“Nice shooting,” he declared as he stood back up.
Lily brushed off her shoulder playfully. “What can I say?” she asked, batting her eyelashes. “You don’t grow up in a rural town and not know how to shoot one of these.”
A moment later there was another boom from the front of the jail. They looked over, and saw that Tate had taken down most of his pack, leaving only a couple that he took out from the back of the truck with a baseball bat.
Lily smacked the roof. “Back it up, they’re good!” she called out. She and Dante knelt down as Ace swung the vehicle around, bringing them back up to the entrance.
Maddox jumped out of his truck, carrying a small hand-held welding torch. “Cover me, I’ll get the door,” he said.
The group formed a semi-circle around him, looking out across the road, hoping that their potato cannons hadn’t attracted any more company.
Maddox fired up the torch, going straight to work on the locking mechanism. It didn’t take long for the flame to burn bright, and the metal began to melt away. A few moments later, the door fell open.
“We’re in,” he said, hooking the torch to his belt as the other readied their weapons, preparing to go inside.
Dante entered first, gun aimed high. He quickly swept the small lobby area, finding not much of anything. There was an overturned chair, and some magazines strewn about.
“Not sure if a fight took place here, or they’re just really messy,” Ace said, looking around.
Dante tongued his cheek. “Let’s assume the former,” he said.
Maddox pushed the door closed behind him, and grabbed the overturned chair, dragging it over to wedge it under the handle. “This ain’t gonna do much if a bunch of those things show up,” he said, “but at least with it closed, they might just walk by it.”
Dante nodded. “So where’s Francis going to be at?” he asked.
“Probably the main holding cells in the back,” Maddox replied, and led them over to a door that led to a long hallway that cut through the entire building straight to the back. As soon as he got through, there was an office on the left that he stopped at.
He tried the doorknob, but it was locked, so he used his gun to smash open the glass, reaching in to unlock it.
They entered the room, and it was a small guard post. There were several monitors in there that showed various parts of the jail, and what they could see wasn’t very encouraging.
Several packs of zombies roamed about. Ten, maybe fifteen total across the main hallways. They found a monitor showing the main holding cells, and there were half a dozen ghouls in there, all congregating around one cell.
“That’s gotta be Francis,” Tate hissed.
Maddox looked around the room, finding a microphone. He went over to it and checked the buttons, finally flipping a switch. “Yo Francis,” he said into the mic, and his voice echoed throughout the hallways on every speaker. “It’s your cousin Maddox. If you’re in that cell, give us a sign.”
They watched the monitor, and one of the zombies’ heads disappeared between the bars. A moment later, the body convulsed and fell backwards, missing its head.
“Oh yeah, that’s him all right,” Tate declared.
Dante took a deep breath. “Now we just gotta figure out how to get to him,” he said.
“My potato cannon should be good for another shot,” Tate said.
Lily nodded. “We have one shot left too,” she added. “Mine is starting to crack after that second but, and I’d rather not blow my hand off if I can help it.”
“I’ll go grab ‘em,” Tate offered.
“I’ll come with,” she said. “Going alone isn’t exactly advised these days.”
As they turned to leave, a walkie talkie on the far end of the table clicked on.
“All right there Maddox,” a firm aged male voice came through, “why don’t you pick up the radio so we can have ourselves a chat before you go and do something stupid?”
Maddox froze, eyes wide and unsure.
“Maddox, you dumb son of a bitch,” the man growled, “you just announced you were here over the loudspeaker, so I know you’re in the office and can hear me. Now pick up the damn radio.”
He sighed and picked it up, clicking the button and raising it to his lips. “Judging by your friendly tone,” he drawled, “I’m going to guess this is Sheriff Brandt.”
“Congrats on solving one mystery there,” the Sheriff replied. “Now maybe you can solve one for me. I seem to recall that the last time we met I said in no uncertain terms, if you ever came into my county I was going to put you in solitary confinement and lose the key. Now you want to explain to me just what in the hell you’re doing here?”
Maddox sighed. “Not sure if you noticed or not Sheriff, but the world has kinda gone to shit,” he said forcefully. “So my friends and I came up here to get Francis out before he starves to death. Because judging by the monitor, nobody has been in to see him for a while.”
“Now you sure this is Maddox?” the Sheriff drawled. “Because that sounds way more selfless than I would have thought you could muster up. Now if you were smart, you’d go ahead and walk right back out that front door and never look back, because if you try to break him out, I’m going to beat you down and lock you up with him. Once Francis is done serving his time, he’ll be released.”
Maddox growled, but before he could respond, Dante let out a whistle and waved him over. He pointed to a pack of zombies eight strong that congregated around an office door on the other side of the building.
The redneck grinned.
