The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors (23 page)

The idea was depressing.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I haven’t even asked her what she wants to do.”

“She?” asked Jillybean immediately. “Does she mean me? If so, I want to stay with you Mister Ram. I heard you talking about New York and I don’t want to go to New York. Sorry Miss Donna, but they have bums there. Did you know that? We used to have them in Philadelphia, but now they’re all monster bums, which is worse. But in New York they had zillions of them. I saw it on TV once. All these bums. And now New York is probably filled with monster bums worse than anything.”

Hearing her chatter like a chipmunk was always refreshing to Ram. It was as though her life was an uncontainable fountain that bubbled out of her in words. “I could take you down to the CDC,” Ram suggested. “You could be a big sister to a beautiful baby girl down there.”

This got her attention. “Is she your baby? Is
Seedeesee
far? Is it like Washington DC? Could we get there today? Do they have food there?”

The questions shot from her lips with bewildering rapidity, but Steve picked up on the last. He glanced his keen eyes around. “Where is all your stuff? Don’t you
have any food or weapons?”

“We have more tea, if you’re thirsty,” Jillybean offered. “And there are still some fortune cookies left.” Like a proper hostess at a proper tea-party, she had already served two cookies per adult. There weren’t many left.

“Das all you have?” Donna asked in surprise. She began to dig in her pack, saying, “Oh, no. Dat will not do. Here, Cherie, take dis, it is shicken and dumplin’s. It is very good and will fill you right up. And take dees. It is tuna, like for cats. Dees is beans. Dey are good wit molasses.”

Steve looked nervous over how much she was offering, while Ram grew embarrassed.
Jilly took it all, her stomach rumbling loudly with each can that was handed to her. “Thank you, Miss Donna,” she said politely when the woman had emptied her pack. “Can you explain this one again? What is
shicken
?”

Donna laughed. “Y’all know what a yard-bird is,
cept you name it
chicken
,” she said, over-pronouncing the word. “Down to Nah-lins we speak our own speaks. We has a mash of English, French, Creole, and Cajun.”

“It’s a wonder anyone understands anyone else,” Steve said. He then stood and hoisted his pack on his shoulders before Donna could give away any more of their belongings. “I’d give you a gun, but we only have the three and very little ammo left. I’m sorry.”

Ram understood. It would be easier to give up his left hand than part with a gun. Even Donna didn’t volunteer hers and kept it purposely out of sight. Ram clapped Steve on the shoulder and said, “You’ve been more than generous with the food. If it was just me I would’ve been happy with a can of tuna, but Jilly, here hasn’t eaten a proper meal in weeks.”

Steve waved away his words and said his good-byes, as did the man with the odd afro. Donna offered hugs and kisses. “You keep
dat angel safe, you hear?”

Ram heard and promised he would, but with all promises that had any meaning or consequence, it would prove to be very difficult and ultimately deadly.

Chapter 23

The Mid-Atlantic Sea
board

Jillybean

The rain would not let up, and neither would Ram. When she grew too tired to walk he tossed her across his shoulders and let her snooze, drooping forward over his head. When she complained of being too hungry to go on, he let her eat, while he only nibbled, keeping constant watch as he did.

They were two days out of Philadelphia and Ram had grown frustrated at their inability to find supplies or any useful transportation. A Volkswagen
Jetta with a smidge of rusty gas had got them forty-eight miles into Delaware. A ten-speed bike sporting sagging, semi-flat tires had got them another thirty before the rubber gave out.

The car had smelled of dead opossum, while the bike ride was exhilarating. Jillybean had ridden on the handle bars as Ram dodged the monsters that would frequently pop up out of nowhere. It was like a video game for her.

The rest of the time they walked in the rain. Sadly this meant that Jillybean couldn’t wear her new dress. To keep warm, she was forced to wear the hideous
Eagles
sweatshirt and the too-long jeans that she kept pegged at her ankles with safety pins. Over all of this she wore a yellow rain slicker, which at least matched the yellow boots that Ram had found for her. These were perfect for splashing in puddles with, however Ram would look at her wearily when she did, so she kept it to a minimum, like when he was busy searching houses.

Technically she was supposed to be hiding while he did this, but she had Ipes with her.
Ipes claimed that if a lion from the Serengeti couldn’t sneak up on him, a monster didn’t have a chance of getting close. Besides, like the rabbit, she never strayed far from her hiding spot and she always had an escape plan in mind in case it was compromised.

Ram had taught her that trick. Whenever they stopped to sleep or use the bathroom or simply to hunker down, hiding from the monsters,
he always made sure there was a back exit. “Never trap yourself, Jillybean,” he told her.

He was very smart that way, and because he was so smart she wasn’t nervous at all that he had been gone for over an hour, and that the sun was deep in the west behind the dark clouds, and that the house he had left her in was creepy and making weird sounds.

Not nervous at all.

Above her something moved and her grip on Ipes became a guillotine choke.
Let go. I can’t breathe
, the zebra hissed.
It’s not a monster. Mister Ram checked before he left, remember?

“Then what is it? A ghost?” The shadows in the house had grown with every passing minute and now she was beginning to see scary shapes where before there had only been a coat rack and an overturned chair.

Ipes snorted at her.
What did Daddy say about ghosts? That there aren’t any such things. It’s probably just a rat
.

She feared rats more than zombies which was why she was suddenly happy for her jeans and her boots, and why she did a quick twirling dance that was totally without grace. As she spun she stared all around the floor afraid to see a jillion rats surging at her. She then jumped up on the living room couch and sat on its tall back with her knees drawn up.

You squeaked
,” Ipes said, laughing at her.
I was just joking about it being a rat. I don’t think there are any left. Just like dogs, they’re all dead. If I had to bet, I’d say it was a cat
.

This was a different story altogether.

“Should we give it some tuna?” she asked, already digging in her pack. Ram had found a new backpack for her. It said “I’m a Belieber” across the top and had a picture of some boy with tall hair. The whole thing was girly in its way. The coolest part about the pack was that it wasn’t just decorative. She carried actual food, and a can opener, and string, and her fancy white dress folded carefully and zipped up tight in a garment bag, and finally an extra shirt. Ram wanted her prepared just in case they got separated.

I don’t know if you should
hand over tuna just like that. You don’t have a lot of food left,
Ipes said.

Jillybean looked in her pack: three cans of tuna and one of beans. She didn’t like beans much, but figured a cat wouldn’t either. “You always find a way to snag up my plans,” she groused as if it was the zebra’s fault they didn’t have much food. “I think we should give it some tuna. Also I think you’re jealous that cats are cuter than zebras…”

She stopped and listened. Whatever was on the second floor had crept onto the stairs and was coming in their direction. By the amount of noise it was making it seemed larger than a cat.

Hide!
hissed Ipes, all in a panic.

The little girl slunk behind the couch and watched as a shadow emerged from the stairwell—it was bigger than a cat. “What is it?” Ipes whispered. He had his face buried in Jillybean’s armpit and wouldn’t come out.

“It’s a raccoon,” she said a moment later, relaxing.

Run!
cried Ipes.
They have rabies
.

She didn’t run. The raccoon was a pathetic looking thing, very skinny through the haunches. “Want a cookie?” she asked it. Jillybean had no idea what
a raccoon ate, but in her mind she affiliated these sorts of striped and masked creatures with cookies. Ipes watched indignantly as she took a fortune cookie from her coat pocket, stripped it of its clear rapping and tossed it to the rodent.

You know I love cookies
, Ipes said, grinding his nonexistent teeth.

So did the raccoon. It held the fortune cookie in its little paws and nibbled. It even ate the fortune.

“Oops,” Jillybean said as the slip of paper disappeared in the coon’s mouth. “I forgot about that. I’m sure it’ll be ok. It’ll be ok, right Ipes?”

I hope he chokes on it,
Ipes griped.

She was about to explode in anger at the zebra, but Ram came in then, saving Ipes from a spell in the corner. The raccoon disappeared like smoke.

“There was a raccoon, Mister Ram,” she said eagerly. “It ate a fortune cookie and the little piece of paper inside it. It won’t choke on it will it?”

After glancing out into the thickening rain, Ram shut the door and then smiled at Jillybean as if just then noticing her. “A raccoon? No, they’re like goats; they’ll eat anything. Just don’t get too close, they carry diseases.”

I told you
, Ipes whispered.

“This one didn’t,” Jillybean assured them both. “He was just skinny…hey, what is all that stuff?”

He had come in with a full pack and there was something metal and tubular strapped across the top. It was familiar, however she couldn’t place it. “I found us another bike," he said. "It’s outside. And this is a pump; and this is a tire patch kit, just in case we have another flat. I don’t really want to ride a bike all the way to Atlanta, but it’ll do for now.”

“And what’s that?” she asked with her eyes grown big all of a sudden and her mouth filling with saliva.

“Are you going to pretend you’ve never seen a Snickers candy bar before?” She shook her head at the question, and she did so with her mouth open, entranced. He went on, “It’s about time we ate the beans you’ve been turning your nose up at. If you eat your entire dinner you can have this.”

“Ok!”

True to her word she chowed down her beans faster than he could believe. The Snicker bar, on the other hand, was nibbled at and enjoyed for half the evening.

The next morning she took her place on the handle bars and allowed Ram to pedal her further south on route 13. After leaving Philadelphia, he had opted to go east around the Baltimore/Washington DC urban
area, thinking he would skirt that nightmare by coming down Delaware and crossing the Chesapeake Bay at its narrowest point. This was when he figured it wouldn’t be a problem finding a car and a little gas.

It became a problem that they did not overcome. All day he struck out. Every car he passed sat idle, with their gas caps off, exposing their inner workings to the rain. The houses along the access roads were all open and looted, while most of the businesses were charred remains, as if someone had taken their anger out on them. Eventually Ram got off the main road altogether to give himself a chance at finding something. There was little to find. The further south he went, the less inhabited the peninsula became.

The homes grew larger and were spaced accordingly, meaning he had to go further out of his way to come upon each disappointment. He found odds and ends: a can of soup on the side of the road, a box of candles among someone’s Christmas decorations, a decorative African spear with a sharp point that he had to leave behind because he couldn’t carry it.

The only good news was that the zombie menace was correspondingly smaller. By now he had an aluminum bat he’d picked up in one house or the other, which he used when he had to.

Eventually they ran out of land altogether. They topped a rise and saw to the west, the beginning of the Chesapeake Bay with Virginia, a hazy green in the distance. To the east was the Atlantic: a grey table that stretched beyond the curve of the earth.

Jillybean looked out at the
spectacular expanse of ocean and said, “My butt hurts.”

Her rear had been hurting her for some time, what with the handlebars digging into unmentionable and tender areas whenever they struck a rut or a bump. Yet she had said nothing. After all, Ram had pedaled all day without complaint which must have been taxing. But since he had a complaint growing behind his eyes she felt that it would be ok to voice one at this point.

Her complaint brought a smile. Tenderly he lifted her off the handlebars and set her on her feet where she immediately, and unselfconsciously, worked the wedgie of her panties out of her crack.

“Are
we going by boat now?” she asked, scanning all around. “We’re out of road.”

“There’s a road,” Ram said, pulling out a map. He pointed to a thin strip of yellow that went across a bit of blue, joining two areas of green. There was much more to the map: hundreds of little words, numbers, and lines going every which way. However she didn’t need to know any of that. The blue was water, the green was land, and the yellow was a road—simple as can be.

Except that it wasn’t.

After allowing Jillybean to play in the grey surf as a grey rain slashed sideways for a little while to get feeling back into her legs and bottom, he turned them back inland to where route 13 lay waiting. This he took south and when they came to a big green sign dominating the landscape he stopped and stared at it in a troubled manner. Jillybean did the same, trying to reason out the letters.

“What’s that say, Mister Ram? I see
bay
and
tunnel
, but what’s the rest?”

It says:
Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel
,” he said. “The letters were too small on my map. I didn’t see the tunnel part. Damn it.”

“Is a tunnel a bad thing?” In her mind she pictured the black tunnels beneath Philadelphia; her body shivered. It had been the height of bravery going through them as she did, but it didn’t mean she wanted to repeat the experience if she could help it.

“Maybe,” Ram allowed. “It there are a lot of stiffs down in them it could be very bad.”

This she understood perfectly well. “Can we go around?”

He looked tired all of a sudden. “It’s a long way.”

She said nothing despite the fear crawling up her insides; it wasn’t her place. They went out onto the bridge where the wind ran hard into their faces. Soon Jillybean was curled into a ball gripping the freezing
metal handlebars with red hands. After a couple of miles of dodging around cars or monsters, they came to the first of the two tunnels.

One moment they were high up on a bridge suspended over white-capped water and the next the road slanted down at the ocean which appeared to have grown a mouth in order to eat them. There was a small, rocky
berm of an island around the tunnel, but still Jillybean wondered if the water ever went down into the tunnel during a big storm. She also wondered if the tunnel itself had collapsed at some time during the apocalypse so that they were heading straight into a trap. And finally, she wondered if the tunnel was on the verge of collapsing even then and that any little thing, such as a small girl screaming, would send it crashing down on top of them where the remains would then flood.

These thoughts had her
shaking. Thankfully Ram stopped the bike just shy of where the road ran down into the opening.

“Looks sturdy enough,” he said to reassure her. The tunnel was dead black and there was a half mile of ocean before the road climbed up out of the choppy waters again…if it actually did. Nothing had ever looked less sturdy
to her.

Jillybean looked back the way they had come, thinking she would long to run away, instead her
blue eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “Mister Ram, look.” Behind them a mob of zombies came crabbing forward through the rain. They had been drawn to the bridge by the movement of the two humans on the bike.

Ram cursed expressively before coaxing the bike down the incline toward where a forever night awaited them. It was s
uch an unnerving sight even that brave man stopped at the edge of the shadow.