Free Regeneration (Mad Swine Book 3) by Steven Pajak

you doing with
this thing?” He asked. Before I could answer, he cleaved the
thing’s head with his machete. He crouched down and looked up at me
while he cleaned the blood on the dead thing’s clothing. “Were you
asking her out on a fucking date? In about a minute we’re going to
be swarmed by dead meat and you’re over here playing around with
dead things.”
    I shook my head and rolled my eyes.
“Let’s go,” I said and made my way to the wagon. The crazies on our
right flank were indeed closer, much closer than I expected. He was
right; this was stupid and could have been a disaster. We should
have left already.
    Slamming down onto the bench next to
me, I expected him to start harping on me, but instead, he snapped
the reins and got the horses moving without a word. For a while, we
rode on in silence, except for the echoing sound of hooves
clattering against pavement. The beautiful country sprawled out on
both sides as we continued to roll down Route 20. I no longer
noticed heads or bodies appearing from below the snow.
    After a while, Brian finally said,
“You were studying that thing. Weren’t you?”
    I nodded.
    “Did you find out anything
useful?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You must have found out something.
You were prodding that thing like you were some sort of mad
scientist.”
    I laughed at that. “I can’t draw any
conclusions from looking at one specimen.”
    “Just tell me already before I punch
you in the face.”
    I laughed again, because I knew he
would do it. It was fun to push his buttons and watch him get
flustered.
    “All right, chill. You know, you
don’t always have to jump right to punching someone in the face.
You have to work your way up to that.”
    “Dude, seriously. Your face is one
second away from getting punched.”
    “See, now you are showing restraint.
You shall now be rewarded.”
    Instead of punching me in the face,
he gave me a hard shot to the shoulder that made me drop the SKS
and grunt in pain. “Asshole.”
    Now it was his turn to laugh. “Study
that, Einstein.”
    We rode again in silence; Brian had a
smirk on his face enjoying my discomfort, while I sat nursing my
bruised shoulder and ego. After a while, I closed my eyes and
started to dose. I don’t know how much longer we rode on before
Brian reached out and shook me awake. He brought the wagon to a
halt.
    “What the hell is this?” he
asked.
    Shaking off sleep, I wondered if what
I was seeing was real. Across the two lane blacktop, a huge
trailer, the type pulled by a semi-tractor, lay on its side, its
full length stretching beyond the road on each side. On either side
of the trailer, various trailers, dumpsters and containers were
strung together creating a very long and high make-shift fence.
Actually, border, was probably a better word.
    “Where are we?” I wondered aloud.
    “We’re just past the Kennel. Reverend
Reggie’s congregation is just to the south. Randall Oaks is just on
the other side of the barrier.”
    “Get us closer,” I said.
    The horses trotted and Brian halted
them again about twenty feet from the wall. We both jumped down
from the wagon and stood looking at the barrier. From here, I could
see that the containers stretched into the woods beyond for about
one hundred feet, perhaps more. The wall on the right went even
further.
    “How the hell do we get around it?” I
asked.
    “That’s the point of it,” Brian said
and kicked the trailer. The empty throng sound vibrated along the
trailer and into the containers that butted up against it on both
sides. “To keep those things out. Or to keep someone in.”
    “Who put it here, though? Certainly
not Sam and Kat. They wouldn’t have the manpower or resources to do
something like this.”
    Before Brian could respond, a sudden
burst of movement came from our left. We both turned in that
direction, startled. From the tree lines and defilade along the
road, a group of men and women—ten or twelve in all—appeared, each
pointing