Omega Days (Book 5): The Feral Road

by John L. Campbell

  “Same house,” Scott said. “Same dad, same lessons.”

  “I should have listened better,” Pepper said. A tear rolled down her cheek. Her fraternal twin, he would have been thirty now. Instead, an insurgent’s bullet had stopped him forever at age twenty-five. His unit had been under fire, with a wounded man out in the open. Without a moment’s hesitation, Scott Davis shed his heavy equipment and charged into the fire, pulling the injured soldier to safety, saving his life.

  At the cost of his own. A bullet found him just as he reached his team. It had broken her father. Mama had Scott’s flag, and Pepper had his Silver Star in a frame on her bedside nightstand.

  “I have to go,” she said, and turned to look at her brother.

  The recliner was empty.

  Pepper took the small aluminum ladder out of a closet near the back of the tour bus and hooked it to the service hatch in the ceiling between the two sets of stacked bunks. Then she pulled on a bulky brown Carhartt jacket she’d scrounged from the cab of a tractor-trailer in October, and put a dirty pair of wool socks on her hands. She didn’t have gloves. Minutes later she was popping the hatch, heaving it up and back against the weight of the snow, and climbing out onto the bus roof. On her hands and knees, it took thirty minutes to wipe away the fresh snow covering the solar panels.

  Pepper crawled a complete circuit of the bus, mindful not to slip off the edge, and checked to see if anything had moved up against the sides in the night. It happened sometimes, a dead-head perhaps drawn to some noise she’d made inside the bus, standing just outside the main door. Late last summer, before she’d learned to check from the roof, she’d popped open the door to make a run, and ended up in the arms of a snapping corpse. She’d managed to push it away and get back inside before it could bite her, and had spent the rest of the day on a couch, hugging her knees and crying.

  “There you are,” she muttered, wiping a snowy sock-glove at her runny nose. Below her on the left side of the bus, near the luggage compartment doors, a dead-head was standing with its face pressed against the metal, arms limp at its side and swaying. Pepper could see the trail it had made through the parking lot to get here. “Determined, are we?”

  She disappeared into the bus and returned moments later with Big Sticker. She’d found it last fall in a camper she’d been raiding not far from the fuel pumps, a slender, eight-foot length of metal with a crank at one end, used to raise and lower canopies on campers and motor homes. Pepper had wrapped duct tape around one end to make it easier to grip, then taped a butcher knife from the bus’s kitchen to transform the thing into a spear.

  She crawled back to the edge and lay flat, leaning out over the side at mid-chest, turning Big Sticker in her hands until it was vertical, knife-end down. She was no longer afraid of dropping it; she’d had plenty of practice.

  Her stomach growled and twisted.

  With a fierce stab she drove the blade down into the top of the creature’s head. It was especially soft, like a rotten pumpkin, and the dead-head stiffened at once and sagged into the snow. Pepper made one more crawling circuit of the bus roof before going back inside and returning Big Sticker to its place on the floor beside a couch.

  “Are you coming with me today?” she asked her brother.

  The recliner was still empty.

  Guess not. Now she shrugged into a backpack, stuffed a pair of empty pillow cases into a coat pocket, and took Little Sticker from its place beside her bed. It was a two-prong barbecue fork people used when grilling. Pepper slipped the handle thong around her right wrist so she couldn’t drop it or have it pulled away from her. Then she went to a carpeted floor hatch in the center of the living room and lowered herself into the darkness of the luggage compartment underneath the deck. Down here was a baseball bat, another empty backpack and a plastic flashlight.

  It felt like a steel coffin down here, cold and dark, with only the open square above providing any illumination. She didn’t turn on the flashlight, finding the handle of a luggage hatch with ease. Both hatches were fitted with handles on the inside to operate the securing bolts just in case someone ever managed to lock themselves inside, the same way most cars were now equipped with an interior trunk release. Pepper felt more than saw her breath in a cloud around her head.

  “I have to eat. I have to go.” Her voice sounded hollow in the dark metal space. “Toughen up.”

  Then she turned the handle on the luggage hatch, pushed it up with a creak, and plunged into a world that wanted to destroy her.

  TEN

  The snow was up to her hips. Pepper had been all over the country, in all types of weather, but she’d never seen anything like this. For the first time in her life she was able to appreciate something as simple as regular plowing.

  It could be worse. And it often was up here, as the driver of her tour bus had told her last summer, just before pulling into the fuel and travel center. He’d been through this pass many times, he said, and the snow here was measured in feet, not inches. He’d gone on to say that I-80, at the highest elevations where it crossed the Sierras, was almost certain to close several times during February, when it really piled up and took road crews time to push it back. February was particularly harsh up here, he’d finished, wheeling the big bus into the parking lot, only minutes away from learning what harsh really meant.

  February. That’s only a couple of weeks away.

  Pepper tried to push the implications of that away. It wasn’t February yet (she was pretty sure) and today the snow was only three feet deep with a beautiful, bright sky above her. Focus on the now, she told herself.

  The sleeper she’d seen rise from the surface while she was watching out the bus window moaned and reached for her. Pepper gave it a wide berth as she struggled through the snow, leaving at least twenty feet between them. The thing tried to move its stiff legs forward, but it was uncoordinated and made little progress, though it did move. The woman realized that given enough time, even at that speed, one of these creatures could walk across the United States without stopping. She lifted her knees as she pressed on, quickly leaving the corpse behind.

  That one didn’t scare her. She was faster, and knew where it was. It was the other sleepers that truly scared her, the ones still hidden beneath the heavy white blanket. Each time she put her foot down, she expected her boot to crunch into the ribcage of a monster that would immediately begin clawing its way up her body.

  She gripped Little Sticker in her right, sock-covered hand, wondering if she should have brought the baseball bat from the luggage compartment. She’d never used the barbecue fork on one of the dead (similarly the ball bat she’d found it in the back of a family station wagon) because she’d always been fast – or lucky enough – not to get that close to them. Except for the one at the door, of course. That was the last time she’d gone out unarmed. The bat would remain in the luggage compartment in the event she lost the fork and was headed back to the bus in a hurry. She’d want a weapon waiting. Looking at the dead thing floundering in the snow, the barbecue fork felt flimsy and insignificant. Maybe the bat would have been better.

  Too late now.

  She kept her sights on the main building of the travel center. No car burglaries for her today; she was headed for the honey pot.

  The sleeper trying to catch up to her from behind wasn’t the only monster out here. Pepper’s appearance had attracted attention. At least four more dead people were moving in her direction from different locations, all of them slowed by the deep snow and their own stilted movement. Slow, but again, moving steadily. Eventually they would get where they wanted to go, she knew, so Pepper told herself to do the same thing, only first. She kept an eye on the opposition as she pushed forward.

  One was a trucker, still some distance away, who had driven one of the eighteen-wheelers carrying Pepper’s concert equipment. She looked at his rotting face, and although she knew he would kill and eat her without a trace of remorse, she couldn’t help but feel a little sad. She didn�
�t know his name, never had. In fact she hadn’t known the names of a lot of her road crew members, the people who worked in the background every day to make her look and sound like a star out on that stage. She realized she’d never even cared to know them or their names, letting herself become so wrapped up in her little fantasy world of celebrity that it simply hadn’t mattered. Now it was a source of shame. She’d heard that Brad Paisley, who was far bigger than she was, knew the name and personal story of every member of his crew, and treated them each like family members.

  You weren’t a nice person, and now you’re being punished.

  That’s what her mama would have said.

  To her immediate right, out near several rows of parked cars, vans and SUVs, was the girl she’d nicknamed Sunny because of the big, smiling yellow sun on her T-shirt. Maybe nine-years-old, the little girl fought through chest-deep snow, flailing her arms and snarling, eyes locked on Pepper. The look of hungry rage that twisted the little girl’s face made her nickname a sick joke. Far to Pepper’s left was a corpse in a short-sleeve flannel shirt with most of his scalp peeled back to reveal the white of skull, but he was limping so badly on rotten limbs that Pepper couldn’t think of him as being a threat any time soon.

  The real problem lay ahead, and Pepper would have no choice but to deal with it.

  Pepper had about fifty yards to go before she reached the front doors to the travel center. Some of her view of the building was blocked by a Sysco truck pulled to the curb just right of the entrance, and to the left was a snow-covered sunglasses kiosk. This left a twenty-foot-wide space between. Since August, Pepper had passed through this gap and into the center more than a dozen times, carrying back as much food and supplies as she could. The place had kept her alive. And she’d been lucky so far, never having to face the dead in hand-to-hand combat, even when burglarizing cars and campers. Her strategy was simple: a dead-head in a vehicle, even if it was still belted in and seemingly at her mercy, meant she moved on without confrontation, without taking chances. She’d killed them from the roof of the bus with Big Sticker, but that had been from a position of safety, with distance between them. She’d never truly been toe-to-toe with the walking dead.

  It looked like that was about to change.

  Fiddler had just moved into view from behind the Sysco truck, and was coming through the gap. She was between Pepper and the front doors, and had locked eyes on her prey.

  A woman in her late twenties, Fiddler wore a black tank top and designer jeans, knee-high boots and had long, black hair falling midway down her back. Slender with enviable curves and lean, beautiful features (once) she’d been popular with the band and the crew, speaking in a gentle, Texas drawl, the kind of person who smiled easily, showing genuine interest in others. It was her playing, however, that had propelled her to fan favorite in only two days. Pepper’s manager had discovered her in Reno, and signed her as a back-up musician for the country star’s band. The woman turned out to be a world-class rock and country violinist with a natural flair for showmanship, and both her fiddling and her stage presence had not only complimented Pepper’s music, but also driven the crowds wild. She’d been booked to finish the tour with Pepper and her band. The woman’s future was assured.

  Mary? Marie? May? Pepper couldn’t recall her name, though she remembered being angry and jealous not only of the woman’s talent and natural sexiness, but more because of all the attention she was receiving. And that hadn’t been fair to the girl; Pepper was unquestionably the superstar, and there’d been nothing to fear from a young woman whose talent only made the show better. In the two-and-a-half days they’d been together, the violinist had never been anything but deferential, grateful and kind with Pepper.

  This, too, had been a source of regret after the world came apart.

  Kind. Nothing to fear. Not anymore. Fiddler was now intent upon ripping her apart.

  Pepper shuddered, not from the cold, but from the look on Fiddler’s face as she pushed through the snow with determination, dead white eyes never leaving the meal. There was no way to get past her and through the gap.

  “What are you waiting for?” Scott asked. Her brother was beside her, standing much higher with his boots hovering six inches above the snow. He was in his desert camos again, and Pepper looked away before she could see the wound.

  “I’m going back to the bus,” she said.

  “Where you’ll starve.”

  “I can’t get by her.”

  “In fact you’re already starving.”

  She looked at the dead woman advancing toward her. “I’ll stand here and wait until she’s closer, until she’s out of the gap. Then I’ll go around her.”

  “By that time the others will be on you.” Scott pointed first to the trucker, then to the little girl thrashing through the snow. “That one looks especially mean and hungry.”

  Pepper choked on a sob. “I can’t do this, Scott! I’m not strong enough to do this.”

  “Then just give up and die,” he said.

  Now Pepper did look at Scott, flinching when she saw the wound that had taken his life, but glaring at him anyway. “I love you! How can you say something like that to me?”

  “You can’t take it? You want death?” Her brother pointed at Fiddler. “Here it comes.”

  Pepper gritted her teeth. “Asshole,” she muttered, then started lifting her knees again and pushing forward, raising the barbecue fork. The dead woman reacted to her prey’s advance by moaning and moving a little faster. “I’ve got something for you,” the country star growled.

  Right. You’re about to die. You’re going to stab at her and miss, and then she’ll bite you. You’ll end up just like she is, and all this suffering will have been for nothing. Fear and anger twisted inside her as she thought about how pointless it was to survive this long only to be eaten by one of her own band members.

  Pepper got within twenty feet of the dead woman and then poured on the speed, making a hard right turn and lunging through the snow. Fiddler immediately shifted direction and came at her, and a cry escaped Pepper’s throat as she plunged ahead, her heart pounding. Cold fingertips brushed at the shoulder of her jacket, and then Pepper was high-stepping past and through the gap between the Sysco truck and the sunglasses kiosk. Fiddler snarled almost in her ear.

  A moment later she was at the sidewalk in front of the doors, tearing one of her sock-gloves off with her teeth, digging into a pants pocket for a key. A horseshoe-shaped bicycle lock hung between the outside handles, securing the doors. Fumbling with cold fingers, she tried to work the key into the bottom, not daring to look over her shoulder. She knew Fiddler had turned around now and would be heading in for the kill. Pepper began to moan herself, stabbing with the key, missing, stabbing again.

  CLICK.

  The bike lock came free and she took it with her as she shoved through the glass doors and into the travel center.

  The doors were rattling, the bike lock securing them from the inside now. Fiddler stood outside with her gray face pressed to the glass, tugging at the handles.

  Pepper was already moving, probing the darkness ahead with her flashlight. The interior of the travel center was a rectangular mini-mall running from right to left, light coming in through the doors and lines of windows out front, quickly fading to gray and then black, unable to illuminate the deeper parts of the large space. Ahead was a row of fast food restaurants and cashier stands, and to the right was an open area filled with booths and tables, trash cans and condiment stations, as well as a small visitor’s kiosk with a large map and racks of brochures for attractions in Truckee, Reno and California. To the left was a chain coffee shop, restrooms, a few arcade games and the entrance to a mini-mart.

  She knew every entry point to the facility; another set of glass doors over in the mini-mart, and assorted fire exits throughout. The mini-mart doors were secured from the inside by the twin of the bike lock behind her (she switched off every run; in one door and out another, then reverse the n
ext time, alternating the locks inside and out) and all the fire doors were still closed and secure.

  Except for one.

  There was one fire door at the back of the Burger King that stood wide open. During the chaos of that first day of outbreak, someone must have used it to get out the back of the building. A pick-up truck – either intentionally or by accident – had crashed into the back of the center, pinning the fire door back against the side of the building. Pepper hadn’t been able to move the truck (it was too damaged) and the door remained open. There’d been nothing she could use to block it up.

  Not that she had tried too hard. She never stayed here long, always aware of the minutes ticking by, eager to return to the safety of the bus she both loved and had come to hate. During the summer Pepper had briefly considered simply moving into the travel center so she wouldn’t have to risk making runs. She was glad she hadn’t. Even if she’d been able to figure out how to secure that pinned-open fire door, there were too many windows, and the continued presence of a living thing inside might cause the unliving things outside to try to break their way in. The tour bus was steel, and the windows – except for the windshield and driver’s side - were bulletproof at the insistence of her manager, who screened her fan mail and wasn’t happy about everything he read. Besides, the bus had heat, and this place didn’t.

  The open fire exit meant something could get inside, making this place a risk every time Pepper made a run.

  Her breath raised little white clouds in the tomb-like space, and she listened as she moved slowly left, toward the mini-mart. Behind her the dead woman’s racket at the glass doors echoed through the dark building, making it difficult to tell if there was anything else inside with her. Pepper gripped the barbecue fork more tightly and kept moving, passing the coffee bar and video game alcove, putting her flashlight on the entrances to the bathrooms. The rattling of the doors was softer down here, and for a moment she was certain she heard something wet sliding across the tiles inside those dark places. Nothing emerged.