The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice

by Peter Meredith

  Grey interrupted him. “Do what you want. Deanna and I are leaving now.” Neil started to splutter, but then the two of them saw the crowd in front of the school. It appeared as though all sixty-six of the remaining people in Estes were gathered there. Some looked angry and others nervous. Clearly the word about Jillybean’s latest mental breakdown had spread.

  “They need you, Grey,” Neil said. “They need us. They need us to stay together and do this right.” Grey marched on, impassive until Neil began to get angry. “Fine, we’ll let them go their own way. They can all die for all we care. Is that how you’re going to be?”

  “Yup.”

  Neil squeezed his hands together in frustration, but by then they were close enough to the others that he didn’t want to carry on the conversation with everyone listening. Like reporters at a press conference, they began shouting questions: Did she really take Emily? Do you know why? Is Sadie dead? That’s what Kay said. Did Jillybean kill her?

  “We’re looking into this,” Neil told them, pausing as Grey marched on. “All we know is that we have two missing children and that we are moving up our plans. We want to be able to leave as soon as possible. So please, gather the last of your belongings as fast as you can. Make sure that you have…”

  He stopped as he saw that many of the people were no longer listening. They were looking into the gymnasium. Neil turned and saw Grey and Deanna, their shoulders touching as they read from a piece of paper. “The note! Thank God.” Neil had been just guessing that there would be one. Sure, it was logical, but Jillybean was crazy and had been for every second of every day that Neil had known her. Logic only went so far with her.

  “What is this?” Grey demanded, showing Neil the note. “What the hell does this mean?”

  Dear Captin Grey and Miss Deanna,

  I am sorry. I think this is for the best. Emily is fine. She is sleeping and is realy cute. Can you please tell Mister Neil, that you can see Yuri’s lab from here in Laramei.

  sinsearly,

  Jillybean Martin

  “It means that we are all in this together,” Neil said, folding the note into a neat square and pocketing it. “It means that Jillybean knew what your reaction would be and how to counteract it. It means she’s lucid and that Emily is alive and well.”

  “And the part about Yuri’s lab?” Deanna asked. “Is this the same Yuri you told us about? Isn’t he in New York City?” The note had gone a long way to alleviating her immediate fears and now Neil could see the shrewd look behind her eyes.

  She knew that there was a riddle concerning her daughter’s whereabouts in the note and that only Neil knew how to decipher it.

  Among the hundreds of slavers and bandits and scrounging people who would kill their own mothers for the zombie vaccination, there had been only six of them on the ferry, held against their will, seven if Nico was counted. There were two of them left alive who knew that Yuri’s laboratory had been aboard The Nordic Star: Neil Martin and Jillybean.

  “As far as I know he’s still there, but Jillybean is in Laramie, Wyoming, or at least was. She has a twelve hour lead and the knowledge of what route is safest. She’s likely beyond it now, but that’s okay, she will have left another note.”

  Deanna’s eyes flashed. “None of this is ‘okay,’ Neil.”

  “I know, but unless you want to go crazy with worry, we will proceed like it is.” Louder, speaking to the last vestige of his people, Neil said, “We will proceed as planned except we are going to accelerate our time frame for leaving…”

  Grey interrupted, “No! You will tell me what you know right this instant or I will beat it out of you.”

  As much as Neil respected his friend and as much as he could empathize with his terrible plight, he couldn’t allow Grey to undermine him, he couldn’t let him and Deanna run off, and he couldn’t let things unravel any further. “Then start beating me,” he said, maintaining his outward calm. Inwardly, he wasn’t so much afraid as he was sad. “The rest of you get your checklists and go down them as fast as you can.”

  Captain Grey’s hands began to clench and unclench, and perhaps he was on the verge of beating Neil, however just then Veronica asked, “Are we going to Michigan after Laramie?”

  This was a difficult question. The spirit of his people had been broken and any talk of a rescue would suggest risks they probably wouldn’t accept. “No. Sadie and Jillybean found us a perfect spot near Seattle. It’s an island, a big one, with electricity and a complete fence wrapped entirely around it. The reason why we initially discounted the idea was because Sadie died on the way back and I didn’t want to put Jillybean through that, but…but she was adamant.”

  “You call stealing a kid, adamant?” someone asked.

  “It’s about as adamant as you can get. Now, let’s get a move on!” Neil clapped his hands like a high school coach. “Double time, people.” They hurried to obey, leaving the three of them alone. “We’ll get her back, Grey, I promise.”

  “A promise from you is worthless,” he sneered. “You’re nothing but a greasy politician. You’ll say anything.”

  The words were worse than being punched. The pain went deeper. “You aren’t wrong, Grey. I’ll say anything and do anything to keep them, and you, and Deanna, and Emily, and Jillybean alive. If that means lying or kissing ass or whatever, then I’ll do it. And if it means putting you in your place in front of everyone, I’ll do that, too. You will listen to me, Grey and do as I say, because right now you’re not thinking clearly. We know what you would do if you caught up with Jillybean, but do you know what she would do?”

  The question slapped the sneer off his face. Jillybean had already killed one baby. “But like I told Deanna, we are going to proceed on the premise that Jillybean is lucid and aware. She has scouted this route already. She knows where the dangers lie and she will avoid them. Hopefully, in a day or two she will feel that we’re far enough along the journey to Seattle that she will let us catch up to her. Or maybe she will radio us. Either way, we have to remain positive.”

  “It won’t be a radio,” Grey said, hollow-voiced. “She knows about triangulation and tracking.”

  “Then it’ll be something else. In the meantime let’s keep busy.” There was plenty to keep them busy. In fact, Neil was so busy that he almost forgot the pain of losing Sadie. It came back full force when his people were assembled and ready to go eighty-eight minutes later.

  As they began their fifteen-hundred mile journey, Neil quickly realized that he had nothing to do but agonize over the loss of Sadie. It would have helped if Grey had let him drive, but the captain was hellbent on getting to Laramie as fast as possible. He needed that next note like a junkie needed his next fix. His eyes were wide and unblinking as he raced out of the mountains.

  Neil tried to slow him down, but he wouldn’t hear it and it made Deanna snappish when he tried. They flew down to the plains and then surged north, pulling into Laramie at just before four in the afternoon.

  “Okay, what’s the note mean?” he demanded as soon as they passed the city limits sign.

  “I’m not quite sure,” Neil said. He saw the two of them were on the verge of exploding, so he explained, “Yuri’s lab was on a boat called the Nordic Star, so I’m thinking we go to the north end of town. She said that we would be able to see Yuri’s lab. There’ll be something, a big boat, or a nordic flag, or something.”

  They were on 30th Street and almost into the empty grasslands on the far side of the city when Deanna screeched: “Northview Street! It’s Northview Street! Right there, turn, turn.”

  Grey heaved the extended-cab Ford 350 to the right and then slowed as they passed a number of dinky cul-de-sacs. “Horizon Court, Eaglecrest Court,” he read off. “Pleasant Court.”

  Northview was a short stretch of road and with only two more cul-de-sacs to go, Neil felt they didn’t need to go any further. “This is it, Pleasant Court. Turn here.” Neither of them asked how he knew. They were looking left and right at the dus
ty houses, hoping to catch sight of a baby or a stroller or something that would indicate Emily.

  Jillybean could be both enigmatic and obvious. Neil saw that one of the mailboxes on the street had its red flag up—it had been duct taped into position so as not to be missed. “The letter is in the letterbox where it belongs,” he said, pointing.

  Both Grey and Deanna leapt out of the truck and ran for the mailbox and poured over the note that had been left there:

  Hi,

  We are both doing fine. I made a playpen for Emily in the back by taking out the seat. She likes it lots and is very happy. Take 80 west to Rock Springs and to where we hid the pontoon boat.

  See you,

  Jillybean Martin

  Deanna had a map, but it really wasn’t needed. They had seen a sign for Rock Springs. It was “only” a hundred and fifty miles away. “We could be there in four or five hours; six at the most,” she said, speaking so quickly that she sounded like an auctioneer. “Where’d you guys hide the pontoon?”

  “Slow down, please,” Neil said. He needed a moment to think whether it was a good idea to go racing off to Rock Springs. It was a straight shot west, directly into the setting sun. It would be an eight hour trip at a minimum and they would be exhausted when they got there. That would be okay with Neil. Driving in the daylight was fine for these desert stretches, but once they hit the mountains of western Wyoming they would have to drive at night.

  Instead of answering her, he ordered an hour-long dinner break, something that didn’t sit well with Deanna and Grey. They ate the quickest and then waited in the Ford. With their anxious impatience hanging over the meal, the hour break was only thirty minutes long and soon the fourteen vehicle convoy was on its way again.

  Neil was right about the sun; it blared into their eyes and after Grey hit two bone-jarring potholes in a row, he reluctantly slowed down. “Are you going to talk about where you hid the pontoon?” Grey asked, when they were putt-putting along.

  “There’s not much to tell. We hid the boat a number of times, each time on a tributary or a canal. So, we’ll look for anything with that name in it.”

  Deanna, sitting in the front seat and looking exhausted from the stress, added, “There are also brooks and streams. Like Stream Drive, though it’s hard to imagine that there would be anything called Stream Drive out here.” They were in the desert, a desert Neil never knew could exist this far north and one that he found himself hating in no time.

  The feeling was mutual among the three of them. The glare was atrocious and they groaned in unison when the sun finally dropped below the distant horizon. Still, with the dark and the poor roads, they could go no faster and it was in the wee hours of the morning when they finally pulled into Rock Springs. Grey insisted that they look for the note. As much as Neil was ready to crawl into the nearest motel bed, he wanted to switch over to a day-sleep/night-driving paradigm.

  There were a few whispered complaints from the others. “I know you’re tired, but this won’t take long,” he told them. It was, after all, a small town and they did have the clue, and yet, finding the next note turned out to be far more difficult than he would have guessed.

  There was no stream this or brook that, and there certainly wasn’t any street name that had to do with canals. There wasn’t a drop of water in the dusty town.

  It felt like they were driving in circles, which in fact they were, when Neil told Grey to pull over. He sat in the backseat, picturing the pontoon and the hasty escape they had made. “We only stopped the thing a couple of times. Once when Jillybean almost froze and a second time when she added this V shaped thingy under the boat.”

  They had actually stopped it one other time, when they executed the Colonel and his men, but he didn’t count that one since it wouldn’t be something Jillybean would dwell on. Besides, there wasn’t likely going to be an Executioner’s Boulevard or a Murderer’s Row. “She had to weld that V-shaped thing onto the bottom of the boat so we dragged it up on a hill, maybe we should be looking at something like Hillside.”

  It was a good idea, however there wasn’t a Hillside Avenue, road, street or anything. Their frustration was beginning to reach a peak and more than once the radio crackled with complaints and demands to “Let’s look in the morning for God’s sake.”

  “Okay, you need to think, Neil,” Deanna said, in a tone that was just a step away from a cat’s screech. “You only stopped twice?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t that far to Cape Girardeau. And once we got there…holy crap. Once we got there we hid the pontoon in what was basically a swamp. Son of a bitch. I know where the note is. We must have passed it five times already. It’s Stillwater Drive.”

  They found the note in five minutes. It spoke more about Emily, blowing raspberries this time, and directed them to Pinedale, but there was no corresponding riddle. “It’s too small of a town,” Neil explained, his mouth stretching in a long, long yawn. “The note is not going to be in a mailbox this time. I’m going to have to figure out where she put it another way. It’s probably in a library.”

  Fourteen hours later, half of which was spent sleeping and the other half driving, they found the note in an electronics shop called Wise Connection. It was sitting in a bundle of fourteen gauge wire, a place where only Neil would have looked. The note gave them a quick rundown of Emily’s health and then a list of roads to follow.

  As always, Grey and Deanna pushed hard to keep going. They were all exhausted and yet, no one second guessed their fear and grief. Only Neil tried to slow things down. He knew that Jillybean wouldn’t allow them to crawl up her ass. She would do something and the more ragged out she was, the more dangerous she would be.

  She gave them a first taste of that danger the next night when Grey’s Ford and the SUV following his had blowouts along a mountain road. If it had been just one tire, no one would have thought anything of it since that sort of thing happened from time to time, but a total of three at once? Neil walked back down the road and came back with a handful of screws.

  “We’re getting too close,” he said. “She could have just as easily used a bomb.”

  Chapter 42

  Jillybean

  Never in her life had she been this tired. She was doing the job of three people: driving, running the drone, and taking care of a four-month-old baby—all the while desperately trying to keep out of reach of what used to be her family.

  They would never have her back and she didn’t blame them. She had kidnapped a baby. It was a given that Deanna and Grey would never trust her again. And not only wouldn’t they trust her, they would do something to her when they finally caught her.

  They’ll kick you out, the ghost of Sadie said from the back. It was hard to hear her with the thrum of the engine and the whispers and the screamers in her head. Jillybean had to lean back and cock an ear. But it may not be that bad. Neil will want to put a time limit on it. Like a year or something like that. And he’ll be fine if you live close by, like in Seattle or one of those other islands.

  “Hmmm, Seattle has too m-m-any m-m-monsters,” Jillybean remarked around a huge yawn. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she forced herself on. The screws in the road had been her first attempt to slow Grey down. She had started her journey with a thirteen hour head start, but that had evaporated to a twenty-three minute lead by the time she had poured the screws across the road.

  She had known they were closing on her even before that. She could almost feel them racing helter-skelter after her but when she saw them a few hundred yards below her, chugging up a switchback on the same mountain as she was on, her stomach had turned flips. She had laid the screws down, but had done so reluctantly, afraid that someone would drive off the road and get hurt. But what was her choice?

  Later that night the sound of their big diesel engines echoed through the mountains. How close or far they were, she didn’t know, but her stomach began to ache again and the whispers had nearly driven her into a screaming fit, so she had used som
e of her precious dynamite to bring down the remains of a huge oak that would have fallen years before if it hadn’t gotten caught up in two smaller trees.

  The oak came down with a satisfying crash and blocked the road just as she had envisioned. It would have to be carved up with a chainsaw, a chore she knew would take them hours—still, it didn’t feel like enough and she had to take some of the pink stuff for her tummy.

  She could only go so fast and stay safe at the same time. Safety was her guide. Her entire journey would be for nothing if Emily were hurt in any way. It’s why she was driving the clunky, armored Camry instead of the much swifter Corolla. The monsters, and they just seemed to be getting bigger and bigger, still couldn’t crack the Camry’s reinforced shell, though they tried from time to time.

  Because of the monsters she told Sadie, “I think I will go to one of the islands if they kick me out. They seem…nice.” They were heavily forested and the vibrant greens had a magical appearance that did something for her; it calmed a part of her that was always running in turmoil. Even thinking about the islands helped her belly.

  In the back area where the seat used to be, Sadie sat hunched beneath the cargo net that doubled as a storage space and a hammock. She seemed lost in the dim interior and only her dark eyes were truly visible, gazing down as Emily reached for one of the bright red plastic rings hanging from the mobile above her. Do you think that a family of wolves might raise you? she asked Jillybean. It’ll be lonelier than you think.

  “Won’t you be there with me?”

  I said I’d be with you always, didn’t I? Yeah, I’ll be there, but I know you. You’ll get bored without some sort of adventure in your life and sitting around on an empty island will drive you crazy.

  Jillybean was tired of crazy. She was tired of the word and how people thought of her as crazy even though they knew nothing about the whispers or the screamers.