Warpath: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse by Shawn Chesser Read Free Book Online

them,
and when they had finished, both men were muddied and tired and hungry and all
alone.
    ***
    An hour earlier, as it turned out, Lev and Chief were the
ones who’d answered Daymon’s mayday and rushed from the compound armed to the
teeth. And after the rotters were culled, they had tossed the bodies in the
ditch to be burned later.
    Afterward Duncan declined their offer to help bury Logan and
Gus and instead redirected their good intentions and had them go back and ready
a couple of vehicles for a return trip to the quarry. And start some coffee ,
he had called out to Chief as he closed the gate to the compound feeder road
behind the waiting Toyota with Lev at the wheel.
    ***
    “Coffee sounds good right about now,” Duncan said, still
staring at the spot in the forest where the Toyota had entered earlier.
    There was a long minute of silence during which the drizzle
let up and the clouds parted to reveal a sliver of blue sky.
    Daymon leaned in and said, “Don’t you want to say some words
first?”
    Duncan removed his glasses and wiped them for the hundredth
time. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he said, “God already knows my feelings
for Logan ... don’t see a need to tell him again.”
    “And Gus?”
    “Didn’t know Gus very well but I did think good thoughts for
the both of them while I was digging.”
    Daymon said, “Two birds with one stone ... pretty
efficient.” After which he held Duncan’s gaze for a second and then flicked his
eyes up at the retreating clouds, trying to resist the urge to forget about the
subject he wanted to broach and instead go with some bullshit comment about the
weather. Nothing doing . This was life and death type of stuff, he
reasoned. So instead of praising Mother Nature for the sunshine, he dove right
in and spoke from the heart. “I’m worried about you, Old Man,” he conceded.
“The Duncan who I’ve gotten to know wouldn’t have sent Lev back to the compound
without restringing the barbed wire behind him. Truth be told, I’m kinda pissed
that Lev didn’t string it up on his own accord, but I’ll cross that bridge
later.”
    “It was a long cold night for the kid,” drawled Duncan.
    “No excuse for slippin’ up like that.”
    “Hell, Daymon. His friend ... my brother ... he was murdered
yesterday in cold blood. Can’t blame Lev. Besides ,” added Duncan, nearly
shouting, “ I told him to git and then ran him off.”
    “You know ... you almost bought the farm today,” Daymon said
through clenched teeth. “What if you left the gate leading to the compound wide
open? More lives at stake than your grizzled carcass.”
    Duncan remained silent, his gaze fixed on a clutch of
rotters emerging from the gloom where 39 exited the forest.
    “What’s your excuse?” asked Daymon, feeling oddly like
a father dressing down his kid. He glanced over at the empty Jack bottle. Said
nothing more as the impulse to scream and vent his anger grew exponentially.
    “I had some forgettin’ to do.”
    “Well mission-fuckin-a-complished,” said Daymon, veins
bulging in his neck. “I wanted to go get us some kind of critter for dinner.
Instead I’m damn near ready to host a frickin’ intervention for you. What do
you think of that idea? Am I out of line?”
    In response, Duncan picked up the empty and tossed it into
the woods out of sight. Without making eye contact, he said, “Come on. Let’s
hash it out over coffee.” He turned and, with Daymon staring holes into his
back, made his way to the crippled Land Cruiser, reached inside and came out
with the half-empty bottle of Jack. Without making eye contact he unscrewed the
cap and paused mid-decision, the bottle in limbo, mid-air at a
forty-five-degree angle, one bend of the elbow from touching his lips. But
instead of giving in to the craving for the booze and its unique ability to
dull the pain brought on by the unforeseen murders and the thought of what the
girls were enduring at the hands of the killers, he rotated