Dead Texas (Book 3): Lonesome Road

by Slaton, Derek

  She sighed. “Well, today was easier than yesterday, so I’m moving in the right direction.”

  “Best you can hope for, right?” he asked.

  “Yep,” she agreed. “So Winston, if you don’t mind me asking, where are you flying off to? As fate would have it, I’m looking for a new home.”

  “Well, I got a buddy who works for the railroad up in Dalhart, it’s this little town way up in the panhandle about an hour north of Amarillo,” he explained. “He sent me an email shortly after this all started and said that the town was going into lockdown mode.”

  She furrowed her brow. “How does a small rural town go into lockdown mode?”

  “It’s funny, I asked the same thing.” He chuckled. “He said they were rounding up every potential infected person and putting them in the prison that’s on the outskirts of town, and blockading the only main routes in.

  “It’s also a big farming community so they’d have food long term. I told my wife about it and decided it sounded better than being within a stone’s throw of San Antonio. So we grabbed the couple next door, headed to the airport, and took off.”

  Sparks nodded. “That sounds like a winner if you can get there.”

  “Yeah, we caught a good tailwind shortly after taking off, that should help with the fuel,” Winston agreed. “Shouldn’t be a problem to make it to their airport.” The was a bit of a crackle on the last few words.

  “You’re breaking up a little bit, Winston,” she informed him.

  “Guess we’re getting out of range,” he said. “Just so you know, I would totally offer to come pick you up, but we’re full up in here. I mean unless you wanna hang on to the wing.”

  “I appreciate the thought.” She laughed. “It’s all good though, I have some unfinished business here to attend to.”

  “Well if you do make it up to Dalhart, be sure to look me up,” he insisted. “If I have any say in the matter I’ll make sure someone at the Dalhart airport awaits your call.”

  She nodded gratefully. “Thanks Winston, y’all be safe.”

  “Hell girl, we’re a mile above the action,” he replied. “It’s you who needs to be safe.”

  “Will do,” she promised. “Until I make it to the panhandle.”

  “Look forward to it.” There was a click as the communication broke, and she flicked off the mic. She shook her head in wonder, heading back over to her comfy seat, and put her feet up on the desk, taking her sandwich back in hand.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ricky dug through the closet in the corner as Rufus’ snores provided the overture to the still present soundtrack of moans and bangs on the other side of the bedroom door.

  “Man, all this money and not a single t-shirt?” Ricky groaned. “Are you kidding me?” He pulled out a couple of expensive looking dress shirts before tossing them back into the closet. “You’d figure rich folk would know how to relax, or at least be able to hire somebody to teach them.”

  “Who knows,” Jeff piped up from where he sat on the floor, back against the dresser barricade. “Maybe these fuckers banging on the door aren’t actually after us, and are just really desperate for fine clothing.”

  “Yeah, well, they can have it,” Ricky muttered.

  Mary sighed from her perch in the windowsill, tearing her eyes from the stars to look down at the red brick wall. “Hey guys,” she said as a lightbulb went off in her head, “I think I may have a way for us to get out of here.”

  Rufus startled awake. “Alright, you got my attention.”

  “Everybody come here.” She waved them over.

  “I’ll wait until someone can tag in,” Jeff replied. “Not sure this thing is going to hold without someone pressed up against it.”

  The other two joined Mary at the window, Rufus rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

  “It looks like these people wanted the bigger floor plan,” she said, “because that wall can’t be more than ten feet away.”

  Rufus shrugged. “And?”

  “And we jump for it,” she explained. “We’re high enough and the wall is low enough, I mean we should be able to reach it with a good enough jump. Hell, one of us could jump over with a bed sheet and the others could climb over.”

  “Lil’ missy, I’m touched you think I’m an athletic god.” Rufus put a hand over his heart. “But I assure you that my bones would disintegrate upon impact if I attempted that.”

  Mary shrugged. “Well, it was a thought.”

  “And one we shouldn’t dismiss yet,” Ricky piped up.

  The old man raised an eyebrow. “Did you miss the part about my bones disintegrating?”

  “No, not jumping to the wall,” Ricky explained, “I’m talking about jumping over there.” He motioned to the window beside the closet, and led them over there. The house next door was only about six feet away, with another window facing them.

  “I’ll never understand how people can spend this much money to live that close to someone else,” Rufus mused.

  Mary ignored him. “So how do we get in?”

  “We’ve got a shotgun,” Ricky said simply. “We just blast out the window and hop over.”

  “Yeah, but how does that help us get out of the neighborhood?” Rufus asked. “The front gate to the place is wide open so god only knows how many of those things are in there.”

  Jeff shifted in his position. “What about a ladder?”

  “What do you mean?” Mary furrowed her brow, turning to him.

  “I mean one of us goes over there, gets down to the garage, grabs a ladder and we use it to reach the wall,” the skinhead explained. “I mean these are two story houses, so they have to have some twenty footers in there.”

  “Assuming these prim and proper folk do their own yard work,” Rufus retorted.

  “Eh, they’re rich,” Jeff said. “They buy shit they don’t need all the time.”

  “He’s right, did you see that closet?” Ricky put in. “Who needs eighty button-down shirts?”

  Rufus took a deep breath. “So, who’s jumping?”

  “I’ll do it.” Mary raised her hand.

  “What? No.” Ricky shook his head. “I should do it.”

  “Don’t pull that patriarchal bullshit with me,” she snapped. “I’m in better shape than you, I mean when’s the last time you did a pull-up?”

  Her husband blushed. “I’m gonna plead the fifth on that one.”

  “Exactly,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’m strong enough that if I short the jump, I can pull myself up. Now do you wanna stand here and argue some more, or you want to grab the shotgun?”

  Ricky nodded. “Shotgun it is.”

  Rufus patted him on the shoulder and then opened the window. He stood back as Mary did some stretches behind him. The thunderous blast of the gun shattered the window across the gap, and they waited with bated breath to see if there were any zombies inside that were attracted to the noise.

  “Damn, that window is toast but it looks like there’s some jagged glass sticking up from the base,” Rufus worried.

  “Hey guys, lift up the mattress,” Jeff instructed. “There may be some bracing boards underneath.”

  Ricky and Rufus complied, and found a few two-by-fours bracing the king-sized bed. They each grabbed one and then slid them gently through the frame, using them to jab away the rest of the jagged glass. Once clear, Rufus attempted to bridge the gap with the board, but it wasn’t quite long enough.

  “Damn, thought I had you a bridge there,” he grunted as he pulled it back in.

  Mary squeezed his shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ll be fine.”

  “Wait, before you go,” Ricky cut in, “I have an idea.”

  He grabbed the bed sheet and tied it around the center of the board. He made sure the knot was tight and then reared back, throwing the board like a javelin through the opposite window. He pulled the sheet tight, the two-by-four acting as an anchor braced in the frame.

  “There,” he declared proudly, “you can clim
b across if you want.”

  “Not sure I trust that two-by-four to hold very long,” Mary replied warily, “but drop the sheet out so I have a safety.”

  “You got it, girl,” her husband agreed, and tossed the rest of the sheet between the houses.

  Mary climbed out of the window, stepping carefully down onto the six-inch brick overhang. She took several deep breaths to psych herself up for the difficult jump, trying to ignore the moans of the zombies below, attracted to the commotion.

  She crouched and sprung before she lost her nerve, hands outstretched. She caught the opposing sill, but a small piece of remaining glass sliced into her right hand. On instinct, she tore that hand back, put caught the sheet as she slipped back.

  She ignored Ricky’s incoherent cry of fear as she nearly plummeted into the horde below, and pushed away the pain, heaving herself up into the bedroom. She stood up and looked back at her husband across the gap, his face pale and relieved.

  “I’m good y’all!” She waved. “Be back in a minute!” She drew her handgun and approached the bedroom door, cracking it to peer into the hallway. There was a figure slumped against another door in the hallway, unmoving.

  She approached carefully, and then relaxed at the sight of half of the corpse’s head missing. There was a handgun at the dead woman’s feet, and as she bent to pick it up, she noticed a fallen sign from the door. Emma’s Room was scrawled across it in proud crayon letters, and Mary’s heart skipped a beat at what this poor woman had probably had to do.

  She moved quickly through the rest of the house, clearing it quickly. She knocked on the garage door, and not hearing a retaliatory sound, opened it. She was greeted with the welcome sight of a brand new twenty-foot ladder hanging on the wall. She hooked it over her shoulder and hurried back upstairs.

  “Hey boys, look what I found!” she declared proudly, sliding the ladder across to their window.

  “All that’s missin’ is a bow and a decorated tree,” Rufus gushed as he and Ricky took the end, holding it steady.

  “Hang tight, I’ll be right back!” Mary waved once more and darted back downstairs, grabbing a shopping bag from the kitchen and loading it from the mini-bar. Upon returning to the bedroom, she slung it over her shoulder and then made sure the ladder had enough counterbalance for her to climb across.

  She took a deep breath, hand over hand, looking ahead instead of down at the hungry enemies below.

  “Baby, you okay?” Ricky asked as he pulled her back into the window, holding her tightly.

  “Yeah, just a little prick in my hand,” she assured him.

  Jeff laughed. “Here’s hoping that’s the first time you’ve heard her say that, Ricky.”

  “Goddamn right it is,” Ricky declared, giving the group a much needed moment of comic relief.

  “So what’s in the bag?” Rufus asked, and she cracked open the canvas to give him a peek. “Mother of god.”

  Jeff raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

  “Just a half-dozen bottles of the finest liquor money can buy,” the old man replied with stars in his eyes.

  “Great, if we survive this we can get toasted.” Jeff rolled his eyes.

  Mary shrugged. “Well, we can do that, or we can use a couple of them to burn this fucker to the ground.”

  “You wanna start another fire?” Ricky asked, incredulous.

  “Yeah, I do,” she replied. “These things don’t seem to care if they’re on fire or not, so I figured we could take out a good number of them on our way out. At least have a chance at thinning their numbers to the point where we can get the supplies out.”

  “Hell, sounds like a plan to me,” Jeff agreed. “If we don’t do something about the horde, we aren’t getting to the food anyway.”

  Rufus nodded. “Alright, let’s get that ladder out there.” He and Ricky worked the ladder inside and then out the back window, extending it to the wall with a few feet to spare. They took a few more bedsheets and tied the bottom rung to the bedposts to secure it in place.

  “Not going to be the sturdiest of holds, but should get the job done,” Ricky said.

  “Alright, I’m going first,” Rufus said. “I’ll get to the wall, check out what’s on the other side, and motion when I know what we’re doin’.”

  Mary nodded. “Go get ‘em.”

  He climbed along the ladder, hand over hand, frowning down at the zombies reaching up for their meal in the sky. He shook his head as he reached the wall, a good foot thick for him to balance on. He looked down the other side, spotting a broken down car about ten feet away that looked close enough to jump down to.

  He waved.

  “Alright, that’s the signal, Mary you’re up,” Ricky said, and his wife easily traversed the bridge. He followed her and they stood on the wall, waiting for Jeff. He stood up, keeping his foot braced against the dresser, readying his lighter.

  “You got this, easy as pie,” he muttered to himself. “All you have to do is sprint to the window, light and throw a molotov cocktail as a horde of zombies chase you across a ladder above a pit of even more zombies. Nothing to it.”

  He took a deep breath and ignited the fabric, immediately pocketing the lighter and making a run for the window. As soon as he let up on the dresser, the zombies were able to slightly shove the door open, just in time to take a flaming cocktail in the face.

  The glass shattered and flaming liquid coated the door and wall, spreading rapidly as the zombies struggled to get into the room.

  Jeff hurtled out onto the ladder, trying to be quick but careful not to wobble too much.

  “Come on Jeff, you got this,” Ricky encouraged.

  Just as the skinhead was halfway across, a flaming zombie started out after him.

  Mary clenched her fists. “Hurry, Jeff!” she cried. He looked back and saw his pursuer, and tried to move a little faster. Ricky aimed his handgun, but Rufus pushed his arm down.

  “Don’t fire,” he said. “We’re making enough noise as it is and are about to be on foot. He’ll make it.”

  Jeff was about six feet from the wall when the ladder started to shake from the weight of he and the less graceful flaming zombie. Rufus held the metal as steady as he could, but the flames in the bedroom seemed like they’d eaten the makeshift supports.

  Ricky grabbed Jeff’s arms and helped him onto the wall, and Rufus immediately jerked the ladder towards him, dislodging it from the house. It bounced roughly and slammed into the ground, the flaming zombie taking it down with him into the horde.

  As the smell of burning flesh permeated the night air, Rufus sighed. “There’s a car about ten yards down, shouldn’t be that bad of a jump,” he said. “I think that house on the corner is going to be our best bet, as those bars look sturdy. Y’all get in a secure the place.”

  “What are you going to do?” Mary asked.

  “Somebody needs to keep them occupied,” he told her, “make sure they don’t go wandering off and setting the other houses ablaze. I’d hate to do all this work for nothing.”

  “Good deal,” Jeff agreed. “I’ll contact Dan and let him know the situation and that we’re holding tight til morning.”

  Rufus nodded. “I’ll be along shortly.” He turned to the fiery corpses below. “It’s a damn shame I don’t have any marshmallows.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sparks steered the boat along a dock at the edge of Center Point. It looked to be the personal dock behind a small house, and she tied off and headed up the embankment. She pulled out the GPS and looked for the drug store.

  “Six blocks up,” she murmured to herself, “one to the left. Let’s do it.” She double checked her AR-15 to make sure it was easily accessible, and that her sheathed knife and machete were good to go. Confirmed battle ready, she headed off towards downtown.

  The streets were eerily quiet, with no movement to be seen. There were several corpses strewn about, and Sparks wondered if they were left by Elijah’s militia when they raided the town. She picked up the
pace and turned onto Main Street.

  She backed up around the corner of a building upon seeing a few dozen zombies milling about the sidewalk in front of the drug store.

  “Fuck,” she muttered, pulling out her binoculars. Not enough ammo… and a full frontal assault would be suicide, she thought as she surveyed the horde. A diversion tactic could work, but if even one of them stayed behind they could draw the others back. A double diversion, perhaps? One to get them away and one to make sure they stay away?

  She took out two cell phones, set one alarm for ten minutes and another for twenty five. It wasn’t that large of a drug store, so she figured if she couldn’t find what she was looking for in fifteen minutes it meant that the drug wasn’t going to be found by anyone short of an archaeologist.

  She pressed her earpiece. “Do you have a stopwatch?”

  “Yeah, why?” Dan asked.

  “Set one for twenty-five minutes, starting now,” she said as she reset the cell phone.

  “Done,” he replied.

  “I’ll be in touch,” she said brusquely, clicking off the earpiece again. She turned and placed the first cell phone on a nearby windowsill.

  Sparks walked back to the road she’d come from, which ran parallel to Main Street. She moved behind the buildings all the way to the drug store. She peeked around a corner and made sure the coast was clear before sprinting across the road, skidding into an alleyway. She set the second cell phone on top of a dumpster, admiring the concrete walls that would provide a nice echo for the concert she was shortly going to be putting on.

  She made her way back to Main Street, peeking at the milling zombies. In a few minutes, the first alarm bleated loudly from six blocks down, almost loud enough that it sounded like a police siren in the quiet.

  The zombies immediately sprinted to action, like a group of racers hearing a starter pistol, and tore off towards the sound.

  Sparks cautiously waited until most of them had turned the corner before running across the empty street. She peeked around a row of cars to make sure there were no stragglers waiting, and then managed to reach the door. There was a chain looped through the handles with a padlock.