She started to hurry for the gentle slope to their right, but Jimmy grabbed her backpack with his gun hand and hauled her back. “What about the zombies? There’s a lot of them.”
Jillybean’s face lit up at this. “Yeah and look how big they are. Sadie, my theory is right! They’re still growing. Some of those ones down there are like seven feet tall. They hadsta been feeding like…I mean they had to have been feeding like crazy or there’s something in the water. Do you see that little green lake? I’ve never seen lake water look like that before.”
Sadie could barely make out the distant green lake and so she unslung her M4. The scope on it was an ATN-X that brought the lake twenty times closer so that she could see the yellow gritty sand ringing the lake which, other than a rim of what appeared to be rainbow colored water was entirely green.
“Cool,” she whispered, changing the focus of the scope so she could see a few smaller ponds that were each oddly colored as well. She turned her upper body to take in the area around Old Faithful and caught sight of the first zombie, which, in this case was a real monster.
It stood in the shade of the visitor center, it’s head above the height of the nearest door. Not only was it tall, it was also wide through the shoulders, with a protruding gut. Unfortunately, it was naked save for part of a dirty grey shirt, the collar of which was still about its neck. The rest hung down its back, like a rag of a cape. There were seven others in view and each was just as huge.
“That…that’s crazy,” Steinman said. He too had his rifle up to his scruffy face but he quickly pulled it away to look at Jillybean, who looked startled by his choice of words. Steinman quickly amended his statement: “I mean that is some growth. It’s incredible.”
“Oh, yeah, it sure is,” agreed Jillybean. “I think what might be even more incredibler is that these ones might not have hit their full biggness potential. What if they get to be ten feet tall?”
Picturing such a thing gave Sadie the chills and she shuddered. Their strength and fury would be, as Jillybean put it, “monsterous" and the danger they would pose to humanity would be double or triple what it was now. Another shudder wracked her as a frightening question echoed up from some black part of her mind: would a single bullet bring down a ten foot tall zombie? Even a head shot? If their bones were correspondingly bigger and stronger, how thick would their skull get? Thick enough to be bullet proof?
“In the smaller caliber, probably,” she whispered. Steinman gave her a questioning look. “I think we may need to document this,” she said, quickly. “This…this is important and not just for our group. There’s a gift shop down there. They’ll have cameras, hopefully a polaroid. If not, we can figure out how to develop film. It can’t be that hard, right Jillybean?”
“Sure, I’ll go get one. But you guys should get closer to that geyser. It’s gonna blow soon. I can get a picture of that, too if you want.” She started walking towards the slope, but Sadie snagged her by the back of her now befouled jacket.
Sadie sat her down on a rock and said: “I’ll go. I’m the big sis. Besides, I’m faster.” She also started away.
Steinman grabbed her in much the same way she had grabbed Jillybean. “What the hell, Sadie? I’m in command here. You know it and agreed to it. You both did.” Before they left, Captain Grey had made them promise to obey Steinman. It had been done grudgingly, at best. “I will go,” Steinman stated. “The rest of you, move up to those bleachers, but keep out of sight. Sadie will cover me and Jillybean will have a smoke ready to go, just in case.”
The sisters wore matching exasperated looks, but did as they were told. Steinman took a few minutes to transform himself into a “monster” in the way that Jillybean had taught them—Grey had his stipulations on the trip, and she’d had hers. One of which was her insistence that everyone knew how to dress and act like a zombie. She had taught the class to the two men and then had them demonstrate their knowledge in a controlled environment with a chained zombie from her laboratory.
This would be Steinman’s first real test. Giving his pack to Jimmy and his weapon to Sadie, he first tore up his camouflaged shirt and then applied dirt and mud until he looked…well, in Sadie’s mind he looked like one of the thousands of fake veterans who used to beg at every busy intersection in New Jersey.
Once he got moving, his unsteady lurch and sad moan were good enough to fool the zombies. They paused in their grazing to swing slowly in his direction. Due to their size and the vapid expressions on their grey faces, they appeared ponderous and slow, more like someone had added elephant DNA to a small group of humans.
Sadie, Jimmy and Jillybean waited under a cypress tree. It had a good view of both the gift shop and the geyser, which was beginning to rumble as it puffed out white clouds of steam. “Just wait a few more minutes,” Sadie mumbled, her cheek against the stock of her M4. She didn’t want to miss the geyser, but just then one of the zombies took notice of Sergeant Steinman opening the door to the gift shop.
He had been in too much of a rush and had ducked in and out of sight in one quick move. “Oh boy,” Sadie said. “Look at this goober.” One of the zombies had come plodding up to the store front and was at the double glass doors, staring in.
“What’s a goober?” Jillybean asked, squinting her blue eyes across the seventy yards.
“It’s just a word. Kinda like jerk, but a stupid jerk, I think,” Sadie said, giving the girl with the fly-away hair a quick glance, seeing her in profile, taking in her developing cheekbones, her full lips and pointy chin. She’s going to be a beauty when she grows up, Sadie thought, if she lives that long.
The three of them waited as the earth rumbled and the clouds hissed up. Sadie wasn’t really afraid for Sergeant Steinman. The man had been through the apocalypse and although this zombie was a big one, it wasn’t all that different than any other. Steinman just had to be careful and he would be fine; there was a backdoor, after all.
“I thought a goober was a kind of peanut,” Jimmy said, after a few minutes when the situation seemed to have gone from slightly dangerous to a dull waste of time. “There was this song about goober peanuts, you know, back before the…”
The three of them were jerked from their boredom as the zombie suddenly threw itself through the glass doors. Its strength was such that the hinges twisted and the remains of the door hung like the broken arms of a scarecrow. Sadie threw the M4 up to her cheek and barely had time to aim as she ripped off six rounds, not knowing if she had hit anything. The beast was in the store and its roars could be heard under the cypress.
Sadie hopped up, gun in hand. “Get that smoker ready, Jilly! Use it to hide yourselves. If we get separated, we’ll meet at that green lake in an hour.” She then took one step before the doors were smashed outward by Sergeant Steinman. He seemed to be running in slow motion, barely making any headway. He seemed stretched.
“What the…” Sadie said, as her M4 came up. With the scope, she saw the problem. The zombie had fallen but still had hold of Steinman. There were racks knocked helter skelter and the floor was littered with brochures, post cards, Old Faithful shot glasses and personalized keychains. The beast was sprawled among all of it, looking as though he was actually swimming in the mess. Its legs jerked and spasmed in a kicking motion and one arm swiped back and forth.
The other arm was stretched out with a hold on the soldier’s ankle. With ease, Steinman was pulled back into the shadows of the store. At the last moment, he caught hold of one of the door frames and held on with both hands for dear life.
Sadie dropped to one knee and settled the gun in the pocket of her shoulder, trying to aim past the sergeant. Unfortunately, he took over the entire width of the scope and what part of the zombie Sadie could shoot at around the edges wouldn’t hurt it.
There was only one thing she could do as Steinman’s hands began to slip. “Fuck me,” she hissed and started to ease down on the trigger.
“I wouldn’t,” Jillybean said, shockingly in her normal voice. �
��That’s what will make you crazy. I know.”
Steinman screamed in terror as Sadie hesitated, fearing that Jillybean just might be right. Christopher Steinman was an innocent man and although she would be helping him, she feared she would never forget that face as the bullet destroyed it. A moment later one of his hands slipped and Sadie couldn’t wait any longer. She shot and shot and shot. She fired with her eyes at squints so she couldn’t see exactly what she was hitting, but there was blood, plenty of blood and a strange groan of sorrow.
He disappeared just as her magazine emptied. Then there was silence except for the echoes of the gun blasts that seemed to circle around them, taunting Sadie over and over again.
Just as they died out, the zombie came out of the store, holding the limp body of the soldier as if it were a bloody toy.
Chapter 5
Jillybean
Sadie had been firing on three-round burst and with every pull of the trigger the gun exploded with sound, the waves of it drilling into Jillybean’s ears, going deep, well past her shrieking eardrums and deep into her mind. The pain was intense, far more than it should have been. A scream escaped her as she stuffed her fingers into her ears.
The echoes that came next weren’t simply the fading sound of the gunshots rolling around the expanse of the forest. The echoes were in her head as well, shaking out the whispers from the darker parts where they lurked.
One down, two to go. You’ll be alone soon. And then the monsters will come. Some with teeth and some with claws and other with horns that will rip you up downstairs, in your underneath. Just like the slaver ripped you, and you will bleed and bleed and…
“We have to go,” Jillybean declared, sounding desperate. She had to get away. She had to get away from the whispering. She had to keep moving no matter what. The feeling was urgent and frightening. It was far more frightening than the giant monsters.
Although the entire pack was heading her way, Jillybean didn’t see herself as in any actual physical danger from them. They were big, but still only monsters, and that meant they were stupid. They could have easily been dealt with by one of her Bumble Balls, only she had been forced to give them up. Just then, she had the choice between using a bomb or a smoker. With her brain thrumming with the echoes of Sadie’s gun and the whispers growing and growing, it felt as though her mind was swelling and that if it got too much bigger it would crack her skull wide open.
With all that, there was no way she could use a bomb just then. The smoker would be quiet. It would hiss a little and she felt she could deal with a little hissing. It was the calm approach and she needed all the calm she could get.
Her little hands shook as she twisted off the safety wire, before toggling the repurposed light switch. Immediately, the smoker grew hot and yet, she held it in her palm as wisps of smoke began to roil out. It would soon begin to burn her, she knew that, however as it began to hiss softly and vent plumes of grey, the whispers seemed to fade into the background of her great, swollen up mind.
For just that moment she had the calm she needed, the respite from her harsh unreality. Unfortunately, the smoker began to burn and she was forced to throw it. Right away the whispers came back. “We have to go,” she said again, plucking urgently at her sister’s shirt. They had to get moving. They had to move and not think about dead Sergeant Steinman or the whispers.
Sadie was going through the motions of reloading with shaking hands, her mind not fully on the simple steps. “I should have killed it right off the bat. Why did I wait? Why? I could have put one in the back of its head when it was just standing there.”
“It don’t matter,” Jimmy hissed in a savage whisper. “We have to get the hell out of here, and don’t nobody say nothing about any pictures. I don’t care about any pictures.” He snatched up the extra backpack with his bad arm, barely wincing in pain. Without a look to see if the two girls were following, he took off, hurrying up the path the way they had come.
He was afraid of the monsters; a simple fear for a simple man. Jillybean wished she had those kinds of fears. Her biggest fear was of the whispers caressing the inside of her skull with their poisonous sound. Like the smoke billowing in the forest, the whispers were a cloud that hid something from Jillybean and she couldn’t help wonder what was down beneath them all? What lurked down in the darkness? Was it the hundreds of people she had murdered? Or was it one horrifying beast with a hundred heads and a thousand whispering mouths each clamoring to kill? And what would happen to her if she ever came face to face with it?
Closer to the surface of her mind, Eve began to laugh. It was a simple sound that banished the whispers. A stupid question for a stupid girl. The answer is easy enough. If you ever faced what’s down there, you’ll break because you’re weak. You’ll end up becoming a drooling imbecile who sits in the corner all day until your body withers away into dust. Lucky for you, I would never let that happen. Well, I guess I should say lucky for me.
“Zip it,” Jillybean hissed, afraid that Eve’s words might be slipping out of her own mouth and that Sadie would hear.
No, I won’t zip it. Because of you, I don’t have anything to zip. You took my body, remember? Besides, you need me. You need someone to give you a slap in the face, and speaking of faces, did you see the stupid look on his stupid face?
“Whose face?” Jillybean asked in sudden confusion.
The evil laughter came again. Are you drooling already? This isn’t about monsters or explosions or whispers. This is about Steinman. You got to see another friend die, and it was a good one. What I especially liked was the look of surprise on his face. It was like: Oh, no! A monster’s got me! Ha-ha, what a goober.
“Stop, please.”
No. Consider this a public service. You think I’m evil, but we all know who the real killer is. We all know whose fault it was that Steinman was here? We know who selfishly ran away…
Jillybean’s breath came in sharp as a dagger. She turned to her sister and started pulling Sadie along. “We have to go, please. Now, please.”
Sadie followed and although she kept her face down, the tears dropping onto her M4 couldn’t be missed. Sadie blamed herself for Steinman’s death, which only had Eve laughing louder. The laughter went on and on until it was cut off abruptly as the ground suddenly shook and the sky let out a long sigh.
Behind them Old Faithful shot a fountain of superheated water a hundred feet into the air. It was spectacular as were the many lesser sprays that followed over the next few minutes. Neither Sadie or Jillybean turned to watch. They retreated, following Jimmy who, after only a hundred yards, was turned around and marching on a southern course.
“Where are we going?” Sadie asked after they had staggered through a mile of forest.
Jimmy, looking miserable and sweaty beneath the double load, shrugged as best as he could and said: “I want to go home. This…this is not going to work. They stuck us with a fucked up route and you know what? The only thing we’ve learned is that this isn’t the way to nothing. We should go back. We should go back before something else happens.”
Sadie was quiet for a time, thinking. Jillybean stood blinking, afraid to open her mouth, afraid of what would come out. She had been able to lose herself in the rumble-swish of the geyser and the crunch of pine needles beneath her Keds, but now in the quiet, the voices were coming back.
“No, we keep going,” Sadie announced. “Sorry, Jimmy, but people are counting on us.” She’d been carrying two rifles. Unslinging Wood’s M4, she jacked out the chambered round and dropped the magazine into her hand. For a moment, she looked at the gun, her face twisted into a grimace. She set it against a tree.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Jimmy watched her with a look of incredulity at what she had said. “No, uh-uh. We have been jinxed. Do you get it?” His eyes slid to Jillybean and then quickly back to Sadie. “Jinxed, do you know what I mean? We shouldn’t do anything but get the hell out of here before something else happens.”
> “You can go, if you want,” Sadie told him. “We’ll split what supplies we have three ways and you can go wherever you want. This has always been a volunteer mission.”
He stood there, drawing in a very long breath, trying to decide: forward with a jinxed and crazy little girl, or back, alone. The breath couldn’t go on forever and when he exhaled, he did so as someone who had lost in some way. “Fine, I guess,” he said, dropping his eyes to the gun laid against the tree. “So, which way do we go and what should I do with this?” He meant Steinman’s pack, which was the heaviest of the packs. “I can’t carry both.”
“Can you carry it another mile or so?” Jillybean asked. “There’s gobs of valuable stuff in there we shouldn’t leave behind.”
“I guess I could, but what’s in a mile?” He stood, leaning back, eyeing her as he would an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous dog.
“Some stuff that will make our walk easier.” She couldn’t elaborate because she didn’t know what she would find. She marched them back in the direction in which they had come, moving on a parallel course just in case some of the monsters hadn’t been confused by the smoke bomb she had thrown.
Past the gift shop and the visitor center and the Old Faithful Inn had been a less touristy area where there everything had normal names like: Motel 6, Gas and Go, Smitty & Sons RV Repair and Sales. All of it had to have been picked over for the essentials, however Jillybean felt that there would be plenty left over for her to make their travels on foot easier.
She wasn’t wrong. While Jimmy rested, Sadie and Jillybean slunk through the ruins of what was essentially little more than a pitstop in the middle of nowhere. There was no food or gas, but there were dead RVs, most of which had been laden down with many items that she needed: rope, bungee cords, bikes, and tools.
It was good to keep busy and to use her hands when blood wasn’t involved. Using part of a fence, the axles from a shopping cart, the shoulder straps from one of the backpacks, and four bicycle tires, she constructed a light weight handcart. She even volunteered to put herself in the harness first.
The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice Page 5