Dark Paths: Apocalypse Riders (4 page)

“Hey, sit down. Maybe Dray here will have more to report.” The bike pulled to a stop, and a tall, bald man with the scariest facial tattoos she’d ever seen climbed off. She turned her face away.

“What the hell happened?” the man called Dray asked.

“The living happened,” her driver said. “She says there’s six more girls and two guys out there.”

Dray cursed. “No wonder the herd started gathering back together, they must have smelled them.” He sighed. “I thought I saw some girls. Just two, though. I think Chief picked them up.”

Lia sat up. “Are you sure? Are they okay?”

“I’m not sure of much of anything, darlin’, I’m sorry,” Dray said. He spoke in a growl, “If there’s anyone alive out there, we’ll find them. I heard plenty of gunshots, too. I thought it sounded like too many to just be us.”

My guns. He hasn’t tried to disarm me.
She wisely kept her mouth shut.

“Okay,” the stranger said. “We still stick to the plan. I’ve got to get these damn jobs done and get back to the compound. You guys keep breaking up that herd, but the living are the priority. If you find anyone, you bring them home.”

“I have to get to the silo,” Lia said. “That’s where they’ll be if they got away. I have to go.”

“Silo? The one northwest of here?” Dray asked. She nodded. “This herd stretched for a mile and they’re circling north. You never would have gotten there.”

“No,” she whispered, “No.”

“That helps. We know which way your friends are headed.” The stranger was pulling her to her feet, leading her back to his bike. “We’ll find whoever’s out there, prez,” Dray said, getting back onto his bike as well. “See you at the compound.”

“You all better be right on my heels.” He swung his leg over his seat and said to Lia, “Get on.”

She moved as if in a daze. The silo was unreachable. Her friends - her family - were scattered amongst a herd of the dead. She wrapped her arms around the stranger’s waist automatically, moving in a fog. Dray took off with his engine roaring, back the way he came. They watched him go.

“What’s your name?” the stranger asked.

“Lia.”

“I’m Call.”

She shook some of the fog away. “He called you Prez.”

“For president,” he said. They watched Dray fade into the distance. “Of the Devil’s Ashes. You’ve heard of us?”

In whispers. When Father Speer wanted to scare us. Satan’s Remains, Devil’s Ashes - opposing sides of the same damn thing. Gangs. Bikers. Evil men.
“I have,” she whispered. She noticed the leather vest he wore, then.
Father Speer was right.
She leaned back to see the patches on the back of his jacket. There, right in the middle, was a winged devil.
A creature of evil. A beast.
It sat on the background of a billowing dust cloud. She’d fallen in with the worst of the living - devil’s men. Evil.

She would never see the girls again.

As they barreled down the road, she knew what she was supposed to do. Father Speer had spoken of it.
Take yourself out any way you can. Don’t let them have you. They’ll torture you in life as they torture souls in hell. End it as quickly as you can.
All she had to do was let go, let her own momentum and the asphalt do the work of taking her out.
Just let go.

But she couldn’t. For the first time, she disobeyed a direct order from the minister. She let the biker take her away.

They didn’t stop until daylight. She’d had to hold her shotgun to keep from dropping it, and her fingers were cramped after gripping it tight for hours.

Both stood in the middle of the road next to the man’s motorcycle. His eyes scanned her up and down as she massaged her sore hand. Lia cringed, wondering just what he wanted, gearing herself up to tell him to stop, but finally he said, “You’re packing a lot of weaponry there, aren’t you?”

“I am,” she stated.

He shook his head. “Well then, this is an act of good faith,” he said, “Because I want you to feel like you can trust me. I ain’t even gonna ask you how many you’re carrying. You’ll keep ‘em all.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “I am curious, though.”

She observed him as he spoke. A broad-shouldered man with a casual stance, he seemed strong, tough, but didn’t look like a face of evil. He was older than her, but she suspected he wasn’t as aged as the tension lines around his eyes made him look. He wore a few days stubble on his chin and dust and dirt in his wavy blond hair. It stuck out wildly in all directions after their windswept journey.

For that matter he was dusty and dirty all over, but who wasn’t? Even on the farm, a proper bath was hard to come by.

He leaned back against the bike and lit a cigarette that he’d pulled from his pocket. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out into the air before speaking again. “I’m guessing those pockets are full of ammo?” She looked down at herself. Her cargo pants’ pockets bulged - and there were a lot of them.

“Yes,” she said, finally breaking her silence. “We’re always prepared for anything.” She squinted at him. “You really aren’t going to try to disarm me?” He would fail if he tried, she knew - but she didn’t want to have to shoot him
.
Whoever or whatever he was, he was
alive
. She didn’t think she could make herself do it.

“I swear it.” He seemed sincere, but she might have just been gullible. Still, her shoulders were on fire. With a heavy sigh, she let her backpack slide to the ground. “Shit, I didn’t even see how big your bag was. I’m sorry, honey. We’ll attach it to the bike for the rest of the trip.” He took another drag and sighed contentedly. “Want one?”

“No.” She said it as if offended.

He shrugged.

“What about my friends?” she asked softly. They were still on the same long road that went winding through woods and around farms across the state. All she could hear around them were birds.

“My boys will find them,” he said. He gestured at her. “If they’re all armed like you, I suspect they survived the night.”

“And if they’re alive? Then what?”

“They’ll catch up with us.”

“But where?” Her voice wavered. Everything had fallen apart so quickly. Her home was gone; it hadn’t even been twelve hours ago that she was comfortably asleep in her little corner. Now she might never see it again.

“Our home.” His deep green eyes warmed as his expression gentled. “I know you’re scared right now. Of me, I’m sure, and everything else. But we’re going to a safe place. You’ll see.”

She rubbed her arms and didn’t dare to hope that he was telling the truth.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“A little.” She had food supplies in her bag but she wasn’t ready to tell him about anything she was carrying. He hadn’t asked; in fact, she was shocked that he hadn’t. Normally the first thing any wanderer on the farm said was “Where’s food,” and “Do you have any.”
He must have enough somehow. Through murder and thievery?

He rummaged in the bags on the back of his bike and pulled out two small jars and two spoons. “Pears or peaches?” he asked. She shrugged, so he passed her the pears. “We’ve worked a few things out on the compound,” he said. “We’re growing things. It just ain’t on the scale that we need yet.” He popped open his jar. “We can’t depend on these forever, though. They’ll run out one day.”

“I tried to grow things,” she said quietly.

“Yeah? Like what?”

The pears were sweet. They hadn’t had fruit at the house for a while, and she savored the taste. She wiped some juice from her chin before answering. “Beans, cucumbers. That sort of stuff.” She shook her head at herself. “Didn’t go well. We live on a farm and I couldn’t grow one tomato.”

He laughed. The sound was jarring. Nobody ever laughed on the farm; nobody had laughed in ages. It was… comforting.

She paced as she ate, stretching her legs after holding them so tense for so long. He didn’t speak again until they’d finished their jars. “So. Lia. Here’s what’s gonna happen.” She froze; ice invaded her veins.
Do I want to know?
He chuckled again. “Don’t look so horrified, girly. I’ve got to get myself back to our compound but the main way there is all blocked up by corpses, and I’ve got a few pit stops to make anyhow. So it might take a few long days of riding. Now there’s no way in hell I’m letting you stay out here in the woods on your own. But this ain’t a kidnapping. When we get to a safer spot, if you want to take off, that’s up to you.”

“You’d let me go?”

He nodded. “I don’t recommend it. If you want to see your friends again you ought to stick with me. My guys will bring them in safe.” He took her jar from her and packed it back in his bags. “And you’d like our home. Someone can teach you how to grow a damn decent tomato.”

She made a choking sound in her throat and covered her mouth.

“Was that a laugh?” he asked. She shook her head, but it was a laugh. “All right,” he said, smiling.

Riding through the morning they saw no signs of life or death for a time. Call made frequent stops, encouraging her to stretch her legs, to drink from his canteens. It was easier riding once she’d let him bind her pack to the back of the bike, and the shotgun with it. She touched it frequently, making sure it was secure enough not to fall off but loose enough to grab if she needed it.

It was a strange experience for her to be holding onto him as they traveled. Physical contact had been borderline anathema for so long that riding at Call’s back was nearly overloading her senses. It fed her false feelings, as if she somehow knew him better, like she could be comfortable with him, could trust him. It was dangerous.

Still… they were completely and utterly alone. He could do any awful thing he wanted, yet he seemed like he wanted to take care of her somehow.

“You doing okay?” he asked her during one of their rest stops. She paced back and forth in front of the bike, kicking rocks along the asphalt. The sun was higher in the sky - past noon already.

“I think so. We just keep getting further away.” She faced southeast and thought about the girls, wondered what they were doing, if they were on the backs of bikes like she was, if they were uninjured and safe.
What are the odds? There were so many corpses. I almost didn’t make it out myself…

“Worried about your friends?” She nodded. “I’m sorry we didn’t knock on your door earlier. We were chasing that herd, you know. Trying to break them up, scatter them some.”

“Why?”

“That many? They’re much more dangerous grouped up like that. All pressing in together… they’ve knocked your house down by now.” She ran her hands through her hair. It had come loose at some point on their ride and blew wildly about her head with the wind.
The house is gone?
“They weren’t even heading in your direction at first. I don’t know why they did. A change in the damn wind. Anyhow, they changed direction so suddenly, we barely had time to get ahead of them and warn you at all.”

“I didn’t even know they gathered like that.”

“Yeah. And by the time you learn it’s probably too late.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered, imagining the swarm burying Father Speer and his son, pouring over the girls and tearing them apart. She shuddered.

“My guys are pretty much experts at this by now,” he said, “It’s good you were able to tell them how many to look for and which direction they were heading. It gave them all a real chance. Don’t give up hope yet.”

She had to change the subject before the ball of dread in her stomach turned to tears. “Where are we going? You said you need to make a few stops before heading home?” A few tears leaked free anyway. She wiped them away with the back of her hands. He kindly ignored them and tried distracting her instead.

“Resupplying a few pit stops. I’m sure you’ve noticed the size of the bags I’m carrying.” It was true - duffel bags, tall camping backpacks, military cargo bags. She had wondered how the bike didn’t tip backwards. “We’ll dump most of that stuff before we get back to the compound.”

“Pit stops, like, places you guys stop when you travel?”

“Exactly,” he said, “Hidden pretty well, too. We hope.”

She twirled a strand of dark hair, lost in thought. These guys really had it together, it seemed. Rest stops, functioning vehicles, sacks of food… maybe things outside the farm weren’t as chaotic as they’d been led to believe.