“Then he will do so again,” Nico said.
There was that possibility. In order to foil it, Neil had slipped off the highway and was driving down a neighborhood street. He took the first right he came to and then the next, and the next after that, then one more turn had them going in the same direction and on the same street as they had been. A few blocks further on he pulled the same stunt except with left hand turns.
Behind them, they left hundreds of zombies going in every direction.
Nico, who was left slightly carsick from all the maneuvering, came out from beneath the blanket. “I know which way we go.”
The house of this second veterinarian was in far better shape, though it too had been the sight of criminal activity.
The looting seemed absolutely normal, however the corpse of a man just inside the doorway wasn’t. He had been human, and had died of a single gunshot to the chest. The body was about half-decayed and smelled sickly sweet. Nico, who wasn’t over his carsickness clutched his throat and moved on.
Neil didn’t. Human deaths bothered him on a level he hadn’t experienced before the apocalypse. Back then he couldn’t crack a newspaper without reading stories of murder after murder. It had inured him in a way that wasn’t healthy. Now, he felt a loss for each person who died.
“Neil!” the Russian called urgently. “I find something.”
He found Nico in what could only be the veterinarian’s home office. It was a gorgeous room, one that Neil would’ve loved for his own. Its walls were covered with bookshelves, its carpet was navy in color and so soft that he left tracks as he walked. The best part was the high-backed chair that sat canted toward a stone fireplace. Neil could picture himself reading in that chair as Eve played on the carpet with Sadie.
Except Eve was gone and Sadie was dying.
“Look,” Nico said. Next to a wide, elegant desk was a mess of pill bottles and an overturned black bag. The Russian held a white bottle out to Neil. “My reading of English is not so good. Is this what Sadie need?”
It read: Cefa-drops 50mg/mL Equivalent to Cefadroxyl
“I don’t know,” Neil said, trying to read the tiny wording that wrapped itself around the bottle. It mostly contained warnings about different drug and allergic reactions. Nowhere on the bottle did it say what it was actually for. Nico had another bottle ready when Neil looked up. This one read: Cephalexin 500mg 100tabs. At the bottom of the bottle were the words: Broad Spectrum Anti-biotic.
“This is it!” Neil cried. He peered close, reading, trying to find what the dose would be. On the back he found the following: Dosage 10 to 15 mg per pound (22 to 30 mg/kg) every 12 hours orally for dogs and cats.
“But what about for people?” he wondered aloud. Would it make a difference? Not likely; not at this point. “Let’s take all of this just in case,” Neil said and began throwing pills into the black bag.
Chapter 8
Sadie
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
From the deepest sleep of her life, Sadie was pushed and prodded until she looked blearily into Neil’s worried face.
“Huh?” she asked. Even this had her coughing again and she nearly fainted as a result.
“No, you don’t,” Neil said, shaking her until her eyes refocused. “Come on¸ Sadie! Wake up, honey. We have medicine for you. New medicine that’ll fix you for certain. Please, open your mouth.” He had a glass of water in one hand and the other was held out to Sarah who dropped four large pills into it. Neil shook his head and said, “I think you did your math wrong. We only need two.”
Sarah pushed his hand toward Sadie and said, “Trust me on this one, Neil. I was a pharmacy rep and a mother. When an infection is this far gone you need an initial dose to be pretty heavy. And we’ll want to follow it up in six hours, not twelve.”
Sadie took one look at the pills and made a face. “Horse pills, ugh.”
“They’re actually dog and cat pills,” Jillybean said. She would have gone on further, but Sarah gave her a look and she slunk back.
“You are supposed to be asleep, young lady. It’s way past your bedtime.” Sarah pointed to the kitchen where Jillybean’s pile of couch pillows had been arranged into a bed of sorts.
“Can’t I see Sadie get better?” Jillybean asked as sweetly as she could. “Pleeease. Ipes says it will be a learning experience.”
“Did he really?” Sarah asked, with a particularly close inspection of Jilly’s eyes.
Jillybean toed the carpet and said in a little voice, “No. He says to leave him out of this. But…but I do want to see Sadie get better, and it could be a learning experience, even if Ipes doesn’t think so.”
Other than practically choking on the pills, and thinking that she was on the verge of suffocating from all the mucus in her lungs, this was all Sadie remembered of that night.
The next thing she knew it was morning and Nico was there with more pills. Thankfully there were only two this time. They both took turns getting caught sideways going down her throat, or at least that’s what it felt like.
“Do you feel any better?” Nico asked.
All Sadie could say to that was, “I feel gross.” Her clothes were cold and damp with sweat. When Nico and Sarah undressed her, she shivered under a blanket. When they left to get her fresh clothing, Jillybean snuck in with one of her little fingers pressed to her lips.
“I’m not aposed to be here, because I told a little white, fib. That’s like a lie but for a good cause, you know?” Jillybean actually waited a full second for Sadie to respond, however she was still too groggy and feverish to do more than look at Jillybean through half-closed eyes.
“So, are you better yet?” Jillybean asked. “You don’t look all that much better. When I asked about the pills they said they worked like magic. Ipes thought they were the ones fibbing and…wait…here they come. Get better quick so we can play. Bye!” She scooted out of the living room so fast that it seemed to occur between blinks.
Sadie coughed up something green and fell asleep again while she was being changed a second time.
The remainder of the day she spent in an awful state in which she had all the worst qualities of being both asleep and awake at the same time. Her eyes would be open, but they wouldn’t focus. Nor could she close them and sleep satisfactorily. Her cough seemed to grow worse and she brought up more and more chunks of green and yellow/gray phlegm.
She spat into a frying pan that Nico dutifully cleaned every time. He was also there for everything she could ask for, which really didn’t amount to anything but water. All they had was gritty water, which was usually warm from having been boiled. It didn’t matter though; her mouth was so dry she sipped at it nonetheless.
In the evening came more pills which she took with red Kool-Aid this time. Jillybean made sure to point out that she had found it especially for Sadie. Sarah was quick to add that Jilly had been grounded at the time and shouldn’t have left the house at all. Though it was still gritty with flecks of bark and leaves in it, the Kool-Aid gave flavor to the water and Sadie secretly thanked Jillybean when Sarah was out of the room. She even asked for seconds.
“First we go for walk,” Nico said. “Sarah does say that you must walk three times in day. More when you get strong.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Sadie said and then coughed up more of the green stuff. Everyone but Jillybean, who was immensely interested in everything, turned away when she spat it out. Sarah pulled the seven-year-old back from the pan before she could find out if the green stuff was as gooey as it looked.
“It doesn’t matter if you feel like it or not,” Sarah told Sadie. “Neil went to the library this morning and did some research about pneumonia. Your sickness has settled in your chest. You have to get up as much as possible to help clear it out. Now come on, stand up.”
With Nico on one side and Sarah on the other, and Jillybean coming behind with the frying pan for Sadie to spit into, they progressed back and forth across the room until Sadie couldn’t
feel below her knees and was practically being carried. When they finally let her lie back down she had only the strength to ask one question, “Where’s Neil now?”
“He’s looking for a new car,” Sarah said, her face etched with worry lines. “We should never have kept the Dodge. It was a dead giveaway. I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Don’t worry.” As far as Sadie knew, Neil had been gone almost all day and now it was night. That was always something to worry about.
He was back in the morning. His face scratched and one eye blackened, yet still his cheerful self. “Just a few zombies,” he explained. “Nothing a warrior like me can’t handle. Now, it’s time for more pills. Yea!”
Sadie actually smiled at her adoptive father. There wasn’t much energy behind it, however it was genuine. “Any more Kool-Aid?”
“Sorry, we’re all out, but I have something better,” Neil said, producing a six pack of Sprite. “Do you want some? It’s hot as all get out since I found it in the back seat of a car, but it should still be good.”
After the gritty water and the gritty Kool-Aid, soda seemed like a treat. Jillybean thought so too. She stood nearby rocking back and forth on her heels, while entwining her arms and braiding her fingers together, trying, and failing, not to let her longing be too noticeable.
“Yes please,” Sadie said to the offering of Sprite. “What about you, Jillybean? You want some?”
The little girl nodded, but contradicted the movement by saying, “I can’t. Ipes says you need rest and fluids.” She then sighed. “And Sprite is the very best fluids, except strawberry milk, but there ain’t any more cows...right. There aren’t any more cows. Not cows that got milk inside their unders at least.”
“I’m sure you can have a little Sprite,” Sadie insisted.
Jillybean turned her head slightly as though listening for something that didn’t come as expected. “I guess I can. Maybe just a little bit,” she said in a whisper, perhaps trying not to wake Ipes’ consciousness in her mind. She ended up sipping on a can until it was gone. This was a process that lasted forty minutes simply because she had so much to say. Mostly this concerned Ipes and Sarah, the two individuals Jilly spent all of her free time with—free time meaning the time she wasn’t sneaking out and exploring the new neighborhood, bringing back odds and ends.
Sometime in the long and rambling and physically active speech—Jillybean rarely stood or sat when speaking, instead she would pirouette or climb on a chair or wander around the room touching things as she spoke—sometime during all of that, Sadie fell asleep again.
This marked the beginning of a day and a half stretch that basically consisted of a series of naps and walks and sweats and baths. It was full dark again when soft lips on her cheek brought her around. It was Sarah, leaning over her and whispering words that didn’t filter through to her conscious until it was too late.
“You’re going to be fine,” Sarah said. “I know it. You’ll all be fine. Watch over Jillybean and Neil for me. Stay safe and remember I love you.”
“Huh?” Sadie asked coming awake slowly. “What…what’s happening? Are you going somewhere?” It was dark. No one went out in the dark except in emergencies. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, honey,” Sarah said, giving her another kiss. “Go back to sleep.”
That Sarah was wearing her coat didn’t register, nor did the fact that her backpack, stuffed as though for traveling was only feet away. Missing these little cues and crushed beneath the burden of her illness, Sadie fell back asleep, only to waken again when a dull grey morning light sneaked passed the blankets over the windows and Neil rushing around the house like a crazy man.
“Sarah! Sarah!” he cried. In his madness, he opened doors that didn’t make sense to open: a hall closet, the stairs to the basement, a kitchen cabinet. “Has anyone seen Sarah? Jilly, have you seen her? Nico?”
“Nyet,” Nico said, standing quickly and going to the door. Carefully he cracked it and glanced out and then gradually he eased it back far enough to slip out. He was only gone for a minute. “Car was down street. Now is gone. She take car,” he said, his face grim. “Why she take new car I find in night when everyone sleep?”
Everyone looked to Neil, while he stood, open-mouthed, staring at a piece of paper that sat on a dusty TV. It had been folded, but now the top leaned out at an angle and there was something apparently on it that kept Neil from blinking.
“What is it?” Sadie asked despite knowing already what was written on the piece of paper. She knew what was on there by Neil’s expression; there were very few things that could impact a man like being dumped.
“Nothing. I don’t know. I’ll be right back,” he said. He took the paper with him into the room he had been sharing with Sarah and was gone for a long time; twenty minutes at least. When he came back, Sadie thought him remarkably composed.
“Sarah has left us,” he stated in such flat tones he might have been talking from the depths of a coma. “She doesn’t love me. So that’s that. She also says we should take care of each other and there might be some food for us at this address…142 Clermont Avenue.”
“What the fuck?” Sadie cried out in anger, she then began coughing, making a sound like a seal’s bark.
Neil didn’t berate her for cursing in front of Jillybean. He heaved out what seemed like the world’s heaviest sigh and did the same: “Yeah, what the fuck?”
For once, Jillybean didn’t seem to notice the cursing. Either that or she didn’t care. With Ipes cradled under her arm, she went and sat on the edge of the couch next to Sadie’s feet. In Sadie’s mind, she too seemed remarkably composed.
Nico was angry enough for everyone. He stormed out of the room, shaking the floor with his heavy, stomping feet, only to return with a map. “Here is Clermont. She make us skip house. Say it is empty, but it is not. Suchka! She plans this for days. Come, we go, Neil. Clermont is only four kilometers. We be there in twenty minutes. Come…”
Neil appeared very small just then, little taller than a child. He stood in the doorway with his shoulders hunched as if Sarah’s leaving had crushed him physically as well as emotionally. He shook his head.
“What?” Nico cried, pointing at the map. “She is traitor. She steal from family. This is not right!”
“Yeah, it’s not right, but when has anything ever been right?” Neil asked. “Nothing has ever been right. Ever. I didn’t deserve her. That’s what the problem was. You know? She was out of my league.”
“She wasn’t,” Sadie said. “Especially, if this is the way she thanks you for everything you’ve done for her. Sarah was beneath you.” She had finally been able to control her coughing but these few words brought it back, rendering her incapable of argument. It hardly seemed to matter; there was little that was going to get through to Neil just then.
“That’s not how things work for me, Sadie,” he said. “I don’t need to be coddled. I know what I am and I know what I have to offer, which just happens to be not much. I guess she thought I would do when I was basically the last man left that wasn’t taken. We both know she would’ve went for Ram if he hadn’t already been with Julia…”
Neil paused and then snapped his fingers, his face finally showing more than a manikin’s plastic features. “Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed. “She hung around me because of him. That’s all I was, an excuse. She was always trying to keep him around. And when he died, she didn’t see the need to stay.”
Sadie had been fuming at Sarah, but Neil was going so far astray in his despair that she tried to bring him back. “Neil, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Next to her, Nico snorted. “In Russia, woman leave man like these, she is whore. Sorry Jolly-bin for blunt words, but, it is true.” Jillybean looked confused perhaps at the word whore or maybe at Jolly-bin. It was hard to tell.
That someone would agree with him deflated Neil so much that he couldn’t stand. He flopped to the shag carpet and began shaking his head. “She’s been pulling aw
ay for weeks now. I could feel it happening and…and I tried everything but she didn’t want me near her. Did she meet someone in New York? Do you think that’s what happened, Nico? Maybe one of the colonel’s men who might have…”
“Stop it!” Sadie cried, daring her cough to come back. “Both of you stop it. You don’t know what you’re talking about. She was raped was what happened. The colonel raped her and beat her. That’s why she’s been behaving so odd.”
Neil’s mouth started flapping until he finally spat out, “Then…then…all that she said about hiding with the Whites wasn’t true? What about…is that where she got all the bruising from?” Neil leapt to his feet. “It wasn’t from the fight with Cassie?”
“No,” Sadie said.
“Oh, son of a bitch! I’m gonna kill him. Where’s my gun?” He raced out of the room only to come back with his head wagging from side to side, looking for the Baretta as if it would have been casually thrown on the floor. “Where is it?”
“Maybe she take it,” Nico suggested. “Maybe she take gun to kill colonel.”
“You think so?” Neil asked. He had gone from stunned sadness, to self-loathing, to violent anger in a matter of minutes, and now he was on to fear. “She can’t take on the colonel, not alone. He’ll kill her. Doesn’t she know that? She wouldn’t throw away her life for revenge, would she?”
With all the excitement, Sadie began to fade. There was little strength left in her voice when she answered, “It’s possible. If something happened to you guys, I know I would have done something. But this is Sarah, the same woman who just left you…hell, she left all of us high and dry. She even took our car.”
Neil didn’t seem to hear her. He had marched to the window and was staring out. Blankly, he whispered, “She’s going to kill the colonel. She’s crazy. It is crazy, right? Or it’s depression...it’s probably depression.” He started wandering around the room touching the strange knick-knacks of the stranger’s house. With everyone watching him he circled the entire room before stopping in front of Sadie. “It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t love me,” he told his daughter. “I still love her. So I can’t let her go after the colonel,” he said. “We have to stop her somehow. So here’s what we’re going to do: Jilly will watch over Sadie until she’s better, while Nico and I go after Sarah.”
The Apocalyse Outcasts Page 6