The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice

by Peter Meredith

  “What are we going to do?” Neil asked as Grey picked up the .44 he kept stuffed next to the driver’s seat.

  “We do what we have to,” Grey answered and flicked off the safety.

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Neil whispered, his hands going slippery on the M4’s grip. “I guess, I’ll take that other guy.” He lifted his chin towards the second man, who was staring hard at the Ford.

  Casually, Grey waved at the man advancing on them, as he said, “No. Aim for the driver of the Bentley. Man, what a stupid car to drive during…” He paused as the truck was finally able to knock aside what looked like the remains of a Mustang. Someone whooped excitedly and the man heading towards them paused.

  A moment later, he turned and jogged back to the waiting truck. “That was close,” Neil said, sitting back.

  “It’s going to get a lot closer,” Grey said as he followed the Bentley through the hole.

  “Yeah, I know. I just hope that when it does get close it’ll be worth it like Deanna said. I don’t want to die out here for no reason, you know?”

  Grey grunted. It was his way of ending a dark and pointless conversation. He didn’t like dwelling on the negatives, even if they were the most likely outcome.

  They were silent again as they made their way deeper into the city chasing after the men who were chasing after Jillybean. But with such a large head start and such a confusing path she wound, she quickly had cars going in every direction. Neil had to put aside his rifle and take up a map for them to make any sense of where they were going.

  There were more explosions and plenty of gunfire, but every time they raced to the scene, they found only burning cars and roasting bodies.

  During all this, the fight had drifted further and further south. It was just as they were crossing a bridge heading towards downtown Seattle that they picked up her scent again. From their vantage point, they could see dozens of headlights converging toward one central area.

  Grey immediately headed for it, while Neil said, “Oh, boy, that’s a lot of cars. If you figure two and a half men per vehicle, that’s like a hundred guys.”

  “Could be worse,” Grey said. “Remember New Eden? There were more bad guys there.”

  Neil would never forget that crazy night and, it seemed, he remembered it differently than Grey. “Yeah, but those bad guys weren’t like these bad guys, and besides, we had a zombie army.” There was one other difference as well. Under his breath he muttered, “And I had a bulletproof vest.”

  “You’re wrong. There is no difference. We went against very large odds and we won. The same will happen tonight if you keep your head in the game. Now, where the hell are we going? What is this place?” Neil flicked on flashlight to check the map, but Grey shoved his hand down. “Careful. Look.”

  Wherever they were, it was quickly becoming a popular spot. Vehicles of every size began to fill in behind them, while others merged ahead. They were stuck. Neil felt his testicles begin to pull in towards his body.

  “Sit up straight,” Grey said, urgently. They were heading towards a walled-off community where a crowd of guards stood at a gate. One of them glanced into each vehicle as it drove by. “Try to look tougher.” Neil molded his face into a sneer. Grey shook his head. “No, tougher…forget it. Maybe you should, um, cover your face with your hand.”

  Neil, who was on the verge of wetting himself, propped an elbow on the door frame and did his best to appear very interested in the shadows to the right as he looked out his window. Grey slowed the truck, but didn’t stop, saying, “W’sup?” as if there was no question that he belonged. The guard nodded back and then they were through.

  “Oh, crap, I almost peed myself,” Neil said. He wished there was a moment to relax, to gather his wits and his courage, but in less than a minute they were pulling up on the side of narrow road which might have been quaint some time ago with its border of young oaks. It was now teeming with armed men. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Jillybean had been cornered. A strange car sat in the driveway of what looked like a mansion of epic proportions.

  The car, with its armored plating, was obviously some sort of Jillybean creation. Armored or not, it had seen better days and didn’t look like it could go much further.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  Grey started pounding on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched. They were in a terrible position—far worse than at New Eden. “It depends on what they all do. They’ll probably take her inside. If so, I’ll find a way in, free her and meet you out here.” Neil opened his mouth to protest the small part he was to play, however Grey held up one of his scarred hands. “I need you out here just in case things go to shit. You’ll set up in one of those trees.”

  He pointed past the end of the long building to a copse of trees about sixty yards away. “They’ll likely leave guards in front and on the sides. You’ll need to take them out, and, you’ll need to lay down suppressive fire if anyone from the gate comes down, which will be very likely. If we get separated, we’ll meet at the last bridge we crossed. Go north until you hit the channel and then take a left. Got it?”

  There was a major flaw in Grey’s plan and his name was Neil. He was no marksman. He could kill a guard from sixty yards away, as long as he was stationary, but the second he fired, the other guards would duck under cover, at which point Neil would be almost useless.

  “No, I’ll go in,” he said. “It’ll be dim. I’ll blend in better. You’re too…” Neil held his hands wide. “You’re too big. Even in the dark, you’ll stand out. And you’re a better shot. We’ll need you to keep a lane open for us to escape.” Grey started to argue, but there was no time. Jillybean had just stepped out of the car. She was mostly hidden by its bulk, however Neil had caught a flash of flyaway brown hair. “Besides, she’s my daughter.”

  Grey dropped his chin. He had always taken the most dangerous jobs and Neil could tell this wasn’t sitting well with him. But, after a deep breath, he stuck out a hand, which Neil took. “Good luck,” he said.

  “Good luck to you,” Neil shot back. They grabbed their weapons and left the truck, crossing in front of it. They weren’t the only ones out of their vehicles. Most of the other drivers were standing around, lighting cigarettes and talking about their part in the chase.

  Although the driveway in front of the building was relatively well lit because of all the headlights, there were enough shadows between the road and the open area beyond that Neil felt safe moving forward, his M4 in hand. He wasn’t the only one, either. A number of people were curious over the girl and the car.

  Neil stopped thirty-six feet away and stared at his last surviving daughter. He had known her for two years and he saw that she was trying to appear normal, but was barely keeping it together. She would fold soon, falling into herself.

  Who would she be when she came back? And what would she see? And what would she do? There was no telling, but however she came back, it wouldn’t stop Neil from loving her. He no longer had anything left to stop him. No excuses, no demands on his time, no reason to be devoted to her in the way that she needed him to be.

  He actually smiled at the thought—then from the building came a man that wiped the smile away. With his cowl hiding his face, he looked like a demon, one that could crush Jillybean with ease. He stopped and stared at her for a moment, before brushing past her to inspect the strange car she had driven.

  “Holy fuck, that’s a lot of explosives!” the man cried, “Thank goodness none of you fucks managed to stop her, she would’ve blasted you into kingdom come. Where’s that guy who says he knew about computers back in the day?”

  Neil felt his stomach tighten. Jillybean had never met an explosive that she left unexploded for long. Was this her plan? Had she gathered up all their enemies—their current enemies—in one place just to kill them in a fiery explosion?

  Involuntarily, he took a step back, only at that moment, he was knocked into by a skinny, nervous looking man. He and the leader
talked for a few seconds, however, Neil was no longer paying attention. The bomb had him rethinking his plan. It had him thinking that maybe Jillybean had the situation under control. Anyone who knew her knew what she was capable of. They would want to get as far away as…

  Just then Hatchet-Joe punched Jillybean in the side of the head, sending her sprawling. Neil was stunned as though he had been on the receiving end of the blow. He hadn’t come close to recovering when Hatchet-Joe actually stepped on his daughter. He stepped right down on her.

  Neil brought up his M4 halfway to his shoulder, all the while sputtering and looking back and forth from Jillybean to the dark copse of trees where he hoped Grey was even then peering through his scope. If he wasn’t, Neil didn’t know what he would do.

  And his dilemma only grew worse when Hatchet-Joe pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Jillybean’s head.

  He’s bluffing, ran through his head. He’s just trying to scare her. No one shoots little girls like this. In cold blood. In front of everyone, without so much as a…Hatchet-Joe thumbed back on the hammer and the cold as hell look on his face told Neil that he was wrong. He would kill her right there in front of everyone. He would kill a little girl and probably brag about it later.

  Neil’s strength left him as he brought his M4 up to his chin. He felt weak through to the bone as he contemplated what would happen if he killed this evil giant of a man. He was completely surrounded. Three men, wearing the long leather coats, stood seven or eight feet away to his left, another nine or ten were in front of him along the entrance to the building, and perhaps a hundred more were ranged behind him.

  If he shot his weapon, he would die seconds later, and Jillybean would die seconds after that.

  But if he did nothing, he would live. He would live forever knowing that he was a coward.

  What he really needed was for Grey to shoot the man crushing his foot down onto the defenseless girl. That was the only way. There would be chaos and fear and people shooting in every direction. That was Jillybean’s only chance.

  Neil dropped the gun from his chin and started pointing frantically at Hatchet-Joe. He jabbed his extended index finger four times before everything took on a slow-motion feeling—the slaver nearest to Neil looked his way, his face hardening with suspicion, while at the same time, Jillybean slowly turned away from the gun pointing down at her; she reached out a hand and Neil thought she was reaching out for him.

  His jabbing finger paused just as Hatchet-Joe’s hand flexed and fire from the barrel of his gun flashed, etching itself into Neil’s mind. The sound of a strangely long gunshot reverberated, seeming to come from all around Neil. And then Jillybean’s body jerked and blood shot up in a mist.

  Time slowed even more as Neil felt his legs turn to jello as whatever power keeping him alive and upright seemed to be giving way. His knees unbuckled and he fell sideways. The tip of the M4 caught in the dirt, and was jarred from his slack right hand. He fell on it and landing on his side, facing Jillybean.

  She was splayed out and unmoving. Blood was everywhere. It wasn’t just pooled around her head as he would have expected. There was a spray of it across her shirt and more on the cement drive and more falling in a rain as if her head was a sickening fountain.

  As he stared, heartbroken and crushed, he saw what he thought was a trick of the confused light. Blood continued to rain down, only the arc of bloody rain had turned slightly, though Jillybean had not moved.

  It splattered next to her and then, a fraction of a second later, Hatchet-Joe fell to his knees just behind her.

  In amazement, Neil’s eyes were drawn to him; there was a hole in the side of his head that was spurting blood in great gouts. His gun clattered to the driveway and then, slowly, he fell face first onto the bloody driveway.

  Chapter 51

  Neil Martin

  Neil stared at Hatchet-Joe’s body, shocked and very much confused. When had he been shot? It couldn’t have been Grey because he didn’t have a silencer on his M4, and if he had shot then everyone would have heard his gun go off…unless…unless…

  Hatchet-Joe’s final pull of the trigger echoed in Neil’s head. The crash of that huge pistol had been long and had seemed to come to him in stereo, as if he had heard it from more than one direction. At the time, he’d been so fixed on the execution that he hadn’t even considered the possibility of a second shooter. But now he realized that someone, likely Captain Grey, had fired a rifle at almost the same exact moment that Hatchet-Joe had killed Jillybean.

  This fact was lost on everyone else. Hatchet-Joe’s men began to glance back and forth to each other, mumbling questions. One of the men who had been guarding the door started walking towards the corpses but stopped with a jerk of surprise as a moan cut through the whispers.

  As everyone watched, a pale little hand lifted from the bloody cement. It was Jillybean’s hand and Jillybean’s little voice. Neil felt a flash of adrenaline sweep across his skin, flaring it in goosebumps. She had lived—somehow, she had lived. The only thing Neil could figure was that Grey’s bullet had hit Hatchet-Joe a fraction of a second before he pulled the trigger, spoiling his aim ever so slightly.

  A moment after the adrenaline, Neil was hit by a jolt of pure joy. He wanted to leap up and run to the girl, however just as he started struggling to his feet the soldier who had stepped forward aimed what looked like an Uzi at the girl.

  “No!” Neil cried. The man looked up at Neil just as another gun went off far to Neil’s right. In a blink, the man’s face was torn apart. The bullet caught him from the side and took off everything between his eyes and his lower lip. He stumbled a few feet, making a horrible gurgling sound and then fell.

  It was such a horrible vision that Neil was still staring when the slaver to his left said, “Holy fuck.” Neil tore his eyes away from the slowly dying man and found himself staring into the slaver’s eyes. For just a moment there was a kindred human vibe between them, but then guns started blasting in a storm of sound and metal. The slaver’s eyes turned hard. He didn’t recognize Neil.

  The two turned their guns on each other and although the man was just a hair faster, he hadn’t yet taken his weapon off safe. His gun jerked as he pulled uselessly at the trigger. Neil, who had been fully expecting to use his M4, sent a three round burst into the man’s chest. Then, as if channeling Captain Grey, he grimly fired into the next two men, killing them both.

  He was sure he would be gunned down at any moment, and to put that off as long as possible he dropped to the ground—and not a second too soon. The air next to his head seemed to let out a volley of sighs as bullets passed uncomfortably close.

  At least one of Hatchet-Joe’s soldiers in front of the building had Neil targeted, and was shooting some sort of automatic weapon, walking the bullets through the grass right at Neil. There was no time for him to do anything but cringe. It was the least effective thing he could have done and if Grey hadn’t shot the soldier through the heart, he would have killed Neil before he could take another breath.

  It was a beautiful shot that pinned the man to the wall. Neil was hoping for more, however Grey was now the focus of nearly all of Hatch-Joe’s men and Neil was basically on his own.

  Neil fired from the ground, raking bullets left to right, hitting two men and forcing the rest to duck into the building. Neil was up in a flash, racing the thirty-six feet to Jillybean’s side. Her eyes were open but unfocused, and the hair on the side of her head was plastered with clotting blood. He had no time to assess her injury or to worry whether it was right to move her in her condition. It was an absolute certainty in his mind that if he died on that driveway, she would as well.

  He scooped up his daughter and ran in the only direction that made any sense—towards the armored car. Necessity forced him to practically throw her into the passenger seat; he dove in after her as bullets began to thud into the armor. It sounded like a hundred dwarves were outside with hammers, trying to take it apart, piece by piece.

  �
��Sadie?” Jillybean asked in a little voice. “What happened?”

  “It’s not Sadie, it’s me, Neil. You were kind of shot.” He leaned closer and squinted at the mess on the side of her head. With all the blood he couldn’t see the extent of her injuries, though he assumed that she had just been grazed. She was far too coherent to have a bullet lodged inside her head.

  She struggled to sit up, groaning as she did. “What’s all that noise? Are we getting shotted?” She was still bleary-eyed, but her own question seemed to remind her of something. Her eyes cleared rapidly as she said, “The Molotov Cocktails! We can’t stay here.” They also couldn’t leave. With all the vehicles ringing them and the mansion on the other side, they were trapped.

  Not only was Neil the grownup, he was also uninjured, and yet, he had faith in Jillybean. “What do we do?” he asked.

  She shrugged and then glanced into the back seat, but not at the explosives. “It’s our only choice, Sadie,” she said. To Neil she said in a tired voice, “We should blow up the bomb. The bad guys are all out of their cars. We’ll get most of them, I bet.”

  “No,” Neil said, simply. “That’s not an option. We’ll have to figure something else out. If we can get us back onto the road…” He was shocked to see a red-orange light coming through a slit in the front armor—Jillybean had mentioned Molotov Cocktails. “Oh, crap.” Fire scared him, and with them sitting on a giant bomb, it scared him even more. With his eyes locked on the flame and the man darting from the building, Neil fumbled for the ignition.

  Turning the engine on was one thing, but trying to get his feet on the artificially raised peddles was impossible. There was no way he was going to make it. The car would be covered in flame and they would burn alive. Suddenly setting off the bomb seemed like a good idea. He was about to ask Jillybean how when the man with the burning bottle jerked in midstep and fell dead before he hit the ground.