The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3

by Simpson, David A.

  Swan worked beside Zero and the pair were merciless. Her arms moved like machines as the wolf tore into them and she caved in heads. They were on the outskirts of the mayhem; she didn’t dive into the center of the mob like those riding their animals did. That didn’t slow down the fight, though, they kept coming to her, mindlessly chomping and reaching for her pure blood.

  Gordon still screamed, his terrified voice lost in the battle cries of the animals and children and the shrieking of the undead. The wolf was jerking him around like a rag doll, the only thing preventing her from ripping his arm off was his armor. They rolled over to the idling snowmobile and slammed against it. Stark raving terror and uncontrollable panic was blinding him to everything except the snarling wolf shredding his arm. Blood poured freely from the punctures and every time she snapped and bit, more armor was torn away. He tried to push himself up and his hand fell on his machete strapped to the inside of the cowling. Lucy shook her head and ripped loose the last bit of plastic protecting his arm. She spat it out and sprang again for him and he swung with the strength of a man knowing he is about to die. The blade bit deep into her shoulder and she yelped in pain as the blow knocked her aside. She found her feet and turned to attack again

  The hulking, hunchbacked shadows had been pacing on the outskirts of the fight, waiting to join until they saw weakness. Saliva dripped from their toothy maws as they smelled the living, breathing, warm blooded animals and humans. They hadn’t had a warm meal in months. They couldn’t catch the rabbits and the deer smelled them from long distances and bounded away before they could get close. They’d been feasting on the undead and the smell of freshly blooded meat had the hyenas drooling. They weren’t picky: human, bear or giraffe, which ever fell first, they would be there to finish it off and eat their fill of meat where the blood still ran hot. The cry of pain from one of the wolves sent them running for the sound. It meant weakness. It meant little resistance. It meant fresh meat.

  Swan spun towards the sound of one of her pack in pain. Gordon had a machete and swung wildly at Lucy but missed. Her wolf darted aside and readied herself to spring again but blood was spurting from a slash in her shoulder. She yelled for Zero over the screams and shouts and roars and snarls of children and bears and wolves and he came. They ran for Lucy but when she saw the laughing shapes leap out of the darkness, everyone heard her shrill cry of warning over the pandemonium of battle.

  Diablo and Demonio sprang, the scent of Lucy’s’ blood hot and thick driving them wild.

  Gordon fell over the snowmobile then threw himself onto the seat. He snapped the throttle all the way open and launched away in a high-pitched flurry of noise and kicked up snow as both hyenas blindsided the injured wolf. She turned her teeth against them and slashed and tore at the one snapping at her spurting shoulder as the other clamped bone crushing jaws around her haunch. Swan shrieked in fury and fear as she landed atop the spotted beast splintering Lucy’s hip. She drove twin spikes into its massive humpbacked shoulders and felt them bottom out against bone. It yipped a bark of pain and swung its gaping, blood drenched jaws around to rip her off but it couldn’t reach her leg. She clamped her knees and held on as he bucked and twisted in a frenzied effort to throw her off. Zero launched himself at its throat and with Swans spiked tomahawks pulling him off balance the wolf tore into the exposed flesh, found the jugular and ragged viciously back and forth. Demonio shrieked a high-pitched hyena shriek and ran. He bound after the snowmobile, chasing the light away from the pain and the hurt. Zero was pulled off his feet and dragged along but locked his jaws and ground them deep into the muscle as hot blood splashed across his muzzle. Swan pulled a spike, held on with the other and drove it back down into the undulating shoulders. She repeated with the other hand, pulling them out and driving them in, stabbing over and over, trying to sink one into its head. Blood covered her legs and thighs, the thick heavy snow blinded her and the hyena ran after the fleeing headlight and through the hole in the fence. He followed the road where he could run the fastest for a while but he couldn’t out run the girl on his back or the wolf with its jaws locked on his throat. He dove into the woods, running in blind panic and pain through the brambles and thick undergrowth. A plunging paw caught one of Zero’s bouncing legs and ripped him loose. A mouthful of muscle, fur and veins tore free and came with him. Demonio stumbled, lost his footing then plowed muzzle first into the snow. Swan tumbled free, slammed up against a tree and lay stunned for a moment. She heard Zeros challenge to something, shook her head and choked up on her blood slicked hatchets, the lanyards the only thing that kept them from flying free.

  Diablo stopped in his tracks when Demonio didn’t rise and fight. He had the she wolf in his oversized muzzle, intent on dragging her deeper into the woods to feed in peace. He was confused when his brothers’ prey stood and snarled but his brother lay still, his life pouring out into the snow. Zero laid his ears back and bared his teeth, the rumble coming from his throat vicious and promising death. Diablo dropped the dying Lucy and crouched, ready to answer the challenge. He was twice the size of the bloody wolf and would gorge himself on both of them. Swan pushed herself to her feet and crouched beside Zero, a snarl on her lips and hate in her eyes. Diablo took a step back. He was a killer of opportunity and didn’t like to fight very hard for his food. Lucy whimpered as he snatched her up and ran.

  42

  Tribe

  The clouds scuttling across the moon threw the valley of death into deeper shadows but enough light reflected off the snow so they could see their enemy. A few were still moving, those mauled by the bears, but Donny and Vanessa were darting from corpse to corpse thrusting spears through heads. Cody was leaning on his Warhammer, still breathing hard as Harper tried to fuss over his wounds that had torn open again. The twins were arguing over who killed the most and were debating about taking trophies. Ears or something.

  “No ears.” Cody yelled over at them. “Come on, you know how bad that would stink?”

  They reluctantly agreed then went after Donny and Vanessa to make double sure the undead stayed dead. The bears and Yewan sniffed around but they ambled away from the killing field, the smell was too much for them.

  “Where’s Swan?” Cody suddenly asked.

  Everyone looked around then at each other.

  “The wolves are gone, too.” Vanessa said.

  “Who saw her last?” Harper asked “I lost track of everyone; it was hard to keep Bert under control.”

  Donny pointed away from the piles of dead, near the snowmobile tracks where she and Gordon had been fighting.

  “You think Gordon snatched her and the wolves went after?”

  “Swan getting whooped by that moron? I doubt it.” Annalise said. “It would take more than him, even if she was unarmed.”

  Donny shook his head vehemently and pointed at the churned-up snow and the blood starting to freeze. He looked closer at it and held up an almost frozen piece for all to see. It was red, not black. Human or animal, not zombie. They looked around and there was a lot of it. Way too much to come from one person. Or animal. The snowmobile track was still visible and as they followed it past the where the fight took place they could see the prints of two animals. A blood trail ran along with both sets of tracks but there were no human prints at all.

  “What the hell made those?” Tobias asked as he placed his own booted foot in the snow beside one of them. “They’re not from Lucy or Zero. It’s huge.”

  “Hyenas.” Cody said. “And one of them had something in its jaws.”

  The imprints were filling in quickly but they could see the smeary blood and wide drag marks in the scattered snow.

  Donny signed with his hands and they watched. He was the best tracker and hunter and he could read the tracks better than anyone.

  “He says the thinks Gordon has Swan and the hyenas had a wolf each in their jaws.” Harper said.

  “I don’t believe it.” Annalise said. “No way, no how could Gordon take Swan.”


  “No way.” Tobias agreed. “She’d beat him stupid with her bare hands.”

  “Unless he shot her.” Vanessa said. “There is a lot of blood.”

  43

  Swan

  Swan chased after the hunchbacked beast, her fury raging too much for the tears to seep through. Zero ran beside her as they followed the trail though the underbrush. The blackness was thick in the woods where the snow fell heavy and the evergreen trees blotted out the meager moon light. They ran until her lungs burned. They ran until her soot blackened face was whipped and scratched from slapping branches. They ran after the monster, following the tracks when they could and Zeros nose when they couldn’t. The snow fell heavier and muffled their sounds, it blanketed the forest in silence. It was thick and wet and soon she was soaked to her knees. They ran deeper and farther than her and Donny had ever hunted and the woods stretched on. They ran until they found Lucy cooling in the snow. What was left of her. Swan fell to her knees with great anguished sobs she could barely get out from her tortured lungs. She pulled the wolf mother close and buried her face in the fur. She had never known such ache and tears weren’t enough. Crying wasn’t enough. When Zero loosed his pain and howled his sorrow at the moon, she joined him.

  44

  Cody

  Cody leaned heavily on his Warhammer and tried to ignore the pain of his bruised ribs, throbbing eye, rope burned wrists and tender nose. Reminders of the beating Gordon had given him. Now that the fight was over, the adrenaline rush gone, he felt weak and tired and hurt all over. It felt hopeless. They could never catch him, he was miles away by now. The snow would cover any tracks he made before they could chase him down but he had to try. He couldn’t give up if there was a chance, no matter how slim. Maybe she’d managed to get away from him. Maybe she was lying on the side of the road injured and freezing to death.

  “We have to go after her.” Cody said.

  “You’re not fit to go anywhere.” Harper told him. “You can barely stand.”

  “We’ll go.” Tobias said.

  Donny shook his head and pointed to himself and Yewan. The three started arguing in the Pidgeon sign language he used and the twins were getting louder in their defense of why they should go too. Cody closed his eyes for a moment. It only made sense, Donny and Yewan could cover more ground faster than anyone else and the Panther was a lot better at following commands than the bears were. They might decide they wanted a swim in the river and there was nothing the twins could do to stop them.

  “Enough.” he said. “Donny, you go.”

  He nodded and set off at a fast jog, pacing himself. He knew it might be a long night with miles to travel.

  Cody stared at the bodies of the undead littering the ground. They’d fought well, despite the odds but it was hard to feel elated at the victory with three of their own missing and most likely dead. They’d have to burn them or drag them down to the river but they would keep for now. They’d be frozen solid and easier to move by tomorrow.

  “We need to find out where they came in. Can you guys backtrack the trail and see how bad it is? If you can, just pull the fence back in place, we can repair it properly tomorrow. I’ll check the back gate.” Cody said.

  Vanessa and the twins hurried to their animals to mount up and ride.

  “I can cover more ground than you on Bert.” Harper said. “You should go to the house and let Murray patch you up. You’re bleeding again.”

  “Bert hates the cold.” Cody said. “You need to get him back in the barn before he gets sick.”

  He didn’t know if the giraffe would get sick or not but he didn’t want to argue with her. He whistled for Otis and they started the long trek across the fields. He needed some time to himself. He needed to rethink his so-called leadership. He’d learned a lot during his hour of captivity and it changed his whole world view. He couldn’t turn the other cheek anymore.

  The boys were apparently the only survivors in a place called the Landing. It was one big nonstop party and most of them hadn’t been sober in months. They had realized they could do whatever they wanted and there was nobody to stop them, there was no reason to follow the rules anymore. They wanted more girls because the few they had weren’t enough and from the armor they wore, he assumed they were hockey players. Unlike the tribes which was a mishmash of all kinds of different things, the teens all had the same gear, almost like a uniform.

  He knew the Riders wouldn’t quit. They’d been embarrassed by a group of kids they thought were their inferiors and had loosed a horde on them in retaliation. They’d be back. Gordon was consumed with revenge and he’d dragged all those other boys into his web. He knew they’d keep coming, they were just as bad as him, probably worse. All of them had pointed their rifles at him. All of them had laughed and cheered once he was bound hand and foot and they started throwing the fists to him. All of them had taken pleasure in watching the beating and one boy had put a cigarette out on his chest. They were drunk and stupid and mean and he had no sympathy for them. He knew boys like them before the fall. Bullies who thought giving freshmen swirlies in the toilet or random wedgies walking down the hall was the height of hilarity. They were mostly harmless and sometimes their pranks were even funny as long as they didn’t happen to you. They towed the line, though. They knew not to really hurt anyone, not to take it too far or there would be repercussions. They could get suspended or banned from the team. They could get a record and not be able to get into their college of choice.

  It was different now. It had been months and the only law of the land was whatever they said it was. They would have killed him and that thought kept running through his mind. He had been strapped shirtless across a snowmobile in freezing weather. The ropes were so tight on his hands and feet that they had turned purple. It took a long time for the blood to return and they stopped stinging. Another twenty minutes and he probably would have lost them to frostbite, that is, if he even lived that long. They would have killed his people. They turned a horde of the undead loose on them. If Swan was still alive, if she recovered from whatever Gordon had done to her, they would kill her too. She would force them to do it because she would never submit. She would fight them until her last breath and curse them with it.

  Cody Wilkes was unable to stop them. He was weak, still bound by the teachings of his old life. He still tried to follow the rules. Still tried to be someone his mom would be proud of. That way of thinking, that life was over. It had to be or they would die. He had been reluctant to accept that things would never be the same again. Everyone he’d ever loved before the tribe was gone, it was all any of them had and his weakness had nearly cost them everything. He was wrong when he thought they could lock those gates and ignore the rest of the world. Wrong when he naively believed in live and let live.

  He had no idea where the Riders came from, no way of taking the fight to them. They had gas cans strapped to the machines so it had to be miles away. Twenty? Fifty? He didn’t know.

  They had powerful snowmobiles and he understood the genius of using them. They may have been limited to only riding when it snowed but they could go anywhere when it did. The Christmas snow wouldn’t last, it was still getting warm during the days. It would start melting away in the morning. January was when the snows blew in and stayed for the rest of winter. In another few weeks they would come before the hard-cold set in and they would linger until spring thaw. When that happened, the Riders would be unstoppable for the next two or three months. They either had to run away or be ready when they came back and he knew they’d be back. They wanted the girls. Gordon knew the few dozen zombies he let in wouldn’t be able to defeat them, he’d been there for at least part of the battle. He’d seen the Tribe cutting them down.

  He would return to the scene of his crime and he wouldn’t like what he found Cody vowed to himself.

  He and Otis came to the back gate and he found his buffalo robe nearly buried in the snow. He brushed it off and swung it over his shoulders. The weight felt good an
d he wrapped it tight, holding in the warmth. He continued along the fence line towards the river, his mind still puzzling things out and coming to grips with the way things were. They had been alone and isolated and had tried to be good, to do what was right. Murray had voiced his concerns that they were acting too much like their animal companions, getting too uncivilized, too wild. Murray was wrong, though. He needed to become more like Swan and the twins. He needed to embrace the animal in him and not be concerned with things like mercy or forgiveness. In the animal world, you fought, you killed you moved on. You didn’t dwell on what was right or wrong. You did whatever you had to do to live even if something else had to die.

  When Swan wanted to kill Gordon up before they voted to banish him, he was pretty sure it was just an act. She was putting on a front to scare him. She was still a thirteen-year-old girl on the inside. She could have killed him with an arrow tonight but she hadn’t. She wasn’t a cold-blooded killer no matter how hard she tried to convince them she was. Somebody had to be, though. Somebody had to be the executioner.

  Things were different now. No one outside the Tribe could be trusted. If he were faced with the same situation again he had to be fearless enough to destroy the threat, not let it loose to come back and attack. He had to become more like Otis, unburdened with complicated thoughts.

  He was failing them with his old way of thinking, he understood that now. If he didn’t change, they would be walked on, taken advantage of, imprisoned and enslaved. He had to be just as cold and devious as the enemy and he had to learn to show no mercy. Offer no quarter. Cody Wilkes couldn’t do it though. He had to let go of his old life, embrace the one thrust upon him. This life was hard, dirty and bloody. It could kill you for being decent, for trying to help the wrong people. He would have to be more discerning in the future. Learn to trust his instincts. He’d had qualms about Gordon from the first moment he met him but had pushed them aside to do the right thing. Never again. His mistake had cost them dearly.