Logan glanced around uneasily, as if saying Keller’s name might invoke him.
Evie growled softly. Maybe she didn’t like the captain, either.
“Keller?” Hammond spat. “He’s…twelve…”
Tony snickered. “Nah, he just looks it. What do you know about him?”
“Not much, to be honest. Durkee was having problems with one of his younger officers. I think it may have been Keller…he’s running things now?”
Well, that’s interesting. I glanced at Logan to take in his reaction, and saw that his eyebrows had almost vanished into his hairline. I reached down to pet the dog, taking some comfort in her closeness.
“Yeah, because Durkee’s dead,” Tony said.
Hammond sighed. “Then that kid probably killed him.”
“Dude,” Logan said. “We can’t talk like this.”
Hammond’s voice hardened immediately. “Who’s with you? Why hasn’t Hastings been transmitting?”
Tony shook his head slightly at Logan. “They maintain the radio’s been broken. For whatever reason, it was never fixed. We’re with a food truck guy at a backup unit in the blocked off part of town.”
“Why are you hanging out with a food truck guy?” Hammond sounded mystified that he was even asking the question.
Logan grabbed the mic. “I’m actually a sniper. Keller just has me handing out pastrami.”
“Pastrami? What the fuck is going on over there?”
Tony snatched the mic back. “That’s an excellent question, sir.”
I decided I might as well get in on things, and pulled the microphone toward me. “General, it’s Vibeke.”
“Vibeke! I’m so glad—”
“They’re having gladiator games with zombies.” I heard my voice spiraling upward, all the horror and helplessness I had squashed away starting to seep out in my voice. “He’s holding Gloria Fey and her cameraman prisoner. And there’s a sickness and things are batshit crazy please come rescue us.”
“Gladiator games?” Hammond’s voice went up a notch. “Gloria Fey is there?”
Tony snatched the mic back from me and twisted away so I couldn’t grab at it again. “The general has better things to do than saving our asses,” he said, then lowered his head. “But seriously, can you get us out of here? This place makes me itch. And yeah, he’s hanging on to Gloria Fey.”
The general was silent for a moment.
Then, “What is it you want me to do, McKnight? Roll in with some tanks?”
“You’d do that for us?”
Hammond sighed. “I can get a few men out to you, but you know damn well we only have one tank.”
Evie wandered over to the door and started sniffing at it.
I leaned around Tony. “Is everyone okay?” I asked in the general direction of the microphone. “What happened after we left?”
The general laughed. I pictured him shrugging. “We got the situation under control, but it’s not pretty here. Are you—what are you doing over there, anyway? Besides driving everyone crazy.”
Logan smirked. “Perceptive dude.”
“Cork it, Food Truck,” Tony ordered. “We’re just trying to survive here, sir. But we’re all eating more pastrami than any one human can digest in a lifetime, and I don’t know how much longer Keller is going to keep his shit together.”
Evie scratched at the door and let out a soft whimper.
“Does she need to go out?” Logan asked.
“You still have the dog?” Hammond at least sounded pleased.
“Vibeke, let her out.”
“She’s Dax’s dog!’
“Let the fucking dog out.”
I started for the door. “Dog has an entire city to pee on and she has to wait until we’re talking to someone important…”
I opened the door and found myself staring right into the shrunken, dry eyes of a ghoul in a nurse’s stained scrubs. The revenant must have stood some six and a half feet tall, and it stared down at me, its dried, cracked lips pulled back into a terrible grin.
Evie growled. Well, now we knew why she’d been so anxious to get to the door.
“Oh,” I said. “Shit.”
Chapter Fifteen
The undead nurse hovered for a second, as if expecting me to invite it in. At least, that was the impression I got. Maybe some shred of good manners still existed in its putrefying brain.
“Well, don’t just stand there grinning at it!” Tony barked from behind me. “Kill it!”
With what? I wasn’t about to challenge the thing to fisticuffs, so I stumbled backward. The zombie followed me into the room, its arms stretching out for me.
Logan had a pistol in his hand already. He circled back behind the ghoul, kicking the door partially shut as he did so. “Vibeke, get away from it.”
“Wait!” Dax called out. “Don’t shoot! You want to pull in more of them?”
Logan lowered the gun uneasily. “It’ll just take one shot…”
I kept backing away. Fortunately this particular dude moved slowly.
“Not yet,” Tony said. “Trust me. One shot, they come running.”
The pistol slipped back into its holster.
What do you do with a revenant you can’t shoot?