The town was dead again. Empty.
He grabbed a t-shirt from his laundry pile in the back seat and tied it around his leg, he’d clean it and bandage it properly later. For now, he needed to see what was going on. He slid over into the driver's seat and pulled his leg over, past the shifter. He had to rest for a moment, to get his breath, then fired it up. Using one foot to clutch, brake, and gas was going to be awkward, but it was doable. Bob came bounding over and jumped into his seat, not wanting to be left behind. Jessie eased the clutch out so the car wouldn’t stall, then goosed the gas once it got rolling. The passenger door slammed shut and he bounced onto the road, headed back to the gas station.
Out of habit, he tried to use his shot up left leg to clutch and let out an involuntary groan as the car stalled, then bucked to a halt near the pumps. He clasped the wheel in a white-knuckled grip, breathing slowly and forcing the pain back down with a long shot of NOS. Putting it back in its place. Isolating it, compartmentalizing it, and trying to ignore it. The trucks were all gone, except for a few that were riddled with holes and sitting on flat tires or in pools of their own liquids. Oil or antifreeze. Dripping gas. The pickup pulling the cattle wagon was still there, leaning to the side, one of its oversized tires shot through. The door on the cage was hanging open, all of the prisoners gone. They had escaped during the confusion. Maybe they had drawn his attackers away. Jessie looked closer at the bodies strewn around the station, saw there were more than just the raiders, quite a few had the torn and tattered clothes of the people who had been in the trailer. There had been a fierce gun battle, brass casings littered the ground.
He wondered who had won the fight, there were a lot of bodies, and a lot more blood splatters soaking into the dirt covered asphalt. Some survivors, that’s for sure, a lot of the trucks were gone. Not many motorcycles, though, they were laying all over, most with a crumpled body nearby. Bikes might be great for getting around zombies but made poor choices if someone was shooting at you.
He remembered the girl, the whole reason he’d started this fight. If he would have given it a few seconds thought, he would have realized he couldn’t have won.
He looked closer at the trailer and saw a still, dark form in the back of it, laying on the floor. Jessie sat up straighter, winced, and hit the starter button. He idled over to it and saw it was her. Still there.
He grabbed for his M-4, but it was gone. He’d lost it somewhere in the firefight. He snagged the shotgun instead, double checked the safety, and used it as a crutch to hobble over to see if she was still alive. He stuck his hand through the bars, fingers on her neck, felt for a pulse. He found it, steady, but slow. She was a bloody mess. He had to get her out. He didn’t know who won the battle or if anyone would be coming back. If the raiders were giving chase, or the ones being chased. He didn’t care, all he knew is he had to get out of town, fast. He looked around, scanning for danger, his mind racing to formulate some sort of plan, his eyes checking the roads, his ears pricked and listening for the distant whine of engines. He thought he heard something, it could have been the wind playing tricks. He didn’t wait to find out.
He grabbed her by the collar and pulled her toward the open gate, using the bars to brace himself, each foot forward a painful struggle. When he got her to the end, he hobbled back over to the car and drove it close, putting the back bumper against the trailer. He shut the motor off so he could hear, now moving frantically, his mind telling him they were on their way back. A dozen raiders triumphant in killing the survivors were coming back to finish him off, his mind insisted. There was definitely the sound of engines carrying on the breeze. Still miles off, but distinct now. He grabbed his last vial of the serum and struggled around to the back of the car. He plunged it into her, pushed the injector, and then pulled her into the trunk. It was the fastest way. He had to go, he couldn’t let them get her, and he was in no condition to fight. He could barely stand, was battling the darkness at the edge of his vision and the gibbering little demon gleefully cutting on his ribs with a bone saw. He crammed her in among the MREs, canned goods, and extra ammo. It was a snug fit and he tried not to jostle her too much, but he was none too gentle, either. He didn’t know the extent of her injuries and there was no time to check them now. If he was still here a minute from now, it would be too late. He hopped back to the open door and flung himself in, the sound of engines was closer. They were coming from the west. He fired up the Merc and ignored the screaming in his leg, the blood running down it and filling up his boot. He circled around and took off through town, wanting to put buildings and obstacles between him and the terrible sound of their motors. He couldn’t be seen, and he knew it was the raiders. The survivors had no reason to return, they would have fled until they reached a safe spot. Jessie went north on the county road, a narrow swath of asphalt cutting between thousands of acres of fallow cropland. He kept it slow, cruising at forty miles an hour, worried about a dust cloud being kicked up more than he was about them seeing the car. He kept watching over his shoulder, but none gave chase. No one saw the jacked-up Mercury with a half-dead boy at the wheel and a half dead woman in his trunk ease away from the carnage.
Jessie took the first turn he came to, then the next. He put eight or ten miles between him and the town before he found a place that might work. An out of the way farmhouse, on an unnamed strip of road, buried deep in acres and acres of untended fields. He pulled into the circular driveway and eyeballed the house, looking for fortifications or broken-down doors. There was neither, but there also wasn’t a car. No pickup truck that was ubiquitous in this part of the country. Almost mandatory. He let Bob out first, told him to go find bad guys. He didn’t know if the dog understood, but after sniffing around for a few minutes he took off after a rabbit that darted away from a rusting green harvester. It was probably safe.
He got as close as he could to the porch and hobbled out, leaning heavily on the car. He should probably clear the house first, but he didn’t think he had the strength to make it up and down the stairs twice. He had a job to do and it wasn’t going to be easy. He rested, getting his breath back, as he considered the best way to tackle it. He needed to get a hundred and ten pounds of broken girl up the stairs, onto a bed, and make sure she wasn’t going to bleed to death. The shot would fix her if she lived through the process. It had fixed him right as rain in a matter of weeks. Better than new. All he had to do was get her up the steps and make sure she didn’t die until it did its thing.
It was going to be monumental. It was going to hurt. He couldn’t pass out, dark was coming on and it was still getting down to freezing at night. They could both die of exposure. He reached in for the mask, thumbed the button and breathed deeply a few times. He’d have a minute without agony. It was time to shit or get off the pot. Well, he thought, Confucius say journey of one thousand miles begins with family jewel groping at airport security.
“At least I don’t have to deal with that,” he said, braced himself for what was to come, and limped back to the trunk.
45
Jessie
He pulled her up the stairs, one agonizing step at a time, his boot squelching with blood and leaving crimson prints. His broken ribs grated and tore at muscles, but he didn’t stop. He knew it would only last a minute or two, he could deal with that. He could barely breathe, he sipped at the air, he ignored the agony, the brief respite from the nitrous long gone. He could deal with anything for a few minutes, he kept telling himself. Count the seconds if you have to. Count them down from a hundred and it’ll be over.
He didn’t stop.
He got her on the porch and propped her against his good knee, the other leg throbbing, its pain trying to scream louder than the ribs, as he twisted the knob. It was unlocked and he told Bob to go on, get inside. He did and Jessie waited, but there was no smell of death. He knew it was clear, that Bob wouldn’t find anything waiting for them. Country people rarely locked their doors and this house had the feel of someone stepping outside, expect
ing to return shortly. He could see dishes still on the strainer next to the kitchen sink.
Two more minutes, he told himself. Again. C’mon, just two more minutes, then it’ll be done.
He took the next step, pulling the limp form behind him. He left bloody splashes on the floor and smeared them with her body as he dragged her over them.
He didn’t stop.
Her own blood ran down her legs and arms, dripped from her face and mixed with his. Somehow, he managed to hop drag her down the hall, every jolt a new anguish, and pull her onto the king-sized bed. He stood panting, balanced on one foot, using the nightstand to hold himself upright. He glanced around the room, at the pictures. Matronly old woman. Smiling mom and dad. A couple of kids through the years, the latest were teenagers. A middle-aged couple from the looks of it, unless this was grandma’s room, but it didn’t feel like it. Men’s jeans over in one corner, kicked off and abandoned. Makeup on the dresser. A romance book on one nightstand, an Antique Power tractor magazine on the other. The bathroom door was open, he could see the cabinet under the sink. It would have what he needed. It was only a few thousand miles away. He looked at it for long moments before he started hop stepping over, each bounce a new torture. Doesn’t matter, he kept telling himself. I can stand anything for a minute. Anything.
He didn’t stop.
He found the box of pads right where Captain Wilson said they would most likely be at in every home. Emergency gauze, suitable for nearly any wound. All he had to do was make sure she didn’t bleed out. Make sure she didn’t die before the miracle drug could do its work. When he was recovering last year, his bones healed so fast the SS sisters had to break and reset them. They marveled at how his dirt-encrusted wounds healed up and sealed, with no trace of infection.
All he had to do was stop the bleeding.
He peeled back her jacket and saw where the woman in the cage had tried to plug the holes with strips torn from her shirt. Jessie pulled out the crusted pieces of rag, pressed the sterile pads against it and uses a dozen Band-Aids to hold it in place. The holes in her back were much worse, where the bullets had come out. When he saw them he despaired. She had to have internal injuries that a shot of the blue stuff might not be able to fix. The exit holes had ripped away chunks of meat, and the bullets had probably punched through lungs and livers and whatever else was inside a body. Her breathing was slow and steady, but he had a hard time finding her pulse. He moved the scrap of shirt aside, placed his ear between her bloody breasts and listened. It still beat, but slowly. He didn’t know if she had broken bones, but he tried to make sure all her parts looked straight, not at any wrong angles. He was getting light headed from the pain and the tiny little sips of air he could take. He needed to lay down. He couldn’t, not yet. He had a job to do. Just another minute. He could stand it. He could stand anything for a minute.
Both legs of her pants had slashes and he cut them the rest of the way open to check the damage. Somebody had sliced her, but not deep. One of the Raiders trying to cut her pants off so they could have a little fun on the side of the road before her body went cold. His mind wandered and his vision was swimming again. Pain and blood loss.
Concentrate, he told himself. Almost done. Almost time to rest. The cuts on her legs had already stopped bleeding, were crusting over so he left them alone, and started tending to his own wounds. He sliced away his pants leg and wrapped the pads around his own bullet holes, tying them off with a torn strip of pillowcase. He was having a hard time focusing. Had he shut the front door? He couldn’t remember. He looked at her face and it was hard to see the elven beauty that had been there in Blackfoot. The raven hair, the milky white skin, the emerald eyes. Now it was hamburger. Broken, bruised, and swollen. Animals, he thought. Filthy animals. The fury in him simmered, he didn’t have the energy for it to rage anymore. They’d shot her off the bike at speed. The bullet went in the front, out the back. An ambush. She never knew it was coming, they just shot her down for no reason. She’d hit the road and skidded a long way. She still had some fight in her, it took angry men to administer such a beating. Had she managed to kill a few of them, broken, bleeding, and shot? Is that why they stomped her? They couldn’t break her spirit so they broke her body?
“Stay alive, nameless girl,” he told her, laying down and pulling the covers over them. “Stay alive, let the miracle drug do its work. Let it fix you.”
The darkness closed over him and he slept, deep and long.
It was full daylight when he woke, Bob licking his face and whining. His dog breath was fearsome and Jessie pushed him away, groaning loudly. Pain shot through him when he moved and sticky, blood crusted sheets crackled. He closed his eyes, found his dog’s head and scratched his ears, feeling hungrier and thirstier than he had in a long time. She was still laying there, hadn’t moved all night. Her chest was rising and falling, her breathing was strong and regular. She’d made it. The drugs would work their magic and she’d live. He rolled slowly, painfully, out of bed, moving like a rickety old man. The holes in his leg were still raw but healing up nicely. They only bled a little when he carefully peeled away the pads. Damn, but he was hungry. That stuff must really burn calories to do the healing. The blood stains on the blanket were dark brown, already dried and flaking. Jessie looked down at Bob, who was holding a dead rabbit in his jaws. An offering.
“I’m not that hungry, boy,” he said, patting him. “I’ve got beef stew in the car. If they have a gas stove, we might be in luck. I’ll whip us up a hot…”
He trailed off when he saw the other rabbit carcasses in the corner of the room. There were five or six, all eaten down to the fur and tails. Not much else was left. How long had he been asleep? Bob wouldn’t have caught and ate that many overnight. Was he out for two days? Three? His pants were stiff and uncomfortable and he realized it wasn’t just the blood. He’d peed himself. The bed was soaked. He looked at her and saw a huge wet spot soaking the sheets at the ripped places on her leathers. He smelled it then and wrinkled his nose. He needed to get cleaned up, this was disgusting. He pushed everything off the spindly-legged nightstand and used it as a walker, leaning his weight on it as he moved out of the room and down the hall. He didn’t bother trying the water faucet. No electricity, no pumps. Besides, half the pipes in America froze up and busted over the winter. Especially this far north. Even gravity fed country houses had long since had their water supply drained. He stripped out of his stinking clothes in the living room, wiping himself off the best he could with his t-shirt, and tossing them into a corner. He strapped his guns back on before going outside, still using the nightstand to help him walk, shuffling it along one step at a time.
There was a rusting metal chain pump mounted over the well in the side yard and Jessie made his way over to it. The hand crank was stiff from disuse, but it turned and within seconds, rusty brown water was flowing from the spigot. He kept cranking until it flowed icy cold and crystal clear. He hung his gun belts over the top then took a freezing bird bath, splashing himself clean, even dunking his head under the stream. It gave him an ice cream brain freeze headache, but that took his mind off the ache in his ribs and leg. He hadn’t thought to grab a washcloth but pulled the linen drawer liner from the nightstand and used it, wringing it clean when it turned dark with blood or dirt.
Clean, cold, and drip-drying off in the strong afternoon sun, he strapped his guns back on and made his way over to the car. He dug out jerky and tore into it hungrily, barely chewing before he swallowed. He felt better and the invigorating water had woken up his appetite again. He sat on the nightstand and examined his leg. It was black and blue, with bruising all around the holes, but they were closing up. He should have sewn them shut, but it was too late now. They would leave more ugly scars. At least they wouldn’t show. His ribs didn’t seem to be grating around against each other anymore, if he didn’t move around too much they wouldn’t break again. He figured he should give them a week to knit before he started doing anything. Which brought
him to his current problem. How was he going to get a pot of water into the house to heat up to wash her off? He couldn’t let her lie in her own blood and messed up clothes. He’d have to cut them off, which was no big deal, they were mostly shredded anyway. The short walk and cold splash bath had winded him, so he leaned back against the warm metal of the car and closed his eyes, chewing and thinking, pushing the pain down deep so he could ignore it.
“Got anything to eat that doesn’t require chewing?” she asked from the doorway, her words muddy through swollen lips.
Jessie started, felt the stab from his ribs, groaned and relaxed again, leaning back against the car. He remembered he was naked and adjusted his holsters, sliding them around so one of the guns covered his privates.
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s plenty. Glad you’re awake. I was wondering how I was going to get some water up the steps to get you cleaned up.”
She’d been watching him for a few minutes, saw him struggle back across the lawn using the nightstand like an old man’s walker. It was him, the Road Angel, the one she was supposed to kill. He was as banged up as she was. She wondered if he got shot rescuing her. She didn’t remember much past getting knocked off her bike. “I can make it to the pump,” she slurred. “You don’t look like you’re in any condition to haul water.”
Jessie had to agree.
“Hold on, I’ll give you a hand,” he offered and sat up slowly, careful to keep the gun in place. “Just let me get some pants on.”
“My legs work better than yours,” she said dismissively and carefully took baby steps across the porch.
Zombie Road IV: Road to Redemption Page 31