As The World Dies Untold Tales Volume 3 (8 page)

“If you won’t tell me where you’re going, can you tell me where you came from?”

“I was at a church camp for a few weeks, but we got overrun. The barbed wire fence went down in the middle of the night. I barely made it out of there.” The pain in her face said it all. “There were a lot of families there. It was bad. I spent about a week at a National Guard camp outside of Marfa, Texas before taking off. So there are people still out there.”

The reek of the dead was becoming unbearable. Rune wrinkled his nose and tried to ignore his watering eyes. Now that the wind had changed direction, it was hard to breathe in the rank air.

“I better go,” Monica said, beginning to retreat toward the big truck. “Storm is heading this way and I really want to make it to—”

She stopped herself.

“No worries. I’m heading on down this road.”

“Where are you going?”

Rune shrugged. “No clue.”

Monica kept wide berth of the dead zombies and carefully checked to make sure none were lurking in the shadows near the truck.

Rune picked up his Glock and the bag of ammo. He quickly reloaded the clip and slapped it back home. It was disconcerting to know that he didn’t know where to go. He had no home other than Charlene and the road.

The truck door slammed shut and the big truck started up. Rune straddled his bike and set about reloading his other Glock. The big truck rolled up next to him and the window rolled down.

“Thanks for the rescue,” the woman called out.

“No problem.”

“Maybe I’m an idiot for telling you this, but I heard there’s a rescue center outside of Waco that’s still secure. It’s old news. Maybe two weeks old.”

“I have a friend out Waco way,” Rune said, a slight smile on his lips. Her information felt like a message. Energy tingled across his skin and he knew he’d have to head to Waco.

“Just be careful. The interstates are death traps.”

“I hear ya.”

“Good luck, Rune.”

“Good luck, Monica. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

The window rolled up and the big truck rumbled onto the road.

Looking up, Rune saw Monica heading toward the storm. Starting up his bike, he pulled around and headed in the opposite direction toward Waco, Texas.

Chapter 12

It was a day later when Rune happened across a scene that sent his gut clenching and made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. An old blue station wagon had skidded across the narrow country road
, leaving a long trail of rubber behind it. It was nose down in a ditch. Inside, two figures were ferociously struggling.

The muffled sound of gunshots brought Rune to a hard stop fifty feet from the rear of the vehicle, his hand sliding under his leather vest to his Glock.

One of the shapes in the car slumped out of sight.

Hot vapor billowed out from the edges of the crumpled hood, the engine ticking loudly as it cooled.

Rune waited, holding his breath as he craned his head, listening for the cry of a zombie.

A very white hand wiped the blood off the back passenger window and a frightened female face gazed out at Rune. A second later the door was shoved open and the woman half-fell, half-leaped from the vehicle. Splattered in blood, she breathed heavily as she stared at Rune with wide, frightened eyes.

“Can you help me?” she asked.

Dressed in jeans, a tight V-necked t-shirt, and skin
-tight jeans, Rune got a bit of a hellcat vibe off of the slender young woman with shaggy red hair that hung past her impressive cleavage. A gun was tucked into the waistband of her low slung jeans near the slight protrusion of her hip bone.

The air was vibrating with high emotions, violence, and death. The cloying scent of blood and shit assaulted his nostrils.

“I said can you help me?”

The woman took a step toward him, her boot heel thudding hard against the asphalt.

“Depends on what you’re wanting.” Rune’s fingers didn’t move from his Glock.

A steady stream of hot steam slithered out from beneath the hood of the station wagon. The back of it was crammed with boxes, bags, and luggage.

“I need your help!”

The atmosphere was thick and cold around Rune. Shuddering, he ignored the pressure building around him. “Put the gun down on the ground.”

“What?”

“Put the gun down,” Rune repeated. He rested his Glock on his thigh. “If you want my help, you’ll put the gun on the ground. Otherwise, I’m riding off.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong! I was defending myself! They would have killed me!”

“What’s yer name?”

“Huh?” The question threw her off. “Becky...”

“Okay, Becky. Gun on the ground, or I ride off.” Rune gestured to the gory, bloody interior of the car. “Something went down and you’re the last one standing. You can’t fault me for being cautious.”

Becky glanced over her shoulder, her teeth chewing on her bottom lip. With a sigh, she set the gun at her feet, then nudged it away with the toe of her boot.

“Thank you. Now, I’d like to know what just happened.”

Gaping at Rune incredulously, she shoved her thick, dirty hair back from her spattered face with bloody hands. “What happened? I almost got killed by those assholes!”

The thick fog of emotions wrapped around Rune, warning him of danger. Though the young woman didn’t look much older than his daughter, she had harsher lines around her eyes and mouth. Maybe they were a sign of a hard life, or the recent weeks, but he felt the need to be cautious.

“Why don’t you explain to me what happened. In detail.”

Exhaling with frustration, she set her hands on her hips. “Fine! My brother and I were trying to get help and these two picked us up. We thought they were okay, but they were going to rob us...kill us.” Lifting trembling hands to her face, she wiped at the blood, but only managed to smear it more. “They killed my brother, but I fought for the gun. I...I...I barely managed to fight off that bitch in the backseat.”

“Becky, I want you to walk around to the other side of the car and put both your hands on the roof, okay? I’m going to take a look inside the car.”

“Are you a fucking cop or something?” Exasperation filled her voice and she flung her hands up in annoyance.

“Nope. Just a dude trying to stay alive.”

“There are zombies around!”

“If you keep screaming, yeah, there are gonna be zombies around. I can drive off right now. I got no issue doing that.” Rune responded gruffly. “None of this is my business.”

A small smile tipped up the corner of her mouth. “You’re a tough son of a bitch, aren’t ya?”

“Yep.”

A flirtatious and dangerously alluring expression slid over her features as she slowly walked around the back of the station wagon to the other side. Making a great show of it, she laid her bloody hands on top of the roof.

Rune edged the bike up to the station wagon and slid off after angling it for a quick getaway. “Tell me what happened. All the details. Not the quick and dirty version.”

“Quick and dirty?” The sultry look on her face was disturbing considering how much of it was covered in blood.

“Start talking.”

“Fine! My brother and I were holed up in a safe house, but the zombies busted in. We escaped, hit the road, but the car broke down this morning. We were trying to decide if we should risk going on foot to find a new place to hide, or find a new car, when this guy and chick pulled up in the station wagon. They offered to help us out.”

Rune leaned over to peer into the vehicle and caught sight of a swath of Becky’s bare taut stomach through the car window. Ignoring the curve of her hips, he examined the body of a woman slumped over on the back seat. A hunting knife protruded from beneath her breasts. In the front seat were the bodies of two men. The driver’s window was broken and there were bullet holes in the dash, the roof, and punched through the windshield, reducing the glass to a mosaic of splintered glass shards in varying hues of bloody reds.

“Then what?”

“We were cruising along when the driver pulled a gun on my brother. I drew my knife just as that bitch attacked me.” Rune could see the woman’s body jittering back and forth, foot to foot. “My knife went right into her chest when she landed on me. There was blood all over me. The driver started screaming and my brother grabbed for the gun. They were fighting and the gun kept going off. My brother got hit. I dove over the seat and fought the asshole until I managed to get the gun free.”

Closing the passenger door, Rune peered into the front seat. He saw Becky move and said sharply, “Stay where you are.”

Freezing in place, she banged her hands on the roof. “Fine!”

Though he wasn’t an expert, it certainly did appear that the passenger had been shot several times and the driver once. It took Rune several seconds to realize the driver was still breathing, blood bubbling out of a chest wound.

“Can you hear me?” Rune asked in the man’s ear.

Eyelids fluttering, the man’s mouth moved, but only a raspy breath escaped.

“Yes, I can hear you,” Becky said with agitation.

“Not talking to you.”

“What?”

Rune was certain that the man was close to death. Now that he was listening to something other than Becky carrying on, he could hear the low rattle in the man’s chest. The air felt thick, dry and cold. Confusion, anger, terror, and desperation mingled in the atmosphere in the car. It was a miasma of turbulent emotions.

The front passenger door yanked open, the dead man falling out onto the pavement like a rag doll, and Becky thrust her upper body into the car. Rune made sure the first thing she saw was his Glock aimed at her head.

“Hands on the roof.”

“Is he alive?”

“Barely. Hands on the roof.”

With a cry of irritation, she slid out of the car and whacked her hands against the roof a few times.

Again the dying man’s eyes fluttered, his dark eyes trying to focus on Rune. Blood drizzling from his dry lips, his mouth trembled in an attempt to form words.

With two dead people in the car, Rune wished that a ghost would have the decency to bug him now that he needed one. Yet, all he felt was the frostiness of a fresh death and the bewilderment that came with an unexpected, violent one. He sensed more than saw the life of the man dissipate.

Rune straightened and stared over the roof of the station wagon at the blood-splattered redhead.

“Well?”

“Dead. No final words.”

She slightly shrugged. “He was a dick.”

Rune took a deep breath, trying hard not to breathe in the scents of death. The woman had trouble written all over her. Back in the day, Rune would have bought her a few beers and dragged her behind the bar building for a quickie. But in this world
, she was not only trouble, but possibly life-threatening.

“That man wasn’t your brother, was he?” Rune fastened his blue eyes on her and let her see the dangerous aspect of himself.

The coy, flirty look returned. “Okay. He wasn’t my brother. He’s a guy I hitched a ride with.”

“Before you got a ride with these folks?”

“Yeah. But these assholes totally tried to off us!”

“Why?” Rune lifted an eyebrow. “They’re the ones with all the supplies.”

Becky twisted her mouth. Raising her eyes toward the sky, she was obviously sorting through her thoughts before answering. “Fine. The guy I was with pulled a gun on the driver and told him to pull over. He didn’t. They fought for the gun.”

“And how did the woman in the back end up with a knife in her heart?”

“She attacked me when Joe was fighting with her husband. I had to defend myself.”

“So, basically, you were hijacking these folks for their stuff.”

“Not me! Oh, no! Not me. Joe! He was the one!” Becky shook her head adamantly. “I nearly died! I had to fight the asshole—”

“The man you wanted to rob,” Rune corrected.

“He would have shot me!”

With a shrug, Rune stepped back and thumped the door shut. Sliding onto his Harley, he prepared to go.

“You can’t leave me! The car is stuck!”

“Also, the engine is shot up,” Rune pointed out.

Becky skirted around the listing station wagon and hurried toward him. Rune raised the Glock and aimed at her.

She skidded to a stop, breathing heavily. “You can’t leave me!”

“Yes, I can!”

“I...I...” Obviously afraid he would really leave, Becky’s eyes wildly darted around their surroundings.

The icy prickles crawling up his arms let Rune know the dead were upset, but not yet able to communicate.

“I’ll suck you off. I’ll give you sex whenever you want it! I’ll even do anal! I can cook. Do your laundry! We can get some of those supplies and I can cook for you!”

Rune shrugged dismissively.

It was obvious from Becky’s shocked expression that had not been the response she’d been expecting.

Nearby, something let out a low, growling sound.

“One of those things is coming, Rune!”

“Well, I guess you better pick up that gun, huh?”

“You can’t leave me!”

Rune gave her a dismissive look. “Why shouldn’t I leave you?”

“Because there are others like her that will kill again,” a voice whispered in Rune’s ear, instantly freezing it.

Keeping the gun on the woman, Rune shivered under the onslaught of the ghostly presence. He believed in signs and messengers, but this was not one that was welcome. If he took the woman with him, he was committing himself to finding justice for the dead and saving the living. Rune was not a lawman, and didn’t want to deal with the mess before him. But what if this was why he was supposed to stay alive for so long? What if this was why his daughter had urged him to stay alive? Looking toward the station wagon, he wondered about the dead couple inside. They had obviously been good folks who had stopped to help people in need. Instead, they had been murdered.

A mangled creature stepped out of the trees just a few feet behind Becky. Rune shot it, making the girl jump, then holstered his gun.

“Get on,” he said gruffly.

She darted forward to grab the gun resting on the asphalt.

“Leave it.”

“But
—”

“Leave it! You want my help? You want out of here? Then leave it and get on.”

Becky hurried over and started to climb behind him, but he scooted back and patted the seat in front of him. He did not want her arms around his chest near his weapons.

“Sit here, hands on the center of the handlebars. You don’t move them, or else I stop the bike and you’re walking.”

“But...but...I can be your woman,” she protested. She was scared and frantic, so her attempt to look seductive failed.

“Don’t need one. Get on.”

Rune flinched at the reek of blood and body odor clinging to the woman when she climbed onto the bike, but he had trouble not doing the right thing. Saving the woman was just a means to an end. Whether he liked it or not, he was now on a mission.

As he rode on, Rune glanced into the review mirror and saw a ghostly woman riding just behind him. She gave him a slight sad
, encouraging smile.