Was it time to come home now?
The only answer she heard was a strange thwupping sound and a man’s voice screaming her name.
“What the fuck?” Roper said as she gazed out at the confusion caused by the gas. “What in the hell is she doing?”
Dallas pulled her Glock out. “Oh shit. Is she’s hallucinating?”
Butcher nodded. “More than likely. Some do, some don’t. Just depends.”
“Oh shit!” two of thems said at once.
“Zoe’s gone commando,” Einstein said. “She’s lost it.”
Dallas turned to the group. “Bandanas on, ladies and germs. We don’t have hours to wait for the gas to dissipate. We’ve got to go get Zoe and Hunter right now!”
Everyone dissembled to their predesignated places, bandanas covering noses and mouths.
Roper kept her rifle against her shoulder as they quickly moved into the yard a good seventy yards away. “Holy hell, Dallas..”
Einstein grunted once. “And you were worried about me. She’s chopping people up. I’d say she’s gone pretty far around the bend.”
“Come on!” Dallas took off running toward the bizarre action caused by the gas. Three men were tearing their clothes off. One was trying to write his name in the sand with his urine, and those in Zoe’s path were violently cut down by machete blades dripping with blood.
“You see him?” Einstein asked.
“I don’t,” Dallas said, closing the ground between them and Zoe. Suddenly, she saw a man dressed as a guard draw down on Zoe, but before either she or Roper could get off a round, an arrow went through his neck, dropping him like a rock.
“Hunter!” Einstein said. “He’s alive.”
“You to go get Hunter, Einstein. We’ll grab Zoe. Be careful. He could see you as anything from a unicorn to a killer bee.”
“Roger that.”
Before Dallas could turn back around, shots were fired from one man who was down on one knee. “Clint,” Roper growled, throwing her rifle over her shoulder and breaking into a sprint. “Over here, you fucking cocksucker! I’m over here!” Zoe waved her arms.
A single shot rang out.
“Zoe!” Roper called out as Zoe fell to her knees. “No! No! No! Zoe!”
Clint swung his rifle toward Roper, but even as bolts bit into the ground around him, Roper was too fast and launched herself at him, taking to the air, arms outstretched toward him. She tackled him hard, and they rolled over twice before she landed on top of him, fist raised back behind her ear. “You son-of-a-bitch.” Her fist came down on his face, splitting his lip open. “That’s the last time you hurt any of us.” Roper pounded his face in, breaking his nose, chipping a tooth, and splitting his eyebrow. With bloody and raw knuckles, she kept pounding and pounding at his face, her anger wrapping itself around her like a python.
She probably would have continued until his face was hamburger, if Dallas hadn’t stopped her. “Roper, stop.”
Looking up, Roper realized Dallas was holding Zoe in her arms, blood dripping off every part of her. “I need you to get her back to the Fuchs.”
Roper stared at Zoe a moment and then punched Clint one last time before getting up. “But I’m not through here.”
“I know, but she’s been shot. She needs help right now.”
Roper took Zoe from Dallas, surprised by how light she was, and started back to the Fuchs, where Burnett met her halfway to help carry Zoe the rest of the way back.
“Is she…”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t even know if any of this blood is hers.”
“Dallas!” Einstein called out.
Dallas followed Einstein’s voice and saw him waving his arms. “Hunter’s in really bad shape! Really bad!”
Dallas picked up Clint’s weapons and ran toward Hunter, leaping over one of the downed men.
Too late, Dallas realized it was JB. He had a handkerchief to his face, and appeared far less affected by the BZ than anyone else.
He reached out and grabbed Dallas’s ankle, tripping her. Clint’s weapons fell from Dallas’s grasp as she landed face first in the dirt.
“You’re gonna havta be better ‘n that to best me, you fuckin’ freak.” Landing a punch on her face, JB straddled Dallas and started choking her. “Fuckin’ demoness!”
Einstein was struggling to get Hunter to leave his area, but he refused even as he notched up another bolt. “Gotta…keep…shooting…”
Fletcher had climbed down off his position on the turret to help Burnett and Roper get Zoe into the Fuchs. No one saw JB choking Dallas. As JB squeezed Dallas’s neck, he let go with one hand, made a fist and grinned. “Fuckin’ your face up is little consolation for what you did to my boy, but it is a start.”
Dallas barely turned her head in time as his fist smashed into her left cheek. With only one hand for balance, it was easy for Dallas to buck him up and over her head, where he landed with an oof.
Scrambling to her feet, she waited for JB to get up and face her, her face throbbing. “Your son died a horrible dick-less death, you son of a bitch, but it’s nothing compared to the way you’re going down. I can promise you that.”
JB reached into his back waist band and pulled out a Sig Sauer. “I don’t want to have to kill you quickly or easily, Miss Dallas—especially with all the plans I have for you. Payback’s a bitch and I’ll take it any way I—”
Thwup.
An arrow penetrated his shoulder, knocking the gun from his hand.
Dallas crossed her arms. “You were saying?”
Another arrow blew out his kneecap and down he went on one knee.
Walking up to him, Dallas backhanded him and he landed on his ass, two arrows sticking from him. “You know, we’ve traveled thousands of miles and killed hundreds of thousands of those man eaters, but you, by far, are the worst piece of shit we’ve encountered.”
“You killed my boy. You fucking killed my boy.”
“Actually, I bit off his flaccid little pecker and then I killed him. Nearly cut his fool head off.”
“And for that, you’re going to die as badly as he did.”
Dallas stood over him. “You are one crazy ass motherfucker. You’ve got two arrows sticking out of you. Your men are toast, and you’re still threatening me? Seriously? You don’t see what’s going on here? It’s over. You’ve lost. You’re a dead man and you don’t even know it.
“What do you want?” JB winced painfully as he pulled the arrow from his shoulder. “I can give you anything your heart desires. Anything.”
“Want? From you?” Dallas smiled. “A painful, frightening death. I want to hear your screams as you die. That’s what I want from you. That’s what you’re going to give me.”
“We can come to some sort of arrangement.”
“Nah. That’s the only arrangement I want.” Dallas picked up the Sig and walked over to Clint, who was slowly coming to.
Jamming the muzzle into his mouth, Dallas leaned over and growled into his face. “You made the biggest mistake of your life laying your filthy hands on my girl. Big, big mistake.”
His eyes grew wide.
“That’s right, bastard. It’s me. The woman who kicked your fucking ass wasn’t my sister. She was my lover. And now, I’m about to become your biggest homosexual nightmare. Sit up.”
Clint struggled to his feet just as Einstein and Roper returned.
“Sit back-to-back.”
“Please—”
“Dude, save it,” Roper said, pulling her rope off her belt and tying the two men together, back-to-back in the middle of the train yard, cinching it extra tight. When she walked by JB, she kicked his shattered kneecap causing him to howl. Then she grabbed belts from the dead men so she could restrain them further. “Shut the fuck up, dirtbag. All you’re going to accomplish is alerting the eaters that dinner is served.”
When JB stopped howling, Roper knelt down. “You two make me sick. Your vision for a future isn’t a vision. It’s a night
mare. A fucked up, patriarchal nightmare, and you need to be put down like the sick dogs you are.”
Butcher suddenly ran into the yard, pulled Einstein away from them, and the two of them ran up an embankment on their way back to the Fuchs, with Einstein yelling the whole way back.
Dallas and Roper both turned their heads at the sixteen zombies slowly approaching them, dragging their tattered limbs on shoeless feet. “Oh look. Our dinner guests have arrived.”
JB’s eyes grew wide when he realized what was about to happen.
“Get me out of here! I’ll give you anything. Anything! Get them things away from me!”
“You have nothing we want, except the only thing you have left—a terrifying, painful death of being eaten alive.”
“Fucking bitches,” Clint growled. “I won’t beg you cunts for my life. It ain’t worth it.”
Roper stood over him and pulled out her Buckskin knife. “You killed our friends, you kicked the shit out of me, and yet it wasn’t enough. You just kept coming and coming.” She looked at the zombies now only twenty yards away. “Well, now you’re going.” Roper put the knife up to his crotch. “And there’s nothing these man eaters crave more than fresh meat.” Unzipping his pants, she reached down and pulled his dick out through the slit. “This is as good a place to start as any.”
“No. Oh my god, you fucking bitch! You goddamn—”
Roper backhanded him. “That is for Cassie.” She cut off his right ear and tossed it toward the man eaters. Three dove on the ground for it as Clint screamed. “That is for Churchill.” Then she removed his other ear, all the while, Clint screamed and curses. “That’s for laying your hands on me.”
“Come on, Rope. We gotta jam.”
Stepping back, they waited for the zombies to start in on the two bleeding men.
JB screamed as the first man eater walked right by Roper and grabbed Clint’s dick in his mouth, ripping it from his body. Clint let out a piercing scream that was cut short when a man eater ripped out part of his calf.
The third dove into his shoulder and yanked his trapezius clear out of the skin. The sounds of them eating was enough to turn anyone’s stomach, but not Dallas and Roper. They stood stoically watching the zombies eat them and tear at their flesh and bones.
“Help...me...please,” Clint gurgled as a zombie took a chunk out of his face.
Dallas walked back and stood over him. “You want help?”
“Please...shoot me.”
Roper and Dallas shot the zombies in the head.
Clint moaned, half his face gone. JB slowly raised his face to them. His nose had been bitten off and one eyebrow was gone. “Please...kill me.”
Kneeling down, Dallas sighed. “You know...forget eaters. Forget the zombies. It’s men like you who are more dangerous to us. Men like you who would capitalize on tragedy. Men like you who are the real menace to good folks like the two of ours you killed.”
“I don’t...want to...become one of those things.”
“And I didn’t want to have a dick in my mouth, either, but look how that turned out.” “Please...”
Standing up, Dallas looked at Roper. She hadn’t stopped glaring at Clint. “You okay?”
She nodded and knelt down on one knee. “Clint, are you still conscious?”
“Fu you.”
Roper nodded. “Yeah, you tried that, but it just didn’t work out too well for you. Tell you what. Do you believe in heaven?” She put her hand to her ear. “What? You do? I wonder if all your parts get to go with you. Why don’t we try a little experiment and see.” Pulling out her .357, Roper put the muzzle on his crotch and shot off what was left of his balls. “That was for Churchill.” Then she walked over to JB and did the same. “And that was for Cassie. Wherever your afterlife takes you two pieces of shit, you’ll go there dick-less.”
In the distance, more zombies made their way to the train station, ambling toward Clint and JB, who looked like pulverized hamburger.
Dallas grabbed Roper’s hand and started toward the Fuchs. “That’s enough, love. We need to get Zoe and Hunter some help.”
They were a couple of yards away when JB said, “I know...I know…where your friends are.”
They both stopped.
“What friends?” Dallas asked, turning slowly around.
“The ones...from Angola. In them Jeeps.”
In five long strides, Dallas was back in front of them, grabbing JB’s jacket and yanking his face to hers. “Where?”
He shook his head. “Not unless you leave me a gun and a bullet.”
Dallas handed Roper the Sig. “Do it.”
Popping out the magazine from the Sig, Roper put one bullet in the clip and then tossed it twenty feet away.
“That’s the best I can do. Now, where are our people?”
JB looked at the gun with his one good eye and then down at the belts. In one swift motion, Roper cut the belts with her knife. There was blood everywhere and JB was missing several fingers.
“Where. Are. They?”
JB spit blood out of his mouth and chuckled. “Military got them.”
“Military? What military?”
“Them fellas in Fort Hood a few hours from Austin. Followed your plane and waited. Got them all.” He chuckled again. “Glad to see you all...lost someone...too.”
Roper strode over to the Sig, picked it up and shot JB in the head with it. “I can’t hear one more motherfucking word from you.”
“Wait! You said—”
“Yeah, well, we lied. I’m sure you understand.” Tossing the gun in Clint’s lap, Roper walked away, leaving Clint to the zombies only ten yards away.
Dallas knelt down one last time. “You do know we’re gay, right? And that’s the reason the eaters don’t go after us. All those special women you all saved? Lesbians”
“Gay? You mean, lesbos?”
The zombies were on him in an instant, his cried muffled by a man eater eating his face.
“I think it’s apropos that his last words on this planet was lesbos, don’t you?”
Butcher was working over Zoe to stop the bleeding while Sanchez fussed over Hunter’s many wounds. Fletcher stood like a statue in the corner with his arms crossed, his eyes never leaving Hunter. Everyone else was stretching and walking the stiffness out of their legs.
“How is she?” Dallas asked.
Butcher shook her head. “Shh.”
Nodding, Dallas put her arm around Einstein and walked him away from the group. “How you doing?”
“I thought I’d feel better. I watched what you did to him, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I wanted him myself. I wanted to be the one to kill him.”
“Yeah, well that’s a good lesson to learn. Vengeance doesn’t bring our loved ones back, and it doesn’t fill the gaping hole left by them. Sometimes, it just fucks you up more.”
Einstein nodded.
“I know it hurts. I miss her, too.” Dallas pulled him to her and he sobbed into her shoulder.
“I...miss her...so much.”
“I know you do, Bud. I know it hurts like nothing else.” Dallas stood like that for a long time as Einstein let all of his pain and sadness flow out onto her vest.
When Roper came out from the transport, Dallas felt her heart drop. “No.” Releasing Einstein, who quickly wiped his eyes, Dallas was rooted in place. “No. No. No. She’s not—”
Roper shook her head. “It doesn’t look good. She’s lost a lot of blood. So has Hunter, but he’s stable. More stable than she is.”
Butcher came out, tears in her eyes. “I’ve done all I can do, Dallas. If she makes it, it will be because it’s simply not her time.”
Dallas looked down at the train yard, at the two vehicles left. One was a hybrid, the other was a Mustang.
“Austin.”
“What?”
“JB said there’s a military installation at Fort Hood near Austin. They’ll have supplies. We can take her there.”
Butcher shook
her head. “Even with the Fuchs—”
“It’s eighty miles. If I take that Mustang—”
“No, Dallas, we can’t separate.”
She shook her head. “We’re not going to, but she needs us, Butcher. She saved our lives. I’m not letting her die out here. You and I can take them in that Mustang. Roper can follow in the Fuchs and the transport.”
“I don’t know.”
“I do. She is not dying out here. I refuse to lose another member of our family. Grab your shit, Butcher. We’re heading to Austin.”
“Are you sure?”
Dallas looked at Roper before saying to Butcher. “They have Luke.”
Butcher opened her mouth to say something, then grabbed her gear and headed for the ramp.
Five minutes later, as Roper kissed Dallas goodbye, she whispered, “We’ll be right behind you, lover.”
“You’d better be.” Kissing Roper softly, Dallas climbed into the Mustang and revved the engine.
“I checked the gas. We oughtta have plenty to spare even with detours.”
Leaning into the back seat, Dallas lightly stroked Zoe’s blood-soaked hair. “Hang in there, sweet girl. You’re tougher than this.”
Stepping hard on the gas pedal, Dallas peeled out onto the frontage road, hitting one hundred ten miles per hour without really trying. In the rearview mirror, she could see the Fuchs fading in the distance.
“Tell me she’s not going to die, Butcher.”
Butcher looked at Zoe’s pale face in the back. “I wish I could.”
“Then lie to me.”
“What?”
“Lie. To. Me.”
Butcher frowned before nodding. “Yeah, Dallas, Zoe’s going to make it.”
As Dallas put more distance between her and San Antonio, she couldn’t help but wonder if it’s the lies that help us put one foot in front of the other.
“So that’s why Luke never showed up? He’s been taken by the military?”
Nodding, Dallas put the pedal all the way to the floor. “According to JB, yeah.”
“Then what are you waiting for, cowgirl? Step on it.”
“Hang on to her, Butcher. Hold on to her with everything you’ve got.”
“Dallas?”
“Yeah?”
“She’s gonna make it.”
Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 3): Eat Asphalt Page 25
