“You’ve not slept too good since we left. You okay?”
Hunter stared at his feet. “Ammo is low, we have an infant to feed, and we’re swimming against the current. It worries me, man. I just don’t see us making it if we don’t pick up the pace.”
“I know what you mean. Seems people out here are more desperate. How come?”
“No fish means no food. In Louisiana at least we had plenty to eat. Fish, crawdads, gators. We had protein and a decent diet. In Angola, we actually gained some weight back from cows and sheep, even the occasional pig. But out here?” He shook his head. “Dead cattle everywhere. Dead sheep. A few goats. What’s there to eat?”
Omar raised his crossbow and shot a rabbit through the neck. “Bunnies.”
“Yum.”
“One will barely feed me. Snap out of it and shoot something, will you?”
Hunter lowered his weapon and looked at him. “You’ve gotten really good with that.”
“Well, I’m no Olympian, but you’re a great teacher.”
“True that. Do you ever...you know...want to just give up?”
Omar punched him in the arm. “No! And neither do you. Stop all this crazy talk, gay boy, and kill something. I’m starving and we have a baby to feed.”
“A baby. Have you even noticed that we’ve not seen another infant since this whole thing’s started? What are the odds we’ll be able to get Egypt to California when no one else seems to have a baby?”
“Stop being such a pussy. You didn’t have to come, man. You coulda stayed in Angola.”
Hunter hefted the bow up. “I know, but that place was making me stir crazy. I just wonder what it is we’re living for, you know? To save the country? To save mankind? How do we know the virus didn’t get out of the country? How do we know the rest of the world isn’t populated by zombies now?”
“We don’t, and it’s not our problem. Our problem is to put food in four mouths. Three, if you keep yammering like a little girl.”
“Don’t you ever get lonely?”
Omar rolled his eyes. “No. I have you, Chatty Cathy. Jesus, what is the matter with you?”
“You know what I mean. Don’t you ever get...you know...skin hunger?”
“Only a gay guy would put skin hunger above real hunger. No, I don’t. I’m too busy surviving. Now, if you don’t find something to kill, Grandma, you won’t have to worry about any kind of hunger.”
Hunter turned from him. “You may talk a tough story, Omar, but I’ve seen how you look at Luke and Butcher. You long for that. You miss whoever you used to love.”
Omar rolled his eyes. “I think I just vomited in my mouth, Dr. Phil. If you aren’t going to hunt, then stay here on the sidelines and let me get the job done, but please stop being such a wet pussy.”
“I’m just sayin’––”
“Shh. There’s another one.”
Hunter took aim.
Omar took aim.
The bunny died before either could fire a shot.
“What the fuck? Cover me. I’m gonna go see what killed our dinner.”
As Omar approached the second rabbit, he heard Hunter’s voice behind him. “Uh…dude?”
Whirling around, Omar had his bolt tip pointed right at a twelve-year-old boy pointing a slingshot at him.
“Touch that rabbit and you’ll be wearing an eye patch,” the boy said. He wore overalls three sizes too big with a filthy white tee-shirt on underneath. Construction boots and a tool belt, which hung low off his hips from the weight of the stones in it, completed his outfit.Omar did not lower his weapon. “Kid, lower that thing or get a new face hole.”
The boy did not move. “You may get me, dude, but you’ll lose an eye in the process.” The boy pulled the rubbed hose of his sling shot back and took aim.
Hunter emerged from the hunter’s blind with his hands in surrender. “That rabbit is yours, man, free and clear. We just want the one we took down.”
The boy still did not move.
“Come on, Omar, lower your weapon. He’s just a kid.”
“A kid who put a stone through the head of a rabbit and who is aiming at mine? I don’t think so.”
“Kid,” Hunter said, kneeling down, “listen to me carefully. He will kill you. He is batshit crazy. Lower your weapon, take your kill, and go.”
The boy hesitated a moment before slightly lowering the slingshot.
“Dude?” Hunter nodded at Omar’s crossbow. “Seriously?”
“Fuck that, Hunter. I’ll put mine away when his is in his Mark Twain-fucking-Huckleberry Finn back pocket.”
The boy shoved the slingshot into a space on the toolbelt, knelt down, grabbed the dead rabbit by the ears, and stood up. “I’m no redneck, asshole.”
“And stop fucking callin’ me names, kid. Where are your people?”
He shrugged. “Like everyone else. Dead. Who cares? Happy hunting. This place is crawling with warrens, so you oughtta bag plenty of kills. Just don’t get in my way.” The kid turned and trudged away.
Hunter looked at Omar, who shrugged. “Hey, kid, if you’re by yourself, we can make room for you.”
He stopped and turned. His nose was peeling and freckles threatened to take over his face. “No thanks. You should know, though, to stay away from that shack over the rocks. It’s a trap.”
Hunter and Omar exchanged glances. “A trap?”
He nodded. “Yep. They stocked it with canned goods. Lure folks in. Once in, bam! They gotcha.”
Omar was already running toward the shack.
“And then what?” Hunter asked, turning to follow Omar. “Trap them for what?”
“What else? They kill ‘em, barbecue ‘em, and eat ‘em up.” He shrugged. “People do that now.”
“Not to my people, they don’t.”
Butcher
“That’s odd,” Luke said, opening a pantry to find canned goods. “Fully loaded.”
Butcher walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder. The pantry was well stocked, all the labels were facing front, and there was even a can opener sitting on top of the tuna can. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Luke closed the pantry door and turned to her. “More to the point, nothing is right with it. Neatly lined on a shelf? A can opener? When’s the last time we entered a house to find it stocked, let alone in a shack in the middle of bumfuck nowhere?”
“Fuck.”
They both immediately turned to grab the handle of the carrier Egypt was asleep in when the sound of a vehicle pulling up to the shack made them both grab their weapons instead.
“It’s a trap,” Luke said. “Motherfuckers.”
A loud thudding sound followed the grating sound of metal against metal.
Grabbing Egypt’s carrying case in her free hand, Butcher opened the pantry and pushed all the canned goods aside before gently setting the baby carriage inside. “Hold them off while I barricade her in.”
Before Luke could respond, there came the moaning of a lot of zombies.
“Luke?”
He peered through the window and saw zombies limping off a truck ramp. “What in the hell? Someone actually brought those things here in the back of a goddamned truck.”
Taking aim through the open window, he tried to shoot the truck driver, but he pulled away, causing five more zombies to tumble out of the vehicle. In all, there were at least thirty man eaters limping toward the shack.
“It’s like they know we’re in here. Like they’ve been fucking trained.”
Butcher finished hiding Egypt and then closed the door to the pantry. “Let’s just hope she stays asleep.”
“Shit,” he muttered, pressing his back against the wall. “They’re surrounding us with those damn things. Is she okay?”
Butcher checked her clip. “She’s fine. I’m low. The rest of the ammo is still in the Hummer.”
Luke glanced around the shack. There was nothing he could use to barricade the door. “God damn it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“We go out together, Lucas Scott, you hear me? No heroics. No saving the day. That was the deal when I married you. Stick to it.”
Luke looked at Butcher and nodded. “Roger that.”
“Send the woman out the back door!” came a deep voice from the rear of the shack. “Her and her child come out alone, we kill these zombies. Stay in there and die a horrible death. Your call.”
Luke stared at Butcher.
“Uh-uh. Egypt is as good as dead if I go with them. No. We take our chances in here. Together. Like we have always done. Like we always will.”
Luke studied her a moment, his brow furrowed, his gaze intense. He knew his wife better than anyone and whenever she was an immovable object, it was best not to be that other force. It was always best to side with her.
Always.
“Fine,” Luke said. “Then we take care of them from in here. Hand weapons first. Save our ammo for use on the fucking hillbillies out there.”
Butcher nodded and started to respond when there came a loud crash at the front door as the man eaters started banging against it.
Butcher flipped her rifle around and raised the butt shoulder level. “I love you.”
Luke stood next to her, his crowbar raised up. “I love you right back. No goodbyes, babe. We’re gonna get through this. We always have.”
Noise from one of the open windows made Butcher turn. “Think they found the Hummer?”
“No clue.”
“Ya got ten seconds, then it’s all over for you both and we take the baby.”
“What about Omar and Hunter?” Luke asked, bashing in the head of the first zombie at the window.
“They’ll be back soon, I’m sure. We just have to stay alive long enough for them to shoot these bastards.”
“I don’t get it,” Luke said above the moaning. “We can do this all day. Why don’t they just come in and get us?”
Butcher looked out the glassless windows. Something wasn’t right. The zombies had gone after someone else and were no longer banging on the sides of the shack. “Where did they go?”
“I don’t know. I got nothing but cactus out this window.”
Then, her gaze traveled up to the ceiling, held in place by two four-by-six posts. “Luke? How big is this shack?”
“Five hundred square feet, give or take. Why?”
Butcher nodded to the posts. “Then why would you need to support the roof with such heavy posts? We gotta––”
Before she could finish, all four walls collapsed outward all at once, leaving nothing between them and two dozen zombies moving toward them. The only things left standing were the roof, the pantry Egypt was in, and the makeshift table.
“Fuck me,” Luke said, going back-to-back with Butcher. “They pulled the goddamn walls down.”
“That answers why the roof was supported. And there they are.”
One man on each of the four sides held a rope in his hands connected to the wall each had pulled down. They stood a good fifty feet away, safe from the horde descending on the pair.
“One last chance,” came the voice of the man on a megaphone. “The woman and child. That’s all we want. You can save your family, son. Just give them to us.”
“Fuck you, you fucking fuck!” Luke roared as he shoved the crowbar through the eye socket of a man eater. “You best hope I don’t live through this, you fucking piece of shit!”
Butcher knelt down and squeezed off six rounds, killing all six undead, but she knew her ammo was low. Too low. She would have to fight their way out in close quarters, and that was risky at best.
Dropping his crowbar, Luke was reaching for his Sig Sauer when Egypt cried out.
The back of the pantry had been the far wall, and now there was nothing between her and the horde shuffling toward her.
“Egypt!” Butcher wheeled around and took out the two man eaters closest to their baby. Their skulls cracked like rotten walnuts as brains flew in every direction.
Luke grabbed the crowbar and suddenly, he became a man on fire, taking out zombies left and right as he protected his daughter from the gruesome jaws of the undead. Skulls cracked and arms were hacked off as he swung and swung, taking out anything near him.
Butcher managed to put down two that had limped toward him, but with her back exposed, she didn’t have time to react to the ones she could not see.
The first man eater grabbed her shoulder. She crushed his face in with the butt of her rifle, but she knew it would not be enough. They would be on her before she could stop them. They were not going to get out of this one, and she briefly wondered if it was worse being eaten by a zombie or by another human.
The lipless mouth biting the air was inches from her triceps when she heard the familiar sound of hope.
THWUP.
THWUP.
THWUP.
The first one skewered the cheek of the zombie closest to her, giving her enough time to shove him away and leap over it to help Luke.
Five undead were now truly dead at his feet, all with bolts protruding from their heads as Luke pulled Egypt from the pantry. “Get those fuckers!” he yelled.
“Already dead, man, already dead. You guys okay?” Omar asked, running up to them.
Hunter pulled bolts from the dead and made sure everyone was truly dead, including the hillbilly cannibals lying motionless in the hot sand. “Assholes.” He spit on their corpses.
Butcher threw her arms around Omar. “Not one second too soon, O. I thought we were goners.”
Omar shook his head. “Woulda been, but some kid told us about this spider web. Showed us exactly where to go.”
“Thank God for that. For a minute there––”
“Oh shit…” Luke’s voice had a strange melancholy tone to it that made everyone look at him.
Butcher turned to Luke to find his eyes wide, the blood drained from his face.
No one moved.
“No,” Butcher said, tearing the sheet from Egypt’s little body. “No, no, no.” Picking the diapered baby up, Butcher quickly turned her over, examining every inch of her tender skin. “God no…Luke, tell me they didn’t get her.”
He shook his head sadly, his eyes saying more than words. “Not her, love. Me. They...got…me.”
The room swam before Butcher’s eyes. When she took a step back as if struck, Hunter quickly took Egypt from her. “I got her.”
Bracing herself on the rickety table, Butcher shook her head. “No. No. No. You cut it on the metal, right? It’s not…not…”
Omar grabbed Luke’s wrist and pulled his arms out straight. There were three five-inch fingernail marks on his right forearm. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
Inhaling courage to see what she did not want to see, Butcher stepped up and looked at the arm, her medic training kicking in full swing. “Belt his arm,” she ordered Omar. “Now! Give me your god damned belt.”
“What?”
“A tourniquet. He needs a tourniquet.”
“Babe––”
“Now!” Butcher grabbed the rubber duck from Egypt’s carrier and handed it to Luke. “Bite on this.”
“Butcher…it’s too late. You can’t just––”
Butcher yanked the duck away and shoved it in his mouth. “I’m doing this.”
Omar ripped Luke’s belt off and pulled it tight right above his elbow. Then he laid his hand back on his wrist and pulled Luke’s arm straight. “Butcher, you’re not really going to––”
In one swift motion, Butcher pulled her machete from its blood-stained sheath, wiped it off on her pant leg, grabbed a handful of sand of the floor, and rubbed it all over the blade. Then she lifted it over her head and cut his arm off just below the elbow in one powerful, decisive blow. Blood squirted like a fountain and then oozed from the gaping stump where his forearm once was.
The howl came from the deepest part of Luke’s lungs as he stared at the red stump where his arm had just been. The duck was still in his mouth. He teetered for a moment as shock becam
e his new best friend.
The other scream came from Omar as he stood holding Luke’s severed arm. “Jesus Christ, Butcher!” Omar yelled, dropping the arm. “What the fuck? You just…you just…”
Luke wobbled and Butcher caught him before he hit the ground. “Easy, baby, I gotcha.”
Once she lowered his head to the floor, she lifted up what was left of his arm. The blood flow from his stump was slowing, but it was everywhere. “Hunter, put her down and keep your weapon on him. If he starts to turn––”
Hunter set Egypt down in the pantry once more and drew his bow. “Butcher, I don’t think I can kill him. Not him.”
“Just do it.”
“But...it’s Luke.”
Butcher swallowed hard and shook her head. “Not if he turns. He turns, it’s just another man eater.”
“Harsh,” Omar muttered.
“Nothing harsh about staying alive. I’m going to get the med kit in the Hummer. Do not hesitate, Hunter, or so help me God, if he bites Omar, I’ll shoot him and then you.”
When Butcher sprinted off, Omar stared back at Hunter. Beads of sweat dotted his upper lip and forehead. “Damn.”
Hunter returned his gaze to Luke. “Jesus Christ.”
“She fuckin’ cut his arm off without so much as a howdoyoudo.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Think it’ll help?” Omar asked quietly. “Think she saved him?”
Hunter shrugged. “No idea. I suppose it was better than just watching him turn. Maybe she gave him a fighting chance. Who the hell knows?”
Omar studied the stump. “Bleeding is slowing down. God damn those fucking cannibals.”
Hunter repositioned the bow and glanced around them at the flattened shack. “Pretty elaborate trap for a bunch of fucking white trash pieces of shit.”
“Think there are more out there?”
Hunter nodded. “Cannibals? Yeah. These were their hunters. We gotta get the hell out of here. You know they’re coming back with more.”
When Butcher pulled up in the Hummer, she wasn’t alone.
“I understand you met Richard here already,” she said as she gestured toward the boy Hunter and Omar met earlier, then she quickly exiting the vehicle. “And this is his little sister, Violet. Found them hanging out by the Hummer. Said they know you.” She brushed by Hunter and knelt besides Luke. “I’m here, babe.” Butcher opened the med kit.
Pedal to the Metal (Riders of the Apocalypse Book 4) Page 5