She’d been standing there for almost thirty minutes, wondering how long it was going to take the rest to meet up with them. It felt like they’d been gone far longer than just a week. One week since some of her zombie survivors had returned to Angola Prison to retrieve Butcher’s child.
One really, really long week.
It felt like forever.
That often happens during the aftermath of an apocalypse, when everything you have ever known is turned upside down like a snow globe rolling down a hill. A week can stretch into a month as you wonder whether or not you’re waiting for someone who is never going to arrive anyway.
Dallas was so tired...tired of battling both undead and living alike. Tired of worrying whether or not letting Butcher and Luke go back for their baby was such a wise idea.
She chuffed.
As if anyone could have stopped them. Going back to Angola was one thing––coming back to Eastern Nevada to meet up with Dallas and the rest of their extended family was a whole other ballgame, especially with an infant in tow.
When Dallas and Roper left Angola, they left Butcher, Luke, and Egypt behind…but one doesn’t leave a friend like Butcher behind for long. When she discovered that Dallas needed help, she came out west, leaving Luke to care for their daughter.
He, of course, refused to remain behind and came to help the only family he had ever known. He set out after his wife, only to be captured by the military…his military.
Back when Dallas first met Luke, the United States Army had turned against the survivors it had sworn to protect, killing them with wanton savagery. Having seen enough, Luke had bailed and eventually found Dallas’s group. Once they trusted him and allowed him in, he fell in love with Butcher and, together, they had added a baby to the mix.
But the military had captured their defected soldier once again, and Dallas had enough problems of her own without adding Luke’s imprisonment to the mix. They had taken some terrible hits coming through Texas. They had lost loved ones, been shot, abused, tortured, and they had faced one of the most insane men Dallas had ever met. They’d been lucky to get out of there alive, and in the process, Zoe had been seriously injured and Luke captured. They had no other alternative but to take Zoe and Hunter to where Luke was in the hopes of saving them all. The government had held Luke prisoner even as Dallas begged them to care for two of their own who had been wounded by marauders.
It had taken Dallas and Roper three days to get Luke back from the military that had snatched him from the road and held him prisoner. Three long days to figure out a way in and a way out while the military doctors struggled to keep Zoe alive and to patch Hunter up.
Seventy two hours to assess the camp, to find its weak points, and then to devise a plan that would not only get Zoe and Hunter from the makeshift hospital, but also enable them to rescue Luke.
Three days for Dallas to figure a way out of an armed encampment with all of her people intact.
But three days for Dallas and Roper was an eternity, and they quickly ascertained the patterns of the guards, the weaknesses of the fences, and the rotation of the sentries. They had enough time to gather the intel they needed to free their people.
In the end, they were successful in getting Luke back from the military and saving Zoe’s life, and when Luke and Butcher were finally reunited, they made the decision to go after their baby girl, Egypt.
Three days and Dallas had managed to save three of her people and escape with them back to the desert, only to have some of them set off to Angola for a baby they’d all fallen in love with. They set off to backtrack through the hostiles to Angola, and Dallas was scared to death she had made the wrong call when she let them go.
“You can’t wish them here sooner, my love.” Roper threaded her arms around Dallas’s waist and leaned her chin on her lover’s shoulder. They were very nearly the same height. “They’ll be here when they get here.”
“They should have stayed in Angola.”
“Maybe they did. It’s possible Luke talked some sense into her.”
Dallas shook her head. “Oh, I seriously doubt that. Butcher is one of us. We’re family. You heard her. She was intent on reuniting her family.”
Roper hugged her tighter. “We are as important to her as that beautiful little girl. Can you blame her?”
Dallas kept her eyes on the horizon. “Not really. I just can’t help wondering if we should have gone back with them. All of us.”
“It was never an option and you know it. There are too many of us now to take back through the land of hillbillies and cannibals. We have dozens to take care of now, and it’s hard enough transporting them as it is. Going back is never an option, love. Ever. Stop beating yourself up over it.”
“I won’t rest until they’re back here with us.”
“They’ll get here. Give her time.”
Time.
Time wasn’t an ally any longer. Every day, there would be fewer survivors and more undead. Every single day. Every day, the survivors would devolve into something slightly less than human––something more Neanderthal-like and barbaric. Every day, more would succumb to either the undead looking for a meal or the living that had turned into rapists, cannibals, or highway robbers.
Every damn day could be their last. It was Dallas’s job to make sure today wasn’t that day. She had to get her people to the West Coast, even though that meant going against the grain of the man-eating hordes traveling east.
Northeast, to be exact.
Everyone, including living and undead, was heading toward a military compound that promised safety and refuge. And, like white blood cells chasing a disease, the zombies migrated after their food source to the east, creating one big clusterfuck of living and undead.
Dallas and her people had never intended to go to that military compound. They had already experienced enough run-ins with the military and the makeshift American government to question the veracity of such a claim about safety and refuge. The fact that it took her three days to get her people out of a military compound told her all she needed to know.
Instead, they were returning home to California where they hoped to start a new life like the one they started in Angola…a safer life…a place like the prison where they could raise crops and livestock and be safer from the virus.
Safer.
In an apocalypse, one is never safe.
Ever.
You can only hope to be safer, and the government’s promise of a “safe” haven was nothing more than political rhetoric. They had already lost the game but refused to admit it, and instead dropped leaflets telling everyone to come east. That there was safety in numbers and they could continue on with a normal life behind huge walls.
Blah, blah, blah.
They were wrong.
Numbers just meant it was easier for the horde to find you, attack you, and create more of themselves. Like a cell that divides, the man eaters could triple their numbers in a nanosecond.
This was the greatest mistake the government could have made because people on the move were far more likely to be killed than those who stayed where they were. And if they weren’t killed, they were turned. And that was worse.
Dallas felt that whatever barricade the military had to protect the survivors in their “safe camp” was not going to be enough to stop the one hundred million zombies coming their way.
One hundred million roving man eaters chomping at the bit with broken teeth, torn gums, and ripped off lips.
For all she knew, there was no such compound. It could have been just an urban legend––a myth––a fairy tale to give survivors hope.
Hope.
There was precious little of that to go around, and every moment they were mobile and on the road was a moment longer they were in danger…and being in danger meant that hope, like the dying embers of a fire, dwindled until you stood in the darkness.
“Einstein will never forgive us if they don’t make it back.” Dallas lowered her hand and turned t
o look at her lover. “He begged me not to let them go.” She took a melting candy bar from her shirt pocket and handed it to Roper. “You need to eat something.”
Roper had lost weight since they hit the road over a month ago. Like everyone else, her clothes hung off her tall, lean body like a coat hanger. She had long since given up her beautiful long hair and now wore a short, almost boyish style. Having some crude excuse for a man grab a handful of hair was enough to convince her it was time to chop it off.
“I know...and I’m worried about him. He’s not been the same since Cassie died. It’s like his heart has grown cold. He swears like a sailor and his energy is just so negative.”
Dallas slowly shook her head, the pain of Cassie’s death still sharp against her heart. “Bitterness flows through that boy’s veins now. He’ll never be the same.” She reached out and brushed Roper’s uneven bangs to the side. “Has he spoken with you at all? Shared anything about how he is feeling?”
Roper shook her head. “Not a damn word, and not for lack of trying either. He just nurses his anger, glaring out at the desolation with hatred in his eyes. I miss the boy he was when we first got together.” She wiped a tear that hadn’t fallen yet. “The boy we knew and loved died along with Cassie, and now there’s a harsh, resentful young man in his place. I don’t know how to reach him.”
“Any suggestions about how the rest of us could help him out? Anything we can do or say to get him to come out if it?”
Roper shielded her eyes and squinted at the horizon. “Give him someone else to love and protect, I suppose.”
Dallas looked at her profile. Roper was seldom so cryptic. “Do what?”
Roper did not take her eyes from the horizon. “Give him someone he can protect.” She lowered her hand and turned to Dallas. “Make him the caregiver of Egypt when they get back. That will make him feel useful and give him something else to think about besides Cassie. He needs someone to melt the ice around his heart or we’re going to lose him.”
Dallas opened her mouth but nothing came out.
“He loves that baby. Remember how pissed off he got when he realized Butcher had left her in Angola? If anyone can melt his ice block of a heart, it’s Egypt.”
Dallas turned and put her arm around Roper’s waist, pulling her closer. “You’re brilliant.”
Roper smiled softly and pulled away, shielding her eyes again. “No. What I am is concerned about that cloud of dust coming this way. If that’s not them, we might have trouble on our hands.” She glanced around for the binoculars she’d left in the Fuchs.
Dallas gazed at the incoming dust cloud. “What else is new?”
“Get the Fuchs ready.” Dallas went one direction, Roper another. “We’ve got a horde or something worse coming our way!” Dallas announced to the rest of the crew who were keeping cool inside the military transport as well as behind them in the additional vehicles. They had managed to jumpstart a couple of school buses, but they were hardly idea out in there desert. “Everyone, weapons out!”
Ten months ago, she would have simply driven away––but then, they realized that for every man eater they killed, there was one less mouth to rip into a survivor. If they were going to try to take their country back from the man eaters, they would have to do so by gutting as many as they could.
At least, that had been the original plan when they came west. Now she wasn’t so sure.
So much had changed since they’d been taken hostage by a bunch of hillbillies. She felt herself changing…becoming more concerned about those she was with and less concerned about society at large.
It was beginning to eat away at her.
“CGIs out front!” Roper ordered. “All ZBs inside the vehicles until we know what we’re facing.”
Dallas waited, eyes keen on the dust cloud. “Moving too fast to be a horde.”
Roper nodded. “Maybe it’s them.” She looked hopefully out at the horizon. “God, let’s hope it’s them. I am so tired of killing humans.”
Einstein pulled out a pair of binoculars. “Three vehicles. Can’t tell if they’re armed yet.”
The vehicles coming at them were a Jeep, a Hummer, and a bus. The bus, while an easy target for marauders and hordes, was still the best means of transporting larger groups.
“I know what you mean. Killing man eaters is so much easier than killing humans. I never thought…” Roper shook her head. “We’d devolved so quickly.”
“Looks like three vehicles, maybe four,” Einstein said, staring through his binoculars. “Can’t tell, but there might be one behind the front line.”
“Outlaws?”
Einstein lowered the binoculars and looked at the two women. “Oh yeah, they’re outlaws, and you know what those motherfuckers want.”
Dallas and Roper exchanged looks. “What they always want––the Fuchs.”
Roper looked at Dallas. “Or women.”
Dallas nodded. “Or women.”
Einstein placed the binoculars back up to his face. “Shit. They’re splitting up.”
“Gonna try to surround us.” Dallas motioned to Fletcher to head toward an outcropping of rocks. “Shoot first, ask questions later.”
“Roger that, boss.” Fletcher took two bowmen with him and high-tailed it for the rocks pushing their way toward the blue sky.
“Yeah. There are four vehicles,” Einstein said, not taking the binoculars from his eyes. “The fourth looks like a comfort car.”
“Their leader will be in that one,” Roper said, moving back to the Fuchs. “Cowards always lead from the back. Dallas?”
Dallas kept staring at the horizon.
“Come on,” Roper urged her. “They’ve probably got rifles.”
Einstein lowered the binoculars once more and studied Dallas’s profile. “What are you thinking, Dallas?”
Dallas frowned. “I’m thinking how much I hate killing other survivors. There has to be a better way. Us killing each other is such a god damned waste. Maybe we can talk some sense into them.”
Roper stepped back to her. “Seriously? After all we’ve been through and you want to reason with Neanderthals? Get. In. The Fuchs. Now.”
Dallas and Einstein both stared at Roper. She rarely got bossy, and never with Dallas.
Roper lightly placed her hand on Dallas’s shoulder. “Dog-eat-dog world, love. Don’t you ever forget it. Now, are you going to get in the Fuchs or am I gonna have to put you in a headlock and drag you in there? We are not, I repeat, not going to try to reason with anyone.”
Dallas sighed and shook her head. “I’m going. I just don’t want us to become those kind of people.”
“You mean the kind who stays alive? Yeah, sweetheart. We are.”
The three of them returned to the Fuchs, and Einstein climbed up the ladder to man the turret––a machine gun that shot rounds of 7.80 ammo––ammo they saved for occasions like this.
The bus filled with Dallas’s people pulled up behind the Fuchs and parked behind it as planned. Everyone on the bus pulled out their weapons and shoved the barrels through the windows. The bus had been hijacked once––they knew better how to protect it now.
“Einstein?”
He called down the ladder, “Good to go. Sights on the trailing vehicle.”
“You hold until I give the go.”
“Roger that.”
Dallas wasn’t surprised when the oncoming vehicle stopped a hundred yards away.
“They’ve surrounded us,” a hippy named Ferdie announced from the back of the Fuchs. “Just the Hummer, though. No sweat. The Bad Boy up top will blow it to bits with just one rocket.”
No one moved.
The heat from the road rose in waves, reminding everyone where they were and what it meant to be chased by these marauders. Dallas figured these people lived close by. They hadn’t just stumbled upon her group. Someone had seen their small caravan and told their leader...a leader who was now quite unexpectedly walking towards them with his hands up.
Surrendering?
“He’s unarmed,” Roper said, looking through a second pair of binoculars. “I don’t like it.”
“It’s a trap,” someone murmured.
Roper turned, her face hardened stone. “I agree. Don’t let your guards down.”
“Everyone hold your fire.” Dallas picked up the mic and issued the same order to those on the bus. She looked at Roper. “We will not start firing on unarmed people.”
“The moment I see a weapon, love, I am blasting anything standing out there.”
“Roper––”
“No, Dallas. Not up for discussion. We will not be taken again. Ever. Again. If we’re going down, we’re going swinging. ”
Dallas stared at her. “Violence can’t always be our solution, Roper.”
“Sure it can. It is what it is, love. If they aren’t with us, they’re against us. Those yahoos out there? Aren’t with us.”
When the man was half a football field away, Einstein yelled out, “That’s far enough. Come any closer and we’ll light you up!”
The man stopped, his hands still raised in the air.
Everyone in the Fuchs looked to Dallas.
“Don’t even think about it,” Roper growled. “We are not negotiating. Tell him to go the fuck away and he can live to see sunset.”
Dallas put the mic to her mouth. “State your business.”
The man cupped his hands to his mouth. “My name is Ike. There’s a town about five miles back that has taken six of my people and won’t give them back. We have no weapons, and I am begging you to help me get them back. As you see, I am unarmed. We all are.”
“Then why surround us?”
“To keep you from running. No one else will help us. Look, I know how bad it is out here with marauders and all. I figured you’d run or turn and fight. That’s what everyone else does.” Ike looked defeated and his voice nearly cracked.
“Why would a town take your people?”
“We were looking for food...and...” Ike bent over and put his hands on his knees and then toppled over on the ground.
Pedal to the Metal (Riders of the Apocalypse Book 4) Page 2
