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

by Simpson, David A.

  There was another chase through the desert when a couple of outriders spotted them. A lucky shot blew out a tire and Hollywood nearly rolled near the Fisherman Intaglio. They’d been down to their last few rounds before the final raider took a bullet in the head. There was only one car hadn’t been shot up so bad that it would still run. More Raiders were on the way and the ones they killed had been nearly out of ammo, too. They had been biding their time, trying not to get shot and waiting for backup. All six of them piled into the only car with air in all the tires and nursed the wheezing Ford into Bouse. At a used car lot they took the best trucks they had, half of them battling the withered husks of undead in a hand to hand life and death struggle while the others found keys and cars with stick shifts to push start. Batteries were long dead, tires were low and the gas in the tanks was nearly a year old. If Scratch hadn’t found a can of starting fluid in the garage, they probably wouldn’t have been able to get any of them fired up. Once they had one going, the next one was easier, even if the airbag did go off when Bridget hit the bumper a little too hard when trying to push start it. The two trucks were running on fumes, of course. Gunny ran interference with the crew cab Chevy he was driving while Griz and Scratch sliced off a length of garden hose and started siphoning gas.

  By the time they had topped off both tanks, the first of Casey’s scouting parties had arrived in the little town. They were on the radio instantly once they found the shot-up car and the dozens of zombies laying around in the car lot.

  Gunny and Griz kept it slow and eased out of town on a blacktop road that wouldn’t kick up too much dust but it was only a few miles before it turned to dirt. They kept their speed down, a dust cloud could be seen for miles if someone had a pair of binoculars, and they slowly made their way across the Arizona desert.

  It was late when they finally stopped for the evening, all of them completely worn out. Aside from a few hours of fitful rest, they had been awake for two days. The constant adrenaline rush of battle, running and hiding and not knowing if this was their last hour to live had sapped them. Gunny pulled into a road house in a tiny little wide spot on the map called Kirkland. There were already a few cars in the parking lot so they backed in among them, leaving the front facing out if they needed to make a quick getaway. It was full dark but the moon and stars lit up the desert landscape and everything stood out in stark, monochromatic colors. A group of mule deer stared at them from a garden gone wild, not sure what to make of the noisy cars. When the doors opened and groaning people got out, they bolted, springing lightly away.

  Gunny rubbed at his gritty eyes, strained from driving so many hours with only the moonlight to keep him on the sand covered road. They were running on empty, them and the trucks both. They were out of water, out of bullets and out of food. This little burg was in Arizona so they hoped to find a few guns in the houses and RV’s but that could wait. They didn’t have flashlights and wouldn’t want to use them if they did. A flash of light could be seen for miles and they had no idea how far Casey had spread his men. They had smashed the taillights on the trucks as soon as the sun set so they wouldn’t show when they hit the brakes. They tried to think of everything because one little mistake would get you killed. They were on alert, waiting for any undead to come stumbling towards them but none did. They were either parched, dried out and truly dead from the unforgiving heat or they’d chased someone down the road. Either way, they were glad for the respite and made their way to the entrance. Gunny jiggled the handle but it was locked. He bumped a shoulder against the wooden double doors but it felt solid. Like it was reinforced and barred from the inside.

  He shot a look back out at the parking lot, his weary senses coming alive instantly, and chastised himself for getting sloppy. His hand dropped to his gun and the others reacted to the sudden movements, alert and wary, the tired banter ceased.

  “Door’s blockaded.” Gunny said in a low voice. Not that it mattered. Anyone in a half mile vicinity would have heard the cars crunch into the parking lot. “Probably from months ago but they might still be around.”

  “Ours are the only tracks in the lot” Bridget said. “and the other cars haven’t been moved in a long time. They’re covered with dust.”

  She was right, tumbleweeds were blown up against them and they both had flat tires.

  “Three teams.” Griz said. “Spread out, check it out, meet at the back door.”

  They hurried away from each other, making it impossible to take them all out with a single burst if someone had a machine gun trained on them. Gunny and Griz went wide and let the other four circle the building and check the windows. The town, if it could even be called that, consisted of a school across the railroad tracks, a dozen mobile homes and the Roadhouse. Population thirty-five on a good day. It wouldn’t be an issue, even if all thirty-five turned out to be as bad as the raiders, if they had any ammo. Gunny was down to four rounds, Griz three and the rest only one or two each. Their best hope was the roadhouse had been used as a stronghold at one time but now was long abandoned.

  It wasn’t.

  Once they rounded the corner, they saw chicken coops, a small fenced garden and heard a dog barking from inside the building.

  Hollywood and Bridget were met with the business end of a double barrel shotgun as they approached the rear entrance.

  “Don’t try anything dumb.” An old man said. “and I won’t have a mess to clean up tomorrow.”

  “Easy, mister.” Hollywood said “We were just looking for some shelter, a place to crash for the night. And maybe a cold beer.” He added with a grin. The old man could have already shot them and hadn’t. He was probably decent people.

  “How many more are you prowling around out there?” he asked, squinting into the dark

  “Four more.” Bridget said. “And we really aren’t looking for trouble. We didn’t know anyone was here.”

  “Who is it?” a woman’s voice came from behind him. “Is it the Johnsons come back?”

  “Get back inside, maw.” the old man said, turning his head to chastise his wife and felt the gun being pulled from his grip. Gunny slid out of the shadows, plucked it out of his hands then stepped away. He was too surprised to say anything and just watched as the bearded man broke it down, ejected the shells then handed it back to him.

  “Sorry old timer.” the dust covered stranger said. “Just didn’t want any accidental discharges. I’m sergeant Meadows, we’re from Lakota and these are my men. We don’t mean you any harm.”

  He heard Bridget clear her throat loudly. “and woman.” he added “Can’t forget about her.”

  “Yer the army?” the old man asked. “What the blue blazes is going on? We thought you was some of them raiders snooping around.”

  “We’ve had a pretty rough couple of days.” Gunny said. “Would you mind if we came in, I’ll be happy to tell you everything we know.”

  The old man hesitated but looked at his empty shotgun then at the hard-looking group standing around his back door. The sergeant really wasn’t asking, he was just being polite. If they wanted to come in, they were coming in. He stepped aside, motioned them past and once they slipped through the blackout curtains the room was lit with a kerosene lantern held by an old woman in a nightgown. Her eyes lit up when she saw them, she knew exactly who they were. They followed her through the kitchen and into a massive restaurant and bar with a dancefloor. It was surprisingly cool and the woman went behind the bar to pull out the cold beers Hollywood had asked for. The old man lit a few more lamps then joined her behind the counter, smiling a toothless grin at their pleasure in the frosty brews.

  “How do you do it?” Stabby asked, rolling the sweat beaded can against his forehead.

  “Off grid refrigerators.” the woman beamed. “They run on kerosene and we got plenty of that. A lot of the hunting cabins in these parts have ‘em.”

  Introductions were made all around and the old couple nodded to each of the dirty, heavily armed group that weren’t nearly as
hostile as they appeared.

  “We know who you are, Mr. President.” the woman said when Gunny finished naming his crew. “And you, too.” she pointed at Scratch. “You used to play that godawful racket when Mr. Bastille let you have a show after you got shot. I’m glad to see you’re doing much better young man, you were in our prayers every night.”

  She saw the surprised looks on their faces and reached over to flip the switch on a car stereo hooked up to a solar charged battery. Radio Lakota came to life and music from a late-night playlist filled the room.

  Their story was a simple one. The same dumb luck that saved many of the survivors was with them, too. The school across the railroad tracks served breakfast to its students and by noon, the entire student body and the town were rampaging monsters. Harold and Erma owned and operated the roadhouse and a wedding party had gone on way past closing time the night before. By the time they’d cleaned up and gone to bed, it was almost dawn. They slept through the beginnings of the outbreak, never knew anything was amiss, never ran out to help a neighbor. The walls were thick stuccoed concrete and they didn’t hear the blood curdling screams and cries for help. By the time they awoke and looked out the windows, the undead were milling around in the streets with no more victims to be infected and no place they wanted to go.

  They’d been trapped inside for months. Harold had worked construction his whole life and they’d used their savings to buy the roadhouse and ran it mostly for fun although it occasionally turned a decent profit during the tourist season. They had quietly boarded up the windows and doors using screws instead of hammering in nails, remained inconspicuous and lived from the supplies in the restaurant. They’d learned to be quiet, to only speak in whispers and never use lights at night. The undead milled around aimlessly but they never left. They slowly withered and dried out, became almost mummified, but there where hundreds of them. Too many to fight. A sandstorm blew in and shredded clothes and tumbled the light bodies but when it was over, they were still there. Still bumbling around.

  With careful rationing, they’d made the food stretch. When things were getting desperate, when they were down to their last few measly meals, a train had slowly rolled by with ten thousand undead trailing along behind. The zombies in the town had followed and within a day, the last of the crawlers and stumblers had disappeared over the horizon, forever chasing something they could never catch.

  With the canned goods from the houses and school, the water from the old well in the kitchen and the occasional wild game Harold took down, they were surviving just fine. They’d gathered up some chickens, had a good running Jeep for hunting deer or javelina and there were plenty of houses around they hadn’t picked through yet. They’d talked about going to Lakota, of course, but they were doing pretty good where they were. They’d moved to the ass end of nowhere to get away from the crowds, the people and the hustle. This was their home, they were old and they didn’t want to leave.

  Erma and Harold fed them in the morning with country fried deer steak and eggs, gave them enough ammo to fill a magazine each and sent them on their way with full tanks of gas and heartfelt thanks from the warriors.

  They hit it hard after that, running the trucks down the two lanes, avoiding the cities and bigger towns and easily avoiding Casey’s men.

  They pulled up to the Lakota sally port some twenty-eight hours later in their dented, beat up, road weary pickup trucks and waited for the guards to greet them.

  “Didn’t recognize you without your car, sir.” the first one said as he approached and snapped off a salute.

  Gunny grimaced and returned it, biting back the first words that popped in his head. I’m not an officer, I work for a living.

  “We lost them down in Mexico.” he said instead. “We’ve been out of radio contact for a while, anything urgent I need to know about?”

  “Nothing pressing, sir. But the First Sergeant will be glad your back. Um, your wife, too.”

  Gunny grinned through the dirt and caked on dust of a week without a shower. “I bet they are.” he said as he got out and slammed the door behind him. The brand-new Dodge was beat to hell and back, blood and gore stains covered the broken headlights, the missing grill and the dented fenders. The airbags had been deployed and hastily cut away. Wires hung from under the dash where they’d had to bypass the collision sensors that automatically killed the engine upon impact with something.

  “These trucks can be hauled out to the junk yard.” he said “This one has every light on the dashboard lit up and that one” he indicated the new Dodge Griz was climbing out of “has some frame damage or something.”

  The rest of the crew grabbed their few possessions and headed for the gates and the mandatory bite checks. The mission had been a failure. The only thing they’d accomplished was to stir up a hornet’s nest and Casey was hot on their trail. The guards were manning their machine guns on top of the wall, the moat was finished and full of water, and he knew they’d added dozens of rows of concertina wire out in the lake. They had tanks and Bradley’s just inside the walls. Unless Casey had a howitzer, he’d never take Lakota.

  They needed to hit him while he was still unorganized and his army was spread out. They needed to stop him before he had a chance to set up his own hardened fortress. In Mexico, he didn’t have access to heavy armor or artillery. Now that he was back in the States, it was only a matter of time before he got a hold of some. Once he got established, he would go after all the weak towns and it would take a full-on war effort to get rid of him. Lakota would stand but the others would fall.

  Gunny put his hands on his hips and leaned backward, trying to stretch the knotted muscles and crack his back. He needed a hot bath and a deep massage. He was getting too old for this shit.

  73

  Gunny

  They’d gotten cleaned up, grabbed some sleep and were meeting in the back of the Sunshine café for breakfast. The banquet room had the biggest tables and was where birthday parties or anniversary celebrations had been held before the fall. Despite the warm welcomes back, the crew was gloomy. They’d only made matters worse with their Mexican vacation. They’d failed to eliminate anyone of any significance, Casey was on the move, his whereabouts unknown and instead of lounging harmlessly by the seaside, he knew exactly where they were. He might even have spies watching the roads so he would know what their movements were.

  General Carson’s satellites were nearly useless, the only one flying over the southwestern United States had quit transmitting a few days ago. They had no way of troubleshooting it so now they were blind. News had spread fast and a dark, somber mood hung over the town. Some were second guessing the ill-fated mission, Monday morning quarterbacking. Some telling their neighbors they knew it was a bad idea all along. Gunny was a hot head and should have let sleeping dogs lie. The same people who had cheered him on when he left, praising him for taking the fight to the enemy so the States would be safe.

  When Gunny came through the door, a young man and his wife were the first to greet him, hopping up from his table near the conference room and extending his hand.

  “Mr. President.” he said warmly “I’m Dustin Cross and this is my wife Lexi. We’re sure glad you took us in and we’re real pleased to meet you. We’ve heard so much about you and it’s an honor to finally shake the hand of the man that built all this, that gave us hope again.”

  Gunny blanched a little for the undeserved praise, told the man he hadn’t done much, others were responsible for doing all the heavy lifting, but welcomed him, his wife and baby to Lakota.

  He finally extricated himself from the awkward conversation and made his way into the room. He never had been able to take compliments easily and knowing what he knew, that one had been undeserved. He had brought war to their doorstep.

  “You finished glad handing and baby kissing?” Cobb asked as he found a spot at the table, joining a dozen other people. “We’ve got business to attend to.”

  Gunny just grimaced at him and gladl
y accepted the cup of coffee Kim-Li set down.

  “I’ve heard the story these clowns were telling everyone.” Cobb started without preamble, waving his hand at Scratch and Stabby who had been entertaining the café with their overblow tales. “But I’m not sure I believe the bit about stealing an airplane. How about you tell me what happened?”

  “That’s parts true.” Gunny said. “Did they say we jumped over the Grand Canyon on dirt bikes? That part would not be true.”

  “Dude,” Stabby said. “We should have thought of that.”

  “Yeah.” Scratch said. “And we left out the part where Griz was busting slobs with that hot Mexican guy he thought was a girl. We should totally start a rumor.”

  “You idiots should be quiet and let the grownups talk before I ask the Sheriff to arrest you for aggravated dumbassery.” Griz said around a mouthful of steak. Collins by his side giving the boys a baleful glare.

  “You’re probably right. Sorry. ” Scratch said easily enough and pointed to the condiments rack. “Hey, Griz, can you hand me the dickfor.”

  Griz looked confused. “What? What’s a dickfor”

  “Well,” Scratch beamed at him “If you don’t know what a dicks for, I sure feel sorry for your girlfriend.”

  “This is useless.” Cobb said to the muffled sniggers and barely hidden laughter around the table. “I need to know what we’re up against. Gunny, Griz meet me in the war room in twenty. We need to start working on a battle plan.”

  “Roger that, Top.” Gunny said, digging into his own plate of steak and eggs, trying not to laugh at Collins pretending she didn’t understand the joke. At least Scratch didn’t say anything about her husband showing up out of the blue. It was still a pretty tender subject and Scratch had enough smarts to know some lines shouldn’t be crossed. Griz’s first reaction was to go bash the guy’s head in or run him out of town but she’d made it clear she was finished with Bobby. As far as she knew, he’d been dead for nearly a year, she’d moved on. She said that him coming back didn’t change anything between them but it did. It threw a cloud over their relationship and Bobby was good at making new friends. Getting them to feel sorry for him, the poor man who’d struggled and fought to get back to his wife only to find out she’d dumped him. No one questioned his story, that he had been trying to get to Lakota ever since he found out she was still alive from a trader. It was just one of those lucky coincidences that they had both survived.