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

joined them, the bondage leather replaced with blue jeans and a flannel shirt “but anything you want at my bar will always be on the house.”

He gave them both a long look, one that implored them not to ask questions or talk about what they’d seen.

“Appreciate it.” Jessie said and gave him a small nod.

The barkeep took his place behind the counter and started lining up shots for everyone.

“I’ll start some breakfast.” One of the women said and a few made their way through the batwing doors to the kitchen.

Dawn would be coming soon. The town had their dead to bury and some healing to do and the two teenagers were outsiders. They didn’t mourn because they hadn’t lost anyone close. Jessie and Scarlet slipped away and made their way to the wall and the Mercury. The war had started and they had miles to go before they could sleep.

114

Anubis Headquarters

Some of the groups had been on the move for weeks in route to Cascade or the Hutterites or even Lakota. The high priest of the armies had turned them all towards Tombstone. He was losing the confidence of the Lord of the Underworld. He’d had too many defeats, not enough successes. His team sent to reconquer the Island was being repulsed, the undead shredded with rocket propelled grenades and withering machine gun fire. They had fought to a stalemate and his warriors had to retreat to gather more undead. Blackfoot had fallen and he had bragged about his methods but within hours, it had been retaken by the rebellious scum. Anselmo was a ghost town when his soldiers arrived. Abandoned and empty. A hollow victory.

Now everything he had schemed and achieved, his tenuous position as Chief of the Armies, his future appointment to even greater glory, was riding on the conquering of Tombstone. He had to take it and hold it and he spared no resources. He sent reinforcements that had been guarding their Headquarters, he rerouted his teams meant to conquer other towns and he ignored that insufferable bore Ricketts when he suggested caution should be taken. Perhaps you should send a few scouts to see if there were anything unexpected ahead of them.

“And perhaps you shouldn’t be such a coward.” he had replied.

He knew what he was doing. He didn’t need unsolicited advice. He didn’t need slow, plodding caution. The winter snows would catch them if he didn’t hurry and the undead army would be useless. Any fool knew that and Ricketts just wanted him to fail. He wanted to be the one to say “I told you so.” It wouldn’t work, though. He’d crush Tombstone, their most powerful city besides Lakota, and the rest would fall in line. They hadn’t realized resistance was futile but they would.

He tried to relax and clear his mind as the girls and boys sponge bathed him in warm, bubbly champagne and massaging fingers kneaded his blubbery muscles with fragrant oils. He was face down on the pleasure table and soft hands stroked him from below through the hole cut out where his manhood hung down. His ploy would work. It had to. He needed to be elevated because who knew what was in the next pleasure room. His imagination hadn’t prepared him for this one, it was beyond belief, beyond anything he’d ever experienced or heard about anyone experiencing. He had to advance to the next rank, had to find out what was in the next room. Tombstone would fall and he had a new foolproof plan for the attack on Lakota: he’d have survivors from Tombstone in front of the horde and running for the gates. They would open them wide to let them in and his men would be among them. He would be able to present Lakota to the Lord of the Underworld in another month.

He sighed with pleasure as the many hands bathed, massaged and stroked.

Ricketts couldn’t let the army be destroyed, no matter how much he wanted Charles to fail. His loyalty was to Anubis. He knew what was waiting for the warriors in Tombstone, he listened to the chatter on the radios. He made the call, warned the commanders what they would be facing and told them how to defeat a well-prepared enemy. It was for the greater good and besides, he would ensure that they informed the Lord of the Underworld that it had been him who had delivered the cities. Him who had given them critical information. Him who had defeated the enemy.

115

Tombstone

They were coming. They must have been gathering them for weeks, leading them in their untiring march towards the walls. The undead army of ten thousand was slowly converging on Tombstone. They were stumbling in from all directions, led by a score of slow moving, black clad super soldier convoys from all points of the compass. Those who had fled Anselmo, those who had survived the harrowing cat and mouse game of getting past the hordes and avoiding the machine gun fire from the Cult, told of immense spread out mobs slowly coming down the roads.

“It’s too late to get out now, even if we wanted to.” Hot Rod told mayor Tackett. “There must have been a thousand zed’s chasing the trucks and the gunners leading the horde fired a few hundred rounds at us. If they wanted us, they could have chased us down but they seemed content to let us get away with a warning. They knew where we were going. Maybe they wanted me to talk you into surrendering. Let you know you were surrounded.”

“We know how they operate.” Tackett said around his cigar. “Blackfoot told us they’re sneaky bastards who’ll shoot you in the back. There’ll be no surrender.”

The town was busy, people hustling here and there, strands of concertina wire being triple strung on top of the wall, weak points between train cars being doubly reinforced and ammo being distributed all along the walkways. If men had to move fast