Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Burning Rubber

by Alex Westmore

  Roper slid into the driver’s seat, and both Butcher and Einstein kept their weapons trained on him as the ramp closed and clicked into place.

  “Captain Earl Garnette,” he said.

  “I go by just Dallas, Captain. You can put your hands on your knees. Now, what brings you to our neck of the woods?”

  The Captain swallowed hard as he eyed all of the muzzles pointing at him. He was a tall, angular man with serious brown eyes and a scar that cut his left eyebrow in two. He might be called handsome in a room full of nerds.

  “Ma’am, we are not here to do anything except check out the veracity of the stories we’ve heard about another safe zone in this great country of ours.” He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “As you can see, we are quite successful here, so let’s cut the bullshit, Captain. We’re very busy, so what is it you’re really here for?”

  His cheeks colored and he hesitated.

  “Captain, time is ticking here. Why are you here?”

  Clearing his throat, he replied, “I’ve come to tell you that the United States military will be taking this facility over.”

  The interior of the Fuchs was silent.

  Dallas blinked once, looked at Butcher, then at Roper and they all busted out laughing. When the laughter died down, Dallas said to him, “Oh. Wow. You were being serious?”

  They all laughed once more.

  “Ma’am, the United States military is in the process of reclaiming—”

  “Reclaiming shit. If you think for one second that three Jeeps full of soldiers is even remotely enough to take us on, you’re smoking crack,” Roper said. “You came a long way for nothing.”

  Dallas lightly touched her shoulder. “What my partner means is…no fucking way we’re turning this place over to you or anyone else. So…shall we start over? Like…well…the beginning.”

  Captain Garnette stared down at a cuticle. “Word reached command central about a very successful enclave of survivors. We came to check it out, investigate, and see why you’re successful, and….um—”

  “Take us over.” Butcher added for him.

  “Well, we’ve already determined the latter isn’t going to happen, so what now?” Dallas leaned forward, elbows in her knees.

  “Ma’am, maybe if you’d just let me take a look around, ask the folks some questions, see how you’ve—”

  “Captain, do I look mentally deficient? Perhaps you’re not clear about the different sides we’re on. The United States military is our enemy. A year ago, you killed undead and living alike. You hunted us down in an attempt to contain an epidemic you are responsible for.” She leaned back and watched his face contort with the realization that she knew the truth.

  “I don’t know where you got your intel, but—”

  “But it’s true. The virus got away from you, and our entire country has paid the price for it. We have collected people who are willing to fight back for our country, not hide behind the skirts of those who put us in this position.”

  “Fight?”

  Dallas nodded. “That ship that blew up outside of the bayou a few months back? That was us. We know damn well how this whole tragic thing started. Then you tried to contain it by killing the living as well. Well, Captain, we made it in spite of your best attempts. We are nobody’s collateral damage, so please don’t insult our intelligence any further or we can just end this here and now.”

  The captain nodded, making eye contact with everyone in the Beast. “My apologies. I…we weren’t expecting any pushback or this level of organization.”

  “Oh, we are very organized, Captain, and we have a great deal to teach you and the rest of the military about how to defeat these things.”

  “The United States military is working around the clock to eradicate—”

  “No, you’re not. It’s been over a year and they’re still here. Why is that? Because you don’t know how to defeat them.”

  “And you do?”

  Dallas nodded. “We do. If you come with us, we’ll show you. At least that way you can return to your government with some answers about cleaning up their mess.”

  He looked out the window. “I can’t leave my men.”

  “Sure you can. This is like the Wild West. We make up the rules as we go along.”

  He thought about it a little too long.

  “Look, Captain, if we wanted to kill you, we already would have. We’re just trying to help you gain some understanding of what you’re up against.”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but my men and I have been fighting the undead since—”

  Dallas raised her hand. “I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about us. These people.

  We are not who you think we are. We are not rebels. We are, in short, achieving what you are merely attempting to do.”

  “And what is that?”

  Dallas smiled softly. “Saving our country.”

  They’d been traveling in the Fuchs a little over an hour when they came upon four undead stragglers lumbering through an empty field. Dallas turned to Roper and nodded.

  “You’re up.”

  Grabbing just her machete, Roper waited for the ramp to lower.

  “Are you mad?” Captain Garnette asked. “Look, there is no need to put your people at risk. I know you’re all tough and that you’ve made it this far, but—”

  Roper laughed. “You don’t know shit.” Nodding to Dallas, she stepped out onto the field a good twenty yards away. “Be back in a flash.”

  When Roper stepped away from the ramp, Dallas closed it. “Now, pay attention, Captain, because we’re not showing you again.”

  “This is suicide! It’s absurd. It’s—” He stopped talking when he watched the zombies walk right by Roper, not even giving her a second look. “What the—”

  She came behind them and walked with them for a moment, pretending to be one. They never even looked at her, but just kept trudging through the fields.

  “What the hell?”

  Dallas nodded. “Just watch.”

  In less time than it took for the ramp to lower, Roper beheaded all four and was back in the Fuchs in less than one minute. When she looked over at Captain Garnette, she shook her head. “Havin’ a hard time believing what you saw, Captain?”

  He blinked, then slowly turned back to Dallas. “They should have torn her apart.

  How…what…?”

  Dallas started back toward Angola. “That, my friend, is classified information, but as you just witnessed, we are not some group of insurgents getting in your way. We may very well be the only people standing between getting our country back and losing it to those vultures waiting around the nation’s perimeter for us to die.”

  Captain Garnette was still too stunned to reply, so Roper patted his back patronizingly. “While you guys hunted your fellow Americans down, we were busy figuring out how to destroy the real menace.”

  “They…they ignored you. I’ve…in over a year of dealing with them, day in and day out, I’ve never seen—”

  “Sure you have, only you didn’t quite understand why. Think about it, Captain. Have you had any men or women who were bitten but didn’t turn?”

  He shook his head. “Wait! Yes. A corporal came to base, having been bitten during a botched rescue.”

  Dallas leaned toward him. “Let me guess. He was in a crowd, possibly even holding the person you were rescuing, and that was when he was bitten.”

  The blood drained from his face. “How…how could you know that?”

  “Again, you’re asking the wrong questions. How come he didn’t turn?”

  “We don’t know. Our doctors could not determine the reason.”

  “It might surprise you to know that we know why.”

  Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, he shook his head. “Never saw anything like that and now, this. Would she be willing—”

  “No. The reason we gave you this little demo is so you and your bosses underst
and that, while we are not the enemy, we will be if you try to take Angola from us. You need us more than we need you. It would be wise to keep us on your side. Not only will we not go down without a fight, we will thin your ranks considerably. We’re a force to be reckoned with, Captain.”

  When Captain Garnette spoke again, it was a good three minutes later. “Is it…just her? Is it something about her alone? Does she possess the key?”

  “No, it’s not just her. There are many of us, and we’ve taught our people how to shoot and fight hand-to-hand. And those who can’t shoot well are proficient with bow and crossbow.”

  “Bow and —”

  “Ammunition is running scarce, isn’t it, Captain? To get to army bases in order to collect it is a sketchy endeavor. Bolts and arrows are retrievable ammo.”

  He gazed out the window. “I gotta hand it to you—you people have thought of everything.”

  “Not everything, but enough to keep us alive. Look, the rest of the world loves the idea of splitting us up like it did Germany after the First World War, but everyone frowns on anything that smacks of genocide. You know and we know they are all waiting for the zombies to defeat us. We are doing everything we can to prevent that.”

  “Dallas, I don’t think you realize just how many of them there are out there.”

  “Sure I do. We’ve killed nearly twenty thousand just from here. We are well aware of how outnumbered we are, but have chosen to fight. What we don’t need is a government that put us in this position in the first place to think it’s going to swoop down here and take our home from us, because Captain, I don’t think that’s a game you want to play.”

  He studied her a moment before replying, “I don’t know if you folks are the bravest people I’ve ever met or the most foolish.”

  Dallas shrugged. “A little of both, I suppose. So, go back to your bosses and tell them Angola can be friend or foe—it’s your call.”

  “You’d really take on the United States Military?”

  She leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. “Can your people do what Roper did out there?”

  Before he could answer, they pulled up to Angola. The men and their Jeeps were gone.

  The Captain stood at the ramp and glared out the window. “Where are my men? If you’ve done anything to them—”

  Just then, Luke loped up.

  “Uh, Luke?”

  Luke flashed her his best grin. “Don’t panic. We invited them in to have a cold drink and a little snack.”

  “A little snack?”

  Luke nodded. “We’re not barbarians. Just because we’re not under lock and key in New England doesn’t mean we have no manners.”

  Captain Garnette started to retort, then thought better of it. “It is the only way to keep people safe. We can’t have people wandering around.”

  Luke chuffed and stepped back. “That’s what I thought. Your safe zone is no different from our prison, only more so of one.”

  Gary led the group of eleven men to the front of the base.

  “Captain,” one of the soldiers said, running up to the ramp as it lowered, “they have everything here. Cows, eggs, even refrigeration!”

  Captain Garnette waved them back to their vehicles parked just inside the gate. “Thank you for treating my men kindly and for showing me something I still can’t believe.” Turning from the opening, he leveled his gaze at Dallas. “What happened out there? I really need to know. How was it they didn’t attack her?”

  Dallas walked down the ramp and motioned for him to follow. “I’m sorry, Captain, but seeing as you came here as an enemy and not an ally, we won’t be trading secrets this time around.”

  “Dallas, I don’t think you realize what we’re willing to do to take over a safe installation like this. You people are just civilians.”

  This made Dallas laugh. “Do you hear yourself? Just civilians? Captain, you and your men are alive because these civilians allowed it. Next time, you might not be so lucky.” She smiled. “Remember what we did to that destroyer, Captain, because we’ve only just begun.”

  When the Jeeps were gone, Dallas turned to the others. “Well?”

  Henry shook his head. “They were regular fonts of information. Call for a meeting of department heads. I think everyone should hear this.”

  Half an hour later, the heads of each group sat around the big mahogany table in the conference room. “I’m going to turn the floor over to Henry and Luke,” Dallas said. “Hold your questions until they are done. Henry?”

  Henry remained seated as he began. “According to the soldiers we fed, the New England safe zone is run more like a concentration camp. It’s more like a prison than Angola ever could be.”

  Luke continued. “It’s not just rules and protocols like we have—they have curfews, food rations, mandatory service, and they are constantly under surveillance by the military. This includes strip searches, mandatory bed times––”

  “A veritable martial law state,” Henry offered. “Most of their resources go to the military, which is more concerned at this point in time with growing its own numbers and not saving our civilian population. They’ll go to great lengths to get help for soldiers but not necessarily for the civilians.”

  Luke laid his hand on top of Butcher’s. “This was not their spin, of course, but what we were able to gather from our conversation with them. The United States military is more concerned with the military than the United States. This makes them our enemy, and the next time they approach, we need to prepare to fire on them.”

  Wild Bill, who was now in charge of the cattle, raised his hand. “Them coming by land says a bunch.”

  Dallas nodded. “Yes, it does. We need to better prepare ourselves in the event they continue here to take us by force. Luke, you and Wendell see what we need to defend ourselves from any sort of sneak attack. I want a report in my lap before end of tomorrow.”

  Wendell raised his hand. “In the absence of dynamite or bombs, I can construct a catapult to deliver the equivalent of two dozen Molotov cocktails.”

  “Get on that,” she ordered. “I also think it’s time we blockaded all main arteries into Angola. I don’t want anyone to just drive up to our front door again. Henry, I’d like you to take care of that.”

  Henry nodded. “Me and my people can round up a bunch of the dead vehicles and put them in such a way that even a Hummer can’t bust through.”

  “Good. I want to see your plan for that tomorrow as well. How many you need with you, who you want to take. How long you think you’ll be gone. Everything.”

  “You got it.”

  Einstein’s hand rose slowly. “Dallas, all of that is well and good, but if I was the United States military trying to attack this stronghold, I wouldn’t approach it by vehicle at all.” He rose and walked over to an old aerial photo of the prison hanging on the wall. “Where we’re most vulnerable is around the perimeter here, here, here, and here.” He tapped his finger on each part of the map.

  Everyone was silent as he continued. “I would come at night with bolt cutters, cut my way into the yard, and attack us from within…and then wait until we wake up to massacre us and get a foothold to the interior. By then, it would be a bloodbath, with massive losses on both sides.” He paused a moment before sitting down and shrugging. “Just my two cents.”

  The room was very still.

  “How old are you again?” Henry asked, breaking the tension.

  Einstein grinned. “I’ve played Call of Duty for half my life.” He shrugged. “It’s how I would attack us if this were a game.”

  “The kid’s right, as usual,” Luke interjected. “That’s as good a plan as any.”

  “But how can we best fortify against a night time attack?”

  Everyone, including Luke, turned to Einstein.

  “Without electricity, our best early warning system would be dogs. It’ll be easy enough to round up the ones that aren’t so feral and give them run of the yards and the perimeter. A barking
dog means the ground security checks it out. Cake. Dogs would also be good for sniffing out zombies. If we are planning on doing this for the long haul, training dogs would be a great idea, especially for around the fencing. Dixie would be awesome at letting us know when anyone was approaching. So would Kat’s dog.”

  Dallas flashed him a smile. He’d grown up so much in their year together, yet every now and then, like when he said cake, she was reminded that he was still just a boy. “Thank you, Einstein. I believe you may have just saved all our lives.”

  “Again,” Butcher muttered, making everyone laugh.

  When the meeting finally concluded, Dallas and Roper stayed back. “Nice work out there, love.”

  “Four lousy zombies was a test? Come on!”

  Dallas smiled and took her hand. “Show off.”

  “So…do you think they’ll be back?”

  Dallas nodded. “I do. And next time, we’ll be ready for them.”

  Butcher’s Log

  Einstein nailed it.

  I don’t even know if any of us would be alive without that little Poindexter.

  Two weeks after our first military visit, they tried coming at us in the dead of night. The dogs we’d gathered, twenty in all, were so happy to have food and companionship that they were easily retrainable…or at least tamable. Three barked at anything that moved, but the others seemed to understand their role instinctively. One of the survivors who came with the last group is a dog groomer. She is now their handler, and we got her and the dogs not a moment too soon.

  That night, there were at least fifty of the US soldiers, all dressed in night gear, creeping around the perimeter, trying to get in by cutting the chain link fence. When the first dog went off snarling and sneering, so did the others, and we mowed every last one of those soldiers down in their tracks.

  Dallas had doubled up on sentry duty, so when the dogs barked, the crow’s nest relayed our intruder alert, and the sentry came through the locked gate and rang a loud bell. We were all up and outside in less than thirty seconds, taking out soldiers who seemed very surprised to die by bow and arrow.