Sadie stayed to watch as Eve was stripped down. “Open your hands,” Sadie ordered, when Eve was completely naked. Her handcuffs rattled as she showed her empty palms; she even raised her feet to flare her toes. Sadie wasn’t satisfied. “And your mouth.”
Eve glared and then stuck out her tongue before opening her mouth wide. Satisfied, Sadie left her and went to see Neil; however he was in another meeting and had two more following that.
Feeling glum, and with nothing to do, she walked to the little bungalow that she and Neil called home and went back to bed. Sleep was very slow in coming. She couldn’t help but think that they were taking the wrong tack with regard to Jillybean. The good girl was in there somewhere and when she was good she was an angel.
Four hours of sleep was all she could steal before her mind began worrying again. She laid in bed another hour staring at the ceiling, wishing there was some way she could exorcise Eve out of Jillybean’s body as if she was an evil spirit and not some sort of mental aberration.
Eventually, Sadie got up, shouldered her M4, and went for chow. The mess hall, what once had been the town’s only grocery store, was a quiet place for once. There was an air of defeat among the crowded tables and more than one gruff half-barbaric soldier had tears in his eyes. Sadie kept to herself, eating quickly and ducking out before anyone could even think of engaging her in conversation.
With only sullen thoughts dogging her, she decided to go on shift early and relieved a lonely buck private who was eager for news. He’d heard that General Johnston had been murdered but nothing else.
“Go ask in town,” was all Sadie said. There was no way she was going to say that her sister had poisoned to death the one hope the people of the valley had. That was a harsh but true thought. Neil was too new to be seen as anyone’s savior. Yes, by his and Deanna’s guts alone, Red Gate 3 had been held against all odds, and yes, he had practically sacrificed his best friend and daughter in order to stop the howitzers, but these were nothing compared to Johnston’s stoic calm and unrivaled leadership.
The night progressed slower than any other. Sadie lost herself in the stars. She stared upward as they gradually pinwheeled across the sky and not for the first time, she wished she knew the names of the different stars and constellations. The only one she knew for sure was the Big Dipper and for hours she checked its progress as it started off flat, looking like a real dipper before it slowly turned on its side as if it was pouring out its celestial contents into the black of space.
At six when the sky was the color of pink pearl, she was more than ready for her replacement. When he finally showed, dragging his feet, Sadie rushed off to find Neil.
“We’re going to abandon the valley,” he said right off the bat. That simple statement drained the energy right out of her and she wanted to go climb in bed and yank the covers over her head. He sighed, probably thinking the same thing and then went on: “We can’t win against both the zombies and the Azael and, with the general dead, no one seems to want to try anymore. But it’s the wrong move, I know it. People are already starting to talk about going their separate ways. We’ll be divided and weak.”
“And what’s going on with Jillybean?” She half expected him to say she had escaped during the night.
He took a long breath before answering: “We’re having a hearing this afternoon. It’s not really a judicial proceeding, it’s more like a bunch of people coming together and making a decision. I want you to attend.”
“In what capacity? Do you want me to be, like Jillybean’s advocate? Or her…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word prosecutor.
“In whatever capacity fits you. All we’re looking for is the truth and, perhaps, a solution to the problem she represents.”
Jillybean was a tremendous problem, that couldn’t be denied. Had she been an adult she would have been taken out back and shot long ago. But as a child, it wasn’t so easy, and as a child gifted with amazing mental powers, it was even more difficult. Sadie knew that empires could hinge on her mind.
“I’ll do my best. What time?”
Neil told her four and then excused himself. “Meetings and more meetings,” he explained and was gone.
For the second day in a row, sleep was a difficult thing to cage. She slept intermittently as though her R.E.M. cycle was synched to someone sending out a message in Morse code: three long, two short, two short. She woke just after one in the afternoon and remained awake. By two, when the room was splashed with the afternoon sun, she’d had enough and so she got up and decided to go “shopping.”
This meant she went to poke through people’s houses to find clothes that didn’t belong to her. She didn’t want to look like some punk-kid at the hearing, she wanted to be taken seriously even though she had no idea if she had anything to say or even what side she was going to take.
By a strange coincidence, Sadie found herself walking by the same little cabin that Jillybean had spent the night in two days previous. The open front door drew her and within a minute she had on a floral print dress that undoubtedly belonged to the larger of the three corpses that were sprawled in the single bedroom. By another happy coincidence the corpse had Sadie’s foot size as well.
When she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt like some suburban mom and this feeling extended beyond the looks department. Her eyes were drawn to the open suitcase with the name Amber D written across the top. Sadie picked out a dress and a pair of sparkly converse sneakers for Jillybean. The little girl had done too much for Sadie and everyone Sadie had ever counted as a friend to go into court with her life on the line in only an open-backed hospital johnny.
“Put this on,” she said to the surly thing in Jillybean’s body thirty minutes later. “And try to be pleasant or they’ll hang you.”
Eve did her best, however it was like asking a rattlesnake to embrace its sweet side. When she spoke there was an undercurrent of oily villainy. She was evil and couldn’t seem to hide it. The facts, which were piled higher than her head against her, didn’t help her either; she’d been caught red-handed with one murder and had admitted to a second.
After the reading of the evidence, Neil called a number of character witnesses all of whom were arrayed against Jillybean. Joslyn Reynolds, Fred Trigg, and Veronica Hennesy, all told the truth—the damning truth. Sadie was called as well and as much as she wanted to be on Jillybean’s side, every word out of her mouth felt like a nail in Jillybean’s coffin. For every up there was a down. For every life saved there were two dead. Her heroics seemed to fade compared to her atrocities. The events surrounding the death of baby Eve was the clincher and couldn’t be overlooked.
It was obvious that Neil wanted to speak in some capacity other than that of an official, as did Captain Grey and Deanna, however they were part of the ten person panel and couldn’t express their opinions, not that it mattered much. The little girl had been caught dead to rights and, due to their present situation, she couldn’t simply be allowed to go free and neither could they afford to incarcerate her indefinitely—not only was she too dangerous to let sit in a cell, indefinitely, it was a drain of manpower that they didn’t possess.
At the end of the proceedings, Eve left with Sadie to sit in her hospital room. “They’re going to kill me aren’t they?” the little girl asked.
The answer was yes, however Sadie lied, saying: “You never know.”
Neil came in twenty minutes later, looking sick to his stomach. “Tomorrow at sunrise,” he said right off the bat.
As Sadie choked on the breath in her throat, Eve blanched. “Sunrise? Don’t I get some sort of appeal or second chance or anything?”
“No,” Neil said. “The verdict was unanimous on both counts, I’m sorry. Your obvious mental instability wasn’t a mitigating factor, either.”
Eve’s lip began to jabber up and down and she looked completely bewildered as if the idea that she could really die had never entered into the realm of possibility. “W-Will it hurt?” she asked wit
h trembling lips.
This was the Jillybean that Sadie loved so much: soft, innocent, vulnerable. Sadie looked to Neil. ‘No, it’ll be painless” he answered. “We’ll inject you with morphine. Enough of it will put you to sleep and a little more will stop your lungs. It’ll be just like falling asleep and not waking up again.”
Eve was quiet a long time, her eyes fixed on some point far away beyond the walls of the clinic and perhaps beyond the mountains as well. Eventually, she broke her stare and smiled. “Painless? You were always a little bitch, weren’t you, Neil?”
Chapter 31
Jillybean
She heard it all. Eve had pulled her up from the blackness to listen to the trial. The evidence was irrefutable. She had poisoned General Johnston in the hopes of saving thirty-two others...but they weren’t ever going to be saved. That was Eve’s big joke. The thirty-two women weren’t going to be killed, not in the traditional ways. There’d be no executioner’s bullets to the back of their heads, and there wasn’t going to be a hangman’s noose around their necks and there wasn’t going to be a madman’s knife plunging into their bodies over and over again.
No, Jillybean had been fooled. The women were going to remain sex slaves until they died of syphilis or hepatitis, or they angered the wrong man who would crack their heads against a rock and who would then shrug out an apology to this duke or that and then go on their merry way.
Jillybean had heard it all and was glad she was hidden away where no one could see her. She was so ashamed of herself that she wished Neil would speed up the execution. She was looking forward to death. Her death was going to be a good thing for the world. It would be a happier place without her in it and that went double for Eve.
“Now don’t be like that,” Eve said in a consoling voice. They were alone in her hospital room where it was deep, dark night. “You’ve done some really good things. Remember when you saved Neil from that hand grenade? That was good.”
It was a hand grenade that you threw! Jillybean shot back.
“Well, sure, but you still saved him. And what about the bridge? You saved all the renegades there.”
So? What’s your point? Why are you suddenly acting like this? Eve was being nice and Jillybean didn’t trust it one bit.
“My point is that your friends are in trouble and we should try to find a way to help them. They’re going to lose the valley without you. Is that what you want? Do you want to see them driven out of here and then hounded from place to place? How many more people will die if you don’t do something?”
Why do you care what happens to them? Jillybean asked, although the answer was already filtering into her mind. Wait, you think they’ll release us just because we help them? I don’t think they will.
“I do,” Eve said. “All we have to do is dangle a portion of a good enough plan in front of their eyes and make it contingent upon our release. They’ll fold I bet...I think, maybe. They’ll postpone our execution at the very least and that’ll give us a chance to escape. I know you have something cooking. What is it?”
I’m not telling. I don’t want to escape, Jillybean replied.
“Not even to save those thirty-two women?” Eve asked. “For real I mean. You could do it, I know.” A second before, Jillybean had been resolute in her desire to die, now she wavered. Eve pounced: “Think about it. If you save them and save the valley, your slate will be clean. You’ll be one of the good guys again. People will love you and they’ll say: thank God we had Jillybean to save us.”
Pictures flashed in her head: cheering crowds, people waving and smiling, a parade with jugglers and acrobats going down Main Street with her sitting in the back of a convertible pink Cadillac.
She shrugged the picture away. Those are lies. They’ll never let a crazy person go free.
“You never know. If you let me in on the secret, I can practically guarantee we’ll go free.”
And how many people will you kill to guarantee our freedom? I won’t let...
The front door of the clinic came open with its usual squeak and Jillybean could feel a draft of night air come in from under the door. There were soft voices speaking and then the tread of boots in the hall. Someone said: “Good morning,” in what was a whisper.
Eve was suddenly so afraid that she wanted to hide beneath her blankets; Jillybean was filled with such guilt that she didn’t fight it. They hid, remaining perfectly still as the light was flicked on. Through the sheet they saw the silhouettes of two people; they looked like demons to Jillybean, coming to collect her soul.
“Jillybean, it’s almost time.” It was Neil Martin, speaking in a soothing tone. “We have breakfast. I made you French toast. I know it was your fa-favorite.” He sniffled back tears and so did the person beside him, whom Jillybean knew was Sadie by the way she held her slim form.
Although Jillybean wanted to cry, Eve was immediately suspicious. “Why would you make me food if you’re only going to kill me afterwards?”
“I don’t know,” Neil answered. “Tradition, I guess...maybe because it’s a nice gesture.”
“I get it. It’s because you feel guilty,” Eve said. She flung the sheet from her head and stared angrily at the food for a moment before she softened her features and held out her unchained hand. “I mean thanks.”
Neil brought her the tray and then stood back as she began to eat, greedily. “You know Jillybean could save you guys,” she said around a mouthful. “She has a plan, a good one, too, only she won’t tell me what it is. She thinks I’ll be bad or something.”
Sadie’s eyes narrowed, however Neil practically leapt forward. “What’s the plan?” he asked, eagerly.
“Like I said, I don’t know. She knows it but she won’t tell me.” Eve said this conversationally as if it was only an interesting subject to discuss over breakfast.
“Will she tell us?” Sadie asked. Eve grinned but didn’t answer. She stuffed a slab of French toast in her mouth and chewed happily. Sadie grunted before saying: “She’ll tell us but you won’t let her, is that it?” Eve nodded and cut off another mouthful. Neil looked confused and so Sadie explained: “She won’t let Jillybean tell us as long as we’re going to kill her.”
“Yep,” Eve said. “Hey, do you guys have any juice or anything? This is real good French Toast, Mister Neil, but it would go down easier with a drink.”
Neil didn’t make a move for the door. “I might be able to get you a postponement, but I can’t guarantee anything else.”
“Then I can’t guarantee anything either,” Eve stated matter-of-factly. “Like I said this is real good French Toast, by the way. Too bad Jillybean isn’t getting none.”
“Watch her,” Neil said to Sadie and then left the room. While he was gone, Eve and Sadie only stared at each other without a word spoken.
A few minutes later, Neil came back with a wan looking Captain Grey and a sharp-eyed Deanna Russell who seemed to be looking for an excuse to stick needles in Jillybean’s arm and kill her.
Grey spoke first: “Neil has explained to the panel that you have a way to stop the zombies?” Eve nodded. Grey ran a hand through his short hair, looked out the window for a span where the sky in the east was on a countdown to death.
After a sigh he began as if reading from a script: “We will release you, however we have our own stipulations. To start with, I’ll have to be persuaded by Jillybean that this is a legitimate plan. For two, the plan will have to actually work for you to gain your freedom. Number three, you will remain a prisoner and in custody the entire time you are in the valley. Number four, you will only be released once the danger is past. Number five, you will be released at a minimum distance of five hundred miles. I will escort you in any direction you please. Any questions?”
“None.”
“Good. The final stipulation is that you will not surface at any point from now until you have reached that five hundred mile border. That means we will only have dealings with Jillybean. If it is even hinted at that you are running he
r body, this entire agreement will be revoked and your execution will be carried out in the most expeditious manner.”
He paused to take a breath and Deanna was quick to say: “By expeditious, the captain means we will kill you on the spot by any means available...gun, knife, rope, whatever.”
Her blunt words caused Neil to frown. “We will be as merciful as the situation dictates. So, do we have a deal?”
“No,” the little girl stated, bluntly. “I don’t agree to the final stipulation. Jillybean hates me. She might even act like me in order for you to kill us both.”
“You’d deserve it,” Deanna snapped, glaring at her.
Without blinking, Eve glared right back. “She was the one who killed your general, not me. You should hate her just as much as you hate me.”
Deanna started to open her mouth to retort when Neil stepped in between them. “It’s a moot point. The demands are non-negotiable and since you’ve disagreed, we will begin the execution now.” Neil came forward with a second pair of handcuffs. The moment he did, Eve went wild kicking and scratching with her free hand, however she hadn’t nearly Neil’s strength. He pinned her arms down while Sadie held her feet. Deanna took the cuffs and locked the little girl to the gurney with her arms pulled wide.
She kicked as they wheeled her out of the room and only calmed when Jillybean spoke into her ear: They’re really going to kill you. It was a cold realization for both of them and an even colder dread began to filter out of their collective soul. It froze their insides.
Seconds later, they were in one of the operating rooms. It was filled with scowling strangers. Neil spoke to the assembled group. “Jillybean has been found guilty of two counts of murder and is to be executed forthwith. Do any of you wish to change your decision concerning the penalty of death?”
“I take it she didn’t accept the deal?” asked one man in an army uniform. Neil shook his head, sadly. “Then, no,” the man said. “I’m not going to change my mind.” Each person in turn after him, only shook their heads, solemnly.
The Apocalypse War: The Undead World Novel 7 Page 32