Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) (3 page)

Declan helped her cinch up the holster around
the leg that didn't have a knife attached to it. Jenny had to
admit, she loved having an arsenal on her thighs.

“Hot damn,” he said, looking at it.
“You are dead sexy.”

“It's a gift,” she said, dropping
the wool skirt. He looked disappointed and Jenny laughed.

“You better come back,” he said.
“A gentleman's got urges.”

“What does that have to do with
you?” Jenny said. He smiled and she put her arms around his
neck and kissed him deep and hard. When she pulled away she was
holding the keys and Declan was staggering a little. “You
going to walk home with just a little gun to keep you
company?” she said.

“Nah,” he said, reaching into the
trunk again and pulling out a shining ax on a long handle. The wood
of the handle was stained brown with dried blood, though it looked
like he had sharpened and polished the blade. It had a wicked edge
on both sides of its head. “I think I can handle it,”
he said.

She opened the car door.

“Jenny,” said Declan. She met his
eyes. “If anything happens you, I'm going for that
motherfucker first thing.”

“Joshua?” she said. “I can
handle Joshua.”

The car wasn't too hard to drive, once Jenny
figured it out. It made a hell of a racket, so she killed the
engine and parked a block from the entrance to the tunnel.

The dead man on the pole had been screaming for
three days and hadn't let up since she'd been gone. Her head was
already starting to ache and her ears throb by the time she reached
the pole. She stood in front of the rotter, which alternated
between shrieking and snapping his teeth at her. His skin was
greasy and rotting away, his eyes shriveled and white, a putrid
smell coming off of him that made Jenny's stomach churn.

She'd been seeing these everywhere: Rotters
strung up like they were being crucified. It was sick, but Jenny
was sure there was some point being made if she thought about it
long enough. This one had his hands bound behind him with strips of
leather. His ankles, too. Holding him up on the pole were three
huge metal spikes right through the rotter's chest. Black liquid
had soaked into a ragged button-up shirt where the spikes had
pierced him. Jenny wondered if it hurt him. Could the undead feel
pain?

She looked around to see if anyone was watching.
Righteous women weren't supposed to touch weapons. She could just
put him out of his misery. And everyone else's misery. Just as she
started to hike up her skirt for her knife, the gruesome face
stopped screaming. It just stared blankly for a few seconds,
unblinking and slack-jawed. Jenny took a step back, shocked. The
head started screaming again as she backed against the side of the
building.

She thought the rotter looked familiar, but she
hadn't expected this. The face, under all the rot and dried blood
and hate-filled shrieks, was one she knew very well. He might be a
zombie now, but that face used to belong to someone else. Her
grandfather, Dr. Frank Bierce.

Jenny stared at his dead eyes, no colder than
they had been in life. Her hand tightened, still gripping the
handle of the knife. She pulled it out and held it in front of her.
This man had caused her so much pain. He had forced her to flee
from her family in the first place. If Jenny thought about it,
everything could be attributed to him. Her being here, pretending
to be someone she wasn't. People said the plague had really been
his fault and not her mother's. She believed that. He would release
a pathogen into the wild just to study it. And her mother had been
too terrified to do anything but follow him.

And here he was, staring at Jenny between
screams, snapping gray teeth just to get a taste of her. He wasn't
human any longer. Jenny ground her teeth together. Her heart
hammered in her ears. She could still feel him cutting into her
flesh, after all the anesthesia was gone. Continuing with the
experiment. She still woke up screaming sometimes. Jenny took a
step toward him. He couldn't hurt her anymore. She took another
step and was nose to nose with his face. She narrowed her eyes.

“I wish I'd been the one to kill you, you
son of a bitch,” she whispered. Then she brought the knife
down on his skull. With a sound like a rotten melon, the knife
plunged down to the hilt. And for the first time since she had
arrived at the Underground, there was silence.

Jenny slipped in the station door and swiftly
replaced the slabs of wood that blocked the door to outsiders. The
lobby was piled high with rotting bodies and she fought her gag
reflex. All the windows had long since been blacked out or boarded
up, but there was a crack in the wall if you knew where to look.
Jenny peered out and looked out at the limp figure on the pole,
squinting. What had she done? It couldn't be a coincidence that she
had weaseled her way into a Thumper camp and her grandfather's corpse had
appeared at the same time. Was this a trap? If the Righteous were
crucifying the rotters, it stood to reason that Joshua could have
put the old man up there. And if Joshua did that, then perhaps he
was doing it for a reason.

She didn't see how Joshua could know they had
been related. Not even her closest friends knew her last name. Even
when they did, they didn't think she was one of
those
Hawkins.
In the ten years since her mother had
unleashed a disease no one understood or had any defenses for, and
in the five years since the last government fell, no one had
figured it out. No one connected Jenny with her family. That was
the way she liked it, and the way it had to be for her to survive.
She shook off the paranoia. There was no way these Righteous could
know who she was. For all they knew, she was just some Thumper who had stumbled into
their camp.

The real problem here was that she had killed
the rotter on the pole. Someone was bound to notice that. No one
would suspect her of doing it; Joshua would never suspect a woman
could kill a rotter. Jenny nodded to herself. She was safe. She
only needed until nightfall. If she still couldn't find Casey, then
she was giving up. This was getting too dangerous.

“Why do you come in here?” said a
voice behind her. She turned and put on her docile face. Joshua
wrinkled his nose at the dead bodies. “No one ever comes in
here unless they have to. And yet you've only been here a few days
and I've seen you come here at least twice.” He took a step
toward her.

Jenny put on a hopefully sheepish smile.
“Curiosity, I guess,” she said.

He peered out of the crack. “I see the
undead man finally lost his fight.”

“His fight?” Jenny said.

“Even the soulless hang onto their
humanity. Even when it's nothing like humanity.”

“Are the living really much
different?” she said.

“Such a sweet child,” he said,
taking another step. He didn't smile, nor did his face change. He
was a small man, but carried himself like someone much bigger and
stronger. It took all Jenny's will not to rip off her ridiculous
skirt and pull out her knife. She could still feel the effects of
the adrenaline after what she'd done to her grandfather.

“Did you do that?” She tried to look
as innocent as possible. “Did you put him on that pole like
that?”

He frowned, surprised. She'd caught him off
guard.

“Did I what?”

“The rot-- Er, the undead man. I'm just
curious. Did you do that?”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he said,
his voice low.

“I'm not a cat,” said Jenny, smiling
innocently.

“Are you asking if I mocked the Lord by
putting an obscenity like the undead in the position the Savior
took when he died for my sins?”

“I'm sorry,” said Jenny, smiling.
“It was a stupid question.” She relaxed a little.

“Although I understand the
inclination,” he said.

“The inclination?”

Joshua had nearly closed the gap. She could take
him easily. At least she thought she could.

“Yes,” he said. He stopped walking.
“It's a message.”

“Message?” Jenny said. She was sure
she was pushing her boundaries, but this was the most Joshua had
said to her since she came. The most anyone had said to her; except
for Lily. And if anyone knew anything about what Jenny wanted to
know, it was Joshua. They listened to him. All of them. It was a
damn cult down here. But then, all the Righteous were like that
now. The ones who stuck together stayed alive. The ones who didn't
died.

And here she was: a Heathen among the Righteous.
It was against their laws. They could kill her if they found out,
or they could damn well try. But Heathens didn't have laws. They
had agreements with other gangs, and they had peace treaties of
sorts to make sure Expo was safe, but no real laws to speak of. It
was a different world out there. But down here was another
story.

Joshua looked at her, narrowing his eyes. If he
didn't know already, any minute now he was going to figure out who
she was and then it would all be over. But then his face relaxed
and he smiled at her. “Nothing important,” he said.
“The undead man keeps people away is all. Keeps the Heathens
out. Keeps us safe from the Godless ones.” He took the last
few steps and we were standing inches from each other. “It's
Jenny, isn't it?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. She cringed
inwardly at the name. She hadn't meant to give him her real name,
but it had just popped out when he asked.

“That's a nice name,” he said. He
was still smiling, but his eyes were cold. He reached out his hand
and Jenny forced herself to stay still. He touched a dark
braid.

“The smell is starting to make me a bit
sick,” Jenny said, trying to sound shy.

“You don't have to be afraid of me, you
know, little cat,” he said. “I can be very
nice.”

Jenny nearly laughed.

“Jenny?” came a voice from the
stairwell. Lily's voice. “Jenny, are you up there?”

“Yes, I'm here,” Jenny called,
smiling at Joshua and pretending to look embarrassed.

“Could you give me a hand with the
dinner?” Lily called.

Jenny gave Joshua a little curtsy and
sidestepped away from him. She walked quickly to the defunct
escalator and headed down the stairs, throwing a look over her
shoulder at the man who stared after her. She swore he smiled.

Lily was waiting at the bottom. Jenny looked
behind, but Joshua wasn't following. Without saying a word, Lily
took hold of Jenny's arm tight and walked her away from the stairs.
She didn't say a word for the entire walk across the underground
settlement. Some attempts had been made to give people a sense of
privacy. Rooms had been made of stacked debris “walls”
that rose three feet off the tracks. The married couples got rooms
to themselves – though the men were few and far between.
Everyone else had two cots to a room. Lily was Jenny's
roommate.

“Lily?” Jenny said as they reached
the end of the encampment, and the kitchen area. She was grabbing
cans from a neat stack against the cement ledge. “You
okay?”

“Pull the tarp down and I'll start the
cook fire,” Lily said, avoiding Jenny's eyes. She slammed the
cans onto the long table constructed from old boards and cinder
blocks. Lily turned brusquely and yanked pieces of wood out of a
nearby pile and threw them into the pit gouged from the concrete.
Jenny sighed and shrugged. Hopping up onto the ledge, Jenny
loosened the rope that held the stitched-together tarps into place.
They had to lower the tarps slightly so they wouldn't block the
holes punched up through the top of the tunnel, to let the smoke
drift out. Someone told Jenny the tarps blocked drafts that blew
through the tunnels. That seemed weird to her, though. The tunnel
wasn't blocked off on the end. And it would do nothing to keep
rotters out. Jenny lowered the material, letting it slacken a bit,
and retied the rope.

Lily was banging the cans around as she opened
them, angry about something. She had started a small fire and set
the big pot they used for dinners on top of a grate made from an
old shopping cart. Jenny watched the smoke trail up to the ceiling
and out past the lowered tarp. There was a bang that made Jenny
jump. She looked at Lily, but she was busy pouring beans into the
pot. The sound hadn't come from her. Jenny frowned. Looking around
to make sure no one was watching, she stepped back to the very edge
of the tarp, against the far wall. She felt the cold concrete
against her back. With a finger she hooked the edge of the plastic
sheeting and pulled it aside, peering into the darkness further
up the tunnel.

It was dark without the oil lamps that covered
every surface in the encampment. And the air was cold. Even in the
July heat it stayed cool under the street, but it seemed somehow
unnatural out there. Maybe the darkness made it seem colder, but a
shiver fingered its way up Jenny's spine. She squinted through the gap.
There was something back there. Jenny concentrated to make out the
shape. It was huge. She pulled the tarp wider and the oil light
glinted on a window. It was an old subway car. But not just one.
Jenny narrowed her eyes even further. There were more train cars
back beyond the first one. She stared at them for a second. Why the
hell had she never bothered to look on the other side of the
tarp?

And then one of the cars shuddered. Like there
was something inside.

“Jenny,” said a voice right next
to her, startling her. That was twice in a row she'd been spooked.
She was losing her edge. Lily was staring at her. “What are
you doing?”

“There's something out there,” Jenny
said. She looked back at the subway cars. They were still
again.

“Someone's going to see you,” Lily
hissed urgently. “We're not supposed to...”

Jenny let the tarp go and turned to her.
“Supposed to what?” she said. “It's just a
tarp.”

“We're not supposed to talk about
it,” she said, looking down at her hands. She was back to shy
Lily again.

“But don't you want to know?” Jenny
said.

“Jenny,” she said, looking around.
Everyone must have been in their rooms. Only a few people were
about. A few older men sitting on the cement ledge and chattering,
a middle-aged woman who Jenny thought was called Tasha was trying
to repair her dress across the tracks, on the other side of the
eating area.

“Jenny,” she said again, looking at
Jenny and then quickly looking down at her hands again. “Are
you okay?”

“Okay?” Jenny said. “What do
you mean?”

“I mean Joshua. Did he...hurt
you?”

Jenny laughed, but stopped when she saw the
horrified look on Lily's face. “I'm fine,” she said.
“He just sort of talked to me. It was weird.”

She nodded and looked down again. “We
should get supper ready.” She turned, but Jenny grabbed her
arm. Lily looked up at her with surprise.

“Has Joshua done something to you?”
Jenny said.

Lily shook her head. “No.” She tried
to turn again but Jenny held fast. Lily flinched and Jenny let
go.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn't
mean to hurt you.”

Lily rubbed her arm and forgot to look away from
her. “How are you so strong?”

“It's a gift,” Jenny said.

Lily smiled a little, then she looked down and
frowned. “It's an honor. That's what he says. It doesn't hurt
anymore. Not really. But...” Lily looked around again.
“It's not what he does that's the worst. It's
Cora.”

“Joshua's wife?” Jenny said.
“”

She nodded. “She knows. I think he tells
her. And she's full of hate.” Lily was looking into Jenny's
eyes. She didn't cry. But Jenny didn't think she'd ever seen anyone
so sad.

“Lily, where are your parents?”

She swallowed. “Dead.” Her eyes
flicked to the tarp and back to Jenny. “My mom died in the
beginning, when the plague started. And my dad died right out
there.”

“Out there?” Jenny said nodding her
head toward the tarp. “By the train cars?”

Lily nodded. “The night we came here.
There was something out there. He was there one minute, and then
the next he was just...gone. Joshua found me out there, screaming.
I couldn't stop screaming.”

“Jesus,” Jenny said. Lily winced,
then giggled nervously. “Sorry,” Jenny said. “I
shouldn't have said that.” The girl had been through more
than anyone. Jenny felt the need to protect her beyond all reason.
She was a phony here, lying about who she was, and here she was
listening to Lily's darkest secrets. Jenny was supposed to be the
one in danger. But at that moment, she wanted to rip Joshua's
throat out. And something else, too.

She knew where Casey was.

Cora stared Jenny down all the way through
dinner. She finished the scant amount of food on her plate quickly
and rinsed her dish in the bucket of murky, collected water.

Jenny threw a glance back at the tarp, blue and
brown and black plastic sheeting all stitched together. Someone had
raised it back up again after the cook fire had gone out. Jenny
felt Cora's eyes burning into her as she walked back down the
subway platform to her room. It didn't matter if the queen of the
cult hated her. It didn't matter that the queen's husband seemed to
be pursuing her – thinking she was innocent and much younger,
no less. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that she
could handle thinking about right now, was that she was going to
find Casey and get the hell out of this weird shithole.

Her rotter grandfather had been strung up on a
pole. Her grandfather had been a different kind of man. He was a
scientist first, and everything else seemed to annoy him, as if the
world were in his way. Jenny had been in his way, along with Casey,
until one day he decided they could be useful to him. After that,
Jenny wished time could reverse and they could go back to a time
when he was annoyed and uninterested in them, before they were
useful. She blinked and shook off the thoughts. She didn't have
time to feel sorry for herself right now. Bierce had lost the right
to take up space in her head a decade ago. He was gone now, finally
gone. The sadistic bastard wouldn't hurt anyone ever again.

Jenny sat down on the mat that served as a cot.
It was just old, dirty fabric filled with newspaper. Hardly even a
mat at all. There was another just like it just across from hers,
where Lily slept. Hers was empty, of course. A small shape peeked
out of the thin blanket on her cot. In the dim light Jenny could
make it out. A teddy bear. She must have been hiding it in her
bedding.

“Jesus,” Jenny muttered under her
breath. “She's just a baby.”

Jenny heard the scuff of a foot near the opening
in debris that served as a door. A moment later Joshua
appeared.

“Deep in thought?” he said. He
crossed his arms, his small frame blocking the door.

Jenny smiled a tight smile. “I guess
so.”

“What are you thinking so hard about,
Jenny?” He gave her a condescending look that he probably
thought was wise and fatherly. She gritted her teeth as she smiled
again and searched for an answer.

“Um, God,” she said. “I
guess.” She pushed herself off the cot and stood up.

“Anything in particular?”

Jenny shook her head, brushing dirt and an
insect off her dress. “Just, you know, Him. Saying a
prayer.”

He crinkled his eyes as he looked at her. She
may as well have been naked. Goddammit, she wanted to punch this
guy. “You know, Jenny,” he said, taking a step inside.
“You've been here a few days now. Do you feel comfortable
with us?”

She nodded. “Sure.”

“Good,” he said, sounding genuinely
pleased. “I want you to feel comfortable.” He took
another step toward her across the tiny room. Jenny moved back,
until she could feel the chill of the concrete behind her.
Shit.
He's doing this now?

“Lily should be back soon,” she
said, trying to look innocent.

“Lily is helping the women repair some
clothing,” he said. “As I was saying, you've been here
a few days now, Jenny. I'm glad you're comfortable, but it's time
you made a contribution to the group, don't you think?”

“Cleaning and making dinner is a
contribution,” Jenny said. She balled up her fist so she
wouldn't reach for her knife. The gun on the other leg felt heavy
and comforting as well. But the knife seemed to itch. She wanted to
be holding it. But as much as Joshua deserved to be gutted, she was sure she knew
where Casey was now. An altercation could ruin everything.

Her back was pressed hard against the wall now
and Joshua was right in front of her. His eyes glinted in the oil
light. “Cooking and cleaning is in your nature,” he
said. “It's time to contribute to the group, little cat. We
need children, Jenny. Have you seen any since you came?”

“Yes,” she said.
“Lily.”

He smiled. “Don't be silly. Lily is a
fully-grown woman.”

“She's a teenager,” said Jenny,
grinding her teeth together.

“And you?” he said. “Are you a
child?”

“No,” said Jenny. “But you've
come to the wrong girl. I'm barren.”

He smiled. “A young woman like you? How
could you possibly know that?”

“Why would you want to bring children into
this world?” Jenny said, forgetting her revulsion for a
moment. “It's Hell on Earth right now. Why would you want a
child to suffer like that?”

“God wills it,” Joshua said.
“I only obey.”

He pushed her harder against the wall, pinning
her arms and shoving his small body against her. He made an attempt
to kiss her neck, but her collar was too high. “You need to
get off of me right now,” Jenny said. “Please. You're
really going to regret it if you don't.”

“A threat?” he said, looking into
her face. “From you?”

Nothing was worth this. Jenny smiled sweetly.
“It's not a threat.”

He scowled and squeezed her wrists harder.
“You're going to regret your insolence,” he said.

“I don't think I will,” she
said.

He let go of one of her arms to grope at her
skirt. He was pulling it up and grappling around her thigh.
Luckily, too low to feel the holster strapped there. Jenny rolled
her eyes. She'd had enough. “Have it your way.” He
thrust his hips toward her and she brought her knee up as hard as
she could with a grunt. Joshua froze for a minute. His eyes went
wide and his mouth opened as though he couldn't catch his breath.
He staggered back, clutching his groin, then he turned and vomited
beans onto the floor with a splash. Jenny wrinkled her nose at the
smell.

He was doubled over, but raised his face to look
at her. “How. Dare. You,” he said breathlessly.
Blinking furiously, he stood up straight. It was as though he was
trying to use his anger to ignore the intense pain he must be
feeling. He deserved so much worse.

“I tried to warn you,” she said. She
was trying to sound reasonable. But inside she was coiled springs.
She was showing such restraint. Now was the point where Joshua
would run away, his tail between his very sore legs and in the
morning he would be well enough to tell everyone in the Underground
that Jenny would be leaving. But by that time she would be gone
anyway.

But he didn't turn to leave. She didn't expect
the slap across the cheek, so she jumped a little when it came. It
wasn't that it was particularly hard – more like a bee sting,
really – just a surprise. And then he had his hand on her
throat, holding her out at arm's length. Like he was a pirate with
a sword.

“Before this night is over you are going
to beg for my forgiveness,” he rasped.

Jenny laughed. She didn't mean to, but the whole
thing was slightly hilarious. His hand around her neck was weak.
She didn't even think he could crush her windpipe with those
fingers. His hands were soft and feminine. But he was shaking with
rage. And you never knew what someone was capable of when they were
that filled with hate.

“Look,” Jenny said. “If you
just walk away right now, I won't tell anyone. I won't tell them
what you tried to do. I won't tell them what you did to Lily. I'll
be gone by morning if you want. But you can't win this.”

“You're just a woman,” he said.
“You don't get to win anything.” He squeezed. And as he
squeezed, Jenny leaned into his hand. She felt the skin of her
knuckles split as her fist made contact with Joshua's face. He went
down like a sack of bricks. She had never seen anyone go down that
quickly. It was like he'd never been in a fight. Which was baffling
to her, given the state of the world.