Man Eaters (Book 3): Mob Rule Read online

  Templeton jumped to his feet. “I’ll go with her.

  Dallas raised an eyebrow. “You bored or just want another crack at a hostage?”

  Templeton looked down. “Ma’am, in the real world I was a toll taker. I spent my life doing nothing. Day in and day out, just standing around and watching life go by…watching my life go by. As messed up as it sounds, this plague was the best thing to happen to me. It woke me up. I aim on stayin’ awake for as long as I can is all.”

  Roper walked up and stared into his face. He looked away.

  She grabbed his chin. “Uh uh, look at me.”

  Templeton hesitated before turning his eyes back to her face.

  “I took a beating from your buddy, Clint, and lived to tell about it. If you aim on staying awake, don’t fuck with us. We’re just as likely to shoot you through the eye as to let you stay with us.”

  “Ma’am, I don’t mean no disrespect, but if Clint had wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. That dude’s a crazy mother fucker. Pardon my language.”

  Roper blinked. “And you, Templeton? What are you?”

  “Just a dude trying to stay alive. You ladies are the only game in town. If you’ll let me, I can be a valuable member of the team.”

  “We’ll see. You make sure Sanchez stays safe.”

  When Sanchez and Templeton were gone, Roper knelt down to look at Dallas’s bullet wound.

  “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  Dallas reached her hand out and they held hands. “Yes, but we’re alive. And together.”

  “And we’re going to stay that way.”

  Rolling over on her side, Dallas patted the seat and Roper sat down and pulled Dallas’s head into her lap. Lightly caressing Dallas’s forehead, Roper smiled softly into her eyes. “I wasn’t sure we were going to get out of there alive. There was a time when I didn’t think I would ever have another moment like this one.” Her eyes welled up with rare emotion. “There isn’t anything, anything, I wouldn’t do for you. You are the most important person in my life.” She waved that away. “You are my life. Without you, none of this is worth it. None of it.”

  Dallas held Roper’s hand and kissed her palm. “Is that why you got yourself beaten up? You didn’t think we’d get out?”

  She shook her head. “Out, free, are both relative terms. I didn’t think we’d escape with our spirits intact, no. I knew that I’d rather be dead than to be someone’s incubator or sex slave. I couldn’t live through that, Dallas, and I knew that one of us had to make the bold move.”

  Dallas closed her eyes and relaxed into Roper’s embrace. “Getting the shit kicked out of you is pretty bold.”

  Roper lightly caressed Dallas’s forehead. “Too many Hollywood films, you know? Inmates always escape enroute to the hospital. I figured it was worth a shot.”

  “Was it?”

  “Saving you will always be worth it. If I recall, you leapt in front of a mob of man eaters once in order to die with me. Getting beaten up was the least I could do.”

  Dallas gingerly sat up and held Roper’s hands. “I never believed you were dead, because if I ever thought that, it would destroy me. I would have just given up.”

  Leaning over, Roper kissed her. “Gonna take a helluvalot more than a Bubba or Jethro to kill me, love.”

  “Good. Because we’re going to California, and we’re going to find a safe place to live, a place to call home.”

  “Home. Has such a nice ring to it.”

  “Yeah. We’re going to collect our family and get the hell out of this fucked up place.”

  Roper bent over and kissed her softly again.

  Dallas broke off the kiss. “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

  Roper shrugged and looked away. “We’re not all here, that’s all. I feel…empty.”

  Dallas frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You said you heard Butcher and Einstein, right? Where the hell is Luke? Is he here, too?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe he’s in the Fuchs. Maybe he didn’t want to leave the baby.”

  “He would have come with Butcher. You know he would have. I think we need to find that out, don’t you? She comes to our rescue with only a handful of people? Does that even sound like her?”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t sound like her at all. Maybe there is backup out there and we just haven’t seen them.

  They sat quietly for a moment with the slow pounding returning outside the train a car away from theirs.

  “We can go back if we have to.”

  Dallas shook her head. “Maybe we ought to leave it up to Butcher. See what exit strategy she’s come up with. As far as we know, she left her daughter to come after us. She could have sent Henry or any of the military, but she didn’t. She might have left her family to come for us. If I had to venture a guess, he stayed at Angola with the baby.”

  Tracing Dallas’s eyebrow, Roper moved her hand to Dallas’s chest and laid it there. “You do know what that means, don’t you?”

  Dallas nodded. “It means we need to send her back.”

  Roper looked out the window as the zombies started meandering toward the train cars where Templeton and Sanchez were. “Yeah, well, good luck with that one.”

  “She has a child, Rope. We can’t let her just leave her.”

  Roper folded her hands in her lap and sighed. “Love, I don’t think you quite get it. She already has.”

  ****

  Einstein was single-minded in his focus as he made his way to the secondary warehouse. As each undead approached him he bashed it with a crowbar as if he had been doing so for a year. His arms were caked with blackened blood from the now truly dead.

  The smoke from the fires reminded him of a bunch of apocalypse movies he’d seen. What was that one? Sucker Punch. Einstein grinned. It was one of the few he and Cassie had agreed was worth seeing again. She always wanted to be a kick ass kind of girl.

  Now she would never get the chance.

  A bony hand grabbed his shoulder. Before he could whip around to kill it, a bolt pierced its eye.

  “Dude, focus in,” Zoe said, jogging up to the zombie and pulling out the bolt.

  “Butcher send you?”

  Zoe checked her bow. “I sent myself. You’ll never make it to the warehouse on your own.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Zoe grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Yes I do. Look, I understand how pissed off you must be feeling right now, but you can’t fight them all off. Have you seen how many undead are down there? You won’t do Cassie any good dead. Use your head.” Zoe smacked him in the back of the head for good measure.

  Einstein looked at the dozens of undead creeping around the gate. “I can take them.”

  “No, dude, you can’t. You know it and I know it. So you got two choices. Go back with me or let me help you do whatever heinous act you’re getting ready to commit. Understand?”

  Einstein reluctantly nodded. “I’m not going back. These yokels are going down. Hard. Ugly.”

  “Fine. We can climb over the fence on the far side, but once we get to that warehouse, then what?”

  “Then we look for Clint or Sarge, or JB. One of those assholes.”

  “And when we find them?”

  Einstein’s pupils dilated. “We kill them. If there’s time, if there’s any way to prolong their agony, then that’s what I want to do.”

  “So you kill them. Then what?”

  “Then we meet up at the train station.”

  Zoe started walking down the hill. “You make it sound like a walk in the park.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Einstein kept walking. “Maybe I just don’t care anymore. Bite me, don’t bite me. Shoot me, don’t shoot me.” He shrugged. “What’s the point anyway? We’re killed by the living and the dead alike. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Zoe took out two more zombies before they reached the fence. “Did you ever consi
der the point is to keep the others alive?”

  “Others aren’t my responsibility. Not any more.”

  Zoe shook her head. “Look, I know how bummed you are about Cassie and Churchill. We all have lost important people in this shit. That doesn’t mean we just give up. You don’t get to make people love you and then throw your life in the shitter because things didn’t go your way.”

  “I’m not giving up. I just no longer care one way or the other.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Einstein smashed a zombie in the head. “If I was giving up, I’d just let one of them bite me. I’m not giving up until justice is served—until someone pays for killing Cassie for no good reason.”

  Zoe followed him over the fence. “Slow down for a moment, will you?”

  Einstein stopped. The heat from the blaze was almost overwhelming. Ash fell, smoke clouded the area, and undead roamed outside the fence. “Come on.”

  “How long have you been traveling with Dallas?”

  “Over a year. Why?”

  “We need an exit strategy. There are hundreds of those things surrounding the fence. If we manage to get into that warehouse, we need a way out of it and then a way out of here.”

  He nodded and looked around. “Can you hot-wire a car?”

  She laughed. “In my sleep.”

  “I’ll bet anything they’ve got vehicles in their back up area as well. If I can get to Sarge and deal with him, you get us an escape vehicle.”

  Zoe nodded and put her hand on his shoulder. “Killing people is a whole lot harder than killing man eaters.”

  “I’m aware. See, I have no intention of killing Sarge. A swift death is no justice at all. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

  The sound of rifles firing made them both look up.

  “They’re still trying to clean the area out.”

  Hefting his crowbar, Einstein started for the warehouse. “It only takes one to ruin a party.”

  Edging around the building, he peered around the corner and saw five armed guards standing with rifles in their hands.

  “Five,” he whispered over his shoulder.

  “Any your guys?”

  Einstein shook his head. “Hard to tell with their helmets on, but those three never wore them.” Then he started around the other side, Zoe right behind him.

  People were running here and there, carrying food and supplies from one of the burning buildings.

  Einstein stopped and pointed. “There. That red headed one is Sarge.”

  Zoe looked up to see Sarge standing watch as people loaded their supplies into motorized carts and wheeled them over to the outbuilding—their Plan B.

  “Hold up,” she said, grabbing his wrist. “Let me pull him away from the group.”

  “How?”

  “He doesn’t know me. Is it possible he knew every woman in here?”

  “Possible, yeah.”

  “But in the chaos? Do you think he’d know I’m not one of them?”

  Einstein thought for a moment. “No. Yes. I’m not sure. Your outfit sorta gives you away. What do you have in mind?”

  A couple of minutes later, after Zoe left her leather vest and crossbow near the fence, she grabbed Einstein’s face in her hands. “One guy. You get this one guy and then we’re outta here. That’s the deal, right?”

  “That’s the deal.”

  Nodding, Zoe took off toward Sarge waving her arms in the air and shouting. “I found ‘em! I found ‘em!”

  Einstein watched with detached amusement as she ran to Sarge, gesticulating wildly, and pointing back in his direction. To run headlong into danger was so up Zoe’s alley and now she was running toward him with Sarge hauling ass after her. He didn’t appear to be chasing her as much as he was just following her.

  Einstein grinned. She was good.

  Taking off, Einstein knew exactly where he was going, and when he got there, he turned, knelt down holding his crowbar like a baseball bat, and waited in the shadows. When Zoe ran by, she stopped.

  “I saw her over there!”

  Sarge was three feet away when Einstein swung. When the crowbar hit his knee, the popping noise made by his destroyed kneecap sounded like the uncorking of a champagne bottle.

  Sarge’s M-16 clattered to the ground and he grabbed his knee and cried out, expletives flowing freely. As he rolled on the ground holding his crush knee, Einstein smacked him in the head, knocking him out.

  Zoe came back and helped Einstein drag him to the caged circle, where they placed the leg iron around his ankle.

  “Just this one, Einstein, then we have to go. They’ll come looking for him for sure. We need to be long gone before that happens.”

  Einstein nodded as he stepped back. “Fine. I’ll go get a couple of eaters.”

  “No, let me.”

  He shook his head. “Like you said. We don’t have that kind of time. They’ll be more inclined to follow me. Just be ready to close the gate once I get out.”

  Zoe shook her head. “Going in there is foolish. You bring them to me and then climb up to the roof of the cage.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “You been hanging around Dallas too long.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to continue hanging around her, so get a move on.” Zoe closed the gate.

  Einstein ran with crowbar in his hand until he came upon four zombies pawing at a door. He stopped, picked up a rock, and chucked it at them. He missed.

  “Yo!” he yelled. “Rat bastards! Over here!”

  Ever so slowly, they turned toward him, teeth showing from lips no longer there. Gray skin and bloody chins, they moaned and ambled toward him.

  “Yeah, yeah. Fresh meat. Come on.” Einstein kept his distance but stayed close enough to lure them to the cage where Sarge was chained.

  “Okay, climb up,” Zoe instructed. “ All the way to the top.”

  As Einstein did so, Sarge started to come to. Rolling over on his hands and knees, he cried out, before lying back on his ass. That’s when he saw Einstein glaring down at him, and that was when he heard the rattle of the chains and the moaning.

  “What the fuck?” Sitting up now, he grimaced.

  “Look around you, asshole. Look familiar?”

  Shaking his head to clear it, Sarge touched the goose egg on his head as he realized where he was. “No. No. No.”

  “Oh yes, yes, yes, butt munch. You killed the only girl I ever loved. Right there where that bloodstain is. How does it feel? How did it feel to kill someone who never did anything to you?”

  Sarge pulled on the chain, glancing up to see the zombies moaning at the gate. “Come on, man. I was just following orders. I didn’t mean nothin’.” He pulled with all his might on the chain, his eyes never leaving the zombies crowded around the cage.

  “Yeah, that’s what all those Nazi bastards said when they were put on trial for their crimes against humanity. Well, Sarge, consider this your trial.”

  Struggling to get up, Sarge worked on the pole and tried to pull it from the ground. “Come on, man, this isn’t funny. I can get you out of here. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll kill JB for you. Come on!”

  “It’s not meant to be funny, ass wipe. I want you to feel the same fear my Cassie felt. I want you to shit your pants you’re so fucking afraid. Are you feeling that fear, you cocksuckingmotherfuckingyellowbellied hillbillie?”

  Sarge stopped working on the pole and tried to get his foot out of the chain. “I’m serious. I’ll do anything you want.”

  “All I want from you is for you to die horribly.”

  Sarge glanced over at Zoe, who had attached a length of rope to the gate and was preparing to open it from a good ten feet away. “I’ll give you anything. Anything!”

  “You got keys to one of those vehicles?”

  Jamming his hands in his pockets, he pulled out a set of keys and threw them out of the cage. “Those are to a red Kawasaki near the food storage. Now p-please, let me out of here.”

 
Zoe picked up the key and grinned. “Good to know.”

  “You know, my girlfriend didn’t whine as much as you are, you pussy. Not such a big man now, are you? Well, I just want you to know that you killed one of the best people I have ever met. Her name was Cassie.” Einstein nodded to Zoe, who slowly opened the gate.

  “No! No, kid. Come on! I’ll do anything. Anything!”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  “Even be eaten alive? ‘Cause that’s gonna be the last thing you ever do. For Cassie.” Einstein watched with grim satisfaction as the first three eaters ambled over to Sarge. The big man was successful in breaking the neck of the first one, but the other three were on him, biting him, tearing his flesh from his bones before he could stop them.

  Sarge’s screams grew louder as they tore open his abdomen and pulled his intestines out like sausage links, stuffing them into their mouths like starving people.

  “Come on, Kid,” Zoe said. “He’ll bring the whole army. You got what you came for. Now let’s go.”

  As Einstein climbed down, Sarge reached a bloody hand in the air. “Please…please kill me.”

  When he landed, Einstein pointed his sidearm at him. He held it there a few moments before lowering it. “Nah. Watching you suffer may be the last joy I ever experience.”

  Zoe closed and locked the cage. “I saw that bike he was talking about. Come on.”

  Einstein watched as the zombies tore at Sarge’s clothes munched on his intestines, his screams muffled by a pair of lips and teeth biting his cheek.

  “Who’s afraid now, asshole? The last word I want you to hear is her name. Cassie.”

  Zoe pulled him away. “Come on. He’s done. Let’s get his ride and get the hell out of here. You won. It’s over.”

  Einstein stepped up to her. “It won’t be over until they’re all dead. All of them.”

  “Well that’s gonna have to wait. You got what you came for. Let’s roll.”

  Einstein hesitated.

  “I mean it. I know you have a score to settle, but our first responsibility is to Dallas and the others. You got one, as was our deal. Now let’s fucking bounce. Do you hear me?”