Riders of the Apocalypse (Book 5): Royal Roadblock Read online

  Royal Roadblock

  Riders of the Apocalypse, Book 5

  Alex Westmore

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  Royal Roadblock

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  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

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  So you’ve just scored your very own copy of Royal Roadblock. Awesome! Hey, you know what’s even more awesome? I want to give you a present as my way of saying thanks for checking me out. Yes, indeed, I’ve written a free short story just for my newsletter subscribers. You can grab your free copy at www.AlexWestmore.net/Newsletter. Happy travels!

  Alex

  Royal Roadblock

  A single bloody head landed at Dallas’s feet, its lifeless, opaque eyes stared unseeing at her, the bloodied jaw still moving soundlessly as if to say one final word.

  “Mind swinging the other direction, sweetheart? You’re getting zombie goo all over my new boots.”

  Pausing her dual machetes in mid-swing, Roper looked over at Dallas and shook her head. Blackish zombie guts clung to her leather jacket like grape jelly. “Seriously? When you’re done eating bonbons over there, we could use a hand out here.”

  Dallas smiled over at her lover, who seldom needed her help and didn’t really need it this time. When it came to killing man eaters, Roper was second to none. She was as proficient with a blade as she was with the aged .357 magnum she’d been sporting since they’d met years ago. “Since when have you ever really needed my help, babe? When you’re a woman on a mission, it has always been in my best interest to get the hell out of your way.”

  The sickening gurgle just to Roper’s left made her finish her swing, cutting easily through the rotting flesh and bones of an aged zombie whose clothes hung off it in tattered shreds. Its head bounced twice before rolling next to the first like a pool ball coming to rest next to the eight ball.

  Dallas looked down at the two heads. “You did that on purpose.”

  Roper flashed a smile. “Come on, lover, and join us. There are way more of these damned things than we’re used to. I don’t want anyone to think you’ve grown soft.”

  Dallas nodded solemnly as she watched her team decimate the horde of man eaters prowling the base of the Seattle Space Needle. They were good. Very good. Well-trained. Fast. Efficient. Her eight zombie killers were the best she’d ever seen. With swords, crossbows, bats, and the occasional gun, they could tear through a horde like the proverbial hot knife. She was always confident they could clear an area without loss, but not so confident that she would take unnecessary risks.

  “You gonna help?” Zoe asked as she refilled the notch on her crossbow. Barely over five feet, she was one of the best killers on the team. Handy with a crossbow, she could dismantle a group of twenty without breaking a sweat.

  When Dallas first met Zoe, she was a smart-mouthed punk with very few survival skills. Then Dallas introduced her to the father-son bowmen, Fletcher and Hunter, who taught her how to use a bow and arrow as well as crossbow, her weapon of choice.

  “You don’t need my help, Z. You guys are doing just fine.” Dallas brought a pair of military binoculars to her face. Dozens of dead bodies piled up around her team, but they were secondary to the real mission.

  The real mission.

  The real mission they’d left the safety of Alcatraz for, after spending so much time and energy making it into a safer haven, was to recover one of their own.

  That is...if she was still alive.

  It was a big if, but in the apocalypse, an if was better than nothing, and right now, they needed better than nothing.

  Right now, they needed to find her.

  One Week Ago

  Einstein ran up, out of breath, and waved Roper over just as she dismounted from her horse, Merlin, to join Dallas near the garden. They’d spent the last four days gathering their gear and loading everything up on the yacht they’d procured from the marina. They’d also brought over farming supplies, seeds, water barrels, and an assortment of candles and matches they’d taken from a number of stores in what was left of the town.

  “Boat...coming,” he panted, leaning over with his hands on his knees.

  “What?”

  “Boat coming...speedboat...five on board, maybe more. We’ve got rifles pointed in its direction.”

  Dallas sounded the alarm by shooting twice then pausing, then once.

  “Jesus, Dallas, what the hell?” Zoe asked, grabbing her bow and heading for her predetermined post. Everyone else scattered to their defensive positions as previously planned.

  Dallas and Roper quickly made their way to knelt behind the metal door they’d erected as a barricade. Behind it, they had their rifles locked and loaded.

  Roper looked through the binoculars a moment. She then lowered them and looked once more. “Umm…” she uttered, handing Dallas the binoculars. “Tell everyone to stand down.”

  Dallas peered through the binoculars as Einstein joined them behind the barricade. “What in the hell? Everyone stand down!” she ordered.

  Einstein took the binoculars from her and looked. “I can’t believe it. What does this mean?”

  “Stand down!” Dallas yelled again. “Friendlies!” The order was passed along like the game of telephone.

  Slowly coming around the metal barricade, Dallas stood with the rifle butt on her hip, Roper on one side of her, Einstein on the other.

  “Well, I never, ever expected this,” Einstein said.

  “You can’t be right all the time, kid.”

  When the boat came to a stop, Wendell and Elliot, two survivors from Angola Prison grinned up at them. Wendell wiggled his finger in a wave. “Well isn’t this a fine how do you do?” he said, jumping from the boat and embracing Dallas.

  Dallas crushed their friend from Angola in her arms and then did the same with Elliot. As everyone else hugged their old friends, she asked, “What on earth are you doing here? What happened? How is it you are here?”

  Wendell pushed his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. His curly blond hair was to his shoulders now, and he’d put some weight back on. “One question at a time, boss. Everything is fine in Angola.” He glanced around. “Where’s Butcher and Luke? Are their weapons pointed at our back or something?”

  Dallas shook her head sadly, the answer settling deep and sharp in her chest. “No easy way to day this. Luke’s dead, and Butcher left with Egypt. It’s a long, sad story.”

  Wendell sighed loudly. “Damn.”

  “Wendell, why are you here?” She glanced over at the other three men for the first time and realized they were military. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, after Julie landed the plane, she told us everything that was happen
ing with you guys. We managed to piece together some radio bits and heard that someone had captured a destroyer in San Francisco Bay. We knew it had to be you.”

  “That happened a few days ago. How did you get here so quickly?”

  “We’re more tied into the military in Angola now. After all of the Asian invasion and your crushing of the group in Barstow, you guys are famous.”

  “Are communications systems back online?”

  Wendell shook his head. “Outside of the military, there’s not much communication. Someone’s been sending drones over. Our military captured a couple, reprogrammed them, and use them now like carrier pigeons. I think even you would be surprised by the strides our military has made.”

  Roper winked at Einstein. “You nailed it, dude.”

  He beamed. “I knew it. I knew I’d seen a drone. I saw something and I swore…” He shook his head. “Never mind. Not important. So you know what we’ve been doing?”

  “Yeah. We’ve been monitoring your various escapades. Henry had us prep the plane right after we heard about Barstow. Said he wanted it to be ready just in case. Then Julie landed, and we knew you guys were doing all right.”

  Elliot explained, “We weren’t surprised you made it to Alcatraz, Even we weren’t prepared to hear you stole a destroyer right out from under the Japanese.”

  Wendell reached over and shook Einstein’s hand. “Damn, you’ve grown a coupla’ inches at least, kid. According to our sources, Hawaii is almost secure. Alaska totally is. No virus. No zombies there for sure.”

  “Too cold,” Einstein said. “Even for the undead.”

  “To answer your question, we’re here because England has become infected. Apparently, someone got a small plane out with infected on board.. It is believed the infected pilot managed to get out, not knowing he was turning or going to turn. Of course, he turned and so are a lot of other people in the southern portion of the country.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah. Since it started in the countryside, it’s taken a while for the man eaters to actually get noticed.”

  “London?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet. So far, they’ve done the opposite of us. They’ve cordoned off the cities and left the zombies to the countryside. They’ve built walls and trenches, but you know how that goes.” He shrugged.

  “And what does that have to do with us? Why would that bring you to Alcatraz?”

  Wendell and Elliot exchanged looks.

  “Well, this is where it gets interesting. The President sent that asshole aide of his, Sean Olsen, to Angola with a request.” Wendell handed her a letter with the Presidential seal.

  Dallas frowned as she opened the letter.

  Dallas Barkley––

  Great Britain is falling to the virus. Parliament and the King sent a dispatch to my office requesting help to contain it. He has heard about a group of survivors who has blown up a battleship, rescued prisoners, and brought down choppers. Apparently, and unbeknownst to us, our human tragedy here is playing out on the big screen all across the planet.

  I have no doubt the group he is referring to is you and your people.

  I’ll keep this brief. Parliament has promised to lend us military aid to fight back against the Asian Nation if we can destroy the zombie threat in their country. He is willing to go to bat for us with some of our other allies who have deserted us if we can help them eradicate his very real threat.

  As you by now know, we need aid if we are to take back our country. The U.N. is of no help, and the Global Tribunal refuses to pull the Asian Nation out of the United States. As a matter of fact, it appears everyone is looking the other direction due to fear of reprisal. I don’t have to tell you what might happen globally should they take us over.

  We need our allies once again to help rid us of the threat facing our people––––not the zombies, but the AN, which intends to divide our nation between the countries within its collective group.

  We cannot allow this to happen.

  There is a plane waiting at the Oakland airport to take eight of you to England. Apparently there are those in Europe who refer to your group as the Crazy Eights. Your exploits, as I’ve said, have been summarily recorded, and there are those who find your lives fascinating on a global scale I cannot begin to explain here.

  The long and short of it is this: your help has been requested by the British Parliament and the French Prime Minister. If you agree, we will fly the eight of you to France. There, you will be met by the Prime Minister and his people to go over the map of contagion and how you wish to proceed. You must enter the country from the Chunnel, as all other means in or out have been cordoned off and every ship entering British waters is destroyed.

  I have no doubt you will understand why I’ve come to you. Parliament refuses to allow our military personnel into England. The French as well refuse any and all crafts from the United States, Canada, or Mexico, in accordance with new laws issued weeks after the virus hit. But they will allow you and your people into their nations to help get this under control before it spreads as it did here.

  It is you and your people, or nothing.

  If you agree, there are half a dozen European Nations who will welcome you as citizens to their country. You will, in essence, be free.

  Our nation needs help, Dallas. Without aid, I am fearful that we will be unable to withstand the Asian Nation’s attempt to make us theirs. With the help from our allies, we just might be able to beat them back enough to clean our own house and to the right our ship.

  The fate of our once proud nation is now in your hands.

  Dallas lowered the letter. “Seriously?”

  Wendell nodded. “He knew you would doubt the legitimacy of the letter, so he asked us to bring it to you.”

  “And the plane? The one waiting in Oakland?”

  Wendell grinned. “We arrived on Air Force One this morning.”

  Roper’s eyebrows rose. “Air Force One? No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Eight people? He wants me to fly eight people to the English countryside to battle their man eaters?”

  “Not just battle them yourselves,” Wendell said, “but to train their people in the best way to eradicate them. No one expects the eight of you to do all the heavy lifting. You could save hundreds of thousands of lives. You could hand our government our country back.”

  “You’ll also get the hell out of here,” Elliot said in a near whisper. “Do what you have to do, Dallas, and the eight of you can pretty much live wherever you damn well please. Zombie free.”

  “The eight of us.”

  Dallas rubbed the back of her neck. “What if we say forget it?”

  Wendell shrugged. “Then you can take that beautiful yacht there and sail into the sunset while the rest of us fend for ourselves.”

  Dallas bowed her head. Inhaling deeply, she looked at Roper, knowing full well what her lover would say. “You, me, Zoe, Hunter, Einstein, Akiko, Fletcher, and––”

  Roper looked hard at her.

  No one else said a word.

  “We don’t even know if she’s alive and we have no idea where she is.”

  “Then let’s find her.”

  Dallas pulled her people together and told them what all was going on.

  “I guess I never thought that we were abandoning our people in Angola,” Fletcher said softly. “Now that Wendell and Elliot are here, I have to rethink how I look at this.”

  Roper looked down and shook her head. “Fighting zombies in England isn’t the paradise I was looking for, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get there later.”

  “I say we find Butcher and get the fuck out of here. If those yahoos are gonna give us a chance to get out of this nightmare, I say we go for it.” Zoe shrugged. “Sorry, Wen. I know it might seem heartless to leave you guys.”

  “You already left, Zoe, and we’re still here. No harm, no foul.”

  Dallas locked eyes with each member of the group. “Are
you sure? Once we get on that plane, there’s no turning back.”

  Everyone nodded. “In for a penny, in for an English pound,” Einstein said. “But the President has to do better than the eight of us. If it were me, I wouldn’t do it for less than a cruise ship to take the rest of our people out of here. Wendell, Elliot, Henry, all of those people in Angola who have done their best to keep others alive deserve a chance outside prison walls. If the Prez can guarantee a fully stocked and functioning cruise ship, then I say we go for it. It’s the best we can do for those we left behind.”

  Turning the letter over, Dallas took a pen from one of the soldiers before scribbling something on the back of it and handing it to him. “You and your drones, or whatever it is you use to communicate, find a way to tell him this. Tell him to make it happen. If he can make this happen, then we’re his. If he can’t, then fuck it. We’re out.”

  The soldier took the letter, folded it up, and placed it in his pocket. “Roger that, ma’am. How soon can you be ready to go?”

  Dallas consulted Roper, who said, “Three hours?”

  He nodded. “I will communicate this to him and if he agrees, then we can take off closer to six hours or so.”

  “Very well then. Tell him that on the back of the letter is our only condition, and if it’s not met, we’re out of here before dusk tomorrow and England can go to hell for all we care.”

  “Roger that, ma’am. Then we’ll see you back here in a few hours.”

  When Dallas and Roper started back to the prison, Dallas squeezed her hand. “Well now, this is a strange turn of events. Who would have thought we’d be flying to England?”

  Roper shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to ride in Air Force One.”

  Catching up to them, Einstein asked, “What did you write to the President? Thanks for the ride?”

  Dallas stopped, her gaze intense. “Nope. I expressed your idea and then told him there was only one way we were going to agree to do this.”