The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (52 page)

Candace and Jeff both fired at the
retreating vehicles, succeeding in blowing out the headlights on
one. Even so, both trucks continued to run backwards at great
speed. Within a very short period the roadway was clear as the
headlights disappeared around a curve.

“
They're retreating... We
took out two of the four trucks, but there could be people in those
trucks... We got at least two guys,” Ronnie told Mike.

Candace was peering at the two trucks
with the night scope.

“
Two dead in the second
truck... One inside... One on the outside,” she said.

Ronnie repeated what she had said over
the radio.

“
One guy that was running
away from the first truck is dead. I... I don't see anyone else in
that truck. Could be, but I can't see it from here. We'll have to
go down there,” Candace said.

Ronnie repeated the observation
again.

“
Hang on... They're talking
on the CB,” Mike said.

Ronnie switched on a portable CB unit
and punched up channel seventeen.

~

“
...Fuckin' care,” a voice
said.

“
You thinking of running?
Because if you are, once I get these fuckers? I'll be coming for
you... get your ass back here, Johnny red, I'm calling the shots
now,” Shitty told him.

“
Shitty, I didn't say I was
running... What's to fight, Man? What's to fight?” Johnny red
asked.

“
I had better see your
fuckin' lights coming back this way in the next five minutes,
Johnny, or maybe I'll come get you first,” Shitty told
him.

“
I'm coming, I'm coming,
Jesus,” Johnny red whined.

~

“
Can you see those other
two trucks?” Mike asked.

Candace and Jeff had both been checking
the horizon with the night Scopes and the area around the
trucks.

“
No,” they both said in
Unison.

Both radios hissed static in the
silence.

“
Okay,” Mike said. “Go
look... But be careful.”

~On the Highway~

The night before, Death had suddenly
shown an interest in Psycho. He had never so much as looked
sideways at her before. He had called her into his truck after they
had stopped for the night and told Chloe to get lost for a
while.

This thing is coming together, he had
told her. And he told her that she had proven herself. And he
needed a second woman, and how did she feel about that? Then he had
taken her, loveless and hard. When he was finally done, he told her
to get her shit, she was traveling with him and Chloe from now on.
Then he had done the other thing to her, on her stomach.

Shitty had been crazy, but not too
crazy, he knew what the deal was. Psycho had been scared to death,
better the crazy you knew than the crazy you didn't. And now
this...

The truck was on its side in a ditch
with Psycho trapped underneath a large canvas bag of fully
automatic machine pistols and rifles. She knew that much, but
whatever else was in that bag, or on top of that bag, she didn't
know. She only knew the bag was on her lower body. It was pressing
against her face and she couldn't move.

She had begged Chloe to help her, but
she had ignored her, crawled to the back of the truck, and slipped
out through the broken window. She had heard no shots like she had
when Death had tried to make a run for it.

Maybe Chloe had made it. If so, she'd
better hope that she, Psycho, didn't find a way out of it as well.
Because if she did and she caught her, she'd pay. But right now, it
sounded as though she had another problem.

A footstep sounded softly nearby,
whoever it was had stepped in the glass scattered on the highway.
When she looked up, she was looking at a woman's face. She was
peering down the barrel of a large pistol she was pointing at her
face.

“
Jesus,” Psycho said.
“Don't do it. Don't shoot.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“
Like you didn't shoot at
us?” Candace asked her.

“
I didn't shoot at nobody,
Girl, no one,” Psycho told her.

“
Uh huh... Don't call me
girl either,” Candace said. “Keep your hands in sight and I will
try to get that shit off you so we can get you out,” Candace said.
“Do anything stupid and I'll shoot you, or these boys will.” She
stepped aside and let her see that Ronnie and Jeff were standing
just a short distance away. “Believe it,” she finished.

Psycho stretched her hands up over her
head and kept them there.

~

They had her out of the overturned
truck in about ten minutes. Candace leaned her up against the truck
and patted her down, as Ronnie and Jeff watched the highway and the
girl.

“
I Ain't got anything,”
Psycho told her.

Candace continued methodically, her
hands tripping over the safety pins in the girls upper body and
stomach. Her hands traveled down the inside of her thighs and she
found a knife wedged down into her right boot.

“
What are you,
a dyke?
” Psycho
asked.

Candace held up the knife and
smiled.

“
I forgot about that,”
Psycho said.

“
Is there any place you
didn't stick a safety pin in?” Candace asked.

Psycho blushed deep red and a frown
spread across her face. “I... I didn't,” she stopped, near
tears.

“
They did?” Candace
asked.

“
All of us,” she
said.

Candace stepped back. “Are you gonna do
anything stupid?” she asked.

“
Are you gonna kill me?”
Psycho asked back.

“
Why would we do that?”
Ronnie asked.

Psycho said nothing, then, “I just
don't want to be hurt anymore... Be scared anymore,” she told
them.

“
What's your name?” Candace
asked.

“
Psy
... Cindy, they named me Psycho,” she told them.

“
Cindy sounds better to me
than Psycho. I'm Candace,” Candace said. “And nobody here will hurt
you. You can stay with us if you want to... or you can go...
after... When this is over, you can go if you want to,” she told
her.

“
After?” she
asked

“
After this part is over...
whatever they have in mind,” Candace said.

“
They're gonna try to kill
you. Death, that's all he wants...
Wanted
.” She said.

Candace looked at her.

“
You killed him. He's
dead,” Psycho looked over at the body sprawled not far from the
truck. She looked down towards the other truck, another body
sprawled there.

“
Who's the other one?”
Candace asked.

“
Other one? I only see that
one and Death here,” she indicated with her eyes. She walked
towards the second truck.

“
Murder,” she said. “It's
Murder. Where's the other one?” She asked Candace.

“
On the floorboards in the
back,” Jeff said.

Cindy leaned through the shattered back
window and popped her head right back out. The top of her head was
gone but it was... “Cassie,” she said aloud. “She was Murder's
woman.”

“
And whose woman were you?”
Ronnie asked.

“
Shitty's... Well, Death's.
I mean, Shitty's up until last night, and then Death took me away
from him. So I guess I was Death's woman,” She squinted her eyes,
clamped one hand to her mouth, and hurried to the side of the truck
and threw up. A mental snapshot of Shitty's first woman, Bitch,
struggling to breath, the horrible clicking sound she had made,
jumped into her head, and then she leaned over and threw up again.
She dry heaved after that, but there was nothing left to come up.
She sat down and began to cry. Staring at her vomit speckled
boots.

~A small willing army~

The twins came to just as the moon had
reached the middle of the black sky.

Somewhere in the blackness the horse
had gone. Gone to find its own kind? She thought that was so, but
she could not read the horse the way she could her own. She only
knew it had a part... served a purpose. It had gone and it would
come back. Possibly with another of its own kind. Maybe... maybe
not. Its mind was not her mind. She had only made it as she was
supposed to. She turned her attention back to the twins. The twins
were hers... for her...

The silvery light was bright, almost
daylight in its intensity. The twins did not fight the changes as
she had thought they might. Their eyelids fluttered almost in
unison. Black liquid eyes shone out and took in their surroundings,
and each other. They looked around at the darkness, making not a
sound, and then lifted their black eyes to the moon above. When
they looked back down, they gazed at her frankly, seeming to accept
their fate, looking to her to guide them, their eyes large, liquid
black, reflecting the cold, silvery moonlight. And she realized
they were not the same. One was slightly taller, a streak of
silver-white in her hair, falling across her forehead. She swept it
aside.

Donita rose from her crouch and set off
into the night at a fast walk. The twins fell in behind her; the
boy brought up the rear. The twins walked obediently, quietly
looking around at the trees and the woods with their newborn eyes
as they followed. They reached out and linked hands as they walked,
drawing closer to one another.

She led them out of the scrub and into
the deep woods. The tall trees marching away in even rows. Absolute
silence fell as they walked. The predators recognized them and left
them alone. A small rabbit stopped, sniffed the air and began to
shake with its fear, frozen in the path of the Walkers. Donita
skirted it, but stopped and turned to see what the twins would do.
The twins stopped when Donita stopped and looked down at the rabbit
frozen on the pathway.

They moved forward slowly, unlinked
their hands and squatted beside the trembling rabbit. The shorter
one reached out one hand and began to stroke the soft fur of the
rabbit. The other, with the streak of silver-white hair still
fallen across her forehead, dangled her own hands between her
thighs and watched, but she made no move to pet the rabbit or stop
the other from doing so. The silence seemed to deepen, the time to
crawl. The Rabbit seemed to tremble less... leaning into the girl's
hand as she stroked the fur.

Donita almost didn't catch the
movement. It was so fast. The other girl's hands flew from between
her thighs and in one movement closed around the Rabbits throat,
pulled it into the air and then flipped it backwards with a fast
snap, breaking its neck. She threw the bundle of fur back to the
ground at the other girl's feet. The rabbit's feet kicked hard
once... twice, and then stopped. A thin trickle of blood flowed
from one side of its pink nose. The smaller girl cocked her head to
one side, raised her eyes to look at her sister briefly, then
looked back down at the rabbit where it lay on the ground by her
feet. She extended one hand, touched the blood that ran from the
rabbit's nose and then bought that finger to her blue tinged lips
to taste it.

Her eyes closed, and her body began to
shake. Her twin leaned forward and rested one hand on her shoulder,
a barely audible whisper coming from her lips. Words spoken
strongly, but there was no air in her lungs to move across her
vocal chords.

I Love You, floated on the dark forest
air.

Her eyes opened and locked with her
sisters. The red smear of blood on her blue-tinged lips seemed
startlingly bright in the moonlight. She looked down at the rabbit
once more and then stood from her crouch, took her sisters hand and
turned back to Donita. Donita held her eyes with her own for a
moment and then turned and began once more to make her way through
the rows of tall trees, the three children following quietly
behind.

~War Two~

Candace had left with Cindy and walked
back into the camp from the hillside. They had talked along the
way, and the things the girl had told her had infuriated
her.

“
This is my man, Mike,” she
said, making introductions. “Bob, Tom and David,” she continued.
“This is Cindy. She was forced to be with them.”

Mike looked from the safety pins
jutting out from her shirt to her belly button, her upper lip and
nose. The Safety pins made the largest impression. He looked to
Candace, his eyes asking if she was sure. Candace
nodded.

Mike looked back at the young woman.
She looked so young and pale in the moonlight, washed out, dressed
as though she were playing a part. “If Candace is sure you're okay,
then you're okay with me,” Mike said. He offered his hand and she
touched it with a closed fist. He tapped her fist with his
own.

“
We're going down to the
creek; we'll be back. First aid kit in one of these trucks?”
Candace asked.

A look of concern came into Mike's
eyes.

“
Not me,” Candace said.
“We'll be back,” she leaned forward and kissed Mike.