Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet Simpson, A. (pride and prejudice read txt) 📖

many of them had forgotten much of what they knew. There were enough that knew enough though, and Captain Wilson stepped in as commander, with young Lieutenant Cobb as his second. They were rigorous with the training schedule. The men all knew what was out beyond the walls. No one signed up to get a free college ride or as an only option to get away from home. They knew they were all being taught at an accelerated pace, at a Ranger or Force Recon level. They didn’t wear PT belts, they didn’t have endless hours of marching or inspections, and they didn’t have mandatory sexual harassment classes. They learned how to kill people and break things. That was their only job.

The dogs weren’t spared, either. One of the men had a lot of experience working with hunting dogs and put together a regimen for the dozens of big dogs inside the walls. Most were trained to sniff out the undead, it made patrols outside the barrier safer and clearing houses much easier. A few were given advanced training, taught how to incapacitate the zombies by snapping their necks, then quickly moving on to the next. Bubba Williams couldn’t believe how fast Jessie's dog caught on. He usually only had to be shown something once and he understood.

“Smartest dog I ever done seen,” he’d tell anyone that would listen, usually down at Pretty Boy Floyd’s after a few beers. “It’s almost like he understands English.”

Jessie wasn’t surprised. Something was in those injections he’d gotten from the prison. He’d given Bob a dose after he’d been shot and the dog had displayed the same amazing healing abilities he had. Jessie didn’t feel any smarter, he didn’t miraculously know things he didn’t know before, but things came easier now. Instead of having to do math in his head to figure out what seven times fifteen was, he just knew. It came as easy as one plus one. Same with his reflexes. He moved faster because he saw things faster. During hand to hand exercises, he could see the muscles bunch up on his opponent and knew he was getting ready to move his arm or sweep his leg. He supposed he had always seen those things, but now his brain processed them so fast he could do something about it. Sometimes it almost seemed like they were moving in slow motion. He figured it was the same for Bob.

6

Jessie

“Man, it would be cool if you could mount one of those chain guns on the roof,” Doug said as they admired the car sitting in Jessie's garage. It was mid-March, he’d been working on it every day after training, and was ready to get going. Once he started using the lift in his new digs, everything came together fast, they had new off-road suspension under it in less than a week.

“Yeah, it would, but I’d have to stop to fire it. Besides, it uses way too much ammo to be practical,” Jessie replied and they both shifted their eyes to the M-60 machine gun that was hanging from a swivel arm just outside the driver’s window. It was attached to a steel roof rack that had supplies and extra fuel and ammo strapped to it and could be operated one-handed while he was driving.

Just in case.

Military grade whip antennas wired into the mobile Ham radio were mounted to the oversized rear bumper and it was welded solid to the frame. The Hummer tires looked huge on the car and he doubted that he’d be doing any more burnouts with them. Scratch and Stabby had come over one evening and spray painted a skull on the doors and had scrawled Zombie Road on the roof-mounted gas tank. He let them do it, they were some of the few who didn’t make him feel uncomfortable about his looks. Scratch had given him a road sign, to an annoyed glare from Sheriff Collins for defacing government property that he’d bolted a loop and hand grip to. It made for a nice shield.

“Last resort, if you have to go hand to hand,” he said. “And watch the edges, they’re sharp.”

He’d pulled it off of one of the roads that lead to the beach, a bright yellow one with DEAD END spelled out in bold, black letters. They used Velcro to attach it to the basket on the roof, handy to grab if he needed it. The Mercury had a complete exoskeleton now and Hot Rod had mentioned that it looked similar to Sammy’s Mustang.

“You think Casey’s guys are building cars like this?” Jessie had asked, the slightest bit of apprehension creased his brow, worried about running across a band of outlaws with battle wagons.

“Doubt it,” he’d answered. “I saw some of their cars when they rolled through town after the battle. Mostly just bolt on stuff. Kind of like what you built at first. It works against the zombies, but nothing like this baby. This is a real battle tank.”

It seemed like half the town was there at his Pony Express Inaugural Run party. He hadn’t wanted a big sendoff, he’d planned on a quiet night trying to beat the high score on the Pacman machine that had Scratch’s initials in the top three slots. That Bastille guy had made a big deal out of it, though. He made a big deal out of everything, it seemed. Jessie was learning he was a worse gossip than the women at the hair salon, only he called it news and didn’t whisper it. He shouted it for everyone in the world to hear over his radio station.

All these people were making him uneasy, acting like he was so brave. He’d been out there before, it was no big deal. He’d tried to tell them this, but they just thought he was being modest. They knew the truth. They knew there were millions of undead roaming around, waiting to catch you while you were refueling or using the