Zombie Road VI: Highway to Heartache

by David A. Simpson

  The Road Angel wasn’t reacting the way he wanted. He pointed to the man in the tailored suit and silk necktie standing at the ready, the block and tackle chains firmly in his grip.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, Hero. The necromancer cage will come up instantly with the slightest pull and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”

  Jessie nodded once and two men warily came closer to unchain the bars. They reeked of old sweat and urine and their teeth were brown and rotting. The acidity of their choice of yellow mouthwash was taking its toll.

  “You may approach.” the man said, getting back into character and motioned lazily as he walked toward the windows that overlooked the city. “I will present to you, your quest.”

  Jessie knew about renaissance festivals and cosplayers where people would dress up and live out a role, never breaking character all day, but this was one step beyond. They obviously had radios, they knew who he was. They knew there were settlements and rebuilding efforts but they chose to continue the life they had created with strife and Franken monsters and madness. He and Scarlet had cleared the streets of the undead, the people could leave if they wanted. There was a window of opportunity before more of the shambling dead were drawn to the smells and sounds from the building. They were wasting it playing these stupid games and from the glint of insanity he saw in their eyes, he knew it would do no good to try to convince them otherwise. He wouldn’t want these people in any of the towns anyway, not after what they’d done to her.

  He walked to the windows and looked to where the man was pointing. Across an open area and connected with a skywalk was another building, similar to the one they were in.

  “There, across the Bridge of Sorrows, is a vile, evil troll that calls himself Joshua and commands the Citadel of Darkness.” he said, fully immersing himself into character again. “Your mission is simple. Bring me his head.”

  If the situation wasn’t so dire, Jessie would have laughed. These idiots really had gone around the bend. Not just their flamboyant leader, all of them.

  “You will encounter dangers and traps, for they are heavily fortified and armed.” the man continued. “Your journey will be fraught with horror and filled with nightmarish things but hurry, valiant hero. Time is of the essence. Your fair maiden awaits your return and the longest anyone has ever stood in the cage before succumbing to fatigue is less than twelve hours.”

  The man dangled the handcuff keys then tucked them into a watch pocket in his vest. He made another extravagant gesture towards the exit, the wide smile on his lips showing a mouthful of yellowing teeth.

  This was the stupidest thing Jessie had ever heard of. The purple suited clown couldn’t make up his mind if he was pretending to be a despotic king, an extra in a B movie or a dungeon master. Jessies hands itched to smash his smiling face, pull his guns and kill them all. He glanced at the man standing by with his hands wrapped around the release chains. Yes. He could kill him. Bullets in the brain before he could even flinch. But dying men fell down and when he did, the cage would go up. Even if it was only a foot or two, it would be enough for the undead to crawl in and start eating her alive. To start chewing on her legs.

  Her hands.

  Her face.

  He looked neither left nor right as he made his way through the parted crowd, through the foul odor of unwashed bodies, to the exit door. A shadow flitted in the open steel rafters overhead and he saw a stalking cat making its way towards the pool. Towards Scarlet.

  “Just a word of advice, traveler.” the man said as Jessie walked out of the door. “I would take care on the fourth floor.”

  The people tittered and grinned.

  4

  Jessie

  Going down was a lot easier than going up and he reached the fourth-floor landing within minutes. The stairs ended abruptly with an unpassable wall of debris stuffed tightly from banister to banister, completely filling the space. He looked at the door, dialed in his hearing and listened for the telltale signs of shuffling feet. It was there and in abundance. He pulled his pistols and fired at the tinted glass windows, sending cracks spreading away from the holes. It didn’t take much to bust the rest of it out and send debris falling to the shredded awnings and sidewalks below. The decorative ledge between floors wasn’t wide but it was solid concrete and he didn’t have to go far before he could reach a balcony, just a few shuffling steps.

  He opened his jacket, giving himself another half inch to hug the wall and considered a Plan B. The only one that came to mind was fighting his way through a floor full of monsters they had created. They could be anything and it was probably full of traps and obstacles. Jumping was out of the question. He was kind of super but he wasn’t that super. He stepped out, pressed himself flat against the concrete and slid along on his toes, the heels of his boots hanging over emptiness. Fifty feet of free fall if he lost his balance. Inch by inch he slid along until he could finally reach out and grab the railing and pull himself over. Back on solid ground. He jumped from balcony to balcony around the building until he was overlooking the courtyard.

  The undead were starting to return. Not the same ones they’d trapped in the stadium but others from farther away in the city. The noises had got them moving and they were slowly filling the streets again. In another hour the buildings would be surrounded. Jessie saw the so-called Bridge of Sorrows, a heavily fortified skywalk between the buildings and looked for other ways in. Most of the glass was broken out and walls had been hastily constructed in the middle. Even the roof was impassable from all the spears and spikes. No one was guarding it that he could see and ordinarily, the courtyard was filled with the undead. They skywalk had been the only way over. Now he had a little time before hundreds of rotting corpses squeezed back in from the streets. There were probably rooms full of zombies waiting on the other side of the skywalk he’d have to deal with. The magic troll or whatever the purple suited pisshead called him probably used the same tactics. For now, the courtyard between them was mostly clear as he dropped to an awning below then to the ground. He heard an engine on the other side of the building and some of the zeds turned to chase the sound. It was running rough and died shortly after coughing a few times. It sounded like that was the first time it had been fired up in a long time. Maybe since the beginning. He pulled his steel knuckles and smashed in skulls of the few zombies that stood in his way. All he had to do was get up to the skywalk and through a broken window that was beyond the spiked wall of defenses. From there, he would see what kind of horrors the Citadel of Darkness had in store for him. He didn’t think much about it or try to come up with a brilliant plan. He was in a hurry. He would just kill anything that stood in his way.

  He laid waste to the closest stumblers as he ran, his eyes darting, looking for danger or traps. Across the litter strewn park, he sprang for the torn awning of a coffee shop and swung himself up to balance on the framework. He bounced it up and down a few times and used the momentum to leap for the broken window of the skywalk above him. He caught the ledge and swung through, landing on the tiles and rolling away. His guns were drawn as he came to his feet, expecting a mob to be unleashed on him or at least a guy with a spear trying to stab him. The lobby was abandoned. No one was on duty at the guard’s post. From the other side of the building, he heard the car backfire, sputter and die again. It dawned on him that whoever was here was trying to run. The evil troll and the dark denizens of the citadel were getting while the getting was good. They were taking the initiative to escape their high-rise prison while the zombies were gone.

  Jessie darted through the unlocked doors, through the fortified corridor that would have been a killing hall if it had been manned. Piles of spears carved from two by fours torn out of the walls were neatly stacked, ready to grab. Shields made from desktops were lined up, ready for instant use. He followed the noises, faint and hushed toward the back of the building and came across a room full of people, all of them watching anxiously out of the windows. He was in a large, open offic
e area on the third floor that was clean and organized except for the forty or fifty men, women and children staring at the street below.

  Jessie cleared his throat and a hundred eyes shot around to look. Men shoved women aside and butcher knives were drawn from sheaths. Kids were pushed behind the women and they too filled their fists with weapons. Jessie watched and waited, his scarred face taking everything in. Their defensive crouches, the surprised looks turning to angry resolve and hands clenched around their killing devices. He knew instantly this group was different. Battle tested and ready to kill but their walls and fortifications were defensive. They weren’t the ones attacking the other building, they were defending their territory. They didn’t have rooms filled with nightmare creations.

  “I need your help.” Jessie said and watched them as they watched him. Eyes darted and mistrust clouded their features. He wasn’t one of the others, they could see that. He was dressed different and had guns hanging low on his hips. His hands remained empty but they were near the pistols, not exactly threatening but not exactly friendly.

  A compact, neatly bearded man stepped forward and lowered his knives, rolled them easily in his hands from long practice so the blades pointed behind. It was somewhat less hostile than pointing them at him. Jessie noted that the business side of the blades was still facing out. Still ready to slice and slice deep. He was wiry like the rest of them. Underfed and malnourished with bags under his eyes that made him look older than what he probably was. He wasn’t freshly showered and shampooed, none of them were, but they didn’t reek of body odor. His sharp eyes caught granules of sand on some of them and understood they too must have a severe water shortage. They were taking sand baths.

  “We’re trying to get out, Stranger.” the man said. “If you’re the fella who was driving that old car, you should be thinking about getting out, too. The eaters are coming back. They’ll have us surrounded again very soon.”

  “You’re the leader of this group?” Jessie asked “Joshua?”

  The man nodded once.

  “That’s right. I’m Joshua Brookes.” he said and lifted his chin.

  “There’s a nut job up on the top floor.” Jessie jerked his head, indicating the building across the square. “He has my girl in a cage with the undead reaching for her. He said he’d trade her back to me if I brought him your head.”

  There was slight movement and hands tightened on weapons, eyes narrowed and men got ready to go to war with the boy splashed in gore and reeking of undead blood.

  “I’m kind of attached to it.” the man said, recognizing Jessie for who he was. The scarred-up kid standing in front of him, the boy who walked without fear and had laid waste to thousands of the undead. It was the Road Angel. The one Bastille told stories about. He was real, not just a tall tale after all.

  Jessie smiled a small, crooked smile.

  “I imagine you are. I can get you out, even if the undead come back.” he said. “My girl can walk among them. They don’t smell her. If you help me get her, we’ll clear a path and help you get some trucks running because it doesn’t sound like you’re having much luck.”

  The motor had died again and the men who had been trying to push start it were fighting the mob that was drawn to them. The sounds of men in battle, the thwack of sharpened sticks punching through rotting flesh and the grunts of exertion carried through the open windows. The crowd at the balcony turned to watch and Jessie saw from their body language things weren’t going good for the men below.

  “Run, Cody!” one of the women yelled and they started waving the men back towards the homemade ladders “HURRY!”

  Jessie wanted to wait, to extract a promise from their leader but he couldn’t. Any wasted time could mean a bite. Delay could mean the death of a good man and Jessie could sense these were the good guys in this fight. These were people worth saving. He ran for the window and they parted, leaving the path open. He slid down the ladder and was at a full sprint, running towards the surrounded men and whistled for Bob. It only took seconds for the Shepherd to recognize his masters call and leave the hole in the ceiling. He bounded out of the door, saw where Jessie was going and raced him there, his joy at being reunited set aside for the moment. He had unnatural things to kill. His snarling growl was only cut off when he leaped at a stinking undead thing and sank fangs deep into the back of its neck, shredding and ripping as his claws tore into rotting flesh. Jessie was only a few steps behind and came in swinging, steel in both hands, metal knuckles crushing heads. The men were in the truck bed or against the old Ford pickup they’d been trying to get started. None of them were cowering inside the cab, they all fought with the weapons they had, the best they could make with the materials at hand.

  “GO!” Jessie yelled when he and Bob had cleared a path, a dozen shredded dead twitching on the ground. The men broke away and ran for the safety of the balconies.

  Bob kept tearing into them as more kept coming. The trickle was becoming a flood, five became ten and they became fifty, the stumblers and runners coming in from every street, following the noise. Following the smells. Their husky keening cries were echoing through the mob as more and more joined, pulled in from all corners of the city, their dry screams carried far in the still air.

  Jessie fought his way back to the ladder, black blood flying as his arms pistoned in and out, up and down, leaving gutted corpses, crushed faces and heads dangling at odd angles on strips of dried flesh or corroding bone.

  “Bob! To me!” he yelled, once the other men had scrambled to safety and were motioning for him to hurry. To escape. To run from the mob before he was overwhelmed. The blood covered Shepherd bounded over and Jessie started yelling UP, UP at him and bent to one knee to boost the dog. Bob came in fast, timed his jump perfectly and with Jessies shove, he flew up the ladder to the waiting arms of hard breathing men pulling him in. Jessie leaped half way up and scrambled the rest of the way, leaving the reaching arms below. Hands clutched at the ladder but the men pulled it up then leaned against the wall trying to get their breath back. Disappointed faces looked out over the horde screeching in, trapping them again, Cody’s eyes were bleak at the thought of it. They had been so close to escape. A woman threw her arms around him and hugged him tight but he was in no mood for it.

  “We’re fine.” he said gruffly and pushed her away in frustration at their failure.

  The first chance they’d had in nearly a year, the first time there was a break in the wall of dead, and they couldn’t get the truck started. If only they’d had a can of ether. If only they’d had time for one more try at push starting it.

  He turned to look at the stranger who was wiping his blades clean and stashing them back in their half-hidden sheaths tucked under the dented shoulder pauldrons on his leathers. He saw the scar and recognized the big black dog from the radio stories. He’d just seen him jump into the fray and pull them out of a pretty iffy situation, they’d been nearly trapped by a mob that had stumbled out of an alley. He knew who he was and everyone knew he was supposed to be a bad ass but even he ran when the horde started pouring in. Even he couldn’t fight that many of them. Bitter disappointment was settling in. They’d been so close. They should have sent a team of runners out, they should have sent their fastest men to get far enough from the horde that they could still escape and figure out a way to rescue them. Anything would be better than being trapped again, this time maybe forever. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

  The boy was scratching the dog behind the ears, obviously happy to see him again but that didn’t help them. Now they had two extra mouths to feed and Cody was starting to get pissed. They’d been so close! What were they going to do now? Why was this kid even here? He’d just been rescued by a boy. It was a hard pill to swallow and his anger was rising up, he couldn’t stand being trapped anymore and he needed to lash out.

  “WHY?” he yelled, pushing away from the wall, his breath still short but now in anger, not fear.

  He brushed his girlfriend aside, stompe
d toward Jessie and Bob’s happy tail wagging turned to a low growl at the threat. Joshua started to say something but Jessie gave him a half shake of his head and the man quieted. He had read the group and had a basic understanding of their dynamic. Joshua was the brains. The man who knew things, the idea man. Cody was the brawn. The guy who got things done. The man who made it happen.

  “Why couldn’t you keep them off of us for just one more minute?” he raged “We almost had the truck started, we could have got out of here! Now we’re right back where we started from. Trapped with no way out and we’ve got two more mouths to feed!”

  Jessie let him yell, let him blow off some steam and kept a calming hand on Bob’s shoulder.

  When he paused to start another rant, Jessie interrupted

  “We’re not trapped.” he said “I can get you out.”

  Cody wanted to scream. His face was red and his fists were clenched. He was ready to strike out at something. Anything.

  HOW? He wanted to bellow into the kids face and shake him until his teeth rattled. If you haven’t noticed, we’re surrounded by eaters! We’ve killed so many they were climbing over the piles to get to the balconies! The more we kill, the more show up to replace them! They keep coming! They never stop!

  He gritted his teeth and held his tongue though. The kid was so calm. So sure of himself. He said he could leave like it was so obviously easy he was surprised no one else had figured it out.

  Cody was bigger than the rest of them, naturally tall and muscular, a fullback during his high school glory days. His blonde hair was as badly trimmed as everyone else’s with dull scissors and sharpened knives. It was a square cut with straight bangs that stopped just above his eyebrows. If he had a tan and a furry loincloth, he could pass for He-Man at a comic book convention. Everyone assumed he wasn’t all that bright because he liked to lift but it was just a habit he’d kept up since the outbreak. As a firefighter, he needed strength. He needed to muscle around hoses and wield an axe or carry heavy equipment for hours while wearing full protective gear. Since the fall, he’d lost weight but he still worked out, there wasn’t much else to do. Entertainment was a little lacking in the high rise unless you liked reading the same books over and over or catching up on gossip about long dead celebrities from old magazines.