“It’s not that bad,” Jessie protested, but when he was belting one out, had the tune down to perfection, he turned the music off and kept singing. Geez. It sounded bad even to his ears. How could he be so on point when the music was blasting but not even in the same key when it wasn’t?
“Okay, okay,” he said and rubbed the dog’s head. “No karaoke in public. But you, my fine furry friend, don’t have a choice.”
He resumed singing along and the miles rolled by.
Once he got near the lake, he started following the directions he’d been given and found the compound up a narrow, winding road. It was a huge lodge, built with massive logs on a stone foundation. It was well crafted and truly beautiful, the parts he could see over the security wall. It was a lot newer than the lodge and had obviously been added as defenses against the zombies. It was made of logs and they were standing tall, side by side, like army forts he’d seen in old movies. A palisade defense against the Indians. Worked pretty good against zombies, too, he supposed. This far out, they wouldn’t be getting ten thousand at a time like they had in Lakota.
He pulled up to the wooden gate and waited. He’d seen a guard watch him approach from the catwalk behind the wall and he was pretty sure they’d heard him coming all the way up the hill. When he shut off the engine, the silence was loud. No birds. No generators from the lodge. No sounds anywhere. He sat there for a few minutes, starting to get annoyed. They’d known he was coming for weeks. They heard him for miles and they’d seen him from the top of the wall. What was taking them so long to open the gate? He went to beep the horn, but it was still broken. He fumed for a minute, considered cranking up some Pantera on the sound system, then closed his eyes. Maybe the guy with the key was sitting on the can or something. Maybe he was at dinner and the guard had to run and find him. Jessie calmed down and got out of the car to stretch his legs, leaving his rifle behind. His dad said these people had been acting paranoid on the ham. They were survivalists living way up in the mountains, waiting for doomsday before any of this happened, so they were already a little sketchy as far as he was concerned. Nothing wrong with being prepared, having supplies on hand, maybe even having a bug out location, but to give up everything and go live off-grid for no real reason seemed a bit extreme to him. It was a free country, though. As long as they weren’t Unabomber types, he really couldn’t fault them. After all, they’d been right. The end of the world had come, and they’d been ready for it.
Jessie released the latch on the set of sickle bar teeth that protected his fender and pushed them down so he could lean against the roll bar. Tommy had come up with that neat little gizmo so they could work under the hood without stabbing themselves. He pulled out his leather pouch and started rolling a cigarette, a habit he’d picked up from his dad. One he didn’t pursue around his mom, though. Not worth the disappointed looks or the shake of her head like he was doing something stupid. Like sitting here without any cover, waiting for them to open the gate, and he probably had crosshairs on his head from some sniper. He felt the little hairs on his neck stand up and he could feel them watching. Bob felt the change in him and stopped sniffing at the stringer of guts hanging off the back of the car. He stared intently at the wall and a low growl started in the back of his throat.
“Let’s go, boy,” Jessie said. He didn’t have time for this. He was here at their request. If these jerks wanted to be rude, they could drive to Lakota if they needed to set up trade routes. He didn’t like the creepy feeling of being watched. He locked the metal teeth back in place and headed for his door. He heard the wood on wood scraping of the log across the gate being removed and stopped with a hand on the handle, the other hovering near his Glock. He wasn’t feeling any good vibes coming from this place. Not at all like Tombstone, where everything was straightforward and plain spoken. He watched, his eyes seeing easily into the deep shadows, as the big gate swung out. Men with guns. He snatched his door open and slipped behind it, putting the steel and Kevlar between them. Their weapons weren’t pointed at him so he kept his out of sight, but it was in his hand and ready to come up instantly.
“No need to get jumpy,” a gruff, bearded, man said. “We weren’t expecting company, so we had to check you out.”
Lie number one.
If anything, they were waiting to see if any zombies followed him. Which meant they were willing to let him fend for himself if some did show up, not offer him shelter.
“Had to run my plates through your database?” Jessie asked, behind the door, gun in hand.
“What? No,” he said. “We just wanted to watch for a minute, make sure you didn’t act suspicious. We didn’t know who you were. You can never be too careful nowadays.”
Lie number two.
A young man and his dog in a black chop top Mercury was the description Wire Bender had given everyone on his visit list. He was pretty sure there weren’t a whole lot of others running around that matched.
Jessie remained quiet, just watching the man and his three companions come out of the gate and approach him.
“I’m Colonel Norris,” he said and extended his hand as he approached. “Welcome to the compound.”
Jessie kept his gun in his hand, still hidden behind the door, and watched the other men. They were gruff, unshaven, and were watching the wood line. Whether for zombies or an ambush, he didn’t know, but he noticed two of them had their fingers on the trigger of their rifles.
Amateurs.
Jessie ignored the hand and reached down to calm Bob who still had a quiet growl in the back of his throat.
The colonel was nonplussed for a second but recovered quickly and swept the land with his outstretched arm.
“Beautiful view,” he said. “Just look at it. Hard to believe the woods are filled with the undead, hiding out and just waiting for a chance to take a man down.”
Lie number 3, Jessie thought. The dead don’t think and if they were in the woods, they’d already be running for them.
Jessie didn’t look.
He got down to business because he didn’t want to stay here any longer than he had to.
“I have a list of renewable supplies the president has asked me to give to any settlements I can find. In return, he’d like a list of things you can supply in trade. I imagine up here, there is plenty of fur and venison.”
Jessie let it hang, giving the colonel a chance to brag, maybe ease the tension, and was a little surprised by the answer.
“We don’t go outside the walls, it’s too dangerous. We’ve lost men and those zombies are everywhere. Besides, we have plenty of long-term storage food. Unlike the rest of the world, we were prepared. We knew the apocalypse was coming. We’re not giving any of it up and we don’t need help. We’re self-sufficient.”
Then why am I here? Jessie thought.
“Okay,” he said. “Sorry to bother you.”
He clicked his tongue to Bob and with a jerk of his head, the dog jumped up to his place on the passenger seat.
“If you decide you want to join the rest of the rebuilding, give us a holler on the ham,” Jessie said and started to climb back in the car.
“Hold on, hold on, young man,” the colonel blustered. “It wouldn’t be neighborly of us to send you on your way without at least giving you a good meal. Don’t be hasty, come on in for a spell. It’s getting dark.”
Jessie was torn. These guys were rude and had already lied to him three times. Lakota didn’t need them, especially if they had nothing to offer, but he was supposed to be an ambassador of sorts. He was supposed to pull everyone together and it took all kinds. These guys acted like they were still scared of their own shadows. Maybe they’d come around. He relented, decided to play nice.
“That sounds good,” he said. “We’ve been living on canned food for weeks now.” He smiled his crooked smile. “Home cooking would really hit the spot.”
The colonel was happy again and waved the double gate open so he could get the car through. Jessie usually didn’t lo
ck it up but when he parked by the other Jeeps and trucks, he flipped the kill switch that fed juice to the coil. It was labeled ‘lights’ in a panel of a dozen other switches. Hidden in plain sight. Nobody would be driving away with it and he actually took the key out of the ignition, where it had been since the first day he drove it out of the garage in Atlanta. Liars are thieves and thieves are liars, he thought as he latched the door, hoping the keys worked the locks to get back in. He’d never tried them to see.
“Um, one other thing,” the colonel said, half apologetically. “We can’t allow anyone to be armed inside the walls. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave your weapons in the car.”
Jessie looked at him, then pointedly at the three men with the rifles, none of them slung, two of the men with their fingers still on the triggers.
“No,” he said and held his eye. “That’s not going to happen.”
He saw the other men tense and grips were tightened on the rifles.
“But surely, young man, you don’t need all those guns inside the walls. It’s safe here. My Lord, you have two on your hips and I see bulges under your jacket. How many guns do you need?”
“All of them. But I’ll leave the grenades and rocket launchers in the car. How’s that?” Jessie asked and the colonel wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but could see the kid wasn’t going to be bullied. They really did need help, despite what he tried to portray. Otherwise he never would have contacted Lakota. He needed to get something going or his people were going to desert for greener pastures, and he couldn’t have that. He was in charge and he was going to stay in charge. He couldn’t have everyone abandoning the compound. He’d worked too hard for too long to give it up now.
“Well,” he said magnanimously, “I guess we can make an exception for a presidential representative. I guess you are your own bodyguard, after all.”
Colonel Norris led him to his study and the guards followed, posting themselves outside the door. It had previously been the manager’s office, a grand space with windows overlooking the valley and views for miles.
They talked about the world situation, and more importantly the United States situation, for hours. The Valhalla Compound, as the colonel called it, had over a hundred survivors. They’d been a separatist group, living in a couple of cabins and some RVs on some land they’d bought. They were militant doomsday preppers and had a plentiful supply of guns and food and ammo, just waiting until the government declared martial law. That’s when they would have risen up with the rest of the Patriots and taken the country back from the globalist scum and the Democrats. A second American Revolution. When the liberals didn’t take over and the zombies did, they had fled to the hunting lodge and commandeered it. The colonel had generously taken in all of the surrounding people and organized the building of the wall. They had a five-year supply of food for his militia, but with all the others he’d saved, they were getting low. They only had a few months of the freeze-dried left.
The story came out in bits and pieces, the colonel giving out information grudgingly at first, but his tongue loosed when Jessie pulled a large flask of Crown Royal from his jacket. One of the bulges the colonel had been concerned about. Jessie was discovering he had a knack for ferreting things out and putting them together. He was learning to read the tales on people’s faces, when they were holding back, when they were lying. People seemed to think he was a little dense, maybe because of his scar or youthfulness. Maybe they thought they were getting the boy drunk when he matched them shot for shot. Whatever the reason, he learned things they probably didn’t mean to divulge. The conclusion he came to was the survivalists were a little nutty and had been living out their “we’re going to save the Republic” fantasies in the wilds of Idaho. Mostly harmless, the local law hadn’t found any reason to shut them down. They hadn’t been affected by the zombie virus, they were living off their long-term storage food and poaching. When they realized what was happening, the colonel had taken over the lodge, but he’d also taken in any survivors. Even the democrats. He might be an ass but Jessie couldn’t forget that he had saved a lot of people, even if he did run his compound like a mini dictator. Jessie also deducted that the so-called Colonel was a title he gave himself. Neither he, nor any of his militiamen, had served in the military. After training with soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines all winter, he had learned military discipline, the certain way a soldier carried himself, or moved in a certain fashion. These guys got all their training from YouTube videos or war movies. It took all kinds to make the world go ‘round, he kept telling himself. The guy wasn’t all bad. Just an ass. If there were laws against that, there’d be a lot of people in jail.
Dinner was a somewhat somber affair and the food was plain. Like the other places he’d visited, it was served cafeteria-style. It just wasn’t practical for everyone to cook for themselves, it was too wasteful.
Jessie sat at the head table, on a raised dais, with a few of the other “important” people. Although the food was bland, it was plentiful, but the people were kind of grayish. Many of them had on well-worn clothes, probably what they’d been wearing from the start, washed over and over again. The colonel hadn’t been kidding, they really didn’t go outside the walls. His militiamen had rigged up some sand filters for water, and there was a small spring-fed pond at the back of the property. They didn’t have power, everything was done as it was a few hundred years ago: from carrying water in buckets, to cooking over open flames in the fireplace. They were living like pioneers. That might be fun for a weekend, Jessie thought, but to live like that day in and day out would get real old, real fast. They needed to be self-sufficient, their way of life wasn’t sustainable, and the colonel was just now beginning to realize it. He needed help but was too proud to ask for it. Jessie wasn’t sure what was expected from Lakota, maybe just meeting with an outsider would get him thinking and planning about changes he’d have to make.
Jessie planned on leaving in the morning, his job was done and he didn’t particularly like these people, but when he saw the beaten down men and women listlessly eating the tasteless food, he knew he had to do something. There was no reason this couldn’t be a vibrant community like Tombstone or Lakota. It had been a long, hard winter but spring was here and they didn’t even have sprouts started. They didn’t even have a greenhouse.
“Give me ten of your best men tomorrow, Colonel. I’ll teach you guys how to gather supplies. You’re never going to make it if you don’t leave these walls.”
He wasn’t speaking loudly, but sound carried and everyone looked up at him. They hadn’t heard the broadcasts from Bastille, they had a half tank of gas left in one of their trucks and they only ran it when they needed to use the Ham radio. Only the Colonel heard them and had mostly dismissed them as untrustworthy. Propaganda and lies. His people didn’t need to have false hopes so he had kept them in the dark until things were starting to get desperate, until he decided to reach out. These people thought the rest of the survivors were hiding out like them, not taking the world back from the undead.
“There are too many zombies,” one of the men at his table said dismissively. “We’d be dead in no time.”
“You’ll be dead in six months if you don’t,” Jessie replied. “The rest of us are rebuilding, not hiding out. We have plenty of fresh food and all kinds of goods to trade, but we aren’t going to give it to you. You guys looking for a handout? You want welfare?”
The men shook their heads at that, most of them were hard working individualists who had scoffed at the food stamp crowd. Proud men and women, but they’d been beaten down by the colonel and his armed men, continually telling them how bad it was outside the walls. Screaming hordes of undead everywhere. They all remembered those first days and still thought it was like that. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
“I have thumb drives full of all the information you need to grow gardens, repair vehicles, rebuild firearms, make your own solar power, what herbs to use for medicin
e.” Jessie said. “It’s all there, but you need a laptop to access it. Before you get a laptop, you need electricity. Before that, you need a generator and the fuel to run it.”
The people in the hall had stopped eating and all were paying attention.
“How long has it been since you’ve had a hot shower?” he asked, to the laughter of some, and a few women who shouted out they’d kill for one.
“It’s not as bad out there as it once was,” Jessie said. “You need to get out and start living again, not slowly dying behind these walls.”
The eyes behind the binoculars took it all in. She was high up in an evergreen, her black leathers blending her into the night. She could see over the wall, straight into the dining area where they were eating. He had been easy to follow, his car noisy and usually kicking up a dust trail. At first it was just idle curiosity, who would be out roaming the roads in such an old vehicle. She kept her distance, the driver never realizing he was being tailed. Even when she lost sight of him, it was easy to tell when he turned. The roads were covered with dirt, blown in sticks, leaves and pine needles. His tires left tracks, especially when he went in a new direction. He was aimless, never going in a straight line for long and it turned into a game for her, something to do because she got the feeling he was on a similar mission. He was seeing what there was to see, trying to find survivor outposts, and generally taking an inventory of what was left of the country. She was doing the same thing, but she wanted to know where the pockets of resistance were before the teams of gatherers showed up. When he stopped for the night and made a small fire, she saw him for the first time and realized who he was. He was the one her father wanted her to eliminate, the same kid she’d pulled out of the labs months ago. She’d had a moment of weakness, and seeing him beaten half to death, she’d snapped. Gave him her own injections and set him free. She’d put that memory behind her, she had assumed he’d died in the parking lot where she left him. The car was the same one, she realized. Except much better now, the armaments well made, not haphazardly bolted on pieces of tin.
Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Page 15