Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Burning Rubber

by Alex Westmore

  “Fletcher?”

  “The man is more accurate with a crossbow than I am with a revolver. He is level-headed and loyal to our cause.”

  “Loyalty is a good quality under the circumstances, but I have to say, I never imagined a bow and arrow as an effective weapon. If he is half as good as you say he is this, I have to see it.”

  “You will tomorrow. Tonight, we do the meet and greet, answer some questions, and hand out assignments. I’ll talk to Luke about his assignment.”

  “Thank you.” Tying off the sutures, Butcher studied her handiwork before handing Dallas the antibiotics. “It’s damn good to be with you guys again.”

  Dallas looked into the eyes of one of the few people she was willing to die for. “You guys did great getting everyone here safely.”

  “It wasn’t a cakewalk, but now that we’re here, let’s get to the task at hand.”

  “Making a home?”

  Butcher shook her head. “Killing those fuckers.”

  Once everyone was gathered, Dallas had them sit in a circle, introduce themselves and tell where they were from. Once it came back around to Dallas, she said, “You all know me. I’m Dallas. Before the epidemic, I was a firefighter. When all hell broke loose, Roper and Einstein helped get us to safety. Then we met up with Butcher, who saved Roper’s life. The four of us have been together ever since. Somewhere along the road, people started looking to me to make decisions, so I came by the yoke of leadership by group approval, not by my own design. It is a role I take seriously—your lives hang in the balance.”

  She tried to make eye contact with each of the fifty-five people before her. “To be successful here, protocols must be maintained at all times and without exception. Again, our lives depend on it. To make this work, I’ve selected a job for everyone based on the informal conversations we had earlier today. For now, please do the job assigned you because the most important area for our safety is security and protocols.”

  A hand went up. It was Kat. She sat with her arm around the pit bull with the massive head. “I’m not sure I know what you mean by protocols.”

  “Thank you for asking, Kat. Protocol means procedure or a certain way of doing something. If the protocol for accepting new survivors is to isolate them immediately in a holding cell, then we need to do that one hundred percent of the time with one hundred percent of the survivors. If we don’t, it will be the end of us.”

  “I see. Thank you.”

  “After I give each of you your job detail, I’ll go over safety protocols and what our goals are for cleaning up this place and making it our long term home.”

  After Dallas handed out job details and answered questions, she offered Luke a small grin and turned to speak to the group. “As you all know, we’ve established what Einstein likes to call a garmy, or gay army. Because we can’t get infected, it’s easier for us to go into towns to get leftover supplies, to clean out infected areas, etcetera. However, the garmy needs a leader—someone trained in military strategies. That’s not me.” She turned to Luke. “I’ve come to trust you with my life and those I love. If you have any interest in—”

  “I’d love to!” Luke answered quickly, as if Dallas might change her mind.

  Dallas caught Butcher’s eye, who mouthed ‘thank you’ to her. “A well-trained militia is required if we are to be successful. To that end, Fletcher and Hunter will train those who show proficiency with either the bow or crossbow. Luke, Butcher, and Henry will teach limited rifle skills because we don’t want to waste ammo. You’ll each get ten shots to determine your proficiency. If you are not proficient with rifle or handgun, you won’t get assigned one. If you have your own and choose to keep it, that’s fine, but you’ll have to provide your own ammo. We are not wasting bullets on poor shooters. Roper, Otis, and I will teach in-close fighting—though, if we follow protocols, we should never have to use that within the walls of base camp. Questions?”

  Benjamin spoke without regard for the hands that were raised. “Are you planning on outfitting everyone with a weapon? Seems to me giving weapons to people like Julie is more of a waste of ammo.”

  Roper leaned forward to reply, but Dallas touched her knee to quiet her. “Define people like Julie.”

  Benjamin blushed slightly. “Young. Not as strong as the rest of us.”

  Roper may have been stilled, but Zoe was not. “A woman can pull a trigger just as quickly and easily as a man, dumbass. That’s why there are female cops, female fire fighters, female soldiers. Jesus, join us in the twenty-first century, will you?”

  “Without the accuracy, like Dallas said, you’re wasting ammo. And don’t call me names. You people need to––”

  “There’s no place for testosterone swagger in this new American order, Bennie. You breeders need to trust people you spent decades denying rights to. One of those rights is the right to not listen to this bullshit.” Zoe had her finger in his face.

  “Breeders? How dare you––”

  Dallas held her hand up. “Zoe––”

  “Breeders?” Benjamin spouted, his face instantly becoming red. “Is that how you see us? Is that how you have reduced those of us who fought in wars to keep this country safe? Is that––”

  “Are you fucking kidding me with this? Plenty of our people gave their lives in the Middle East when they were forced to not tell, but you never cared about those deaths, did you, Bennie?”

  “It’s Benjamin, and I think––”

  “Enough!” Churchill’s voice boomed. “Dallas hasn’t finished. You two can take your useless argument somewhere else. Right now, we need to return our focus to keeping all of us safe.”

  Kat nodded and spoke even as her hand was in the air. “Zoe, it doesn’t matter what was. All we have is what is and what we hope to have. Both sides need to let go of past baggage. Anger gets us nowhere.”

  Dallas held her hands up to quiet the group’s rebuttal. “Thank you, Churchill and Kate. Benjamin, every man, woman, and child will carry at least two weapons: one ranged weapon and one close-quarters weapon. That is not negotiable. There will be no discrimination in Angola as long as I am in charge. Women will fight alongside men, young will fight along with old. What every one of us must come to terms with are the changes in the demographics of this nation. More than likely, there are now more gays than straights alive. That doesn’t make us better, that just means there are more of us…and at this point, that’s a good thing because we’re going to have to be the ones to clean up the rest of the country.”

  “Wait. What do you mean the rest of the country?” a woman asked.

  Dallas cleared her throat. “Unless and until our scientists can find a way to neutralize the man eaters, the people most likely to eradicate the man eaters are CGIs. We are one such group, and as we continue to grow, we will continue killing more and more until we can take our nation back. Angola is just the beginning.”

  For the next half hour, Dallas answered questions, explained what the next week entailed and why it was important for ZBs to stay indoors as much as possible while they finished a building-by-building cleaning of the rest of the base.

  Just when she thought she was done, Benjamin said, “This gay army you’re making. Where do you plan on acquiring the necessary weapons, like machetes and knives for them?”

  As Dallas opened her mouth, Gary answered, “There’s a machine shop and a repair shop on-site. We can make a butt load of weapons here at the pr—uh, base.”

  Dallas nodded. “Gary, why don’t you tell us what you know about this place?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “It’s okay. Tell us what all is here.”

  Gary stood a little straighter as he addressed the group. “Well now, Miss Dallas done chose a fine place for a base, ‘cause Angola was built for self-sufficiency. It’s gotta fire station with EMT equipment, a church, a rodeo, a canning factory, dairy…um, sugar mill, repair shop, print shop, and an airstrip.” He had to stop listing as the crowd began murmuring.

&
nbsp; “There’s an airstrip?”

  Gary nodded. “Yes, sir, and a plane still sittin’ in the hangar. The farm here can produce corn, cabbage, cotton, onions…um, squash and tomatoes. The ranch can hold up to two-thousand head of cattle.” He thought a moment. “And for those of you who are swingers, we got a nine-hole golf course.”

  The group was astounded. “A golf course in a prison?”

  He nodded. “And a tennis court. Over there are the beehive homes where the guards’ families could live, and the ranch house, one of the places we’re clearing tomorrow, has a conference center.” He smiled at Dallas, who nodded her thank you and picked up where he left off.

  “So, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, Angola has just about everything we need to live comfortably while we grow our garmy. If all goes according to plan, we’ll have this place all to ourselves by the end of the week. We’ll be safe here while we train and recruit as many survivors as we can.”

  When the final question was asked, it was dark out, and Dallas let everyone retire for the evening. People slept in pairs, with each pair having one candle they’d brought with them from NOLA. The four children who were under the age of ten were terrified of the dark and crawled into bed with their mothers.

  As people crossed over each other to get to their chosen beds, Roper sidled up next to Benjamin and pulled him into the anteroom.

  “Excuse me, but what do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

  Before Roper answered, Zoe, Churchill, Ferdie, Fletcher, and Hunter joined them, blocking off any exit.

  “Listen up, asshole. You make Dallas’s job harder, I’ll gut you like a fucking fish,” Roper growled into his face. “And this is no idle threat. You just back the fuck up and pipe the fuck down or you won’t live to see tomorrow. Are we clear?”

  He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He did not appear the least bit frightened. “I should have assumed she’d resort to bully tactics.”

  Roper was within an inch of his face now. “You got that one wrong, buttmunch. We are the bullies, not Dallas, and you best learn to treat her with respect, or you’ll be floating down the Mississippi wondering where your head is.”

  “Really? Your drama needs some work. I think—”

  Hunter moved so fast, no one saw him draw an arrow, notch it, and shove the metal tip into Benjamin’s open mouth. “Just nod your fucking head that you understand what happens if you keep trying to upstage Dallas or cause her any problems.”

  Benjamin slowly nodded as Hunter withdrew the arrow. “Good. We won’t have this conversation again.”

  “I can see that this regime is not what it appears to be. You plan to lead by mob rule.”

  “Dude, shut the fuck up.”

  “I may be quiet now, but when your leader asks if there are any questions, you’ll be sure to hear my voice.”

  Roper stepped back into his face. “Just be respectful, or I swear to God, the last face you’ll ever see is the one you are looking at right now.”

  When they all dispersed, Roper found Dallas chatting in the front office with Gary, who was still listing all there was available in Angola. When he finished, he took first night shift in the crow’s nest.

  “Interesting guy,” Dallas said just as Henry came by. “It’s not like he can see a damn thing out there, but he believes it’s a comfort to people knowing he is there.”

  “Who? Gary? Yes, he is. He knows this place inside and out. It’s good to have a guide for a place as big as this is.”

  “Which I find odd even for an ex-inmate. I thought he’d only know a little bit about––”

  “Ex-inmate?” Henry said. “Gary never did time here.”

  Roper and Dallas exchanged questioning glances. “But you said he’d just gotten out.” “Of Angola, yes. Of prison, no. Gary used to work here as a guard.”

  Roper’s Log

  We’ve accomplished a lot in Angola in two weeks—more than I thought possible, and with only one fatality. It came at the end of the first week and was a perfect example of what happens when one doesn’t follow protocol.

  Let me backtrack first.

  What we found in the other camps defies explanation. It is clear the prison came under attack from within and attempted an evacuation that wasn’t entirely successful. We found decomposed bodies and half-eaten body parts scattered about in the public areas. We found zombies roaming around the common areas, zombies locked in cells, zombies caught in a variety of positions and circumstances. While the majority of the 5,500 prisoners somehow got free of their cells, it became evident that they did so at some cost.

  The locked cells were most disturbing.

  Not every cell managed to get open during the exodus. One side was open; the left hand side was still closed, and rotting in those cells were unlucky inmates who had died in a variety of gruesome ways. Some had hanged themselves using their pants, but most must have died the horrible death of hunger or dehydration. Decomposition from bugs and being eaten by smaller animals left quite a mess. Some bodies were intact, while others had had limbs or digits carried away by critters. However they ended their lives, it hadn’t been easy, and I can only imagine the conversations these men had before succumbing to a ghastly death.

  According to Gary, several criminals had been brought in and, before they could be processed, had bitten a number of the guards before they could be put down. It was too late after that. The guards went to the medical unit to have their wounds treated. Some turned on their way, while others turned while being treated. It was a cautionary tale of how quickly one infected person could infect, directly or indirectly, hundreds or thousands of people in a short amount of time and in a confined space.

  Gary had gotten out in the first wave of guards who could see the battle already lost. He had barely escaped with his life. The guard driving the Jeep had been bitten and turned as he was driving. Gary had leapt from the moving vehicle just before it rammed into a telephone pole and burst into flames.

  Thinking he was at least safe from the newly turned driver, Gary had started walking home when the flaming zombie started after him. Without a weapon, Gary had grabbed a piece of wood and beat the crap out of his hot-headed friend until he finally killed him. He’d suffered burns to his hands and forearms, but he lived. The same couldn’t be said about his buddies or most of the inmates, and we could see by cleaning the area out how many had turned during the pandemonium.

  Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

  For our part, we built a huge bonfire and, one-by-one, started tossing the old bones and rotten flesh into the flames. It took us all week to clear out the souls who’d probably deserved their fate, but still, that was a horrific job. Dallas required it of everyone. No one escaped cleaning out the dead, no matter how gross.

  And there were some gross ones.

  One can only imagine the horror of realizing you were trapped in a cell with no way out and no one coming to get you while zombies reached for you day in and day out, moaning, pressing their rotting heads against the bars, not understanding they could never get to you. Night and day they would reach into your cell…moaning…longing to eat you. Twenty-four-seven, moaning, reaching, longing even as the flesh fell from their bones. Even Dante’s Inferno would be heavenly compared to that fate.

  And many of these inmates suffered that horror.

  The first three zombies we killed in the main area were reaching through the bars from the inside of the cell, the flesh gone from their faces from the constant banging against the bars. We had to shoot a total of twenty undead—which was a lot less than I’d expected until I realized the front and back doors had been left open so the inmates could escape into the yard.

  There were a couple other oddities that took us all a minute to figure out. Nearly a thousand of the inmates locked in their cells were zombies. I thought, “What the fuck?” And then I saw the bite marks—on arms and on legs.

  That’s when I got it.

  If I knew I would die a slow, gruel
ing death from dehydration, I’d let a zombie bite me, too. It was a much swifter death. So, instead of languishing and waiting for help that would never come, these inmates had stuck an arm or leg out to be bitten. Being bitten was preferable to the alternatives of dying a death from dehydration or listening to that moaning day in and day out.

  When we got to the cells housing zombies, they threw themselves over and over into the bars, reaching for us with that hideous gurgling sound. The CGIs used them for target practice and shot them in the head with one arrow. Dallas let some of the less experienced “soldiers” practice because eaters aren’t human, after all, and if using them can save a life, we’re all for it.

  Fletcher took a liking to our little Zoe, and soon, she was drawing back a crossbow like a pro and delivering the death blow with but one bolt, which was good since she was a piss poor shot with a rifle compared to some of the others. She really seemed to gravitate toward Hunter and Fletcher, but Hunter in particular. I am not sure why, but they bonded right away, and he was incredibly patient showing her how to use a crossbow. He even promised to find a way to paint hers pink. I had no doubt he would, too.

  Now, after two weeks, we are all exhausted from round the clock work and cleaning, but Angola is slowly transitioning from prison to homestead. Dallas even took time out to check out the fire engines, which still had gas in their large tanks. She gave the Biker Boys--our new name for Henry’s group--the task of siphoning it all out. They laughed when Dallas said she was sure it wasn’t the first time they’d done it.

  The only problem we’ve had with that rat bastard Benjamin is his continued questioning in an attempt to undermine Dallas’ authority. It drives me crazy that she is so patient with him, but she’s the boss. If she wants me to leave him be, I will.

  For now.

  Oh, I think there’s a little love blossoming between Einstein and Cassidy, but she’s totally unaware. The kid has hearts shooting out of his eyes when he looks at her, but she’s oblivious, poor guy. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a teenager in the midst of all this chaos and death. I don’t think Cassie even realizes how he looks at her, though I don’t know how she could miss it. He has it bad.