“Well, word is a crew of nefarious types has the bridge barricaded about thirty miles east of here. I don’t think they are waiting to get your autograph.” He replied.
“What you got in mind Ash?” I already knew the answer, I just wanted to hear him say it. When you’re a hammer everything is a nail and Ash was all hammer.
“Partner, you’re gonna ride my back bumper and me and Titwell here are gonna bust their barricade open like the piñata at your tenth birthday party. Ouch! Stop woman!” I heard him yelp. I laughed, glad she was riding with him and not me. She was a pro, but she was a handful.
I caught up to them a few minutes later. I had to slow down since the armored truck wasn’t all that fast but the protection it provided was more than worth the few minutes of time I lost. I could make it up easily enough once we cleared the barricade.
The bandits that had the bridge blocked showed the first real signs of organization of any of the wannabe assassins I’d encountered so far. Both lanes of the bridge were blocked off with an Oldsmobile and a Lincoln Town car. Big sturdy cars, built to last. They would have been a real problem for me on my own, but lucky me, I had Ash running point. The other four cars were a mixture of Dodge Chargers, Ford Mustangs and Chevrolet Camaros, fast and powerful, any one of them capable of running me down and shooting bullets up my ass until they hit something vital if I managed to slip through their trap. The sports cars were parked in pairs on each side of the road with shooters toting Mini-14’s and AR-15’s propped across the hoods. I heard them open up on the armored truck. They may as well have been shooting spitballs out of plastic straws for all the good it did. Ash never slowed down. He plowed through the point where the Olds met the Caddy, sending shrapnel and bodies flying. The big cars were flung aside like they were made out of cardboard as the big truck hammered its way through them. I heard Shanna squeal in delight over the radio as they cleared the other side of the barricade. The girl loved a good throw down. I didn’t want to be left out of the fun, so I opened fire with the MK-48 on the cars on the right side of the road. The thirty caliber armor piercing rounds cut through the thin sheet metal of the sports cars and the shooters. Bloody spray, bandit chunks, fragments of shattered glass and plastic showered the air. I tossed a pair of white phosphorous grenades out the driver’s side window as I drove past the ones to my left. Bullets whined and ricocheted off the Jeep’s armored body before the shooters realized what I’d thrown their way and scrambled for cover. I watched in satisfaction when one of the cars flipped into the air from the grenade that had rolled underneath and caught fire from the white phosphorous packed inside of it. The second grenade went off short of the other car, blowing out the windows and tires of the passenger side, before the white phosphorous propelled from the blast set the paint on fire. Their cars were out of the fight and their numbers had dropped from a dozen to three in the span of a few seconds. The remaining bandits quit firing when the first car exploded and ran for the safety of the woods. It would be a long walk to anywhere from here and after I put the word out on the CB, they wouldn’t find the locals very welcoming. Served them right, maybe they’d get lucky and meet the remnants of the horde that I knew were still plodding along miles behind me.
My radio chirped. “That’s how you do it, son.” Ash’s voice. Time to talk a little shit, he’d earned it. This was a story that would grow to epic proportions the more times it was told in the saloons. Retrievers were always trying to one up each other, enhance their reputations and the legends surrounding them, all in pursuit of gold and glory.
“You are the man when it comes to breaking shit.” I replied back. “I’ll make sure I tell Bastille what a badass you are, he’ll probably want to interview you.”
“You do that. I can hardly wait to tell his listeners how I bailed your drunk ass out again. Who’s the bird dogs in the Chevelle?” He asked.
“Ain’t you heard? I’ve got my own reality show, I’m a big star now,” I replied.
Laughter came back over the radio. “Remind me to get you to autograph a roll of toilet paper for me so I never forget just how full of shit you are.”
I was ahead of them now, the gray armored truck getting smaller in my rearview.
The radio crackled. “Rye.” It was Shanna. “Stay sharp out there. We’re rooting for you.”
“Yes ma’am.” They were an indistinct blur now, every second taking me closer to my destination. I was getting closer to the river. Further from the people who had my back. Soon it would just be me and my wits. Every hard lesson and skill I’d learned put to the ultimate test. Bring it on. I took another swig of Stabby’s infernal concoction and savored the rush.
15
Cowboys
120 Miles from the Mississippi
I could smell gasoline in the air, at least one of my jerry cans had a new hole in it and was pissing gasoline. A quick calculation told me I had a little over one hundred twenty miles to go. I was still on schedule thanks to the blockers that’d cleared the way for me. My bar tab was going to be astronomical at the after party. I was gonna be neck deep in repaying favors for the foreseeable future, but I couldn’t have done it without them, and it was a debt I would gladly repay.
My last escorts would pick me up around the one-hundred-mile mark. The trucker speed Stabby had given me was starting to wear off and the hours of running and gunning were starting to tell on me. I yawned from the exhaustion. I’d barely slept since leaving Tombstone and there’d be no rest until I was safely across the river.
I was on a two-lane road now, Hwy 124. There wasn’t much out here. Fire had ravaged the area, blackened trees as far as the eye could see on both sides of the road for miles and miles. I slowed down due to the melted asphalt of the highway. Potholes were everywhere and sections of the road had collapsed where rainwater had washed away the soil of the roadbed. Burned out houses and rusting hulks of fire damaged cars interspersed through the hellish landscape sat on their blistered wheels, the rubber tires incinerated from the extreme temperatures of the blaze. In a few months, the forest would come alive with new growth, lush and green and any trace of the people who’d lived here would be buried beneath the vines and creepers that would sprout with the spring rains.
After crossing a creek, everything turned green again. I was looking at my map instead of the road, so I almost didn’t see them until I was nearly upon them. I grabbed the joystick for the machine gun, my finger hovering over the trigger until I realized they weren’t there to stop me. They appeared to be a young family who’d heard the chatter on the radio and wanted to see the legend in person.
A man about my age stood by a pickup parked on the shoulder of the road, holding a hunting rifle in one hand, his other around the calf of a little boy about eight or nine perched on his shoulders. A woman with an old Instamatic camera stood in the bed of the truck. The kid wore a cowboy hat and in his outstretched hand he was holding out a toy Jeep. He waved at me and yelled my name as I roared past. I watched his arm drop and his shoulders slump in disappointment when I kept going. No way was I letting that happen, I couldn’t resist his gesture. I hit the brakes and downshifted, swerved down in the ditch and spun the ‘Dillo back the way I’d come. Grass and gravel slung from the rear tires until the asphalt caught underneath them with a chirp. I sat in the middle of the road and picked up the CB.
“Hope you boys have some film left.” I said to the brothers in the Chevelle. Crash double clicked his mic in affirmation.
I drove a quarter mile past the boy and his father and slid the Jeep sideways on the blacktop, punched the gas, and spun the steering wheel until I was pointing back east. I hit the release on the window guards, redlined the engine, then popped the clutch. Black smoke poured from the rear tires and the big Hemi V-8 roared as I shot back in their direction. He held the toy out in his hand, grinning ear to ear, and when I passed by them again, I reached out and plucked the toy Jeep from his hand. I hit the horn in salute, then took my Stetson and sailed it out the window
where it settled onto the center line. A fair trade in my not so humble opinion. The last thing I saw before they were out of sight was him swapping my hat for his, fist thrust in the air and screaming “YES!!!” at the top of his lungs.
“Dude, that was awesome.” Crash said over the radio. The Chevelle had slowed to a crawl, Conor hanging out the window to film the boy as he put on my favorite Stetson and danced in celebration down the highway.
“Yeah, it was. I’m gonna need a copy of that.” I chuckled. The kid had good taste in heroes.
Crash replied, “You got it man, that clip is gonna make us rich.”
Yeah, I know, most everyone hated the movie the Postman, but I loved it, so go screw yourself if you didn’t. I could hear Bastille’s tagline in my head, “Retriever steals toy from child. Parents caught it all on camera.”
I set the toy Jeep on my dash for luck and headed for my next rendezvous.
16
Ace in the Hole
100 Miles from the Mississippi
A welcome sight greeted me as I pulled into the parking lot of the dilapidated Quik-Stop convenience store. The paint scheme was new, last time I’d seen it, the ambulance was still the traditional red and white colors, now it sported a black matte finish. The armor had been upgraded too, an external roll cage shrouded the ambulance and skirts were welded over the rear tires to protect them from gunfire. The light bar over the cab was surrounded by an expanded metal cage, I guess she was tired of hunting down a new one every time some outlaw shot it up. She liked to run her emergency lights in the settlements when she was transporting a capture, part of her flair for showmanship.
The tall, heavily muscled Hispanic man leaning out the top hatch of the repurposed ambulance nodded in my direction, but kept his gaze on the road behind me, sharp eyes checking for any signs of pursuit of the bandit persuasion. The steely eyed blonde in the driver’s seat covered the other direction with her M4, her face mostly hidden by the wide brimmed hat perched low on her head, an unlit cheroot sitting in the corner of her mouth.
The boys in the Chevelle made for the fuel ports and began filling up their car from the underground tanks. I’d already given them warning that I didn’t want them filming any part of this meet. They’d wanted to argue until I pivoted the MK-48 in their direction and reiterated my point.
The pair in the ambulance were my aces in the hole if I didn’t make it back. I trusted them implicitly. Hands down, no questions asked. Even if we didn’t always see eye to eye, I could count on them to back my play. I didn’t really have the time to spare for a face to face meeting, but with every radio channel being monitored, I couldn’t afford to have this discussion over the CB.
I parked so we were facing each other. “Stratton Haisch is about one hundred fifty miles back that way if you want to scoop him up.”
“What happened?” She pulled out a map and handed it to me with a pen. “Mark the spot.”
I drew a circle around his approximate location and handed it back to her. “He fancied himself a gun fighter. He was mistaken.”
She grunted, then folded the map and stuck it over the sun visor. “Good riddance.”
Pancho grinned down at me from his perch. “Hey Nancy, you think Rye is worth more dead or alive. That ten-thousand-dollar reward would just about let us break even on the repairs to the bus.”
I saluted him with my middle finger, the universal symbol of brotherly love. A few weeks back, I’d passed on a job to them that was more in line with their particular skill set than mine. I didn’t really care to chase bounties, so when Nancy had me over a barrel at the card table, I covered my bet with the information on the job. Apparently, they ran into issues and had sustained serious damage to their mode of transportation.
“Easy money, my ass.” Nancy growled at me. “Remind me to shoot you next time you offer me a lead.”
I smiled the most innocent smile I could muster at her. “Now, Nance, you know I wouldn’t intentionally give you bad info. If you hadn’t beaten me, I’d have scooped up that fellow myself. Your bus looks good, the black paint matches your heart.”
Honestly, I thought the info I had was solid, an easy snatch and run on some nerd who’d made off with a chest full of gold marked for the new settlement in Gallatin, Missouri. I had no way of knowing the man known as the Accountant would have a gang of outlaw bikers to back him up. Seriously, a nickname like the Accountant sounded like some dweeb with taped up glasses, pocket protector and a calculator, not a six-foot five, two hundred eighty-pound tattooed barbarian. It’s all part and parcel of the trade though. Most of the time the snitches selling you the info on the target aren’t any better than the target themselves and are working every angle they can for their own benefit. Some of the weasels would sell you the information, then turn around and sell the bounty information on who was after them. Revenge on a jilted lover, payback for a deal gone wrong, greed and jealousy were just a few of the many motives for a snitch to muddy the facts to fit their own agendas. But hey, if it was easy, anyone could do it.
She glared at me for a minute, then her gaze softened. “Bullshit aside, you really gonna do this?”
She might still be pissed at me about that job, but there was no one else I’d rather have in my corner when the chips were down.
“I don’t have a choice.” I said. I proceeded to tell her about Carter and his threat against Caitlin. She didn’t interrupt or ask questions until I laid it all out for her.
“That son of a bitch. You want us to make him disappear? You can call this whole thing off and go home. We’ll scoop him up and take him for a long ride in the desert. No one will ever know what happened to him.” She asked.
“I’m not sure if that would change anything or not. Carter is somebody’s lap dog, following orders like a good soldier. Whoever’s pulling his strings is safe and secure in the Tower,” I answered. “But orders or not, he made it personal between us and I’ll deal with him myself when I get back, but if something happens to me, feel free to look him up but leave the rest of them alone.”
“Fine, he can keep breathing for now,” she muttered. “But if you don’t return safe and sound, I’ll raze the Tower and everyone in it to the ground to get him if I have to. He can’t hide from me.”
I believed her. Too many outlaws had underestimated her to their own demise. She may have had a few years and miles on her, but she was still as tough as a two-dollar steak. She had taken on some of the meanest and vilest of the outlaws that roamed the badlands and was still around to tell the tales, while they stretched a rope, rotted in shallow graves or wandered among the undead. Yeah, you heard that last part right. Rapists, pedophiles and slavers had a special place in the dark spaces of Nurse Nancy’s heart. She kept a few syringes with zombie blood in them just for those special occasions. Death was too good for the pieces of shit, so she injected them with the virus, lopped off their hands and bottom jaws and locked them away in an abandoned copper mine out in the middle of the desert.
“I don’t think it’s the whole group, from what little I know. Lakota is negotiating trade with them, and they’ve helped restore some of the old technology. I imagine most of them are decent people just trying to survive like the rest of us. I think they have a rogue element in their midst with their own agenda, but I can’t back that theory up with anything but my gut, but if it comes down to it, give Carter my best before you send him to hell.” I had no doubt she’d avenge me, I just hoped she didn’t have to.
She struck a match on her thumbnail and lit up the cheroot, smoke curled into the air as she drew the tip to a cherry red ember. “Don’t worry, cowboy, I’ll make sure Mr. Carter takes the scenic route on his way there.”
“If you get a chance, put the squeeze on Bastille, someone posted the bounty on my head. He reported it so there’s a good chance he knows who put the money up. Oh, one more thing, if I don’t make it back, I need Caitlin to die.” It was the only way I could think of to save her.
She stared at
me hard for a second, then nodded that she understood. “Consider it done.”
17
Full House
River Crossing
South of Huffman, AR
My convoy rolled into the small marina south of Huffman, Arkansas. When I saw what was waiting for me, I hit the brakes hard, causing Nancy to swerve around to keep from rear ending me, served her right for following so close. I was greeted by the site of a couple hundred desiccated zombies standing on the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. The boys in the Chevelle were out of the car in a flash, filming the horde and doing their best to rile them up into a frenzy. Damned fools, I thought, they’d be overrun in seconds. I saw Pancho pop through the roof of the ambulance and man the machine gun, ready to engage. Nancy already had the ambulance in reverse and was maneuvering to get me out of their line of fire. The undead immediately set to keening and wailing and lunged in our direction. I dropped the Jeep into reverse, grabbed the joystick for the MK-48 and hovered my finger over the trigger. This was supposed to be the place. I’d risked my ass to get here only to find it infested with the undead. The mass of zombies only moved a couple of feet before jerking to a stop, that’s when I saw the chains around their necks, anchoring them in place. I also noticed none of them had arms and every one of them was wearing a rubber ball gag in its mouth. It was horrifying and funny at the same time. Looks like someone raided the adult toy store on the interstate, I thought. I was anxious to meet the individual who had the balls to gag two hundred undead, that couldn’t have been a fun time.
I followed the chain with my eyes and saw that it was shackled to a heavy steel cable wound around a set of massive wooden gears mounted to a steel platform sitting horizontally on the ground. From there, the cable ran down through a set of pulleys mounted to the battleship gray barge that served as the ferry. The cables disappeared across the wide river to an anchor point somewhere on the other side.
Road to Riches: Deadline: Book 1 (Zombie Road) Page 12
