Dark Paths: Apocalypse Riders

by Britten Thorne

  “I have to get to the silo,” Lia said. “That’s where they’ll be if they got away. I have to go.”

  “Silo? The one northwest of here?” Dray asked. She nodded. “This herd stretched for a mile and they’re circling north. You never would have gotten there.”

  “No,” she whispered, “No.”

  “That helps. We know which way your friends are headed.” The stranger was pulling her to her feet, leading her back to his bike. “We’ll find whoever’s out there, prez,” Dray said, getting back onto his bike as well. “See you at the compound.”

  “You all better be right on my heels.” He swung his leg over his seat and said to Lia, “Get on.”

  She moved as if in a daze. The silo was unreachable. Her friends - her family - were scattered amongst a herd of the dead. She wrapped her arms around the stranger’s waist automatically, moving in a fog. Dray took off with his engine roaring, back the way he came. They watched him go.

  “What’s your name?” the stranger asked.

  “Lia.”

  “I’m Call.”

  She shook some of the fog away. “He called you Prez.”

  “For president,” he said. They watched Dray fade into the distance. “Of the Devil’s Ashes. You’ve heard of us?”

  In whispers. When Father Speer wanted to scare us. Satan’s Remains, Devil’s Ashes - opposing sides of the same damn thing. Gangs. Bikers. Evil men. “I have,” she whispered. She noticed the leather vest he wore, then. Father Speer was right. She leaned back to see the patches on the back of his jacket. There, right in the middle, was a winged devil. A creature of evil. A beast. It sat on the background of a billowing dust cloud. She’d fallen in with the worst of the living - devil’s men. Evil.

  She would never see the girls again.

  As they barreled down the road, she knew what she was supposed to do. Father Speer had spoken of it. Take yourself out any way you can. Don’t let them have you. They’ll torture you in life as they torture souls in hell. End it as quickly as you can. All she had to do was let go, let her own momentum and the asphalt do the work of taking her out. Just let go.

  But she couldn’t. For the first time, she disobeyed a direct order from the minister. She let the biker take her away.

  They didn’t stop until daylight. She’d had to hold her shotgun to keep from dropping it, and her fingers were cramped after gripping it tight for hours.

  Both stood in the middle of the road next to the man’s motorcycle. His eyes scanned her up and down as she massaged her sore hand. Lia cringed, wondering just what he wanted, gearing herself up to tell him to stop, but finally he said, “You’re packing a lot of weaponry there, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” she stated.

  He shook his head. “Well then, this is an act of good faith,” he said, “Because I want you to feel like you can trust me. I ain’t even gonna ask you how many you’re carrying. You’ll keep ‘em all.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “I am curious, though.”

  She observed him as he spoke. A broad-shouldered man with a casual stance, he seemed strong, tough, but didn’t look like a face of evil. He was older than her, but she suspected he wasn’t as aged as the tension lines around his eyes made him look. He wore a few days stubble on his chin and dust and dirt in his wavy blond hair. It stuck out wildly in all directions after their windswept journey.

  For that matter he was dusty and dirty all over, but who wasn’t? Even on the farm, a proper bath was hard to come by.

  He leaned back against the bike and lit a cigarette that he’d pulled from his pocket. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out into the air before speaking again. “I’m guessing those pockets are full of ammo?” She looked down at herself. Her cargo pants’ pockets bulged - and there were a lot of them.

  “Yes,” she said, finally breaking her silence. “We’re always prepared for anything.” She squinted at him. “You really aren’t going to try to disarm me?” He would fail if he tried, she knew - but she didn’t want to have to shoot him. Whoever or whatever he was, he was alive. She didn’t think she could make herself do it.

  “I swear it.” He seemed sincere, but she might have just been gullible. Still, her shoulders were on fire. With a heavy sigh, she let her backpack slide to the ground. “Shit, I didn’t even see how big your bag was. I’m sorry, honey. We’ll attach it to the bike for the rest of the trip.” He took another drag and sighed contentedly. “Want one?”

  “No.” She said it as if offended.

  He shrugged.

  “What about my friends?” she asked softly. They were still on the same long road that went winding through woods and around farms across the state. All she could hear around them were birds.

  “My boys will find them,” he said. He gestured at her. “If they’re all armed like you, I suspect they survived the night.”

  “And if they’re alive? Then what?”

  “They’ll catch up with us.”

  “But where?” Her voice wavered. Everything had fallen apart so quickly. Her home was gone; it hadn’t even been twelve hours ago that she was comfortably asleep in her little corner. Now she might never see it again.

  “Our home.” His deep green eyes warmed as his expression gentled. “I know you’re scared right now. Of me, I’m sure, and everything else. But we’re going to a safe place. You’ll see.”

  She rubbed her arms and didn’t dare to hope that he was telling the truth.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “A little.” She had food supplies in her bag but she wasn’t ready to tell him about anything she was carrying. He hadn’t asked; in fact, she was shocked that he hadn’t. Normally the first thing any wanderer on the farm said was “Where’s food,” and “Do you have any.” He must have enough somehow. Through murder and thievery?

  He rummaged in the bags on the back of his bike and pulled out two small jars and two spoons. “Pears or peaches?” he asked. She shrugged, so he passed her the pears. “We’ve worked a few things out on the compound,” he said. “We’re growing things. It just ain’t on the scale that we need yet.” He popped open his jar. “We can’t depend on these forever, though. They’ll run out one day.”

  “I tried to grow things,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  The pears were sweet. They hadn’t had fruit at the house for a while, and she savored the taste. She wiped some juice from her chin before answering. “Beans, cucumbers. That sort of stuff.” She shook her head at herself. “Didn’t go well. We live on a farm and I couldn’t grow one tomato.”

  He laughed. The sound was jarring. Nobody ever laughed on the farm; nobody had laughed in ages. It was… comforting.

  She paced as she ate, stretching her legs after holding them so tense for so long. He didn’t speak again until they’d finished their jars. “So. Lia. Here’s what’s gonna happen.” She froze; ice invaded her veins. Do I want to know? He chuckled again. “Don’t look so horrified, girly. I’ve got to get myself back to our compound but the main way there is all blocked up by corpses, and I’ve got a few pit stops to make anyhow. So it might take a few long days of riding. Now there’s no way in hell I’m letting you stay out here in the woods on your own. But this ain’t a kidnapping. When we get to a safer spot, if you want to take off, that’s up to you.”

  “You’d let me go?”

  He nodded. “I don’t recommend it. If you want to see your friends again you ought to stick with me. My guys will bring them in safe.” He took her jar from her and packed it back in his bags. “And you’d like our home. Someone can teach you how to grow a damn decent tomato.”

  She made a choking sound in her throat and covered her mouth.

  “Was that a laugh?” he asked. She shook her head, but it was a laugh. “All right,” he said, smiling.

  Riding through the morning they saw no signs of life or death for a time. Call made frequent stops, encouraging her to stretch her legs, to drink from his canteens. It was easier ridin
g once she’d let him bind her pack to the back of the bike, and the shotgun with it. She touched it frequently, making sure it was secure enough not to fall off but loose enough to grab if she needed it.

  It was a strange experience for her to be holding onto him as they traveled. Physical contact had been borderline anathema for so long that riding at Call’s back was nearly overloading her senses. It fed her false feelings, as if she somehow knew him better, like she could be comfortable with him, could trust him. It was dangerous.

  Still… they were completely and utterly alone. He could do any awful thing he wanted, yet he seemed like he wanted to take care of her somehow.

  “You doing okay?” he asked her during one of their rest stops. She paced back and forth in front of the bike, kicking rocks along the asphalt. The sun was higher in the sky - past noon already.

  “I think so. We just keep getting further away.” She faced southeast and thought about the girls, wondered what they were doing, if they were on the backs of bikes like she was, if they were uninjured and safe. What are the odds? There were so many corpses. I almost didn’t make it out myself…

  “Worried about your friends?” She nodded. “I’m sorry we didn’t knock on your door earlier. We were chasing that herd, you know. Trying to break them up, scatter them some.”

  “Why?”

  “That many? They’re much more dangerous grouped up like that. All pressing in together… they’ve knocked your house down by now.” She ran her hands through her hair. It had come loose at some point on their ride and blew wildly about her head with the wind. The house is gone? “They weren’t even heading in your direction at first. I don’t know why they did. A change in the damn wind. Anyhow, they changed direction so suddenly, we barely had time to get ahead of them and warn you at all.”

  “I didn’t even know they gathered like that.”

  “Yeah. And by the time you learn it’s probably too late.”

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered, imagining the swarm burying Father Speer and his son, pouring over the girls and tearing them apart. She shuddered.

  “My guys are pretty much experts at this by now,” he said, “It’s good you were able to tell them how many to look for and which direction they were heading. It gave them all a real chance. Don’t give up hope yet.”

  She had to change the subject before the ball of dread in her stomach turned to tears. “Where are we going? You said you need to make a few stops before heading home?” A few tears leaked free anyway. She wiped them away with the back of her hands. He kindly ignored them and tried distracting her instead.

  “Resupplying a few pit stops. I’m sure you’ve noticed the size of the bags I’m carrying.” It was true - duffel bags, tall camping backpacks, military cargo bags. She had wondered how the bike didn’t tip backwards. “We’ll dump most of that stuff before we get back to the compound.”

  “Pit stops, like, places you guys stop when you travel?”

  “Exactly,” he said, “Hidden pretty well, too. We hope.”

  She twirled a strand of dark hair, lost in thought. These guys really had it together, it seemed. Rest stops, functioning vehicles, sacks of food… maybe things outside the farm weren’t as chaotic as they’d been led to believe.

  She found that she wanted to believe him. His words and his tone were reassuring, his very presence made her feel safe, irrational as it was - he was a stranger. A gang member. President of the gang, at that. And I don’t need protecting, she reminded herself. No one on foot could have escaped that swarm without help. But otherwise, I can keep myself safe just fine. Fingers still tangled in her hair, she found herself twisting the wild strands into braids, one on either side of her head - it had been whipping her in the face whenever they hit an errant gust of wind. Call lit another cigarette and let her mull in silence. I can’t let him think I’m easy prey if he decides to turn on me. I can’t let anyone think it. She finished tying the ends of the braids and pulled them outwards, trying to get a good look at them.

  “Sloppy,” she said with a regretful sigh. “You don’t have a mirror, do you?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t matter. You’d look pretty no matter what you do with it.”

  The idiot smile and the warm blush that spread across her cheeks were involuntary. She tried to fight it off but it was too late. Call’s face split in an echoing grin. “Goddamn,” he said, shaking his head. He stamped out his cigarette and turned back to his bike. “Let’s get moving, girly. Still got a lot of road to cover.”

  ◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

  She had her chance to show him what she could do soon enough - sooner than she’d hoped, exhausted as she was. He pulled to an abrupt stop in the late afternoon - she couldn’t see what was ahead, but she knew. She could tell through the tension in his back. “Corpses,” she said.

  “Yeah. From the sides, too. Shit.” He pulled his gun. “We’ll just have to burst through ‘em. Get ready to kick.”

  “Kick? I’ll fall off!” She pulled her shotgun free and slid from the back of the bike. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “The hell you will,” he growled and tried to grab her, but she dodged aside. Sure enough, there was a group of corpses blocking the road ahead of them. She heard the familiar shuffling sound and spotted movement off to her right, but she judged them far enough away to wait on dealing with them. First, the ones straight ahead. She strode ahead of the bike and inhaled deeply, exhaled quickly, focusing on the group in front of her.

  Call shouted her name but she ignored him. She was a calm island in the sea of chaos around them. She was focused. She took one more step forward and cocked the shotgun.

  Take aim. Take a breath. She squeezed the trigger. The corpse’s head burst like an overripe melon, gore and black and rotten blood hitting the ground moments after the body dropped. One more. She quickly recovered from the kick and took one more step forward. Breath. Fire. She held out her arm and dropped the gun as she pulled a revolver free from the holster on her other side. Step forward. Aim. She shot a third corpse down. Half turn. She shot another. Pivot back. Another fell before it could get close. Behind. She fired three more times, dropping a group of three corpses about to lurch out of the woods in Call’s direction. One more bullet. She turned back to face the road ahead and killed one more. Again, she reached out and dropped the gun away from her feet as she pulled a second gun free, another revolver from her other side. Six more.

  Call was smart enough not to try to approach her. She heard him firing rapidly and turned back in his direction. “Calm. Breath and aim,” she said to herself, exhaling a slow breath, holding her focus. She aimed beyond him where more corpses had appeared from the woods. They were further away and she had to take longer to prepare to fire. But she dropped all four of them, one after another. Call’s wild firing took out the fifth.

  “I’m out,” he called to her, stuffing his gun back in his pants. He pulled a knife.

  But Lia was ahead of him. She shot two more to Call’s right, pivoted as she dropped the empty weapon and pulled her final gun, her pistol, from the back of her pants. Twelve more bullets. But only one corpse was left. She put a bullet in its head and tucked the gun away.

  Call was gaping when she turned back to him. The road was littered with dead corpses in a circle around them and the bike. “Holy shit,” he said, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Wow. Is it wrong if I’m really turned on right now?”

  She flinched but his crass words brought her back to the present, back to earth. “Don’t say that.”

  He laughed, incredulous. “You’re like a goddamn whirlwind of destruction, but that offends you.” He laughed again. “Fair enough.”

  She sank to the ground in the middle of her guns and pulled some extra ammo from her pockets. “We should go,” Call said, “Reload somewhere safer.”

  “And if we run into more of them first?” she asked. “You always reload immediately.” She moved quickly and efficiently - she kne
w which bullets were in which pockets, knew exactly how to load each weapon in the quickest way possible. She was done and rising to her feet in a matter of moments, shotgun resting over her shoulder.

  “See?” she said, “No time at all.” He looked a little pale. “Are you okay?”

  “Here I was thinking I needed to make you feel safe,” he said, shoulders shaking with mirthless laughter. “But you’re the dangerous one. I’m the one that should be scared, not you.”

  She couldn’t help smirking. “I’m only dangerous at a distance, Call.”

  “Well then get yourself over here before I drive off shrieking like a little girl,” he said, tucking his own gun away. “Fuck.”

  They barely spoke that night - after all the adrenaline of her escape the night before, the neverending flight on the back of Call’s motorcycle, shooting the corpses on the road, she was drained beyond the use of words. He found them a safe place on the roof of a gas station shop. “Not one of our rest stops,” he explained, “But we’ll be secure enough. The dead can’t navigate stairs so good.” She was asleep with her head on her pack before he’d finished barricading the door just to be extra cautious.

  He shook her boot to wake her in the morning. “Got a lot of miles to cover,” he said as she sat up. His expression was darker; he avoided meeting her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did something happen?”

  His shoulders slumped as he put some jars and dirty socks back in his bag. He cleared his throat. “Didn’t sleep so good.”

  Bad dreams. She helped him carry the bags back down the stairs to where he’d hidden the motorcycle in silence. Nightmares were familiar enough to her, too, and often it was better to just not talk at all, to just wait and let them fade. Her heart ached for him, though - she hated to see anyone sad or upset or in pain. I shouldn’t feel like this, I’ve known him for less than forty-eight hours. This could still turn out to be a bad situation for me. Still, with everything that had happened, she was starting to feel like she knew him. Silly, stupid girl!