“Ticken! Ticken!” he hooted and then plopped himself down in front of the basket, his chubby hands reaching inside.
At the words “fried chicken,” Jillybean was instantly famished. “They must really want us to stay,” she remarked.
“That’s what I said, but it turns out a few of the families raise, like a ton of chickens. Pretty cool, huh?”
It was cool but actually saying that it was cool, wasn’t cool. The words had been spoken with a purpose and it didn’t take more than a half-second for Jillybean to figure out what that purpose was. “You want to go on without me? Why? Why would you think I would be okay with you leaving me…”
She broke off as Connor pulled back from the basket. In one hand he held a perfectly fried drumstick and in the other was a glistening ear of corn which dripped golden juice. “Is that butter?” Jillybean asked, unable to take her eyes from the twin prizes.
“Yep,” Sadie said. She reached into the basket and produced another yellow ear. She held it out to Jillybean. “It’s homemade. They have a butter-churn and everything.”
“A butter churn?” she asked, sounding disappointed. She really liked butter. Sadie held out the second drumstick. “And fried chicken.” She liked chicken as well, and fried chicken she liked most of all. After the rationing that had gone on in Estes, it was like she was in heaven.
On her walk with Father Amacker, she had seen a dozen cows, flocks of sheep and penned-up goats. There had been fields of corn and wheat, and the apple tree they had sought refuge in was one of hundreds. There was more, too. The people had all waved and smiled, and everyone seemed just as nice as could be.
It had seemed utterly perfect and had the world consisted of just Sadie, Jillybean and the people in the town, it would have been ideal. But the world wasn’t like that. It was dangerous, fantastically dangerous.
In her estimation, the town could never be defended. It didn’t sit in a valley with mountains looming all around, but in a shallow dale. The hills surrounding it were too gentle to keep the monsters out, and the roads west and north were too wide open.
There was almost nothing to stop man or beast from invading. Not even the river was much of an obstacle. Although it was deep, it could be bridged with pontoons or, even easier, a few boats could be employed by an army and, of course, monsters could just float across. Having seen the land that looked as though it had been hand-drawn by Norman Rockwell, she estimated that it would take miles of walls and a few thousand warriors to protect it properly. And that would create a new problem since there simply wasn’t enough farmable land to support a population of that size.
“It’s nice and all, but…” Jillybean gazed, pointedly around at the softness of the land and its people. “It won’t last. There’s no future here for anyone. You know that.”
“You wouldn’t have to stay here forever,” Sadie said, now handing over a white dinner plate and cloth napkins. “Just until we get settled, you know, once we find a place, that is. You know I’ll come back for you. Eat. Stop arguing and eat.”
Jillybean ate as ordered. She had a lot to say, however the food was too good and once she started, she ate two pieces of chicken, an entire cob and then she forced down half a tupperware filled with potato salad. By the end, her stomach bulged and she could feel the last bite caught somewhere midway down her esophagus unable to go any further down from want of room. Next to her Connor was covered in bits of everything. He was also somewhat dazed looking as though someone had conked him on the head with a mallet.
After a deep breath and a muffled burp, Jillybean was able to pick up where she had left off: “It’s if you live long enough to come back to get me. You…” Her jaws stretched wide in a tremendous yawn. “You need me.”
Sadie had stopped eating a few minutes earlier; now her eyes were drooping. She barely had enough energy to roll her eyes. “You act like you had to save me every other week. In case you forgot, you only saved me one time and I’m so thankful that you did, but I have been on my own before and I’ve done fine.”
“Well, I’m…” Another yawn. “I’m going with you and there’s not nothing you can do about it. Do you know…never mind, you probably don’t.” She raised her voice, “Miss Rachael, ma’am? Do you know where we can sleep. We’ve been traveling all night and we’re awful tired.”
“And so is Connor by the looks of it,” Rachael said as she and Corina walked over from where some of the moms were chatting.
“Jillybean can use my bed,” Corina volunteered, “and I bet Anita would let Sadie use hers. She’s very excited that you guys are coming to live here. I think it’s cool, too. I heard some people saying you guys are famous. What did you guys do to get fa…”
Her mom silenced her with a quick snap of her fingers and a glare. “Never mind that, Corina. That’s their business and you’re not going to pry. And…what are you doing, Corina? Don’t let Sadie take that basket. It’s too heavy and she’s hurt. Anyways, what was I saying? Oh yes. You can’t volunteer someone else’s bed. Sadie can sleep with Jillybean. Your bed is plenty big enough. It’s a queen.”
Sadie thanked her and told her that she was sure it would be perfect. Bikes were mounted, the basket mounted in front of Rachael and Jillybean riding behind Corina at least until they came to the hill leading to her house. Then the girl became shaky and the bike wobbled, perilously until, winded and sweating, Corina couldn’t go on anymore.
They walked the bikes from there. It was the strangest feeling for Jillybean. She felt like a kid. Not a young person or a child. She felt like a kid from the Before. It felt as if she were going to a friend’s house for a slumber party, where they would stay up late and play games and sneak junk food from the cabinet when the grownups weren’t looking.
The very idea was glorious and proper and good, and for just a minute, she wanted to take Sadie up on her offer and stay behind and be a kid again. She had been forgiven, after all. Her sins were gone, wiped clean by Jesus who, although far away in heaven, still heard Jillybean’s plea for forgiveness.
It made her think: If I’m not a bad person anymore, why can’t I stay? Why is it I’m always the one doing the hard stuff? Can’t someone else…
Her inner voice was silenced as she caught sight of Sadie trudging up the hill to their right, leaning over a bike she had borrowed. Jillybean had never seen her so haggard and tired looking. She was eighteen but, with the bags beneath her eyes and the fine lines beginning to show, the ones that the ladies called a crow foot, she looked forty. Jillybean had a sudden nervous premonition of death.
It wasn’t an extraordinary feeling for her. She’d had it many times in the past and usually just chalked it up to nerves before a battle or before she was about to put the finishing touches on a bomb. It never amounted to much—sometimes people died and sometimes they didn’t.
This was only different because it was Sadie. Why is it that she is always doing the hard stuff: the same inner voice asked. Hasn’t she done enough?
It had been Sadie who had saved the baby, Eve from Cassie. And it had been Sadie who had been drowned to death saving Sarah in New York. And it had been Sadie who had gone into New Eden alone, and it had been Sadie who had broken Grey out of the River King’s prison and it had been Sadie who had destroyed the artillery that had been tearing down the walls of the Blue Gate, and it had been Sadie who had singlehandedly attacked the Azael on the bluff above the Estes Valley.
Jillybean could have gone on and on, but there was no reason. Her sister had done enough, but she wasn’t complaining. “We’ll go on together,” Jillybean told her, “and we’ll find somewhere real nice.”
Sadie gazed at her a long time as they huffed and puffed up the hill. “Okay, we will, but you have to promise me something. Corina,, can you give us a moment?”
“Sure. My house is the blue one. See right there? And my room is the one that points out to the backyard.” She started again, pushing the bike, but stopped after only a few feet. “I don’t want you
to leave. It’s bad for people out there. People leave and they almost never come back. And everyone says we’re real lucky here. They say that God watches over us and that’s why there aren’t all that many zombies. They say there’s like, a bajillion of them out in Denver and New York. Why would you want to go out to those places?”
“We have family,” Sadie told her. It was a simple statement that Corina could understand.
“Okay,” she said, and with a last smile, the little girl began pushing her bike on up the hill. As she went, Jillybean marveled at her tiny size. She was barely taller than her handlebars. And she was so skinny and weak. So vulnerable.
It was a moment before Jillybean realized that she was also that small! “Whoa,” she mumbled without enthusiasm.
“Stuff going on upstairs?” Sadie asked. Jillybean looked confused at the question. The only stairs she had on her mind were the stairs heading up to Corina’s bedroom. Sadie saw the look. “I meant, are you hearing anything?”
At first Jillybean thought she meant hearing anything as in any sound, but then it struck her what her sister was trying to convey. “Like voices? Like Eve? No, I was just thinking that she looks so small and Anita is even smaller. I wonder how they lived. Mister Father Amacker wouldn’t let me stray from what I done wrong. That’s what he said: stray. I was just asking questions is all.”
“I asked Mrs. Nelson, you know, Anita’s mom? She said that they had their trying times in the beginning. You know, the usual stuff: all sorts of people coming and going, and zombies all over the place, and no one knowing what to do. They eventually turned to Father Amacker and things just got better. They all think it’s a miracle and maybe it is.”
Jillybean knew her sister well enough to know that she didn’t think there had been any miracle. “It was probably because they’re all the way out in the middle of nowhere.”
“And because winter came. That’s my guess. When you combine snow and mountains, people and zombies aren’t going anywhere. But…” She didn’t need to go on. Jillybean nodded to the unspoken words: But it won’t last forever. “Anyways, if you are coming with me, then you have to do as I say.”
“I already do listen to you. Like right now you said: ‘and because winter came. That’s my guess. When you combine snow and mountains, people and zombies aren’t going anywhere. But…’ See? I listened.”
Sadie grinned and stopped pushing the bike. “I’m talking about something important.” She reached into her pocket and showed her a yellowed bottled. “Doctor Danahy wants you to take these. It’s Zyprexa. It’ll, uh, make the voices in your head go away.”
Jillybean’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure that isn’t a placebo? A placebo is what means a trick. You say it’s one thing but you mean another, but then sometimes it works anyway. It’s like magic, or something.”
“It’s not a placebo. It’s a neuroleptic. The doctor has one of those big books you used to carry around.
“A PDR?”
Sadie nodded. “That’s the one. I bet she’ll let you borrow it before we leave and I’m sure it’ll say everything she told me. Take half a pill in the morning and half at night. And no matter what, don’t stop taking them once you start.”
“Why not?”
A look of pain swept Sadie’s face. “The voices will come back twice as bad…and you may start to see things.”
Chapter 16
Sadie Martin
The pair slept like cats. The reference wasn’t simply due to the twisted positions they assumed, wrapped around each other or stretched out, or curled in balls, but also because of the length of their slumber: fourteen and a half hours.
They woke, each within seconds of the other, at a little after two in the morning. They sat up, took a look at their watches and sighed, not knowing what to do with themselves. Normally, they would have hit the road as soon as they were dressed, but they were guests of the town in general and the Woods family in particular. It would have been rude.
On tip toe they crept down the stairs, thankful that they were carpeted. Sadie worried that they would be stuck sitting on couches twiddling their thumbs. She didn’t take confinement very well. She always had to be doing something…and that didn’t include reading. Books had never held her attention beyond the first few pages.
Thankfully, the Woods had anticipated them waking as early as they had. They left a kerosene lantern and an in depth note. Upon it were directions to the outhouse, which could be found in the very farthest part of the backyard, under a drooping elm, as well as orders to help themselves to the pantry—they went there first and exclaimed at the biscuits and drooled over the apple pie.
In a hard fought battle of restraint, they only took one biscuit and one piece of pie each, which they ate, sitting across from each other, smiling.
When they had washed down their breakfast with cold water that had been set in empty coke bottles, they poked around in the other items the Woods had set out for them. There were “age appropriate” books, a pile of board games, some puzzles and a stack of clothes to try on that were labeled vaguely as: Gifts.
They went for the clothes first. Jillybean took for herself a pair of blue jeans, four sets of panties, three pairs of white socks, two long sleeved shirts, and two dresses, both of which were white. It was quite a haul made less impressive by the fact that she found only a single set of magenta cowgirl boots to wear.
She wore them with a pair of blue jeans, one of the dresses and a long sleeve shirt which happened to be green. In Sadie’s mind, she seemed to clash with the carpet and the drapes and pretty much everything.
Sadie only had floral print dresses to choose from and thick, sensible, dull wedges, all of which were black and none of which exceeded two inches in height. “It’s like Little House on the Prairie here.”
“I read those books,” Jillybean mentioned as she pulled the white dress on over her other clothes. “They were okay. But you want to know a good book? The Call of the Wild, oh and The Three Musketeers. That was good.” As if reminded that there were books in the room, she went to the stacks and made noises of disappointment. “Read it, read it, read it, looks stupid, looks boring.” Next, she looked at the puzzles and sighed.
“You don’t like puzzles?” Sadie asked, somewhat shocked. “I thought you would. You know, because it engages the mind.”
She sighed again, pushing away the puzzles. “Sequential organization and pattern recognition? That’s not exactly a challenge. Hey, we could play Scrabble.”
It was Sadie’s turn to push away a game. She had played Scrabble with Jillybean before and it had not ended well. Jillybean’s vocabulary wasn’t really on par with her mental capacity, however her ability to see every possible permutation of the seven letters set before her, allowed her to double the score of, not just Sadie, but also Neil and Deanna as well. She felt that she had failed if her words weren’t at least five tiles long.
“Sorry no,” Sadie said, “I just don’t like losing every time. I think I’ll go with one of those crossword puzzles.”
Jillybean smiled at the compliment, and then sighed again as she glanced at the books once more.
As much as Sadie needed to be “doing” something, Jillybean needed to be “thinking” something. She hopped up to explore the house to the full extent that decorum allowed. And then, when that didn’t suffice, she bent the concept of decorum and went anywhere that wasn’t locked.
“Finally,” Sadie heard her mutter after ten minutes had passed. She came back with a leather bound book.
“An encyclopedia?” Sadie asked, though she had expected nothing less.
Jillybean pointed the spine at her. “Edward the Black Prince through Evangelical Association. Everyone says I’m sort of Einstein, so I figured I should know what that is. Does it mean you like school or something?”
“Read the book,” Sadie suggested. The little girl gave the “okay” sign and then cracked the encyclopedia. Her reaction was far more interesting than any crossword. He
r little brow slowly creased the further she went down the page. She then hopped up and hurried out of the room, coming back with two more volumes. With great solemnity, she thumbed through the first.
For an hour, she was silent and then she took the second and cracked it. Now, she began sweating. Up she hopped, hurrying out of the room. When she came back, she had a five-inch thick dictionary weighing down her arms. “Oh, okay” she said, a moment later. “That makes sense.”
Sadie groaned, worrying that all she would hear about for the next month was relativity or quantum mechanics or whatever scientific gobbly-gook Jillybean was ingesting. Just watching Jillybean put her in a stupor and before she knew it, she was asleep again, her head resting on her folded arms.
When she woke, the table was piled with encyclopedias that were flapped open. The little girl wasn’t in sight. Nervous, Sadie crept around the house—no Jillybean and no Corina, either. The six-year-old had been asleep on a couch in what had been at one time, a TV room.
“They’re probably next door,” Sheriff Woods said from behind Sadie, making her jump. For a big man, he was surprisingly sneaky. “The Lopez family raise geese. Got a whole flock of ‘em and they’re going to start honking like crazy in about fifteen minutes.” She didn’t have to ask why in fifteen minutes. The eastern sky was already starting to glow with pinkish streaks. “Corina likes to feed them.”
“That sounds like something Jillybean would love,” Sadie said, unable to hide the sad note in her voice.
Woods caught it. “You two aren’t planning on staying, are you?” He sighed when she shook her head. “You know, I was supposed to talk you out of going. April Danahy said it was important for Jillybean. You know, for her…” He tapped his head.
“I tried to talk her into staying, but she is one headstrong little girl. If I left without her, she’d steal your minivan and hunt me down. She’d find me, too. There’s no fooling her.”
The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice Page 17