The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades (34 page)

“…firmative.”

“What you’re looking for is route 34. Go west on 34. The king will follow once we’re hitched up.”

“West…34…”

Jillybean looked down at the map. The pointer finger of her right hand rested on a strip of road: I-34. The town of Baker, Missouri was a little dot, no bigger than a freckle sitting just at the tip of her finger.

“What did you do?” she asked Ipes. The zebra was positioned on one corner of the map. A rock sat on the other.

You needed help, so I…you know
.

“You took me over,” Jillybean said. “You did! Why? You don’t think I could have figured it out?”

No, but it would have taken too much time. Have you considered the fact that maybe I’m smarter than you
, he suggested.

“You were using my brain!”

No, I was using your thumbs. Look at these things
, he said waving one his flappy hooves at her.
Trust me, I was just trying to help you
.

There was that word, trust. Just then she didn’t feel as though she could trust anyone, including herself. He was lying, but about what she didn’t know. “You need to tell me how you found the right frequency. I know you used some sorta trick or you woulda let me do it myself. Now tell me what it is!”

Shush, he’s coming
.

There was Ernest hurrying up the dock toward her. His presence only added to her confusion. Why was he here? He couldn’t have found a car so quickly. That would be impossible.

Hide the gun!
Ipes suddenly hissed. She wanted to ask why, but there wasn’t time. She slid it beneath her rags.

“I found a truck,” he announced when he was halfway to her. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing at the map and the scanner.

“Ipes found out what frequency the River King was using.” Was it her imagination or did Ernest shoot the stuffed zebra a suspicious look? And did Ipes return the look? Jillybean’s head was spinning. “He…he also found out where they’re going.”

“Where?” Ernest asked. His eagerness made the little girl lean back. Involuntarily, one hand went protectively to her chest while the other pointed to the little dot, which represented the town of Baker. “Hmmm, Baker. Thirty-nine miles. Do you know what sort of head start they have?”

She shrugged her slight shoulders. “I dunno, but they have trucks, probably big ones to move the pontoons. Is your truck a big one or is it like a normal one that can go fast?” Somehow she knew the answer. It slipped out in the way she had said
your
. His truck was just big enough to haul a boat such as the one tied to the dock, probably the very truck that had…

Jillybean
, Ipes said, interrupting the train of her thought.
Don’t over think this. He has a truck that will get us closer to our friends. That’s what counts
.

To her, that was only part of what counted. What about the glaring fact that there was a boat on the river! Who could possess such a craft except…

Ipes again interrupted her train of thought, this time by applying another of his psychic slaps. Her head flew back and her mouth came open. Her legs from the knees down, seemed to disappear and she pitched forward onto the map.

“I’m sorry,” she heard Ipes say using her own mouth. She was inside herself, looking out. Ipes wasn’t in complete control however; she was still aware and that meant she could fight back. Her right hand was splayed across the state of Missouri. She concentrated on it and with all the energy she could muster she tried to lift it off the map. It felt like she was lifting an anchor. A grunt escaped her as her hand came up.

“You ok?” Ernest asked.

The hand was up and now; gradually she began to feel her arm and then her shoulder. When her mouth was her own she said, “I…I ated something bad, I think.” The truth, that she was crazy, wasn’t something she could say out loud. Yes, that was the plain truth. It was crazy that she could feel Ipes in her mind. He was a warm presence; he was afraid for her, which made it easier for her to deal with the fact that he was there at all.

She could also feel the owner of the cruel voice. It didn’t have a name. It was in her mind held back by what felt like a plane of glass, a very, very thin plane, as brittle as an autumn leaf.

“I’ll be ok,” she said, groping her way to her feet. There was a muscle on her cheek that wouldn’t stop be-bopping up and down and her eyes kept blinking even when she wanted them to stop. She wouldn’t look up at Ernest. “We should get going,” she said.

He stared down at her for a long time before saying, “Go wait in the truck. It’s the white one. I’ll get the stuff.”

Beyond the dock was a line of low-slung warehouses that stank of the undead and molding cotton. Jillybean found the truck parked on the street in front of the first one. It was very quiet.

The voice in her head spoke, suddenly,
He’s going to kill you
.

“Ipes help me out,” Jillybean pleaded. “I promise never to put you in time-out again if you can just stop that voice.”

I can’t
, the zebra said.
She’s a part of you just like I’m a part of you
.

“No that can’t be true,” Jillybean hissed. “She’s mean and I’m not mean. Do…do you think I’m mean?”

Yes you are
, the voice said.
You blew up the barge and the bridge and you set fire to the ferries and do you remember what you said about killing the people on them? You said they were bad people, so it was ok. Were they all bad? Did you know for sure, or did you just burn them up because they were in your way?

Jillybean remembered it all, because the voice wanted her to remember, just as it wanted her to know about Ernest.
What a coincidental life Ernest lives. He just happens to escape the school? He just happens to find you in the woods? He just happens to come across a boat when there are no boats and, then he just happens to come across a truck…have you checked the fuel gauge, yet? How much do you want to bet it’s nice and full?

Against her will, her feet carried her to the truck’s edge. She pulled herself up; the truck’s tank was full.

You see and you understand
.

“I don’t!” she wailed. “Ipes, please help me.”

Ask him about the frequency. Ask him how he knew…

A pain shot through her head like a bolt of lightning. It was Ipes doing that psychic slap again. She reeled from it, holding onto the side mirror to keep from falling.

“Don’t play on that,” Ernest snapped. He held a heavy box of the C4 in his arms and on his back was his pack. His eyes were weird again. They weren’t angry, they were uncaring to a chilling degree. It was the opposite of how he usually looked.

This is how he usually looks
, the voice said. She wanted to whimper, but she held back for fear of what Ernest would think. He thumped the box down in the truck bed and tossed his pack in the back seat of the cab. He started to walk away.

“There’s an easier way,” she called after him desperately. Yes, there was something not quite right about Ernest, but Jillybean was more afraid of the voice than of the man. “Let me show you.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. He had a blanket in his pack—how she knew this she couldn’t say. She pulled it out and hurried up to Ernest and then went past him knowing he would follow. “We can get it all in one trip, but it might ruin your blanket in the process. Is that ok?”

“I’m not married to the thing,” he answered. “I won’t be broken up if it rips.”

“Good…that’s good. So were you married, before?” she asked. She needed to hear someone, someone other than Ipes and that nasty voice, speak. She felt her mind needed it.

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about her.”

“Oh…what about babies? Can we talk about babies?”

“We didn’t have any.”

“I had Eve,” she said. “She wasn’t mine but then again she wasn’t anyone’s. Here, help me lay out the blanket flat. Now we put all the stuff on it…”

“And we drag it back, I get it,” Ernest said, interrupting. Instead of sounding happy she had saved him five trips, he sounded put out. “Sometimes, Jillybean you…never mind.”

He did all the work, loading and then tugging the blanket back to the truck. Jillybean hung near and tried to elicit answers to her many questions. He mostly grunted and only spoke to ask her to wait in the truck. She went in slow and shaking as if it was full of ghosts and in a way, it was.

She tried to pretend her mind wasn’t splitting into pieces. “I’m just going to wait in the truck,” she whispered. “Ernest is right there. He’s very close.”

What about the frequency?
the voice asked.

“Who cares about any old frequency?” Jillybean said, trying to come across as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She had sweat beading on her lip. Still, trying to act natural, she sat Ipes on the seat next to her and buckled her seatbelt. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Ipes found the River King and that’s what is important. Right Ipes?”

Ipes didn’t answer, and neither did the voice, instead, Jillybean suddenly remembered how she had known about Ernest’s blanket. She had opened his pack. It sat right on top. She had picked it up and set it aside. Then she pulled out an extra shirt and a mess kit and a flash light and near the bottom of the pack she saw what she was looking for: Ernest’s bible. She had seen it once before when Neil had asked him to empty his pack when he had been first introduced to the group back in Fort Campbell.

The rubber bands were still on it. Why would someone put rubber bands on a book?

“All packed up,” Ernest said climbing into the truck. He started the engine and squealed the tires ripping out of there. “We got to eat up some time.” He drove as if his life depended on it, weaving in and out among the zombies that crossed their path. There weren’t a whole lot of them out due to the heat of the day. Jillybean could see them lurking along the edges of the forest or under the eaves of houses or in the depths of barns.

They weren’t even of passing interest to her. She was trying to recall what had been so special about the bible. The memory had been clipped cleanly off when Ernest got in the truck. She glanced back at his pack, sparking an intense moment of déjà vu—she could see herself opening the pack as if it had happened a second before; she could see the blanket being pulled out and the shirt and…

“What’s up?” Ernest asked. “What’re you looking at?”

“Uh…your pack, I guess.” There wasn’t anything else in the back seat. “I was, uh, just wondering if you had any food. I don’t remember the last time I ate anything.” She really couldn’t and yet she wasn’t hungry. “When did I eat last, Ipes?” she asked.

This morning. We had stew
.

She had a sinking feeling that “we” meant she had eaten during one of those times Ipes had been in control of her body.

“What did he say?” Ernest asked.

“That I don’t remember,” she answered with a version of the truth. “Do you have anything I could eat?”

“No, sorry.”

Next to her on the seat, Ipes’ ears went rigid over what had been said.
That’s a lie!

Again the déjà vu came, causing her eyes to go vacant. She saw herself lifting the bible from the pack. Underneath it were cans of tuna and a box of crackers. Her stomach had rumbled, but she had ignored it; her focus was on the bible. She slid one of the rubber bands off, and then the second one came off snapping her wrist like a stinging insect…

“You ok?” Ernest asked breaking in on the memory.

“Yeah,” she lied, coming to. “I was just thinking of something. A memory.” It sounded lame coming out of her mouth but it was the best she could do. Her mind was spinning; first the new memories and then the question of why he would hoard food from a starving child? Then she heard the voice:
He’s going to kill you
.

That made sense. Why waste food on someone you plan on killing? She started shaking. It didn’t come on slowly; it was just there. Suddenly her entire body was shivering. Ernest’s brows came down and he leaned slightly back away from her as though she was diseased.

“You have a lot of problems, don’t you, Jillybean?”

There was no use trying to lie. “Yes. It’s my head. It feels like an egg that’s cracked and now the yolk is mixing with the whites. You know what I mean?”

“I do,” Ernest said. “It’s probably post-traumatic stress disorder and it’s a wonder you haven’t suffered from it earlier, though I suppose you have. The fact that you talk to a toy zebra is an obvious symptom.”

The little zebra in his faded blue shirt shook his head.
He acts as if that’s a bad thing
.

“Maybe it is,” Jillybean said to him. “Is it, Mister Ernest? Is it a bad thing?”

“You shouldn’t worry about it…ah, I-34.” He slowed only slightly as he took the road west. The first sign that came up proclaimed that Baker was fourteen miles away. Time seemed to be slipping under the tires faster than the road. What would happen in fourteen miles? Where were her friends? When would Ernest kill her?

She fully believed the voice. Ernest was lying to her, and worse, so was Ipes. She had to clasp her hands together they were shaking so badly.