by Evans, Mike
Dark Roads
Zombies & Chainsaws 2
By Mike Evans
Dedicated to my wife and children, I love you all. Also to my fans and readers this has been an amazing year, there is plenty more coming my friends.
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© 2016 Mike Evans, All Rights Reserved
Edited By Sara Marian Deurell
Cover by Lisa Vasquez
Thanks as well to Christy Thornbrugh, Rosa Thomas-Mcbroom, Karen Dziegiel, Jon Spielman and Leslie Morrison Bryant for beta reading it is not a small deal and I thank you much!
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Books by Mike Evans
The Orphans Series
The Orphans: Origins Vol I
Surviving the Turned Vol II (The Orphans Series)
Strangers Vol III (The Orphans Series)
White Lie Vol IV (The Orphans Series)
Civil War Vol V(The Orphans Series) coming soon
Zombies and Chainsaws
Zombies and Chainsaws 1
Dark Roads (Zombies and Chainsaws 2)
The Rising Series
Deal with the Devil Book 1
Gabriel Series
Gabriel: Only one gets out alive
Pitch Black (Gabriel Book 2)
Body Count (Gabriel Book 3)
The Uninvited Series
The Uninvited Book 1
The Uninvited Sequel Book 2 coming soon
Other works
Buried: Broken oaths
Chapter 1
Sunday of the outbreak
Jude drove steadily, watching his gas gauge. He was not overly impressed with what he was getting for miles per gallon. Along with the dead which could be anywhere, his biggest worry was whether or not he'd be lucky enough to run through a small town. He figured if they went much further, they would need a gas station.
Chuck, in the back of the van with Leslie, was hell-bent on going north toward home; regardless of what he’d been told, Jude, Leslie, and Joann could not convince him to agree that going west was the responsible thing to do.
Chuck said, “Jude, buddy, I’m telling you we need to go north. If this shit's already hit Iowa, then what do you think you're doing to help anyone?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Chuck, maybe I was thinking that if we go to the news station in town, we could warn them and they could alert the rest of the country. Hell, they could tell the whole world, if it's made it that far.”
Chuck said, “I’d say everyone in Missouri knows about this, and I’d think Iowa is having a hell of an afternoon right about now. From what Maria mentioned to you the last time the two of you talked, there was no shortage of the dead roaming the streets.”
The fact that he had not called home to tell them he was still alive was something he was well-aware would result in a severe ass-chewing later. Jude looked out the window, noticing a group of people milling around a graveyard at the side of the road. He could tell by their clothes that they’d been in the ground for a while; besides, no one got buried on a Sunday. Jude tried to suppress his laugh when he saw them.
Joann piped up, “I’m sorry, but what about anything today could possibly be funny to you?”
Chuck was laughing, too, at this point. She gave him a look to inquire if he actually knew what the joke was; of course he didn’t. Chuck choked on his laugh, and Jude pointed to the deceased men and said, “I wonder if the Civil War reenactors are going to be getting their rocks off when they see all these guys walking the north and south, still dressed in legit clothes from the war?”
Joann said, “Middle of a zombie apocalypse, and you're thinking about what old guys getting out of their graves are wearing…. Of course you are. I mean, what else could you possibly be thinking about?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Joann. Maybe I should continue thinking about my little boy and his aunt locked up tight in the basement of my house. The same house with the piece of shit door that needs to be fixed. Then I can keep focused on the idea of one of them stupid-ass zombies breaking through that door and eating the two of them. Got you, thanks for that. I’ll stop thinking about the old soldiers and concentrate on my boy being torn apart while I’m hours away, rushing off to try and save the entire country and putting my family second.”
She opened her mouth to say something, not sure exactly what there was to say. Chuck leaned forward, highbrow as could be, and said, “Well, I would imagine that you just feel horrible now, don’t you?”
Leslie whispered from her seat, “Not helping, Chuck. Really, really not helping.”
Sitting back with a smile on his face, Chuck stretched out on the rear bench breaking the awkward silence, “We going to be there soon, Jude?”
“Chuck, if you ask me again, I swear by all things holy that I am going to leave you on the side of the road. I don’t think Leslie or Joann would have too big of an issue with it.”
Chuck, never shy of being cocky, said, “I’m growing on Leslie, Jude, I know it. I have a way of wearing a woman down.”
Leslie said, “Well, just so you don't have any confusion, let me just tell you my shield is a thick one, and you haven’t even put a scuff mark on it as of yet. The only good thing you’ve done since I met you was getting me out of that van and throwing me into horde after horde of zombies.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I just saved your life. Don’t you worry about it, Leslie, there’s something there. I can feel it. You just need to give it time, darling,” Chuck said.
“You aren’t confusing that with having to pee, are you, Chuck?” she asked.
“Hell no, I’m just barely over my hangover from last night. We’ve been on the go since, like, midnight. After our buddy decided to drink rainwater and turned into one of the dead, I kind of stopped feeling so thirsty. Better said, I'm not drinking anything that don’t come in a bottle until regular ol' water has been deemed safe and drinkable.”
Joann looked up from making notes on a pad of paper she had found in the van. “You know, we need to ask someone to test that water. If the dissolved chemicals really did evaporate into the water cycle, I’d think that after a few days it’s going to be completely out of the atmosphere.”
“Atmos who?” Chuck asked.
“Water, Chuck, it goes up in the air, which goes into the clouds, clouds become rainclouds, and then it rains. Are you keeping up?”
Chuck held out his hand flat, tilting it side to side.
Joann continued, “So what I'm hoping is that, once it rains enough, it will work itself out of the clouds. My best-educated guess is that, after a few good rainfalls, we'll be okay to have rainwater without the fear of turning into one of those things. But there are people far better equipped at this kind of science than myself to give everyone the all-is-clear signal. That, of course, is if those people are still alive to do the tests.”
Jude gla
nced up at the dark clouds. “So you think once it’s done, the dead will stop moving, and all will be restored?”
Joann said, “No, I’m pretty sure those that are up are staying that way. It'll be up to us to put them back down. As far as the living who are turning, I think they're more dangerous than anything else roaming. I’ll happily take one of the slow ones over one that can run and jump after us.”
“Yeah," Jude said, "but the problem is being able to decipher which ones are slow and which are fast before it's too late. I mean, think about all those poor bastards with guns out there, trying to shoot them in the chests. If they aren’t unloading on one, they probably aren’t slowing them down.” He thought about the army shooting 223 rounds. “Christ, there’s a pretty damn good chance the army is going to come out armed to the teeth, shooting through magazines like there's no tomorrow, and lose men—lots of men.”
Joann said, “Well, then, I sure as hell hope we get there in time. I mean, they don’t just deploy twenty or thirty men for this. They’ll send thousands.”
“You realize time is precious, right?" Chuck interjected. "If we go and waste too much time here trying to warn the world about this on the news, we're going to miss our window and be stuck here. At some point, the states are all going to blame it on each other, and they're going to lock down tighter than shit. Do you want to spend your zombie-fighting days stuck down here in Missouri, or at home with your family?”
“Why would they shut down borders between states, Chuck?” Leslie asked.
“Because, Leslie, if you were listening, there ain’t any state that's going to say their state is worse than the next one. Now, by the time they're done, the entire U.S.A. is going to be locked up tighter than someone with lockjaw. I’m telling you, we are going to get stuck here.”
Jude was about to retort that they’d cross that bridge when they came to it, but found something more urgent at hand. “Hey, guys, there’s something wrong with the van.”
Chuck said, “What, you mean besides the fact it don’t have air conditioning in it?”
“You know how the last quarter tank of gas always seems to go quicker on the gauge than the first?”
“Don’t say it, Jude,” Chuck groaned.
Jude didn't have to, because the van started to shake violently as it sucked the last precious drops of gas out of its tank and died. They were just coming over the top of a very large hill; Jude pointed down the slope toward another large cemetery near the roadside. It had most definitely been inhabited—it was well stocked with the dead.
The four of them screamed Oh fuck! as the van flew down the hill. Jude did his best to control it, but he'd lost power steering, as well as power brakes. Chuck patted him on the shoulder, saying, “You keep this sweet little thing on the road, brother. You got me?”
Jude shrugged him off. “It isn’t like I have intentions of crashing the damn thing. We’ll just bring it to a stop on the next hill, once I get the piece of shit to slow down, and we can walk for gas.”
Leslie pointed to the group of dead, all seemingly lost. “You don’t think they're going to be a problem?”
Jude said, “I don’t see how, if we stay ahead of them. If they try to run, they just fall over anyway. We got less than ten miles to walk. A few miles back, there was a sign for Raytown—I think it has to be just up ahead.”
Chuck said, “Excuse me, but did you just say ten miles? You want to walk ten fucking miles?”
Jude snapped back, “Chuck, I don’t want to do anything but kick my feet up on my couch at home and watch the race today. Now, seeing how that sure as hell ain’t gonna happen, I don’t see as we got a choice in the matter.”
Joann said, “I thought we had the gas from the farm we stopped at. Don’t we have enough to top off the tank?”
Jude said, “We probably got enough to put a gallon in it, but we're going to be in the same situation in a few miles, and then have nothing to fight those things off with. You want to walk out there naked, Joann? We sure can, but it don’t seem like that smart of an idea to me.”
Chuck leaned forward, smiling, brushing Joann’s shoulder. “Now what’s this about going off naked?”
Joann turned around, slapping his hand hard enough to leave it numb. “Damn it, Chuck, would you please stop thinking with your dick? No one is getting laid today, do you understand me? If anyone does, I guarantee it isn’t going to be you. Your friend was saying that if we use the small amount of gas we have, we’ll have to go out against those things without the saws. I can’t say going up against those things with only the axes and not knowing how many there are is a wonderful thought. Do you understand that, Chuck? Huh—do you?”
Chuck sat back in his seat, rubbing his hand. “Yeah, I get it, Joann. You're more into Jude—happens every time.”
Leslie sat forward, patting Jude on the shoulder. “He isn’t the brightest bulb in the store, is he?”
Jude shook his head slowly. “No…I think his bulb burned out a long time ago. Unfortunately, he’s a hell of a faithful, good guy to have by your side, so I can't get rid of him. But you never know—maybe one of those zombies will take him out for me, and then I won’t have to feel all that guilty about it. I mean, I'll surely be heartbroken at first, but I’ll figure out a way to go on with life.”
“I’ll have you know, Jude, that you are going to miss me very much in this imaginary scenario. Probably going to soak your pillow with tears trying to figure out how you'll live without me.”
Leslie leaned up close to Joann. “Is this normal? I mean, have you been around them enough to know if it's just the stress making them banter like this, or is this just how it is?”
“I don’t know, Leslie; I hope it’s the stress, honestly. I have a feeling, though, that this is just how it is. Maybe we can figure things out before we have to spend too much time with them.”
Leslie smiled for a moment, thinking of freedom, and then realized she didn’t have anywhere to go.
Tears filled her eyes, and Chuck said, “Christ, I'm sorry, all right? I won’t joke around no more. We were just teasing, anyhow. I didn’t mean to get your panties in a bunch.”
Leslie wiped at her eyes. “No, it isn’t you…well, I take that back, you aren’t helping. We’ve been so busy running from these things and trying to get answers to share with people who might be able to do something about this, I didn’t realize that, when this is over, I have nowhere to go. Those bastards took my dad, and he was my only family. We were traveling to his new job. I was going to get one when I got out there, but until then he was going to support me and let me stay with him. Now I don’t have a dad, I don’t have a place to live—I'm homeless.”
Chuck said, “I guess I’d be pretty sad, too, if my life went to shit all in a matter of one day. Shit, I wouldn’t know what to do if I were you.” He wanted, quite literally, to grab the words back after they left his mouth.
Jude cringed for him, and a hand came out of nowhere to slap Chuck upside the head.
Leslie rubbed at her hand, feeling bad instantly because she assumed Chuck was seeing stars. “I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. You just need to think before you talk, God damn it.”
“You sure you didn’t mean to hit me that hard? Because, well, it kind of feels like you did, on account of my fucking head hurting. If you could refrain from abuse this early in our relationship, I sure would appreciate it.”
“Chuck, I'm sorry. I won’t do that again.”
“Well, sure as shit right, you won’t. Christ, you aren’t ever gonna get a man, doing shit like that. I’ll have you know—“
Leslie sat back in her seat. “Oh, my God, he has a one-track brain, doesn’t he? I mean only one, and I honestly think even that one seems stupider than a normal man’s. Jude, how’d we get so lucky to have you with us?”
Jude shrugged. “I don’t know how lucky you are. Having a good woman was what got my head on straight. I mean, I guess if you were real lucky, we wouldn’t be sitting
here in the middle of effing nowhere.”
Joann said, “We should probably to get walking, right?”
“You guys think you can handle any more bad news?” Chuck asked.
The three of them, in unison, said, “No!”
“Well hell, now I feel bad about saying something. So when we were going down that big-ass hill and Jude was trying to keep this lovely vehicle on the road, and we passed that cemetery—I think we need to stop driving past these things; I don’t think we've had anything good happen to us because of it, if you know what I mean—anyway, they look like they're walking this way now. Anyone got any ideas?”
Jude said, “Yeah, I got a hell of a good one. Let’s get our gear out of the back of this thing and get our asses moving. Maybe we can find somewhere to get gas at and come back.”
“Are you kidding me?" Leslie said. "If this town has any gas, then we fill up whatever car we can steal and finish making our way to Kansas City. Hopefully, we'll be able to get some attention from someone at the news station. If we can get on television, it shouldn’t take too long to warn people about what's going on. If they've seen any of the dead out roaming the streets, we shouldn’t have to work too hard to convince them.”
Jude said, “Yeah, before we hit the road I need to get a bite to eat...after I get all this death off of my skin. I definitely need to check in with Maria for a minute. I already know she's going to whoop my ass for not calling in the last few hours, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to waste the time. I can’t imagine what's going through her mind right now. I really hope by some miracle that Patrick hasn’t seen what was happening outside.”
“Shit, that kid is tough as nails," Chuck said. "You know how smart Maria is—she probably covered the doors and windows with blankets so he couldn’t see out. She’s only going to be able to contain him in that basement for so long before he starts going nuts, though. You know how antsy kids get. The minute you tell them they can’t do something, that's all they want to do in life.”
