Since secrecy was well out the window by that point, they began to yell Sadie’s name over and over, but in the end they had to give up. Not even Jillybean’s sharp eyes had seen any sign of her.
Sadie hadn’t been on the road, and there hadn’t been any tracks in the snow left by her Converse sneakers, and now she wasn’t in town; there was only one thing to conclude: Sadie had been captured along with the others.
Depressed, and with the dark bearing down quickly, Neil found a little house tucked off a side road where they made camp for the night, but only after Jillybean set traps and flares, and showed Neil two different escape routes and three hiding spots just in case of this or that evil scenario occurred.
There seemed to be a lot of these possible scenarios. She had walked around the house with her eyes slightly out of focus as she imagined all the possible dangerous situations that could befall them, and it was a little distressing when she started reciting them to Neil in a ghostly monotone. She seemed to go on and on and, coupled with his fear for Sadie and the fact there were bandits perhaps lurking nearby and zombies by the hundreds meandering all through the town, it was no wonder that he slept with one eye open and both ears actively trying to listen beyond the usual night sounds for the tell-tale creep of a slaver treading through the snow.
They woke along with the sun and after a quick breakfast, they were ready to go. Neil wanted to go west first, while Jillybean wanted another look at the town. Without argument, Neil turned east and drove once more around the town. It really wasn’t much more than a hamlet and was so little that it took only ten minutes for them to go up and down every street.
Jillybean saw only one thing out of the ordinary: the trucks had apparently not begun their trip in Poudre Park as they had assumed, the tracks had come from somewhere east of the town.
“Which means what?” Neil asked.
Before she answered, Jillybean looked down at her handy map and seemed uncharacteristically uncertain. “I don’t know. Maybe there is a secret hideout like you said, but it doesn’t make no sense. I mean it doesn’t make any sense, thanks Ipes. Why would they have their base so far from anything? It would waste so much gas coming up here all the time.”
The two fell to thinking as the Jeep rumbled on and the morning sky grew bluer and clearer. Neil drummed on the steering wheel, thumping a beat that sounded like the hooves of horses. “Okay, if the people who made these tracks came from the east, then they probably don’t have anything to do with capturing Sadie and the others.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And so we should go east.” He jutted out his chin to see the map splayed between them. With his eyes, he traced the line of I-14 as it squiggled down out of the mountains. “If I was a slaver who had captured Grey and Sadie, I would head out to the lands of the Azael and try to sell them for top dollar.”
“Unless Sadie mentioned who her father is,” Jillybean said. “Then I bet they’d go to the River King’s place and try to hostage her.”
“In which case, they’d head straight east as well. And so shall we.” With their direction set, they sped east, dodging rocks in the road, and zombies coming from all directions. By the time they came to the rock slide that had taken out the road, Neil’s hands were stiff from white-knuckling it for so long.
The two stared at the destruction and both knew there’d be no getting around it. “Okay, maybe those guys with the trucks and the trailers were the ones who got to Grey and Sadie,” Neil said as he spun the Jeep around and sent it racing back the way they had come.
He followed the tracks back through Poudre Park and then deep into the mountains until they came upon a road heading north; the tracks in the snow turned that way and Neil did as well. Hours went by and they stopped only to relieve themselves and to refill the gas tank using five of the jerry cans strapped to the top of the Jeep.
They drove until the sun disappeared behind the mountains and even then Neil, didn’t want to stop. His heart insisted that he keep driving through the night.
The idea that Sadie had been in the hands of vile slavers for five days filled him with rage and fear. He knew Sadie. He knew that she could be fierce and headstrong. He knew that she would fight if they tried to rape her…and his heart broke at the thought of what would happen if she angered the wrong man.
“There’s a place,” Jillybean said, when the sun had been down for an hour and the stars were spilling across the night sky. “Mister Neil, right there. Slow down, there’s the drive…” She turned in her seat to look back. “You just passed it. That was a good place.”
“We shouldn’t stop. They’ve got a five day head start and we need to eat into their lead. I’ll drive tonight and, hopefully, we’ll get out of the mountains. You can drive tomorrow on the plains where it’ll be open.”
Jillybean squinted ahead into the dark, her little nose wrinkling in displeasure. “If you’re going to drive in the night time, you might as well turn on your lights. With all these mountains, no one is going to see us except the monsters.”
After so long, the idea of using lights in the night was now so foreign to him that he hesitated flicking the switch. “Huh,” he grunted as the headlights lit up the snow. “That’s better. You should try to get some sleep.”
“Can I make you something to eat first? We have a few apples or some soup. It’ll be cold. Unless I take out part of the dash.” A flashlight appeared in her hand so quickly that Neil’s eyes were dazzled by it. She scootched off her chair and began to dig through her pack for tools, producing two different screwdrivers in seconds.
She had such a serious look on her soft face that it was at the same time sweet and sad. “It’s okay,” he told her. “I don’t need anything right now. And maybe you shouldn’t mess with that. You don’t want to break anything.”
“Actually, I think I’m going to have to break this panel off. The screws are on the inside of the engine compartment and so the only way to get at it is to either pry it away or cut into it. It’ll be okay, Mister Neil, the panel doesn’t serve much purpose except to hide the guts of the car.”
“Maybe I don’t want to see the guts. Generally, I don’t want to see the guts of anything. Guts freak me out. How about you give me one of those apples?” The apples were getting on in their limited lifespans and were spotty in places and mushy in others. One trick was to eat them without looking and the other trick was for Neil to remember he wasn’t living in the old days when grocery stores never ran out of anything. Nowadays, you took what you could and you didn’t complain.
Jillybean put away her tools and took out her duct tape once more. She calmly taped a can of chili to one of the heating vents. “It’ll be warm, at least,” she remarked. While she waited for it to warm up, she fished around in the back of the Jeep and found a text book of enormous heft.
“Human anatomy?” Neil said, reading the spine. “Why are you reading that?” In his mind, a queer and somewhat evil image accompanied the question: Jillybean huddled over a body, a scalpel in one hand, a candle in the other, hot wax dripping down into an open chest cavity. On the floor around her were organs and pools of blood and on her face a nasty smile.
“I might want to be a doctor when I grow up,” she explained. “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of them and I’ve discovered that when something is scarce it is worth more to people and if I’m worth something to people they’ll want me around.”
Neil felt immediate guilt. It formed a lump in his throat that he had trouble choking down. At last he said: “That’s an admirable goal. If there’s anything I can do to help.”
She didn’t think there was and told him so before pointing her nose back into the book.
The guilt remained in him, churning his stomach. He had failed her time and again and here, once more, she was trying to do good, and once more, someone was judging her…he was judging her.
“You’ll be a great doctor. In fact, I’ll be your first patient. I’ll let you know when I’m sick and you
can fix me.”
“I’m sorry, Mister Neil, but being a doctor is not that easy. From what I gather, it can take a person years to become one. But, I guess if you’re sick and no one else is around, I could take care of you like my mom took care of me. I always got better so she was a pretty good almost-doctor.”
She read until her eyes began to water and her mouth stretched into a yawn every other minute. Then she slept in a cocoon of blankets with her .38 within reach and her grenade launcher propped against the door.
Neil watched her nearly as much as he watched the road. He found her soft child-features to be beautiful in their way. With her mind finally shut down and her cares hidden beneath dreams, she seemed free for once and it showed on her face. The dark circles under her eyes faded and the creases on her forehead disappeared.
It was how she was supposed to look.
“One more adventure,” he said, hoping that he wasn’t lying to himself.
The night turned cold and the snow on the ground deepened. He saw where the tracks of the trucks turned off on two separate occasions, and then turned back onto the road. He didn’t bother to follow where the side roads led; likely the slavers had only gone off to loot a house or two.
He changed his mind with the last turn off, however. It was after two in the morning and the lids of his eyes were desperately heavy. Too heavy for one man to keep up for longer than a few seconds. Twice he awoke abruptly to find the Jeep veering off the road and so he chose this turn off and followed it to a mountain cabin.
Jillybean didn’t stir when he pulled up to the front door and stepped out. Alone, he crept in, his M4 at the ready. The gun wasn’t needed. The cabin was a mess, but it was empty. There were serviceable mattresses on the floor, five or six blankets and enough wood to get them through the rest of the night.
He waited until the fire had thawed out the house before he went back to the Jeep and lifted Jillybean out. She barely stirred and was back asleep on one of the mattresses in no time. It didn’t take too long for him to fall sound asleep as well.
There were no traps and no escape routes and no alarms, and yet Neil slept soundly for four straight hours and didn’t wake until after six with Jillybean shaking him.
“I think there are six bad guys and they stayed here for two days,” she stated before his eyes had completely focused. “They were definitely here longer than one day. That’s for sure. Here you can see where they kinda cleaned up after that first day.”
She hurried to the window and pointed to a garbage bag that was partially covered with snow. “See?”
“I don’t know if I do,” Neil answered. He saw the bag. It was mostly torn in half and a couple of cans were laying here and there. Next to it was a mishmash of tiny prints. “Ah, I get it. The bag had to have been left by the slavers otherwise the rats or whatever would have gotten to it before the snow. And…and…”
He really couldn’t go on. What else did a ripped up bag mean? “And they ate a lot? Enough for two days? Possibly. With those cans and what’s scattered around here, it seems a little light for two day’s worth of food for thirteen people.”
“I don’t think they fed their prisoners much.” She went to stand in the corner of the room furthest from the fire. It was the only part of the front room that was littered with a mess of garbage. In fact, it had been cleared of everything, except next to one wall were two cans of corn that looked to have been licked clean. “I think they may be starving them.”
“Then we better hurry. Five days is a long time to go without food.” They ran to the Jeep, with Neil heading for the driver’s side. The four hours of sleep had left him with enough energy to get them out of the mountains and maybe beyond.
He wished he had some coffee to help keep him awake, but it was a luxury that was rarely found. “And where would I get cream and sugar?” he muttered.
“Sugar comes from a plant and cream comes out of a cow, but you gotta do something to it,” Jillybean informed him. “Like stir it real fast or something.”
She went on for some time explaining the nature of milk and then cows and then bull and buffalo, and Neil didn’t interrupt. He liked her little voice and he liked how animated she became when reciting a litany of facts, one fact jumping to the next, sometimes with the most tenuous of bonds.
For an hour, she prattled on about everything under the sun but slowly she began to tire and eventually she pulled out her anatomy book and took to reading. Neil took to yawning and gazing with dull eyes at the majesty of the Rocky Mountains—just then, he was heartily sick of them and he was sick of the snow and the constant winding and the zombies that were funneled onto the road by the steepness of the walls of rock that surrounded them.
It was all very annoying, and yet when they finally broke free of the mountains and sped down into the plains, he knew this was worse. The land was vast and desolate, so dismally and utterly empty that it was hard to comprehend.
Neil slowed the Jeep and stared as far as his eyes could see—there wasn’t a tree or a house or even zombies in sight. The earth was a relentless brown and above, the sky was a uniform grey, a vast ceiling that was cold and oppressive.
Next to him, Jillybean grunted once at their surroundings and put her nose back into her book, which was far more interesting and colorful. Neil grunted as well—there wasn’t much else to say to such an expanse of nothingness.
He drove on at reckless speeds trying to make up time. Eventually, he saw a herd of zombies grazing like cattle, and then a few miles later he drove next to a double line of trees that ran on either side of a small river, and once he sped through a town that consisted of nothing more than a handful of buildings and a seventy foot tall grain silo.
Jillybean grunted at that as well and eyed it close, very likely recalling how silos had been used as guard towers by the fanatics from New Eden.
They saw some hawks and some derelict cars and deer, but for the most part, the landscape didn’t change at all that day. It wasn’t until four in the afternoon that they saw something that truly got their attention: Parked along the side of the highway were seven tremendous armored vehicles.
“Traders,” Neil said, a nervous twist in his gut. Traders could be dangerous people out on the plain where there wasn’t anything close to real law. Had they not been on a quest, Neil would have skirted wide around them, but there was a chance that Grey and Sadie were in one of the vehicles.
Jillybean reached for her grenade launcher, but Neil stopped her. “Let’s try talking to them first….but just in case, keep it handy.” She reached for the door handle, but he stopped her. “No, it’s too dangerous for you to go. Stay low but keep the gun aimed their way. They’re probably watching us right now and maybe a grenade launcher will make them second guess any shenanigans they may try to pull.”
Neil climbed out of the Jeep as Jillybean threw a blanket over her head to minimize her exposure. “If something goes wrong, I want you to promise me, Jillybean that you’ll go back to the valley and tell Deanna what’s happened. She’ll hopefully arrange a fair trade for Grey and Sadie.”
“I don’t know if I can make that promise. It won’t be her, it’ll be Fred and he’ll be making a trade with my gas and then he’ll kick me and you out of the valley. If something goes wrong, I’ll handle it.”
“Oh boy,” Neil said, turning away. He saw there was no use arguing with her. She had a look in her eyes that could melt steel. “I hope Ipes can control her.”
With his hands raised, Neil approached the huge vehicles. The men scattered on them didn’t see him as much of a threat and only gazed down with mild curiosity. “Who’s in charge?” Neil asked.
Arms stretched and fingers pointed towards the third vehicle to a man who was supervising a tire change. He was round and hairless, save for odd sideburns that started just above his ears and ran down the side of his face.
“His name is Rodriguez,” one of the men said.
Rodriguez stared at Neil with a look of disgust,
both at Neil’s face and at his scrawny size. “You’re a lucky one,” he said, drawling out the words in a thick Kentucky accent. “You’re too small for the arena and too weak for the pits. I guess that means you can remain a free man for the time being.”
This was their version of luck? “Thanks…I guess. I was wondering if I could take a look at your people, you know, the slaves. I’ve been looking for some, uh…uh, action.”
“Action? I suppose I can spare five minutes.” He chortled at this, as did the men who were changing the tire. Neil wasn’t in a joking mood. He was too nervous and the insult went right over his head.
“I just need two minutes, three at the tops,” Neil said, causing the men to laugh harder.
The leader laughed with both hands on his round belly and when he could, he said: “However long it takes you to do your stuff, it’s a flat fee of a hundred, paid up front. Kinky stuff is extra.”
A hundred was too steep just to get a look at who the trader had imprisoned in his vehicles. “Do you have any younger girls in there? Say around seventeen? Black hair? Kinda feisty?”
More jokes sprang up from the group of men; however their leader only stared at Neil with shrewd eyes. “Feisty?” He said the word as if he didn’t know its meaning. “I don’t know about feisty, but I got a couple of girls that might fit the bill.”
“I also want them new…pretty much untouched.”
Rodriguez rubbed the swell of his belly, musing quietly. Finally, he said: “I got some that have only been on tour for a few months. Practically fresh in this day and age. They’re pretty special, though. They might run you one-twenty.”
Neil shook his head, feeling the exchange on an almost psychic level. He was born to negotiate and now that he was in it, his nerves calmed. Unfortunately, he had hit a wall. Rodriguez didn’t have Sadie.
“No. That won’t do. I’m very particular. I’d pay…say five for any information on where I could get a girl like that.”
The Undead World (Book 8): The Apocalypse Executioner Page 27