Jake's Law: A Zombie Novel (10 page)

One of the bikers shrugged. “I
dunno, Levi.”

The
cowboy, Levi, stuck his head in the door of the house and yelled, “Hey! You assholes get out here. We’re leaving.”

After a few moments, h
e stepped inside the door, which saved his life. The pipe bomb exploded, lighting up the night sky and shattering the front windows of the house and the truck. The two bikers died instantly, as a fury of metal shrapnel and debris pelted their bodies. Flaming wreckage landed on the truck, setting it on fire. The driver screamed as he fell out of the truck’s door, beating frantically at his flaming clothing. He rolled on the ground, but ignited a pool of gasoline draining from the bikes Jake had punctured. He exploded in a ball of fire. His screams lasted only a few seconds.

The
cowboy peered around the edge of the door to see what the commotion was. He quickly surmised what had happened and remained just inside the doorway. Jake tried to center him in his scope, but the flames and smoke made it difficult to see. He took a chance and fired anyway. The bullet struck the doorframe, splintering the wood beside the cowboy’s head. He dived for the ground, rolled, and came up running for the corner of the house. For a brief moment, as he glanced back, the flaming wreckage illuminated his face. Jake saw no fear, only a visage of pure hatred. He fired again, shattering one of the windows behind the cowboy’s head.

“Damn!
I missed him. Let’s go. The others will come soon.”

The explosion had been the signal for Jessica to
return to pick them up. They dragged the dead man’s body behind them to the road. Reed was huffing and puffing by the time the jeep appeared out of the darkness. He fell into the back seat and produced an inhaler from his pocket, taking a deep puff and wheezing. Jake tossed the corpse in beside Reed and climbed in the passenger seat.

“We managed to kill six of them
. One survived, but he’s on foot. The others in the house must know something’s wrong by now.” He smiled at Jessica. “Are our troops ready?”

She nodded. “They should be here any minute.”

Before setting up their ambush, they had driven slowly around San Manuel
dragging a pig he had slaughtered behind the jeep. He hated killing one of his animals for any purpose other than food, but the need was great. The smell of fresh blood coaxed the starving zombies from their neighborhoods. The trail of blood led straight into Oracle. Jake wondered what the thugs in the house would do when confronted by a small army of zombies, especially after hearing an explosion and seeing a large bonfire lighting up the horizon.

Right on time, the forefront of the zombie
horde appeared out of the darkness, Runners leading the pack with dozens of Shamblers close on their heels. Jake flashed the headlights of the jeep to encourage them. The guard on the balcony saw the flashing lights, and then caught sight of the zombies approaching. He raced away to warn the others. As soon as he disappeared, Jessica gunned the jeep and headed straight for the house. When they were directly in front of it, Jake lit the fuse of the remaining bomb and hurled it at the front door. As they sped away, the explosion blew the door off its hinges and collapsed part of the front wall, crushing two of the three bikes parked against it. Now, the zombies would have no trouble gaining entrance through the gaping hole. To assure he had their attention, he had Jessica back up the jeep. He rolled the dead man’s corpse out of the jeep. It landed in the rubble of the front door. Drawn by the sound of the explosion and by the smell of death, the zombies converged on the house.
Jake’s Law # 8 – Use the tools you’ve got.

“It’s time to get out of here,” he said
to his companions.

They drove away slowly
, enticing the zombies closer to the house. He smiled when the creatures stormed through the shattered front door. Shots came from inside the house. The gunfire lasted only a couple of minutes, followed by a loud piercing scream.

“They should have remembered
Jake’s Law #9 – Always have an exit strategy.
”

One man still lived,
the cowboy called Levi, but he was on foot, facing zombies revitalized by a meal of fresh meat. Like vultures drawn by the stench of death, they would quickly find the other dead men and feast on them as well. Unless he was a complete fool, the cowboy would flee the area. Jake doubted he was a fool, but also doubted they had heard the last of the cowboy.

“My bombs worked,”
Reed said with a broad smile.

“God help us if we have to
murder everyone we meet,” Jessica said as she stared at the carnage through the rear view mirror.

“I didn’t
murder two people I met,” Jake reminded her. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Jessica didn’t reply
. Instead, she concentrated on driving.

8

June
10, 2016   Oracle, AZ –

Levi
waited until he was certain the unknown shooters were gone before venturing near the house. The inferno from the burning truck and pile of looted goods had died down, but a cloud of acrid smoke from burning rubber tires and insulation hung in the air, along with the smell of scorched human flesh. All five bikes were trashed, either incinerated or twisted beyond repair by the explosion. Whoever ambushed them had been thorough. He stared at the burned bodies of his three companions and cursed. They never knew what hit them. He found Whitey and the kid’s body in the brush nearby. He couldn’t find Slant.

“Someone’s going to pay for this,” he
vowed, as he removed his Stetson and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He stared toward the crash house where the rest of his companions waited, wondering why they hadn’t come to investigate. “Stupid-ass dopers,” he cursed. “Can’t they hear an explosion?” 

He
walked back through the desert to avoid the road. Before he reached the house, another explosion ripped through the night. He instantly knew it was the crash house.

“Son of a bitch,” he snarled.
Anger welled up in him at his unknown attackers.

Peeking through the brush alongside the road, he saw a horde of zombies
pouring through the shattered front door of the house. Then he noticed the jeep parked down the road, the people inside watching the zombie attack. If he had his rifle, he could have killed them all, but he had only his pistol, and shooting would only have drawn the zombies to him. Something familiar glinting on one of the men’s chest caught his attention. He watched the jeep leave, swearing he would find them and kill them. He didn’t give a shit about the others, even Ax. They were trash, disposable, people he had picked up around the city, but the people in the jeep had inconvenienced him, had tried to kill him, and that was unforgivable.

T
hree stints in prison had taught him you had to defend yourself against all comers, redneck, white, Black, or Latino. If anyone thought you were weak, you’d wind up as their bitch or dead. After slashing one skinhead redneck ear to ear with a shiv, they had learned to leave him alone. Even the ADC guards didn’t fuck with him, and that was just the way he liked it. He had been looking at another five years when the shit hit the fan, and the world rolled over in its stinking grave. As the cons died and came back to life around him, the guards finally opened the cells and let the prisoners fend for themselves inside the walls. It had been touch and go for awhile, but he had been one of the lucky ones, him and Ax. Now Ax’s luck had run out.

His time in the slammer had taught him one more thing – how to smell a cop. The trap smelled like a police raid. The badge on one of the
men’s chest just sealed the deal. A cop. He spit the word out like it was acid on his tongue. He hated cops more than he hated zombies.

He
stayed hidden and watched the house until morning. Finally, their grisly meal finished, the zombies left the house. He didn’t much want to see what was left of Spence, Tall Dave, and Ax, but he needed his M16 and more ammo. The front door and part of the wall was blown inward by the explosion. Tall Dave had died instantly. That saved him from knowing he was being eaten. Most of his face and upper torso was stripped of flesh. Blood soaked his red beard. Only his long legs still buried in the rubble had been spared. Curiously, Slant’s body was lying outside the front door. He had been with Whitey and the kid. What was he doing here? Had he run at the first sign of trouble? When Levi noticed the bullet holes in what was left of Slant’s back, he smiled. The people in the jeep had shot Slant and dragged him to the house to use as bait for the zombies. Clearly the cop no longer took his official law enforcement duties seriously – no arrest, no trial, just an execution.

He found
Ax in the kitchen, his usual habitat. He had never been the brightest bulb in the lamp. The fool former accountant had tried to barricade himself inside the small kitchen pantry, barely large enough to accommodate his rotund body. His remains lay in a bloody heap on the floor amid cans of food and opened bags of rice and meal. The compulsive eater had been eaten. He had escaped prison with Ax and had hung around with him for over a year. Seeing his friend’s corpse should have elicited some emotion other than relief that it was someone else lying there and not him. It had been a hard year. Emotions were for the weak.

It took him a while to find
Spence’s body. The former bar bouncer had managed to take a few zombies with him. They lay in a small pile at the bottom of the staircase and along the stairs he had chosen to defend. He found what was left of Spence in a hall bathroom, lying in a pool of blood. He had saved his last bullet for himself. The neat hole in his head spoke to his desire of not being eaten alive. He had been eaten nonetheless. Zombies weren’t finicky about their food. Fresh dead meat was as good as live meat.

Levi found his
M16 untouched in the master bedroom. He grabbed several boxes of ammo, some canned goods, and a couple of bottles of water, and threw it all into a backpack. It wasn’t safe around Oracle, but he would be back. Soon. He had unfinished business with the cop.

With a little work, he managed to repair one of the Harleys. He smiled when
the bike cranked on the first try. As he rode off down American Boulevard, headed back to Tucson, he glanced east. A large cloud of dust clung to the horizon like a low-lying cloudbank. His new enemy was somewhere in that direction, in the mountains. He would find them and pay them back. But first, he had to round up a few more allies from Tucson. It wouldn’t be difficult. There were hundreds of people who thought like him; people who had little in life and saw the end of the world as an opportunity to take what they wanted and maybe spread a little payback along the way. Right now what he wanted was to place some distance between him and the zombies. Then, he would be back with a vengeance.

9

June
11, 2016 Split Rock Canyon –

Morning brought its own
new set of problems for Jake. Now, someone knew they were in the area. He didn’t want to have to worry about a new threat. One man shouldn’t present a problem, but the cowboy struck him as determined and vindictive. They had made a dangerous enemy. Against his better judgment, he asked Reed to park his RV at the farm. He was disappointed that Reed hadn’t fired a single shot during the fight, but he had demonstrated his resourcefulness and his value as a chemist by creating the bombs. In spite of his lack of stamina and breathing problems, Jake was betting that Reed would prove his worth later on as well. If he kept adding people, the ranch was soon going to resemble a commune. All he needed was a few hippies and a guitar.

Jessica had surprised him. During the fight, she had remained cool and collected. In fact, she had look
ed on almost eagerly as the zombies attacked the thugs in the two-story house. She acted as if she were on speed or high on adrenalin, racing around the house recounting the night’s adventure like it had been a scavenger hunt. After Reed left to collect his RV, she had directed her storehouse of energy toward him. He thought it odd how danger made some people horny, but he didn’t complain. It was difficult to argue with great sex.

His past experiences with women had jaded him. He couldn’t place all the blame on them
. He was no catch, but his opinion of women had suffered greatly over the past few years to the point that women had become more trouble than they were worth. Jessica was wearing down his resistance. She was everything he had hoped the next woman in his life would be. Had the planets swung around into perfect alignment? Had God decided he had suffered enough and sent an angel? Maybe he had just learned to trust others a little more.

He heard the banging and scraping of the RV long before he saw it coming up the
trail with a billowing cloud of dust following it. He wondered about the excessive dust. Then he smiled as he noticed the tree limb dragging behind the RV. Reed was covering his tracks.
Smart man.
The RV gave one final shudder as it drove through the open gate. He was surprised it had survived the trip over the barely passable road. He directed Reed to park near the cliff below the house. Reed popped out of the RV wearing a broad smile.

“Made it,” he said.