Dead Texas (Book 3): Lonesome Road

by Slaton, Derek

  “Shit, those fucking militia they-” she stopped at the sight of the lock hanging open. “They didn’t lock it.” She jerked the chain down and dove inside, throwing the deadbolt once she got in. She moved out of view of the street and paused, drawing her machete to assess the room.

  There was a shuffling emanating from the back, and she carefully stood on her tiptoes, peeking over the small shelves. There was one figure moving behind the counter.

  She ducked back down and combat walked up the aisle closest to the creature. She picked up a bottle of hand lotion from the shelf next to her, and tossed it to the far end of the room. The zombie shrieked and went after it, and when he passed her, she flung her leg out to trip it.

  As its face smacked into the linoleum, she jammed the machete down into the back of its head. It gurgled blood for a moment before falling still.

  Sparks moved to the back of the cleared store to check the shelves. Most of the medication had been snatched up, however a few of the prescription medication remained. She wasn’t sure what they were as she checked each one, but was disheartened to see that they were not nitroglycerine. She threw them all in the bag anyway, and touched her earpiece.

  “Time check,” she said.

  “Seven minutes,” Dan replied.

  She sighed. “Well, they don’t have any nitro.”

  “Look for a filing cabinet,” he suggested.

  She glanced around and skirted a desk, finding one underneath. “There aren’t any drugs in here, just file folders.”

  “Those should be patient files,” Dan explained. “A lot of small town pharmacies haven’t made the switch to computers yet, which is just fine since the population in these towns skews older.”

  “There has got to be a hundred files here, I don’t have time to look through them,” she groaned. “I’m just going to have to take as many as I can carry and check them out when I’m clear.”

  “Four minutes,” he said.

  “Thanks,” she replied. “My plan is to get back to the boat and regroup at the airport. This means I won’t make it back before you have to leave, so I’ll just meet you in Junction.”

  “Be safe and give me an update when you can,” Dan instructed. “Oh, and three minutes.”

  “Thanks,” she repeated, “Sparks out.” She clicked off the earpiece and pulled a stack of folders from the filing cabinet, stuffing her bag. She was barely able to get it to close and wasn’t happy about leaving some behind, but her time was up. She moved to the door and waited for the alarm, cracking the door so she could hear.

  The other alarm went off, giving her the kick to move. She bolted from the door and got across the street before the horde got to their next diversion. She ducked behind a car for cover, slamming back against it. The vehicle sprung to life, its own alarm going off, lights flashing.

  “Fuck my life,” Sparks muttered and took off, the horde now fixated on her position. She pumped her legs as fast as she could, but they were gaining on her by the time she reached the residential areas of town. She glanced over her shoulder to see a dozen or so zombies in pursuit, and she hung a right around a house.

  She reached into her pocket for a cell phone, holding down the home button until a digital assistant asked what she needed.

  “Ten second timer!” she cried, and the phone complied. As the timer began to count down, she tossed it into a yard and veered to the right, hoping to distract at least some of her pursuers. As the alarm went off she chanced a look over her shoulder to see a trio of zombies still coming after her.

  Her muscles screamed and her enemies were gaining, and in a moment of desperation she tore into a backyard with a pool. She threw her bag and guns aside like refuse out of a car and leapt into the water.

  The zombies piled in, face planting due to lack of coordination. Sparks wasted no time in swimming to the edge to pull herself out, springing to her feet and drawing both her knife and machete. The zombies seemed disoriented but still trying to get to her.

  She crouched by the side, and as their heads crested the water she stabbed them like a zombified whack-a-mole game. Several strikes later, the pool was crimson with three corpses floating face down.

  Sparks forced herself to get moving again, ignoring the burning of her lungs as she retrieved her gear. She darted deeper into the neighborhood in search of a place to lay low. A few blocks over, there was a nice house with no car in the driveway and intact doors and windows. She ran up to the back door and knocked, waiting a beat for a banging response.

  When there was none, she used the stock of her gun to bust out one of the glass panels and reached into the unlock the door. She flicked the deadbolt and shoved a little wall unit against the broken glass, raising her blades to clear the house.

  It was empty. After double checking the front door lock, she collapsed on the couch and smacked at her earpiece with an arm that suddenly felt like jelly.

  “Sparks, are you okay?” Dan asked.

  “Yeah, just,” she huffed, “had some issues getting out of the drug store.”

  “Oh my god, are you okay?” he gushed. “You aren’t bitten are you?”

  She shook her head lazily. “No, I’m good, just an old fashioned chase around town.”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Some random house in the neighborhood,” she said, kicking off her soaked boots. “Going to lay low and catch my breath while looking over these patient files.” She peeled off a sock and wrung it out. “Besides, I need to let my clothes dry out a bit before moving on.”

  “Dry out?” the Principal inquired. “Did you go swimming?”

  “Nah, just played the worst game of Marco Polo ever.” She chuckled as she drew her tank top over her head. “Turns out if you have a machete, it doesn’t matter if you’re a fish out of water, you still win.”

  “That…” He couldn’t help but bark a laugh. “That is good to know.”

  “I’ll be in touch when I have something,” she said. “Sparks out.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rufus scrambled eggs on the stove as Jeff poured four cups of coffee, Mary and Ricky keeping an eye out for trouble.

  “Come on y’all, breakfast,” Rufus called, and the couple joined them in the kitchen of the house they’d hunkered down in.

  “How’s it looking out there?” Jeff asked.

  Ricky shrugged. “Pretty quiet. Nothing on the streets,” he said.

  “And the smoke coming from Colonial Court seems to be petering out, so it doesn’t look like the fires spread,” Mary continued.

  “Well that’s a bit of good news, at least,” Rufus replied as he divvied the eggs between four plates. “Now we just gotta figure out how to clear the neighborhood so we can get the food.”

  “Maybe we can lure them to one side like you did last night, Rufus?” Jeff suggested. “Stand on the wall, make a shitload of noise, and keep them there while the rest of us get the supplies?”

  “Sounds risky,” the older man warned. “All it’s gonna take is one of them bastards to get wind of Dan’s boys and they’re gonna be overrun.”

  “You could Pied Piper them sumbitches,” Ricky spoke up. “I mean my truck is right by the entrance. We’ll get her started up, get their attention and lead em right out into the country.”

  They all stared at him in awe.

  “Ricky, that is a solid fucking idea,” Jeff commended, and then shoved the rest of his eggs into his mouth before standing up. “I’m gonna get Dan on the line and let him know.”

  “Pied Piper them sumbitches?” Mary raised an eyebrow at her husband. “I swear it’s a good thing I was a math teacher and not an English teacher.”

  “Hell girl, you should just be happy the boy made a literary reference.” Rufus chuckled.

  Ricky grinned. “You tell her, Rufus.”

  She rolled her eyes and focused on her breakfast, knowing full well this was a battle she wasn’t going to win. Jeff sipped his coffee while looking out the window, waiting for
the Principal to answer his tap.

  “Hey Jeff,” Dan finally came through, “sorry about the delay there, I was helping get things ready. How we looking over there?”

  “Well, from our vantage point it looks like the fires have burned out,” Jeff reported. “But we don’t know what the zombie population looks like. Although we do have a plan.”

  “Great, let’s hear it,” Dan offered.

  “To quote Ricky, the thespian among us, we’re gonna Pied Piper the sumbitches,” the skinhead replied with a grin. “Ricky’s truck is parked by the entrance, so the plan is to lure them out of the neighborhood, and really right out of the city.”

  “Sounds like as good a plan as any,” the Principal replied. “I’ll make sure the teams going in know to be ready for any stragglers.”

  Jeff nodded. “Probably a good idea, since we’re going to be moving as soon as the first wave gets to us. We won’t have a way to know how successful we are.”

  “How long do you think you’ll need?” Dan asked.

  Jeff pursed his lips in thought. “Plan on two hours,” he said finally. He pulled out the GPS and zoomed out to take a look at the area. “Based on our position, we’re going to go out 1631, and when we get way out into the country we’ll leave them behind and circle around to highway 16 and come back into town. We’re not going to be able to go that fast initially, since we don’t want to lose any zombies.”

  “Sounds good, Jeff,” Dan commended. “I’ll have the boys ready to go in two hours. Let me know if anything changes.”

  Jeff nodded. “Ten four.” He tapped his earpiece and went back into the kitchen. ‘Alright, the plan is a go.” He puts hands up as the trio started to get up. “Whoa now, finish breakfast. I told him it’d take us a couple hours, so we have plenty of time. Besides, how many more of these good old fashioned hot breakfasts are we gonna have?”

  Rufus shrugged. “Man’s got a point, eat up everybody.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sparks shot awake, sitting up violently on the couch, gun in hand. She steadied her breathing as she remembered where she was, and lowered her gun, rubbing her eyes. She looked around at the file folders and clothes strewn about, yawning as she headed to the kitchen.

  She rummaged through the cabinets, finding very little. The previous tenants must have packed everything they had been able to fit in their vehicle when they left.

  “Ugh, that’s just wrong,” she muttered upon finding a single canister of decaf coffee. “Guess this is as good as it’s going to get.” She fired up the coffee maker as she tapped her earpiece.

  “Good morning Sparks, sleep well?” Dan asked.

  “Not really,” she replied with a yawn. “Up most of the night trying to find the heart meds.”

  He frowned. “Any luck?”

  “Only three patients had a prescription for it,” she said. “One of them has an address south of downtown, which after yesterday I don’t want to go anywhere near. The second one hasn’t had their order filled in two months, which leads me to believe they stopped needing them.”

  “And the third?” he prompted.

  “Picked up a week before the outbreak,” she said. “ address looks like it’s fourteen miles northwest of my current position. So after I wake up a bit, I’m going to start hiking.”

  “Well, at least it’s taking you in the right direction towards Junction,” he said.

  She nodded as she dumped the blasphemous coffee into a filter. “Hopefully they have some transportation there, because this walking is getting old.”

  “Why don’t you just take a car from where you are?” he suggested.

  She shook her head. “Still too many of those things around,” she said. “I’d much rather sneak out of town on foot than risk setting off another alarm.”

  “I don’t blame you at all,” he said.

  “How are the others doing?” she asked.

  “They’re safe,” he reported. “They found a good bit of food and now they’re going to lead a zombie convoy out into the country so we can go pick it up.”

  “When you talk to them again, tell them I said howdy and that I’m still kicking,” she said.

  “Will do,” Dan confirmed. “Be safe.”

  She tapped the earpiece and poured her cup of decaf, grimacing as she did so. “I don’t normally wish ill on people, but seriously, whoever lived here can fuck right off.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The foursome hugged the wall as they moved up the street, guns drawn and at the ready. Rufus led the way with Jeff bringing up the rear, and they met no resistance as they reached the front of the walled neighborhood.

  Rufus held up a fist to silently signal for them to stop, and peered around the corner of the wall. There were no zombies outside of the gate, near Ricky’s truck from what he could see, but there were lots of blind spots and that worried him.

  “Ricky, you got the keys ready?” the old man whispered. When he saw his companion hold them up in confirmation, he nodded. “Wait til everyone is in to start it up.”

  Ricky nodded, and Rufus gave everyone a thumbs up. He turned, bringing his rifle up into combat ready position, and led them into battle.

  When he reached the guard station, Rufus whipped around it, ready to take out any potential threat. The closest zombie was about ten yards away, milling just on the other side of the gate. It seemed more interested in the smoldering house than anything on the groups side of the gate, so Rufus refrained from shooting it and instead motioned for the trio to run to the truck.

  Ricky led the charge, the three of them moving at a speed walk to avoid making too much noise, and made it to the truck. They carefully opened the driver’s side door and Mary crawled in first, Ricky following. Jeff climbed up into the bed, taking position over the roof to provide cover.

  Rufus moved silently across the gap, sideways, with his gun still trained on the distracted zombie. Just as he was about halfway, Ricky gently closed the truck door and the tiny click was just enough to make the zombie turn its head. Without hesitation Rufus put a bullet in its head, but the loud crack signaled the rest of the horde that dinner had arrived.

  “Start the truck!” he yelled, and sprinted towards the vehicle. Ricky fired it up just as zombies began pouring out of the front gate, and he punched the accelerator.

  Rufus halfway jumped into the bed, and Jeff grabbed him by the belt, pulling him the rest of the way as the truck bounced violently from running over wayward zombies.

  The truck cleared the front entrance with the throng of zombies in hot pursuit. Ricky turned down the road beside the fortified neighborhood, keeping a good twenty yard clearance between them and the enemy.

  Mary opened the back window. “You boys alright?”

  “Pretty sure I cracked a rib, but other than that I’m good to go,” Rufus said, giving her a thumbs up.

  “You’re lucky you made it in at all with that eight inch vertical.” Jeff patted him on the shoulder.

  Rufus grinned. “Heh, you ain’t kiddin’.”

  “Yo Jeff, you got that GPS thingy?” Ricky called back. “Need to know where I’m headed.”

  The skinhead pulled out the GPS and checked their location. “Another mile, then hang a left. After that we’ll be out for a leisurely drive in the country,” he instructed.

  He and Rufus sat back against the cab of the truck and watched as the mass of rotting flesh sprinted after them.

  “What do ya think?” the old man asked. “We got about forty of them?”

  Jeff shrugged. “Could be fifty.”

  “Well, whatever it is,” Rufus said, “let’s just hope it was enough.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sparks peered through her binoculars at the house, a one story rancher that would run seven figures in the city. There were no signs of movement despite the beat up truck in the driveway. She lowered her binoculars and stepped out of the tree line into the low hanging evening sunlight.

  Just as she reached the front d
oor, there was a high pitched mechanical screech in the distance. She whipped around and saw a small black dot in the sky above the trees.

  “That can’t be good,” she muttered, and dove into the house, revolver in hand. A zombie moan echoed from the kitchen, and a rotting corpse in the shape of a teenager ran towards the officer. “Yeah, come and get me girl,” Sparks urged, and darted off towards the bathroom.

  She barreled down the hallway, opening the bathroom door just in time for the zombie to smack wetly into the other side. Sparks kicked the corpse into the bathroom and slammed the door, trapping it inside. The undead occupant thrashed against the door like a caged animal, but it didn’t budge.

  “You hang tight, girl,” the redhead said, and then did a sweep of the rest of the house. After securing her surroundings, she searched for the medication.

  The master bedroom and ensuite came up empty. She worked her way through the kitchen cabinets and the first few contained expensive looking dishes and glassware. The last cabinet revealed a stash that made her eyes widen.

  “Holy hell,” she breathed, “either someone in the house was feeling really bad, or really, really good.” She picked up two bottles from the bottom of the cupboard of drugs, and put them in the bag as she checked the labels. Around halfway through she found what she was looking for. “There you are,” she said with triumph as she tapped her earpiece. “Dan, I got them.”

  “That’s great news!” the Principal replied excitedly. “And I have some of my own. The boys just got back from Fredericksburg with the food the other group rounded up. There’s enough for two solid weeks, so we have enough to get us wherever we need to go.”

  “That’s excellent news,” Sparks agreed as she shoved the rest of the bottles into her bag. “Have they gotten back yet?”

  Dan made a noise in the negative. “They had to take the long way around to clear out a horde for us, so we’re expecting them back in a couple of hours.”