“Five? That’s too many. What’s the governor going to do?”
Chris had no idea. Governor Rowe had been at the loosely termed “water wall” down at the harbor. She had stood mute as a stone, watching Norris Barnes yell back and forth with a Corsair as the filthy man sat in a canoe, a white flag flapping about over his head. She had made no answer to the demand.
Linda, who was so excited to get away from the clinic, came back to it as if it was some sort of haven. She found Jillybean on the floor outside of Jonathan’s room spreading foul-smelling trash onto a sheet. The little girl wore gloves and an intense look of concentration as if she were trying to fit all the pieces of the trash back together like a jigsaw puzzle.
“The Corsairs took Willy Keating and Ted. They’re holding them hostage and want five of our boats in return.”
The blood drained from Jillybean’s face and as Linda watched, a spasm struck her. Jillybean asked, “Are we going to war?” Linda didn’t have an answer to that. Jillybean stood, her eyes staring at the trash as if looking for meaning within it. “I’ll be right back,” she said.
“Where are you going?” Linda asked. Jillybean kept walking for the door. “What about Jonathan? What about the machine? I don’t know how to work it.”
If Linda said anything else, Jillybean didn’t hear her. The door to the building cut the woman off. Outside, the tranquility of the island was gone. People were now arguing back and forth, their voices rising. Some wanted to save the two men at all costs, some wanted to bargain, some said to screw-off, and some wanted to go to war.
Jillybean walked through the bickering towards the center of the island where she and Neil shared a home. As expected, he was not in and she went straight to her room and to her dresser. Instead of opening any drawers, she dropped to her knees and felt beneath it for the hidden latches. She had constructed a false bottom to her dresser that was not accessible in the usual manner through a drawer.
A thin board dropped into her hand. On it was a tiny nickel-plated .25 caliber handgun, two dozen bullets, stiff wire, handcuff keys and a couple of thin packets of aluminum foil. Jillybean fingered one of the packets.
Maybe it won’t come to that. Sadie Martin emerged from Jillybean’s closet. Her flesh was vampire white, which made her dark sunken eyes appear like pits that opened onto hell. She wore dark flowing clothing that was seemingly made of shadows.
“It always comes to this,” the little girl replied. “Death is just about the only thing I can really count on. You should know that better than anyone.”
You can count on Neil. You’ll always have him, just like you’ll always have me.
“He’s going to haunt me, too?” Jillybean asked, giving her sister a fleeting smile.
It’s not a haunting if you want me here.
Jillybean’s shoulder’s drooped. “You know I always want you here, but…” She grimaced as she stood and went to her closet. “But you only come on days like today.” The little girl reached past Sadie and thrust her hand into a dusty winter coat that was sized for an adult. In an inner pocket was a tiny ankle holster designed to fit the tiny .25.
That’s because you need me on days like today.
“Yeah, I guess.” She dropped and affixed the holster beneath the cuff of her jeans. “It’s just not the same. I want you to come on a good day so we can do stuff like we used to.” Next, Jillybean took down a light jacket. It was dark blue and made of denim. There were already handcuff keys sown into it; one in front on the bottom seam and one in back a little off center.
She felt them to make sure they were still in place. She then checked the two razor blades stored in the jacket. The first sat along the back seam precisely where her hands would fall if she were tied up. The second was actually made from one of the buttons. She had taken it out and had painstakingly filed five grooves into the lower edge. They were like the teeth of a tiny saw and with perseverance, the button could cut rope. There was also stiff wire in the collar, just in case all else failed.
“None of the kids around here like me and I guess that’s sorta okay since, you know.” No other eight-year-old could match Jillybean’s intelligence, inner drive, or her innate understanding of human behavior. While she was busy wrapping her mind around the intricacies of architectural engineering, they played games; hopscotch and tag and red rover. As much as she desperately wanted to join them, she knew they were actually pissing away time.
The passing of time was something that Jillybean seemed to feel to a greater degree than anyone else. Life on the island was relaxed and dreadfully slow-paced. The waters of the Sound produced more fish than they could ever consume. Goats and chickens seemed to multiply without effort. Trees dropped apples by the tens of thousands, grapes gushed forth wine by the barrel, and the amount of jam produced was only limited by the number of jars available.
In this apocalyptic world, Bainbridge was heaven, and she, Neil and Deanna were the only people who seemed to realize how fragile it was. Not only was it fragile, it was a beacon and not just to the frightened and desperate. It was the ultimate prize to anyone gutsy enough to attempt to take it—and the sudden appearance of the Corsairs was just one more clear indicator of this truth.
“Also, the other kids think I’m weird,” she admitted. As she stood over the hidden board with its odds and ends, she clung to the idea that weird was a relative term. She started slipping the items about her person in the cunning way she’d developed out of necessity.
And I think they’re stupid, Sadie said. What are you going to do with that last razor…ah, very smart. So, now that you’re ready for battle, what’s the plan?
Jillybean dropped down on her bed. “Try to fix Mr. Dunnam. Then when it gets dark, I gotta get rid of the body.”
They’ll be watching you.
“They’ll try.”
9
Jillybean was back in the clinic, sitting in Jonathan’s room, sifting through the garbage when Deanna and Neil came in. The clinic was essentially empty; Jonathan was asleep, Linda was very slowly eating a sandwich beneath a cherry tree that sat just within calling distance, and Sadie sat on the floor in the corner. Sadie seemed to fade almost to nothing when they came in.
“You heard what’s going on?” Deanna asked, giving a glance at the trash and wrinkling her nose. Jillybean nodded, knowing there would be follow-up questions.
“Should we give in?” Neil asked. “You think five ships for the lives of two people is fair? Or do we bargain?”
She had finally uncovered part of Jonathan’s halibut dinner from the night before. It already had a weird odor to it. Setting it aside, she puffed out her cheeks and told Neil, “We fight with everything we gots. That’s how you deal with bad guys. It’s the only way.”
Deanna rubbed her chin. “We were looking for more of a political answer. There’s a fine line to balance here. If we give in, we look weak. If we bargain, we might look callous. And if we go with your answer, what do we look like then?”
“Warmongers?” Neil suggested.
“Leaders,” Jillybean answered. “You know the Corsairs aren’t gonna go away. Not for good, at least. They might dissolve due to internal stresses. That’s what means like a civil war. But I really kinda doubt it if the Black Captain is as mean as they say he is. Eventually, we’re gonna have to fight them.”
Deanna wore a pained expression as she said, “I don’t think we’re ready for a war. The people here are too complacent. They’ve grown a bit soft.”
“Mr. Captain Grey wouldn’t think so. Maybe the soft part, yeah but not the backing down part. He always says that people surprise you. I amember when he said that about Neil. It was right after the, the, the…” She stumbled over her words. On the linoleum, surrounded by the trash was Sarah Rivers lying stiff and cold, her body burnt in places and bloody everywhere else. She seemed to be looking at Jillybean, and even with dead, glazed-over eyes, her expression was one of disappointment.
Grimacing, Jillybean turne
d her head away from the sight and saw that Sadie was no longer in the corner. “It was right after we defeated the Believers. He said he thought you would fold.”
Bringing up Grey’s name darkened the mood. Neil nodded for a long time before he said, “But I couldn’t. I had to look after you and Eve and Sadie.”
Deanna paused long enough to show respect when speaking of the dead before saying, “I think Grey said that in the same way people say the exception proves the rule. Neil was the exception. The people of Bainbridge are the rule. If there were heroes among them, they would’ve stepped up by now. My reading of them is that they’re going to need to be nudged towards conflict and this might be a start if it’s played correctly.”
Jillybean glanced to where Sarah Rivers had been lying. The dead woman was gone. In her place, just for a flash, was Kevin Dunlap. Jillybean blinked him away too. She didn’t want to talk about the Corsairs or anything really. She wanted the day to be over. She wanted to wake up tomorrow and have everything be okay—no Corsairs, no chopped-up body, no dying Jonathan Dunnam.
A sigh escaped her and she turned back to the bit of halibut. He had pan-fried it, but hadn’t seared the skin, which was limp and foul. Pulling it back released a new and more unpleasant smell into the hallway. She poked the remains and saw something small and white.
“A maggot?” Neil looked over her shoulder and recoiled. The little girl grabbed tweezers and picked it up. “How would a maggot hatch so quickly if…oh it’s just rice.” She looked in at the remains and found a few more grains as well as some black-brown specs. “Excuse me, Mr. Dunnam?” He blinked blearily awake. “Did you have anything with the halibut? Rice?”
“Uh yeah. It was stuffed with mushrooms and rice.”
Jillybean’s eyes narrowed. “Mushrooms? What kind of mushrooms? Where’d you get them? Did you pick them yourself?”
“They were just normal mushrooms. Like portobello or something. I got them at Hanson’s when I got the fish.” He jerked suddenly. “Could they have been poisonous mushrooms? Oh God. Poison mushrooms! This is crazy. I never thought a mushroom would get me. With zombies everywhere, I get killed by a mushroom.”
“Hold on, Mr. Dunnam. We don’t know if they’re the issue. I’d have to take a look at them. Do you still have some? Uncooked, preferably.”
Jonathan was pale now. “I think so. Maybe.”
Deanna looked at the little specs and thought they looked like dirt. “Does anyone even know what a poisonous mushroom looks like?”
She had asked the room in general, but her eyes were on Jillybean. The girl dropped her head as a memory came drifting up from somewhere deep. It wasn’t her memory, it was Eve’s. Jillybean saw her wicked self bent over a book, a nasty look on her face. Eve hated to read, but she sometimes made exceptions when she was hell bent on revenge.
Her blue eyes were darker than Jillybean’s as she skimmed down page after page, looking for just the right thing to kill… “Fred Trigg,” Jillybean whispered, remembering now. Back in Estes Park, Fred had made a joke at Eve’s expense and it was all she could think about for days.
“Large, three to six inches,” Jillybean said as the memory opened up to her. “White with a green or yellow tinge. Beneath, the gills are white, thin and crowded. It gives off a scent like a cleaning agent. They are called Death Caps.” She quickly scanned through the trash for anything with the Hanson stamp on it. The only thing with the stamp was the old newspaper the fish had come wrapped in.
She turned to Neil. “Can you run over to his house and look for mushrooms?” He nodded and darted away.
“Is there a cure? Or an antidote?” Deanna asked.
Jillybean was already accessing that memory. Eve had chosen Death Cap mushrooms as her poison of choice mainly because it had no cure.
“No. There are things we can do for him.” That sounded positive enough; however, the only steps that could be taken to guarantee Jonathan lived was to give him liver and kidney transplants. There were no spare livers on Bainbridge. “There are a few antibiotics that may help.”
“Good. Then I’ll leave him in your hands. Good luck, Jonathan,” Deanna said before marching out with that quick stride of hers.
Jonathan watched her go and found Jillybean in something of a trance. She was staring at the corner of the room without moving. In her mind was a list of the antibiotics they had available in the clinic. When she had first asserted herself in the clinic, at the governor’s suggestion, Jillybean had purposely reduced the number and type of antibiotics available.
Linda had been throwing them at too many non-bacterial related issues, though this was not always her fault. Many people believe that antibiotics are something of a cure-all and they were quick to ask, then demand them for their problems.
“I have to go back to my lab,” she said, in a whisper. It was the last place she wanted to go. Zombies had haunted her dreams for two years now and her mind had no problem envisioning Kevin Dunlap somehow pieced together with twine and shoe-string. He’d be lurking in the dark, waiting for her.
As unlikely as that was, there was another reason she didn’t want to go. Or two, rather: Sheriff Perkins and Angela Lenna. Angela wasn’t going to stop looking for Kevin, and Jillybean feared that the sheriff wasn’t done poking around—and what if one of the trash bags had a hole in it? What if there was blood leaking out of one of the lockers even then?
The thought got her feet moving, almost too quickly. She first had to put Jonathan on a penicillin drip. It took her only a minute to hook it up. “I’ll get Linda. It’s going to be okay.” She looked and sounded frazzled.
Ten minutes later, after a looping run that she hoped would throw off any pursuit, she made it back to her school and unlocked the chain. She didn’t rush right in, however. She moved slowly, checking every room, seeing that many of them had been haphazardly searched. It wasn’t obvious to the average person, but she had arranged each of the unused and rarely used rooms exactly alike.
Closet doors were open the width of her hand. Teacher desk drawers were all closed on the left, while on the right the top was open wide enough to rest her thumb in the gap, the second sat four fingers’ open, and the bottom was a pinky width. As unnerving as it was to have her “privacy” violated, Jillybean felt a tiny bit of satisfaction.
It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you, Sadie said, appearing out of nowhere.
“Exactly.” That tiny bit of satisfaction couldn’t last. Although her fears over the leaking bags turned out to be unfounded and the floor beneath the lockers was puddle-free, she knew that the longer Kevin remained missing the closer the scrutiny she would have to endure. Sheriff Perkins would be back and she’d bring more people with her.
“It’s got to be tonight. The only question is do I dare stash the pieces anywhere on the island?”
There were a hundred places she could hide the body parts—a thousand, really—but if Angela raised a big enough stink, every one of those places would be searched eventually.
Perhaps even dogs might be brought in. Didn’t you tell me that Todd Karraker was training his terrier? The dog was a runty, yapping little thing and apart from its angry bearded face, it was wholly unimpressive. Still, it was a dog and they had a remarkable sense of smell.
“Off island, then.” She paused, picturing the island at night, the school, the path she usually took to dispose of the bodies of her zombie patients. “Them stupid Corsairs are gonna mess things up,” she said in a mutter.
Maybe, Sadie said with a ghostly shrug of her shoulders. There can always be another brown out.
“It’s the only way,” she said heading for the principal’s office where she first cracked one of her medical books and read all she could on Amanita phalloides, the Death Cap mushroom. Although its use as a poison had been known for thousands of years, an antidote had yet to be discovered. There were various treatments that were hit and miss, depending on how quickly they were administered.
She grabbed eve
rything that had been mentioned and hurried from the building, locking the doors behind her.
10
For hours, the island was in a state of chaos. People gathered in groups, uselessly talking about the Corsairs, their two hostages and the boats being demanded. Around and around they went and as they talked, Governor Rowe had people listening. She knew better than to go against the grain of the majority, but at the same time, lives were at stake.
During all this, Jillybean sat alone with Jonathan, her knees drawn up and wrapped in her arms so she looked like a little ball. She had let Linda go home to rest, knowing she would need someone to watch over Jonathan that night as she got rid of the body. As the afternoon turned into evening, Jonathan grew lethargic and slept. As he lay there, she mulled over everything going on. Neil had found only normal button mushrooms at Jonathan’s place. Jillybean studied a sliver of them under her microscope and then gazed for a long time at the bits she’d found in the fish; however the intense heat and the oil used to cook them had rendered the comparison useless. Sure, they were mushrooms, but what kind would never be known.
Based on the obvious facts at hand, Jonathan had eaten normal mushrooms and yet, she didn’t stop his treatments. His symptoms ran consistent with Death Cap poisoning…and a score of other poisons, venoms and toxins. There were so many that it boggled the mind. Still, she didn’t think she was hurting him with the steroids and antibiotics, and it certainly felt better to be doing something instead of nothing.
We both know this wasn’t an accident, Sadie said. If it wasn’t mushroom poisoning then it was something exotic, something not easily found on the island.
“Exactly. And if it was mushroom poisoning, and he got the mushrooms from Hanson’s, why isn’t anyone else sick? Someone wants him dead. I just can’t understand why?” They both looked at the meek little man with his nub of a chin and his thinning hair that he was just starting to comb-over. Jonathan Dunnam was not the sort of man who inspired passion of any kind. He wasn’t loved or hated. He wasn’t involved in any of the petty feuds on the island and few people could be found who could say a single negative thing about him personally.
The Undead World (Book 12): The Body [An Undead World Expansion] Page 6
