Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2) (16 page)

Impressed as Jake was that good Deputy
Carson's taste in cinematic entertainment allowed her to quote
Malcolm McDowell, he still didn't trust her. “So you were going to
take off. Then what?”

“I don't know, head south maybe?” Penny put
her palms flat on one of the defunct control consoles and leaned on
it, eyes closed. She didn't realize doing so 'accentuated da'
booty' so to speak, and Jake had to admit the woman had a nice one.
“I hadn't given it that much thought. Anywhere but here I
suppose... I knew it was only a matter of time before Rebecca
pulled something like this. I've been a little too vocal with my
opinions over her 'matchmaking' practices. I talked about it with
Will a couple of weeks ago. I guess he must have said something to
her about it, and she decided to take steps.”

Jake was unmoved. “Uh-Huh.”

Penny sat down heavily in one of the
well-used office chairs still left in the room. “You don't know the
half of it. 'Becca convinced the group to pass a new rule a few
days ago. Once a woman is preggers, she's done going beyond the
fence. 'It's too dangerous for both mother
and
fetus', she
said. 'And afterwards, the woman can't risk dying outside and
leaving the child an orphan'. The rest of the sheeple lapped it up,
let me tell you. This is just an easy way for her to give my job to
someone who kisses her ass more than I do. Fucking bitch.”

“Sucks to be you.” Jake crossed the room and
tried the door. It was a steel security job, along with its frame.
No joy there. “Maybe you should've spoken up sooner, taken charge
yourself.”

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 beginning 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.