Dallas put her hand on Hannah’s head. “Can you shoot that big rifle?”
Hannah beamed with pride. “That’s how come you’re still alive.”
Dallas’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I thought I saw that, but I wasn’t sure. That was really you?”
“She’s a survivor,” Sanchez replied. “Like her mother, and if we need to kill these assholes to get out of here, so be it.” Sanchez and Hannah stood by the warehouse bay door that slid up.
“We have to protect Hannah. The undead won’t bother with us or want anything from us, but she’s vulnerable.”
Sanchez nodded. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Dallas checked her rifle. “Thank me when we get out of here. Right now, let’s forgo the bay door and try the window. You two go out that window. I’ll open the door and let the man eaters come in. Once they get in, I’ll close it and set fire to it.”
Sanchez reached into her bag and pulled out matches. “One of the tiki torches should do it if you have some material.”
Dallas took the matches and shooed them to the window. “Out and head west toward the railroad tracks. Once you hit the tracks, keep heading west.”
“We’ll wait for you on the road a quarter of a mile down. No further. I am unsure how far you can make it.”
Nodding, Dallas grabbed the handle to the door. “Don’t wait too long. Keep moving. I’ll catch up to you. If I don’t, my people will. They’re the best.”
Sanchez ran back and hugged her. “Don’t make me come back for you.”
“Not a chance. Now get going.”
Dallas waited until she heard the glass break on the other side of the warehouse. Then, she unlocked the door and pulled it open, feeling her side burn. It started bleeding again.
With the door up, the zombies all lumbered in, moaning, and looking for the tender morsels that had just hopped out the window. When twenty-nine zombies were in the warehouse, she closed the door on the last three and buried her machete into their heads.
“Now you’re firewood,” she said, pushing their bodies close to the wooden walls before setting their clothes on fire.
Dallas waited to see the wood walls ignite before opening the bay door again. The old, dry walls went up quickly, and Dallas had to swing wide of the building as she made her way to the other side. Man eaters were everywhere, and the screams of those who hadn’t escaped their clutches filled the air. Thousands had entered the compound and were attacking everyone in sight.
It reminded her of the first day of the outbreak.
Dallas looked at JB’s warehouse and saw it was still guarded by at least a dozen men who were struggling to keep up with the zombies flooding into the area. Fires burned, torched cars smoldered, and the smell of hair and charred meat filled the air. A smoky mist hung in the air like LA smog as zombies lumbered through it after the living.
If he was in there, she could get to him. She knew she could but her wound was too fresh and debilitating right now. Besides, revenge would have to wait until she could get Hannah to safety. That much she knew.
As Dallas came around the corner, she was face-to-face with two men in riot gear.
Everyone drew down on everyone else.
“Look who it is, Champ. Your girlfriend.” The heavy set Jethro said, raising his weapon higher. None of the men were in guard outfits.
Dallas raised her rifle at Champ, who did the same.
“You’re a fucking crazy bitch. You know that, right? You can’t possibly shoot us both before we kill you, so why don’t you set the rifle down and come with us. There’s a big, fat reward for your ass alive, and we’re gonna claim both: the reward, and your ass.”
Dallas recognized the voice from the night of three visitors. “I don’t think so, fellas. Not in this lifetime.”
Champ looked at his buddy. “Shoot her in the leg.”
Dallas looked behind the two men and then nodded. “Okay, okay. No need to shoot anyone.” Dallas lowered her rifle and slowly knelt down to set it on the ground. Then she raised her hands in the air.
Both men kept their weapons trained on her.
“Bitch, I’m gonna finish what I started, and when I’m through wid’ you, you won’t be able to sit for a week.”
Dallas sighed and shook her head. “You know, guys, it’s hard to believe that with all the danger lurking around, all you can think about is fucking a lesbian. I mean, really? Have you even looked around? There are zombies everywhere.”
“A what?” Chubby said.
Dallas laughed. “A lesbian. A dyke. A rug muncher. A homo. But you wanna know what else I am?” She paused and pointed behind them at five zombies lumbering toward them. “I’m a survivor, and you could be, too if you took care of them.”
“We wasn’t born yester—”
The five zombies coming up behind the two men grabbed them and tore into their arms, shoulders and neck.
Screaming and flailing, they were too close to use their weapons and could only cry out in anguish for someone to help them as the man eaters bit at their necks and arms, tearing huge chunks of skin off.
“Help us! Help me!”
Leaning over the men as they laid on the filthy ground while their arms and legs were being ripped into, Dallas grinned. “I am also the ‘Bitch’ who is standing with a smile on my face while you pieces of shit get eaten alive. Now that, Jethro, is Texas justice.”
Their screams died in their throats as Dallas walked away.
The whole area was engulfed in flames now and cast an eerie orange and yellow light on the zombies kneeling over their prey.
Moving as quickly as her wound would allow, Dallas made it to the road, where Sanchez and Hannah should have been. Should have been, but weren’t.
Then she saw it.
A lone dog in the middle of the road was tearing the intestines out of a little girl. Raising her rifle, Dallas exhaled and killed the dog with a single shot, her heart cracking as she did.
“No,” Dallas whispered, bending over the little half-eaten girl.
It wasn’t Hannah.
Dallas sighed loudly.
“Dallas, come on!” Sanchez yelled from the shadows. Holding Hannah’s hand, she ran into the street.
“You have to get Hannah out of here,” Dallas said, holding her side and bending over. “That dog—there will be others.”
“We’re not leaving you here.”
Dallas shook her head. “I’ll only slow you down. Go! Follow the tracks to the station. My people will pick you up there. I mean it, Sanchez. Hurry!”
Hannah pointed to a large pack of dogs running straight for them. “Oh no!”
“Go!” Dallas yelled, kneeling down to shoot at the oncoming pack.
Sanchez and Hannah took off running as Dallas looked through her scope at her final play. There just wasn’t anything she could do at this point but take out as many as she could, and hopefully give Sanchez and Hannah enough time to get to safety.
It was the best she could do for the woman who saved her lover’s life.
She only wished it was enough.
Grabbing the M-16, she swept it from side-to-side, killing all but six of the dogs, who just kept coming, their snarling white teeth practically glowing in the orange light from the fire.
When her clip was empty, she pulled out her machete and rose, holding it like a baseball bat. Numerous thoughts flashed through her mind as she watched the snarling, crazed pack of once domestic-now-feral dogs bearing down on her, driven by hunger and bloodlust.
She thought about Butcher, who had left the safety of Angola and the arms of her lover and newborn to get them out. She thought about Einstein and hoped losing Cassie wouldn’t make him grow up to be a bitter man. She thought about her grandmother, who had taught her a woman’s place was wherever she damn well pleased, and finally, she thought about the love of her life...a woman she’d met at the beginning of the outbreak…Roper.
Dallas had never met anyone like that woman. She w
as foolishly brave, courageously cunning, and took chances only someone as full of life as she was would ever dream of doing. She gave Dallas a reason to get up every morning and a warm place to put her head every night. Roper was the missing link to a life unlived but worth fighting for every day.
She was...
Dallas stared through the din. Apparently, she was riding on a huge horse through the smoke from the warehouse, and directly into the path of the dogs.
Roper rode hard on the back of a light-colored horse that was galloping like the wind, its mane flowing, hooves clopping quietly yet swiftly on the hard road surface. Leaning into the horse like a derby jockey, Roper extended a hand toward Dallas.
Was this what Dallas’s death chariot looked like? Her lover riding to the proverbial rescue on horseback?
Lowering the machete, she watched in detached silence as the horse stayed just ahead of the nipping jaws of the hungry dogs.
“Dallas!”
Hearing Roper call her name, Dallas snapped to and realized it truly was Roper leaning now way over the right side of the saddle, arms outstretched.
Time slowed once again as Dallas understood what Roper was attempting to do.
They had one shot at this.
Just one.
Forcing her pain from her mind, Dallas focused in on just Roper as she rode closer.
Closer.
Almost there.
The timing on this was everything.
If she grabbed too late, she would pull Roper off the horse. Too early, and she would miss altogether and be a meal for the dogs.
“Now!” Roper yelled.
Throwing her right arm around Roper and her left one on the back of the saddle, Dallas felt Roper grab her and swing her around so she landed squarely on the back of the horse.
The pain was immediate and intense, but once her arms were tightly around Roper’s waist, Dallas felt nothing but peace and safety.
“Hang on, love,” Roper yelled over her shoulder, kicking the horse into high gear and easily outrunning the dogs, which veered off in search of easier prey.
It felt like they rode forever, and when Roper finally let the horse slow down, they were on a gravel road leading to a sports complex.
“Stay on her, love,” Roper said, sliding off the horse and leading it to the middle of a softball field. When the horse finally stopped, Roper reached up and helped Dallas get down.
“I gotcha, lover,” Roper said, holding Dallas the moment her feet hit the ground. “I gotcha.”
“Is it really you?” Dallas asked, pulling away. Only the barest of light shone over the hills. “Roper? It’s you, isn’t it?”
Roper gently laid her palm on Dallas’s cheek. “Well, if you could see my face, you might not think so. I…uh…hit a few bumps along the way. Nothing time can’t fix.”
Dallas held Roper’s face in her hands as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Roper’s left eye was completely swollen shut and the entire left side of her face was bruised and swollen, but she’d never looked more beautiful to Dallas than she did at this moment. “Oh my god, baby…your face…your beautiful face.”
“It will heal, lover. It’s looks worse than it feels.”
Kissing the back of Roper’s hands, Dallas sighed loudly. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again.”
Roper smiled softly. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.” Gently kissing her lover, Roper ran her fingers through her Dallas’s hair as they stood bathed in the predawn light.
Slowly breaking away from the kiss, Dallas clung to Roper with all her might and sobbed. The tears of fear were rolled into tears of sadness, and wrapped in tears of loss. All fell in a single stream of regret as Roper held her tightly and whispered for her to let it out. She was here now.
“I gotcha, Love. It’s going to be okay now. We’re going to be okay.”
When at last, Dallas was cried out, she slowly pulled back and looked into Roper’s battered face. The thin light revealed what the darkness had hidden. “My god...” Dallas’s fingers lightly touched Roper’s bumps and bruises. “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore.” Roper turned Dallas’s hand and kissed the middle of her palm. “And I’d do it all again if it meant we’d be standing here safe from the reach of those cretins.” Roper leaned in and kissed Dallas harder, her hands pulling Dallas closer, as if she couldn’t get close enough.
When the extended kiss was over, Dallas looked into her eyes. “I love you more than words can express, and my heart…they...they tried to make me think you were dead.”
Roper motioned for Dallas to sit on a horse blanket next to an unlit fire pit. When she saw how Dallas was holding herself, she helped her down to the ground. “Are you injured?”
Dallas nodded. “Shot, but your friend Sanchez patched me up. I’ll be fine.” She laid her palm on Roper’s cheek once more. “They even brought your bloody clothes to me to prove you were dead.”
“They believed what I wanted them to.”
“I saw the bullet hole. How’d you get out?”
Roper eased Dallas down to the blanket and pulled up her shirt to look at her wound that had bled through. “I leapt over the fence just as they shot. It missed me, but went through my shirttail. I figured I had a better chance of staying alive if they thought I was dead. So, I disrobed right there, cut off a fresher zombie’s arm and soaked my clothes in the blood. Then I took off.”
“Nearly naked.”
“I had my boots.” Roper peeled back the makeshift bandage on Dallas’s side.
Dallas winced. “My clue.”
Roper looked down at her and grinned a smile that was cattywampus on her disfigured face. “So me and my boots ran until we couldn’t anymore. I found Honey already saddled up and grazing, so I managed to get her.”
“Nearly naked.”
Roper laughed. “Focus in. I found a ranch house nearby and shopped.”
Dallas looked at Roper in clean jeans, a red plaid shirt and a brown leather bomber jacket. “Damn you’re good looking.”
“Oh, I’m sure my contusions and bruises are gorgeous.” Covering Dallas’s wound again, Roper took Dallas’s hand and placed it on the bandage. “Keep pressing it. You busted open the stitches.”
Dallas laid her hand on top of Roper’s. “Thank you.”
“For what? By the time I got back in the game, it was almost half-time.”
“How’d you find me?”
Roper rose, opened the saddle bags and pulled out a water bottle. “You’re kidding, right? Only one person I know could start a blaze like that and cause the chaos I saw.” Handing the water to Dallas, she asked, “What in the hell happened?”
“Butcher happened.”
Roper stopped. “What? Here? You’re kidding.”
Dallas took the water and gulped half the bottle. “Don’t ask me how, but she and the Boy Wonder got to the Fuchs and tore the place apart. I managed to get Ingrid, Burnett, and a couple others out before all Hell broke loose.”
Roper sat next to Dallas. “Luke? Is he with her?”
Dallas shrugged. “I have no idea who all was in the Fuchs. Just heard Butcher and Einstein and saw Hunter manning the turret.”
Roper frowned. “Hunter? Why not—” She didn’t need Dallas to say the words to know the answer. “No. Oh god. No. Not Churchill.”
Dallas’s eyes teared up. “He and Cassie, both.”
Closing her eyes, Roper exhaled loudly. “Poor Einstein. He must be ruined.”
“Einstein is alive because Churchill saved him from that fucking zombie cage. The thing bit Churchill so the fucking guards shot him.”
For several minutes, they sat in silence, feeling the loss of someone they had both grown to love.
“So someone must have made it back to Angola.”
Dallas nodded. “That’s my guess. Butcher is the only other person with keys. They came in, took the Fuchs, and shot the shit out of everything. I was shot helping Sanchez and her daughter.”
&nb
sp; Roper’s face lit up. “She saved my life. Did she make it?”
“Well, now you’re even. She and Hannah are making their way to the train station, which is where we need to head soon.”
Roper nodded. “Soon, but we need to find Butcher. She’ll go to the train station for sure.”
Dallas sighed loudly. “She would...but Einstein’s a whole other story.”
“You don’t think—”
Dallas nodded. “I do. I’ve never seen him so broken up…so bitter. He won’t merely escape. That kid wants blood.”
“Then we better find him before he finds them and puts himself in danger. I don’t think he’ll agree that revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Wendell sat next to the turret, binoculars to his eyes. “Yep. There they go. Looks like four vehicles heading to our past location.”
Hunter relayed the message to Butcher, who turned to Einstein. “You know where the weapons are?”
He nodded. “Everything is in JB’s warehouse.”
“Any chance he’s with them?”
“Hell no. He’s not a fighter. I’m sure he has Sarge and Clint with him, though.”
“And that’s who you want.” It wasn’t a question.
“Either will do, but I want them both. I want them to suffer horribly.”
Zoe put her hand on Einstein’s shoulder. “Dude, vengeance won’t bring her back. Be careful with retaliation. Sometimes it can do more harm than good.”
Einstein stared down at the automatic in his lap. “I won’t rest until some good harm comes to those assholes.” To Butcher, he nodded. “Let’s go get her.”
As Butcher drove the Fuchs closer to the compound, she kept cutting her eyes over to Einstein. He worried her.
She’d never seen him like this before. The cold steel of his voice, the grim determination in the set of his jaw were so not like the boy she knew. He was losing his grip on the boy who was a gamer and zombie know-it-all and was falling into the dark abyss of a zombie/outlaw killer.
She couldn’t really blame him. Having to watch Cassie be attacked and then shot must have torn his heart in two.
“You okay, kid?”
Einstein looked out the window. Several seconds ticked by. “No. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”
Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 3): Eat Asphalt Page 16
