Roads Less Traveled | Book 5 | End of the Road

by Dulaney, C.

  “Is doing the right thing worth it?” he snapped back.

  “Not if all we get out of it are three goddamn solar panels. Oh, and maybe just a little bit dead.”

  Caleb stood off from the bickering pair, his eyes on the ceiling. Gus whimpered at his feet. After sweeping this room and bringing some water and canned food over from the store, they’d settled in and waited for the others to call on the radio. Caleb turned his head and glanced at the door in the back of the room. He was far less concerned about the how’s and why’s of the situation, and much more concerned about if there was something behind that door, and whether what lurked there was a runner or a shambler.

  He moved to the couch and scooted it toward the back of the room. The dog jumped up into the seat and Caleb had to shoo him off. The couch was heavy, but he was stout for his age, so bracing it against the door wasn’t a problem. The knob didn’t have a lock, though.

  “Let’s hope you’re not a runner, then,” he mumbled.

  “What?” Kasey tore herself away from berating Michael and moved to the center of the room.

  Caleb shook his head. “Help me with this chair.”

  Kasey started forward, but Michael brushed past and grabbed one end while Caleb picked up the other. Together they carried it over to the couch, stepping over the dog because he kept dancing around their feet.

  “Only other way in is through the front,” Michael said. “Which is basically a wall of freaking glass.”

  “Safer to just stay right here,” Caleb said. “Rest up, then head out. We don’t need to go looking for trouble.”

  Michael made a face, but Kasey voiced his thought. “You haven’t had much experience with this.” She walked back over to the glass-front and scanned the street. “You don’t have to look for trouble. Trouble will find you.”

  “Soon as those horses get back,” Michael added, “we might as well be ringing the dinner bell.”

  Caleb tilted his head. Most of what he knew regarding the dead had come from stories his daughter and the others had told, because his apocalypse-experience had been spent in a four-by-four cell, getting poked with needles and hit with nightsticks every other day. “What, they like the taste of horse meat better?”

  “No,” Kasey said. “They’re just bigger targets.”

  “Oh.”

  Michael sighed and looked down at the floor. It’d been a long time since any of them had faced this kind of danger. “We can’t stay,” he said. “Soon as they get back, we load up and move out.”

  “We need to go back home,” Kasey argued. “This changes things.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Michael said. “It’s just more reason to find those scouts.” He frowned. “There might still be dead zones out there. That’s why I’ve kept our people so close. We know our home area is clear.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Caleb hissed. “Our home area isn’t that far from here.” He turned on Kasey. “Did you know about this?”

  Gus whined and pranced to the front door.

  Kasey kept her back to them and shook her head. “And I didn’t ask questions.”

  “Why?” Her dad’s voice rose an octave.

  “Because I don’t care. They’ll die eventually, one way or another. We’ve got our own shit to take care of.”

  Caleb barked a laugh. “Right. And by ‘shit,’ you mean gunning down people for some beans?” He stomped across the room toward her. “We’ve got zombies still out there, our terminators are shot to shit and migrating to places unknown, and you’re worried about what the folks back home can do for you?”

  Kasey spun on her heel and punched her dad in the nose. He hit his knees and his hands went to his face. Blood leaked between his fingers. Gus let loose, barking and baying. Caleb stared up at his daughter, speechless for the first time in a long time. Kasey made a move toward him, but Michael appeared at her side. He grabbed her arm, shoved her back against the door, and put himself between her and Caleb.

  Gus kept barking, but it wasn’t at them.

  The glass door shook behind Kasey’s back, and Michael, who was looking past her head, went pale. She glanced down at her dad. His hands dropped away from his nose and he stared at something behind her.

  “Shit,” she whispered.

  ✽✽✽

  “Shit!” Jake yelled.

  The three jerked on their reins and pulled up at the intersection. Looking down the road, toward the building where they’d left the others earlier, they laid eyes on a swarm of deadheads packing themselves against the front door and windows. The horses jumped and flinched beneath them. The zombies made a noise they’d never heard before. It wasn’t growling moans or screeches, but more like a pack of cats coughing up hairballs.

  “That storefront’s nothin’ but glass,” Jonah said. He pulled the rifle from its sleeve and unwrapped the reins of the spare horse he led from around his saddle horn. “Let go of the horses. We need to clear that mess before they break in.”

  Mia and Jake did as they were told and flapped their hands at the horses they’d been leading, driving them back around the corner. Their own steeds still jumped and jerked their heads, and between trying to keep them under control and pulling their own rifles out, Jonah was lined up and ready to start shooting long before they were.

  “C’mon!” Jonah yelled. “That glass is crackin’!”

  Mia cursed and let go of her reins. She swung her rifle up and squeezed the trigger before taking time to aim. She caught one deadhead on the outside of the cluster in the upper thigh. She worked the bolt and tried again. Looking through the scope, her next target jerked back and forth. The motion of her skittish horse made it impossible to get a good bead on the thing.

  “This isn’t going to work.” She swung a leg over the horn and jumped to the ground. Then she smacked her horse on the rump, sending it the way of the others, and dropped to a knee. This time she took steady aim on a head.

  Jake watched the deadhead hit the pavement and copied her movements. He knelt next to her and they picked off zombies two blocks away. Jonah stayed in the saddle. Squeezing with his knees and standing in the stirrups, he downed the dead twice as fast, if just a little messier.

  A booming crack sounded up the street.

  “Did you shoot that glass out?” Mia yelled at Jake.

  “No, did you?”

  “No, dumbass!”

  Jonah lowered his rifle. “They’re inside.”

  The interior of the mass squirmed and shoved their rotted bodies through the one large window that had just shattered. Jonah couldn’t tell how many had actually made it inside the building, but the hole was soon plugged with corpses.

  “Okay, this isn’t workin’. Get back on your horses.” Jonah slid his rifle back into the sleeve and spun his horse around. It danced and struck at the pavement.

  “We can’t leave them!” Jake took a few more potshots. “Keep firin’, damnit!”

  “No, he’s right,” Mia said. She stood and looked behind her, then back at the writhing swarm. A handful had disentangled themselves and headed their way. “We need to lead them away.” She slung her rifle over her head and across her chest, then ran for her horse.

  Jake fired a few more times, cussing a blue streak, and then followed her.

  Once they rejoined Jonah, he said, “Keep a tight hold on the reins and don’t bother drawin’ your guns. We’re gonna get as close as we can, piss ‘em off good, and see how many we can get away from here.”

  “I really hate doin’ this,” Jake said. He gripped his reins until his knuckles turned white and stared at the deadheads. “Have I ever told you how much I hate doin’ this?”

  “Repeatedly,” Mia answered. “Now, man up and act like you done it before.” She kicked her horse into a slow run and darted directly toward the swarm.

  “Shit, she’s goin’.” Jonah urged his horse forward. “C’mon, get on it, Jake!” He took off after Mia.

  Jake whined, looking up at the sky, then yelled and kicked his
horse. While the three humans were in on the details of their plan, the horses were not and certainly didn’t agree with what they were being asked to do. They bucked and kicked sideways, throwing their riders around in their seats like broncos in a rodeo. Just when the trio got close enough to reach out and touch the outermost ring of deadheads, they pulled on the reins, turned their horses, and swerved around the swarm. The horses’ antics caught the attention of most of the dead, and one by one they pulled themselves apart and started after the kicking beasts.

  “I hate doin’ this!” Jake yelled after almost falling off his horse.

  Jonah and Mia turned their horses in tight circles and yelled back at the zombies. The dead tried to run, but when they did, they fell forward on their faces and were trampled by those behind. And the ones that kept their feet weren’t sprinting, but they weren’t exactly stumbling around, either.

  “I think those are runners!” Mia yelled over to Jonah.

  The cowboy nodded and pointed down the street. She turned her horse and tried to get Jake’s attention. He was busy cussing his horse and pulling the reins this way and that.

  She leaned forward, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled his name.

  “What?” he shouted back.

  Mia cocked an eyebrow and jabbed a finger, indicating Jonah’s back as he rode away from them.

  “Oh, crap! Okay, okay.” Jake got his horse moving in the right general direction and followed Mia as closely as he could.

  The three trotted down the street, away from the building the others were in and deeper into the community. Mia looked over her shoulder every few seconds. The dead still followed and seemed to be gaining. Jake whistled and called them names, though it was hardly necessary.

  “I don’t think you need to do that,” she said.

  “Probably not,” he answered. “C’mon, ya brainless fucks!”

  “If there are any more in this town, you’ll call them down on us.”

  Jake whipped his head around and stared at her. “That’s a helluva good point. Lead on, dear lady.”

  Mia rolled her eyes and called out to Jonah. “They’re getting closer. Where to?”

  Jonah was half a block ahead of them. He slowed his horse and looked down side-streets as he passed them. He shook his head and motioned for them to keep on, straight ahead. Mia sighed and glanced behind her. The twenty or so dead were a little closer than before. She relayed Jonah’s hand gesture to Jake, who nodded, then turned around to watch the end of the street grow closer.

  ✽✽✽

  “Alright, let’s get out of here,” Kasey said.

  She picked up Gus and tucked him under one arm. In her other hand, she held her pistol up and at the ready. She led Caleb and Michael back out of the room they’d hidden in, the area behind the door they’d blocked with furniture not long before. The left-hand windows were broken and several bodies writhed and squirmed, hung up on big, jagged pieces of glass still in the sill. Outside, the sidewalk and street were clear. She looked over at Michael and jerked her chin.

  Michael pulled his knife, walked to the pile, and started stabbing heads. Caleb went to the door and tried it. Force from the dead crammed through the window had the frame on a bind. It wouldn’t open.

  “Stand back,” he said and raised his handgun. He squeezed off a shot and the window shattered.

  Kasey cringed. “That was more noise than I’d have preferred.”

  “You want to get out of here?” Caleb asked. He kicked the remaining shards from the sill and motioned for her to go through.

  “Michael,” she called, then stepped out onto the sidewalk. Michael sheathed his knife and followed. Caleb gathered up their bags and met them in the street.

  “Kasey, get the horses,” Michael said. “Caleb, grab a case of that water and stuff the saddle bags with as many bottles as you can.” He wiped his forehead and turned in a circle, looking up and down the street. “We need to be ready when they get back.”

  Kasey ran up the street and around the corner. The three horses stood several houses down and picked grass in one of the yards. Caleb went back inside the building and came out with a case of water in hand.

  “Where the hell did these things come from?” Caleb asked while the two men waited on Kasey.

  Michael shook his head. “From right here, I’d say.”

  “Right. Because zombies appear out of thin air.”

  Michael shot him a look, then went back to keeping an eye on the road.

  Caleb said, “Why didn’t the scouts report this? And why didn’t the terminators kill all these things on their way through?”

  “I don’t know.” Michael ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why the terminators ignored the dead here. As far as the scouts, I’d say they just didn’t know about them. They rode straight through. The dead had to have come from back in the neighborhoods.”

  “They did,” Kasey said. She walked toward them with their horses in tow, Gus running ahead of her. “Earlier, I thought I saw a bunch of, I don’t know, lumps or something down that way. Laying on the ground.” She pointed behind Michael. “Thought they were piles of trash.”

  “Guess they weren’t,” her dad said.

  “Yeah.” She pulled the horses up and held them while Caleb tucked bottled water into all the saddle bags. “That should be enough water to get us back home,” Kasey said. “Soon as those three circle back, we should get gone.”

  “We’re not going home,” Michael said.

  Kasey paused as she was handing him his reins. “Why the hell not?”

  Caleb walked up behind her and pulled his reins from her hands. He kept quiet and got on his horse.

  Michael busied himself with tightening his saddle. “We need to catch up to those scouts and find out where the terminators are going.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  Michael smoothed the strap, dropped the stirrup, and turned to her. “Yeah, we do. Go home if you want. Take whoever else wants to go. But I’m seeing this through.”

  “Goddamnit,” she hissed. She stepped away and pulled her horse along with her, then stopped. She muttered to herself and shook her head. Gus looked up at her face, his ears twitching and head tilting. He’d picked up a piece of newspaper somewhere, and the way he held it made his face look like it was wearing a bowtie.

  “Kasey,” Michael continued. “This town might be full of the dead. We might’ve traveled into a dead zone. How many more are there like this? And how many are this close to home? And why the hell didn’t those terminators spread out through this town and clean it up on their way to wherever it is they’re going? And where are they going?” He climbed into the saddle and took a long look around. “Might be nothing. Or it might be something. And we have to find out which.”

  Kasey still muttered and swore with her back to them. Caleb watched his daughter closely but said nothing. He paid special attention to the set of her shoulders and the hand that rested on her holstered sidearm.

  After the silence turned awkward, Kasey jerked on the reins and threw them over the saddle horn. She bent over and pulled the newspaper from the dog’s mouth. She whispered, “Sorry, buddy,” then scooped him up and got on her horse. Gus resumed his place in front of her. She chewed on the inside of her lip and stared down the road, in the direction the others had led the dead.

  Chapter Four

  Caleb stood on the side of the road and pissed in the ditch. They waited outside of town, some on their horses, and others walking around, stretching their legs. Caleb had split the water up amongst them once Mia and Jake showed up. They were ready to go. The only thing they waited on now was Jonah.

  “The longer we screw around, the farther ahead those terminators get,” Caleb said after coming up behind Michael. He wiped dried blood from his nose and mouth with a handkerchief he kept in his back pocket.

  Michael held the map out before him and didn’t look up. “I wouldn’t call waiting for one of our own ‘screwing around.’”<
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  Caleb grunted and looked around for his daughter. She stood off from the group and faced toward town. He studied her for a long time; she never moved. “Ah, hell,” he muttered. He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket and went to her. He got as close as he dared, but didn’t touch her. Sometimes in this state she was unpredictable. After waiting a decent amount of time for her to realize he was there, he broke the silence.

  “He’ll show up.”

  Kasey just went on chewing her lip.

  “You’re gonna bite that thing off.”

  She rolled her eyes up at him. “You still have blood on your face,” she said.

  Caleb stared down the road. “You’ve got a mean right hook,” he said.

  “I learned it from watching you.”

  “Right.”

  A shrill whistle sounded behind them. Caleb and Kasey turned to see Jonah ride up from the opposite direction of town. Her shoulders relaxed and he heard her mumble, “Thank God.”

  Michael sighed, folded up the map, and got in the saddle. Once Jonah came up alongside, he asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Jonah said. “Had a helluva time losin’ ‘em, but I’m good.” He looked around until he found Kasey, then held her gaze until she gave him a nod.

  “Good.” Michael turned to the others. “There’s one more town between us and our destination. We’re not stopping this time. We’re riding straight through. Should get to where we’re going by dark. Let’s go.”

  Caleb and Kasey climbed onto their horses and fell in behind the rest. Gus struck out ahead and resumed his scouting.

  ✽✽✽

  The “town” was a burned-out husk. There wasn’t much to it, about like Matias. Or it had been, once upon a time. They rode out of it almost as quickly as they’d ridden in, it was that small. A hundred feet past the last house was the intersection. Michael rode ahead and turned them south, onto the highway.

  “Stay alert,” he said. “Here’s where they left the scouts.”

  The highway was a four-lane, one of the few in the state that wasn’t an interstate. It was the major artery in that area, connecting the eastern panhandle to the southern border. Not surprisingly, the southbound lanes were clogged with derelict vehicles.