Beyond Dead | Book 3 | On The Road Read online

  The Audi crashed through the horde of zombies as Tuck clutched the steering wheel to keep the car straight as he aimed for the fire truck. He pulled the emergency brake and swung the car around peeling out on the highway. Zombie bodies went everywhere and he pulled up directly to the back of the fire truck.

  Zombies were still everywhere and climbing all over the car. Tuck leapt out of the front seat, climbed through the sunroof, and shrugged off the hands that were grabbing at him as he ran across the hood of the Audi and leapt onto the back of the fire truck.

  “Hey, kid, is this your sister?” Tuck flirted as the woman grabbed hold of him and hugged him as she cried into the nape his neck.

  “Thank you,” she kept repeating.

  “No time for that yet. I haven’t saved you yet.”

  “They’re climbing all over the car!” the boy yelled.

  Tuck looked over the side.

  Shit!

  “Alright, kid, listen up I need your help if I’m going get you and your sister out of here.”

  “That’s my mom,” he corrected.

  “Really?” Tuck smiled. He looked around the top of the fire truck and saw the deck gun. Tuck ran to it and stared at it not knowing what the hell he was doing. “Ok I got this,” Tuck told himself.

  Tuck pulled and prodded at the deck gun trying to figure out how the thing worked. He got on his knees and leaned over where the stainless steel controls were. Between the hands of the reaching zombies he saw the lever that read: DECK GUN. Tuck reached through the groping hands of zombies and pulled on the lever. Water was already pissing out of the deck gun as Tuck got back to his feet. He grabbed hold of the double handles and aimed as the water came through at full blast. Tuck shot at the zombies spreading them across the highway with the high-pressured water. The mom and son were cheering as Tuck swung the deck gun from side to side and blasted the zombies.

  “Get in the car!” he screamed to the mom and son.

  As they disappeared from the back of the fire truck Tuck blasted as many as he could before abandoning the gun and running down the fire truck and leaping off onto the hood of the Audi. He sprawled over the wet windshield and fell face first into the driver seat.

  “GO, GO, GO!” the boy in the back was yelling to him.

  Tuck pulled the stick into reverse and hit the pedal as he gunned away from the fire truck and swung the Audi around to head north up the highway, blowing past the wet dead zombies.

  “This is why I picked the fucking sports car!!!!” They all laughed.

  “Thank you,” she said to him, her hand on his thigh.

  Tuck nodded.

  “That’s Garrett,” she said looking back at her smiling son, “I’m Brittney.”

  Tuck was looking at her, seeing the smile on her face and the freckles under her amber eyes across her cinnamon skin. He was thinking of something clever to say when her face went blank and her eyes dropped.

  “You’re bit.”

  Chapter 8

  The highway was a mess in either direction from Concord going North. The power lines had veered off in the direction that Rebel didn’t want to go so they rode down backstreets and maneuvered through crowded roadways until they found their way to the highway and were able to ride the grassy median that was car free. It was rougher than the trails at some points and Forrest hit a rock hidden under some leaves that almost sent them falling from the bike, but he was able to get control at the last moment.

  “Maybe you should slow down,” Rebel yelled in his ear. If he heard her, Forrest paid her no mind as he gunned the bike onward.

  She ignored him back as her hands let go of his waist and held on to the back of the seat.

  When they passed Exit Nineteen, she leaned over and tapped Forrest on the side of the head.

  “We need to get off at the next exit,” she told him.

  He didn’t respond.

  Rebel tapped him harder on the side of the head.

  “I heard you,” he yelled.

  “Then acknowledge me and don’t be an asshole.”

  They rode the remaining miles in silence and when Forrest got to the end of the exit he stopped the bike and they both looked around at the destruction.

  Tilton was a mess. A tractor trailer had smashed through heavy traffic spreading the cars in debris along the stretch of road. The McDonalds across the street had been on fire at some point and was still smoldering. Inside some of the dead walked around what used to be the restaurant, their bodies charred and smoking. Across the street, at the gas station and Dunkin Donuts, there were dead people. Real dead people. Someone had shot and killed three men and two women. One woman hung over her steering wheel with a gigantic fleshy red hole where her right eye had been. One man was lying on his back with multiple holes in his body and another single hole through his head. There was a pool of blood around his head where he had been gunned down, execution style. The other bodies were all shot in the back. Some had made it a few feet, others to their cars where they dropped dead.

  “Go there.” Rebel pointed to the gas station.

  “What? Fuck that! No way,” Forrest argued.

  “Forrest, whatever happened there is over now. I’d rather take my chances with a place that already had a shootout that’s over than find some other convenience store down the road held up by some Ma and Pa carrying more heat than half a police force.

  “These our country towns, people protect their own. I’ll take my chance with the corporate gas station.”

  “I don’t think – ”

  Rebel interrupted, “I don’t need you to think, Forrest. I need you to man up and stop being such a pussy.” She got off the dirt bike and started to walk across the street with her backpack hanging off her shoulder. Forrest was yelling after her but she ignored him like he had done to her and continued to cross the street that was once such a busy intersection. He pulled up alongside her but when Rebel ignored him he gunned the bike and headed down the embankment to the gas station.

  Bitch, why do I put up with you? Forrest asked himself. He drove the bike up to the cluster of dead bodies and threw down the kickstand. He got off the bike and looked at the bodies. Part of him wanted to hurl right there, but he knew if he did that in front of Rebel he would never live it down. She wanted him to man up. Fine. He would. Fuck her. He walked up the eave to the front door of the convenience store and went inside.

  “Forrest!” Rebel yelled as she picked up her pace and jogged across the intersection and down the embankment. She was more cautious than Forrest had been and noticed the eighteen-wheeler with the trailer door open stocked with beverages. Sure, it could have been a delivery truck but she thought that Coca Cola and Budweiser didn’t come from the same company. “Oh shit.”

  Rebel ducked behind a car as she saw a group of zombies come around the corner. Forrest was half cocked inside the gas station and between her and the zombies. He would have plenty of time to make it to her and get on the bike if she could get his attention but every time she peeked over the trunk of the car she couldn’t see anything inside the convenience store.

  “Come on, Forrest,” Rebel whispered. She slunk around the side of the car and tried to be as quiet as possible as she darted to the concrete eave and rolled under the railing. She was still keeping a low profile when she entered the store.

  Two men – the Paquette brothers – had Forrest pinned against the freezer doors and were searching through his backpack and frisking him down. They were heavyset men each at least a head taller than Forrest with long beards and wearing cheap cammo. What wasn’t cheap were the rifles slung over each of their shoulders.

  Without thinking Rebel got up and yelled across the convenience store, “Hey, let him go. I got something you want more than him.” Rebel had pulled down the corner of her tee shirt so it was hanging of her shoulder and the black of her bra was in contrast to her pale white skin. She walked toward the two men swaying her hips with her red light district lips pursed.

  “Rebel
, don’t – ”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Ricky Paquette said in his heavy hick accent as he slugged Forrest in the stomach and her boyfriend doubled over.

  “Yeah, Forrest, shut the fuck up,” Rebel told him, “What’s the problem? I’ve done more for less.”

  “What’s that?” Opey Paquette asked.

  “You can find out. Just let him go.”

  “How do we know you don’t bolt right after him?”

  Rebel separated the distance between them so she was standing directly between the Paquette brothers. Rebel leaned over so that her ass cheeks were pressed right up against the front of Ricky’s groin. She could instantly feel him getting hard between the fabric of their denim. He was large and it would hurt if this didn’t work. She took the other brother’s hands and put them under her shirt and guided them up until they were touching her tits.

  “Like that?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’s good.”

  “Get rid of the boy and we can have some fun.” Rebel winked at Opey Paquette as he lifted her bra over her small breasts and began to play and pinch her nipples. Rebel moaned.

  “Get outta here!” Ricky kicked Forrest who was firmly planted on his ass.

  “No!”

  “Oh, please. You’re no hero,” Rebel said and that got both Paquette brothers laughing. Forrest tried to get to his feet and Ricky kicked him in the ass knocking him over.

  “Go on boy!”

  The Paquette brothers pushed Forrest away as Rebel’s look knocked him half down the aisle between the chips and two liter bottles of soda. Rebel was undoing her jeans and pushing them down and Ricky had his hand wrapped around the string of her black panties. Both men were squeezing into her.

  “REBEL!” Forrest yelled.

  Opey, fed up with Forrest, leveled his rifle in one mighty hand and pointed it directly at Forrest’s head.

  “Last chance, boy, or you end up like everyone outside.”

  Rebel pushed the gun down and started to unbuckle Opey’s pants, her hand reaching into his jeans and grasping his hard cock, “He’s not worth the bullet. Trust me.” She kissed the side of Opey’s neck while she started to give him a hand job.

  Forrest did the only thing he could. He ran.

  Chapter 9

  “What are you doing?” Brittney asked as Tuck hit the brakes and the Audi came to firm stop on the side of the highway. He checked all his mirrors and as far as he could tell there were no zombies in sight.

  For now.

  He got out of the car, left it running, and walked over to Brittney’s side. He opened her door for her like a gentleman while she stared up at him uncomprehending, her seatbelt still firmly fastened.

  “Are you kicking us out?” she asked.

  “The opposite actually. You and Garrett are going to take the car and go. Go as far as the tank will take you, but make sure before you run out of gas you find another car with a full tank and keep trading cars until you find help. The cops or the Army. Someone has to be out there.”

  “I don’t know how to hotwire a car.”

  “You probably won’t have to. Check under the car for a magnetic key and if that doesn’t work stick a screwdriver in the ignition and hammer it in until you can turn it. Just don’t go all fancy, like I did if you were going to bust an ignition. Older model cars are best.”

  “How do you know all this?” Brittney asked. She was unfastening her seatbelt but Garrett was staying put in the backseat. Tuck suspected he was afraid of the bite mark he could see on his forearm.

  “Not really one of the good guys,” Tuck told her and there was no smile on his face this time. “Spent some time incarcerated.”

  “Finally got caught boosting cars?” Brittney asked with a bright, playful smile and he saw just how beautiful she was as the sun struck her cinnamon skin and brought out the red highlights in her hair.

  Double homicide.

  “Yeah, got caught,” he admitted while omitting, “you and Garrett get the hell out of here.”

  “How long do you think you have?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mom?”

  Tuck looked back at Garrett and was probably thinking the same thing the kid was, what the fuck was Brittney thinking?

  “Garrett, quiet,” Brittney told her son.

  “No, mom. I’m sorry. I’m just as thankful as you are that Tuck came when he did but he’s infected now. He’s going to turn just like the rest of them. Just like dad did.”

  “Garrett!” Brittney turned and yelled at her son.

  Tuck hadn’t bothered to look to see if there was a wedding band but he saw one now.

  “Garrett’s right, Brittney. I don’t know how long I have. I haven’t seen someone bit turn.”

  “We have,” Brittney told him.

  Tuck looked to her and then to Garrett.

  “My husband was driving that pumper. We were at the station when the shit hit the fan and he took us with him, some of the other guys went home to their families but Will had his family with him. He loaded us up with three other guys and off we went to that horrible wreck. The zombies came out of everywhere and it wasn’t long before they overwhelmed my husband and our friends. They turned fast. Maybe within a few minutes.

  “Will pushed as many of them into the fire as he could and got caught in the flames himself and then – ”

  “Don’t.” Tuck put his hand on Brittney’s, “I get it. You don’t have to finish.”

  She nodded with tears in her eyes and Garrett was trying to hide his crying face in his arm in the backseat.

  “My point.” She swallowed deeply, restraining her sadness, “is that I’ve never seen anyone last this long. The infection doesn’t even look like it’s spreading.”

  “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “You’re right. But we don’t know how long that is. It could be different for everyone. You only have one bite and my husband and the others were all bit multiple times. So I’m going to ask you, Tuck. Let me bandage you up and ride with us until we find another car and you teach me how to do this fancy hotwiring and we can separate from there? If the infection starts to spread out from under the bandage I’ll pull over and let you out. I swear to God.”

  Tuck thought about the offer.

  “What do you think, champ? This is your mom. All you got left in the world. You want to risk me being in the car with you?”

  “Tuck?”

  “Brittney, it’s his choice. He’s the man of the family now. Let him make his first decision as so.”

  Brittney looked at Garrett who was clearly thinking. He wiped his eyes and used the bottom of his Static Shock tee shirt to wipe away the snot dripping from his nose.

  “Ok,” Garrett said.

  “Alright. Let’s bandage this thing up and get going. We’re on borrowed time as it is.”

  Brittney and Tuck went to the back of the car and looked for supplies in the trunk. There wasn’t much, but there was a standard car first aid kit. Brittney went to work wrapping up Tuck’s arm.

  “Where’d you learn this?”

  “I’m an EMT. Did you think I was just some housewife?”

  “Honestly didn’t give it much thought. I’ve been pretty distracted by your beauty.”

  “That’s just because you haven’t seen a woman in five to seven,” she laughed.

  Tuck laughed too, “I wouldn’t say that. Just not one that wasn’t on a sticky page.”

  “Gross, Tuck!” she slapped him.

  “Tell me about it. Especially when it isn’t dry yet.”

  She slugged him in the arm again.

  “You’re going to make me throw up.”

  Chapter 10

  “Help!”

  His screaming was his biggest mistake. Forrest hadn’t seen the horde of zombie’s outside the convenience store like Rebel had when she slipped past them and came for him.

  Now Forrest was trying to get away from the rednecks and the zombie horde that was turning toward
his loud voice. He lifted his dirt bike and tried to start it but he was shaking so badly that he couldn’t hold in the clutch and just dropped the bike and started to run toward the road. He knew that he needed to get back and find a way to save Rebel – if the slut even needed saving – but he couldn’t do that without a gun or something else.

  Forrest could barely breathe when he came up on Route 3 and just stood in the middle of the road as the plow truck came straight for him. Taking in sharp breaths and feeling like the whole world was closing in on him, Forrest just closed his eyes and waited for the truck to hit him and be done with this world.

  “Christ, kid, you trying to kill yourself?”

  Yes.

  “You ok, son?”

  No.

  Forrest couldn’t open his eyes he was shaking so badly. Behind his closed lids in the darkness he could see Rebel back in the store bent over while one of the men took her from behind, his big ass redneck hands – dirty and rough – grabbing her hips while he made grunting noises as he slipped in and out of her while the other held her hair in his hand and used her head like a fucking fleshlight and fucked her mouth.

  “Bob, he’s shaking like crazy.” Kiefer stood in front of Forrest and had no idea what to do but stare at him. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Hey, son, can you hear me?” Bob asked. As soon as he put his hand on Forrest’s shoulder his body went limp and he would have fallen to the ground if Bob hadn’t grabbed him and taken him in his strong arms, from all those years of maintenance work, and lowered him to the ground. “Come on, son.” Bob slapped his face lightly trying to get him to snap out of it.

  “Rebel,” Forrest slipped her name out of his lips.

  Bob and Kiefer looked at each other not sure what the hell the kid was talking about. Bob was looking over him like a father, but Kiefer had never had any kids so he leaned over Forrest and slapped him as hard as he could across the face and screamed, “HEY, KID, SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT!”