There were a number of people, Jillybean included, who thought he was in over his head as the Island’s Chief of Engineering and Maintenance, but as there were almost no candidates to take his place, he kept the job in spite of his relative ineptness.
Sadie sighed, more in the figurative than the literal. I hate to say it, but we both know who should be the prime suspect.
“She doesn’t really know him. He’s the kind of man she would barely glance at. So what if he was a bit of a jerk last night. He didn’t say anything bad about her and that’s all she cares about.”
“Who?”
Jillybean had been a bit too loud and Jonathan had awoken. “Uh, nobody. We…I mean I was trying to figure out who did this.”
“It was the mushrooms?”
“I dunno. Mr. Neil went down to Hanson’s and then over to Mr. Turner’s to check his crops. It’s all button mushrooms. It’s possible that the wrong spores could’ve been introduced somehow, but I kinda doubt it.”
Jonathan shrugged and shook his head in a disjointed motion. “But who would want to kill me? It’s got to be an accident.”
The image of sawing through Kevin’s neck came to Jillybean. She swallowed thickly. “No. It wasn’t on accident.” After a long moment in which they both stared at the floor, she asked, “Can you tell me everything about yesterday? Who you saw. What you did. If anything different happened.”
He sat, his face slack. “It was just a normal day. I was at the office for most of it and didn’t see anyone but Norris. We talked about the meeting.” His shoulder did a little jerk and he glanced quickly at Jillybean. “Then I went home for lunch.” Now he frowned. “But I stopped over at Kevin Dunlap’s. I was walking by and smelled his fish. Angela had fried some halibut and gave me a bite.”
His eyes grew suddenly wide. “Do you think he got sick, too? Is that why he’s missing? Maybe he’s dead in a ditch. Oh God.”
Jillybean was shaken by the suggestion. With all the knife wounds, she had given Kevin only a cursory examination. He could’ve been poisoned…and then knifed to cover it up? That made no sense, unless Angela had eaten some as…
“We should keep an eye on Angela,” Jonathan said, breaking in on her thoughts. “She was eating from the same plate.”
This deflated Jillybean. “No. She’s fine. So, what did you do next?”
“I went to Hanson’s and got the fish and the mushrooms. I had the rice already. I also needed milk and butter. And that was about it. I marinated it and fried up the mushrooms, and then I went back to work. You kinda know the rest. You know the meeting and all that. I didn’t even eat any of the milk and cookies.”
Jillybean remembered the giant cookie Gina Sanders had given her, but not the milk. She was trying to remember who had brought it when Deanna came in with little pink-cheeked Emily on her hip.
“The governor is going to attempt to bargain with the Corsairs. Two boats, plus the one already taken is the proposal. The island as a whole seems to agree it’s a good idea. What do you think? Will they go for it?”
“Nope,” Jillybean said, right away. “Why should they. Just by answering, the governor is letting them know that she’ll bend. Now they’re going to see how far.”
At six that evening, a canoe was paddled across the Sound by a single black-garbed sailor. He hooked to a buoy just within shouting distance and told the governor that they weren’t budging on their demands. It would be five ships at sunrise or else.
“If you ask me, we’ve been given a second chance,” Jillybean said when Deanna came back, this time with Neil in tow. “I’d say no deal.”
Deanna stood in contemplation, rocking Emily back and forth as the infant guzzled from a bottle. “What do you think, Neil? We’re in no position to fight. They have to know that?”
He raised half an eyebrow. “Do they? The only way they could was if they had spies on the island and I really doubt a bunch of pirates are that sophisticated. I think a semi-bluff might work.”
This earned a nod from Deanna. She then turned to pale Jonathan and asked him what he thought. “Me? I don’t know. I’d hate to be in Willy or Ted’s shoes. They’re probably scared to death. So, I guess I’d give up the ships.”
“Okay. Three people with three different suggestions,” Deanna said with a sigh. “For the moment at least, I’m glad I’m not the governor.”
Neil, who had led for a while in Estes Park, agreed. “She’ll be screwed one way or another. There’s always someone who’s unhappy. Hey, speaking of which. Jillybean, are you okay? You’ve had a long day.”
He had his eyes keen on her, but she had been ready for a question along these lines. “Yeah and it’s gonna be a long night, too. I should stay with Mr. Dunnam.” Neil’s eyes narrowed slightly at this, but after Jonathan groaned, Neil shrugged.
“I’ll bring something to eat. Just nothing with mushrooms in it.” The dad joke fell flat as Jillybean only nodded and Jonathan continued to look glum.
Just after sunset, he was back with fried chicken in her Hello Kitty lunchbox. She ate sparingly as the minutes dragged by. Linda arrived at nine and Jillybean made a show of making up a bed in her little office. As expected, Neil arrived at half past ten to check on her.
Jillybean slipped out the back fourteen minutes after he left, and took another looping route to her school. It was dark and quiet…exactly what she had expected and yet, her flesh was tented by countless goosebumps. Was there someone in the dark waiting for her? Sheriff Perkins perhaps? Or someone else?
There was too much riding on the moment to give in to the temptation of grabbing the bags and rushing out into the night. After taking a breath, the little girl went from room to room and checked all the places a grown adult could hide. She was in the gymnasium when she heard excited voices outside.
They know what you did, Eve whispered from the shadows. They’re coming for you.
It sure seemed that way. Along with the voices came the sound of slapping feet. Jillybean darted to the nearest door and just as she opened it, she heard a scream that seemed to come from the deepest part of her mind. It was barely a whisper and yet it reminded her of something. Something terrible.
The scream came again, just as faint.
“Torture,” she whispered. Just as she said the word, she realized the scream wasn’t coming from within her head. She ran to the closest door and stared out. The island was suddenly awake. Lights lit up every home as people were doing the same useless thing as Jillybean. They were listening to the distant screams floating over the dark waters of the Sound. Right away she knew what was happening: the Corsairs were showing that they knew how to bargain. They were going to torture their two captives until Governor Rowe caved.
“And they won’t be asking for five ships, now,” Jillybean muttered. She guessed it would be seven, maybe eight, but no more. If they pushed too hard, the governor might just grow a spine.
A new scream and Jillybean twitched. “I can’t worry about that now.” She ducked back into her school and nearly ran into Eve. Unlike Jillybean’s, Eve’s hair was pure black, her face was pale as chalk.
Do the screams bother you? Do you remember how Mr. Dunlap screamed? There was a sudden echo of a scream in Jillybean’s head. It grew into a shriek until Jillybean had to clamp her hands over her ears. When Eve spoke, it was as if the hands weren’t even there. Do you remember how he begged?
Now she heard a man’s voice: Please, I didn’t do anything. Don’t kill me.
Jillybean fled down the hall with Eve’s mad cackle racing after her. No matter how fast she ran, the laughter kept pace until Jillybean turned and hissed savagely, “It wasn’t me! You did it.”
Eve was gone and in her place was the real echo of Jillybean’s voice as it washed down the empty hallways. “It was you,” she whispered. She paused, but when there was no reply, she hurried back towards the art room. Two doors down was a 3rd grade classroom and on the windowsill was a clay pot. The plant in it had died long before and wa
s little more than a crooked stick with a few stems.
It was only for show and it sat on a clear plastic basin that was two-inches deep. Careful not to spill any dirt, Jillybean lifted it out and uncovered a thermal scope in a ziplock bag. It went in her pocket and then, meticulous as always, Jillybean replaced the dead plant and wiped away the few grains of dirt that had fallen.
Next, she went for the gurney with a false bottom she used to transport the corpses. There were empty cardboard boxes filling up the space. These were her last-ditch effort against getting caught. Thankfully, she had never been stopped, but she had lies prepared about the boxes just in case.
You’re going to need a lie tonight. Eve stepped from a classroom, a grin on her heart-shaped face. And it better be good. What sort of mood will the villagers be in when they find you with a bunch of chunks of Kevin Dunlap? What will they think when they see all those stab wounds? Will torture come to mind? Will they think you’re one of them?
This stopped Jillybean for a moment, seeing what Eve wanted her to see: the simple people of Bainbridge with rocks in hand. They begin to hurl them at the little girl.
“I-I won’t get caught. I have my scope. And-and they’ll all be distracted.” Her escape route from the island ran to the northern shore. By happenstance it was the least populated and the people, farmers mostly, tended to sleep early and deeply. As the screams were so faint, there was a good chance that the majority of them were still asleep.
But it only takes one. And what about Neil? He’s probably already on his way to check on you, and where’s he going to go when he doesn’t find you at the clinic?
“Right here.”
This lit a fire under her and she raced the gurney to the center of the building to where she left Kevin. His parts felt unduly warm and soft as if millions of maggots had hatched within the bags and were endlessly squirming over themselves. The last to be boxed was Kevin’s head. She was just nestling it in with an arm when she remembered her poorly executed autopsy.
Poisoned and then stabbed? Eve leaned her elbows on the table and grinned over the top of it at Jillybean. A girl after my own heart. And now you plan on drowning him. But will that kill our Rasputin? I bet not. I bet he’ll keep coming back just like I do. Your guilt will resurrect him over and over.
“Shut up.”
Make me.
“I will,” Jillybean snapped and stomped to the principal’s office. She took another Zyprexa and considered a fourth, but resisted. She needed just enough to keep Eve quiet, but not so much that it dulled her wits. Eve only laughed at her, and then laughed some more when Jillybean went back to the last plastic bag. What was inside no longer looked like Kevin. He’d been face-down and the last of his blood had pooled making him look purple, all except his grossly protruding tongue which was huge and black.
A shiver spread over Jillybean at the sight. It was about to get worse. She staggered up and opened a drawer on her gurney. Grabbing a small penlight, she sucked in a breath and opened Kevin’s mouth. She had to pull the tongue out of the way. It made a squelching noise that had her gagging. The sickening display under the light would’ve given a normal person nightmares for weeks and yet she calmed quickly.
“No burns,” she said. The tongue, disgusting as it was, showed neither ulcerations or burns. He hadn’t been poisoned. “Why would Eve poison one and stab the other? Why would anyone?” Although she was insane herself, she couldn’t understand anyone else’s insanity. “It’s the opposite of logic and reason. If two…hold on. What’s this?”
She had been putting the head back in the bag when she felt a depression in the back of the skull. Grabbing the light, she started to inspect the injury.
Are you sure you have time for that? Eve asked. Remember Neil? Just picture the look of disappointment in his eyes.
“Right.” Determining if the fractured skull had occurred post-mortem would take far more time than she had. She bagged the head and then boxed it. It rattled in the box as she shoved it in the hidden compartment. “And does it matter if it was before or after?” she asked herself as she scooted the gurney to the front door. Perhaps he had fallen out of the wheelbarrow or perhaps she had snuck up behind him with a rock and bashed him a good one.
The second suggestion seemed more likely. How else had she gotten so close with such a big knife? And how had she generated enough force to drive it four inches deep on her first strike. The question would have to wait. She was at the door. Out came the thermal scope. It was the true reason she hadn’t been caught moving her zombie patients.
The scope didn’t fail her that night either. She was able to maneuver around the few northern islanders who were out and within ten minutes, she was at the culvert. It was a cement tube with a large enough diameter to allow Jillybean to walk only partially hunched over. It fit her little skiff and the wheeled runner she used to move it down the culvert to the Sound.
Before they went any further, she scouted around for rocks to weigh the bags down. Once they were laden, all she had to do was cut the power, something that was easier to do than anyone realized. Before the apocalypse, Bainbridge Island had been about as technologically advanced as a community of its size could be.
In fact, electricity still seemed to flow as if by magic, and although Angela Lenna took all the credit, she had skated by mainly because there hadn’t been a major problem with the grid yet.
Electricity was still flowing to the island from two sources, both of which were on the mainland. One was from a hydro plant on the Baker Dam and the second was from a combination wind farm and solar plant located two hundred miles away. Jillybean was still amazed that there was enough infrastructure left to light a lightbulb. Still it wouldn’t last, and Jillybean had taken advantage of this looming issue by creating periodic brownouts.
All this took was simply hacking into state of the art computers, which would’ve been difficult if there had been any security measures in place. A single night trip to a boxy drab office building had given Jillybean everything she needed. The doors had been unlocked and the computers came on with the shake of a mouse.
Ironically, Angela’s fear that a power outage would reboot the computers and lock them out of the system had led her to write all the computer passwords in a little book which she kept in the top drawer of her desk. With access to the entire grid and an insatiable curiosity, Jillybean soon learned more about electrical engineering than anyone on the island.
Jillybean opened the laptop that she kept near the culvert and with a few clicks scheduled three power outages. She could even time them. For this section of the island, she gave herself a twenty-minute window—to make sure the bodies didn’t float up next to shore, she liked to get out a hundred yards or so and the current, light as it was, wasn’t easy for someone of Jillybean’s size.
She was well down the culvert and couldn’t see the lights go down. A panicky scream told her it was time to go.
11
She pushed out into the water and found the paddling easier than she had expected. A strong wind was sweeping up the Sound and, combined with the current, was pushing her out.
Resting the paddle, she looked for the Corsairs. Without the scope, they were invisible. Not a single candle burned on any of them, they were black on black. When she put the scope up to her eyes she saw that they were close to the island, keeping just out of range of the spotlights.
“Close enough for us to hear the torture,” she said, hissing angrily and smashing her dainty hand down on a plank. A second later, she heard a soft groan. She spun and watched as a water-logged zombie surfaced only a few feet away. Frantically, she grabbed the paddle and began tearing at the water. She was no expert but she managed to get away from it, only to run directly into another.
She was turned around, staring back when the skiff stopped dead and a long slimy arm reached over the edge. With one of the guard towers looming not far off, she didn’t dare use the .25 strapped to her ankle. Instead, she gave the zombie a whack
with the paddle, which did nothing at all. The creature didn’t even seem to notice and another arm followed the first. Then came its foul head.
The pruney water-wrinkles covering its face were so deep it looked like a sloughing, grey basset hound with dead eyes. It was so frightening to the child that for a moment she wavered and reconsidered the gun—but what would the men in the watchtower do if they heard a shot out on the water almost right below them? Would they open fire?
With fear and anger running heavy across the island, she guessed they would. She had seen frightened men and women in battle firing indiscriminately, blazing through ammo, spraying it everywhere. Jillybean feared that even if she didn’t get shot, all the shooting would attract so many people, she would never make it back onto the island.
Grunting, she gave the beast as fearsome a blow as she could, square on the top of its head. Instead of hurting the monster, the paddle broke, leaving her holding a useless hunk of wood.
Her mouth fell open as she stared at it in shock. Now she would have to use the gun. But just as he was reaching for it, the creature tipped the skiff and she fell forward, almost square into its gaping maw. Hungrily, it moaned and tried to grab her and in the process, let go of the boat which dropped back with a splash.
For a fleeting moment, she thought that she would drift away out of its reach, only its arms were long, and it hooked the boat by its torn nails. Uselessly, Jillybean smashed the paddle down on its finger as it hauled the skiff towards its gaping mouth, as again the skiff tipped precariously, its back end five feet out of the water.
The gun! echoed in her mind. It was Ipes, panicking as always. Forget the stick, use the gun.
Grabbing the gun would take five seconds longer than she had. The only thing she had to buy herself any time with was the “stick.” She heaved back and with her feet braced at the end of the skiff, she drove it into the creature’s hideous mouth with all her might. She gouged the back of his throat pretty good.
The Undead World (Book 12): The Body [An Undead World Expansion] Page 7
