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

years ago: from carrying water in buckets, to cooking over open flames in the fireplace. They were living like pioneers. That might be fun for a weekend, Jessie thought, but to live like that day in and day out would get real old, real fast. They needed to be self-sufficient, their way of life wasn’t sustainable, and the colonel was just now beginning to realize it. He needed help but was too proud to ask for it. Jessie wasn’t sure what was expected from Lakota, maybe just meeting with an outsider would get him thinking and planning about changes he’d have to make.

Jessie planned on leaving in the morning, his job was done and he didn’t particularly like these people, but when he saw the beaten down men and women listlessly eating the tasteless food, he knew he had to do something. There was no reason this couldn’t be a vibrant community like Tombstone or Lakota. It had been a long, hard winter but spring was here and they didn’t even have sprouts started. They didn’t even have a greenhouse.

“Give me ten of your best men tomorrow, Colonel. I’ll teach you guys how to gather supplies. You’re never going to make it if you don’t leave these walls.”

He wasn’t speaking loudly, but sound carried and everyone looked up at him. They hadn’t heard the broadcasts from Bastille, they had a half tank of gas left in one of their trucks and they only ran it when they needed to use the Ham radio. Only the Colonel heard them and had mostly dismissed them as untrustworthy. Propaganda and lies. His people didn’t need to have false hopes so he had kept them in the dark until things were starting to get desperate, until he decided to reach out. These people thought the rest of the survivors were hiding out like them, not taking the world back from the undead.

“There are too many zombies,” one of the men at his table said dismissively. “We’d be dead in no time.”

“You’ll be dead in six months if you don’t,” Jessie replied. “The rest of us are rebuilding, not hiding out. We have plenty of fresh food and all kinds of goods to trade, but we aren’t going to give it to you. You guys looking for a handout? You want welfare?”

The men shook their heads at that, most of them were hard working individualists who had scoffed at the food stamp crowd. Proud men and women, but they’d been beaten down by the colonel and his armed men, continually telling them how bad it was outside the walls. Screaming hordes of undead everywhere. They all remembered those first days and still thought it was like that. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

“I have thumb drives full of all the information you need to grow gardens, repair vehicles, rebuild firearms, make your own solar power, what herbs to use for medicine.” Jessie said. “It’s all there, but you need a laptop to access it. Before you get a laptop, you need electricity. Before that, you need a generator and the fuel to run it.”

The people in the hall had stopped eating and all were paying attention.

“How long has it been since you’ve had a hot shower?” he asked, to the laughter of some, and a few women who shouted out they’d kill for one.

“It’s not as bad out there as it once was,” Jessie said. “You need to get out and start living again, not slowly dying behind these walls.”

The eyes behind the binoculars took it all in. She was high up in an evergreen, her black leathers blending her into the night. She could see over the wall, straight into the dining area where they were eating. He had been easy to follow, his car noisy and usually kicking up a dust trail. At first it was just idle curiosity, who would be out roaming the roads in such an old vehicle. She kept her distance, the driver never realizing he was being tailed. Even when she lost sight of him, it was easy to tell when he turned. The roads were covered with dirt, blown in sticks, leaves and pine needles. His tires left tracks, especially when he went in a new direction. He was aimless, never going in a straight line for long and it turned into a game for her, something to do because she got the feeling he was on a similar mission. He was seeing what there was to see, trying to find survivor outposts, and generally taking an inventory of what was left of the country. She was doing the same thing, but she wanted to know where the pockets of resistance were before the teams of gatherers showed up. When he stopped for the night and made a small fire, she saw him for the first time and realized who he was. He was the one her father wanted her to eliminate, the same kid she’d pulled out of the labs months ago. She’d had a moment of weakness, and seeing him beaten half to death, she’d snapped. Gave him her own injections and set him free. She’d put that memory behind her, she had assumed he’d died in the parking lot where she left him. The car was the same one, she realized. Except much better now, the armaments well made, not haphazardly bolted on pieces of tin.

Curious, she trailed him. She wanted to know more. There was little else to do in the wastelands. Every town was dead and crawling with zombies. Every settlement was walled and bristling with guns. Recruiting new members was going to be more difficult in the States. They may have to change their tactics. That’s why she was here, though. Winter was over, it was time to expand and she was the forward scout to get a lay of the land. Now she’d found the Road Angel, the emissary from Lakota. She’d track him for a while