Zombie Road IV: Road to Redemption

by David A. Simpson

  Jessie whistled for Bob, who was off snuffling around some prairie dog burrows, and checked his supply of trucker speed. He hadn’t been using it lately, had no reason to. The jar was empty. He’d have to stop somewhere and mix up some more of the bitter concoction.

  They drove, hitting it hard during the remaining daylight hours, and only slowing a little once it got full dark. With the LED and halogen off road beams lighting up the night, he could see for a half mile. He dug out the iPhone he’d pulled from the dead man and plugged it into his stereo, checking to see if there was any decent music on it. Most of the songs were the staple of heavy metal fans: Slayer and Pantera. Metallica and Iron Maiden. He listened for a while, skipping most of them, rocking out on some of the others. It wasn’t really his kind of music, but it would be worth a little something in trade somewhere. There were hundreds of songs on it and a handful of games that could be played offline, too. It would be good for a meal, maybe a few beers. He should probably start hanging onto them, they’d be worth a lot more in a few months, if Lakota could get a wireless network up and running. With some help from the Tower, it was inevitable. Who knows, maybe they’d get Facebook started up again.

  The Merc had been pulling a little to the right, it didn’t stay centered on the road when he let go of the wheel. He needed to check out the front end, and if he remembered right, the mayor said they had a pretty good mechanic in Tombstone. It was most likely an alignment problem from bouncing over that bunch of zeds back in Oregon. Or maybe when he jumped over that hill; he’d caught some pretty good air.

  He found a well-raided gas station sometime past midnight, somewhere in Wyoming. There was plenty of fuel left in the underground tanks and after Bob didn’t seem interested in anything besides peeing on everything, Jessie deemed it safe. He got his pumps started then went in the store. He flashed his mag light around, noted the empty shelves and coolers. No candy, no soda, and no beer, but the over the counter black betties, yellow jackets, male stamina, and caffeine stimulants were untouched. With a Monster and a couple of five-hour energy drinks from the car, he made a fresh batch of Trucker Speed, smacking his lips at the bitter, acrid taste once he had it all mixed up. Chase it with a Mountain Dew and he’d be wide eyed and wired.

  He checked his tires, noticed a little extra wear on the inside of one of the front ones. Definitely needed an alignment. He wound up his gas hoses, shared some jerky with the Shepherd and settled in for a long night. Watching the gut shot man die, seeing the spark of life fade from his eyes, had made him start thinking about how alone he was, how hollow he felt, how much he missed the touch of someone who cared. The girl on the motorcycle made him realize what the emptiness inside of him was. He missed Sandy. They didn’t have to sleep together if she didn’t want to but he really needed to laugh. To forget. To feel wanted. To know there was someone who cared. The dotted lines on the road went on forever, the tires hummed on the asphalt, the music was low in the background and his mind played through a hundred different scenarios of how it would be when he got to Tombstone.

  He’d give her a little shock when she came over to take his order. She’d yell in surprise and run to embrace him. Maybe she’d be a little ticked off, just a little at first, but she’d understand.

  Maybe the guards would let her know when he was getting checked in and she’d come to the gate, happy to see him and glad he came back. They would hug, he’d swing her around and she’d laugh her infectious laugh. Maybe he’d find some pretty spring flowers and keep them hidden, pull them out from behind his back and watch her eyes light up.

  Jessie drove, burning up the miles. The trucker speed and the desire in his heart keeping his foot heavy. The plains rolled by, the highway was empty and he only stopped when he needed fuel or Bob started whining, letting him know he needed to go take care of business. He kept pushing, even though the car was getting more difficult to drive. The tire wore slowly at first, but at the last stop, the inside of his right front was balding and starting to cup. The sun rose and climbed into the sky. He turned the heater off, rolled down the window, and drove tapping his fingers to the tunes. He played upbeat music from the different phones. Salsa and hip hop, Top 40 and 70’s anthems. He sipped on the bottle and they ate lunch at eighty miles an hour. His eyes grew gritty and dry, his body ached but he pressed on. He cut around Cheyenne, then stayed on the dirt roads through the Pawnee National Grasslands. He’d had a few hundred of the undead chasing him out of the city but they didn’t stay in his rear view for long. With a little luck, they’d all wither away and die for good in the high plains.

  Jessie pushed hard to make it before nightfall, but an unexplained pileup in the middle of nowhere and a thousand strong horde had made him detour, set him behind. The sun was painting the sky in pastel colors as it dipped below the horizon when he finally crossed into Colorado. The car was fighting him now, and he had to keep constant pressure on the wheel to stay out of the ditch. He was exhausted, the miles rolled on, and he finally turned onto the county road that would lead him to Tombstone. Just a few more miles bouncing on a dirt road that hadn’t been graded since last fall. It wasn’t too bad, not yet, but when the hard rains came the ruts would only get worse. By this time next year, he’d need four-wheel drive to navigate through the washouts and cruising along at fifty would be out of the question. The closer he got, the more unsure of himself he became. Maybe she didn’t want to see him. Maybe the men would snicker and try to hide snide smiles behind their beers. Maybe he’d just embarrass her by reminding her of a drunken mistake.

  He looked at the prairie flowers lying by the bottle of nitrous between the seats. He’d stopped to pick them a few miles back when Bob needed a break. They were small and pale blue and they smelled of the outdoors, reminded him of the scent of her skin when they were curled up together. The car kept getting slower, as his indecision kept getting stronger. He finally stopped a few miles out and rested his head on the steering wheel, letting it idle. It had been stupid to drive down here. Something only a pathetic little whineyass would do, he told himself. He’d been up for nearly thirty-six hours straight and had only slept a few hours each night all week. He knew his head wasn’t on right. The trucker speed in his system still had him wired and twitchy but his eyes felt like he’d rubbed sand in them. He wasn’t sleepy, but he was bone tired. Tired of driving. Tired of thinking. Tired of fighting. Maybe he should just turn around, find a deserted tire shop near Julesburg, and fix the car himself. The pull was getting worse, but he should be able to make it back, it was only sixty or seventy miles. He should get on with his mission and stop thinking about her. About the way she made him feel. About the way she made him laugh. About the curve of her breasts. About the taste of her lips. About the way she smiled when she looked at him.

  He heard Bob give a quiet chuff, then the sound of engines a few seconds later. He sat up and grabbed the gear shifter, looking behind him to see the lights of four wheelers coming up the road. He dropped his hand to his pistol and waited to see if they were friend or foe. It was a couple of men from Tombstone and he recognized one of them as a guard from the last time he was in town.

  “Hey, Mr. Meadows,” the dusty man said when they pulled up and killed their engines. “You okay? Car trouble?”

  “Uh, front tire’s about ready to pop,” Jessie said, thinking quickly. “I wasn’t sure how much farther it was to town.”

  “It’s your lucky day, then.” The guard grinned. “You’re only about three miles out, we’re in the valley over the next rise. Think she’ll make it that far?”

  “Yeah, should do,” Jessie said. “Y’all go on, I’m going to take it slow, nurse it in.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, “I’ll let Knuckles know you’ll be along, he’s our mechanic.”

  “Appreciate it,” Jessie said. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

  “No going back now, Bob,” he told the dog after they took off. “Looks like we gotta face the music, no matter how it turns out.”

&
nbsp; Bob didn’t seem to care. He made himself comfortable in the seat and lay back down.

  Ten minutes later Jessie was pulling up to the front gate. They already had it open and greeted him warmly, welcoming him back. True to their word, the men on the four wheelers had rousted the town’s mechanic and he was waiting with the rest of them. He hadn’t seen the machine everyone had talked about and was eager to see for himself. Word traveled fast in a burg with only a few hundred residents, and while Jessie was getting his mandatory bite check and Bob was getting his ears scratched, the mayor came over to greet him. It was getting late but they had gas lamps lighting some the streets now and people were still out and about.

  “Mr. Meadows, we’re pleased to have you back,” he said, remembering at the last second not to extend his hand in greeting. The kid had funny notions about shaking.

  “Make sure you come see me before you leave, if you don’t mind. We have a few things to discuss and I’d like to know about any new trading partners you’ve discovered. We have our own full service butcher shop now, plenty of choice cuts available.”

  Jessie had to smile at the cowboy’s enthusiasm. Under his efforts, the little town was starting to prosper, not just survive.

  “I’ll do that, sir,” he said, shrugging back into his leathers.

  Mayor Tackett took in Jessie's appearance and had to remind himself that the young man was still a teenager. Just a boy, really, although he carried himself like someone much older. He looked road worn, like he’d been living rough ever since he’d left. Like he hadn’t had a decent meal or a good night’s sleep in weeks. He needed a haircut, it was curling around his collar and hung in greasy strands. His eyes were glassy, he and his jacket both needed a thorough cleaning. The kid had grime under his fingernails, dirt in the creases of his face and the leather had dried bloodstains up to the elbows. Dark smears of gore covered his car and bits of hair and cloth were caught in the push bar. Bullets had punched new holes in the sheet metal and even to his untrained eye, he’d seen the tire worn bald on one side.

  “You look plum tuckered out. Get yourself a bite to eat, grab a bath, and get a good night’s sleep,” he said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

  30

  Jessie

  His arrival had caused a bit of a stir, everyone not busy elsewhere or already in bed came over to look at his car, stick their fingers in the bullet holes, and shake their heads in wonder. Things around Tombstone were pretty quiet, they hadn’t seen any of the undead in a few days, and that had only been a pack of twenty or thirty worn out husks that were easily put down. The car told a different story, it reaffirmed how bad it was away from their quiet little slice of the world. Some thought the old Mercury was a poor choice for a wasteland car, but looking at it now, they could see the wisdom of using old, heavy, solidly built machines. A small crowd had gathered as Jessie went through the procedure of being checked for bites and then spoke with the mayor. They nodded their hellos, but most of them came to look at the car. It was splattered with gore from who knew how many undead hands reaching for the driver. Bullet holes riddled the windshield, the sides and trunk reminding them that zombies weren’t the worst thing out there anymore. Knuckles was crawling underneath the lifted Merc, shining his flashlight around, and trying to spot the problem with the tire. He knew the emissary paid in Lakota Gold, and he wanted a little bit of it.

  “Found the problem,” he told Jessie, climbing back to his feet and dusting himself off. “You’ve got a bent control arm, easy fix if I can find the parts. How’d you manage to do that, you hit a boulder or something? What’s the running gear off of anyway? It ain’t 1950s Ford, I know that much.”

  “My dad pulled it off a Raptor,” Jessie replied. “And I had to jump over a truck that was shooting at me.”

  The mechanic looked at him, not sure if the kid was pulling his leg, but decided he probably wasn’t. The Merc had been through the wringer, but it was well built. It had kept the kid alive and he would make sure any of his work on it was just as good, maybe better. It was a crazy world out there beyond the walls, and very few people were brave enough to go much farther than the fields or cattle paddocks surrounding them. If they did, the machine kept them alive.

  “I don’t have those kinds of parts here,” Knuckles said, wiping his hands on a rag. “They prolly got ‘em over in Wray, at the Ford dealership.”

  “How bad is it down there?” Jessie asked. “Has anyone tried to clear it out?”

  Feet were shuffled and eyes averted. Jessie waited. One of the guards spoke up finally, his voice a little heavy. “A team went down there a few weeks ago to get some meds from the hospital. They never came back.”

  “Lost some good men,” someone else said. “Nobody’s been out past the fields since. The towns are crawling with those things, it’s too dangerous.”

  Jessie nodded, his bloodshot eyes taking them all in, the farmers and merchants and ranchers. Good men and women. Strong and proud. Hard in their own way, but not used to dealing with hordes. Any of them could do what he did if they knew how. If they had a little experience. It reminded him of trying to get a job before the fall, when he was applying at the fast food restaurants. You had to have experience to get one, but you couldn’t get the experience without first getting a job. A Catch 22, his dad called those situations. They needed to learn how to clear a town but to do so, they would make mistakes and get themselves killed. He had made a lot himself and knew a big part of him still being alive was down to pure, dumb luck. He didn’t know how he’d managed to not get killed in the beginning. It sure wasn’t from his own skill.

  “I’ll get the parts you need,” he said. “If you can loan me a car.”

  Knuckles quickly agreed. “I’ve got a Chevy pickup you can use,” he said with pride. “It’s kind of set up like yours, with all the bars on the windows. I’ve been working on it little by little, whenever I can get enough gas to run the generator. I’ve been teaching myself to weld.”

  Jessie talked with them for a few more minutes before making his way over to the roadhouse. Sandy hadn’t come to see him, but maybe she hadn’t heard he was back. She was probably busy anyway, he told himself. Halfway there he remembered the flowers in his car but a crowd was still gathered around it and it would be embarrassing to go back and get them now. He trudged on, feeling the last few days settling down on him, weighing heavy on his shoulders. It would all be worth it, though. Just to hear her laugh.

  He found an empty booth against the wall and slid into it, Bob disappearing toward the kitchen, where he hoped to get a bone or two from the cook. The barman called out a greeting, asked if he wanted anything to eat.

  “Your best steak and your coldest beer,” Jessie yelled back over the sound of a couple of guys quietly playing their guitars and trying to keep in time. The bar and grill wasn’t nearly as packed with people as the last time he’d been here, but it wasn’t court days and the dinner crowds were long gone.

  Bob came back a few minutes later, his tail wagging broadly and took his place under the table, happily worrying a brisket bone that had a lot of meat left on it. The band had a girl on a set of drums tonight, and Jessie watched them work together, basically just a practice session, but they weren’t bad. He wondered where the fiddle player was, he hadn’t been very good, but he sure was lively the last time he’d been here. Maybe he’d be better if he wasn’t so drunk.

  Jessie jumped when a full mug of beer was slammed down in front of him, most of the contents splashing up and covering his surprised face. A plate with steak and potatoes and corn was slung across the table at him, and he barely caught it before it went flying off the edge. Next a fork, then a knife, was thrown and only by deflecting them with his sleeve saved him from being impaled. He looked over his arm, still protecting his dripping face, at her. Her fiery red hair surrounded a face that was cold with anger. Her eyes were razor blades, cutting him with their glare. Jessie checked her hands for more weapons but they were empty, although cl
enched and white-knuckled.

  “How dare you just run out on me.” she said.

  “You think I’m some cheap two-bit hooker?” she asked, venom in her voice.

  “No..” Jessie started but she cut him off.

  “You think this is a whore house?”

  “No, I…”

  “You think you can come back here after all this time and I’m supposed to swoon into your arms? I’m supposed to wait for you?”

  “I didn’t…” Jessie stumbled, tried to speak, to explain.

  “I don’t want to hear your excuses,” she said. “You’re filthy and you stink. They sell baths here, you know. You really should buy one.”

  “I was going to…”

  “And get some laundry service. Your clothes smell worse than you.”

  Jessie tried to talk again but she turned and stormed off, leaving him dripping in beer, his food spilled onto the table, and his glass mostly empty.

  “Never piss off a red head,” an old rancher in the next booth said, giving him a commiserating look. Jessie shook his head, wiped at his face, and scooped his steak back on the plate. He sighed. This hadn’t turned out at all like he’d envisioned it. He didn’t know if she was mad because he left or mad because he came back. He didn’t know if she was mad at him or mad at herself. He didn’t understand at all.

  He wasn’t hungry anymore. He was embarrassed, his scar burned, reminding him what a fool he was. He was suddenly tired beyond reason. The last little bit of energy he had, the voice in his head that drove him, told him he needed the comfort only she could give, the thing that had pushed him so hard to get here to see her, was gone. He’d been mistaken. The voice was wrong. He wanted to sleep. To forget. He wanted the people to stop staring. He stood, his leather jangling slightly as his blades and armor settled back into position. His guns found their place, hanging low on his hips, and he didn’t even try to hide his dejected face. Didn’t have the energy to blow it off and pretend he wasn’t bothered. Slump-shouldered, he clucked his tongue for Bob to follow. He didn’t want to be in the same building. He’d rather sleep in his car.