Page 18 of The Pale Rider
“Yeah, I get it. I’m enjoying it while I have it. You should loosen up and make sex noises when you eat too. Come on, nachos and pancakes during the apocalypse? That can be better than sex.”
Okay, Aeron was a total prude. He didn’t like the happy noises I made when I ate, and as soon as I mentioned sex, he totally closed up and left the room.
“I will make sure we pack everything.”
I had nachos. I suppose it was too much to ask that the hot guy who found me was also a little kinky. I’d settle for him being a little sweeter. For now, I was just going to enjoy these delicious pancakes and stop wishing for what I didn’t have. Aeron was who he was, grumpy fuck and all.
Aeron didn’t come back in until I was long done with my breakfast, and he had already saddled the horse and tied all our bags to the saddle.
“What’s the deal with your horse?”
“We don’t have time for this, Ariel. Just know when it comes down to it, Meremoth will save your life. Now, shut up so we can leave.”
I guess we were back to that. Aeron put me on the back of his horse like I was some infected Rage Head that he didn’t want to touch. A girl could get a complex at some point. Aeron hopped up behind me and kicked the horse again. We took off at that incredibly fast pace.
“Don’t you need to pace your horse?”
“The only way out of town to California is straight through Scooter’s territory. Meremoth can handle it. I told you, Scooter’s gang is heavily armed, and there are scouts everywhere. Now, be quiet, so we don’t get shot at.”
Let’s all have a moment of silence and pray that this crazy demonic horse could get us the Hell out of this town before rapist cannibals started taking potshots at us. Smurfette was good at smashing brains, but she wasn’t a long-range weapon, and neither was Aeron’s sword. Who still fought with swords, anyway?
Meremoth galloped through a dead town at a punishing pace. I gripped the pommel, and Aeron held my waist, so I didn’t fall off. We cut back through the main area that we looted and got on a road I didn’t recognize.
I realized we were about to go deep into the shit when Aeron’s grip on my waist tightened. My eyes darted left and right, taking in my surroundings. I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to see them, but they could see me, and I didn’t like that.
I was gripping Smurfette with my free hand and holding her across the saddle. She would be useless against a gun in the distance, but it was still comforting to have her with me. Where was everyone? I didn’t even see Rage Heads out here. They were fast, but they weren’t as fast as Meremoth. Still, I didn’t want a whole herd of them chasing us.
I finally saw three Rage Heads milling about in the distance, and I’ll be totally fucked, but Aeron slowed the damned horse down and started yelling.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
He had their attention now. They trained their red eyes on us, and I could hear their moans in the distance.
“Come and get it, assholes!” Aeron yelled.
This fucker would get me eaten. The three Rage Heads let out that wail like they were signaling for backup, and Aeron was just sitting on the back of his demonic horse and not getting us out of there. More Rage Heads started spilling out of the trees to see what the big fuss was. The road became this entire choir of Rage Head wails, and this was definitely a concert I didn’t want to attend.
“Free meal!” Aeron yelled, kicking Meremoth again.
This mother fucker right here. Did he take me out of that clinic and feed me nachos as a last meal so I could get eaten to death with him? And pancakes? Was that a trick too? Clearly, trusting anyone during the end of the world was a bad idea. He probably didn’t even know how all this started.
Meremoth took off running, and we had an entire herd of Rage Heads wailing behind us. It terrified me. My blood was pumping, and I was imagining how awful it was to be pulled from a horse and getting eaten alive. I kept trying to look behind us to see how close those things were getting.
Aeron gripped my stomach and nudged me with his shoulder.
“Eyes up ahead, and this will make sense.”
Nothing made sense ever since I woke up in that clinic. Like inciting a bunch of mutated corpses to chase us would ever make sense.
“Look up ahead. It’s right there, Ariel,” Aeron growled, digging his nails in my waist.
That was when I saw it—some sort of makeshift settlement. There were watchtowers, and there were men with guns manning the two towers. The settlement looked like it spread out for most of the woods too. We had two options. Take a longer way around and run into a massive herd of Rage Heads, or go straight through Scooter’s settlement.
And this crazy mother fucker behind me decided to go straight through with a herd of Rage Heads chasing us. I could hear them screeching behind us. It kept building the further we ran, and the more they screeched, the bigger the herd got. What would stop them from chasing us all the way to California? Aeron had better have thought this through further than getting past the guns.
And that roadblock in front of the settlement. We were barreling towards a barricade made of wooden spikes at an alarming speed. Someone at the camp was ringing a bell, and men with guns were spilling out of the houses. There were at least a hundred shotguns pointed right at us, and I’m sure we made some sort of fucked up sight. A girl on a horse with a blue baseball bat and a crazy man with a sword being followed by an army of dead cannibals. I kind of wished I was back in a coma.
Aeron pulled me to his chest.
