Now those two were thick as thieves, Lucinda allowing her to eat at the same table as him. She probably thought she was his equal. He’d have to put a stop to that, put her back in her place. Maybe after they took Lakota, she and Collins could share a jail cell. He’d teach them both a few lessons. Maybe Lucinda, too. She was getting too big for her britches. He had to be careful there, though. She still ruled over all of the women, and they were all hooked up with his men. If he pissed her off too much, she might tell them to whisper to their men about him. About maybe they should overthrow him, get a new leader. The men would do it, too. They’d do anything to keep a woman happy. Morons. He couldn’t trust anybody, only himself. He watched the two of them out of the corner of his eye as he sat and drank, waiting for the long line of trucks to get situated.
Lucinda and Edmunds had become BFFs, or whatever it was chicks called it. She’d just about quit with all her made-up voodoo rituals and had started doing things that Edmunds showed her. Some devil worshipping crap that apparently all the fancy folks had been into. Edmunds taught her about spirit cooking, and drinking adrenalized blood. He’d watched as they tortured a little girl, terrorized her, flayed her face off, wore it like a mask, and then drank her blood while she screamed. It was too much for him, but he had to stay, he couldn’t appear weak, but he sure as hell couldn’t watch.
Lucinda said it was the best high she ever had, it was better than coke and acid and pot or crack or anything. Edmunds said it was a fountain of youth. She claimed a lot of politicians and half of Hollywood did it. That secret societies had been drinking blood for centuries. She said Count Dracula himself, Vlad the Impaler, knew the secret and drank the adrenaline-filled blood drained from tortured and terrified victims. She was probably laughing at him behind his back about his cannibal rituals. She asked him if he ever noticed the movers and shakers of the world sometimes wore red shoes. He hadn’t, of course. Who gives a shit what kind of shoes people wore, he wasn’t a girl.
They’re a secret sign, she’d said, trying her best not to sound condescending. They’re made out of human skin.
He didn’t know what to think about the things she said, it made what he did seem so amateurish. He should just put a bullet in her smarmy face, but Lucinda wouldn’t like it. Maybe he’d put a bullet in her, too. He took another long angry chug from the bottle. He realized there was always someone meaner, harder, and more depraved, no matter what you did. He was Casey the Cannibal, he’d killed a man and took a bite out of his still-beating heart to make a point. That bitch was probably sniggering at him. She tortured kids and ate their faces just for fun.
He hadn’t had a human sacrifice since. After watching her suck down her adrenochrome, he decided he wasn’t going to rule like that anymore. He couldn’t be seen as soft or weak, he’d still dish out a killing, if a killing was needed. He’d still show them who was boss, teach anybody a lesson that needed teaching, still reign over his empire like a mighty warrior king, but eating people was over. He’d come up with some other initiation rites. That one had served its purpose, but he didn’t need it anymore. He wanted to be remembered as a badass ruler like Attila the Hun, or Conan the Barbarian, and he was pretty sure they hadn’t eaten people.
In less than a year he had gathered a mighty army, and they would do anything he said. He’d never had any kind of power before and he knew he had to be careful, not let it go to his head and start thinking he was a god or something. Like he was invincible. None of the great rulers he’d read about died of old age. They all seemed to go power mad, got crazier and crazier until the people got fed up and killed them. He’d gone kind of nuts for a while, doing everything he’d ever dreamed of doing, but he needed to wise up. He needed to tone it down some.
That bullet exploding against the window had really made it clear how close he was to dying. If that asshole Gunny would have waited until he was out on the balcony, smoking his after-breakfast cigar, he’d be nothing more than a cold slab of meat right now. It was a sobering thought. No more little girls, he told himself, and he’d tell Lucinda. Make sure they were at least fifteen. A good leader needed to exercise a little control. A good leader needed to make his enemies cower in fear, not his own people.
He’d started chasing the Lakota crew in haste, he should have let his men handle it. Now he had to catch them and kill them, or he’d be seen as weak. He couldn’t give up. He’d follow them all the way to Lakota if he had to, and then he’d figure out some way to get inside. It was built to keep zombies out, or to withstand a full-on attack. He’d seen the layout, it would be easy to infiltrate. Most of the town was surrounded by water, surely one of his men knew how to scuba dive. Things were set in motion, there was no turning back. He’d have Lakota, no matter what.
Lucinda watched him without being obvious about it. He was on the edge of something, and she didn’t know which way he would go. She encouraged the blood feasts, the spirit cooking, and the sacrifices. She wanted some of whatever Edmunds had been so eager to get her hands on, it was a hell of a drug, and she understood why she’d never heard of it before, if the only way to get it was by torturing kids. Over the past six months, she’d gotten to know Casey pretty well. He was an opportunist who was basically a coward. He was weak and she knew how to control him. Everything he’d built had her fingerprints on it. She was the one who suggested things, then made sure the plans got carried out. He had big ideas about being the ruler of an empire, but he had no clear idea how to do it. She did. It was just like pimping girls or slinging crack back home. Same principles applied, just on a larger scale. Casey just happened to be the right guy, in the right place, at the right time. He’d done one or two things, killed a few people, acted crazy a time or two, and now everyone followed him blindly. She’d built this empire behind the scenes, and that’s where she wanted to stay. That bullet this morning had been aimed at him, not her. She wanted to stay under the radar, she was content with that.
She knew his whole cannibal act was just that: an act. Not once had she seen him actually eat a piece of meat from someone they cooked.
She’d pushed him in the right direction, insisted he had the banquets, had tempted him with younger and younger girls, always ensuring only she knew about it, making him believe it was their dark little secret. He knew how pedophiles were treated in prison. They were the worst of the worst. A bank robber got respect. A killer got respect. A pedophile got the shit kicked out of him. He still had that mentality, and that was fine with her. Let him think he needed her help to fulfill his desires.
Things had changed since they’d captured the president. He’d had his fun with her a few times, gave her a good hard screwing, and an even harder beating. He probably would have killed her once he got bored, but Lucinda had started talking to her, trying to pump her for any useful information she might have. It was an eye opener. She convinced Casey to leave her alone after that, and Edmunds let her in on more secrets to show her appreciation. Now she was afraid he was going to do something stupid, like try to take Lakota, and get them all killed. Something about that town just seemed to stick in his craw. He couldn’t let it go. She was perfectly happy down in Mexico. She was living in the fanciest mansion she’d ever seen, had dozens of servants, had first dibs on all the most exquisite foods they found, and she could do anything she wanted. She could beat her slaves with a whip if she wanted. She could kill them if she wanted. Why couldn’t Casey be satisfied with that? Why did he have to have this fight with Lakota? She knew he wouldn’t back down now that it was started. She should have found some way to make him stay in San Felipe. Had him send his men out, instead of mobilizing the whole town. Now they were going to chase those cars all the way back to Oklahoma, just so he could prove a point. She’d have to put some thought into this, figure out the best way to get him back under control. He didn’t need to be making these decisions without her. She needed to guide him, for the betterment of all. She needed him to divert back to their original plan and start small, one town at
a time.
42
Jessie
Jessie had done some trading back in Blackfoot and had a bunch of new songs on his iPod, a handful of new games on his phone, some pretty tasty buffalo jerky, and a six-pack of Mountain Dew. It had been a week since he left, meandering this way and that. He had the radio cranked, the windows down, the wind in his hair, and was singing along, quite badly, to an old My Chemical Romance tune he hadn’t heard in a long time. Life was good. He wondered about the motorcycle girl, chided himself for not swallowing some of his pride and trying to talk to her. Yeah, she’d been bitchy, but she’d just been shot. She had made some boss ass moves, taking out the Raiders. If he hadn’t been coming down off his adrenaline rush from his own fight, if his back hadn’t been screaming at him liked he’d been kicked by a mule, he might have been nicer to her. He had no excuse for the next day, though. He was just being an ass, had his defenses up because the hurting that Sandy gave him was still fresh. Still raw.
Now that he’d had time to consider it, now that his back had quit hurting and his head was clear, he wondered how she’d done it. How she’d killed all those guys by herself. He wondered if she was like him, if she was enhanced. If she’d gotten some of that blue miracle drug. She moved like a ninja, like she was black belt or something. He should have been nicer. She’d done him a favor, and all he’d done was give her the cold shoulder. If he was honest with himself, it was because she was pretty. If she’d been a guy, or even an ugly chick, he probably wouldn’t have acted like that.
The miles rolled by, the landscape changed slowly from rolling hills to flat prairies, as he zigzagged across the wastelands and into North Dakota. On occasion, he would clear a town just because he was bored, and every little bit helped. He rolled into a small community of a few hundred residents out in the middle of nowhere, just across the Montana border, and drove through slowly, his engine burbling, calling to the undead. There was a gas station, the first he’d seen all day, and he was down below half on his reserve tank. He drove into the tall grass outside of town to lead them into the fields. No sense in having piles of dead in the middle of the road that might cause someone to wreck. The zombies came, stumbling and running after him, and he put them down with headshots from his Henry Repeater. It had become one of his favorite guns, the little lever action .22 with the Burris scope. It didn’t kick, did the job, and he had thousands of rounds for it. Bob didn’t even get excited anymore when Jessie cleared a small town. He’d wander off, snuff around looking for prairie dogs or chasing rabbits. The irony of the whole situation wasn’t lost on Jessie. He was splattering the ground with undead blood, leaving corpses lying among the wildflowers blooming in the early spring. It was kind of beautiful, in a weird sort of way. A woman in a ragged dress lurched to the forefront of the others, her long black hair tangled, but still flowing free in the breeze. He couldn’t tell her age, but she looked like she may have been an Indian, or maybe Hispanic. He dropped her with a shot in the forehead and she fell among the dancing grass and butterfly weeds. She lies in roses, he thought, then wondered where he’d heard that before. He supposed if he were a zombie, he’d like to be put to rest in a field of flowers, rather than on the asphalt back in town. He didn’t have a problem with putting them down, but out in the tall grass and swaying flowers, it made the killing a little easier.
It didn’t take long, and maybe he’d saved someone’s life by eliminating them. Maybe not. The survivors that were left were pretty savvy by now. They had to be, or they’d be dead. He called Bob over when he was finished, and they circled back into town. He hadn’t been able to score any chocolate in Blackfoot, and he had been craving some. There were a couple of likely stores if they hadn’t been raided, and if they had, houses with toys in the yard were usually good for something if the ants or cats hadn’t gotten in the cupboards.
He idled up and down the streets, making sure there weren’t any more lurking undead, finished off a few crawlers, then stopped in front of the only gas station. Grenora was way off the beaten path, and from the looks of it, he was the first survivor to come through since the outbreak. The station was untouched, no windows were broken, and the undead had still been wandering around the little burg. They hadn’t chased a car down the road to some other place. He’d seen faces in windows as he cruised the few residential streets, undead trapped inside. He’d have to be careful, any one of them could break out at any time, but Bob was pretty good at giving him warnings.
He found the fuel tanks at the station, dropped his hose in and flipped the switch to get his pump started. He leaned against the car and sipped on one of the Mountain Dews, already putting the killing fields out of his mind. He was looking at the store, at the zombie pawing against the glass, and wondered if it was worth it to go in. It probably stank to high heaven, and the smell would linger over everything in the place. His candy bars would stink like undead funk.
“Whatcha reckon, Bob?” Jessie asked. “Think it’s worth it? Suppose they have some Alpo in there?”
Bob glanced back at him, then continued on with what he was doing, sniffing around the dumpster, probably smelling a cat or something.
They both heard it before they saw anything, the sound of engines cutting through the afternoon, carrying for miles in the stillness. No telling if it was friend or foe, but so far, Jessie hadn’t met a whole lot of decent folks on the road. They kept themselves behind walled towns and in fortified settlements. He tossed the half-finished Dew can, started gathering up his hose, he needed to get out of sight. The station was right on the county road where whoever was coming would more than likely be stopping for fuel. He whistled for Bob and fired the Mercury up, careful not to go too fast and stir up a dust cloud as he took off down the main street, looking for a garage to slip inside, or a building to hide behind. He wanted to see who it was before he made himself known. It could be Casey’s Raiders or that weird cult he kept hearing about. It could just as easily be a community relocating farther south, now that the snows were all gone and it was safer to travel. Maybe even a caravan of traders.
He found a big garage at the base of the water tower, but the doors were locked and he heard keening coming from inside. Undead. No telling how many. Crap. The convoy was close now, he could hear them downshifting and turning in.
He didn’t have time to go searching, the town was only a half dozen crisscrossing roads, if any one of them decided to take a run through it, they’d spot him in a heartbeat. He jumped back in the car and eased along the side of the building on the dirt path and tucked in tight behind it. He’d be hard to see from the streets and if they didn’t look closely, they’d never realize it was an up-armored car, not just another junker behind a building left to rust away.
“Stay here, boy,” Jessie said and slipped out, grabbing his M-4.
He closed the door softly behind him and sprinted back toward the main road, keeping hidden behind houses and shrubs where he could.
43
Jessie
Jessie felt a cold chill run down his back when he saw who had pulled in at the station. He was a good two hundred yards away, under a car, at an oblique angle. He could see, but not be seen. It was a large group of the Raiders and it looked like they were packed up for a long road trip. There were at least a dozen armored trucks lined up at the pumps, twice that many motorcycles, with skulls and scalps hanging off of them, bloody handprints decorating the tanks. The Raiders were terrible to behold, they had fully embraced Casey’s end of the world cannibal lifestyle and wore chains and leathers, tattooed faces, and sharpened teeth. The worst of the worst who had survived. The prison escapees, the hard-core gang bangers, the men who loved dogfights, smacking around their women, or torturing animals. Now they could let their hidden selves out, now they were in their true element: a world without rules. No laws but Casey’s, and Casey didn’t care what they did. He encouraged them, told them stories of Huns killing thousands in an afternoon, Romans sewing prisoners into a cow carcass and letting t
he worms eat them, medieval torture devices like the rack or the iron maiden, Aztecs sacrificing a quarter million of their own people. He encouraged the worst in them and they relished in it.
One of the motorcycle riders dropped his kickstand near the fuel tanks and waved for the first truck to pull in close. Someone else opened the gate on a cattle hauler and signaled for a man to get out. It was an open wagon, just a flatbed trailer with a metal cage on it, hooked to the back of a pickup. He did, too slow or too fast, or maybe without enough bowing and scraping, but he caught a bullwhip full across his back. It cracked loud and blood flew from a fresh wound, to the raucous laughter of the gang members who saw it. The man crawled, then ran to grab the hand crank offered to him. He hurried to the drops to get started refueling, working feverishly, cranking the handle to avoid the whip.
Jessie’s blood boiled and he counted their numbers again, trying to come up with a way to take them all on. They were armed, holsters hung at their sides, rifles were in window racks in the trucks. Maybe if he had a few grenades, maybe if he had a couple of more people, maybe then. One man against forty was impossible, no matter how good he was. He fumed in silence and watched as they started refueling.
Pounder sat on his Fat Boy, idly caressing the double row of finger bones across his chest, pieced together like an Indian warrior’s breastplate and fringed with human hair. It covered the giant swastika tattoo he got when he’d been in the joint, doing life without parole. That was before Casey, before he was given command of the Northern Contingent of the Raiders.
Zombie Road IV: Road to Redemption Page 29