The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades (33 page)

Neil turned, as if in slow motion, and had barely reacted to the presence of zombies in their rear, when Grey sprang into action. In one swift motion he turned Neil back around and started forcing him up onto the bed of the truck. Since he had the use of only one arm, Neil needed all the help he could get, but even with help, he was going too slow. Sadie saw that he would make it up only at the expense of leaving Grey prey to the charging beasts.

And then Sadie was sprinting. She ignored the bullets whipping around her and dashed across the dangerous alley to come to a halt in an even more dangerous situation, she had just put herself between her friends and their onrushing death.

She began firing her Glock, and for the first time in her life, she felt completely as one with a weapon. She aimed, pulled her trigger, and killed. Not a bullet was wasted and not a second of time either. The back hangar door was 20 feet wide, allowing for the passage of a mob of zombies and even with her shooting the best she ever had, she was almost swallowed whole by the swarming zombie army. And yet she kept firing.

The fusion between woman and gun was so complete that when she pulled the trigger on nothing but air she was able to drop the empty clip and slapped home a new one before the first hit the ground. She was shooting again in a flash, dropping zombies literally at her feet; her spent brass plunking off their dead faces.

“Sadie!” Neil screamed. He was in the truck and Grey was climbing in behind him.

The girl turned on the spot and ran in a blur to the truck. At that moment she felt great. Healthy, whole, and young; she didn’t need the outstretched hands in order to bound up into the bed. She was so full of herself at that moment that she was actually smiling as she stood in full view of both sets of her enemies.

The passage of a bullet within a whisker of her nose brought her to her senses. Grey pulled her down. “Where’s Deanna?” he shouted into her face.

“I don’t know.” How could she know? To her, the battle was pure chaos. Zombies were flowing like a horrid, putrid river all around the trucks. There were screams all around them as some of the cage fighters, failing to make it to higher ground, were eaten alive.

“Deanna!” Grey bellowed at the top of his lungs. If there was an answer, it couldn’t be heard over the moans of the undead and the continual thunder of the guns. Grey was dangerously exposed and it was Neil who hauled him down to safety.

“What do we do?” the smaller man asked, looking as though he had reached the limit of his leadership. There was no good answer, or at least, there wasn’t an answer that could be truthfully given that wasn’t something along the lines of:
Die with as much honor and dignity as you can muster
.

Grey knew the truth as well as Sadie: they were losing the battle. It seemed impossible for him to put that into words. He shook his head and then shrugged and then bit his lip.

Sadie poked her head up to check their situation. It was a depressing sight. Just at the moment there were only three guns firing from within the hangar and they weren’t firing at the River King’s men. Bullets were fearsome, but the zombies were doubly so. And across from them, the River King’s men were still blasting away. Although there were ten bodies laid out on the tarmac around the Humvees, that wasn’t even half of the River King’s force. Worse, Sadie could see in the distance the telltale dust of more vehicles heading their way.

The renegades were doomed.

Grey saw the dust also, and for the first time since Sadie had known him, he looked rattled. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said in a grim voice. “We’re each going to save at least one bullet for the end.”

Ernest had his arm extended, gesturing at something behind her but he wasn’t the only one who’d seen something. She had half-turned to look, when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a gang of zombies at the far end of the dock heading their way. Her finger came up and the two of them were now pointing in opposite directions; she was sure that what she was pointing at was far closer and probably much more urgent.

For some reason, he had pulled out a glittering knife, which she thought strange and even worrisome. Ipes suggested she should relax.
Don’t worry about the knife
, he told her. His voice was tight and higher than normal and yet it held the authority of her father, Ram, and Captain Grey all in one…and that was worrisome to.

How could he ask her not to worry? The knife was so close to her that she’d almost lost an eye when she had turned. If she couldn’t worry about that, what could she worry about?

Trust me
, he said in a calmer voice.

That wasn’t so easy to do. He’d been acting strange from the moment they had run into Ernest in the woods. The zebra normally didn’t care for him but for some reason, he had turned a 180 and was now fully on the man’s side, agreeing with him about everything and overlooking any oddity that surfaced, such as coming upon the fully stocked boat so easily. That should have sent red flags up, but Ipes had only asked her not to fret. And now he was asking her to ignore the knife and the weird look in Ernest’s eyes.

There was only one explanation for Ipes’ behavior:
He’s finally onboard; he’s finally being good
, Jillybean said to herself.

That’s what it is
, Ipes agreed.
Ernest knows what he’s doing. We should trust him
.

That would’ve been easier to do if Ernest wasn’t suddenly acting so strange. As though he didn’t trust Jillybean, he took an awkward step back before turning to take in the charging zombies. Quickly, he sheathed the knife and pulled his tiny .22 handgun. It looked like a toy.

“No, don’t use that,” Jillybean said. “Come on. We can get rid of them easier and far quieter.” She hurried down the ladder and waited expectantly for him in the boat. He followed, wearing a smirk, and when he was seated, he shoved them away from a piling that sported tar three feet above the waterline. They watched as the zombies came to the edge of the dock and started pitching forward into the water. The current took them away. It was all as easy as flushing a toilet.

He laughed aloud. “Maybe I was wrong, you may still come in handy.”

She didn’t know what he meant by that but she did know that there had been tension in the air and now it was gone, completely. “So, what was over there?” She meant across the river.

He gave her another smile and said, “I thought I saw a Sasquatch.” She had no idea what that was. “A Big Foot,” he explained, when she raised her eyebrows.

She wasn’t so easily fooled; she knew it was a joke. “There’s no such thing. Really, what did you see?”

“It was nothing,” he said. “Just a trick of the light, I guess. So, where were we? Oh yeah, finding your friends. Your idea is to stay close to the River King and hope to get lucky? You know that’s pretty weak.”

“Yeah.” She began to pull on the rope, hauling them back to the ladder. “We can get lucky or Neil can get lucky, or the River King can get unlucky. If any of those three things happen then we can join up and go to work on freeing the others.”

“Is that what Ipes thinks?”

Ipes was strangely quiet, just as he had been since they had run into Ernest. “Yeah, I guess. He’s not saying much which usually means he agrees with me and doesn’t want to give me any credit for coming up with a good idea.”

I just don’t want to give you a big head
, the zebra said.
Whenever you’re right about anything, you always act like you’re the Queen of the world
.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, quietly to him. To Ernest she announced, “He agrees. But don’t worry Mister Ernest, we get lucky a lot.”

“So do I,” he replied, tugging them back to the piling and reaching for the ladder. “Up you go. Ladies first.”

She secretly liked that; it made her feel grownup. “Now for a car,” she declared when he had clambered to the dock. She began walking the splintery planks without waiting on him.

He was on her before she had taken three steps. “No,” he said, pulling her around. “I want you to stay here. I can travel faster without you and it’ll be safer.”

“Stay here…alone?” The word was a dagger in her guts. Being alone was a new horror for Jillybean. The thought of it made her want to puke.

“You have Ipes.”

“Ipes isn’t the same as being with a person,” she said, quickly. “Really, Mister Ernest I won’t slow you down not at all. And I can help with…”

Ernest shocked her by dropping down to her height and pinning her arms to her sides. His face was rock hard and angry; he had never looked at her that way. “Enough! I’m trying to keep you safe. Stay here until I get back. That’s an order.” He was stern, more stern than he had ever been before. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to be alone. Panic set up a quivering in her chest.

He must have sensed it. The stern look folded into a cracked grin. He released her arms, leaving red marks where his fingers had been and said, “I’ll be right back. Trust me.” He tromped away while Jillybean stood stock-still, her eyes grown huge as headlights.

It’s ok, Jillybean
, Ipes said, gently.
I’m here with you
.

She loved Ipes with all her heart, but he wasn’t the same as a person. When he spoke it was in her head. There was still the silence that she couldn’t cope with. Ipes couldn’t stop it. After the barge had exploded her head had been filled with static for hours and the world seemed so awfully quiet in comparison. She kept wondering if she was deaf and would tap on objects just to make sure she wasn’t.

Then night had fallen and she had grown afraid. It didn’t make sense. Jillybean had been alone a million times since the start of the apocalypse, and yet she shivered all over in fear, trying to hear past the static in her mind. Ipes had tried to help but he had been quieted by a new voice. At first it was just her normal inner narrator, what she called her “thinking” voice but it kept talking even when she wanted it to shut up. It became cruel and uncontrollable.

Where are your friends, now?
It asked
. They left you. They left you alone. They left you to die. They left you to be eaten
.

The sound of the voice was clouded by the static, but she was pretty sure it was her mother’s voice; the same mother who had abandoned her both physically and spiritually. The voice kept on torturing her until Jillybean was hysterical and crying raggedly and the monsters were coming for her. There were many of them honing in on the sound of her labored breathing and hiccupping sobs.

Then, with a start, she sat up as if she had been sleeping. She was in the bowl of a tree, warmed by a blanket of leaves. The sun was up and birds were nattering at each other nearby.

Wakey, wakey
, Ipes had said, brightly.
Time to rise and shine, it’s a new day.

And it was.

But, what had transpired the night before? It hadn’t been a dream. She had been bawling out of control and should have been eaten, but inexplicably she had not been. And where had the time gone? Hours had passed and she couldn’t remember a single one of them. Jillybean suspected Ipes had done what he wasn’t allowed to do and had taken her over, but she was afraid to ask because what if he had? Or worse, what if he hadn’t? What if some part of her mind had just went and broke?

The question was up in the air until a few hours later when Ipes took her over for sure. The static had retreated with the fine morning but then the heat of afternoon started lazing the day and the world took on an insect hum of its own. In the hum was the ghost of a voice she had heard the night before. At first, she couldn’t tell what she was hearing but then it began form hateful words. She tried to tell herself that the voice wasn’t real and that was all well and good, but then something actually real occurred: two men came hunting her. They were dirty, ugly men with long, wild beards and great big guns. They talked openly about her astronomical bounty and what they’d do when they collected it.

Jillybean had frozen in fear, standing where God and everyone could see and the men would have collected their bounty with little problem if it hadn’t been for Ipes taking control of her body. The world went black and then, what felt like a second later, she “awoke” hiding in the middle of a stickly bush.

Ipes acted like nothing had happened, in fact, neither had spoken a single word about it. The subject was taboo, just as was the subject of the second voice in her mind. The zebra knew it existed. After the incident with the bounty hunters, he had talked nonstop, perhaps to ease her loneliness or perhaps to keep the other voice at bay, but eventually she grew tired of his endless chatter, and asked him to be quiet.

The static came on her so fast that she actually wished she could die. The static voice heard the thought and said,
There’s one way to fulfill that wish
. Unbidden, she pictured the police-looking gun she had hidden in her pack. She pictured it sitting heavily in her hand and she pictured herself putting the barrel of it in her mouth. She could taste chemicals and smell old gunpowder.

It was then that Ipes saved her for the third time. He didn’t take her over, instead he mentally slapped her. That was the only way to describe the feeling that left her mind ringing like a gong, echoing down a deep hole. She reeled, dropping onto her hands and knees in the tall grass. Next to her small fingers was the pistol. It shook her to her foundation to see it there. When had she pulled it out? And why did she still have the taste of metal in her mouth?

Maybe we should try something besides dwelling on the bad stuff
, Ipes had suggested.
Let’s put your smarts to work
.

That was how she ended up with the bombs and the laser pointer and the three guard-monsters. It had been good to put her mind to work, but it had been even better when Ernest had come along. He had banished the static completely. It was such a blessing, that she was willing to overlook almost anything, even how he had hurt her arms. She would take that pain a thousand times over rather than hear the voice in her head again.

But now he was gone and the feeling of being alone…of being abandoned had rushed back threatening to overwhelm her. Along with it came the haunting voice in the fuzzy static—
Ernest isn’t coming back. He’s tired of you and tired of your uppity ways. Why do you have to act like you’re so superior to everyone? Like you’re so much smarter? It’s annoying. You’re annoying. You drive them away. Why else would Neil leave without looking for you?

“Ipes?” she whispered, feeling herself start to jitter. “Help me.”

We should do something to pass the time
, he said, quickly.
Let’s figure out how to work the radio scanner
.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, dropping down to the old grey boards of the dock. “That’s a good idea.” She dug out the scanner from under the other goods they had recovered from the boat. It looked like nothing more than an over-sized walkie-talkie with a whole mess of buttons and two knobs. Thankfully, it was properly complicated and she set her mind to work unraveling the puzzle it represented.

Every once in a while she wiped the sweat from her eyes with the heel of one hand or took a pull from the water jug she carried in her Ladybug backpack. Without an instruction manual, the scanner should’ve been beyond her ken—she had it figured out in twelve minutes. The first thing she discovered was that it worked too well. There were literally hundreds of conversations going on at once on hundreds of frequencies.

Which one was the River King using?

She would listen in on a fuzzy-sounding conversation for a few minutes and then punch to the next one. One problem she had to contend with was that the River King didn’t have a distinctive voice. Anyone of the people jabbering away could’ve been him. A second problem was the fact that he might not even be using a radio just then.

“This is impossible,” she griped, sitting up. “It was a dumb idea.”

No, it wasn’t
, the zebra said.
Your friends are out there and they need you
.

“You got it backwards. I need them. I need Sadie and Eve and Mister Neil and Mister Captain Grey. I’m ascared, Ipes. I’m ascared that my head isn’t right…like it’s broken inside.” She was whispering by the time she finished the last sentence.

I can help
, Ipes told her.

“How?” she asked. Before he could answer, something got in her eye and she began to blink rapidly. When her vision cleared she jerked in surprise; there was a map unfolded in front of her and the scanner was spewing out words.

“Say again advance team. You are breaking up.”

“Must…missed turn…no signs…what are…to Baker…” While the first was fresh and clear, this voice was distant sounding.

“If I hear you right, you missed your turn?”