Simpson - Highway to Heartache

Zombie Road VI

Highway to Heartache

Book 6 in the Zombie Road series

This is a work of fiction by

David A. Simpson

ISBN: 9781795497183

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No portion of this text may be copied or duplicated without author or publisher written permission, with the exception of use in reviews

Copyright 2019 David A. Simpson

All rights reserved

N inety-Nine Park West offers stunning views, unmatched amenities and the most desirable location in the heart of the city. Scarlet recited from her notebook. The luxurious penthouse is unparalleled and is available for the most discerning with exquisite tastes.

Sounds pricey. Jessie said as he stared through the telescope, easily picking out the high-rise building in the middle of downtown Salt Lake City.

Scarlet was sitting cross legged on the hood of the old chop top Mercury, reading from the notes shed taken over the ham from Scratch. Hed been on radio watch duty the night Jessie had contacted Lakota, asking for anything they could find about an address.

The address theyd gotten from Darren.

The one with the Faberg egg they needed to steal for her to see the doctors at the Tower.

Scratch read off everything he could pull from the old internet, the fiber optic cables bringing him the information almost as fast as he could type one handed. Carl, the engineer, with help of a few men from the Tower had completed the tie-ins and now Cheyenne Mountain, the Tower and Lakota had access to the NSA databases. They had a snapshot of the internet the day it went down; every text, every Facebook post, every public and private thing that was in cyberspace was stored on the hard drives. Hundreds of millions of terabytes, most of it useless, but all of it still accessible. Sometimes the useless information, like the sales pitch for a luxury condo, turned out to be useful after all. At least now they knew how many sets of stairs they had to climb and the pictures Scratch described gave them a pretty good idea what to expect.

They were in the mountains overlooking the city, Bob snuffling around looking for something to chase, Nefertiti watching from the dashboard with her eyes half closed. Jessie took another bite of Jerky and tried to focus in closer, tried to see if there was any movement in the windows but it was just too far. He could pick out the building easy enough, the second tallest in the city, but they were a good four or five miles away. All he could really tell is that the streets were filled with the milling undead.

Well go in loud, Ill hop out at the condo while you lead the crowd away. Come back and pick me up in an hour. Jessie said

Scarlet didnt reply. Just looked at him over her heart shaped sunglasses and took another bite of dried apple. He felt her staring and finally quit pretending he didnt. She smiled and he left the telescope on its tripod, turned to her, pulled her close.

Together. she said, circling her arms around him. We promised. Well never be apart again.

Jessie breathed in the coconut shampoo smell of her hair and nodded once. They had come to the agreement weeks ago as they ate candle light dinner from cans in a strangers house.

All four of them.

The two humans who were more than human.

The dog and the cat who were more than they appeared.

Where we go one, we go all.

A solemn vow to each other after Scarlet had nearly been torn limb from limb by the undead back in some nameless town in Nebraska. Jessie would kill for her, would die for her and knew she would do the same for him. He knew she was capable, maybe even more than him, to handle the zombies but he still didnt like the idea of her being in danger.

Stop being male chauvinist pig. shed told him when theyd first discussed getting the egg and getting through the hordes Darren had warned them about, or I go without you.

Now it was time.

Theyd spent a few weeks letting her wrist heal, tagging along with Charlie Safari and his new bride for a few days then relaxing at a hot springs lodge after they cleared it of the undesirable dead. They had a proper vacation in a fancy resort. It was easy to lose the urgency when they were having so much fun and it was hard to tell if the dark lines were getting any worse. Sometimes they even seemed to be receding a little.

Now it was time to go after the one thing that would guarantee treatment at the Tower. They wouldnt take money or gold, the doctors only worked on outsiders if they brought them something they wanted. Something from the insurance companies online lists of valuable and heavily insured items. Fine art, priceless jewels or rarities and oddities. Rumor had it that some apartments in the Tower had been decorated with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of paintings, golden baubles and Persian rugs. It was said they lit cigars with million-dollar bearer bonds, used Monet paintings as dart boards and took caviar baths in Dom Perignon. Jessie didnt know about all that, most likely just bar talk and tall tales. He only knew there was a doctor who wanted a Faberg egg and in return, he would cure Scarlet. Hed run the tests and determine which medicine she needed to beat the infection that was slowly spreading from her old wounds. The wounds that scabbed over slow and refused to heal properly.

Jessie stroked her hair, the blonde roots nearly as long as the black dyed parts. The three jagged slashes on her cheek had started to scar tissue but the dark runners of infection had spread, the small black tendrils reaching down towards her jaw and up to her eye. They couldnt ignore it any longer, pretending they were getting better with the penicillin.

Scarlet kissed his forehead, his scar, his nose and finally his lips. They breathed each other in, knowing it might be the last time. Probably not, but you never know. Never let the opportunity for a long, deep kiss pass you by. They were confident in their abilities. This mission would be a pain in the ass, theyd get messy, but theyd be okay. They always were.