“Surprised I’m still alive?” Sadie asked. “Thought you had killed me? Wrong, bitch.”
Cassie’s face went fiery with anger, but then she smiled in an evil manner. “Yuri, three barrels for her, too. And where is Ram? I’ll give three barrels for him as well. Keith, was there anyone with them?”
Neil’s family had been escorted in by one of Yuri’s men and followed by one of Cassie’s as well. “This is it,” Keith said. “I saw them arrive. One man, two females and a baby. Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Cassie said. “He’ll show soon enough. So, Yuri, do we gots a deal? Three barrels each for these two?”
“What’s happening?” Sarah asked in astonishment. “Are you being sold?”
Neil dropped his chin to his chest so his nod was a bare movement. “Yeah. We all are. Everyone but you.”
“No…not Eve…not Sadie,” Sarah said breathlessly. “Not you.”
Now the bearded man rose and pounded the table. “This is preposterous! We came here for a vaccine. To help our communities and now we’re buying and selling people like slaves?”
“Sit down, John,” another man said. “If you're against slavery, don’t own one.”
“But she’s just going to kill them!” John shouted.
“It does seem a waste,” another agreed.
Cassie sneered at them. “For a thousand years you treat my people like monkeys and sell us like cattle and now when we finally have power you’re gonna pretend you gots morals? What a fuckin’ joke. I gots me oil, White-boy. I gots me a whole fuckin’ train full and what I do with my property is my business. If I wanna buy this mother-fucker who’s gonna tell me I can’t? What law? There ain’t no law but power. But, shit, you don’t have to watch what I’m gonna do with ’em if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Maybe we should watch,” Colonel Williams said as he got to his feet. “The reason we came to this meeting is that we needed some proof that the vaccine actually works.”
Yuri threw his hands up and cried, “You each had a demonstration!”
“Only on rats,” Williams countered. “What I suggest is that we get a zombie from off the street and have him bite each of these two.” Here he gestured to Neil and Sadie. “One will be vaccinated and the other will be our control subject. If only the vaccinated one lives, then we know for sure that your vaccine works.”
“Will I get to keep the one that lives?” Cassie asked, warming to the idea.
“And I get the baby?” Abraham asked. “She won’t be harmed, you have my promise.”
Yuri nodded and said, “Da, we can do this. It is settled. Tonight, we vaccinate one of these two in full view of everyone and tomorrow we let them each get bit. The only question is which will get vaccine?”
“I will,” Neil said, before Sadie could even open her mouth.
“What a chicken-shit,” Cassie sneered.
“Yeah, that's me,” Neil replied, dropping his gaze; hoping that Cassie hadn’t seen the fire of determination there. He was sure that Sadie’s death from the fever would be a hundred times easier than his own.
Chapter 33
Ram
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
At the moment Eve was being torn from Sarah’s grasp, and Sadie was throwing around haymakers in vain, Ram was just finishing applying his make-up. He checked himself in the rearview mirror and grunted.
On the way into the city, he had stopped at a garishly decorated store: Party Palace. Anything of real use had already been looted, but there were still Halloween costumes by the hundreds—including a fine assortment of zombie costumes. Compared to the real thing they were a bit of a joke, however with a little bit of makeup and some fake blood he would pass inspection, he hoped.
“Here goes nothing,” he whispered.
Ram slipped out of the truck and with a last look around began to stumble along as any zombie would. Everything he knew about zombies suggested that the thinking part of their brain was destroyed. This meant that they had to identify humans based on an unchangeable paradigm imprinted into the dregs of their memory. To zombies all humans walked a certain way, they held themselves erect, their heads swiveled quickly and they generally carried things. Even if their hair wasn’t combed, their skin was generally clean of blood and filth, and their clothes were almost always intact.
In order to go on foot in a city the size of Philadelphia, Ram had to change all of that about himself. Thus the make-up and the limp and the ragged clothes, and of course the hidden gun.
Not only did he have to fool the zombies, he had to fool the humans. He had found out the hard way that Cassie kept her petty kingdom well guarded. They would be watching every avenue into the city, however they wouldn’t be watching for zombies. That was like keeping an eye out for flies at a picnic.
“My first test,” he mumbled after a minute. A zombie had angled slightly toward him, perhaps alerted by something Ram wasn’t doing correct.
“Uuhhhh,” the zombie moaned as it closed the distance.
There it was. Ram was being too quiet. “Uuhhhh,” Ram said. He made sure to watch the zombie from eyes that were half-cracked. It paused as it got closer and then after a moment of deliberation turned aside. Ram kept going, aiming for the school where Trey and Jermy had trussed him up.
There had been a guard station near there somewhere. They had undoubtedly watched Ram come tooling right up like a fool. He was a fool no longer. With his training, he picked out the perfect vantage point where a car could be seen coming from half a mile away. With it as a beacon, he moaned and schlepped his way, slowly along, sometimes coming within feet of real zombies. Their proximity gave him the shivers on a subconscious level. Outwardly he went on without the least flinch.
Then he was at the base of the building; it was three over from the school; close enough for Trey and his crew to have zipped down and sprung their trap.
Here’s where things get messy, Ram thought. Blood and tears would be spilt. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
He abandoned his zombie-gate, opting instead to move with all the stealth of a panther under the moonlight. In his right hand he carried a three-pound handsledge, which was basically nothing more than a heavy headed hammer. It would do for both human and zombie opponents. In his left he gripped a Beretta that Neil had given over without the least qualm.
It was growing dark as evening turned to night, however the staircase was like midnight in a cave. By feel alone he worked his way up, finding something strange just after the second level. After a minute he risked giving away his position by flicking open his Zippo. What he found was nothing more than a desk shoved sideways onto the stairs. Though a zombie would never be able to get past it, Ram scrambled over it easily.
The desk meant he was on the right track and not two minutes later he heard the first of the voices. There were two: a man and a woman. They were on the seventh floor, in an apartment that faced east. Ram oriented on their voices, and crept to the edge of the room.
Other than to hit hard and fast, he didn’t have a plan. Without the smallest battle cry he rushed in to the room. The man was bigger, stronger, and faster than the woman, however Ram picked him out for his first assault simply because he was closer.
Down swept the hammer in a deadly arc. Its speed was such that it would crush bone and go straight into the skull—Ram turned the head and pulled the stroke at the last second. He couldn’t kill a stranger in cold blood like that if he had a choice.
There was a crunch and the man went down without a sound. The speed and unnerving silence of the attack caught the woman so completely by surprise that she did nothing but watch as Ram turned on her next.
“No,” she squeaked.
Ram stayed his hand. “Turn around. Hands behind your back.”
“Ok…ok. I didn’t do anything, Mister. I just keep watch is all. They make me, really. I used to like your kind back in the day. You gotta believe me.”
“Shut up,” Ram said softly. He bou
nd her hands with a coat-hanger, twisting it slowly down to the point she cried out; he did the same for her feet. Then he bound the unconscious man as well, before dragging him into another room. There he splashed water on him until he revived and looked at Ram blearily.
“What da fuck?” he asked.
Using his knife, Ram cut away a couple of swaths of the man’s shirt. “Open up,” he ordered. When the man hesitated Ram held the knife to his cheek. “I can pry your teeth open if you wish.” The man clearly did not wish this and reluctantly accepted the gag. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” Ram said in a low voice. “I’m going to ask you some questions and I’ll ask the same questions of your friend in the other room. If your answers don’t match, I’m going to crush your toes with this.”
He held up the heavy hammer.
“Do you want to go first?” Ram asked, pulling out the gag.
“Whatever, you fuckin’ Spic.”
“I'll take that as a yes. We’ll start easy. Where’s the building that you Blacks have fortified?” Ram could see the lie forming in the man’s eyes. “Remember it’s not just your toes that’ll get crushed. It’s the woman’s as well. Also please keep in mind that I have a lot of questions. That’s a lot of toes. You don’t want to go around being a cripple in this day and age.”
“Look man, please don’t do this…”
Ram punched him in the face and then said, “I don’t want to have to do any of this. Tell me where the building is.”
“On Stanford Avenue. It’s about eight blocks from here. Go west four blocks and then south eight.”
“Good,” Ram said. “Let’s hope your friend gives me the same answer.”
After re-gagging him Ram went to the woman. She was such a pitiful sight that he had to keep from looking at her as he explained the “rules” of her interrogation. “Just give me the same answer as him and you’ll be alright.”
Her face glistened with tears and fear-sweat. When he took off the gag she began to plead. Ram could not bring himself to hit her. However he did shake her very hard and yelled the question into her face.
“What if he lied?” she asked. “He prolly lied and you’re gonna bus-up my toes. Please don’t take it out on me.”
“How about this. You tell me the truth and I’ll go back to him with one more chance.”
“Stanford Avenue,” she hissed. “That’s the truth! If he lied then…”
“It’s what he told me as well. It seems he doesn’t want you hurt. That’s nice, right?”
“Yeah. That’s nice," she said in a shaky relief-filled voice.
Ram then asked how to get there and she repeated exactly what the other man had said. “You’re doing great. Now comes the hard part.” She braced herself for something serious, but he only asked where she lived in the building. “I’m trying to get a feel for the layout. If you want you can tell me where your friend lives instead.”
This she did readily enough, and she didn’t stop there. With simple prodding she explained the entire floor plan of the building; exactly what he needed.
He thanked her and went to her companion. “Did she go on and on, or what?” Ram asked trying to show what a genial person he could be in spite of the circumstances. “Now it’s your turn and here’s the bad part, if you try to mix up truth with lies, you both are going to be in big trouble.”
Just like his counterpart, the man described the layout of the building in minute detail. If their storied ever varied Ram would ask him if he wanted to “re-think” his answer. He did every time.
“One last question and we’ll be done,” Ram said. “Where in all of this does Cassie sleep? Where are her quarters? She’s the only one I’m really after.”
There was a hesitation that perked Ram up. “Top floor. Take a left outside the elevator doors. It’s at the end of the hall.”
“And are there any guards?”
“Just one.”
The man had lied somewhere in his answer. “Anything you want to change?” Ram asked almost sadly. The man claimed he was telling the truth, and the woman gave essentially the same answer and she too had left something out.
“That’s not what he said. I’m sorry.” Ram went to reach for the hammer.
“She’s not there,” the woman said in a rush. “Is that what he told you? I’m so sorry, but you asked me where her room was and I answered that truthful. But you didn’t ask me where Cassie was so I just didn’t answer that because it wasn’t really part of the question. Please don’t hurt me.”
Her honesty now was evident, which was a relief to Ram. Hitting her with the hammer was the last thing he wanted to do. “Where is she?”
The woman didn’t hesitate: “New York.”
The two words bored a hole in his belly where it felt like his stomach and then his heart fell through. His family was in New York—Neil and Sarah and Sadie and Eve…and, “Jillybean,” he whispered.
“Huh?” the woman asked.
“Nothing. You did well. So well that I don’t think anyone’s going to get hurt. Not today.” Ram stood and glanced around at the room they had set for keeping watch. There was a food and some water; he ate and drank, and thought about what he had to do. It wasn’t hard. He had to get to New York before anything terrible happened.
“I have to go,” he told the woman, standing and stretching.
“You’re going to leave us here? All tied up? You can’t do that! Mister, come on, we answered everything you asked.”
“You’ll be fine,” Ram said, looking out into the early night. It was freshly dark, seeming blacker than a normal night. “I’m sure your replacement will be here soon enough.”
“Not till morning and by then my hands will rot off. Please, Mister. I can’t feel my hands or my feet. You’ll be clean away by the time I have any circulation. Please don’t leave…”
Ram wanted to be away badly, but he gave in. “Fine,” he said and began to undo her hands. “I’m taking the guns. They’ll be downstairs, but I have to warn you I will shoot to kill if you try to follow me.” Not trusting her sob story completely he cinched down the wire on her ankles, knowing that it would take her minutes to undo it and another five minutes to free her friend. By that time he’d been in his truck and heading northeast to New York.
“Were you really going to bash my toes in?” the woman asked as she massages her hands.
“At first,” Ram told her. “I think so. I was pretty pumped up but after a few minutes I didn’t think I could.”
She grunted an understanding. “Cassie says that the other races are weak and we are weak when we associate with them. She says they undermine us by using compassion and that we would have been stronger if we had never accepted the first promise of forty acres and a mule.”
“Probably,” Ram said with a final grunt. When he looked up from her bound feet he found himself staring down the dark bore of a short-barreled pistol, the make of which he didn’t recognize. “You know Cassie is crazy,” he said.
“She’s not. Undo the wire right now. And know this: I’ll splatter your brains at the first twitch.” Ram saw that she wasn’t joking; the trigger was already halfway back and he could hear the sound of the spring tightening up.
Even working slowly the wire was off her before he could think of a single plan to escape. She then disarmed him completely and had him free her friend. At no time did she give Ram the slightest opening to snatch her weapon.
When the man was free he punched Ram in the face and then worked him over with his fists—it wasn’t unexpected. Perhaps because the man had been brained by a hammer not long before, the beating wasn’t prosecuted with much enthusiasm.
“What are we going to do with him?” the man asked. He rubbed his head seeming more in pain than Ram was.
“I ain’t taking him back with us,” the woman said. “We’ll be fucked if it gets out that we spilled all that we did. Cassie won’t care if we were tortured or not.”
“So turn him into grey-meat?” the
man suggested. She agreed as if there wasn’t any other choice. He went to the window and whistled. “There’s a fuck-load of them down there tonight. Looks like you’re in luck, asshole. They’ll be like piranhas; you’ll be dead in no time. Five minutes tops.”
Ram had his hands bound behind his back with the same wire he had used on them, and because of this he was led down the stairs. The man carried a flashlight in one hand and had Ram by the collar in the other, while the woman led the way. She had traded out her pistol for a shotgun—a more certain weapon against zombies.
Below the third level Ram was basically heaved over the desk where he knocked the side of his head enough to make him dizzy. He moaned in pain.
“Stop your fucking faking,” the man said and began pushing him on. “Or I’ll give you…”
Just then a horribly familiar sound came to them from somewhere on the second level. It was the sound of a marble bouncing. Goose bumps flashed across Ram’s skin. They weren’t of excitement; they were of dread. There was only one reason for a marble to be bouncing just then…but that reason couldn’t be possible.
Yet in his heart he knew that it was possible.
“Jilly! Don’t do this,” he cried at the top of his lungs. In the silence that followed the bouncing marble kept going, clacking about merrily. “Run away! Get out of here.”
There was no sound but the marble and the wailing of the undead outside.
Chapter 34
Jillybean
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“He will die without me, Ipes,” Jillybean had said earlier that afternoon.
The stuffed animal shrugged. I like Mister Neil better. I know he tried to give you to the cult, but he’s actually very nice aside from that. And, he’s very complimentary to zebras, which is a mark of an advanced and fully mature mind.
“If you like Mister Neil so much maybe you should stay here,” Jillybean countered.
The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors Page 31