Of course, right then she was just plain tired. Night after night of driving and diaper changings and drones. She was in desperate need of some time outside of the car and away from the baby.
There’s always Colton, Sadie reminded her. They’ll take you and Emily in. We both know that they will.
“But will they let us go?” Jillybean doubted it very much. Out of the goodness of their hearts they would want to keep the child and the infant under their “protection” weak as it was. Unfortunately, this would only force Jillybean’s hand and she couldn’t stomach the idea of hurting any of the people in the town and nor did she want to betray their trust by sabotaging their belongings or drugging them or any of the usual tricks she played.
And yet, she desperately needed a break. She needed to put at least a day between her and her family. Yes, she had been slowing them down, but she was slowing down herself. She felt like a toy whose batteries were just about drained, and it took more and more effort to do even the simplest things. Even thinking up ways to hide the notes was becoming hard.
It required her to think far ahead of what she knew about this town or that. And she couldn’t be too clever in hiding the notes. She had thought up many riddles that she couldn’t use because she feared they would go unsolved, and if they did, then what would happen? “I’d have to go back for them and face their wrath,” she mumbled.
Their collective wrath wasn’t something she could handle. It would break her spirit which already felt as weak as a single dried-out shoot of brown mountain grass.
So that left hiding the notes in relatively simple spots. And it would be soon time to hide another. She looked into the monitors at the terrain they were passing: trees and mountains and rocks. I know a great place, Sadie said. It’s behind the four-hundredth tree after the fiftieth boulder past the third moose dropping on the right. That’s the problem with leaving notes out here. It’s all basically the same.
“But if I’m too, too obvious…like leaving the notes just sitting out, I can’t slow them down unless I use more screws or waste more dynamite.” Neither option was very appealing. The land was too dangerous to use the screws again and with what lay at the end of her journey, she was frightened of using too much more of her explosives.
Ten minutes later, they came up on the empty campsite that they had visited on the way back from Bainbridge. The last riddle she had left directing the group here had been already too simple in her view, and now it seemed she’d have to leave an even simpler one. Which meant there would be no rest for the weary.
You know how you could really screw with them? Sadie asked, that impish smile of hers back again. As a ghost she always seemed on the verge of a prank or some sort of mischief. Jillybean supposed she had the luxury of such things now that she couldn’t die again.
“I’m not trying to screw with them. That sounds mean and they’re already mad enough as is.”
Okay, would you like to know how to give yourself a real break? Hide two notes here. The first note directs them all the way out to wherever, and when they get there, the note they find won’t direct further on, but it will send them all the way back here to your second note. That one will tell them where to go next. You see? They’ll go all the way out, all the way back and then back again. They’ll waste like an entire day. It’s genius if you ask me.
It sounded mean, especially to Captain Grey and Deanna. Jillybean was very sympathetic to their feelings. At the same time, it promised her a decent break and that won out. “Let’s do it!” This was the last bit of excess energy left in her. She wrote her note directing them where to take their next couple of turns so that they would end up about eighty miles away, at a point a couple of hours drive south of Colton. The second note would take them then on to Colton.
Jillybean had come to the decision that she would never make it all the way to Seattle in one long haul. She had to get some sort of rest. Even a few hours in a place of safety would make all the difference.
With no other choice, she put the first note in the campsite’s lone portapotty. She stuck the second note in one of Emily’s baby bottles and, after putting the infant on her hip, she marched directly north on a beeline from the portapotty. At two hundred paces, she came across a flat rock that was slightly larger than a dinner plate. Propping Emily up next to a tree and plugging her lips with a pacifier, Jillybean went to the rock and pried it out of the earth, stuck the bottle under it and laid it down gently. To make sure they found the correct rock, she went about collecting small sticks and poked them into the earth around the rock. In her opinion, it was obvious without being too obvious.
Hitching Emily once again onto her slender hip, she went back to the Camry and back to driving. By sheer will, she made it eighty miles to the point where three roads intersected. This was where the first note she had left behind directed Neil. Without much in the way of subtlety, she placed a note behind a tree closest to the corner. It directed them to go all the way back to the campsite and to the flat rock.
“They are going to be pissed,” she mumbled as she climbed back into the Camry.
Emily was sleeping, wrapped in blankets in the back where the bench had been. Sadie was sitting cross-legged next to her, looking down on the baby’s perfectly soft profile. I’d say you could blame me, but they don’t believe I exist. That’s sort of narrow-minded if you ask me. They talk about heaven and spirits and souls but if you say the word ghost, they lose their shit. Sorry, sorry. I meant they lose their minds. But what really is the difference between a soul and a ghost?
“I guess most ghosts scare people,” Jillybean ventured.
Maybe that’s why only you see me. You’re not afraid of death, not like a normal person, I mean.
Death didn’t scare her, not anymore. She had seen too much of it to be afraid of what was beyond this life. She wasn’t totally devoid of fear, however. “Did it hurt?” It had been a question she had wanted to ask for some time, only it seemed too personal. At that moment, she was too tired to care about offending her sister.
No. It happened too quickly. Me and that guy both fired and there was this thud right in my chest, and the next thing I knew I was looking up at the clouds. I tried to take a breath, but I couldn’t. It was like I was disconnected from my body and really, it didn’t seem to matter if I could breathe or not, so I didn’t try again. Then it sorta felt like I got sleepy.
“That was it?”
She shrugged a single shoulder. Yeah. I think I was asleep until you came and then I saw how sad you were, so I started talking to you. I thought you would freak if you saw what I really was, so I pretended to be hurt and not dead.
“Oh,” Jillybean didn’t like to think about that part of the adventure and wished she hadn’t asked. It was easier just believing that Sadie was with her in a “different” way. “I’m going to keep driving for a bit,” she said. Even though she was dragging and couldn’t stop yawning, she had started down a path with Sadie that had her tummy going again. She had to take her mind off of it, and nothing occupied her quite like this drive.
She sent up a drone and was so tired that she didn’t even know which one it was and nor did she wish it “good luck” or kiss it goodbye as she always did. All she cared about were the car monitors, the iPad velcroed to the dash, the peddles at her feet, the Xbox controller that she worked with her right hand, and the wheel with her left.
There was so much to concentrate on that she didn’t think she blinked for the next hour as she performed a feat of dexterity that few left alive would ever attempt. It was only when Emily started to fuss that Jillybean moved from the stiff position she’d been in, discovering a kink in her neck. “Ow, hold on, sweetie.”
She let one rip, Sadie said, climbing out of the back. We could have a code brown situation here.
“I can smell it,” Jillybean groused, stopping the car. She didn’t mind diaper changes in general, but she knew there would also be a need for a bottle and the car would have to be topped off f
rom the cans set in the roof rack…and it all felt never ending. And it didn’t help that Emily began to cry and that the voices howled in her head even louder.
Stopping in the middle of a single lane dirt road on the side of a heavily treed mountain side wasn’t smart and yet, Jillybean could only take Emily’s increasingly angry cries for so long. It was probably only twenty minutes before she found a clearing next to the road, but with the baby’s wailing sending waves of electric stress through the little girl, it seemed far longer.
When she finally got Emily’s diaper off and cleaned her up, she saw what had the baby so upset: a bad case of diaper rash. Jillybean lathered her with ointment and gave her a bottle, which calmed her, but only to a degree. She fussed and pouted regardless of what Jillybean put in front of her. The only time she was happy was when Jillybean held her. Driving in this manner, exhausted as she was, sent her to her limits. She drove, cuddling, feeding and caring for an infant that was half her size.
It all began to catch up with Jillybean. She crashed the drone into a tree and the Camry nearly went off the road on two different occasions. Emily’s bottle fell beneath the seat and Jillybean began to cry along with the baby—and still she drove.
They made it to Colton as the sun was climbing up over the trees and the little girl was on the verge of a cataclysmic breakdown.
In the three weeks she had been gone, the town had undergone a slight but significant change. The farms around it seemed to have grown bigger, richer. The corn was higher, past Jillybean’s knee, and the winter wheat was now only weeks from harvest, and the rows of tomatoes were vining in their cone-shaped cages. New fields of something green had been planted in long, perfect rows, and the trees were flowering and petals were riding on the air whenever the winds kicked up so that it seemed like at times it was snowing.
The town was visibly ripening and would be ready to be plucked at any time. And how easy would it be? The one thing that hadn’t changed was the town’s defenses.
Jillybean drove right down from the hills and there was no one to stop her. No one at all. The people were all at church, but even if they had been out tending their fields or their livestock, they couldn’t have stopped her. They had nothing to stop the armored Camry and nothing to stop one of the mastodonian slaver trucks and nothing to stop a group of bandits if they were determined enough.
The town was like one of the flower blossoms that drifted down in front of the cameras. It was perfect, but it wouldn’t last.
“But it’ll last for today,” she told Emily as they rumbled up to the church and switched off the engine. The two teary-eyed girls sat for a moment in expectation. Jillybean thought that the doors would open and that all of her old friends would come out to greet her. But the doors remained shut fast, as if they were shut fast against her, as if there was no room in God’s house for someone so crazy as she was.
“Or maybe it’s because I took you,” she said, looking down at Emily. The baby looked right back and at first she seemed frightened, but then she smiled and grabbed Jillybean’s lower lip.
There was no way to know unless she went and confronted the doors. With a tired sigh, she pushed open the heavy car door and that was when she heard the choir singing. She hadn’t heard anything so beautiful since she had left the town and a part of her wanted to sit right there until all the songs were sung.
But she knew she couldn’t wait that long. There was a desperation in her that couldn’t be denied. She was aching inside and out, and she needed rest.
Lifting Emily out of the car, she stumbled to the church with the baby clutched against her chest. Done in as she was, the doors seemed to weigh a thousand pounds apiece. Jillybean’s arms shook as she hauled one back and when it was open far enough, she was assaulted with noise: the choir and the piano were going full force and yet they were drowned out by the screamers in her head. They were so loud that it felt like the bones of her skull were quivering apart.
It was as if they were trying to stop her from stepping into the church. They called her names: a sinner, a thief, a kidnapper, a murderer and more. They blamed her for Sergeant Steinman and for Eve and for a hundred other deaths, but none stung so bad as when they blamed her for Sadie’s death.
“I tried to save her,” Jillybean said, her voice the only whisperer left. The door began to close on her as if pushed from the other side and in desperation Jillybean fell into the crack, holding the baby close, making sure that Emily wasn’t hurt. And there she was stuck, too weak to go forward or back. And it was there she fell asleep.
Chapter 43
Jillybean
She woke in the night but not in the dark. Next to her bed was a gas lamp that she recognized. On its base, written in a child’s hand was the name Corina.
The sheets of the bed were clean and the comforter soft. The room was neat: toys arranged properly on shelves, the closet ready for a regimental inspection, the floor clean enough to eat off.
It was a child’s room and was perfect, except for one missing detail: Emily was nowhere to be seen—at least not seen from between Jillybean’s cracked eyelids. She had awoken, but hadn’t budged a muscle. Then again, she didn’t have to, to know that Emily wasn’t in the room with her. Without even thinking about it, she slid her hand from beneath her pillow and to her jacket pocket where her nickel-plated .25 was normally kept. To an extent, the move was made out of habit, but there was also a fierce protective streak within her, one that would kill to keep Emily safe, only both the gun and her jacket were missing.
Why would you need it anyway? Sadie asked, emerging from the depths of the closet. In death, she had achieved the ultimate Gothic look: the whitest skin and the darkest eyes, her clothing seemingly made of shadows. It was unnerving even to Jillybean. A gun isn’t going to be needed, and you know it. She’s safe here. Everyone loves her.
“I guess you’re right,” Jillybean said, sitting up. She did a double-take as she looked down at herself. She was wearing an unfamiliar pink nightgown that was decorated with deep red hearts. “Where are my clothes? Do you know?”
Knowing Mrs Woods, they are probably hanging out to dry. Why don’t you go ask her?
The answer: Because I’m afraid to, was hard to admit. She was afraid to take one step out of the bed. What if the floor squeaked? What if they heard? She knew the answers: they would come to see her and, after a brief exchange of ‘hellos’ and ‘how are you doings,’ they would begin to ask questions that would be far more difficult for Jillybean to answer.
Chief among these would be: Where’d you get the baby?
How on earth was she supposed to answer that? Even if she could bring herself to lie to these sweet people, what lie could possibly suffice? There’s no way: I found her, would be believed. Of course, the truth wouldn’t work either. Their response would be obvious: they’d demand to keep Emily in Colton until Neil and the others arrived and, while they were waiting, they’d put Jillybean in jail. That’s what you did to kidnappers; everyone knew that.
They won’t put you in jail, Jillybean, Sadie said, coming to sit on the bed. As a ghost she didn’t make a sound or disturb the blankets in any way. I wonder if they even have a jail.
“Oh, they have a jail. The only question is how good are the locks?” As carefully as she could, she reached over to the little nightstand on which the lamp sat and pulled back the single drawer. Within it were Madlibs, Corina’s somewhat used diary, pens, pencils, a small Bible, a flashlight, a dollar and fourteen cents in change, and a number of paperclips. “Here we go,” she said, taking the paperclips.
That’s stealing. The voice had come from inside her head and it hadn’t been Sadie’s. Fear jumped into her throat. Since she had awoken, she hadn’t heard any of the whispers, but this one had come to her plain as day. For a long moment, she only sat there, dreading the return of the rest.
At first, she heard nothing but her own beating heart, but then deep down in her head, she heard what sounded like a snake. “I’m put
ting them back,” she said, opening the drawer and tossing the paperclips back in. “See? They’re all back.” The snake continued to hiss, but it got no worse.
You could always just ask Corina for them, then it wouldn’t be stealing. And you know she would give them to you. She thinks of you as a sister.
A twang of guilt struck her and, suddenly the lone hiss inside of her was joined by a second. “But you are my sister. I like Corina. She’s really very sweet and all, but you are my sister, not her.”
You don’t have to worry, I’m not threatened. Corina is a sweetie and she’s…Just then they heard a step on the stairs. It was just a light step, and yet it filled Jillybean with such fear that she threw the covers over her head.
“Jillybean? Are you awake? Are you…I can see your head. You’re sitting up and all. You don’t have to be afraid, it’s me, Corina.”
Slowly and warily, Jillybean pulled down the blanket and eyed Corina. The little girl hadn’t changed much at all. The only thing about her that was different was her hair; it ran down her back in a long, complicated braid. And her clothes were new, or at least they had been new that morning when she’d gone to church. Jillybean could tell the dress was for church by the ribbon around her waist and she could tell she’d been wearing it all day by the playground dirt on the hem, the dried egg yolk on the collar, and the two different spit-up stains on her shoulder.
The way that Corina stared, Jillybean guessed that she had changed in a far more dramatic way than a bit of yolk on her collar. She touched her own hair. It felt like it was going in forty directions at once. Corina had a mirror next to her bed. Jillybean glanced in it and cringed. It wasn’t just her hair that was cringeworthy. Her eyes were wide and frightened and…and weird. Just looking at them caused a new snake to hiss.
“I-I haven’t had time for a bath lately.” Jillybean had no idea how long she had been on the road, but she did know that she had only taken three of what she called “short baths.” These were essentially the same thing as what Captain Grey referred to as “whore’s baths,” just far more sensitively named. Whatever their name, splashing water in her down under area and her armpits wasn’t the same as a real bath and she had felt constantly dirty.
The Apocalypse Sacrifice: The Undead World (The Undead World Series Book 10) Page 45