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

rooms. She came out a few minutes later, draping a small silver necklace over her head and stood looking at him, expectantly.

“Guess that means yes,” Jessie said, his half smile looking more like a snarl.

She smiled back, her eyes bright and dancing.

“We’ll have to get you a good pair of boots,” he said and stood.

They left the falling down shack and she took nothing from her old life except memories, the necklace and the threadbare clothes she was wearing. She wiped the dust from her feet as she crossed over their property line and stopped. She pointed to his gun, to her parents, then turned and walked down the hill. She jumped a little at the two quick shots that echoed through the valley but she didn’t look back. Her parents had been gone for a long time. Now the scarecrows were, too.

38

Natacha

“Really?” Jessie asked “You’re hungry again?”

“It is lunchtime.” Natacha said. “And you are the strange one. You don’t eat properly, you cannot live on beef jerky and candy bars.”

“I eat more than that.” He said defensively. “You eat like a horse and you’re going to as big as one if you keep it up.”

She ignored his comment and started looking for likely places.

He would stop.

He always did.

They had been on the road for over a month meandering their way north. It turned out she spoke English just fine. She hadn’t used it in over a year and it only took a day or two before he was halfway wishing she didn’t. She never shut up. He probably should have run her back to one of the settlements but even though she could be annoying, he kind of liked having her around. She spoke with a faint middle eastern accent, not quite as pronounced as Scarlets but enough that it reminded him of her. It was comforting in a way. Almost like she was still close. Natacha was a fast learner and he started teaching her the basics of survival in the harsh new world. Within a few hours he had her taking down two and three shamblers at a time with the .22. lever action rifle. Her shots were fast and accurate, she eliminated the quickest ones first and didn’t get tunnel vision, she remained aware of her surroundings. They graduated to pistols and she became good in close quarters and recovered without panic when he sabotaged the third round in both her magazines. He found houses with day one zombies and within a week she was clearing them flawlessly, killing with precision and mastering her guns. They listened to Spanish language CD’s and she learned to speak with a slight Latina accent and sprinkle in a few Spanish words once in a while. She wouldn’t have any problem fitting in as long as she didn’t tell anyone the truth of where she came from. She understood, she knew her heritage could cause her problems and said her new name was Natalie.

“Natalie Sue?” Jessie asked.

“No, pendejo. Natalie Bonita Sanchez.” She said regally.

At an overgrown Amish farm he found an antique pedal powered sewing machine and dug a bag of impact cloth out of the trunk. It was good at stopping bullets but the undead teeth couldn’t tear through the fibers either. It took them nearly a week to make her a pair of pants and a loose-fitting jacket. She was still filling out, probably going to grow a little taller so they made them a size too big. They carefully cut the stitching out of some clothes that had the right fit, laid each piece out flat and used it as a pattern to cut the material. It was slow going, they went through a lot of razor blades and it had to be sewn very slowly or it would break the needle.

They tried a lot of different weapons for her hand-to-hand practice and in the end settled on trench knives like he preferred. They had three sides to fight with and were almost impossible to drop no matter how slick with gore they became. She didn’t have the strength to break skulls with her punches so they found a derelict auto repair shop and customized them for her. They added longer spikes on the knuckles and pommel that would penetrate any skull.

She was excited when he let it slip he was going after the Mona Lisa. She wouldn’t be when he got around to telling her he was going by himself. They were getting close to New York and she was skilled enough now that he wasn’t worried about leaving her alone for a few days, maybe a week. He needed to find a safe spot to stash her, he wasn’t about to take her in with him. He didn’t have much of a plan worked out but he thought he could find a sailboat to get to Manhattan. Taking his car was out of the question so he’d cut up through Pennsylvania and circled around above the city. They were on a twisty back road near the Hudson River, driving aimlessly but staying away from towns. They had plenty to eat in the car but letting her clear a house was good practice, he’d be leaving soon. He didn’t help or tell her what to do anymore, he watched and tried to find fault in what she did but lately he couldn’t.

At first, she had been frightened of the man with the scar who brooded moodily most of the time but she slowly came to realize he wasn’t going to hurt her and was kind in his own way. He didn’t yell at her when she made mistakes that could get her killed. He was patient but relentless. Even when they were supposed to be relaxing, when they had secured a house and were safe, he made her speed load magazines over and over or tear her guns down to clean them even though they were spotless. She had been afraid