Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 1): Ride For Tomorrow

by Westmore, Alex

  Dallas looked over at Roper and gave her a quick smile. “Roper won’t leave the horses, and I won’t leave Roper.”

  Einstein pulled Gwen up to the rest. “So, you’re all saying we’re going to go down there where it’s clearly infested and kill those man eaters like we were some sorta super heroes?”

  All three nodded.

  He grinned. “Oh hell yeah! Count me in!”

  Butcher looked to Dallas, who said, “It’s his own personal video game come to life.”

  “Head shots only, people.” Einstein said as he hefted a rifle to his shoulder. “Don’t waste ammo shooting at anything else. It won’t stop them.”

  They had tied the horses under a cluster of oak trees before hiking down to the frontage road. The closer they got, the louder grew the hideous moans of the once human beings pounding their now bloody fingertips on the windows. While they would never break the Hummer windows, they would also never stop trying to get to the meat inside.

  “Ah, I see what happened,” Butcher said, pointing to three of the man eaters wearing military uniforms. “The Hummer’s stuck in that ditch. My guess is those three got out to push and were attacked.”

  “So the infestation has reached inland faster than we realized.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Roper leveled her sights at the eater nearest her, which was a good fifty yards away still. “We can use the horses to pull it from the ditch.”

  Dallas agreed. “Perfect. Well then, are we ready to do this?”

  Everyone gave her thumbs up.

  “They will come at us,” Einstein said, “so let’s each take two who will be our responsibility to shoot.”

  Butcher flashed him a smile. “Those video games have paid off. That is exactly how we ought to do it.”

  As they moved closer, Dallas’s heart felt like it was trying to burst out of her chest.

  “Stop,” Einstein said. “This has to be close enough. Once they see us—”

  As if on cue, the man eaters stopped pounding and slowly turned toward the foursome. Instantly, two man eaters’ heads were blown to bits as Roper and Butcher nailed their first targets. It took Dallas three tries before she downed hers, and Einstein four for his first, but only two for his second. As the remaining man eaters lumbered toward them, moaning that awful sound, Butcher and Roper finished them off.

  “Einstein and I will check out the Hummer. You two stand watch on either side.” Dallas handed her rifle to Roper, who, in turn, gave her the .357.

  “Armed at all times,” Roper said.

  Taking it from her, Dallas said, “Gotcha, but what’s wrong with my Glock?” Roper looked at Butcher for confirmation. “They can jam. That baby? Not once.”

  As Dallas and Einstein cautiously approached the Hummer, Einstein aimed his rifle at the driver’s door while Dallas stood about five feet away and peered in. The soldier at the wheel looked half-crazed with fear and thirst. His lips were slightly cracked, and his eyes would not settle.

  “Come on out. You’re safe now.”

  He hesitated a moment before unlocking the door. “They’re all dead?”

  Dallas motioned for him to get out. “Yeah. Come on out. We can help you get this out of the ditch.”

  Looking all around, the soldier, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, opened the door and slowly got out. His eyes scanning the area in front and around the car. Pit stains blossomed from under his arms and around his neck. He stunk of sweat and fear.

  “Keep your hands up,” Dallas ordered.

  The soldier held his hands up and laced them behind his head. “We have to get out of here. Those things are everywhere.”

  “Yes, they are. Why didn’t you radio for help?”

  “I did, but there aren’t that many choppers in this area and—” He stopped, remembering his duty.

  “And?”

  “And that’s all, ma’am. My unit will be here shortly.”

  “Then we’d better get a move on,” Dallas said. “You go over there and kneel down.”

  The soldier blinked. “What?”

  “We’re commandeering your vehicle.”

  He let out a bark of a laugh. “Right. A girl and a boy?”

  Einstein pushed him into the field. “Dude. She’s a woman, and I’m a boy with a gun, and yeah, we’re taking the Hummer.”

  “As you can see, it’s in a ditch, and those things are everywhere.” He knelt on the ground, and Einstein relieved him of his sidearm.

  “There are two rifles pointed at your head. If you so much as make one move of aggression, you’re a dead man.”

  He shook his head. “Ma’am, that’s the oldest trick in the book.”

  “There’s no trick, soldier, save the one the military is playing on us.” From behind the soldier came Roper, all four horses in tow. Dallas threw the Hummer into neutral.

  The soldier stared at the horses as Roper attached them to the front bumper and coaxed them forward. The Hummer didn’t budge for a moment before slowly rolling out of the ditch.

  “Look out!” The soldier yelled, pointing in the direction of a man eater walking toward them. Half its face was gone, its clothes were torn and dirty, and it wore no shoes. Butcher dropped it with one shot, causing the soldier to whip his head around.

  “See? No trick,” Roper said softly.

  When the Hummer was out of the ditch, Dallas poked her head in to take inventory. She retrieved two pairs of binoculars and a grenade she tossed over to Einstein, who caught it with nonchalance. Pulling the binoculars out, she turned to the soldier. “What can you tell me about this vehicle?”

  “Ma’am, I have no intention of telling you anything.”

  Einstein shook his head. “We don’t need him. Butcher will know.”

  On cue, Butcher came down the hill, her rifle in both hands against her chest. “Well done.”

  “Butcher, what can you tell me about this vehicle before Einstein and I take off?”

  She looked into the vehicle quickly. “About twenty-five miles per gallon, with a top distance of three hundred. It will sit four of us comfortably. This baby is an M1165, which is used as a command and control vehicle, but this one has extra space and the carrier on top. Power steering and air con, you two will ride in style.”

  Dallas glanced over at Butcher. “It doesn’t feel right leaving you guys, especially with man eaters walking around.”

  “You know Roper better than I do. Do you think you could talk her into leaving the horses?”

  Dallas shook her head. “Not a chance.”

  “There you go.”

  “You won’t get very far in that,” the soldier said. “They’ll blow you to bits.”

  “What if we bring you with us?”

  Suddenly, his eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped.

  “Oh, I see. You thought you were coming all along.”

  “You can’t leave me here! Those things are everywhere.”

  “Yes they are.”

  Once Roper had untied the horses, she and Butcher saddled up. “Go on, Dallas. Once you both are on the road, we’ll meet you at Waterford, at the last exit off the freeway. “That will give you plenty of time to get gas and check out the food situation.”

  Dallas nodded, but walked up to Roper on the horse and handed her the binoculars. “Take these. We have two sets.”

  Taking the binoculars, Roper looked down at her. “We’ll be fine, I promise.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “I’ll keep this one.”

  “Stop!” Einstein said. “Look out! He’s going for the—”

  When the other three looked up, they saw the soldier making a beeline for the Hummer. Butcher swung her rifle to her shoulder and dropped him where he stood. He wasn’t dead, but he soon would be.

  As they both stood over him, he managed to roll over on his back, a gaping exit wound in his abdomen.

  “Damn it,” Dallas said, kneeling down. “Why couldn’t you h
ave just stayed there?”

  With blood trickling out of the sides of his mouth, he said, “Ma’am, please don’t leave me here for them.”

  Dallas looked over to Butcher, who shook her head before taking his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You gotta shoot me in the head, ma’am, or they’ll eat me. Dead or alive...they’ll eat me.”

  Dallas handed the magnum, grip first, to Butcher.

  “Ma’am? It’s all fucked up. What we’re doing here isn’t right.”

  “Can you give us some clue, Corporal Lewis?” Butcher said, reading his name tag.

  He coughed and sputtered like a dying engine. “Closing the border and killing everyone trying to get out. Everyone. Total containment.”

  “By borders, you mean the Mexico and Oregon borders?”

  “All of it. We’re pulling out soon to contain at the border. This thing...it’s gotten outta hand.” More blood oozed from his mouth. “Ma’am...please.”

  Butcher lightly touched Dallas’s shoulder. “Thank you, Corporal.”

  “Would you...could you take my dog tags?”

  Dallas leaned over, her heart heavy, and slipped them off from around his neck to put them around her own.

  “Go on, Dallas. You and Einstein get a move on. Roper and I will finish up here.”

  Dallas looked to Roper, whose eyes held a deep-seated sadness. “We’ll catch you in Waterford. Have the barbie on,” Roper said.

  Dallas forced a grin she did not feel and got into the Hummer. It felt more like a tank. “Don’t make me come back for you.”

  “We’ll be fine. And kid? Take good care of her.”

  Einstein saluted. “Ten-four.”

  As Dallas pulled onto the frontage road, she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw Butcher shoot the soldier in the head.

  She suddenly realized this would not be the last time they would have to kill one of the living.

  The streets were eerily devoid of cars...at least moving cars. There were plenty that had been abandoned or shot to shit from the choppers. Dallas decided to stay off the freeways, since it would be so much easier for a helicopter to spot them. Once Einstein figured out the radio, they listened to the military chatter about movement and hostiles.

  “You think hostiles means all of us?”

  Einstein shook his head. “They refer to us as civilians.”

  Dallas was somewhat surprised by how easily the Hummer handled for such a big vehicle. “Okay, what do we have?”

  “A flare gun, four automatic rifles of some kind, a first aid kit, some freeze-dried food.” He stopped. “Freeze dried food. That’s what we need. It’s lightweight, easy to fix, and has some nutritional value.”

  “We can check out a sporting goods store when we come across one.”

  His eyes grew wide. “Bad idea. In the movies, they’re always hanging around those stores. We might actually have better luck in a warehouse of some sort.”

  Dallas barely nodded, and for the next few minutes, they drove in silence while Einstein fiddled with the on-board computer system. “Cool. This has a GPS system so we can—”

  “A what? Damn it. Can you figure out how to disable it?”

  “Disable it? Oh. Yeah. Right. Well, usually, you can just pull a fuse. There’s also a thing called GPS Tracker Defense. It will jam the frequency transmitted from the satellite.”

  “Where can we get one of those?”

  “Any good electronics store will have them, but that would require us to actually go into a town, and that’s a bad idea.”

  “Worse than getting blown to bits by a chopper? If they radio Corporal Lewis and he doesn’t answer, they can send someone after us, if they can find us. Let’s make sure they can’t.”

  Einstein sighed heavily as he worked the micro-computer. “Then let’s kill two birds and head to Santa Rita.”

  “What’s in Santa Rita?”

  Einstein pointed to the GPS system that now displayed a map with a red pin on it. “It’s called the Ready to Go Store. It’s like REI, and will have the freeze-dried food we want unless it’s been pillaged.”

  “My guess is as long as it doesn’t have weapons, we might catch a break.”

  As they drove through desolate areas that were more than abandoned—haunted was more like it—Dallas spotted man eaters here and there, just walking around on shoes worn by the shuffling movement of their feet.

  “How did they get here so quickly?” she asked quietly.

  “You’d be surprised the damage just one can do. That’s why it’s so hard to control. All it takes is for one family to try to save a loved one. They fail, and now all of them are undead. And if you want numbers, how’s this: Let’s say one man eater can turn twenty people in one day. The next day, those twenty turn twenty, so in two days, four hundred of them are created. From four hundred in two days to eight thousand in three, to one hundred and sixty thousand. Four days from the original man eater is the potential of one hundred and sixty thousand more of them. That’s why containment is critical early on, and they didn’t contain it. We’re well beyond the hundred and sixty thousand number.”

  “I understand that, though I hadn’t realized the numbers increased exponentially. What I meant was how did they get here so fast?”

  Einstein shrugged. “Like I said, there’s always that one person who thinks they can save their bitten loved ones until there’s a cure found. They can’t, of course, and their eater ends up killing them.”

  Dallas thought about the immigrants in the truck, and when she focused back on the road, she saw a man carrying a stick of some sort as he ran down the street

  “What’s he doing?” Einstein asked, leaning forward in his seat.

  Dallas slowed to a stop about fifty yards away. “Pull your gun on him.”

  “What?”

  “Pull your gun on him. Tell him to stop.”

  Einstein did as he was told, and the man stopped and raised his hands.

  Dallas also pulled her gun and together they looked like a bad version of Starsky and Hutch. “Don’t come any closer,” she demanded

  He looked to be in his mid-fifties, slightly balding, with sideburns reminiscent of Elvis in his older days. He held some kind of dowel in his hands. “You...you’re not military,” he said.

  “What are you doing out here?” Dallas asked.

  “Running from those things. My car broke down about five miles back, and they’ve been dogging me ever since.”

  “Your car?”

  He nodded, his eyes scanned the area behind the Hummer. “I got tired of those asswipes calling all the shots. Who do they think they are, anyway?”

  “Yet you were surrendering to us, thinking—”

  “Thinking I’d rather be shot than eaten alive.”

  Suddenly, over the crest of the road, came five man eaters plodding toward them.

  The man looked over his shoulder at them. “If you’re not gonna help me, then just shoot me. I can’t run anymore.”

  Einstein looked at Dallas. “We can’t leave him out here.”

  Dallas shook her head. “I suppose not. Ditch the stick and come on. Get in.”

  He lowered his arms but did not release the stick. “If I have to part with it, just shoot me.”

  Dallas watched as the eaters closed in. They had about thirty yards to go before they’d be on top of him.

  “You’d rather die than give up your stick?”

  He shrugged. “Without a weapon, I’m a dead man anyway.”

  “Fine. You and your stick get in. Hurry!”

  He scrambled into the Hummer just as the man eaters got within ten yards.

  Dallas locked the doors and turned to Einstein. “Keep the gun on him until we get to where we’re going.”

  Einstein turned the gun toward the back seat. “We don’t mean to be rude—”

  “My friends call me Cue.”

  “Q?”

  “Cue. C-U-E. It’s short for Cue-Ball.” He held his stick out an
d when Dallas flinched, he withdrew it.

  “It’s a pool stick,” Einstein explained. “Get it? Cue-Ball. Pool stick?”

  “I get it.” Dallas ran over one of the man eaters as she pulled away. “I’m Dallas. This is Einstein.”

  “Nice meeting you folks. I appreciate the save.” Cue looked around the interior of the Hummer with eyes that had spent too much time in smoke-filed bars and pool halls. “You two commandeered this beauty?”

  Einstein kept the gun trained on him. “We need to get out of California before they burn it out, so we took it.”

  “Good for you guys. Finally, someone got one over on the damn military. The bastards.”

  “Well, we had to do something. They’re killing us all.” Dallas slowed down as she came to the town sign. “What have you heard?”

  “Not much. People tried to leave across the border, but were shot. All main arteries in and out of L.A. have been destroyed. Freeways, bridges, causeways, you name it.” He shrugged. “But who knows what to believe anymore?”

  “Too true. Do you happen to know if there’s a Ready To Go Store in the next town?”

  “I have no idea. I’m not from around here. I was coming to San Francisco for a tournament. I’m a professional pool player.”

  “Ah. And that’s why the pool stick.”

  “This baby has saved my life more times than I can count, both in the pool hall and out. Made from teak in Central America. I’ve already killed my fair share of zombies with it, not to mention eight tournaments.”

  “Ah, and that’s why you couldn’t leave it.”

  “Right. Them damn zombies can’t have it, either.”

  “We call them man eaters, because they don’t seem interested in any other flesh but human.” Einstein lowered his sidearm. “I’m kind of an expert.”

  Cue grinned. “I’ll just bet you are.”

  About five minutes later, they came to the main street entrance. Newspapers blew across the street even as there was an eerie stillness in the air. The storefronts were faux, like some Wild West stores. There was even a carved Native American in front of a smoke shop.

  It had probably been a quaint little town in its heyday, but now, it was void of life and filled with just too much death. Blood splatters along one wall told the tale of a recent fight, and there were what looked like guts strewn on the once pristine sidewalks. The doors were bolted shut, but that didn’t keep the iron scent of death from abating. This town, like so many others she was afraid they’d see along the way, was now utterly lifeless.