“We have one,” he said.
It was more of a baby-sling, but it did the trick. Abraham bundled Eve and then stepped back. Sarah slung the baby and then covered her slightly with her robes. She then forced Abraham back the way they had come. At the reception room he balked, refusing to go any further and Sarah couldn’t find the strength to make him.
“You’re just going to get her killed,” he said, pointing at the bundle beneath Sarah’s tattered and befouled robes. “You’ll die out there and so will she. I’m a good father. No matter what you think of me…she needs me.”
“She needs you to sit down on the couch and don’t make any moves.”
Abraham did, watching Sarah with shrewd eyes. “You going to shoot me?”
“I’m not a murderer,” Sarah said, backing into the hall that led out into the sterile-white sections of New Eden. Abraham’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re not going to shoot me? I would shoot you if our places were turned. I guess that means you don’t have any bullets in that gun, do you?”
He stood and Sarah continued to back away. “I only have a few left and escaping takes precedent over killing you, but I swear I’ll put a hole in your gut if you keep going.”
His eyes shifted to the side as he thought about this. “I’d kill you. I know I’d kill you. Nothing could stop me from…”
Sarah turned and fled, hobbling down the hall, passing the Rembrandts, the lacquered wood, and the gleaming fixtures. Behind her Abraham came speeding, and just at the doors she had destroyed she turned, holding the worthless gun out; a last gamble.
“You don’t have any bullets left,” he said. For some reason he had stopped just shy of the doors, he seemed reluctant to come out. Sarah kept walking backwards.
“Come closer if you feel like gambling.”
He took only a single cringing step forward and snarled, “It’s no gamble! You’re out of bullets and you’re taking my Eve out there! If you ever loved her you’d stop right now.”
She was thirty feet away from him now and the zombie sounds were beginning to pick up. Abraham swung one of the doors closed and jutted his chin around it. Now it was Sarah’s turn to sneer, “And if you loved her you would come get her.” She began pulling the trigger sending the hammer clicking on empty chamber after empty chamber. He flinched with each one, while his expression soured and turned petulant, but he didn’t move from behind the doors. “I think Eve will be safer with me, than with a big piece of chicken shit like you.” Sarah said and then turned to find a pack of zombies to lose herself in.
Chapter 41
Sadie
New Eden, Georgia
The bark of the pine tree bit into her ass, through her jeans, leaving strange, primordial patterns in her flesh, and this was ok with Sadie because her ass had gone numb twenty minutes before and she didn’t have a clue.
Unaware, she began gnawing the shredded remains of a thumbnail. Had she been aware she would have stopped herself, she had gone through eight nails in the course of the afternoon and she was worried that she would start on her toenails next.
It was always like this when she was forced to wait on anything dangerous or exciting. She had zero patience—the afternoon had dragged on endlessly, and the evening wouldn’t come. The sun appeared to defy physics by refusing to set. It came sliding down the sky but seemed to stop when it hit the horizon as though it just got comfortable and took a break.
Finally, the sun had set and then the pain of waiting intensified to an even greater degree. This was because her job was to sit around twiddling her thumbs and staring up at a silo. She groaned, a sound more or less indistinguishable from the groans of the countless zombies moving about in the night.
Across the valley, there was a flash of light and then, seconds later, a gentle rumbling noise let her know that Neil and Captain Grey had finally set off the first of the grenades. Now came a tense few minutes as the crackle of rifle fire came, followed by a second explosion.
“They’re in,” she whispered to herself, taking a glance up at “her” silo. She was half a football field away from it, sitting up in a tree, but despite that, she had heard what sounded like a cry or a shout from the building. Cocking her ear she practically held her breath as she waited for anything more to come from the silo, however it went back to being grimly silent.
She decided it was time for the radio check. “This is Green, begin radio check. Over.”
There was a slight pause and then Jillybean’s little voice came through the two-way: “Green this is Pink. I read you five by five. Over.”
Another pause and then Nico said in his accented voice. “Green this Red. Five by five. Over.”
Captain Grey had explained that five by five meant the best possible signal based on twenty five subjective responses. It was a complicated way of describing levels of signal strength and clarity. All Sadie cared about was that five was good and one was bad. She was about to give her response when Captain Grey broke in.
“Red, this is Blue. Signal strength extremely low. Repeat last transmission Red.” Even over the radio the man sounded cranky.
“Blue, this Red. I read you five by five. What is my status? Over.”
Sadie made a face at her radio. Captain Grey wasn’t suppose to even have his radio on since no expected the waves to penetrate below the ground and into New Eden. “Blue this is Green. You can hear us?”
“Yes all except Red. Red repeat last transmission.”
“Blue this Red. Radio check. Over.” Nico sounded put out and Sadie didn’t blame him. Zombies were crawling all over the place and the idle chatter on the radio would only draw them closer.
“Red this is Blue. Advise move your position. Over.”
“Da. Copy last transmission. Will move. Out.”
“Say again?”
“Da. Copy last transmission. Will move. Out.” There was a touch of angry sigh from Nico before he cut out.
In vain, Sadie squinted into the dark towards her left. The silo that Nico was staking out was three-quarters of a mile away and had been barely visible above the trees when the sun was out. Now, all Sadie saw was a dimly etched horizon. But that didn’t stop her from looking anyway, her thumb coming back up to her mouth.
She was just starting to nibble her way into needing a band aid when she saw a quick sparkle of light. It looked as though a signal was being passed, or fireflies had been amped up, but then the sound of guns firing followed, rolling down the valley coating the night in fear. Nico didn’t have a gun!
“Nico are you ok?” she yelled into her radio. “I mean, Red. Come in Red, this is Green…Red? Come in Red? Red! Nico what just happened?”
Her radio remained silent. Before she knew what she was doing she was out of the tree and running west. Her entire body had gone as numb as her ass and she didn’t feel the sting of branches whipping her face as she raced through the night forest. She probably would have run right into a trap but her radio clicked in her hand and, hoping against all reason that it was Nico, she stopped in her tracks and listened.
“Green this is Pink,” Jillybean said, speaking very fast. “What’s going on?”
The fear in her voice was coming in five by five. It set off a protective alarm in Sadie which allowed her to think through her fear for Nico. She spoke into the radio: “Listen very carefully, turn off your radio and hide! That wasn’t Captain Grey. I-I think the bounty hunter is out there. He can find you if you use your radio. Don’t move and don’t use your radio. Out.”
Sadie paused, expecting a response despite that she had just warned Jillybean not to use the radio. The little girl stayed quiet and smart. Knowing her, she had probably turned her radio off altogether so that it wouldn’t give her away if danger was…
“I’m an idiot,” Sadie whispered and then spastically started twisting the barely seen knobs on the radio until they all clicked over to the right, the direction she hoped was off. She then crouched with her hand on the rough hide of a pine, fr
eaking out. Was Nico dead? Should she go find out? Or was the bounty hunter really out there waiting for her to come investigate? Or…was he coming for her?
Tears of indecision and panic filled her eyes and then fell from her cheeks. She longed to turn her radio on again just to see if something really had happened to Nico. Maybe he was calling for help right then! Maybe he’d only been wounded and now he was bleeding to death and calling her name over and over again.
Her fingers danced over the radio wanting desperately to turn it on again, but in her heart she knew better than to risk it. He was out there. Like a spider spinning its webs, the bounty hunter was out in the dark, waiting for her to screw up. Just then she didn’t know if staying still meant screwing up or moving meant it. Always the runner, she felt that staying still was the wrong play. But where would she go?
To get answers.
Sadie tucked the radio into her jeans and began to run towards the east, towards Jillybean. Her fear for Nico sent a surge of adrenaline through her and she sped faster than was prudent. The danger in a sprint like that was very real. The forest was filled with deadfalls, rabbit holes, and zombies by the thousands, yet she was light of foot and lucky.
“Jilly?” she whispered three minutes later. Sadie had set Jillybean in a tree opposite the southeast silo, but that had been when there was still light to see by and now all the trees looked the same. “Jillybean, it’s Sadie, where are you?”
There was a little sound to her left, like that of a squirrel dancing on a log. Sadie turned to it. Under the gloom of the trees the night was thick and the air muggy. She could see very little and had to pick her way forward slowly through a mesh of fallen logs, taking tall, gawking steps like a stork. Another sound to her right; again it was just click-tick among the trees. She went for it, her eyes wide like twin lamps.
“Jilly?” she called.
Practically at her elbow, Jillybean said, “You should whisper.” Sadie jumped and had to swallow a squawk of fright. The little girl was crouched under the heavy branches of a spruce. “There’s a monster over in that glade. It probably can’t hear you if you whisper.”
Sadie took a long quivering breath before saying in a lower voice than Jillybean’s, “I heard something over to our right. It could be the bounty hunter.”
“No, that was me. Ipes didn’t think we could trust that you were alone or not being followed so I had you walk around a bit, chasing my magic marbles. Hope you’re not mad. What happened to Nico? Were those gun shots? Is he ok?”
“I don’t…” she wanted to say she didn’t know, but that was a lie. She knew. Deep in her heart she knew. “I don’t think he’s ok.” The words came out from very high in her throat. It felt like she was choking on them. “How on earth does that bounty hunter keep finding us? It shouldn’t be possible.”
Jillybean patted her arm and then stroked it gently, saying, “We’re very really obvious that’s what Ipes was trying to say before, and I have to agree. The bounty hunter knows us. Or really, he knows you and Sarah. He knows you came from the CDC so that’s where he went to find us. But the CDC was all abandoninged, so what else does he know about you two? He knows Sarah’s baby was taken from her by Abraham. Everyone knew that on the boat so he knows too, probably.”
“And so he came to stake out this area, thinking we would come,” Sadie said, seeing how easily they had fallen into his trap, yet again. She looked to the southwest where Venus was just starting to lose its brilliance in the night sky.
Sadie dropped her chin, feeling empty. “Why didn’t you say anything before?” she demanded in a soft, accusatory tone.
“Ipes did try to tell you, amember? But nobody wanted to listen to him. He was very cranky about it.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Sadie said.
They were quiet for a few moments and then Jillybean shocked Sadie by asking: “So what do we do now?”
Sadie laughed. Even with her heart tearing itself apart over what happened to Nico, she chuckled at the question. The sound was filled with self-loathing. “You’re asking me? You’re always the one with the plans. I never can think of anything. I’m too stupid to think of anything. But I guess…I guess we wait and see what happens. If we stay real still and hide I don’t think the bounty hunter can find us in the dark.”
“What about Mister Neil?” Jillybean’s little brows contracted as a thought struck her. “He won’t stay quiet. When they find Miss Sarah and the baby he’ll come out and start blabbing on his radio. He’ll want to know where we are. And he’ll give away his position. And if we answer, we’ll give away ours!”
Sadie followed the train of thought and realized that even if Neil didn’t use his radio he’d be caught. She could picture Neil blundering about in the dark searching for Sadie and Jillybean…and poor Nico. He’d be acting differently from the Believers or the zombies and the bounty hunter would know. “I have to go warn him or he’ll die.”
“Me, too,” Jillybean said.
“No.” She put her hands on the little girl’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “It’s too dangerous inside New Eden. You stay out here and be a mouse. You’re the best at hiding. The bounty hunter won’t be able to find you if you just keep still.”
“Ok, I will. ‘Cept, but what happens if I see Miss Sarah and the baby? Should I go get them?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Bring them back here, but don’t expose yourself for nothing. Bring them here and stay put! Can you do that?”
Jillybean nodded and said she could. Satisfied, Sadie threw off her outer “zombie shawl,” a ragged and multi-colored set of rags designed to fool the brainless undead, and then slid her backpack off. From it she extracted her mask and her hunting knife. The mask was Halloween fodder and depicted the leering visage of a ghoul. It didn’t look much like a zombie but at the same time, it didn’t look anything like a human either. In test runs that afternoon, carried out by Neil, the shawl and mask combo had fooled every zombie.
Beneath their shawls the three people of the “outer” team wore white robes lifted from a nearby catholic church. In the dark, they had hoped to be able to blend equally with either the zombies or the Believers depending on what the situation called for. Now Sadie was going to try to “pass” under the harsh lights of New Eden.
“Wish me luck,” she said throwing the shawl back over her white robe. The pack she left sitting there. She liked to travel light.
Jillybean’s own mask had been perched on the top of her head this entire time. She touched it as if to remind herself that it was still there before saying, “Good luck. Don’t get caught. And don’t get eaten. And don’t get shot. I’ll be right here…can I have a hug?”
The hug was fierce and tight, but also short-lived. Time seemed against them. Hell, everything seemed against them. Sadie couldn’t remember the last time they had caught a break. And poor Nico…the misery inside of her threatened to erupt out of her chest in a great rush of tears and screams, but she reined it in, barely.
“Stay put,” she warned the little girl and then left but only managed to take a few steps before she turned back. Sadie bent down and hooked out her right pinky. “Sisters.”
Jillybean hooked it with her own. “Sisters,” she said solemnly.
Now, Sadie left and this time she didn’t look back. Without the pack she ran with the light steps of a doe and as she breezed past the zombies in the field, few took the time to even wonder what it was that shot by. Though some trailed after, none came close to matching her speed. As she neared the silo, she slowed down, dropped the ghoul mask over her face and began to moan and limp.
The zombies nearby, and there were many hundreds all around, didn’t give her a second look, and she was able to squeeze between the door and the mob of putrid grey flesh. The smell in the silo was outrageous. It was the eye-watering stink of country-fried road-kill on a blistering July afternoon—triggered by the smell her moaning became real as was the terrible retching noise she made in the back of her throat .
The smell and heat left her weak. She kept to the wall for support, however, because of the difficulty in seeing through the eye-slits of the ghoul mask she slipped on a string of someone’s intestines and stumbled, causing an avalanche of zombies to domino downwards into New Eden.
The undead formed a writhing carpet, and because she felt time pressing in on her with growing urgency, Sadie descended using the backs and, in a few cases, the faces of the undead as her stairway. At the bottom the chaos continued.
Sadie fake-limped to the first main intersection and paused trying to decide which way to go. From both left and right came screams and gunshots suggesting that there were at least two battles being waged somewhere in the maze of corridors. Further down the hallway in front of her smoke began to pile up at the ceiling making everything hazy.
Zombies went in every direction and with the smell of smoke and blood they seemed more enraged than ever. They attacked anything that was even vaguely human, including Sadie. She was knocked into by one and in order to steady herself she put a hand to the wall. It was a delicate hand, white with slim fingers and clutched in its grip was an eight-inch hunting knife.
Only humans carried things, zombies did not.
In an instant one of the beasts had a hold of her arm and before she knew it her forearm was in its mouth and its teeth were crushing down. The bite was vicious and painful, yet she kept her wits and switched the knife to her free hand. With a growl of her own she drove the blade into the dull yellow eye of her attacker and it fell at her feet.
Things went from bad to worse in seconds. More zombies came at her, knowing nothing more than she had human hands and carried human tools. It was enough to drive them to kill. Though she had killed the first with a soldier’s eerie calm she knew she was no Rambo and so she did what she did best, she fled.
She raced for the smoke, hoping that some sort of base, natural fear of fire would stop her pursuers—it did not. They kept coming and their numbers swelled. She took her first right and then her first left stumbling upon more and more zombies. One she dodged. The next she threw to the side. A third grabbed her by the shawl. She gagged as it tightened around her neck like a noose. Somehow she twisted and turned until she wrenched it out of the zombie’s grip.
The Apocalyse Outcasts Page 38