Other than the music, the room was silent and the shadows remained still. Baldy frowned. Jillybean did, too. Her triple dose of pills were finally working, leaving her completely sane to commit murder in the coldest blood. The gun in her hand felt heavy as if it had grown, and it was slick as a mossy rock.
“Who’s Eve?” he asked.
“No one. She’s just…no one.” The two stared at each other, both in growing fear. Jillybean turned away and climbed over the bed, going for the end table. Beneath it was a cubby stacked high with magazines. The top one had a glossy cover showing a mostly naked woman. They were “girlie” magazines, she knew.
Ignoring them, she opened the drawer which was filled with odds and ends: pens, pill bottles, nail clippers, bullets of a dozen calibers, etc. She dug through it, looking for something she couldn’t bring herself to name: an excuse not to kill Baldy. In the second drawer she found two things that destroyed any excuse she might have. The first was another pistol; a subcompact 9mm. It was Baldy’s back-up weapon that he sometimes carried hidden on him for emergencies. While he thought it felt uncomfortably small in his big hands, Jillybean liked the size, even though it was still a stretch for her index finger to reach the trigger.
She pocketed the gun, but it was the second item that her eyes lingered on. A black-handled knife sat in a battered and worn leather sheath. It’s probably rusty, she thought. And the blade is dull. I can’t use a dull blade. Pulling the knife out, she stared in dismay. Baldy kept the edge wickedly sharp. Her chin dropped to her chest.
“You can keep all that,” Baldy said. Oddly, he liked the cold demeanor she had presented earlier more than the strange reluctance she was presenting now. He hoped she was afraid of going out and killing Burt and Dorg, but he had a creeping feeling it was something else. “Consider it a gift.”
The offer only brought her lower. “I like gifts. Gifts are good,” she said. “Gifts are nice.” In her mind, only good people gave gifts, making this moment even harder. Then Willy screamed. It was long and heartbreaking, and was followed by a babbling begging that made the darkness inside Jillybean grow. She waited for it to erupt and cover her. She wanted to be swept away by the evil. She wanted to hide in it and then emerge free and clear, her conscience unblemished, her life back to the way it was back on the island.
There would be smoke in the sky and bodies floating on the Sound, but she’d be able to pretend it wasn’t her doing. Someone else had done all that, she’d say to herself as she washed the blood from her hands.
And what about your dress?
It hadn’t been Eve’s voice inside her head. It was her own and it came with the image of her waking and looking down at herself covered in blood, except this time when she looked down, she found Baldy’s knife in her hand.
“A knife’s gonna be no good against those guys,” Baldy said, licking his lips. He had never felt so vulnerable in his life. When she had the shotgun pointed at him, that had been unnerving, but it hadn’t been the first time he’d had a gun pointed at him. This was far different. Being trussed up at all was bad enough, having the girl go all quirky with a knife in her hand and one of her friends screaming a hundred yards away, was enough to make him sweat.
“I’d use the shotgun,” he said, his voice dropping. He noticed she had left it on the bed. “Or the 9-mill. That would do. A knife takes skill. It takes strength.”
Jillybean understood better than anyone alive how much strength it took to drive a knife into a man, just as she knew the skill required. Of course, she had too much sense to consider herself a knife-fighter. She was a surgeon, and with her near perfect understanding of human anatomy, she knew exactly where to strike.
As she stepped over Baldy, he twisted around to keep her in sight, and for a second, she could see the ridges of his cervical spine. In a blink, she took the knife in both hands and dropped down, driving the blade between the vertebrae and the base of the skull. Like he was a butterfly in a collection, she pinned him neatly. One spasm and he was dead.
14
Jillybean knelt over him, tears forming in her eyes. “No!” she barked, ripping a sleeve across her face. “Don’t cry for him. He doesn’t deserve it.” As true as that was, the tears still came. She ignored them as best she could as she buckled the knife and sheath onto her belt.
“You have two more,” she told herself. “Cry later.” But she wouldn’t cry later. Eventually, the feel of slicing her knife into him would disappear down a memory hole. Her ability to compartmentalize was essential to keep what sanity she possessed. If she remembered in a week or a month how disturbingly powerful she had felt at the exact moment the blade penetrated his skin, and how much she liked it…
“Nope,” she declared, as if that would make the feeling go away, or the urge. “That’s Eve, not me.”
Buckled again, she knelt over Baldy and took off the handcuffs, stashing them away. She then slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind her. The two men were still upstairs and the screams were still coming every few minutes like clockwork. They would go on all night.
That wasn’t her problem just then. Two armed men were. She needed to separate them; an easy task on a boat. Every sailor with any sense, feared fire more than any other emergency.
It would be a simple task to light a paper fire on the stove. Dorg would send Burt to check it out; his eyes would be drawn to it right away and with his concentration diverted, she could easily slip up on him. Except on such a tiny boat there was nowhere to hide. At the bow of the boat was an even more cramped cabin. Even with a fire as a distraction, it was too far for her to safely sneak. To her left was a bathroom, however the door was hanging from one hinge and would make noise coming open. Closer were little cabinets, the largest so narrow that even she would barely fit. Would her jacket catch? Would a button scrape getting out?
Her margin of error was infinitesimally small. She couldn’t step on a plate or kick an unseen glass. There would be only one shot at taking down a giant like Burt and it had to be done in a blink with only a whisper of noise.
Tip-toeing through the mess, she went to stand in the center of the boat. A grunt of exasperation puffed out of her. The main part of the galley was too small for her needs, while the two cabins at either end, separated by a bare seventeen feet, were too far.
“Okay. We rule out a mini-fire.” Her eyes darted to the toilet. It was foul beyond measure. Still, it would work. She would duck back into Baldy’s cabin, wait for one of the two men to relieve herself and then leap out. It seemed like a sound plan except just then Burt sighed and stood. The boat shifted under his weight and the next thing she heard was the unmistakable sound of him peeing over the side.
“For all darn it!” she hissed. Now she was back to square one. She was still trying to figure out an idea when she heard Burt mutter, “I need a drink. Did Baldy get into my stash?” Dorg answered in such a low voice that Jillybean didn’t hear what he said.
Burt stretched and cracked his back with a quick series of pops. He had to step around Dorg’s long legs, which were stretched out on another bench; the second in command would only have moved them for Baldy.
Ducking his head, Burt tromped down the stairs, which sagged under his weight. He glanced once at Baldy’s door. Even with the music, he had expected to hear a little something more out of the girl. She’ll be screaming soon enough. “And then we’ll never get any sleep,” he groused. As he and Carl had only been with the crew for the last seven months, he didn’t rate a spot in the bow cabin. His bunk was a little convertible couch that had three inches of stiff cushion.
Still, it was better than sleeping on the floor like Rat-faced Ronny. Burt walked through the piles of crap to the couch, leaned over and dug through a box he kept next to the couch. As he did, a small pile of stinking clothes rose up behind him.
Jillybean’s mind had flashed to a life-saving option the moment Burt’s foot came down on the first of the five stairs leading to the galley. Now she appraised th
e man from behind, noting with cold, calculating eyes his girth, his height, his muscle density. Burt had grown soft on board and that was to her advantage. Piercing fat was far easier than piercing muscle.
He straightened and she struck. She didn’t go for the spine this time. It was too well hidden by his shirt. Instead she stuck the knife into his left kidney. Baldy’s blade was so sharp, she might as well as have been stabbing butter.
The pain was unimaginable. Burt’s hands shot open and the bottle he’d just picked up dropped and exploded, sending out shards that went forgotten. He stood as if an electric current was burning through his body, holding him in place, while he slowly sucked in air. Jillybean thought he would explode in a scream, but he only made a croaking noise as he turned as stiff as a rusted tin-man and stared at her with wide, unblinking eyes.
Like he was moving in slow motion, he reached out a huge hand to her. She ignored it and darted in, and with both hands on the hilt, she drove the blade into him just over the rise of his belly. Anyone else might have gone for the heart and they might have struck it, if they could’ve avoided the ribs.
From where she stood, the solar plexus was almost a sure thing. The tip of the knife sliced through the diaphragm and tore into the bundle of nerves that was the plexus. Just like that, Burt lost the ability to breathe, and if it was possible, even more pain coursed through him. He was nearly paralyzed by it, and yet he managed to grab the little girl as he collapsed to one knee.
With one hand, he had a vice-grip on her right arm. He drew her in close and looked like he was reaching for her throat with his other hand. They were now so close that she couldn’t pull the knife free. And there was still tremendous strength in his hands. Enough to crush her throat if he wished.
“Don’t,” she begged.
His jaw went up and down but she couldn’t make out what he was trying to say. Then his hand was on her, but instead of going to her throat it went to her cheek. He stared at her with dying eyes. Her fear vanished to be replaced by guilt.
“I didn’t want to,” she said. Although she had perfectly legitimate reasons for her actions, none of those mattered with her knife inside him. Again tears came, only this time, she let them flow as he died. When he finally slumped, a cloud of regret settled over her. It hung around her even as she heard Dorg spit over the rail. When Willy shrieked, she swallowed her guilt, stuffing it down into a compartment that was already bursting.
Dorg has to be the last, she told herself. “And maybe I don’t even have to kill him.” She pictured cuffing him to the stove and disappearing into the night. “But he’ll scream.” A gag appeared in the picture. “He’ll tear the door off the stove.” She saw it fly into the black water.
She was desperately casting about for a new elaborate plan that would keep her from killing anyone else, when a new scream erupted. Her shoulders slumped.
“We’re at war,” she reminded herself. It didn’t matter if no one else on Bainbridge knew this, she knew it as a fact. Dorg was a soldier who had to be killed, and the boat was an asset that had to be destroyed. After a deep breath, she looked up at the ceiling and considered all she knew and guessed about the man. More than any of them, he was dismissive, arrogant and over-confident. On top of that, he seemed to hold a strong dislike for Baldy.
Dozens of possibilities spun around Jillybean’s head, but as frequently happened, the simplest plan seemed the best. Preparing took little work: she covered Burt, shut the bathroom door and hid her knife; her hair was already a mess. She went up a few of the stairs.
“Excuse me, Mr. Dorg, sir? There’s something wrong with Mr. Baldy. He got all red in the face and kinda fell over.”
“Huh?” His momentary look of surprise and concern was replaced in a blink to something that looked like glee. He hopped up quickly and nearly left her behind on the stairs. At the last moment, he grabbed her arm. “Don’t even think of going anywhere.” He tromped the rest of the way down, cleared his throat and, in less of a surly growl, asked through the door, “You okay, Baldy? You all good in there?”
For all he knew, Baldy was having a heart attack, and yet he wore a nasty grin. After another knock, Dorg wiped the grin from his face, applied an unsettlingly look of concern, and went in. He was still staring in utter confusion at Baldy when Jillybean killed him. It took three stabs, and he bled a great deal. Unlike with the others, she didn’t shed a tear.
“Now what?” she asked, hoping that Ipes or Eve would show up and talk her into going straight home. She already knew what had to be done. Willy and Ted couldn’t be allowed to go on suffering, not while she had a chance to save them. This chance rested entirely on her little body, her fantastic mind and her unstoppable courage. It didn’t seem like enough.
Creeping up on deck, she saw that it would be her body that was put to the biggest test. Just getting back to the island would be a four-hundred yard swim. On top of that, it was over a hundred yards back to the largest ship in the squadron, where half a dozen men were on deck, torturing her fellow islanders. Who knew how many were below?
A rescue seemed like a tall order for one little girl. She wished it was an impossible one. Then she’d be able to go home and get in her warm bed and begin the process of forgetting the night ever happened.
But for her very little was impossible, not even the daunting swim alone through zombie-infested waters. Right in front of her were foam fenders slung over the railing.
Cutting away a couple of them, she ducked down below deck and began scavenging. Duct-tape was easy to find, as were extra shells for the shotgun. She strapped the fenders to either end of the shotgun, giving her a make-shift floatie, as well as a way to kill the water zombies. Piece of cake.
With the floatie done, she hunted down scissors, some string and snatched up an ugly-smelling navy blanket. In no time she had made a “hoodie with wings.” In the moonless night, it would camouflage her in the dark water. Next, she scrounged for a bottle with a cork and filled it with gas, and lastly, she cut a length of hose that ran from a fuel tank to the engine room; just in case she needed to do any siphoning. As always, fire was Jillybean’s friend.
But not her only friend. The water itself was an instrument of war if used properly.
Taking Burt’s shotgun, she wrapped it in pillows and blankets as tightly as she could to dampen the sound of it going off. Then, ignoring the bodies, she went on hands and knees, hunting for some sort of door on the floor that would lead to the ballast area. Incorrectly, she had assumed the centerline of the boat was filled with gravel or some such to act as ballast; the cast iron keel was the real ballast. However, she did find a compartment near the stern that exposed a portion of the central plumbing.
When she opened it, she could hear the tiny waves thumping against the hull. Sticking the now fattened shotgun into the cubby, she fired down through the hull. The gun made a strange thwump sound, jumped up and bopped her face. Even with the pillows, her snub of a nose smarted from the blow. She pinched it softly and watched as water sprayed in through a charred hole in the fiberglass hull, creating a fountain that careened off the ceiling.
It was a large hole, big enough to put her foot through, and the amount of water coming up was unnerving. Still, The Toad was not a tiny boat and would take a while to sink, which was ideal as she needed time to scoot out of there and get in position. Taking her new “floatie-gun” and wrapping herself in her camo-cloak, she went up on deck and to the rear ladder where she dipped a toe.
As always, the Sound was cold and a rash of goose-bumps flared across her tiny body as she slipped in. She knew one way to generate heat and that was to begin kicking. With the gun across her chest, she did a modified stroke: doggy-paddling up top and scissor kicking down below. It was a slow but steady stroke that first took her out away from the line of boats, but only for about sixty feet or so, and then down the line.
On each boat was a groggy sailor on duty. Some of these made no bones about it and slept, their feet propped, their he
ads back. A few whistled or whittled, and the rest smoked, gazing out at the bright lights of Bainbridge Island. None looked east towards dark Seattle where only an owl might’ve been able to see Jillybean’s little hooded head bobbing along.
The only activity was on the last and biggest boat. There were fewer men on deck now; only four were conducting the slow-paced tortures. The rest could be heard through the thin hull. From the sound of the chips clacking into the pile, she could tell they were playing poker.
By now, Jillybean was puffing badly. She paused to catch her breath and eyed the big ship. At the bow, the anchor chain stretched at a low angle. At the stern was a heavy rope that ran to the next boat. There were also two canoes and a kayak tied to a small platform that jutted out from the stern. It sat only a foot above the water and in happier times she could imagine little children jumping and diving from it.
The railings at the back of the ship were lined with black-painted fuel tanks. They were so perfectly positioned for her that it almost felt like a set-up. It wasn’t. They were logically placed, downwind from their point of sailing and close to the engine.
Although she needed a full minute to rest, she couldn’t pause for too long. When she kicked hard and pushed up on her gun-floatie, she could just make out The Toad. Its bow was rising, which meant its stern was filling quickly.
“Gotta move,” she told herself, only she had trouble pushing herself on. Over the last couple of years, she had been a part of many rescues, each one fraught with danger. This one was different. The ships were, in a sense, isolated. Running away was impossible, and hiding, even with her camo-cloak, would be more a matter of luck than anything else.
Worse still, would be the repercussions of getting caught. It was one thing to be shot or stabbed or hung, it was a whole other thing to be tortured to death over the course of hours or even days. Willy and Ted were almost ready to start begging for death, and their misery had only been going on for a couple of hours.
The Undead World (Book 12): The Body [An Undead World Expansion] Page 10