The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice

by Peter Meredith

  Jillybean started the bus’s ultimate destruction by leaning out of the windows and bashing out the taillights with the hammer. “Okay, let’s get the first bundle going.” Jason jerked his head around to Sadie who was lost. She hadn’t been around when any plan had been discussed; then again Jason had the same air of confusion about him.

  “Oh, for all darn it,” Jillybean said, opening her lighter. She set the flame to the first bundle of paper. It went right up, filling the back of the bus with smoke and light. “Open some windows!” she screamed over the roar of the fire.

  Sadie clawed at the tabs that unlocked the window and as she did, she watched the fire eating the rear seats and melting the rubber grip surface that ran down the main aisle. Heavy black smoke filled half the cabin and threatened to kill them all in seconds, but then the first windows were opened and it all went out the back.

  “What the hell?” Jason demanded. “What good is a fire on the bus? We need the fire on them!” He pointed at the truck which was trailing fifty yards back now.

  “Get the broom ready,” Jillybean said, acting as though she hadn’t heard a thing he had said. “When I say, go, push the fire out the back.” He started to argue and so she thrust the broom handle at him. She then turned to look out the front window. “Get ready, get ready…now!”

  Just as Todd took them between two overturned cars, Jason, squinting and grimacing from the heat, pushed the stack of flaming paper out the back. It hit the street like a bomb. The papers had been somewhat compressed but now with the momentum and the extra airflow, the stack burst open and everything went up all at once.

  The truck slewed away from the fire. There came a scream of tires tearing themselves to pieces and then a heavy bang!

  “Yes!” Sadie yelled.

  “Get the next bundle,” Jillybean commanded. There was a hill on their right, she went to a window and looked up. “There will be more of them and that’s what means we gots to be…oh for all darn it! Look!” Headlights could be seen cutting through the night heading down a bisecting street. When they passed across the light, everyone instinctively ducked down in their seats.

  All except for Spot. He had been carrying on for some time, barking his fake bark. “Someone shut him up!” Todd yelled. Amy tried, but he wouldn’t listen to her. Jillybean was busy struggling to get a plastic bottle open, so Sadie rushed up the aisle.

  She wanted to simply scream at the man, but she saw that he was shaking all over. He’s insane for a reason, she reminded herself. “It’ll be okay,” she said, quietly petting him just as if he were a real dog. “You need to sit and you need to hush. Be a good boy, okay?” He whined and she took that for a yes.

  By the time she got back to where Jillybean was kneeling, facing backwards on one of the chairs, there were at least three cars in the chase. Two were behind them while a third ran parallel on the next street over.

  “They’re keeping a little further back now,” Jillybean said. She didn’t sound disappointed. She set aside the jug she’d been holding and picked up a box. “I gotted this from the room with all the machines. There was a belt sander and a jigsaw. I think I’ll get a jigsaw when we move to Bainbridge.” She scraped away the tape holding the box closed and now Sadie saw that it was filled with screws.

  With a grin, Jillybean dumped the box into the road way. The screws tinkled merrily as they spread out. She picked up the next box. “What kind of people are on Bainbridge?”

  Jason looked pained. “They’re tough and they’re picky. There’s no guarantee they’ll let any of us stay. I’m worried for Todd. He was pretty high up in the organization. Hatchet-Joe liked him a lot.”

  “Are they good people, though?” Jillybean asked, dumping the second box of screws. All three of them watched, hoping to see something cataclysmic occur when the following trucks hit the nails. At first there was nothing, but then the lead vehicle slowed and pulled to the side.

  “I guess,” Jason said, frowning as the next vehicle came charging up. “They don’t keep slaves or nothing like that. Hatchet-Joe’s group snatches them up whenever they try to leave the island. I never…”

  He hunched as a gunshot rang out. They all dived into the seats. There was a second shot; it was so deliberate that Sadie knew they were going for the tires. Jillybean poked her head up for a flash. “Light the next bundle.” Jason was closest. She tossed him the acetone which he dumped on the pile of construction paper. It went up quickly, covering the rear of the bus in flames. Squinting past the fire, Sadie saw the truck fading back, giving them room.

  “Is this normal?” Jillybean asked. “I mean, is this how you would expect your old friends to react?”

  “They weren’t my friends,” Jason bridled. “And…no. They would have set up a road block by now. I think the size of the bus and all the fire has got them a little rattled. But they’re not done yet. Not by a long shot.”

  Jillybean was quiet, her lips pursed and her big blue eyes narrowed. She was thinking and thinking hard. They were outnumbered and outgunned. What was worse was that they had extremely limited resources: a few stacks of paper, some varnish, a single jug of acetone, and one more box of screws. Sadie couldn’t see how what they had left could possibly save them.

  But if there was a way, Jillybean would find it.

  Five seconds later, the little girl slapped her leg in anger. “We need to get off this road. It’s our only chance. Tell your brother.” Jason just sat there with his mouth open, befuddled by Jillybean’s temerity in ordering strange adults about.

  “Tell him,” Sadie said, making sure he heard the stop fucking around and get going tone in her voice. When he went up the aisle, she turned to her sister. “What about making some sort of cannon using the nails and the acetone. You know, like a potato gun?”

  “Is that a gun made out of potatoes or a gun that shoots potatoes?” she asked.

  Hope flared in Sadie. “It’s one that shoots potatoes. There’s this tube and they stick a potato in one end and in the other they spray like an aerosol or something. When you light it…”

  “The expanding gasses propels the potato,” Jillybean said, her eyes flicking about the interior of the bus. “Sorry, it won’t work. What we need to do is get off this road.”

  “I know these streets better than you!” Todd yelled over his shoulder. “There are barriers everywhere in this city. The people fought tooth and nail for it and the closer you get to downtown, the worse it is.” They were shooting down Aurora Avenue and a few miles away, under the light of the moon, they could see the buildings start to mount towards the sky. Among the dark, brooding skyscrapers was Seattle’s famed Space Needle.

  Jillybean only glanced at it for a moment. They weren’t going to help her. She ran up the aisle, slowing only to say, “Stay Spot,” before going to Todd. “Excuse me, sir? We’re heading into a trap. You know that, right?”

  “It’ll be worse if we get off,” he answered, heaving the big wheel round one way and then the other, dodging a red VW Bug that was sitting upside down, looking like a dead ladybug. “If there’s a roadblock, we’ll ram it. Better one, big crash than twenty medium-sized ones.”

  This explanation seemed to cause Jillybean pain. She stood there, a cringe on her face and one foot tapping while her hands twined about themselves. Sadie knew she was trying to come up with something to convince Todd. She was wasting her time, while the people chasing them were biding theirs. The truck had dropped back and the car running on the street over seemed to be moving casually through the clearer intersections.

  Trouble came pretty quickly. A dozen spotlights lanced out of the night, blazing right into their faces. “Shit!” Todd yelled, hitting the brake. At the same time the tires began to squeal, gunfire tore into the bus. The bullets were aimed low. The first barrage was aimed into the grill, though a few skipped off the front of the hood punching holes in the windshield.

  Everyone dropped low, except for Todd who healed the bus to the right. Bullets ranged along the
yellow metal hide, mostly down low, however two hit higher, crossing through the bus to pop out the other side, narrowly missing Jillybean who went stiff.

  One of the bullets took out the outer back left tire and when Todd got the bus going again, it shuddered worse than ever and was agonizing slow to gather speed. They lost another of the rear tires, seconds later. Thankfully, it was on the right side this time so they were still able to move.

  “Head for the sound!” Jillybean yelled. Her fear could be heard in her voice which was almost a shriek. “Mister Jason, start the next fire, please, please.”

  “We’re not going to the sound,” Todd said. “They’ll box us in and trap us against the river. We’re going to loop around them…if we can.”

  Jillybean turned to Sadie. “Make him take us to the sound. Use your gun if you have to. They’re already boxing us in, Mister Todd. That’s what I would do and that’s what you would do, and that’s what means it’s what they are doing right now. Our only choice is to go to the sound.”

  Todd drove trying his best to dodge the bus around the various obstacles in the street. He was only partially successful. The bus glanced off the charred and skeletal remains of a semi-truck. It felt to Sadie as though the bus was a frantic bucking animal. Jillybean was thrown from her feet, landing in the first row of seats on Amy’s lap.

  “Sorry,” Todd said. “And no, we won’t be going to the sound. If you think you can swim two miles, you’re wrong. Jason and I could do it, but the rest of you, I doubt it. I don’t mean to be a dick, but you’ll drown. It’s not an option.”

  “I won’t drown, trust me. Sadie, you trust me, don’t you?”

  She did. There was no question. “Go to the sound,” Sadie said. “Remember when I said not to question her?”

  “Yeah, and look where she’s got us.”

  Sadie’s dark eyes flashed. “You wanted a vehicle and look what she got for you. Do you think a fucking Nissan Sentra would have been better? Do you think you could have outrun that Porsche with it? Because I don’t. We’re going to the sound, now. Unless you have a better idea?”

  Todd gritted his teeth, his head going back and forth. “No, I don’t but we aren’t going to the sound. End of discuss…” Just then a warning light started blinking on the dash. It was joined a second later by another. The three of them leaned in close and saw that the temperature of the engine was red-lining. One of the bullets must have hit something vital.

  “Son of a bitch,” he growled, turning left to avoid two downed trees that lay across the road. He drove in seething anger for a few minutes and then said, “Fine, we’ll go to the sound.” At the next intersection, he turned west again. The obstructions in the road began to grow in number and size just like he had predicted. When he could, he pounded the bus through and when he couldn’t, he went up on lawns or down sidewalks.

  At one chokepoint, Jillybean called out to Jason: “Get your broom ready to shove out the fire! Three, two, get ready, go!” Jason hesitated at the odd count, dropping the flaming pile later than he should have, but it didn’t matter much in the long run. The truck that was following them didn’t shy away from this threat. It shot right into the flame and came bursting out the other side with only a few pieces of burning paper caught on its grill but these quickly turned to ash or went out.

  “Oh, for all darn it,” Jillybean whispered. Louder, she cried: “Use the varnish as a Molotov cocktail. That’s what means stick a rag in the top and light it and throw it.”

  “Jason knows what a Molotov cocktail is,” Todd informed her. “He’s not stupid. One mistake doesn’t make you stupid.”

  “Yes sir,” Jillybean replied, her head turned to the back. “Throw when you’re ready, Mister Jason.” He had used a pocket knife to cut away part of his sleeve which he stuffed into the mouth of the jug. When he lit the rag, it went up right away, the flames getting so hot, so quickly that the jug began melting at once.

  He cursed as the flames threatened to engulf the jug, his arm and the back half of the bus. Before the truck was really close enough, Jason was forced to throw the jug. It sailed through the air, spewing flames, and landed well in front of the truck. It exploded, going up in a yellow fireball.

  This stopped the pursuing truck. They could see it on the other side of the flames waiting like a lion in a cage, eager for that moment when the bars were yanked up and away. It wouldn’t have to wait long. The fire wouldn’t last.

  Putting out both hands, touching each row of seats as she went, Jillybean hurried to the back of the bus with Sadie following. “Hold my shirt, will you?” Jillybean asked, picking up the last box of screws. She didn’t want to fall out of the open door and since everything was black and smoldering, she couldn’t hold on.

  “Sure. I won’t let you go.” There wasn’t much to let go of. Jillybean was light as a feather. Was she light enough to float? Sadie wondered. She was secretly worried about going to the sound. She was a pretty good swimmer when it came to pools and lakes and having a good time on sunny days. But this was different. It was dark. The water would be cold. The swim would be endless…and Jillybean would never be able to make it.

  Todd took another turn and the truck was out of sight. “Maybe we should try to slip away now,” Sadie whispered to her sister. “Or maybe we could try hiding in one of those skyscrapers. You’re the best at hiding, Jillybean. They’d never find us.”

  “Yeah, they never would,” Jillybean said, grinning. “They’d be so mad it would be funny. But we can’t. There’s no gas down here in the city and that’s what means we’d have to swim to Bainbridge anyways, so we might as well do it now. But boy, is it gonna be cold. I’m not looking forward to that, no way.”

  “But,” Sadie began to say, again in a whisper. Jillybean didn’t hear she was moving back up the aisle going to stand behind Todd. She didn’t need to stand hunched over to see out the front where the wide, dark waters of Puget Sound lay between them and the glowing island.

  The engine was growing choppier by the second and now traces of smoke were beginning to filter from beneath the hood. “We made it,” Todd said, “so what’s the big plan?”

  “Oh, it’s very much simple. You see that long dock thing? Drive off of that as fast you can get the bus to go.”

  Chapter 25

  Jillybean

  Todd threw his head back and laughed out loud. “You want me to drive the bus into the water? Right off the dock? And that’s your whole plan? I have to say, that’s a fucked up plan…actually, you know what? That’s not even a plan. It’s either the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard or the craziest.”

  “Well, I’m not stupid,” Jillybean answered. This had Todd laughing some more. It was an unhinged sound and Jillybean thought: Who’s the real crazy one now?

  Sadie pulled Jillybean back, her black eyes searching the little girl’s face. “Are you sure about this? We could hide. We could…I don’t know, we could do something, anything instead of this.”

  In a way, Sadie was correct. They could do all sort of things, but none would truly help them. They could drive in circles or give themselves up, or they could spend two days hiding in one of the skyscrapers, but what good would that do? They would still be forced into choosing between walking or swimming to the island.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “We should all get our seat belts on.”

  Amy was staring out the window with eyes that wouldn’t blink. “No, no seat belts. Don’t you guys see? When we hit the water, we’ll be trapped!”

  “No, it’s okay,” Jillybean said. “The seat belts have this red button thing. You press it and it just lets you out. Right there. You see it?” Amy looked down at the release button, her eyes beginning to go glassy. “And you need to have your seat belt on. It’s real super important. I know the water looks soft and it is, but it’s the deceleration that will get us. Do you know what that is?”

  Amy wouldn’t stop staring at the red button, and she wouldn’t answer, either. It was starting to ma
ke Jillybean nervous. “Can you help her, Mister Jason, sir?”

  “Everyone, get in your damned seats!” Todd yelled. They were really picking up a head of steam, now, both figuratively and literally. The smoke coming from the engine compartment was broiling up, in angry black clouds that whisked by outside the window, making Jillybean feel as though they were riding across the top of a fierce storm. Sadie pulled her into the seat next to her and even though Jillybean was a big girl and knew how to be a surgeon and how to build bombs and all sorts of stuff, Sadie buckled her belt for her and yanked the strap tight.

  “Pretend it’s an amusement park ride,” she told Jillybean. The bus bounced again, whamming up and down like no ride Jillybean had ever heard of. They plowed over a fence and now they were on the dock. Through gaps in the smoke she saw them passing empty slip after empty slip. Todd had been right about this, too. The boats were all gone.

  “Here we go!” Todd screamed. They were seconds from shooting off the end of the dock and in that short time, it did feel a little like an amusement park ride. There was smoke and now flame coming from the engine and the wheels were rattling the boards with a hollow sound, and then there came a moment of quiet peace as they flew off the dock and into the air.

  The peaceful, easy feeling ended with jarring abruptness as they struck the water with enough force to send a ripple through the metal and fiberglass body of the bus. The deceleration was more painful than Jillybean had imagined it would be. Her seat belt snapped so hard that if felt as though she had been kicked in the chest. With the air knocked out of her it was a struggle to get to her feet, but she forced herself to stand.

  “T-to the back. Everyone…get to the back,” she said, wobbling away from the front. Behind her the engine compartment began flooding with what sounded like the hiss of a very large dragon. Beneath that were odd gurgles and a screaming noise made as the fan belts slipped. A single glance back got her feet moving faster.