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

malnourished and had numerous cuts and scrapes on her that didn’t look like they were healing very well. Her hair hadn’t seen a brush in months and the tangled mess hung wild. She was young, Jessie guessed maybe 11 or 12. She still had food on her chin from where she’d been hungrily eating something from the bag she had brought back.

“You’re here alone?” Jessie asked “No mom? No dad?” He was trying to remember high school Spanish classes but she didn’t sound like she was Mexican. It sounded like something else. She didn’t really look Mexican, either. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but she just looked different. More… exotic, maybe.

She pointed behind her.

“Mamma. Poppa,” she said and indicated the two scarecrows struggling at the end of their chains to get at them.

Jessie needed to sit down. He’d seen some messed up things but this had to be right there near the top of the list. He looked closer, saw the chains could be reeled in to keep the two zombies away from the garden so she could harvest or weed. He saw the knee-high fences along the rows that kept them out of the vegetables but close enough to scare off any crows or raccoons or deer that tried to help themselves. He looked at the two walking corpses. The mom had been dead for a while. She had been pulling scarecrow duty for a long time from the looks of it. The dad was still fresh, no more than a few weeks dead. Jessie could see the bite mark on his arm. He had probably gone into town to get things they needed and came back infected. Before he died, he had rigged up his chains so she could make the garden larger and keep more animals at bay.

Desperate, hard and sad times. He had tried to be a good father to her. He had tried to give her a life. Jessie stared at the painted boot black smile on the bag covering his snarling face. He knew if he removed it, he would find the remains of a Middle Eastern man. One of the Muslims in hiding. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes. He opened them to the gentle tugging of the girl, she was pulling him towards the house. Away from the scarecrows. Away from the people who loved her enough to become eternal guardians of the garden.

It wasn’t enough, though. She was out of food; the vegetables weren’t ripe and she was starving. She had made her first trip into town and had almost died. She’d never survive on her own. Her parents hadn’t taught her the skills she needed in this unforgiving world. The father had been raiding surrounding houses and stores but he’d made a mistake. He had gotten bitten.

He sat in the small house as she insisted on setting out food for him. They’d been hiding out, fearing the zombies, fearing the Americans and trying to scratch a living from the land. Probably afraid to fire a gun because if it didn’t bring the dead around, it might bring other survivors. They couldn’t be found, couldn’t be seen or they would have been killed. Even the child.

Jessie sighed again. If another Retriever found her, they would probably sell her into indentured servitude at one of the wilder outposts. A nanny or a maid if she was lucky. If he walked away and left her, she’d be dead before winter. She’d never make it on her own. He couldn’t take her back to any of the walled cities, they wouldn’t accept the children of their enemies, the people that had nearly killed the whole world. The wounds were too fresh. Her life there would be harsh and she’d always be a second-class citizen, never accepted into polite society. He knew a little about that.

Jessie considered his options as he ate, as she opened the precious cans she’d nearly died for and fed them to him. He wondered if he could pass her off as Hispanic. Teach her better English and say he found her in Texas.

“How old are you?” he asked as he watched her finish eating from the can of corn.

“I think I am still sixteen,” she said with a halting and thick accent, pulling the words from a long way back in her mind. “What month is it?”

Jessie blanched. She was so tiny, so skinny and flat chested. He thought she was maybe 12 at the most.

After the minimal meal was finished, he slowly rolled a cigarette as he thought. There really were only two options. Leave her to die or take her with him. Not much of a choice, really. He had gotten used to traveling alone. No Scarlet to love, no Bob to take care of and no Maddy to talk and argue with. Just him and his thoughts and most of the time he tried not to think. He didn’t generally care for people too much. They tried not to stare at his face and always seemed to be talking to someone just over his shoulder. This girl didn’t bat an eye. Maybe living with your parents as zombies made little things like a scar unimportant.

Maybe she could ride with him for a while. It might be nice to have someone to talk to. He didn’t realize how much he missed company. Not people necessarily, Bob would have been great but Bob wasn’t here. She was. Maybe she could fill the emptiness when he didn’t want to think by teaching her how to survive on her own. Maybe he could find a bookstore and get some of those Spanish courses on CD, teach her the language and she could pass as a Latina from Guatemala or something. If she did that, she could join the settlements in the heartland.

If she wanted to go, that is.

When he asked her and she finally understood, she jumped up and ran into one of the back