Pedal to the Metal
Riders of the Apocalypse, Book 4
Alex Westmore
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Pedal to the Metal
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Pedal to the Metal
Dallas hadn’t expected to face so many zombies when they landed on the island, but there they were, milling about in that uber creepy way they do, their rotting flesh and stinking body parts falling to the ground every so often. The stench of putrid flesh hung in the air like week-old fish and every time the wind shifted, it seemed to make the odor worse.
As bad as the smell was, that horrible moaning sound was terrifying even after all these months of hearing it. That low, grating sound wafted in the air, commingling with the scent of death. It was as sad as it was scary and, in unison, it was enough to make one’s heart do double time.
“Okay, people, let’s clear the dock area before any ZBs get off the boats.” Dallas surveyed the surrounding pier with hawk-like eyes. She hadn’t anticipated this many tourists being on the island when the virus hit over a year ago, and she had hoped it wouldn’t find its way here, but she’d been wrong.
They were everywhere.
“You heard her. No ZBs off the boat until we clear the area!” Roper held her rifle up to her shoulder and kept the muzzle pointed toward the mass of man eaters wandering around the dock. “Keep the ZBs safe until Dallas gives the word.”
Dallas slightly grinned at her lover. “Save your ammo, babe. Let’s handle this with machetes and bows.”
Roper nodded and lowered her rifle. “Roger that.”
A ZB was someone who was considered zombie bait––a straight person whom the zombies either craved for a meal or turned them into one of them. Heterosexuals were the first meal on the menu…the only meal, actually.
They called them man eaters because that’s what the zombies yearned for. They did not eat animals, fish, or any other meat. They ate heterosexuals. Just heterosexuals.
Gays and lesbians weren’t on the list of options. When a government-made bioweapon was turned against the United States thirteen months ago, it attacked a certain genetic code—a DNA strand that triggered the hunger mechanism and made the man eaters moan and stagger toward them, bloodied and broken fingers reaching…reaching…always reaching.
Gays did not possess that genetic code and were virtually invisible to the. It was this very reason that Dallas and Roper were still alive after being on the run for a year:
They had been born gay.
“Zoe, Dad and I will take out the ones up on the road,” Hunter said, jumping off the boat with his specially equipped crossbow and bolts. In another life, Hunter had been an Olympic archery medalist. Now, he was just trying to stay alive like everyone else, using his incredible athletic skills to do so.
His father, Fletcher, was right behind him, trademark bow in hand. The father and son team had not only killed their fair share of man eaters over the last twelve months, they had also kept the meat coming by hunting where they could. They had proven themselves indispensible to Dallas and Roper, and now, they were family.
They were all family.
The archers were followed by Zoe, a pink mohawk-sporting spitfire with a dead-eye aim and a sharp tongue. Early on, Hunter had taken the little rebel under his wing and taught her how to use a crossbow. Turned out, she was a natural.
Together, the three bowmen cleared a path from the boat to the main facility in less than ten minutes. Dallas and those who couldn’t get infected, otherwise known as the CGIs, lopped off heads and split skulls faster than usual with machetes and survival hatchets. Nobody wanted to use the terms “gay” and “straight” anymore. They were antiquated notions now in an apocalyptic world where labels had no place. Maybe they never had a place. The CGIs usually used machetes to cut the head off. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done without using their precious ammo. They left the truly dead in their wake, the ones who were never going to get back up, as they butchered dozens of zombies shuffling along the eroding pier.
“We need to make certain every last one is dead from this lower area before we unload the boats.” Dallas paused driving home her lethal and bloodied machete to look at her lover, Roper, as she cleaved a skull in half, sending brain matter in three different directions.
“Is it wrong that it turns me on when you do that?” she asked, grinning at Roper, who was covered in the blackish goo of their enemies. Roper stood close to six feet and had the build of a swimmer. With broad shoulders and abnormally long arms, she could wrestle a man eater as easily as she had taken down cattle. Her auburn hair had been cut short months ago, and she still carried a lasso on her belt, even after all of this time without her horses.
Roper wiped both machetes off on the jeans of the zombie she’d just killed and chuckled. “Oh so wrong in oh so many ways, love.”
Dallas admired her lean frame and cut arms. She was a formidable force––strong and quick, cunning as well as cautious. And though she wasn’t quite as strong as Dallas, an ex-firefighter, she could hold her own in any battle. Could and had more times than she could count.
“Well, darlin’, you just keep hacking away. I’m just going to stand here and watch.”
Roper was turning to retort when she caught some stragglers moving towards the ZBs. “Boat!” Roper yelled, pointing to six zombies wandering over to the three boats they’d used to come across the bay. “If it’s not too much trouble, love, would you mind protecting something besides my ass?”
THWUP.
THWUP.
THWUP.
Fletcher took three out in less time than a normal man could have pulled the trigger of a gun.
THWUP.
THWUP.
THWUP.
“You think you two could admire each other after you get the rest of us off the boat?” Einstein, the resident genius and Human Encyclopedia of zombie lore, asked. He had saved Dallas’s life on the Bay Bridge when the virus initially broke out. Since becoming part of her family, he had saved everyone’s lives several times with his knowledge of zombies and the apocalypse.
Dallas shook her head, then decapitated an elderly zombie woman. “Geez, kid, you’re awfully impatient.”
“I’m speaking for everyone when I say we w
ould really like to be fed before sundown. Sometime today if at all possible.”
Dallas cut another man eater down before nodding. Einstein seemed to be growing right before their eyes, and there was something about having a growing teen around that made her want more than to just survive. More than the incredible fear they lived with each hour of every day. Dallas loved that gangly teen as if he was her own...and she wanted him to grow up in a country that had stared Satan’s minions in the face and survived.
Still, there was something niggling in the back of her mind, making her wonder if staying was the right thing to do. Did they stay and fight what appeared to be a losing battle, or was retreat the better part of valor?
Anywhere was better than here…trapped within the borders of a country the world had turned its back on.
He deserved that much.
They all did.
But ever since they left Angola for the island, she had begun having doubts about staying. And though she hadn’t shared these even with Roper, she was beginning to wonder if remaining here to fight was a fool’s play.
Before she could yell back at Einstein, a new batch of zombies meandered from the concession area, their hideous moans filling the air like nails on a chalkboard.
Everyone detested that sound.
The man eaters clung together to attack the enemy and consume it…just like the way white blood cells acted in the human body. To those infected by the virus, the living were the disease that needed to be eradicated.
After the initial outbreak, the infected started gathering together, and this was when Butcher, their group medic, recognized that the man eaters appeared to come together like white blood cells, often collecting in groups so large that the survivors had taken to calling them hordes.
Anyone heterosexual in the horde’s way would be chased and chased and chased until they were inevitably eaten.
This mini-horde quickly fell to the blades of Dallas, Roper, and half a dozen other gays and lesbians clearing a path for the ZBs.
“I didn’t expect so many,” Roper said, her machete dripping with the black, tar-like substance that was once blood. “I mean, seriously? How did the virus get here?”
“It’s entirely possible that when the virus was released, the wind blew it over here, contaminating everyone on the island.” Einstein pushed his black rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Roper shrugged. “I suppose. Of course, someone could have just taken a boat over here and infected everyone else once they got here.” She turned to Dallas. “We’re going to have to take it slowly, baby. They’ll be everywhere. You have a plan?”
Dallas watched Fletcher mow down two more. That man never seemed to miss. “It’s going to be dark in a couple of hours. I want to move everyone into the dining facility. That will be the easiest area to bed down for the night and the easiest to protect for now.” She calmly walked up to a child zombie and took off its head.
Used to be, cutting off a child’s head was hard–– but not anymore. Unlike pre-virus society, a child man eater was just as dangerous as an adult. The feelings of guilt and regret had long taken a back seat to survival.
“Zoe! Hunter! Don’t get too far ahead. We’re gonna need to circle the wagons soon.”
“Roger that.”
Both archers loped back to the fray, using their bolts to pierce the eye sockets of the damned as they ran back. The beauty of the bows was that arrows, unlike bullets, were retrievable and reusable.
Dallas stopped for a moment to admire the efficiency of their kills.
Hunter and Zoe were an odd pair. Both were gay, but that was as close as they could come to any similarities. Hunter was a tall, fit, former Olympian with a keen eye and a gentle temperament, whereas Zoe was a petite Mohawk wearing rebel who used to smoke, drink, and steal motorcycles. They couldn’t have been more different and yet were almost like brother and sister.
“How many damn tourists can there be?” Zoe said, running up to Dallas. The leather jacket she wore was not the same one she’d had when they had first found her. This one she’d taken off a dead Hell’s Angel biker and it was much too big.
“No shit. Let’s just pave the way to the mess hall and then we can get back to the business of clearing everything else out. It’s going to take longer than we thought.”
Zoe nodded and took off to do just that.
“She’s something of a killing machine, isn’t she?” Roper wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Or something. She never questions me. Ever,” Dallas said.
“I think, like the rest of us, she is secretly in love with you.”
Dallas chuckled. “Hardly.”
“Well, I sure am.”
“Still?”
Roper nodded and kisses her quickly. “Always. The best decision I ever made was to walk across the beam of the Bay Bridge for you.”
Dallas watched her team mow down the remaining man eaters wandering along the docks. Their family had loved and lost but always managed to stay together.
“Stay on the ship until we clear the dining area,” Roper commanded, decapitating a young Hispanic female zombie. “I know you’re wanting off the boat, and I don’t blame you, but we have to secure the area better.”
“We’ll keep everyone calm,” Einstein replied from his position atop the deck of the boat.
“Just get it done before dusk. Everything is dicier once the sun goes down and we don’t really know where we’re going.”
“Easy for you to say,” Zoe said over her shoulder as she started up the street to the main building. “You’re not wearing goo.”
He shrugged. “Hey, you wanted equality. Now get back to work.”
Zoe stuck her tongue out before taking aim and shooting another zombie through the eye. “Slackers.”
Dallas jogged back to the boats to address Einstein and the three other “family” members she’d been traveling with for over a year. “Okay, listen up. We’re gonna cut it close.” She looked towards the setting sun. “We’re going to have to spread out and take care of any along the way. When we get back, you and the others on the boat will need to be ready to make a run for it. Have everyone lined up in order of fastest to slowest.” Then she said in her best Arnold voice, “I’ll be back.”
“Dallas? If you’re not back before dark, we’re shoving off and I’ll keep us out in the bay overnight until it’s safe.”
Dallas smiled. Einstein never missed a beat. “I knew there was a reason we keep you around, kid.”
He shook his head. “Well, it’s not for my looks or charm, that’s for sure.” He ran his hand through his mop of hair. “Hurry back before you have a mutiny on your hands.”
Two hours later, when she met up with the other CGIs near the dining area, Dallas lopped off two heads as she joined in the fray. It was short-lived. Her team took out two dozen dining room zombies in under a minute.
They’d had lots of practice. A year on the run from zombies, the American military, and outlaws had made them quite a formidable army.
“That ought to do it, baby,” Roper said, wiping off her blades on the shirt of a truly dead zombie. “At least until morning.” She glanced around the dining facility with its dark, eerie silhouettes and ghosts from long ago. “God, it’s creepy in here! Even without monsters, this place feels haunted.” Shadows fell across the empty room in a pattern of crisscrosses.
Dallas shoved the tip of her blade through the eye of a zombie that was not truly dead yet. “Do we have enough time to get back to the dock?”
“We just need to get these bodies moved and then we can secure the area.” Roper looked around. “You sure this is where you want to hunker down for the night? It’s kinda unnerving.”
Dallas nodded. “We have no way of knowing who’s on this island, and I think the boats are too vulnerable and too cold. Here, we can make a stand if we have to.”
“Then let’s leave guards on the boats and have them sleep for the night out in th
e bay. I don’t like the idea of not being able to get off this place. It creeps me out.”
“Perfect. You assign two guards to each boat, a mix of CGI’s and ZB’s. They’ll stay far enough off the pier that the eaters can’t get to them.”
“Gotcha.”
“You and Zoe grab the others and high tail it back here. We’ll clear out the bodies and see if we can’t find some food.”
Roper nodded, kissed Dallas quickly on the mouth, and then sprinted off, grabbing Zoe along the way. They were back in fifteen minutes with the nearly one hundred survivors they’d managed to gather along their journey.
After they’d left the bayou, Dallas’s group had created a safe haven in a prison that was eventually attacked by the very government that was supposed to help them. Realizing that the only way to save the country was to make more safe zones, Dallas and company headed back west to start another such safe zone.
Along the way, they ran into cannibals and roving nut-jobs who wanted to enslave women for what they thought was Armageddon. It had been a crazy year for sure, and Dallas and Roper realized the zombies were the least of their worries. Now it was the leftovers, the miscreants of society who thrived on the chaos and anarchy in the absence of law and order.
And they were thriving, to be sure.
The living were far more dangerous to them than the undead. Lack of food, potable water, and security had turned regular people into the looters and killers they had faced and defeated more than once.
Once everyone was inside and the doors of the dining facility were closed with three guards taking watch, Dallas quieted the crowd and waited for everyone to settle down. Then she cleared her throat and said, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, we finally made it. Welcome to Alcatraz.”
Dallas
Two Weeks Ago
Dallas stared toward the east, her hand up to her eyes to block out the midday sun. Near as she could figure, they were in eastern Nevada now, and the hot, dry sun beat down on them with relentless precision. The air seemed not to move at all, and the road shimmered like an oasis. It was as if the sun intended on baking them to death.
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