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

The man’s look soured and he muttered under his breath about people thinking they were special; the rules should apply to everyone equally but Jessie ignored him and walked out the door.

When the front gate opened it was almost three in the morning. His headlights were the only ones on the long stretch of road that passed through the farmlands before he cruised into town. He spotted a pair of sheriff’s cars at the office and figured whoever was on duty was probably asleep on the couch. The town was quiet and he heard the hum of electricity in the air, the sound of a garbage truck making its rounds and the lights were on in Martha’s Sunshine Café. Cookie was already making the day’s bread.

Jessie rolled up to his little warehouse then him and Bob walked across the road to the sandy beach. He sat on a log and watched the moon shimmer off the water and idly thought about everything and nothing, what he was going to do with his life and whether he would stay and start a business or live as a nomad outside the walls. He finally slipped inside his home and found his bed as the sun was coming up. An hour later he was awoken by the sound of hammers and power saws when construction crews arrived and started their day a few lots over. Another apartment complex was going up, there weren’t very many empty houses left.

He missed the solitude of the sailboat.

Jessie kept to himself. He dropped in at Stabby’s bar a few times but the place was overcrowded and he didn’t recognize any of the faces. Slippery Jim and his band of misfits stopped by his warehouse but the Jessie they knew was no longer there. The scarred boy was distant, didn’t want to play video games and acted like a grownup. He wasn’t much fun anymore but he did add a pinball machine and some more arcade games for them. They got into the habit of coming by after school, he still had the best place to hang out once the weather turned cold and his games were on free play. The bowling alley had started charging money. They liked to take Bob to the beach and play frisbee and Jessie would come and watch sometimes but he never joined in. Gage said he had PTSD, something people get when they’ve seen a lot of bad things, but Jessie didn’t act crazy. He just seemed sad all the time.

Gunny came over with a nearly new pickup truck one day near Christmas, said he’d help him swap motors out of the old Mercury if he wanted. Gas was starting to break down, it was all over a year old now and octane booster was getting hard to find. Most of the retrievers were driving diesel pickups, it would stay viable a lot longer than gas. Some say as long as it didn’t get contaminated with water it would be good for seven or eight years. Maybe longer with additives. Jessie seemed to come alive a little when they worked on the machine and whiled away the hours. Gunny tried to get through to him, tried to get him to talk about some of the things he’d been through but his son wouldn’t. Sometimes the boy had a thousand-yard stare but not always. He wasn’t a basket case like some of the men who had lived through the fall.

The SS sisters had started a few support groups and they helped some of the men and women. Sometimes talking about a tragic experience with others who had gone through something similar was enough. The vets didn’t seem to be as affected by the horror they’d seen as some of the civilians. They had a different mindset, they’d volunteered to fight in the wars overseas. Many of the survivors had never done anything more violent than have an argument in grade school. The killing and bloodshed had affected them differently. He wished the kid would go to one of the meetings, speak to one of the counselors. Jessie didn’t talk about himself but Gunny had heard the stories, listened to retrievers tell their tales of Jessie killing whole towns of undead or gunning down dozens of Raiders. Most of the stories weren’t true, they couldn’t be, but he wasn’t the same person, not even close. Sometimes he felt like Jessie was the elder. Like he was a sad, melancholy old man, not a seventeen-year-old kid.

22

Remembrances

It was early spring. The apartments a few lots over were finished and full, mostly with single young men his dad had helped rescue from a navy boat. On the other side of him were luxury waterfront condos and he’d been approached a few times by people wanting to buy his property. One had even called it an eyesore. In their eyes it probably was. He lived on the beach. There was a lot of water front property but most of it was on steep, muddy hills, there was only a half mile of actual sandy beach and high-end developers were buying all they could.

Jessie was restless and bored. He’d spent the past few months tinkering with the car and had tried to fit in again. He went to the movies on Friday night, he hung out at the bar, went bowling with Slippery Jim and spent time at the gym. He had volunteered to stand guard on the wall just for something to do but Phil said he had enough help with all the Navy boys in town. He could have used his influence as the President’s son to jump to the head of the line and become a pilot in the new Air Force. His mom would probably whisper in Eustice’s ear now that she’s the one in charge if he asked her but that would just give more people more reasons to resent him. He tried to