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

maybe it had just kept going. It was human nature, and Gunny just waited. He wasn’t a sniper, never had their training, but from hanging out with them, listening to their stories, he knew what to expect from people waiting, who were hiding but weren’t really sure they needed to be. They would remain on high alert until they thought the right amount of time had passed. Then they’d be second guessing for double that amount of time. Then they’d get annoyed at themselves, convinced they’d been acting foolishly, scared of their own shadows. If they didn’t have training. Gunny was guessing they didn’t and confirmed it when he saw a curtain move slowly aside and a face peek out, scanning the horizon. A door squeaked quietly and a few seconds later, he heard the sound of running feet going to an outbuilding. Two for sure. Possibly one more. He was pretty sure the driver of the supercharged truck was their ringleader, and he wouldn’t want to be crammed into the cab with a bunch of other guys. He’d want to be comfortable in his new truck.

Gunny moved his sights over to the other window, placed them right where he thought the face would appear, then raised them, allowing for the drop at three hundred yards. He applied pressure to the trigger and let his breath out, holding it at the bottom. When the curtains flicked back and a bearded face squinted out, Gunny squeezed. Glass tinkled and the man didn’t have time to look surprised before the bullet smashed through his forehead. The sound of a little engine roaring to life behind the house brought him to his feet. He was up and sprinting before the body hit the floor. It was the high revving, angry insect sound of a two-stroke motorcycle. A dirt bike that would be gone across the desert in seconds. He’d never be able to chase him down. Gunny couldn’t let him get away, couldn’t let him warn Casey. He ran full-out, covering the ground in huge bounds, angling for the sound so he could get a shot off. The bike was already hard to see in the dim light, but it was heading down the driveway for the road, not fleeing out into the desert where he’d have been half hidden by boulders and scrub brush. Amateur mistake. Gunny slid to a halt and shouldered the gun, held his breath, led the target and squeezed the trigger twice. Both arms flew up in the air and the bike careened toward a stand of cactus trees, leaving the rider impaled and dangling for a moment before he dropped bonelessly to the ground.

Gunny heard it at the last second, the sound of a quiet engine racing and coming right for him. A little Honda was almost on top of him, its motor revving and the driver holding it to the floor. No time to dive out of the way. Gunny sprang straight up, dropping the carbine and drawing his Glock. He started firing into the windshield as the Honda sped toward him, punching through it, weakening it, and when he slammed into the speeding car, the safety glass caved under his heavy boots. He hit the passenger seat so hard it broke, tilting all the way back, sending him sprawling into the back seat. The driver had shielded his face from the flying glass but had a Desert Eagle in his fist and brought it around, foot still mashing the gas. Gunny saw the gun swinging toward him and managed to bring his up and put four rounds through the seat and into the back of the man. He slammed forward over the steering wheel, his hand cannon flying out of his fingers. The car left the graded driveway and went careening off through the desert, plowing down prickly brushes and bouncing over shallow washes. Gunny tried to pull the dead guy away from the wheel, his foot off the gas, but he crumpled in the seat and slid to the floorboard, locking the pedal to the floor. The little motor screamed down an embankment, into the dry river bed, with Gunny trying to grab the steering wheel from the back seat. He saw headlights coming down the road and realized the car was flying out of the arroyo and right toward them. He dropped his gun and lunged for the wheel, but the car screamed up the shallow embankment and went flying through the air, the plastic bumper tearing off and a massive plume of dirt and sand spraying out behind him. He launched over the rise, the little car climbing high in the air as it shot over the road and slammed down nose first into a dune, flipping over onto its roof, rolling back into the gully, and sliding into a cluster of barrel cactus.

Gunny smashed into the back of the driver’s seat, breaking it, then was shoved backward by the airbags. When the car finally came to rest, he was all the way in the hatchback section with the dead man sprawled on top of him, bleeding all over. Gunny groaned and took a quick inventory, making sure nothing was broken, then shoved the guy off. Flashlights were coming toward him and he didn’t know if it was his crew, or more bad guys and he didn’t see his gun anywhere. He looked for it frantically, moving his hands around in the broken glass.

A light stabbed in his face and he squinted, but kept searching for his Glock or the Desert Eagle. It was a sinking feeling, being unarmed and people who would do you harm were only a few feet away.

“Well, that’s a hell of an entrance, Evil Knievel,” Scratch said. “You coulda just flagged us down, you didn’t have to jump over the top of us.”

“Ha freaking ha,” Gunny said. “Get that light out of my eyes and help me find my gun. And get this guy out of my