He’s talking himself out of this, Ipes noted. It’s smart. Let’s do the same thing. Those are big monsters and you are just a little girl.
“Hold on, buster. Who are you calling little? You are definitely going in a bag because I don’t want to hear another word out of you.”
“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Christian said with that look adults frequently give her when they thought she was being extra crazy.
This was just everyday crazy and the fact he couldn’t understand that made her cross. “Don’t listen to him, Mister Christian, sir. I swear, he’s just a striped chicken with fur.”
“Sure, sure, that makes sense. But, maybe you let me take care of things. You don’t need to get worked up. You just sit in the shade and relax.”
Ooh, I like this idea. It’s downright chivalrous. He’s like Captain Grey, you know. All tough and manly, and chivalrous. If it wasn’t for that spider laying eggs in his armpit, I’d say you should give him a hug.
“That does sound nice,” Jillybean said, warily. Too many bad guys masquerading as good guys had made her suspicious of kind strangers. “What’s your plan?”
He shrugged—a move that had warning bells going off in her head. Who starts a plan off with a shrug? Someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing, she thought to herself.
“I’ll just do my thing. You know, stick and move. Use my speed and endurance. Trust me, they won’t be able to lay a finger on me.”
Jillybean looked confused. “That’s not a plan at all. That’s just you running around stirring them up.”
“Well I was going to suggest that we repel down from a helicopter, but my ninja suit is at the dry cleaners.” He was making fun of her. She glared, scratching her bottom because her panties had not yet dried completely from when she’d been jumping off the bridge. He rolled his eyes. “Okay, do you want me to draw a map before we synchronize our watches?”
“I don’t even know what any of that means. But I know a bad idea when I hear it and that’s what means what you just said.”
Christian growled from behind his pursed lips. “Until you can come up with a better plan, I think you should give your lips a rest.” He shrugged off his pack and dropped some items from his pockets: a bulky set of keys, a flashlight, the gold lighter, a slim switchblade knife. “Just keep out of sight while I’m gone. I can’t keep an eye on you and the zombies at the same…”
Jillybean wasn’t listening. She was already walking away, heading down the ramp, staring down at the field that was covered in a grey haze through which flickers of red-gold flames could be seen. Off to the right of the field were a sting of undead spectators, gazing dully at the fire. Further off to the right, the church was still being ravaged.
As she stared, a familiar darkness began to form deep in her mind. The town is a trap. We can lure who we want here, the usual hissing voice whispered. We can start rumors. Think about it. The River King might come in person if we start rumors of a dozen gas trucks parked side by side. His greed would be the end of him. He’d come and those beasts would destroy him for us.
“Hmmm,” Jillybean said, unconsciously imitating Christian. It wasn’t entirely a bad idea and the more she thought about it, the more the darkness grew.
Jillybean! Ipes said in that daddy voice of his, again. Don’t you listen to her! The daddy voice immediately shamed her. She knew why. More death was not the answer when it could be avoided.
“We can still kill the monsters, though.” She was sure about that. But how? She turned back to look at Christian, but he was lost in the shadows of the low building. To her the open bay door looked like a huge black mouth and the ramp was its tongue. She shivered as she pictured it closing on them. They’d be trapped in that low brick building with only one another…
She drew in a sharp breath as the plan opened up before her. It didn’t spring to life fully formed like some did. This one took a moment to perfect, but when it did it was almost flawless.
“We need a manikin,” she declared.
“For what?”
“And we need rope and batteries. The big sort. Double Ds.” For some reason that she couldn’t figure out he smirked at this. It was one of those smirks she felt best not to ask about. “And we could use a disco ball. Do you know what one of them is?”
Judging by the eyebrow in the shape of a fishhook, the addition of a disco ball to the already odd shopping list confused Christian. “Yeah. How do you know what one is? And how on earth would it help in anyway?” She told him her plan and he listened, his mouth no longer pursed. His jaw hung open and when she finished, he began to shake his head at her. “You must have seen this before,” he concluded. “Well, it’s a hell of a plan and whoever thought it up should be given a medal.”
“I thought it up. I don’t like to brag or nothing, but I’m kinda a genius.” She didn’t think bragging about being a genius made any sense. It wasn’t something she had any control over. It wasn’t something she had achieved. That was the thing about being a genius. It wasn’t something that could be trained or exercised into existence. Professional athletes had to train constantly and musicians had to practice, endlessly. Even physicists, as smart as they were, had to build a body of knowledge up, very much like a mountain, before they could excel in any single field.
She didn’t like to brag about this one aspect of herself because it was no more her doing than the color of her eyes—and yet, it had come right out, both surprising and embarrassing her. A flush of pink lit up her cheeks. “Genius is what means I’m really smart, only it doesn’t feel that way to me. I just feel like me, you know? It’s everyone else that’s, you know.”
“Stupid?
Automatically, she nodded until, too late, she realized that Christian fell into the subset of “everyone else.”
“Um, not necessarily stupid. Maybe not everyone is as…” Not everyone is what? she wondered. Not as quick-witted? Not as cognitively efficient? Not as mentally agile? Not able to reason cogently or make logical choices given the circumstances or data presented? Her smile faltered. Everything she had thought of was synonymous with being stupid.
She ended up finishing in a weak manner, “Not everyone is as smart as they could be.” He was staring at her with those intense hazel eyes and she began to stammer, “And, and, and I shouldn’t have included everyone. Not you, especially.” It was strange to her that she wanted him to like her. Then she found it strange that she should find it strange. Wasn’t being liked a perfectly rational desire?
Or you maybe you want him to like you-like you, if you know what I mean, Ipes said, then winked one of his beady eyes.
At first, she really didn’t know what he meant. When understanding finally kicked in, she froze, her big eyes as wide as they could get. She wanted to refute Ipes’ statement with a great deal of fiery temper but, Christian was pretty in that inexplicable way certain people were. More than once, she had found herself studying him as if trying to discover what elusive element he possessed that ordinary people found so magnetic.
She was doing it again, staring openly, however he didn’t notice. He was staring right back. “Remember those rumors I heard coming from Colorado? One had to do with a little girl genius.”
“Girl genius?” Her mouth had gone dry as dirt. “You mean there are two of us? Ha-ha?”
Her skills at lying were at a seven-year-old’s level and he wasn’t fooled. She could see the truth begin to dawn on his face.
8-
“You are her? No way!” He turned to look at the factory as if he really didn’t believe it and figured the real genius might be lurking somewhere nearby. When he turned back, his eyes bored into her. “I heard the rumors and I thought they were just about the tallest tales ever told. But they’re true? All of them?”
“I don’t know what rumors you’ve heard,” she answered, stiffly. Her whole body was stiff. She was afraid to move. “But either way, they’re probably just, you know, rumors and tales, like you said.” She
couldn’t help wondering whether he had heard about what she had done to baby Eve. And had he heard about the ferry boats she had sunk or the cult of Believers she had wiped out? Had he heard that she had helped turn the artillery guns of the Azael on her own people? Hot tears rushed to her eyes and she turned away.
Doubt crept into his voice. “Yeah, some of them have to be just stories. They were so far-fetched that they couldn’t have happened. That’s what I always thought, but then you came up with this plan like it was nothing.” A troubled look turned to a suspicious one. “Tell me, did you really…”
She immediately started shaking her head as she interrupted him. “I only did what I had to. That’s all I’m gonna say about any of that. Okay? Now, if you’ll get a move on with them barrels and such, I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”
In essence she had dismissed him. She was just pulling the hood of her ghillie suit back up when he grabbed her arm. A brief flare of hate burned inside her. It was so hot and intense that if she’d been holding a knife, she would have gutted him…and enjoyed it. Along with the hate and the terrible thought, she could swear she could almost feel his hot blood wash down her hand. A gasp escaped her and she jerked as though she had been burned.
“You okay?” he asked, kindly. He tried to get her to look up into his face. She firmly kept her chin pressed to her chest, afraid that he might see the hatred and evil lingering in her eyes. “Hey, look, don’t be mad, Jill. I won’t tell anyone. You’re safe with me, okay? It’s a weird, weird world now and I know we sometimes have to do stuff that we wouldn’t normally do. If you ask me, you’re a victim. You should have, like a support group or something.”
A support group for mass murderers? Jillybean didn’t think there was such a thing and if there were, she didn’t think she wanted to be anywhere near it. In her mind, mass murderers only deserved death.
Killing them would be a challenge at least, the dark voice whispered. And it would be fun.
The voice was wrong on both accounts. It wouldn’t be fun, it would be horrible, and it wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Jillybean was just too good. She was the best killer and she felt no pride in the fact. In truth, it diminished her. Being a murderer was an eternal point of shame.
She tried to shrug off the voice and the memories of corpses and body parts left in her wake. “Thanks for trying to be nice,” she said giving him a blink of a smile, “but I don’t think I’m anyone’s victim. I’m the bad guy…sometimes.” She turned to go once more and again he took her arm.
“No. You’re not. A bad guy wouldn’t risk their lives for a stranger the way you did. Sure, I wasn’t in any real danger, but you didn’t know that. And would a bad guy try to kill those giant zombies for nothing? And we both know there isn’t much in this town. What do you think we’ll get? A million bullets? I doubt there’s a gun left within miles. Yeah, we might get some food and a few odds and ends but compare that to the risk.”
What risk? she wanted to ask. She had already assessed her enemies’ strengths, which were few but impressive and their weaknesses which were glaring. In relation to her plan, the risk in trying to kill them was actually slightly less than not trying to kill them. At least in the attempt she was being proactive. She was setting the terms of the encounter and as she knew monsters better than they knew themselves, she felt she could guess with some accuracy what they were going to do.
There was no way to be a hundred percent sure of anything with the monsters. At times, they were like the Leaping Joggle Hopper, a pebble or a stray butterfly could change their course, and with the size and strength of the giants, that tiny bit of unpredictability could make them more dangerous than anything she’d ever faced.
And that’s why you need him, Ipes said, patting her on the shoulder from his spot in the backpack. He’ll give you that little bit of security you need. And so what if he knows your secret? He’s already basically said that it’s okay with him.
“Maybe that means he’s done something even worser,” she said under her breath. The idea stuck with her. It was strangely appealing. Maybe he had been bad as well but was now trying to be good, like her. She was suddenly shy, but she had to know. “You said we all done things that were bad. You know stuff we weren’t proud of. What did you do?”
He had been looking at her with his handsome face set in a look of rugged moral superiority. He was the adult. He was the alpha male and she was just the fifty-pound weakling. He was the priest and she the sinner. But her question turned that around.
Christian lips pursed tightly until there were a dozen little lines in them. “I’ll tell you if you tell me whether you blew up the River King’s bridge.”
She nodded, her own lips pursed. “I used about a whole lotta C4. There was this army man who made a bomb and I saw what he did and just copied it. It really isn’t that hard.” She ended with a shrug.
He believed her. “Oh, wow. So, it really is you.” She nodded again. “Okay, my turn.” He looked away for a moment, his eyes at squints, peering at a puffy cloud that had been parked in the sky for the last hour or so. “I used to play the field a lot. You know, a girl in every port, and like a week before we started hearing about the zombies this one girl tells me she’s pregnant.”
“With a baby?”
“Yeah, and I was all like, it’s not mine. But it was and I knew it. She was really into me. I know when a girl is falling for me and I usually make tracks before anything like this could happen.”
“So what did you do?”
The lips went tight again and he started shaking his head with a look of disgust. “Nothing. I was in Virginia and she was in Kentucky and I…and I didn’t do anything. The zombies came and I didn’t do a thing. She could still be alive and I could be a dad. That’s what I tell myself, but it’s a lie. She died like everyone else and I didn’t do a thing to try to save her. Pretty crappy, right?”
Jillybean nodded, which he found funny. He then let out a long sighing breath, saying, “Ain’t we a pair?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, but quickly changed her mind. “Maybe we really aren’t. You don’t like tag-alongs, amember?”
“Normally I don’t. Kids are…hard. They whine; they do stupid things; people are always making excuses for them. You seem different. Like you’re independent. It’s funny. You kicked me to curb back there and, I don’t mean to sound conceited, but no woman has ever done that, ever. You stuck out your hand and said I’m outta here. At first I was like, good riddance, but you stuck in my head. Who knows, maybe if I can put up with you, I can figure out how to put up with any kid. Sorry if that came out weird. I know the problem is with me, not with you.”
He sighed again and so did she in unconscious imitation. “I’m sorta in the same boat as you are,” she told him. “That’s what means I’m out here because I don’t know if I can be around people no more. Things always just happen. Bad things, I mean. And it’s almost always not my fault. Almost.”
“Maybe we should stick together then. I can learn to like a kid and you can learn…whatever you need to learn. What do you say?” He stuck his big paw out and after a moment, she shook it. She couldn’t help the big smile on her face when she shook it. She felt strangely giddy inside.
The two beamed at each other as the last of the field burned and the clouds of smoke slowly dissipated and the zombies tore down the church. When it came down, its big bell clanged, the sound hanging in the air for a strangely long time. Christian raised an eyebrow, which she read correctly.
“That was a wooden church. It’s like the Three Little Pigs.” She knocked on the wall of the factory with her tiny fist. “This one is made of brick. It’ll hold long enough to do the job.” She didn’t add: I hope, although she felt it in her heart. The big monsters were an unpredictable variable. Partially unpredictable, she told herself.
She left him then and with her usual efficiency, Jillybean gathered her supplies. There were no disco balls to be had, so she hastily made one from a broken mirr
or and a volleyball. The town was awash in batteries and a shocking amount of untouched food. Of course the perishables had long ago perished so most houses had a lingering sour smell to them. Still she and Ipes were able to nibble their way through an entire box of Pop-tarts as they slowly made their way through the small town.
Her pace slowed even more after she filled her backpack and had to drag along a rusting red wagon. The wagon was an utter necessity once she found the manikins. They were at a combination dog-sitters/beauty parlor/tailor/apparel shop. The shop was also someone’s house, someone with a passion for jelly beans.
Jillybean’s pockets were full as she made her way back to the factory with a blanket covering the wagon.
She found Christian waiting for her just up the ramp. Sweat glistened on his forehead and tiny rivers of it streaked through the dust that covered him. Because of the shadows, his eyes looked dark, and with his filthy torn up shirt and the dust that had turned him grey, Jillybean initially thought he was a monster.
The resemblance was so off-putting that Ipes whispered, Don’t let him touch you. He’s one of them now.
It was somewhat of a relief when he asked, “Did you get everything?” Before she could answer, he went on, “I knew you’d never find a disco ball so, I made one. Come take a look.” He hurried forward and grabbed the handle of the wagon and pulled it into the dim interior of the factory. Hanging from the ceiling just inside the loading bay doors were planks of woods slowly swaying. On the wood were strips of mirror.
“It was nothing,” he told her. “I used the mirrors in the bathroom and glued them on. Then I cut some cords from some of the machines. What do you think?”
She thought that because they were essentially two dimensional, the light from the flames from behind would actually draw the monsters away from the center of the building, which was the exact opposite of what they needed.
The Undead World (Book 12): Jillybean & The First Giants [An Undead World Expansion] Page 8