Death Road Read online

  “To Tom Cadden – Reading is Power!”

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Copyright Page

  Titles in Teen Reads

  In the year 2320 the Great Disaster happened.

  A nuclear war destroyed all the main towns and cities of the world.

  The water dried up and the world became one big desert.

  Then a plague came. It turned ordinary people into flesh-hungry zombies.

  The unaffected survivors built walls around what was left of their cities to keep the zombies out.

  This is the world Omak lives in.

  CHAPTER 1

  Omak sat in the driver’s seat of the Blood Bug, his small, armoured car. He revved the engine and drove straight at the car in front of him. The street and buildings flashed by. He could see the tough, iron plate that covered the other car’s front. It was so close that he could even see the scratches that scarred its blue paintwork and the loose rivets that rattled as it bounced towards him.

  “Silva Dacosta,” Omak muttered. “You’re not getting this job.”

  The screaming engine noise filled the car as it flew towards Silva’s car. Silva wasn’t chickening out either. One of them would have to brake or they would smash into each other.

  Omak could see Silva’s wide eyes, her short, spiky white hair through the tiny windscreen. If he didn’t brake now, that would be it!

  He dragged the steering wheel to the left and felt the rear end of the car drift. The whole Blood Bug rattled along as it turned into a skid. Sparks flashed from the front wing as it clipped Silva’s car. Omak swung the steering back and managed to straighten out. The seat belt gripped his chest and shoulders as he slammed on the brakes and came to a squealing stop.

  Omak nearly head-butted the dashboard of his car as he stopped. He looked out to see Silva’s buggy, Blue Flash, half on the road half on the path, its rear tyres smoking. He jumped out. Silva was climbing out of her car too.

  “Are you mad?” she yelled, her cheeks red with anger. She was small, like Omak. They had to be to drive the cramped armoured buggies they used to deliver things to the cities. Petrol was expensive and drivers had to be light. The smaller you were, the more things you could carry in the car. Kids were the best drivers.

  “Me?” Omak shouted, slapping his chest. “Why didn’t you brake sooner? I nearly killed you!”

  “Ha! Your heap of scrap couldn’t do my Blue Flash any harm!” Silva sneered.

  “Then what are you grumbling about?” Omak said, grinning. “Are you trying to get my attention?”

  Silva clenched her fists. “As if! What are you doing here?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “Same as you, I guess,” Omak said, looking up at the tower block they stood outside. “I’ve got an appointment with the Mayor.”

  “Oh no you don’t,” Silva said, staring at Omak.

  Omak and Silva did the same job. They were Posties. They drove their small armoured buggies between the cities, delivering mail, parcels, pets, messages, food, anything as long as people paid them. Fuel was scarce but the cars ran on all kinds of things; petrol was best but old cooking oil would do if necessary.

  “Look, Silva…” Omak stammered, “I really need this job…”

  “You can’t do it,” Silva said, fixing Omak with her emerald eyes.

  “Yeah? Says who?” Omak grinned. He didn’t feel very happy, though. He needed money badly. Mum owed money to the water seller, the food man, and worst of all she owed rent to the Council itself. If Omak didn’t get this job then Mum would have to work as a slave in the sewers until she’d paid off the debt. That’s how it worked in this city. And there were plenty of Posties, young kids eager to risk the outside world to deliver. Silva and Omak were the best and found themselves fighting each other for work all the time.

  “I do,” Silva snapped. “You mustn’t do this job, Omak!”

  “I’ve got to. Anyway, you’re only saying that ’cos you want it,” Omak said. He didn’t know why Silva was a Postie. She was rich compared to him. Sometimes he really fancied her, but what would a rich girl like her see in a deadbeat like him? He had to think fast. “I think I’ll have the last laugh,” he said staring over her shoulder at her car. “You left your handbrake off. Blue Flash is rolling away!”

  Silva gave a yelp and turned around.

  Omak ran up the steps of the Mayor’s building, swinging open the glass doors. They were double doors with two handles in the middle. Omak pulled off his dust scarf and tied it around the handles, locking the doors. Silva slammed herself against the glass.

  “Omak, come back!” Silva yelled. “Don’t take that job!”

  A huge security guard came out from behind his desk and frowned at Omak.

  “Quickly,” Omak panted. “That girl is mad. I think she has Snapper fever!”

  The guard’s eyes widened and he pulled out a Taser. “I’ll deal with her son,” he said, taking a step forwards. Snappers were the living dead who roamed the desert lands between cities. One bite from a Snapper was enough to infect you with a fever that drove you insane. Snappers usually gave you more than one bite, though.

  Omak grinned at the look of alarm on Silva’s face. She’d guessed what Omak had said to the guard and quickly backed down the steps. Omak ran up the stairs that stood at the side of the disused lifts.

  “That’s the competition put out of the game,” he laughed, jumping the steps two at a time towards the Mayor’s office. “The job is mine!”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Snappers looked close. Omak could see their yellow teeth and their grey skin. They reached out with long, black fingernails. Desert dust blew up around them as they stumbled along searching for meat. ANY meat.

  Once the Snappers had been human just like Omak, but after the Great Disaster they changed. They never died. They never slept. They just wandered in the hot, waterless land that surrounded the walled city of Birmingham. Mindless and hungry.

  Omak shivered and put down the telescope he had been looking through.

  “I bet you’re glad to be up here in my office,” Mayor Blanchard said behind him. “You wouldn’t want to be down there with those monsters.”

  “I’m glad I’m safe behind the walls of the city,” replied Omak, shaking himself.

  Mayor Blanchard laughed and took a sip from his glass. Omak heard ice cubes clink and stared. How could the Mayor get ice? Water was in such short supply. Everything was in short supply: food, clothing, light, shade, space. The Great Disaster had swept civilisation away and the survivors had built walls around their cities to keep the Snappers, and other things, out.

  “Mmm, there’s nothing like an iced drink,” Mayor Blanchard said, raising his glass. He took another sip, smacking his thick lips and belching. “You want some?”

  Omak nodded slowly and the Mayor heaved himself off his big, black chair and waddled over to a table that held an ice bucket and some bottles of water.

  “How’s your mother?” the Mayor asked, pouring a drink.

  Omak licked his parched lips as the ice chunks clunked into the glass.

  “F-fine,” he stammered. “She’s fine.”

  “Fine?” Mayor Blanchard said, staring out of the window at the crumbling city below. “How can any of us be fine in this hell hole?”

  “I don’t know,” Omak said. He didn’t really understand.

  “How old are you, Omak? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  “Something like that, I guess,” Omak said, with a shrug.

  “You won’t really remember the world before the Great Disaster,” the Mayor said with a sigh. “Life was easy then. If only we’
d known it.”

  “Right,” said Omak.

  “Sometimes I wish we’d all died back then,” Mayor Blanchard said, still staring out of the window. He turned. “Instead of living like this. There are too many mouths, Omak. Not enough food.”

  “If you say so,” Omak muttered. All he was interested in was his next job so he could keep Mum out of debt and his car rolling.

  The Mayor clapped his hands.

  “Well, this is a big job, Omak,” he said. He passed the drink. “Very important. Lives depend on it.”

  “What do you want me to deliver?” asked Omak.

  Mayor Blanchard walked over to a small, white fridge. Omak had noticed it when he first came in. Fridges were expensive. They used too much electricity. The Mayor opened the fridge door and took out a small, glass test tube.

  “This,” he said. “It’s the cure for the Snapper fever that has broken out in London. People are dying. This is their only hope.”

  “But can a little bottle like that treat the whole of London?” Omak stared at the tiny test tube.

  “It only takes a microscopic droplet of this stuff to cure hundreds, maybe thousands, of people, Omak,” the Mayor said, holding the antidote up.

  “That’s an important mission,” Omak agreed. His heart thudded. He’d taken all kinds of things to London before, valuable things, machine parts, electronics, and documents. But he’d never taken anything so precious. “How come you didn’t choose Silva? Her car is faster than mine and she takes passengers. You could send a doctor…”

  Mayor Blanchard narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips.

  “Silva asks too many questions, Omak,” the Mayor said. He looked tired. “And I don’t trust her. Complete this mission and you’ll be a hero. You’ll never have to work again. Your mother’s debts will be cleared. I promise.”

  Omak frowned. “Why can’t London make their own medicine?”

  “They can, but they’ve run out and it’ll take them six months to make more,” explained the Mayor. “They don’t have six months. We’re the nearest supply. So we’re giving them ours. The Snapper fever is spreading like wildfire.” He slipped the test tube into a metal flask and passed it to Omak. “We’re depending on you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Omak said, taking the flask and slipping it into his rucksack. “The cure will be in London by midnight tonight.”

  There was no sign of Silva when Omak came out of the Mayor’s office. He jumped into the Blood Bug and headed for the garage.

  The streets of Birmingham were full of people going to their daily work. Omak tried to imagine what it had been like before the Great Disaster. There would have been more cars, he knew that. The cars would have been bigger than his machine, which only held one and was like a high-speed box made of plate steel. Now, most people walked or got the few electric buses that still rattled around the city streets. Mum had told him that it used to rain a lot. Omak found this hard to imagine. He remembered a rainstorm from when he was a toddler. Water had fallen from the sky and he remembered the feel of it on his face. That was years ago and it hadn’t rained since. Sometimes Omak heard thunder out across the desert plains to the north and east.

  Most of the buildings in the city had collapsed or burned down in the Great Disaster. People had repaired some of them as best they could and, as the years rolled on and the climate grew hotter, houses made of mud brick and old wood had sprung up in-between the older buildings.

  The huge gates of the city loomed before him and slowly swung open. Omak felt a shiver of excitement as he drove out into the desert towards danger.

  CHAPTER 3

  Once, Omak’s Mum told him, there had been huge roads called motorways that joined all the cities together. Thousands of cars rumbled up and down them every day at speeds of up to eighty miles an hour. Omak wished the motorways still existed as he bounced and rattled over the rocky ground.

  Posties tended to drive in as straight a line as possible, to make their journeys quicker. This meant that tracks had formed over the years, but they were rough and full of holes and stones.

  The Blood Bug had powerful suspension but the journey rattled his teeth. He looked ahead across the flat horizon. Not a building in sight. Here and there, little clouds of dust billowed up where another Postie was speeding off on a mission. Maybe to Bristol or one of the smaller settlements in the east like Cambridge or Lincoln. Other clouds of dust moved more slowly.

  Snappers, Omak thought. Huge swarms of them.

  Sometimes, if the Snappers were drawn to something big, they ended up in large swarms. These were dangerous because the sheer weight of the bodies would stop a buggy in its tracks and although the Snappers couldn’t get in, the driver couldn’t get out either. Omak had come across the wrecks of a few buggies. The drivers had gone mad and climbed out, or suffocated in their cars. Snapper swarms were best avoided.

  A sudden thud from behind him shook Omak from his thoughts. Something had just rammed him! He glanced in the mirror.

  “Silva!” he hissed, glimpsing Blue Flash through the dirt kicked up by his rear wheels.

  Blue Flash appeared out of the dust storm again. Silva had a ramming plate which made her buggy look like a mini bulldozer.

  Omak dragged his wheel left and Silva flashed past him. He just saw her wide eyes and gritted teeth. The Blood Bug began to drift and he wrestled with the steering to get it straight. Silva was in front of him now and blocked each attempt he made to get past. Then she slammed her brakes on.

  Omak jammed his foot on the brake and tried to turn sharp right. The buggy clipped the rear of Silva’s car and shot off the rough track.

  Omak clenched his teeth and clung onto the wheel as he bounced and skipped across the uneven ground that lay either side of the road. He winced and groaned as he heard rocks smack against the underside of his car. If he didn’t slow down, he’d rip the bottom out of the Blood Bug.

  A wall of dust hid the outside world. Omak eased his foot off the gas and screeched to a halt. Gradually, the dirt began to settle and the world became clear again. Omak stared out but couldn’t see any sign of Silva.

  “What is she playing at?” he muttered to himself.

  Slowly, he rolled back onto the track. A slight grating sound made him uneasy but he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to get the cure for the Snapper fever to London.

  The engines of the buggy roared into life as Omak speeded up. His hands shook. Why had Silva rammed him like that? What was she trying to do? Kill him? Posties were competitive and ribbed each other about their cars, he’d even seen the odd fist fight, but nobody tried to run you off the road.

  His nerves calmed as he drove and Omak tried to distract himself from thinking about the attack. He stared across the horizon. He’d seen some old pictures of the green fields that once filled this land but he found it hard to believe that this had ever been anything but desert. Here and there a few cactus plants poked above the ground but mostly it was dead.

  He came to a rock outcrop and his heart pounded. It sat at the side of the road in the distance like some kind of beast waiting to pounce. A perfect place for an ambush, he said to himself. He could imagine Silva parked at the other side of the huge rock, revving her engine and waiting to ram him side-on.

  Omak smiled and revved the engine so she could hear him coming if she was there. Then he speeded up. He needed to be going at top speed if he was to avoid being rammed. The huge rock drew nearer and nearer. Just before he passed it, Omak punched a red button on his dashboard.

  The Blood Bug doubled in speed, pressing Omak back into his seat as the turbo booster cut in. Omak caught a glimpse of blue. Looking back he saw Silva hurtling off across the desert at a right angle – he’d sped past her intercept. She was a good driver, though, and quickly had the car back under control. It bounced and skipped across the desert, heading straight towards Omak.

  Omak speeded up until the engine screamed. He watched the fuel dropping and the temperature of the engine ri
sing, but Silva was still on his tail.

  I’m going to have to slow down, Omak thought. He could smell oil and rubber burning. If he carried on at this speed, the car would blow up or roll on the uneven road surface.

  Blue Flash began to come alongside Omak. He could see Silva’s angry expression, her narrow, determined eyes through her goggles. She crunched against the side of the Blood Bug, sending him veering off the road. Omak gripped the wheel and dragged it back on track, smashing against Blue Flash. This time Silva lost the road for a second, but then she came back crunching against his buggy again. Omak could feel the pressure of her car pushing him towards the edge of the track. He looked ahead and his eyes widened.

  A thick knot of Snappers filled the road ahead. They hadn’t noticed Omak or Silva hurtling towards them and were all leaning over something. Omak swallowed hard. It was probably a car crash or breakdown, and now they’d been trapped by Snappers.

  Silva still pushed at the side of the Blood Bug. Omak steered off the road, taking Silva by surprise. The two of them veered left, bouncing and clattering across the rocky ground. But Silva was half on the road still and she crashed into the Snappers, sending bodies and limbs scattering everywhere.

  Brown, sludgy blood sprayed across Omak’s windscreen and he had to use some of his precious screen wash to clear it. The screen went dark as the blood smeared and clogged with dust, then it cleared and Omak saw the open road ahead of him.

  Silva had shot away from the road and didn’t look like stopping. Dead Snappers hung from her bonnet and he could tell she was having trouble controlling Blue Flash.

  “Well it’s your own fault, girl,” Omak said, looking in the mirror. A few Snappers stumbled away from the swarm after her. Omak felt a twinge of guilt. He felt he should try and help her, but he had to deliver the cure. He couldn’t afford to stop and, after all, she’d attacked him.

  A terrible clanking noise came from the engine in the back of Omak’s buggy and smoke filled the car. Omak coughed, tears stinging his eyes. He had to get out, the car was on fire. He slammed on the brakes and pulled on the door handle. The lid of the Blood Bug shot up and Omak staggered out gasping and choking. He snatched his breathing mask and put it on. The air outside was full of poisons. They didn’t kill you straight away but after an hour or two you could suffocate out here.