Page 18 of The Red Rider
“He’s still trying to stockpile enough gas in his RV to make it to Florida. Remember when I said most people don’t use cars anymore?” Aeron said.
“The Nazis had trucks.”
Aeron just grunted.
“It made it easier to make them go all explody.”
“It’s a stupid plan, Ariel,” Dice said. “Think about it. He’s trying to drag zombies from several states into Florida, but the logistics are flawed. He’s going to have to stop and refuel several times. He can strip the RV to make room for fuel, but what about supplies and a place to sleep? He can’t drive that long without stopping to sleep, even if you take refueling out the equation. How is he going to start driving again when he’s surrounded by Rage Heads? They tend to clog up engines when you plow through them.”
“Ew.”
Aeron just shrugged.
“We know he gets to New Jersey because you saw the sign. The chances of him making it to Florida without getting eaten are slim to nothing.”
“I still don’t understand why we aren’t killing him. My father couldn’t have done all this without him.”
Dice just shook his head.
“It’s not possible to kill everyone who helped your father just yet. He had his fingers in a lot of plots. We need to focus on the big picture, not all the minor players. We need to kill the Rage Heads, get that vaccine to everyone, and kill Isaiah. Once that’s done, we have to rebuild the entire world. There will be trials, and people will get their justice.”
Aeron pulled me into a hug.
“You’ll get your revenge, Speedy, but other people need it too. Every single person alive right now has lost someone. They either got killed in the war, or they had to watch a loved one turn into a Rage Head. Somewhere out there, someone is wondering if a friend or a family member that went out to scout for supplies and never came home is wandering around as a Rage Head, dead, or they had to hole up somewhere because their path home was blocked. They’ll never get those answers. We can only make sure the people responsible pay in the public eye so they can get closure.”
I squared my shoulders. I thought I was coming to Mexico because they needed my blood. Leif did what he needed to, and we made progress. But I wasn’t done yet.
They took my memories for a reason. I had to get them back.
Chapter 11
D
ice was excellent about coaxing random memories out, but aside from the day they abducted me, I still hadn’t remembered anything significant. I suppose I should be grateful for getting little things back. I was feeling a little more whole, but the entire reason they took my memories wasn’t becoming clear. It wasn’t like I could force it either.
I was starting to like my chats with Dice. He was easy to talk to, even if he never wore a shirt. He seemed to have this wide array of bizarre suspenders. I think my favorite so far was the Baby Yoda ones. He certainly wore them well.
Aeron wanted to spend more time with Dice and I. I knew part of it was boredom, but most of it was him knowing I might remember something traumatic and wanting to be there for me. It was nice, but sometimes, he interrupted Dice when he was on a roll.
I didn’t see much of Leif, and I missed him. He was working hard at the lab, and I only ever saw him at night and breakfast. We weren’t exactly getting our sexing on with Dice on the couch. It was feeling more and more wrong to have Dice on the sofa, but I was trying to ignore that emotion.
After a few days of feeling like a total failure because I hadn’t figured out why my memories had been taken, we ran out of time. Dice couldn’t help me because he was organizing the military to set up the massive amounts of vaccines that would be going out.
They were setting up checkpoints all over the state and taking people from California. Aeron worked it out with Jade that the gangs and military in Mexico would safely exchange the vaccines at the border. There were still doctors in California that could give people the vaccinations.
I was going to help out as much as I could. I was pretty handy with a needle when it came to tattooing people, but you pretty much wouldn’t want to trust me to draw blood or deliver a vaccine. I was just going to stand around threatening people with Smurfette, which is where I was needed.
It was time. We met an entire squad of soldiers and loaded up into a black SUV. See? People still used cars instead of murder horses. We drove to the gate where there was a large military presence and tents set up. There was already a line inside the wall and snaking around the booby traps outside.
Men and women with guns escorted us to the tent. I was pretty shocked when Aeron and Dice took a seat and started vaccinating people. I felt pretty left out. I was the only person in our groupnotgiving people shots. I was just standing there, awkwardly with my baby blue bat.
People were emotional. They were weeping and thanking everyone as they got their vaccines. It was beautiful. Everyone was coming together to make sure people lived through this.
Most people knew it was Leif that came up with the vaccine, and he had a little fan club. Everyone seemed shocked he was out there vaccinated people himself. He had an entire table to himself, and it was slowly filling with gifts. The area behind him was starting to get pretty full too. Everyone just wanted to thank him. I noticed they had gifts for everyone. Even if Leif didn’t give them their shot, they gave a small token to the person that did before they brought something over to Leif.
We were out there all day and all night, and it was pretty drama free until we started to get to the end of the line. I saw dust kicking up as some vehicles approached. Men began spilling out of trucks. They had blue bandanas covering their faces, and they started shoving people towards the end of the line and trying to cut.
“I think that’s my cue,” I said, swinging Smurfette over my shoulder and walking towards them.
