Slow Burn Box Set: The Complete Post Apocalyptic Series (Books 1-9)

by Bobby Adair

  The hood was barely out of the downed tree branches when the first White disappeared under the rear bumper.

  I had an arm up on the back of the seat and was half turned around by then as I raced.

  A female jumped onto the back of the truck. Another thumped against the tailgate.

  Murphy shot the woman climbing into the bed and two more jumped up to take her place.

  I hit a clump of Whites at the corner and cut the wheels hard. The truck spun sideways into the cross street.

  One White fell out of the back. The other hit his head and fell over, bleeding and unconscious.

  “Go. Go!” Murphy shouted.

  I shifted into forward and put the pedal to the floor, keeping my eyes ahead.

  Murphy fired at least a dozen more shots.

  “I think I took the wrong turn back there.”

  “No shit?” Murphy laughed. He glanced forward. “What about staying on this road? It looks clear.”

  “Can’t,” I told him. “We need the road going out of town to the west. This will take—”

  “Don’t care,” Murphy shouted. “Just get us out of here.” He fired a few more shots.

  We didn’t have much of a lead and didn’t have many choices. The road we were on only had three more cross streets before running out of town. If any roads existed out past the edge of town that would get us to where we were going, I didn’t know which ones they were. I hadn’t looked at the map in that kind of detail.

  I chanced the next right turn we came to. "Hang on." The truck wasn't moving fast enough for the tires to squeal much, but it leaned hard anyway.

  The truck started to bounce.

  “Damn,” Murphy complained.

  “Potholes,” I told him. “Write a letter to the mayor.”

  The way ahead looked clear for several blocks between houses roughed up by the storm. I slowed and tried to avoid the biggest holes in the road. By the time we passed the first intersection, Whites were rounding the corner behind us and coming our way.

  At each intersection, I looked right to get a glimpse at the road through the center of town, the one we needed to be on when we drove out the other side. We were paralleling it, and if we could get past the roadblock and get back on that road, we’d be home free.

  At least that was my plan—or hope.

  We came to a jumble of branches that looked more and more impassable the closer we came. Rather than risk getting hung up, I took a right turn, hoping we’d gone far enough to get past the roadblock. Whites, the clothed variety, came at us out of the houses as we passed. Not in big numbers; a couple here, a couple there.

  More debris had to be avoided, so I drove through somebody’s front yard. Murphy had to shoot a White who was waiting on a front porch for the opportunity to pounce on us as we passed.

  I made a left turn onto the main street as Murphy shouted, “Dude, perfect!”

  In my rearview mirror, I caught a glance of overturned pickups blocking the road just behind me. The thump of a White hitting the brush guard pulled my attention forward again. We were back among the naked ones. Not many, but enough.

  I raced the big noisy engine and swerved back and forth in the road. I needed to avoid stalled vehicles and debris that looked like it could put a hole in a tire. Murphy shot down a few Whites who took advantage of our reduced speed.

  Moments later, we were out of the center of town and racing past storm-thrashed houses again. I kept an eye on the road signs, hoping the ones I needed hadn’t been run down by fleeing motorists.

  At a Y-intersection, I saw the sign I’d been looking for, along with an arrow pointing right. I sped the truck up over sixty and took the right leg of the intersection. The road up ahead looked clear. Farms spread out on both sides of the road and the last of the town's houses disappeared behind us.

  I was riding high on my victory and shouted, “All right! Let’s get this show on the road!”

  Chapter 48

  We made the first ten miles pretty quickly over roads that were mostly clear. That’s when we reached a blocked bridge over a shallow river. The terrain along the banks took the possibility of attempting a crossing in the truck off the table. We spent nearly an hour backtracking for a way around.

  When we finally got back on course, we were getting into the later hours of the afternoon. Murphy spotted a tall sign for a bed and breakfast standing on a hill across a wide field planted in a uniform, grassy, green crop that hadn’t died. The two-story main house, the barns, and a silo—which stood half again taller than the house—were all painted in red with white trim, and looked just as unperturbed as if awaiting weekend visitors from a pre-virus world.

  From up there, I immediately guessed I’d be able to see for miles in all directions.

  We needed to stop and get our bearings.

  The dude ranch, or whatever it was, had a fancy iron gate that stood fifteen feet tall at least, and looked to have successfully kept out the casually wandering Whites. It, however, was designed for ornamental value rather than security. I drove through it at twenty and my much-abused farm truck jolted, but didn't lose any momentum. The caliche drive crackled under our tires as I rolled the truck cautiously around the curves on a winding driveway up through the green grass toward the house.

  I stopped the truck with the passenger side facing the house.

  Murphy said, “Honk the horn a few times. I’ll shoot whoever comes out.”

  What didn't need to be said was that if too many Whites came out, I'd drive off, and we'd try somewhere else. I leaned on the horn. That, along with the noisy diesel, was bound to bring any infected residents out to greet us.

  We waited.

  I honked again, and before the sound ended, three Whites came running around a corner of the house, vocalizing and grabbing, though the truck sat thirty yards beyond their reach.

  Murphy squeezed off five shots to get them all.

  Two were dead. That was easy enough to tell. The last was badly wounded and writhing on the ground, babbling nonsensical sounds full of anger while blood pulsed out of the torn artery that would soon be the cause of its death.

  Another White was kind enough to come running around the same corner, and Murphy shot her through the throat. She collapsed, twitching and gurgling blood.

  “Honk it again,” Murphy told me.

  I did.

  No more Whites came to greet us.

  Taking time to look around in all directions, Murphy said, “Drive ‘round back.”

  I drove the truck over the lawn, giving the main house a wide berth. Once we got around behind the house, I skirted a large pool full of green water and floating vegetation. Spread just below the crest of the hill, facing west, stood a row of seven cottages, each with a view over miles of rolling hills toward a spot where the sun would set.

  “Damn pretty view,” I observed.

  “Don’t make your reservations yet,” said Murphy.

  I honked the horn before he had a chance to tell me to do it.

  A couple of Whites pushed their way through the open door on one of the cabins. Because they were on my side of the truck, Murphy didn’t have a shot.

  “Go,” he ordered.

  “I got this.” I pushed the pedal to the floor and spun gravel and turf into the air.

  Before I created too much of a gap between me and the Whites coming for us, I skidded the truck to a stop, threw it into reverse, and backed toward the Whites, who—in their eagerness to get at us—didn’t bother to get out of the way. The rear bumper hit them and at least one of them went under the tires, not unlike a speed bump. I stopped, reversed course, and ran them over again going forward, trying my best to gas the truck just as the wheels rolled over the bodies.

  Did spinning the wheels on a dying White’s body seem unnecessarily brutal? Yeah, sure. But what the fuck? My guilt over the killing of Whites who maybe didn’t deserve it because they might have been Slow Burns was manifesting itself in a weird way.

  We ma
de a few more trips, weaving through the farm buildings, honking the horn and making as much noise as we could before we decided it was safe to get out.

  I stopped the truck in front of the silo and looked at Murphy for protests before I killed the engine. He said nothing. Off it went.

  I flung the truck door open and leapt out with my machete at the ready.

  Murphy took up a position at the front of the truck with his rifle aimed at a pair of double doors at the base of the silo.

  Without hesitation, I opened one wide and stepped aside as I yelled, “Hey!”

  I waited from my position against the wall and watched Murphy. From where he stood, he had a view inside the silo. After a moment, he shrugged.

  Good enough. I turned and ran inside.

  The silo was clearly not functional for storing grain, I decided, based on my recent experience inside an operational one. This silo was configured with a spiral staircase up the center to what had to be a viewing platform. The silo was just a façade for nostalgic guests. I didn’t care. It was perfect for my needs.

  I started up the stairs.

  Murphy ran inside and I told him, “Close and lock the doors. Then come up.”

  Once I reached the platform at the top, I was pleased. All around the circumference of the silo at the platform level were tall windows, giving me an unobstructed view of the countryside in every direction. And if that wasn’t enough, a large telescope stood ready for use, along with a shelf housing several pairs of binoculars.

  “Nice,” said Murphy as he stepped up to the observation floor with me.

  “You get the doors locked?” I asked.

  “Nobody’s gonna wander in,” he told me. “If a bunch of ‘em decide to bust those doors down, they won’t have any trouble.”

  Spinning around for a cursory glance at the nearby property, I said, “Unless there are a bunch of ‘em hiding in the barn, I think we’re good. You didn’t happen to bring that map up, did you?”

  Murphy slapped a pocket on his vest.

  “Good.” I stepped in front of a window and looked in the direction I figured the naked horde should be. “Help me search. We need to find them before it gets dark.”

  Chapter 49

  Looking through the binoculars made it hard to find the horde. At least, at first it did. I scanned across field and forest, mostly field, in the distance. I came across a path of turned-up dirt—darker than the surrounding ground, leading across a field—and realized it was the path of the horde that I was seeing. I abruptly stopped. “Holy crap.”

  “What?” Murphy had his weapon up before I pulled the binoculars away from my eyes.

  I pointed. “They’re right there.”

  Murphy looked.

  “No,” I told him. “Right here. Close. In that valley, right there.”

  “Shit, dude.”

  “Like a mile away.”

  “That’s a lot closer than I’d prefer to be right now.” Murphy walked around the observation tower, looking hard out the windows to see the ground around us.

  “They’re not on the move,” I told him. “I think they’re getting ready to settle down for the night.”

  I set the binoculars on the shelf and got behind the telescope, aiming it at the mob of Whites.

  “Yeah, looks like they’re milling around,” Murphy confirmed. “They’re not going anywhere.”

  With the telescope’s magnification, I saw right down into the horde. I saw individuals, naked, staring at nothing, squabbling, foraging in the dirt for edibles, and even coming to consensus about which of the nearest ones was the weakest.

  It was frightening to watch as the first one, then several, stopped whatever they were doing and took to staring at a particular White among them. In the space of thirty or forty seconds, all the Whites close by did the same, until one White found herself looking around at staring eyes. Realization followed, and the targeted White tried to run, but failed. All the staring Whites converged on her and tackled her in a pile of wrestling bodies and dirty white skin. And then it was all splashed with red.

  I inched the telescope across the crowd trying to find the center, the spot where I figured I’d find the Smart Ones.

  “Okay, now that we’ve got ‘em, what’s the plan, Batman?”

  I didn’t answer. I’d found the remains of an old gas station that looked to have been abandoned half a century ago. It was the structure closest to the center of the horde, as near as I could tell.

  “Dude?” Murphy asked.

  “Just a sec.” I examined the Whites near the gas station. Many were sitting down. A few looked to be stomping the grass into nests in which they planned to curl up for the night. Among a bunch of Whites already sitting down, I spotted a group of three walking together and I guessed they were the sentries, the same ones who had tried to ruin my night when I’d made my first attempt to assassinate Mark. No, not assassinate, punish.

  I took that as confirmation that my intuition about the gas station was correct. I refocused the telescope at the building, at least, what wasn’t hidden from view behind a giant oak that had grown in an inconvenient spot.

  “What are you looking for, exactly?” Murphy asked. “I thought we had a plan for this part.”

  There!

  A White male walked out from behind the tree and whispered into the ear of a female. After listening to the instructions, the female ran off. An unusually thin male took her place and listened to the whispers. Other Whites lined up for instructions. Two more Whites came out from behind the tree and started whispering in ears.

  “Check this out,” I said, stepping away from the telescope. “Hurry.”

  Exaggerating his disinterest, Murphy took my place at the telescope and peeked through.

  “See?” I asked.

  “Damn,” he said. “It couldn’t be any clearer if I was listening to what they were saying. Those Whites are telling the others what to do.” He looked for a few more moments. He pulled his eye away from the telescope and glared at me. “You trying to figure a way to get through to that gas station tonight?”

  “I would if I could,” I told him. “But I can’t think of a way to get past those sentries.”

  “You didn’t see a combine over there?” Murphy laughed.

  I rolled my eyes.

  Murphy took the map out of his pocket and unfolded it. I took the opportunity to walk around the circumference of the silo for a good look at the grounds nearby and a cursory glance at the adjacent properties. Of course, I was looking for anything moving. All I saw were a few deer.

  Murphy looked around for a table on which to spread the map. We had none, of course, so he pressed the map to the glass, took a confirming look at the naked horde beyond, and put his finger on a spot. “I think they’re here.”

  I looked at the map, looked at the horde, and looked back at the map again. “I think you’re right.” I spent another moment finding our location. “I think this is us here.”

  “And Fort Hood?” Murphy asked, although it was pretty clearly outlined on the map and shaded in yellow.

  I traced a straight line from where the horde was planning to camp for the night to Fort Hood’s border. Our location was just a little below the line. "How far do you think that is?" I asked, as I looked at the scale on the map.

  “What’s the distance between the gridlines?” Murphy asked.

  “Two miles.”

  “Fourteen miles from here to Fort Hood,” Murphy guessed. “Give or take.”

  Nodding, I agreed.

  “It’ll be full dark in another thirty or forty minutes,” said Murphy.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “What are you thinking?”

  “I know the golf ball heads are settling down for the night,” answered Murphy, “but I was thinking about what Billy and Isaac told us about the fire at the silo.”

  I looked west to try and make out Fort Hood on the horizon. No helicopters were in the air to mark it, and under the glare of the setting sun, all of the
features on the horizon were hard to see.

  “He said the Whites out here in the country were drawn to fire, especially at night.”

  “I think we’re on the same page here,” I said. “We start a fire and give them some incentive to get off their asses and come this way.”

  “We know they don’t mind losing sleep when they're hungry,” said Murphy. “We’ve dealt with them at night plenty of times.”

  I looked at the main house. “I’ll bet being up on the hill, they’ll see that house burning.”

  Murphy nodded.

  “You stay up here and keep an eye on them,” I said. “I’ll go torch the house.”

  “Don’t be a dumbass,” Murphy told me. “The horde will be there when we come back up to look. We’ll go torch the house together. No need to risk going by yourself.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Chapter 50

  With room for twenty or thirty guests at the bed and breakfast, the kitchen and the pantry were large. Unfortunately, not a crumb of food was to be found in either. That left Murphy and me standing at a doorway into the dining room. We’d already hollered into the house in case any Whites were inside. None obliged. I yelled a warning that we were going to burn the house, in case anyone normal was hiding upstairs. Nobody protested.

  Murphy led the way past two long dining tables lined with wooden chairs and into a sitting room with a big stone fireplace. Beside the fireplace, half a cord of wood was stacked neatly against the wall as more of a choice in interior design than necessity.

  “Some gasoline would come in handy,” I said.

  “We don’t have any to spare,” said Murphy. “Do the best with what you have. I’ll keep an eye on things.” He turned his back to me and watched the stairs and the front door.

  I went to work with curtains, pillows, and magazines, collecting them in a pile. I fetched the wooden chairs from the dining room. On the chairs, I stacked the firewood so that the fire I was going to start would have plenty of room to breathe. I laced the pile with the magazines and cloth from the upholstery on the chairs. When it was done, the bonfire in the sitting room stood ready to burn at six feet tall.