Zombie Road , Simpson, A. [best authors to read TXT] 📗

ammo for all those guns. They’re just expensive clubs without it.”

William’s face reddened. He hadn’t considered there might not be bullets.

“Maybe we’ll just come take whatever we need.” He said coldly.

“Those are dangerous words.” Gunny said, his eyes boring into the big mans and his hand loose near his gun. “Be careful which bridges you burn.”

“At least we don’t blow them up and get people killed!” William said, his fist clenched.

“Don’t.” Xavier said and raised his arm, aimed his microwave blaster at Williams head.

Fast hands dipped and the Lakota crew standing on the platforms between cars had weapons aimed in an eye blink, all trained on the big man with the bad attitude.

He froze, rage on his face as his thumb hovered over the trigger button on his blaster. Simon looked over and saw it too. The safety was off, it was ready to be engaged, to cut a swath of energized death across Gunny’s body.

“What are you doing?” he asked, surprise and horror on his own face. He didn’t want to start a war, they didn’t stand a chance.

“Nothing.” William said defensively, the moment of unhinged fury passing. “I wasn’t doing anything. Get that thing out of my face, Xavier. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Your safety has been disengaged.” Xavier said, holding his arm straight and true. “You said it should never be off unless you’re ready to kill.”

William looked down, acted surprised and flipped the locking mechanism back in place. “Happy? Get that thing out of my face.”

The sailors were finished, ready to go and started raising the ramps. Thousands of guns were neatly arrayed in a series of teepee stacks.

“You know how to find us if you want to be part of the rebuilding.” Gunny told Simon as the ramps closed and his crew waited for him to board.

He stepped over to William, looked up into his angry face, his gunfighter eyes cold and penetrating.

“I’m sorry about your family.” He said quietly. “I really am but I did what I did to save thousands. You can stay pissed at me for as long as you want but it would be best if I never got pissed at you.”

He turned to climb the short ladder back up to the idling engine and noted with satisfaction that Hollywood, Bridget and Griz all held their guns at the ready. Just in case.

Xavier climbed up behind him and asked “Did you mean it when you said all are welcome?”

“Yes, we don’t turn people away.”

“Can I come?”

“Of course, you can.” Gunny said. “In fact, why don’t you take the engineers seat and get us out of here, you know the tracks better than me.”

19

Jessie

A few weeks at the lighthouse on Lake Superior became a few months and he grew tan, lost the paleness of being indoors for years and adjusted to earth foods again. He found a small sailboat in dry storage, some how-to books at the library and spent days on the water teaching himself a new skill. He sailed up the coastline and when he was comfortable with the little boat, he found a bigger one with on onboard shower, a queen-sized bed and a full galley. Bob liked it a lot better and took advantage of the swimming platform to lounge around all day. He went slow, camped in coves and spent a little time hunting when the mood struck him. Fishing was good but sometimes he craved fresh meat. They sailed all the way up to Thunder Bay and would have traveled farther but the wind off the lake was starting to get downright cold. The leaves had turned and fallen, winter was coming and he knew he had to stop procrastinating, he had to get moving. He had to do something with his life. His planet hopping space adventures were over.

No one he knew from that time had even been born and wouldn’t be for another few thousand years. Except Maddy. She was out there floating in the black emptiness of space waiting for him to arrive sometime in the future. Except he already had. He was here and she was there, trillions of miles and thousands of years apart. The Queen of the Outer Reaches might be alive, she was ancient and ageless. Some said she was a survivor on a doomed colony ship. They said some went mad and lived off the frozen corpses of their shipmates for a thousand years. They would grow up, grow old then reset themselves to nine years old again. They said they’d done it over and over until the ship reached its destination and deployed the jump gate. They came back to a destroyed galaxy and they had the finest and fastest ships. They took over, fought for power and controlled the known systems for centuries until she grew tired of politics, killed her fellow colony ship survivors and retreated to her private system.

They also said she was the daughter of a king, the last survivor of an ancient race and that she wasn’t even real, an urban legend that never existed. Jessie didn’t give it much thought. He’d never see her again and he knew Maddy would teach his young and dumb self to steer clear of her.

The long months of solitude had been what he needed and he felt better than he had in years. He wasn’t sure what day it was but he thought it was getting close to November. Somehow, he had bummed around the whole summer. Nobody had tried to kill him and he hadn’t had to kill anyone. Even the zombie encounters had been few and far between. He wanted to be back in Lakota before the snows started and maybe he’d vote in the election. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed, you had to be eighteen before the fall and his driver’s license, if he still had one, would show him being seventeen.

He turned the boat south and brought his thoughts and worries back to this world.