“Thirty-nine down, a thousand to go.” Griz said. His painted face, the bloody war trophies adorning his vest and the shadows dancing from the fires made him terrible to behold. An avenging demigod with a machine gun over his shoulder.
“I’ll help.” Willie James said, coming up to stand beside them and watch the Raiders burn.
“I’d rather you get these people to safety.” Gunny replied. “I’ve seen you handle a gun, you were cool under pressure. Think you can do it?”
“I owe those bastards.” Willie said. “I’d rather give a little payback than turn tail and run.”
Griz finally managed to get his fake teeth loose and rinsed his mouth out with water.
“Me and Gunny have been doing these kinds of ops for a long time.” he said. “No offense, Willie, but we work better alone.”
“You’re Gunny?” one of the them asked, still hugging his kid too tight. “You’re the president?”
He couldn’t answer at the moment, he had his fingers in his mouth, working his own set of sharpened teeth loose so he just nodded.
“Well, that changes things.” Willie said and looked over the vehicles they had pulled away from the building, doing a quick count in his head. “I can get us out of here but there’s nothing left where we came from. Those bastards burnt it to the ground. I’m glad to see they got the same medicine.”
“You’re always welcome in Lakota.” Gunny said, reaching for Griz’s water bottle. “We need good men and women and there’s plenty of houses still standing empty.”
He looked at the gathered men and women, some joyous and crying over their children, whether adopted or their own, others looking on sadly, their own families murdered, eaten or long gone.
Survivors. They’d lost everything, had been tortured and abused, but had come together in a moment’s notice to fight back. They were unbroken.
88
Jessie + Scarlet
By the time they returned, the island town had one of the walls finished, even ran it far out into the channel using a dock building boat they’d retrieved. It didn’t matter how many zombies the Anubis cult managed to gather and send at them, the double walls and the extension beyond the causeway would ensure they couldn’t get in. Jessie wondered why they hadn’t done any of this before. Why they’d just grown complacent with the way things were.
“They never had any outside threats.” Scarlet said. She understood people better than he did. She’d helped build a whole movement that was only possible because most people always chose the path of least resistance. As long as they were safe, they were content to let others tell them what was best. That had been her experience, anyway. Jessie said she must have never met a contrary Texan but knew she was right. Even in Lakota, once the life and death battles were over, once the walls were built, very few people ventured outside. They were content.
It would be the same here once they had their new security in place. Once the threats were overcome and neutralized. They would do what ever it took to make sure what happened before wouldn’t happen again but, in a few months, Jessie would bet money they’d fall right back into the same old way of life with permits and code enforcement and jaywalking tickets. Maybe not, they were on the map now and like it or not, there would be traders visiting. They wouldn’t be isolated and run by a handful of men who had the guns. They all had guns now. Jessie had brought back thousands of M-16’s, even the ones that had been out in the weather all winter. They could be cleaned up and repaired and if nothing else, used for spare parts.
They spent the better part of a week training them how to fire the weapons, how to tear down the crew serve machine guns and hit targets with the grenade launchers. There wasn’t much to say about killing zombies except aim for the head but Scarlet filled them in on the strengths and weaknesses of the Anubis army. They finished the other wall and added boats to the guard roster. They ran silent with trolling motors and added a reconnaissance element to the patrols. Overall, Jessie was pleased with what they’d accomplished. They’d turned a weak little settlement that had been conquered in ten minutes by six men into a formidable enclave that would be hard to defeat.
When Scarlet and Jessie drove down the western causeway a few days later, they left behind an entirely different town. It was stronger, heavily fortified and well-armed. They had .50 caliber machine guns at the gates, speed boats had been armored and armed and high explosive projectiles for the grenade launchers were neatly stacked in boxes on the walls. The people were more confident and had faith in their abilities. A lot of their more peculiar practices had fallen by the wayside, too. A woman who didn’t want to trade sex for food or a roof over her head could say no with authority. She had the great equalizer at her disposal and knew how to use it. She’d find her own house, thank you very much, and the Director could shove the permit to request permission to occupy an empty dwelling up his ass. A new system had been implemented.
Scarlet pointed the Mercury south. It was a thousand miles to Lakota and Jessie had insisted they needed to get there. He wanted the SS sisters to figure out the right dosage of antibiotics so Scarlet would finally get better, stop the infection from spreading. Their hit and miss experiments with different quantities had been keeping the dark runners small and contained but they weren’t retreating and disappearing like they should. The gunshot wounds should be scarred over already, not still tender.
The hours passed easily, Jessie became more relaxed with her driving and started playing DJ. They’d grown up listening to completely different kinds of music and he liked watching her reactions to some of the tunes he played. Most of what she knew was pop and top 40 that was heard on radio stations around the world where he’d had a lot of different influences from his different sets of friends. There was also all the old people music that his dad liked: the Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and David Bowie stuff that wasn’t too bad.
They stayed on the back roads, always looking for signs of life but North Dakota county roads became South Dakota county roads and they didn’t come across anyone. They had driven for hundreds of miles and didn’t see one single, living person. The country was empty. Most towns that had train tracks running through them were ghost towns. Doors hung askew on hinges, curtains fluttered in broken windows and picket fences had been broken down. When the Lakota battle trains came lumbering through, thousands of undead chasing it for the living flesh inside, the zombies trapped in houses had gone insane. Their ceaseless wandering around the home, bumping into furniture and wearing a path in the carpet, became frantic. Month after month of endless aching hunger drove them to extremes. They hurled themselves against doors or windows, slamming them repeatedly until something broke.
They stopped for gas somewhere miles outside of Sioux Falls. The sky was purpling with the onset of evening and thunderheads were building. Lightning danced through them and they could see the rainfall far off in the distance. They idled up and down the streets and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just another dead town with livestock gone wild and running away from the sound of the engine. There was a supermarket across the street from the only gas station in town.
“Looks like a good place to spend the night.” Jessie said, watching the clouds. “We can probably make it home by tomorrow if we don’t have any trouble.”
Scarlet nodded, got the animals out and stretched, her shirt pulled tight across her body. He dropped the hose into the underground tank, smiled and tapped his fingers on the roll bar to a tune in his head. The bilge pump was whirring, transferring fuel into the car, Nefertiti and Bob had chased off a bunch of squawking chickens and were sniffing around. He was content. His heart swelled when she caught him staring at her profile, stuck out her tongue then did a cartwheel as she headed towards the store. He felt so blessed. After everything that had happened, after coming so close to ending his own life more than once, he almost felt guilty to feel so good. The world had nearly ended, he was supposed to be sad and unhappy.
But he wasn�
�t. Not at this moment and not for the past week or so. He wondered what his mother would say when she met her, if they would like each other. He wondered if she would balk when he said they’d be living in his warehouse. Probably. If he knew his mom, she’d be setting them up in one of the Victorian houses in the fancy part of town and planning a big wedding with Preacher. His dad would probably start hinting for grandkids.
He heard thunder far off in the distance as she came back out with a bag of groceries. She was perfect. From the scars on her face to the crazy two-tone color of her hair. His chest felt too small for the booming of his heart.
“We’re having chicken casserole.” she said, showing him a box that had everything they needed already in it. “and if you can find where those chickens are laying their eggs, I’ll make a cake.”
They found a suitable house that didn’t stink of the undead, had a nice stainless-steel grill with full a propane tank out back and all the doors and windows were intact. Jessie had the generator up and running just as it was getting too dark to see and lights came on in the town for the first time in nearly a year.
“I’m going after the eggs.” he said and grabbed a flashlight. She was cleaning ten months’ worth of dust and cobwebs out of the kitchen and grill and laying out her ingredients. Jessie had never had a cake baked on a grill but supposed it wasn’t much different than a regular oven. Guess he’d find out.
He saw them watching him and suddenly felt exposed. He’d been stupid to get himself into this situation. He wondered if they noticed his slight jerk, his hand start for his pistol before he pretended he hadn’t noticed them in the deep shadows of the porch. If they had guns trained on him, they’d be pulling triggers faster than he could pull his guns. There was an Oldsmobile parked along the curb, if he could get to it, he’d have cover.
“Howdy stranger.” came the voice from the dark and Jessie dove instinctively for the protection of the car. He came up behind the wheel, both hands filled with death and ready to spit it out.
His eyes easily found them, one struggling to bring up a gun, the other a look of surprise on his face at how quickly the kid moved. He had a rifle across his lap but it wasn’t aimed at anything. He’d nearly dropped it when he jumped in surprise at Jessie’s reaction.
Jessie waited, his ears straining, watched for them to signal someone else hiding behind him or in one of the houses.
They didn’t.
“Didn’t mean to startle you.” the man said quickly. “Everybody is so jumpy, it’s hard to approach a man. Some like to shoot first and ask questions later.”
“How long have you been there?” Jessie asked. They were only a few streets away from the house him and Scarlet had commandeered for the night.
“All afternoon.” the man said, relaxing a little. “We heard you make the rounds, figured you would get gas and keep on going.”
“Why are you hiding out in this town?” Jessie asked, rising slightly to see them better.
“You ask an awful lot of questions.” the other man said.
“Just want to be sure you’re not somebody I need to kill.” Jessie said and after a moment, the two started laughing. Big talk from a kid that looked to be barely a teenager.
“We could be thinking the same thing about you.” the first man said with easy confidence.
They were mostly hidden in the dark but he could see they weren’t dressed like raiders or the Anubis people. They were wearing colorful plastic motocross armor and had riot helmets with face shields sitting on the porch railing beside them.
Jessie lowered his guns and they relaxed.
“Looking for some eggs.” he said. “You happen to see a chicken coop anywhere?”
The men looked thoughtful for a second then shook their heads.
“No but we’ve got some powdered eggs in the truck if you want. They ain’t too bad as long as you like ‘em scrambled.”
Jessie holstered his pistols and the men set their rifles aside, both of them some mean looking Israeli bullpups with extended magazines.
Jessie stepped away from the car, into the street where the feeble quarter moon illuminated him. Both men stared a little harder, taking in the scar, the battle-blasted leather and the low-slung guns. It was the Road Angel.
“Hey, Jessie.” One of them said. “Heard you were dead. We ran into a group of people at the outpost in Nebraska. They said the Raiders killed you.”
“They tried.” Jessie said, remembering how close they came.
When the men leaned forward for a better look, he recognized them. It was Darren and William, the brothers he’d met out in Oregon at the Whippy Dipp. They’d been the ones who told him about the Tower. Jessie’s grin widened and he strode forward to meet them as they came off the porch.
“Man, it’s good to see a friendly face.” Darren said, him and William looking much the same, except with better guns and armor.
“We’ve been dodging those damn raiders and the weirdos from Canada this whole trip.”
“Yeah.” William agreed. “They’re hella worse than the zombies. They’re unpredictable.”
“Good for business, though.” Darren added with a wink. “Keeps most everybody behind the walls. Some folks know how to fight the zombies but can’t nobody win against a pack of Raiders.”
“Except for Lakota.” William grumbled. “That’s where most of our competition comes from. Up Jumped the Devil has turned into a regular Retriever hangout.”
“Yep.” Daren nodded. “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Then both brothers laughed easily at the joke.
“Somebody must be paying you pretty good to come all the way out here.” Jessie said. “You looking for rare tractor parts or something?”
Both men grinned proudly.
“Got something you might appreciate.” The Darren said. “Check this out.”
He opened the garage where they’d stashed their war rig and pulled a clear plastic box from a padded metal container. He held the flash light and presented it to Jessie with a little reverence, shining the light so he could see the comic book it held.
“Action Comics number one.” he said “First appearance of Superman.”
Jessie whistled. “Super rare.” he said. “Where did you get it?”
“In a safe at a comic book store in Sioux City.” he said. “It’s all the rage now in the Tower to get things you never coulda had before. You wouldn’t believe what some of them are offering for original paintings.”
He gingerly took the comic back. “Problem is, most of the stuff they want is in New York or LA museums. They can’t find anybody crazy enough to go there.”
He put it back in the container it had been riding in and closed the door.
“It’s a shame, really. It might be possible to get to those places in five or ten years but by then, most of the paintings will be ruined. Even if they’re in a building that never gets breached, you know, no windows get broken or anything, the heat and cold and humidity will pretty much destroy ‘em.”
“Never thought about it much.” Jessie said. “Guess you’re right, though.”
“Yeah,” William said “They tell us all these things, trying to get us to go save the Mona Lisa. It was on loan to some fancy museum in Manhattan but there ain’t no way. There’s a bazillion zombies in New York.”
“We’ll help you look for that chicken coop.” Darren said, changing the subject. “I wouldn’t mind some sunny side up for breakfast. I was kind of lying when I said those powdered eggs weren’t too bad.”
89
Jessie + Scarlet
Jessie laughed so much his face hurt and his sides ached. He’d invited the two retrievers back to the house where he and Scarlet were staying and they brought bread from a Nebraska bakery with them. They decided breakfast for dinner was in order and made scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs and sunny side up eggs, courtesy of an old mother hen. Darren had a secret recipe that turned beef jerky into passable bacon and they all at
e toasted dark bread with honey and jelly. They both updated their maps, adding damaged bridges or broken dams. There were a few new settlements each had found and the brothers declared they had made it their mission to equip all of them with ham radios.
“It keeps everyone in the loop.” Darren said.
“And gets us lots of business.” William grinned as they started playing charades. Once the brothers got warmed up, they kept Jessie and Scarlet in stitches all night with their adventurous tales, their good-natured bickering about the game and stories about the people they’d encountered along the way. There weren’t many that ventured out beyond the walls by themselves. If someone left the safety of the defenses, it was generally in a convoy with lots of firepower. Those that did wander the wastelands had already gained reputations and had a sort of following. Radio Lakota sometimes had on the air interviews with the various characters and a competition of sorts had started to develop. Bastille built them up like some post-modern Indiana Jones treasure hunters and many of the settlements had a weekly paper that they would fill with happy news of retrieved family heirlooms or prized possessions.
Sometimes the retrievers did it for the adventure, the glory, so to speak. The feel-good vibes they got from survivors getting their wedding pictures and baby photos. Of course, the better reputation you had, the more drinks at the bars or better attention from mechanic’s shops you got. There were the nouveau riche clients also. The new capitalist that started a business, took risks and prospered. They were always wanting something whether it was a rare book or painting or a particular antique or work of art. They were limited to treasures in the Midwest, though. Nobody ran into the coastal cities in the west or east of the Mississippi. Too dangerous.
Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Page 57