highway to hell 2
by
armand Rosamilia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without expressed written consent of the author and/or artists
This book is a work of fiction. Names characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living, dead or undead, is entirely coincidental.
“Highway To Hell 2” copyright 2015 by Armand Rosamilia
Cover copyright 2015 by Ash Arceneaux www.asharceneaux.deviantart.com
First printing October 2015
A Rymfire eBooks Release
http://rymfireebooks.com
[email protected]
Deadicated to The Zom-P Army:
Padraig Skelly, Pheebz Petenstine, Patricia Wilson and Pam Elmes
Christy Thornbrugh
Shelly Rosamilia, of course…
Highway To Hell 2
Chapter One
Randy Jackson didn’t know the make and model of the pistol aimed at his forehead and, right now, he didn’t care. His arms were growing tired from keeping them over his head. His shitty day was getting worse and worse.
“Where’d the woman go?” the dirty man holding the gun finally asked through rotting teeth. He was flanked by two men also threatening Randy with weapons. “The redhead. We saw her drive away in a car.”
“My car,” Randy said. “She stole it. She left me stranded.”
“Lover’s spat?” one of the men asked and all three laughed, but kept their guns aimed at Randy’s head.
“I didn’t really get to chat with her much. She jumped me and took my car. That’s about it,” Randy said.
“Bullshit. You’ve been with her for awhile and she fucked you out of your wheels. Isn’t that right?”
Randy sighed and put his arms down. If they were going to kill him, they’d do it regardless of where his hands were. “Not even close.”
“I’m listening,” the leader said.
“I drove into town and when I stopped the woman carjacked me. I barely saw her but I’m guessing there aren’t too many redheads running around. That’s it. I’ve been wandering around for a couple of days trying to keep warm and find another way out.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Baltimore area,” Randy said.
“Why’d you leave Baltimore?”
“Because it’s worse there than here, if you can believe it. I was… out of my head for a bit. I lost someone very near and dear to me.”
“We all did,” one of the other guys said. “The fucking redhead killed a lot of people before she left. We’re going after her.”
The leader shook his head and stopped aiming at Randy’s head. “No, we ain’t. We have no way to follow her and it is too damn cold. We have no real idea where she’s heading, either.”
“South,” the guy offered. “Jimbo and I were on the roof when we saw her driving south.”
“Well, that really helps clear it up. Easy as pie now. We just go south. It ain’t like it’s a thousand miles to fucking Key West. And that’s if the bitch drives straight down and follows I-95. God forbid she turns at any point,” the leader said. “You’re an idiot. You know that?”
Randy sighed. “Look, I’m no harm. I’m just a guy having a shitty week. I want to find somewhere to sleep that’s warm tonight. The zombies are everywhere and we’re standing in the middle of the road.”
“You ain’t going anywhere, buddy. So shut the fuck up and put your hands back on your head,” the leader said. “We’ll decide what to do with you once we get back to the warehouse.”
“Does the warehouse have heat?” Randy asked. His fingers were on the verge of being frost-bitten. The days were getting nicer but at night it was still really cold.
“We live on the roof,” one of the men said.
“Shut up,” the leader said. “There’s no room for you at the warehouse.”
Randy was confused. “Huh? You just said you’d figure out what to do with me once we got back to the warehouse. I heard you. How about you guys?”
“You did say it,” one of the men admitted.
“I changed my fucking mind,” the leader yelled. “He’s another mouth to feed and we’re almost out of food. This town is dried up. Ain’t nothing left but zombies. But no one will listen to me. I’m not watching him.” He held up his pistol and took a step back. “I’m going to kill him and be done with it.”
“I think there’s an easier way,” Randy said, having no clue what it would be but trying to stall. He had his arms up again, waving his hands. “We can work this out. Every move doesn’t have to end in violence, buddy… I’m Randy. Randy Jackson.”
“Like the guy from American Idol?” one of them asked. “You, uh, don’t look like him.”
Randy had heard it a million times. Right now he didn’t want to get into a long-winded explanation about where his name came from. Although… “Have you ever heard of a rock band from Long Island called Zebra?”
All three men shook their heads. At least no one had shot him yet.
“I was named after the lead singer from what my mom tells me. I don’t know if it’s true or a coincidence. But I never had a problem until the show came on. I’ve even had people ask if we’re related,” Randy said. When the men laughed, he felt relief. Maybe he could get them to joke around. He’d do a dance if it meant staying alive.
“That’s a great story. So long, Randy Jackson,” the leader said.
Randy closed his eyes. End of the line, he thought. What a horrible life and a horrible way to die.
The shot went off but it sounded distant. Before Randy had time to properly process it, there was another and then another.
He opened his eyes to see all three men dead.
Holy fucking shit, Randy thought and looked around. He was alone. He looked at the buildings around him, especially the rooftops, and down the street. But someone had shot these three thieves while he had his eyes closed. He looked to the sky, at the overcast grayness and stray snowflakes falling. Was it Divine Intervention?
"Get off the street, you idiot," he heard a female voice yell from somewhere in the building before him. Randy decided to run like hell down the street before whoever it was decided to put a bullet in him, too.
Randy got about a block before the cold and having no warm clothes started to get to him again. He knew he wouldn't last too much longer if he didn't find heat.
The building behind the one he thought the female had shouted from had an open window but the door was still intact. Randy hadn't seen a zombie in at least an hour, which was a good thing. He didn't know if he had the strength to fight.
"Hello?" he yelled inside the dark building. He'd rather have a horde of zombies try to attack from the other side of the wall than slide into the room and have them rip him apart.
And if there were living, breathing people maybe he'd get help. It was impossible everyone left alive was an asshole, right? Randy crossed his fingers and yelled again.
He counted to fourteen. He had no idea why he'd picked the number. Despite the chill, he wasn't too keen on going inside and seeing what new terror awaited him.
It had been a bad day, a bad week and a bad month.
Movement caught his eye. The dead had found Randy, three zombies shuffling down the street silently. He stared at them for awhile as they bumped into one another, dead eyes fixed on his location.
Randy sighed and crawled into the window, expecting an attack at any moment. He scurried across the debris on the floor and put his back
against a wall, trying to let his eyes adjust and sniffing the cold air. If he smelled anything rotting, he'd jump back out the window. At least in the open, he had a fighting chance of running away.
But there was nothing out of the ordinary. The scant light showed Randy the only thing rotting was a couch and a pile of blankets heaped in front of a ruined television.
Randy pushed the couch out a couple of feet, grabbed all the moldy blankets and crawled behind the couch. If he was going to die, he'd die sleeping, he decided.
He pulled the couch as close to his body as he could, bundled in the blankets and ignored the smell. If someone came into the room without a light source, they might not see him right away, hiding behind the couch.
Randy listened to the faint sounds of the undead shambling by outside the window before sleep mercifully took him away.
Chapter Two
She was better now. She was over the betrayal and the fighting with the redhead and all of the negative things she’d encountered since setting foot in Pennsylvania. All she needed now was peace of mind she was going to survive.
But not if assholes pointing guns at unarmed men were going to still be walking these streets. Especially good-looking men.
Lyssa pulled her jacket tighter around her and wished the wind would stop trying to blow her off the roof, where she was perched. From this vantage point, she could see four blocks in any direction, sitting on top of a building where two major roads converged. She was at the highest point, but she was exposed to the elements. And from the look of the gray sky above, she was in for more rain, sleet or snow within the next few hours.
I should be dead, she thought. I suppose I am dead now.
She'd faked her own death so the redhead would drop her guard. Lyssa wanted vengeance against her, but then the cute guy had shown up and gotten his car stolen. It was another reason to hate the redhead. Lyssa didn't remember her name and it didn't matter. She was the prey and Lyssa swore she'd find her, wherever she went, and finish her off. Lyssa had a goal and a reason to stay alive now.
The people at the warehouse were her immediate threat and she knew her focus needed to be on them until she could follow the redhead. Lyssa needed a distraction.
But she needed to survive the next few minutes, in biting cold, as she watched the guy. When he moved out of view, she ran across the roof, glad to be active and letting her blood flow. He slipped into a broken window the next building over. Lyssa sighed.
This was going to be a long night.
She knew from circling the redhead the last few days, before faking her death, these buildings were home to an unsavory collection of trash. Small groups of men had gathered, claimed the buildings, and killed everyone inside. They'd stripped the rooms of food and supplies. There was no saving for tomorrow.
Lyssa needed to clear the area of them, but there were too many. Perhaps the cute guy would be unlike everyone else in this town and pair up with her.
Or she'd need to put a bullet in his head and be done with it. Another asshole guy who used her. It was the reason she was in this horrible city to begin with. She missed Iowa. She didn't even know if Iowa was still intact. What if it was also overrun with zombies and the worst of the worst? The living and breathing survivors scared her more than a flesh-eating and ass-raping zombie any day of the week.
"Time to go save my next loser boyfriend," Lyssa whispered. She hoped he wasn't going to get himself killed or find another way out of the building before she got there.
She didn't want to have to hunt him down.
Or maybe she did?
It's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase, Lyssa thought.
She knew she didn't want to cry herself to sleep another night, face buried in a ratty pillow and her hands locked so she couldn't hurt herself. Some nights were rough. Too much pain she could feel.
The nights are the worst. I don't want to be alone forever. Lyssa thought pre-end of world was bad trying to find a nice guy. How do you date during the apocalypse?
Lyssa was going to slip down through the building he was in and follow but decided to hold back. She knew there were eyes everywhere. Watching and waiting.
She'd fired a weapon, and the noise would carry for miles. It had been the only real sound today. The zombies didn't moan like they were supposed to. Like in every movie she'd ever seen. They didn't try to eat your brains, either. They tried to do much worse.
Lyssa didn't know what to do right now. She stood and stared across what was left of the city of Harrisburg and sighed, her breath steaming with the cold air.
Two steps forward and she could end it. Sometimes she wondered what the point of living was. If there was a heaven, would she get to see it? What if all this shit was a test and she needed to end her life to start the new, better one?
Lyssa didn't feel like taking the chance. Even though her days were horrible and her nights were miserable, survival instinct kicked in whenever she had morbid thoughts of her own death.
If she died, she wanted it to be because she pissed someone off enough to kill her. Not a zombie. Not by suicide. Fighting against someone with better aim than she had.
Her aim was getting better every day, though.
She decided to get out of this part of town for a few hours. Head into the suburbs and pick through what was left of someone else's life.
Lyssa was amazed to see how many homes had been left abandoned but intact in certain parts of the city, especially the outlying areas. It looked like people had packed the car with their clothes, jewelry and TVs and hit the road. They'd left the important stuff: canned food, toilet paper, and towels.
If driving a car wouldn't attract every zombie and every redneck with a gun, she could fill up a vehicle with tons of items and load them into her hideaway and not have to come out until the snow thawed and it was warm again.
Lyssa knew she could also simply stay in the 'burbs and live comfortably, raiding a few blocks. She'd be set, but then she'd miss all the action.
She'd tried to become a reader at night to pass the time since she barely slept, but it didn't make her sleepy. It made her antsy, especially if she read a horror book or a biography about someone who was dead and never coming back. No one was coming back, or they came back the wrong way.
Lyssa decided her loneliness outweighed all of her other problems, and she knew she had many. She needed a companion. Someone in her life who was interested in being around and not just to get in her pants.
She needed this new guy to be a strong man and someone who would protect her, a man who knew what he wanted and took it but was nice about it. Not an abusive asshole like she usually dated.
Lyssa smiled, a real one, for the first time in weeks.
Chapter Three
Randy came awake. It was lighter in the room and he felt refreshed under all the blankets. He'd gotten a good night's sleep, even if it was cramped.
He heard something shuffling across the floor in the room.
Randy didn't know if it was a zombie, but he hoped it was only one.
Someone fell onto the couch, pushing the back springs into Randy's face and almost causing him to cry out.
"This is comfy," a man said.
"There's nothing in this place." It was another guy.
Now Randy felt the man on the couch get up and he heard both of them walk out of the room, one of them coughing.
He stayed still for as long as he could before the cold and his impatience won out. He pushed the couch an inch at a time away until he had enough room to throw off the blankets and stand.
And see both men, grinning and holding rifles aimed at his face, in the far corner of the room near the window.
"Hi," Randy finally said as he shrugged off the last blanket.
"How's it going?" One of them said, and they both laughed.
"Oh, just great." Randy pointed at the two men. "I suppose it wouldn't matter if I told you I was unarmed. Or that three guys, yesterday, aimed guns at my face, too. Or that I
haven't eaten in awhile and, as you can plainly see, I have nothing of value."
"What size are your shoes?"
"Nine," Randy said.
"You got tiny feet."
Randy shrugged. This pattern was getting annoying: wake hungry to find someone trying to kill him. Run away. Find little or no food. Find a cold, hard place to sleep. Repeat.
"I don't suppose we can shake hands like men and go our separate ways?" Randy asked. He literally had nothing to lose at this point. How much longer could he do this? He'd shrugged out of his shell after Raven had left him. He'd taken on the entire Hellfire Club by himself and won. He'd done some insane things before driving away. Now that his head was straight, he was back to being a pussy.
One of the men shook his head. "You're intruding upon our territory. This is our city now. No one can just come in and out without paying a hefty fine."
"There's a toll to be paid," the other man said.
"I'll say it again and slower so you understand me," Randy said, annoyed. He knew pissing these two off wasn't going to end well for him but he didn't care right now. He was hungry and it was too cold to be standing in this dirty room. "I have nothing of value."
The first man licked his lips. "Or do you?"
Randy didn't like this at all. It was one thing having to fight off horny zombies, but these two assholes knew better. "I don't suppose it would matter if I told you I was straight?"
The second guy shrugged. "We're straight, too. But we have needs like every other man."
"I can control those needs unless there's an actual woman around," Randy said. He hoped he could punch his way out of this but doubted it. He also hoped, once they shot him, they wouldn't still violate his corpse. But there was no way he was going to be raped by these two guys. No fucking way.
The first guy grinned, showing his missing teeth. "I guess you're a better man than we'll ever be. Let's just get this over with so we can go our separate ways, huh?"
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