Whatever had been in that IV bag had fundamentally changed him, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was all for the better.
Jimmy Winchell walked in and she smiled. Back at her old home in Atlanta, she had a few of his CDs. He was one of country music’s biggest stars a few months ago, today he would be helping her put in a toilet. She’d have to check if the little record shop in town had any of his music. She still wanted an autograph.
5
Gunny
Gunny had to admit, he was a little bit jealous. This was the kind of crash pad he’d dreamed of having when he was young and single, growing up in the Eastern Kentucky Mountains. He’d been turning wrenches for the whiskey runners since he could hold a tool and a shop like this, set up at the foot of the holler, would have been something special. He’d been avoiding the office and his duties while working on Jessie's new place for the last couple of days. Lacy had turned some dirty offices and even dirtier bathrooms into a charming little bachelor’s pad, complete with a kitchen. That was all fine, but what he really appreciated was the garage area. A three bay, one of them with a hydraulic lift, and plenty of room for toolboxes and welders. The kids had snagged one of the arcade machines out of the bowling alley and Slippery Jim had done something to it so it was set on free play. The sounds of Pacman were coming from the corner as Jessie pulled the old Mercury into the center bay, the one with the lift, and he limped over to push the arms under the frame.
They were going to improve the car as much as they could, build a real Pony Express Runner that would keep him alive, no matter what he ran into. It was the wild, wild west outside of the walls. Bastille had been broadcasting some old radio westerns he’d dug up from somewhere and now it was in everyone’s heads. America had reverted a hundred and fifty years. The dangerous bandito’s of yesteryear were compared to Casey’s Raiders, and the radical Muslims had been compared to wild Indians for a few days, until Dutch and Joey Tallstrider had heard and taken offense. Bastille had decided it wasn’t such a good analogy and hastily apologized to the two pissed off Indians. Now he called the radicals still out there godless heathens. He was pretty sure nobody was going to stomp in claiming to be one and claiming to be offended.
Nobody knew what the raging zombie hordes were like when compared to anything in history. There simply hadn’t been anything like them before.
The wild west idea had taken hold and some were already romanticizing the wide-open spaces. Not many people wanted to go outside the walls, though. That was a good way to get yourself killed.
Gunny poked around under the car once they had it in the air, thinking about different ways to improve it while his mind worried about the things he was privy to as the so-called president.
General Carson, his number two, had pointed out that the earliest census for the States was in 1790, and there were nearly four million people way back then. Carson’s best guess, judging from satellite signatures, was there were only a few hundred thousand people left in America, spread out everywhere. Unless more groups were discovered, hidden away, living underground or in high rise buildings in the cities that was all. That wasn’t enough people. Anything could happen to wipe them out. Massive hordes of undead. Some new sickness or flu bug that could kill thousands. Casey’s gang of idiots slowly culling the population. The humans were barely hanging on, still on the endangered species list.
Carson was still trapped inside Cheyenne Mountain and he didn’t have the manpower or the know-how in his small group of men to do much more than he was. Over the winter, they were able to pick up more and more fires with the satellite infrared filters set to anything over one thousand degrees. He was able to track Casey and his band the same way, following their path as they headed west, then watching the signature of dozens of fires spring up every night. Carson had made it clear that they wouldn’t have the satellites for much longer. He had no way of controlling them, he could only access what they were downloading. Without the gentle nudges from the engineers, or the computers keeping them on their path, their orbits were slowly getting out of sync. Only a little at first, but a few centimeters out of route became a few meters, then a few kilometers, then one by one, they would be pulled back into the atmosphere to burn up on reentry or hurled out into space. He had a few more months, Carson had said. After that, nothing was guaranteed. Systems started breaking down, minor glitches became major problems, and all they could do was watch some of man’s most advanced creations wind down and end an era that may take centuries to be duplicated.
Another month, Gunny thought as he used a screwdriver to dig chunks of old meat out of the undercarriage. No more. I need to get a posse together and go after him. Casey couldn’t be allowed to leisurely build an army, then come at them when they were blinded, when the satellites were gone.
Jessie had done a pretty good job of beefing up the car, making it zombie proof with the few resources he had on hand, but they were going to do it up right. Gunny knew the boy had to get out. If he tried to make him stay, he’d just take off in the middle of the night, half-cocked and unprepared. This way, if they built him the best car they possibly could, he should be relatively safe. Even from Casey’s band of idiots, or that group up north who had beaten him so badly then gave him a miracle medicine. He would make a good emissary and they needed to start banding the settlements together. Making the nation whole again with pledges of mutual support and trade between the fortified towns.
The old Mercury body was in decent shape, it had been a southern car and only had a little rust around the fenders. Gunny had gone through the mechanics over the years, replacing the tired flathead V-8 with a 429 Cobra Jet he pulled out of an old police car. Mechanically the car was sound, they’d tinkered with it all winter. He’d rebuilt the engine to run on pump gas and it would run forever. Nothing too radical, just a healthy cam and some headwork. Parts were easy to find and it was easy to work on with just basic hand tools. There were no fancy electronics to fail, no engine fault codes to cause it to shut down for some unknown reason. It was old school and dependable. He had a top loader four-speed transmission mated to it, so even if the battery was dead, it could still be push started. He was satisfied with most of the drive train, he wanted to reinforce the body and then improve the running gear. He wanted it to be able to take off-road punishment if needed. Jessie had used a hacksaw on the fenders to cut away metal so the oversized Jeep tires would fit, but Gunny wanted something better. Something a little more industrial. Captain Wilson was bringing in a handful of Hummers from the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant on his next run down and Gunny wanted the tires from one. They were run-flat and Jessie wouldn’t have to worry about hitting a nail, or in a worst-case scenario, having them shot out by one of Casey’s goons. Another thing he’d asked for was flack vests. S-4 would have crates of them over in supply and he wanted to line the car with a triple layer. Especially the doors and fenders to protect the driver, the motor, and the fuel supply.
Tommy was already busy up front unbolting the gold plated, blood-encrusted, push bar Jessie had installed. He was going to weld one up that looked a lot better, fit the contours of the car, and was tied into the frame. Julio and Sammy were wiring in the three stage wet foggers for the Nitrous Oxide system in case he needed a little extra go power. They’d replaced the gas with medical grade NOS, it didn’t have the sulfurs in it like automotive grade did. It still came out of the bottle a hundred degrees below zero, it still added hundreds of raw horses, but in an emergency, it could be used for other things besides making the car go faster.
Gunny caught Lacy’s eye as she measured for drapes and they shared a look. A little sad, a little happy. Their boy was spreading his wings. They couldn’t keep him in the nest any longer, but at least they were preparing him the best they could for what was out there. Unspoken between them, they were doing everything possible to put off the inevitable. He had agreed to wait until spring, the middle of winter was no time to be testing out new equipment and new routes. They had wo
rked on the car for the past few months, getting it right, and he’d continued training with the militia. It couldn’t be called the army because the Marines had refused to be a part of it, threatened to start their own branch if it came to that, so they had settled on Militia. Everybody was happy. Sort of. But they made it work.
Jessie already had real-world experience, now he was learning from some of the best soldiers left alive. They were teaching him heavy machine guns, long distance shooting, hand to hand combat, field medicine, and train, train, train on his preferred weapons. Day in and day out, they drilled. Many of those that joined the Militia as full-time members hadn’t been infantry, many of them had been out of the service for years and were out of shape, many of them had forgotten much of what they knew. There were enough that knew enough though, and Captain Wilson stepped in as commander, with young Lieutenant Cobb as his second. They were rigorous with the training schedule. The men all knew what was out beyond the walls. No one signed up to get a free college ride or as an only option to get away from home. They knew they were all being taught at an accelerated pace, at a Ranger or Force Recon level. They didn’t wear PT belts, they didn’t have endless hours of marching or inspections, and they didn’t have mandatory sexual harassment classes. They learned how to kill people and break things. That was their only job.
The dogs weren’t spared, either. One of the men had a lot of experience working with hunting dogs and put together a regimen for the dozens of big dogs inside the walls. Most were trained to sniff out the undead, it made patrols outside the barrier safer and clearing houses much easier. A few were given advanced training, taught how to incapacitate the zombies by snapping their necks, then quickly moving on to the next. Bubba Williams couldn’t believe how fast Jessie's dog caught on. He usually only had to be shown something once and he understood.
“Smartest dog I ever done seen,” he’d tell anyone that would listen, usually down at Pretty Boy Floyd’s after a few beers. “It’s almost like he understands English.”
Jessie wasn’t surprised. Something was in those injections he’d gotten from the prison. He’d given Bob a dose after he’d been shot and the dog had displayed the same amazing healing abilities he had. Jessie didn’t feel any smarter, he didn’t miraculously know things he didn’t know before, but things came easier now. Instead of having to do math in his head to figure out what seven times fifteen was, he just knew. It came as easy as one plus one. Same with his reflexes. He moved faster because he saw things faster. During hand to hand exercises, he could see the muscles bunch up on his opponent and knew he was getting ready to move his arm or sweep his leg. He supposed he had always seen those things, but now his brain processed them so fast he could do something about it. Sometimes it almost seemed like they were moving in slow motion. He figured it was the same for Bob.
6
Jessie
“Man, it would be cool if you could mount one of those chain guns on the roof,” Doug said as they admired the car sitting in Jessie's garage. It was mid-March, he’d been working on it every day after training, and was ready to get going. Once he started using the lift in his new digs, everything came together fast, they had new off-road suspension under it in less than a week.
“Yeah, it would, but I’d have to stop to fire it. Besides, it uses way too much ammo to be practical,” Jessie replied and they both shifted their eyes to the M-60 machine gun that was hanging from a swivel arm just outside the driver’s window. It was attached to a steel roof rack that had supplies and extra fuel and ammo strapped to it and could be operated one-handed while he was driving.
Just in case.
Military grade whip antennas wired into the mobile Ham radio were mounted to the oversized rear bumper and it was welded solid to the frame. The Hummer tires looked huge on the car and he doubted that he’d be doing any more burnouts with them. Scratch and Stabby had come over one evening and spray painted a skull on the doors and had scrawled Zombie Road on the roof-mounted gas tank. He let them do it, they were some of the few who didn’t make him feel uncomfortable about his looks. Scratch had given him a road sign, to an annoyed glare from Sheriff Collins for defacing government property that he’d bolted a loop and hand grip to. It made for a nice shield.
“Last resort, if you have to go hand to hand,” he said. “And watch the edges, they’re sharp.”
He’d pulled it off of one of the roads that lead to the beach, a bright yellow one with DEAD END spelled out in bold, black letters. They used Velcro to attach it to the basket on the roof, handy to grab if he needed it. The Mercury had a complete exoskeleton now and Hot Rod had mentioned that it looked similar to Sammy’s Mustang.
“You think Casey’s guys are building cars like this?” Jessie had asked, the slightest bit of apprehension creased his brow, worried about running across a band of outlaws with battle wagons.
“Doubt it,” he’d answered. “I saw some of their cars when they rolled through town after the battle. Mostly just bolt on stuff. Kind of like what you built at first. It works against the zombies, but nothing like this baby. This is a real battle tank.”
It seemed like half the town was there at his Pony Express Inaugural Run party. He hadn’t wanted a big sendoff, he’d planned on a quiet night trying to beat the high score on the Pacman machine that had Scratch’s initials in the top three slots. That Bastille guy had made a big deal out of it, though. He made a big deal out of everything, it seemed. Jessie was learning he was a worse gossip than the women at the hair salon, only he called it news and didn’t whisper it. He shouted it for everyone in the world to hear over his radio station.
All these people were making him uneasy, acting like he was so brave. He’d been out there before, it was no big deal. He’d tried to tell them this, but they just thought he was being modest. They knew the truth. They knew there were millions of undead roaming around, waiting to catch you while you were refueling or using the bathroom. They knew there were hundreds of ruthless bandits in Casey the Cannibal’s gang, and they would kill you and eat you if given half a chance. They knew there were still hundreds, maybe thousands, of radical Jihadis out there still fighting the war. Still killing and beheading anyone they found. They knew that many of the zoo animals had been set free or escaped in desperation and there were lions and tigers and wolves and feral dogs and even packs of feral cats that would kill you. They knew there was some mysterious group of people up north that had nearly beat him to death and left him for dead. Jessie tried to tell them that yeah, okay, maybe all those things were out there, but they were few and far between. It was mostly just abandoned and desolate country. Ten thousand miles of roads with no one on them. Thousands of vacant houses and towns, with nothing living or dead anywhere to be found. They nodded and smiled, maybe clapped him on the shoulder as they told him good luck and God Speed. They seemed to know better than he did what was out there and Bastille didn’t help matters, blowing every wild story he heard from newcomers into something the National Enquirer would have been proud of. No one thought to ask the truckers their opinions of the dangers. They went on supply runs every week, but they went in numbers, with armored rigs and army escorts. Of course they didn’t have any trouble, they weren’t out there all alone. They weren’t delivering important mail or much-needed parts between settlements all by themselves. They weren’t exploring new areas. Jessie was tired of telling them it really wasn’t that bad. They didn’t believe him.
Slippery Jim elbowed him and cocked his head toward a girl about sixteen. “She’s been eyeballing you all night,” he said with a grin. “Her name’s Carla and I heard her gushing about you on the radio every time there was a call in about the Road Angel.”
“Piss off, Jim,” Jessie said with an eye roll, then reached over to give him a wedgie as the kid danced out of reach.
“Just saying,” Jimmy said. “I can set you two up. If I had a girl as pretty as her staring googly eyes at me, I’d at least go talk to her.”
“She’s proba
bly just grossed out by my face,” Jessie said and took off toward the buffet that Martha and Cookie had laid out and Bob was busy begging at. He was uncomfortable talking about girls, especially pretty ones. She probably just believed all that nonsense Bastille was always going on about anyway. He wasn’t a hero or a Road Angel or anything else. He just did what had to be done and the faces in the mirror were telling him he hadn’t done enough. He hadn’t atoned enough. He was still looking for redemption, still wanting the kids with their slightly askew heads to stop staring at him. They had faded far back in the mist for a long time, but they were becoming clearer again. They were making their silent demands in the mirror, and the wolf was starting to pace, making him feel edgy.
Every time he saw Doug or Slippery Jim, it reminded him of all the people he’d failed. Reminded him he still had some making up to do to balance the scales. Every time he forgot about feeling guilty, he’d see one of them and it would all come crashing back on him. His dad had told him none of what happened was his fault. He hadn’t told the nuns to drive on without him, he hadn’t been the one to decide to break into the convenience store. Jessie would nod, say okay, but in his heart, he didn’t believe it, he still blamed himself.
He’d drifted apart from Doug, didn’t see him much anymore. They’d tried to rekindle the friendship, had played Xbox together a few times but it wasn’t the same. Doug, like most of the rest of the people, were trying to get back to a life they had before the outbreak. School and homework, jobs and responsibilities, video games and football, Friday night movies or concerts, bonfires at the beach and trying to forget what was beyond the walls.
Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Page 5
