Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Simpson, A. (new books to read .txt) 📖

the back if you weren’t tucked in and holding on tight. It was great on the rails or long stretches of deserted highway. He could cover a lot of ground in his patrols. Zig zagging in and out of container stacks was going to be a challenge but he wasn’t worried. He had spent many hours in the saddle, he was one of the best riders in Simons guards and patrolled for days on end to help keep the town safe.

Utopia was nestled up in the mountains in a resort on Lake Morena. They didn’t have walls but they didn’t have undead visitors very often either. The patrols ran the rails and roads in a pattern for miles. The zombies didn’t like to wander through the rocky desert, they stayed on the easy paths unless they were chasing someone.

Xavier had been on a field trip with a few other boys in his troop when all hell had broken loose. They were on a three-day survival hike, something they were doing to earn their Eagle Scout badges. They didn’t know the world had ended for a few days, not until they got to the retreat at Lake Moreno. A group had barricaded themselves inside the sprawling complex and had been killing off the undead. The area around the resort was mostly deserted, only a handful of residents lived there year-round. It was a tourist destination and in September the families with RV’s and canoes were back home. Corporate retreats and large wedding parties kept the locals afloat during the winter months. Xavier had wished more than once that there had been a wedding or two scheduled with the cyber engineers retreat instead of the drug rehab group. He would have liked to have a few ladies his age at the resort instead of the hard looking women celebrating their five years of sobriety or the engineers old enough to be his mom from the Silicon Valley conference.

He hadn’t seen a ring on Bridget’s finger, she was the prettiest girl he’d seen in over a year but if he was honest, she scared him a little. Maybe there would be some girl soldiers. Maybe they’d pay him some attention for helping to rescue them. He didn’t really think a beautiful girl would swoon into his arms, call him her hero, but it didn’t do any harm to day dream about it. He looked much older than his fifteen years. At six foot and almost two hundred pounds, he could probably pass for eighteen. He smiled as he worked, got his machine ready and checked the charge on all the batteries. He made sure the mounted microwave guns were set in a wide dispersal pattern. The beams wouldn’t kill as efficiently as a narrow focus but they would take out a lot of the undead with every trigger pull, the guns didn’t have to be aimed. Even if it didn’t fry their brains and drop them in their tracks it would blind them. It didn’t take a direct narrow-beam hit to melt their eyes.

“Xavier, you ready?” Gunny’s voice came over the speakers. “We’re almost there.”

He hurried to the call box and answered. “Just say when.”

“Roger.” Gunny said. “Scratch, fire for effect. Let ‘em know where to go.”

A few seconds later the quiet whumping sounds of mortars rocketing out of the tubes was heard from the rooftops. Shortly after that the horizon lit up with fireballs and the ground shook with the impact of round after round. Scratch and Stabby saw the flames roll skyward and kept dropping rockets into the tubes. The thunderclap of the little bombs echoed through the town and they saw the undead pouring out of the side streets to start chasing after the lights and sound a mile away.

The pounding went on for a few minutes then the boys hustled into the car with Xavier’s bike.

“We’re almost there.” Scratch said “We could see the tops of the cruise ships. You all set?”

Xavier nodded. He was straddling the silent bike, ready to blast down the ramp as soon as they lowered it.

“I’ll drop it as soon as we get by this crane thing.” Stabby said as they rolled past the gantry. He didn’t want the ramp to catch the side tracks and get jammed up, maybe even tear it off.

“Remember to go off the ramp at an angle. Otherwise, you’re going to have problems. We’re still moving along pretty fast, it’ll knock you on your ass.”

Xavier nodded again and bit his lip. He’d never jumped off a moving vehicle. He’d never had to zip around in a confined area. He’d never tried to get a horde of zombies to chase him. What if he dropped the bike and they caught up to him? What if he shot the microwaves at the wrong time and blinded or killed a bunch of the soldiers? What if he…

“I see ‘em!” Scratch said. “Only a few hundred and they’re coming right for us. Go!”

He hit the switch and the ramp dropped instantly, sparks flying as it dragged along the concrete. Xavier crouched low, twisted the wick and the bike shot out of the opening. It didn’t even touch the ramp, it cleared the ten feet and landed heavily. The big shocks bounced and he aimed right for the leading edge of the running horde. He forgot about his fear and doubt, he was too busy trying to steer the heavy machine. He pressed the horn button and held it as he plowed into the first of the undead. The shriveled thing went flying, bones snapped and the bike shuddered as the crowd turned to chase after him, ignoring the train as it came to a halt. He goosed the throttle and the bike shot forward past the engine. He leaned into a long arcing turn and slowed. He had to keep them close or they would lose interest. He kept beeping the horn and they kept coming, keening hungry mouths and yellow gnashing teeth.

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