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

of the old hotel manager’s office at the casino. Their progress had started out slow, at first just trying to survive, themselves, against the zombie hordes and the bitter winter. By early spring, Dr. Stevens had completed his vaccination experiments, her father had perfected his religion, and they were getting more converts than they could handle. The lure of safety, security, plentiful food, ceremonial sex and superhuman abilities did have its draws. Rickett, the Chosen and the thousand strong army gave them security. Many in the army volunteered to go through the Choosing ritual. If you were one of the chosen, you were granted super human abilities. If you weren’t, you died, torn apart by the undead. Enough wanted the power to chance it. They started doing week-long rituals, cleansing and fasting and prayers. It didn’t matter. If the head of security, Captain Ricketts, didn’t choose you, you could do whatever you wanted and still be torn to shreds as an unbeliever. He wouldn’t give you the serum. There always needed to be failure and bloodshed, her father had said. It always had to be public. There would always be more volunteers than they needed and Ricketts could choose the best, only the ones he wanted. The rest could be entertainment and motivation for the masses.

In the past few months, they had covered most of central Canada, following every lead, and sending hundreds of scouts to find walled communities. Supplies weren’t exactly scarce, but they were raiding in Saskatchewan. It only had about a million people in it before the outbreak. Most of them in the few cities it had. Most of them dead and wandering around, hungry for blood. They’d hit parts of Manitoba and were mopping up in Alberta, getting ready to send their forces down into the States.

She’d tried to tell her father that there was no need. He had thousands of followers, hell, he had the largest and most devout group of worshippers left in the world. It should be enough but it wasn’t. He said it was his divine right to rule the entire planet. It was written. She tried to tell him to stop it, this was Scarlet he was talking to, his daughter, not some devotee. She knew the truth. She knew it was all a scam. She was fine going along with it, she enjoyed the luxuries of life, too, but attacking the United States wouldn’t be easy. The Americans had guns and would fight. He needed to stop acting like he was some all-knowing god, and enough with the phony visions.

He struck her. It was the first time he had ever hit her in his life and when she looked into his raging eyes, she realized he believed what he was saying. It was no longer something he was doing because it was a fun little fantasy, or that it helped hold the people together, or even to enrich himself. He believed he was a deity. He believed he was Anubis reincarnated. She’d left him then, face stinging and tears streaming. He was lost to her. He was mad.

She tried to talk to Ricketts, the rent a cop who’d been with them in the very beginning at the museum. He knew the truth. She tread softly, though. She caged her questions carefully to see where he stood.

She arrived back at her suite feeling very alone. He had professed complete belief, even though he knew his super soldier abilities came from a scientist, not a god. He enjoyed his position of power immensely and would do nothing to jeopardize his life of splendor, or his harem of nubile, young lovers.

She started to fear her father, afraid he would have her poisoned or sacrificed in some public manner for heresy. For not believing. They relieved her of her duties, simply put someone else in charge, telling her that she shouldn’t have to be bothered with such mundane tasks, after all, she was royalty. They were isolating her, trying to keep her in a gilded cage.

After a week of tension-filled dinner banquets with serving girls and succulent dishes, she suggested that she go to scout the States, to see how hardened their defenses in the outposts were. She could determine their strengths and weaknesses, cover a lot of territory by herself on a fast motorcycle, and wouldn’t be perceived as a threat. They didn’t have a whole lot of intelligence on the States, they had only conducted a few raiding parties in the Dakotas then concentrated their militia north of the border where it was easier. Fewer casualties. The one team they sent farther south had disappeared. The last communication was they were leading a horde into a fortified town in Arkansas. Ricketts wasn’t a fool, he knew Canada was a soft target so that’s where they had gone, building the army until they had the strength to raid south.

Ricketts had quickly agreed with her idea, probably hoping she’d get herself killed and that would solve the sticky problem of Scarlet the Unbeliever. Her father had pondered it as he sat in his golden robes and ate morsels fed to him from the fingers of virgins.

“Bastet would be perfect for such a journey,” he said. “But what about this Road Angel we keep hearing of, this so-called hero of the highway from Lakota? On the radio, some ridiculous man keeps prattling about his exploits. About all the people he saves. About how he is single-handedly establishing the new America and blah, blah, blah. Isn’t he supposed to be in the north, if he’s even real?”

“Yes, your highness, son of Osiris,” one of the white-robed ministers replied obsequiously. “He is, the last I’ve heard.”

Scarlet barely controlled the urge to roll her eyes at the fat, little man with the topless girl cutting his food and feeding him.

“He may become a problem when we start our push south,” Ricketts said. “But we’ll eliminate him if he does.”

Her father was licking sauce from a young