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

tasted nothing like an olive that had been salted and pickled. His eyes were starting to water as he tried to keep the charade going.

“I think you forgot he spent a lot of years over in the Middle East,” Gunny said and Scratch started cursing and spitting out the acrid, near caustic chunks, accusing him of intentionally trying to poison him, forgetting he had been trying to feed them to Griz. It wasn’t often the big man got one over on him, and he was well pleased with himself, the smug grin splitting his beard.

Hollywood hung the fuel hose back up and closed the caps, his car the last in line.

“RV camp looks empty,” Gunny said. “We’ll go in fast and spread out, though, just to be sure. Let’s roll.”

Griz offered more olives to Scratch as he walked by the young man, still bent over spitting out the taste, and got a middle finger for his troubles.

Ten minutes later, they had cleared the campsite and saw the cooked and half-eaten remains of someone for themselves. The coyotes had been at him or her and body parts were scattered.

Gunny poked at the still smoldering fire-pit with a stick, turning over glowing embers and bits of bone. The fire came back to life when the air hit them, and tiny flames licked at the few bits of wood that hadn’t been consumed. It was a big pit and it had been fed from the woodpile for hours. He didn’t know how long it took to cook someone, probably about like a pig. Six or eight hours, maybe. There were empty beer cans and bottles scattered all around it. Gunny counted the camp and lawn chairs pulled up in a wide circle and there were eighteen of them. Griz came over with a handful of shell casings and laid them out on one of the chairs. There were a dozen various kinds, including shotgun shells.

“There’s a lot of brass from a bunch of different guns, most of them pistols,” he said. “There are some .223, but not a lot. They probably have a few Walmart AR15s and a couple of AKs. No links, so they don’t have machine guns. They haven’t raided an Army post yet.”

Gunny stood and surveyed everything with a practiced eye.

“They rammed through the gate, probably caught them by surprise,” he said, indicating the half-buried car in the burnt-up trailer. “These tin boxes offered no protection, they just shot through the walls.”

Every trailer and camper had holes punched through them, some with hundreds. Those were the ones who fought back, had guns of their own. There were bodies sprawled out on the grounds here and there, people trying to run or fight, cut down and left to rot.

“Looks like they rounded up survivors and had them chained up over there.” He indicated an area near the fence that was trampled down and had a makeshift latrine, just a hole in the ground, in one corner.

“They were here for at least one day, maybe two. Probably had some women, plenty of booze, so they stayed for a while to enjoy the spoils.”

Hollywood pointed out an area under the swing set still dark with blood and a few dried-out intestines. “They strung them up there and gutted them. They cooked them whole, not one piece at a time.”

Gunny nodded and looked at the makeshift spit lying next to the fire-pit. It was built out of a driveshaft and parts of someone were still attached to it with chains. Most of the body was gone, either eaten by the raiders or the coyotes.

Bridget made the sign of the cross. “At least they weren’t roasted alive,” she said, looking away from the swing set where the gutting and cleaning had been done.

“Yeah. That’s gotta be the worst way to go, being burnt,” Scratch added from halfway across the small lot. He was double checking bodies on the off chance someone had survived.

“They took prisoners, though,” Gunny said, indicating the area where people had been chained. “Griz, any idea how many?”

The big man looked closer at the mess of footprints and after a minute said, “Maybe eight or ten. Hard to tell for sure.”

“They’re a half day ahead of us,” Gunny said. “Judging from all the empty beer bottles, they probably slept in and left late this morning.”

“If they’ve got a bunch of prisoners, they might be headed back to their headquarters. As far as Carson knows, they’re still down in San Felipe, right?” Scratch asked.

“Yeah,” Gunny said. “If we hustle, maybe we can catch them before they get there.”

“And if they aren’t going back down there?” Bridget asked

“Doesn’t matter,” Gunny said. “That’s probably where Casey is, so that’s where we need to be.”

The rear of the car sticking out of the trailer had a Mexican license plate on it, another indicator it was Casey’s men who’d been here. Surely there wasn’t another bunch of cannibals running around.

He walked over to his old Chevy and got the maps. He laid them out on a picnic table, ignoring the buzzing flies feasting on the remains under the swing set.

“He’s picked out a good spot,” Gunny said, indicating the tiny little resort town on the edge of the ocean. “He was with us long enough to know how to clear a town using trucks. He had about two hundred people with him, and some of the reports said he is recruiting. Join or die kind of recruitment.”

“Man, and we thought the Muslims were bad,” Scratch said.

“Yeah, he’s worse,” Gunny agreed. “But people will join up, same as they have always done, no matter how twisted the dictator is.”

He pointed at the town again. “He’s probably holed up in one of the seaside mansions, they’ve gotta have a ritzy part with million-dollar homes and gated communities. That’s where I’d be. There’s probably luxury condos in the same area, so he has housing for all his goons. There is nothing else around for miles in either direction. Wide open