Abandoning the plan really wasn’t an option anymore. The valley had been scoured for cars and trucks and busses and even mobile homes. There had been hundreds left, not thousands, which meant their ability to build ever more walls across the highways was very limited, which meant they were doomed one way or the other.
Neil turned from Deanna and ran for the stairs. “I’ve got to talk to Jillybean,” he cried.
It was not far to the clinic where the little girl was being held prisoner and yet he was completely out of breath by the time he arrived. It wasn’t just the altitude or the fact he rarely did much in the way of exercise; it was also the panic over the idea that he had just screwed every person in the valley.
Because of the emergency they were in, Margaret Yuan had lost her C.N.A. and it was a white bandaged Captain Grey who sat at the front desk. He looked sour at having to be cooped up and as Neil fought for air, the soldier gave him a hard look and accused: “You told on me, and now Deanna is having people checking on me every five minutes.”
“It was...for...your own good,” Neil replied, gulping air. “Is Jillybean still here?”
“Where else would she be?” Grey asked. “I check on her every ten minutes, she’s not going to escape if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Even though Neil had personally checked every weld on the gurney, he didn’t put it past her. “Just checking. I need her help; the wall isn’t progressing as well as I had hoped.”
Grey grunted out a mopish: “Yeah, I heard. I’ve been racking my brains but every item that might work requires time we don’t have or other materials that are more scarce than cars.”
“Yeah. Well, wish us luck,” Neil said and then superstitiously rapped his knuckles three times on the fake wood paneling. He left the captain and proceeded down the hall past two rooms occupied by people who had been injured that day: one had a car fall on him and wasn’t expected to make it, and the other had his leg torn open falling off Red Gate 4.
Neil nodded to the man with the leg wound and then went to the next room down. Other than Captain Grey watching from the front desk, it was unguarded. Still there were precautions: the handcuffs, the windows nailed shut, and the alarm built in on the only other exit from the building.
Regardless, Neil looked in on Jillybean, half-expecting her to be long gone. She was still there, looking even more mopish than Captain Grey. And she looked pitifully lonely. “How are you doing?” Neil asked from the doorway.
“K,” she answered with a little shrug.
“Good...that’s good. Hey, uh, Jillybean? I have a question.”
She displayed no surprise at all. “What part of the plan are you stuck on?”
“The wall. We don’t have near enough materials.”
She nodded as if she had expected exactly this. “Do you remember the lights at New Eden?”
Neil closed his eyes for a full five seconds, remembering the lights and cursing himself for not having thought of them himself. “So easy,” he said. “So darned easy. Thanks, Jillybean. I’m sorry that I can’t stay but…” He really had to go; however, the little girl with the fly away hair looked so pathetic that he hesitated.
“You shouldn’t stay,” Jillybean said. “The sun will be down soon and the lights only work at night.”
“I’ll be back,” Neil promised and then ran out of the room. As he ran by Grey, he said: “Remember the lights at New Eden?”
Grey answered: “Son of a bitch!”
Neil grinned as he ran out into the evening. Once again the depot at the Department of Transportation was going to come in handy. They had hundreds of cones with blinking lights.
For the next five hours, Neil put the finishing touches on walls that were so altogether flimsy that in spots they consisted of little more than beams of light.
By eleven that night, the walls were finished and the lights strung. The people were sent into hiding and the soldiers were re-dressed and drilled on their roles in the coming fight. And in all this, Neil didn’t forget his promise to Jillybean.
Thirty minutes before the first detonation was scheduled, he slipped away, driving his Humvee into the deserted main part of the town. Many of the shops were still intact—they were filled with touristy knickknacks and thus of little value to anyone in an apocalypse.
He was sure he would find what he was looking for and in the second shop he visited, he found the doll. It was a foot and a half tall with porcelain blue eyes and perfectly styled hair. Its dress was white and flowing and the shoes on its feet were glass. The doll was perfect and he hoped to God it would work. He had an idea of his own that couldn’t be spoken aloud, that couldn’t even be hinted at.
He brought Jillybean the doll and presented it to her, saying, “This may be the most beautiful doll left in America.”
She stared at it in amazement and then began to slowly nod in agreement. “It is. Thanks, Mister Neil, it’s very nice. It’s…wait, take it back, I don’t deserve it.”
“No,” Neil said, sternly. “You do deserve this. Besides, it’s a gift. You can’t deny a gift. Just don’t let her have it. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“I can’t control her,” she answered, tears growing in her eyes.
“Try,” Neil said. “This is for you only.” When the little girl nodded, Neil left and for the first time in a week he smiled a genuine smile. Jillybean wasn’t the only person who could scheme.
Chapter 33
Captain Grey
At eleven sharp, the power plant feeding electricity to the valley was shut down, the civilians were safely hidden and the soldiers were scattered across the valley in strategic locations. They were dressed in rags and their weapons were stowed in the tall grass or set, ready to go behind rocks or trees.
Neil gave the word. “Go,” he said, simply and, moments later all of the remaining explosives in their arsenal went off in a muffled chain of thumping bangs. There was some light and fire, a few sparks and some smoke that couldn’t be seen in the dark; the explosions were dull and that was planned. They were supposed to be as understated as possible. There was no need to arouse suspicion that a trap had just been sprung, after all.
Grey smiled. “Congratulations,” he said to Neil. The two shook hands as a tremendous flood of zombies swept over the remains of the walls. They were positioned on a hill a quarter mile from the now ruined Red Gate 4. With them was Sadie who would never leave Neil’s side when there was a fight brewing, and Deanna Russell who was equally fierce when it came to protecting Captain Grey.
Michael Gates was also on the hill; he was quiet with simmering anger, hoping to see that his wife’s sacrifices had been worth it. The three battalion commanders were also there along with their radio operators. The commanders were the most pensive. They didn’t know Jillybean or her ability to plan and destroy.
The three colonels took their orders directly from Neil; he had yet to appoint a successor to General Johnston, something that had caused no small amount of consternation among them, which Grey fully understood. No military man really wanted to take orders from a civilian.
It galled them and yet they spent an inordinate time casting glances Neil’s way, wondering if he was seeing them doing their jobs in a professional manner. They each coveted the spot as commanding officer of the valley.
The only person who wasn’t there and who really belonged was Jillybean. Yes, she was a murderer but she was a hapless one who was victim of her own soft heart and the terrible pressures that had been exerted on her by both friend and foe alike. Grey had agreed with her death sentence, though he’d had to drag himself to the decision.
He had viewed her as collateral damage. She had been caught in the crossfire of her own mind. It was unfortunate and heartbreaking but the death of innocents occurred in every war.
“Oh, jeeze,” Sadie said. “Here they come.”
The zombies, finally unleashed, were pouring over the tremendous mound of dead by the thousands; it was a terrifying flood and yet, b
ecause of the dark they were heard rather than seen. Grey, who had been temporarily relieved of his command due to his injuries, put a rifle to his shoulder and his eye to the Starlight scope. The beasts suddenly sprung into “focus.” They were a light green mass of crooked arms and seemingly bald heads against a much darker background.
“They’re over the wall,” he said. Now came the moment of truth. They had no way of really knowing what zombies would do when they were set free after a week of fighting to get into the valley.
The hill was silent, waiting on Grey to update them. The lead zombies didn’t follow the course set for them, nor did they deviate from it, exactly. They stood staring around, wondering why there weren’t people around to eat. They had expected some sort of treat for all their hard work, but there was nothing. The walls had been deserted and all that greeted them was a canyon— natural mountain walls on one side and on the other there was a row of cars that had been heaved onto their sides —nowhere was there food.
The lead zombies stood there in confusion and, seconds later, they were trampled by those coming from behind. Pressed onward from the rear, the horde mindlessly followed the highway. Miles back, the Azael on their horses were pushing them on; unwittingly helping their enemies.
“It’s working,” Grey said when there was no doubt.
There had been a great fear that the zombies would test the flimsy walls of cars running along the highway; these couldn’t stand up to any serious test, however the zombies came on stupid as always, following the path of least resistance.
“Let me see,” Neil said, holding his hands out for the rifle. He looked down the scope for a few minutes before a grin broke out on his face. “Just in case, let’s deploy the pace car.”
One of the colonels spoke into a radio and a jeep flicked on its lights and revved its engine. As expected the zombie hoard picked up speed and charged at it. The driver of the jeep waited until they were twenty feet away and only then did he drive forward keeping just ahead of the flood.
“The plan is a success,” Neil declared.
“It’s a little too early to say that,” Grey said. “Not one of the walls has been tested and they haven’t reached the lights yet.” The question was; would they follow the lights and the jeep or would they stray, flooding the valley at the worst possible time?
They waited for what felt like an agonizing amount of time before the first check point on the road called in: “Pelican 1 is green, say again, Pelican 1 is green.” There were sighs from everyone on the hill. Pelican1 was the call sign of the watcher above highway 36. She was the first of eight spotters lined along the highway. Green meant that the surge of zombies was moving along the road and not attempting to scale the walls or push them over.
A minute later: “Taco 1 is in the green. Repeat: Taco 1 is in the green.”
An hour went by before the slow moving zombies had progressed to “Pelican Point” where the wall of overturned cars ran out and there was no longer anything keeping the zombies from simply walking off the road except some lights on timers.
The lights, spaced fifty yards apart, flickered every thirty seconds, each set at one second intervals so that light looked to be zipping up the highway. This same set up had insulated New Eden—the zombies had been mesmerized by the lights and went round and round the compound chasing them in an infinite loop. This was the same idea except Neil was trying to send the zombies straight through their town and out the other side and into the mountains beyond.
Where they went after that was going to have to be someone else’s problem.
Grey had chosen Veronica to sit atop the hill overlooking Pelican Point. He trusted her judgment. “This is Pelican Point, we are green! Say again, this is Pelican Point, we are green!” In her excitement, she was almost shouting into the radio.
Neil thumbed his mike as soon as she finished. “Pelican Point, this is Noodle. We are reading you five by five. In fact it may be ten by ten so you may want to keep it down. Is the pace car out of sight?”
Veronica was much quieter as she answered: “I waited to radio you until they were, just like you asked.”
“Thanks,” Neil replied and then looked around at the figures sitting around him. They were mere squatting lumps, shrouded by the dark. “Now I can say it: the plan worked.” Jillybean’s plan had been the very definition of simplicity: You can’t win by fighting, she had said, so your first step is to stop fighting. Treat the monsters like a river, control them, direct them, give them something to chase and send them on over the mountains.
One of the colonels said: “I can’t believe it.”
“Why not? It’s simply a judo move,” Grey said, “using your enemy’s strength against him. I just wish one of us would have thought of it sooner.”
“Are we sure we want to let the little girl go?” the same colonel asked. “For one, this girl is clearly troubled and for two, she would be a valuable asset.”
At the term “asset,” Neil ground his teeth. “She is not an ‘asset,’ she’s a little girl who needs to get away from situations like this for her own good. Besides, she is more dangerous than you know. She will get away sooner or later, that is a guarantee and when she does you’ll see that the poisoning of one man was just the beginning.”
This shut the colonel up and no one spoke for a long time. They took turns looking through Grey’s Starlight scope as the masses of zombies moaned down the highway, pushed from behind by the eager Azael and drawn forward by the Jeep and the miles of blinking lights.
They received periodic reports as the night drew on, most of which were simple statements: They’re still going or Taco 3 is still green. Only one held trouble: “This is Taco 6 we have a leak.”
“How bad?” Neil asked. Grey could hear him trying not to let his anxiety come out in his voice—he was failing.
“Not bad,” came the reply. “An old Cadillac fell over. It’s still partially blocking things but we are getting leakers. It’s too dark to see how many, however.”
Silence again on the hill top. This was one of their greatest fears. The Azael would follow quick on the footsteps of the zombies and it was going to be a tough enough fight without having zombies roaming the valley.
“What do we do?” Neil asked.
“We don’t do anything,” Grey answered, “At least not yet. The valley has to remain completely quiet and dead for as long as possible. Any screams or gunshots will have the entire zombie army turning around.”
Doing nothing was nearly impossible for the others: they tapped their toes, or paced or checked their weapons, repeatedly. It was easy for Grey. He was tired and stiff from the night air. His many wounds ached and so he popped painkillers that he knew would make him drowsy. Sleeping was a fine idea. There would be nothing to do while the zombies tromped by beneath their hill by the hundreds of thousands and it would take hours before they had all passed safely through.
Grey zipped his coat tight, leaned into Deanna and was soon asleep as only a soldier could. At dawn, he woke to see only Neil and Sadie keeping watch; everyone else had nodded off at some point during the long night and were fast asleep. Grey stood and stretched as best as he was able to with sixty stitches in various parts of his body and then rubbed himself, working the night cold out of his bones.
When he had his blood flowing, he went to the lip of the hill where he found that the binoculars he had brought with him weren’t needed. The zombies were still pouring over the remains of the walls and were still marching on into the valley and through the town. The entire mess of them seemed very close. In daylight it was a sight that made even a veteran like Grey shiver.
“It’s not going to be long,” Neil told him. “Sadie and I heard the sound of hooves clocking on cement a few minutes ago. Should I cue our horsemen?” Eighteen volunteers who were experienced in handling horses had been specifically outfitted in ‘Angel’ costumes; they and the only horses the valley possessed were hidden in the forest just off the road, ready to keep drivi
ng the zombies on when the Azael broke away.
It was just a guess but Grey figured that the Azael wouldn’t rush into the valley right after the zombies came through. “They’re cowards. They will let the zombies do their dirty work for them,” Grey had said to the volunteers. “Your job is to get those stiffs as far into the mountains as possible.”
“Not yet,” Grey said to Neil. “There’s still too many of them...wait. I was wrong, look!” He pointed down the road where a single glint of metal shone. It was the horsemen of the Azael pushing the last of the zombies forward. The horsemen stopped just shy of the tremendous mound of dead that sat in front of the remains of Red Gate 1.
The mound, comprised of rotting corpses, was too treacherous for their horses and so, after gazing down at the series of destroyed walls and the tens of thousands of dead and mostly dead zombies littering the road way for what looked like miles, they turned their horses around and disappeared on the other side of the hill.
“Now cue the horsemen,” Grey commanded. With three ranking men standing right there, it really wasn’t his place, yet no one even blinked and the order was given. Far down below them, the horsemen split into two groups, one heading to the last of the Red Gates and the other half to the Blue.
The group on the hill had a good view of the horsemen at the Red Gate. Even from a distance, they looked pathetic compared to the Azael. Their “wings” were made of cardboard that had been wrapped in aluminum foil and their “Armor” was nothing more than more foil banded around their arms and legs. The group made a ragged line and took over the process of driving the zombies before them.
“Now for the hard part,” Grey said. He took the radio from Neil and spoke into it: “All teams make ready. Maintain Emcon blackout and don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. Good luck and God bless.”
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