Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos

by Simpson, David A.

  She started being nicer to him and was overjoyed when she learned they had spoken before Jessie sent him here. The joy quickly turned to sorrow when he’d been ordered to destroy the bracelets. He didn’t want them to jump back, he wanted them to stay with her. The boy was shrewd and had argued with her and she’d relented. They would decide matters when Scarlet awoke and she was glad.

  He called her Scarlet once but she corrected him.

  “I’m not Scarlet.” She said. “I am Madroleeka. Jessie called me Maddy.”

  His curiosity knew no limits and she brought in a space suit, showed him how to operate it and then allowed him to step outside. He marveled over the ships and the zero gravity and like her Jessie, he mastered the controls of the suit quickly. She refused when he wanted to fly the ship.

  “Consider yourself lucky you are allowed to sit in it.” She said.

  “Fine.” He said, unperturbed at being treated like a child. “Things will change when Scarlet wakes up. I can’t wait to get at that database, I have sooo many questions.”

  Things did change. After the initial shock had worn off, there was much laughter and so much love it was palpable. The look of surprise on the boy’s face when they asked to see the database was priceless.

  “I am the database.” She’d said. “What would you like to know?”

  The two girls had laughed so hard Scarlet had to fan her face and had nearly choked.

  The boy was so different than her Jessie and she saw how the love of a woman could change a man. He wasn’t angry at being stranded so far from home. He wasn’t depressed because he had failed and she had died. He wasn’t driven by vengeance to make Horowitz pay. He wasn’t raging at the universe.

  Scarlet was as curious as the boy and after a week of answering any questions they had, showing her how to maneuver in a space suit and taking one of the ships out for a short cruise they sat down to a serious discussion.

  Both bracelets sat on the table, the Osmitron beside them, its blue liquid ominous in the clear crystal container. Maddy explained what she knew of the dangers of jumping back and the boy understood. He had read the journals. He knew the other Jessie had jumped to the exact same coordinates three times and had wound up in three different times and places. They were too far away and were trying to go back too many thousands of years, the slightest abnormalities, the tiniest deviation changed things. They might jump together and be separated by years or thousands of miles.

  “There is danger to go but there is also danger to stay.” She warned. “There is a price on Jessie’s’ life.”

  “Oh. Jessie is a bad man.” Scarlet teased and ruffled his hair. “What did he do? Was he mean to an old lady? Maybe I turn him in for reward.”

  “The pirates want his head for embarrassing them. The Queen of the Outer Reaches reprimanded them harshly for allowing an unauthorized vessel into her kingdom. To heap insult upon injury, she has decreed safe passage for him when he is in her system. Every time I go, they gnash their teeth in anger but dare not attack. When you leave here and begin your travels, they will be hunting for you. Her decree is only for her system, not the entire galaxy.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to avoid space pirates.” The boy said. “They’re outlaws, right? They don’t wander around in civilized territories, do they?”

  “Usually not.” She agreed. “But he has found disfavor with the Consortium. They also hunt him and they are everywhere.”

  “What have you been doing out here by yourself?” Scarlet asked “I can’t leave you alone even for one minute without you making trouble.”

  “Wasn’t me.” Jessie said. “It was the other guy. I barely woke up before you did.”

  “Are they big problem?” Scarlet asked, the teasing in her voice gone.

  “They can be.” Maddy said. “It’s like the mob or yakuza back on your world. We will take him to see a skin doctor, he will repair the scar. Yours too, if you wish.”

  Scarlet touched the three white scars across her cheek and looked at Jessie’s that ran from his lip to his eye.

  “No.” She said after considering it for a moment. “I don’t know if I like him as pretty boy. Maybe he starts making eyes at pretty girl then I have to kill him myself. We stay the way we are. Too handsome is ugly.”

  “Any other reasons we shouldn’t stay?” Jessie asked. “Any other surprises the other me has waiting?”

  There weren’t and the pair became excited again, ignoring her suggestions for new faces and new identities.

  They wanted to make a life among the stars. Earth had very little to offer them and it wasn’t worth the risks to attempt a return. She was honored when they asked her to train them, teach them like she’d taught Jessie. They didn’t demand or expect anything and were worried they could never repay her.

  “This is not a concern.” She said. “Thousands of years ago Jessie made a wise business decision. The proceeds from his tobacco empire have grown every year. He has more credits than he could possibly hope to spend. They are yours now.”

  They were surprised and pleased about being wealthy but they had meant something else. How could they repay the kindness she was showing them? What could they do for her?

  “When the time is right, when you are confident and proficient and I can teach you no more, I would like to be allowed to go.”

  “You’re free to leave now.” The boy insisted. “You’re not our slave.”

  He was fool hardy. They would be dead in a week if she left them to their own devices.

  “Where will you go?” Scarlet asked.

  She pulled up the sleeve of her sweater and showed them the third bracelet.

  “Back to him.” She said.

  49

  The Traveler

  Jessie sailed down to the ocean then turned south. Winter was coming again and he wanted to be someplace where there wasn’t snow. He wasn’t confident enough to go too far out, he liked to keep land in sight, but he slowly made his way down the coastline. He was attacked near a big island off the coast of North Carolina. Fast sailing boats cut him off and cast their lines to tie him fast. He let them then jumped over, killed most of them, tossed the others overboard and took their boat. It was much better than his. He spent a day cleaning the blood from the decks, discarding their clothes and other belongings over the rails and taught himself how to operate the forty-five-footer. It had once been a top-of-the-line boat with electric windlass, roller furling and remote hydraulic thrusters to aid in docking. It was dirty, he doubted the bed sheets had been changed in a year, but it was fully functional. He found the manuals and even though it was a little big for one man to run alone, with the assists it was manageable.

  There was a friendly, thriving fishing community on Jekyll Island and he spent a week with them before moving on. He discovered other little towns on islands just off the mainland. The ocean provided and they may not have much variety in their diet but no one went hungry. He helped where he could, worked for his rations and led them in raids to the mainland for critical supplies. Sometimes there was trouble and pointed guns but most of the time not. Somewhere near the Florida Keys someone gifted him with a dog. It was a terrier mix, a female, so he called her Bobbie.

  Jessie grew tan and his hair bleached even blonder. He wore board shorts, went shirtless and the browning of his skin hid many of the scars. He let his beard grow and it came in fuller than before, actually hiding much of his disfigured face. One month slid into the next and he enjoyed the life he was living. An old saltwater fisherman showed him how to navigate by the stars, read the nautical maps and understand the flow of the currents.

  He and Bobbie sailed to Cuba then over to the Bahamas. Somehow the years passed and he kept moving. Towns were thriving when he found them but there were months where he sailed the coasts of South America and didn’t see any signs of life. No smoke during the day and no fires at night.

  More years passed, his boat was held together with patchwork fixes and when he put ashore
in California, he knew its sailing days were over. The unforgiving sun had dried and wrinkled his skin, aged him twenty years in the decade he’d lived on the water. He found an old lodge, long abandoned and in disrepair high up on a forested mountain. He made it his home and avoided people for the most part. He was content to be alone. He got himself a mule and started trapping. He traded furs for an old ethanol converted truck and the man threw in a German Shepherd pup. He named him Bobbie three, and they survived just fine with some gardening and hunting. He was a good dog but didn’t compare to Bob. On the few occasions the stumbled across a deader, the dog just growled and barked until Jessie killed it.

  He didn’t have a radio, he didn’t care about the goings on in the world. He was content with his primitive way of life. He made his way into a trading post a couple of times a year to get coffee when they had it and sell his furs. Bastilles son had found him and persuaded him to tell his version of the first crazy days of the uprising. He was writing a book, the definitive story of the hero’s or some such nonsense. The uprising had been decades ago, far enough in the past that there were whole generations who had been born after Z day.

  He’d gone to visit his dad after that. He still lived in Lakota, in the house on the lake, but the place was crowded now. Suburbs spread out around the walls.

  They finally buried the hatchet.

  Jessie hadn’t made it home for his mom’s funeral. He hadn’t known she was sick but the old man carried a grudge, said he should have kept in touch. It broke her heart. He was at the end of his life, balding and frail and Jessie doubted he would see him again. They had a good week together before he left again.

  He learned a lot about the state of the world during his stay. Most of the walled cities that had sprung up far from the population centers were holding their own, raising enough crops and livestock to feed the people but things were breaking down. They hadn’t put enough effort into restoring manufacturing, they were too busy trying to survive. They couldn’t make plastic, electronics or advanced medicine. Some trucks still ran on ethanol but when they broke replacement parts were scarce. Good bullets were getting harder to find, too. Power plants were breaking and were often cobbled together with scavenged parts. It wasn’t sustainable and there was still an occasional undead outbreak. One barely crawling zombie hidden in the weeds could wipe out a whole town if the bitten person wasn’t put down fast enough.

  In other places the Tower had started constructing new units. They hired teams of retrievers for security then went into the cities. Reinforced and modified combine harvesters with wood chipper components rolled through the hordes, scooped them through the thresher and spit them out as rotten mist. They located the best building with all the prerequisites and modified it to suit their needs. They kept the undead away from the construction with moveable walls and stripped the surrounding buildings for materials. None were as advanced as the Tower but they worked and were fully self-contained when finished. The surrounding areas were burnt then razed and planted with trees and hardy grasses. Decaying cities were leveled and forgotten. After a decade only a single tall building stood in meadows of grass and forests of young trees. Marylin spent the rest of her life trying to make the future Jessie had seen become a reality.

  When Jessie left Lakota, he didn’t go back to the lodge, people knew where to find him there and he didn’t want to be found. If Bastilles boy had tracked him down his enemies could too. He wanted to be left alone and he was getting tired of the snow. He thought he might go back down south and spend his retirement on the beach.

  The remnants of the Anubis Cult were still up in Canada and they had grown big again. They had strongholds dotted all across Canada and were slowly expanding their influence. They weren’t attacking other cites but they took what they wanted and it would take everyone banding together to stop them. That hadn’t happened yet and probably wouldn’t.

  He saw airships tethered at the airfield and learned that Takeo and his Hell Drivers had given up running the roads when the fuel went bad and the asphalt started buckling. Now they delivered supplies by dirigible. It wasn’t as fast but the slow-moving zeppelins were a lot more dependable than the wheezing old supply convoys.

  He traded his truck for a good river canoe and gave Bobbie three to Slippery Jim. He was better known as Mr. James Jones now, the Governor of the city-state of Lakota.

  He asked about Doug, the boy he’d escaped high school detention with but no one had ever heard of him. Even Eliza had no record of him in her spreadsheets.

  This world was close, very close, but not the same one he’d left.

  Jessie disappeared in the early morning fog coming off the river and there was no one to watch him go.

  Years passed as he wandered further and further south. He had another sailboat for a time but it broke up during a storm on a sandbar in the Bahamas chain. He lived alone on a small island that had once been a rich man’s private paradise. He became known as the hermit. He knew women occasionally but nothing lasted very long. He didn’t go into the fishing village for supplies very often but when he did, he always had interesting ship wreck treasure to trade. He was venerated and legends grew around him. He adopted the people as his own and was savage in his fury when they were threatened by slavers or others who came to rob or plunder.

  It became a custom to slip over to his island in the night and leave gifts on his dock. Sometimes with requests, sometimes as thanks for good fortune. He was ageless and could do things young men couldn’t accomplish. Sometimes when he paddled over to the town he would stay for a few days and help where he could. Occasionally he would pay someone a visit, a bully or a drunk who liked to beat his wife or children, but mostly he bent his back and helped with construction projects. Sometimes when he was a few bottles deep into the local rum he would crush a coconut with his bare hands or stick his face in the lobster tank and stay under longer, much longer than their best diver.

  He had been able to hold his breath for long minutes since he had the injection but he’d trained himself over the years to hold it longer. He could dive deep and stay down for eight or nine minutes.

  Pirates and raiders learned to avoid the chain of islands unless they came peaceably to trade or resupply.

  More years passed and when Jessie thought his time should be over, he should be old and aching and decrepit, he kept on living. Everyone he knew died. He watched village children grow up, grow old and be buried. The serum had made him more than human and the healing pods had removed any imperfections, any traces of cancer or disease.

  He was content and the islands were a safe haven. Traders brought news of the world and he learned the new Confederation of States had grown from a hundred thousand survivors to a few million. The big walled cities and towers were still where most of the population dwelled and two million wasn’t very many but humans weren’t on the edge of extinction anymore. Civilization hadn’t been able to get back to where it was before the fall, not even close. It had been a century and a half and the wars that had happened between city states had been a constant once supplies became scarce. Nobody was making sports shoes or two-ply toilet paper or ink pens anymore. His fathers’ dream of pulling all the walled cities together and rebuilding better than before never happened. Greed and corruption found their home again in the hallowed halls of government. Knowledge was lost and the world slipped back into feudal strongholds with alliances of convenience between cities. Monarchies and fiefdoms replaced a democratic form of governance. In most places it was dangerous to travel very far from the fortified cities unless you were well armed and with a strong group.

  This wasn’t one of the better futures he had seen but it wasn’t one of the worst, either.

  50

  Jessie + Maddy

  In his one hundred and sixtieth year she came walking up the shell path leading from the beach. The men in the outrigger canoe that delivered her bowed to Jessie then paddled away quickly and didn’t look back.

  She looked exact
ly like he remembered. Blonde hair at the roots, black hanging down her back. Pale skin and emerald eyes. The three scars across her cheek were present and her smile was hesitant. Maddy hadn’t aged a day. Her clothes were well worn, her gear well used. They looked weary but she was as fresh as the day they met.

  He smiled a broad, toothless grin and waved her up to sit in the shade, to get out of the sun. He hobbled to meet her and they embraced for long moments

  Jessie sat in an Adirondack style chair under a canopy made from an old sail. His tattered copy of the book Bastille had written a century ago sat on a table next to him. He couldn’t read it anymore, his up-close eyes were too far gone, but sometimes he liked to hold it and remember those long in their graves. Some of the stories he’d told the interviewers hadn’t made it into the book. They had differed from everyone else’s. It didn’t matter. If things he told them never happened in this timeline, they had chalked it up to the half-crazy ramblings of a loner who had been too long out in the wastelands.

  “I’ve been walking the earth, wandering to and fro.” She said when they settled in under the canopy. “I’ve been searching for you for a long, long time.”

  They talked through the day as gentle breezes caressed them as she told him of the boy and Scarlet and how they had blossomed and made a name for themselves in the known systems. They had become formidable fighters, their speed and skill unmatched in open space. They had settled on one of the central planets in the hub and were planning on having their first child when she left. They were safe and secure; she had fulfilled her commitment and there were tears when she said goodbye and returned to her lonely asteroid.

  She told of jumping to his last coordinates but had wound up seventy years in the future and not in Ohio. She was somewhere far north in a frozen tundra. It took months of wandering south before she found an outpost and figured out the approximate year. She could try to jump again but she’d seen how that had been for him. Dozens of jumps and thousands of years could pass before she came this close again.