Five Roads To Texas: A Phalanx Press Collaboration

by Lundy, W. J.

  “That’s it, come a little closer,” she said, expecting him to slowly approach.

  He didn’t. She started, almost dropping her gun as his body slammed against the trunk like a slab of meat, and he stood there leering up at her, his teeth exposed in some sort of grimace.

  Deena had to reach up and grab the edge of the hole to steady herself and readjust her shins on the bench inside. She stretched out again with her hands extended above her head in a double-fisted hold on the pistol.

  Something was wrong. He’d gotten closer to her somehow.

  He pulled his right hand off the nails in the tree much like you’d pull a chunk of meat off a fork. Stretching it up, he slammed it on the next grouping of nails to pull himself closer to her. He was close, way too close, and she fired.

  A red entry wound appeared right next to his nose and under his eye. His head lolled back for a second, only to snap into focus upon her even more fiercely than before.

  Deena became unhinged and emptied her small gun into the face of this thing that came for her. It still stared at her after four rounds, but five and six sent it crashing to the ground, where she kept firing until her slide locked back.

  She pulled herself into the deer stand, sitting where she could see the dead body on the ground. It would be several hours before she would believe it was actually dead. Maybe even days.

  15

  Denver, Colorado

  March 27th

  “Are you sure you can’t come home?”

  Jack shook his head. “No. Half the office is out, including Farrelly. I’m the only one who knows enough about his deal to talk to the clients.”

  “Farrelly is a pederast.”

  He stifled a laugh and stole a glance at the office door to make sure no one could hear her. Sarah saw his eyes leave the screen.

  “Oh, relax, Jack. You just said he’s out of the office today.”

  “Yeah, but Johnson’s not. You know he has no sense of humor.”

  “Right,” she said. “Just get your stuff done and get home, will you? All this crap going on lately has me nervous. First, there was that video GNN showed this morning, and then there’s all of these random attacks going on.”

  “That video was probably a hoax,” Jack replied, even though he hadn’t taken the time to watch it. “And all the attacks are just being hyped by the media. There’s no connection, I’m sure. You know the old news axiom: if it bleeds, it leads.”

  “Jack, there was an attack in front of Cheep’s Chicken today. It was pretty savage, from what I heard.”

  Christ, that’s just a mile from the house, he thought.

  “Were you there?” he asked aloud.

  “No, but Bonnie was. She had the kids with her, and they’re freaked out. Of course, she said that health care cuts are causing it. Mental health issues aren’t getting the attention they need. The Republicans want the working class to die. Blah, blah, you know how she is.” Sarah had no love lost for their wannabe political activist neighbor.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Don’t worry, next week it will be something else. She’s a total cause-head.”

  “Well, we’re not gonna protest.”

  He loved that Sarah ran with his PCU reference. Her ability to relate to his constant movie references was one of the things that attracted him to her when they first met. She could quote The Godfather better than he could. He often told people they were a match made in Heaven Can Wait. Not many people got that joke, but he thought it was damn funny.

  “We’re not gonna protest,” he replied, continuing the scene from the final act of the movie. “Jeremy Piven at his Piven-iest.”

  Sarah chuckled. “Now I need to watch that stupid movie. I love you. Get your ass home, please.”

  “Will do, as soon as I get off with the Australians.”

  “Jesus, you’ll do anything win that account.”

  “I meant get off of the telecon with them, smartass.”

  “My way would probably work better,” she teased. “Just sayin’.”

  “If things don’t go well, I’ll give it a try. See you tonight.”

  He pressed the end button, and her smiling face disappeared from the screen. He noted the time on his phone. It was three forty-five.

  At five o’clock he was supposed to have a teleconference with the execs at Royal Gaming. They were an up-and-coming gaming machine company based out of Australia, looking to get a foothold in the United States. Jack’s firm would be building five new casinos over the next eighteen months, and Kurt Farrelly had been working a deal to get Royal’s machines at a price twenty percent under that of their current supplier. It would be a pretty big coup, and in the view of everyone at Jack’s firm, one of those win-win situations for both companies. With Farrelly out and this virus going around, however, it was up to Jack to convince the Royal CFO, a man with whom he didn’t have a relationship, why selling ten thousand machines at break-even pricing was the right move for them.

  Jack’s boss, Gil Johnson, stuck his head in Jack’s office at a quarter ’til five.

  “You ready for this, Jack?” he asked, scratching his head.

  “Yeah, I’m good to go. Connie has the video link set up, and I’m headed to the telepresence room in a minute to get plugged in.”

  “Good. Are you sure you don’t want my help in there?”

  Johnson’s name might be on the marquee, but he was out of his depth talking to client executives, so the last thing Jack wanted was Johnson helping him pitch a deal. Well, a blistering case of anal herpes would probably be after that, but not by much.

  “Nope, I’m good, Gil. I’ll lock them down today, and we can start drawing up papers for signature tomorrow.”

  Gil continued scratching his head. “That’s what I want to hear. Pop by my office when you’re done and let me know how it went.”

  He turned and headed down the hallway, his left hand persistently scratching at his scalp.

  Get some Head and Shoulders, big guy, Jack thought wryly. He closed the lid on his laptop and headed to the telepresence room. He got everything plugged into the system so he could share his screen with the Australians and got connected to the conference with two minutes to spare.

  The meeting went better than Jack could have expected. Royal’s executive team was excited about the prospective deal. They listened intently, followed the numbers, shared their projections with him, and smiled through it all. After forty-five minutes, they made a commitment for the ten thousand machines on the condition they got guaranteed exclusivity to the casino floors for five years, and pricing more favorable to their side on the next batch of machines. Jack agreed. They turned off the camera at the end of the meeting, but before the audio cut out, Jack heard cheers from the room in Melbourne.

  He smiled too. He’d just secured an eighteen-million-dollar discount on gaming machines for the next eighteen months.

  A million a month ain’t bad, he thought. He packed up his stuff and headed to Johnson’s office to tell him the good news.

  There was no answer when he rapped on the door. He waited a minute, then knocked harder.

  That humorless bastard had better not have gone home, not when I stayed here late to cover Farrelly’s ass. And I’d better get the bonus from this deal. If he wants to cut Farrelly in, fine, but I better get paid. I just padded his bottom line by eighteen million.

  “Gil?” Jack said as he knocked on the door one more time. This time, there was a thump from the other side of the two-inch-thick oak door. It sounded exactly like a person falling out of their office chair and landing hard on the floor.

  Jack opened the door and found Gil on the floor, his high-backed leather chair tipped over.

  “Holy shit, Gil! What happened?” Jack took a couple of cautious steps forward.

  Gil raised his head, staring at Jack with malevolent eyes. There were streaks of blood down his cheeks, and it looked like blood was coming from his eyes and ears. His white shirt was streaked with red.

&
nbsp; “Jachs smarlu washsnins!” Johnson screamed.

  “What? Gil, what the fuck is wrong? What happened to your head? Should I call an ambulance?”

  Johnson responded with more nonsense. He sat up and shook his head, flinging blood around the office. A piece of bloody scalp landed on Jack’s laptop with a faint splop sound.

  “Jesus Christ! Gil, I’ll get help!” He took a step back, and Gil hopped into a crouch. He snarled, and the blood from his eyes ran into his mouth, so when he breathed out, he spit blood droplets all over the desk. His teeth were smeared with the red fluid, making him look even more demented.

  Jack took another step backward, holding his laptop and notebook out in front of him.

  “Gil, take it easy. I’ll go get help.”

  Johnson snarled again and launched into a sprint. It caught Jack off guard, and he turned to run but slammed into the edge of the open door. His head smacked the corner of it, making him see stars. He stumbled sideways just as Johnson slammed into the door at full speed, banging it shut. Gil’s head made a cartoonish hollow coconut sound as it smacked the door. He staggered backward, stumbling, but caught his balance and renewed his focus on Jack.

  Jack put his hand to his head, feeling a knot already growing, but thankfully there was no blood. His eyes came back into focus, and he realized that he was now trapped in the office with a bleeding, snarling lunatic. He shook his head, trying to clear the spider webs that formed when he hit his head on the door. The movement seemed to enrage Gil Johnson, who screamed and charged at Jack.

  16

  Near Klamath, California

  March 27th

  “I thought regular Army wasn’t supposed to run operations on US soil?” Ram said quietly as they moved across the bridge, toward the Humvees. Bodies of bullet-ridden civilians and mutilated soldiers lay scattered about. Here and there were a few small piles of both soldiers and civilians, dead where they’d struggled with one another. The smell of battle and death filled the air as crows picked at the exposed flesh of the dead. The birds clearly enjoyed the feast before them. Ram kicked at the nearest feeding carrion birds, sending them flying and squawking over to another corpse.

  Jesse knelt beside the body of a desert-camouflage-clad soldier. The man had been wearing a biohazard suit over his uniform, but most of that had been ripped off. His throat had been shredded into fleshy strips by human hands, and most of his tactical vest was torn and ripped. Wearing latex gloves she’d gotten from the first aid kit, Jesse reached into the remains of the dead man’s shirt and found his military ID.

  “Sergeant Alden Loftin,” she read, and then placed the ID respectively back on his chest. “Military Police—Active Duty.” Jesse looked up at Ram, who had his back to her, shotgun out, watching the bridge for any movement. “To answer your question, no. The Guard should be handling this…whatever this is.”

  “So, what is this, Jesse? Why are they wearing those suits?”

  “What this is, is the biggest crap sandwich you and I have ever eaten.” She stood up and studied the massacre before them. The younger guard had definitely switched over to soldier mode.

  “Not my sandwich of choice,” Ram replied, stepping over to one of the Humvees and opening the passenger side door. The interior was a mess. Gear covered in blood was scattered all about. Expended shell casings lay in pools of blood on the vehicle’s floor. The driver’s door had been thrown wide open during the quick and devastating battle, and the ravenous crowd had obviously torn their way inside and pulled the crew and gunner out. What a fucking mess.

  Ram saw the vehicle’s radio had been destroyed in the fight, just another fucking layer in this crap sandwich. Cursing under his breath, he started to back away, when he noticed what looked like a map case with a bunch of papers shoved inside. Curious, Ram grabbed the case and snatched out the papers. The old guard started to read through them. After a quick scan of the pages, he hurried over to where Jesse stood, still gazing at the bodies spread out on the bridge.

  “Jesse, you gotta read this shit!” he said, shoving the thin stack of papers at her.

  “What is it?” She frowned as she secured the Mini 14 across her chest sling and took the crumpled papers from his shaky hands.

  “Just read it.” Ram wiped the cold sweat from his face as Jesse read the documents quickly. A deep, dark pit of despair was forming in his stomach. He had to get to his family.

  “These are orders,” Jesse said, still reading the pages Ram had handed her. “Some kind of virus is loose in the area. They aren’t clear about what virus it is, but one of the symptoms seems to be uncontrollable rage.”

  “No fuck,” Ram replied, gesturing at the bodies around them.

  “They had orders to contain or terminate.” She dropped her hands to her sides and glanced over at one of the biohazard-suited corpses. “We need to get as far away from here as possible.”

  “Jesse.” Ram tapped the scratch on his face. “Am I infected? Am I going to end up like these fucks?” His voice was deep with worry, and his eyes darted around the carnage, desperately searching for a spare bio suit or unused MOPP gear.

  “Ram,” she paused to jam the papers into her canvas bag, “from everything we’ve seen and from what I know—from before—you would have turned already. Either you have the constitution of a fucking ox or you’re the luckiest son of a bitch ever.”

  “Lucky?” He glanced around at the surrounding mountains and the river below. Normally he’d be happy to be enveloped by God’s natural beauty, but today he only saw sorrow and death. A little relieved that he probably wasn’t infected, he relaxed the shotgun in his hands. “Lucky is a relative term today.”

  She motioned toward the dead. “If those soldiers could talk, I’m sure they’d say you were lucky. Pull it together, Ram. We’re not done yet.”

  “Yeah,” he chuckled without a hint of humor in his voice. “When we started the day, I was the old hand. Now look at you calling the shots.”

  “Does it fucking matter right now, Ram? We’re on a bridge filled with dead military and civilians, with a rage-inducing virus floating around us. Does it really matter if it’s you or me calling the shots?”

  “Yeah, it does. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. You seem to have some kinda idea, so yeah, it matters.” Ram patted her on the shoulder. “I need to get to my family.”

  She nodded. “I get that.” Jesse had no family; she’d been passed from one foster home to another until she was old enough to join ROTC, and then the Navy. The military had been her family for six years. Now it was the California Department of Corrections. She’d traded one uniformed family for another.

  “Let’s clean out one of these Hummers and head into town. The other side of the bridge isn’t blocked.” She pointed past the two blood-smeared, gold-painted bears that lined each side of the bridge.

  “Yeah, I bet that hotel and casino are crawling with these nut jobs.” Ram set the Remington down on the hood of the Humvee and began tossing out the useless and soiled gear from inside.

  “Infected,” Jesse corrected him as she strode over to the driver’s side and pulled a torn, blood-soaked bio suit off the front seat. With a gloved hand, she tossed the canvas bag inside. Careful not to sit in any blood spots, she climbed inside and placed the Mini 14 down next to her left knee to keep it away from her right foot. Ram quickly followed suit. Jesse flipped the vehicle’s ignition switch to WAIT, allowing the diesel engine’s glow plugs time to warm up, and then rotated the switch to RUN. The engine smoothly rumbled to life. Thankfully, some motor pool grunt took very good care of his transports.

  The groan of the Humvee’s motor pierced the silence and drew the unwanted attention of the infected. A crowd of them had started to mass at the other end of the bridge.

  “Ah shit!” Ram grabbed up the shotgun as Jesse gripped his shoulder and pointed upwards to the machine gun in the Humvee’s turret. “Hell, I don’t know how to shoot it!”

  “You drive then!” Jesse shout
ed as she pushed past Ram and climbed up into the turret. The older guard sat there for a few seconds, a little dumbstruck, until the growls of the advancing group of infected brought him back to reality.

  “Fuck me!” Ram groaned as he slid into the driver’s seat. Above him he could hear Jesse slamming the charging handle on the big gun. “This is more than a fucking shit sandwich!”

  As he slammed the Humvee into reverse and tried to make a thirty-point turn into five quick moves, Jesse unloaded on the ravenous crowd with the big gun.

  17

  Near Klamath, California

  March 27th

  As a wave of the infected charged the Humvee, Jesse mowed them down with the vehicle’s automatic weapon. Blood and body parts flew in all directions, the crowd collapsing under her heavy gunfire. Cursing while his ears rang from the burst of the weapon above him, Ram stepped on the gas pedal and quickly drove over the crawling remnants of the bloodthirsty crowd. The big vehicle shuddered as it crushed the infected beneath it and moved on.

  Ram felt a little sick to his stomach as he felt the crunch of the bodies underneath the military vehicle’s tires. Shaking his head, he continued to steer the Humvee away from the thinning crowd. More of the infected continued to pour out of the casino and mini mart. Their only choice for escape would be to barrel through them. The other side of the bridge was blocked by the Army barricade. He hoped Jesse would be able to knock most of the crazies back with the machine gun, giving them some kind of opening. Ram didn’t think he could drive over another group of bodies without throwing up. The machine gun roared to life once more, and then when silent.

  “I’m out!” Jesse shouted from above.

  “Fuck me!” Ram slammed the steering wheel with an open hand. Steeling himself, he aimed the Humvee at the oncoming crowd. “Hold on, Jesse!”