Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos

by Simpson, David A.

  The agro world was much as she remembered, change was slow on agricultural planets. Larmeck wasn’t there to greet her but a lanky, six fingered man that met her as she came off the ship knew him and directed her to the common area. She had to disinfect before she left the hangar, that was different, but the enclosed plaza and the little shops were the same. The population was strictly controlled by the Jalamon’s. There would be no overpopulation, no crowded cities, no one that didn’t have a function. If too many people had too many babies then families were forced to leave.

  She didn’t know why she wanted to see him, something in her wanted to share time with someone who knew who she was. She wanted the company of a friend and he was the only person she knew besides the data hacker.

  She found him in a small shop working on a malfunctioning hydroponic droid. He was gray, no longer the faint shade of blue he’d been when they first met and he had a curve in his back. He looked up from his repairs, pushed away the magnifying monocle and smiled a toothless smile. He remembered her and stood to take her hands warmly.

  “Never thought I’d see you again.” He said. “And you don’t look like you’ve aged a day. Life must be treating you well.”

  They walked out the back door of the shop, into the orange light of the dwarf star and found a place to sit in the shade. The crops danced gently in the mild breeze and water splashed merrily in a stream that ran through his yard. Maddy didn’t have many stories to tell when he asked about their work but he liked to talk and it was easy to get him started on a rambling tale if she asked a few questions. He pulled out his pipe and stuffed it with tobacco then stopped as he was scrolling through holo images of his grandchildren, all off world and leading interesting lives.

  “This is Jessie’s tobacco, you know.” He said. “Chulay is our best botany geneticist and he was able to recreate it with a molecular synthesizer. It took a few years to learn out how to make it grow and how to cure it properly, it’s very labor intensive. But we didn’t give up, I enjoy a good challenge. Once we figured it out, I started growing small batches.”

  He puffed on the pipe, enjoyed the flavor and the mild nicotine rush it gave him. His smile fell and he rushed on.

  “I know I don’t own the rights and don’t want to wind up before a tribunal for theft. I hope he doesn’t mind. I didn’t sell any, just grew enough for my own use.”

  “It’s fine.” Maddy reassured him. “He’ll be happy that you did. He’d want me to bring some back if you have some to spare. He hasn’t had any since the last time we were here.”

  The old man visibly relaxed. The small plot he’d been using to grow the tobacco had been a source of contention for decades. Some were afraid the stranger would come back and bring the authorities.

  “Of course.” Larmeck said “Of course. I’ll bag some up for him.”

  “You know.” Maddy said slowly, her mind considering a way to earn credits. “If you think there is a demand for it, we could license it to you.”

  Larmeck was unfamiliar with the term and cocked his head at her.

  “I mean, you can grow it and sell it if you wanted.” She said. “You can lay claim to an original new plant and reap the rewards. I’m sure Jessie would want you to if he could make just a few credits to buy more supplies.”

  The old man sat back and puffed, considered what she’d said. Over the years he’d shared the tobacco with a number of friends and occasionally the captain of a freighter. Everyone had wanted to know what it was and where to get more but he’d told all the off worlders it was the last of his stash. It had been a gift and he had no idea where it came from. Growing the tobacco would also solve a problem that was looming in the community. There had been seven marriages so far this year but the planet was at near human capacity. There was no leeway in the Jalamon’s code. If all seven of the brides conceived there would be another lottery to see who would be forced to leave. They didn’t have machines for the tobacco planting, harvesting and curing. It had to be done by hand. If they started selling it, they would have to expand the numbers allowed to stay. He wasn’t a believer, he’d been an outsider hired on to fix their machines, but they were his tribe now. He’d spent most of his life with them. He smiled his toothless smile and stuck out a fingertip to press against hers and seal the deal.

  Maddy stayed for a few days at Larmeck’s insistence. He said it would take time for the Jalamon Council to hear the arguments and approve the patent request. They would, of course. They knew it would bring in a new source of revenue and then there was the added bonus of being able to expand their population. The planet was a paradise when compared to many others in the various systems but laws were laws.

  She thought she did pretty well pretending to be human. She didn’t have to think about controlling the in and out of her breathing or the pulse in her neck, those things were programmed and performed flawlessly. She faltered with small talk, she didn’t have much she could say. As far as anyone knew, they were from a colony ship that had been launched before the great wars and had only recently returned to the civilized systems. Now they were doing some kind of research in the outer reaches. She was a good listener though and everyone had something to say. They assumed she was shy and went out of their way to make her feel welcome.

  She felt good when she eased the ship out of the hangar and lifted skyward. She’d set up something to earn them a few credits and the human contact had been something she’d needed. She could go back now and hibernate. In another decade there should be enough credits to pay port fees and visit vacation planets, maybe she could persuade Jessie to take some time to relax.

  36

  Leaving Lakota

  He was pulled out of his memories when a couple of poorly muffled motorcycles revved their engines and raced down the road past his warehouse. The sailors. They were awake. A bunch of them had paid retrievers to bring back dirt bikes and quads and they rode them everywhere at full throttle. Half the time while riding a wheelie. Not in town, though. Collins had put a stop to that but they liked to roar up and down the beach. Jessie sighed and finished the last of the watered-down whiskey in the jar.

  He’d done a lot more, made a lot more jumps and had seen his home hundreds of years in the past and hundreds of years in the future. No matter how precise he thought his calculations were, the tiniest planetary wobble from a storm or earthquake would throw everything off. If that is even what caused the wild fluctuations. He was only guessing. For all he really knew, it could have been the pull of gravity from a passing comet that slowed him down or sped him up when he was dematerialized. A random spec of space dust could have minutely altered the trajectory of the jump. Time was not intended to be traveled for great distances or for great lengths of time. Once he had been close but had come back in the middle of a horde. They were still fresh and savage, the city was on fire and he knew it was only days after the outbreak. There were too many, he couldn’t fight them but he’d found it, a jump out point that was close enough. It was only months away from when he wanted to be. He managed to hit the button before he was torn limb from limb. Maddy was there to catch him but he ignored her questions, drew his blasters, set them to 10 and jumped back. He changed nothing, left the coordinates exactly the same.

  He landed in an icy cold ocean. The heavy leathers made it hard to stay afloat but he circled, looking for land or a ship or some signs of life. There was nothing. Some tiny little wobble, some spec of space dust or some other unknowable incident had redirected him. Or maybe this was the correct exit point and the first time had been the anomaly. He let Maddy talk him into going on a month-long vacation when he got back.

  They had left the isolation of the asteroid a few other times at her insistence after a series of failed jumps but usually he went right back into the void.

  This time he would get it right.

  This time luck would be with him.

  He was only in the future for four or five years but the pod, the ship and Maddy had been there waiting f
or him for a long, long time. He never asked her and he didn’t have his journals to figure out how many years it had been. A thousand. Maybe two? He’d made a lot of jumps and had never made it in time to save her. Until the last time.

  The fire had burned out and was cold in the hearth.

  Like my heart he thought. Nothing left to give, nothing left to burn. He didn’t even have a picture of her. There were plenty on Facebook from the girls in the Tower but none of them captured her the way he remembered. None of them caught that wry little smile she had. The one that looked like she was thinking something funny or that she knew secret things.

  Slippery Jim, Gage and the rest of his crew dropped their bicycles, banged once on the door then barged in without waiting for an answer.

  “Hey Jessie!” Jim called out as Bob bounded to the kids, tail wagging so hard his rump was shaking.

  He held the door for the big Shepherd and ran with him down to the beach. It had become their morning routine before school. They were supposed to be walking the dog but Bob knew how to open the door. He didn’t need to be walked; he needed the companionship. He needed someone to toss the frisbee.

  Jessie stared at the dead fire, at the empty spots on the mantle where photos should be. Above the fireplace was a still life painting he had no memory of. He was sure it hadn’t been there before. It was a bowl of fruit on a table with a glimpse of the ocean out of the window. He ought to get rid of it, maybe put up something he liked and tried to think of what he’d replace it with. A poster of some random girl in a bikini? A car? He was having a hard time coming up with something he cared enough about to look at every day.

  Maybe I should just put up a poster of whiskey bottles he thought.

  Or her smile. Jumped into his mind. Maybe that’s all you need to get out of this funk. Not her face to remind you of everything you lost, maybe you just need her smile. Her Mona Lisa smile.

  By the time they returned with Bob soaking wet and still carrying the frisbee Jessie had made up his mind and was backing the old Mercury out of the bay.

  “I’ve gotta take off for a while.” He told the kids. “You mind taking care of ol’ Bob for me till I get back?”

  “No problem, Jessie. How long you gonna be gone?” Jim asked.

  “Not sure.” He said and got out of the car. “A while. I’m going across the Mississippi.”

  He noted Bob hadn’t tried to jump in like he once would have. Like he would with the other Jessie.

  “But you guys can use my place as your new clubhouse. I heard your old hideout was turned into condos.”

  Jessie knelt and called the dog over, placed his head against his and ran his hands through his fur for one last time. Bob whined, He knew his master was leaving, knew he should go with him but knew it wasn’t really his master anymore. He wasn’t the same.

  He didn’t say goodbye to anyone else. There was no need. He had drifted apart from them and the gulf was wide. Maybe when he got back with the painting everything would be better. He would mend fences. If he could see her smile every day, he could shake off his depression. He could snap out of it and start living again. It would be difficult, a real challenge, but that’s what he needed. According to the dozens of requests from the Tower on the retriever’s app she was still hanging in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art, on loan from the Louvre. No one had been crazy enough to go after it yet. Jessie was and she would soon be hanging above his fireplace.

  There was a crew working on the wall when he pulled up to the gate. While he was waiting for them to finish what they were doing, the guard, one of the sailors, came over to his window.

  “Give ‘em a few more minutes. We’re installing the tracks for the laser.”

  “Laser?” Jessie asked.

  “Yep.” The guard said proudly. “Came off the nuclear sub we scuttled. It’ll cut down a whole horde of the undead fast and clean. Once they get the tracks finished, we can have it anywhere on the wall within a few minutes.”

  The guard gave up trying to make conversation with the scarred boy after a few minutes and waited as impatiently as the kid in the Mercury for them to finish up what they were doing.

  When the second gate of the sally port closed behind him he aimed the car east and didn’t look back.

  37

  Scarecrows

  The old man operating the ferry across the Mississippi had warned him about packs of feral cats, the tribes of savage Cajuns, the pockets of survivors that would shoot you just as soon look at you and a hundred other dangers. He only mentioned the roving hordes of undead once.

  “Most of ‘em’s gathered up in the cities.” He said. “Everybody stays out of ‘em so’s they don’t lead them out to the countryside again. Only a damn fool goes into the cities.”

  Jessie listened as the gray-haired man wound the cable and pulled them slowly across the wide expanse of the muddy river. He told of steam trains running the rails, the wild monkeys that escaped from zoos and secret enclaves of jihadi radicals that were still hiding out.

  “You’ve got a look of trouble about you if you don’t mind me saying so.” The old man said when they’d reached the eastern shore. “Where’d you say you was headed?”

  “Manhattan.” Jessie said and fired up the Merc.

  “Damn fool.” he said and hurried to get back out into deep water before any of the undead came shambling out of the woods.

  That was nearly a week ago. Now Jessie needed fuel.

  The old chop top Mercury idled into the little town of Cattle Creek, South Carolina. He was way deep in no-man's land, far inside the territories where few others ventured and he kept his guard up.

  He spotted what he was looking for on the outskirts and pulled into the gas station. This town was well above sea level but he still looked for tell-tale signs of muddy high-water marks. The hurricane that came through last fall had effectively destroyed any fuel still in the ground near the shore with the storm surge and flooding. He was a good fifty miles from the ocean, and although he could see visible signs of the squall, this town hadn’t been flooded.

  He bumped up over the fallen Kwiky Mart sign, not concerned about a stray nail or sharp piece of metal with the run-flat tires and parked near the underground tanks. He looked around again, checking for followers before he shut the diesel down. It wasn’t like the old days when they were wicked fast and could chase you for miles. Now, most of them were nearly two years old and being dead hadn’t been kind to them. They were slow and plodding, barely even dangerous anymore unless a fresh one surprised you or you managed to get yourself surrounded by a horde of them.

  He checked his perimeter looking for anything coming towards him, especially something dragging itself along the ground. Those were the most dangerous now, they were old and slow and perfectly camouflaged after crawling in the dirt. He’d even seen them with grass, weeds and other plants growing out of them looking like an animated ghillie suit.

  The area was clear. There was nothing around him and the birds started singing again. He stretched, dug out his collapsible fuel stick and opened the lid to the underground diesel tank. He dipped it in, cautious not to stir up the contents, then pulled it back out. He was careful not to shake the attached baby food jar as he held it up to the sun to see how it looked.

  It’ll do, he thought. It wasn’t exactly a pure golden liquid, but the algae buildup wasn’t bad. He’d used worse. The triple filters on the fuel line would catch any contaminants before it got to the motor. He dumped a few quarts of diesel treatment into the oversized tanks and dragged his hoses out to start refueling.

  Jessie leaned against the car and pulled out his poke to roll a cigarette. It had taken him weeks to wander up this far but he was in no hurry. He’d probably have to cut back inland for a while, the trees and telephone poles across the road were getting worse. The hurricane had done a lot of damage and he didn’t feel like chain sawing debris out of the way every half mile. He had zig zagged back and forth across the Midwestern St
ates but he hadn’t been in this part of the country since he’d left Atlanta. He couldn’t remember their names although he remembered how they died. It had been at a convenience store, not unlike this one, because they wanted to get a few Monster drinks. Back when he was young and dumb.

  Still dumb. He thought and almost smiled.

  The old man on the ferry had called it right. Only a damn fool would go into the cities and only a doubly dumb damn fool would try to get onto Manhattan. There probably were millions of the undead still wandering around New York.

  Jessie tossed the cigarette when the diesel started flowing out of the neck, flipped off the pump, reeled up his hoses and stowed everything before walking towards the store. The plywood over the windows was still intact, they weren’t broken from the hurricane. He grabbed a twelve pack of Mountain Dews, some chocolate and a few bags of beef jerky. He’d only come across a few stores that had been raided this far east. There were so few survivors that most were still intact.

  Jessie sat on the hood, leaned back against the bars, chewed slowly on teriyaki jerky and sipped a warm Dew.

  He heard a flock of crows take flight somewhere off to his left, cawing noisily at each other and whatever had frightened them. Might be shamblers. He dialed up his ears and listened intently, trying to hear the tell-tale sign of their dry and crusty moans. He heard the faintest tinkle of breaking glass and sat up quickly. The undead didn’t break glass unless they were after someone. Any windows that could be broken by simply bumping into them accidentally had long since been shattered. It could be something else, like a branch falling from a tree, but he doubted it. Not when it came from the same direction that flock of crows had just swarmed up from. Then he heard them, that unmistakable keening sound of zombies on the chase.