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

be normal but eyes still slid away from his face when he walked through town. Conversations faltered when he went into the diner. For them, the scar was a reminder. They couldn’t forget the world outside the walls if he wouldn’t let them. They loved their heroes but wanted to love them from a distance. They didn’t want to see them eating or drinking and being normal, they wanted to remember them larger than life and doing heroic things.

Somebody had tried him at Up Jumped the Devil a few weeks ago. A couple of hot shot new retrievers were bragging about a particularly tough retrieval and how they’d had to battle their way out through a horde of the undead. One of the truckers said the Road Angel had done the same thing but by himself and an argument started. Jessie watched from a dark corner and stayed out of it. Sometimes, on a night when the whiskey had been plentiful, it amused him to listen to his exploits. Rarely were they true, even when the one telling the tale swore he’d been right there by the Road Angels side.

“I call bullshit.” One of the new retrievers said. “There ain’t nobody that fast or that good.”

“I know him.” The truck driver said. “I was in Blackfoot when he killed them Raiders. That ain’t bullshit. It happened.”

“I heard the story.” The other retriever added. “I also heard he had help, most of the bar joined in, he just took all the credit.”

“That’s right.” The first man said. “He’s just a punk ass glory hound that goes around bragging about every little thing and you idiots lap it up. I’d slap him silly for lying if he were here.”

“Is that a fact?” a hard-bitten cowboy asked that was leaning against the bar, nursing a tall glass of whiskey. He’d had a bad night at the poker table and wasn’t in the mood to suffer fools. “I’m tired of your prattle. Go slap him silly and quit talking about it. He’s right over there.”

Rye pointed at the figure sitting in the shadows, sipping a glass of back door moonshine.

The retrievers were new. Tough men from the mountains outside of Cascade and were still trying to make a name for themselves. They’d fought off Casey’s Raiders, they’d killed their share of the undead and they weren’t afraid to take risks. They were good at what they did but there was a glut of retrievers, it was hard to get good paying gigs. The big names like Ian the Hunter, Penny the Stitch or Charlie Safari still got the big money but most of the others were fighting over the scraps. You had to do something big to stand out, to start getting the good jobs. Maybe beating the Road Angel at something, maybe proving he wasn’t everything the stories claimed, maybe that would open the right doors so they could start getting paid the right coin.

They looked into the shadows and saw a kid. He had that messed up scar but he wasn’t even old enough to grow a beard, he had some scraggly looking thing. He wasn’t very impressive, both of them were big men, easily double his size.

Jessie saw them glance around at the men they’d just been bragging to, saw them realize there was no way to back down or blow it off if they didn’t want to be laughed out of town as cowards. The cowboy had pushed their buttons and they had fallen for it. He watched them come and wondered if they were good men living a hard life and doing whatever it took to get by or bad men barely removed from being raiders or highway bandits. He wished he had the power to look into men’s hearts, to know the truth of things.

They stopped in front of his table, the biggest leaned over and planted his fists on it.

“So, how’s about it, Road Angel.” He said. “You gonna tell us the truth? Why don’t you set the story straight? No more bullshit about one little kid killing eight armed men all by himself.”

“I wasn’t by myself.” Jessie said loud enough for the onlookers to hear.

“See? What’d I tell you?” the retriever said to the crowd. “It’s all lies!”

“I had my dog with me.” Jessie said then reached out and snatched his wrists, jerking him forward.

“Bob, on guard.”

From under the table came a rumbling, vicious snarl that sounded like it was pissed off and full of teeth. Everyone took a few steps back except the man with his arms stretched taunt and his belly against the table. His eyes got big as he realized the position he was in, where the dog was and which part of him was completely exposed to those savage teeth.

“Bob killed half of those men.” Jessie said.

The deep growl reverberated under the table and a black shadow crept forward, the snarl intensifying the closer he came. The man tried to pull against the boy, not hard and jerky, not something that would cause the dog to attack, but a steady pull. He was twice the kids’ size, had at least a hundred pounds on him. He would slide him right over the table, slow and easy. The muscles bulged under the tight t-shirt. He grimaced and pulled like he was deadlifting five hundred pounds. Veins on his arms popped up and sweat beaded on his forehead. He pulled like his life depended on it and the growling never stopped, even on the intake of breath the rumbling violence just inches from his crotch didn’t stop. The boy smiled a crooked smile and pulled him closer until they were almost nose to nose and his feet came off the floor.

“So you are right.” Jessie continued. “The story isn’t entirely true. Thanks for helping me clear that up.”

The retriever could feel the hot breath of the dog, could envision a mouthful of needle-sharp fangs ripping deep into his crotch and felt the coiled