It took two trips.
Epilogue
He stood up from the table and stretched, putting an end to three days of talking. They hadn’t interrupted very often, usually let him ramble on unless they had specific questions from their notecards. They let him tell the tale the way he remembered it, even if there were some contradictions in the story. Even if others remembered it differently.
It was over though, and they all knew it. The old man was through talking, he had work to do, winter was coming, and it was time for them to head back down the mountain. He wasn’t going to tell any more stories.
“We’d really like to hear you speak about the years after The Fall,” the smiling man said, unable to help himself, so much like his father.
“Mr. Bastille,” he said. “Those years are pretty well documented. I think every Retriever, every War Captain, and every one of Casey’s Raiders still in prison has either written a book, or been interviewed to death.”
Bastille nodded, accepting the mild rebuke from the legend standing in front of him. He caught himself staring at his profile when he turned to accept a gift from one of the sound guys. A whole can of coffee.
He didn’t look much different than he did in the videos he’d found in a trunk in the attic. His dad had hundreds of hours of film, but it took a while for him to find a device that would play them. Those movies were what set him off on this mission of writing the Definitive History of the Heroes, and he’d interviewed most of them. The old man was grayer and leaner, and he looked tougher than old shoe leather, but he wasn’t much different than he was in the vids.
They had their equipment packed and were getting ready to leave, the old man waiting to close the gate behind them.
The last camper pulled to a stop beside him and he was handed a letter out of the window.
“He told us to give you this on our way out, if we found you,” Bastille said. “He said you might run us off if we gave it to you before the interviews. He said you might still be mad.”
He let go of the gate handle and took the letter addressed to him. He recognized the handwriting, even after all these years. It didn’t upset him at all. It made him smile.
He opened it and read as they disappeared down the mountain, closing the zombie gate behind them.
He reached up and absently wiped a bit of drool from his face, his wide grin made ugly by the jagged scar.
“Come on Bobbythree,” he said, calling the dog back to the cabin. “We’re going on a road trip. The old man asked us to come home for a visit. He said we need to get our goat-smelling asses there before Christmas.”
The End
Authors Notes
Thus concludes the tale of how Gunny and his family made it to a safe place after zombies were unleashed on an unsuspecting and unprepared world. Wrongs have been righted, families reunited, a fledgling new society has started putting down roots.
Thanks for sticking through it, the tolerable writing and the parts that had you rolling your eyes. Having just listened to the audiobooks back to back, I cringe at some of the things I heard. This was my first effort at actually putting down ideas on paper and making them coherent to someone besides myself. Mistakes were made in the actual continuity of the tale and of course the very structure of the book. Liberties were taken, facts were bent to what I needed them to be to tell the story. It’s fiction. It’s a zombie tale. There really are bad guys in the world that would try to kill most of us, but I believe the good guys far outnumber them.
If you have had your fill of the Zombie Road world, thank you and I hope you enjoyed it. There are a few loose ends, but nothing that will keep you awake at night wondering about them.
Casey will probably run away from Lakota and never be heard from again.
The weird Anubis Cult probably won’t amount to much. What can a half mad scientist and a twisted group of fervent believers do anyway?
The Deep State government officials President Edmund left in Atlanta will hopefully be eaten by zombies.
Hasif will probably be just fine in the pyramid.
Sheriff Collins will probably have to let go of all the laws on the books and fall back to the simpler times of the American West. Things might get wild.
If you care for more, there is another set of books, Zombie Road 5, 6 and 7 that will shift the focus off of Gunny (and the probably boring life of everyday Lakota Presidential duties) and onto Jessie. It will answer the above questions and more. I have a hunch that after all he’s been through, he won’t be satisfied going back to school to get his diploma. I don’t think he’ll be happy as a mechanic or electrician or guard. Something tells me the youth of the new world will hunger for adventures of their own.
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As always, we Indies REALLY appreciate it when you take the time to leave us a review, whether good, bad or indifferent. It helps drive book sales, helps us put food on the table… or beer in the fridge. Some of us follow the Hemingway doctrine: write drunk, edit sober.
(Okay, like a lot of other attributed quotes in the book, he may or may not have really said that, but it sounds good.)
Have fun, live life, and don’t get hit by a bus.
David A. Simpson
12/08/2017
The Zombie Road Omnibus Page 100