Read Online Outnumbered (Book 6) by Robert Schobernd - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Schobernd
Tags: Zombies
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gradually left the hills behind us and flattened to a rolling prairie. We moved on from under the awning thirty minutes later and continued in the rain for two more hours until we entered West Plains. The deserted city had claimed a population of twelve thousand inhabitants prior to the Zombie Apocalypse. Now it was just another ramshackle remnant of what had been. As we left the east edge of town, sunrays shone through the dissipating cloud cover, and the temperature rose noticeably. Water quickly drained away, and steam rose from the warm pavement. I was relieved to get rid of the sweltering raingear.
Before supper that evening, my ratty, well-used twenty-two year old edition of a road atlas lay spread across a soiled counter in a ravaged Shell gas station. The distance left to Poplar Bluff was close to ninety-miles. I figured three days of riding would put us near the city. Then we'd be faced with the difficult task of finding the murderous scum we had come to deal with. We spoke about the possibility of being detected first and walking into an ambush. Everyone was charged with scouring the areas around us and being vigilant.
Three days passed uneventfully as we rode toward Poplar Bluff. The weather was still hot in early September but cooled nicely after dusk. By the position of the sun, I guessed it was about three in the afternoon when our destination became visible across the eastern horizon. We made camp on a knoll west of the outskirts of the city where large trees provided shade. An adjacent open area provided tall grass where the horses grazed on long tether ropes. The horses had enough water from the recent rains pooled in a clogged roadside drainage ditch.
I held a group meeting to discuss our plan for locating the murderers we sought. We would form three, three man crews on horseback to conduct a cursory search of the city proper. The group we sought wasn't expected to be in town, but we needed to assure ourselves of that before we searched the rural area. Richard, Morgan and I would lead the crews. Vernon and Adam would ride with me, Mitch and Paige would go with Morgan, and Larry and Bryon would be with Richard. Adam, Paige and Bryon had volunteered to ride three of the draft horses bare-back. The draft horses weren't nearly as fast as the riding horses, so if a crew encountered the renegades they would likely have to dismount, take cover and fight. Hopefully, the rest of us might hear the gunfire. After two days of crisscrossing the city without seeing any signs of human activity, we changed our search focus to the areas outside the city limits.
The city's municipal building had been ransacked years earlier. The nine of us converged on the building in the morning hours of our fourth day there. After we'd searched through cabinets and desk for over half an hour, Paige discovered a cache of local county maps in the office of the mayor's secretary. With detailed maps of the area in hand, we returned to camp and planned our search. We split the area into nine sections. Each crew would canvass the roads in an assigned sector and ride approximately thirty miles from the city. As I feared, the first two days were unrewarding.
At mid-morning on the third day, my crew was north of the city and back in another section of the Mark Twain Forest. We rounded a sharp bend on an oil and chip country lane. A lone rider stood dismounted while his horse drank from a nearby pool of water.
Vernon immediately drew his assault rifle from the scabbard and sighted on the man thirty feet away. He yelled, "Don't move you son-of-a-bitch or I'll cut you in half."
It was clear from the tone of his voice that we'd hit pay dirt. As Vernon spoke the young man's hand quivered and edged toward a holster on his right leg. I'd drawn my Glock and then fired two rounds into the ground between his feet. "If you touch that gun, I can just as easily put a bullet between your eyes. It's your choice; do you want to live or die?"
He
Before supper that evening, my ratty, well-used twenty-two year old edition of a road atlas lay spread across a soiled counter in a ravaged Shell gas station. The distance left to Poplar Bluff was close to ninety-miles. I figured three days of riding would put us near the city. Then we'd be faced with the difficult task of finding the murderous scum we had come to deal with. We spoke about the possibility of being detected first and walking into an ambush. Everyone was charged with scouring the areas around us and being vigilant.
Three days passed uneventfully as we rode toward Poplar Bluff. The weather was still hot in early September but cooled nicely after dusk. By the position of the sun, I guessed it was about three in the afternoon when our destination became visible across the eastern horizon. We made camp on a knoll west of the outskirts of the city where large trees provided shade. An adjacent open area provided tall grass where the horses grazed on long tether ropes. The horses had enough water from the recent rains pooled in a clogged roadside drainage ditch.
I held a group meeting to discuss our plan for locating the murderers we sought. We would form three, three man crews on horseback to conduct a cursory search of the city proper. The group we sought wasn't expected to be in town, but we needed to assure ourselves of that before we searched the rural area. Richard, Morgan and I would lead the crews. Vernon and Adam would ride with me, Mitch and Paige would go with Morgan, and Larry and Bryon would be with Richard. Adam, Paige and Bryon had volunteered to ride three of the draft horses bare-back. The draft horses weren't nearly as fast as the riding horses, so if a crew encountered the renegades they would likely have to dismount, take cover and fight. Hopefully, the rest of us might hear the gunfire. After two days of crisscrossing the city without seeing any signs of human activity, we changed our search focus to the areas outside the city limits.
The city's municipal building had been ransacked years earlier. The nine of us converged on the building in the morning hours of our fourth day there. After we'd searched through cabinets and desk for over half an hour, Paige discovered a cache of local county maps in the office of the mayor's secretary. With detailed maps of the area in hand, we returned to camp and planned our search. We split the area into nine sections. Each crew would canvass the roads in an assigned sector and ride approximately thirty miles from the city. As I feared, the first two days were unrewarding.
At mid-morning on the third day, my crew was north of the city and back in another section of the Mark Twain Forest. We rounded a sharp bend on an oil and chip country lane. A lone rider stood dismounted while his horse drank from a nearby pool of water.
Vernon immediately drew his assault rifle from the scabbard and sighted on the man thirty feet away. He yelled, "Don't move you son-of-a-bitch or I'll cut you in half."
It was clear from the tone of his voice that we'd hit pay dirt. As Vernon spoke the young man's hand quivered and edged toward a holster on his right leg. I'd drawn my Glock and then fired two rounds into the ground between his feet. "If you touch that gun, I can just as easily put a bullet between your eyes. It's your choice; do you want to live or die?"
He
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