Roads Less Traveled | Book 5 | End of the Road

by Dulaney, C.

  Rabbit chewed on his bottom lip for a long time, then nodded to himself. He looked around at his men and caught each of their eyes. “We’ll hold them off. You get your people to the prison. It’s got walls and fences. That’s what you need. Walls.”

  “Rabbit,” Michael started.

  “No.” Rabbit chopped the air with a hand. “You get your people together, you tie those fucking zombies to your vehicles, and you get your ass to Blueville. We can’t take them all out, but we brought enough ordinance to seriously ruin their fucking day. At best, it’ll give you a decent head start.”

  “At worst,” Michael said, “we lose you, your soldiers, your firepower, and die a slow, horrible death.”

  Rabbit cocked a brow and grinned. “I prefer to think of myself as a glass-half-full kinda guy.”

  “Not happening.” Michael shook his head. “We all get out or none of us do.” He hesitated and could see by the look on Rabbit’s face what they were waiting for. Michael sighed and added, “And that’s an order.”

  Rabbit took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You heard the colonel, boys. Let’s get these people home.”

  ✽✽✽

  Brad, Mort, and Adams made camp in the woods behind a roadside bar just off county route twenty-one. They hadn’t brought a tent with them, but the weather hadn’t turned for the worse yet, and they had bedrolls. So they started a fire, ate dried fish, and drank purified water until Adams said, “Time to call in the dogs.”

  He was the only one asleep. It was fitful, and the other two stayed quiet a long time listening to Adams mutter and cry while he slept.

  “We’re going to have to go. And soon,” Brad said, staring at the fire.

  Mort grunted, whether in agreement or not, Brad couldn’t tell. Mort had taken his pen from his pocket and rubbed it while staring out into the darkness beyond the camp.

  The fire burned low, only lighting up enough of the area so Brad could see Adams on the other side of Mort. Brad remembered the first time they’d met. Half his mouth quirked up in a grin. Adams hadn’t liked him much, and he hadn’t liked Adams. The only thing the two had in common was Mort. Well, that, and the fact that neither man was “normal.”

  Brad took a breath, closed his eyes, and brought up his danger radar in his mind. Once it stabilized, he opened his eyes, superimposing the image over what appeared before him. He turned his head back and forth, scanning the trees around them, and blinking his eyes. Each time he blinked, his radar checked for danger. No blips showed up, so he knew they were okay. Or rather, there was nothing in the vicinity.

  Brad sighed and shifted his weight against the saddle he leaned against. The horn and part of the stirrup strap dug into his back, right between his shoulder blades. After squirming for a few minutes, he glanced over at Mort. The older man still rubbed the hell out of that pen of his.

  “You’re gonna break that thing,” he said, voice soft.

  Mort grunted again. Adams mumbled in his sleep, then went back to snoring.

  Brad waited several beats and tried again. “What’re you doing anyways?” He swept one hand out. “I already checked. There’s nothing out there. We’re okay for right now. You really should get some rest.”

  Mort took a deep breath and paused in his pen rubbing long enough to shoot Brad a long-suffering look. “I’m trying to find Jonah.”

  He didn’t really need it, but the pen helped Mort focus his empathic abilities. And sometimes, if he focused hard enough and long enough, he could stretch out and find people, but only those he knew, or anyone he’d gotten an empathic read on in the past. When he rubbed that pen, colors formed in and around whomever he focused on. The colors, in turn, translated to emotions. When trying to locate a specific person, he just had to concentrate and push further and further out, looking for that person’s color. Lots of people shared colors, but not the emotions Mort felt behind them. And he knew his friends’ colors and what they felt like.

  The last time he’d seen Jonah, they’d been friends. Hopefully they’d remain that way after Jonah learned they’d been working for the same people he had been running from his whole life.

  Brad considered this, then said quietly, “He might be too far out yet. We’re still pretty far from Gibson.” He wondered for a moment if Kasey knew the truth about Jonah. Knowing her the way he did, there was no way the cowboy would still be with them if he’d told her. Hell, the psychic shit had been the reason she’d told him to pack up and get out all those years ago.

  “No,” Mort said. “I found him. Well, mostly.” He shrugged. “He’s far enough away that he keeps fading in and out. But it’s definitely him.”

  Brad glanced at the pen squeezed between Mort’s fingers. “Then why are you treating that thing like it owes you money?”

  Mort rolled his eyes up to meet Brad’s. “From the little I’ve been able to grab between fadings, he’s scared to death for Kasey. For all of them, really. And Jonah doesn’t get scared. Feels like he’s getting ready to run.”

  “Why the hell would—” Brad began, loudly, but flinched and glanced over at Adams’ sleeping form. His mind raced with too many stupid and selfish things about Jonah not having any right to be that afraid for his Kasey. They circled around like water down a drain, until he saw the thing at the center of it. The real thing that had caught his attention, and that he should be asking about. “Everyone gets scared. So the real question is, what’s got Jonah so afraid that he’s about to run again?”

  Mort considered him for a moment, his eyebrows drawn tightly together. He rubbed his pen harder and closed his eyes. Several minutes later, his shoulders slumped and he turned his gaze toward the fire. “I don’t know. The only thing I keep picking up is he feels a lot of respect for those people. And a need. A great…” He narrowed his eyes and stopped rubbing his pen. When it came to him, his eyebrows shot up. “Oh.”

  “Oh, what?” Brad leaned forward.

  Mort’s cheeks flushed and he shook his head. “Nothing. Forget about it.”

  “Mort, tell me. If he’s… They’re in trouble, and if she’s hurt?” Brad swallowed. “Or dead? Tell me what…he’s feeling.”

  Mort shook his head. “No, boy. It’s not that. He doesn’t feel like she’s dead.” He slid the pen back into his pocket. “What this is, I’d rather not say, ‘cause you’d rather not hear. He’s very bonded to who he’s with, and let’s leave it at that.”

  Brad sunk back against the saddle, then cussed and shifted his weight again. Damn saddle horn.

  Mort added, “That tells me that she’s a decent person. They are. They. They’re decent people.”

  “Did you hit your head?”

  “No.”

  “Then stop beating around the bush for my sake. I get it, alright?”

  Mort sighed.

  Brad hesitated, and his face grew hot. “What I don’t fucking get,” he whispered, “is why I wasn’t good enough, but Jonah is? Tells me being a freak wasn’t the reason, cause so’s Jonah.” He turned to stare at Mort. “I know damn well she’s figured it out by now, if he didn’t tell her outright to start with.”

  “He wouldn’t have.” Mort opened and closed his mouth a few times but shook his head. Finally, he whispered, “They’re good people.”

  Brad forced air around the lump in his throat and jerked his chin toward Mort’s sleeping roll. “Get some rest. You take watch in a couple hours.”

  “Alright, boy. Alright.” Mort scooted around until his back was to Brad, then closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep.

  Brad’s shoulders rose and fell. Near as he could tell, they were about halfway between Blueville and Gibson. No matter how mad he was right then, the closer they got to her, the more nervous he felt. How would he explain everything to her? Did he have to tell her anything at all? He could just tell her what they’d told Torrez. That he just wanted to find her and help if he could. It may have not been the whole truth, but after what Mort had just told him, it was the only truth that matter
ed.

  ✽✽✽

  “How many more rounds of this are we gonna have to deal with?” Kasey asked. Gus brought the stick back to her for the hundredth time, and she tossed it again. Some of the folks had lit fires in a few metal drums, and they were spaced out along Main Street. It didn’t brighten the whole area up, but it was enough to see by as they walked the barricade.

  She walked pretty slowly, each step pulling something up in her back and making the stitches hurt. How moving her feet could pull stitches in her upper back, she didn’t know, but it was already starting to piss her off. And her chest itched like a motherfucker. Whatever the medic had put on that nasty wound was doing the trick, but not scratching at it was driving her mad.

  “As many rounds as we have to,” Caleb answered. He caught her hand before she could reach up and scratch her chest, and shoved it down to her side. She made a face at him and he smiled back.

  Jonah and Jake stood together and watched Bill’s archers rush around outside the barricade, yanking arrows out of heads, torsos, and legs. The dead were tied two rows deep on the outside of the vehicles, and the bowmen made sure to keep their distance as they worked. The rest of them that weren’t handy with a bow, or a little too old for that kind of work, came in behind and knifed the terminators that weren’t quite dead yet. Some went for a head stab, others cut throats. Jake thought there was something kind of cute about watching a lovely sixty-year-old grandma slice a neck and jump back so she didn’t get sprayed with blood.

  It was dark, so everyone moved quickly. No one wanted to be stuck outside the barricade with just flashlights and their good intentions. It was dangerous enough mopping up in the daytime, let alone when they could only half-see what they were doing.

  “We’re gonna have to get some people out there, clean up the bodies.” Kasey snapped her fingers for Gus to come and walked down the line, to the opposite end from where Jake and Jonah stood.

  Caleb followed. “We’ll worry about that later. It’s dark and we don’t know when the next wave will be here.”

  “The deadheads seemed to do alright.” Kasey studied the zombies with a furrowed brow. They weren’t too worse for the wear, though she did note a few were going to need a little maintenance. One in particular had an arm dangling by a thread. Or a piece of meat. She couldn’t really tell.

  Caleb grunted. “Yeah. I’m gonna need to get some folk to go around and check the ones blocking the alleys.”

  Gus snorted. He dropped his stick and stood next to Kasey’s feet, ears perked, and stared down the main road. Kasey glanced in that direction, but couldn’t see anything but black beyond the glow of the drum fires. Couldn’t hear anything either, besides the raspy growls and snapping teeth of the deadheads.

  Gus snorted again. The barricade blocked his view of the road, but it didn’t block his nose.

  That faint, telltale yellow glow at the edge of Jonah’s peripheral vision snapped his head around. He saw it the same time Gus smelled it.

  “Get inside!” he suddenly yelled at the people outside the barricade. He flapped his arms and ran down the line. “Run! Get inside! Now! Go, go, go!”

  The dead strung up along the outside of the barricade began snarling and screeching, their heads turned south.

  It happened so fast, Kasey barely had time to spin around to see what Jonah was screaming about. Gus let out a huge howl about the same time the archers on the outer edges were tackled. The others screamed and ran, but they ran directly into zombies. A few kept their cool and ran in the opposite direction of the terminator horde, but the rest… the older people went down first. The younger archers trying to get away trampled those who were down. The terminators rolled in like a wave, hands shooting out and grabbing clothing, jerking the people back into their mass. Blood sprayed, more screams, and Kasey didn’t make a move until a piece of scalp landed at her feet.

  ✽✽✽

  Adams held both his hands over Brad’s mouth. He considered for a quick second slipping them up and over his nose. Mort had taken watch maybe an hour or so earlier, and Brad had woken Adams up screaming, hollering, and raising all kinds of hell. Brad didn’t wake up, though. That’d be too easy. Adams had seen this before and knew his friend just had to go through it. He guessed the bright side to it now was they didn’t have to worry about bringing a ravenous horde of the dead down on all their heads.

  Mort did his best to hold Brad’s arms, so he didn’t strike out and hit himself or either of them. Gripped tightly in his right hand was his pen. He rubbed it steadily now. Brad was dreaming, having a vision, and Mort knew from the reds and blacks that swirled around him that it wasn’t good. Mort almost laughed; when had Brad’s visions ever been good. If he could’ve saved him from this, he would have. Brad’s danger-sense was one thing. It was handy and Brad knew how to use it. His precognition, on the other hand… he couldn’t control it, and if it wasn’t an outright flash when he was awake, of something that was about to happen in a matter of minutes, then the visions came to him as dreams.

  Brad jerked and rolled, body spasming, yelling into Adams’ hands like he was talking to someone. Mort caught Adams’ eyes from across Brad’s fighting form.

  “This hasn’t happened since right after the world went to shit, has it?” Mort asked.

  Adams shook his head. “No.”

  Brad struggled, moaned and groaned, kicked with his unrestrained feet, another minute or two, then suddenly fell quiet.

  Adams and Mort froze but didn’t release him. They stared at each other, then watched Brad. Sometimes he’d wake up, sometimes he’d continue sleeping. They both hoped he’d stay asleep, because when he woke up right after one of these, it was almost a damn certainty that he’d be violent. Adams remembered the black eye he’d gotten last time because he didn’t have a tight enough hold on Brad’s arms.

  Brad took a deep, shuddering breath, let it out slowly, and stayed asleep.

  The other two let out breaths they’d been holding, and slowly released their hold on him. Mort tipped his head toward the other side of the fire, and Adams followed him. He helped Mort ease down onto his sleeping blanket, knees snapping and popping the whole way, then sat down next to him and watched Brad sleep.

  Mort slid the pen back into his shirt pocket and ran a hand over his face.

  Adams drew up his knees and hung his arms over them. “I wonder what he’s seeing.”

  Mort tilted his head in Adams’ direction. “Is he dreaming about Kasey?”

  “No.”

  Remembering what he’d picked up earlier from his faint readings of Jonah, he asked, “Are Jonah and Kasey under attack?”

  Adams dropped his head and whispered, “Yeah.”

  Mort reached over and squeezed Adams’ arm. “Nothing we can do about it now. Try to get some rest.”

  Adams rolled over onto his hands and knees, and crawled a few feet to his blanket. “Fat fucking chance of that happening.” He flopped over onto his back and covered his face with one arm.

  Mort laid back and stared up at the night sky.

  ✽✽✽

  Michael and Rabbit shoved through the half-door at the end of Marlo’s counter.

  “Marlo,” Michael said. “Start gathering what supplies you absolutely can’t do without. Leave the rest, alright? We won’t have much room after we pack everyone up.”

  Marlo opened his mouth to argue, but Rabbit cut him off with an upraised hand. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  He and Michael ran to the window. The handful of soldiers that had been in the backroom rushed out and froze when they heard it. Rabbit hesitated for only a second.

  “Get to the garage and get everyone out. Form a line and hold them back.” Rabbit pulled his radio and barked into it, “Fire at will!”

  Immediately, gunfire erupted from the rooftop across the street. Large caliber from the sounds of it; Michael guessed fifty-cal. Smaller calibers soon joined in, and Michael knew the townspeople still on watch duty had opened up with the Gu
ardsmen.

  Rabbit grabbed Michael by the elbow and shoved him out the door behind his men. He yelled back over his shoulder to Marlo, “Stay inside!”

  The chaos at the barricade stopped Michael in his tracks before his feet hit the street. Bill’s archers were gone, swamped by hundreds of terminators. The front ranks of those damn things threw themselves into the two rows of zombies, creating a shield for the ones behind.

  “They’re making a ramp,” Michael whispered.

  Kasey, Caleb, Jonah, and Jake were right there, right on the inside of the barricade. Dozens and dozens of terminators used their bodies to overwhelm the zombies with no care for their own wellbeing. Their flesh was ripped, throats torn out, guts clawed into. The terminators didn’t care.

  “Goddamn kamikazes,” Rabbit spit out. “Michael.”

  Michael didn’t hear him. He stared at his friends.

  “Michael!” Rabbit jerked him around. He jabbed a finger at Kasey. “Get them inside and stay out of our way! You hear me?”

  Michael shook his head and blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, I hear you.” Screams and screeches rushed back into his ears. “I hear you, go.”

  Rabbit held his gaze for a moment, then nodded and ran toward the mechanic’s garage. Michael forced his feet to move and went in the opposite direction; towards death.

  ✽✽✽

  Kasey bent down, grabbed Gus, turned, and ran. She groaned from her wounds and Caleb must have heard her. He reached over mid-stride and took Gus. She heard feet pounding pavement behind her but knew not to look. If she looked, she was dead. A hand grabbed her elbow and she jerked it away, only to feel Jonah grab her again, one hand on her arm and another on her back, pushing her faster. Jake ran on his other side and kept looking back over his shoulder.

  “Jake, don’t—” Kasey started to yell, but Jake tripped over his own feet and fell anyway. She immediately stopped and spun around to help him, but Caleb jumped in front of her. He shoved Gus into Jonah’s arms and pushed them both back, then he ran to Jake and grabbed him under the armpits.