The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors (31 page)

At the top the men who had brought them in did not stop them, nor did they direct them. They only glared. “Thanks, have a good night,” Sarah said, wearing a painfully false smile. The glares intensified.

In the corridor they were on their own. “Do they want us to get lost?” Sarah asked.

It was
a rhetorical question, however Jillybean didn’t understand the concept. She’d been taught that when an adult asked a question you answered, even if the answer was
I don’t know
.

“I don’t know,” she replied, doing her duty. “But you are going the wrong way.” Sarah had breezed right past an intersection without slowing. On the way in, they had hung a left here. Jillybean pointed to the right. “We have to go this way.”

“No, it’s the next intersection,” Sarah said. She began to march away and Jillybean reached out and took her hand, pulling her back.

“It’s this way, M
iss Sarah.”

Sarah looked back and forth in confusion for a few seconds before she turned to the slower half of their group. “Sadie, how do we get out of here?”

“I don’t know,” the teen said through gritted teeth. “This place is a freaking maze and
out
is the one direction I wasn’t allowed to go in.”

Jillybean
pulled harder
on Sarah’s hand. “It’s this way,” she insisted. “Even Ipes agrees.”

What are you talking about?
the zebra demanded.
I was the one who told you.

“I would listen to her,” Ram said.

Ram’s influence helped; they went to the right. At the next intersection Sarah wanted to stop again. “I’m completely turned around,” she said looking at the four corridors. “They all look the same. I have no idea which way we came in.”

Jilly
pointed straight forward. “Keep going.”

A pained expression swept Sarah’s features. “How do you know? If we get lost…and they catch us...I don’t want even think about what they’ll do. That’s why I’m a little nervous about taking directions from a…you know, a kid. Do you have a photographic memory or something?”

“I have a memory of taking pictures,” Jillybean said helpfully. “My daddy had a digital camera that he liked very much so. He let me use it all the time; said he liked it because now he could take all the pictures he wanted. I guess before he couldn’t. There must have been a law maybe.”

Sarah listened to this and then stood blinking for a second before asking, “Which way?”

Jillybean guided them the rest of the way and within ten minutes they were outside and climbing into the vehicles. They took both and not a one of them cared in the least that the truck had been Shondra's. She was a Believer now, in their minds she was as dead and dangerous as a zombie.

Then they were
driving hell bent for the highway, where they paused to discuss where they should go.

The conversation went like this: “Where should we go?” Ram asked. Each of them shrugged, one after the other, including Jillybean. She didn’t know where they should go and frankly didn’t care, just as long as Ram went too, and just as long as he continued to hold her hand. He hadn’t stopped from the moment they had climbed into the Ford F-250.

Chapter 31

Ram

North Bound

The little group did not flee far in that early morning. Each of them felt complete exhaustion on a physical and emotionally level. With the sun cracking the horizon Neil led them to one of the homes they had explored the day before. It came complete with a pond in the back and its own squad of undead that stood about like sentries in front.

These were killed in a semi-silent mode using bats and golf clubs, and in Neil’s case an axe. The sounds of splitting heads, a percussionist’s nightmare, left even Ram a little queasy. It was a state he discarded minutes later for a deep sleep.

It was late afternoon before the lightest step woke him. It was Jillybean. Without a single word of discussion she had slept with him, cuddled up for the entire day and now there was a little, warm depression in the blankets and she was creeping away.

He made a noise like a warthog's grunt and she turned.

“Gotta go
baffroom,” she whispered swaying a little. He couldn’t help but smile at her sleepy state. Her fly away hair had combined itself with bed-head to leave the impression she had slept in the dryer, while her eyes, one cracked open, the other closed, seemed confused as to whether she was awake or still asleep.

Ram opened his mouth to give directions
to the bathroom, but closed it again when he realized he had no idea. They were in a bedroom and they had definitely passed through a front door on the way in, but beyond that he didn’t know the first thing about the house.

“We’ll find it together,” he said, standing and taking her hand. It turned out to be the room next door. That it had been used already was evidenced by the biting odor of urine; neither Ram nor Jillybean paid the least attention. Instead, as habit, each stood guard as the other went.

“I have a can of tuna left for breakfast,” she said. He had lost his backpack on the bridge two days before, but she had clung to her
Beleiber
backpack with tenacity. “We can share. I won’t eat much.”

He knew she wouldn’t. “Let’s see what Neil has,” he suggested. They crept down the stairs, Ram’s memory of the place coming awake with each step. They found the kitchen right where he expected and found Neil awake and bustling about—again as expected.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” he whispered. “The sun’s only going to be up for a few more hours and I have a treat planned! After the last few days I think we deserve it. Ram, I need a bunch of firewood cut, but be careful the woods are chock full of stiffs. And you, Jillybean, can you fish?”

Her head went side-to-side but her mouth said, “Yeah. Ipes knows how. But I can learn real fast, too, which is real good because Ipes doesn’t like touching bugs or fish, and he doesn’t like the water, not really. He says he’s more of a
Show-pony
, whatever that means.”

Neil chuckled and took the little girl by the shoulder, leading her to the back yard. There he showed her the pole he had already set up and the bucket of dirt and worms he had ready. As Ram watched Neil sat on a log at the water’s edge and went over the basics of fishing and what to do when she caught a fish.

Excitedly, she made a few casts with the rod. When she successively sent the bobber further than ten feet, Neil declared her ready for a worm.

Ram watched and the strange feeling of jealousy that would later grow to amaze him was then only a hiccup. He went into the forest, keeping just within the tree-line so he could keep an eye on the girl, though why he felt the need he didn’t know. She fished only partially attuned to the water and the pole; the rest of her keen perception she sent outward. The shadow of a chipmunk couldn’t creep past without her knowing.

It wasn’t long before she caught her first fish. It was so big that it unbalanced her as she leapt up. She took two wobbly steps into the pond before she yanked back on the pole and began to work the reel.

“I know how to do it,” she said. “
Jeeze, Ipes. You’re not the expert on everything.”

Ram smiled and began heading her way, however she landed the fish before he had taken a dozen steps. With a great deal of splash and flap, mostly on the part of the fish, Jillybean stuck it, still hooked through the mouth, in a bucket. She took both to Neil.

“What a fish!” he exclaimed. “Who knew a pond that small could hold a whale?”

Jillybean looked closer at the fish and said, “That’s not a whale. It doesn’t have a hole in the top of its head. The hole is where it shoots water at you.”

“Really?” Neil asked as he worked the hook free.

“Yep. This is only a normal fish. Though it is pretty. Maybe we should put it back. I don’t want to eat a real pretty fish…or we can keep it! We can get an
acqairdim…acquararium…”

“Aquarium,” Neil prompted.

“An aquarium,” she replied, sounding out the word slowly to get it right. “We can get one of them and take him with us.”

“Fish don’t travel well. They get sick easily,” Neil told her. “Here’s a deal for you. If you catch five more fish, I’ll let you free this one.”

Eagerly she nodded. This time, Neil had her bait her own hook so that she would learn. In a minute she was back on her log, peering over her knees with her little feet turned inward so that her toes touched.

Ram went back to cutting wood and as he did he wondered what sort of dad he w
ould make. Besides having been a child himself, he had little experience with children. They were a mystery that he had avoided like the plague. In his mind he had been right to give up Eve. There was no question that he lacked the patience to raise a baby, while the hormone-driven battles that swirled around Sadie convinced him that a teenager would be just as bad. 

Frequently he marveled at Neil. Practically overnight he had gone from confirmed bachelor to husband and father of two. Yet he had not just taken it in stride, he had flourished. It wasn’t something Ram felt he could replicate.

Then why was he so drawn to Jillybean? Why did he feel the need to protect her and teach her and love her as a father would? Was it her age? Was she at the “good” age that most people referred to.

She’s six? Enjoy it while it lasts because pretty soon she’ll be a monster who hates you
. How many times had he heard comments just like that?

Was it that Jillybean just happened to be between the “terrible twos” and the “torturous teens” that he found her so charming to be near? If so what would happen in a few years time? Endless arguments? Fights and then fits of silence followed by her running away or hooking up with some loser that would have Ram mulling over the idea of murder?

“I can’t keep her, can I?” he asked himself while watching Jillybean carry on a conversation with her zebra. Clearly its smart-aleck nature had come out because in seconds he was sitting with his nose to the rough bark of a pine tree.

Ram stood there watching the little girl catch fish after fish and all the while his heart was like a great weight. He couldn’t ever remember feeling the organ in his chest with such force as when he watched Jillybean. He loved her, pure and simple, but would that make him a good father? He was good at fighting for her and making sure that she was fed and warm, but he wasn’t like Neil. He wasn’t good at the little
things; the day-to-day stuff.

“And besides I have a hero complex,” he said, catching sight of a zombie advancing on the little girl. Judging by the fact that she sat frozen in place beside the log, she had seen the zombie even before he had. Her eyes sparked with shrewd intelligence. He could see her calculating the odds of having been seen—about sixty-forty in his mind—and what to do if she had been.

Her coltish legs were coiled beneath her body, ready to spring her in any direction. Whether they would need to spring they didn't find out. Before Ram could take even a step, Neil came flying from the kitchen, brandishing the golf club Ram had picked up outside of Savannah the day before.

"Don't watch," Neil ordered Jillybean. She watched regardless, perhaps fearing Neil's attack with a weapon he wasn't familiar with would fail...which it did.

He struck as fearsome a blow as he could manage, and it was indeed powerful, but misaimed. Instead of striking with the weighty head of the club which was deadly, he hit with the hollow shaft and bent it crooked over the top of the zombie’s skull.

What would have given pause to the toughest human barely slowed the zombie.

"Run!" cried Neil, turning to flee. Jillybean didn't budge.

"There's a good rock, Mister Neil." She pointed at a hardy
chunk of slate.

Neil ran to it, heaved it out of the ground, and then
hucked it at the onrushing zombie with a victorious grunt. The zombie caught it full in the face—a non-fatal blow. It was a stunning shot and both the rock and the zombie rebounded away.

With another grunt, Neil hefted the rock a second time. His follow-up attack was an overhand blow that caved in the top of
his enemy's skull. It dropped to its knees and for half a minute it spurted black fluid like an oil well.

"
Eew," Jillybean said, making a face.

Neil wore the same face, except his was also tinged with green. "Yeah,
eew."

She laughed, thinking he'd been joking, and then as if nothing had happened she went back to fishing and he went back to the kitchen. All the while Ram stood in the forest feeling a little useless and more than a little envious. Quickly he gathered an armload of the boughs and went down to the pond.

"That's a lot of fish," he said. It was all he could think to say.

"I gotta get two more in order to free
Chedrick. That's the fish all by himself in that bucket."

Ram glanced in at the one. It was a forlorn looking bass, puffing his narrow cheeks in and out. "
Chedrick? Is that even a name?"

Jillybean snorted. "That's what Ipes asked and he got in trouble. I think everything should have a name. Mister Neil said I could name a fish anything. He said they don't care what it is as long as they get one because they are only born with numbers. Is that true? Is this like, bass number fifty-six?"

"It's probably true if Neil said it," Ram replied.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked. When he shrugged and nodded at once, she let out a long sad sigh and said, "I used to not like fish. No, not at all. It was
blechy. I like to catch 'em. That's really fun, but I don't like to eat them. And now Mister Neil is all 'cited about making them for me. I don't want to hurt his feelings."

The aforementioned Neil was suddenly there, bent at the waist so that he was smiling directly in Jillybean's face. "You won't hurt my feelings." He had come creeping up in his rubber Crocs
—he claimed they were the most comfortable pair of shoes he had ever owned. They were certainly the silliest he had ever owned, as he would also admit. "I think you will like these fish more than you think. You like tuna and that's a fish."

"It is?" she asked, skeptically. "It says chicken right on the can."

The two men laughed. "I assure you, it's a fish," Neil said. "They call it
Chicken of the Sea
because tuna is so abundant." When her head tilted quizzically, he added, "That means there are lots and lots of them."

This explanation helped, but what really did the trick was the fish itself: lightly fried and breaded. Jillybean ate an entire fish all by herself. She sat at the table in a perfect state of happiness. Not only was the baby right next to her, Sadie sat across the table. Jillybean was infatuated by the older girl.

"Did you lose all your clothes?" Jillybean asked, running her eyes all over Sadie's black pants and shirt. "I know where we can get you a new dress." Not only was Jillybean wearing the white dress, Ram had found for her, she was also truly clean for the first time in months. Neil had hauled in rain water from a barrel and had heated it with rounded river stones he had set in a pan above the fire. To Jillybean's fear and delight, they hissed like angry snakes as he dipped each into the tub.

After her bath, Sarah had toweled her dry and had weaved an intricate braid through her hair. They had to pull her from the mirror to get her to go down to dinner. Ram had napped during all of this.

"I never wear dresses," Sadie told her, after taking a bite of fish. "But thanks. You look real pretty in yours."

"Ipes says I'm showing off, but he's only jealous. Why don't you wear dresses? That doesn't make sense because you're a girl. I like dresses a lot because my mommy wore dresses and she was real pretty too. Thanks for calling me pretty. Why is you
r hair like that? All poking up everywhere? Ipes says you look like a Tufted Titmouse. That's a bird, not a mouse at all. It has feathers that make it look like it just got out of bed...that's what Ipes says at least."

"I wear what I wear because that's my style," Sadie explained. "Just like being a prin
cess is your style, and sweater vests are Neil's style and scowling is Ram's style. What's wrong, Ram?"

Ram jumped a little. "What? Was I scowling? I guess I'm just worried a little about the future."

"Yeah, me too," Sarah said. "The CDC is contaminated. We have crazies to the south. To the east is ocean and to the west is a big continent filled with zombies."