Dead Series (Book 2): A Little More Dead: Gunfire & Sunshine (14 page)

“Let’s try to find
some keys to that door and see what else is…” Paul’s eyes snapped to a set of
stairs leading to the basement. “You hear that?”

They followed him
to the top of the staircase where something was making a banging sound below.
Descending the steps, the noise grew louder. Paul stopped at the bottom and
held a hand out, staring at two empty cells across from him. The banging was
coming from around the corner to the left and he was afraid to even look. Heart
thudding in his ears, he glanced back at the others and put a finger to his
lips before quietly poking his head around the corner where a small window at
the end of the hallway shed some light on the mystery. His insides twisted when
he saw a heavyset police officer on his knees, poking a mop handle through the bars
of the jail cell at the end of the hall. The mop handle banged against the
concrete floor.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Meanwhile, a man
in an orange jumpsuit stood in the cell next door, reaching through the side bars
and trying to get after the same thing the cop was in that fourth cell. Paul
couldn’t see anything in there and the policeman growled his frustration,
inciting the prisoner to release a high-pitched shriek that echoed loudly off
the cinderblock walls. Flinching with the outburst, Paul ducked back around the
corner and took one hand off the M4 just long enough to hold up two fingers.
The others tightened their grips on their weapons. With Stephanie and Wendy
protecting their six, Paul inhaled a deep breath and stepped out around the
corner, taking a wide stance with the M4 at the ready.

The cop was so
preoccupied he didn’t even notice. Neither did the prisoner with his back to
them. Moving together, the group crept closer while the cop jabbed the mop
handle into that fourth cell.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

Paul struggled to
control his breathing as they pressed forward, shocked by what he was seeing. The
cop was definitely dead and definitely using the mop as some kind of tool but
for what, Paul had no idea. The prisoner with the blond ponytail blocked his
view into that far cell but
something
was in there. Something the two ghouls were desperately after.

“Boo!” Curtis
yelled, grabbing Paul’s arm and making him nearly jump out of his shoes.

“Goddammit
Curtis!”

Curtis laughed
hard until the banging stopped and the two stiffs slowly turned their heads to
Paul and company. The smile slid down Curtis’ face as dead eyes locked onto live
ones. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Not even the corpses. Then, in a struggle
against gravity, the bloated cop staggered to his scuffed black shoes, spurring
Paul and Curtis into shielding the women with their bodies. The way the policeman
just stood there and sized them up with a mop hanging in his bloody hand sent a
cold finger down Paul’s spine. A glimmer of thought seemed to flash in the
thing’s sunken eyes just before the mop dropped to the floor with a loud
clatter.

“Hungry?” Paul
called out, tipping his chin down and preparing for the M4’s recoil.

The cop snarled
and charged, covering ten of the twenty-five feet between them in a disturbing
burst of speed. Paul and Curtis unloaded on him at the same time, cowering with
the booming blast ricocheting off the hard walls. The M4 pounded Paul’s
shoulder. The cop spun around and hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

“Goddammit,
Curtis!”

“What?”

“That was my shot.
I’m trying to get a feel for this new gun and you’re wasting an entire shell!”

“Sorry, I thought
you might miss.”

Paul’s face fell.
“From here?”

“I told you, man,
that’s a lot of gun for a guy like you to handle.”

The prisoner shot
his ragged arms through the bars, screaming when no purchase was found.

“Shut up,” Curtis said,
swinging the shotgun to him.

Paul pushed it
down and gave Curtis an icy look that made him back up. Carefully stepping
closer to the thing’s cage, Paul yanked on the cell door and jumped back just before
the man latched onto him. “It’s locked; he’s not going anywhere.” The fourth
cell at the end of the hall tapped at his attention. He was dying to know what
was in there and dreading to find out at the same time.

Pressing up
against the wall, they squeezed past the prisoner’s raking claws and stepped
over the dead cop, stopping at the end of the L-shaped hallway. The far cell
was devoid of life, drawing Paul’s eyebrows together in a state of confusion. Empty
cracker boxes, protein bar wrappers and water bottles littered the floor,
further adding to his puzzlement. Surely the cop couldn’t have been trying to
get at whatever food was in there because those things weren’t interested in
anything that wasn’t still breathing. Then something moved. Kneeling down, Paul
peered beneath the small bed in the corner where a shadowy figure lay curled
into a ball.

“Hello?”

The figure didn’t
move or respond and Paul looked back at the others before trying again.

“Are you hurt?”

“Who are you?” a
man’s voice whispered from the shadow.

“Survivors.”

A pregnant pause followed.
“Of what?”

“Whatever’s going
on out there.”

The other prisoner
grunted and snarled, reaching through the side bars and trying to get at the
man under the bed.

“And what exactly
is that?” the man asked.

Paul cocked his
head to one side for a better view that didn’t do much. “A nightmare,” he
answered. “How long have you been in here?”

“Since this
nightmare
began,” the man replied, cautiously
pushing out from under the bed and drawing Curtis’ weapon.

Paul watched the skinny
black man with a thin mustache get to his feet and scoot along the far side wall,
putting as much distance between himself and the other inmate as possible.

Curtis aimed the
tactical shotgun at the thin man’s orange jumpsuit. “Holy shit, it’s Montel
Williams!”

The man responded
with a nervous laugh, scooting along the far wall as the other inmate snatched
at him from across the tiny cell.

“What’s your
name?” Paul asked.

“Billy.”

“Are you hurt?”

Billy’s eyes went
to Stephanie. “No, just hungry,” he replied, reaching the front of the cell and
grabbing the iron bars like he’d just swam across the English Channel. “Can you
get me out of here?” he panted, nodding at the fallen cop. “The keys are on his
belt.”

“Why didn’t you
just grab them?” Curtis asked, not lowering his weapon.

Billy looked to
the blond haired thing flailing against the bars in the cell next door. “Jonny
already tried that; didn’t work out so hot.”

Stephanie grabbed
the keys off the cop’s belt and Paul snatched them from her hand, curling them
into his fist.

“What’re you in
here for?”

Billy looked from
Paul to the others and wet his lips. “I got a DUI the night before all hell
broke loose. I was supposed to get out the next day but these cops got swamped.
Fast.”

Paul studied him
for a few seconds. “What’s your last name?”

“Smith.”

“Where’re you
from?”

“I’m from here.”

“Bullshit,” Curtis
spit back. “Then why don’t you have an Oklahoma accent?”

“Because we moved
here from Detroit right before my senior year of high school.”

Paul sharpened his
gaze. “Why?”

“My dad took a job
with the water plant just outside of town.” His eyes dropped to the keys in
Paul’s hand. “Can you please just let me out of here? I ran out of food three
days ago and I’m literally starving to death.”

Curtis stared past
him to the empty beef jerky wrappers and boxes of crackers on the cell floor.
“So what, they just slid some Wheat Thins in there and left ya?”

Billy nodded to
the cop. “By day four, Chubby was the last cop left. He slid some food and
water in the cell and locked it back up; told me he’d let me out if no one showed
up in the morning. That night, he went upstairs and the next time he came back
he was like this.” An uneasy laugh passed his lips. “I tried giving him the
beef jerky back but he wasn’t interested.”

Paul ran a tongue
across his front teeth, studying Billy’s body language. “What’d you do for work
before everything went to hell?”

“I used to blow
neon signs until LED came along and ruined my life.”

Curtis furrowed
his brow. “Neon signs?”

“Yeah, for bars
and stuff. But most recently, I was a CSA at Jiffy Lube.”

“Oh great,” Curtis
groaned. “If we need an oil change we’ll be all set.”

“What’d you do?” Billy
countered, anger tapering his eyes. “Gather carts at Walmart?”

“I raced for
NASCAR, skinny-minny. How about that?”

Billy stared
blankly at him for a few seconds and then howled with laughter. “That’s a good
one, man! Did I say Jiffy Lube? I meant NASA!” His laughter bounced off the walls,
stirring Jonny into a frenzy.

Paul bent down and
grabbed the cop’s gun from its holster and tucked it in the small of his back.
“Wait here,” he said, motioning for the others to follow him back upstairs.

Billy’s smile
dropped like a rock. “Wait! You can’t just leave me in here; I’ll die!”

“We’ll be right
back,” Paul said over his shoulder, turning the corner and galloping up the
stairs.

“At least kill
Jonny, I can’t take his moaning anymore!”

Upstairs, Paul crossed
through stripes of sunlight and went behind the front desk, stepping on some
scattered paperwork and stopping at the metal door.

“What’re you
doing?” Wendy whispered, looking around like more dead cops were waiting to
spring from the shadows and cabinets.

Paul flipped
through the cop’s keys. “Trying to open this door. It’s probably an evidence
room and should have his wallet and clothes.”

“He’s bullshitting
us about the DUI,” Curtis said, keeping a sharp lookout. “Probably in here for
murder or something.”

“That’s what I
want to find out.” Paul tried a key that didn’t fit and then another. “But
first we need to know if Billy Smith is really his name. If he’s lying about
that, then he’s probably lying about the DUI.”

“What if he is lying?”
Stephanie asked, unzipping her coat. “Do we just leave him down there?”

Paul slipped another
key into the lock and turned, making a soft click. The door popped open and he
looked back at her. “Maybe.”

“Paul, come on, we
can’t just leave him down there,” she said, gesturing with her gun. “He’s
starving to death.”

“We’ll give him a
Baby Ruth before we bail, Sis. Jeez, what kind of people do you think we are?”

Paul gave Curtis a
slow nod before whipping the door back. Curtis stormed inside, his gun following
the faint light slipping through the open door. “Clear.”

Wendy lit the corners
of the room up with her flashlight. “What is this place?”

Paul surveyed the
wire baskets and cleaning products lining two walls of shelves. “Looks like an
evidence room, slash janitorial closet.”

Curtis smiled.
“Great idea mixing chemicals with your meth.”

Paul pulled out a
wire basket with some clothes and a gold watch inside, locating a ragged Velcro
wallet at the bottom. He held the driver’s license up to the light. “John
Irving,” he said, studying the picture of a white man with long blond hair.
“Well, he wasn’t lying about his cellmate’s name.” Putting it back, he took out
another basket with some clothing, a silver watch and a black leather wallet
nestled inside. “Billy Smith,” he said, examining the license.

“Well,” Wendy
said, illuminating the tiny photo of a black man with peach fuzz length hair,
“he wasn’t lying about that either.”

Paul dug further into
the wallet. “He’s got a CCW permit.”

“Think this is
his?” Curtis held up a plastic baggie with a snub-nose revolver inside.

“Could be. Let’s
ask him,” he replied, flipping the wallet shut and tossing it back into the
basket.

Curtis reached into
the same basket he found the gun and pulled out a cell phone bagged in another
Ziploc. Taking the cell out, he tapped at the dark screen. “Dead.” He looked
up. “Probably his too.”

Paul noticed the
cell phone was the same model as Sophia’s and immediately pushed the thought
from his mind because everything reminded him of her and this wasn’t the time.
“Hang on to it,” he said, rummaging through Billy’s clothing. “We may find a
power source down the road and it could have something on it. Why else would
the cops bag it separately?”

“Something on it like
what?” Wendy asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Okay, but what
about right now? How do we find out about the DUI?” Stephanie glanced behind
her at the desks out front. “The computers are down.”