by SP Durnin
“You know Allan, or maybe even Maggie, is probably going to deck you, right?” Kat fell in step beside him. “We’re way, way overdue getting here.”
Jake grinned. “Not worried. I have a plan for that.”
“Really?”
“Sure.” He replied. “I’m telling them it’s all your fault.”
* * *
“Jesus, we thought you guys would never get here!” Allan hugged Kat and was more than a little teary-eyed.
Word of new arrivals traveled fast in Pecos. Word that a group of lunatics in a big, pink, RV from hell slaughtering their way through a zombie horde to reach the haven understandably even more so. Be it luck, fate, or what have you, Maggie Reed and Jake’s best friend Allan Ryker had been together at his workshop when they’d heard the news.
They’d nearly run down more than a few unwary bystanders with one of the off-road motorcycles Allan kept running for getting around town racing to the town entrance.
The slim mechanic hadn’t even shut the bike down before he and the muscular EMT jumped from its seat, sprinting to their long-absent friends. Its motor was still puttering in the background where it lay in the road as their groups reunion commenced.
Allan Ryker was and unobtrusive looking young man with a constant smile, who radiated what he, himself termed “competent goofyness.” He was a few inches shorter than Jake and about thirty pounds lighter, due to the fact that his parents were also quite diminutive in stature. Still, his forearms and wrists were rock hard from ripping apart whatever piece of machinery caught his fancy at any given moment. Though skinny, Allan moved with confidence due to years of ballet and self-defense lessons with O’Connor. Truth be told, he’d only enjoyed ballet because it gave him a great sense of balance, which was helpful in the martial arts, and because he got to all but grope some really hot women on a regular basis. “Curly haired bundle of energy” described Al perfectly. He and O’Connor had been friends since either of them became interested in the fairer sex.
“We had some problems,” Kat told them as Ryker’s embrace nearly suffocated both herself and Gertrude. “It’s good to see you guys! How are you, Gertie?”
“Much better, the Texas climate has done wonders for my arthritis.” The stooped woman patted Al on the back with one hand so he’d loosen up. “Allan dear, I need my spine in one piece. Thank you, young man.”
Gertrude Jennings, Jake’s long-time neighbor, was a sight for sore eyes. They’d all worried greatly for the tiny, grey-haired woman during their journey. Traveling in the Mimi had taken a toll on Gertie and the last time Kat had seen her—the morning Maggie had flown herself, Al, two college students, and the airline mechanic, Warren Jenner, to Pecos—she had been pale and drawn, her skin nearly hanging from her bones due to steady weight loss. The strain of being constantly on the move, running from human enemies, fighting the dead at nearly every turn, had taken a dreadful toll on her, which was why Jake had insisted she make the journey south by air.
All of them might have been able to fit into the Beechcraft, but that would have meant leaving the Mimi at the abandoned DHL shipping hub in Ohio. That alone was risky, because showing up at a possibly zombie-infested location with no supplies or weaponry didn’t bode well for anyone’s survival. So they’d loaded the plan up with foodstuffs, rifles, and a fair amount of ammunition, then Maggie had take to the skies for South Texas.
Ryker smiled broadly, causing him to look even more like the illegitimate spawn of Howdy Doody. “She’s fine. Gertie doesn’t ever need her cane now.”
“I’m still no spring chicken, but my knees haven’t ached in months.” The old woman smiled broadly. “It’s wonderful.”
Al chuckled. “Get this! When we first got here? I modified one of those 4-wheel drive ‘Mule’ ATV carts for her to use in town when she wants, and I understand now why she never drove before. She’s got a lead-foot! I am not kidding. Races it around like an Indy-car. It’s hilarious watching people scurry out of her way on the street. Oh, my God, wait until you see her use it to do donuts! It’s so frikkin’ awesome.”
“Gertie? I can hold him down. You know, if you want to give him a good slap?”
He laughed and hugged them tighter. “Man, Mags there was really worried. You guys took way longer to arrive than we’d planned.”
“You didn’t worry about us?”
“Nah.” He chuckled. “I kept telling her you’d be here. Knew there was no way the zombies would get you guys.”
“He’s lying, dear. Allan has been pestering the town council for an expedition north ever since we landed. If you hadn’t show up soon, I have no doubt he’d have stolen a vehicle and gone looking for all of you himself. Such a good boy. Even if he is a bit of a man-slut.” She pinched Ryker’s cheek knowingly.
Cho wiped at her eyes. “Not all of us made it. Penny was killed as we left Oklahoma, and we have no idea where Sampson—you haven’t met him—and the people on Bus Two are. Gwen’s friend Donna and…Laurel…died when we went after the Purifiers…”
Gertrude’s eyes misted up. “Elle told me just about that, just before you three got back from dropping George off. I’m so sorry, dear. I know you and Laurel were really close. I’ll talk with Jake about it later, once—”
Kat pushed Al away slightly. “I’d rather you didn’t. He spent weeks recovering from what those bastards did to him. And losing her… It pushed him to the edge, Gertie. Right to the edge. It took me forever to bring him out of it.”
“So, the two of you are…?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, and glanced at Ryker. “That’s not going to make it weird between you boys, will it?”
Allan chuckled. “Not in the least. I’ve known Jake for… Well, forever. Hell, I’m closer to him than I am with my sisters, but that might be because they’re both brats. I’ll always have his back, no matter what. Besides, we may not have worked out, but you’re still one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. And you’ve cared about him ever since we all met. That was obvious, even to me. And you saved his ass a lot on the way here, from what Leo told me. You two deserve to be happy.”
“Thank you, Allan.” She felt the tears start.
“No worries. I’m sure a certain ninja would kill me—and make it look like an accident—if I was douche about it, so it’s all good. That fact aside…” he looked over at Maggie. “I’ve been seeing somebody for a while now myself. If you didn’t kill me for being a dick, she’d smother me in my sleep. With her boobs.”
Kat wasn’t surprised to learn that. “Wasn’t that the way you wanted to go?”
“Yeah, but not just yet,” Ryker admitted. “At least, not after learning she can hold herself up on a pull-up bar pretty much indefinitely. You know, with the proper motivation.”
Kat’s eyebrows went up. “That’s got to be interesting.”
“She’s good for him,” Gertrude approved. “Keeps that wild streak of his in check. You always were a bit reckless, young man.”
“True. But she almost broke my neck with her thighs the first time” he admitted. “I was sore for a week.”
“Perv,” Kat told him.
“That’s me.” Al let her go. “Now. Let’s see about unlocking my saber teeth tooger-slaying girlfriend’s lips from Jake’s, shall we? I’m pretty secure in my manhood and our relationship, basically, but she’s been at it for over a minute now.”
Kat wasn’t worried. “She did warn him, remember?”
“True,” Ryker consented as they moved towards the short-haired amazon and his visibly surprised friend. “As worried as she was about you all, we’re probably lucky she didn’t bash him with that damn sledgehammer she carries. I’ve seen Maggie use that thing a lot against zombies. Not a pretty sight. Makes their eyeballs pop right out of their heads, like characters in those old Bugs Bunny cartoons.”
Maggie had Jake pinned against the side of Bus One. That means she’d used her own well developed, muscular frame to bodily slam the ex-journalist against the transpo
rt, taken a double handful of his perpetually messy hair, and laid a lip-lock on him that would’ve done anyone with even a hint of French ancestry proud. He’d halfway expected for it to be coming. She had hinted that was going to happen right before piloting the Beechcraft towards the Lone Star State, back in Ohio. And he had to admit it was good as kisses went. But it was going on, and on, and on, and on, and on. He could hear his companions (and various residents of Pecos passing by) laughing at their “public display of affection.” The two of them even earned a few wolf-whistles.
He was beginning to worry just how far Mags was going to take this. She was about his size, muscular, and seemed totally unrepentant despite the numerous cat-calls they were still getting. She was strong as a bull, too. That, combined with her long-spiked blonde hair reminded him of a picture he’d seen online before the zombie outbreak, of a woman cosplaying a “gender bent” version of a Super Saiyan from Dragonball Z. O’Connor privately hoped the rest of the Saiyan race turned out to be equally as friendly if they were actually out there somewhere.
And maybe a bit less enthusiastic. Mags could kiss, but he was getting short on air.
“Way to horn-dog another guy’s tha-a-ang, man!”
Opening his eyes, Jake observed Kat, Gertie, and Allan standing together close by, each wearing what could only be called shit-eating grins at the sight of his discomfort. He tried to signal them for help with his expression and eyeballs, but the rotten trio stood there laughing at his predicament. He silently vowed revenge.
Maggie finally pulled back enough for him to get a breath. “Damn, it’s good to see you!” She yelled, and embraced him so hard Jake swore he felt his ribs crack. Or maybe his spine.
“Homina-homina-homina…! Ho-lee… Whoosh!” Apparently, Jake’s grasp on the English language had been squeezed from his brain. All he could manage was word salad.
The blonde laughed, released him, and took a step back so he could peel his much-abused body from the bus. “Told you, didn’t I?”
“I thought you might forget. Ow. My liver.”
Maggie Reed wasn’t what most people would consider beautiful. She was pretty enough, but her face was just a little too harsh for beauty. She kept her hair trimmed to a four-inch spike and it was so blonde it was almost white. Her arms and shoulders were heavy with muscle, but she had high breasts that tapered to a slim waist, and she matched Jake in height. That put her a few inches taller than Allan, and made it easy for her to wrap a comfortable arm over his shoulders as he and Kat laughed.
“The others tell me George had some kind of attack?” Gertrude asked.
O’Connor was still more than a little worried. “Minor stroke. Stress induced.”
Reed nodded at his explanation. “That’ll do it. We’ve got a few good doctors here, though, so he’s in good hands.”
“You all have to come to the garage after you meet the council.” Allan shamelessly looked down her shirt. “They’ll want to speak with you, I’m sure. They’re mostly good people, but don’t give them anything important.”
“Like say, the Screamin’ Mimi?” Jake had a sinking feeling in his guts.
Allan glanced around quickly and lowered his voice. “I don’t think they’d just grab it, but it’s a sure bet they’ll want to add it to the town defenses somehow. We’re still planning on heading west?”
“You betcha.” Kat toyed with the edge of Jake’s tac-vest.
“Then keep her locked up,” Al mumbled.
Jake caught on quick. “George is the only one that knows access it, or operate it, as now everyone. Got it? Elle? You and Leo go sit on George. Rae’s there with him, so fill her in about that too, if you would.”
“Copy that.” Elle nudged her boyfriend. “Let’s go, stud.”
Salazar looked pleased as they trudged off. “You are so hot right now.”
“Who’s on this council?” Jake asked.
“There are five members.” Allan rubbed his palm along Maggie’s back. “Nichols: He’s the ranchers’ rep, and shrewd as they come. Go figure. Garth: He runs the search and supply teams. I think you met his number two man. Szimanski? They’re both stand up guys. Wilson: She was in charge of public works before the dead rose, and is a shady bitch if I ever met one. Then there’s ol ‘Sweaty Teddy.’ He runs what passes for law enforcement here jointly with the military units. He can either be a total dick, or your best friend.”
Kat was counting off her fingers. “That’s only four. Who’s the last?”
Allan, Gertrude, and Maggie shared a look.
“Oh my. He doesn’t know.” Gertie fretted.
“What?” Jake glanced back and forth between them.
“This is going to be a little…awkward. Damn. How do I even say this?” Ryker looked at his girlfriend.
Maggie sighed. “There’s no real way to sugar-coat it, babe.”
Gertie took Kat and Jake’s hands with her own. “You all need to stay calm. Because…well. You’re about to get a bit of a shock.”
“Someone explain, please?” Kat was becoming curious.
A familiar female voice came from behind them, near the nose of the Mimi.
“You must be the new survivors. I understand you’ve endured horrible things to get here, but we wanted to talk with you as soon as possible.”
The expressions on Allan, Maggie, and Gertrude’s faces didn’t prepare any the others for what they saw upon turning to the speaker
“Oh, my God.” Jake had gone mad. That was the only explanation for what he was seeing. He’d lost his mind. He stood locked in place, unable to move as his brain tried to process input that just couldn’t be real. He felt something in his chest skip.
Kat looked equally stunned, but recovered much faster.
“Laurel???”
-CHAPTER SIX-
The late August heat was brutal.
Stepping from his Humvee, O’Connor felt as if he was being slowly poached in gallons upon gallons of his own sweat. He’d never enjoyed freezing his ass off during winters in the Midwest, and always looked forward to the warmer months of summer, but there were limits. After retrieving his crowbar from its place beside the driver’s seat and shoving it back into the scabbard along his back, he glanced at a thermometer hanging on the wall of an old, now-defunct bakery.
One-oh-six, he read. Jesus Christ.
It was no rarity for most days to get over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Heat in Texas was no joke, so Jake understood full well why, when constructing the town’s barricade, it’s builders had chosen to place the walls where they were. Around the largest water tower in Pecos
Upon arrival, his party had entered at the Western-most gate—at the junction of North Cedar and 1st—right next to the west of the Pecos Museum. The containers stretched all the way south of the Buck Jackson Rodeo Arena, jogged north-east to Collie Rd (enveloping a few large fields), back west to Almond beside Roper’s Beer Depot, and finally north two blocks to 1st Street where it stretched back to Cedar. The wall enclosed roughly a square mile of Pecos-proper, but nowhere near what the once sprawling Texas town was, pre-zombie. The airport and much of the city’s questionable farmland was well to the south-west. The Reeves County Detention Complex—where its prisoners still remained as a labor force—was also outside, left to rely on the facilities high fences and guard towers for security. Those surviving criminals who’d been too violent to release policed their own perimeter with sharpened shovels and lengths of rebar, under the watchful eyes (and high-powered rifles) of Texas Rangers and volunteer guards. Since the dead rose, there had been no successful escape attempts.
There were however, a few new graves inside the fence line.
“We on again tomorrow?”
That question was aired by a very sweaty Elle. She, Leo, and Henry Sampson—who’d finally shown up a week after his companions rolled into town, in Bus Two—were on his crew that morning. Roughly a week after arriving, after a little rest and a few good nights somewhat worry-free sleep, Jake and hi
s party needed to find a way to contribute. He’d been all for just loading up and heading for the Rockies, but Allan, Maggie, and even the aged Gertrude, had responsibilities they couldn’t just give up. Maggie was in charge of another search and salvage team, and they helped keep the residents of Pecos fed. Gertrude was attempting—along with Rae—to de-bug some major issues with the town’s impromptu power plant’s server that provided juice for hundreds and hundreds of survivors. Allan was hip deep in maintenance work on any number of vehicles (and new potential weaponry with the still-recovering George Foster). They wanted to insure the town’s survival after they left, since it had taken them in and provided them with safety during their wait for Jake and the rest of their friends So the others gave them time, and they’d all stayed. And that meant having more numerous responsibilities himself.
The members of the Screamin’ Mimi had become a search team. They’d go out in Jake’s Humvee, copious list of items that were in short supply within Pecos in hand (which was pretty much everything), and attempt to salvage from the ever-more-distant areas. Toothpaste, underwear, propane tanks, footwear, bleach, foodstuffs, medication, tampons, candles, lightbulbs, plumbing supplies, whatever they could find. The first days hadn’t produced many results. A few houses full of clothes and household cleaners, motor oil from a half-destroyed car dealership, those kind of things. Then they’d hit the pay dirt when they’d explored the vacant town of Balmorhea. Three gas stations, a grocery store, and two hotels later—never mind all the food they’d found in the high school cafeteria and the town’s many empty homes—and the survivors had seriously added to the haven supply stock.
Foster had a head-shed with Jake after being (against Doc Barker’s recommendation) discharged after his stroke, they’d retrieved the contents of a small government cache only thirty-six miles south-southeast. Ironically enough, accessed through the basement of the Pecos Rifle Club, once George had finally remembered the correct access code. They’d insisted the Mimi herself be along for that one, but it still took them the better part of two days to empty the secret supply with multiple trips. They’d loaded up every rifle, round, bean, and blanket the place had, leaving nothing but an empty expanse hidden under the gun range.