Only The Dead Don't Die | Book 4 | Finding Home Popovich, A.D. (any book recommendations txt) 📖

had always been expensive. That’s why most resorted to smuggling in resources from the Lost States, making a living at the Zhetto Market. Only the Oklahoma and New Mexico border towns had pretty much been looted out, forcing smugglers to venture farther and farther into the Lost States—where the undead ruled the earth.

Once out of the crowd, Justin stopped to get his bearings straight. The scene ahead could have been CNN footage of a third-world refugee camp, complete with the stench of piss, sweat, and Zoat’s rotting Zs. Tents and shanties stretched across the northwestern border, creating post-apocalyptic neighborhoods. As he recalled, vehicles were allowed in the east side entrance, where the well-off Zhetts lived in RVs, renovated buses, and vans.

He scoped for a place to set up a temporary camp. Awesome, those guys are breaking down their site. “Dean, come with me. You guys hang back. I’ll wave you on if we can take their campsite.” The sooner he found a spot to park, the sooner he could start looking for the tunnel. He certainly wasn’t venturing deeper into the slums with babies—not until he had secured the tunnel passage.

“You want us to stay—here?” Ella’s eyes blared.

“I’ll only be a sec.” Justin kept the impatience out of his voice. The Ella he had first met would have totally freaked out by now. She was so much braver now.

“I got them covered.” Luther fist-bumped him.

“What’s on your mind?” Dean asked as they trekked toward the campsite where five men hastily packed their carts.

“We need a place to hang ’til I find a tunnel,” Justin said in a low tone as they approached the men.

“Guys, whas-up?” Justin drawled, acting cool.

The grungy men glanced their way but ignored them.

“Do you mind if we take your spot?” Justin asked as a group of well-dressed cits walked past warily; they didn’t have a chance.

“Whatever gets you off,” the burly dude said.

“Did you hear ’bout the horde just outside the city?” Dean asked.

The burly dude stopped rolling his sleeping bag and eyed the eastern horizon. “Old-timer, that ain’t nothin’. Word on the street is, the Zones were invaded.”

“Shit, yeah,” the taller guy garbled with a packed jaw of chew. Tobacco dribbled down his chin. “The Zones got more Infecteds than cits.”

“Don’t get too comfortable here.” The burly man covered his cart with a tarp and started lacing a paracord through the tarp’s rivets and cart’s rungs. “They’re sending reinforcements to reclaim the defectors.”

Justin wanted to test the waters. “Sooo, you guys found a tunnel—”

Dean flashed him a “be careful” look.

“Done with that. Only one tunnel left. The jackass charges an arm and a leg. Your best bet, in my humble opinion—” The burly dude eyed him for a second as if Justin might be an undercover agent, and then must have decided against it. “The Pecos is the ticket out of here.”

“As in the Pecos River?” Dean asked.

“They say, you can Uber a boat ride to the other side. But, you didn’t hear that from me.” The burly dude tugged the tie-downs and glanced at his buddies. “The site’s all yours. Catch you on the other side.”

“Best of luck,” Dean offered as the men tromped off with their overladen carts.

“Don’t much like the sounds of that,” Dean grumbled. “It’ll take days to get to the river with our precious cargo.”

“No worries,” Justin said in response to Dean’s beleaguering expression. “We’ve got gold.” According to urban legend, the Uber boats were scams. They required the money upfront, and then the boat never showed up.

Justin waved the gang over. “I’ll snoop around the Zoat border and check out the action.”

“Son,” Dean practically wheezed, “don’t want you gallivanting ’round by your lonesome. Take good ol’ Luther. Doubt anyone will recognize you under that hoodie, hat, and those sunglasses. I’d better stay put. I don’t want to run into any of Mad Dog’s cronies.” He chuckled. “As I recall, we gave them a mess of rancid beans back at Boom Town.”

“Your Awesomeness!” Justin quipped with an exaggerated hand-rolling bow. “You got Mad Dog that day.” But Mad Dog never forgot a vendetta. Payback was his middle name.

“Whut up?” Luther said as everyone parked their carts.

“Dean wants you to come with me to negotiate the,” Justin whispered, “tunnel passage.” He snatched the pharmaceutical pillowcase from the cart. Their campsite was several yards away from the others—until someone just decided to camp next to them.

“Alrighty then, best you two get going,” Dean said, looking around.

Justin reached out to hug Ella goodbye. Dean quickly stepped between them. Oops. They couldn’t show affection. Love you, Justin mouthed.

Love you back, her sad puppy eyes answered.

“Dude,” Justin said to Luther’s ear, “bring the gold. And act like you belong. But don’t look too intimidating.”

“I get what you’re saying, bro.” Luther eyeballed the place. “This ghetto’s on the verge of rioting.”

Luther was right. It was like Justin saw the insanity wafting in the breeze. The newbies wandered the camp with hopelessness stamped across their despondent faces, recklessly asking questions, begging to get scammed. The only reason Justin wasn’t tweaking out was he knew what Tent City was like. Although today, the insanity was an eleven on the scale from one to ten.

He maneuvered through the crowd, switching on-and-off his eidetic memory as needed. Zoat Street backed up to Zoat and was where the hardcore smugglers did business. The stink so bad, even the homeless didn’t camp there. For some reason, his cool memory thing wasn’t detecting any tunnels. Had Last State shut them down? Probably only the ones he knew. There had to be others. Right?

Luther grabbed his shoulder. “Check it.” Luther pointed to a long line of grungy Zhetts and well-dressed Zoners.

There was only one way to find out. “C’mon.” Justin tugged Luther’s sleeve.

They doubled-timed it to