The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors (41 page)

“
Uaghh!” The noise ripped from his throat as the metal dug into the soft flesh of his neck. Jillybean regained her footing and shoved him up with all her strength, while he kicked with his feet.

“I’m g-good,” he said a second later when he could breath
e. “Go do what you need to do.”

What she needed
to do was to get a shirt, a roll of tape, and a candle from her backpack. Neil could only sit and wonder at how that was going to help in anyway. She went right to work, showing him. Since the boat was now at a sixty-five degree angle, Ram had fallen to the end of his chain as Neil had and was now almost choking. What prevented the zombie from strangling to death was that he had his hands up under the chain.

Jillybean simply slid down on her bottom so that her feet landed on Ram’s broad shoulders
. She was practically sitting on his head. He turned to look up and, in mid-growl, she shoved a thick candle in his mouth. A second later she threw the shirt over his head, and then in three quick passes wrapped it there with the tape.

“Oh,” said Neil, comprehending. She then slid down Ram’s body until she was at the rail where the fire was licking up. Moving as fast she could she ran for the next life preserver
on the short wall. For a single dreadful moment, Neil was sure that she was going to leave him and he felt a monstrous panic explode in his chest, but then she turned daintily and made her way back.

With one hand holding the preserver, she used Ram as a pseudo-ladder. He sort of kicked a bit, but with his head and hands bound he couldn’t hurt her
as she climbed up him.

“Lift your
foots, please,” she said to Neil a second later.

“What?” Neil asked. She had the life preserver at his feet and wanted to run it up around his body. His mind was a whirl of thoughts and still he was clueless. Did she think he couldn’t swim? It was his neck that was the problem, not his hands.

“Lift them, please,” she demanded. “Hurry, or the boat will fall over on us.” He did his best to lift his legs, then his butt, and then his torso as she worked the heavy foam circle up his body before running it along the chain all the way to where it attached to the ring. With the last of the tape she secured it there above his head.

“Shoelaces,” she
said, holding out her hand. He lifted them to her and, along with the tape, she made a little basket out of the life preserver. Now the boat was practically at eighty degrees. It rocked from unseen explosions, making Neil slip to the end of his chain where he began to choke. The sound of his gagging went unheard by Jillybean. Around them, the boat was buckling with metallic screams.

By luck Neil found a seam in the decking that hadn’t been there moments before. He was able to stand
on the tiny ledge and gasp.

Jillybean
didn’t have time to pity him. “Give me the round metal thing!” she cried. Somehow he had kept a hold of it.

She was like a monkey.
With one hand holding onto the chain she reached down effortlessly and accepted the plate. This she set in the basket she had created from the life preserver, and finally Neil saw what she was doing. The thick life preserver and the metal plate would absorb the blast of the grenade...hopefully.

“Do you want the hand grenade?” He was already pulling it from his belt.

Jillybean took a tired breath and said, “Not yet.” She then began to climb up the deck of the ship using the new seams as hand holds until she reached, what at one time had been the divider between the car lanes, but was now basically their roof. A fire extinguisher sat on the wall.

Once it was in hand she leaned back and slid down the boat to Neil. “I need you to pull the pins on both
the extinguisher and the grenade. I’d do it, but Ipes says they’re really hard to do.” He went to pull the pin from the grenade, but she stopped him. “The fire extinguisher first! I don’t want to accidentally blow us up.”

“You just want to do it on purpose,” Neil said, trying to make a joke to show he wasn’t scared. He was petrified. If the grenade didn’t kill him, he was going to slide down into a river of fire…which brought to
mind a question. “Why don’t you go use the extinguisher on the fire now and I’ll toss the grenade in the basket you made.”

She climbed
up the chain, saying, “Because you can’t
toss
the grenade. If you miss, the chain may not break and if it bounces out it’ll roll right down to where I’ll be.” She was on his shoulders now. “Hand me the fire extinguisher, please.”

“Don’t you think you should spray the fire first and then…”

“Please, Mister Neil!” she begged. “We don’t have time.”

Her fear was obvious, but so was his. He was the one who was going to slide into an inferno seconds after a hand grenade went off just a few feet from his head.

“Trust me,” she said.

He handed up the fire extinguisher, and then, when she murmured, “Hand grenade,” he pulled the pin and, still holding down the spring, gave it to her. As if time was a fiend, the next few seconds dragged out in a slow motion, fear-filled misery. With his heart ramping up in speed, he heard the spoon safety lever of the grenade bounce away; he saw Jillybean zip by as she slid down on her
I’m a Belieber
backpack; he cringed down at the end of his steel tether letting it choke him all it wanted because he was afraid his eardrums would burst from the blast. Both hands were on his ears, crushing inward while he crimped his eyes to distorted slits.

The seconds drifted by like clouds on a hot summer day, taking their time as if all the world was theirs to
meander their way across the…

The sound of the hand grenade, detonating
so close to him, was something indescribable. The noise was so sharp and so all-encompassing loud that his brain basically shut off. Down the side of the boat he tumbled rather than slid and into the foamy water he plunged. Somehow he had lived through the explosion—the pain in his head told him that he was indeed alive, but now he was in the fire. The water was scalding, but the flames…were not there. He found himself in a semi-circle of white foam, as Jillybean raked back the flames with the extinguisher.

Neil
, blinking like an owl tried to flounder a bit. With his brain all a scatter, he would have drowned two feet from the edge of the boat, but Jillybean handed him half a life preserver that was black in parts and riddled with holes.

“Now what?” he asked, not realizing he was shouting. “We’re still surrounded by flames and the boat…” he paused to look back to see if the boat was still there or if it had disintegrated in the blast. It was still there and barely scorched where the grenade had gone off. “And the boat is going to sink on us.”

“Ipes is right, you are silly,” Jillybean said, smiling now that the hard part was done. “We still have this to get us through the fire.” She held up the fire extinguisher. “I barely used any, and the fire only goes about fifteen feet.”

She was standing on part of the railing, a beautiful little ange
l against a background of hell—an enormous column of billowing black, backlit by a golden glow rose for miles into the air while closer the boat loomed as if at any moment it would simply fall over onto them.

Jillybean
looked back at the body of Ram, her chin dropped and she drew in a big breath. It looked like she wanted to say something to him, but instead she turned away and toed the water. “That’s not so bad," she said. "It’s like a nice hot bath, with bubbles.”

Chapter 41

Sadie

New York City

Other than the man chained to its deck and the little girl scampering around trying to save him, Sadie was the last to leave the outer ferryboat. Despite the smoke and the searing heat that caused everything to shimmer, it was an easy thing to do. The two ferries were crushed into each other. She simply leapt across into an inferno of hell.

The heat of the deck turned the soles of her
Converse sneakers soft and the raging fire made opening her eyes nearly impossible. The best she could do was cringe behind her hands and make her way to the far end of the boat.

Even the dock was on fire. Midway between her and the safety of land the entire wooden structure was going up in flames. Almost too late the
Nordic Star
was trying to pull away. Its engines churned the green water to white foam, however in their haste to get away, and perhaps inexperience in emergencies, many things were going awry.

The gangway hadn’t been unchained and now hung down the side of the boat, trailing the first few of its steps in the river. However much worse than that, especially with a tremendous fire raging not thirty feet away, was that not all of the mooring lines had been detached. Both the forward and after spring hawsers, great, arm-thick ropes, were still tight around their cleats on the pier.

Because it was attached in one quarter, the
Nordic Star
was now pointing to a bend in the shore. In spite of this, the 5000 horsepower engines could be heard revving powerfully even over the fire. The strength of the engines, coupled with fire had the dock swaying on its pilings.

Sadie realized that one way or the other she was going into the water.

Holding the two grenades hooked to the waist of her jeans to keep from losing them, Sadie leapt out into the river and immediately began swimming for the cruise ship. With everything going on: the water heaving, the engine revving, the fire, and the explosions, it was unnerving for the girl to approach such a creature of metal as the
Nordic Star
was.

It seemed alive and like a skittish horse it felt to shy away from her as she reached out for the swaying gangway. The waves made it doubly dangerous. With what felt like evil intent they picked her up and slammed her against the side of the boat and before she could barely recover from the shock they smashed her against the metal gangway.

Thankfully the white blouse she wore got hooked on a shard of twisted metal and she was able to hang on. Seconds later, winded and battered, she was on deck with one of the Russian guards staring at her. From her vantage he seemed tall as a building. He had opened his mouth to say something, however he was now in a state of mental pause. He stood there with his mouth open, staring at the sheerness of her wet shirt.

“Um,” he said, pointing in the general direction of her breasts, while trying to keep his blue eyes on her dark brown ones. “Your, um…”

“Thanks,” Sadie said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Where’s the Colonel? You know, the army guy from
The Island
. I need to know where he is.”

“The
Colonel is on Promenade deck, one floor up, in starboard cabins,” the guard answered. Sadie gave him a quick:
thanks
and made to leave, but the man grabbed her. “You should not go there. You are prisoner girl, da?”

“Yeah.”

“Is no safe for you. Come, we must hide you.” He dragged her to the bow stairs. “Bottom floor is Med deck. Tell them Nico say is ok. I am Nico.” He added this last with a smile, patting his own chest just in case his English had failed him.

“Thanks,
Nico, but I don’t have time for safe,” Sadie said. Gently, she pulled back and he let her go. With a last smile she turned and ran for the stairs leading to the Promenade deck. As she ran she pulled one of the grenades from her jeans.

There were many people on the deck watching the boat struggle against the pier or gazing in awe at the fire. Sadie gave the inferno a glance, which turned into seconds of gasping fright. The nearer boat was now sinking in an odd manner. It seemed to be falling beneath the second ferry, causing that boat to lean far over on its side. Higher and higher the near edge went and she was sure that it would topple over at a
ny time.

She tried to calculate how long it had been since she left Neil—two minutes, maybe three. Had he gotten free?

“He got free. He had to have,” she whispered. “They were just screws.”

Her words were unconvincing, even to her. She was just wondering if she should go back
to help him, when a man in an Army uniform walked right by. In that second, she decided that Neil and Jillybean would have to make it on their own.

A few steps behind, s
he followed the soldier to a plush set of rooms right where Nico had directed her. She was so close to the soldier that she entered the suite right after he did, causing him to jump slightly in surprise. When he turned she presented him with an even greater surprise: the image of her holding a grenade in one hand while the other had a very firm grip on the safety pin.

The soldier’s eyes bugged.
“What the…?”

“I want to see the colonel,” Sadie explained through gritted teeth. “Where is he? You’re going to tell me right now or so help me God, I’ll blow you the fuck up.”

Inadvertently the man’s eyes flicked to his right. “I…I don’t know. Just don’t pull that pin. There’s no coming back if you do. You understand?”

“I’m going to count to three,” Sadie said as way of reply. “One…”

“Colonel!” the soldier yelled. “There’s someone here to see you.”

A door that led to another part of the luxury suites opened and Colonel Williams stepped into the room. His uniform was starched stiff, but his smile was easy.

“Well, the zombie hunter is back,” he said coming closer and giving her a scrutinizing eye, barely glancing at the grenade. “Maybe I was wrong about not taking you on. You got balls…for a girl that is.”

“Where is Sarah? Tell me or else.”

The colonel waved his hand as if he didn’t think there was any chance of that happening. “You won’t pull the pin so don’t think you’re scaring anyone.”

In answer, Sadie pulled the pin. Suddenly the hand grenade seemed to gain in weight, and perhaps in heat. Her hand certainly began to sweat more, making it slippery, which in turn added to her mounting state of anxiety, because what if the damned grenade just slipped out of her grip like a bar of soap?

“Where is she?” Sadie demanded, brandishing the green bomb.

“Still not scaring me,” Williams said. “You won’t throw it, because you know you’ll die as well.”

“Did you happen to see that boat on fire out there?” she asked. “I did that. Now tell me again how afraid I am.”

Williams laughed. “I definitely screwed up not getting you while I could. You want Sarah?
Fine, she’s all yours. I’m done with her anyway.” The colonel nodded to the soldier Sadie had followed in. The man left quickly, leaving the colonel and the Goth girl alone to stare at each other.

“What did you do to her?” Sadie asked. She was afraid of the answer, or more accurately she was afraid what she would do when she heard the answer.

“Stuff,” he said with a shrug. “No one else wanted her so I took her in, and as you probably know, there’s a price for my protection.”

Sadie’s dark eyes went black with hate. “You son of a…”

“Uh-uh,” he said, wagging his finger. “Don’t be like that. You’re getting her back, more or less in one piece. If I hadn’t taken her in, out of the goodness of my heart, I can guarantee she would’ve been killed by that damned Cassie. She’s the one you should have a beef with.”

“The goodness of your heart?” Sadie raged. “Let me tell you about
my
heart, I have enough room to hate both you and Cassie. Don’t you…”

Sadie caught her tongue as Sarah came in.

“See?” the colonel said, wearing an evil smile. “Good as new.”

Sarah walked slowly, hesitantly, as if either she was unsure of herself or that every step was a painful experience. Or both. In wonder, she looked on Sadie with swollen and blackened eyes. “I thought you were dead,” she said in a blurry whisper through swollen lips. “Where’s Neil?”

Who knew the answer to that question? The sight of the ferry practically on its side, so soon after she had left him and Jillybean did not bode well. But she wasn’t going to add to Sarah’s pain, not then.

“Let’s get out of here. I’ll tell you later,” Sadie said, coming forward and offering her left arm, making sure to keep her right—her hand grenade throwing arm—free.

“We have to get Eve,” Sarah declared. “She’s with Abraham.”

Sadie did her best to keep her face neutral. She was pushing her luck to the edge just trying to free Sarah who seemed exceptionally frail and in no condition to take on a doomsday cult.

“Oh yes,” Colonel Williams said. “Go get that fruitcake and all his fruitcake followers. I’ll even help. He’s got the suites just above us. Stairs are right around the corner. Good luck.”

“Fuck you, Williams,” Sarah said, turning to glare. “There’ll come a time when I take my revenge and…”

Just then the boat lurched forward. Sarah went to her knees with a cry of pain while Sadie barely kept her feet.

“Maybe you should put the pin back in that grenade before you blow yourself up,” Williams suggested. “I mean you don’t want to do that until you find Abraham, right?”

Sadie hadn’t known that re-pinning a grenade was even possible. She pushed the little pin back in its hole, watching the colonel as she did. By his reaction it was clear the bomb wouldn’t blow up now.

“There’s a good girl,” he said.

A hundred angry retorts sprung to mind, but she didn’t have time for a single one, not if she was going to rescue Eve. Gently she helped Sarah to her feet and then backed out of the room into a bewildering night of people screaming, and yelling, and running.

In confusion, Sarah’s eyes went round and round at the smoke filled sky and the raging fire. Sadie’s did as well and her confusion was even greater. Sometime in the last two minutes the
Nordic Star
had turned and was now pointing directly at river bank not a hundred feet away. They were drifting sideways to it and it took the girl a few seconds to realize that the engines weren’t throttled up anymore.

“What’s going on?” Sadie asked the first person who would glance her way. It was a shirtless man who was just coming back from leaning out over the stern railings.

“Those fools cut the mooring lines in the wrong order and now they’re tangled in the propellers.” He seemed to want to say more, but after a look at Sarah’s face he just gave them a quick nod as way of a goodbye and left.

“Did we get attacked by the Navy or something?” Sarah asked. “All I could hear was all these explosions and machine guns firing nonstop.”

“No. That was Jillybean’s idea of a distraction. But we can’t worry about that now.” Sadie pushed against the stream of people. The boat was normally crowded, but with the terrific events occurring, the decks teemed with crowds. She yanked Sarah along by the hand, slipping past people until she came to the stairs and then she stopped dead in her tracks.

Lounging on the stairs, insolent and radiating a hatred of the mostly white passengers were the
Blacks
of Philadelphia. Not a second passed before Sadie and Cassie locked eyes.

The connection lasted until a tall man shoved past Sadie and started up the stairs. Just like that the two young women sprung into motion.

Cassie stood and screamed, “The girl in the white shirt! Get her!”

Sadie spun, thrust Sarah back against the wall, and pushed the grenade into her startled hands. “Hide!”Sadie hissed. She then took off running, using her speed and nimble feet to outdistance her opponents who relied on brute force, which in a ship as crowded at the
Nordic Star
was not a good strategy.

Still there were many of them and the ship wasn’t of great size. Gradually, Cassie got her men in order
. Over all the commotion, Sadie could hear her bawling out commands. A man was station at each stair and on every level, and then she formed a squad that searched as a coordinated unit.

Ever lower into the bowels of the ship where few people trod the corridors, Sadie was herded. She
felt like a fox being hounded to her death and she ran in a growing fear until she found herself in a corridor at the bottom of the boat. It was then that she remembered the Russian guard, Nico. She was supposed to drop his name, however there was no around.

She banged on the first door she came to. “Anyone in there?” she called. When no one responded, she tried the knob, found it locked, and moved to the next door, repeating the process until one opened. It was one she had already passed and it was a black man who answered.

At first her heart caught in her throat, but then she saw it was Steve, the man who had helped her the day before.

“You?” he asked in surprise. “What are you doing back on…”

An explosion somewhere above them stopped his words. It was distant and muffled, but no less frightening.