Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Burning Rubber

by Alex Westmore

  Einstein raised his hand. “Why aren’t we going back for him?”

  Dallas’s eyes met Otis’s, who answered for her. “The survivors would crawl all over the Fuchs like ants on a peppermint again. The amount of time we would lose trying to get them off could give the horde the time it needs to catch up. We can’t risk that. We needed to get our people back here and regroup, which is what we did.”

  “With Luke leading them, they’ll get here sooner,” Roper added. “He knows what he’s doing, and so does Dallas.”

  “Okay, we cut their numbers significantly, and gave the survivors some breathing room, but their growth surpassed what I’d anticipated,” Dallas said. “CGI shooters will be going back out with me. We’re going out five miles to assist in the last push to Angola. Once the survivors get beyond us, we will shoot and fall back, shoot and fall back, so that we’re right on their tail.

  “Once the survivors reach the gate, we need to continue order for quarantining. Once order is obtained, depending on how much time we’ve bought ourselves, we will either make a stand in front of the fences or fall back and assist the ZB shooters in taking them out from within base camp. We have two mounted machine guns, which will have 500 rounds apiece. Once those cease firing, we will commence firing with the ZBs. Make every shot count. Once we are out of ammo, the CGIs will revert to machete, bat, and crowbar. Convene at the gate in thirty minutes.”

  When everyone moved out, Dallas pulled Henry and Otis aside. “I need your best shooters. Make sure they have more ammo than everyone else. Reiterate head shots and to have patience not to shoot until after the machine guns stop firing. That’s important. Those guns can take out a helluva lot, but we need patience. Panic will kill us.”

  Henry nodded. “Ten-four. We got this, Dallas.”

  When they left, Roper and Butcher stood on either side of her. “He’s right, babe. We got this,” Roper said.

  Taking their hands in hers, Dallas addressed Butcher. “If I could have done this any other way—”

  “You couldn’t. He wouldn’t. He knows what he’s doing. I have to believe that. So should you.”

  Taking both faith and belief with her, Dallas led her fighters to the line of scrimmage.

  Several hours after her return to Angola, and stationed five miles from the front gate, Dallas heard Luke before she saw him. Urging the survivors on, he prodded, pleaded, and encouraged them to press ahead. He had returned to the road, probably because it was easier on the survivors, who were coming around the corner at a pace somewhere between walking and jogging. The survivors lit up upon seeing Dallas and company.

  “They came back!” A woman yelled down the line to the survivors behind her, who erupted in exhausted cheers.

  Dallas strained to see Luke, and when she finally made eye contact with him, he took off in a sprint toward her, stopping in front of her with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. His shirt was torn in three places and there were several cuts on his forearms, but other than that, he appeared unharmed.

  “How far behind?” Dallas asked.

  Luke stayed bent over, hands on his knees. His shirt was soaked, and perspiration dripped from his nose and chin. “Not too far. Half a mile…max. God…am I glad…to see you. Didn’t think we’d make it.”

  Dallas patted his sweaty back. “You did great, Luke. Thank you for getting them here.”

  “Not finished.” Rising, he wiped the sweat from his brow. “How much…further?”

  “Five miles or so. We still have a ways to go. Fire and drop back, fire and drop back. You take them the rest of the way. Keep them at the gate until I get there.”

  Dallas looked at Roper, who gave her the thumbs up.

  “You ready?” Dallas asked.

  “Right beside you, babe. Let’s do this.”

  It was time. Once the last survivors hurried by, Dallas raised her rifle and called out for her shooters to get ready. The line was tense, the air still. The moaning reached them long before the bodies. By the looks of it, they hadn’t made a dent in the numbers, so large was the amoeba-like horde lumbering toward them.

  “Fire!”

  They took out the first line of zombies and then fell back. The CGIs were moving slower than Dallas would have liked, and she knew they were tiring. She was tiring. Swinging a machete was hard on the body. After a while, your gripping muscles go, and maintaining a good grip on the handle is vital for a good kill. You had to be able to pull it out once you’ve stuck it in.

  Once your grippers go, you have to use two hands and swing it like a bat. Sometimes, the machete gets lodged in the skull, so then you have to put your foot on the head to pull it out. All of this takes precious time and energy, and she could sense the waning energy of the group.

  When they retreated and fired again, Dallas knew that continuing this pattern until the survivors were safely at the gate was going to be tough.

  Fire, retreat, fire, retreat. The pattern continued for nearly two hours until they were within sight of the main gate of the prison, where the survivors stood waiting, wondering, disbelieving they might actually make it.

  Dallas’s clothes were soaked through with sweat, her hair pasted to her forehead. She was nearly out of ammo, her arms felt like lead pipes, and her legs like soggy noodles.

  “Henry, get them ready!” she yelled, running up to the gate where Gary stood with several rifles hanging from his shoulders.

  “Open the gate, Gary, and herd the survivors to quarantine. Shoot anyone who breaks protocol.”

  Gary nodded and barked orders to the twenty people in charge of the quarantine procedure.

  Henry rallied his troops behind the walls of the prison while Butcher, Meg, and the medical team dealt with the quarantining of the survivors, some of whom balked until Wild Bill assured them it was best for everyone involved. By the time the survivors were all in quarantine, the first line of zombies had made their way to the fence.

  That was when Dallas knew she had made a terrible miscalculation.

  Yes, they had cut the horde in half, but it had grown significantly in the twenty miles it traveled, nearly doubling in size…maybe tripling.

  “Fire!” Henry bellowed, followed by the sound of machine gun fire popping from the two machine guns aimed at the horde. One thousand rounds goes much faster than one might think, but the sheer number of bodies that fell acted as a roadblock for the others who stumbled over them as they reached for the fence.

  “Fire!” Luke yelled when the machine guns quieted. It was now the ZBs turn to fire on the zombies, and Dallas watched as bolt after bolt, arrow after arrow downed the eaters.

  But still they came like a swarm of locusts, moaning, reaching with fleshless limbs.

  The only sounds that could be heard above the gunfire were that awful moaning and the sounds of bodies hitting the ground. Over and over, the undead fell and became the truly dead.

  Swinging machetes, the CGIs entered the fight with reckless abandon. Dallas killed a hundred or so before her machete broke off at the handle, then she used the butt of her rifle and started caving heads in.

  She had no idea how long she did this, but when Roper’s hand shot out and pulled her inside the gate to assist the ZBs, it took another hour to put down the last zombie limping toward the fence and stumbling over the dead. The fence not only held up, but did not appear to be stressed at any point. Wendell had done his job spectacularly. The zombie bodies were eight deep from the fence and had acted as a primary speed bump, making them slow down. This made it easier for the shooters to make their head shots, and they did so more efficiently than Dallas had hoped.

  When the last zombie crumpled on top of his dead friends, the entire compound erupted in cheers. Roper threw her arms around Dallas’s neck, and the feeling of jubilation washed over the fighters and everyone in the prison.

  “You did it,” Roper whispered, kissing Dallas’s salty neck.

  “We did it,” Dallas corrected. “We did it.”

  And
so they did.

  Piled outside the perimeter were thousands of truly dead. The survivors were tucked away safely behind the fence. Her plan, their defenses, everything had worked itself out.

  Once everyone made their way back to the theater, they were an exhausted, jubilant group who had managed to fight back and win. They had won their first major victory, and the renewed energy flowed through the survivors like a magic elixir.

  That night, the kitchen crew served a celebratory feast as everyone shared their experiences and stories in what came to be known as The First Wave.

  It was the best night they had had in a long, long time.

  Butcher’s Log

  Four Days After the First Wave

  It’s odd feeling both pride and anger at Luke for his decision to help the survivors in a way that put him at risk. On one hand, it was brave and heroic—on the other, foolish and impulsive. I don’t believe they would have made it here without him, so Luke has definitely made some great deposits into the karma bank, but I would prefer it if he weren’t so selfless.

  After dinner, he crashed and slept until noon the next day. Dallas posted a guard at the door of our cell and threatened to gut anyone who woke him up.

  I love that woman like I’ve never loved another woman (besides my mother). She has brass balls, that girl, and isn’t afraid to lead. I wouldn’t want her job, and I imagine it keeps her up at night, but she takes good care of us, that’s for sure. She has kept us all alive and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I wouldn’t do for her.

  I’ve been kept up at night for other reasons—reasons I wish would go away. I keep having nightmares that the baby is…God help me…born a zombie. It’s horrific. The thing comes out scratching and clawing at the doctor and nurse and launches itself at the doctor’s throat. In another nightmare, I am breastfeeding it and it takes a huge chunk out of my breast, blood spewing all over. I can’t shake it. It clings to me, sucking my milk and my blood.

  It’s awful. I wake up with the cold sweats and have a hard time falling back asleep. My rational mind knows this can’t happen, but it feels so real…it makes me feel for my baby.

  My baby.

  Such strange words. For his part, Luke has been wonderful. He doesn’t hover or treat me like I am suddenly helpless. It makes me love him even more. He’s become the hero of the survivors, and they look up to him a lot, which is good because that Benjamin has been talking too much and trying to rally support for his cause. He wants some sort of board or committee or some such bullshit. Every time he talks, I look over to Roper and can see the veins in her forehead. If he’s not careful, Roper’s going to have him for breakfast soon.

  Yesterday, the last of the survivors left quarantine. We had one turn about an hour after intake, but luckily, Ferdie was in there doing the exam and put her down quickly.

  Dallas spent the afternoon assigning them duties. When she assigned duties to the children, one mother balked, saying her son was too young. The funny thing was what Dallas said. “No one is on scholarship in this camp.”

  It was priceless.

  It’s amazing how quickly our numbers have grown. At last count, we had three hundred and seventy-four. Imagine that! With more mouths to feed, we’ve scheduled more fishermen, more hunters, and more trappers. With the smokehouse going twenty-four/seven, we haven’t had a problem with lack of food or proper nourishment.

  The new survivors we call the Texas group were stunned at the food we provided. They ate their fill, and then ate some more as they asked questions about the facility, about the jobs that needed doing. One thing about those Texans, they don’t sit idle, and they are willing to work.

  Of course, now we have the magical duo of Wendell and Elliot, who have made electricity feasible to the point that once every week, everyone gets a five-minute warm shower. Dallas posted a schedule with big, bold print that says No Trading. Everyone Showers. She did this after she caught one of the kids trading his shit duty to another kid for his shower time. Apparently, boys prefer being smelly and dirty. Ugh.

  The slips Dallas tossed out of the plane have yielded nearly a hundred new survivors, and each one said word was traveling fast. Wild Bill told us that first night that they were headed along the southern border of Louisiana when they heard from a small group that Angola was safe.

  For the most part, it is. Besides the one survivor Ferdie killed, Wild Bill’s group yielded three man eaters who changed within the first twenty-four hours of quarantine. They’d been bitten in the initial skirmish just before pulling away in their first all-out run.

  Wild Bill couldn’t thank Dallas enough for the mandatory quarantine and asked if he could be of assistance in the quarantine ward. Meg was more than happy to have someone actually volunteer for such a dangerous duty, so away he went. They hit it off right away, and I have noticed some mutual attractions happening. Ferdie seems to have a huge crush on Churchill, Meg and Wild Bill have traded those looks people give each other, and Jamie seems to be drawn to Zoe, who doesn’t seem the least bit interested right now.

  That Zoe is an interesting duck. She seems to prefer Hunter over everyone else, and they have become fast friends. He spends a great deal of time showing her how to use her now pink crossbow (don’t ask me where he found pink paint), and she’s become incredibly accurate.

  The other day, however, she tried to create an arrow that shot fire, and I guess Hunter gave her shit for it. She said, “You never know when you might need one.” I guess he called her Robin Hood or something. I swear to God, if they were straight, they’d be in love. To her credit, she did get one going and lit a small pile of hay on fire.

  The victory over such a huge horde has spurred us forward in our goal to be a working army. Hunter and Zoe are crossbow trainers, while Fletcher trains others in how to make bolts and arrows. We’ve created quite a stockpile. Every piece of wood we can find has gone into making more bolts and arrows. We also retrieved our bolts and arrows from the undead we killed, so that was good. The bonfires blazed morning, noon, and night these last four days until all the dead were but ashes. Everyone had to participate in that job. It was gross, but necessary, and everyone was sick of the smell of burnt hair and flesh.

  The horde victory gave us the confidence that we do have a solid plan and can pull it off.

  Not only can, but must.

  It is too easy to become complacent—too easy to settle for a life inside a prison. Dallas reminded us of that last night. She wants to take the garmy out to fight. Luke thinks we ought to work our way toward the Military Zone because the hordes are moving toward the larger populations.

  Like Angola.

  But we’re small potatoes compared to the tens of thousands we think are living in the Military Zone. We can only hope the military is as effective a killing machine as the garmy.

  I suppose only time will tell.

  In the two months they’d been at Angola, they’d quadrupled their population to over six hundred and had suffered minimal losses and casualties. They had fought off two more smaller hordes of nearly three and four thousand apiece and managed to lose only two fighters in the process: one who was trampled, and the other fell off the crow’s nest.

  Dallas felt they were ready. They had six hundred and sixty-two survivors. Seventy of those made up the garmy—and the garmy was quickly becoming very efficient…so efficient, in fact, that other survivors took notice. It was their first realization of the growing importance of the gay and lesbian survivors and what they could do to rid the country of the zombies.

  In the beginning of the third month, Dallas was doing her rounds when she heard the alarm sound.

  When Dallas got to the crow’s nest, Otis said, “Military coming!”

  Dallas wasn’t sure she heard right, so she yelled up to him, “What?”

  “Military coming! Three black military Jeeps!”

  The entire fighting unit gathered near the gate at the ready, eager to defend their home. “I’ll take the Fuchs out to meet
them,” she told Roper.

  “Not alone you won’t,” Roper said riding up on Charger, the bay mare she had finally tamed. “You’re taking a whole platoon of soldiers.” A platoon in their world was a contingent of a dozen.

  Dallas looked around at her choices. “Butcher, Roper, Einstein, and Churchill, grab a partner and come with me.”

  Luke’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously? You’re taking the kid and not me?”

  Dallas moved really close to him. “If something goes south, I need you to keep a level head and take over. Will you do that for me?”

  He blinked once, then nodded. “It’s your call, but nothing better happen.” He glanced over at Butcher’s rotund belly. “They’re not getting this place or anything in it.”

  By the time the Jeeps made it to the front gate, the Fuchs was blocking it. Churchill manned the turret, the others readied their rifles, and Dallas waited as the ZBs behind the fence pointed every weapon they had at the three vehicles.

  “I’m pretty sure they are shitting their pants at the number of weapons aimed at them.

  We’re going to let their leader come to us. Churchill?”

  “Yeah, boss?” He yelled down.

  “You see one weapon, blow one of those Jeeps to hell and back.”

  “Roger that.”

  About five minutes later, the driver’s door slowly opened and a uniformed officer stood behind it. When the passenger door opened, Churchill swung the machine gun around. “Uh, uh, uh,” Churchill called out. “Just him. Get your ass back in the vehicle.”

  The soldier hesitated until his commander nodded.

  “Leave your sidearm on the hood,” Churchill said. “We won’t shoot you unless you give us reason to.”

  He did, and then locked his fingers behind his head.

  “Walk to the back of the vehicle.”

  As he did, Roper lowered the ramp. When the soldier came to it, he faced seven rifles. “Welcome to Angola,” Dallas said, motioning for him to enter and take a seat.