The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors (39 page)

Chapter 38

Sadie

New York City

Sadie fought the innate desire swelling in her to fight the man who had her from behind. She could've bit his hand, or stomped his foot, or perhaps reached back to try to crush his testicles. However the knife point was so close to her eye that
any
movement beyond the simple act of breathing would send it slicing into her.

"I take it you are Sadie?" the man asked in a whisper.

"Dat is a dumb question," another voice said. It originated from a female and was thick in its accent. "Dere can be no utter dat looks like she."

The knife withdrew, but the hand stayed for a moment longer. "We're friends of Ram's," the man said in a low voice. "Or we were. It's terrible about what happened."

Now Sadie was released and she slowly turned to look at the people standing in the little stairs that led to the pilot house. There were three of them and all were very much black. She couldn't help remarking on that fact.

"But you're black."

"And proud of it. But don't worry, we're not associated with those idiots in Philadelphia. They're a damned embarrassment to black people everywhere." He blew out in a sigh and then rubbed his beard. "My name is Steve; this is Donna and our quiet friend is Ray."

Before Sadie could say
Hello
or
Thank you
, Donna nudged Steve to the side and asked. "Oh Cherie, what of the lil' chi-al?"

Sadie blinked at the question. "Chi-al? Do you mean child?" When Donna nodded emphatically, Sadie answered, "Are you talking about Jillybean? Ram's says she's north of here, somewhere near the river. I have to get to her, only everyone on this boat seems out for my blood."

"There's a bounty on your head," Steve told her. "Enough to pay for half a vaccine shot. It's turning people into killers."

"I think they already were killers," Sadie said darkly. "Or worse. They were all savages, everyone of them, regardless of color. Did you see what happened to poor Ram? It was like something out of Roman times."

"We saw, Cherie," Donna said, reaching out and touching Sadie's cheek. "It twas a sad ting."

Strangely grief was not Sadie's most glaring emotion. Neither was hatred, though it was a close second. Fear for Sarah, Jillybean, and Eve took up most of her heart. "Tell me, have you heard anything about our friend Sarah or her baby? They were taken yesterday."

Donna's face clouded over and she dropped her head. Steve answered, "There are all sorts of rumors running about. People buying people. Families being torn apart, that sort of thing. Everyone has heard about the baby, she's with the people from New Eden, but I don't know anyone named Sarah."

"She's about my height," Sadie said, holding her hand up at head height. "Blonde, blue eyes, very pretty. Does that ring a bell?"

Just then the door started to open. Quickly Steve pushed Sadie behind him, smushing her into the wall where she was pinned. He asked the new comer, "You need something?"

A man's deep voice, asked, "Anyone come through here? A white girl? All got up in black
clothes?"

"No, we just checked up here," Steve said. Next to him Donna kept slipping fearful peeks at Sadie, who pressed herself to the wall, trying her best to remain still and unobtrusive. She even went so far as to hold her breath.

"Shit!" the man cursed and then left in a huff.

When the door clicked shut, Steve sent the dead bolt home and then leaned against the frame. "
Jeeze. They aren't going to rest until you're dead."

"I know," Sadie replied. She was unconcerned with herself however. "What about the blonde? Do you know if there's a woman with the
Whites
or with that Colonel from the
Island
?"

"No," Steve answered. "At least I know there's no girl with the
Whites
. They're all on the main boat in the lower deck. I went through there a few hours ago to see if they needed any help, but they couldn't see past my skin color, not that I blame them. The
Blacks
are shanking them left and right every time they step out of their little corner."

"So what are we to do
wit dis girl?" Donna asked. "She can't stay wit us, and she can't stay here. Not for long, no how."

"Hiding won't help me," Sadie said. "I have to get to Jillybean, which means I need to get off the boat."

"How?" Steve asked. "By now they'll have both exits covered. There's only two ways off, you know, unless you want to jump over the side."

"Then I go over the side."

Shocked faces greeted this. "Are you that good of a swimmer?" Steve asked. "Nighttime in a river is no joke."

Though she loved the water, in truth she was not a good swimmer in the technical sense. A weak version of the breast stroke and the side stroke were the only two styles she had mastered and neither was particularly fast. Where she excelled was swimming underwater.

"I just need a clean shot to the side of the boat," Sadie said, trying not to think about how she wasn't the biggest fan of heights. She'd just jump and know that it was better than getting shanked in the dark.

Steve rubbed his beard, thinking. After a few seconds he began a slow nod. "You know we can't be seen with you, but, I think we can help a little. Me and Ray can run some interference. From here it's
probably only fifty feet to the side of the boat. Just take off for it...and don't look down. It's probably only a twenty-five foot drop but it may look like more."

"An' I can keep watch," Donna said. "I'll
jes tap on de door when de time is ripe. Good luck, Cherie."

"Thanks," Sadie said.

The three Good Samaritans left her in the dark, where her imagination quickly exaggerated the height of the ferry boat to ridiculous proportions. "Just jump. Don't look. Just..." A tapping on the door told her it was time.

With a huge breath, Sadie slammed open the door and sped to the right.
Between her and the side of the boat, there were many people and they were all blurs of different flesh colors, each representing the cruelty of her fellow man. None was special. None was inherently good.

Like a kaleidoscope, the colors oriented on a single point
—Sadie. From the second she opened the door every face turned in her direction, sparking a cry that reached into the ears of her enemies, and, as though she were a magnet, there was a general surge of humanity toward her. They were all too slow.

She was a blur
, herself. In seconds she was at the rail and, finding it higher than she expected, vaulted over it. There was no time for her to fear falling. There was only a moment where she gasped and held her body rigid before the icy water ran up her body to cover over her.

Two strong kicks propelled her to the surface and then she was swimming at her fastest rate straight away from the side of the boat
and into the dark. Sadie feared being shot at more than anything—at first. Behind her came the sound of a heavy splash. She looked back to see someone churning the water with arms that pin wheeled with such precision that he seemed more like a machine than a man.

With her limited skills she saw was not going to be able to out swim such a person, nor, judging by his size, was she going to have much chance at outfighting him either, especially if she remained in his element. After a huge breath she turned neatly in the one direction that would give her the slimmest advantage: down.

The water was cold and black as she dove deep. She turned with the current hoping to put as much distance as she could between them, but above, her enemy guessed her intention and turned as well. It was a smart move on his part. With his superior speed it behooved him to keep her upstream of him where he could relentlessly hound her until she was too tired to go on...and then what? Would he drown her? Or would he drag her back to the boat and let Cassie skin her alive? All these thoughts went through her mind in a blink and the sum of them boiled down to the very frightful reality that she was going to die…if she didn't do something completely unexpected.

From beneath, Sadie could see
her pursuer as a lighter shadow against a deep background. His long body cut the water elegantly like power boat. She was more like a torpedo rising up unseen and unheard; she went right for his midsection. He was completely surprised and, with his perfectly mechanical motion, which included properly timed breaths, completely unprepared as Sadie came up, grabbed his jeans at the waistline and pulled him down.

In the span of one second he went from elegant to epileptic. Fear of drowning was so ingrained instinctually that his precise technique failed him; he flailed and kicked.

For as long as she could, probably no more than twenty seconds, Sadie held on, sticking to his underside, barnacle-like, until she too felt the urgent need for air. Releasing him she came up, took two large breaths, and then, ducking back under the water, chased him back toward the boat. In the brief attack he had breathed in water and now wanted nothing more to do with her.

She didn't pursue more than a few strokes, before turning north; her business wasn't one of revenge, but of rescue.

Slogging against the current, she slowly put enough distance between her and the boats to chance going to shore. There she staggered on, holding her dripping body to retain heat and at the same time keeping an ear out for zombies.

There were many of them; so many that she couldn't muster up enough energy to fear them unless they actively turned and rushed at her. When that happened, and it did with an exhausti
ng frequency, she would dash into the water where the zombies displayed the swimming skills of drowning kittens.

Because of these interruptions, it took her an hour to find Ram's truck. With the world of humanity eroding like a snowman under a fine drizzle, the Ford stood out like a sentry on a little bluff over the river.

"Finally," she whispered, careful to keep her voice barely above the sound of her own ragged breathing. Very near at hand was a pipe, which Sadie figured was part of the sewage system. She gave it a wide berth, because coming from its hollow throat were the moans of many zombies. She tried to slip past, using a crumbling concrete barrier as cover, but they saw, sending up a dreadful echoing howl.

"Shit," she cursed. Now she had a quick decision to make: did she run back into the water for the twentieth time, or did she try for
the truck just up the hill? The water was just too cold and the truck too alluring. "Hey, Jillybean!" she called as she huffed up the hill with the zombies scrambling behind—there was no need to be quiet now. "Open the truck, Jillybean. Quick, it's me Sadie."

The truck flashed its blinkers and the girl breathed a sigh of relief. She had been deathly afraid that after all her troubles in getting here, she would find the
Ford abandoned—which, within three seconds was exactly what she found.

Sadie hauled back the heavy door and, with the first smile she had worn in ages, said, "Thank God, you're still..." She choked on her words. The truck was clearly empty. Somebody had
beaten her there and had taken everything, including a six-year-old girl. It was a kick in the stomach.

Feeling her body and mind go numb, Sadie climbed into the cab and shut the door behind, locking it just in case a zombie got lucky with its fumbling hands. She had only just begun to hide herself in the foot-well when she remember
ed that the truck had flashed its blinkers. That hadn't happened on its own. Someone had the keys and had used the remote car door opener purposely, clearly trying to draw her in and trap her there. Even as the thought struck her, the locks shot up on their own, just as the first of the zombies began climbing up the side of the truck.

Chapter 39

Jillybean

New York City

"Hey," Jillybean said, as she opened the truck's door.

Sadie went crazy, kicking with her feet while simultaneously trying to claw herself out of the truck.

"What are you doing?" Jillybean asked, giving her monstrous face a scratch. For the most part the make-up went unnoticed, however if she moved her face too much, as she had huffing up the hill, it started to itch like mad.

You scared her, duh
, Ipes said.
Sure is funny looking, though
.

"I guess I did. Hey, Sadie it's just me, Jillybean. I'm not a real zombie if that's what's got you all
ascared about. It's just Halloween make-up, see?" The little girl pulled back on the shredded up
Eagles
shirt to show her normal pale skin beneath.

"What?" Sadie asked
, bewildered. "But how?" She peered over the top of the dash back the way they had come. "Where are all the rest of them? Weren't there were lots of zombies in that pipe?"

"Oh them," Jillybean said with disgust. "They're all stuck behind this grate a few feet back. They were good for camel-flog, but..."

Camouflage
, Ipes corrected.

"Right, camouflage," Jillybean said. "But they sure were annoying. So did Mister Ram rescue you? He was gonna get you and Mister Neil and Miss Sarah and the baby. Do you think he'll be back soon? Some people came and robbed us. That's why I had to hide in that pipe and it's been real, real boring. Hey, what's wrong with your eyes? Huh, Sadie? Why are you crying?"

"Ram is dead," Sadie said, running tears down her already wet face. "They made him into a zom...zombie."

Jillybean sat back stunned for a moment, but then she burst out in peals of laughter. "No,
they didn't. He was just wearing a costume like from Halloween. See? Look at mine. It fools the monsters. Once for Halloween I was a fairy. The dress was pink and silver, but the wings were..."

Unexpectedly and with the speed of a striking snake, Sadie grabbed Jillybean and crushed her in a hug. Sadie dribbled tears and rocked back and forth in misery.

Confused, Jillybean went on, "...The wings had gold on them all along the edge. And you know what? The costume came with a wand! My daddy said the Chinese didn't know the difference between a fairy and a fairy godmother. Which is real funny. Is that a real thing? A fairy godmother? Ipes says it is, but I think he's trying to be a jokester."

Sadie went on crying,
with a slight hitch in her chest.

Eventually Ipes rolled his eyes and said,
There are godmothers, but no fairy godmothers.
He then followed up his argument, asking,
Does she smell weird to you? She smells like the river. I don't think that's the cleanest water. Remind me not to go swimming in there
.

"Stop being bad," Jillybean scolded the zebra, despite secretly agreeing with him. As a consequence of possessing an ill-mannered tongue
, Ipes was set on the far end of the truck's dashboard.

"Look Jillybean," Sadie said with a husky throat. “Ram is really dead. I watched him get bit by a zombie, and...and...and I saw him t-turn into one."

"For reals?" Jillybean asked. She felt strange all of a sudden—her body went completely numb all except her ears. These tingled and rushed with the sound of TV static.

Sadie nodded with blank eyes. They were dark and black, save where points of light, like sharp needles seemed to shoot out. "For
reals. And yes, there are godmothers. They raise a baby just in case something happens to a parent. I can be your godmother if you want me to."

The static grew, making Jillybean's head feel
filled with it, like a scarecrow with its hay. "But what about Mister Neil and Miss..."

Jillybean watched as Sadie suddenly burst out in fresh tears. Her head rocked back and then out of the blue she slapped herself, leaving a four-fingered mark on her cheek.

"You ok?" Jillybean asked.

"They're gone too!" Sadie shrieked. "Damn it! Damn it! Fuck!" As soon as she cursed Sadie's black eyes flew open and she stared at Jillybean, realizing it was a mistake.

"Those are bad words," Jillybean said, blinking. Her monster makeup was streaked with tears that she didn't feel. Just at that moment she couldn't understand what Sadie meant by
gone
or really what she meant by Ram being
dead
. These were abstract words to Jillybean. Their meaning kept changing in her mind as
what ifs
sprang up: what if she was wrong? What if she didn't see it correctly? What if Ram was faking? What if Ram could get better?

These answers fell into the category of what she didn’t know. What she did know as fact was what her father taught her. She knew
rules
. Rules were black and white, and concrete in their meaning. And one of the rules was that people weren't supposed to say bad words!

"You're right," Sadie said, making a sound that was a combination of cry and laugh. "Neil would say the same thing."

"Cept he's a monster, right?" Jillybean asked trying to grasp more concrete ideas. "And monsters can't talk."

Sadie blew out a long breath through puffed cheeks and then told Jillybean everything that had happened, which only led to more uncertainty.

"You're too ascared to go save Mister Neil?" Jillybean asked.

There were parts of Sadie's story that were very heartbreakingly sad and others that made her little teeth clench together as though they had been welded shut, and others that were confusing, especially this one point. If Neil was alive, but chained to the open deck of a boat and a simple tool would free him, why didn't she want to go?

"Do you think it's too dangerous? I told Mister Ram that everything is too dangerous now, even just living, and he believed me."

The older girl wiped her eyes, saying, "And look what happened to him. What good did it do?"

"He saved you. That was good," Jillybean said. "I think so and so does Ipes, though he thinks you smell too much like that green river."

"It doesn't matter anyway. We can’t save him because we’d never get on the boat," Sadie said after making a noise like she was flicking dirt from the tip of her tongue. "Ram couldn't. They're watching every way on board."

Jillybean's lips pursed as she recalled the short pier and the boats tied alongside of it—she saw all of it in her mind as though she was there looking down on the scene. On the right side of the pier was a white boat. It was brightly lit; tall and long. On the other side were two orange boats—ferries the word popped into her mind—tied side by side. The two ferries had platforms running from the dock to the lower decks allowing people and vehicles to get on board. She also saw the highway and the fences and the zombies and the little guard house and the men on guard. And she saw a way past all that.

Stop
, Ipes ordered.
We aren't going to try to save Mister Neil. Not after what happened to Ram. It's too dangerous. He
...

Like shutting a door, the little girl closed her mind to the zebra. One second he was there
, pointing out how dangerous going on to the boats would be, and using Ram's death as an example, and the next second he was simply a toy sitting on the dash. She decided she wouldn't think about danger. Danger was what happened to other people. And she wouldn't think about Ram either. Thinking about Ram hurt far too much--it was like a knife in her heart, a fist in her gut, a hand crushing her throat. It was like all the pain in the world being crammed into her soul...

She would think about something else.

"They're not watching every way," Jillybean said. No they weren't, and why would they? Ram was dead, Neil and Sarah were captured and Sadie had been forced to flee. Why would they keep too tight a lookout? "We can get on the boats, but first we need to change your look. You'll need to do something with your hair if you're going to pass. And, of course, you’ll need a dress. Maybe a pink one."

No, not a dress
, Ipes said, suddenly there again in her mind, cutting in on Jillybean's vision of Sadie in her full potential.
If we're going to do this we're going to do this right. No one wears dresses anymore, not even Miss Sarah
.
Besides we have to deal with getting her past the monsters first. Her hair is perfect for pretending to be a monster already so at least you don't have to change that
.

"Ipes, hush!" Jillybean gave Sadie an embarrassed smile. "He has some silly ideas. Now let's get you costume
d to look like a proper monster."

"Are we really doing this?" Sadie asked. When Jillybean nodded the older girl added, "Neil is going to be pissed."

Giving Sadie the look of a monster took almost no time. Jillybean shredded her clothes with her little pocket knife and applied the makeup as though she was wielding a trowel. It took minutes only. Teaching her how to act like a monster was another matter. For so long, Sadie had used a hyper-aware state to stay alive: she had the quick, nervous eyes of a mongoose on the hunt, while at the same time her head swung about as though on a swivel.

"Try half-
closing your eyes," Jillybean suggested. "And maybe stare at the ground for the most part. Watch me do it." Jillybean did her best monster impression.

"But how do you see them coming?" Sadie asked. “With your hair all down like that you won't see them coming."

"It doesn't matter if you see them coming. You're not aposed to. You just go along and pretend you’re a monster. Come on, I’ll show you with real monsters.”

Jillybean took Sadie’s reluctant hand and began to walk back to the FDR highway, looking for zombies, but strangely, in a city full of them, there weren’t any around. They crossed the highway, simply stepping over the fencing that Ram had destroyed the day before, and on the other side slipp
ed through a gap where a zip-tie had let go.

They proceeded south on a course parallel to the FDR, heading toward the pier and the colony of boats. They didn’t need signs or directions; sound drew them on. The roar of heavy machinery carried in the still night air and like an infernal summons it attracted every zombie within blocks.
Finally they saw some late comers staggering on.

“I’ll go first,” Jillybean said. They were ducked down behind a car, watching the
stragglers slowly moving south. “Just do what I do.” She took a second to adjust her pack beneath the flayed sweatshirt and muss her hair even more before stepping out in a slow gimping manner. To show Sadie that there wasn’t anything to worry about, Jillybean went straight for a lone zombie and passed within inches of it before heading back to the car.

“That’s
so crazy,” Sadie said, somewhat in awe. “It didn’t even give you a second look.”

“Yeah, just be one of them
and you’ll be fine. Now it’s your turn.”

Sadie did her best. When it wasn’t good enough and a zombie would come close, drawn by some peculiarity, Jillybean would let out a human word, or throw a magic marble, or otherwise draw attention away from the older girl.

As they drew closer to the pier, Sadie’s acting became more stiff and human-like, however the zombies were very much focused on what was happening in the lot that had been erected near the pier and didn’t notice. A pair of forklifts, piled high with crates that were filled with guns, ammo, fuel, and food, buzzed back and forth among hundreds of trucks and SUVs parked in the receiving area.

There were people there as well; men in the black uniforms were sifting through the goods that people were putting up in exchange for the vaccine.

“How are we going to get in there?” Sadie asked in a breathy whisper. “And how on earth do you think we’ll get by all those people?”

Jillybean went stiff that Sadie would dare to break character, surrounded as they were. “
Shhhuuuushh,” she moaned loudly. She then grabbed Sadie’s hand and pushed through the crowd of undead. The closeness of the creatures, the touch of their slimy skin, the fetid and dank odor drifting out of their open mouths was mind numbing in its horror, yet Jillybean persevered with a not-altogether single minded determination. Ipes was there in her mind as well, urging her on in a voice that reminded her of Ram’s:

Hurry Jillybean. Cassie will be at the front of the line to get her vaccines. Time is short
if we have any chance at saving Neil.

In truth she didn’t need to be reminded.
Inside of her heart was a fear countdown that was rushing to conclusion. It forced her on faster than she thought prudent. Still she arrived unmolested at her destination: a corner of the fence where vehicles were lined up close, conveniently blocking them from view of the workers.

“How…” Sadie began, again in a whisper.

Jillybean waved her arm in the older girl’s face to shut her up and Sadie responded by gesturing at the barbed wire that ran along the top of the fence. Her question was obvious: how do we get past the fence?

“
Fooolloooow meeee,” Jillybean intoned and then squirmed between the dead where they bowed out the fence. Suddenly she dropped to her knees, crawled forward at a fast clip until she was at the very edge of the fence, and then rolled under it. When the press of zombies bowed it out, they created a slim gap at the bottom.