The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books.

THE ZOMBIE PLAGUES BIG BOOK

Copyright Geo Dell 2016, all rights reserved, foreign and
domestic

Published By Geo Dell on
Smashwords

Additional Copyrights 2009, 2010, 2013,
2014, 2015 Wendell Sweet, All rights reserved

Geo Dell, Dell Sweet, W. G. Sweet and
Wendell G. Sweet are publishing constructs used by Wendell Sweet.
All copyrights are held by Wendell Sweet and his
assignees.

This book is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re
reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased
for your use only, then please return to your bookseller and
purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
this author.

This book is fiction. The characters,
events and places are based on fiction and do not relate to any
living or deceased person. In the few instances where real location
names are used they are not meant to be characterized by their
fictional accounts, and that fictionalization is purely the
invention of the author and has nothing to do with the real
location.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

BOOK FIVE

BOOK SIX

SERIES EPILOGUE

CHARACTER
BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LEGAL

This is a work of fiction. Any names,
characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the
author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons
places, situations or events is purely coincidental.

This novel is Copyright © 2010 – 2013
George Dell & independAntwriters Publishing and all rights to
this work have been reserved by Wendell Sweet. No part of this book
may be reproduced by any means, electronic, print, scanner or any
other means and, or distributed without the author's
permission.

Permission is granted to use short
sections of text in reviews or critiques in standard or electronic
print.

THE ZOMBIE PLAGUES: BOOK ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CANDACE

March 1st

The traffic leaving the parking lot had
slowed to a trickle, the lot nearly empty. The live shows were
over, the bands packed up and gone, the dancers gone before or at
the same time. The club was empty except Jimmy, the club boss, Don,
the main door security, and me.

“
Why are you still here,
Candy,” Jimmy asked as he came up to the bar. He was on his way
back from the parking lot. It was a short trip across the parking
lot to the bank night deposit on the lot next door.

“
I had an idea that Harry
would be by tonight. He wanted to talk to me,” I shrugged. Harry
was a Bookie, at least on the surface. Off the surface, or maybe it
would be truer to say
under
the surface, Harry controlled most of the
organized crime north of Syracuse. Jimmy... Jimmy managed the club,
among other things, but the best description for Jimmy was to say
Jimmy solved problems for Harry.

“
Wants to talk you into
staying here. That's about all,” Jimmy said.

I turned away and pretended to check my
face in the mirrored wall behind the bar. I wanted to Dance. I had
suggested to Harry, through Jimmy, that maybe it was time for me to
move on if there wasn't any hope of me dancing. “Anyway, I ended up
tending bar. So...”

“
So it's not dancing.” He
dug one hand into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of bills.
He peeled two hundreds from the roll and pushed them into my hand,
folding his hand over my own and closing it when I started to
protest.

“
But,” I
started.

“
But nothing. We did a lot
in bar sales. You and I both know it was because of you.” He
smiled, let go of my hand and stepped back. “It was me, not Harry,”
he said.

I fixed my eyes on him. I knew what he
might be about to say, but I wanted to be sure.

He sighed. “It was me that put the stop
to your dancing. You're too goddamn good for dancing, Candy. And
once you start?” He barked a short, derisive laugh. “The law thing?
Right out the window. What's a cop make anyway in this town? Maybe
thirty or forty a year?” He settled onto one of the stools that
lined the bar, tossed his hat onto the bar top and patted the stool
next to him. He continued talking.

“
So, thirty, maybe forty,
and what's a dancer make? I can tell you there are dancers here who
make better than one fifty a year. And that's what I pay them.
That's not the side stuff or tips.” He moved one large hand, fished
around behind the bar and came up with a bottle of chilled Vodka
from the rack that held it just below eye level. He squinted at the
label. “Cherry Surprise,” he questioned in a voice low enough to
maybe be just for himself. “This shit any good, Candy?”

“
It's not bad,” I told him.
I leaned over the bar and snagged two clean glasses when he asked
me, setting them on the bar top. He poured us both about three
shots worth. “Jesus, Jimmy.”

He laughed. “Which is why I don't make
drinks. It'd break me.” He sipped at his glass, made a face, but
sipped again. I took a small sip of my own drink and settled back
onto the bar stool.

“
So, I said to myself,
smart, beautiful, talented, and you have that something about you
that makes men look the second time. You know?” He took another
small sip. “Man sees a woman walking down the street or across a
crowded dance floor, beautiful or not he looks. That look might be
short or it might be long. Depends on the woman. Then he looks
away. Does he look back? Not usually. But with you he does. There
are women men look at that second time for whatever reason, and
you're one of them. I looked a second time, and then I really
looked, for a third time. And I've seen a lot. That tattoo makes
men and women look again.” His eyes fell on the tattoo that started
on the back of my left hand, ran up my arm, across my breasts and
then snaked back down over my belly and beyond. I knew it was
provocative. That was the rebellious part of me. I had no better
explanation for why I had sat,
lain
, through five months of weekly
ink work to get it done.

Jimmy rubbed one huge open palm across
the stubble of his cheeks. “Jesus do I need a shave.” He took a
large drink from his glass. “It wasn't the tattoo. It caught my
eye, but that wasn't what made me look that third time.”

“
Candy, I took a third look
because I saw a young woman that doesn't need to have anything to
do with this world. You're too goddamn smart,
talented,
for this. So I said no. I
let you dance a few times, but I didn't want you to fall into it. I
made the decision that you should tend bar instead of dance.” He
tossed off the glass.

“
I see that,” I told him,
although I didn't completely see it. He was reading a lot about
what
he
thought,
what
he
saw, into
who
I
really
was.

“
Yeah? I don't think so,
Candy. And that's a reason right there.
Candy...
like a treat. When did it
become okay for anyone to call you that, because I remember a few
months back when you started hanging around, it was Candace, and
pity the dumb bastard who didn't understand that. Now it's Candy to
any Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along.” He saw the hurt look in
my eyes, reached below the bar, snagged the bottle and topped off
his glass. I shook my head, covered the top of my glass with my
hand and smiled. He put the bottle back and continued.

“
I'm not trying to hurt
you, only keep you on track. I'm giving you the keys. You drive.
All I'm saying is set your ground rules. Make them rigid. Don't let
anyone - me, Harry, these boys that work here, customers - Don't
let anyone cross those lines. You see, Candy?”

I nodded.

“
Yeah? Then why not
call
me
on calling
you Candy? I've done it since we sat down. Why not start
there?”

“
Well... I mean, you're the
boss, Jimmy.”

“
Which is why you start
there. I don't allow anyone to talk anyway to anyone that doesn't
want that. Let me explain that. You got girls that work the
streets. You don't see it so much here. It's a small city, but it
happens. I spent a few years on the streets in Rochester, bigger
place, as a kid. Happens all the time there.” He sipped at his
drink. I took a sip of my own drink and raised my brows at what he
had said.

“
Yeah? Don't believe it?
It's true. I fought my way up. I have respect because I earned it.”
He waved one hand. “Don't let me get off track.” He smiled and took
another sip from his glass. “So, I've seen girls on the streets...
Whores... It is what it is. Would you hear me say that to them?
Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. If a woman sees herself as a
whore, if that's all it is,
what
it is, then who am I to say different? Do you see?
It's a living, or it's a life... There
is
a difference. Now back to you. You
want to dance. Some of these girls,” he waved one meaty hand at the
empty stage area, “work the other side. Some of them do that for
me, some do it on their own. Some don't,” he sighed. “Either way
you would not see me treat them any other way than what they want
to be treated. I mean that. If you believe you are a whore and that
is what you see, then that is what you show the world, and that is
how the world sees you... t
reats
you,” he settled his eyes on me.

I nodded. I didn't trust my voice. I
had been down this road on my own. What did it say about me? That
it only mattered that I made it? That money mattered more than
anything else? Would I be swayed by the money? Was I even being
honest with myself about my motivations? I really didn't know. I
knew what I told myself on a daily basis... that I wanted to follow
my Father into law enforcement, but was it whimsical like so many
other things in my life that I never followed through
on?

“
You are not just a dancer.
There is a part of you that is, a part of you that likes the way a
man looks at you, likes the money. But there is another part that
is the private you, the
real
you. You need to keep those distinctions.” He
rubbed at his eyes, tossed off the rest of his drink and rose from
the bar stool. “Let me drop you home, Candy,” he asked.

I stood, leaving my mostly full drink
sitting on the bar top. “I have my car,” I told him.

“
It's late. Creeps around
maybe.”

“
Jimmy, every creep in my
neighborhood knows I work here... f
or
you.
Guys stopped talking to me, let alone
the creeps.” I laughed, but it wasn't really all that funny. It had
scared me when I realized who Jimmy was, who Jimmy worked for. In
effect, who I worked for. Another questionable thing?
Probably.

Jimmy nodded. “Smart creeps. The
southern Tier's a big place. Easy to lose yourself, with or without
a little help.” He looked at his watch and then fixed his eyes on
me once more. “So you keep your perspective, set your limits, draw
your lines,” he spoke as he shrugged into his coat, retrieved his
hat from the bar top and planted it on his head, “Don't let anybody
cross those lines. You start next week, let's say the
eleventh?”

I nodded.

“
Take the balance of the
time off. By the time the eleventh comes around you should be ready
for a whole new world. A whole new life.” He stood looking down at
me for a second. “The big talk I guess. For what it's worth, I
don't say those things often, Candy.”