The Undead World (Book 12): Jillybean & The First Giants [An Undead World Expansion]

by Meredith, Peter

  Christian shook his head. “Sorry. This isn’t just some truck. This is a perfectly designed piece of engineering art. Do you know how much this baby cost? 1.6 million dollars! It’s bad enough you and your bike put some dings init…but like I said, we take the good with the bad. Right? How about we go take a look at that bike of yours. That’s more your speed.” He put a hand on her back and, with a gentle push, started leading her away from the car.

  A litter of paper ran from the car to the bike and Jillybean insisted on picking it all up. Wearing a worried look, she darted here and there after each piece. She had written copious notes on a variety of subjects and didn’t want to have to re-write them all.

  “Who’s this for?” He had a hold of her biology book. There was a tragic gash on the cover and the spine was sadly broken. “I thought you said you were alone?”

  He was about to snatch up another book: her 9th grade algebra book, which had, for reasons that were never explained within its pages, a cover photo depicting a person just about to snowboard off a cliff of ice. She got to the book first. “These are mine. I-I like the pictures.” As the algebra book was thick and heavy and she was tiny and very young, this lie seemed like something that was more believable than the truth.

  “The pictures? What the hell are you talking about?” Christian looked as though he wanted to grab the book out of her arms. Quickly, she stepped back, which earned her a suspicious eye. He thumbed through the biology book, saying, “Hmmm,” to himself. When he had gone through it, fanning the last three-quarters in a blur, he gave her another sharp look. “The truth, now. Whose are these?”

  “Mine.”

  “You know I really don’t care one way or the other, but I just don’t like being lied to. These aren’t the kind of books kids read. And no kid your age is…well, is alive, but if they were, they wouldn’t be alone. The reason I ask either way is that I need some gas and I’m looking to make some trades. That P1 is a beauty, but she’s a thirsty machine.”

  Don’t even think about trading any of my cookies, Ipes hissed.

  Jillybean turned slightly away, muttering, “We could use a gun, you know. And you’re already too fat anyways.”

  Christian had heard her. “I told you I just have the one gun and it’s not for trade. I do have some extra bullets and some canned food. How about you tell me about who you’re with. Let’s start there. How many are with you?”

  Counting Ipes, there were two of them, but since big people never counted Ipes as a real and true person, she said, “It’s just me. I sorta kinda ran away. My people are really far away.”

  His lips pursed again. “Hmmm. You ran away. Hmmm. I take it they were mean?” That was a loaded question. They were angrier than me. It was a true fact that her people had sentenced her to death for assassinating their leader, which was understandable, she supposed. But on the plus side of things, she had given them the key to destroying a zombie army that had been besieging them, and she had practically killed the entire Azael ruling family by herself, thus ending a war her people had no chance of winning.

  “I wouldn’t call them mean. Really, only some of them. My family wasn’t mean at all. They mostly love me, I think. You see, I can be sorta a problem child sometimes. That’s what means bad things just sorta happen around me, but I don’t mean it. I’m being good now.”

  “Do you call almost killing me, being good?”

  “Almost? That’s not fair. I wasn’t even trying.” If she had been trying, she could have killed him with ease. Traps were a specialty of hers. If she had known he was coming and she was in a killing mood, she could have turned that million-dollar racer into something that resembled a crushed beer can. Images of it came to her: the car tumbling end over end, tires flying, glass shattering, a body half in and half out being turned to bloody mulch with each revolution of the disintegrating car.

  It would’ve been easy: a simple log dragged to the far side of the bridge and laid across the road would have done the trick. At the speeds Christian was traveling, he wouldn’t have been able to see until he hit the crest—too late to stop and nowhere to turn.

  She saw this in an instant. Killing came easily to her broken mind. And it was no wonder. She hadn’t finished constructing herself the way everyone else had. Normal people got to practice being human before anyone ever expected to actually be one. It’s what childhood is all about. Children teach themselves how to be human through play in which they mimic what they see around them.

  Pretty much all Jillybean ever saw was killing and pain. She was baptized in a fountain of blood and her lullabies were the shrieks of her neighbors being eaten alive. Yes, it was no wonder that she had already devised three different ways to kill Christian, and that was without trying.

  His brows came down and he seemed a slight bit unsettled by what she had said. Quickly she gave him a nervous smile. “I-I mean, all I did was park my bike on the bridge. I didn’t do it on purpose. And asides, you were the one who was speeding.”

  “I guess I was. Karma, right? We both got a dish of it.”

  He gestured to where Betty Lou lay in a mangled heap in the high grass. The once magnificent purple frame was twisted, one of the tires was popped and the basket was hanging from a single strap like the last relentless tendon holding an executed man’s head to his body.

  But where are the cookies, Ipes whispered, his voice shaking with emotion.

  “They’re with the backpack,” she told him. “We left it on the bridge, remember?”

  “What’s with the backpack?” Christian asked.

  She shrugged indifferently, her eyes never leaving the bike. “Just some cookies for Ipes. Gosh, I don’t think I can fix her.” The tires could be replaced and the straps of the basket could be melted together and then repainted, but the frame would be a job she couldn’t handle.

  “Lucky for you bikes are pretty much everywhere,” he said, dismissing her anguish. “I’d try that little town.” The world on that beautiful was split into two halves: above, everything was the purest blue and below it was a mottled green as far as the eye could see, except for a grey smudge to the southwest.

  Is he going to leave us here?

  “I think so,” Jillybean answered. “Hey, Mister Christian, sir, are you going to leave us here? That doesn’t seem right.”

  “Us?” he asked, with an eyebrow raised. “I knew you weren’t alone.” He raised the gun and his voice. “Alright, come on out. I don’t want to hurt you or take your stuff, okay? I just want to know who I’m dealing with.”

  Jillybean sighed and held up her stuffed zebra. “His name is Ipes and he doesn’t like guns all that much, ‘specially when they’re pointed at him.” Christian’s pursed lips swung to the corner of his mouth again. He didn’t look like he believed her. “It’s true,” she insisted. “It’s just us two. I was having a splash contest when you came along and smashed poor Betty Lou there. And ain’t she…isn’t she proof that I’m alone? Wouldn’t there be a second bike if I was with someone?”

  “I guess.” The gun lowered. He shrugged, looking a trifle confused. “It still doesn’t change anything. You must follow your path and I must follow mine. There is a reason fate had you set your bike there and I have a feeling you’ll find it in that town. Good luck.”

  He’s really going to leave us, Ipes said in amazement. I think we might be better off without him. He is not a good guy. Not that I ever wanted to go with him, but a good guy doesn’t leave a little girl and a starving zebra out in the middle of nowhere, bikeless.

  “I think you’re right, Ipes, he’s not a good guy at all.” Her hair was plastered to her head, her shirt was like a second skin, and she was shoeless—in other words, she looked the human version of a sewer rat, and yet she was able to muster a condescending look that had Christian’s forest-colored eyes growing angry.

  “Don’t try to play the guilt game with me, little sister. When you park your bike in the middle of the fuc…the middle of the road, things are goi
ng to happen. Not bad things or good things, just things. It’s the same with people. There are no bad people or good people, there are only people. Good and bad are a fiction.”

  Jillybean scratched her bottom. “Huh?” Fiction meant story books.

  “It means we have made up the ideas of good and bad. There is no evil and no Satan and no God and no heaven either. The world is just this.” He waved his arms around, gesturing broadly at Missouri. “So just enjoy it. If your joy is a splash contests and zebras and text books, thats all-good. My joy is experiencing everything that I couldn’t before, and I can’t do that with a tag-along.”

  She started to open her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. “There’s no use pleading or batting those big blue eyes. You had people and you ran away. That’s on you. You parked your bike in the middle of the street and that’s also on you. If it was cold or rainy, or if there were zombies about, I would consider giving you a ride, but this just might be the nicest day I’ve ever seen for a walk. I say you make the most of it.”

  With a wink and a look of immense self-assuredness, he turned and walked over to his 1.6 million-dollar McLaren P1. Just as he reached for the handle of the door he stopped with a jerk. “What. The. Hell?” he demanded with his chin raised, his voice raised, his whole physical being raised as if he could lift off from the ground by the ardor of his anger.

  The two tires closest to the Slow sign were flat.

  3-

  “You don’t have no spares?”

  Any spares, Ipes corrected. She glared at Ipes with her lips pursed very much how Christian pursed his. She then hid the zebra behind her back.

  Christian didn’t answer right away. He continued to swell, seeming to expand and expand, looking as though he just might pop. Of course he didn’t and Jillybean knew he wouldn’t, still she let out her own pent-up breath when he suddenly laughed.

  “Just when you think you know what’s what, fate give you a kick in the nards.” He smiled down at Jillybean. “I guess I’m coming with you.”

  Ipes snorted and Jillybean said, “I know, right? Maybe you should be more politer about it Mister Christian, sir. That’s what means you were just telling me that I couldn’t come with you! Who says I want you to tag-along with me?”

  “Well, I’m going to head on over to that town and hope to…hope to heck that they have a tire store. We can either go together or separately. Your choice.”

  “I’d like to think it over some,” she said and turned away, whispering to Ipes, “What do you think?”

  I don’t know, Ipes answered. There’s something weird about him. His name is supposedly ‘Christian’ but he doesn’t believe in God? That’s whats called a big red flag. And look at his hair. How do you have perfect hair after crashing a race car? You know what I think? I think he could be a child molester. Sure, he doesn’t look like one, but he could be in disguise. This could all be a set-up! He probably popped those tires when we weren’t looking. Aghh! Run, Jillybean!

  Although she dismissed the talk of him being a child molester, she kept a close eye on him after she agreed to walk with him to the town.

  “I’m not carrying any text books by the way,” he told her as she eyed the remains of her gear. “Take only what you need to.”

  Should I tell him or are you going to? Ipes asked. He was talking about the full five-gallon fuel tank Christian was planning to haul all the way into town. He had heaved it out of the passenger seat of the P1 and had tested its weight on his broad shoulder.

  “Adults don’t like to be told when they’re being stupid,” Jillybean whispered.

  “They get cranky. Still, if there’s any monsters down there, and there always are, it would be better if he wasn’t carrying so much.” She cleared her throat. “I take it you’re getting a car down there?”

  He smiled showing off white teeth in a tan face. “Why else bring the gas? Cars aren’t much use without it.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just that really looks heavy and if there’s any monsters about, well I was just thinking that maybe you didn’t have to bring all of it. Gas weighs 6.3 pounds per gallon. That’s 31.5 pounds and with…”

  “Let me just stop you right there. Thanks for the concern and the math lesson, but I got this. Besides, this is my only container, so I’m stuck. Okay? I’m not going to pour it on the ground.”

  Here was where things got delicate with adults. “You actually have another container,” she told him. He had a half-empty water bottle which he started to lift. She shook her head and pointed to the McLaren. “You can empty all but a gallon or so into the car and then pump it back out if you can’t find the right tires.”

  He said, “Hmmm,” to this as if Jillybean hadn’t already thought through every other course of action. Normally when Jillybean thought of something, she covered all her bases. “I guess that might work,” he said, eventually.

  After emptying most of the gas into the car, the two set off cross country toward the town, each carrying very little. Jillybean had Ipes, her backpack, the algebra book, three cans of food, nine cookies—three for each of them, something that had Ipes giving her the silent treatment—a few odds and ends to guarantee her survival and her homemade ghillie suit. This last had Christian chuckling again.

  She looked at the cloak-like outfit she had put on over her backpack. “What’s so funny? It’s called a ghillie suit and all the best soldier men have them.” Hers was made up of strips of green and brown cloth she had layered over each other so that she appeared like some sort of forest shag monster, except for when she remained perfectly still. Then she seemed to fade into most backgrounds. “I don’t know why you’re laughing. They really do come in handy. The monsters don’t even notice you at all. They think you’re just some sort of walking bush. You know, like a tumble weed, ‘cept a walking weed would be more like it. I could make you one if you want.”

  “I’m good, don’t worry about me. There isn’t a zombie alive that can catch me. I hate to brag, but I’m awful fast.”

  He sighed and stared off into nothing as they tromped through high grass. Jillybean was feeling itchy as her shirt dried. She twitched, making her ghillie suit rustle. Christian looked at her and she smiled up at him. He found the smile disconcerting and looked quickly away.

  I must have been batting my big blue eyes at him, she thought. A mile went by in silence and the entire time, she did her level best not to blink in his direction. When she grew bored, she began skipping which was cool because of the way the suit swished and because she needed to keep up with Christian who wouldn’t slow. Normally, she would never skip in a ghillie suit but he was striding along as big as a billboard. Besides, she liked to skip. It seemed to her the most natural form of ambulation and it was a wonder more people didn’t do it.

  She began to sing a song about a very small spider and a very tall spout. After the third time through, Christian gave her a look, which she interpreted as please stop. Shutting up was difficult for her after being alone for so long and she couldn’t help asking the question that had been eating at her. “What’s a nard? Is that what means your family jewels? I knew a boy named Ricky back in the before. He said he got kicked in his family jewels and said it was worserer than getting kicked in the shin. I don’t know if I believe that at all. Especially when I asked to see those so-called jewels. I guess I was expecting something more, I don’t know, something nicer since he did call them jewels. Jewels are supposed to be pretty, right?”

  “Um,” Christian answered.

  “But what he showed me weren’t pretty at all, no sir. Jewels are supposed to sparkle, you know? These were like skin-colored raisins. I asked Mister Neil about them; he’s my adopted dad, and he…” She paused, noting that Christian was wearing the exact same expression that Neil had. “And he didn’t know what to say,” she finished up, lamely.

  Christian was clearly uncomfortable with the nard talk. He changed the subject quickly. “You gonna do something about that hair of yours? It’s s
tarting to go crazy.”

  “Oh, it just does that.”

  As expected, he said, “Hmmm,” and then was quiet for a few minutes. As he walked, he snatched glimpses of her. “Maybe you should try braiding it. You’d look a lot prettier.”

  For an hour, she thought to herself. She had braided her hair once before. It had taken the better part of an evening to grimace and wince her head into respectability. Sometime during the night, her hair had passed into open rebellion and by morning her hair resembled the Gordian Knot with the tips of a couple of red bows just visible, drowning in a brown sea.

  Remember how after a week you had to cut them out with scissors? Ipes asked, laughing behind a flat hoof.

  “I thought you were giving me the silent treatment,” she reminded the zebra. Christian looked uncomfortable again. “He was saying mean things,” she explained. “Never mind, okay? So, you were going to do stuff that you couldn’t before? Like what? What did you do before?”

  “I was a pro ball player. A little second base, a little shortstop, but mostly centerfield, you know. I bounced around the minors for the last ten years and ended up in Triple A with the Brave’s farm team in Richmond.” He paused perhaps to let her ask more questions, but all this was Greek to her. Mining and farming she understood and being brave was a good thing, but the rest was all babble and what any of it had to do with a game she couldn’t fathom. He went on, “I wonder sometimes if I made the right choice. I had a free ride to Florida State, and what did…”

  “A free ride? Like on a bus or something?”

  He laughed, relaxed now that he wasn’t talking nards with a little girl. “No, it meant they would let me go to school for free if I played ball for them.”

  Now it was her turn to say, “Hmmm.” Hadn’t she played with balls back at her old school? Maybe that’s why she hadn’t had to pay for anything except for milk at lunch. It seemed like a very strange compensation system, but many things that happened in the before were strange to her.