Dead Texas (Book 3): Lonesome Road

by Slaton, Derek

  By the time they reached the wall, they were only going about ten miles an hour, slow enough that zombies were able to start climbing up onto the tailgate. Rufus and Jeff opened fire, expending round after round in an attempt to keep the climbers at bay. But for each one that took a blast and fell away, another rose to take its place.

  Finally the grill reached the cars, and they came to a near standstill. Ricky dropped the truck into four wheel drive and gunned it, which was enough to get them moving a bit. The barricade groaned and started to give a little.

  “Hang on, boys, we’re almost there!” Ricky screamed.

  Jeff’s shotgun gave a sharp click. “Fuck, I’m out!” he cried, and Rufus got to his feet, swinging his assault rifle like a baseball bat. Jeff joined him at the tailgate to play whack-a-zombie, smashing the butt of the shotgun into whatever popped up.

  The truck finally was able to push through the cars, and leapt forward to accelerate to freedom.

  “Get down!” Mary shrieked back at them, and Rufus and Jeff dove to the floor to avoid being flung out. They got a few hundred yards clear of the mayhem and Ricky finally slowed down a bit.

  “Goddamn, you boys alright?” he asked.

  “Never better,” Rufus drawled.

  Jeff snorted. “Peachy.”

  “Alright!” Ricky hooted. “Let’s get goin, then!”

  “Keep it slow for a few minutes,” Jeff instructed, “I gotta let Dan know we’ll meet them in Junction.”

  “Well, after what she’s just been through, this truck could use a bit of a leisurely stroll,” Ricky said, lovingly patting the dashboard. Mary put her hand over his and he interlaced their fingers, bringing her knuckles to his lips.

  She smiled at him. “We made it.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sparks made her way down a dusty dirt road towards a fence, jumping off into the ditch to hide her approach. She got to the entrance to the farmhouse property and took a beat to survey it. There was a large barn about forty yards ahead to the left, and a large one story home about fifty yards past that. It was difficult to make out any figures from that distance, but the lights were on and smoke curled from the chimney.

  She made her way across the field and up to the backside of the barn. The large doors were sealed shut, but a smaller person-sized door was ajar. She slipped in, handgun raised and at the ready.

  There were horse stables built into either side of the barn, blocked metal gates about six feet high. The moon shone in through the rafters and provided just enough light for her to check each pen for enemies. She was so focused on straining her eyes in the dim light that she kicked a metal tool with her boot, causing a little clang.

  Moans permeated the space and she raised her gun immediately, taking a fighting stance. Upon closer inspection, however, she realized that the zombies were secure in the last pen, only able to reach through the bars at her. She noted the latch and furrowed her brow.

  “What the hell is this?” she muttered, taking in the dozen or so corpses with matching neck wounds. The other thing they all had in common was that they were all of Latino descent, and she shook her head in disgust at the blatant racism of the militia.

  Sparks passed the pen and almost tripped over a burlap sack on the ground. She peeked inside and realized it was a severed zombie head, still twitching and snapping and covered in blood. Her confusion mounted until she reached the other side of the barn, and saw the reason for the zombie breeding.

  The path between her position and the house was littered with wooden posts holding corpses on crude leashes. These evil bastards had created their own vicious guard zombie brigade.

  A lone figure sat on the front porch of the house, and appeared to be playing some kind of handheld video game. As she watched, two more militia members exited the house, one of them handing a beer to the gamer. They sat around a wooden table, laughing loudly.

  She ducked back inside the barn and contemplated her next move. Taking out three guards with only a handgun would be difficult, especially given that she had no idea how many more were inside.

  She needed a distraction. A large one.

  Sparks looked back at the caged zombies and a devious idea began to form. She rummaged around a workbench and found a length of rope, and attached one end of it to the zombie pen door.

  “I guess this is karma for asking Jeff how fast he could run,” she said under her breath, backing up as far as the rope allowed. She drew her handgun, took a deep breath, and then yanked hard on the rope, freeing the zombies.

  The first of them clumsily reached for her, but grabbed nothing but air. They emerged from the barn hot on her heels with a thunderous announcement.

  Forty yards to go.

  The guards perked up as they heard more than saw trouble on the horizon. They scrambled to their feet and readied their weapons, screaming for backup as they realized what was headed their way.

  Thirty yards to go.

  Sparks slid underneath the grasp of a leashed zombie, and drew the attention of a militia member with her agility. Before he could raise his weapon, however, she fired at him, the bullet hitting the house but causing the three enemies on the porch to take cover.

  Twenty yards to go.

  She took the opportunity to break into a sprint for the house, the wide open front door her target. If she could just get inside, she could lock these fuckers out with the dead ones.

  Ten yards.

  The front porch was within reach as an armed man appeared in the doorway to provide backup to his team. Sparks leapt as soon as she reached the stairs, landing a solid flying knee to his chest. The man fell inside, smacking the hardwood floor with the back of his head.

  She immediately launched back off of him, slamming and locking the door. She popped off a round into his kneecap as he attempted to raise his weapon at her.

  “I wouldn’t try that again,” she warned, moving forward to kick his rifle away. “Who else is in the house?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody.”

  She cocked the gun. “Not going to ask again.”

  “I swear, nobody else,” he replied.

  There were screams from outside and a smattering of gunfire as the Latino zombies exacted swift revenge on their racist captors. Sparks turned her attention back to her prisoner, who was holding his leg wound tightly. Before she could resume questioning, another man emerged from the back room with a double barreled shotgun.

  She dove into the front room, just missing the blast from the mighty weapon.

  “You missed her, she’s on the flo-” Mister No-Knee began, but his warning was cut short by Sparks shooting him in the lung from beneath the couch. As he gasped for air, his partner turned the corner and fired blindly, hitting nothing but floor.

  He popped the weapon open to reload, and Sparks took the opportunity to leap from behind the sofa and smash her boot into the side of his knee. His joint bent sideways, shredding every ligament, and he fell to the ground in a heap.

  “If your hands so much as move I’m going to end you, are we clear?” she demanded.

  He hissed in pain. “Yeah.”

  “Anybody else in the house?” she asked her new prisoner.

  He shook his head.

  “If I hear so much as a footstep, you die,” she promised. “Now, where’s Elijah?”

  He took in a deep breath. “He’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “He was here about a half hour ago, dropped off some stuff and loaded up with heavy weapons,” he explained, and her heart sank.

  “Where’s my stuff?” she demanded.

  He furrowed his brow. “What?”

  “My stuff!” she growled. “The fucking shit he brought in. Was it a big bag?”

  He nodded. “Back bedroom.”

  “You did good,” she said, “so you die quick.”

  “What? No-” he pleaded, but she cut him off by shooting him directly in the face. She didn’t even give him a second thought as she ran to the b
ack bedroom.

  Her bag was strewn across the bed, the drug bottles dumped everywhere, some of them empty. She scoured through the contents, looking for her only connection to the group.

  “Where are you?” she gasped to herself as she searched, panic gripping her chest. “Come on, please, where are you?” She sighed in relief when she found the earpiece underneath a fold in the comforter, and shoved it in her ear, tapping it.

  “Sparks, is that you?” Dan asked immediately.

  Her blood ran cold. “Oh god, are those gunshots?”

  “The militia’s here and it’s bad,” he replied. “They’re… they’re just killing everyone.”

  A sob racked her throat. “It’s my fault, it’s all my fault!”

  “It’s okay, Sparks,” he assured her, not sounding afraid, just sad. “Look, I don’t have much time left. The others are safe and going to be in Junction. Go meet them.”

  In the background, there were more gunshots, and a voice that she was sure belonged to Elijah yelled, “They’re in the house!”

  “I’m so sorry Dan.” Tears streamed down her face, and her gun fell to the bed, her hands suddenly useless.

  “I told you, it’s okay,” he said gently. “You did everything you could to help us. Now it’s time for me to go home to Katie.”

  She cried out at the sound of a loud clatter through the comm, and Elijah clear as day, “Good to see you again, Principal.”

  There was a hail of gunfire and she screamed, tearing the earpiece off of her and throwing it across the room. She scrubbed her hands up her face, burying her fingers in her hair and jerking at her scalp.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered through gasping sobs, her heart pounding in her ears, bo-boom. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Bo-boom.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  END OF BOOK THREE