!"

Miller sat up. "What is it?"

Terrill Lee just pointed. She followed his gaze. A few hundred yards ahead, a semi-truck was parked on the side of the road. The driver was waving his arms, flagging them down. Wells slowed the van.

"Easy, Wells."

They rolled closer but stopped several yards away. Scratch leaned out the window to cover the subject. Miller rolled down her window to speak to the man. He wore jeans and a red-checkered shirt. His hair was wild with sweat and blood. His shirt was ripped at the shoulder. He'd been wounded.

"Help… help me."

Squinting, Miller took a good hard look at the mark on his right shoulder. It was a bite, sure as shit. The poor man was already a sickly green color, as if a lot of the blood had already drained from his body.
Too late, too late...

Miller hesitated. She knew that there was nothing they could do, but couldn't bring herself to end this poor fuck's misery right when he thought he'd been rescued. She was too exhausted and sad and just didn't want to be the one to put a bullet in his head.

Scratch didn't hesitate. Miller heard the side door of the van open.

"Mister, wait!" The stranger raised his hand in a futile effort to stop the bullet.

Scratch fired at the trucker. Miller flinched. The man trembled. A small hole appeared in his chest right where the full-metal jacket round entered. There was a small puff of blood where the bullet exited. But the man continued to stand. He closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, they had gone all white and cloudy. He opened his mouth and out came a low groan like a bad wind moving through a deep, dark cave.

The zombie stumbled forward to reach for the van. Still frozen and tired, Miller shrank back. Behind her, she heard a soft click as Scratch set the rifle on full-auto. BAM BAM BAM… BAM BAM BAM… out came the thunder of the rounds, equaled in volume only by frightened shouts from Darla. Scratch stopped firing. The sound continued to echo through the low desert hills. The zombie's head had exploded into bloody shreds. The miserable trucker's corpse went loose and dropped heavily to the ground.

The echo of gunfire continued to ricochet across the hardpan, long after it should have. In fact, the low, repetitive throb seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. It wasn't just the echoes, it was something else. Something close and moving closer.

"Choppers," commented Macumber coolly. Still, there was an edge in his voice.

"Sounds like Blackhawks," Wells said, in a professional tone.

"I've got 'em," said Terrill Lee. Not to be outdone by the other men he stayed cool and calm in his response. Miller looked in the direction of the sound. Three sleek, olive drab helicopters were headed their way, staying very low to the ground, the whirling blades a smoky blur in the harsh sunlight, their winglets hung for bear. From what she could tell, they were descending fast and heading right toward the van. They didn't have to make it to the base, it had found them.

Wells exited the driver's side. He lit a flare that he had stored in a pouch on his suspenders. He began to wave at the helicopters. The choppers came in low but pulled away in response, reading the signal. They circled their position as if radioing in for orders. Miller and Terrill Lee exchanged looks. They all got out of the van and stood with their weapons pointed down at the asphalt. The choppers dropped down, sand spraying everywhere, and finally landed on the empty highway.

Smiling, Wells jogged out to meet them.

Four military men exited each of the three helicopters, sphincter tight in their black Kevlar, bright reflecting shades on, nasty automatic weapons at the ready. One man was a Major from the look of his uniform. Miller thought him a handsome devil, in some exotic way. He walked right up to Wells, who snapped to attention. They had a brief conversation. Wells sagged a bit and then saluted. He turned on his heel in a perfect about face, came jogging back to the van with his weapon at the ready, his boyish smile gone.

"I am under orders to get you on the choppers, Sheriff," he said through the driver's window. His eyes were set in stone. There was clearly no room for argument.

"Are we pleased by this development," asked Miller, "or are we just kind of 'oh hell it's yet another shit-storm' frightened?"

"Good question." Wells looked at her for a long moment. He finally leaned in close. "Sheriff, I think we'd all best be feeling scared."

TEN

Just when you figure a day can't get any worse…

Strapped in tightly, Miller sat on the jump seat of the Blackhawk. The giant whirling blades beat the air into submission at speeds in excess of 150 knots. Her hair stung when it slapped her face. The distressed wedding dress clung firmly to her cold legs. The other two helicopters held close formation, echelon right. At times Miller would have sworn their deadly rotor blades were close enough to touch. She would have thought that the pounding throb of the blades would have filled the cabin, but the shrill whine of powerful turbines was the dominant sound.

They supplied her with a pair of thick headphones, but they were useless except for protecting her ears. The pilots and their captors—she had trouble thinking of them as her
escorts
despite how they had identified themselves—seemed to be on a different channel. She could see them conversing, but nothing came through on her headset.
Fuck it.
She didn't really care to hear what they were saying. Miller was just glad that there weren't any goddamned zombies sitting next to her, that her hands weren't bound, and hoped that someone would offer a change of clothing sooner or later. At this point she'd have given her left boob for a pair of jeans and a clean blouse.

Down below the chopper, their own shadows chased them across the desert floor like a giant black spider. The empty Nevada hardpan lay spread flat as browning batter all around them, a bleak, sage-dotted emptiness visible for miles beneath gin-clear skies. She couldn't tell where they were headed. Miller knew Flat Rock was now behind them to the west, and that Elko should be somewhere to the north, but from this height even familiar landmarks seemed foreign. Miller only knew they were very deep into the unforgiving desert, a hundred miles from nowhere. Not a place to crash land or even run low on water. Miller hoped these soldier boys knew their business better than those dead dorks in the National Guard.

She examined her companions. Terrill Lee had his eyes locked on something well beyond the stark scenery that lay below the open doors. He seemed lost and miserable. Poor Darla's eyes were fluttering. She was still pale and a bit green, almost as if the blood had drained from her face. Naturally, Scratch had his eyes closed again, that scruffy head lolling with the motion of the helicopter. The son of a bitch was asleep or pretending again just to piss people off. Wells and Macumber sat stoically, both staring at the floor. Wells looked exhausted but alert. Macumber wore the thousand-yard stare of a man who'd already seen too much. They had both been relieved of their weapons—after all, the
real
army was now in charge. Miller couldn't tell if they were happy about that or pissed that their authority had been stripped away. Perhaps it was a little of both.

The whine of the engines deepened into a growl. The nose of their Blackhawk tipped downward. They executed a lazy turn to the left. Down below and behind them the giant shadows grew longer. The black shapes grew legs and clustered together as the group flew into the sun.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Miller thought, as she heard an imaginary airline pilot in her head,
if you look out of the left side of the aircraft, you will see… even more fucking empty desert.

A postage stamp of cement marred the flowing desert floor. Evidence of civilization appeared, came into focus and then rushed closer.
The base
. As they approached, Miller saw a large parking lot and some ants with tiny trucks moving around. Despite all the activity in the area, the only thing that seemed to be attached to the large lot was a small cluster of prefabricated buildings. Why were they stopping way out here? This didn't seem to be much of an Army base. Who would offer re-supply, much less protection? She searched her memory, but couldn't remember anything about any government operation out this way.

As the helicopters came closer, she could see that there indeed wasn't anything special about this place, other than its location. It squatted in the middle of the blisteringly hot desert with no civilization an hour or more in any direction. There was nothing to see but the huge concrete slab, a gigantic wire barrier and the clump of prefab buildings. There had to be something more going on.

The Blackhawks straightened out. They formed up on their final approach toward a point well inside the tall, electrified fence that surrounded the base. Miller strained to look out the front window, but her view was blocked by the pilots and a bulkhead that separated the cockpit from the crew cabin. Frustrated, Miller watched out the side door, looking for a sign of what was to happen next. She had begun to feel helpless and more than a bit bored. The seatbelt felt more like a straight jacket than a safety harness. She wanted to take a long, hot shower, change clothing and get a decent meal. She was starving again. Inhaling all this candy and junk food was going to bust her out of the wedding dress forever, but for all the wrong reasons.

The choppers dropped straight down as if planning to land right there in the parking lot. Miller stared. The concrete rushed closer. At the last moment something vibrated below them, and the sand around the lot trembled. A long black line appeared in the dirt.

The desert floor split open.

Miller blinked to clear her vision. It wasn't an optical illusion. Sure enough, a large gap widened as gigantic doors—kind of like the Houston Astrodome on steroids—drew back like some humungous maw. There was indeed a top secret base out here, one that was clearly well funded and heavily fortified. Miller found it weird, like something out of a
James Bond
movie, but also rather cool. Considering what they were up against, it was nice to know the government still had a few cards to play. Miller exchanged looks with Terrill Lee. His mouth had dropped open. He shook his head, impressed. Even Scratch reacted, once he woke up and widened his eyes. Darla just kept her eyes closed.

The helicopters slowed to hover above the gigantic opening. Their pattern was perfectly timed. They all descended directly into the massive gap. They sank down into darkness. The bright desert sunlight above them dimmed when the Blackhawks touched down on an open concrete floor fifty feet below the surface. The pilots shut down as the doors far above them closed and man-made light took over. The persistent noise began to abate. Miller removed the headphones. This place was like an entire city built under the desert.

Miller took off her mirrored sunglasses. Options limited, she hung them between her breasts, right there on the dirty, bloody wedding dress. Before she could do anything else, armed soldiers boarded the helicopter. They kept her in their sights. One unbuckled her harness for her. Both were polite, but very controlling. Miller could tell that this wasn't going to be any visit to Club Med. She didn't make a fuss. Terrill Lee went along quietly, too. Scratch put up a token struggle, but it seemed mostly for appearances. Darla just stared at the floor.

Miller soaked up the surroundings as she was escorted off the helicopter and rushed toward a row of doors set into the concrete wall. The others were somewhere behind her. She gawked at the immense size of the hanger. It was big enough to hold a couple of good-sized blimps, perhaps even a 747 or two. Soldiers in small electric vehicles drove rapidly here and there, but there were also a few full-sized Humvees and what looked like a squadron of Apache gunships in the far corner. This place was an aircraft carrier sunk into a pile of rocks and sand.
What the fuck is this place, anyway?

Miller and her companions were herded in the same direction, towards the pair of tall double doors at the far side of the hangar. Darla seemed even more overwhelmed than usual. She fell behind and almost wandered off. One of the soldiers took her by the arm and ushered her in the right direction. Darla was gone for good now, and in no condition to argue. Miller figured she was downright happy not to have to make any of her own decisions. She wondered what the gang had done to Darla that had sapped all her will in such a fashion. Must have been pretty goddamned awful.