He narrowed his eyes at Scarlet and knew he was looking at a traitor. Ricketts was right. Her mission had been to kill the Road Angel, not frolic in a lake with him. She was scantily clad in only a thin dress that clung to her curves, her dark nipples showing through the cloth. His men were Anubis and Bastet worshippers, though. He had to be careful, they didn’t know the truth and would probably believe anything she told them, blindly follow any order she gave.
Scarlet sensed the lieutenant was figuring things out, realizing the truth, saw him carefully shift the aim of his gun from Jessie to her. It was a standard reconnaissance squad, six men with an officer in charge. Not a problem normally. Her, Jessie and Bob could take them out in seconds but she had nothing but a towel. Jessie and Bob were twenty feet away, still treading water.
“I need clothes.” she said, directing her gaze at one of the slight soldiers who looked close to her build. “Yours will fit. Give them to me.”
His eyes got wide but he hurriedly mumbled “Yes, your Grace.” And started to undress.
“No.” Scarlet barked. “Clean ones. From your truck. Go.”
“Yes, your Grace.” he spat out and started running.
“You. Help him!” she pointed at another man and he ran after the first.
She had to be fast, she needed a distraction. Wymer would realize what she was doing any second.
“Avert your eyes.” she commanded and started to peel off her dress. Everyone did, even Wymer. When Bastet gave an order, it was to be followed immediately and without hesitation.
Jessie realized what she was doing or thought he did. Either the graceful, snarky Scarlet he knew was really some haughty queen bitch or the haughty queen bitch was just a disguise for the snarky, graceful Scarlet. He quietly shushed Bob one more time, staring into his eyes and trying to convey the importance of the command then silently slipped under the water, stroking hard for the dock.
She continued talking as she pulled the wet dress over her head and threw it in the grass, all eyes darting over to see what made the sound and all minds registering there was a beautiful, naked goddess standing just a few feet behind them, dripping on the dock. They’d seen her at the Choosing’s and at the festive parties, draped in flowing silks and gilded treasures, drinking from jeweled goblets. She had been perfumed with intoxicating oils, silver medallions and ornaments of gold. She was the most beautiful woman in the kingdom and now she was just feet away and utterly naked.
They’d witnessed her power to walk among the dead, to command them and were enthralled by her voice as she continued speaking, thanking them for their service to the Lord of the Underworld, to the Queen of Cats. She praised their bravery and told them of the rewards they would receive in the service of Anubis, her patter constant, her ears pricked and listening for Jessie to stealthily mount the dock. Her mind raced, trying to calculate all the different outcomes, and only hoped Jessie could disarm the Lieutenant. Maybe then she could talk to the others, tell them the truth. Maybe they could join her and Jessie and help put a stop to the madness of the Movement.
Lieutenant Wymer shook himself out of the spell she was casting, remembered Ricketts warning and spun when he heard the squish of a boot on wood.
“Traitor!” he shouted “Heretics die!”
Jessie saw the gun coming up and sprang but Wymer was fast and avoided the attack, twitched his body out of the way of the full force of the impact. Jessie grabbed the barrel of the AR-15 and tried to jerk it free but the Lieutenant was enhanced also. He, too, had been injected and kept his grip, shoving the stock up to catch Jessie between the legs. The soldiers turned, confused, started to aim their guns and ignored Scarlets shouts for them to stop. Their Lieutenant was under attack. He had to be protected. Why was Bastet telling them not to help? Scarlet leapt for them, her perfect, naked form flying at the four men as their eyes found Jessie and fingers reached for triggers. She reacted on instinct in the only way she knew to stop them. Scarlet grabbed two of them by their hair and slammed skulls together so hard Jessie heard them break over the cursing and struggling he was doing with Wymer. Bob came rushing out of the water, parting the cattails and snarled, jumping into the fray. He brought down a clean-shaven man with hieroglyphics tattooed on his face in a throat-ripping frenzy, the blood choked screams dying as quickly as they started.
At the end of the dock, they fought for control of the gun, both men fast and brutally efficient, each dishing out lightning jabs and bone breaking punches if they would have connected. Jessie twisted, smashed the magazine from the gun with an elbow and sent a knee into Wymer’s kidneys, feeling a few ribs snap. He took a headbutt to his nose, exploding it and making his eyes water. He ignored the pain, listened to the sounds of carnage from Bob and Scarlet and fleetingly wondered why his dog was helping her and not him. He’d never gone toe to toe with someone as strong and fast as him and everything he tried, the guy seemed to anticipate and counter. They struggled over the gun, they couldn’t let the other gain control, it was still a formidable club. They crashed to the dock when Wymer hooked Jessie’s foot with his and pulled him off balance. They landed on the edge, nearly rolling into the water. The man was incredibly fast and strong with the newest formula coursing through his veins. Jessie was losing, everything he tried the Anubis warrior sensed it was coming and countered. Jessie blocked punches and jabs and knees to the groin but some of them made it past his defenses. Some of them connected. He was on his back, unable to throw the man off, and was getting pummeled, the blows raining down on him hard and fast.
He was getting his ass kicked.
The man sent a mighty fist smashing towards Jessies face and he barely twitched aside just quick enough for it to skim along the side of his head, hitting his ear and splintering wood as the hand punched through the dock. Jessie reached around the edge snake fast, under the broken plank, and grabbed his arm before he could pull it out and try again. He trapped it and yanked hard, bending it the wrong way, feeling the bone break. The man screamed and stopped punching him for a second. Jessie kept pulling, sawing it into the jagged edges of the broken board. He felt the skin and muscle start to tear and jerked even harder. The man roared and started smashing his forehead into Jessies face trying to crush it. A battering ram to shatter his skull. His free hand was wrapped in Jessie’s too long hair and held him in place. He felt the agonizing pain of his broken arm but his blinding rage over rode everything else. The serum in his veins made him disregard the damage to his body, he ignored the pain. He had to kill. He had to destroy. He had to make the infidel pay.
The arm tore free, the sharp ends of the broken bone protruding past the torn flesh. Jessie clutched the forearm then stabbed him repeatedly in the side, the kidneys, the lungs, the face; anything he could puncture. The splintered bone tore and slashed, blood splashed out covering them both. The man was insane with fury and tried to bludgeon Jessie with the stump of his arm and sent more blood spraying out of the pumping arteries. It seemed to take long minutes until the Lieutenant finally lay still, the last of his lifeblood staining the dock and draining into the lake. Jessie shoved him off, arched his back and sprang to his feet, wiping the gore from his eyes, a flopping arm still in his grip.
He saw the carnage Scarlet and Bob had wrought in the moonlight, the still bodies lying in pools of blood. Broken heads. Torn open throats. Limbs twisted at odd angles. He heard muted sounds from the other side of the house and ran for the driveway. She was naked, splattered in blood, sitting in the grass with the limp body of a young soldier in her lap. She was rocking back and forth, cradling him and tenderly singing something under her breath. Jessie checked for others, for danger, but there was none. Bob was sniffing at their trucks and Jessie approached her slowly. He squatted in front of her, wiped blood from his nose, pushed his soaked hair behind his ears. She stroked the man’s face that was too young for peach fuzz. Too young to be dead. His neck bulged where she had snapped it. His hand still held the microphone from the truck radio, it’s cord dang
ling wires from where she’d torn him out of the cab. Her fingers left smears of crimson that mixed with the tears falling from her cheeks.
“He wouldn’t listen.” she said. “He wouldn’t stop.”
Jessie said nothing, just watched her caress him like a lover.
“They loved me.” she said. “They worshipped the Queen of the Cats but they worship my father more.”
She continued her song, some soft, exotic tune in a strange tongue and Jessie wondered who she was. Who she really was, but he knew. He had known all along but tried not to remember. She was the enemy, she commanded an army that was bent on ruling the world by force. The monster in his head told him to strike now, eliminate the threat. Kill her and leave while she was vulnerable.
He ignored the ugly voice.
She looked up at him, at his broken nose, his bloody face and chest. At the muddy, wet hair with pond grass tangled up in it.
“These were my people.” she said, her green eyes wet with tears. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Jessie nodded, looked back into those emerald eyes that were drowning in sorrow.
“Will you take me away?” she asked. “Away from here? Away from all this?”
He nodded again and stood, extended his hand. She gently lay the dead boy aside and he pulled her up. Naked, covered in blood spray, scarred and vulnerable. He led her to the car and she climbed in the back, onto the bed and curled up. He covered her with a blanket, gathered their weapons and clicked his tongue for Bob. The barn cat jumped in before he could close the door and went to her, purring and curling in close. She’d said purring cats healed broken bones and Jessie figured it might help heal a broken heart, too. He didn’t go back in the house, there was nothing in there they couldn’t easily replace. He fired up the big motor and dropped it in gear, aimed the nose in a general easterly direction and tried not to hear her quiet sobs.
61
Jessie
Jessie drove aimlessly, the Mercury cruising along the county roads with it’s soothing low rumble of power rocking Scarlet to sleep. The headlights cut the night and he put on one of his playlists, keeping the volume low. He didn’t know where he was going and didn’t really care. He’d figure something out in the morning. For now, he was letting the car go where it wanted. He was dirty and had crusted blood dried on his face. His hair smelled of pond water. He’d tried to wipe his hands clean on his pants but there were flaking brown stains covering both of them and the steering wheel was sticky. He drove for hours, following one endless black ribbon after another. His headlights caught deer grazing beside the road and raccoons waddling out of the way.
He was at least a hundred miles from Fargo, had nothing noted on his maps but was approaching lights. They weren’t bright and strong but when there were no others anywhere to be seen, their dim glow stood out in the blackness. The road turned into a long causeway, a large lake spread out to either side. The lights were from a settlement on an island, the only approach by land was the county road blocked by a tall, well-built metal barrier that crossed the road and went far out into the water on either side. Jessie spotted a watchman on the wall and brought the car to a stop, letting it idle. He stepped out and shrugged into his leather, letting his guns find their place low on his hips. It was nearing three in the morning, he wouldn’t blame them if they kept their gates barred, told him to come back tomorrow. It took a few minutes but a side door opened and three men stepped out. Two were heavily armed, weapons ready but not aimed. He let himself relax a little and nodded to them.
“What brings you out in the middle of the night?” a gray whiskered old man asked, his two bodyguards flanking him. He was dressed in baggy black pants and wore a light weight black jacket. He had a monocle dangling from a ribbon in one of the pockets. The two guards wore similar clothes but their guns were normal enough.
“We’ve had a little trouble.” Jessie said “I was looking for a place to camp out for the night and saw your lights. Figured it might be a little safer, we’d be able to relax a little easier.”
“Step into the light, son. Let me get a look at you.” The old man said and Jessie moved from the shadows.
“You’re the first visitor we’ve had in a while.” he said and put his monocle in so he could see better.
“It’s him.” One of the guards said.
Jessie tensed. He was sure these weren’t Casey’s men, these guys were clean and organized, but he was ready to pull his Glocks if he had to.
“So it is.” The old man said, taking in the scarred boy and recognizing the car from the stories. “We had a group travel through here a few weeks ago said you’d been killed up near the border. Everybody thought you were dead.”
“Not yet.” Jessie said. “Feel like it sometimes. You got a place we can crash out, maybe get a shower and something to eat?”
“Course we do, Mr. Meadows.” he hesitated before plunging on “But we gotta check you for bites, whoever is riding with you, too. You know how it is.”
“Yessir.” Jessie said “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He opened the door to let Bob out and the two young guards slung their rifles and fussed over him. He started to call for Scarlet but she was already climbing over the seat, a blanket still wrapped around her. She’d heard everything.
The old man was flustered and embarrassed by the time he finished checking them over while trying to keep his eyes averted from Scarlets lady parts. The long sleep had done her good, some of the sadness was gone from her eyes but she still had a far away look about her, like she wasn’t completely there. She wasn’t shy and followed orders meekly, held the blanket wide and kept the whiskery old fella rattled. It concerned Jessie that she was so docile, it wasn’t like her at all.
Later when the old man would tell the story, he wouldn’t answer any of the little details curious men wanted to know.
How big were her nipples?
Did she shave down there?
He scolded them for being crude. He only spoke of her with reverence and respect, like she was ancient royalty; ethereal with her exotic accent, almost other worldly in the mist and moonlight. Like a damaged, fallen goddess. He told of the scars and gashes that marked her perfect skin and how it hurt him just to look at them. It was a blasphemy what they did to her. He told of someone else’s dried blood splashed all over. Of her calm and kind eyes despite a roadmap of sorrows slashed into her body. He said he felt unworthy to see her so vulnerable and cast his eyes down. There was something fragile and broken about her that made him want to protect and defend her. Pledge his life for hers. Serve her forever. He told how the Road Angel was just as bloody with a smashed nose and blackening eyes. Even their dog had crusted red around his muzzle. They’d been in a hell of a battle somewhere; a lot of men had died from the looks of things but neither would speak of it, just said they ran into a little trouble.
When the old man was on his deathbed, he remembered her and left this world with a smile on his face, hoping to meet her again.
They followed one of guards through the gate and he lead them to a quaint downtown area that covered a few blocks. Before the zombie uprising, most of the buildings had been antique or art shops with a few eateries and ice cream places mixed in. It had been a tourist town where the annual North Dakota Steam Festival took place every fall. He knocked on a door of an old hotel and after a few tries, a sleepy woman answered, rented them adjoining rooms and told them breakfast was at seven a.m.
They showered and tried to sleep, tried to put yesterday behind them. The senseless and vicious killings that happened too fast to stop. Kill or be killed. Jessie understood much, had figured things out on the long nighttime drive where he had nothing to do but think. He knew she was some sort of deity, some goddess or queen of the Anubis cult. She was as strong and quick as him, probably stronger and faster. From the few things she’d mentioned about her father, he ran the whole show and they’d had a falling out. A disagreement of how to proceed. The Lieutenant
had called her a traitor and the soldiers hadn’t listened to her when she tried to get them to stop. They’d followed the instructions of their leader and had ignored hers. He wasn’t sure what it all meant, though. Would she go back to them, try to straighten things out? Go to war against them because they were out of control? Ignore it and flee to the south? Continue her mission of scouting weak settlements?
He finally drifted off into fitful sleep, the sheets too soft and the pillows too puffy for him to be comfortable. The room smelled of scented candles instead of gasoline and gunpowder. He didn’t have to share the bed and keep shoving Bob the bake oven away from him. Since Jessie’s body temperature was a few degrees cooler than the dog’s, he liked to scooch up close. The room was secure but he was still alert, even while he slept.
Scarlet was already gone when he awoke. He looked in the mirror and touched at his face. His nose felt better, most of the swelling had gone down over night and the raccoon rings around his eyes was fading fast. He slipped into his padded tactical pants, still damp from the shower wash he’d given them and wondered what she was wearing. They didn’t have any clothes with them. He shrugged into his jacket, buckled on his guns and went down the stairs, Bob keeping pace beside him. They found her and Nefertiti in the dining area with a room full of others who lived in the boarding house full time. She was dressed in second hand jeans, a pair of slippers and a Punisher t-shirt.
“I told them you’d pay for it.” she said. “I didn’t have any money. Or any pockets if I did have money.”
Jessie grunted and shoved the cat out of the only other chair, put his back against the wall and sat. He was still tired, he’d only gotten two or three hours sleep. It hissed at Bob and he ignored her, flopping down at Jessies feet, waiting for table scraps.
Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Page 41
