Road's End: Apocalypse Riders Read online

  He stopped anyway. She groaned her frustration, tried to turn, thinking grab him, but he kept her arm pinned painfully to her back. She looked over her shoulder, teeth bared. He didn’t give her a chance to find any more words - he rammed his cock inside her. She cried out, but it the sound was cut off when he grabbed her hair with his free hand and pulled her head back. She looked up and out at the city, her throat exposed like an offering.

  He took her hard, with short jabs, deep inside. She could hear him grunting with the effort. Her hips moved with him as if they had a mind and will of their own, lifting and tilting to take him as far into her as she could. “You wanted this,” he gasped. Was it a question? He sounded apologetic. “You wanted this.”

  Was he looking for reassurance? “Yes.” The word escaped her before her brain remembered its meaning. It hissed through her lips like steam escaping. “Yessss.”

  He flipped her over. Her bare ass slammed against the hood of the car, and she backed up, scooting her way up the windshield, spreading her knees for him. Her feet were still tangled in her pants, but she wasn’t about to take the time to extract them now. He tore his own pants off only one leg, the one boot flying off in the process. His eyes were wild, animalistic, as he kicked the boot away and then placed his leather jacket next to her. She planted her palms to either side of her on the glass of the windshield and fervently wished she had something to hold on to.

  He scrambled up the hood after her and was inside her again in one swift movement, as if his cock knew exactly where it needed to be and aimed itself. Propped on one elbow above her, he took a moment to catch his breath. His free hand snaked beneath her shirt and pinched a hardened nipple, twisting, relishing the yelping sounds she made. She squirmed and writhed beneath him, her body begging him to move.

  He obliged. Slower now, sweat dripping from his forehead, he moved on top of her. His nails dug into her chest. She clawed at his back, beneath his shirt, and he growled into her hair. She had never felt so out of control. A sense of being trapped crept up on her. Panic made her heart beat faster, but she couldn’t stop herself, nevermind trying to stop him. Her body writhed as if possessed, desperately seeking a release.

  She reached between them with a shaky hand, intending to push herself over the edge, but he freed his hand from her shirt and grabbed the wrist. "No," he snarled, and slammed it back against the windshield, propped himself higher and used his weight to trap it there. The pane shook, and she wondered if they should be concerned about it breaking.

  His free hand pushed down between them, and he slowed his thrusts as he pinched the sensitive hood of skin around her clit. Her ass lifted from the glass and she shrieked. He released her wrist and pulled her towards him, pressed her against his chest so she was partially sitting up.

  "Please," she begged, her hips grinding. Her inner thighs were sticky, her fluids mixing with their sweat. He bit her neck, sucked on the skin, hard. It was sure to leave a mark.

  "Now?"

  "Yes."

  He pushed her back. Her elbows hit the windshield, jarring the breath out of her. He attacked her mouth with lips and teeth, stroked her clit with a thumb, and pounded into her with a fury. Her ass skidded up the glass at his assault, and she came hard. It felt like an explosion. Her inner walls clenched him tight, and with a wordless shout he came with her, shuddering helplessly as jet after jet of his seed spurted inside her.

  They didn't move as the aftershocks of their orgasms passed. She realized she was trembling, and concentrated on calming herself. There were no sounds in the dead city but their gasping breaths. His rasped. She wondered if he was in worse shape than he looked.

  "I'm so sorry," he said, hovering above her. She looked up at him, but he couldn't meet her eyes.

  It was a struggle to speak. The madness she so feared that had been lurking in her mind had weakened, though, and she grasped her language once again. "No," she said, "You said anything I wanted. This was what I wanted. What I needed. I think you did, too."

  "I didn't even ask your name. Didn't give you mine."

  She pressed a finger to his lips. "Don't. It will be easier when you leave, if I don't know who you are."

  He rolled off her, and the mixture of their sweat quickly cooled her overheated skin where it was exposed. She looked down at herself to asses the damage. Red nail marks crossed her chest, though he hadn't broken the skin. Neither of her legs had made it entirely out of her pants, but one boot had been kicked free. Only one arm had escaped her shirt, and it was bunched around her neck. Her coat was on the ground just next to the front tire.

  He lay back against the windshield, tight against her side. His clothing was in a similar tangle.

  "My name is Adam," he said.

  She sighed. "What brought you here, Adam?"

  "I should have told you before. I'm being chased. I thought I'd try to hide." He took her hand, entwined their fingers. "Being near me puts you in danger."

  She touched his hair, curled it around her fingers. "So, you'll travel on. Lead the danger away."

  He shook his head, but didn't respond to her statement. "Tell me your name."

  She whispered, "It's Josie."

  "Josie," he said, and she squeezed her eyes tight against the tears that rose.

  "Don't," she said, "You have to go." She gripped his hand tighter. How could she be alone again? If only he hadn't said her name.

  "I'm starving." The words were stated simply. He didn't want to diminish whatever supplies she had, but didn't think he could go on. It stabbed at her heart.

  “All right. I can give you some supplies.” The thought of diminishing her own twisted her stomach. She had more than enough for a good long time, but she lived like a dragon hoarding and guarding its gold. “Come with me.”

  CHAPTER 2

  I am Josie Varick. I remember that now. I looked up at Adam. Goddamn was he a beautiful sight. I knew it when I first saw him, but in a very distant sort of way. The detached way I'd been feeling about everything. Now, though, I couldn't stop looking. He had a few days growth of hair on his face, giving him a dark and scruffy look, but it didn't hide the strong jaw beneath, and only enhanced those deep blue eyes.

  I felt like I was waking up, walking along with him, holding his elbow like a lifeline. Like a good strong string to tie back my unraveling sanity. Isolation had made me strange. I'd felt like I was just watching myself. Now, I was beginning to feel like me again.

  His fingers were curled through my belt loops. He was as afraid to let go as I was, but holding hands would have been too weird, too intimate. Even though we'd just fucked, we'd only just met.

  Then again, social rules changed when corpses started walking, when people fought them and died in droves in their own streets, when civilization crumbled.

  "I haven't seen any of the dead in the city," Adam said.

  "No. They sort of migrated out in herds once everybody was gone or dead." The city had been terrifying, then. Everyone left because being packed in so close was a recipe for disaster. Too often you wouldn't see a corpse until you rounded the corner and it was on top of you, and too late. Too often a neighbor would die and eventually take out the whole building. At some point, everyone decided it was safer out in the open.

  Everyone but me.

  We reached one of my food stores - just some cans buried beneath a pile of rubble in the corner of a hotel lobby. Things like corn and beans and tomatoes and even dog food, though I hadn't needed to resort to that, yet.

  "Take all of it," I said. "I have more spots like this."

  He dropped in front of the pile and tore open the first can he grabbed using an opener from a jacket pocket. He had a spoon tucked away somewhere, too, and was shoveling beans into his mouth within moments.

  "Slow down," I said, dropping into a crouch next to him. "You'll get sick." Fuck, the poor guy was shaking. What had happened to him? He reached for a second can, but I placed a hand on his wrist. "You'll get sick," I said again.

&
nbsp; But he was mindless with his hunger. He pushed me, hard, and I toppled and slid back. Dust rose around me, clouding my view of him. If I’d known he was that bad off I wouldn’t have showed him the whole store at once.

  Well, it wasn’t my problem. The pile was his now. He’d be leaving. I’d be the last and only city dweller once again. I rose and retreated; the rooftops called. I’d wait to hear his engine’s thunder and watch him drive away. And then I’d unravel and watch myself wander the streets. As it was before him. As it always would be.

  Pulling on my goggles, I stopped on the cracked sidewalk just outside the hotel’s doorways. Distant roars. More engines. More motorcycles. I stood frozen and listened. Were they getting closer? It was hard to tell. They were still very far away.

  Cans clinked together in the doorway. Adam had packed up the supplies in a plastic bag and was standing behind me.

  “Your friends?” I asked.

  “No.” Something in his voice chilled me. My heart hammered in my chest.

  “You should go.” My jaw clenched against them, but I forced the words out. My whole body tensed, rejecting what I was saying. “You should get out of here.”

  “I know.” Yet my arms sought his. I clung to one, feeling his muscles tense, so hard and strong against my cheek. I closed my eyes. “Josie…”

  My head spun at the sound of my name. I staggered; I had to sit down. He helped lower me to the concrete. “Josie, I’m sorry. I have to lead them away. They’ll do so much worse to you than I did.”

  “Go,” I moaned. I leaned back against the building’s side. “I know. Go.”

  He kissed me; it wasn’t like before. It was tender; sweet. Less like someone starving; more like someone who felt something. I turned away. I had to.

  “You saved me,” he breathed, his breath hot against my cheek. “I won’t forget that. I will come back.”

  Then he was gone. With him went that string that so briefly held my sanity neatly together. I felt like I was dissolving.

  Isolation was making me strange.

  CHAPTER 3

  Perched atop an old armchair on a roof, I listened to the engines roar. I felt like a demented queen banishing all men from my realm. I felt bereft.

  Eventually the sounds stopped. They didn’t fade; didn’t disappear into the sunset. They just stopped. I didn’t have them in visual range when I realized it. They sounded far away - probably out in the woods to the north.

  Hopefully.

  I promised myself I’d stick to rooftops until I was sure, only coming down for food and other supplies. When I did have to descend, I was armed. Two long knives. Not the kitchen kind - I’d gotten these my older brother, long after he turned. It was almost laughable. He was the loser of the family. He couldn’t get a job, couldn’t seem to get his life together at all, and was a total conspiracy nut. He’d had survivalist plans from long before the living corpses were anything but a myth. I’d mocked him for years.

  Yet here we were. He was dead, and I was using his supplies. I strapped the sheaths to my belt and kept the long knives in my hands as I walked, and barely even thought about him. It felt like someone else's life.

  I expected to bump into strangers around every corner. Part of me was convinced they’d parked far away. Part of me could feel them, like parasites in my blood, like invaders hiding in my home. I could sense their breathing, their very presence. The dust was disturbed in places I hadn’t walked. It swirled through the air before me as if someone had just passed through and I had just missed them.

  Or maybe it was just ghosts.

  Did this mean Adam hadn’t lead them away? Had they caught him, or given up on him, or killed him? Or worse. Maybe he was betraying me. Handing me over to some group of men. I gripped my knives tight and crouched down along a wall as I walked between supply spots. Maybe they were ignoring me and hunting for my stores.

  Well, they couldn’t have them.

  She moved some of them to higher ground. As if she was a bird and they were wingless creatures. As if would help one bit if they read her tracks.

  My. MY tracks. Keep it together! I was starting to float above myself again. Not yet. Not until they’re gone.

  I was asleep on a ratty old mattress on the eighth floor of some apartment building when they found me. I didn’t even hear them approach. Nothing shifted, nothing crumbled or toppled to wake me up. The city betrayed me.

  “Morning, girly.” The gruff voice startled me out of a deep sleep. I sat up with a jerk, backing away from the sound. I only bumped into another pair of legs.

  Four men. I couldn’t fight four men. Could I? “Where’s Adam?” I asked. They all wore black leather jackets, too, but theirs were different. The patches were a different shape, the pockets in different places. Theirs were looser.

  They exchanged a look but didn’t reply. Basements. Maybe if I’d hidden in basements. It was an absurd thought. I knew it. But I regretted thinking of it too late anyway.

  “She’s crazy, man. Just wrap her up and let’s go.” The speaker was the man behind me. The first voice, the gruff one, came from the man before me. He had a shaggy black-and-white beard and beady eyes.

  He said to the men, “Give me the rope.”

  No no no NO. I leaped. I’d slept with my knives beneath my back, and I gripped them tight as I jumped to my feet. They weren’t expecting me to move so fast. Blades met flesh as arms reached out to grab me. Blood flew, splattering the walls. Men shouted. Arms recoiled in pain, and I was past and out the door.

  I didn’t have a chance in hell of escaping and I knew it, but I ran anyway. I wasn’t giving up without a fight. But if I make it outside… I knew this city like I knew my own body. They would never catch me if I could disappear into the concrete maze.

  I slammed myself into the doorway to the stairwell and without pausing, hauled myself up onto the railing. Eight floors was too many to drop. It was also too many to outrun the men. But I could make it down to the next landing if I swung right. And then to the next. I took a deep breath, sheathed my knives, and jumped.

  I landed with a loud, echoing thud, and I grunted as the wind was knocked out of me. Dust choked me as I gasped desperately for air. Nothing felt broken, so I staggered forward, trying to suck in oxygen. I ran down the next two flights, then jumped again when I had my breath back. I could hear the men in the stairwell above me. Shouting, running.

  Five flights was still too many to jump to the bottom, so I hurled myself at the next landing again. I was more prepared this time and I rolled as I hit the ground. “Stop! You ain’t getting away, bitch, just give yourself up now!”

  I couldn’t spare the breath to respond. I ran down two more flights. Their footsteps were getting closer. I looked back and could see the dust cloud preceding them as they ran.

  Two flights. Survivable. I made the jump.

  Something snapped when I struck the ground. Fiery pain flooded my entire right side, but all I could think was not a leg, not a leg. I stood and tested my weight on both feet. They held me up; I could keep moving.

  As I burst out the fire door and out into an alley, I felt something wet soaking the side of my shirt. Blood. I hadn't broken something, I'd landed on something.

  Shit. Shit! I'd only jogged a few feet, but I was already getting lightheaded. I didn't have time to cover my tracks, so there was no way to hide. I touched my knives. Still secure in their sheaths. Could I hope to fight them? Maybe if they came at me one at a time. Not likely.

  I emerged from the end of the alley; I could hear them shouting from the doorway, so I took off, fleeing with no goal, no plan, no chance. I screamed in frustration as I stumbled.

  "Josie!" I looked up. Adam was just a few buildings away, up the block from where I stood. He started running towards me, but he was too far.

  And, I realized with an awful cold feeling in my gut, I didn't know if I could trust him. I turned and ran the opposite way. "Josie!" he barked again.

  Then, gunshots. Bits of brick e
xploded from the wall next to me. All I could think was "no fair" as I ducked through the front door of the next building. I dropped behind an overturned desk just inside the doorway and covered my head with my hands. I've gotten out of worse. Get up. The gunshots continued outside. If I could find a back exit... Get up! But my feet wouldn't obey. In fact, they felt cold. I felt cold all over. Oh, fuck. I checked my side. The blood had soaked clear through my shirt and coat, and now was blossoming down my pants leg.

  Someone burst through the doorway. "Get up. " Adam.

  Why had he shot at me? He was firing again. I couldn’t tell where, my head was spinning, hard. Was he shooting at me? "Get up!"

  I stood. The tone of his voice gave me no choice, though my body protested and my vision swam. He looked at me. "Fuck. Can you run?"

  "You brought them here." I could hear the panic in my own voice but I couldn't stop it. I hadn't survived and outlasted the dead so I could be taken out by the living. I backed away from him. "Leave me alone! Get the fuck out of my city!"

  "Then run!" He pointed the gun right at me. My legs felt like lead, but I ran. I scrambled further inside the lobby. There was an open door leading into a dark hallway, and I ducked through, all while Adam kept firing his gun.

  My footsteps and my labored breathing echoed down the narrow passageway. I slammed against the walls as I ran. I was out of strength, out of time, and I knew it, but I couldn't give up. It just wasn't in me.

  The doorway the end was unlocked, but I could barely push it open. Hearing Adam's heavy steps running towards me gave me the extra surge of energy I needed. I tried to turn and shut it in his face but I was too slow. Eyes blazing, he slammed into it and pushed me back.

  "Get up!" he roared before I even hit the ground. I gripped one of my knives as I struggled to my feet. When he reached out to grab me, I made a wild swing.