Zombie Road by Simpson, A. (best ereader manga .TXT) 📗

new retrievers hanging around that he didn’t know, Jessie chose his words carefully.

“I need a crew.” He said. “High risk. Guns hot. Big payoff. We leave tonight. Right now, in fact.”

The music still blasted, the dancers still danced but every one of the hard men and women at the tables got quiet. If the Road Angel needed help on a job, it had to be serious. It had to be big. It would be the kind of job that you might not come back from. Ting Wei gripped Charlie’s arm a little tighter, they were still recovering from the animal attack at Mount Rushmore. Annabel Death studied him from hooded lids. Fat Nancy rolled her drink back and forth in her hands. Takeo blew smoke rings from his Kool at the ceiling.

How big is the payoff?” Penny the Stitch asked

“The biggest you can possibly imagine.” Jessie said and those that knew him knew it was more than money he was talking about. The Road Angel didn’t care about collecting Lakota Gold. It was something dead serious.

“What’s the job?” Applesauce asked.

“Can’t say.” Jessie replied. “We roll in ten minutes. Meet me in the parking lot.”

With that, he left and let them mull it over.

“I’m in.” Takeo said and Mizuki stood with him. The other Hell Drivers fell in line and followed him out of the bar. He had been contracted to run some 3D printed pieces down to Lakota for the water treatment plant but he had time. The engineers were still making them.

Ian the Hunter and Klondike Dan shot gunned their beers and stood to follow.

“We’ll be back.” Ian told the girl he was with. “Stay here and look pretty.”

Sugarcane Jane snorted and slid out of the booth. She wasn’t sitting this one out.

“I have a better idea.” she said. “Why don’t you stay here and look ugly. I’ll bring you back a souvenir.”

Eric the Blackhand slammed his shot and slid out of the booth. “I’m definitely in.” He said.

One by one, the rest of them made their decisions and most of the men and women who lived on the edge gathered their gear and followed. The old hands that owed Jessie a favor or two and new faces who wanted to make a name for themselves.

Fifteen retrievers and Hell Drivers met him at his Mercury and joined Macon, Marylin and the three guards already gathered.

Macon had assured him Horowitz didn’t have cameras or microphones in the parking lot but they kept behind a semi-truck just in case a lip reader with a telescope was spying on them.

“I don’t have time to tell you everything or explain much of anything.” Jessie said. “We have less than thirty minutes to make this happen so I’m going to give you the short version. No time for questions, you’re either in or out. If you trust me, if you’re in, we go to war in about ten minutes. If you’re out then stay here until it’s over. Understood?”

There were nods all around and Jessie took a deep breath before he started.

“Horowitz has a time machine in the lower levels of this building. It works, I’ve been through it, and it needs to be destroyed. He’s making time jumps every hour and one of these times he’s going to get it right. Maybe next time, maybe in a half hour everything will be gone. Before you start thinking maybe we can fix everything, go back and stop the virus, take a good hard look at me. Do I look like the sixteen-year-old you saw a few weeks ago? I don’t know how old I am, maybe only four or five years have passed for me but for you, it’s only been weeks. You can’t undo what’s been done. I’ve tried. I’ve tried over and over again and when I tell you this is the best world we can hope for you have to believe me. If Horowitz figures out how to survive a jump or even to send a warning to himself, we’ll all be dead. We have to stop him before he makes the next jump because it could be the one that changes everything.”

There were frowns and skeptical looks from everyone gathered.

“Why do you need us, Jessie?” Annabel Death asked. “If it’s just a time machine, go break it. We’ve seen you fight, what else aren’t you telling us?”

“Remember those super soldiers the Anubis cult had? Any of you ever go up against them or seen them in action?” Jessie asked.

There were a few nods. Only a few had actually witnessed what they could do but everyone had heard the stories. Nobody that went against them had survived the fight. Except Jessie.

“He has a bunch of his men down there that have been injected so they’re super strong, super fast and they’re half zombie.” Jessie continued. “That makes them the most dangerous thing you’ve ever fought and Marylin says he has a small army. I need to get through them before I can destroy the machine.”

“You know how crazy this all sounds?” Eric the Blackhand asked.

“Yes.” Jessie said. “You in or out?”

“Hell, I’m in.” Eric said. “I’d be happy to cut down some of his goons. They’re all a bunch of assholes.”

“Gear up.” Jessie said. “We go now. I’ll take a group down on the elevator, the rest go down the stairs. They’ll be ready for the team on the elevator but hopefully the others can flank them if we get in trouble.”

Once they were back across the river, they split into two groups and ran for the stairs and elevator. They didn’t know if they really believed the wild story but they believed in Jessie. Half of them owed him their lives. That was enough.

Marilyn overrode the safety measures on the elevator with her keycard. She forced the doors to stay open then punched the button for the lowest level. She showed them the camera feed on her tablet and they saw the lounging men jump to their feet or