With all the TOW missiles they had in the trailers for the Tower, the one Bradley would be enough for now. Fort Lewis was only a few hundred miles north, once they had some men that knew how to operate it, they could use it to get more. It would take some serious planning to safely get onto the military bases, they were teeming with the undead. The fences kept them in and kept would be scavengers out. As far as anyone knew, Lakota was the first to have heavy armor. They needed to stop Casey and the Cult while they still had some small advantages. The Raiders and the Cult were both mobile armies, light infantry, their numbers impressive and they were on the move. The Lakota settlements were spread out, barely had enough people to keep things running and most of them weren’t warriors. They were trying to build, not destroy, and needed every little advantage.
Things were heating up; scattered reports were coming in about the Anubis Cult being on the move. An island town up in North Dakota had already been attacked by a handful of men that lead in hundreds of zombies and killed most of their militia. They were asking for help and weapons too and Cobb just didn’t have the resources. The Meadows kid had cleared it out and apparently he had met some warrior woman who was just as crazy as him. The leader of the town claimed the two of them had wiped out hundreds of the undead and survived an ambush by a group of super soldiers. Jessie said the town was run like a mini dictatorship and the Director was as flaky as Martha’s biscuits but they wouldn’t join with the cult, though.
The Movement had come in and tried to strong arm them, force them into submission. Jessie had convinced them to fight so that was a few hundred more people on their side. It was up to the boy to figure out how to get their defenses strong enough to withstand any assaults. Cobb no longer doubted the kid, no longer thought of him as a youngster who would probably wind up dead. He’d trained hard over the winter and he was smart. Cobb trusted him as much as any of his officers and he was certainly deadlier than any of the others. The kid would figure it out. He’d have to.
The truckers were up at dusk, in the roadhouse drinking coffee and getting ready to head out. Driving at night wasn’t the best option but they had enough lights on the rigs to turn the darkness into daylight. The place was overcrowded with people, it felt like everyone not pulling guard duty had squeezed in to check out the newest residents. They were dressed in new clothes and sparkling jewelry. Most of the shoes didn’t fit properly and they had shared the same few colors of makeup that had been available. They all looked like princesses to the men gathered, most too shy to approach. They stared at each other across the room, the women unsure of the customs or what was expected of them and the brash cowboys suddenly bashful. These were future wives and you had to pick careful. Once a man chose, chances were he wouldn’t get a second chance to pick another, she’d already be spoken for and fists would fly if you moved in on another man’s gal. Sandy realized what was happening when she saw the men eyeballing the women like they would a heifer at an auction, weighing the pros and cons of each one.
They were probably right. If you started talking to the Asian girl but then decided you wanted to flirt up the Russian gal, it would most likely be too late. It was kind of ridiculous but it was true. This wasn’t the only chance they’d have, it wasn’t a damn cattle sale and the girls might not like whoever chose them. There would be single and available women after tonight but not very many. Any man that hit it off with one of the ladies certainly wouldn’t be giving her up easily. She knew all these men, had gotten to know them well in the past year, all of them confined behind the walls.
Jeramiah was quiet and shy, he needed a woman who spoke enough for both of them. May-Lin, the Chinese girl who helped braid hair and chattered nonstop would be a good match for him. She took her hand and lead her over, introduced them then went back to get Natalya. The Russian girl was big boned and had calloused hands, perfect for Hank, all 240 pounds of him and the fifty head of cattle he ran by himself.
The music started and Sandy kept matchmaking. The men let her choose, they knew she would do a better job at picking the right one than they could. In this world, there weren’t a whole lot of second chances and they’d rather have some guidance than none at all. The women all looked equally beautiful to the men but they knew a long-term relationship had to be based on something more than that. Sandy’s picks would give them a better than average chance of things working out and moving forward. The dancing started, the music and laughter got louder and Hot Rod had to nearly drag the other drivers away from the festivities. They had miles to travel and an enemy was advancing.
Jimmy and Tony grabbed their bags and loaded up. At least they didn’t have to hide anymore, they could ride in the cab. It would be a lot smoother and they were excited about going to the Tower. Mr. Cobb said they’d been volunteered. Since they’d shown themselves to be competent at operating the Bradley’s, they would be training the men at the tower. It would be easier and faster than for them trying to teach themselves just using the manuals. Rumor had it that the Tower had ice cream. They were looking forward to it.
They didn’t have much of a sendoff, everybody except the guards were packed into the Gold Digger Road house. Gage was tempted to stow away again but Jimmy told him he had a job to do. He had to get the men of Tombstone up to speed on the Bradley’s. Besides, he had parents back in Lakota and if they were upset now, they’d really lose it if he took off again.
They fired up the rigs, made their final checks and had the long nose road tractors headed west before the sun had set. They caught up on gossip with the others on the hams and got to tell first hand stories of all the lovely ladies in Tombstone. Two more busloads were out there somewhere. Bastille was broadcasting that on his radio show, getting everyone worked up and worried about them. They hadn’t been seen or heard from since the three groups split up in Oregon but now every train, every trucker and every retriever was watching for them.
36
Jessie + Scarlet
Jessie sat sideways in his car, feet on the asphalt, idly scratching Bob behind the ears. He’d just hung up the mic with Lakota and now he had a problem. Casey was gathering his army, getting ready to start attacking all the smaller settlements and the fortified farms. Wire Bender didn’t say much on the open channel, you never knew who might be listening, but the bottom line was they were pretty busy. Would Jessie be able to get the Island set up with what they needed?
“So what does that mean?” Scarlet asked “They can’t send men?”
Jessie sighed deeply and nodded. He understood the defense of the capital city and its close allies was a higher priority than an island community that was sketchy and weak. He and Scarlet had spent the last few hours scouting the island, checking their defenses and talking to a lot of different people. They were soft, they were a lot like the residents in the Tower, they were isolated and mostly unaffected by the end of the world. They had let a handful of men take care of security as they tried to keep life as normal as possible. Most of them didn’t even have a gun. They would crumble under even a weak assault.
The handful of warriors that were here had chosen to enrich themselves, make their own lives comfortable at the expense of the others. They had set themselves up like royalty, taking what they wanted, keeping the populace unarmed and afraid, keeping everyone constantly in their debt with protection fees and taxes. Jessie understood better how the Director had remained in charge. He was a greasy, spineless politician but the head of the militia realized it took more than brute force to rule over a people. They didn’t have any desire for conquer and conquest, that was much too dangerous, they simply wanted all the luxuries and privilege the Island could offer. They were smart enough to know you couldn’t just take any woman you wanted and do whatever you wanted to her. There would be a revolt. But if there was a law, now that was different. If you controlled the food, the work, where people lived and everything else about their lives, then you could get what you wanted with out a messy fight. Nobody would make waves or complain too
much it they were afraid of being put outside the wall. Keep them unarmed and defenseless and they would pay anything, give up any freedom for their security. It had worked well for them. The militia maintained order, made the dangerous runs for supplies, kept the zombies at bay and reaped the rewards.
That is, until someone bigger and meaner came along and wiped out the ruling class in a matter of minutes. Now he and Scarlet had wiped out the bigger and meaner guys, had promised help that wasn’t coming and basically left the town defenseless.
He had a problem.
“Why should this town be special?” Scarlet asked, knowing what Jessie was trying to figure out. “They have had it easy and chose their path, now they must learn to harden up and take care of themselves.”
“They’ll die without training.” Jessie said. “Did you see them? None of them have been outside the gates since this started. They don’t even know what they don’t know, they’ll get killed the first time they go outside. The Cult will realize they’re missing some men and probably wipe out half the town to teach them a lesson.”
She placed her hand on his neck and started kneading the knotted muscles.
“If you save a man’s life, you are responsible for it.” she said.
Jessie pulled her close, buried his head into her stomach as she ran her fingers through his hair, still wet from their dip in the lake to clean up.
“We have to teach them.” he said into her belly “We can’t leave them, they aren’t like the kids with all the wild animals, they don’t know how to take care of themselves.”
“Yes.” said Scarlet. “They are our responsibility now.”
Jessie understood now why his dad hated being the president. Why he would rather be out in the field doing something, anything, rather than sit through another meeting or have people look to him for answers he didn’t have. His first instinct was to fire all the people who had been in charge before, the ones who took advantage and abused the power but Scarlet told him not to. They might be dirt bags but they could get things done. She was right, of course. She’d had a ten-month crash course in how to control people and the same principals applied to getting a newly freed people to do what was best for themselves.
The first thing they did was open the basement of the courthouse and give everyone guns and ammo from the arms room and told them to go practice shooting. There were enough people who knew guns, hunters and sportsmen, to teach the old ladies or children or other men who’d never even held one.
The wall they’d built was made of steel panels from a construction site bolted to utility poles. It was topped with barbed wire but it was only eight feet tall. Even a small horde of day one zombies would be able to get over it. The town had been lucky, the militia over confident and the Director ignorant about what a preserved horde fresh from inside a mall or school could do to them.
Jessie wanted two walls, both doubled in height, a sally port system, more concertina wire protecting the shore line and crew serve weapons set up with intersecting lines of fire. He put dozens of sentries on the walls they had and took a full crew of men with him, more than was necessary, to the construction site some forty miles distant.
While they were trying to jumpstart a backhoe and fork truck to load the panels, he told Scarlet to go to the nearby houses and free any undead trapped inside. She could let them lose and they’d ignore her. They would start chasing the sounds of men and they could get their first taste of combat. Hundreds of rounds were expended on each one she set loose. She freed them one at a time at first. When the panicked shouts of terror became orders to concentrate fire and men ran to where they were ordered instead of jumping in trucks to hide, she released them faster. Two or three at a time and from different directions.
“Keep working!” Jessie would yell at the crews when they heard gunfire. “Trust the fire teams!”
His guns never left his holsters although it was close once or twice. The men and women went from unorganized random fire chaos to competent squads in a short time. Jessie knew anyone could learn to fight, it was human nature to survive, to live no matter what. It had been so long since people weren’t at the top of the food chain, since the smallest mistake would get you torn apart, the instincts had been suppressed. Most people wanted to fight, to kill, to defend what was theirs and it only took teaching them the basics, keeping them alive long enough to learn from mistakes, to turn them into warriors.
They were there for hours by the time they got the machines fired up and the trailers loaded. Scarlet had run out of undead to send their way, the whole area was cleared. No one noticed she was missing, they’d been too busy staying alive and when she slipped back among them, no one was the wiser.
The men and women had a new bit of swagger in their step, held their weapons with more confidence when they gathered at one of the loaded flatbeds. When Jessie told them to head back on their own, he had other business to take care of, they nodded and loaded up. They had just been baptized by fire and had come out unscathed. The undead weren’t such a mind-numbing, unstoppable horror after all. They had killed them with hunting rifles and shotguns. Imagine what they could do with military grade hardware.
Jessie spread a map out on the hood of the car and opened a can of peaches.
“Wire Bender said there is a National Guard armory here.” He indicated a spot on the map a few towns over. “During the first days, all the Guard and Reserves were activated but even if it’s overrun with them, there’s a lot of empty farmland all around it. We can open the gate and lead them all away.”
Scarlet took a proffered bite, savored the flavor and slid an arm around his waist, snuggled in tight.
“He didn’t have an inventory of what weapons they had but it’s the biggest Guard post in the area and it was fully staffed year-round, not just a training camp. Chances are it’s where they kept all the good stuff.”
“I know where some good stuff is.” Scarlet purred into his ear, ran her fingernails under his jacket and up his back.
Jessie shivered and tried to continue. “Hopefully they have live rounds for the rocket launchers, if not they must have a bunch of fifty’s. Maybe even chain guns.”
“I know a rocket that needs to be launched.” she cooed and her hand strayed downward.
“If we hurry we can make it before dark.” Jessie said, tapping his finger on the map.
“We’re not hurrying.” Scarlet said, her voice low and husky. “I made sure this town empty, no more zombies. I have nice place picked out. It has swing set. We stay here tonight. We have Jessie and Scarlet fun.”
37
Gunny
“They’re ready.” Sammy said as he closed the hood on the Chevelle and wiped his hands on a rag.
“Built to the same specs as the others.”
“Thanks Sammy.” Gunny said and nodded to Jimmy Winchell who was strapping the hood down on the LaSalle. It was the biggest and Griz had already laid claim, his gear already stowed.
Tommy and his mechanics had gotten pretty good at putting together the war rigs. There were a lot of mint condition, fully restored muscle cars stored away in garages. They were all gear heads and it hurt to cut up period correct numbers matching cars but there were plenty of them out there and their value as a collector’s item was almost zero. People would pay a retriever more for a family photo album than they would for a vintage Ferrari. It was easy to cut the fenders, weld in oversized truck suspensions, add the roll cages, brush guards, window bars, running lights and machine guns. Interiors would be gutted, Kevlar added and back seats turned into beds. The machines were rugged, easy to work on and could easily hit a hundred miles an hour. More if needed in a pinch. They weren’t trailer queens anymore. Meticulously polished chrome was spray painted black. Engines lovingly rebuilt and babied were thrashed and redlined, driven like they had been on Friday nights when teenagers bought them second hand in the seventies.
That was the main reason the hit teams didn’t drive Hummers like the convoy escor
ts. They were just too slow. A lot of Casey’s men favored new pickup trucks off the showroom floor. They weren’t very rugged but that didn’t matter if you were the one doing the chasing, not the one being chased. If your truck broke, the guy behind you would carry on running the victims to ground. Some of them knew the usefulness of old cars, jacked up, souped up and highly modified. They had the machines the Lakota crew had abandoned in Mexico and all the war chiefs drove them.
Gunny tossed in his go bag and fired it up. He wasn’t sure what was under the hood but it felt torquey, probably a 396. Definitely a Rat. Maybe he wouldn’t lose or break this one for a while. Maybe he’d have it long enough where he’d actually have to check the oil.
Him and Griz were headed out alone, just like old times before the fall. They told the mechanics they were headed up to the Island to help set up defenses. Once they were discovered missing, word would get out, the mechanics would talk. Cobb would be annoyed but he’d figure it out, he’d know they were spreading a rumor for the benefit of the spies.
They had a name at the top of their list and they wouldn’t be coming back until it was marked off. They didn’t have anyone else to take care of, to make sure they got home safe and sound. If anyone would have known what they were planning, they would have tried to stop them but the two old warriors were headed out to do what they did best. Eliminate a threat.
They rumbled up to the airstrip on the outskirts of town where Eustice was working on the heavy lift bi-plane. Tommy had the engine panels off and was elbow deep in it double checking the hoses and wires. The plane was old but the forest service had done a good job maintaining it. It was rigged for firefighting and had auxiliary tanks that could hold a thousand gallons of water or fire retardant. Eustice was routing a feed tray through a hole he’d cut in the cockpit for the chain gun bolted to the wing.
Zombie Road (Book 5): Terror On The Two-Lane Page 22