"What's wrong?" Grey asked, giving Neil a once over.
"I'm just anxious," Neil lied. Fear was a feeling and that had been just as scarce as the rest of them.
"You're not scared, and that's the problem," Grey said. "We could be getting ourselves in a world of shit right now and you don't look like you have a care in the world."
"I've got a lot on mind," was Neil's next lie. So far being the leader had been easier than he had thought it would. Like the night before at the meeting, ideas had just come to him one after another. He spat them out of his mouth and voila, they were implemented.
Grey looked like he was going to say something, but Deanna and Fred showed up then. They made a strange looking couple. Fred was dressed in khaki from head to toe and looked like he was on safari. Deanna wore baggy pants, a hooded jacket, overly large sunglasses, and a baseball cap with her hair pinned up beneath.
Far from being "butched up" she looked like a movie star, trying to hide from the paparazzi. "Oh jeeze," Grey groaned. "Almost didn't recognize you," he said to her. "You went from looking like a blonde Julia Roberts to a blonde Julia Roberts with a hat." She gave him a glare but it was weak. Neil suspected the Julia Roberts reference had surprised her.
"Ok, we're all here," Neil said. "Captain Grey, I meant it about only a single gun. We'll use my Beretta. And Jillybean, loose the encyclopedia. I want your full attention."
"Ipes can still come, right?" she asked holding up the zebra.
"Of course, where would we be without Ipes?"
She cocked her head. "Probably right here. Unless we were somewhere looking for him, like at the edge of an alpine glacier. Did you know that Alpine glaciers begin high up in the mountains? They start in bowl-shaped hollows called cirques. That's what means a circular depression and that's what means like a big round hole, but one that's way up high."
"You're really getting into that encyclopedia," Neil said, heading out into the parking lot. The low slanted light causing everyone but Deanna to squint.
"Oh I like it a lot. Ipes says I'm getting smarter, and that's good except he keeps saying: I knew that every time we learn something. What's the word for that?"
"It's someone who doesn't know when to shut their trap," Grey said and then bent down and lifted Jillybean's chin until her mouth closed. "That's better."
"Never stop a child from expressing themselves," Deanna chided. "Let her speak if she wants to."
Grey barked out a laugh and climbed into the nearest truck, a Ford F-250. "She'll be in the backseat with you. It's your funeral."
What Jillybean unleashed on Deanna was amazing to hear, up to a point. After a twenty minute dissertation of everything that began with the letter A, even Deanna couldn't take it. "Is there anything on the radio? Please?"
"I'll check," Neil said as Grey grinned from ear to ear. It was all static.
"That's more soothing than you'd think," Deanna said of the fuzz coming from the speakers. "Maybe turn it up?"
"What happened to freedom of expression?" Grey asked her.
Deanna turned to look out the window, saying, "Some things are overrated, I guess. Hey look. Another of their billboards. Three miles to the last bridge. I guess it pays to advertise."
"This reminds me of New York," Neil said. "An easy way in and a hard way out." Ram's handsome face flickered on the edge of Neil's mind. The memory of his friend was growing distant. It was sad…He sat up suddenly, realizing that he had felt an emotion.
"What happened in New York?" Deanna asked, nervously.
"I got to sink two boats," Jillybean said. "They went up like shspshsh! It was so fast that Mister Neil almost got killded, only I saved him with a hand grenade. That's what means a little bomb that is really loud and scary. It was cool 'cept one of the boats had my friend on it but he wasn't really my friend. He was a zombie by then and that was real sad. Right, Mister Neil?"
"Still is sad, it seems," Neil answered, hanging onto the memory of Ram turning. He had been so courageous while Neil had only blubbered like a child.
"You sank a boat?" Deanna asked. "A big boat?"
"Two boats and they were…yes, you helped, Ipes. Ipes wants me to tell you that he was instrumental. That's what means he helped a little."
Captain Grey snapped his fingers and Jillybean quieted immediately. "There's a gate ahead. Let's button it up. Remember, Neil is going to be our spokesman. If someone asks you a question answer with short evasive statements. If you men…you people I should say, are put in any position that forces you into a conversation do not divulge our numbers, our weapon status or where we've come from. Try to turn the questions around. We need to know about them, they don't need to know about us."
The highway was wide open and the eastern end of the bridge was coming up fast. It was guarded by a double set of gates. They were twelve feet tall and made of single slabs of six-inch thick metal; the first of these opened as they approached.
"Why's your knee doing that, Mister Fred?" Jillybean asked. His leg was jiggling up and down like a piston.
"Just nervous. Don't worry about it."
"Just nervous is good," she replied. "I thought it might be ataxia that's what means your muscles lose their…"
Grey turned around and glared until she shut her mouth with a little pop sound. "No more A words, Jillybean. I'm serious. I will chain you to the roof if I have to and we both know you don't know anything about locks because that's an L word, so zip it."
They drove slowly through the first gate which shut behind them. A voice demanded: "Leave all weapons inside the truck and step out."
"Let's do it," Neil said, sliding out. He tossed his Beretta back in through the open window.
"Now I'm going to need to see your bellybuttons," the voice said. "Lift your shirts and spin in a slow circle. Have the little girl ditch her backpack, please."
Jillybean dropped her pack, did a quick pirouette with her shirt up and then dropped down and unzipped her pack. "All it's got is my stuff. This is string that I use to…"
"Put the pack in the car," the voice said.
She did with an air of disappointment.
When the pack was out of sight, the gate opened and four men with drawn guns advanced on them while a fifth came from the side and frisked each of them thoroughly.
The second the frisker gave a thumbs up the weapons were holstered and the gate-captain came forward. "Just the five of you? It'll be 250 rounds or 53 gallons of gas, please."
"Actually we don't want to cross the bridge," Neil said. "We'd like to speak to the River King."
"That entails crossing the bridge," the gate-captain explained. "It'll be 250 rounds or 53 gallons of gas, please."
"We don't have that on us. We've come looking to negotiate with the River King over a couple of matters." Neil did a quick calculation of the exchange rates in his head and found they didn't have enough for the crossing let alone the amount needed to buy Sadie back. Still, it didn't hurt for him to put out the offer. In all likelihood it would keep the River King from sending Sadie off to New York if she wasn't already on the way.
"What are the negotiations about?" the gate-captain asked. "Hopefully not about reducing his rates, the River King hates to be bothered by cheapskates who try to bargain him down. It won't work so don't waste your time."
"No, it's about something else," Neil said, but didn't go on.
The gate-captain folded his arms. "Here's the deal, friend. If you don't tell me exactly what you want I won't make the call. You see I get my ass reamed whenever some dumb fuck gets past me to bother the king. Soooo…"
"It's about my daughter. She was sent to the River King by a man named Gunner."
"Then you're in luck. The newer girls haven't been shipped off to New York yet. Probably won't leave for a few more days." The gate-captain moved in closer and said in a lower voice, "Between you and me, the River King can be a softy when the mood strikes him. Play up this daughter business and he might let you have her at cost. What's her
name? I can put a hold on her so that she isn't touched."
"Sadie Walcott," Neil said. The gate-captain's reaction to the name was surprising: he drew back and almost laughed.
"You're Sadie Walcott's father?"
"Yes. What's so funny?"
"Nothing," the gate-captain said with a grin. "Let me make that call for you."
Grey sidled up to Neil. "What the hell was that all about? He seemed to know Sadie's name."
"That was interesting," Fred agreed, "However I couldn't help but notice that you didn't mention the cost of our river crossing. This isn't just about your daughter, you know."
"You should be happy, I'm getting us in to see the River King. We'll make our pitch then. Quiet, he's coming back."
"Luck is with you, the king has agreed to see you," the gate-captain said. "Follow my car; I'll lead you straight to him."
"Something is way not right about this," Deanna said, climbing up into the back of the truck.
"I agree," Grey said. "It probably has to do with that turd of a bandit, Gunner. Maybe he got here ahead of us and warned them we were on our way."
Neil followed the gate-captain who was driving a sleek BMW. "It doesn't really matter now, we're committed. We just stick with game plan…whoa, the bridge has changed. It used to be wide open except for a wall of cars down at the other end." The bridge at Cape Girardeau was half a mile long and had been purposely littered with cars. They were stacked on top of each other at intervals so that their path wove slowly in and out among them.
"Someone should move all these cars," Jillybean mentioned. "All this weaving is making my stomach go icky."
"The cars are here on purpose," Grey told her. They keep anyone from trying to dash across the bridge or get enough speed to break down the gates. The way they are positioned…" Now it was Grey's turn to stop in the middle of a sentence. "Look at the water."
Neil knew what he was going to see before he looked: thousands of grey bodies clogging the river. "We went down that in a boat. Me and Sadie and Sarah. It was the scariest thing I ever did."
"Are they still alive?" Deanna asked of the zombies. She couldn't see any of them moving; they were just floating there. "They look dead."
"They are alive," Neil told her. "And they will attack without hesitation."
Thankfully, the awful sight vanished as they reached the western end of the bridge. Before they came to the second set of gates, they took a right onto what had been a college campus but was now the home of the River King. The campus was not sprawled on acres of land; it consisted of a smattering of very large and unevenly shaped buildings and upon the first a sign read: Holland School of Visual and Performing Arts.
It might have been a magnificent building of red brick and clear glass at one point, however now it was covered in flat sheets of wood and looked uninviting. A second building was a three story brick edifice shaped as an "L". It had been a seminary but had been converted by school officials into an art gallery with a recital hall on the top floor—of course all of this had been converted a second time by the River King to suit his dark purposes. Across from that was another "L" shaped building from which people went in and out, Neil guessed that if it hadn't been housing before, it was now.
On the roofs of each, there were sentinels with long rifles and high-tech scopes keeping watch in every direction.
The gate captain parked in front of the first building and led the group inside; behind them, seemingly from out of nowhere a group of men followed. They were all formidable appearing and carried their weapons openly. The gate captain pretended not to notice them.
"Shit," Fred breathed. "We are so fucked. If Gunner did get here before us, what's to stop the River King from wrapping us up and sending us back to him?"
"Money," Neil replied. "And the promise of more money." He hoped.
Grey hushed them as they went through the main doors and were met by more of the armed men. They were frisked a second time and then ushered around a bend of the building which must have had afforded a wonderful view of the river before the apocalypse. Now the only view was of dim plywood. Barely any light filtered down causing the entire building to sit in an awful gloom. Only one room shed light and it was to it they were hustled.
The River King was not at all what Neil had been expecting. His mind had pictured a pirate of a man right down to the bandana on his head and a hooped ring through his ear. Instead the River King was dressed casually in blue jeans and a button up white shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled to the elbows. His hair was black and his eyes dark. He was slim of build and only of average height, in other words not at all intimidating.
He gazed at each in turn and when the gate-captain tried to speak he held up a single finger and silenced the man. "There's really no need for introductions, Andy. The reputation of at least three of these people precedes them. This is the infamous and seemingly invincible Neil Martin."
Neil blinked, not at all expecting the words that had been uttered. The River King smiled with his advantage. "Weren't you bitten by a zombie? Chained to a ferryboat that sank in the East River? Captured by bandits and set to fight a giant in the arena?"
"Yeah, I guess," Neil said, taken back.
"And this has to be the indomitable Captain Grey," the River King said, looking up at the tall army officer.
"I see you can read a name tag," Grey said, gruffly. "I'm so impressed."
The king nodded as if expecting just this sort of response. "Perhaps I should have called you the 'heroic' Captain Grey. You're one of the new Knights of the Round Table out of Colorado, unafraid of anything, even three hundred to one odds it seems," said the king, alluding to Grey's attack on New Eden.
Grey only grunted in reply. Then the River King turned toward Jillybean; her brows went up and she leaned slightly away. "You could only be Jillybean," he said, bending at the waist to inspect her closely. "Not only cute as a button, you're a genius as well."
"If that's what means real smart then I'm not," Jillybean said. "I'm only in the middle of the letter A."
For just a second doubt swept his face, but the River King rallied. "You're smart enough to build your own zombie army, and you were smart enough to outwit a deadly assassin. Speaking of which, did any of you check her bag?"
The backpack always seemed like such a part of her that no one had noticed her put it back on when they got out of the truck. The armed men had thought her harmless and hadn't bothered to frisk her; they sheepishly shook their heads. The River King rolled his eyes and tugged the pack from her shoulders and began to dig through it, pulling out all sorts of things.
"That's my string for tying stuff," Jillybean said as the River King dropped the spool on the table. "And that's wood glue for gluing. And a can opener for…"
"I know," the River King said. "You don't have to explain every item, only this one." He held up a small .25 caliber pistol.
"That's for...just in case," she said in the hushed tones of fear. "But how did you know?" The River King only smiled maliciously before aiming the .25 at a spot between Neil and Grey.
Neil tried not to flinch. "You must have spoken to Gunner," he said. "He probably overheard me when I was talking to the other prisoners."
"Wrong Papa Neil," the River King said, turning the pistol to point square into Neil's face. "Gunner, though useful, is an idiot. If he had believed all these wild tales about you he would have killed you right away. Hell, anyone who believes these tales would be smart to kill you." Very deliberately he slid his finger around the trigger of the little gun.
It looked almost like a toy in the River King's hands, however Neil knew that it was indeed deadly. He blanched ever so slightly as the trigger slowly drew back.
With the trigger half pulled, Jillybean suddenly laughed and said, "I get it now! That was quite a gooder puzzle Mister River King, sir."
"What puzzle?" he asked, without varying the aim of the gun.
"I know how you know all that stuff. You're Sadie's real f
ather." The River King slid his eyes to the little girl, lifting only a single brow, while everyone else gaped at her. Jillybean ignored them and went on, explaining, "There are lots of clues. The only person who knows all that stuff is Sadie and I know Sadie pretty well on account that we are sisters. She would never blab all that stuff about us to someone who captured her or was gonna be mean to her. She's stubborn. That's what means she won't just blab. The only way she would tell you is if she liked you or trusted you and she wouldn't trust a stranger especially a stranger like you. So you must not be a stranger."
"Maybe I'm just nice," he said.
"Nope," Jillybean said confidently. "The first giveaway was how your men reacted when Mister Neil said he was Sadie's father. First they all knew the name which I don't think would be normal for any other girl brought to you by Gunner and second they were shocked looking but like they were in on a joke. They thought it was funny there was someone else pretending to be Sadie's dad."
"Anything else?"
"Yes, you look like her. A lot like her."
"You don't miss a thing, do you?" asked the River King. He cocked his arm, pointing the gun to the ceiling and smiled widely at Jillybean.
"I miss my mom and dad and pizza," replied Jillybean honestly. "And Ipes misses cookies."
"You're her real father?" Neil asked looking closely into the River King's face. With the dark hair and eyes, the resemblance was definitely there. "She said you were dead."
The River King's smile grew tight. "Maybe she only wished that I was. When she was growing up, I wasn't a good father and when all this shit started going down I was on the west coast high as a kite and didn't come down for a week. I tried to get back to her, but this is as far as I made it."
"I'd like to see her," Neil said. "Where is she being kept?"
"She's not being kept anywhere. You act like I would chain my own daughter up somewhere in a dungeon!" The River King said, feigning surprise. "No, she's free to come and go as she pleases, at least she has been for the last two days. Before that she was a wild cat and would have liked nothing more than to scratch my eyes out."
The Apocalypse Fugitives Page 24