It was all she would do. All she would allow herself to do. Her good deed for the year. She knew she was throwing away valuable boosters. Cutting off her nose to spite her face, as her dad used to say, but she couldn’t just leave him to die. Not after all the trouble she went through to save him.
He just lay there with a riot of pain dim in the back of his head, a distant but gargantuan freight train bearing down and starting to pick up speed. He watched her climb back into the car and slam the door, leaving in a squall of tires and a cloud of dust, heading back north.
The morphine drip had been off for hours and his pains were all there, vast and monstrous, still far away, but not for much longer. All thousand and seven of them. His face. His arms. His ribs. His head. His toes. They were all a soft flurry of wings gently tapping, faintly rapping on his chamber door, but soon they would be intergalactic stormtroopers of death battering it down with hyper-ballistic nuclear powered million round machine cannons. When they arrived, every heartbeat would be a lifetime of agony. Every second a bone-grating symphony of brain-melting red-hot pain.
He looked down at the plastic bag still hanging around his neck. It was three-quarters full and he knew he had to make it back to Lakota before it was empty. If he didn’t, then he never would.
He opened the valve a hair, starting the cold fluid moving back into his veins.
Maybe he’d get up in a minute, maybe he’d try to make it back as soon as he could muster up the energy.
Maybe.
He would die if he had to go through the screaming, stabbing agony he’d been feeling just hours ago. Maybe he’d be better off dead anyway.
Maybe he could turn the drip wide open and just fade away in a happy, blissful daze, gently falling to sleep and never waking up.
He stared up at the enormous sky and felt contentment. He’d paid his dues. He’d made his atonement. The ground felt warm and soft.
He heard a faint whimper and wasn’t sure if it was coming from him, or maybe the wind was whispering in the eaves of the gas station. He heard it again and rolled his head toward the Mercury, riding high on the oversized tires. Bob was there, looking at him with his tongue lolling, breathing rapidly. He was lying in a pool of dried blood, his hindquarters caked in it.
Jessie sat up instantly, ignoring the growing black hurt monster and pulled himself over to his dog, putting his broken face against the furry one. He hadn’t cried for himself, only involuntary tears of pain, but he cried for his dog and the warm tongue lapped at his tears.
He fumbled for the injectors the woman had left him and flipped a cap off. He plunged it into the furry shoulder and pumped in about half of the pale blue fluid. The other half, he injected into his own arm.
“C’mon, boy,” he said and gently coaxed the Shepard out from under the car and got him loaded onto the bed in the back seat. He had to get back to Lakota, he knew they had a vet. That Bastille guy liked to give what he called the “livestock report.” It sounded like they only had a half-dozen cows and a few goats, but he bragged them up, talking about their skilled veterinarian and how he’d got them back to producing milk every day. Jessie climbed behind the wheel and adjusted the knob on the morphine drip. He needed it to feed slow. Just enough to keep the sharp-fanged beast of pain at bay. Just enough to keep it from grinding its jaws on his shattered arm.
Or his gunshot shoulder.
Or his broken ribs.
Or his kicked in face.
Jessie took a long, bitter pull from his bottle then drove, his headlights splitting the night, not zigging left or zagging right. He squinted through his swollen eyes, shifting and steering one-handed, his broken arm cradled in his lap. He took the most direct route back, living on trucker speed and morphine drips. His motor was a steady throaty rumble, echoing across the desolate Nebraska plains.
44
Lucinda
Lucinda had been paying attention and Casey kept to himself, she noticed. He had a few of his men that always sat at his table, acted as guards all the time, but he didn’t talk to them much. Didn’t joke around. He was aloof. He was the boss and they knew it. Respected it.
She didn’t know the reason he rarely spoke, and considered his words carefully when he did, was because of fear. He was afraid they would see right through him and call him out for what he was, just a big poser, pretending he was a bad ass leading a group of badasses. Afraid someone would want to fight him for leadership if he said something wrong. He remembered some of the lessons his counselors had tried to teach him. The important ones, anyway. One of those was it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt. So, he kept quiet unless he had something to say. It was hard at first, he usually talked a mile a minute when he was nervous, but then he saw the way they started treating him; like he was a leader, and leaders didn’t mingle with their followers too much. Like they expected him to be strong, quiet, and reserved. He tried to be like Clint, another cold-blooded killer. Like the man with no name. He only said what needed to be said, and kept an air of mystery about him. All Casey’s people knew, is what he showed them. What he let them see. They didn’t need to know he was a three-time loser, doing time for robbing a pizza delivery boy, when all this started. For all they knew, he had run the hardest gang of cutthroats in New York. He would keep it that way, too. They didn’t need to know anything about him, except he was a stone-cold killer, and he’d fry their liver for dessert if they pissed him off. He was Casey the Cannibal.
Lucinda was pissed at first, when she’d seen how easily his men had disarmed them, slept with them, and then let them know he was in control. Now she had a grudging respect for the way he’d done it. He had some smarts, this Casey did. She might go far if she hitched her wagon to him, as her grandma used to say.
The girls still deferred to her, but it had been two days and they all knew who ran the show. It was evident that he was the man calling the shots. She was okay with it, she didn’t have any delusions of leading an Amazon Army, she didn’t want to be the one they looked to for answers. These men really had saved them from starvation, and he’d said they were free to leave, they weren’t prisoners. None of the women wanted to go, not even her. She knew there was strength in numbers, and Casey had sold them on the lifestyle he was preaching. He told them of the new nation he was going to build, of how there would be no more laws except his laws. Instead of being the dredges of society, looked down on by all of Mr. and Mrs. Nine-to-Five America, they were going to run this country.
He could be persuasive when he wanted to be. All of his men would thump their hands over their hearts in a sign of loyalty. “My life for yours,” they said. Her girls had also started, on their own accord, without him demanding anything from them. Most of them weren’t killers or hardcore bitches. Some had been in gangs and were in prison for drugs, some for theft, a few for armed robbery. They weren’t Home and Garden housewives, but they weren’t a bunch of mad dog killers, either. Most of them had found a man and were already coupled up. They knew what it was like out there, they’d seen the undead and listened to the stories about the wandering hordes killing everyone they came across. They knew living in this prison wasn’t sustainable for long, they needed to take over that little fortress of a town, and they believed Casey’s plan would work. Just like the Trojan Horse he kept talking about.
He had sent men out to get some more cars, gather more food from the Pic N Tote in the next town over, and some of her girls had gone along. They said it was bad out there. The cities were empty, cars were wrecked everywhere, and the undead seemed to know when they arrived. Within minutes, they were being surrounded at the grocery store, and if the guys hadn’t made sure they had an escape route, with cars waiting at the back docks, they would have been trapped.
They were all convinced.
They needed to storm the walled town and make it their own, otherwise they’d never be able to relax. They’d taken the cars and trucks into the prison workshop and had rig
ged them up with bars over the windows, and oversized tires on most of them. They had made them zombie proof so it was safe to travel. It was a genius idea and they all had Casey and his Mustang to thank. He was a smart guy.
Lucinda didn’t consider herself a bad person, she’d just done what had to be done to get along in life. She was doing twenty years for attempted murder, but that was a bullshit charge. If she wanted that bitch dead for stealing her man, she would have been. She only wanted to cut her up some. Teach her a lesson. So what if she had to cut that ho’s kids a little, just to prove a point. She didn’t even stab them, just drew a little blood. Left a little scar. It was no big deal, and she tried to tell the judge that. He seemed to think it was, though. So did the jury. It was the third strike for her. The shoplifting, the drug charges, the known association with gang members, and a couple of busts for solicitation had let the prosecutor portray her as an unrepentant menace to society. Her court-appointed lawyer was useless, didn’t even try to get her off. Mr. and Mrs. America had locked her up in a cage and if she had a chance to get back at them, if Casey could take over this town, she was all in.
She’d been trying to figure him out these last few days. His men were loyal, and not just because he’d busted them out of prison. It was more than that. He wasn’t the biggest and meanest, and she’d heard the whispered story of how he was a cannibal, but they didn’t seem to fear him. He didn’t seem to be cruel to them, they followed him because they respected him, not because they were afraid he would kill them if they didn’t. Well, maybe a little. He was slow to anger, though. They all took great pains to do everything he said, because they wanted to, not because they were afraid.
She’d only seen someone question him once. One of his guys was way too drunk and was getting really aggressive with one of her girls. Jayla didn’t want anything to do with him, but it was starting to get ugly, starting to look like there was going to be a little raping going on after all, despite what Casey had promised. When the drunk slapped her and began dragging her from the room, Casey told the man to stop. He said it quietly, but loud enough for him to hear. The drunk got belligerent. Casey let him rant for a minute, but when he said he was going to do whatever he wanted, and there was nobody there that was going to stop him, Casey slowly stood up. The noise of his chair scraping on the concrete was the only sound in the silence.
“Put him outside the fence,” he ordered, calm as you please. He hadn’t even said who should do it. Just that it should be done. There was a pause, a long one, before anyone reacted. Casey just stood there, looking at the drunk, not at anyone else. When they did move, a hundred men hurried to be the first, to show their loyalty, to throw the man out.
Casey sat back down and finished his meal. Lucinda believed it was that moment when he truly became their leader. When it became official, when it was sealed in everyone’s hearts and minds that he was the lawgiver.
Over the past few days, she’d sent a few different kinds of girls over to try to get close to him, but he’d sent them all packing. She’d tried being flirty with him at first, but he wasn’t interested. She figured maybe he didn’t like his women dark and had tried a few of the other girls. She was old enough to know the best way to keep in a hard man’s good graces was to keep him satisfied in bed, but he wasn’t interested in them either. Young or older, dark or blonde. She was pretty sure he wasn’t gay, she thought she would have been able to tell if he was. She had a hunch his tastes ran a little darker. Anybody that would rip another man’s heart out and eat it, probably liked to tenderize his girls a little before he did anything to them. Probably liked them bleeding and afraid. Probably enjoyed throwing his fists at them while he was banging away. She’d met guys like him during her years of turning tricks. They usually liked them young and innocent.
She wanted to be part of the inner circle. The queen to his king. She had no plans of challenging him, or his authority, she just wanted to be part of it. She wanted to be able to whisper in his ear and have him hear. And obey, if you really got down to it. She wanted to be his confidant. She wanted to be in a position of power.
She thought she knew how to get that position. He was a secretive man, she’d noticed. She was betting his tastes ran to twelve or fourteen-year-old girls. She had no problem getting him a girl or two from time to time. If that’s what it took so he could concentrate on running this new world, lead them to a life of safety and luxury, she’d be his procurer. He could do whatever he wanted to them, even kill them, if that’s what he liked. She’d secret the girls, in and their bodies out, if that’s what it took. She could be clandestine, and she’d make sure he knew it was essential to keep this dirty little secret part of himself secret. She smiled to herself. Secrets were good. The keeper of the secrets was the keeper of the power.
The sooner they got this plan in motion, the better off they’d be. She was tired of not having a hot shower, and she wanted out of this prison. Even though they used the farthest bathrooms from the mess hall, she could still smell the odor of unflushed toilets wafting down the halls.
In the evening of the eighth day, the team Casey had sent out to scout Lakota came back. They had everything ready and had left a few men guarding the preparations they’d made, making sure if anyone happened to discover them, they wouldn’t be living to tell the tale. In a rare show of emotion, Casey seemed genuinely pleased and gave them all a drink from his own bottle, hailed them as the first heroes of the new society.
“These men deserve your finest, Lucinda,” he’d proclaimed, leaving it up to her to decide if she would send girls to their beds, and subtly letting everyone know that she was in charge of the women. Her word was law, too. He didn’t demand them, didn’t tell her she had to do anything, just made the suggestion.
It was more powerful than any order, though. She marveled at how he could manipulate people into doing what he wanted. She didn’t even have to ask, many of the girls jumped at the chance to be with one of the heroes.
The next morning, they packed up cars with what little food was left and started their journey toward Lakota. The drunk they had thrown out days before was still there, bloodied and dead, clawing at them as they plowed through the gathered mob. Casey said it would be best to arrive in the early afternoon. There would probably be a lot of men gone on supply runs, and if they sent in five or six “families” and got them through the gates, it would still give them plenty of time before dark to rush in and kill any opposition.
“There’s a sheriff there, some severe looking bitch who thinks she’s hot shit,” Casey told them with his eyes on Lucinda. “She’s mine. I don’t care if you have to take a bullet, I want her alive.”
Clenched fists thumped over hearts and heads were nodded. The lawgiver had spoken. They would do what he said.
45
Jessie
Jessie couldn’t remember when he last ate. When he last slept. When he last stopped for a bathroom break. How long he’d been driving, how much farther he had to go, how he’d feel when he arrived.
He couldn’t tell you what day it was, what road he was on, or what state he was in. But he could tell you exactly how much longer the bag was going to last. And that was ‘not long enough.’ It was nearly empty and his brain was in a quiet fog, same as it had been since she first shoved the needle into his arm. He’d slowed the drip as much as he could stand. He didn’t keep the pain away, he kept it at bay. Kept it manageable. The bones in his arm no longer seemed to grate against each other, but he knew it was the drugs in the bag that made him not feel it. Bones didn’t heal in a day. Or had it been two? Surely not three. Same with his ribs, or the holes in his other arm. He kept the drip going just enough so he could function without screaming every time the car hit a bump.
He kept his foot on it when he remembered, the miles racing away and the trees hurtling by in a blur. Sometimes he would come to full alert with the car speeding through a wheat field, the road nowhere to be seen. Sometimes he would catch himself creeping along
at ten miles an hour and had no idea how long he’d been doing it. Sometimes with the pounding of fists and the undead screams right outside his window, as he ghosted through an abandoned town with Bob whining at him to come back from dreamland. To take another sip from the bottle of cloudy, bitter, tonic water. He never nodded off entirely, though. Not completely. Some part of his brain kept pushing him forward, some internal beacon kept the nose pointed toward Lakota, kept the wheels spinning and the fuel tank filled. He didn’t know how the fuel gauge was on three quarters. The last time he remembered looking at it, he was running on empty.
I’m a road zombie, he giggled to himself and took another acerbic swig of the trucker speed.
Time passed.
The miles rolled by.
Jessie kept at it.
He had to make it to Lakota before the bag was empty.
He had to.
46
Casey
Casey wasn’t sure what to do. They were in the woods a mile south of the walled town. Him and all two hundred of his heavily armed men and women, all of them waiting for him to give an order.
The problem was, someone else was already attacking the town and from the looks of it, they were doing a pretty good job.
They had spent most of the night ferrying the cars across the Canadian River on the homemade rafts his advance team had built. They knew all the roads and bridges anywhere near Lakota were being guarded, so they couldn’t use them. Getting the armored cars on the rafts had been easy, they’d used a boat ramp to load them and pulled them across with ropes. Getting them out had been arduous, they’d had to cut a path and build a makeshift dock. They still had to use muscle and winches on most of the cars to get them through the mud near the banks, all the while trying to maintain silence.
Zombie Road III: Rage on the Rails Page 28