The Zombie Road Omnibus

by David A. Simpson

  “Well, I’ll be,” said Gunny. “He’s on tour? Is he playing in Reno?” Quickly shifting mental gears from weird news footage to everyday small talk.

  “I don’t know, I can’t ask him that,” Kim said, slightly flustered.

  It was obvious to all that she was crushing on him.

  “Who’s Jimmy Winchell?” Tiny and Scratch deadpanned.

  “Tiny, you ain’t got no excuse, I know you like country music and Scratch, well, your brain is melted from all that heavy metal screamo noise you listen to,” she scolded them. “He’s only the biggest country music star ever!”

  “Bigger than Johnny Cash?” asked Scratch.

  “Bigger than Charlie Pride?” Tiny joined in.

  She gave them the stink eye and they bantered back and forth for a few minutes while she took their orders, then she was off to freshen up more coffee cups and take care of her other tables.

  “Better not let Old Cobb catch you staring at his granddaughter’s ass,” Tiny told Scratch.

  “I wasn’t,” he quickly said, turning back to face the table. “I was checking out the Super Star.”

  “Uh huh,” Tiny laughed.

  Gunny sighed heavily and glared at his phone. When he felt them looking at him, he glanced up. “I can’t get through. Was going to call home, see if the Mrs. has heard about any of this stuff down near us.”

  “Try texting,” Scratch said while stuffing his face with buttered toast. “That is, if you know how. It will go through even when voice won’t.”

  Gunny gave him the bird then opened the messenger app on his phone. He sent a quick note then got busy buttering his own toast.

  Tiny grunted and set his phone down. “I can’t get through either. Who’s your carrier?”

  “Verizon,” Gunny said. “You?”

  “AT&T,” Tiny replied, opening a jelly packet. “I got plenty of bars, strong signal. The call won’t go through, though. I’m getting an ‘all circuits busy’ message.”

  “I didn’t even get that,” Gunny said. “Just rang a few times and disconnected.”

  Scratch dug his phone out of his pocket and tried to call his dispatcher again, but also got nothing. “They don’t pay me to sit around, I need to know what they want me to do,” he said. “I’ll run this freight in, I ain’t worried. Some jacked-up crackhead tries to mess with me, he’ll meet Mr. Hook.” He snapped the claws on his left arm together quickly.

  “What you gonna do, clap at him?” Tiny asked.

  “Stick your finger in there and feel the clap,” Scratch retorted, holding the ominous looking claw wide open.

  “No thanks,” Tiny said dryly. “Ol’ lady would kill me if I came home with a case of V.D.”

  Gunny laughed, shook his head. “You walked right into that one,” he said.

  They passed the time waiting for their breakfasts, watching the looping newsreel and speculating about what was going on. They overheard snatches of conversation from other tables with the same questions and concerns they all had.

  Gunny turned in the booth, addressing the next table over, “Hey, Firecracker. Did you just come up from the Shakey?” He knew the man had a dedicated route running raw cabinets from LA to Salt Lake City every week. He figured if there were madness going on, it would be heaviest down there.

  “Yeah I did, Gunny. But there wasn’t anything going on down there when I left yesterday. I mean, anything worse than normal,” he amended. “That where you headed?”

  “No, I’m going to the Gay Bay. This news has got me starting to get worried now. Wondering if it’s safe to get in.”

  “Can’t say, man, I’m headed to Salty City. Maybe check with Wire Bender, see if he has contact with anybody there.”

  “Good idea,” Gunny said. “I’ll check after grub. Thanks.”

  “That IS a good idea,” Scratch chimed in. “When does he open up?”

  Nobody wanted to drive into a city that was having riots in the streets and road closures from protesters. They all remembered Reginald Denny, the driver who was dragged out of his truck and pummeled mercilessly during the L.A. Riots years ago. All of it caught on film and played over and over again, until it was ingrained in every trucker. If a situation like that came up, lock the doors and hit the gas.

  “He’ll probably be open by the time we’re finished eating,” Tiny said. “He keeps early hours. Half the time, he just racks out on that cot he has set up in there.”

  Out of the window, they saw the County Sheriff’s car pull past the gas pumps and into one of the parking spots in front of the building.

  “Good, maybe he knows what’s going on,” Tiny said and heard the same thing chorused from a few of the other tables at the window. A lot of the drivers had tried their phones and only a few had gotten through. It was troubling, and the concern in the room was starting to ratchet up.

  Kim-Li brought their plates over and passed them out, then started refilling their cups

  “Hey, this ain’t that Haji Bacon is it?” Scratch asked, eyeing it suspiciously. “You can take it back if it is, I ain’t eating that crap.”

  Kim cocked her head and looked at him hard, never spilling a drop going from one cup to the other with the steaming coffee pot.

  “You forget where you’re at, Scratch?” she asked. “You think Pawpaw would serve that here? And you owe a dollar to the cuss jar.”

  “What?” he spluttered. “Crap’s not a cuss word!”

  “That’s two bucks, and yes, it is,” she smiled sweetly. “Everybody’s learned not to curse in here anymore, so we’ve expanded the unacceptable words list.”

  “Damn, that’s extortion,” Scratch said under his breath, digging out his wallet to put the money into her outstretched hand.

  “Three bucks. Want to go for an even five?” she said, snapping her fingers. “I’ve got my eye on a new purse I need.”

  He just smiled grimly and made a zipping motion across his lips as Tiny and Gunny snickered at him. He held up his claw to them as she walked away and asked, “Guess which finger I’m holding up right now?”

  The sheriff’s deputy came in, looking a bit harried, and quickly walked up to the counter. Martha was behind it at the coffee urns, filling up another filter with fresh ground. She glanced over her shoulder and asked him in her accented English, “You want brak-fast?”

  “Not today,” he said. “Can you give me a dozen sausage and egg biscuits for the office? I’ve called everyone in and some of them just got off shift an hour ago.”

  Martha yelled back to Cookie, who manned the grill. “You hear?” she asked. “Chop chop! Make first!”

  “Coming right up,” he hollered back over the din of the sizzling griddle and the dirty dishes being loaded into the dishwasher.

  Deputy Billy Travaho was a lean, rangy man. Sun baked by the Nevada summers, his Shoshone tribal features were prominent. His jurisdiction in the county covered everything from just north of the densely populated Reno area, all the way up to the Oregon border. Nearly 6,000 square miles of sparsely populated and rugged terrain.

  The sheriff took care of business in the cities of Reno and Sparks, south of them. Everything else Travaho ran as he saw fit from his office just a few miles from the Three Flags. It was a quiet job for the most part. The occasional domestic dispute, or marijuana operation up in the mountains. He had grown up just down the road from the truck stop, and old Cobb had given him his first job washing trucks when he was 14.

  He knew about the illegal poker games in the back rooms. The working girls who sometimes drifted in, plying their trade among the truckers. He knew about the bare-knuckle cage fights in the junkyard that drew in the Reno crowds, where some pretty substantial sums changed hands. He knew the truckers used this route to get around the California inspection stations.

  He knew all these things and a little more, but turned a blind eye. He usually didn’t put too much effort into the little things. The deputy leaned his back on the counter, sipping the coffee Martha had brough
t over to him while he was waiting for his breakfast biscuits.

  He recognized Jimmy Winchell sitting a few stools down and smiled at him. “Mr. Winchell,” he exclaimed. “I saw the tour bus. Welcome to Nevada. You guys doing a show in Reno?”

  Jimmy put on his patented “aw shucks” smile that had graced his platinum selling albums, stood and walked over to the deputy, holding out his hand. “Yes, sir,” he said as they shook. “We have one this evening, but with all this craziness going on, do you know if they are shutting down big events? I can’t seem to get through to our manager.” He nodded his head at the phone lying on the counter top.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Billy said. “I haven’t heard anything like that yet, but we’re just now starting to get reports of some attacks in Reno. I’ve called all of my deputies in and I should know more when I get to the office.”

  The entire diner was listening and a few drivers called out questions. “Have you heard anything about Sacramento?” “Are they shutting the highways down?” “Is it some kind of terrorist attack?”

  Deputy Travaho held up his hands in front of him. “Hold on, fellas,” he said. “I haven’t heard anything except a few isolated reports from Reno. That’s all my radio picks up. I won’t know anything else until I get to the office. But as it stands right now, it’s just a few incidences. Nothing to get too worked up about, and no, I don’t know what is behind it all. Could be just a bad batch of Mexican drugs, or mass psychosis. Remember those German nuns back in the 15th century who started biting everybody?”

  Nobody did, but a few of the drivers laughed at this. Some of them knew Billy from the old days, when he would wash their trucks and continually stump them with weird trivia questions.

  Peanut Butter and Butter Cup were in a booth near the counter and the older of the two ladies, Peanut Butter, as the drivers all knew her, asked him if he’d heard anything about the governor declaring a state of emergency. And if he did, would trucks still be allowed on the roads. They had a load of livestock on, they couldn’t wait for days for things to settle down. They didn’t carry extra feed or water.

  Again, Billy reiterated that he didn’t really know anything yet. He’d have someone call and let them know more once he got to the office. The conversations among the drivers started back up again and they speculated about things no one really had any answers to.

  Tiny and Gunny turned back to their plates before their food got cold, Scratch was texting on his phone again. They heard a dull thumping sound before they looked up to see a blacked out Chrysler 300, complete with huge rims and skinny tires, pull up to the gas pumps closest to the building. The heavy thumping bass beat must have been deafening inside the car.

  “Yo, I got 15s banging: they can beat a man up,” Scratch rapped, throwing his best hand and claw gang signs.

  Tiny just shook his head. “And he’s gonna wonder why he gets pulled over,” he said. “Disturbing the peace, if nothing else.”

  A skinny black man with braids and beads in his hair jumped out, nearly dancing to the beat, which continued on after he shut off the car and swiped his card to start fueling. He was wearing his saggy pants so low, most of his skinny rump and brightly colored underwear was showing. His gold chains, the sideways hat, the silver teeth and neck tattoos announced to the world he was ghetto and proud of it.

  A white cargo van with ladders on the roof pulled into the last island and a couple of guys in paint-stained pants got out and stretched, started filling their own gas tank, ignoring the young black man dancing to his music.

  Most of the drivers had noticed the ghetto gangster because of the thumping bass vibrating the windows of the diner, and were half-jokingly laying odds on how long till he got pulled over for driving while black. Gunny went back to his blueberry pancakes. He had better things to worry about.

  The two motorcycle riders had finished their breakfast and had walked outside to their bikes, talking and strapping on their helmets.

  “Going to be a good day for a ride,” Gunny commented. “If Billy is bringing in all his deputies, they have the road to themselves.”

  Tiny harrumphed. “They can have it. You know they’ll be running a hundred miles an hour through those curves. Gimme my old Harley any day. Slow and easy.”

  “Shit,” Scratch said, quickly looking over his shoulder to make sure Kim hadn’t heard. “They’ll be going a hundred before they leave the parking lot.”

  The deputy had paid for his dozen breakfast biscuits and was trying to get out of the restaurant without being rude, but still trying to answer some of the questions, when Cobb stumped in and cut everyone off. “The man said he don’t know nothin’ more than what he’s already told ya, so shut yer gobs and let him get out of here and do his job,” he rasped.

  Billy smiled and nodded his thanks, pushing open the door and walking into the C-store, headed for the main doors out to the parking lot.

  The two motorcycle riders, fully kitted up with their helmets and leather gauntlets, took off out of the lot with a little too much throttle than was strictly necessary, anxious to start carving the winding mountain roads. Especially now that they knew the sheriff’s department wouldn’t be on patrol. It was going to be a glorious early fall day.

  The bikes were running beautifully, the police presence was at a minimum, and the Go Pro cameras were turned on. What could possibly go wrong?

  2

  Sara

  Sara, on her CBR, couldn’t help but feel the awesomeness of the day coming on. Her riding buddy was on a GSX, a bike equal to hers. She had a full tank of gas, it was perfect fall weather, and there were a hundred miles of curves to conquer. She had been riding all her life, starting on mini bikes and dirt bikes when she was a kid growing up on the farm. As a woman, she had a hard time finding other females she could really tear up the roads with.

  She knew plenty of girls that rode, even belonged to a group that would tool around on day trips, and they were fun, but none of the other girls she rode with liked to really rip through the mountain roads at 150. Most of them had probably never had their bikes much past the speed limit.

  So she rode with guys. Most were cool after they saw that she knew how to handle her bike, it wasn’t all just show. Today she was riding with a guy she had met at the bike shop. He seemed nice, wasn’t pushy. Cute, too. She’d reserve judgment until she saw how he handled that big GSX, she thought.

  She gave the throttle a quick blip and brought the front wheel up a foot or so, enjoying the feeling of power and control. Whatever the morons in the city were all worked up about didn’t affect her in the least. She just wanted to ride. To lean hard and drag her knee through the twisties, to see the white dotted lines on the road become a solid blur when she hit 140 in the straights. To feel the scream of her engine between her legs. To hear….“WHAT THE?” was all she had time to think before she was tackled off her bike and slammed to the ground by a screaming woman in a house dress and a curious red blotch splashed all over the front of her flapping gown.

  She had come out of nowhere it seemed, launching straight at her while her front wheel was still hanging two feet off the ground. The force of the impact ripped her off the bike, her hand twisting the throttle full to the stop as she flew backward with the gnashing and screaming woman tearing at her as they were flying through the air.

  She was like a rabid dog, lunging at her face, scrabbling with her hands and feet to get up to her neck. Sara’s bike wheeled the rest of the way up and over as they left it, and she heard the instant revs of the engine to 10,000 rpms and back down again. Heard the crunch of breaking plastic as it slammed onto the asphalt, sliding toward the high desert scrub on the side of the road.

  They hit the road hard, Sara’s helmeted head bouncing and her Kevlar-lined leathers rasping across the blacktop and into the sand. She wasn’t hurt by the fall, just stunned and trying to wrap her head around the fact that she had just been body slammed at 40 miles an hour, while riding a wheelie, by a raving lunat
ic. The leathers and helmet were designed for things like this… well, not exactly like this, but for taking an impact with an unforgiving surface and allowing the wearer to walk away unscathed.

  The crazy lady didn’t slow down one bit when they finally stopped sliding, just attacked with more ferocity than ever, snapping her jaws, raking her already broken fingernails over her leather, trying to find something human to sink her teeth into. She was all knees and elbows and fingers, everywhere, all at once.

  Sara felt panic racing through her head. This schizoid kept trying to bite into her face and neck, but the helmet and support collar she wore wouldn’t let her. Did she scream? Probably. She tried to push the flailing woman off, but she was like an octopus, my God, how many arms and legs did she have?

  She was all over her, roaring in her face, bashing her teeth against the helmet trying to get at her. She could see her nose break, up close and in bloody 3D, as she once again smashed into her faceplate. Her hands pulled and clawed at Sara’s jacket. Every time she managed to push her away she came back in, twice as vicious. A pulling, grasping woman-thing trying to tear through the leather and padding of the one-piece suit she wore. Sara knew she screamed that time, and mindless survival adrenaline kicked in.

  A blind urgency to get this thing off of her overrode everything else. She no longer saw her as the 100-pound Mexican woman, maybe on drugs, maybe just crazy. She saw a monster trying to eat her face, she saw childhood nightmares had become real.

  Her fight or flight animal brain engaged and she started punching the woman in the side of her head with her carbon fiber reinforced leather knuckles. She struggled and tried to roll her off, but the madwoman’s strength was unreal, she ignored Sara’s bashing on the side of her head and sank her teeth into the neck collar again, this time getting a solid mouthful and shaking her head back and forth like a dog with a blanket. The collar ripped clear of her neck, the Velcro fasteners coming free.