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

The fight didn’t last long. The animals kept coming and the teens kept killing, safe inside the steel cage.

Jessie left the bloody parking lot and followed the service road back to the theater and the presidential path. Charlie and Ting were still up there, maybe hurt too bad to climb down the ladders. A few vultures and ravens still circled high overhead but they seemed to have recovered some of their fear of people. They kept their distance and didn’t try to attack. Maybe they were late comers to the party and hadn’t eaten as much zombie flesh as the others. He pulled a coil of rope from one of the duffle bags strapped to the roof rack and unhooked his road sign. It was the yellow dead-end sign rigged up with handles so it could be used as a shield. He’d gotten it as a parting gift when he first left on his pony express mission months ago. It would come in handy if any more zombie eaters came after them. Scarlet used her own blood as hair gel as she ran her fingers through the black and white mane and it dried, leaving streaks of red. They could get cleaned up later, their friends needed them.

118

Charlie Safari

They jogged along the raised path, hopped off in the same spot and quickly found the ladder up. Broken furry bodies, some still trying to crawl away, littered the ground at the base. They ignored them and started climbing.

Charlie and Ting Wei were at the entrance of the hall of records, him trying to lever the granite capstone up enough for her to wedge another crowbar in place.

“Hey you two.” he said in greeting as Ting bowed to them without stopping her work. “Thanks for the assist, those critters were determined.”

They were both a mess, much like Jessie and Scarlet, with dried streaks of blood covering their faces and hair. Charlie Safari had a patch over one eye and a deep gash down one cheek that disappeared into his beard.

“We were going to come help you take care of the animals.” Charlie grunted as he put all his weight on the bar, trying to budge the thousand-pound chunk of granite.

“But we saw what you were doing from the top of Washington’s head. I figured we’d get the treasure and give it to you. Kind of a thank-you-very-much-for-saving-our-lives gift.”

“You can stand on their heads?” Scarlet asked, and looked behind her.

“I want to stand on head.” Scarlet declared. “Did you go up nose?”

Charlie laughed and gave up on the polished granite stone.

“No. That part wasn’t true.” he said. “The eyes aren’t hollow either.”

“You have bird poop in your hair.” Ting told Jessie as she rested on the pry bar and breathed heavily.

“Thanks.” he deadpanned to their giggles, then gently took the crow bar from Charlie and levered the capstone aside.

“Wait!” Ting cried and grabbed her phone. “I have to film!”

The treasure was a little underwhelming but it didn’t matter. The engineer in the Tower would pay for the sixteen porcelain panels in the teak wood box. They were a brief history of the United States and told a little about the carvings. All in all, rather boring but they were definitely unique and that’s all that mattered to the nouveau riche in the Tower. They wanted items that were rare, preferably the only one in existence. To them, it was the only form of currency that meant anything. To some of the people outside the glass and chrome building, a tank of fuel or a 24 pack of toilet paper had more value.

Charlie pulled his crew cab around to the employee parking lot, away from the hundreds of furry and feathered corpses starting to fester in the noon day sun, and the four cleaned up, patched up and caught up. Even with their cars a few yards away, Charlie kept a hand-held radio clipped to his belt.

“Saved us, now didn’t it?” he said. “I need to find a better one, though. This one doesn’t have enough power.”

“Next time you’re in Lakota, have Wire Bender jigger with it.” Jessie said. “He’ll hook you up and won’t charge you anything that might cost your life.”

He was still annoyed that the Tower was so stingy with their knowledge or services. It wasn’t right that people had to risk life and limb to get anything out of them when the rest of the settlements had fair trade.

With the first aid kit in the truck, they irrigated wounds, stitched up a few deep gashes and Charlie gulped down a few yellow pills from a prescription bottle. Vicodin for his eye which was gone for good. A talon had sunk deep into it and the orb had collapsed.

“Guess these will be going to one of the docs.” he said and patted the teakwood box. “If the engineer really wants them, he’ll have to do some horse trading on his own.”

“High price to pay.” Jessie said, thinking of his own disfiguring scar.

“It’s what we do, Baby.” Charlie replied in his Elvis voice. “I can’t live behind the walls; the King needs to be free.”

Ting fussed over him, daubed all of his scratches with iodine and ignored his constant complaining that it stung. Jessie’s had long since stopped bleeding and were already starting to scab over. He applied dressings and salve to Scarlets and kept an eye on the black-eyed birds watching them from the trees. Bob paced and occasionally growled a warning at the woods surrounding them but no other animals tried to attack.

Jessie wanted to go. To get back on the road but Scarlet insisted they stay and at least share a meal. Meetings on the road with friends were rare and it would be rude not to break bread together.

“Where you go now?” Ting asked as they dug through their food stuffs to mix and match and come up with a good afternoon meal.

“We’re headed East.” Jessie said, a little