The Zombie Road Omnibus

by David A. Simpson

  He pointed to a pharmacy with the heavy, barred security door laying on the ground, a logging chain still hooked to it.

  “Wonders never cease,” Gunny said. “Drugstore Cowboys. Maybe they all overdosed already.”

  They rolled slowly past, looking for traps or signs of an ambush. Their eyes saw Midwestern Oklahoma. Their minds saw Mosul and death springing from every window. They were getting close. The Lincoln was quiet, but in a dead town where the only other noise was the singing of the birds, a man standing guard on a roof could have heard them. Probably even glimpsed them between buildings as they idled down the streets.

  They were running out of roads to search. They had zig-zagged up and down the outlying streets and the only thing left was the downtown area. It was mostly two and three-story flat roof structures, with a single high-rise apartment building towering over everything else, even the courthouse.

  “There’s Sammy’s car,” Scratch burst out, pointing to the Mustang a few blocks down an alley.

  Gunny pulled the Lincoln behind an Indian art gallery, near the town center and they got out.

  “I knew he was an idiot, but this takes the cake,” he said. “I think they’re in the same building where they shot me. All he did was move the car so it couldn’t be seen from the tracks. I think I seriously overestimated him.”

  “The dumbassery is strong with this one,” Lars said in his best Yoda voice as he double checked his loadout, making sure his magazines were just the way he liked them. Everyone else did the same, ensuring nothing was out of place after the ride in the car. Scratch had Tommy weld a little extra bracket on his metal arm and he was much better at swapping magazines now. The incident on the courthouse steps was still fresh in his mind. He was nowhere near as fast as Gunny or Griz, he never would be, but he was okay with that. They didn’t have a built-in blade at the end of their arm like he did.

  They spread out and started up the alley in pairs, Gunny in the lead. Their heads were on swivels, watching for gun barrels to poke over the rooftops or trip wires to alert the gang someone was coming. They saw neither. They were starting to think Casey had taken his band of morons and lit out for somewhere else, but as they neared the Mustang, they could see dozens of dead bodies strewn around. They had taken head shots from above, so there were people on the roofs. Gunny signaled a stop and everyone took a knee, the rear guard turning and facing back the way they came. There were still a few dozen of the undead feebly pounding and clawing at the back door of a bar called The Watering Hole, most broken so badly from their encounter with the trains or the Mustang they couldn’t stand.

  The oversized front brush guard Sammy had welded on it was covered in blood and matted hair. There was a woman’s head chomping the air attached to the hood as a gruesome ornament, her long black hair flowing around her. Casey had decorated it with a lot of useless bolt-on gear that made it look like something out of a low-budget Mad Max movie. Chains and other ornaments that might look “cool”, but had no useful purpose.

  “Casey must think he’s Lord Humungus,” Scratch said quietly, grimacing at the woman’s head in the cage bolted to the car.

  “More like Toecutter,” Lars said. “He was more small-time than the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla.”

  No one batted an eye at Lars and his endless depths of obscure trivia. They had all come to accept him as the settler of all movie-related arguments.

  The rear entrance was heavily protected with a steel door set in a steel frame. Apparently, the bar had their share of break-ins over the years.

  “It'll be noisy and take a while to get through that,” Gunny said. “Let’s check the front.”

  They went back up the alley, avoiding the bits of strewn garbage, then circled back to the main road. There were a few of the broken zombies out front, listlessly slapping at the entrance. It had a steel gated door also. Even the heavily curtained windows were barred.

  They watched, paying close attention to the roofline and the curtains, watching for flickers of movement. There was none. After a few minutes, Gunny lead them back to the alley.

  “Ok, boys,” Gunny said. “Plan A.”

  That elicited a few groans, but he continued. “Lars, you get up the fire escape to the roof of that building.”

  He pointed to one that was diagonal to the Watering Hole, that had rusty metal stairs running up the outside wall.

  “You’ll be able to see across to see what kind of firepower they have. Make sure they don’t see you.”

  “Scratch, you and Stabby stand guard down here, keeping an eye on the back door. Me and Griz are going to get that chain from the pharmacy. We’ll meet back here in ten. No shots unless you have to, use your blades.”

  They nodded then he and Griz took off at a slow jog back to the car.

  When Gunny idled up about fifteen minutes later the boys were waiting on the ground.

  Scratch pointedly looked at an imaginary watch and tapped his metal wrist, feigning impatience.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Gunny said. “I couldn’t remember which street we saw the chain on.”

  One end was already wrapped around the rear frame rail, with the rest of it tossed in the trunk.

  “What’s the situation up there?” he asked Lars.

  “There is no situation,” he said. “There’s nothing on their roof but empty whiskey bottles and spent brass. They don’t have ammo stashes or anything. These guys are a disgrace to badasses everywhere.”

  Griz and Gunny both just shook their heads. Casey and his band of idiots were making this too easy. They had wasted half a day being careful when they could have just waltzed up to the front door with a Mariachi band and they wouldn’t have noticed. It was a pretty safe bet none of them ever had any military or police training.

  “We’re still going to have to stay alert. You can’t tell how hard a mule’s gonna pull by looking at its ass,” Gunny said. “They’ve got a lot of guns and we know they like to shoot first.”

  Stabby looked puzzled, but didn’t say anything. He’d gotten used to Gunny’s weird way of talking.

  “True,” Griz said. “They probably got some full autos from that shop. Now they think they’re invincible.”

  “Yep. Amateur hour,” Gunny said. “Scratch and Stabby, go do your thing to the zeds out front.”

  They nodded and took off.

  “Lars, you drive. Back this thing up to the door and we’ll hook up the chain.”

  “Yes, Mizz Daisy,” he said as he hurried toward the Lincoln. Gunny and Griz started jogging to the front of the bar and got there just as Scratch was pulling his blade out of the last of the crawlers. They began dragging them out of the way as Lars maneuvered the car against the sidewalk and Griz quietly wrapped the chain around the bars of the door.

  “I hope they find some LAWs at that ammo plant,” Scratch said, dropping a half-naked woman on the curb. He grimaced at the smell that escaped her bloated stomach. They wanted the bodies out of the way so they wouldn’t worry about stumbling over them. They needed to go in hard and fast before the men inside started tearing them apart with the machine guns.

  “You hope they find lawyers?” Stabby asked, gently placing a toddler face down beside the woman, hiding the seeping hole in the little girl’s forehead and protecting her eyes from the crows.

  “LAWs,” Scratch said. “Light Anti-Tank Weapons. A mini rocket launcher. Good for blowing up scumbags in buildings, too. They only weigh about five pounds. Easy to carry and they pack a big punch.”

  They lined up, one eye closed to get prepared for the dim interior. Two to each side of the door, ready to go in hard and turn left and right as soon as they cleared it. It was early afternoon. If Casey’s goons kept true to form, half of them would still be sleeping, the other half hungover. They would find out in a second if that were the case, or if this was an elaborate ambush. If a dozen machine guns were locked and loaded and aiming for the door.

  On the signal, Lars floored it and the big Lincoln jumped away fr
om the curb, ripping the door off its hinges and dragging it clattering behind him.

  They went in fast and low, anticipating gunfire aimed their way, the only light shining in through the missing door. Normally, now would have been the time to throw in some flash-bang grenades. They didn’t have any so Gunny broke left and hugged the wall in a running crouch, getting some distance from the entry point and allowing Scratch plenty of room to maneuver. He heard Griz doing the same on the other side of the bar and within seconds he heard him say, “One up.”

  It let him know that half of the bar was covered and there were no immediate threats. No bad guys reaching for weapons. No machine guns being aimed at them.

  “Two up,” he replied, letting Griz know his side had no imminent danger. He kept his carbine shouldered, still searching for signs of sudden movement. There was none, but someone half shouted at them to close the damn door. His eyes were adjusting and he could smell the unwashed bodies of men, the reek of week-old whiskey sweat, and the stench of overflowing toilets. They were sprawled out on the seats of the booths and some on the tables. A few were still on their stools, asleep with their heads on the bar.

  How could anyone live like this?

  His crew waited for Gunny to take the first shot. To do what they came to do. To eliminate a dangerous gang of men who thought nothing of opening fire on unsuspecting people. He’d done this before. Killed a room full of unarmed men. He could do it again. Those men had deserved it, and so did these.

  He sighted on the man nearest to him at the bar, groggily raising his head to see why it was so bright all of a sudden. His finger was on the trigger, tension already applied, iron sight aimed at the center of his forehead. He could feel the others waiting for his signal. Knew every gun was on target and ready to sweep to the next at the first sound of gunfire.

  “Hey, man. What’s going on?” the bleary-eyed drunk at the bar asked, blinking at the sunlight streaming through the doorway.

  He wasn’t armed and Gunny noticed all the pill bottles on display, lining the back of the bar, along with the liquor bottles. These guys were blasted out of their gourds. They were all drinking to forget, they couldn’t put the past behind them. A quick look around the interior showed him their ring leader, the bald-headed thief he had come for, wasn’t here.

  When Lars came in with his Berettas drawn, Gunny nodded for him to check the kitchen behind the bar.

  “Where’s Casey?” Gunny questioned the man with a drink coaster sticking to his forehead and drool caked on his cheek. When he didn’t answer right away, just blinked owlishly, he kicked the stool out from underneath him. He landed hard on the floor and yelped in pain and surprise. Across the room, Gunny heard the sound of a rifle butt smacking someone, the crunch of a nose breaking and a muffled cry. Griz was knocking the men around on his side, herding them into a group. He had come to the same conclusion as Gunny. These guys were pathetic assholes drowning themselves in booze, but he couldn’t just gun them down.

  “Stabby?” Gunny asked. He’d heard the noise of one of the undead keening, then the splashing sound of spikes being shoved through its head.

  “Yeah, we’re good mate. Nothing coming, streets are clear.”

  He was watching the front entrance, ensuring no more zombies came running through the missing door.

  Gunny stepped up to the man sitting on the floor.

  “Where’s Casey?” he asked again.

  “Hey, man. No need to get violent…”

  He didn’t finish before Gunny kicked out, putting a boot into the side of his head. His face bounced hard off of the brass foot-rail, his cheek torn and bleeding. His orbital bone was probably broken, too. Gunny’s carbine never left his shoulder, never wavered from its aim at the man, even with the pulsing throb of the bullet hole in his arm.

  The others were all coming out of their stupor, their eyes wide in fear as Scratch and Griz pushed them into a corner and made sure they kept their hands raised high.

  Gunny approached him again as he was trying to sit up, staring cross-eyed at the rifle in his face and asked again.

  “Where’s Casey?”

  The guy was nearly blubbering now, one eye already starting to swell shut, the other wide with dread. He had his arms up in a protective gesture, suddenly realizing who this man was. Who was dishing out the pain. The eyes were hard and cold staring down at him, his finger was on the trigger and he was here for some payback.

  “Please, man. I don’t know. He was here last night. Please stop hitting me. I swear I don’t know.”

  “You’ve got some nerve, crying about an ass beating,” Scratch said, M-4 to his shoulder, bloody spiked arm still dripping gore. “After you opened fire on my friend here.”

  “That wasn’t us,” The man still sitting on the bar stool said, his hands raised. He looked a little more coherent than the rest.

  Gunny turned his carbine on him. His hands went higher.

  “I saw you on the roof. I saw the Mustang parked out front.”

  “I know, we saw you on the train, but we didn’t shoot at you. I promise you we didn’t.” He spoke fast, fear making his voice raise an octave. He knew who these men were. He’d heard the stories about them the first night they had spent with the group. Their first night away from the warehouse they’d been trapped in. “We just got the machine gun and we were taking turns shooting at the zombies that followed us back here. Then Casey saw you and grabbed the gun. Nobody shot at you but him. I promise, we didn’t. We ain’t crazy.”

  He licked his lips, “We ain’t like him.”

  Gunny thought back, bearing in mind he was wounded and diving for cover when the cab was shot up. It could have been just one gun on full auto. Now that he was considering it, the sounds of the bullets flying in had been one after another, not overlapping fire.

  “We tried to stop him, man,” the guy on the floor pleaded through the hands protecting his face. He was afraid Gunny would kick him again. Or maybe shoot him.

  “And you idiots just stayed here? You didn’t think we’d come pay you a visit?” Scratch asked, having a hard time understanding how anyone could be so stupid.

  “We’re real sorry, Sir. We thought you was probably dead,” the man on the barstool said.

  Gunny just looked at him.

  “But Cal knocked his aim off,” he added helpfully. Hopefully. “He shoved the gun after he started shooting at you, didn’t you Calvin.” He was trying to make those killer’s eyes look somewhere else. Anywhere else, but at him.

  The others all nodded in agreement, hands still held high. Calvin had saved his life, hadn’t he? This wasn’t any of their doing. They weren’t his enemy.

  The shots had suddenly gone wild, Gunny remembered. The bullets had sprayed up and away from the windows. It started to make sense now, he could picture them watching the train and the carnage of all the undead being eviscerated. The ones they had been shooting at from the roof suddenly running after the train. When they saw it was him in the cab, Casey grabbed the gun. He started blasting away for a few seconds before someone reacted and tried to stop him. These guys didn’t seem to mind living like this. For them, this was what they wanted. Maybe they had done things to survive they were ashamed of and this was their penance. Drinking themselves to death because they couldn’t save their wife or kids or something. All the booze they could guzzle, all the pills they could pop. They didn’t care that they had been banished from Lakota, but it was apparently still eating away at Casey. He was the only real danger. Gunny’s finger eased off of the trigger.

  The sound of automatic gunfire suddenly erupted from the kitchen, a line of bullets stitching the back wall and shattering one of the picture windows behind the thick curtains. Everyone dove for the floor.

  It took everything Gunny had not to shoot the two men huddled in front of him, to eliminate a potential threat, but he controlled it and sprinted for the kitchen door. He got low and aimed around it, bringing his barrel up and spitting bullets at the back side
of Casey as he ran out of the service door. They chewed up the plaster and spanged off the door frame, chasing the fleeing figure until he disappeared from view. Gunny jumped up and went after him, but he heard the Mustang roar to life over the screams of the undead. He ran to the door, slamming a shoulder against the frame and firing as fast as he could at the retreating car, its tires squealing, white smoke rolling. The wrecked zombies that Casey had bowled over were now charging at Gunny on their broken legs and smashed limbs. He had time to get a few more shots off at the disappearing Mustang before he had to start firing at them. Their bloodied bodies danced as he blasted away, taking out his frustrations. He kicked one of the crawlers back down the step as his magazine emptied and he reached for the door to slam it closed. He threw the deadbolt and nearly ran into Lars when he turned.

  “Got the drop on you?” he stated the obvious.

  “Bastard was hiding in the cabinet,” he fumed. “I heard the hinge squeak behind me and just rushed him. Made him shoot wild.”

  “He’s gone. He can’t possibly be dumb enough to hang around here now,” Gunny said as they walked back toward the door into the bar area. “Now we gotta figure out…”

  His words trailed off when he saw Griz kneeling over Scratch, trying to stop the blood from spilling out of his chest.

  38

  Casey

  Casey dropped a gear going into the corner and slammed on the brakes. The car nose-dived and he floored it, spinning the steering wheel, going into a perfect drift around the building. The tires rolled smoke and screamed in the still afternoon air as he counter-steered onto the next street. He was out of sight and out of gun range. He shifted into third and let up on the gas a little, giving the tires a chance to grip, then roared down the empty road on a path out of town.

  Casey felt good. He had a smile on his face as he took a nip from a pocket flask. Nothing like a gunfight to get the blood pumping. It was good to let loose. Good to be bad. He’d been forced to control himself his whole life. Had to do the things the Good Casey told him he had to. He couldn’t just punch the mouthy shrink that kept asking him questions about his childhood. There were rules against that type of behavior, Good Casey warned. He couldn’t strangle the Warden the next time that smiley bastard told him he was proud of him, a model prisoner. That would get twenty years added to his sentence, Good Casey said to him.