Sadie couldn’t think on that. She had to shut that out. To think on that would mean she would have to stop again and cry. It was only two miles to where the vehicles were hidden and already she had stopped twice to bawl her eyes out.
“No more of that,” she hissed. She knew pain and grief, but also anger: the bounty hunter had Eve and Jillybean, and Sadie was going to get them back! Anger helped. After each bout of sadness, anger burned its way through to get her mind focused. She would find the bounty hunter and she would cut his balls off and…
“Sadie?”
In midstride, Sadie turned and raked the forest with her eyes, pointing the pistol she had picked off the body of a Believer. At first there was nothing to see but the night and the deeper shadows beneath the eaves of the forest, but then Jillybean stepped from behind a sycamore tree. She was holding Eve with her back bowed and it was no wonder, the baby looked to have grown five inches since she had been kidnapped and seemed half Jilly’s size.
“Jillybean? Where’s the hunter?” Sadie asked moving behind a sycamore of her own and peeking out from its cover.
Jillybean’s face drew into lines: her forehead sprouted three across, her lips a dozen each as they pursed. “He’s dead. I…I…he’s dead. So is Miss Sarah. He killed her. He shot her. I don’t know why, I really don’t, but he did.”
“And who killed the bounty hunter? Was it Ipes? Did Ipes make you or did he help you?”
“Huh?” Jillybean looked down at the zebra and shook her head. “No, Ipes is just…he’s very small. He can’t hurt anyone. It was m-me. I did it. He was a very mean, bad man. Maybe he was like a evil man, too. I keep saying things like that as a excuse but it doesn’t feel right even though it’s true. Is that wrong?”
Sadie had her own share of guilt. Ram was dead, and Julia, and now Nico and Sarah. There had been the black man who had tried to help her in New York and of course Cassie…there’d been so many deaths that she was having trouble remembering them all. And yet she still lived and for some reason it made her feel guilty, as though she should’ve done…something.
She understood, on some level, what Jillybean was going through. “I don’t think you were wrong to do it. To kill that man, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Sometimes, I’m also glad I did it and that makes me feel all ascared in my insides, like I shouldn’t be happy, but a part of me is.”
The baby slipped in Jillybean’s arms and she held her up with a knee. Sadie hurried forward. “Do you want me to take her?”
“Yes. Ipes keeps being all ascared she’s going to stick one of his ears in her mouth. So…so what about the others? Is Mister Neil ok? Please tell me he is.”
“Yep. He’s got some scratches and so does Captain Grey. I’m not sure anything can kill him. They’re going crazy looking for you. We should really…” she paused looking at the baby. Even in the dark she was beautiful. Her big eyes glowed and her little bump of a nose was red with the chill night air. She grabbed hold of Sadie’s spiked hair and a line of drool fell from her lower lip.
“She’s perfect,” Sadie said, deciding at that moment, that their pain and grief had been worth it. Preserving life, especially in this hard world, was always worth the risk.
Jillybean agreed. “She is perfect. Neil will be glad to get his little girl back.” When she said this, she held her face just so: delicate, brittle.
Sadie dropped down so that they were practically nose-to-nose. “He will be glad to get both his little girls back. Remember we are sisters.” She stuck out her little finger and Jillybean hooked it with her own. “Without Sarah to watch out for him he’s going to need all three of his daughters to keep him safe.”
“Really?” Jillybean asked, trying on a real smile for the first time in days.
“Oh yeah,” Sadie said, standing and taking Jillybean’s hand. She didn’t move to the Humvee just yet. She was drained and tired and sad, but there was also a little part of her at peace knowing that Sarah had done the right thing. A mother had to protect her babies. She nuzzled Eve’s cheek and then looked down at Jilly.
“Yeah, Neil’s going to need us, especially if we’re going to Colorado. He might fall off a mountain, you know.”
Jillybean giggled. “What’s in Colorado? Why are we going there?”
Sadie lifted her left shoulder as a shrug. “Good people. That’s what Captain Grey says about them, that they’re good people. I don’t know about you but I need to be around good people.”
“I guess I do, too,” Jillybean said, with a little smile. She then turned a nervous eye up to Sadie and grew very serious: “Though I’ll need to know how they feel about zebras before I can say yes. Ipes is worried that they eat zebras up in Colorado.”
The End
Author's note:
I certainly hope you have been enjoying The Undead World series as much as I have enjoyed writing them. I am currently working on book four: The Apocalypse Fugitives. It is now available for preorder on Amazon. While you wait for its completion may I suggest The Trilogy of The Void:
The first book in the series, The Horror of the Shade was inspired by one of the paranormal events that I've been connected with. Quite simply it was a two second ghost sighting, witnessed by me and two of my brothers. So how is that extrapolated into a trilogy? Step one: Remove me and my two brothers. Step two: Change the ghost to a demon, add a hot, but diabolical witch. Throw in a hunky seventeen-year old and his hell-powered schizophrenic sister and you're in business. Oh, I forgot to mention there will also be: Gypsies, exorcisms, blood, bullets, a nice sprinkling of sex, sin, murder, and a couple of trips into the wonderful vacation spot known as Hell...and did I mention sex? Right, check that off the list. Step three: Churn these all up into non-stop action, until you realize what you have is nothing more than a family in dire peril. What is this story about? What every story is about: people. People in love, people in danger, people fighting for their very souls.
P.S. on a self-serving note, the review is the most practical and inexpensive form of advertisement an independent author has available in order to get his work known. If you could put a kind review on Amazon and your Facebook page, I would greatly appreciate it.
Fictional works by Peter Meredith:
A Perfect America
The Sacrificial Daughter
The Horror of the Shade Trilogy of the Void 1
An Illusion of Hell Trilogy of the Void 2
Hell Blade Trilogy of the Void 3
The Punished
Sprite
The Feylands: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Sun King: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Sun Queen: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Apocalypse: The Undead World Novel 1
The Apocalypse Survivors: The Undead World Novel 2
The Apocalypse Outcasts: The Undead World Novel 3
The Apocalypse Fugitives: The Undead World Novel 4
Pen(Novella)
A Sliver of Perfection (Novella)
The Haunting At Red Feathers(Short Story)
The Haunting On Colonel's Row(Short Story)
The Drawer(Short Story)
The Eyes in the Storm(Short Story)
The Apocalyse Outcasts Page 42