The Zombie Road Omnibus
The Road Kill Collection
David A. Simpson
Contents
Also by David A. Simpson
Zombie Road
Prologue
1. The Three Flags Truck Stop
2. Sara
3. Outbreak
4. Long Dawg
5. Zombies
6. Lacy
7. Realization
8. Jessie
9. Gunny
10. Understanding
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
21. Jessie
22. The Three Flags Truck Stop
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
26. Lacy
27. The Three Flags Truck Stop
Chapter 28
29. Jessie
30. Jessie
31. Jessie
32. Lacy
33. The Three Flags Truck Stop
Chapter 34
35. Lacy
36. Skull Valley, Utah
37. Trapped
38. A Way Out
Epilogue
Authors Notes
Zombie Road II
Prologue
1. 1357 Miles to Go
2. Jessie
3. 970 Miles to Go
4. 884 Miles to Go
5. Jessie
6. Lacy
7. 762 Miles to Go
8. 702 Miles to Go
9. Shakey
10. New Arrivals
11. Crow City
12. Back on the Road
13. Lacy
14. Lacy
15. Jessie
16. 298 Miles to Go
17. Lacy
18. 107 Miles to Go
19. The 1st Battle of Lakota
20. Jail
Chapter 21
22. Jessie
23. Jessie
24. Day 14
25. Hasif
26. Night 14
27. General Carson
28. Lacy
29. Lakota
30. Trouble in Lakota
31. Dallas
32. Train to Lakota
33. 2nd Battle of Lakota
34. Gunny’s Return
35. Night 18
36. Preparation
37. McAlester
38. Casey
39. The Hospital
40. Leaving
Epilogue
Authors Notes
Zombie Road III
Prologue
1. Lacy
2. Jessie
3. Gunny
4. Gunny
5. Jessie
6. Jessie
7. Casey
8. Gunny
9. Daniel
10. Casey
11. Casey
12. Gunny
13. Lacy
14. Gunny
15. Jessie
16. Daniel
17. Daniel
18. Daniel
19. Daniel
20. Madame President
21. Gunny
22. Gunny
23. Gunny
24. Gunny
25. Jessie
26. Jessie
27. Jessie
28. Gunny
29. Lakota
30. Hasif
31. Madame President
32. Jessie
33. Casey
34. Jessie
35. Jessie
36. Lakota
37. Gunny
38. Gunny
39. Gunny
40. Hasif
41. Jessie
42. Jessie
43. Jessie
44. Lucinda
45. Jessie
46. Casey
47. Cobb
48. Daniel
49. Gunny
50. Casey
51. Gunny
52. Gunny
53. Lakota
54. Jessie
55. Lakota
56. Lakota
57. Lakota
Epilogue
Authors Notes
The Zombie Road Omnibus
Books 1-3
Convoy of Carnage
Bloodbath on the Blacktop
Rage on the Rails
A Two-Fisted Trucker Tale
Also by David A. Simpson
Zombie Road: Convoy of Carnage
Zombie Road II: Bloodbath on the Blacktop
Zombie Road III: Rage on the Rails
Zombie Road IV: Road to Redemption
Zombie Road V: Terror on the Two-Lane
Zombie Road VI: Highway to Heartache
The Feral Children: Animals
(With Wesley Norris)
Anthologies
Tales From The Zombie Road: The Long Haul Anthology
Undead Worlds: A Reanimated Writers Anthology
Treasured Chests: A Zombie Anthology
Trick or Treat Thrillers: Best Paranormal 2018
Trick or Treat Thrillers: Best Horror 2018
Coloring Book
Zombie Road: The Road Kill Coloring Book
The Zombie Road Omnibus
The Road Kill Collection
Books 1-3
Is a work of fiction by
David A. Simpson
All characters contained herein are fictional and all similarities to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
No portion of this text may be copied or duplicated without author publisher written permission, with the exception of use in professional reviews.
Copyright © 2019 David A. Simpson
All rights reserved.
To my dearest partner in life, the nitpicky, OCD, grammar Nazi, Robin.
Zombie Road
Zombie Road
Convoy of Carnage
Is a work of fiction by
David A. Simpson
All characters contained herein are fictional and all similarities to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
No portion of this text may be copied or duplicated without author publisher written permission, with the exception of use in professional reviews.
Copyright © 2016 David A. Simpson
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1520479989
ISBN-10: 1520479980
Prologue
“If you would, have a seat here, Sir,” the man indicated a comfortable chair pulled up to a simple plank table, “we can get the microphone set up for you.”
He sat heavily and looked around his living room, at all the people gathered and watching him, most of them with various instruments to aid in the recording process.
“What do want me to say?” he asked, a little uncomfortable with everyone standing around, more than he was used to seeing high in the mountains. Especially in his own home.
“You were a hard man to find. We have talked to everyone else we’ve been able to contact about the early years,” the smiling man said. “This isn’t really an interview, we just want you to tell us what you remember. Just tell us a story like you were talking to friends. Tell us what you can, and with the trove of video we found from one of the survivors, we hope we can assemble an accurate picture of the times.”
“You understand, it’s kind of hard to separate the legend from fact after all these years, right?” he asked, “I can’t tell the difference in what was real, and what I remember as real, sometimes.”
“Yes, Sir. It has been a long time, but we’re pretty sure we have all o
f the facts correct. We just want to add the human side of the story wherever we can. We want to get a feel for the people who were there, how they felt, and why they did some of the things they did.”
“Is this going to be a movie or something?” the old man asked.
“We don’t have that kind of technology, not to do it properly. We hope to lay out the definitive history of the Fall in a book, perhaps two or three if we have gathered enough of the human element to tie all of the dry statistics together. We hope to write a compelling story, not another history book.”
The old man smiled. “Well, some of the things I remember, nobody will believe anyway. It’s all true, but some of it may not have happened.”
He took a sip of water and started talking.
1
The Three Flags Truck Stop
Day 1
September
Gunny came through the glass doors of the garage and into the long corridor that would lead him to the dining area of the Three Flags Truck Stop. He had just brought his old Peterbilt into the bay for an oil change and was now looking forward to the morning’s first cup of coffee and whatever the breakfast special from the kitchen happened to be. He glanced to his right when the gym doors opened, and a heavily built man came out, a towel draped around his neck, wiping the sweat from his great bald head.
“Hey, Tiny,” he said in greeting. “You eat yet? I’m headed for chow.”
Tiny, ironically named because of his bulk, flashed a smile that seemed to glow out of his ebony face. “Hey, Gunny,” he rumbled. “Yeah, headed there myself. Something wrong with your Pete?”
“Nah. Just a service. Tommy put one of the mechanics on it. You and Scratch still running veggies out of the valley?” asked Gunny.
They walked down the long corridor, catching up on each other’s lives since they had last crossed paths a few months prior. They ambled by the various shops and stores of the old Truck Stop, most still closed at this early hour. The barbershop, the laundromat, the Cutting Edge knife shop, the CB shop, the freight brokers’ offices and Doc’s Place, among the many that catered to the professional drivers. Old Cobb gave these little shops low rental rates because of the smell of 90 weight gear oil, and the sound of impact wrenches was more prevalent near the workshop.
The Three Flags Truck stop had been around almost as long as the highway it was named after. Route 395, at one time a main north-south road, ran from San Diego all the way up to the Canadian border. Thus the three flags designation of the three countries it joined together.
The truck stop had been established in the 50s by Old Cobb’s dad, a World War 2 vet who went on to drive trucks after the Big One and saw the need for a good place for truckers to refuel both themselves and their rigs. The land was cheap up north of Reno, it was nothing but scrub, and no one else wanted it. So using the benefits of his G.I. Bill, he bought nearly 200 acres along Route 395 and business was good.
He expanded rapidly during the boom years of the 50s and 60s, buying up used army Quonset huts for his buildings and simply putting in long banks of government surplus windows on one side to let in natural light, so they wouldn’t feel so claustrophobic. He used a small airplane hangar as his main building and had a wing off of one side for his mechanic shop and a wing off of the other side for his wife’s diner.
His wife ran the kitchen, Cobb ran the workshop and he hired other vets, many of them damaged from the war, to help him run his business.
When the new freeways came in, business slowed. They managed to hang on, but there were some lean times for a number of years. When Cobb Jr. took over when he retired from the Marines, he brought the old truck stop into the modern times. He convinced some of the local artisans and vintners to sell their wares to draw in tourists.
With some internet advertising, and savvy marketing as the oldest Truck Stop in Nevada, it became THE place to stop and see a little roadside Americana. There was a huge junkyard out behind the shop where wrecked and worn-out trucks sat, dating all the way back to the 40s and 50s, from their towing and recovery service.
He even had a half dozen of those trucks with the big sleepers moved up to a little area where he cleaned and polished them so they looked like new. He ran some electricity for heat and air conditioning, then rented them out on Airbnb for $40.00 a night. Old Cobb laughed all the way to the bank. It was a family business and the pride they took in it showed in a lot of small ways.
As Gunny and Tiny made their way through the Quonset hut they saw Cobb coming out of the shower area, pushing a mop and bucket. “Cobb, when you gonna put in some moving sidewalks like they got in Vegas in this place?” Tiny grumbled. “It’s gotta be a mile from the gym to the diner.”
Old Man Cobb squinted at him through his one good eye. With a grizzled voice that was partly from Lucky Strikes, and partly from a piece of shrapnel to the throat he had picked up in the Khe Sanh Valley, he spat out, “Looks like you could use the exercise, Squib. But you Navy boys ain’t used to that.”
“Morning Cobb,” Gunny said, grinning at the age-old rivalry of the Services.
“Gunny,” Cobb nodded. “You need to hit that gym, too. You’re getting as flabby as him.”
“I’m just going after some breakfast, maybe next time,” he said, knowing full well he wasn’t planning on lifting lumps of metal anytime soon.
“He gets plenty of exercise, Navy Style,” Tiny grinned. “We called ‘em 12-ounce curls,” as he mimicked drinking a cold beer.
“Yeah. I can see. Looks like you had plenty of burritos to go with those brews,” he added, poking at Tiny’s not so tiny stomach. “Speaking of food, Martha’s been making up some blueberry pies and pancakes last couple of days, got a crate of fresh ones that “fell off the truck”. Make sure you try some.”
“Thought you said I was fat,” Tiny said. “And now you want me to eat pie?”
“Well don’t eat none, then,” Cobb rasped out, “I’ll just tell her you think her cookin’ ain’t no good.”
Tiny threw his hands up, aghast. “Don’t you dare, Cobb! You tell her that, she won’t feed me for a month!”
Cobb laughed quietly and shooed them on, “Go on, get out of here. Can’t you see a man’s trying to work,” he said and turned back to his mopping. “And walk on the edge near the window, it’ll be dry by now,” he barked out.
They continued, taking a left into the main hut that was massive enough to have an old airplane suspended from the ceiling, with a rounded height of more than 30 feet. It housed the tourist attractions and the video arcade, along with the souvenir shops and main C-store that sold everything you would expect in a well-stocked convenience store and tourist trap.
There was a pretty good selection of trucker-related items, too. Electronics and load straps and log books, along with the audio books, DVD multi-packs and rattlesnake eggs.
As they passed the arcade, they looked in and saw an intense young man wielding a plastic shotgun, blasting away at never ending hordes of Zombies. They looked at each other and smiled.
Gunny opened the door and they both shambled toward him, arms outstretched, moaning in their best zombie wails and groans, “Brains!”
He spun like lightning, twisting at the waist, feet never moving, orange plastic shotgun to his shoulder. “Boom Boom! Dead, you flesh bags!” he yelled out, targeting each one of them, then turned back to his game, but it was too late. The screen was counting down, demanding more money if he wanted to continue.
“Awwww, piss!” he said in aggravation. “I was on the last level before the Boss Fight.”
“C’mon Scratch,” Gunny said. “We just saved you from yet another slow, painful death. Besides, Martha’s got blueberry pancakes.”
“No thanks to you two ass wipes,” he grumbled. “You’re buying. This damn game cost two bucks to play. Cobb’s getting rich off of me.”
“Where you running today?” Tiny asked, changing the subject.
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