Winchester: Over (Winchester Undead) (25 page)

Chisos Basin

Lying on the roof of the motel with the binoculars up to his face, Jack saw a biker walking up the road into the parking area. It was the biker he had killed, now reanimated. He decided not to put it down and risk giving away his position. Then he heard the pack of motorcycle engines start.

The group still rode side-by-side as they entered the parking area in the Basin.
Twardo saw a burned-out building to his left, a couple of motels, some cabins, some other buildings on his right, and John walking across the parking lot. Twardo turned off his motorcycle and walked towards John, who was moaning and quite obviously dead.

“Well shit John, you went and became a goddamned zombie.”

Twardo pulled a pistol out from under his vest and pointed it at reanimated John’s face. Suddenly, it was his own face that exploded, the sharp rifle report echoing a split second later.

Undead John didn’t notice or care about the rifle, or that
Twardo had just died, he simply bent over and tore a chunk of flesh from his president’s shoulder. Russell, still standing next to his motorcycle, yelled, “Holy shit, get the deuce out of the van and kill those motherfuckers!”

Two prospects ran to the van, swung open the rear doors, and dragged an M-2 with a tripod base out of the back, carrying it towards a large rock in the parking lot for cover. A third prospect pulled two green ammo cans out of the back of the van and was starting towards the M-2 when the side of his head exploded outward and he fell to the ground. Another biker went down as he ran towards the Ranger’s station, falling to the pavement, screaming and holding his stomach, blood pouring out of the rifle wound.

Russell yelled behind him, “You get the truck and get up there to flank him.” As the truck drove up the road next to the motel, Jack fired a full magazine into the truck. He missed the driver, but the truck gained a flat tire and a bunch of bullet holes in the side.

Russell yelled at the prospects just finishing loading the M-2, “That asshole’s on top of the motel there, kill that piece of shit!” The M-2’s report was fast and deep, echoing in the Basin. Tracer rounds walked up the front of the hotel, 50-cal holes crumbling the front wall.

Jack grabbed his backpack and slid down the back of the motel’s roof. He ran west, away from the crew-served weapon and towards the trail that would lead to the back of the cabins. Three shots from an AR rang out near the cabins, and as Jack turned the corner he saw the biker who’d been driving the truck fall to the ground dead, three bullet holes in his chest. That biker would soon reanimate, but he had other things to worry about for now.

The prospects only stopped shooting the motel once they had emptied an entire can of 50-cal chain-fed ammo. The motel was smoking, about to catch on fire from the tracer rounds, but they didn’t care. They figured the guy on the motel was probably dead because he wasn’t shooting at them anymore.

Russell pointed at two club members behind him and said, “You two, go up there and make sure that guy on the roof’s dead.”

The bikers jogged forward, giving undead John a wide berth as he continued to eat their former club president. Going to the back of the motel, one hoisted the other up onto the roof, where they found an empty AR magazine and a bunch of shell casings, but no shooter. Standing on the roof, they saw the club’s truck parked in the road with a lot of bullet holes, a flat tire, and no driver. They whistled and waved at the other
Pistoleros, motioning them to come forward. The bikers moved their motorcycles out of the road and into the parking lot by the motel, the van following.

Bexar and Jessie were getting close. The gunfire could be heard very clearly, as could the long bursts from a fully-automatic big caliber gun. Neither of them had been in the military, so they didn’t know the distinct sound an M-2 makes, but both knew that the sound was very bad.

The bikers, away from their motorcycles, walked up the road in a loose group towards the abandoned and bullet-riddled truck. As the first biker passed the truck, Sandra shot him in the throat. The rest of the bikers dove for cover and started shooting at the cabin, not knowing that Sandra was on the roof.

Will
sat in the cabin, crying, scared, and alone. His mother had told him to stay in there no matter what. Sandra knew the cabin was his best protection, and she was never going to let the bikers get near the cabin anyways. But he was just a little boy who wanted to find his mom, so he opened the door and ran out of the cabin into the open. Russell saw the little boy running across the parking lot and shot him twice, sending his little body tumbling to the ground.

Jack rounded the back of the cabins just in time to see his only child run out of their cabin and die in the parking lot. He stopped, and an anguished howl tore from his guts. Blinded with hatred and rage, he ran around the cabin toward the bikers, shooting wildly. Two of those rounds found two different bikers before his bolt locked back on an empty magazine. Taking advantage of the break in the shooting, Russell shot Jack with his pistol, and continued shooting until Jack’s body fell in a growing pool of blood.

Sandra’s body went ice cold, and she began slowly taking aim, firing on one biker at a time. The prospects finished moving the M-2 about the time that Sandra started back into the fight, opening up on the cabin where she lay on the roof.

Bexar and Jessie were close enough to hear the gunfire and Jack’s bone-chilling scream, but came down the trail just in time to see Jack lying dead by his son’s dead body, and to see the M-2 begin firing on Sandra, decimating their cabin and killing her in a hail of gunfire. They both stopped behind the last row of cabins.

“Holy fucking shit, Jess, they’re all dead!” Bexar was shaking, his face white.

Jessie stood motionless, tears streaming down her face.

“Jess, find Keeley, check our cabin. I’m going to kill these bastards, then I’ll meet you at the RV.”

Jessie’s feet felt rooted to the ground, but her need to protect her child shook her loose from her catatonic state and she began running towards their cabin. If Keeley was in Sandra’s cabin she would probably be dead, but she prayed that her little girl had been hidden in the cabin further back.

Bexar took a kneeling position behind a large tree and tried to slow his breathing while taking aim at the bikers. His first target was the biker behind the big machine gun, and as he squeezed the trigger twice, the biker’s head exploded brain matter all over his fellow prospects. Moving slightly, he did the same with the biker holding the ammo belt, and then the biker next to the open ammo can.

Seeing his prospects being picked off, Russell ran down the road towards his parked motorcycle. The two remaining bikers who were still alive turned to follow Russell, but both were shot twice in the back by Bexar. They dropped to the pavement, screaming in pain. Bexar took aim on the last biker, but he turned the corner out of his view before he could take the shot.

Bexar stood, rifle up, and slowly made his way to where Jack and Will were lying on the pavement. Both were dead, bullet holes riddling both of their torsos. Bexar couldn’t fathom his best friend and his little boy reanimating, so he drew his pistol and shot them both once in the head. He then went to Sandra’s cabin and climbed onto the roof from the picnic table in front. Sandra was also dead, but mercifully a round had found her skull and he wouldn’t have to shoot another close friend.

He climbed down from the roof and walked back to where Jack’s body lay to retrieve the backpack. In the bag, he found eight loaded
Pmags and a broken pair of binoculars. Bexar tossed the field glasses out of the bag and walked to the Scout, where he retrieved Jack and Sandra’s go-bags, a couple of cases of ammo, and the venison jerky. He then put the two cases of .223 ammo in the large backpack, shouldered the bag, and went to his cabin to retrieve his go-bag before jogging towards the trail to The Window.

Before starting down the trail, Bexar did a tactical reload, swapping a fresh magazine into his AR. Rounding the corner by the western edge of the motel that was now on fire, Bexar saw a handful of bikers, reanimated and stumbling aimlessly around the parking lot.

“Fuck you all, you deserve to stay zombies.”

Bexar made his way to the trailhead and hopefully towards his family.

On the
trail to The Window

Bexar passed a large boulder to his right and found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol. Jessie stood in the middle of the trail, Keeley hiding behind her legs. When she saw it was her husband, she holstered the pistol and started crying, hugging Bexar.

“I found Keeley hiding under the bed in our cabin. Since our cabin was in the back of the group the bikers never made it back that far.”

“Thank you Jessie, I love you. Jack, Sandra, and Will are all dead, but I made sure they wouldn’t reanimate. One of the bikers got away, but I killed the rest of them.”

The stars were beginning to come out in the night sky. Jessie kept Keeley hidden while Bexar made a safety sweep around the RV. It was still hitched to the
Wagoneer and all their cached supplies were safe.

Jessie laid Keeley down to sleep in the RV before joining Bexar outside in the cold winter air. Even though the RV was well-hidden off the main road, they sat in the dark quietly discussing their future.

“Bexar, I don’t think I can stay here any longer, not with our friends killed. I don’t want to see their bodies, I don’t want to see that sweet little boy’s dead face. I just can’t.”

“Yeah, me neither. We can leave in the morning if you want, or we can wait.”

“We need to leave now,” Jessie said. “What if that biker comes back, what if he brings the undead, what if we can’t defeat them next time? We need to go, but I don’t know where to go anymore.”

“Jess, the only place I can think of now is Groom Lake, and hope that Cliff wasn’t lying to us. The radio is still on top of Emory Peak, but I don’t want to hike back up there to get it. We’ll be on our own and out of contact, but we can do it.”

Fort Bliss, Texas

Russell came roaring into the biker’s camp at the rundown hotel outside of Fort Bliss near midnight, the lone survivor from the botched raid at Big Bend. Walking towards the club vice president, Russell pushed the naked woman dancing in front of the VP to the ground. “Those fuckers killed everyone. Saddle up, we’re going back!”

The VP looked at the nude woman on the ground, then back up at Russell. “It can wait ‘til tomorrow,” he said.

Russell drew his pistol and shot the VP in the face.

“Okay assholes, load up, we roll in thirty minutes. If you don’t like it, take it up with your VP!”

February 14
th

Big Bend National Park, Texas

Physically and emotionally drained, Jessie and Bexar startled awake before sunrise to the rumbling sound of a large group of motorcycles. They grabbed their rifles and bolted out of the RV.

“Holy crap!” said Jessie, “that was fast, they’re back already!”

“Yeah, but it sounds like they’re heading up into the Basin. Get Keeley and get in the Jeep, I’ll get the RV ready to move. We’re leaving now. We’ll head towards
Terlingua and try to miss them.”

Bexar cranked at the leveling jacks and broke out the trailer’s tail lights while Jessie returned to the RV to carry a still-sleeping Keeley to the Jeep. With one last glance up towards the backside of The Window, Bexar climbed in the
Wagoneer and put it in gear. Driving to the paved surface, Bexar turned his new convoy to the right on Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive and towards SH385 and Groom Lake, Nevada.

Holding Jessie’s hand as he drove, Bexar just hoped that this major trek would be easier than the last two. He looked at his wife beside him, and said, “By the way, Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you, Jessie.”

Smiling tiredly, she replied, “I love you too, babe.”

###

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

My name is Dave Lund. I hail from Texas and am a former Texas “motor-cop.” My family and photography round out my usual day-to-day passions, but post-apocalyptic zombie stories really fire me up. Before my previous stint as a motor-cop, I was a full-time skydiving instructor and competitor (in Canopy Piloting, aka swooping) with over 3,000 skydives. I am no longer an active skydiver so I can focus on my family, photography, and writing.

The characters in the Winchester series comprise some personality composites of people I have known or met in my life, but no character is based on a single real person or even two people combined
. They are a complete work of fiction and do not represent any actual people, living or dead. Yes, that includes Bexar! Many of the themes, objects, weapons, tactics, and locations in the Winchester Undead series are pulled from my past and experiences, as many writers are apt to do, including my love of Big Bend National Park in Texas; although I have to admit there is no secret cache site in the small Texas town of Maypearl. At least none that I had any hand in creating.

The locations in Big Bend are real locations
, with some minor artistic license taken, as are the cities and towns visited throughout the book. The jury is still out on the presence of the secret facilities that “Cliff” finds himself in, and the truthfulness of Chemtrails really depends on whom you speak with. If the writing about Cliff’s found Type 2 VW Transporter sounds a little detailed to those not acquainted with air-cooled VWs, that’s due to my love of air-cooled German autos, including the 1973 Superbeetle that I built and drive.