Being a matched set with him was the last thing she wanted and so she purposely came down in clothes that didn't look anything like his: a voluminous pant suit that she had to cinch at the waist and a black jacket that draped on her. He raised only a single eyebrow which for some reason infuriated her. She stomped to the kitchen and made her outfit into…it was indescribable to her and she was thankful that the sun was just then disappearing.
"Now for the boat," Grey said, clapping his hands together. "Remember, keep your ears perked for zombies. If you hear one, go right into your act."
"I got it."
"Don't go overboard with the moaning."
"I won't."
"And remember there is a fine line…" He stopped when he noticed the folded arms and the glare on Deanna's face. "Ok, do it your way and get your face eaten off."
"It's pretending to be a brainless, drooling monster. You forget I've been around enough soldiers to understand the concept inside and out."
"Did I do something to piss you off?"
Suddenly embarrassed at her behavior, she dipped her head. "No…sorry, let's just go find that boat."
Hours went by as they went from house to house. She hated every minute of it. Walking through the ruins of so many lives made her feel cold inside. The silence didn't help; it made the world seem so impossibly dead. She realized that despite the horror of The Island, she'd had been around people at least. Out here, in the desolation of America, the loneliness was a weight upon her.
The only thing that countered it was the living dead. The zombies, according to Grey, were only at a nuisance level. In Deanna's inexperienced view they were everywhere, popping out of kitchen cabinets or struggling from beneath cars to get at her. She stayed close to the soldier, cutting down on the number of homes they could search.
By midnight he was growing cross. "Do we even need a boat? Can't you swim?"
"Across a half mile wide river filled with zombies? I don't think so. Maybe we should start again in the morning when we can see something." She didn't add: and when there'll be fewer zombies out.
"When we can see, we can be seen," Grey shot back, his voice as rough as sand paper. "Don't you think the River King might notice a boat trying to slip across his river?"
"Who says we have to cross here?" she asked. "We have two thousand miles of shoreline to work with."
Grey stared at her in amazement and then burst out laughing. "What was I thinking?" he cried. "You're right. We could cross anywhere."
"Shhhh," she said. They were in someone's dusty garage and his booming laugh must have carried. "Quiet down."
"You don't need to worry. There isn't a zombie on this block; you get a feel for these sorts of things." He pointed the way back toward the front door. "We should find a better place than this to bed down and start again in the morning."
She paused just outside on the driveway. "There'll be two beds. I'm stating that as clearly as I can right up front." Grey scanned out into the dark, basically ignoring her. "Hey, I was talking…"
He crouched suddenly, turning invisible among the shadows. "Get down."
Deanna's head jerked on its axis as her eyes tried to peel back the veil of night. She saw nothing but definitely heard something to her right. Grey reached out and dragged her down to hunker low against what had at one point been a perfectly sculpted bush. Now it was hard to tell what it was.
"There's someone out there," Grey whispered. "Off on the right side of the house." As he spoke he eased his M4 from beneath his hoodie. "Stay behind me. Keep low and don't speak no matter what."
Grey began creeping toward where the sound had come from, his M4 pointing the way. It was the opposite direction Deanna wanted to go. She thought sprinting off to the left and running for their lives was the only thing they should've been doing.
Instead she followed Grey as he slipped up to the side of the house and peeked his head around the corner of it; there was nothing to see beyond steep shadows and a broken gate between two houses. Deanna thought it was crazy to head down there. Someone could be hiding in any of the shadows pointing a gun right at them. They could hardly miss from this range.
But whoever was out there wasn't down the little gap. Grey ventured into the backyard of the home. It was less a yard with grass and flower borders, and more like a wilderness of overgrown bushes and tall trees. Leaves crackled under their feet giving away their position, but it gave away the other guys position as well. He was quieter than Grey but not noiseless and every few seconds they could hear whoever it was retreating with little thumps.
Deanna thought they should just let the person go: if he wanted to run that was all well and good with her. There was no sense…Deanna stopped in mid-stride. There had been another crackly sound, only this had come from almost directly behind her.
"Grey," she said in warning. He was already spinning, bringing the gun around, but it was too late. A hand gripped Deanna's long blonde hair halfway down her back, paralyzing her with fright, turning her into a human shield.
"Grey?" she said again, this time pleadingly. She was deathly afraid he would shoot. With the dark there was no certain target other than herself.
But the captain didn't shoot; he eased the tip of his gun up in the air as if surrendering. "I never thought you would get the drop on me," he said, speaking to the person behind Deanna.
"Why not?" a voice piped from down low. "I can be a pretty good sneak except when Ipes is yapping his mouth away."
Deanna turned and stared. "You? H-How?"
"How did I get away?" Jillybean asked. "It wasn't easy, except the parts that were, like getting out of the cell. That was easier than you'd…"
Grey cut across her, snarling, "That's enough. You can tell us once we find shelter. Until then zip the lip."
Instead of being offended, Jillybean smiled. "I'm glad you're alive, Mister Captain Grey Sir."
Chapter 30
Jillybean
Cape Girardeau, Missouri
When Al, the prison guard opened the heavy steel door, Jillybean went bunny and froze in place, her eyes big and wide, one hand clutching Ipes, the other on the rail. She was so still she could've been a statue or simply part of the shadowy backdrop of the ill-lit prison.
Al treated her that way. He looked neither left nor right, ignoring his peripheral vision completely and went straight for the desk where he quickly lifted up the cards that sat across from him and stole a peek.
Jillybean's first thought was: He's cheating.
Who cares! screamed Ipes, in her mind. Get out of here.
She did, backing down the stairs without moving anything but her feet. When the guard was out of sight she turned and went down the stairs all hunched and with her arms flung like a spider because of the intensity of the dark.
The second floor was quiet save for the snores that rumbled from beneath the cracks of doors. The first floor was nearly silent as well. She feared someone would be at the lobby desk, but other than a candle burning slowly into itself giving off a soft golden aura, the room was empty. It was empty but not silent. She could hear voices, speaking low.
As on the other floors, a chair was propped in the doorway of the stairwell; Jillybean eased over it and peered into the lobby. The voices were coming from outside where the smell of cigarettes wafted in on a nighttime breeze. We're in luck, Ipes said. Try the exit down there.
On cat feet she hurried down the short end of the hall where in the dim light she could see the outline of an exit sign. She found the door locked with chains. She didn't bother to rattle them in a fruitless gesture, instead she spun on her heel and ran back the way she had come, afraid someone would open a door and see her. There seemed nowhere for her to go. Her best option to remain undetected was to hide on the stairs except she knew that could only be a temporary solution.
You could sabotage the candle, suggested Ipes.
That was an option, one that could open up possibilities. Jillybean, with her head cocked toward the do
or and her feet ready to fly at the slightest sound, tiptoed to the desk and as quick as she could took the sign-in pen and jabbed it three times at the burning wick. It sank a half inch into the hot wax and the light went out. She then dashed back to the stairs and went to the top of the first landing where she waited as the men out front lingered over their smokes.
Eventually, the men flicked away the butts and headed inside. "Fuck," one of them said in a whiney voice. There was the sound of a lighter flicking. "I can't see. Pete, let me have your Zippo."
"Sorry, mine's running real low on butane. Besides, I'm going to bed, you have a good one."
Jillybean heard the man coming toward the stairs and, fleet as a gazelle, she ran upwards going almost to the top where she sat hunched and hidden only feet away from Al and Hannigan who were cursing and playing cards. She stayed there for half a minute as the man on the stairs became the man in the second floor hall. When she heard him enter a room she hurried back to the first floor where the guard was still struggling with the candle.
Providence seemed on her side when he suddenly got up and left the lobby. Jillybean creeped forward to see how far the man had gone, but he was nowhere to be seen. Now your chance! Ipes cried. Jillybean stepped over the chair holding the door open and that was when the bathroom door thumped and the guard came bustling out with a lit candle held up to his face. He was so focused on the flame he didn't see the little girl slip back into the gloom of the stairwell.
By the light of one candle he dug out the wick from the other and lit it. "That's better," he said in a whisper as though in awe of the little flame.
Get ready, Ipes said. He'll put the other one back in a second.
The zebra was spot on. The man headed for the bathroom, giving Jillybean a five second window of opportunity. She jumped over the chair, ran for the front door, and ducked outside just as the guard came back, still grinning over his victory over the candle wick. Jillybean promptly forgot him.
She was free-ish.
There were still two fences to clear, one of which was electrified, but these obstacles were merely divots in her path compared to what was really keeping her from escaping. She couldn't leave without her sisters.
Jillybean guessed they were in the first, odd shaped building and so she approached it moving in short bursts going from cover to cover as if she were a ninja. Quickly she saw that her chances to gain entry were not good: the windows on the first floor were boarded over against the possibility of zombie attacks while the front entrance had been fortified and was guarded by a man with a gun who seemed far more capable than the last guard.
She went about the perimeter of the building, testing the boards and finding that they were all perfectly secure. The building was shut up like a turtle in its shell. The trip wasn't a total loss; in the back of the building she came across a large shed from which a loud humming escaped.
Generator, Ipes remarked.
"No duh," Jillybean replied. The generator didn't interest her. The roof access ladder in the down position next to it did. Holding Ipes between her teeth she scaled it like a monkey only to find there was another, much smaller story to the weird building. It had strange windows that looked like they had been recently cut out of the walls with an acetylene torch.
Jillybean walked across the roof, grimacing with each step as the gravel crunched loudly under foot. Up close she saw that the windows were hung with dark blankets and that when the wind blew at just the right angle, strobes of electric light cut the night.
I bet the River King lives up in one of those rooms, Ipes said.
"I hope so. That would mean Sadie is close by. But whose room is whose. If we go tossing rocks at the wrong…" The light cry of Eve, fussing drifted down to them cutting her off in mid-thought. Jillybean cocked her head and started moving to her right until she was directly beneath the window where she had heard the baby.
"You think it's her?" she asked Ipes.
It could be a flunky babysitting while Sadie is tied up somewhere else.
Ipes had a point. They couldn't proceed without visual proof. The only problem was that visual proof was eight feet above their heads. "I could throw you up there," Jillybean suggested.
Don't even think about it. I haven't forgiven you for biting my butt and now you want to throw me up in the air like owl-bait? Come up with another plan.
The little girl looked around at the nearly barren roof top and saw that the ladder had been down for a reason. At every corner there was a stand of some sort. On closer inspection she found they were little, one-person, camouflaged tents that a hunter would use, and in each was a folding chair. Leaving the tents where they were she hefted the chairs over to the window and built herself a pyramid.
Ipes wrinkled his nose at it. Looks unstable. I should wait here and brace it up. Good luck. Say hi to Sadie for me.
"Nice try." Once again the zebra went between her teeth as she climbed. The chairs were indeed rickety and her heart began to race. She wasn't afraid of the fall; it would mean a few scrapes, only. She was afraid how much noise the chairs would make when they went clattering down.
But they didn't fall and she was able to get to the lip of the window. Peeling back the blanket she saw an odd sort of room, spartan in its furnishings with only a single bed and one box-like dresser. Sadie was on the bed with her back against the headboard trying to lull Eve to sleep.
Jillybean waved at her and Sadie did a little spasmy jerk. "What are you doing here?" she hissed jumping up. Eve was unhappy about the disturbance but when she saw Jillybean she smiled around her pacifier and held out a pudgy hand.
"Mime mere do save you," Jillybean said, unable to speak clearly because of Ipes.
Sadie snatched the zebra from her teeth and asked, "You're here to save me? What about Neil? Is he out there too?" She tried to peer around her.
"He's still in jail," Jillybean said, feeling very guilty over the fact. "I couldn't figure out a way to free him and the others."
"But you got out?" she asked in wonder. "But...but why did you come here?"
"To save you, silly. We can use your blankets to lower Eve down. Don't worry, I won't drop her I swear. And I saw a..."
"Not without Neil," Sadie said. She leaned back, stiffening her spine in resolution. "He would never leave me."
This spun Jillybean's mind. "But...but you don't understand, I can't get him out. They have guns and there's guards, and even if I did free him the River King controls the gates. You see? We'd have to fight our way out and there's no real fighters in our group. I've gone over it, a lot in my head. They're stuck, but I could get us three out, easy."
Easy? You seem to have forgotten about the fence. There was mention of it being electric as well as zombie proof, Ipes noted in his usual unhelpful way.
She grunted at him to hush as Sadie's mind wavered. She eventually shook her head with resolution turning her face hard. "I can't leave without Neil. I'm the only chance he has. But you should go. Make your way to Colorado and don't worry about me. I'm safe here."
Jillybean felt a sudden purposeless sensation, as if she was lost solely because she had nowhere to go. "I can't leave without my sister," she said.
"And I can't leave without my dad, I mean my real dad," Sadie said.
No matter what, Jillybean, Ipes intoned, solemnly. You cannot stay. This is your one chance at freedom. You have to take it.
"But..."
There are no buts in this, Ipes said, sounding suddenly tough like her father used to be. You have to leave, but that doesn't mean you have to go far.
The little girl nodded in understanding as her insides regained the concept of purpose. "I'll go," she said, her eyes narrowing and looking beyond the walls of the room, seeing endless possibilities. "I'll go, but you need to get a walkie-talkie. We're going to have a lot more to talk about."
Slightly over two hours later she was sitting in a darkened bedroom where two other sisters had once shared secrets. Deanna sat under the covers of
one bed and she was in the other. Scowling Captain Grey stood in the doorway.
"How did you get by the electric fence?" Deanna asked.
Grey harrumphed, "Bedtime stories are over. We have a lot of work to do first thing in the morning."
"Ignore him," Deanna said, without looking his way. "I want to hear the rest of it. There were two fences and one was electrified. Did you tunnel under them?"
"No way. That would've taken all night," Grey said.
"And I didn't have a shovel," Jillybean added. "And even if I did there was the electricness of the fence to worry about. I didn't want to get zapped. That's what means this: ayuhhhhuhhhuh!" she said, sticking her arms out and shaking. "It supposedly hurts you real bad, but I wasn't worried because I read about alternating currents in my encyclopedia. That's when electricity..."
"Uh-uh, no," Grey snapped. "Keep to the story."
"Ok," she said, disappointed. "Getting past the fence was easy. Electric fences are only scary when they got electricity in them and I already knew where the generator was, so..."
"So you just turned it off?" Deanna asked, amazed at the simplicity of it. "Brilliant."
"No. If I turned it off and someone came by and turned it on again I woulda been zapped. Instead I loosened the drain plug on the fuel tank so that the gas and stuff leaked out. It gave me time to find a board and get to the fence."
"More brilliant," Deanna said in awe.
Jillybean shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. With the fence off it was just a matter of finding a loose spot in the fence and kinda prying it up enough for me to slip under. After that I headed this way cuz there were fewer monsters and then I ran into you guys. I thought I was seeing ghosts. That's why I threw the rocks to get Mister Captain Grey to chase after so I could see if you were for reals."
"Ok, now it's bedtime," Grey said. "I'll be in the next room if you need anything." Jillybean thought it strange that he kept his eyes firmly on her as he said this.
For Jillybean the night passed in a blink and she sat up at the first hint of light with a smile on her face. "I didn't have the dream, Ipes."
The Apocalypse Fugitives Page 29