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

  Then there came clapping and cheering.

  Dallas and her team of trained killers looked up at the tree fort and extended platform at a couple dozen smiling, waving people.

  Sully quickly came down and unlocked the gate, shaking Dallas’s hand. “That was incredible!”

  Dallas glanced over at the wrecking crew. “We get the job done.” Then she looked up at the others on the platform. “Apparently, so do you.”

  Sully followed her gaze. “We got the word out, and they came.”

  “Do they know what to expect? What our plan is?”

  Sully motioned for his people to come down. “They do now, but I think we ought to give them time to ask their questions.”

  Dallas signaled to her team, which joined them on the cement center platform of the farm. “We need to make this fast. Others are coming.” When everyone came down, Dallas counted twenty eight people––too many to take in the Fuchs.

  Sully addressed the group first. “Well, some of you questioned the theory that the zombies don’t attack gays and lesbians, and now you’ve seen the truth with your own eyes. These eight people just demolished three hundred and something undead without suffering a single casualty. This woman, Dallas, is their leader, and she will answer any questions you might have. Dallas?”

  She first introduced her group before asking for questions.

  One woman in the back raised her hand. “You’re certain you’re safe because you’re gay? That just seems so unlikely.”

  “Not safe. Safer, perhaps. We do not attract their attention. Remember—these are unthinking creatures without a plan, without anger, without emotions. Still, they come together to absorb that which they perceive as a threat. Heterosexual humans are that threat, and we believe that together we can fight our way back from this catastrophe.”

  Another hand went up. “How do you know Angola is safe?”

  “Honestly? I don’t, but it has been my experience that these things are hunting us. If there are no people, they don’t linger. If they are there, we’ll clean them out and make base camp there. Cement walls are one thing a horde can’t get through.”

  A woman who looked like a librarian raised her hand. “This is for those who are with you. Why do you follow her? She’s a woman, and women know so little about war and battle. Why would a man be willing to follow this woman?”

  Roper bristled. “Because we’re alive? Is your issue with her gender or orientation?” “Easy,” Dallas whispered. “It’s a fair question.”

  “Dallas has a plan,” Churchill picked up. “She is a very capable leader who makes smart decisions and who weighs carefully her ideas before acting. We have military men who follow her as well, if that helps any.”

  Sully’s group murmured amongst themselves before another hand went up. It belonged to an elderly gentleman with a white beard. “You’ll create an army of homos who will kill those things while the rest of us do what? Sit around watching a buncha queers hashing it out with a buncha dead guys?”

  “Well, while you’re just sitting around, hopefully you’ll learn some respect,” Roper growled, stepping forward. “Look—no one is forcing you to join us. We have a solid plan, a small fortress, and a growing army. Yeah, that’s an army of queers, so if you take offense at having a homo saving your ass, then you oughtta’ stay right here.” She turned and glared at Dallas. “Let’s go. We don’t need this shit.”

  Before Dallas could respond, Sully spoke up. “I agree with Roper. This is no pissing contest, Herb. It’s your choice to go or stay, but if you go, you need to understand that committee doesn’t run their group. Dallas is their leader, and so if you do not wish to be led by a woman…or a lesbian, I’d rather you not accompany us.”

  Benjamin stepped up. “You don’t get to make that call, Sully. Just because gays are somewhat in control doesn’t mean we can’t express our opinions.”

  “Sure it does, Benjamin.”

  Dallas mouthed a thank you to Sully, then addressed Benjamin. “You saw us fight just now. Imagine what eighty or eight hundred of us could do. Come or don’t, but know this—if you do come, and you toss around words like ‘homo’ or ‘fag,’ you’ll have to answer to Roper and anyone else offended by such remarks. This country’s preservation now rests upon our very queer shoulders, Benjamin. Remember that when you make your decision.”

  No one was surprised that Herb and his family remained behind while Dallas and Sully worked together to figure out the best way evacuate the nearly thirty survivors willing to fight.

  “We need two more vehicles,” Roper said, after taking a head count. “And we need to know who among you is gay. There are no more closets anymore, people. We are this nation’s only hope, so secrecy has no place here. Complete transparency or nothing.”

  Of the newbies, only two others were gay: Michael and Ferdie, two young gay men who were strangers to each other. There was a woman named Zoe, a young lesbian with a pink mohawk and black leather jacket. She had piercing holes, but no piercings, and three star tattoos on her right temple. She was small to the point of petite, but Dallas could tell her personality more than made up for it.

  “You two will ride in the Fuchs with the rest of us,” Roper said, nodded to Michael and Zoe. “Ferdie, you’ll be in the bus.”

  “Okay then,” Dallas said. “My people will go in search of two more vehicles while three of us will spend the rest of the day training you.”

  “Training us? For what? Your army? I’ve never shot a gun in my life.” someone asked from the back.

  “Survival. See, one of the problems with hiding out is that we can’t share information with other groups, and we need to. We also need to post signs on freeways as to where we are. We can defeat these things with larger numbers, but conserving our ammunition is crucial at this point. Some of us will contribute to the fight by fighting while others can do other, equally as important tasks.”

  “Have you considered bows and arrows? There are two archery stores in New Orleans.” Dallas looked at Roper, whose eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “I can tell you where.”

  With the addresses in her head, Roper took Churchill, Michael, and the young woman, Zoe. They took the Fuchs and, after a quick briefing, went straight for the archery store and range, aptly titled Bow-Diddly.

  Sully and Dallas made quick work of the training. When three zombies wandered over to the farm, Dallas used them as training dummies, knowing more were to follow. She had seen the horde making its way to them.

  She went outside the fence and showed everyone the best way to kill a zombie.

  “You have to destroy the brain. Like this.” Dallas grabbed a bat and bashed in the first zombie’s skull while the other two eaters were still clawing at the fence. “Or you can be certain they are truly dead when the head is removed completely.” She picked up the Katana and effortlessly cut the head off the second zombie with a nearly silent slice of the long blade. “As long as you do major damage to the brain, you’ll put them down.” When she finished dispatching the third, the group applauded.

  “That was unreal. They don’t even give you a second look.”

  “It’s like you’re not even there.”

  “You make it look so easy.”

  Dallas shrugged. “We’re not on the menu. This is why we’re forming an army, or as my friend Einstein calls it, the garmy. The odds are we’ll find more and more gay survivors. As our army grows, we’ll attack more and diminish their numbers. Think about it. Every time one of them dies, that’s dozens of living who get to see another day.”

  “I’m all in,” Ferdie said. “I don’t much care what anyone else says or does, but I’d rather go down swinging than like a trembling diva.”

  “Welcome aboard, diva.”

  Dallas spent extra time with Ferdie, showing him how to swing a bat accurately and where he should aim to dislodge the skull from the spine. He was a little man without much body strength, so sh
e opted for a baseball bat instead of a blade, which he was only slightly better at using.

  “Don’t worry, Ferdie. There’s a weapon for everyone.”

  Wiping his sweaty brow, he nodded. “Just don’t put me on the bench, coach. I’ve got a lot of fight left in me.”

  After training, Sully sent everyone to pack up their supplies so he could talk to Dallas.

  “You surprised to see us so soon?” Dallas asked as they sat at a picnic bench. She thought it odd Sully acted as leader even though Benjamin was the commander.

  “A little bit, yeah. Your people are remarkable to watch in action. I think…I think you give us hope.”

  “Without hope, you’ll never make it. You have to believe in tomorrow.”

  Sully nodded slowly. “It’s communication we’re missing, Dallas. If we could somehow let people know where we are and what our goals are, this would be so much easier. There must be tens of thousands of people in hiding. We need to be able to reach them.”

  “Agreed. A megaphone would work, but we need something on a bigger scale. It’s too gas-consuming to drive around in the Fuchs announcing our plans.”

  “Ever since I met you guys, I’ve had an idea I’ve been kicking around.” He leaned forward, a sudden glint of joy in his eyes. “There’s an old cell tower behind the city. We can make a flag out of a sheet and paint the words Survivors to Angola Prison on it.”

  Dallas grinned at him. She liked this sharp thinker. “I love it. When we get the Fuchs back, we’ll send a couple out to make that happen. It’s brilliant.”

  Sully blushed. “Really? Benjamin thought it too dangerous and a waste of time.”

  “Not true on either count. We’ll get that flag raised before we leave NOLA.” Dallas looked around the mini compound they had created. “You guys had some good ideas here, but that fence just isn’t strong enough for the long haul. They’re coming and in a big way.”

  “We wanted to build it up, but no one wanted to risk working there during the day, and at night we just stopped going down there. We drew straws to see who would try to find food.”

  “That’s no way to decide. A good leader would know that.”

  Sully nodded. “Yeah, well, that’s a whole other story.”

  “You drew the short straw when we first got here, didn’t you? That’s why you came down first. You were the guinea pig.”

  He nodded and tried shrugging it off. “All part of being in a group, I suppose.”

  “Not true. If you choose to lead the people, then you have to lead. Benjamin should know that. He should have come down first.”

  Sully started to reply, but then his people finished bringing down their few possessions, and they all sat together and shared their experiences while they waited for the Fuchs to return.

  When Dallas excused herself, she walked by Benjamin and noted the “straws” sticking out of his pocket. As tempted as she was to say something, she didn’t, and just walked on by. His days of leading were over. Time enough to deal with his way of doing things.

  As the air grew more still and quieter, she knew beyond any doubt that getting the hell out of Dodge was the right thing to do.

  She just hoped they got out in time.

  As Roper, Churchill, and the others slowly cruised through the deserted streets of New Orleans, Roper felt a slight chill. The city was eerily quiet, with papers blowing across the streets and shutters occasionally banging against the post-Katrina vacant houses. There was also the occasional wind chime, but other than that, the city was dead.

  It was painful to see a city that had weathered the worst of nature’s curve balls only to die a swift death at the hands of the horde. If there was anyone living, they weren’t in the city proper, and if the dead were roaming about, they, too were not anywhere near the French Quarter.

  When Roper pulled up to Bow-Diddly’s, she was surprised to see at least two dozen dead zombies lying around the place, all dead with a hole through the head.

  “Stay here.” Hopping out of the Fuchs, she knelt down and studied the zombies. Each one had an entry wound and an exit wound, but their skulls weren’t blown out as they would have been from a bullet. She surmised these wounds were from a bolt from a bow or crossbow. “Someone’s awfully good with a bow,” she said, rising. The man eaters were in several stages of decomposition, and maggots crawled around the entrance wounds of three of them. The bolts and arrows were nowhere to be found, so she gathered someone had retrieved them.

  That made this place suddenly quite dangerous.

  Roper jumped back into the Fuchs and said, “Pretty sure they were killed with an arrow or bolt of some sort. That means we need to be very careful going in there, as there could be survivors…armed survivors who are spot on with a crossbow and are more dangerous to us than the eaters.”

  Churchill grabbed his machete and started for the door. “Stick with me, Michael,” he said, waiting for the ramp to lower. “I’ll watch your back. You gather the crossbows and bolts. Got it?”

  Michael looked scared to death as he nodded.

  “Dude—you look like you’re going to crap your pants. Buck up, man. We’re all good.”

  Michael blinked. He had pasty white skin and dark hair that hung in his eyes, causing him to flip his head to one side constantly. He looked about thirty, with clear blue eyes that easily conveyed the fear he was experiencing. He wore all black with black Doc Martens that had seen better days. “You have no idea, man. I don’t know if I can.”

  Churchill frowned, opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it. Instead, he bent over and looked into Michael’s face for a moment. He stared long and hard into his eyes before pulling back and cocking his head from side-to-side like a dog does when it is unsure of what it is looking at.

  “Zoe and I will grab the bows and arrows,” Roper said when neither man moved. “Be as systematic as you can. Watch each other’s backs. Keep your eyes on the doors. Expect trouble. The eaters don’t want us, but the living sure as shit might.” She pocketed the keys. “We stay together until we are sure it’s clean. Given what I found on the ground out there, we could have trapped man eaters or armed survivors. Both are dangerous, so I am going to announce once we’re inside. Stay together but be sure we have swinging room. Be quiet in there and let me do the talking.”

  She looked over at Zoe, who looked grim and determined. Michael, not so much. “Michael, you okay?”

  Nod. Blink. Nod.

  He so wasn’t.

  “He’s just a little nervous. You know, first time out and all,” Zoe said, looking at him curiously. “Dude, suck it up, will you?”

  Roper put her arm around him and started to say something but stopped suddenly, as if sensing something wasn’t right. Instead, she turned to Churchill, who caught her unspoken question. He shrugged when their eyes connected.

  “No fucking idea,” Churchill muttered, shaking his head.

  Neither of them were sure Michael had it in him, but it was too late to back out now. They needed an equal number. Back-to-back was the best way to stay safe.

  When the ramp landed, all four scrambled out and made their way to the front of the store. Typical of many shops in various areas of Louisiana, there were bars on the windows. The barred doors were locked, so Roper went back to the Fuchs, attached chains to the bars on the window, and easily pulled them from their casings, knowing full well that the sound would surely bring any eaters in the area.

  “Careful,” she said as she exited the Fuchs. “That made more of a ruckus than I would have liked.”

  “Let’s get moving,” Churchill said. “This place stinks. Can you hoist me through the window?”

  “I’ll go.”

  He shook his head. “If shit slides south, you got the keys. Let me go.”

  Roper laced her fingers together and Churchill stepped in the cup they made as he climbed through the window. “Anyone here?” He called out when he landed in the store.

  When no reply came, he ran to a
nd opened the front door to let the others in. “Didn’t see nobody.”

  “I want to clear it first,” Roper said, and they methodically began cleaning out the store. To her surprise, there were no man eaters in the store and no dead or half-eaten bodies to speak of. It was cleaner than it should have been. “If anyone’s alive in here, come on out so we don’t accidentally shoot you. We are armed!”

  Everyone waited for a reply that didn’t come.

  “That’s it, everyone, start loading her up.”

  The front display case was empty, but when Roper opened a janitor’s closet, she struck gold. “Jackpot,” she said to Zoe as they loaded over two dozen crossbows and thousands of bolts into the back of the Fuchs. Back and forth they went until Roper heard the familiar moan and foot dragging of an approaching zombie.

  The scuffing along of its feet told her it hadn’t just wandered in, but was after food. That meant one thing: some survivor ZB was nearby.

  Roper took a running start at it and whacked its head off with one powerful swing.

  “Fucker,” she muttered, wiping her machete off on the zombie’s torn pant leg.

  As she started back in to finish grabbing the last of the bows, she heard more moaning and scraping. She cocked her head to one side and tried to hear what direction they were coming from.

  That’s when she knew.

  It was a horde. A big one, and they were coming their way.

  Running back into the store, she shouted, “Last load! We gotta bunch coming our way!” When she hefted a large box of bolts over her shoulder, she started back to the Fuchs but stopped when she was five feet from the front door. At least forty moaning man eaters were coming toward her about thirty yards away.

  Dropping the bolts, she grabbed both machetes. “Guys? Get on out here. We’ve got lots of company!”

  Zoe was first to appear with bat in her hand. “Jesus, Rope, what are they doing here?”

  “Must be a survivor nearby––zombie bait––a ZB, because they sure as hell aren’t here for us. There’s someone alive in that store.”