No one had ever bothered looking at it as though it was an actual commodity before. From that moment on he had realized how he could make his fortune and all it took was the murder of the five people he had been with since the apocalypse began. Three had died by the sharp edge of his knife while on another “scouting” expedition and the last two had died being eaten alive after Steve had stolen their guns and left them for the zombies. They had died because there could only be one “last bridge.”
These had been friends of his. He had killed dispassionately, without malice.
It wouldn’t be the same with Jillybean. His hate was a force inside him that frayed at his self-control. “Get a fucking radio,” he demanded of the closest person to him. It was Ernest, the man who had delivered most of the prisoners to him. There were only a few missing; the most important of these were of course the most dangerous: Neil Martin and Jillybean.
The thought made him want to gag. At least Jillybean was smart, but Neil was nothing. He was a pipsqueak of a man, barely a boy in size, really, whose only claim to fame was being lucky. He wasn’t known for his bravery or intellect, or even his leadership skills. All three had failed him time and again. No, all he had was luck and if the River King had anything to do with it, that would fail him soon enough.
Ernest shrugged, a move that was close to insolence, before going to the first truck in line and bringing over a radio. He handed it to the King who took it with his left hand; with his right, he punched Ernest across the bridge of his nose, knocking him to the dirt. “This is your goddamn fault,” he seethed. “You hand me over these…these useless, worthless pieces of shit, but where’s Jillybean? Huh? Where’s Neil? That’s who I really wanted.”
“That wasn’t our deal,” Ernest said. Wisely, he remained on the ground, propped on one elbow. The River King didn’t think he would be able to control himself if the man tried to get up. “You said payment was for any of the prisoners. Four times what they’d fetch in New York. These were your exact words.” He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, making it impossible for the King to go back on his word.
A thin smile crept across the king’s features while inside his heart burned with anger. “You’re completely correct. That’s what I said. And now I’m going to say this: I am going to double the bounty on Jillybean and Neil Martin.”
“So, eight times the normal amount?” Ernest asked, unable to restrain the eagerness in his eyes. When the River King nodded, he followed it up with: “Dead or alive?”
“No,” the king answered grimly. “Just dead.”
Chapter 21
Neil Martin
Wearily, Deanna began heading back to the 4-Runner. Neil watched her go, staring at her ass with dull eyes. Though she was beautiful and built along the lines of Aphrodite, he wasn’t turned on in the least. After Sarah, he didn’t think he could be turned on again.
He was just staring and he was still staring in the same direction long after she had climbed back into the SUV. When he sighed, it seemed out of place by a minute.
After rubbing his eyes and feeling the grit fall on his cheek, he decided to get some sleep as well. Grimacing from the pain in his shoulder, he stood, took two steps toward the truck he would use as a bedroom for the day, and then stopped as a loud rumble coming from the river stopped him. Were they transporting the prisoners so soon?
It really didn’t matter; he had no way to stop them. Still he was curious and he wandered down to the river to see the barge. Strangely, it was turning aimless circles in the river. “Huh?” he grunted, unfamiliar with the workings of boats. Neil figured that whoever was driving the thing was just getting it lined up for docking.
He unzipped his fly to take a leak and when he looked back up again, he saw smoke coming off the deck of the barge. “Jillybean?” was the first thing that popped into his head and out of his mouth. Was she up to something?
The bang that floated across the water suggested that she was. Zipping up so fast that he nearly got caught in the teeth, he yelled, “Deanna! Come here, quick!”
“What the hell?” she asked, coming down to where Neil had stopped on the edge of a marsh. She had a rifle in her hands but it was all but forgotten as they gazed at the boat spinning around in the water billowing fire and smoke like a chimney. When it exploded in a great ball of orange, black and white light, Neil actually jumped in the air along with it. His excitement was a current of electricity that sent a flash of energy right through him and for just one second he had this surety that everything would work its way out.
Then reality set in.
The ship began to sink. The water was filled with zombies. There was a great deal of shooting that didn’t make sense from so far away. “Do you think she’s ok?” Deanna asked.
Incredibly quickly, or so it seemed, the boat was mostly under water. “I would bet my life on it,” he said. There were few things left in the world he would have staked so much on and Jillybean getting out of a scrape of her own making was one.
The next few minutes were anticlimactic. The shooting stopped and the boat just sat, partially sticking out of the water, venting black smoke. It became a symbol in Neil’s mind of the futility of their fight. And it wasn’t just their fight with the River King it symbolized, it was all of it. They would escape one danger only to walk into another; they would fight and someone would die, and then they’d repeat the entire process over again. At some point Neil realized he was just going through the motions, playing a part in a play that no one ever attended.
He had been fighting in vain since the first day he had seen the rat attack in New York. He was so tired of it all that he wished it had been himself who had gone down, screaming, instead of that ass from Jersey. If he had died there, Sadie wouldn’t be held prisoner, and chances were that Sarah would never have died in New Eden, and Ram had only gone to Manhattan to save Neil, so he’d be still alive, and Eve would be with someone else and no longer a pawn and of course Jillybean wouldn’t be constantly risking her life searching for love.
But what else could he do but keep on going? It was a real question without a real answer. The problem was that he had been so busy living day to day that he was becoming myopic. He was having trouble seeing the world exist a week into the future.
“We should check the radio,” Deanna suggested. More motions, but what choice did he have?
The radio gave him reason not to worry about the future—he wasn’t likely going to have one for very long. It was alight with the latest proclamations by the River King: We have captured all the prisoners but two. A seven-year-old girl named Jillybean and her companion Neil Martin, a 45 year-old male. They are to be presumed armed and dangerous. I want to let everyone know that the bounty on their heads has been doubled to eight times the normal bounty, and…they are not to be taken alive.
“Forty-five!” Neil exclaimed. “I’m not forty-five. Do I look forty-five to you? I’m only thirty-five.”
“That’s what you took away from that broadcast?” Deanna asked, incredulously. “Your bounty has been doubled or quadrupled, or whatever it is. Not to mention you and Jillybean have been given death sentences.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Neil admitted. “I also noticed that they didn’t even mention you. That’s one positive at least. Maybe you should consider heading out to Colorado by yourself.”
She thought seriously about it. For a while she sat with her lips pursed, her long legs drawn up to her chin, and her eyes staring out at the river. Neil didn’t blame her for truly contemplating leaving. They were very close to being out of options while death seemed ever nearer. Her eyes shifted suddenly from the river to Neil, first his baby blue eyes and then at his shoulder. “I couldn’t leave you when you’re injured. It wouldn’t be right.”
Neil glanced down at the sling that was partially hidden by his zombie camouflage before replying, “That’s not a good enough reason to stay. I don’t think it will be my arm that will doom me.” He tried to lift it only to grimace,
not from the pain, but because it felt so damned weak. Or is it the fact that it’s useless? he wondered. Aloud, he said, “You should go. I don’t want to be the cause of another death.”
“I doubt they’ll kill me,” she answered, with what looked like disappointment in her eyes. “And I doubt I’ll get any better treatment out there.” She tilted her head west.
“I don’t know. Captain Grey painted a different picture about Colorado. I believe him. He’s a good man. It’s pretty rare these days.”
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “That’s the problem. I—I mean it’s a problem that there are so few left. It’s like a thousand miles from here to Colorado. How many good men, or women for that matter, will I find between here and there?”
“Not a lot,” Neil said. “But I would think it would be worth the risk. What we have here is almost certain death.”
“We still have Jillybean.”
He wanted to ask, You mean a seven-year-old with schizophrenia and a dangerous, self-destructive hero complex? He didn’t ask. It wasn’t a fair question despite the truth in it. Who was he to denigrate Jillybean’s mental state? Hadn’t he, from the very moment he had laid his eyes on her outside the CDC gates, only added to her problems? Hadn’t he put her in one dangerous situation after another? Hadn’t he added to the terrific burden of her stress? Yes he had. He was guilty of abusing a little girl.
“We don’t have her yet,” he replied. “And if we do get her, she needs to go west with you as soon as possible.” Despite having been up all night, Neil pushed himself to his feet. “Come on. If she’s on this side of the river, she’ll be heading closer to the base.”
They took the bare essentials: a pistol for Neil, the M4 for Deanna, two radios, a few bottles of water and only enough food for a day. Their packs were light but their legs were heavy. They had been running and fighting and hiding for three days. It had taken a toll so that their journey to the base was marked by stumbles and falls. Neil thought they blended in nicely with the local zombies. There was a general migration of them south toward Cape Girardeau and then beyond.
It was the noise of the base emptying out that drew them. Eight thousand each for a harmless little girl and a wimp of a man was an easy draw. People were acting like it was nothing more than a raffle or a turkey shoot; easy money for an easy kill. The hunters all went south—it was natural to think that the little girl would run as far away as she could, because that’s what they would do. Neil knew better. She would close on the base at Cape Girardeau, looking for an opportunity for another rescue. He wouldn’t put it past her to try to get on the base itself.
When he and Deanna got to Cape Girardeau, Neil stopped. “She’ll be going against the grain of the zombies which means she’ll be alone where the thicket is dense.”
They were on the third floor of a blunt, ugly office building that had a partial view of the base. “Down by the river?” Deanna asked. There was a wide run of tangled greenery between the fence and the water that looked as though it could hide a battalion of men. It was the only really overgrown area so close. The rest of the base was surrounded by suburbia: little bungalows and houses with matching rectangular yards and white picket fences that were losing peels of paint in long strips.
“You take the river,” Neil suggested. “I’ll find a spot in one of the larger homes with a better view than this.” He held out one of the two-way radios. “Use it sparingly.”
“We should have a code of some sort,” Deanna said. “You know, like we say booger if we see her or rabbit if we’re in danger.”
“Sounds good, but for longer messages, I have a better idea.” They worked out a code, using a simple letter/number code for messages with vital information. “Remember the number one equals C.”
“And two equals D. Got it,” Deanna said before stepping out into the warming morning. She blinked from the hazy glare and then swatted a bug away from her neck where her flesh glistened. She was a mess. Her blonde hair went every which way and her clothes were filthy torn up zombie rags. A grimace turned her face down. “Remember TV?” she asked.
“How could I forget? Why?”
“Everything was prettier on television,” was all she said, before stepping off the porch.
He watched her go, worrying over her safety, feeling responsible for her. She picked her way through the empty streets, walking partially as a zombie and partially as a nervous woman. It wasn’t a good combination seeing as it wouldn’t fool any of her enemies. Neil put the radio to his lips and then stopped. “She’s an adult. She’s going to have to take care of herself.” So far she had been able to despite her shortcomings in camouflage.
“Besides,” he whispered, glancing around. “I have my own problems.” A zombie, very tall and broad, was heading right for him from around the side of the house. Neil scampered up the stairs and entered the front door as a human; seconds later he exited out the back, moaning and dragging his left foot, thinking: Now that’s how it’s done.
He did not go very far. There was thinking to be done. If Jillybean was still alive and, if she was on this side of the river and, if she was actually heading for the base, how would she get there? She wouldn’t be obvious, unless she suspected people were after her, then she would be obvious, knowing that they’d think she wasn’t, and yet she might think to be unobvious for that very reason and then…
Oh, geeze,” Neil said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. There was no way he could get into her mind. “But she isn’t magical. If she’s coming, she’ll have to get here somehow.” Neil picked a house with a high vantage point. It was a neat little Victorian, looking as though it had grown straight up out of a hill. As expected, the interior was trashed all except the room Neil needed. On the third floor was an infant’s room, decorated in a boyish nautical design of blues, greens, and whites. The drawers in the little, white dresser had been pawed through, but other than that the room hadn’t been disturbed, most likely for two obvious reasons: one, A baby wouldn’t have much that anyone would really want, and two, the baby was still in the room.
There was a shriveled up little, grey raisin of a baby lying on the floor next to the crib. Neil wrinkled his nose at it, in fact, he wrinkled his nose at the entire room—it stank. He opened both windows and then pulled the rocking chair over to one and settled in. The view was exactly what he had been looking for. He could see completely down six streets and had a partial on four more.
“Ten out of how many?” he asked, as he began to rock. There had to be forty streets in and around the River King’s base. He began to feel as though he was just going through the motions again. “And if I find her, what then? She’ll want to attempt another rescue.” Three against thousands weren’t his sort of odds. And who exactly would they be rescuing? The group that hadn’t listened to him and ended up being caught or three of the people he cared for most: Sadie, Eve and Grey? Both seemed impossible.
“Man it’s hot,” he said, feeling a lethargy creep over him. The rocker, plumply upholstered in navy red with white anchors, was so comfortable…Sleep overcame him so fast it was as if he had been drugged. Before he knew it, he was snoring loudly while his head lolled to the side.
He was out for two hours. The crackle of his radio woke him: “Blue this is Black. Blue, come in.” Neil stared around at the room for a moment, trying to figure out where on earth he was. “Blue are you ok?”
Blearily, he looked around for the radio, which had fallen to the floor. “Ok, ok,” he said, grabbing it. “This is Blue do you have a booger?” A juvenile smile played across his features.
“No, I was just checking in. I’m getting kind of tired.”
The smile became a snort. Would it be completely out of line for him to chide her about staying awake on duty? No. “Listen, Black you have to try to stay…”
A noise at his feet made him pause and look down. He found himself staring into the face of the ugly raisin-baby. It was a zombie. It opened its black mouth like it was going to bite off N
eil’s knee cap. Neil jumped up, screaming at the top of his lungs, and what’s worse he did so while gripping the radio with all his strength. His scream was broadcast out to the world.
“Blue! Blue! What’s going on?”
Neil had cornered himself. He stood against the wall on his tip-toes, panting from fright. After a few deep breaths, he realized that the baby zombie was essentially harmless. In fact it was helpless. Neil had knocked it over when he had leapt up and now it was flat on its back, mewling and trying to right itself.
“Blue?”
“I’m fine,” Neil replied breathlessly into the radio. “It was…nothing. Just a spider.”
“A spider? Are you sure it wasn’t a rabbit?”
Neil stared at the radio, non-plussed for a second, thinking: Who would be afraid of a rabbit? Then he remembered their code words. “No, it wasn’t a rabbit.”
“Good. I haven’t had any rabbits either. We need to meet. I’ve been thinking.”
And I’ve been sleeping, Neil thought. “Sure. Same place we split up at. I’ll see you in fifteen, out.”
“Outside?”
“No I mean that was the end of the conversation. Out.”
“Oh right. Out.”
Neil shook his head. First he screams like a girl and then they end their conversation like that? They had practically broadcast their identities to anyone who was listening. Still, it was a short conversation and probably a confusing one.
“What the heck am I going to do with you?” he asked the hideous baby. It was in a jumper with a rotting diaper beneath—it smelled atrocious, but then again they all did. It was a toothless thing probably only eight or nine months old. It wasn’t scary now. The truth was, it was one of the saddest things he had ever seen.
It hadn’t been bitten and Neil would have bet that it hadn’t been scratched either. The mom had been infected and the tiny boy had drunk her breast milk. Which had turned first, he wondered. Probably the baby, and yet it had been kept alive. “Because who could kill a baby?”
The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades Page 20
