Zed's World (Book 2): Roads Less Traveled Read online

  “Should I fill the tubs and sinks in the apartments I search?” Carmen asks.

  “Great idea! Water will eventually get stagnant, but we can boil it for cooking and drinking, and we can find other uses for it. The more we have stored up, the better. Lack of water—clean water—will kill us faster than anything else. Other than the zombies, of course. I’ll get some people to help me move the rest of the bodies.”

  D-Day looks around at the three of them.

  “This is it, folks. We’re going to be stuck in this building for a while. We have to get everyone coordinated and on the same page with us, or we won’t make it very long. The Army is planning to come north from Colorado Springs. They said they’d be here tomorrow—today, rather—but I have my doubts. The point is, they’ll be here. We just have to make it until they show up.”

  “Okay,” George says. “Let’s get to it then.”

  They get busy with their respective tasks. D-Day makes a copy of Elizabeth’s updated building roster, marking the people he knows, denoting them with a plus sign or a minus sign, depending on if he thinks they’ll be an asset or liability. It strikes him how few people in the building he knows. That’s going to change soon.

  Twelve

  North of Longview, Colorado

  “What’s taking so long?” Robert signs to Stephenie. “The last one took you like two minutes!”

  “Do you want to do it?” she says out loud so he can hear her frustration. “It’s a better lock.”

  Robert holds his hands in the air in a sign of submission and steps back, away from her. “Sorry!” he says to her back.

  “She can’t hear you, dick,” Annie says, smiling. Robert shoots her a look that she misses in the dark, nor can he see her grinning.

  It takes Stephenie more than ten minutes to get it picked, switching to different configurations on the picks until she finally finds one that works. She waits while the trucks drive through, wraps the chains through the gate like the previous one, and then she jumps into the Ram, and they’re moving again. They’re near the north-south running Highway 287, the main artery into Longview from any of the towns to the north. Robert speaks up through the walkie-talkie.

  “If we keep running into these gates, this is going to take us forever. We’re out of the hot zone; do you guys think we should just take 287 into town?”

  Ben stops the FJ40 a hundred feet short of the road. He grabs the walkie-talkie.

  “Hold tight. Something’s coming,” he says. He sees flashing lights through the trees, and then the headlights of two vehicles. They’re going well over a hundred miles per hour toward Longview. It looks like an Escalade in the lead being chased by a state patrolman. The sirens from the trooper’s car wail and then fade as it speeds past them. A few seconds later, another state trooper races past.

  “Any other night that would seem out of place,” Robert says over the walkie. “Tonight it just seems kinda normal. I guess that answers my question about taking Highway 287 into town.”

  Ben puts the FJ into gear and creeps toward the highway. No other cars are visible, so he pulls up onto the highway and crosses to the dirt road on the other side. They’re only a quarter mile off the highway when they run into another locked gate.

  This time, the only people who get out are the Sims, with Robert and Annie standing watch while Stephenie works on the lock. In the east, the horizon has turned a light gray. Ben checks his watch: it’s 5:20. The sun will be up in another half hour. These locked gates hamper their progress but beat the alternative of running the gauntlet on the main roads, where the police are clearly active. They’ve got to get into Longview before daylight, though, or their odds bypassing any roadblocks are slim.

  Stephenie recognizes the lock as the same one she just picked. She grabs the same pick she used on that one, and she gets it opened in a few seconds over a minute. She loops the chain around the gate, hops back in the truck, and they get moving again. Then things start happening quickly.

  As they round a bend in the road, the passenger window on the FJ Cruiser shatters and the front tire goes flat. Ben hits the brakes, but Annie screams into the walkie-talkie from the truck behind them.

  “GO GO GO! Don’t stop, we’re being shot at!” she yells.

  Ben hears several thumps as bullets hit the side of the FJ and feels something burning his leg. Everyone in the SUV is screaming. From the black Ram, Stephenie returns fire with her AR15 while Annie gets hers ready. Robert hits the gas and accelerates around the right side of the FJ.

  Floodlights turn on, and Ben sees several people outside of a farmhouse to their right, armed with rifles running up the hill toward them. A couple of four-wheeled ATVs come roaring out of a barn with armed men on them. Ben has a hard time steering with the flat tire and knows he can’t go much farther with the car in this condition. He makes it around the bend, for the moment out of sight of the posse chasing them, and finds Robert’s truck parked to the right side of the dirt trail. It’s empty. In front of the Toyota is another locked gate.

  “What the hell? Where did they go?” Ben says out loud.

  Behind them, the beams of the headlights on the ATVs crest the hill and point in their direction. Any second now they’ll round the corner and, Ben assumes, they’ll kill them all. He can’t believe the Sims took off like they did. He grabs the walkie-talkie and presses the transmit button.

  “Hey, where did you guys go? What should we do?” he asks.

  Annie comes back over the speaker. “Stay where you are,” she says, “And stay down.”

  Gunfire erupts from multiple locations around them. To their left they can see Robert and Annie now, shooting from the concealment of the tall grass that grows along the irrigation ditch. Based on the direction of the noise, Stephenie is somewhere unseen to their right, and the trio has a decent crossfire set up, converging their fire from two different locations onto the people coming from the farmhouse.

  Crouching in the back seat, Keith can’t help smiling as he says, “Supergirl to the rescue.”

  ***

  “I need to cross over the trail. Steph shouldn’t be by herself,” Robert says.

  “Robert, she’s fine. Just keep shooting or none of us are going to be okay.” Annie peers around the cover of a fallen tree trunk, sights in on the lead four-wheeled ATV and squeezes the trigger. The man driving falls off and the ATV veers off the path and stops in a thatch of weeds.

  “How many are there?” Robert asks.

  “Eight, as far as I could tell. Six now,” Annie says, eyeing the two men who lie motionless in the dirt in the predawn twilight. Shots from their left tell them that Stephenie is fighting with someone. Robert wants to sprint over to her and help, but he knows he’d be a target, and he also knows she’s stealthier than both he and Annie combined.

  “Probably down to five now,” Annie says.

  A voice breaks the silence.

  “You all are trespassing! Put your weapons down and get your hands up or this will go badly for you!” a man’s voice calls out to them.

  “We don’t want any trouble! We’re just trying to get through to Longview! Let us go on and no one else will get hurt!” Robert yells back.

  “That’s horseshit!” a different voice says. “They’re here to sabotage our equipment. They’re Milford men!”

  “Shut up, DJ,” the first man says. Then to the group, “Too late for that ‘we don’t want trouble,’ my friend. You’ve already killed some of our people. No one takes up arms if they don’t want trouble. I’ll say it one more time, lay down your arms or you’re going to die! And for what? So Milford can make another buck?”

  “You fired on us first! What the hell is wrong with you?” Robert shouts back. He looks at Annie and mouths “Milford?” She just shrugs back at him.

  “I’m giving you to the count of five! One …” the man starts, but a shot from the left side of the trail, from Stephenie’s position, cuts his count short. Several voices are talking at once, so Robert tak
es the opportunity to move to his right, behind a large cottonwood tree.

  Once he’s behind the tree, he stands and peeks around the trunk. He can see two men down on the path and two more on the left side; one isn’t moving. The other crawls toward the other ATV. He can hear far-off, muffled voices coming from the direction of the farmhouse. Several large pieces of farming equipment sit rusting in the field, so he figures they’re hiding behind one of them. He decides to try a bluff.

  “Hey!” he calls out, “you’re not faring too well here. You’re outnumbered and outgunned. We’re not trying to do anything but get to the road and get out of here. Unless you want more blood on YOUR hands, you all head back to that barn and let us pass. We see you coming, we’ll shoot you down. We didn’t start this fight, but by God we’ll finish it!”

  More murmuring and then Robert sees an open hand stick up behind the rusted hulk of an old harvester. A man steps halfway out from his cover. “Let us collect our guys and get them some medical attention,” he calls to Robert. It’s not the same man that was shouting at them a few moments earlier, nor is it the one they called “DJ.”

  Robert knows they have the upper hand for the moment, but they have to coordinate with the group or these farmers will shoot them in the back as they try to leave.

  “No good. Let us get out of here and you can do whatever you want. But we need you down the hill and out of gun range so we can move out,” Robert stands firm.

  “Come on, man, our people need help!” the man pleads now.

  “How about we just kill you all and take our time getting out of here? How’d that be? The quicker you get back, the quicker we’re gone.”

  Robert hears more murmurs, and then the man calls out, “Okay, we’re backing off.”

  Robert sees three of them jogging away from the harvester, back to the barn. He’s still watching them when a red light flashes on his left eye. Startled, he ducks down and brings his rifle up, looking for a gunman with a laser sight. Instead, he spots Stephenie sitting up behind an old El Camino missing three of its four tires. She has a laser pointer in her hand that she slides into a pocket, and she signs to Robert. He can just make out what she’s saying in the growing light. He nods and tells her he’s got it, thinking that sometimes it’s good that they know sign language.

  “You there, on your belly behind the old feed bin,” he shouts. “Unless you want another hole in your head, you’d best get up and get moving with your friends.”

  A couple of seconds pass. Robert hears someone yell “DJ!” and a fourth man gets up and starts running for the barn.

  Robert signs to Stephenie to look at the lock on the gate and returns to Annie’s position behind the fallen tree.

  “Well, that was fucked up,” he says. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m good, not a scratch,” she says, though her hands are shaking. “You should check on the others. I’ll stay here and watch the barn.”

  “I can watch the barn,” he says. “You should help the kids.”

  “Go,” she says. “I’ve got this.”

  Robert gives in and heads back to the vehicles. He finds the group digging through their gear, looking for something.

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  Ben looks up from the bag through which he’s digging. Robert sees his right pants leg is soaked in blood, but the injury doesn’t appear to register with Ben.

  When he speaks, Ben’s voice is strained with panic.

  “Toni’s been shot.”

  ***

  Robert runs around to the passenger side of the Toyota. There are multiple bullet holes in the side of the vehicle, and the front tire is flat. The passenger door hangs wide open, and Natalie stands next to Toni. Toni winces in pain, her face wet with tears.

  “Where is she hit?” he asks.

  “Her shoulder and her side, I think,” Natalie says. “There’s so much blood. I can’t tell for sure.”

  Ben runs up with a medical kit. He takes out some gauze and reaches under Toni’s shirt. He presses it against the shoulder wound while she cries out in pain. He repeats the process for the wound in the ribs. He wraps an elastic bandage around the wounds to hold the gauze in place.

  “We need to get the tire changed so we can get out of here,” Ben says.

  “No time,” Robert says. “It’s only going to take so long until those farmers regroup and realize they have more guns than us. She’s shot up and bleeding. Our best bet is to load your shit in the truck and get the hell out of here.”

  “And leave my FJ behind for them to steal?” Ben asks.

  “Your girl or your car, man; you choose,” Robert says. Ben nods and hangs his head in submission. Robert turns to the others, clearly in charge now, and says, “Come on guys, let’s go, time is a factor here. Get your gear in the back of the truck. Everything you don’t want to lose, because we’re not coming back here.”

  Keith and Andy start grabbing their bags and everything else not bolted down and throw it all in the bed of the truck.

  Robert comes back to Ben. “How’s your leg?” he asks.

  “What?” Ben says, genuinely bewildered, then he remembers the burning sensation he felt while they were being shot at. He looks down at his leg, and sees his pants are bloody. “It stings, now that you’ve mentioned it, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m just worried about Toni.”

  “Okay, I got ya,” Robert says. “Just keep an eye on that wound. We’ll need to clean it as soon as we get a chance so it doesn’t get infected. C’mon, I’ll help you move Toni over to the truck.”

  They get Toni to swing her feet out, and she slides from the seat, crying out when her feet make contact with the ground. With Robert and Ben on either side, they help her walk over to the truck. Robert has Ben get in first and turns Toni, so her back is in the rear door frame.

  “Lean back,” he says. She leans back against the seat and Robert squats down and hooks his arms around her legs and lifts, pushing her into the truck and against Ben, who in turn helps guide her in by her good left arm. She cries out as he pulls her the rest of the way inside.

  “Keep pressure on those wounds,” Robert says to Ben. “That’s your only job now.”

  Robert turns to Keith. “Where’s the walkie you guys had? I need it.” While Keith looks through the stuff they threw into the bed of the truck, Robert turns to Andy. “Go check on Stephenie, on the progress she’s making on that lock. Tell her we need to go ASAP.”

  Keith hands the walkie to Robert, who presses the alert button. He knows this will vibrate the one Annie has with her.

  “You ready?” she asks, her voice coming through the speaker.

  “Just about. Checking on the lock. Any sign of our friends?” he says back to his sister.

  “There’s no offensive in the works, at least not that I can tell … but there are more people down there now. Several women. Maybe the neighbors have come to see what all the shooting’s been about? I’m worried that they’re going to get stupid and come after us again now that they have more people,” Annie says.

  Andy comes running toward Robert, flashing a thumbs up. Stephenie is only a few steps behind him. Robert clicks the button on the walkie.

  “Let’s not be here when they do, sis. We’re good to go,” he says. He addresses the rest of the group. “We’re out of here, folks. Everyone pile in the truck.” He signs to Stephenie. “You get in the back with Annie and guard the rear.”

  She nods, goes around to the passenger side of the truck, and grabs a bag of magazines from her gear then climbs in the bed. She puts a fresh magazine in her rifle and sits down as Annie comes running toward the truck. She doesn’t wait for directions and climbs right into the bed and takes a seat next to Stephenie, who hands her a magazine from her bag.

  Robert has also put a full magazine in his rifle. He holds it out to Andy. “You’re riding shotgun,” he says. “Do you know how to shoot?”

  “I’ve shot a Ruger 10/22,” he replies.

  “Sam
e principle, just louder. One trigger pull, one shot, just like the 10/22. Here’s the safety,” Robert shows him how to work the fire select switch. “The scope has a green circle with a dot in the middle. Put that dot on what you want dead. Don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill, and please, don’t shoot any of us.”

  Robert pivots to Keith. “Loverboy, you’re next to me up front. You’re navigating. Forget this back roads crap; just get us to wherever we’re going by the fastest route we can take.”

  Keith nods and climbs into the cab.

  “Everyone have everything?” Robert asks. “Speak now or it’s getting left behind.”

  No one says anything, so Robert climbs into the truck, starts it up, and drives forward, through the open gate, and Keith directs him to go right onto Wildcat Road.

  It’s 6:25 AM and they’re only a few minutes from home. On Price Street, four and a half miles away as the crow flies, Kyle Puckett is in the middle of his all-out sprint away from the female zombie he stumbled upon by the supermarket.

  Robert hits the gas and the black truck speeds away from Nelson Farms, though none of them knew that’s where they were.

  Thirteen

  Nelson Farms, North of Longview, Colorado

  Blankets cover the bodies of four men. Virginia Nelson rubs her hand across her daughter-in-law Vanessa’s back in an attempt to comfort her; Vanessa’s husband (Virginia’s second oldest son) lies under one of the blankets. Virginia has her own grieving to do, but she’s the matriarch of the family, so it will have to wait. Dale Nelson, her husband, is the CEO of Nelson Farms, LLC, and the CEO of the Nelson family itself. Virginia is his number two, and he doesn’t make many decisions without her.

  Correction, she thinks to herself. Dale was CEO. She looks again at the four blankets, one of which covers Dale. Together they have faced tough economies, droughts, sabotage and legal battles with massive pro-GMO corporations like Milford, and they managed to keep the farm intact and solvent. They helped their only daughter’s husband and his family keep their dairy farm from falling into Big Corporate hands by bringing them into the LLC, which they’ve always joked stands for ‘Little Local Company.’