Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 2): Burning Rubber Read online

  To see that sun rise.

  After everyone went off to do whatever they do here at night, Sully came to me to explain his position and why Benjamin reacted the way he did. I didn’t really want or need to hear it again, but the man was clearly troubled by the unfortunate turn of events.

  He told me he couldn’t, in good conscience, support Roper’s decision to leave Michael because Michael begged Sullivan not to ever leave him behind. Sully and some of his people had made a pact similar to ours.

  A pact I’d broken.

  The funny thing is, my people are far safer on the water than we are here on land. I shouldn’t worry about them, but I am. I just have to have faith that Luke and Butcher will get our people to safety.

  Our people.

  My people.

  I guess it’s time I own it.

  They really are mine, and I am their leader whether I want to be or not. Every decision I’ve made has been for the greater good.

  That being said, I don’t trust Benjamin. When I was a kid, my Nona taught me that people always show you who they are.

  He did just that today when he charged my partner.

  I won’t soon forget that.

  Luke cut the outboard engine and grabbed the oars when they were three or four hundred yards from the ship. “From here on out, no conversation until we get on the ship.”

  Einstein nodded, the binoculars stuck to his face.

  The Japanese ship was far larger than it looked from the bayou, but there was no activity above board that Einstein could see, and he had a hunch of why this was. After a year of seeing no small vessels coming out of the Gulf, the sailors had become complacent. Luke was right: the soldiers and their leaders were bored with no action, no sightings, nothing but day in and day out of the same thing.

  If, as Luke suspected, the Japanese had relocated many of the men from this vessel to the Pacific, it was entirely possible they could get in and out without detection. After all, who in their right mind would row out to a destroyer on a skiff and climb aboard it in the dead of night?

  Einstein grinned as the ship came within a stone’s throw.

  Nobody, that’s who…at least that’s what Luke was counting on, and it was just crazy enough to work.

  “You ready, Einstein?” Luke whispered in his ear.

  Lowering the binoculars, Einstein nodded, then realized Luke probably couldn’t see him. The fact that they hadn’t been shot at meant no one was looking at or even listening to radar, which surely had detected them, right?

  “Yes,” he whispered back.

  The moon was nearly full, and its light rippled with the movement of the water. The waves had died down earlier in the evening, making only three-foot white caps to roll the light.

  As Luke silently rowed up to the side of the ship, Einstein heard him chuckle under his breath as he reached for a ladder, which clearly hadn’t been pulled back up after the three boatful of men had left. It almost felt like a trap.

  After securing the skiff and climbing the very long ladder, Luke and Einstein popped up onto an empty deck. Luke pulled his AK-47 around to the front, and Einstein held his Turkish sidearm out in front of him in a moment that immediately became surreal to the teenager.

  How many hours had he spent playing Call of Duty? Merchant Marines? Armed Combat? Who would have thought as he gunned down monsters and enemies in the comfort of his bedroom that he’d actually ever be aboard an enemy destroyer with a real gun in his hands? It was as exciting as it was frightening, and he blinked away the drop of sweat that slid into his eye.

  “We’re headed to the Medical Unit, right?” Einstein asked quietly.

  Luke hesitated before answering. “How’d you know?”

  “You are an incredibly transparent man, Luke. Don’t think for one second that you pulled one over on Butcher. She knows exactly why you would risk coming here.”

  Luke couldn’t help but smile. “So I have an ulterior motive? I’m not the one who suggested this little trip, so clearly you and I are on the same page.”

  Einstein shook his head. “I want But her to make it through this, too.”

  Luke laughed. “There’s a lot of other shit we need as well, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get the medical supplies and get out of here.”

  Sneaking around the nearly empty ship was easier than Einstein expected it to be. This ship was definitely running with a skeleton crew, and as big a ship as it was, it took a long time before they even saw another human being.

  As Luke crept lower into the ship, he found the transmitter room empty as well. Nodding to Einstein, Luke watched the door as Einstein put on headphones and listened. At first, there was nothing, so he reached out to change the channel and heard German, then French, and then finally, British English.

  “Bingo,” Einstein said softly, giving two thumbs to Luke. Einstein grabed a pencil and paper and waited to hear something, anything, in the headphones.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  Scribbling as fast as he could, Einstein translated the conversation between a British sailor and a German soldier who were playing a game of chess via the radio. The German accent made it almost too hard to understand, but Einstein managed a word here and there—enough to begin to get a general understanding of the conversation, and it was a very interesting one.

  It was just casual conversation between two guys playing chess and dropping a few opinions along the way. After about twenty minutes, Luke gave him the signal to cut it off. Returning the station to the original one, Einstein took the headset off and joined Luke at the door.

  “Down!” Luke commanded, sliding down the wall.

  They both pressed their backs against the wall as a sailor walked by while eating something crunchy. When the footsteps faded, Luke took off down the hallway in the opposite direction with Einstein right on his heels.

  It took a few minutes for them to find the Medical Unit, and when they did, Luke murmured, “Jackpot.”

  Luke grabbed a plastic bag and began filling it with pills, syringes, and everything not kept under lock and key. After he swept all he could into the bag, he grabbed another and then used the butt of his gun to smash the glass cabinet door and grab the medications he knew would come in handy.

  Einstein heard the apple cruncher as he came back. Quickly turning the light off, Einstein stood in the dark corner with his gun aimed at the door. The apple cruncher took several steps past the door, stopped, listened, and turned around. Slowly walking back to the door, he reached in and turned on the light.

  Einstein lowered his gun just slightly at the smaller Japanese sailor, and as the man opened his mouth to yell out, Luke hit him in the head with the butt of his gun. The sailor fell hard to the floor, apple core bouncing across the tiles.

  “Shit.” Luke grabbed the man, flung him over his shoulder, and carried him to the top deck, where he dropped him over the side. It took forever for him to splash into the cold water below.

  “Get in the boat,” he ordered.

  “But what about weapons? And—”

  “That’s what I’m going back for. You take the meds back to the boat. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes––”

  Einstein shook his head. “No. We need to stay together. We need—”

  “We need ammo. We need a lot of things on this tub, but I need to make sure Butcher gets what she needs. Please. Fifteen minutes. Promise me.”

  “If you think I’m gonna return to Butcher without you, you’ve lost your mind. She would never forgive me for leaving you behind, so uh uh. No way.”

  “Einstein, you have to listen to me. Butcher needs that medication. She’ll need that other medication when she is having the baby. Please.”

  Einstein could hear the ticking clock as they wasted every passing moment.

  “Uh uh. I’ll wait fifteen minutes, but if you aren’t back, I am coming looking for you.”

  Luke checked his ammo. “Butcher needs those drugs, that scalp
el, the sutures, all of that in the event she needs a Caesarean. You’re just going to have to trust me on this. I don’t have time to explain. Just go.” He went back down below.

  Einstein waited topside, crouching low and trying not to look at his watch every five seconds.

  He wondered what Luke was really up to. They didn’t need ammo badly enough to take such a big risk. Besides, the skiff would only be able to hold so much, so what was it he was really after?

  Looking up at the moon, Einstein sighed. This move was already proving to be more difficult than anyone had anticipated. It should have been easy to just sail up the river, but even that had gone south on them. They never should have split up, and he wondered where Dallas and Roper were. They would begin to worry, and Einstein hated to worry them. Dallas and Roper had been watching over him for a year. They were family.

  Then Butcher came along, and their family grew.

  And it was going to keep growing if he had anything to say about it.

  Einstein glanced down at his watch and realized twenty minutes had passed. He couldn’t leave Luke, but he’d made a deal. Einstein stood at the ladder and looked down at the small boat. He shouldn’t stay. He couldn’t go. He was frozen between duty and desire, family and friend. Whatever Luke had in play, Einstein would have to trust that Luke knew what he was doing, so he grabbed the bags of drugs and drug paraphernalia and climbed down the ladder.

  Einstein waited another five minutes before slowly rowing away from the enormous ship.

  He wasn’t looking forward to telling Butcher that Luke had other plans that he didn’t share with him.

  No, that wasn’t going to go over very well at all.

  When the bus was loaded and everyone was ready to go, Dallas addressed the group. “I appreciate everything you’ve done,” she said, “and I’ll do my damnedest to keep everyone alive. If you ever change your mind, you are always welcome in Angola.”

  “I wish you luck, Dallas. We’ll still let people know about your plan. We just…well, you know.”

  “I do.” Getting into the Fuchs, she turned to the group of all CGIs who anxiously awaited her orders. Each pair of eyes stayed glued to her face. “We ready?”

  “Can’t wait,” Roper said as she stared out the small window and into the darkness. “I’ve always been a fan of new beginnings. This just feels right, you know?”

  Dallas nodded. “Felt like you were going a little stir crazy in the bayou.”

  Roper held up her thumb and index finger. “A little.”

  “Everyone else?”

  To a one, they were all ready to move forward.

  They drove in silence for an hour with no incidents, no zombies, nothing but the road ahead of them and the bus behind them. Moments like these were deceiving; they gave everyone a false sense of reality—that life had momentarily returned to normal. But they were a long way from that, and there was a lot more they needed to do before they could feel safe.

  Suddenly, Roper leaned forward and peered out the window. “Oh shit, Dallas, slow down!”

  Dallas looked up from her thoughts and saw a an old, beater van with five men dressed in paramilitary on the roof and a horde of eaters surrounding it clawing at their ankles and feet.

  “Dallas?”

  She veered left toward the van. “We have to help.” She screeched to a halt.

  Roper jumped out and signaled to the bus to back up. “Hunter! Take them out from atop the Beast. Careful shooting. We don’t want to hit any of the men on top.”

  After climbing up the turret, Hunter skewered two of the undead before Ferdie was out of the Fuchs. The zombies were all dead less than a minute later, each with a bolt protruding from some part of their heads.

  When the five men realized what was happening, they did not leave the top of the van. Instead, they stared at the group of armed survivors who had just saved their lives.

  “Nice shooting,” Roper said, patting Hunter’s back when he climbed down.

  “You can come down now.” Dallas motioned to the truly dead undead. “They’re toast. They won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  The five men stared at each other and then back to Dallas.

  “How…how did you—” A man who looked like the lead singer for Z.Z. Top looked at them incredulously. A long, raggedy gray beard hung half way down his chest.

  “It’s a long story. I’m Dallas.”

  ZZ hopped off the van and shook her hand. “Henry. Where you headed?”

  “Headed? Do people head anywhere anymore?”

  “No clue. We were just out looking for food.” Henry ran his hand over his expansive beard. “Getting pretty scarce out here, ya know?”

  “Well, we’re headed someplace. We’re setting up a base camp in Angola.”

  “Angola? As in the prison? Lordy, Gary here done just got out before the end. Said he ain’t never gone back.”

  “I don’t blame him. Well, if you ever feel like fighting back, just come to Angola and tell ‘em Dallas sent you.”

  “Will do, ma’am. Thank you for stoppin’ by and takin’ care of these fuckers.” Henry glanced over at the Fuchs. “Mighty nice ride you got there.”

  “It gets us around.”

  Henry cocked his head. “I’m bettin’ it does. Thank you again, ma’am.”

  “Our pleasure.”

  Back in the Fuchs, Dallas headed toward Angola. “Does anybody else think that was weird? I’m surprised they didn’t join us.”

  “I’d imagine being a prisoner in Angola would make one think twice about making it home.”

  “Home,” Roper murmured. “God, I miss California.”

  Dallas carefully maneuvered around an overturned semi. “That’s not all you miss. You miss the horses.”

  Roper looked wistfully out the window. “More than you know. I miss riding. I miss smelling them. I just miss so much about them.”

  Dallas reached across the space and squeezed her hand. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll get back there someday.”

  Roper nodded. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

  “Where is he?” Butcher backed Einstein into a corner the second he stepped foot on The Survivor.

  Einstein ducked under her arm and pulled the skiff up to the boat. “Butcher—”

  “You better start talking, kid. Where. Is. He?” Her words were clipped and cold.

  Einstein hefted the bags to her, only barely ready to face her wrath. “I think you need to be calm when––”

  “What happened? Is he okay? Say something, God damn it!”

  “When I left, he was fine. I didn’t want to leave, I swear, but you know how he is. He insisted.”

  Butcher opened her mouth, then closed it, then shook her head. The veins in her forehead protruded.. “I’m sure you didn’t, buddy, but you know how I feel about splitting up.” Butcher stopped as soon as she said it. “Oh. I see.” Taking a deep, deep breath, holding it in her lungs, then exhaling, she struggled to calm herself. “Okay. Okay. But nothing happened, right? He was okay when you saw him last.”

  Nod. Nod. Nod.

  Butcher continued to calm herself. “Okay. Okay. I imagine he has a plan. Exactly what did he tell you?”

  Einstein repeated, verbatim, their last conversation. “I wanted to stay.”

  Butcher hugged him. “I know you did. That goddamn pig-headed lover of mine has something up his sleeve.”

  Einstein pointed to the bags. “Actually, he has something in those bags.”

  The moment she opened the first one, she got choked up. Inside she found antibiotics, syringes, scalpels, gauze, painkillers, and more. “Oh Luke…”

  “He loves you enough to risk it all, Butcher. I’m pretty sure this is his way of saying he’s all in where a baby is concerned.”

  Butcher’s face fell.

  “I knew a long time ago. You haven’t really been yourself. So…what are we going to do?”

  Mussing up his hair, she raised the binoculars to her eyes and stared at
the dark and shadowy deck of the ship. “We wait. If he’s not back within the hour, we’re going after him. In the meantime, tell me about the ship. Tell me everything.”

  “I listened in on two guys playing chess.” Unfolding his paper, he struggled to read it in the moonlight. “Can’t read in this light.”

  Butcher turned. “You got something?”

  “Oh yeah. More than something. Let me go below and transcribe it before I forget.” “Go.”

  When Einstein left her, Butcher returned her gaze to the Japanese ship. “What are you up to, Luke?” Her right hand reached down to rest on her belly. She’d never loved a man enough to carry his child. She’d had two abortions when she was younger and less cautious. Multiple men had wanted more from her when she was in the service, but she had no interest in any long-term relationships.

  The guys in her platoon really had called her Tef, short for Teflon, because nothing stuck to her. She got the nickname Butcher when she transferred to the Medical Unit. Both names suited her, but she preferred Butcher.

  Her current moniker came after she cut into some soldier using a knife as dull as a butter knife. She saved his life but the scar was ugly as sin. After that, people called her The Butcher. Later on, they dropped the The and just called her Butcher.

  She’d saved a lot of soldiers’ lives in the war and made many lifelong friends. Friends could stay, but lovers, not so much. She was a love-them-and-leave-them kind of woman.

  Until now.

  She’d never felt so comfortable, so much herself, around any man before. He seemed to simply accept her and all her idiosyncrasies, never judging, never asking for more than she could or wanted to give.

  She adored him—much to her chagrin. She didn’t want to care about anyone. Once the outbreak spread and she saw her friends and family die, she was determined not to get close to anyone. Tef seemed a more fitting sobriquet than Butcher nowadays because these were not the kind of times when attachments worked in one’s favor.

  Then she met Dallas and her group. Even then, she fought her own feelings, trying not to give a damn, but falling under their spell. She adored Dallas, loved Roper, and treated Einstein like the little brother she once had. She would die for them if she had to. They were her family now, and she would protect them at all costs.