The Feral Children [A Zombie Road Tale] Box Set | Books 1-3

by Simpson, David A.

  “I can’t.” he said. “I can’t swim.”

  “This is not our concern.” She said. “Report for duty or suffer the consequences.”

  “No. What are you going to do, cut my rations again? I’m not going in the water.” Steven said, the old fears slamming into him as if it were forty years ago and he was drowning in the lake again. “I have aquaphobia, I get panicky if I’m in water over my knees. I’d be useless.”

  “This is not our concern.” She repeated, her pleasure obvious even though she tried to hide it behind the stern face the party officials wore. “You will do as I say. Report immediately or you will be exiled.”

  “Fine.” he’d said. “I quit. I’m out of here. I’m going to Lakota.”

  “You can’t quit. You’re fired.” She said with satisfaction and started scribbling notes. “We don’t need your kind.”

  She spoke into the walkie talkie, requested guards to escort him off the island.

  “No need.” He said and kicked over the bucket of fish slop. “I’ll get in my truck and go. Goodbye and good riddance to all of you controlling bastards.”

  It splashed all over her shoes and pants of her crisp black uniform.

  “Your truck and all of your possessions belong to the people of the island.” She said with barely contained fury. “They were forfeit when you joined our society.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Steven said and headed for the door.

  She blocked his exit and spoke quickly into the microphone.

  “Subject is aggressive and attempting to flee.” She actually smiled when she added “and he has assaulted me.”

  Steven paled at that and started to protest. Attacking a member of the party was punishable by death. They had a cage on a chain they put you in and then dropped it in the lake. It stayed there, twenty feet under water, until it was needed again. He’d seen it happen a few weeks ago. He’d be forced into it next to the bloated, rotten half eaten man who’d been caught stealing. The crabs would be clinging to it, biting off tiny chunks of flesh and feasting on the meat. They’d swim over to him as soon as the cage plunged back in the water. It was a horrible way to die.

  He should have left six months ago. He should have figured out some way to steal some gas and get out of the gates. Now it was too late, the vindictive woman was going to have him killed.

  He panicked and shoved her out of the way, he couldn’t let them put him in the cage and he knew they would. He wasn’t a productive citizen and she would swear he’d attacked her, that he had laid hands on a party official. She slipped on the bloody mess from the bucket and he ran past her out of the warehouse. He heard the sirens and saw the flashing blue of the judicial police and knew it was too late. There were only two roads on and off the island, both guarded and heavily fortified. They would hunt him down, hold a farce of a trial in the morning and he’d be publicly executed tomorrow afternoon. The Island believed in swift justice and severe penalties. He sprinted for the docks, he had to find something, anything that wasn’t chained down. He had to get to the mainland miles away and unseen in the darkness. He couldn’t paddle it in a canoe or raft, there wasn’t time. Sunrise was only an hour away, they’d find him.

  The fishing trawler that went out every morning just before dawn was idling at the dock as men yelled back and forth, secured gear and got ready for a long day out on the lake. Steven swallowed his fears, calmed his nerves and hurried out towards them as the gangway was being pulled in.

  “Wait, I’m supposed to be on there!” he yelled and waved his arm.

  “And who are you?” one of the crew asked as he ran across the walkway.

  “Steven Overturf.” He said. “I was told to report for duty.”

  “We already have a full crew.” The man said. “I didn’t hear about this, where’s your paperwork? We need to see the Captain.”

  “Fine by me.” Steve said and turned to leave. “I’m just doing what I was told. One of the commissars told me to get on the boat to get trained. I’ll tell her you wouldn’t let me on. Just wait here, I’ll try to find her so she can tell you herself.”

  “Hold on.” The man said and scratched his beard. “I guess we can figure this out later, we’ve got to go or we won’t make our quota for the day.”

  He didn’t want any trouble from the government, they left the fishermen alone for the most part.

  They backed slowly out of the dock and were powering towards deep water before the police arrived to find the body of the overseer cooling in a pile of fish heads, scales and entrails. She’d slipped in the mess when she’d been shoved aside. Her feet flew out from under her and the back of her head had caught the corner of a steel table.

  It was hours later when the Captain got a call on the radio to be on the lookout for any unauthorized craft headed for the mainland, a killer was on the loose. Steven knew his time was up and grabbed the flare gun.

  “It’ll kill you just as dead as a bullet if it hits you point blank.” He warned and forced them to take him ashore.

  He’d been on the run ever since, hiding out in rural areas and keeping on the move. He’d always been a paranoid man, even diagnosed with mild schizophrenia by some quack. He wasn’t crazy though. People really were out to get him and hold him back. At his old job in the power plant he was constantly bypassed for promotions. He was in the same position he’d started out doing fresh out of college. The same thing had happened at the Island. They were all out to get him, that’s why he kept being demoted. He knew they would hunt him, he wouldn’t be safe in any town. He was sure the Island had sent out a description and his wanted poster was hanging in every guard shack at every gate in every fortified settlement.

  10

  Diablo

  Diablo approached the smoldering ash of the campfire. Every sense on high alert for danger. He’d smelled the smoke when he was still miles away and followed the scent. Sensing no threat, he gobbled down the strips of venison and lapped up the still warm grease from the skillet. He sniffed at the potatoes and fruit. They held no interest for him. He sniffed where each of them had sat. He inspected the spots where they’d relieved themselves behind trees until he found her scent. He growled as he inhaled. He could smell a trace of Demonio on the bark of the tree where her cloaked back had rested. Nose to the ground he followed her scent up the hilltop where it was mingled in with new scents. He didn’t recognize these. They smelled of men, tobacco and diesel fuel. He sniffed the blood on the ground where Otis had bled and lapped at its stickiness. He circled the mashed down grass where the trucks had parked and hunted for their trail. It seemed to end here. The diesel smell still clung faintly to the brush and grass so he followed it. He wouldn’t allow another predator to take his prey and set out a loping gait to see where it led.

  The trail led him to a road and then to Gallatin. He stayed in the trees, camouflaged and invisible to those who watched from the walls. Many scents came from the lair. Humans, garbage, the smell of cows and cooked food mingled in with exhaust fumes and other odors he couldn’t identify. It was noisy too. Voices of many people and machines. He shied from the sound, they reminded him of his time behind bars and he wouldn’t go back into another cage.

  He followed the tree line around the town until the smell of decay and carrion was strong in his nose. He slinked his way through the trees and brush until he reached a large pit far beyond the walls. Flies buzzed and whirled around the hole. High above, carrion birds circled in slow, lazy spirals.

  Inside the pit, animal carcasses were mixed in among the decaying corpses of the undead. Some still twitched, their ravaged bodies too mangled to propel themselves out of the hole. His stomach grumbled at the intoxicating smells. He lowered his body to a crouch and inched forward, wary of a trap. He smelled nothing living but man and anything made by man made him cautious.

  Invisible in the grass, he inched forward to the edge of the pit. The smell of the pigs was strong in the pit but none were feeding in it at the moment. The men onl
y let them in at night so the towns’ people couldn’t see. He eased over the edge, ignored the flies that buzzed his eyes and feasted on his wounds, grabbed the small corpse of a zombie child and drug it back to the woods.

  He settled down and began stripping the corpse or rancid meat. He would wait. He would watch. The wolf girl would hunt. It was her nature. The walls that kept him out wouldn’t keep her in. He had no concept of time or schedules, just the genetic memory of his kind. Patience and cunning would put her in his jaws. He had plenty of food. He could smell water on the breeze. He needed nothing more. Sooner or later, she would hunt and he would be ready.

  11

  Kassie

  Kassie tucked her dog under one arm and hurried down the next ladder some quarter mile away then cut through the middle of town to get back home. She burst through the door and was yelling for her mom when she drew up short. The mayor and his man were already there, talking to Linda in the kitchen.

  “What is it honey?” her mom asked a little alarmed, the coffee pot stopped in mid pour.

  Kassie slid to a stop and was at a loss for words.

  “Oh, I bet she’s excited about the animals that came in this morning, aren’t you?” The mayor said smoothly and gave his cup a little shake so she would finish pouring. “I was just telling your mother she needs to give them a check up and see what she can do about one of them that’s injured. I saw you at the front gate but you need to stay away from them, you hear? They need to be quarantined, who knows what kind of diseases they’re carrying.”

  “The poor things.” He added as an afterthought.

  Kassie stood rooted to the floor and all eyes were on her. Linda knew something else was bothering her, spending six months confined in a tiny little cabin had attuned them to each other, she could read her daughter like an open book.

  “You can tell me all about it later, you need to get ready for school.” Her mom said and gave her that look, the one with the narrowed eyes and the set to her lips that meant and don’t give me any backtalk. “Hurry up, off you go.”

  Five minutes later, as soon as she heard the door close, she rushed back down the stairs. It only took her a minute to tell what she’d overheard and Linda’s face went from angry to thunderous.

  “I knew that oily snake was up to something.” She said with contempt. “He actually had the gall to threaten me when I told him what he was asking me to do just wasn’t right. He was subtle, or at least he thought he was, but he made it clear that his men controlled the gates and the supplies and the food. Nobody gets in or out without his say so.”

  “You mean like we’re in jail?” Kassie asked.

  “Yeah, something like that. A big, open one but if you can’t come and go as you please, it might as well be.” She fumed.

  In an indirect, ham-fisted way, the mayor had let her know she would do what she was told and she wouldn’t be leaving. He thought he was being sly when he asked after her daughter. When he brought Kassie into the conversation. It clicked for her then. Instantly and clearly and she didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before. He was sitting at her table, drinking her coffee and smiling like they were old friends. He had just threatened them and took it for granted she would play along because she had no choice. The goon with the gun had casually dropped his hand to it as he lit a cigarette, the one she’d said she’d preferred he didn’t when he asked if she minded. The angry retort on the edge of her tongue was swallowed and she knew this wasn’t a fight she could win, not here in her kitchen. She smiled and said of course, Mr. Moretz. If you think that’s best for the town.

  “He said the kids weren’t going to be allowed out and I was to report that they had a disease. Like measles or something worse, something really bad he said. I was wondering why he didn’t want them mingling in town. He’s going to say they’re contagious and everyone will be glad when they’re gone.”

  “That makes sense.” Kassie said as she watched her mom pace the kitchen. “If they’re never heard from again, everyone will think they died out there.”

  “That’s not going to happen. Not on my watch.” Linda said then stopped her pacing, stared out the window over the sink.

  They had a pretty good life here in Gallatin. They had a strong wall to keep out the undead, a roof over their heads and plenty of food to eat. She had meaningful work and Kassie was growing up in a safe place with school and kids her own age to play with. Things were changing, though. She’d never really stopped to consider how different life was now compared to a few months ago when they first arrived. Like everyone else, she rolled with the changes. It was a new world, the old one was dead. Things were done differently. Now that she was thinking about it, she realized everything had been incrementally getting worse. The new mayor had replaced all the old towns’ guards with his own men. They were outsiders, retrievers and nomads, some of them looked like they may have been bandits or raiders. Little by little they had taken over and even though people complained, they complied. He didn’t make big changes all at once, he made small ones that seemed reasonable. He’d locked up the hi-powered ham radio that could talk to most of the settlements. Somebody might be in league with the Raiders he’d said. They might give away our weaknesses, you don’t want those cannibals attacking us, do you? He had reasoned.

  He’d taken away everyone’s guns and kept them in the courthouse basement for safe keeping. You don’t need them inside the walls. We don’t want any of our children getting ahold of one, do we? He’d done away with restocking the store shelves, now they had community meals. A lot less waste that way he’d declared. She was one of the few who was allowed to have food because she kept odd hours with her medical duties. He was trying to get rid of money but people were complaining about that more than they had about turning in their guns. Everyone worked and everyone got free housing, food and medical care he’d argued. We can do away with it among ourselves, the town will provide.

  She’d treated quite a few truck drivers and retrievers, it seemed like they were always getting themselves banged up. Even they had commented on the changes and they hadn’t been complimentary. Those men and women went to all the settlements, the good and the bad, the old and the new. They delivered goods and spent time in the different towns. From the wild and barely tamed to the ones that were as normal as any place before the fall. If the subject of Gallatin came up, they all said it was getting worse.

  “It’s that new mayor y’all elected. He’s running the place into the ground.” was the general consensus.

  Except the town hadn’t elected him. He’d been an advisor and when the previous mayor died in the accident, he’d stepped in and taken over.

  Linda made up her mind, turned to face her daughter.

  “This could get risky.” She said. “I want to help those kids; I can’t stand by and do nothing anymore. If I do, we’re in this together. We’re going to have to leave, it won’t be safe for us here. Are you okay with that?”

  This wasn’t a mother daughter conversation. This was two friends, two survivors considering doing something that might be dangerous. This was all or nothing. If Moretz could wipe out a tribe of kids just for their animals pelts he would have no problem doing the same to them and Linda wanted out before it got worse.

  “I’m in.” Kassie said. “All the way.”

  “All the way.” Linda agreed.

  12

  Whiskey and Rye

  The tall man in the cowboy boots tossed back the rest of the whiskey in his glass and pushed the plate away. The steak and egg breakfast had hit the spot. He’d come in late last night, got a room upstairs and had been catching up on some much-needed sleep. The Dead Mule Tavern was busier than he expected this early in the morning, it was shift change for the guards. He could usually count on Ed, the bartender, to provide him with a lead on a job but lately it seemed like nobody in Gallatin wanted to pay in gold. Everybody wanted to barter and he traveled light. He didn’t have any use for somebody else’s junk.

 
The bar was abuzz with the news of a group of strange children and a bunch of zoo animals that were being held in the stockyards. He’d heard the stories on Radio Lakota but like everyone else with half a brain he’d dismissed them as tall tales. At first they had seemed credible; a group of kids had saved some women somewhere up in Minnesota. But then the ladies started saying the children rode around on bears and had panthers and wolves that obeyed their every command. Rubbish. Afterwards that buffoon Bastille had every retriever or half-crazy wanderer he could drag away from the pub that claimed to have seen them on his show. Most of them sounded like they were three sheets to the wind and their stories sounded like something you would hear from a drunk bellowing at the end of the bar. Some claimed they had a herd of elephants pulling a caravan of looted gold from Fort Knox. Two Shot Tim, who got his name from what he always ordered when drinking, not any particular gun skill he had, said he saw a girl riding a giraffe. It was ridiculous, same as the stories of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. The people ate it up, though. The CB and the phones were always clogged with people calling in whenever he had someone on that claimed to have seen them.

  Gallatin was a stopover for him, a place with a high wall, a well-stocked tavern and a comfortable bed. He’d been out in the wild for weeks and had just finished up a retrieval for a customer. This one had been rough. It had taken forever and the deaders kept showing up. A kid named Carl down in Lakota needed some very specific parts for some old train cars he was restoring. He had given him a list, it even had pictures of the items. He wanted to offer customers safe and comfortable day trips in armored antique dining cars. There seemed to be a demand for it, people wanted to get out from behind the walls for a little while, they just didn’t want to risk being eaten by zombies. The kid had come up with a way to separate them from their gold, good for him. He contemplated a train robbery, a grand one like the wild, wild west just for the thrill of it but he didn’t figure the boy kept the gold on the train.