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

by Meredith, Peter

  First, she had to find him, which didn’t take a detective. A hundred converging zombies were her first hint to his whereabouts. Rushing out of a loading bay door in the back of the building, she saw the beasts lurching toward a white church. A gunshot from the church was her next clue.

  “He’s trapped! We need a distraction.” It would have to be the fastest distraction of her life. The big monsters could tear down the church in minutes.

  He is the distraction, Ipes said. We can get a bike and zip out of Dodge before one of those really big ones sees us.

  “Don’t be like that, Ipes. We’re the good guys…”

  Since when? the dark voice asked.

  Jillybean paused, remembering how Baby Eve looked after she died, pale and beautiful, but floppy. And how General Johnston looked at the bottom of the stairs sprawled in a contorted jumble of arms and legs, pink foam coming from his mouth. Jillybean could picture him perfectly, right down to his shining brass belt buckle. She had stood there in shock as he started to twitch; first just a foot and then his entire body. He spazzed for a few seconds, his head making hollow noises as it knocked against the concrete wall.

  “Okay,” she whispered, blinking away the image. “Okay, we’re trying to be the good guys and the good guys don’t run away. Now hush!” The zebra took on a completely lifeless state. His black eyes became nothing but beads of plastic, while hers turned feverishly bright.

  Vague plans came and went, each needing too much time or supplies that weren’t available. Explosions were out because she didn’t have explosives. A fire would have to be set so close that she would likely become the focus of the attack. Sound would only work if Christian would go into hiding but that just wasn’t him.

  In desperation, she stared around until something clicked. It wasn’t a very good something. “Too many possibilities for something to go wrong.”

  Her mind let a thousand things go and concentrated on the very specific problems to the very general plan building inside of her. She had to figure out angles vs momentum, gravity over friction divided by distance, fuel consumption rates and minimum combustion temperatures. There were other variables that went into her simple plan to roll a barrel of flaming varnish towards the church, but they were beyond her ability to manipulate. At a certain point, she could only pray.

  Turning, she raced back into the factory to where she had passed the barrels of varnish, each of which were constructed of blue plastic, stood at about eye level and were almost ten times her weight. Pushing one over should have been nearly impossible for a child her size. Her arms were puny after all. Where she lacked in strength, she made up for in brain power, and if she’d had the time she could have winched the barrel into place so softly that the dust covering it would have gone undisturbed.

  Unfortunately, she had to get it out the back of the factory as fast as possible, which meant there was no time to hunt for ropes and pulleys or to create either from the materials in the building. She had to use what was available: scrap-wood, nails and basic hand-tools. The building was full of all of these.

  In no time, she came back dragging a tarp, on which was a pile of wood, two hammers and a handful of nails.

  Is all of that even necessary? Ipes demanded.

  “Good question.” There were twenty barrels set in five neat rows of four. Each was marked with the distinctive “FLAMABLE” warning. She put the zebra on one of these, then heaved her shoulder into it. “Grrr!” she growled through her small, gritted teeth, as her arms shook with the strain. Using all her strength, she was able to rock one side of it a fraction of an inch off the cement floor.

  That’s enough! I want off, please. Ipes had thrown himself flat; his round, cookie-filled belly pointed at the ceiling.

  “Yes, it’s all necessary,” she told him and put him in his place on her pack. When the zebra was safely out of the way, she grabbed the smallest piece of wood and the steel claw hammer. The three-foot long piece of scrap-wood had been tossed aside because it was cracked and split on one end. This made it useless in the furniture making world, but it was ideal as a wedge.

  Jillybean shoved the broken, angled side as far as she could under the barrel, which was only an inch or so; then took a three-pound sledgehammer in both hands and started beating the back end of the board. Each hit drove the tip of the wedge further under the barrel, lifting it slightly. After five hits, the wedge had lifted one side of the barrel to its maximum: one inch.

  Um, Jilly? I don’t think that’s gonna do it, Ipes said.

  “No duh.” She was already running for the next piece of wood. This too had an angled crack. She stuck it under the first board and hammered it until it lifted the barrel another inch. A third hunk lifted it one more inch. She worked as quickly as possible, hitting each board just enough to lift the barrel. When one side was canted six inches in the air, she heaved up on the uppermost board.

  Once more she growled her little kid growl and her arms shook. This time, the barrel began to tip further and further until it fell over with hearty thump!

  “Perfect,” she whispered. Quickly, she ran to the tarp, grabbed a well-worn claw hammer and some nails, shoved them into her backpack and ran back to the barrel. The easy part was over. Now she would have to roll the barrel forty yards through the factory to the back ramp and no amount of brain power would help.

  It wasn’t easy for such a small child. There were electrical cords running here and there, and chunks of old wood to dodge, and the layout wasn’t arrow straight. Then there was a problem with the barrel itself. It kept wanting to heel over to the right. It was just another variable that she would have to account for.

  By the time she got the barrel to the loading ramp behind the factory, she was breathing in gasps and sweating freely beneath her ghillie suit.

  There was no time to rest. She yanked out the hammer and three of the nails. Two nails went between her lips and the other she hammered into the barrel. She went to hammer the next in when Ipes said, One’s enough! We have to hurry.

  He was right about the need to hurry. Great thundering bangs and explosive crashes were coming from the church. If Christian thought he’d be safe by locking himself in, he was about to get a rude shock. She had already seen evidence that the giant monsters could turn the doors and perhaps even the entire building into kindling.

  She swung the hammer and partially missed, sending the nail bouncing away. Reaching for the next, she explained around the last nail in her mouth, “The second hole counteracts the partial…” She swung the hammer and the nail punched halfway through the thick plastic. “… the partial vacuum created as the varnish comes outta the first one. It’s sorta like science.” She hit it again and it popped through.

  Now, she pulled out both nails and the rich, pleasant smell of varnish filled the air.

  There was no time to enjoy it. The ramp itself posed a new problem, one of control. The ramp led to a parking lot, which led to a road, which ran past the back of the church. It was, more or less, a straight shot. But it wasn’t a perfect route by any means. There was a good chance the barrel would roll to the right and get lodged between the cars parked along the side of the road, or it could roll left and shoot off the uncurbed street and into the drainage ditch that ran parallel to it, or it could simply get stuck somewhere a child couldn’t get it unstuck.

  Or she could play every angle exactly right and save Christian.

  With the righthand turn tendency of the barrel partially counteracting a tilt in the parking lot, she aimed it on a gentle S trajectory, lit the tacky varnish that was leaking from the holes, and gave it a gentle push. Just as she had predicted, the tilt of the road made up for its righthand spin. The barrel, a bright yellow ball of flame, started right, then came left after the ramp as it bounced and spun through the parking lot.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Jillybean urged as the barrel made it through the lot and ran straight and true along the road, speeding faster and faster, leaving a trail of rich, b
lack smoke as it sped for the church.

  Then a stick lying far down the road ruined her well-laid plan. “No!” she cried, contorting her body, much like a poor bowler might, as the barrel suddenly went counter to its spin and its course. It turned directly for the drainage ditch that ran along the far side of the road.

  “For all darn it,” she griped, knowing that nothing could right the barrel now. The smart thing to do was to run and get another barrel, however there was something innately and absurdly gripping about a flaming barrel of varnish speeding out of control and Jillybean did not have the self-control to turn away. She had to see what was going to happen. It was not an everyday occurrence, even for her.

  The barrel turned out to be surprising spry and nimble. It clicked off another unforeseen obstacle, which turned in at a diagonal angle toward the ditch and instead of plopping straight into it, the barrel bounced and flew over the ditch where upon it rolled down a long gentle slope that was filled with high grass and weeds. Although it went slower and slower and slower, it still kept going until it finally stopped in the middle of the field.

  Ipes squinted his beady eyes. He made a humph sound—it looked as though the thick grass had smothered the fire. Oh great. It’s not even still on fi…Flames suddenly engulfed the barrel. They became so brilliant that it was hard to look at the barrel even though it was the sunniest of days. The blaze was so fierce that it eclipsed the fact a smaller fire ran in a line all the way back to the ditch. In seconds, flames had cut the field in half and were spreading, going in every direction, filling the sky with a huge plume of smoke. Once more, Jillybean found herself staring instead of acting.

  Do you think that’ll burn down the town? Ipes asked. No great loss, but that Christian guy is still in the church.

  “No. It won’t burn much other than the field. Unless the wind picks up, the roads will act like fire breaks.” The real question was would the fire eating up the field be enough of a distraction to save Christian. Jillybean’s gut told her it wouldn’t. The fire was going like mad, roiling and spinning little tornadoes of smoke. It was baking hot from even a hundred yards away, but it was that very heat that would make it less of a distraction than she had hoped.

  The fire was consuming what fuel there was in the barrel and the field at a fantastic rate and already there were wide swathes that had been charred down to the dirt. Soon it would be just a black field of ash and when it was, the zombies would still be gathered fifteen deep around the church.

  “We’ll need another barrel,” she said, turning to go back in.

  “Another barrel? For what?”

  7-

  Jillybean let out a little shriek and jumped. It was Christian. He had come creeping up behind her sometime in the last five minutes. Although his cocksure smile had not changed, the rest of him had gone through a bit of a transformation. His torn-up white shirt was no longer white. It was black and damp with more zombie blood. In the few places it was still dry, it was grey with dirt. His blue jeans were torn and filthy, and on his head, somewhat like a tea cozy, was a thick mat of cobwebs.

  The simple act of taking all of this in provided the little girl with enough time to get over her fright. “I was just going to get another barrel in case you needed an extra helping of rescuing.”

  “I didn’t need help to begin with,” he told her. “As you can see, I got out of the situation on my own.”

  Did you see that? Ipes asked, speaking out of the side of his mouth. A spider just went into his shirt. I swear I saw it. It just crawled in and now there’s no way of knowing where it is. It could be in his bellybutton or his…

  “Hush Ipes.”

  Or his armpits. I bet they’re hairy and I bet the spider is all nestled and invisible, just hiding in there making babies. I think I might be sick. Jillybean, we need to check each other head to toe. Start with me. Look for egg sacks. Oh sweet Lord! I felt something on my back!

  Christian scratched himself, making Ipes gag. Jillybean whispered, “That’s enough, Ipes. Do you want to go to timeout?”

  “Something wrong with your friend?”

  “Nothing a ziplock bag won’t cure.” She had meant it to be a threat, but Ipes was all for it. In his mind, suffocating was a better way to go out than having spiders burrowing into his brain.

  This brought out a grunting laugh from Christian. He came to stand next to the little girl. “Man, did you see those things? The big zombies I mean. They were like…” He could only blink dazedly. “I don’t know what they were like. They had to be over a thousand pounds and they were unstoppable. How on earth did they get so big?”

  “They eated a lot. You know, a lot, a lot. See those silos? They came from there and all they do is eat and eat. It’s horrible.”

  “Who votes that we get the hell out of here?” He had his hand raised. “There’s no way we’ll get any gas with those…those creatures around. This place is a death trap.” Jillybean was slow to say anything. She was watching the monsters watch the fire while his words: This place is a death trap swirled in her mind.

  Christian took her silence to mean she was still mad at him. “Hey, look. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so blunt back there. You know, about the cursing and me telling you what to do. So, I guess what I’m saying is that even though you didn’t save me, I appreciate the effort, and maybe you can tag along with me for a little longer.”

  Ipes was fully in agreement. I’m with Christian. He’s clearly seen the errors of his ways. I think we can trust him. Let’s get gone!

  Still she didn’t say anything. She stood there, her huge blue eyes wide and unblinking as she pictured those giant monsters. They made everything seem insignificant and that included her need to replace Betty Lou. What was a bicycle compared to a monster that could tear a house down?

  She pictured the Red Gate barring the way into Estes Park. Could one of those monsters destroy it? Maybe not, but seven of them certainly could. She was sure that seven of them could take it apart with their bare hands. But we’re so far away, she thought, and they would never leave their silos…as long as there was “food” in them. But what would happen when the food ran out? The answer was obvious: the monsters would come out. Now she thought of the Azael. What would happen if the remnants of the Azael could figure out how to harness them? The walls guarding Estes didn’t stand a chance.

  Forget the Azael, Ipes hissed. They’ve gone back to being skulking bandits. What we have to worry about is the here and now. You heard Christian; this place is a death trap. And what is the smartest thing to do when you come to a trap? Avoid it at all costs.

  “I don’t know if that’s really the smartest thing,” she said. Christian thought she was talking to him and his dark brows came down. She didn’t notice. Her eyes were still staring blankly as her belly began to get that achy, airy feeling it sometimes got before she was forced to do something frightfully scary and dangerous.

  Some people said it was like butterflies in their stomachs; she thought it felt like she needed to puke.

  “The smart thing would be to kill them,” she said, again speaking to Ipes.

  Christian’s jaw dropped open. He started to laugh, then he saw how Jillybean’s jaw was set. “You have got to be kidding me. I’m not getting anywhere near those things. In fact, I’m leaving. Come on. I saw a farm that’s kinda a distance away. We might get lucky with some gas or a vehicle.”

  Jillybean sighed. So few people had the guts to do the right thing. Those giant monsters were a horror that had to be stopped. Many, many people would die if no one did anything now before they got any bigger. “I can’t leave. Not yet. What will they be like when they’re ten-feet tall? Will bullets even stop them?”

  “I don’t know if bullets will be able to stop them now and I’m not about to try to find out. If you want to kill them, you can do it on your own.”

  And you know we can’t be on our own, Ipes said. We’ve gotten lucky so far, but it can’t last.

  Their responses sent a
flash of anger through her. She balled her fists and planted them on her hips. “Okay, if you’re too chicken to do the right thing then get gone and take Ipes with you. Just amember, if I kill them all I get everything in this town.”

  Christian snorted. “Fine. Take ‘it’ all. This place isn’t even a blip on the map. What could they possibly have that I would want?”

  “Almost everything,” she answered, pulling her ghillie suit off and taking the box of Fruit Loops from her bag. She handed it to him, saying, “Guess where I found that?” He seemed uncertain as he looked inside the box. “It was in the one house I went into. It was sitting right out on the table.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, taking a glance at that part of the town that was visible. For the most part, doors were closed and windows were intact. The streets were clear of debris; no bones, no burned-out cars, no cast-off belongings. It was as if the town had been abandoned all at once in a single, unrushed afternoon.

  Christian rattled the half-filled cereal box. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “Wanna know what it is?” Jillybean asked. “This place is untouched. There could be anything out there. Guns, food, gas. Probably enough gas even for your race car. You’ll probably have to get a tower-thing for all the gas you’ll get.”

  She could see him thinking it over and it stopped the ache in her belly. Doing stupid, dangerous things was always so much better when there was another person around, especially such a big, strong person like Christian. He had an easy, commanding way about him that wasn’t an act like she had seen so many times before. As proof, he had gotten away from a hundred monsters, which couldn’t have been easy.

  “I don’t know,” he said with lips pursed. “First off, we don’t even know if those big ones can be killed. Their heads are huge and I only have so many bullets. And second, there are a freakin’ gob of the normal-sized zombies running around. I mean a lot. More than you’d expect for such a dinky town. Maybe I should try taking one of the big ones down with a long-range shot. You know, like a hundred yards or so, then maybe I’ll think about taking on the rest. Maybe.”