Resurrection Express by Stephen Romano Read Free Book Online

this . . . my finger won’t move.
    I can’t do it.
    I can’t kill him.
    He smiles at me, understanding, sensing my paralysis. Three of his teeth are missing, his face covered in razor slashes from broken glass. He spits blood and staggers over, until just ten feet separate us. Knows better than to get any closer. Sights down, grinning toothlessly, like a pissed-off jack-o’-lantern. And he says this:
    “David Hartman says hello . . . and good-bye. ”
    His gun has a hair trigger.
    When his finger hits it, I hear an explosion and the guy falls down dead.
    •  •  •
    F ranklin steps through the back door and nudges the turtleneck guy with his foot, making sure he’s not a zombie. He sees the screaming gunman in the car thirty feet away and puts one roundthrough the back windshield. A red paint bomb goes off inside there, and the screaming stops. Franklin doesn’t flinch.
    “Sorry I’m late, kid.”
    The shot echoes into forever, smoke rising from the business hole of his weapon, which is bad business indeed: a .375 Korth revolver, 38 caliber, the kind of gun that giants with big hands use when they wanna blow holes in nouns.
    That’s people, places and things.
    He covers the alley, putting his other hand under my shoulder to help me up.
    “We gotta move. Now.”
    It’s been a long time since I was in a war zone like this—since I ran with people who killed other people so casually. Thank God for small favors. He starts to run and I follow him. The ankle throbs, but it’s not broken. A genuine miracle, that. We move fast, climb the wreck of the car, get to the other end of the alley. I shove the 9-mil in my waistband. No more shots back there, but I can hear the first sirens in the distance.
    “We need a car,” he tells me, the two of us scoping the next street over, which is almost empty. We cross to the alley behind Tom’s Tabooley. There’s a 1995 Honda Accord parked near the dishwashers’ entrance. It’s unlocked, no alarm. I use my kit bag and we’re on wheels in less than twenty seconds. The older the ignition switch, the easier it is. You can start a car like this with a screwdriver. Someone screams at us, running out of the back of the restaurant. I gun the motor and leave him quick, turning left onto the next street, snaking through a series of neighborhood back roads towards South Lamar, away from the whole circus.
    Feels strange driving a car. Haven’t done it in years.
    “I have to bring you in,” Franklin says, putting his pistol away, scanning the road, his Deep South voice amazingly calm. “We have to get back to our people. There’s gonna be cops all over that block inside of five minutes.”
    “I’m working on it, man. Let’s get some distance, then we’ll talk about destination.”
    “You’re going the wrong way.”
    “Look, we’re alive, right? Anyway, where were you when those assholes started using me for target practice?”
    “Getting coffee across the street. I didn’t see what happened but I heard the shooting. The guy who survived the truck crash started wasting people inside the store.”
    “Yeah, I heard.”
    “I went after him, thought you might be in there. That guy was an animal. Shooting women and children.”
    “Christ . . .”
    I take the MoPac Expressway and we cruise north, ten miles across the city, past civilization and into the lake area. The radio’s already talking about the hit. Panic and confusion. Some of them think it really is a terrorist attack. Choppers are hovering downtown. I pull over in the gravel near an old filling station, leave the motor running. The sun is starting to go down. I have no idea what to do.
    “We need to ditch this car,” I tell him.
    “You need to let me drive. I have to get us back to—”
    I remember Washington’s 9-mil in my waistband, pull it out and thumb the hammer right between Franklin’s eyes. “I don’t think I trust you.”
    “Take that gun out of my face right now, kid.”
    “Then