The Zombie Road Omnibus Read online

  The Zombie Road Omnibus

  The Road Kill Collection

  David A. Simpson

  Contents

  Also by David A. Simpson

  Zombie Road

  Prologue

  1. The Three Flags Truck Stop

  2. Sara

  3. Outbreak

  4. Long Dawg

  5. Zombies

  6. Lacy

  7. Realization

  8. Jessie

  9. Gunny

  10. Understanding

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  21. Jessie

  22. The Three Flags Truck Stop

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  26. Lacy

  27. The Three Flags Truck Stop

  Chapter 28

  29. Jessie

  30. Jessie

  31. Jessie

  32. Lacy

  33. The Three Flags Truck Stop

  Chapter 34

  35. Lacy

  36. Skull Valley, Utah

  37. Trapped

  38. A Way Out

  Epilogue

  Authors Notes

  Zombie Road II

  Prologue

  1. 1357 Miles to Go

  2. Jessie

  3. 970 Miles to Go

  4. 884 Miles to Go

  5. Jessie

  6. Lacy

  7. 762 Miles to Go

  8. 702 Miles to Go

  9. Shakey

  10. New Arrivals

  11. Crow City

  12. Back on the Road

  13. Lacy

  14. Lacy

  15. Jessie

  16. 298 Miles to Go

  17. Lacy

  18. 107 Miles to Go

  19. The 1st Battle of Lakota

  20. Jail

  Chapter 21

  22. Jessie

  23. Jessie

  24. Day 14

  25. Hasif

  26. Night 14

  27. General Carson

  28. Lacy

  29. Lakota

  30. Trouble in Lakota

  31. Dallas

  32. Train to Lakota

  33. 2nd Battle of Lakota

  34. Gunny’s Return

  35. Night 18

  36. Preparation

  37. McAlester

  38. Casey

  39. The Hospital

  40. Leaving

  Epilogue

  Authors Notes

  Zombie Road III

  Prologue

  1. Lacy

  2. Jessie

  3. Gunny

  4. Gunny

  5. Jessie

  6. Jessie

  7. Casey

  8. Gunny

  9. Daniel

  10. Casey

  11. Casey

  12. Gunny

  13. Lacy

  14. Gunny

  15. Jessie

  16. Daniel

  17. Daniel

  18. Daniel

  19. Daniel

  20. Madame President

  21. Gunny

  22. Gunny

  23. Gunny

  24. Gunny

  25. Jessie

  26. Jessie

  27. Jessie

  28. Gunny

  29. Lakota

  30. Hasif

  31. Madame President

  32. Jessie

  33. Casey

  34. Jessie

  35. Jessie

  36. Lakota

  37. Gunny

  38. Gunny

  39. Gunny

  40. Hasif

  41. Jessie

  42. Jessie

  43. Jessie

  44. Lucinda

  45. Jessie

  46. Casey

  47. Cobb

  48. Daniel

  49. Gunny

  50. Casey

  51. Gunny

  52. Gunny

  53. Lakota

  54. Jessie

  55. Lakota

  56. Lakota

  57. Lakota

  Epilogue

  Authors Notes

  The Zombie Road Omnibus

  Books 1-3

  Convoy of Carnage

  Bloodbath on the Blacktop

  Rage on the Rails

  A Two-Fisted Trucker Tale

  Also by David A. Simpson

  Zombie Road: Convoy of Carnage

  Zombie Road II: Bloodbath on the Blacktop

  Zombie Road III: Rage on the Rails

  Zombie Road IV: Road to Redemption

  Zombie Road V: Terror on the Two-Lane

  Zombie Road VI: Highway to Heartache

  The Feral Children: Animals

  (With Wesley Norris)

  Anthologies

  Tales From The Zombie Road: The Long Haul Anthology

  Undead Worlds: A Reanimated Writers Anthology

  Treasured Chests: A Zombie Anthology

  Trick or Treat Thrillers: Best Paranormal 2018

  Trick or Treat Thrillers: Best Horror 2018

  Coloring Book

  Zombie Road: The Road Kill Coloring Book

  The Zombie Road Omnibus

  The Road Kill Collection

  Books 1-3

  Is a work of fiction by

  David A. Simpson

  All characters contained herein are fictional and all similarities to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

  No portion of this text may be copied or duplicated without author publisher written permission, with the exception of use in professional reviews.

  Copyright © 2019 David A. Simpson

  All rights reserved.

  To my dearest partner in life, the nitpicky, OCD, grammar Nazi, Robin.

  Zombie Road

  Zombie Road

  Convoy of Carnage

  Is a work of fiction by

  David A. Simpson

  All characters contained herein are fictional and all similarities to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

  No portion of this text may be copied or duplicated without author publisher written permission, with the exception of use in professional reviews.

  Copyright © 2016 David A. Simpson

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1520479989

  ISBN-10: 1520479980

  Prologue

  “If you would, have a seat here, Sir,” the man indicated a comfortable chair pulled up to a simple plank table, “we can get the microphone set up for you.”

  He sat heavily and looked around his living room, at all the people gathered and watching him, most of them with various instruments to aid in the recording process.

  “What do want me to say?” he asked, a little uncomfortable with everyone standing around, more than he was used to seeing high in the mountains. Especially in his own home.

  “You were a hard man to find. We have talked to everyone else we’ve been able to contact about the early years,” the smiling man said. “This isn’t really an interview, we just want you to tell us what you remember. Just tell us a story like you were talking to friends. Tell us what you can, and with the trove of video we found from one of the survivors, we hope we can assemble an accurate picture of the times.”

  “You understand, it’s kind of hard to separate the legend from fact after all these years, right?” he asked, “I can’t tell the difference in what was real, and what I remember as real, sometimes.”

  “Yes, Sir. It has been a long time, but we’re pretty sure we have all o
f the facts correct. We just want to add the human side of the story wherever we can. We want to get a feel for the people who were there, how they felt, and why they did some of the things they did.”

  “Is this going to be a movie or something?” the old man asked.

  “We don’t have that kind of technology, not to do it properly. We hope to lay out the definitive history of the Fall in a book, perhaps two or three if we have gathered enough of the human element to tie all of the dry statistics together. We hope to write a compelling story, not another history book.”

  The old man smiled. “Well, some of the things I remember, nobody will believe anyway. It’s all true, but some of it may not have happened.”

  He took a sip of water and started talking.

  1

  The Three Flags Truck Stop

  Day 1

  September

  Gunny came through the glass doors of the garage and into the long corridor that would lead him to the dining area of the Three Flags Truck Stop. He had just brought his old Peterbilt into the bay for an oil change and was now looking forward to the morning’s first cup of coffee and whatever the breakfast special from the kitchen happened to be. He glanced to his right when the gym doors opened, and a heavily built man came out, a towel draped around his neck, wiping the sweat from his great bald head.

  “Hey, Tiny,” he said in greeting. “You eat yet? I’m headed for chow.”

  Tiny, ironically named because of his bulk, flashed a smile that seemed to glow out of his ebony face. “Hey, Gunny,” he rumbled. “Yeah, headed there myself. Something wrong with your Pete?”

  “Nah. Just a service. Tommy put one of the mechanics on it. You and Scratch still running veggies out of the valley?” asked Gunny.

  They walked down the long corridor, catching up on each other’s lives since they had last crossed paths a few months prior. They ambled by the various shops and stores of the old Truck Stop, most still closed at this early hour. The barbershop, the laundromat, the Cutting Edge knife shop, the CB shop, the freight brokers’ offices and Doc’s Place, among the many that catered to the professional drivers. Old Cobb gave these little shops low rental rates because of the smell of 90 weight gear oil, and the sound of impact wrenches was more prevalent near the workshop.

  The Three Flags Truck stop had been around almost as long as the highway it was named after. Route 395, at one time a main north-south road, ran from San Diego all the way up to the Canadian border. Thus the three flags designation of the three countries it joined together.

  The truck stop had been established in the 50s by Old Cobb’s dad, a World War 2 vet who went on to drive trucks after the Big One and saw the need for a good place for truckers to refuel both themselves and their rigs. The land was cheap up north of Reno, it was nothing but scrub, and no one else wanted it. So using the benefits of his G.I. Bill, he bought nearly 200 acres along Route 395 and business was good.

  He expanded rapidly during the boom years of the 50s and 60s, buying up used army Quonset huts for his buildings and simply putting in long banks of government surplus windows on one side to let in natural light, so they wouldn’t feel so claustrophobic. He used a small airplane hangar as his main building and had a wing off of one side for his mechanic shop and a wing off of the other side for his wife’s diner.

  His wife ran the kitchen, Cobb ran the workshop and he hired other vets, many of them damaged from the war, to help him run his business.

  When the new freeways came in, business slowed. They managed to hang on, but there were some lean times for a number of years. When Cobb Jr. took over when he retired from the Marines, he brought the old truck stop into the modern times. He convinced some of the local artisans and vintners to sell their wares to draw in tourists.

  With some internet advertising, and savvy marketing as the oldest Truck Stop in Nevada, it became THE place to stop and see a little roadside Americana. There was a huge junkyard out behind the shop where wrecked and worn-out trucks sat, dating all the way back to the 40s and 50s, from their towing and recovery service.

  He even had a half dozen of those trucks with the big sleepers moved up to a little area where he cleaned and polished them so they looked like new. He ran some electricity for heat and air conditioning, then rented them out on Airbnb for $40.00 a night. Old Cobb laughed all the way to the bank. It was a family business and the pride they took in it showed in a lot of small ways.

  As Gunny and Tiny made their way through the Quonset hut they saw Cobb coming out of the shower area, pushing a mop and bucket. “Cobb, when you gonna put in some moving sidewalks like they got in Vegas in this place?” Tiny grumbled. “It’s gotta be a mile from the gym to the diner.”

  Old Man Cobb squinted at him through his one good eye. With a grizzled voice that was partly from Lucky Strikes, and partly from a piece of shrapnel to the throat he had picked up in the Khe Sanh Valley, he spat out, “Looks like you could use the exercise, Squib. But you Navy boys ain’t used to that.”

  “Morning Cobb,” Gunny said, grinning at the age-old rivalry of the Services.

  “Gunny,” Cobb nodded. “You need to hit that gym, too. You’re getting as flabby as him.”

  “I’m just going after some breakfast, maybe next time,” he said, knowing full well he wasn’t planning on lifting lumps of metal anytime soon.

  “He gets plenty of exercise, Navy Style,” Tiny grinned. “We called ‘em 12-ounce curls,” as he mimicked drinking a cold beer.

  “Yeah. I can see. Looks like you had plenty of burritos to go with those brews,” he added, poking at Tiny’s not so tiny stomach. “Speaking of food, Martha’s been making up some blueberry pies and pancakes last couple of days, got a crate of fresh ones that “fell off the truck”. Make sure you try some.”

  “Thought you said I was fat,” Tiny said. “And now you want me to eat pie?”

  “Well don’t eat none, then,” Cobb rasped out, “I’ll just tell her you think her cookin’ ain’t no good.”

  Tiny threw his hands up, aghast. “Don’t you dare, Cobb! You tell her that, she won’t feed me for a month!”

  Cobb laughed quietly and shooed them on, “Go on, get out of here. Can’t you see a man’s trying to work,” he said and turned back to his mopping. “And walk on the edge near the window, it’ll be dry by now,” he barked out.

  They continued, taking a left into the main hut that was massive enough to have an old airplane suspended from the ceiling, with a rounded height of more than 30 feet. It housed the tourist attractions and the video arcade, along with the souvenir shops and main C-store that sold everything you would expect in a well-stocked convenience store and tourist trap.

  There was a pretty good selection of trucker-related items, too. Electronics and load straps and log books, along with the audio books, DVD multi-packs and rattlesnake eggs.

  As they passed the arcade, they looked in and saw an intense young man wielding a plastic shotgun, blasting away at never ending hordes of Zombies. They looked at each other and smiled.

  Gunny opened the door and they both shambled toward him, arms outstretched, moaning in their best zombie wails and groans, “Brains!”

  He spun like lightning, twisting at the waist, feet never moving, orange plastic shotgun to his shoulder. “Boom Boom! Dead, you flesh bags!” he yelled out, targeting each one of them, then turned back to his game, but it was too late. The screen was counting down, demanding more money if he wanted to continue.

  “Awwww, piss!” he said in aggravation. “I was on the last level before the Boss Fight.”

  “C’mon Scratch,” Gunny said. “We just saved you from yet another slow, painful death. Besides, Martha’s got blueberry pancakes.”

  “No thanks to you two ass wipes,” he grumbled. “You’re buying. This damn game cost two bucks to play. Cobb’s getting rich off of me.”

  “Where you running today?” Tiny asked, changing the subject.