Zombie Rules | Book 8 | Who The Hell Is That? Achord, David (most popular novels of all time .txt) 📖

She then yelled for Sammy, who came hustling out a moment later, pistol in hand. Seeing Fred and Nikki, he holstered his weapon and jogged over to them.

“Help me get them inside,” she ordered.

“No, take care of the horses,” Fred rasped out.

Sammy looked to Rachel for guidance. She nodded at the horses before grabbing the two of them around the waist and escorting them inside.

“Alright, you two, off with your boots and coats, and go sit. I’ll fix some tea.”

“Water for me, please,” Fred asked.

“Me too,” Nikki echoed.

Rachel nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. She came back a moment later with two glasses of water, went back into the kitchen, and returned with a plate full of sausage and biscuits. Nikki croaked out a ‘thanks Rachel’ while Fred gave her a nod. Rachel responded by running her fingers through his short hair.

After a few minutes of silence, the two of them were feeling much better.

“This is good,” Fred said. “You’re a great cook.”

“Hell yeah,” Nikki agreed. “But I’ll be honest. In about ten minutes I’m going to find somewhere warm to sleep for the next ten hours.”

“Yeah, you two definitely need to rest, but tell me what happened first,” Rachel demanded.

Fred spoke between bites and told her everything in short, perfunctory sentences. Nikki added the color commentary by waiting until Fred would pause and then adding detail to whatever Fred said. Rachel watched the two of them talking and realized they made a good team.

“When are you going back for the truck?” Rachel asked.

“Soon, hopefully. We’re going to need a few people with us if those zeds are still there,” Fred said. He didn’t say it aloud, but if Zach were still around, the two of them could take care of things. He glanced at Nikki. He’d take her along for the ride.

“I bet we can get the QRF to go with us,” Nikki suggested.

“No. We don’t want everybody knowing about our hideout, right?” Fred said.

“Oh, okay. What are we going to do then?”

Fred finished his glass of water and stood. “We’ll get back to that. First, we’re going to chat with Rachel about something else.”

Rachel frowned. “What about?”

He pointed at Nikki and explained how they had talked about her coming to live with them and helping out while he attempted to mentor her. When Fred asked what she thought of the idea, Rachel smiled at Nikki.

“We’d love to have you here, sweetie. I must warn you though, Fred is one of the hardest workers I know. You’ll be collapsing in bed every night from shear exhaustion.”

“I can handle it,” Nikki declared.

Rachel nodded. “If Fred didn’t think you could, he would not have suggested this.”

“It’s settled then. We’ve got a bedroom that we’ve been mostly using for storage. We can clear it out and move you in. First though, we need to get cleaned up and go to Mount Weather and give our report.”

Fred started to stand, but Rachel stopped him.

“It’s my turn now. There’s a lot to tell you,” she said.

Fred sat back. “What’s that?” he asked.

Before she could respond, Sammy came in.

“The horses are taken care of,” he said.

“Thank you, Hoss,” Fred replied.

Rachel directed him to sit and then she went on to explain the recent developments at Mount Weather.

“What is up with this president?” Nikki asked. “I’ve never even heard of him until I came up here.”

“He was Rochelle’s husband and running mate,” Rachel answered. “When she was killed, he became our new president.”

“He has no idea what he’s doing,” Sammy grumbled.

“And he made an enemy of practically everyone at Marcus Hook,” Rachel added.

“Why did he order them to stop building a trading post and stop scavenging?” Nikki asked.

“It’s all about control,” Rachel said. “He wants the trading post at Mount Weather so he can have control over it and claim that he’s the man who created it. I think the order to stop scavenging was nothing more than vindictiveness.”

“I didn’t realize so much was going on around here,” Nikki remarked.

“Yeah, lots of petty politics,” Rachel said. “Ever since the election it seems like a lot of that is going on instead of doing what is best for the country.”

“What about all the people who voted for Rochelle? Are they having regrets now?” Nikki asked.

“Some are,” Rachel replied.

“Serena’s mom voted for Rochelle,” Sammy said. “I think she’s having second thoughts about it now, but she won’t admit to it.”

“If he’s so bad, isn’t there something that can be done?” Nikki asked. There was a moment of silence before Fred spoke up.

“The senate can bring him up on impeachment charges. Or, under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, if he is found to be unfit, he can be removed from office.”

“Everyone just needs to stop with the nonsense and appoint someone who knows what they’re doing,” Rachel said.

“There is one other thing,” Sammy said during a lull in conversation.

“What’s that, son?” Fred asked.

“I checked the game trail cameras yesterday. There’s a zed that’s been walking around. He’s on several cameras. I’ve tried to find him, but I haven’t had any luck.”

“Can you tell what he’s doing?” Fred asked.

Sammy shook his head. “He’s just looking around. It’s strange.”

Fred gave a slight nod. “We’ll have a look around tomorrow.”

They sat at the kitchen table and chatted for several minutes before Rachel noticed both Fred and Nikki were nodding off. She woke them both, directed Nikki to go lay down on the couch and put a blanket over her before leading Fred to their bedroom.

Chapter 45 - Operation Betrayal is Executed

It was a sunny day and the temperature had climbed to the low forties by noon.

“We got us a heat wave,” Jimbo joked.

Johnny G smiled. He had met with his four closest men the night before and explained the situation. They unanimously agreed. They ate an early breakfast and left at sunup. It took almost forty minutes before they arrived at the Conowingo Road at the dam. A few overturned semitrailers did the trick. If the people from Mount