Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet

by Simpson, David A.

  Gunny had it floored, the oversized tires and big shocks making the Bel-Air bounce smoothly over the drifts, but he wasn’t gaining on the red truck in front of him. They weren’t bothering trying to shoot at him and it was pulling away, the driver intent on escape. Scratch was slowly falling back in the rearview, his Skylark unable to keep up, either. Gunny couldn’t believe it, he was going a hundred and thirty. It was dangerously fast on these roads, under these conditions, and driving a car with tall suspension. The glimpses he’d gotten of the truck before it took off told him it was a recent acquisition, it wasn’t armored at all. He’d seen the Toyota emblem on the tailgate, and although he didn’t care much for foreign cars, he had to grudgingly admit the Tundra was a fast truck. If he remembered right from an article he’d read years ago, the supercharged version was as quick as a Ferrari. He backed off a little before he wiped out, he could barely control the car at anything over a hundred. He kept the chase up, though. Maybe they’d make a mistake and crack up bouncing over a particularly big drift.

  The three men in the cab of the U-Haul climbed out slowly, arms high in the air. Griz had his M-4 shouldered, Hollywood and Bridget had Berettas in both hands.

  “On your knees!” Griz shouted after they herded them to the back of the truck, keeping the sense of urgency and their fear high.

  “Cross your ankles! Interlace your fingers behind your head!”

  The men complied, two of them fearful, one of them angry and resentful.

  “Hollywood,” Griz said and nodded toward them. Lars knew the drill, he’d searched many detainees during his time in South America fighting the drug wars. He grabbed the first man’s hands laced behind his head, locking them in place and using his other, ran it quickly over his body searching for weapons. He only found one gun on the angry man and a boot knife on one of the others, who swore he forgot it was there. He wasn’t looking for trouble. He didn’t really know these guys, he had only met them a few days ago. Lars tossed the knife and the gun on top of his Caddy and stepped back, pulling his Beretta back out and covering the men.

  “Bridget, open it up, let’s see what we got,” Griz said and she holstered one of her guns to get the lift door. A wave of heat and stench rolled out and they saw twenty or thirty people squinting against the bright sunlight. They had their hands and feet tied, some of them so tightly they were swollen and purple, the rope cutting into their skin. They were filthy and afraid, most of the women were naked.

  “I had nothing to do with it!” the frightened man swore on his children’s lives. “They took me prisoner, too. I’ve been playing along, waiting for my chance to get away!”

  He was rail thin, had the rotten teeth of meth mouth, with open sores and old scars on his face.

  Bridget climbed into the back of the truck, pulled out her knife, and started slicing through the ropes. Lars pulled a case of water out of his trunk and set it out for them.

  “Can we move to the shade?” one of the Raiders asked, his hands still behind his head, Griz’s carbine still pointing at them. “The pavement is burning my knees, man.”

  One of the men in the back of the truck had died from the beating he’d taken, or the heat and dehydration. Much of the foul smell was coming from him. When the last of the survivors made their shaky way out, Griz motioned the men in.

  “Not me,” the skinny man said. “I ain’t part of them. They kidnapped me!”

  “Kill them all,” an old black man said between chugs of water. “And kill him slow.” He pointed to the man swearing he was forced to go along with everything they did, that it wasn’t his fault, that he was going to escape as soon as he got a chance and free everybody else, too.

  “That crackhead promised to show them how to make meth, said he’s the best cook in three states. He was the one that showed them how to gut a body. Just like a mule deer, I think was how he put it.”

  The pockmarked man blustered, insisted he was trying to escape, to help them as soon as he had a chance.

  The other two men seemed resigned to their fate, even if they were still hoping for a reprieve. They’d heard stories about the Lakota crew and the big bearded guy had walked right into the midst of them a few months back. He had a hundred guns pointed at him and didn’t even care. He looked pissed now, when he’d been calm then. He was a lot scarier looking when he was pissed. They knew what they had done, and they knew what they had coming. There wasn’t going to be a trial, the best they could hope for was a fast death.

  They climbed in the back of the truck when the last woman eased herself out, crusted blood on her thighs, and bruises on her face. Bridget was scarlet with fury, her face a mask of hate, the angry red scar creasing the side of her head standing out in stark contrast to her natural beauty. She wore dark goggles over her eyes, sunglasses no longer an option. They wouldn’t stay on the little nub that was left of her ear. She turned those black eyes on the whining man and raised her pistol. He scrambled inside the truck, hurrying toward the darkness in the front.

  They heard the thunder of Scratch and Stabby returning a few minutes later, as they dug through what little clothes they had to share with the mostly naked prisoners.

  Griz looked up from tending to a man’s badly bloated hands, not wanting to tell him he would probably lose his right one, maybe even his left. The ropes had been savagely tightened and the blood flow had been restricted for days.

  “Where’s Gunny?” he asked when the rumbling 455 was shut off.

  “Still chasing the last one. He told me to come back, see if we could help with these guys. The truck is faster, it was pulling away, so Gunny is just going to try and run him down, hope he makes a mistake or runs out of gas.”

  “That’s a stupid plan,” Bridget said.

  “That’s Gunny,” Griz shrugged. “But what are we gonna do with these folks. We can’t backtrack for days with them. A couple of them really need to see the Sisters.”

  The old black man spoke up, still sipping on a water and trying to rehydrate.

  “We don’t need a babysitter. You boys got things to do, best be getting to them. We’ll take the truck and I guess we’ll head to Lakota. Ain’t nothing left for us back at home. Some of us been meaning to go up there anyway.”

  The people with him nodded, a few of them still looking shell-shocked. The Raiders had gathered them from various places in their travels, the newest and strongest ones were the people from the RV encampment. They were older, probably the youngest of them in their 40s. Snowbirds and the healthy retirees who were lean and hard in their own way. Old timers who had been taken by surprise once by the gang and wouldn’t let it happen again. They hadn’t been beaten and starved for as long as the others and were helping where they could, tending wounds and giving the girls water. Griz didn’t like it, but they didn’t have much of a choice.

  “When you get there, tell them President Meadows said to set you up nice,” Bridget said, pulling out another case of MREs. “There’s still plenty of houses available.”

  A woman with short spiky gray hair spoke up when she saw Griz’s indecision, his concern about leaving them on their own.

  “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about us, young man. We can take care of ourselves. They fooled us once, it won’t happen again.”

  Griz nodded and flashed her a smile. She looked like a tough old bird, reminded him of his grandmother. “What about those guys in the back?”

  “Don’t you worry about that either,” she said. “We’ll take care of them, too.”

  “We’ll lay that girl that died to rest, and the coyotes can have the other three,” the old man said with grim resolve.

  Scratch grabbed the gun off the top of the Cadillac and handed it to him. “You know how to handle one of these, old timer?” he asked.

  The man took it, released the magazine and did a functions test, slapped the mag back in the well, then chambered a round.

  “I was dropping bodies in the A Shau Valley before you were born, boy. I know a
thing or two.”

  “Roger that, old dude,” Scratch smiled. “There’s a bunch more guns in the cab.”

  There were a handful of weapons scattered on the seat of the U-Haul and as they pulled out, chasing the shadows after Gunny, Griz could see the old man handing them out to his people. They would be fine. Zombies were easy to fight, compared to human foes. The old folk knew what to do, they’d take care of the others.

  17

  Scarlet

  Scarlet was in her office, reading the reports from last week. They had liberated dozens more settlements, had hundreds more volunteers out of Saskatchewan. Her father's armies were spreading west, covering huge swaths of mostly unpopulated lands. The Canadians were a rough and tumble people and the survivors had banded together in groups to put down the undead, pool resources, and make it through the winter. Many communities were moving south once the snows thawed. There were no more borders, and without the modern conveniences of electricity and fuel oil, there was no reason to stay in the frigid north. They were bound for warmer climates. Her father was one step ahead of them and had sent platoons of men to man the border crossings. The Canadians fleeing the harsh winters for an easier life weren’t too overly concerned when they saw the border police still at their posts. Surprised, perhaps, but not concerned. Until it was too late and they realized it wasn’t the new Lakota government, but someone else. Men with machine guns who stripped them of everything they had and then offered a solution. Join us. Most did, they had no choice. The few that didn’t were allowed to leave.

  On foot.

  With no supplies.

  They stormed off, muttering curses and revenge.

  They only survived until they were over the next hill where, if they were needed as slave labor or for experiments for Dr. Stevens, they were taken prisoner. If not, they were killed and their bodies left for the animals.

  The Anubis cult was granted absolution for anything they did to non-members. The laws only applied to those who believed. Non-believers were less than dogs, to be treated any way you wanted.

  She looked up at the map covering most of one wall of the old hotel manager’s office at the casino. Their progress had started out slow, at first just trying to survive, themselves, against the zombie hordes and the bitter winter. By early spring, Dr. Stevens had completed his vaccination experiments, her father had perfected his religion, and they were getting more converts than they could handle. The lure of safety, security, plentiful food, ceremonial sex and superhuman abilities did have its draws. Rickett, the Chosen and the thousand strong army gave them security. Many in the army volunteered to go through the Choosing ritual. If you were one of the chosen, you were granted super human abilities. If you weren’t, you died, torn apart by the undead. Enough wanted the power to chance it. They started doing week-long rituals, cleansing and fasting and prayers. It didn’t matter. If the head of security, Captain Ricketts, didn’t choose you, you could do whatever you wanted and still be torn to shreds as an unbeliever. He wouldn’t give you the serum. There always needed to be failure and bloodshed, her father had said. It always had to be public. There would always be more volunteers than they needed and Ricketts could choose the best, only the ones he wanted. The rest could be entertainment and motivation for the masses.

  In the past few months, they had covered most of central Canada, following every lead, and sending hundreds of scouts to find walled communities. Supplies weren’t exactly scarce, but they were raiding in Saskatchewan. It only had about a million people in it before the outbreak. Most of them in the few cities it had. Most of them dead and wandering around, hungry for blood. They’d hit parts of Manitoba and were mopping up in Alberta, getting ready to send their forces down into the States.

  She’d tried to tell her father that there was no need. He had thousands of followers, hell, he had the largest and most devout group of worshippers left in the world. It should be enough but it wasn’t. He said it was his divine right to rule the entire planet. It was written. She tried to tell him to stop it, this was Scarlet he was talking to, his daughter, not some devotee. She knew the truth. She knew it was all a scam. She was fine going along with it, she enjoyed the luxuries of life, too, but attacking the United States wouldn’t be easy. The Americans had guns and would fight. He needed to stop acting like he was some all-knowing god, and enough with the phony visions.

  He struck her. It was the first time he had ever hit her in his life and when she looked into his raging eyes, she realized he believed what he was saying. It was no longer something he was doing because it was a fun little fantasy, or that it helped hold the people together, or even to enrich himself. He believed he was a deity. He believed he was Anubis reincarnated. She’d left him then, face stinging and tears streaming. He was lost to her. He was mad.

  She tried to talk to Ricketts, the rent a cop who’d been with them in the very beginning at the museum. He knew the truth. She tread softly, though. She caged her questions carefully to see where he stood.

  She arrived back at her suite feeling very alone. He had professed complete belief, even though he knew his super soldier abilities came from a scientist, not a god. He enjoyed his position of power immensely and would do nothing to jeopardize his life of splendor, or his harem of nubile, young lovers.

  She started to fear her father, afraid he would have her poisoned or sacrificed in some public manner for heresy. For not believing. They relieved her of her duties, simply put someone else in charge, telling her that she shouldn’t have to be bothered with such mundane tasks, after all, she was royalty. They were isolating her, trying to keep her in a gilded cage.

  After a week of tension-filled dinner banquets with serving girls and succulent dishes, she suggested that she go to scout the States, to see how hardened their defenses in the outposts were. She could determine their strengths and weaknesses, cover a lot of territory by herself on a fast motorcycle, and wouldn’t be perceived as a threat. They didn’t have a whole lot of intelligence on the States, they had only conducted a few raiding parties in the Dakotas then concentrated their militia north of the border where it was easier. Fewer casualties. The one team they sent farther south had disappeared. The last communication was they were leading a horde into a fortified town in Arkansas. Ricketts wasn’t a fool, he knew Canada was a soft target so that’s where they had gone, building the army until they had the strength to raid south.

  Ricketts had quickly agreed with her idea, probably hoping she’d get herself killed and that would solve the sticky problem of Scarlet the Unbeliever. Her father had pondered it as he sat in his golden robes and ate morsels fed to him from the fingers of virgins.

  “Bastet would be perfect for such a journey,” he said. “But what about this Road Angel we keep hearing of, this so-called hero of the highway from Lakota? On the radio, some ridiculous man keeps prattling about his exploits. About all the people he saves. About how he is single-handedly establishing the new America and blah, blah, blah. Isn’t he supposed to be in the north, if he’s even real?”

  “Yes, your highness, son of Osiris,” one of the white-robed ministers replied obsequiously. “He is, the last I’ve heard.”

  Scarlet barely controlled the urge to roll her eyes at the fat, little man with the topless girl cutting his food and feeding him.

  “He may become a problem when we start our push south,” Ricketts said. “But we’ll eliminate him if he does.”

  Her father was licking sauce from a young girl’s fingers and staring at her small breasts. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen.

  “Let Bastet take care of it,” he said absently, his mind on other things. “While you are out doing your duties for the empire, find him and kill him.”

  “As you command, as it will be done,” she said, thinking she’d say just about anything to get out of the Casino, away from the charade, and out on the road for a while. She was pretty sure the ancient Egyptians didn’t carry on like they were Caligula, like they were decadent rom
ans. Her father just changed things to suit his whims whenever he felt like it.

  18

  Gunny

  Whoever was driving the truck knew his only chance to get away was straight down route five. They were south of the border and flying down the only paved road that led to San Felipe. If he had enough gas to make it all the way, Gunny had no hope of catching him. The supercharged Toyota was walking away from him, steadily increasing the distance. He could only tell he was still ahead of him by the dust cloud. He kept it at a steady ninety-five, not pushing too hard to overheat the motor or be barely in control as he plowed down tumbleweeds and piles of loose sand blown over the road. This was an endurance race, not a sprint. Somebody would lose control, something would break, one of them would run out of fuel. Maybe.

  The truck fled across the desert and the tri-five followed in his wake. The sun was getting low in the sky. It seemed to be picking up speed as it fell behind the distant mountains. Every chance he got, every time the road was clear of drifts, Gunny let the big block breathe. He took her up to the limits of what was safe, then went a little farther. The car was built for endurance, not high speed, and at one-forty she was floating. The air being forced under the chassis was lifting the car, making it light on the road. It was almost like hydroplaning on water and Gunny concentrated on keeping the oily side down. He saw the gouts of black blood splatter and exploded zombie pieces a few miles later and knew he had them. Busted chunks of chrome grill and pieces of a headlight housing were scattered along the road and he thought he could detect some white steam mixed in the dust cloud. A radiator leak would have the computer on the truck shutting it down fast. There would be no “pushing until it blows.” That was the reason the Lakota crew built old-school cars with old-school motors. No electronics to fail, no sensors to break, no miles and miles of wires under the hood. No computer thinking it knows best and turning the engine off, or putting it in limp mode, at some inopportune moment. The new cars were faster and had better air conditioning but they didn’t want to trust their lives to them, too many things to break, and no way to fix them if they did.