Neil tried to rein them in. “People, come on! The River King isn’t sitting around and we shouldn’t be either.” He was roundly ignored.
Grey slung a scoped M4 over his shoulder, picked up a heavy ammo crate, and began barking orders. “Let’s get the truck packed up. Don’t just stare at me, move your asses!” What could fit into the truck was crammed in almost without regard to the human cargo. The men didn’t care, they had food and guns. But they didn’t have a bridge or even part of one.
The twelve split up in pairs to search every building in town. The town was so small that it’s didn’t take long. Next, they jumped five SUVs, gassed them, and then spread out looking everywhere they could think.
Neil and Sadie went to an open scar of land where the locals dumped their trash. Half the cage fighters fanned out to search the local farms and the other half drove hog-wild through the forests south of the town. Grey and Deanna went to a nearby lake on the off chance that the pontoons were just out there floating, perhaps disguised as docks.
The lake water was black with depth and empty other than a smattering of partially drowned zombies. A few more walked the beach toward them. Grey didn’t look too disappointed at not seeing the pontoons. He brought out the M4. “This is a good excuse to sight this bad boy without wasting bullets.”
While Deanna plugged her ears and stood a few feet away, Grey took a couple of shots, knocking putrid decaying flesh off the face of the closest zombie. He changed the elevation, adjusted for windage, and then killed three zombies with three bullets. He smiled at Deanna and joked as he thumped his chest, “Me mighty hunter.”
“You mighty stinky hunter,” Deanna said. She opened her hand to show a small square of soap she had lifted from the Howard Johnson’s. She tossed it to him before pulling her Glock from its holster. “I’ll watch while you get cleaned up.” A quizzical look passed over his face and she asked, “What’s wrong? I was just…” Her mouth stopped working as she realized how her words sounded. “No, I meant I’ll stand guard. I didn’t mean I was going to watch you bathe.”
He chuckled. “Pink is a good color on you.” She touched her cheek; it was warmer than it should have been.
Grey stayed in the water for long time and came out in his underwear with his clothes over one broad shoulder. At the sight of him, Deanna felt the heat spread outward from her cheeks and she was sure they were pinker than before. She tried not to stare at his thickly muscled physique…and only partially succeeded.
He didn’t seem to care. With one hand out, he said, “My gun please.” The first thing he did was pull the bolt partially back, checked the safe, and then looked her up and down. She was still wearing the frayed monster outfit that she had picked out with him days before; she was sure she looked disgusting.
“I think it’s your turn,” he said.
“Okay, but don’t peek.” She was more demure that he was; she waded out until she was up to her neck before stripping down. While she washed herself she kept an eye on him. He never looked once in her direction and she didn’t know whether that meant he was really a good guy or that he wasn’t interested in her straggly-looking self…and she didn’t know what to think about that.
Coming out of the water, she wore the long, torn up shirt, her panties, and nothing else. Her pants had clung to her and she was afraid of chafing; she wanted to let them dry. When he finally turned to look at her, his eyes hung on her slim thighs long enough to reassure her that she wasn’t so straggly now that she had bathed.
“I wish we could stay here for a few days,” she said, taking a deep breath of the warm air. “I’m so tired of it all.” The idea of swimming and fishing and just plain not fighting for their lives appealed to her. If it wasn’t for her friends being held captive she would’ve begged to stay.
“I would love that as well,” he agreed. She knew that a “but” was coming and her face fell. “But we can’t. People need us.”
They were an odd pair, him in his underwear, her wearing only a shirt as they drove back to town. He tied their clothes to the back of the cab, letting the wind dry them as they took the longest possible route back. They were the slowest to return; everyone stared as they got dressed.
“Mind your business,” Grey snapped. He didn’t bother to ask if anyone had found anything; their disappointed looks were obvious. “The pontoons have to be in the woods. It’s the easiest way to hide them.”
“We looked already,” one of the cage fighters said.
Grey stared at the endless stand of trees that marched away over the southern hills beyond the town. “Then we search deeper.”
Sadie shook her head. “No. The bridges aren’t there. My dad wasn’t one for the woods. He gets lost too easily. I think what we found was one of his emergency stashes. We should go on to the next town on the list.”
They all agreed, but first they went back to the stash in the trailer park and emptied it out completely. This put the men in a better mood. They laughed and joked as they climbed into the string of vehicles and headed west. They traveled much more quickly with the daylight and it was only a two hour trip to the town of Finch, Missouri. Again it wasn’t much of a town and they paused just shy.
The group piled out of their vehicles and waited on Sadie. She opened her mouth to speak, only just then there came the rattle of small arms fire. The sound, a mile or so off, which started as a rat-a-tat-tat grew over the course of a minute until a dozen or more guns were going at it, hotly. The gunfire then petered away until there were only a few shots popping off every few seconds.
“That’s not good,” Sadie said.
“No, it’s not,” Grey agreed. “Everyone stay here. I’ll check it out.”
“I’m going, too,” Deanna said. The words had just jumped out of her mouth as though they had been thought of by someone else. Grey began to shake his head but she stopped him. “Someone’s got to watch your back.”
For a second, Grey’s eyes narrowed and a No formed on his lips, but Deanna gave him a hard look that showed she was determined and would not be dissuaded. She was somewhat surprised that it worked. “Fine. You can come, if you can keep up. The rest of you get the vehicles out of sight. Do not start the engines! You’re going to have to push them.” The men began to scurry to do his bidding, and as they did Grey gave Deanna one more look, up and down, during which she stood straighter. He nodded as though she had passed some sort of inspection.
The simple move made her suddenly furious, not with him but with herself. Here she was practically begging for a man’s approval, again! She knew the problem: the hated whore in her was making a strong comeback and had been since the rescue. It made her feel so pathetic that she wanted to puke.
She gritted her teeth against it and said, “Let’s go.” Without waiting on him she began to jog toward the low, tree covered hills where the shooting had originated. He caught up after a few steps and together they ran steadily through the town. It wasn’t long before she was winded and feeling a stitch in her side but, amazingly, she was doing better than the rock hard soldier.
He was breathing in a wheeze and kept going slower and slower. When she gave him a look, she was shocked. His neck wound had opened up and all down the front of his shirt was bright blood, shining in the sun light. “Stop,” she ordered, pulling on his arm until he reluctantly came to a breathless halt leaning against a tree. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he gasped. “Give me a minute will you? I might have lost more blood than I realized, but don’t worry I’ll get my breath back in a few seconds.” He was swaying on his feet.
“No,” Deanna said, deciding to take a stand against the whore in her. “I’ll go alone.”
“But you don’t know the first thing about scouting. What if something happened to…”
Deanna interrupted him, “I’ll be fine. I’ll stick to the woods and stay in monster mode.”
The captain was grounded enough to see reason, “I’ll wait here, but if you’re not back
in thirty minutes I’m going to come after you.”
“Aye-aye captain,” she said and left him there. She went slower, moving at a pace that was better suited for her strength and endurance. The forest was close and thick, with plenty of zombies roaming everywhere, but they couldn’t handle the underbrush or the downed trees, or the dips and swells of the earth. They chased eagerly, but fell behind and she thought it a good sign of her mental status that she didn’t dwell on them once they were out of sight.
She had much more important things to worry about.
The sound of guns had given way to the throaty belch of diesel engines, big ones. She crested the hill and had a fine view of a long, wide open valley the main features of which were two long strips of black asphalt and an airplane hangar that didn’t seem like much more than an oversized garage.
From half a mile away Deanna could see the River King’s handiwork: the building was stained black by fire. Its roof was partially caved in, while out front were the remains of three planes—two itty-bitty Cessna’s and one that was slightly larger. Deanna guessed that it had once been a crop duster. All three had been put to the torch.
Just as at the trailer park, the scene had been perfectly staged to give the impression that there couldn’t possibly be anything of value in the wreck of a hangar, and yet a big green truck was even then pulling something out of it. From that distance she couldn’t tell what, but of course she had a good guess: part of the pontoon.
With fear crawling in her belly, she ran down the face of the hill with far more energy that she had running up the other side and in minutes she was close enough to see the pontoons clearly. They were green on the sides and a blue-black on top. They stretched fifty feet in length, twelve feet wide and about four high. There were three pontoons stacked one on top of the other sitting on each of the flatbeds being towed out of the hangar by massive 5-ton army trucks.
To the side of the hangar she saw three other trucks waiting their turn to be hooked up to the flatbeds. Deanna ran the numbers and calculated that she was seeing approximately 600 feet of bridging—half of what they would need to bridge the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau.
“We still have a chance,” she gasped. The River King needed all the pontoons while Deanna’s group would have just as much bargaining power with half a set.
Now, it would be a race to see who got to the other sections first. Unfortunately, Deanna’s group had five locations to search in the time it would take for the River King to hook up the remaining trucks and drive to the right stash. The odds weren’t good.
Deanna, still sucking wind, turned and ran back the way she’d come, her feet growing heavier with each step up the long hill. As she ran she worked out the depressing numbers: the two-mile run back to where she and Grey had left the others would equal about twenty minutes; there would be another five minutes lost in order to explain the situation and pick the exact right location of the pontoons and then they’d have to zip there with enough time to find them, hook them up to the trucks, and get out of there before the River King arrived.
It would be nearly impossible.
Chapter 27
Ernest Smith
She should’ve been dead; she probably was dead. The boat had blown up so close to her that her guts should’ve been turned to jelly and her beautiful mind scrambled like an egg. Yet his instincts told him Jillybean was alive. “Instinct, or is it hope?” Ernest asked himself. The River King was into him for a gob of cash. Every time he considered the value of the prisoners he had been responsible for capturing, approximately thirty thousand, he shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, it’s not that easy,” the River King had said when Ernest had come to him to collect his bounty. They were just up the bank from the Mississippi and, in the background, the king’s barge was a smoking ruin. “There’s sort of a downside to that much cash. First off, I don’t exactly have it on me.” The King had dramatically patted his pockets.
“Are you thinking of welching on me?” Ernest had asked. His tone was mild—simply curious it seemed. “We both know things would go bad for you, your highness, if it got out that you can’t be trusted with paying your debts. It would be the final nail in your coffin, so to speak.”
“Yes,” the River King had said, slowly drawing the word out and making a face of disgust. “I know this, probably better than you, which is why our destinies are so entwined. I’m on the knife’s edge. Everyone knows it. And if I go down, you won’t get paid. Whoever sticks a knife in my back will make sure of that.”
What an unsettling idea, Ernest had thought to himself.
The River King read his mind. “Yes, kind of hits you right in the family jewels doesn’t it?” Ernest had nodded, feeling a dull ache low down in his guts over the idea of losing so much. The River King went on, “Think about how I must feel. It’s like someone is using my scrotum as a punching bag, and the biggest ball buster of them all is still out there.”
“Jillybean?” Ernest asked.
The River King snarled, “Yes Jillybean! She’s…she’s killing me. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d pay eight times what she’s worth in New York. Hell, I’ll pay you ten thousand if you bring her head to me on a frigging platter.”
Ernest whistled. “Ten thousand. It’s a rather impressive sum, but maybe I should see some of what you owe me before we go discussing another job. You see, from my point of view you won’t last out the week, so paying me what you owe me now really would be the fair thing to do.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about what is fair or not, and I’ll last longer than a week. You can bet on it, Ernie. I’ve got at least one more trick up my sleeve. You see, I have a pontoon bridge on the other side of the river stashed away. You better believe I’ll be the River King once more. I just need to know that damned Jillybean is dead. She is a fucking monkey in a fucking wrench and you won’t see a plug nickel of what I owe you while she’s still out there. This is for both of us, really. Think about it.”
Ernest had thought about it, and had even begun searching for the little girl—fruitlessly—when the prison break had occurred. That had thrown him for loop and had cemented in him the need to find her as soon as possible. The River King’s regime was teetering like a high-wire performer tripping on acid and there was very simple logic involved: find the girl; use her to find Neil and the others; get paid. If he didn’t find the girl, or the River King got the axe, he wouldn’t get paid. Simple.
There was a chance that even finding her wouldn’t save the River King, however she was valuable, one way or the other. Whoever came out on top would pay top dollar for her.
But where the hell was she?
For a day and a half he went up and down the river searching for any sign of her, but it was as though she had disappeared off the face of the earth or had drowned in the black water and was floating down to the Gulf of Mexico. He kept looking, regardless. Was she on the western bank with the renegades? Probably not. Had she been a part of the prison break? Ernest didn’t think so. For one, rumors suggested that it had been an inside job, and for two, the prison break had been artless. A gun battle in the middle of a prison? What little he knew of Jillybean told him that wasn’t her style.
A swamp mosquito, a fat one, practically the size of a hummingbird, landed on his arm. Ernest squished it flat and then flicked the remains away, thinking, for the hundredth time: Where the hell are you, Jillybean?
On the western bank, the renegades seemed to have vanished. On the eastern bank, the fifty-seven prisoners were back at the school in Elco, waiting as a dozen illiterates tried to puzzle out how to make a raft that would be big enough and seaworthy enough to cross the Mississippi without being swamped by a thousand zombies.
Ernest’s instincts was to keep his boat hidden, even from the River King. His instincts also told him Jillybean was on the eastern shore. She had gone to great lengths to keep the prisoners from crossing the river and she was probably still here looking for a way to free the
m.
“But she’s a damned ghost,” he said in a whisper. At the moment he was on the catwalk of a water tower hoisting a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He had a great view of Elco, including some of the overgrown farmland and low-lying swamps around it. He could even make out a portion of the school. He’d been there, scanning, for the last hour as the sun rose and he was starting to think he had wasted that long hour.
“If I was her, I would treat this tower like Suaron’s tower in Mordor,” he said, forgetting the girl was only seven years old and likely had never heard of Tolkien. “Okay, what do I know about Jillybean? She’s crazy. She talks to a zebra. She’s loyal to a fault, really to an irredeemably stupid fault. And she is smart enough to evade a grown man with a master’s degree.” He smirked, realizing she just might be a better hunter than he was.
Something clicked. “If she’s so good, let her prove it,” he said.
He would be the bait designed to trap her. As long as he played the part of Ernest the bounty hunter, she would remain elusive. But what would happen if he played the part of Ernest the fearful renegade escapee?
In under a minute he was down from the tower. He made for the forest and found one of the many streams where he daubed himself, inconsistently of course, with mud. He then started back toward the town, this time moving with enough stealth to avoid the zombies but not enough to come across as the expert hunter he was.
At about the time Sadie was poking her nose into the first trailer home and seeing the boxes and boxes of supplies, Ernest finally made it to the school where the renegades were held prisoner. He kept well back, scouting like a jungle native, pretending that he was on a stakeout. After a few minutes, he moved a hundred yards to his right, and again waited for just a little while before moving once more.
It was an hour of this before he heard the first sign of life, or at least something close to it. Three zombies came lumbering up to him. Thankfully, they were loud enough to have given him some warning; he hid behind the bowl of a tree. It was a good-sized one and should’ve been enough to keep him from being seen, yet the zombies walked straight to him and he was forced to crawl backwards to a log and hide behind it like a damned lizard.
The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades Page 28
