The looting had started and even as Shavian and Elliott walked before them, Roger watched a group of men from lockup trying to break into the evidence room. Higgins looked over as they tried use a steel chair for a battering ram to break the lock.
Higgins raised a hand to protest their intrusion but Roger put a hand on his shoulder. “We need to get to the trucks, there could be more of them trying to take the wheels we need. Forget them, they aren’t going to get far with anything that they find in there.”
Elliot walked back towards them, looking nervous. “Forget them or not, all the noise they are making is going to attract more zombies!” Elliott exclaimed. Elliott knew what he was talking about, but the annoying way he flapped about like a chick falling from the nest took away from his credibility.
“Oh, now that is what I’m talking about!” the short squat Jackson said as walked into the hallway.
Fipps frowned at Roger as he came behind. “What gives, you aren’t leaving us behind are ya?”
Looking between Jackson and Fipps, Roger sighed. He knew the answer he wanted to give. Jackson’s only reason for joining them was to find himself alone with lass Shavian, and while Fipps was the only one that kept him from just taking her, he knew the stork was the real danger: he couldn’t read him at all.
“We told you where we were going when we left the cells. We’re heading for the trucks in back.” He jerked his thumb down the hall. “Come along or get left behind, hesitation is death,” Roger said.
Higgins came to some kind of realization and turned to lead Elliott; Shavian didn’t stop and was almost to the back door already.
Giving Fipps a shrug, Roger turned to follow after the other, and he heard Fipps tell Jackson to leave it and come on. The gunfire had stopped completely and the only noise echoing through the hall was the continuous banging of the men ramming the chair at the door. Just as Elliott predicted, the zombies were trying to push past one another to get at the noise.
Roger quickened his step; the rest were already through the door, Higgins holding it open. “Hurry,” was all he said. Roger wondered how he’d gotten through the academy. Don’t you have to recite Miranda rights? There’s more than one word per sentence there!
Before them stood vehicles, sweet vehicles, all of them bathed in the overhead sodium lighting. Cop cars, SUVs, paddy wagons, but he only had eyes for one. There, sitting near the back, was the SWAT transport truck and mobile headquarters. Shavian looked back to Roger, her long red hair whipping about her face with the breeze that pushed through downtown Portland. Her expression turned sour when Jackson and Fipps came through back door, pushing it closed hard.
Higgins turned and tried to pull the door back open. “Captain!”
Fipps and Jackson shoved him back. “There ain’t no Captain in there man, just zombies to make a meal of you.” He said.
Roger pulled on Higgins from behind. “They’re right, it’s nothing but zombies now. I’m sure the Captain got out another way. The seven of us need to get in that van, and we’ll drive around the building and look for him.”
“Six” Higgins said.
“What?” Roger said, confused, redoing the math in his head.
“There are six of us man,” Fipps said.
“I’ll help make a seventh,” Jackson said eyeing Shavian.
Roger held her hand out to stop the growling and spitting Shavian from charging the man. Elliott should be pleased that there was now someone even more hated by the Irish evil. “No, four plus you three makes seven.”
“What four? Blondie split man,” Fipps said, stepping way from the door as it began to rattle.
Turning to review the party, the gangster was right, Junie was missing. “Fiddlesticks.”