There were an even dozen, which meant that Sadie would have to be nearly perfect to get them out of there alive.
After it took two shots with the puny weapon to kill just one of the beasts clamoring around the base of the tree, Sadie handed back the gun. “Stupid pea-shooter is useless,” she griped. “Maybe we should go with the smoke idea.”
It wouldn’t be easy setting the tree on fire without killing themselves. Jillybean started by having Sadie gather all the broken and dead limbs and stacking them in a platform of sorts where the trunk branched in three directions. That was the easy part.
Jillybean had the more difficult job in creating ghillie suits using only her Swiss Army Knife. She knew that the smoke wouldn’t be enough. They would have to escape on foot afterwards and they wouldn’t be able to do it as humans. They were also on a bit of a time crunch. There was no knowing who or what had heard the gun shots.
After poking holes all through their jeans, Jilly’s were blue and Sadie’s black, and their shirts, the little girl started threading young shoots of green all through the cloth. Then she started on their hair. When she was done, the overall effect was underwhelming.
Sadie grimaced as she put her shirt on. “We look like some sort of cross between a shrub and a porcupine. And I sort of feel that way, too. I’m being poked in like, a hundred places.”
The little girl tried to shrug, but the little movement caused a dozen stems to scratch her. “Me too, but it’s all I have to work with. Are you ready to light them fires?” Sadie gave her a nervous grin and brought out her zippo. The goth girl had collected quite a few branches, big thick things with halos of brown leaves that would go up quickly.
She put a flame to the first and it went right up—a little too quickly. Sadie quickly dropped it among the zombies. Jillybean handed her another and another and another. Soon they were both coughing and squinting through the haze. They had gone through half the branches and as irritating as the smoke was, they both saw that it wouldn’t be enough to hide in.
The smoke had confused a few of the beasts who were wandering around in the forest. The rest were standing in the flames, clawing at the tree trunk, raking away bark and peeling back fingernails.
The two sisters gave each other a look that basically said: we’re in trouble. “Okay,” Jillybean said, thinking furiously. “You’ll distract them from over there on that branch.” She pointed to a low hanging branch that stuck far out towards the road. “When they’re all over there, I’ll climb down and get them to chase me. Do you see that…stop giving me that look. I’m faster than you right at the moment.”
“How about this,” Sadie said. “I’ll distract them and you climb down and then you leave. Try to find a working car or something and then come back and get me.” Sadie’s face was so stern that Jillybean knew that any argument would be a waste of time. The goth girl held out the .38. “It won’t do me any good up here.”
Jillybean took the gun. “I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”
“You better. Trees make terrible beds.”
“You know what you could do? You could…”
Sadie stuck a finger to Jillybean’s lips. “Start acting like a bush and shut up. See you soon.” She began edging out onto the branch, yelling as she did. “Yoo-hoo! Stupid monsters? Come get me.” With Jillybean keeping still and quiet, the monsters took the bait and swarmed under Sadie.
The path down the trunk was clear except for the clouds of billowing smoke which Jillybean had to descend right in to. She tried holding her breath, however she was already being blinded by the smoke and flailing for hand holds. One slip and she scrambled to cling to the tree, inadvertently coughing as she sucked in a lungful of smoke.
She was basically blind and had no idea how close the monsters were or if they had heard anything—she wanted to scramble back up the tree, however logic stopped her. If she were in trouble, Sadie would have said something. The fact the girl was still nattering on meant Jillybean was safe, or at least safe-ish.
Stepping down into a fire was hardly safe, even one that wasn’t all that big. The clusters of leaves had blazed away, leaving burning branches scattered about. Squinting, she stepped through them until she was out from beneath the tree and the sun was cutting across the sky and leaving a long shadow stretched out in front of her.
It probably wasn’t even seven-thirty in the morning and would be a long miserable day for Sadie if Jillybean didn’t get moving. Keeping her arms in and her head ducked down, she walked away from the tree, feeling much like a shoplifter exiting from a store. She kept watch out of the corner of her eyes and saw that her pathetic disguise hadn’t been enough to fool all of the monsters.
One must have seen something that pegged her as human. It came shambling after, moving at a pace that forced Jillybean along faster than she wished, further degrading her disguise as twigs began to fall away. When three more recognized her as a little girl, she gave up.
“Plan B!” she cried. “I’ll meet you…” She paused to look around. Far down the wide valley was a tall tree standing directly in a field. “I’ll meet you at that tree!” She pointed and then turned and ran, running in a wide circle with the monsters chasing. Because she had to have all of them after her, she ran dangerously close to the tree. That did the trick. They were all after her and in fact, they were coming at her from every direction because of the circles she had run.
“Oh boy,” she whispered, bringing out the snub-nosed police special. She would have to shoot her way out. Towards the road, there were the fewest and so she ran up to the first, stopped four feet away and plugged it once, twice, three times in the face before it went down. Because of the height difference between her and her enemies, she didn’t have a good angle for pure head shots. Unless, that is, she ran up onto the dirt road.
It was slightly elevated to allow for runoff. She climbed right up and, waiting to see the scummy mucus dribbling from where the whites of their eyes used to be, she fired and killed the first one with one shot. She planned on killing the next one that came up in the same manner, but it bobbed slightly coming up the bank and the bullet only skimmed the top of its brain.
Although it fell, it wasn’t dead and, as Jillybean turned to run, it reached out a long arm and caught her right Ked, dropping her in the dirt, sending the ends of fifty twigs scratching across her body. She turned to fire down the length of her body, however the .38 only “clicked” uselessly.
She had forgotten to reload and now the beast was pulling her back towards its gaping mouth. From in the tree, Sadie screamed at the top of her lungs trying to distract the beast, but it was no use and the only thing the scream accomplished was to have the closer monsters turn and trap her once more.
Jillybean couldn’t worry for her sister just then. She had her own problems. Her options were down to trying to kick away the monster’s fingers or kicking off her shoe. She let go of the shoe and jumped up to put some distance between her and the monster. As she hurried away, doing a hoppy-skip every other step, she tried to reload the gun.
Bullets kept spilling from her fingers and she couldn’t chance stopping to pick them up. With only one shoe, she wasn’t going to be distracting anyone. Her goal was survival and that meant trying to find a bigger tree than the spindly pines around her.
But the monster hounded her and she was forced to use two bullets killing it. She went on, reloading, not seeing any tree that would do. More bullets fell and more monsters were charging down on her, only now the rocks were biting into her foot, tearing her sock and her flesh.
Still she didn’t try for one of the trees, they were so skinny that she feared the monsters would uproot them to get at her and yet, she was beginning to tire. Her lungs were burning and, needing to give herself a breather, she stopped with a twenty foot lead on the nearest of the beasts and waited as it came up.
She willed herself to relax as she brought the gun up in two hands and sighted with her right hand down the short barrel. Cocking
the hammer meant she wouldn’t have to fight the trigger—Bam! The monster went down. She took aim at the next—Bam! It went down as well. In five shots, she brought down four of them.
The last bullet was for herself. She stuck the .38 into her pocket and began to hobble on. She had a good lead now and if she hadn’t lost the shoe she would have jogged away into the forest on her right and disappeared. But that was too dangerous with a bare foot.
She turned to continue her hobbling getaway when she saw a cloud of dust ahead of her and glint of chrome within it—a car of some sort was bearing down on her. The sight of it froze her in place. What were the chances these were actual good guys who would kill the monsters and ask for nothing in return?
“Not very good,” she said, and once more began hobbling forwards. There really was no point in running; if she was having trouble outdistancing monsters, then men in a car would catch her in a second. She could only hope that they would be too busy with Jillybean and the monsters to notice Sadie, who would get away and be in a position to save her.
That was not to be. Jillybean expected a truck to materialize out of the dust cloud, however it was a white minivan that roared to a stop next to her. It wasn’t just the van that was a surprise. Out leapt four large adults; men or women, she couldn’t tell since each was covered in a white plastic suit, gloves and military style protective masks.
Jillybean’s nightmare began as the first person out leveled a shotgun at her, his finger all over the trigger.
Chapter 13
Jillybean
The man with the shotgun advanced on Jillybean until the bore was only inches away from her face. It smelled of spent powder and bleach. It wasn’t pleasant. He yelled: “Have you been bit?”
“No, I just fell out of a tree is all. I was…” The thunderclap of a shotgun going off stopped her and she jumped in fright. More guns went off as the masked people began gunning down the monsters. They were destroyed one after another, the shotguns making a sickening mess.
“Like I said, I fell out of a tree,” she went on, trying to get him to focus on her. “Thanks for saving me. I’ve been all alone and…”
One of the figures, standing among a pile of bodies pointed at the apple tree. “Hey, there’s another one!” Guns were trained on the goth girl, who had been caught climbing down the trunk. The closet person trudged over to her and then forced her at gunpoint to the van.
Jillybean was pushed in after Sadie, but before the door was shut on them, the person who had taken Jillybean prisoner sneered, “You were all alone? Fellas, there is a liar in our midst.”
Jillybean could feel the angry stares even through the masks. “Sorry,” she mumbled. The apology was actually for Sadie, who sat worn out and glum.
She gave Jillybean a warning look to keep quiet, but it wasn’t needed. Jillybean was very much afraid of the people in their suits. They didn’t look like people to her, with their giant oggly eyes, they looked like space aliens. They were as uncommunicative and cold as aliens as well.
The ride, although short, was terribly uncomfortable and only the one word of Jillybean’s was spoken by anyone. They drove up the valley to a little town sitting among fields of new corn and carrots and other vegetables laid out in long rows. There were people working in the fields with shovels and hoes, and more were tending sheep and goats, and others walking about under heavy loads.
It looked strangely normal, in fact, eerily so. No one carried guns and there wasn’t a wall or a gate or anything. It was bizarre. The workers could run away if they wanted and, what was more, bandits could come in at any time and steal as much as they wanted. And of course, the monsters could come and go.
Perhaps they have an underground city like the Believers of New Eden? she thought and then shuddered at the memory of the cult.
If there was an underground city, she didn’t see any sign of the entrances. They would be cleverly hidden, she knew that, but would they be so well hidden that she wouldn’t be able to spot them, she didn’t think so.
All of the buildings they passed: the houses, the farms, the stores, and especially the church showed no signs that they had been left to rot through disuse. It was amazing to Jillybean that the town was actually a town, very much like it had been in the old days.
Still, not everything was like it had been. The white minivan was the only vehicle in sight. Bikes were in abundance, leaning here and there, but there were no cars. Another difference were the people. There was something odd about them that Jillybean couldn’t quite put her finger on. Other than the white garbed men who had snatched her and Sadie, everyone was dressed in a manner that could only be described as “normal.” Not one person wore army clothes.
And they seemed strangely happy.
Jillybean didn’t like it. No gates, no camouflage, no guns and people waving to each other? She had been nervous before, of course, but now she started to get a real fright on. The town didn’t make sense.
You know what the problem is, Eve suddenly spoke into her head. Jillybean went stiff. This was the first voice she had heard in her head since she had freed Sadie days before. Oh yeah, you know. You said it. They’re like the Believers and look where we’re going.
They were heading for the church. There was only the one, sitting up on a hill overlooking the town, its stained glass windows facing the slowly rising sun.
Why would their captors be taking them to a church? Was Eve right? Was this another cult? The thought brought the whispers out from the dark. Jillybean clamped down on her mind, trying to stop the voices before they grew and grew, snowballing into an avalanche that she wouldn’t be able to control. She grabbed Sadie’s hand and squeezed tight, feeling instantly better, however not three seconds later the minivan stopped and her fear mounted again.
They were parked in the back of the church. The driver got out and went towards the building but stopped fifteen feet away. There he was met by an elderly man in black. It was the priest.
The man who takes God’s words and twists them for his own evil desires, Eve said. You have to prepare yourself. Get the pistol. You have one bullet left. Kill the…
Just then the priest stared right at Jillybean. He was small and soft, his thinning hair as silver as tinsel. His wrinkles were many and deep. He was old and his eyes should have been rheumy, but they weren’t, they were sharp blue crystals and they went right to Jillybean. “Sadie,” she whispered. “Say it’s going to be alright.”
Sadie must have seen the same things as Jillybean because she was slow to answer and when she did, it was in a voice calculated to hide her true feelings. “Yeah. We’ll be okay. This place looks real nice.”
The conversation between the priest and the driver ended and quickly the van was going again back into town to an auto repair shop which was pretty much the only building that looked to Jillybean to have been left to decay. In this she was wrong. They pulled into a bay where there was a pit in the floor where mechanics had once worked beneath cars changing oil filters and bleeding brakes.
“Get in the pit,” one of the white-garbed people said. By his size and the depth of his muffled voice, she guessed it was a man beneath the plastic. He carried his shotgun loosely, the bore pointing at Sadie’s legs.
Jillybean was absolutely terrified. The inside of the pit was black and scorched. There had been a fire in it at some point. Maybe even more than one. Maybe this was where they burned the bodies of intruders.
Kill him! Eve screamed inside her head. Slowly her shaking hand inched up to her pocket. Before it could get there, Sadie grabbed it and entwined their fingers together. Sadie was shaking.
Kill him! Eve screamed again.
“No. What’s the point?” Jillybean answered in a whisper. She had one bullet in the .38 and there were two of the white-suited people with them and they were both armed.
The point is to escape. Kill the one and Sadie will grab his gun. Then… The hissing voice inside her head was interrupted as the man raised the gun slig
htly.
“Come on. Get in the pit, now.”
A set of cement stairs led down and the sisters went down them, still holding hands. It was cold in the pit. Jillybean found herself clinging to Sadie as two more people in white plastic came into the room. They were both smaller and slim. Both were armed with .357s.
One heaved a heavy sigh from within her mask before saying to the men: “You can wait outside.” It was a woman behind the mask. “I’ll call you if we need you.” When the men went out and the interior of the repair shop grew dim. One of the women tossed down a green trash bag. “Take off your clothes, please. Put everything in the bag.”
As the girls stripped, the two women produced flashlights and, squatting down on the edge of the pit, beamed the lights all over them. “You guys are pretty well marked up. Did you get scratched by the zombies?”
“No,” Sadie declared with ice in her voice and a raised eyebrow. She was slowly getting her fear under control now that the men had left. “We lost our ride and most of our gear, so we had to make ghillie suits out of what was on hand which turned out to be only sticks and things like that.”
“Uh-huh,” the woman answered. She pointed at Jillybean. “You, come up here.” Naked, she walked up the stairs, her arms clutching herself. “Put your arms out. Come on, like a bird.”
“Birds don’t have arms,” Jillybean told her, but stuck her arms out nonetheless. She was inspected closer now. The women saying only “Hmmm,” to each other When they were done, she was directed back down into the pit and Sadie was brought up and was forced to endure the same embarrassing inspection.
The Apocalypse Sacrifice: The Undead World (The Undead World Series Book 10) Page 14
