Forget The Zombies (Book 2): Forget Texas

by Spears, R. J.

  “No need to get rough, fellas,” I said.

  I felt the blunt impact of something hard against my shoulder and I pitched forward, nearly falling over, but I caught myself, ending up in a crouch. A sharp pain ran down my left side.

  “What the hell,” I said.

  A pair alligator boots appeared in my vision as I looked down, blinking back the pain.

  “Tell us about your guns,” the voice said. It was the same one that had been talking via the bullhorn.

  I looked up into the face of a man wearing a cop’s uniform and a black Stetson. It looked like he wanted to have a Johnny Cash ‘Man in Black’ thing going, but he spoiled it with some over-large bushy mutton chops. They clashed horribly with the whole look. His face was broad and jowly, with folds of flesh hanging from his chin. He hadn’t gone to seed, but he was on his way. Despite this, he had a mean glint in his eyes that I knew I shouldn’t ignore, but I tried to.

  “Our guns?” I said. “Well, they’re nice. They shoot bullets. Lots of them, in fact.”

  “You trying to get smart with me, son?”

  Oh the places I could go with that, but some sense of self-preservation took over. “No, I’m not. We’re just trying to get out of Texas. What do you guys want?”

  “Well, good luck with getting out of Texas. They have the whole state buttoned down like a bank vault. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out.”

  “Well, you can’t blame us for trying.”

  “How many people you have on that truck?”

  “Enough.”

  Something cold and circular poked into my back. Hard. I fell forward a step.

  “I’m not liking the way you’re treating me,” I said.

  “You’ll get over it,” the cop said.

  “And for the record, I’m a U.S. Marshall,” I said.

  “Lookie here, boys, we have the Feds in our little town,” the cop said. “Don’t you all feel so much safer?”

  There were chuckles all around. Two thousand comedians eaten by zombies and this guy was trying his stand-up act out on me.

  “So, let me try this again, how many people you have on that truck?”

  “Twelve including me.”

  “What about the two or three that made a run for it?”

  “Listen,” I said raising a hand in the air, “I really don’t know what’s going on. We saw your roadblock, so we stopped. You blasted us with your spotlight, things happened pretty fast. I really don’t know anything about people running, but they could have.”

  “How many men do you have?” He asked.

  “You taking a census?” I asked.

  He squinted at me and asked, “You want a world of hurt to come down on you?” Then he nodded at someone behind me and something hard and metal cracked the on the side of the head. A small fireworks display went off inside my head and I stumbled sideways from the blow.

  “I’m not asking again. How many abled bodied men do you have on that truck?”

  I put a hand to where the blow impacted and felt something warm and wet. This situation was escalating too fast and was in real jeopardy of spinning out of control. We should have made a run for it.

  “If I knew for sure who jumped off and ran, I could give you a better count. We have four other men besides me. We have several kids and some women.”

  “Women,” he said, tilting his head and a smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

  We definitely should have made a run for it.

  “You need to tell your people to throw out their guns and come down the roads to us,” he said.

  “Why should I do that?” I asked.

  “Because we will shoot your ass and leave you dead in the road?”

  “Aren’t you going to do that anyway?”

  The cop chuckled and that transitioned in a belly laugh. The men around him took a moment, but they got caught up in it, too and the laughter spread among them. The problem was that there was nothing mirthful about it. I only sensed malice.

  The laughter stopped abruptly and before I knew it, there was a bullhorn and the barrel of a gun in my face.

  “Tell them to throw out their guns or I’ll blow your head off,” the cop said and the time for laughing was over.

  I sort of felt like I was in a Lady or the Tiger scenario, only both doors led to the tiger. One kept me alive for a small, but only for a short period of time. The other got me and my friends killed most likely and who knew what they’d do to our women before they were killed.

  The cop pushed the bullhorn into my face, striking my nose hard. I got to enjoy another lightshow in my head.

  “Clock’s ticking and it’s ticking fast,” the cop said. “You have ten clicks before I shoot you and order my men to start shooting at the truck.

  I felt the seconds ticking away and had already decided that somewhere around eight clicks I was going to kick this guy in the balls. It wouldn’t be a blaze of glory, but maybe a little ember of spite. I knew, of course, that meant my life expectancy was probably measured in seconds. Like two more seconds, but there was no way that I was giving up my friends.

  I started tensing my muscles for the kick when one of the men behind me spoke up,” Hey Harley, what are those lights just off the road up there?”

  The clock stopped ticking. Timeout was called. At least, for a few moments.

  I peeked in the direction of the truck and then off to both sides of the road. A series of small yellow glowing dots shined in the darkness at irregular intervals off to the left side of the road. It took me a good twenty seconds before I realized what they were. I probably would gotten it in ten, but I had just taken two pretty good blows to the head in the last few minutes.

  I reached up and grabbed the bullhorn. Because he was distracted by looking at the glowing dots, the cop was somewhat shocked by my movements. I half expected him to shoot me, but his reaction time was bit slow.

  “Hey,” I shouted into the bullhorn, “don’t shoot right away because it’s as safe as the lake here.” After I said it, I knew how stupid it sounded and was nowhere as subtle a cue as I thought it would be.

  The cop slapped the bullhorn out of my hand and it fell to the road, clattering along for several feet.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he asked, pushing his gun into my face. “‘Safe as the lake,’ what’s that bullshit? Is that some sort of code?”

  I kicked my brain into high gear and only I hoped I could pull off the bullshit I was about to sell. “Yes, it is,” I said. “You obviously see that the truck is an Army vehicle. Those lights you see, those are trained snipers. I have twenty men and a couple women. We are all hardened soldiers from Fort Hood. The word is out about you and your men rousting people coming into your town. We have been sent to end that.”

  His eyes got wide and he looked back and forth from me to the truck a couple times.

  “You’re bullshitting me,” he said narrowing his eyes to slits.

  “You can try me and get shot. You and all your men. I would imagine my snipers have their night scopes trained on each one of your men right now.”

  I heard a shuffling of feet around me and saw a couple men shifting uncomfortably and swiveling their heads around in an attempt to see any snipers. One of the men ducked down and got behind the front fender of his truck looking a little less cocky that he had just a few seconds ago.

  I knew I could only string this ruse out a few more seconds before my house of bullshit collapsed on itself. Luck and stupidity had given me a few extra seconds but it couldn’t last. Or could it?

  A gunshot sounded off in the scrub to our left. Every man around me jumped about three feet in the air. The ones still standing ducked down and got behind their vehicles.

  I stood my ground, puffing out my chest in a show of false bravado. “That was a warning shot,” I said. “The next one’s through your head.”

  The cop looked to me and back toward the truck and then back to me. “This is a con,” he said

  “You can th
ink that all you want when the top your head if lying in the road,” I said, crossing my arms.

  “I thought you said you were a U.S. Marshall?” he asked, as scratched at the side of his face.

  I knew I shouldn’t have thrown that card out. I considered saying that I was using that as a cover, but bullshit works best when you spread it thin and mine was getting thicker by the minute.

  The truth of the matter was that if something didn’t happen fast, this slow witted fool was going to start seeing through my thin veil of crap and I was going to end up being very dead.

  Maybe she was reading my mind, but the truck roared to life and I let out a sigh. I knew then at least they’d get away. I’d be dead, but I’d have the satisfaction knowing they were safe.

  “What the hell are you smiling about?” the cop asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said.

  That’s where things changed from the direction I thought they were going. Joni didn’t follow the plan. She started the truck forward and it started picking up speed with every second.

  Another shot sounded off from the left and this time a bullet slammed into the side of one of the trucks at the roadblock.

  A couple of the guys looked like they were getting ready to crap their pants as they hugged tighter to their trucks taking cover, but the cop held steady.

  “You tell your people to stand down or else I’ll shoot you,” he said, much of the confidence he displayed had evaporated. His head jerked back and forth between me and the truck that was quickly approaching the roadblock.

  “It’s too late for that,” I said. I fully expected him to shoot me, but one his men broke from his position at the front of roadblock and took off at a run heading away from the on-coming truck while looking over his shoulder at his oncoming doom. In a panic, he collided with the cop knocking both of them to the ground. There were still two guys behind me ready to gun me down, but they were watching the truck. I used that distraction to fall directly down onto my butt and reached for my ankle holster. I had to be able to get my .38 in one quick pull or else they’d probably blow the back of my head off.

  Joni hit the horn on the truck and that distracted them even more as its resounding blare filled the night. Things started moving very, very fast as two of the men at the roadblock bolted into the night.

  I removed the gun as slickly as any TV cop had ever done. I lay back on the road, and while aiming upside-down, shot the first guy directly behind me in the chest. He grunted and fell over backwards. I quickly swiveled and shot up into the other guy in the leg. He screamed and fell over, dropping his rifle, while clutching at the wound.

  A gunshot sounded like thunder in front of me and a bullet winged off the road next to my head spraying pieces of asphalt into my face. I felt blood on my cheek. When I looked up, I saw the cop pulling himself out of the tangle with the other man. He pointed his pistol at me, but his aim wasn’t steady.

  The lights from truck got exponentially brighter and I could hear the engine getting closer, roaring like a locomotive. I had no time to look because the cop was sure to draw a bead on me at any moment. He tensed for another shot and I rolled to my left. I heard the gun go and off and felt a burning sensation along my right butt cheek.

  Just my luck, he shot me in the ass.

  I didn’t have any time to really worry about the wound in my ass because I had to focus all my effort at saving it. The truck’s lights were nearly on top of the roadblock when I started rolling again. I spun as fast as I could, but I was worried it wouldn’t be enough.

  There was a horrible crashing noise as the truck impacted with the police car and one of the pickups. Both vehicles leapt into the air and I watched as the cop car literally sailed over me. It crashed down just a few inches next to my legs, rolled over twice and ended up on its top teetering back for a few seconds until it finally found equilibrium and stopped moving. The pickup ended up on its side. Both vehicles were severely battered.

  Our truck just kept on rolling, though. It ran over the cop and the other man he was tangled up with, crushing them both. They didn’t even have time to scream. Joni slammed on the brakes about fifty feet down the road and the tires screeched like wounded animals.

  I laid there, looking up stars, panting, and was grateful that I lived yet again to fight for another five minutes. It turned out that five minutes was really one as a shadow moved over me. I started to bring my gun up when a voice shouted at me.

  “Grant, Grant, Grant, don’t shoot me, dude!” It was Jay. Two more silhouettes moved in over me.

  “You need help getting up, bro’?” Huck asked, holding out a hand.

  The sound of doors slamming and feet on the pavement came next. I turned my head to see Sammy, Joni, and a couple others running towards us with weapons in hand.

  I reached up and took Huck’s hand and he pulled me up. A shooting pain in my butt and down my leg protested the move, but I knew I couldn’t lie there all night.

  Joni was the first to reach us with Sammy right behind. She looked me over with wide eyes, then plunged into me, hugging me tightly. “Oh my God,” she said. “At first, I thought they’d shoot you, then I thought I’d ran you over.”

  “No, I survived on both accounts,” I said as Joni pulled away from me. “Thanks to the quick thinking of these guys.” I pointed to Jay, Huck, and Jane.

  The three of them looked to me and then to each other.

  “You guys took off from the truck right away when you saw trouble. That was quick thinking. Then you put down the glow sticks as a distraction, right?” I asked.

  “No, man,” Jay said. “I thought the cops were going to bust me for my pot. We just ran.”

  “And the glow sticks?” I asked.

  “I was ditching my bags of pot and the glow sticks were still in my satchel. They just fell out by accident as we ran,” Jay said, looking a little sheepish.

  I looked up to the heavens and apologized to God for thinking he wasn’t looking out for me. I also thanked him for His sense of humor.

  I looked back down at them and asked, “But you did shoot at them?”

  Jane spoke up this time. “Oh yeah, that was me. I saw that they were about to shoot your ass, so I took some shots at them. Pretty kick ass, right?”

  “Have you ever fired a gun before?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, “but we play a lot of Halo.” She looked to Huck and Jay who put out their fists and she fist-bumped each of them.

  I cocked my eyes skyward, again. Really, God?

  “Help!” A voice shouted in the night. The voice was coming from back near where the roadblock used to be.

  “That has to be the guy I shot,” I said and started toward the man. My leg and butt cheek pounded with pain causing me to limp. “Sammy, can you make sure the truck is secure? A couple of the guys at the roadblock ran away when they saw Joni coming at them with the truck.

  “Sure, Grant,” Sammy replied and took off in the direction of the truck.

  “Are you hurt?” Joni asked.

  “More my pride than anything,” I said. “The cop shot me in the ass. It’s not bad. I think it just grazed me.”

  “But still,” she said, moving in beside me and nudging her way under my arm, “I can take some of the weight off your leg.”

  Each step ached, but Joni’s support took some of the pressure away. I was grateful for the help, plus having her next to me was sort of nice.

  “Help me!” the voice cried out again.

  “Hold your horses,” I said. It took another twenty steps before were next to the guy lying in the road holding his leg.

  He was rolled into a ball on the ground, his face contorted in pain. He held his leg tightly as blood coursed between his fingers.

  “You son of bitch,” he said looking through squinted eyes at me, “you shot me.”

  “That I did,” I said. “But I would imagine that you and your cop friend would have shot me in due time.”

  “That was all Harley’s ide
a. He sort of got out of control after the zombies started showing up.”

  “And you opposed him by taking me hostage at gunpoint? That doesn’t sound like you were working against him all that hard.”

  “You had to go along with him or else he might shoot you,” the man said.

  “Like you had no will of your own? Did you ever consider shooting him?”

  Joni shifted away from me and I nearly fell down because I had become accustomed to her support.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  She fixated on the two bodies in the road, her face caught in a grimace. It was the cop and the other man. Both of them were badly crushed with broken bones and a lot of blood. They had been pulped when the truck rolled over them.

  “I did that?” she asked. “With the truck?”

  She broke away from me and rushed to the other side of the road where she started vomiting. Killing a live person for the first time rocked her. It wasn’t easy for me. In my entire career, I had only shot and killed one person. One of my protectees thought he had been tracked down by someone he had testified against. I was back on his protective detail when a hitman showed up. He wasn’t expecting my guy to have protection. It got ugly and I shot the hitman. You’d think in my career, that I would be prepared for something like that, but I saw the light go out behind the hitman’s eyes for several months in my dreams. Periodically, his face still comes back to as I suspect some of faces of the men at that roadblock will, but in this new zombified world, it was us or them - living or dead.

  “You going to help me or not?” the man asked.

  “Are there more people like your cop friend in town?”

  “He was sort of the ringleader.”

  “So, you’re saying that if we go into town, we’ll be okay?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “What about the guys who ran from the roadblock?”