Read Online Republic of the Living (Novella): Vengeance by Taz Gallaher - Free Book Online

the
river pouring across the sand.   Cato
would be sleeping on the front porch, waiting for him, ready to gallop across
the beach.   Maybe Jackson would be
inside the little house, cooking up a late dinner.   He imagined all the combinations of meat
and potatoes simmering in the big, aluminum pot on his stove.
    An hour passed and Chewy stirred, dusting off his
pants and flexing his shoulders.  He leaned forward to stand but her hand
tugged on his sleeve.  He turned to her.
    “ I know who you are,” she
whispered.
    He relaxed back onto his hips.
    “ You’re the one.  The
guy from Fresno.”
    “ Lots of guys from Fresno”,
he answered.
    She smiled weakly.  “Yeah.  But you’re
the guy who kicked it all off.  Connie told me.  She told me you’re
the one who got everybody organized.  Cleared out the valley.”
    “ This Connie,” he said.
 “She knew a lot.”
    Mai wrapped her hands around her knees.  “She
said you were everywhere.  Up and down the coast.  And everywhere you
went, two things happened.”  She turned to him and brushed a strand of
hair from her eyes.  “State gov got their asses kicked and people cleared
out the zombies.”
    “ Probably a coincidence,” he
said.  “But, I do like to travel.”
    “ When this is over.”
 She squeezed his shoulder in her small hand.  “Take me with you.”
    He stood quietly for a moment and then nodded.
 “If we get out of this.”  He pulled her hand off his shoulder and
squeezed it.  “You can hang out with me as long as you want.   Or, as long as you can stand it.”  
    He released her hand and stood, bouncing on his
heels.
    “ Vamanos, hermana.”
    The street outside was muffled in pitch-black.
 They gathered their things and moved quickly down the block to the end of
the building.  They slowed and crept around the corner.  A dull light
glowed against the far end of the building.
    “ They’ve got electric,” Chewy
whispered.  “Be careful.”
    He pushed to the edge of brick wall and peered
across the street.  Two large, round lamps glowed feebly above the station
entrance.  A pair of light rigs had been set up between the truck and the
camp gate, illuminating the chain link fence in stronger, brighter light.
 The man on the cab was turned slightly away from them.  He sat on
the blankets with his feet dangling into the truck bed, his rifle resting
across his lap.  Chewy thought he could see the man’s chin drooping toward
his chest.
    He pointed a finger at the truck and wagged it.
 She loped forward like a shadow and drew her knife as she approached the
truck.

 
    *********

 
    He was dreaming of the house in Stockton.
 Tall, leafy oak trees spread over the front walk and he sauntered under their
shade toward the porch.  Dad must have repainted it.  The porch
railing gleamed pure white.  The light olive-colored wall behind it was
clean and unstained.  Sunlight bathed the porch floor. The wooden frame of
the screen door opened slowly and his mother stepped onto the porch.  She
wore the same starched, blue dress she saved for Sunday services.  She
raised her hand and he smiled.   There was something wrong with her eyes.
    A sharp pain exploded from his waist.
    He blinked his eyes open and turned.  A thin
arm was wrapped around his throat and a body latched itself tight against his
back.  He opened his mouth and a new wave of pain above his belt made him
gasp.  The blankets under him shifted and he began to slide off the cab,
his attacker still clinging to him.  He dropped into the darkness below.

 
    *********

 
    Chewy watched the two bodies disappear on the
other side of the truck.  The man’s rifle skimmed down the windshield and
clattered onto the truck hood.  He waited.
    Mai popped up on the other side of the hood and
waved at him.  He exhaled and jogged toward the station with the
four-by-four in one hand and his staff in the other.  Mai’s pink shoes
flashed toward the station entrance.