Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus by Simpson, A. (e ink manga reader .txt) 📗

breaking glass and revving of motors. Slaves were making their escape; the madness might be their only chance. The chaos may never happen again. Gunny saw some of them climbing into cars, unpainted faces without the stinking undead adornments tribes’ members wore. They needed more confusion, more uncertainty. Just a little more push might scatter the gathered raiders. Might send them running for the hills trying to save their own skin. Most of them had no idea what was happening, all they knew was a gunfight erupted at the feast. Most of them were already sitting at the long tables and eating, ingesting the drugs. They didn’t know if it was a coup or an Indian raid or even if Lakota was attacking.

“Casey is dead!” Gunny yelled as they dodged through the camps and Griz caught on, added his booming voice to the madness.

“They killed Casey! Run for your lives! They’re coming!” they shouted, adding another layer of confusion and indecision to the people running back towards the battle with guns in hand.

“Fight you cowards!” one of war chiefs screamed at them as they fled past him in the dark. “Come back and fight!”

The message spread and they heard more engines firing up, whether to run or to form a perimeter, they didn’t know and it didn’t matter. They had to go, too many people had seen them, there was no blending back in, no hiding from Casey when he woke up. They slowed their run for the Chevelle, trying to hide in the mass of rushing people. Gunfire and yells were coming from everywhere and no one knew what was going on. If they hurried, they could get away in the confusion, they would live to fight another day. They hadn’t killed Casey but at least they had a consolation prize. The old battle axe would never survive two rounds to the chest. At least Edmunds was dead and with a little luck, Casey was blind.

“Shut up and listen!” a voice came booming through the amps the band had been using. “Casey is talking!”

There was the sound of someone grabbing the mic and the unmistakable voice sent a little shiver down Gunny’s spine. What did it take to stop that bastard? Why was he so hard to kill?

The camp came to a sudden halt. People stopped running, engines were shut off. He wasn’t dead. Casey wasn’t dead. A calm covered the camp and the fear and scurrying around in terror left them. Casey was with them.

“I know you’re still out there, President Meadows.” he said calmly, tauntingly. “I know you can hear me Johnny Killjoy.”

There was a gasp from some, angry exclamations from others.

“You failed, yet again.” he said “I have a thousand warriors here and we’re looking for you.”

He sounded strong and confident, he was unshakeable. Unwavering. He was the mighty Casey and bullets didn’t touch him. Knives slid off of him. He couldn’t be killed.

“Spread out and find them.” Casey told his troops. “Bring them to me alive. We need to teach them a lesson. We need to make them pay.”

A thousand fists thumped their chests, My life for yours, as Gunny and Griz hunched their shoulders and tried to blend deeper into the shadows.

“Hey!” a burly, bearded raider said and brought his gun up when he saw them come around the corner of a building. Gunny grabbed at the pistol, twisted it out of his hand and snapped the finger in the guard. Before the man could start to scream out in pain, he had the barrel of his own gun jammed hard up into his ribcage and barely felt the sledgehammer blow of the forty-five smash through most of his vital organs before following the path of his spine up through his neck and out the top of his head. Gunny shoved him aside and they started running for the Human Hunters camp. For their cars.

Some of the tribe was already there, had the doors to their cars open and were tossing them. Griz’s LaSalle was a goldmine for them and they were pulling out his supply of guns, arguing over them and laying claim to the large assortment of machine guns and rocket launchers.

“Chevelle.” Gunny said and they turned, hurrying towards it.

Someone spotted them crouching beside the work shop and yelled, pointing them out in the cloudy moonlight.

Gunny tossed Griz the pistol and they ran for the Chevy, the only other car in the tribal camp that hadn’t been sabotaged by the girls. Bullets started flying both ways as they dove for the protection of the Kevlar lined car, bashing into each other from opposite sides of the shifter. Gunny fired it up and stomped the go pedal with his hand, slinging sand, gravel and dirt towards the raiders. The car powered side ways and he used the steering wheel to pull himself upright, to see where he was going. They’d spun all the way around and were charging right for the men taking shots at them. Eyes got big and they dove out of the way as Gunny eased off the gas and let the car straighten. Griz popped up with an M-4 and kept them scrambling to hide behind something as he hit them with three round bursts. The big block thundered up to redline and Gunny slammed second. The oversized tires gripped, the car launched forward and the push bar knocked men aside who weren’t fast enough to dive out of the way. Bullets slammed into the car, windows shattered and both men ducked as low as they could and hoped nobody had a .50 caliber that would punch right through the Kevlar.

Casey heard the whole thing, heard the unmistakable roar a big block as it shot out of the town and yelled at his men to run them down.

“Not this time!” he urged them through the speakers. “Don’t let them get away. Don’t let them escape.”

“Let the Hopi’s know we’ve got to switch to plan B.” Gunny