Zoe wondered how she would eat it in the end. What would get her? A dog? A zombie? A bullet? A motorcycle accident? Or worse? Would she die at the hands of some asshole?
That second to the last one seemed likely as she tired from having to hold Hunter up. He was heavy and with his weight against her, her arms were tiring from having to hold them both up to steer. Every time she got off the bike, she was afraid he’d be dead. The last time she’d checked him over, she found a lot more puncture wounds on his thighs, hips and shoulders.
She had to admit, hanging onto that dog was brilliant. It made it hard for the pack to get to his face and neck, though he was bleeding from a bite mark on his ear. He was a human pin cushion and all the jostling around on the bike kept the wounds bleeding. He needed Butcher.
When she saw the train station, her arms were shaking so badly the bike almost toppled over when she came to her first stop. She would have to take the bike into the yard via the vehicular entrance in order to check the water situation and make sure Hunter was comfortable until the Eight Forty-Four arrived.
The train yard was enormous, and after she stashed Hunter and the bike behind an outcropping of rocks, she looked at the faded train schedule. Walking back, she kissed his forehead and put a knife in his hand. “Be right back.”
Grabbing her machete, her bow, and slinging a rifle over her shoulder, Zoe went through the yard toward a water tower perched on the southwest corner of the yard. Securing her bow to her back, Zoe started climbing. She’d always been a great climber, spending most of her childhood in trees, but her arms felt weak from the ride. She was moving slower than she would have liked.
Once she reached the water container, she saw it was a little less than half full. Would that be enough to get the train to the next station? She had no idea. Mr. Woolworth’s math problems never dealt with steam engines or water towers.
No sooner had she thought that when she saw a cloud of dust moving toward them.
Not just dust.
Cars kicking up dust, and they were headed for the station.
Hurriedly climbing down to the platform, Zoe looked at Hunter. She could only see his legs from up there. She looked at the cars, then at the distance between her and Hunter and, again, thanks to Mr. Woolworth, she knew she’d never make it to him in time.
“Shit! Fuck! Goddamnit!” Zoe watched the cars—nine of them of various makes and models—hauling ass over the ground.
She’d seen those cars before.
It was them.
They’d come after them after all.
****
Templeton stood at the back door of the caboose when Roper walked in with Tate.
Dallas stood, arms crossed, Glock in her hand, with Roper, Butcher, and Tate behind her.
“We need to ask you some questions.”
He looked over his shoulder at Tate. “Uh. Sure. What’s up?”
Dallas nodded to Roper, who raised her rifle.
“Hey! Whoa!” Templeton cried, ducking. “What the fuck?”
“That’s what we want to know. What the fuck?” Dallas walked up to him. “We keep putting two and two together and making five. Why is that?”
“I don’t understand where this is coming from. I thought we were good.” Templeton kept his hands raised in surrender.
“Good is relative, don’t you think? We just need some clarification, that’s all.”
“Has she accused me of something?”
Dallas glanced over her shoulder at Tate. “Who? Tate? I don’t know. Do you think she should?”
Templeton forced a shrug. “Why don’t you just spit it out? What do you need to know? I have no secrets.”
“Where was Tate kept?”
His upper lip twitched, his eyes cast to the floor of the car. “In a…different area.”
“What area was that? What was it called?”
Templeton looked around.
“There’s no way out of this.” Dallas leaned closer. “What did JB and his good old boys call it, Templeton?”
He looked down at his feet and muttered, “The Dark Zone.”
Dallas felt Tate bristle. “Dark Zone. Why is that?”
He brought his eyes to hers. “It wasn’t me, ma’am. I was only followin’ orders.”
Dallas shook her head. “Why is it when men get caught doing heinous crimes, they blame it on their superiors?” She held her hand up. “It was a rhetorical question. Tell me why your hillbilly buddies called it that.”
Templeton blinked several times before answering. “It’s where the nonwhites were kept, but I had nothing to do with that, I swear. I had black friends once.”
Dallas swallowed back her revulsion. “Of course you did. So he kept the nonwhites there. And these were women deemed what? Not fit to reproduce? Not good enough? What, Templeton?”
He barely shook his head. “You don’t understand—”
“Oh, but I think I do. The real question is, do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Understand what’s at stake here in this caboose right now. Right this second.” She leaned in. “What will happen to you if you so much as even think about lying to us.”
Dallas opened the back door of the caboose and then stepped back. “Did you visit the Dark Zone?”
“No.”
Dallas put the Glock on his cheek. “I’m not fucking around here, Templeton. Against my people’s advice, I gave you a chance to start over, and I’m wondering if maybe that wasn’t a mistake.”
“Yes. Fine. Yes. A couple of times. I went a couple of times, but not to—”
“So you’re a rapist.”
“No! It’s not like that—”
“Bullshit!” Tate flew at him, but Butcher reached out with one hand and stopped her. “Whoa. Easy. You do this Dallas’s way or you’re out of here.” Butcher stood eye-to-eye with the angry woman. “Don’t test me, Tate. It’s her way or no way.”
Tate bared her teeth at Butcher, who raised an eyebrow and pressed her face closer. “Or you can join Templeton. Understand?”
Tate glared at Templeton. “Fine. I can do it your way for now, but that rat bastard lives on borrowed time.”
Templeton looked from Butcher to Dallas. “Join me? Where am I going?”
“That depends on your answers.” Dallas pulled the Glock away from his face.
“It didn’t…I thought…oh shit, I don’t have an excuse. It was there. Everyone visited the Dark Zone because the white women were too expensive.”
Dallas looked at Tate—the pain etched across her face. The years of having to live in skin that made people pre-judge, cast aspersions, and walk on the other side of the street were carved in her face, and without thinking, Dallas backhanded him with the Glock, tearing open his chin. “You make me sick.”
Wiping the blood from his chin, Templeton very quietly said, “I’m so sorry. I just…I got carried away. I’m not proud of it.”
“I can imagine. Raping those women shouldn’t make you proud.”
“It didn’t feel like rape.” He stopped. “Look, anything I say sounds lame, so I’ll just say yeah. I saw a chance for some free pussy and, like any red blooded man, I took it.”
Dallas inhaled deeply. “ Red blooded. Interesting choice of words. So why didn’t you bring any of the pregnant women here? How come you didn’t bring any Caucasian women here?”
His face went blank. “What?”
“You heard the question. You didn’t bring any of the pregnant or white women to us because JB didn’t want to put them at risk.”
“I don’t—”
Dallas smacked him again. “When are they coming?”
He grabbed his bleeding face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Templeton’s eyes began scanning the room like a trapped animal.
“He’s stalling,” Butcher said. “Kill him.”
“Wait.” Templeton said, surrendering with arms up. “Wait. Please. It’s not what you think.”
Dallas
stared at him, waiting. “Oh, it’s exactly what we think. Where are they intercepting us?” She pressed the Glock to his cheek once more.
Templeton blew out his breath. “San Antonio.”
“They’re planning on jumping us at San Antonio?”
Templeton nodded.
“The only chance you have to save your wretched skin now is to tell us their plan. Everything. Right this fucking second.”
“I…I was to move everyone to the back of the train.”
“Why?”
“They’re blowing it up.”
“It? The train, or it, the tracks?”
He shrugged. “Both. Either. Does it matter? They’re going to destroy your ride, take your shit, recover their women and imprison you all. But it’s not too late. You can stop the train and bail.”
“And then what? He won’t stop coming after us until he exacts his pound of flesh. I know what he wants, and it’s not the train, its occupants, or our stuff.”
Templeton shook his head. “No. He wants whoever killed his boy. He wants you, Dallas. He wants you to pay for that death.”
Turning from him, Dallas walked away and handed the Glock to Tate. “I want it back.”
“No! Please! Don’t leave me with her. Please! Come back! You said I could save myself. I told you everything I know!””
Dallas turned at the door. “Seriously? You really think we’d let you live?” She chuffed. “Not a chance. You’ll be lucky if she makes it a headshot.”
Dallas, Roper, and Butcher were not three feet outside the caboose when the Glock sounded and Templeton screamed.
“That was fast.”
“I don’t imagine she had much to say.”
Another shot rang out. Templeton cried out once more.
“Guess he wasn’t so lucky.”
“Nope. I imagine she had a few things to say.”
A third gunshot rang out before Tate walked out the door, handed Dallas the gun, and said, “There are worse things than a swift death,” before returning to the car of lesbians.
“She’s an odd one,” Roper said, going back into the caboose where Templeton writhed on the floor, his hands holding his bleeding crotch. He’d been shot in both legs as well.
“Fucking crazy ass bitch!” He yelled.
“Wow. That was unexpected,” Roper said. “I thought for sure you’d be dead.”
“She shot my dick! That crazy ass bitch shot my dick!”
Roper looked at Dallas. “Well?”
Dallas shrugged. “Time to take out the trash ladies.”
“Word,” Butcher said, looking to Roper.
Butcher and Roper walked over, picked him up and tossed him over the railing, where he did several rolls before landing splayed on the railroad tracks. Zombies from either side of the tracks meandered over to him and they all watched until he was no longer in sight.
“Good riddance,” Roper said, wiping her hands on her pants. “I did not like that guy one bit.”
“Now what?” Butcher asked.
“Now we figure out how to end this thing once and for all.”
****
Zoe
Zoe went to one knee and surveyed the situation from her hiding place. The vehicles were heading toward her now and she had absolutely no idea what to do. There was no time to reach him. All she could was hope he was hidden well enough.
“Oh Hunter…I’m so sorry.”
When the cars came to a stop, men of all sizes leapt out, armed with rifles, tasers, and what looked like several grenade launchers.
“Jesus.”
She could move up the rail, but without the bike how far would she get and would it give them enough time to slow the train down or stop it altogether? She didn’t think so. She couldn’t help the people on the train and she probably couldn’t help Hunter either.
She felt useless.
Carefully setting out her bolts, Zoe closed her eyes and thought about her parents, her twin sister, and the only woman who ever broke her heart. Zoe knew her time was up. It was just whether or not she could take a number of them out before they got to her.
She was okay with that. She’d done everything she could to help the people she had grown to love. And as much as she wished she could help more, it looked like this was the end of the road for them all if she couldn’t figure out how to take out nine cars full of hillbillies.
Opening her eyes, she saw the men prepping their weapons and moving toward Hunter.
“I wish I were with you, dude,” she whispered, looking through her scope. If she could take out a bunch of them silently, she might rack up more kills before they discovered her position and blew her to smithereens.
As the first man approached Hunter, she lined the crosshairs up on his head.
“We got a live one here, boss!” The man called out.
Zoe inhaled.
They helped Hunter to his feet and gently set him up on a bench.
Zoe exhaled and put her finger on the trigger.
“Hang on, buddy. We got a medic.”
Zoe quickly took her finger off and lay flat on the platform as she watched the medic tend to Hunter. She heard something about dog bites, but no one seemed to equate him and the dusty Kawasaki with Dallas’s people.
Why should they?
There were only thousands of red Kawasakis, and they’d never really seen Hunter. To them, he was just a wounded guy on a motorcycle who had been attacked by a pack of dogs.
Zoe moved back behind the water tank and sighed loudly. At least Hunter would make it out of this alive. She was thankful for that.
Zoe felt more than helpless up on the water tank. She couldn’t help those on the train and she couldn’t help herself get off this damned platform.
Peering around the tank, she watched as they began messing with the tracks. She realized they were going to derail the train, not blow it up. That made more sense to her. They wanted their women back in one piece.
And Dallas, in pieces.
Scooting around to the other side of the water tank, Zoe peeked around it at the line of vehicles facing the direction of the train. They were off the tracks, of course, sitting in the outer bend of the tracks. Her eye caught a stack of barrels to the left of the other crates and boxes piled all around.
Mr. Woolworth wasn’t just the bomb as a math teacher. He had also been a World War II buff. She remembered all of his tangential stories, like the one about how the Japanese bombers could have won the war in the Pacific if only they had bombed the oil reserves piled near the tarmac.
Oil reserves like what was in those barrels not fifteen feet from the cars. If she could—
Zoe froze as she saw one of the men looking her way. Had he seen her? Was her plan done for before it even got started?
The man looked away and walked over to where Hunter lay. Zoe moved her gear into the shadow of the tank and pressed herself hard into the grate. She looked at the barrels.
Tempting.
“Who do you think you are? Fucking Robin Hood?” Zoe could hear Hunter’s voice in the back of her mind the first time she’d tried shooting with a flaming arrow. He had given her such grief about it.
“I can do this,” she whispered now. “I can do this.”
So what if she hadn’t been totally successful that time? She hadn’t used the right flammables. She thought lighter fluid would work, but it didn’t. So she made homemade napalm out of citronella and powdered sugar—both items they had in Angola. It had worked well when she tested it out one day away from Hunter and his criticisms. It worked well as far as fire went, but she hadn’t yet corrected the trajectory. The arrow’s weight was so far off all the regular bolts, she’d need to fire at least two off in order to make the right correction. This meant shooting two arrows that would land near the barrels and, unfortunately, close enough for the men to see, therefore giving up her position. If she lived through the massive amounts of bullet fire, would she be able to get off another shot? The shot?
“I’ve got no other choice,” she said softly to herself. She wasn’t going to sit here and watch these assholes kill the only people worth dying for.
Looking down the tracks, she judged the distance from one point to the barrels and calculated just how long it would take the train to reach a certain point before she started shooting. If she calculated three shots, return fire, and the explosion correctly, she could blow them to bits before they could derail the train.
It was worth the shot.
It was worth the perfect shot.
Sweat rolled off Zoe’s brow and she impatiently wiped it off with the back of her hand. The train had to almost be here.
So far, Hunter hadn’t moved. The medic had come to him and worked over him for a second before going back to the group. She estimated he was safe from the oil, but she had no real idea how far the explosion would go, or if it could even work. She supposed it didn’t really matter. If she didn’t do something, they’d all be dead, or wish they were.
Looking back at the horizon, she saw the train in the distance.
“Here she comes,” she said under her breath. The napalm bolts were lined up and ready to go, as were thirty-three regular bolts. She doubted she’d get off all three, let alone the other thirty-three, but it never hurt to be prepared. She would take down as many as she could before they drilled her into Swiss cheese.
The train was coming like a slow motion movie. A steam engine going twenty miles an hour looked like it was creeping along.
She smiled, thinking about Dallas, Roper, Butcher, and Einstein in there. Her core. Her family. Her community. Fletcher and Wendell. Burnett. All people who had loved her in a way no one had before the virus…
But not Churchill or Cassie. Not two people she truly cared about. They were no longer there.
No, they were killed unnecessarily by a bunch of yokels with some fucked up version of Eisenhower’s New Deal. She shuddered at the thought of how far off the mark those nut bags were. How many more like them were out there? How many other redneckers were out there taking abuses against those weaker than them?
In the end, she figured it wouldn’t matter. She would die here. She wasn’t afraid of dying. Nobody in her group was really. When you’re surrounded by walking dead, death is your constant shadow—and he was leering at her right now.
Man Eaters (Book 3): Mob Rule Page 23
