The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades

by Meredith, Peter

  “I don’t know any of that,” she said miserably. “That’s the problem. That’s why we have to stay close to the River King.”

  “And get lucky?” Ernest asked flippantly. This was the first time he ever been anything but sweet to her. He was hoping to goad her into putting more thought to her answers. “Getting lucky is not a real plan.”

  She raised a soft gold eyebrow and said, “It’s worked so far.” For just the briefest fraction of a second, Ernest read something in her eye, something that might have been a cloud’s reflection or it could have been that she knew everything about him. Not just the fact that he was planning to kill her the moment she proved useless to him, but also his deeper secrets. The ones he had never, and would never, admit to anyone.

  The darkest of which was that he had killed his wife, Samantha. Did Jillybean know that? Did she know that he killed her when the delirium was heavy and she was sweating through the sheets and pissing herself at the same time? And did she know that Samantha had been the first person he killed but not the last? He had been a horrible killer back then.

  His first attempt had been to force-feed his wife a bottle of sleeping pills hoping that an overdose would let her go quietly, but the virus and the fever overpowered the drugs. The pills had turned her mouth white and chalky while her eyes remained twin black pits of hate. Then, since he was without a gun, he had hit her on the head with a hammer from his workshop. He had covered her with a towel so he wouldn’t have to look her in the face when he was killing her, but still he had fumbled the strike so that it struck. There had been a light thump. Beneath the steelhead, the flesh and bone sounded like wood. Ernest had felt his throat constrict as though invisible hands had him in a grip.

  He could barely force a primal scream out as he mustered the moral courage to hit her again with the hammer. He had put a lot into the strike but, under the towel, she kept on moving. Most obvious was her mouth, an obvious indentation that opened and closed.

  A second scream, this one more than half blubber ran from his mouth as he abandoned the hammer and took her neck in both hands. He began to squeeze. At first, tears dripped onto the towel but then the strain of crushing the life out of Samantha began to take over. He squeezed with all his might. Soft things in her ruptured and snapped. His fingers dug into her flesh even with the towel between them. He had his wife straddled, leaning over her so that all his weight crushed down onto her thin neck. It was minutes before she stopped moving and he allowed to grieve.

  But this was a new world, one in which grief could only be snatched between breaths. His tears had barely begun anew before she started moving again, moaning as she did.

  He almost ran away from her; not in fear of dying but in fear he would go mad doing the right thing by killing her. He stood in the doorway to his bedroom stuck between two different hells: one in which he murdered his wife and one in which he allowed her to become one of the horrors that not only haunted his dreams but also his every waking second.

  In the end, he picked up the discarded hammer and caved her skull in. It took seven strikes to turn her head into something that resembled a deflated wet football.

  Killing her had changed him. He hadn’t gone mad as he feared. He had gone flat instead. His emotional state was simply a dull line. He neither hated nor loved. He could look upon the little girl, orphaned but courageously struggling to live, and feel absolutely nothing for her. He could kill her with a fork, bundle her up in a garbage bag, sling it over his shoulder and whistle a tune as he went back to the River King to get paid.

  It was this knowledge he was afraid he had seen in the half-second look in Jillybean’s eyes. If it had been there in the first place, it was gone in a flash, replaced by the troubles weighing on her. She was back to being pale and twitchy.

  “I mean, we can get lucky until we have a chance at getting smart,” she said. “You know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, I get it,” he said, trying to peer again into her eyes, trying to see if she suspected her fate. She stared back evenly and without emotion. Ernest had always been almost clairvoyant at reading people, but the girl was a blank to him, which he found eerie and, if he was honest with himself, unsettling.

  Maybe it’s time she died, he thought to himself. Playing up this parenting role was slowing him down, and worse, her ideas concerning finding the other renegades weren’t very helpful. If he had any hope of collecting the bounties on them as well, he needed to get ahead of the River King, not lag two steps behind. Still, he was reluctant to give up such an asset without making one more try.

  “Think, Jillybean. How can we get in touch with them? Is there a special location you guys are supposed to meet at if you get lost or separated? Please think hard. I’m afraid their lives depend on you.”

  And your life depends on giving me something I can use, he thought, but didn’t say aloud.

  “No,” she whispered. “We didn’t have a plan or nothing. And we can’t use the radios or the River King will find us. He has to have a scanner, too. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said, shaking his head. Suddenly, he struck a look of shock on his face and stared across the water. “Look!” He pointed with his left hand while his right went for the knife at his belt. The knife would be a mercy…not that he cared. It would be quick. He kept it razor sharp. She would turn, and the knife would draw a line across her throat and, with her carotid arteries slit open, she would bleed out in seconds. He knew that afterwards he would feel nothing beyond the weight of her body slung over his shoulder. And he would sleep peacefully without a care in the world.

  She spun to see what he’d pointed at—his left hand reached for her hair to pull her head back and the knife was out, sparking in the sun.

  Chapter 28

  Captain Grey

  Blood splattered on the map. It was a fat drop that hit with a spat, making Neil wince and flinch back. He gave Grey a reproachful look.

  “Sorry,” Grey said, swiping away the blood, leaving a smear across southern Missouri. “We have to pick one and if we pick wrong, we’re screwed. There won’t be enough time to get to another of these pissant little towns.”

  Sadie had circled the remaining five towns on the map; not one was within 50 miles of another. They had a chance at one and one only and that was only if they hurried. Once again, all of them turned to Sadie hoping she’d be able to infer from what she knew of her father to figure out in which town the rest of the pontoons were hidden. She had already explained that the towns meant nothing to her and that the vague, simplistic map geography around them meant even less.

  “One’s as good as another,” she said, lifting a single shoulder.

  “It’s not!” Grey barked. He jabbed a bloodied finger down onto the map. “Four will lead to dead ends. Four will lead to our friends being sold into slavery or sent to die in the arena. They are not all the same. Come on, Sadie. Do any of the towns sound familiar at all? This one, Marbery; do you have an uncle named Marbery? Was it your mother’s maiden name? Or this one, Baker. Did your father work in a bakery at one time? Did he like muffins or fresh bread?”

  “No,” she said, her eyes darting to each circle. “There’s nothing about any of them that are significant as far as I know.”

  Grey wanted to lash out at the girl but he forced himself to smile. It came out as a grimace. The wound in his throat was a constant ache that became hell when he moved his lower jaw. There was something torn in him; cartilage or muscle or some sort of connective tissue that was attached to everything else, making the pain radiate outward. That and the constant bleeding had put him in a bad mood which he struggled to hide.

  “Listen Sadie, your father is not a terribly complicated man. Nor is he a genius by any stretch. He chose those towns for a reason. Why?”

  “I don’t know!” she snapped right back. “He’s a jerk, okay? That’s all I know. He was a sucky dad and a bad husband. He always did the same thing over…and…over.” Her words faltered as sh
e looked back down at the map, touching it with one pale finger. She began tracing little circles around the towns she had marked and, at the third, her head jerked up and her eyes flew wide. “It’s Baker! I know it. My dad is a creature of habit, and look right there, that’s an airfield. I’m betting it’s got a hangar.”

  Grey jumped up. “We can still make it if we get our asses in gear.”

  “Not if the River King has already sent men to get the rest of the pontoons,” one of the cage fighters said. “If he has, we’ll be driving right into a battle.”

  The captain looked the man up and down with a sneer on his face as though he was looking at a raw recruit. “If that happens then we fight.” What was so hard to understand about that? Grey wondered. “I presume you know how to use the gun in your hand?”

  The man started to bluster; one of his friends put out a hand. “Yeah, he can shoot. We all can. The question is why should we? You guys got us out of that prison and for that we thank you, but I don’t see why we should fight your battles.”

  “You ungrateful bastard,” Grey snarled. “You fight because I say so.” His hand gripped the M4, the muscles and tendons of his forearms standing out like tree roots.

  Suddenly guns were being pointed all around. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Deanna’s pistol come up, followed by Sadie’s. Neil held his gun uncertainly and this was true of a few of the other cage fighters, but the rest held theirs tightly.

  Just like that, two distinct and agitated groups had squared off.

  Counting Neil, something Grey was doing dubiously, his group was outgunned five to four with everyone having a gun pointed their way, except for one person: a greasy cage fighter by the name of Salvatore. He grinned wickedly and was the only one who seemed relaxed. “You’re down one man and I’m the tiebreaker.” This declaration didn’t sit well with the other cage fighters who knew that if only one person pulled a trigger it would start a chain reaction that would lead inevitably to their deaths. They were visibly scared making them extra dangerous.

  On the flipside Sadie and Deanna were two cool customers, standing without flinching. Neil on the other hand was irate. “This is stupid. Everyone put down your guns and let’s talk this out.”

  “Drop yours, first,” Salvatore countered, nudging his AR-15 into Deanna’s soft cheek. Thankfully, Neil kept his wits and kept his gun leveled at one of the cage fighters.

  It was then that Norman stepped up, holding an old M-16 in one hand, pistol style and a big .44 in the other. He jammed the .44 into Salvatore’s ear and pointed the rifle at another of the cage fighters. “Drop it, Sally. You know I’ll pull the trigger.”

  Salvatore swore in a foreign language and then dropped his AR. This caused a domino effect among the cage fighters who voluntarily disarmed themselves. Neil made a face, putting his hands on his hips. “All that was a waste of time, and it was your fault, Grey. These men are not your soldiers to order about. They have to be reasoned with if they’re going to help us.”

  “No amount of reason will get a man to charge a machine gun nest,” Grey replied.

  “I’m not charging no machine gun nest no matter what,” Salvatore said. “You might as well put a bullet in my head right now.”

  Neil patted him on the arm and then turned to Grey. “You see? It’ll take time and reason to impress upon these men a military air. And that’s time we don’t have. By the way, you are bleeding again.”

  Grey felt the warmth of his blood coursing down; he put a hand to his neck and grimaced, but didn’t utter a word of complaint. Neil lifted his chin to Deanna and said, “Check on that, please.”

  Obediently, she holstered her gun, pulled away the useless bandage at his neck and stared in at his wound, her forehead creasing in concern. “You got a hole there and it’s bleeding pretty good.”

  “The only thing we can do is pack it with sterile gauze and suture it closed,” Grey said. “You can do that, right? It’s just like sewing.”

  “If she’s going to stitch you up, she’s got to do it on the way,” Neil said. Salvatore started to say something but Neil shut him up with a hard look. “Anyone who wants to stay, can stay, but you go with what you have in your hands and nothing more. You should also know you won’t find a safe refuge in this country if you don’t come with us. Look at yourselves. You look exactly like what you are: arena fighters and slaves. There’s only one place that will take you in, and that’s Colorado, and I doubt they would without Captain Grey’s recommendation.”

  Grey grunted, “He’s right. General Johnston can practically smell cowardice and is personally repelled by traitors and cutthroats.”

  “We’re not all like that,” one of the fighters said. “At least I wasn’t before. It was circumstance that made us what we are and it can be circumstance that makes us better. I say we fight with these guys.”

  “You can if you want to but I’m sick of fighting,” another said.

  “I am too,” Neil said. “I’m sick of all of it, but that doesn’t matter. You and I, and everyone here, will never be able to stop fighting. We’re going to fight for the rest of our lives. I say that as long as we’re fighting, we might as well fight for what’s right.”

  A vote was taken and when Salvatore saw the cage fighters siding with Neil, he sighed out the words, “Okay, we’ll fight.”

  Captain Grey immediately began snapping out orders and the trucks were once again manned. They were now driven with a greater sense of urgency. Even though he had a bum arm, Neil took the wheel of the black truck and he sped along while Deanna went to work on Grey’s wound in the back seat.

  He had flushed it with alcohol the day before, and gobbed it with bacitracin and steri-stripped it closed. He had misjudged the extent of the damage.

  “It’s deep,” Deanna said. “I can put my thumb in there. Do you think there’s a bullet in you?”

  “No, it’s probably a fragment. We’ll have to worry about it later. Just pack it and stitch it closed for now.” Her hands shook as she worked and there was a fine glistening of sweat on her brow. “It doesn’t hurt,” he lied. The five amateurish stitches seemed to take forever and hurt like a bitch. They were wider spaced than was proper and leaked blood, but at a slower rate than before.

  “Thanks,” he told her when she was done. “That feels great.” It didn’t. He was afraid to move for fear of tearing the stitches right out.

  From the front seat, Sadie gave the suturing a quick look and then made a face. “It looks bulgy.”

  He had no idea what she meant by bulgy and didn’t want to know. “Don’t worry about it Deanna, just slap some gauze over it and we’ll be done.”

  “Slap it fast,” Neil said. He’d been buzzing along at breakneck speed as Deanna worked. He pointed at a passing sign: Baker10 Miles. Before he could put his hand back on the wheel he clipped a zombie standing in the road, losing the driver’s side mirror. “Oops,” he said with a nervous laugh. He was white knuckling the wheel.

  “You ok?” Grey asked, leaning forward.

  “I’m fine, I guess. I’m just worried that it’s going to be close. If the River King’s men aren’t there already, they will be soon, and I have all these questions running around inside my head: how much of a head start do we have? How long will it take to hitch up the pontoons to the trucks? And will the trucks be with the pontoons at all? Maybe they’re in a whole different town.”

  “I don’t think so,” Deanna said. “At the last place, the trucks looked…I don’t know, clean I guess you would say. They looked like they had been undercover for long time, at least compared to the Humvees, which were all road dusty.”

  “The trucks will be there,” Grey assured. If Neil was right, then they were in huge trouble. But he wasn’t worried about the trucks, he was worried about the fuel. It was far easier to hide seven or eight drums of fuel than it was five big trucks. “Either way we’ll worry about it when we get into town. Oh, by the way, Neil, you’re doing great. The way you handled those cage
fighters, that was real leadership. I’m proud of you.”

  Neil gave him a crooked grin. Sadie laughed easily and touched his cheek. “You’re turning pink! Some leader you are. I doubt George Washington ever turned pink. Really, Neil, you have got to learn to take a compliment.”

  “And you have got to keep on that map,” Neil said. “You’re navigating us and every second counts. We can’t afford to take a wrong turn.”

  “As always you’re being a stick in the mud,” Sadie said. “The airport will be like, super-obvious. We just have to look for one of their tower thingies.” She stared with great purpose through the windshield, only there was nothing in sight but farms and farmland.

  “The control tower at the last town was only about thirty feet high,” Deanna said. “It’ll be hard to see if there are any intervening buildings or trees.”

  Sadie suddenly grinned and pointed to the west. “Ha! It’s over there. You can just make out the top of it.”

  Grey squinted, started to shake his head, and then stopped as he felt the stitches pull and the ripped thing in his neck begin to burn. Hiding the grimace, he said, “Sorry, but that is a grain silo. Sadie, we have a map for a reason.”

  “That’s a grain silo? You sure? It looks…oh, it is.” With a weary sigh, the girl dropped her chin and with one finger she traced a line of road on the map. “Where are we? Oh, right here. So that means we gotta take a left soon. It says CR 23. What’s CR?”

  “It means county road,” Deanna answered. Her eyes were darting about everywhere, nervously. “Does anyone know what we’re going to do if the River King’s men are already there?”

  “We don’t have a lot of choices,” Grey said. “Since we don’t make up much of an assault force, our best bet is to just drive up like we belong there. We say the River King sent us and while they’re trying to figure out what’s what we draw on them. Hopefully, there won’t be any bloodshed.”