“No,” he replied. “No, that’s not it, I...
I just…
I’m…”
He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t bring out the words that he told himself every time he looked in a mirror.
“You’re scarred?” she asked softly. No malice, no pity. Just saying something plainly, something everybody thought. Something he knew to be true.
Jessie just looked at her in the faint light, nodded his head once.
“My husband got stomped in the rodeo,” she said and reached up to trace her finger along the jagged line that ran from his eye down to his lip. “Fifteen hundred pounds of pissed off bull stepped on his face.” She leaned in, stood up on her toes and kissed the scar where it started under his eye. She kissed it all the way down to his lips, pulling his hand to her chest and holding it over her heart.
“You feel that?” she whispered.
Her heart was hammering hard, matching his own. Her breathing was shallow, her hair smelled like flowers and tobacco, her lips tasted of bourbon.
“He had scars,” she whispered and pulled him gently into the room, closing the door behind them. “You’ve only got a scratch.”
15
Casey
This place was really pissing him off. It had looked good on the map and nobody had any complaints when they took off for Mexico. It would be kind of fitting, he thought. Like the old days when the banditos would go south of the border and live like kings with their stolen money. They would winter on the beach, their injured from the battle of Lakota could recover in a tropical paradise, and they could let the Mexicans know there was a new Sheriff in town. It would be a long holiday in the sun, just like in the movies. What the movies didn’t show were the giant jumping spiders or the black widows or the rattlesnakes or the scorpions the size of your fist. They didn’t show how hot and miserable it was, even in the winter. It was only March and the temperatures were already in the eighties. The ocean disappeared at low tide, it went out so far you couldn’t even see it. It stank like seaweed, the mosquitos were everywhere, and the backup generator to the backup generator was on the fritz. This place would be unlivable without electricity. Hell, it was barely livable now. With the crappy gas they were pulling out of the bottom of the tanks at the stations, no wonder the decrepit machines were breaking down. They needed to get back home. This place sucked and those assholes in Lakota weren’t going to keep him out of America. He’d been listening to their stupid radio station, and he knew there were other towns out there doing just fine. Other walled communities that maybe weren’t as heavily armed as Lakota. Other places with electric and water. He’d heard that idiot Bastille bragging about setting up trade routes and sending people to help other towns get the power turned back on. Lakota had technicians and experts. Whoopy humpy doo. He had experts, too. Experts at taking what they wanted.
He’d been working on a new plan these past few months. He had the crew, he had the guns, and he had the brains. He was tired of two-bit hood games. He had plans. Big plans. He’d take over one of those towns, make it his own. A good one, with good defenses. They just had to make sure they didn’t kill any of the important people, the ones that knew how to run the power plants and things like that. That’s how he’d start his empire, one town at a time. Once he established his headquarters, made it just as secure as Fort Knox, he’d move on to the next town, expand his network. He didn’t need to completely occupy it, he’d just make them pay taxes. Maybe leave an emissary to oversee things. Get the local leaders to play ball and keep their people in line. Make them responsible. He would get a share of everything they produced, just like in all the mafia movies. Just like a king and his baronies. People would pay, it was easier than getting half their compound torched, their men killed, and their women raped. He just had to make an example or two and the other towns would fall in line. Just like he had when he took over the prison. Show ‘em who's boss. Those assholes in Lakota couldn’t come riding to the rescue of every little town that was springing up. Even if they tried, he’d just cut them down. Teach them a lesson, too.
He had some of his best crews out running recon missions for him. Scouting towns, recruiting new members, gathering up some more slaves. His men tended to go a little too wild, he kept telling them not to kill everyone, just instill fear. Barbecue a town’s leader, let the new recruits eat a chunk of meat, but stop burning settlements to the ground. Stop killing everybody. If everyone was dead, who was going to supply them with food and gas? Most of his lieutenants understood his plan and he made examples of those who couldn’t control themselves. He was trying to build something big.
Lucinda helped him a lot behind the scenes. It had been her idea to send out the advance squads to hit little towns, kill off a few people, and start building his forces. Too many guys just hanging out in San Felipe getting drunk all the time wasn’t good for his army, she’d said. His men needed a mission and the settlements in the States needed to know Lakota wouldn’t be there to help them. If they didn’t want to be burnt to the ground, they were going to have to start paying for protection.
She snuck the young girls in his rooms, too. She insisted they keep it quiet. Remember what happened in the prisons to certain kinds of inmates? she had asked and he didn’t need to be told twice. The kiddie diddlers got a beat down. Some things were best kept secret.
She snuck the girls out the following morning, too. He’d become dependent on her to take care of everyday things. He’d asked for her to bring back the same girl a few times but she never did. Said he deserved someone new every time.
When the first of his recon teams came back with their haul of women, weapons, and food to keep San Felipe going, Lucinda had brought back a ceremonial human sacrifice to celebrate. She claimed her grandmother back in Memphis was a Voodoo Priestess and the powers of sight had been passed on to her. Casey didn’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo, but he let her do whatever she wanted. It made for good theater and it actually scared the superstitious people. Lucinda knew very little about real voodoo, just what anyone who grew up around a few practitioners and watched a few movies would know. She just made it up as she went along. About the only thing she got right was the dancing and the drums. She told him about a ceremony that included killing a chicken and dancing naked, but wanted to up the ante and kill one of the prisoners and have an orgy. That should really make the dark gods happy. They did it and it had become a tradition over the winter. She’d have her ceremonies every new moon. He didn’t know if it made the voodoo gods happy, but it made an impression on everyone, watching Lucinda dressed as a voodoo priestess and tearing out a chunk of the heart, blood covering her chin and dripping down her breasts. A fanciful retelling of Casey’s rise to power.
The party after the first sacrifice had been phenomenal and he had even brought out his own personal play toy. He made her dress in the most elegant clothes they could find and sit on a fancy throne in a place of honor. The president of the United States attended his feast and when he put a plate of barbecued ribs in front of her, a large serving he’d just carved off a slowly roasted woman suspended over the coals, she just smiled and thanked him graciously as she picked up her fork. Casey smiled his best smarmy smile right back. She’d learned her lesson. He’d taught her good. She didn’t want any more lessons from him. Not ever.
She’d tried to be insolent when he first dragged her out of her cell, after he had gotten things set up and running. She’d acted all defiant and spit in his face. That was before he started teaching her that first lesson. She had even laughed at him when he dropped his pants and came at her.
“Who are you going to please with that?” she’d asked, pointing and snickering, acting audacious and bold, unafraid and strong.
“Me,” he’d replied and stabbed her with a short knife, breaking the skin and piercing a small hole between her ribs. He then proceeded to tear it wider with his fingers then crammed his throbbing little manhood into her ribcage, forcing his way into the new gash
in her body. She screamed and fought against the chains, but he only slammed into her harder, sliding between the bones and muscle until he was finished. He then made her clean him with her mouth, a pipe wrench matted with old gore and bits of hair in his hand, just daring her to use her teeth to bite him.
She didn’t.
She had learned her lesson.
She knew her place.
She ate the barbecued ribs.
A few days after the sacrifice, the second recon team returned with new recruits who had already feasted on flesh, were already proud members in good standing of the Raiders. They had a box truck full of prisoners; the women would serve them well and the men would work. For a while, that’s how things went. Teams rotating in and out, just like a real army. They would drop off supplies and captives, get a little oceanside R&R, then head back out. The northern teams checked in by radio, they had ranged too far to gather prisoners and return, but they were doing their part to let the people know Casey and the Raiders were in charge. One of his southern teams disappeared. One day they were returning with a full load, the next they were gone. Casey wanted to hear their reports about towns he could occupy, but Lucinda said it was a sign when they didn’t respond. It meant danger to the East and he should pick their new home from the choices the other teams gave them.
The crews that went west had discovered a few viable options, but the areas were heavily infected with the undead. Everything in California was too crowded with zombies, it would be a full-time battle to keep them under control. The teams that had ranged far to the north radioed in, said there were a few options up in the mountains, but Casey didn’t like the cold. He told them to remain, to keep scouting and keep spreading terror. Let the outposts know the Raiders were in charge. He didn’t like sweltering heat, but he really hated ice and snow. His team that had been exploring Arizona had brought back the best report so far. It was a community that was nearly impregnable, had good fields of vision for miles in all directions, had electricity from the wind farms, and plenty of water from a pipeline in the Little Colorado River. It was the perfect place, the Hopi Indian clifftop town. It was designed for defenses centuries ago and since the virus outbreak, the Indians had been working on it nonstop to fortify and modernize it. Only a hundred or so people had survived and they were wary, but welcomed traders and craftsmen into their town, Paco said.
“It would be hard to take it by force, but if we can get some people inside, do that Roman Horse thing you were talking about, we could take it.”
“Trojan Horse,” Casey corrected, looking at the photos Paco had snapped with his phone. It wasn’t anything like he’d imagined from the pictures or shows he’d seen on TV over the years. It was lush and green, with hanging gardens.
“I thought this was all desert area,” he said, thumbing through them.
“It is,” Paco said, sharing his knowledge with pride. “But since there aren’t hundreds of thousands of people and farms using up all the water, they’ve got more than they need. It’s like Las Vegas, ese. You can have a golf course and swimming pools and water fountains in the middle of the desert. The zombies are pretty slow, too. The sun is baking them. They’re all shriveled up.”
“I like it,” Casey said and clapped him on the shoulder. “Anything you and your crew want, Paco, it’s yours. Now go have some fun and relax, I’ll get everyone else started packing up. We’ll get out of this hell hole in a few days, get back to the States where we belong.”
16
Gunny
They saw the dust trail in front of them, hanging on stubbornly against the horizon. They were getting closer, pushing their machines, eating up the miles. The raiders weren’t hard to follow, there were only a few logical paths to take. With sections of the road covered in drifting sand, they simply followed the trail of tire prints. They came across an occasional group of undead followers, stumbling along as fast as they could in the wake of Casey’s Raiders, but dodged around them when they could on the empty road. In some places, where the winds had blown the sands across the asphalt, it was hard to tell where the road ended and the desert began.
“We’ll be on them in another ten minutes,” Gunny said over the radio. “I don’t think they know we’re coming, they probably can’t see us through the dust cloud they’re churning up.”
“Got a plan, Mr. Boss Man?” Hollywood came back, his voice clear over the single sideband CB that Wire Bender had tweaked for them. He had adjusted the upper band frequency so when they had the radios set on channel 40, in reality they were broadcasting on a higher level, maybe channel fifty, he told them. It was a simple way of keeping their communications from being overheard in case someone was scanning CBs for radio traffic.
“Scratch, I need you in line behind me. When we get close, pull out and run beside me, we’ll light up the rear guard with the 60.”
The miles rolled by with the dust cloud churned up getting closer and closer. They stayed in a single line hiding in plain sight, fully expecting the raiders to be overconfident, sure they were the only people on the road. If they weren’t, they were sure they were the toughest and everyone else would hide in fear when they saw them coming.
They were wrong.
“Now,” Gunny said and moved to the left, allowing Scratch to pull up beside him. They were a hundred yards back from the tail vehicle, a pickup truck with bars welded over the windows. They matched speed and Scratch held his Buick steady as Stabby lowered the cage over his window and charged the M-60 mounted on a swivel just outside the door.
“Light ‘em up,” Scratch said and he pulled the trigger, raking the tracer fire back and forth across the back of the truck. It careened off the road and up a small embankment, tearing through some prickly shrubs before leaving the ground in a cloud of swirling dust. It landed in the sand and rolled to a stop a few hundred yards later, with its nose pressing against a boojum tree. Still idling, still in gear. The three men inside were slumped over and bleeding out, the big bullets tearing right through the sheet metal and their pliant bodies.
The convoy in front of them kept rolling at the same speed, they hadn’t heard the short burst of gunfire or seen the truck as it turned off into the desert. They hit a clear patch of road that wasn’t sand covered and the churning cloud of dirt disappeared long enough for Gunny to see how many vehicles were left in the convoy.
“There’s six more cars and a U-Haul truck,” he said over the radio. “Let’s try to take out the two behind it without anyone noticing. The truck probably has the prisoners so we’ll have to be careful.”
Scratch grabbed his mic. “We’ll get them as soon as we hit another sand patch,” he said and eased off the gas pedal, putting a little distance between him and the next truck, so maybe they wouldn’t notice if they looked in the mirror.
A half mile later, the road was covered in shifting sand again and Scratch hit the gas, the 455 under the hood launching him into the cloud and on the tail of the pickups. Stabby opened fire, starting low and working the tracers up to explode the tires on a new Dodge. The driver slammed on the brakes when his front tire blew out and the truck jerked to the left, nose-diving and skidding. He turned the wheel frantically but they got sideways and started rolling, slinging cargo from the bed, doors flying open and bodies spinning helplessly through the air. Scratch jagged the wheel and nailed it, zipping past the tumbling rig. Stabby squeezed the trigger again, stitching a line of holes through the tailgate and shattering the back window of the next in line. The driver took one in the back and floored it, bashing into the bumper of the slow-moving U-Haul before careening off into a pile of boulders. The nose of the Ford crumpled and men went flying through the shattered windshield, broken bodies mixing with the supplies raining down from the bed of the truck.
The jig was up, the rest of the convoy knew they were under attack and sped up, leaving the U-Haul truck to fend for itself.
“Griz, you got this?” Gunny said as he flew by them, chasing after the fast movers.
> “Yeah, don’t let them get away,” he replied. “Hollywood, on me. Don’t shoot unless you’ve got a clear shot, we don’t want collateral damage. Let’s just force them over.”
Griz and Hollywood had the biggest, heaviest, and slowest vehicles, but they were a whole lot faster than the cumbersome moving van. Griz shot around the truck, got right in front, and started slowing. Hollywood locked it in on the left, forcing him to either stop, or try to take off through the rocky desert. Bridget had her window cage down on the Cadillac and was behind the trigger of the M-60 dangling from the exoskeleton. The driver saw it and tried to put his hands up in surrender. She smiled grimly and motioned for him to stop.
He did.
They were only running along at about sixty, so Gunny dropped a gear and nailed it. The secondaries on the dual quads kicked in, pinning him to the seat as the big block launched down the road. He grinned at the raw horsepower and wound the tach up to sixty-five hundred before shifting, the blown 454 closing the distance in seconds. The old 55 Chevy rocketed up behind the crew cab truck with the men sticking their arms out of the windows, trying to aim and shoot. Between the bouncing of the truck over the drifted sands and the bars over the windows so they couldn’t get a good aim, their fire was all over, only a few lucky shots hitting the car. Gunny kept the pedal mashed, got the nose of the car just past their rear bumper and cut hard into them. They were tearing down the road at just over a hundred miles an hour when the truck went into an uncontrolled skid, white smoke rolling from the tires as it slid sideways. Scratch slammed his brush guard into the corner of the front bumper as the driver fought the wheel, sending them spinning completely out of control until the tires caught a small boulder and the truck started tumbling end over end, slinging parts and people every time it spun. Scratch kept the go pedal mashed and roared past it, chasing down Gunny and the last truck.
Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Page 11
