Zombie Road VI: Highway to Heartache Read online

  Zombie Road VI

  Highway to Heartache

  David A. Simpson

  Contents

  Also by David A. Simpson

  Acknowledgments

  1. Jessie + Scarlet

  2. Jessie

  3. Jessie

  4. Jessie

  5. Jessie

  6. Jessie + Scarlet

  7. Gunny

  8. Jessie + Scarlet

  9. Jessie + Scarlet

  10. The Tower

  11. Jessie + Scarlet

  12. The Tower

  13. The Tower

  14. Lakota

  15. Blackfoot

  16. Anubis Headquarters

  17. Tombstone

  18. Mount Rushmore

  19. Mount Rushmore

  20. Charlie Safari

  21. Jessie + Scarlet

  22. Lakota

  23. Lakota

  24. Gunny

  25. Gunny

  26. Gunny

  27. Gunny

  28. Gunny

  29. Gunny

  30. Jessie + Scarlet

  31. Doctor Stevens

  32. Jessie + Scarlet

  33. Jessie

  34. Jessie

  35. Jessie and Jessie

  36. The Traveler

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  The Feral Children

  Prologue

  Mr. Baynard

  Cody

  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

  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

  Zombie Road VI

  Highway to Heartache

  Book 6 in the Zombie Road series

  This is a work of fiction by

  David A. Simpson

  ISBN: 9781795497183

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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

  Copyright 2019 David A. Simpson

  All rights reserved

  Acknowledgments

  Zombie Road VI

  Highway to Heartache

  A two-fisted trucker tale

  Cover design by Christian Bentulan

  Easy to work with, fair rates and quick turn around if you need a cover

  CoversbyChristian.com

  Gravedigger Countach rendered by

  Typerulez

  Follow him on Instagram for more unreal images.

  Dedicated to my dearest partner in life:

  The nitpicky, OCD, grammar-Nazi, Robin.

  1

  Jessie + Scarlet

  “Ninety-Nine Park West offers stunning views, unmatched amenities and the most desirable location in the heart of the city.” Scarlet recited from her notebook. “The luxurious penthouse is unparalleled and is available for the most discerning with exquisite tastes.”

  “Sounds pricey.” Jessie said as he stared through the telescope, easily picking out the high-rise building in the middle of downtown Salt Lake City.

  Scarlet was sitting cross legged on the hood of the old chop top Mercury, reading from the notes she’d taken over the ham from Scratch. He’d been on radio watch duty the night Jessie had contacted Lakota, asking for anything they could find about an address.

  The address they’d gotten from Darren.

  The one with the Fabergé egg they needed to steal for her to see the doctors at the Tower.

  Scratch read off everything he could pull from the old internet, the fiber optic cables bringing him the information almost as fast as he could type one handed. Carl, the engineer, with help of a few men from the Tower had completed the tie-in’s and now Cheyenne Mountain, the Tower and Lakota had access to the NSA databases. They had a snapshot of the internet the day it went down; every text, every Facebook post, every public and private thing that was in cyberspace was stored on the hard drives. Hundreds of millions of terabytes, most of it useless, but all of it still accessible. Sometimes the useless information, like the sales pitch for a luxury condo, turned out to be useful after all. At least now they knew how many sets of stairs they had to climb and the pictures Scratch described gave them a pretty good idea what to expect.

  They were in the mountains overlooking the city, Bob snuffling around looking for something to chase, Nefertiti watching from the dashboard with her eyes half closed. Jessie took another bite of Jerky and tried to focus in closer, tried to see if there was any movement in the windows but it was just too far. He could pick out the building easy enough, the second tallest in the city, but they were a good four or five miles away. All he could really tell is that the streets were filled with the milling undead.

  “We’ll go in loud, I’ll hop out at the condo while you lead the crowd away. Come back and pick me up in an hour.” Jessie said

  Scarlet didn’t reply. Just looked at him over her heart shaped sunglasses and took another bite of dried apple. He felt her staring and finally quit pretending he didn’t. She smiled and he left the telescope on its tripod, turned to her, pulled her close.

  “Together.” she said, circling her arms around him. “We promised. We’ll never be apart again.”

  Jessie breathed in the coconut shampoo smell of her hair and nodded once. They had come to the agreement weeks ago as they ate candle light dinner from cans in a stranger’s house.

  All four of them.

  The two humans who were more than human.

  The dog and the cat who were more than they appeared.

  Where we go one, we go all.

  A solemn vow to each other after Scarlet had nearly been torn limb from limb by the undead back in some nameless town in Nebraska. Jessie would kill for her, would die for her and knew she would do the same for him. He knew she was capable, maybe even more than him, to handle the zombies but he still didn’t like the idea of her being in danger.

  “Stop being male chauvinist pig.” she’d told him when they’d first discussed getting the egg and getting through the hordes Darren had warned them about, “or I go without you.”

  Now it was time.

  They’d spent a few weeks letting her wrist heal, tagging along with Charlie Safari and his new bride for a few days then relaxing at a hot springs lodge after they cleared it of the undesirable dead. They had a proper vacation in a fancy resort. It was easy to lose the urgency when they were having so much fun and it was hard to tell if the dark lines were getting any worse. Sometimes they even seemed to be receding a little.

  Now it was time to go after the one thing that would guarantee treatment at the Tower. They wouldn’t take money or gold, the doctors only worked on outsiders if they brought them something they wanted. Something from the insurance companies’ online lists of valuable and heavily insured items. Fine art, priceless jewels or rarities and oddities. Rumor had it that some apartments i
n the Tower had been decorated with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of paintings, golden baubles and Persian rugs. It was said they lit cigars with million-dollar bearer bonds, used Monet paintings as dart boards and took caviar baths in Dom Perignon. Jessie didn’t know about all that, most likely just bar talk and tall tales. He only knew there was a doctor who wanted a Fabergé egg and in return, he would cure Scarlet. He’d run the tests and determine which medicine she needed to beat the infection that was slowly spreading from her old wounds. The wounds that scabbed over slow and refused to heal properly.

  Jessie stroked her hair, the blonde roots nearly as long as the black dyed parts. The three jagged slashes on her cheek had started to scar tissue but the dark runners of infection had spread, the small black tendrils reaching down towards her jaw and up to her eye. They couldn’t ignore it any longer, pretending they were getting better with the penicillin.

  Scarlet kissed his forehead, his scar, his nose and finally his lips. They breathed each other in, knowing it might be the last time. Probably not, but you never know. Never let the opportunity for a long, deep kiss pass you by. They were confident in their abilities. This mission would be a pain in the ass, they’d get messy, but they’d be okay. They always were.

  They found what they were looking for on the outskirts of town in a sporting goods store then went to a dealership that sold heavy-duty diesel pickup trucks. With keys from the manager’s office, a pair of jumper cables and some starting fluid, they got one fired up and running. Bob let them know if any unwanted guests came stumbling towards them while they tinkered with it and soon they were tearing out of the parking lot. Scarlet parked the Mercury at the end of the football stadium and told Bob to stay. They’d been working with him and he was getting better at obeying commands. He could get out if he really wanted to by pulling the cord on the door handle but he would stay put for a while. They weren’t planning on being gone for long. She hopped in and Jessie took off again, picking up more followers, pulling more of the undead to the sounds of the truck and away from the high rise. A hundred stumbling after him became a thousand and they were joined by more. He kept ahead of the mob, kept gathering them from the downtown area, always making a wider circle and increasing the size of the horde chasing them. By the time he made the second run past Ninety-Nine Park West, they had a half mile of keening undead chasing after them. He slowed a little, keeping an eye out for any unexpected hordes coming from side streets, but kept a steady pace back to the Stallions stadium.

  He let them get close, let them slap at the windows and get a good smell of him. He was trying to work them into a frenzy and they were trying to get into one but nearly a year had passed. Many of them were damaged in one way or another, all of them had been through a harsh winter and a baking summer and it had taken its toll. Carrion animals, flesh eating insects and the slow decay of rotting bodies had slowed most of them down to a stumble walk. Jessie drove out onto the field and couldn’t resist doing some donuts near the goal post, flinging chunks of the artificial turf in the air. It looked like real grass except that it was still green in a part of the country where everything that needed to be watered was dead. The sounds of the keening and dry throated screeching grew louder as more and more poured into the stadium, the bleachers causing their cries to echo and reverberate. Jessie did a few more donuts to excited squeals from Scarlet as she held on and the truck spun around. The undead were getting closer so he shot down to the end zone, flipped on the low range four-wheel drive switch then cut the steering wheel all the way. He locked it in place with the seat belt, tore the center cap off of the steering wheel, found the two wires for the horn and twisted them together. He and Scarlet rolled out of the slowly circling truck with their bundles of rope and ran in a crouch for the bleachers. The big diesel purred along, horn blaring, and made large circles near the thirty-yard line as they quietly started their climb upward, towards the nose bleed seats.

  They made it to the top row and turned to watch the carnage below. A few of the zombies had spotted them and were trying to follow but most were attacking the truck. Maybe a hundred were in the stands, attempting to negotiate the stairs on uncooperating legs but the nearest was still far below, down in the good seats.

  The truck continued to turn its slow circle but was getting bogged down. Thousands of the undead were trying to get at it, trying to break into the slow-moving metal. It ground them down, sometimes coming to a complete stop against the press of bodies but the granny gearing and the four-wheel drive kept the tires spinning until they found traction and lurched forward again. They were still coming through the gates, still forcing their way onto the field, still chasing the sound of the horn and the idling engine. Half the city was being crammed into the stadium.

  “The Punisher got killed here.” Jessie said, looking down at the spectacle below. “Eaten by dinosaurs.”

  “What?” Scarlet asked. “Who?”

  “Frank Castle. You know, the Punisher. Him and Daredevil both died right down there. The Kingpin killed them.” Jessie said, pointing to where the truck was doing some killing of its own.

  “Dinosaurs?” she asked. “How?”

  “Don’t you read comic books?” Jessie asked. “The Old Man Logan series where Wolverine is old and the Hulk has a bunch of inbred kids with She-Hulk and dinosaurs are still around.”

  Scarlet looked at him with a critical eye.

  “That’s how I knew about this stadium.” Jessie said. “It was in the comic books.”

  “You think we find some dinosaurs?” she asked “Maybe some hillbilly hulks? They real too?”

  Jessie started to answer but saw the twinkle in her eye. Saw she was laughing at his choice of reading material.

  “Whatever.” he said, “Let’s climb before Bob gets impatient.”

  She dropped her coil of rope and backed up a few yards. He bent low, gave her a human ramp to launch from and she ran, leapt to his back as he stood straight up and she flew high enough to reach the overhanging roof line. He tossed her the ropes and scrambled up one she dangled back down to him. They didn’t have rappelling gear but both had good leather gloves and sturdy boots. It would be enough. Scarlet lashed the ropes together, tied one end off to an air conditioner brace and was the first over the edge, using her boots and gloves to slow the descent.

  Bob was exuberant in his greeting as if they’d been gone for days, Nefertiti ignored them and within minutes, they were easing their way back to the high rise, trying not to draw attention from the hundreds of crawlers still following the crowd into the stadium. They’d have to remember to swing by and close the gates once they had the egg. Make Salt Lake a little less dangerous for anyone that had business here.

  Jessie idled down the street in front of the skyscraper and they both wrinkled their noses at the smell that still hung in the air. The first floor of the building had been shops at one time, big plate-glass windows were broken and shards of glass glittered in the sunlight. They circled the block, crunching over twice dead cadavers, torn clothes and thousands of pairs of shoes.

  “Must have been survivors in this area.” Scarlet said. “It looks like the horde had been concentrated here for a long time.”

  On the other side of the street was a walled church, the Mormon Temple, and they thought maybe the horde had been surrounding it but a block down, the wall ended and there was easy access for the mob to get inside. They hadn’t been after a group of Latter-Day Saints, they’d been trying to get into the high rise. The town was eerily silent with the quiet exhaust from the old Mercury echoing through the concrete canyons the only sounds they heard. There were no pigeons, no cawing of crows. Even the breeze was still, no shredded plastic bags tumbling or ragged flags flapping. Jessie pulled up on the sidewalk in front of Ninety-Nine Park West and cut the engine. The stillness in the city was complete. The creaking of their doors when they opened them was loud in the silence and the clacking of Jessies weapons as he settled into them was louder. Bob was pacing, sn
iffing the air and had a low growl at the back of his throat.

  They both sensed something wasn’t right. Something just felt wrong, like they were being watched but there weren’t signs of survivors. No boarded-up doors or windows. No zombie crushing vehicles. No signs of fresh litter, just the year-old garbage and disintegrating clothes from the undead. The cat sat on the roof, ears pricked, the end of her tail twitching.

  Jessie and Scarlet stood back to back, eyes searching, ears straining. They could feel something in the air, something foul, but neither could place it. It was some ancient sixth sense that tingled, warned them of danger and made the hairs on their neck stand up.

  “I hate coming into big cities.” Jessie said and press checked both Glocks again. “C’mon. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Stay here, Bob.” he said “and don’t wander off. We might be coming back in a hurry.”

  The big Shepherd tried to follow them through the broken doors but Jessie told him to stay a little more forcefully and he listened. For now, anyway. They crunched over the debris and stepped over the mummified skeletons that had been trampled underfoot. The dead had been crammed into the lobby and the smell of them was strong. Overturned chairs and sofas, scattered papers and broken furniture littered the floor as they made their way to the stairs in the dimming light. They were met with a tumble of furniture, heavy copy machines, chunks of drywall, wood and steel desks completely blocking the stairwell. Jessie shone his light, trying to see how far up it went but it was jammed solid, a wall of plastic and metal and wood at least two flights deep.