Highway to Heartache by David A. Simpson

Author:David A. Simpson [Simpson, David A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781795497183
Publisher: Wise Pug Publishing
Published: 2019-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

19

Mount Rushmore

They were surprised to find all the shops empty. There had been a battle but it was from long ago. A handful of dull shell casings, long dried blood stains on the floors and walls and a few shoes were all that was left. There were more corpses, some still trying to move but chewed up so badly they could hardly worm their way around. There were a lot of gnawed on bones lying around and they found a few heads, mostly intact, trying to bite at them.

“Weird.” Jessie said and used a gift shop t-shirt to pick up a leg bone that had been mostly picked clean.

Bob sniffed around with a low, menacing growl coming from deep in his chest. He didn’t like it either.

“Teeth marks.” he pointed out. “but not human. Looks like some wolves or something started eating zombies. I guess they would be easy prey.”

“Wolves wouldn’t do this.” Scarlet said. “There is plenty of wild game now, they like fresh meat, not rotting flesh.”

They poked through the rest of the stores but they all told a similar tale. At one time, months and months ago, there had been survivors. From the scattering of clothes and shoes in the plaza, it looked like they’d been trapped by a horde. The shelves were empty of anything edible, all the candy bars and bags of chips. They’d probably been starving and had been forced to try to make a run for it. They saw rolls of tape discarded by the clothes bins and could see how desperate people had made armor out of anything they could.

“I think they succeeded.” Scarlet said. “All the zombies are gone. They must have got to a car and led them away.”

“Hope so.” Jessie said but had his doubts. If any survivors had made it to the settlements, a story like this would have been told and retold around the retriever tables. Bastille probably would have had a whole show dedicated to the Rushmore survivors.

The scattering of heads and bones concerned him. Something wasn’t right, something had happened that he’d never seen before.

“Do you think the virus has spread to animals?” he asked, turning a piece of ribcage in the light, examining the bite marks on it.

“Those are zombie parts.” she pointed out, indicating a slowly snapping head that was lying on its side in the weeds. “Zombies don’t eat zombies.”

One of the eyes was milky black, the other completely eaten away by insects. A long line of ants was marching away from it with tiny little pieces of flesh in their mandibles as another line was coming back from the colony for seconds. Or thirds. Or it was probably their thousandth trip. The bones were stripped clean as only insects can. They’d saved the heads for last for some reason. Maybe because they still moved.

Jessie grimaced, tossed the bone away and it clattered into a pile of others. The skeletal remains were everywhere, torn apart, picked clean and scattered.

“Let’s go up the trail, see if we can figure out how to climb up Washington’s nose.

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