The Apocalyse Outcasts

by Peter Meredith

  “But Sadie…”

  Grey stopped and turned his eyes on Neil. He had never seen such a hard look on any one before. Even Ram would seem like a boy compared to this man. “Are you willing to die for her?”

  Neil felt his guts churn but he rallied enough to say: “I’m here, aren’t I.”

  “Good,” Grey said and began his fast march once more. He took the first left he came to, and then began counting doors. “Here it is,” he said at another hall. There was another fight in progress down this hall, though it was on a smaller scale than the last one.

  Neil thought they would be going down the hall, but Grey took a right and then went in a big circle, taking three lefts in a row. At each turn he slapped his hand on the wall, marking the turns in grey makeup. He stopped when he reached the same hall they had started in.

  Suddenly he smiled and looked embarrassed. “You wanted to know about my promise? It’s simple. I swore an oath to be a hero.”

  Had they been sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows, Neil would have laughed and razzed the big man. Instead, as this had come out of the blue, his mouth only came open and his top lip went up in a crooked, puzzled way.

  “A hero?”

  Grey smiled sheepishly. “Yeah. It was my C.O’s idea. He thought that the world had stopped being good, you know? Like everything and everyone had turned to evil; even the military. We had fought without hope for so long that men just gave up. It was as though no one knew what honor was anymore. They just knew what survival was and getting theirs while they still had breath in their bodies.”

  “So are you like some sort of modern day knight? That’s sort of ...”

  “Weird,” Grey said finishing his sentence. “Yeah it is, but someone has to be good. Someone has to do the right thing even if it’s hard.” Grey looked down the hall where the fight was ramping up. “If we go down there, we’re going to die. It’s really that simple. Do you still want to go?”

  “I have to.”

  “Me too.” Grey held out a hand to Neil. “If you shake it means you’re promising to be a hero, even if it kills you.”

  Neil shook the hand and Grey clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Now here’s my plan and I’m sorry but you get the brunt of the danger.” Grey outlined a plan that relied on Neil’s legs more than anything.

  The first part was simple. They went down the hall to where sixty or so zombies were doing their best to scale another of the mounds that blocked an entrance to the Pyramid room. Grey went first. He pretended to fall at the base of the mound near a mattress but what he was really doing was setting it alight.

  When Neil saw smoke coming up from it he called out in his loudest voice: “Yoo-hoo. Over here. Hey zombies!” They were so fixated on the dozen or so Believers trying to defend the door that they didn’t all turn. That wasn’t good enough. Neil ran at them waving his arms and screaming.

  That did the trick. The zombies turned from the mound and charged. Neil scampered back still waving his arms, drawing them on. Only when the lead elements got close did he turn and run. He ran in the loop of hallways that Grey had marked earlier, always making sure to keep the zombies close. As he ran he heard Grey’s M4 start to fire in quick succession—it had a distinctive crackle to it that was different from the pop, pop, pop, that came after.

  Someone was shooting back.

  “Oh please let him be ok,” Neil said, puffing around the last turn. Now he sped up, going full sprint. He had to get to the mound and clear the best possible path through it before the zombies could catch up. Grey was still firing when Neil came up to the mound and started heaving chairs and old lamps out of the way. The smoke from the mattress fire came up in great billows making it very hard to see and harder to breathe through.

  But that’s why they had set it. As Grey said: When you don’t have the numbers, use chaos and trickery. They certainly didn’t have the numbers, unless the zombies counted. They came lurching forward just as Neil forced a table over. As a last item to remove, Neil grabbed a tall mirror. It cracked in his hands as if he had squeezed it too hard. Perplexed he tossed it aside and bent for a hunk of a chair, that was when what seemed like a bee zipped by his ear.

  “Get down!” Grey was shouting.

  It was only then that he realized that someone was shooting at him. The only problem was, that Neil couldn’t “get down.” Zombies were charging from one direction and people were shooting from the other. Grey was safe enough hidden by smoke and protected at the top of the pile by a filing cabinet. All around the front of the mound lay the bodies of the Believers he had already killed.

  One wasn’t as dead as she seemed and pointed a gun in Neil’s direction. Neil ran, not knowing if he was shot or if the bullet missed or what. He ran into the room and the bees were again buzzing all around snapping the air. Right behind him, Jillybean’s army came pouring into the room and now the chaos was nearly complete as a huge fight erupted.

  Neil ran for the pyramid where the top was already aglow with an evil light. Abraham was up there looking tremendous in size, screaming orders, while Sadie, a few steps away, was snarling curses like a sailor. Neil began mounting the tall steps while at the same time he was trying to unsling his shotgun—the two actions almost canceling themselves out. Before he got to the second block of the pyramid a woman in a blue robe came running up.

  She had a gun in her hand and could have shot him at any time but she seemed determined to shoot him in the face from a foot away. She came right up to him, her finger drawing in on the trigger, and as Neil lifted his hands to show that he wasn’t armed, her head sagged inward on one side and blew out on the other sending a great sheet of blood cascading across the pyramid.

  Neil was slow to react to the carnage right in front of him. The amount of blood and its very wet consistency and the fact that it was horribly bright made it all seem phony to him, like he was part of some sick game.

  Just then the chaos hit its maximum. Grey’s M4 was going nonstop, the Sisters were shooting the last of their bullets in all directions, and around the room, surging back and forth, the zombies were battling the Believers in horrendous hand-to-hand combat. Above it all Sadie screamed at the top of her lungs as the fire finally caught and Abraham slid a black pistol he had commandeered from one of the Sisters, took aim at Neil and shot him in the guts.

  The pain was immediate. He fell in slow motion, going head-over-heels, losing the shotgun which had been caught in his zombie-shawl but now disappeared. For Neil everything got quieter and quieter, all except Sadie. Her screams ramped up. Then he was lying on the floor of the room and her screams came up through the wood with growing intensity.

  “I’ll save you,” he said, remembering his promise to be a hero no matter what. Before he got up however, he put his hand into his wound, knowing it would be wet and sticky, and knowing that if he felt his own liver he would puke.

  But his hand found something hard as a board. “The vest,” he said in amazement.

  The vest had caught the bullet and had absorbed most of the impact. Yes, it still hurt like hell where he had been shot, but he wasn’t truly injured.

  Neil stood, wobbled, and then started up the blocks again. He was vaguely surprised to see that he had the shotgun in his right hand. When had he picked it up? And when had he thumbed the safety to off? He had no idea. Above him, Abraham was emptying the black pistol, firing across sixty yards of open floor to where Grey was crouched behind the filing cabinet.

  The captain had drawn fire from every direction and thus Neil was able to climb right up to Abraham and blow his head off with the 12-gauge. It literally went bouncing down the steps spitting blood.

  The sound of the shotgun was that of a booming, echoing canon and, for all intents and purposes, it signaled the end of the battle. There were zombies that still had to be killed and one of the Sisters used her last bullet to shoot uselessly in Neil’s direction, while another used her last one to put a hole through her own heart.


  Neil stepped up to Sadie and, shielding her with his body, blew off the chain that held her to the post. Immediately, she leapt off the grate and kicked off her converse, the rubber soles of which had melted clear away. He carried her to the bottom of the pyramid where she snatched up the pistol from the corpse of the Sister who had tried to shoot Neil.

  “They were going to burn me alive!” Sadie exclaimed.

  “What were you even doing here?” Neil asked as Grey came up. The three of them trained their weapons outward at the remaining Believers. Some looked fit to kill, while others just looked relieved, however most of them seemed too confused to grasp what had happened. Those who weren’t fighting the zombies backed away afraid of the guns and the fearsomeness of Captain Grey’s scowl.

  “I was coming to warn you, but now Sarah...we have to find Sarah,” Sadie said, her voice growing suddenly higher. “She’s escaped with Eve, and...and...and...” Tears came to her dark eyes.

  Neil grabbed her in his version of a bear hug, which was more like a koala bear hug in that he wasn’t looking to crack ribs, but to let her know he was there for her. “What is it? What happened?”

  “I think Nico’s dead,” she said, quietly. “The bounty hunter is out there. He tricked us into using the radios too much and he shot Nico.”

  “Then we have to go,” Grey said, taking her by the arm and gently urging her toward the far left door. “My guess is that the bounty hunter is going to snatch up Sarah and use her and the baby to get to you, Sadie.” There was too much truth to that than could be denied and they ran for the door.

  Leaving New Eden was far easier than getting in. There were still zombies around every corner and down every hall, but the three of them made sure their disguises were in order and not a single undead beast challenged them. What Believers they ran into were directionless, confused people who ran from them in terror.

  Breathing the night air was a blessing, however their danger wasn’t over. Now, they were being hunted. But they had Captain Grey on their side and he used every trick in the book to get them safely back to the tree where Sadie had left Jillybean. It was their hope that the crafty little girl had managed to get to Sarah first. Instead they couldn’t find her either of them.

  “Jillybean,” Sadie hissed, going around the tree twice. “Jilly, where are you?”

  The forest was still and quiet as the inside of a coffin. They began to spread out, searching and calling quietly. It wasn’t long before they found the body. With night fully dark now, it looked smaller than it should and the blood splashed across its midsection was black as sin against the white of her robes.

  Neil saw her first, lying with her legs lost in a myrtle bush and her torso turned and contorted. “Jillybean?” he asked. His voice quivered. Since the apocalypse he had seen too many bodies not to know the difference between a live one and one that was very much dead. This one was dead, pale and unmoving with the Velveteen Rabbit tucked gently against her cheek.

  Chapter 43

  Jillybean

  New Eden, Georgia

  Sadie left, jogging off with a swish of her robe, sounding like the wind passing through the trees.

  From her perch in the tree, Jillybean glanced down at the backpack she had left behind. It sat open, but not inviting. The teeth of the zipper gleamed dimly as if they were real teeth attached to a squatting toad that could take her leg off at the knee if she wasn’t careful. She had to blink away the image and remind herself it was just a backpack, and in the backpack...she looked away and tried not to think about the backpack anymore and what sat within it.

  She wasn’t supposed to have it. Sadie had taken it for Jillybean’s own good. So instead, Jillybean scratched her nose and kicked her dangling feet back and forth beneath her. She sighed in boredom, meaning: she sighed loudly and often. After a while, she worked the wedgie out of her crack and after a bit more squirming, she had to repeat the effort.

  Because the bounty hunter was out there searching for her she tried not to be such an ants-in-your-pants kind of girl, but she was bored. Really bored. Bored like Easter Sunday at church sort of bored. Usually she never got bored because she always had...

  You might as well come get me, Ipes said.

  “Not listening to you. I have the Velveeta rabbit to play with.” Jillybean unzipped her own backpack with the fading picture of the boy with big hair and the peeling letters that spelled: I’m A Belieber. She dug out the rabbit and rubbed her cheek against its belly. It was very soft. Way softer than Ipes ever was, even after one of his infrequent baths.

  Softer in the head, maybe.

  “There you go again,” Jillybean grouched. “You are always so jealous and sometimes your jokes are mean. And you know what? I know what you did before. You tried to take me over.”

  It was for your own good. They were going to get you...

  Jillybean slid down from the branch in a wrath that Ipes could feel coming like a tornado. She went to the toad of a bag but wasn’t afraid of it now. She was too angry to be afraid. “Taking me over isn’t for my good at all! Do you know what means crazy? I do. Having a zebra talk out of your mouth is what means crazy and that’s not good. Is it?”

  No, but...

  At the word “but” she zipped closed the backpack. It was mean since Ipes was very afraid of the dark, however he needed to learn a lesson. “That’s how I felt when you taked me over. It was mean and not nice.”

  I’m sorry. His voice came through muffled.

  “Uh-huh,” Jillybean replied. She put her back to the tree and began to stroke the Velveeta Rabbit’s ears. He really was the softest thing in the world, but he was also kinda dull like Ipes said. But at least he was nice.

  I said I was sorry.

  “Hush. You’re in time out until you learn your lesson.” Jillybean had a mind to scold him some more, because he really had been awful bad, when a she heard a little noise in the woods not far from her. She went bunny, slinking down to the base of the tree where the roots had erupted out from the earth and made a natural cove.

  A man was out there, she knew it. Zombies were never this careful or quiet. It was a man who listened more than he walked, who stepped and then stopped, stepped and then stopped. He drew closer, cutting a line through the trees just on the edge of the forest; a line that kept him hidden but allowed him to see out into the valley; a line that Sadie had walked when she had settled Jillybean in the tree back when the evening had ousted the last of afternoon from the sky.

  Closer.

  Keep still.

  Jillybean refused to budge, refused to look around the bowl of the tree to see who it was. She knew already. Any other kid her age would have looked and any other little kid would have been caught.

  The man—the bounty hunter, who else would it be—passed her by. She listened as he drew further away and as she did she petted the rabbit’s velvety ears. Keep still might have been bad advice, ok it was the most useless advice that could have been given at that point, still it was something. The rabbit hadn’t said anything at all.

  It’s because rabbits are as dumb as they’re soft, Ipes remarked.

  “There you go making fun again,” Jillybean said in exasperation.

  You want the truth? There’s nothing special about him. He’s just a toy, while I’m your protector. Your daddy picked me to protect you and only I can.

  Jillybean said, “Humph,” to that. “I don’t think you’re as helpful as you think. You made me look crazy this morning. And I felt crazy, too.” Having Ipes move her around had been more weird than anything. It felt like she was being rocked to sleep, and when she touched things there was always some sort of fuzzy barrier in the way, as though she had on giant, woolen mittens.

  What really scared her was when he made her lips talk. She didn’t know what she was saying, she only knew it was wrong. It made her feel like someone had stuck a hand up the back of her shirt and was using her like a puppet.

  It was for your own good. Now can you get me
out of here? It’s really stuffy and I think Sadie left some old socks in here.

  The little girl was halfway to the bag before she knew it. “No. No, I won’t. I’m the boss of you. That’s the way it’s apposed to be and if I say you stay in time out then you gotta stay there.”

  But I’m not being bad, now, Ipes whined.

  “You were very bad, taking me over, and I bet you’d do it again.” The fact that Ipes said nothing to this confirmed the idea as fact in her mind. She started to get the shivers but stopped them, clenching her teeth. It occurred to her that the best way to stop Ipes was to figure out how he was taking her over.

  “Look, there’s some people coming from the silo. Sarah may be with them.”

  Don’t go. You can’t risk it. And besides the bounty hunter isn’t after Miss Sarah, he’s after Sadie. I’m sure Sarah will be fine on her own, without us.

  “We can’t trust the bounty hunter. He could do anything. So I guess that means I’m going. Miss Sarah needs me.”

  No she doesn’t! Ipes cried from inside the bag. You said you looked crazy before, now you’re acting crazy. Sitting in a valley full of monsters and whacky Believers is crazy and now there’s a bounty hunter? No, you can’t go. I forbid it.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say, but you can’t forbid me because you’re not daddy, so bye.”

  No!

  Ipes was not subtle. His personality grew like a dark, smothering cloud and Jillybean felt her fingers fade, and her toes and knees were somewhere down below her but she couldn’t tell if they were holding her up or if she was floating. In seconds her body was that of a ghost’s and it was a struggle to retain any awareness.

  “Where are the people you were talking about?” Ipes asked using her lips and her tongue and the breath in her lungs.

  There are no people. Not yet at least, Jillybean said. It felt as though she was whispering in her own ear.

  “Then why did you tell me there was?” Ipes asked uneasily.

  To trick you. To see how you take me over—you do it because you think I’m ascared.