The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades

by Meredith, Peter

  He gave her another smile and said, “I thought I saw a Sasquatch.” She had no idea what that was. “A Big Foot,” he explained, when she raised her eyebrows.

  She wasn’t so easily fooled; she knew it was a joke. “There’s no such thing. Really, what did you see?”

  “It was nothing,” he said. “Just a trick of the light, I guess. So, where were we? Oh yeah, finding your friends. Your idea is to stay close to the River King and hope to get lucky? You know that’s pretty weak.”

  “Yeah.” She began to pull on the rope, hauling them back to the ladder. “We can get lucky or Neil can get lucky, or the River King can get unlucky. If any of those three things happen then we can join up and go to work on freeing the others.”

  “Is that what Ipes thinks?”

  Ipes was strangely quiet, just as he had been since they had run into Ernest. “Yeah, I guess. He’s not saying much which usually means he agrees with me and doesn’t want to give me any credit for coming up with a good idea.”

  I just don’t want to give you a big head, the zebra said. Whenever you’re right about anything, you always act like you’re the Queen of the world.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said, quietly to him. To Ernest she announced, “He agrees. But don’t worry Mister Ernest, we get lucky a lot.”

  “So do I,” he replied, tugging them back to the piling and reaching for the ladder. “Up you go. Ladies first.”

  She secretly liked that; it made her feel grownup. “Now for a car,” she declared when he had clambered to the dock. She began walking the splintery planks without waiting on him.

  He was on her before she had taken three steps. “No,” he said, pulling her around. “I want you to stay here. I can travel faster without you and it’ll be safer.”

  “Stay here…alone?” The word was a dagger in her guts. Being alone was a new horror for Jillybean. The thought of it made her want to puke.

  “You have Ipes.”

  “Ipes isn’t the same as being with a person,” she said, quickly. “Really, Mister Ernest I won’t slow you down not at all. And I can help with…”

  Ernest shocked her by dropping down to her height and pinning her arms to her sides. His face was rock hard and angry; he had never looked at her that way. “Enough! I’m trying to keep you safe. Stay here until I get back. That’s an order.” He was stern, more stern than he had ever been before. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to be alone. Panic set up a quivering in her chest.

  He must have sensed it. The stern look folded into a cracked grin. He released her arms, leaving red marks where his fingers had been and said, “I’ll be right back. Trust me.” He tromped away while Jillybean stood stock-still, her eyes grown huge as headlights.

  It’s ok, Jillybean, Ipes said, gently. I’m here with you.

  She loved Ipes with all her heart, but he wasn’t the same as a person. When he spoke it was in her head. There was still the silence that she couldn’t cope with. Ipes couldn’t stop it. After the barge had exploded her head had been filled with static for hours and the world seemed so awfully quiet in comparison. She kept wondering if she was deaf and would tap on objects just to make sure she wasn’t.

  Then night had fallen and she had grown afraid. It didn’t make sense. Jillybean had been alone a million times since the start of the apocalypse, and yet she shivered all over in fear, trying to hear past the static in her mind. Ipes had tried to help but he had been quieted by a new voice. At first it was just her normal inner narrator, what she called her “thinking” voice but it kept talking even when she wanted it to shut up. It became cruel and uncontrollable.

  Where are your friends, now? It asked. They left you. They left you alone. They left you to die. They left you to be eaten.

  The sound of the voice was clouded by the static, but she was pretty sure it was her mother’s voice; the same mother who had abandoned her both physically and spiritually. The voice kept on torturing her until Jillybean was hysterical and crying raggedly and the monsters were coming for her. There were many of them honing in on the sound of her labored breathing and hiccupping sobs.

  Then, with a start, she sat up as if she had been sleeping. She was in the bowl of a tree, warmed by a blanket of leaves. The sun was up and birds were nattering at each other nearby.

  Wakey, wakey, Ipes had said, brightly. Time to rise and shine, it’s a new day.

  And it was.

  But, what had transpired the night before? It hadn’t been a dream. She had been bawling out of control and should have been eaten, but inexplicably she had not been. And where had the time gone? Hours had passed and she couldn’t remember a single one of them. Jillybean suspected Ipes had done what he wasn’t allowed to do and had taken her over, but she was afraid to ask because what if he had? Or worse, what if he hadn’t? What if some part of her mind had just went and broke?

  The question was up in the air until a few hours later when Ipes took her over for sure. The static had retreated with the fine morning but then the heat of afternoon started lazing the day and the world took on an insect hum of its own. In the hum was the ghost of a voice she had heard the night before. At first, she couldn’t tell what she was hearing but then it began form hateful words. She tried to tell herself that the voice wasn’t real and that was all well and good, but then something actually real occurred: two men came hunting her. They were dirty, ugly men with long, wild beards and great big guns. They talked openly about her astronomical bounty and what they’d do when they collected it.

  Jillybean had frozen in fear, standing where God and everyone could see and the men would have collected their bounty with little problem if it hadn’t been for Ipes taking control of her body. The world went black and then, what felt like a second later, she “awoke” hiding in the middle of a stickly bush.

  Ipes acted like nothing had happened, in fact, neither had spoken a single word about it. The subject was taboo, just as was the subject of the second voice in her mind. The zebra knew it existed. After the incident with the bounty hunters, he had talked nonstop, perhaps to ease her loneliness or perhaps to keep the other voice at bay, but eventually she grew tired of his endless chatter, and asked him to be quiet.

  The static came on her so fast that she actually wished she could die. The static voice heard the thought and said, There’s one way to fulfill that wish. Unbidden, she pictured the police-looking gun she had hidden in her pack. She pictured it sitting heavily in her hand and she pictured herself putting the barrel of it in her mouth. She could taste chemicals and smell old gunpowder.

  It was then that Ipes saved her for the third time. He didn’t take her over, instead he mentally slapped her. That was the only way to describe the feeling that left her mind ringing like a gong, echoing down a deep hole. She reeled, dropping onto her hands and knees in the tall grass. Next to her small fingers was the pistol. It shook her to her foundation to see it there. When had she pulled it out? And why did she still have the taste of metal in her mouth?

  Maybe we should try something besides dwelling on the bad stuff, Ipes had suggested. Let’s put your smarts to work.

  That was how she ended up with the bombs and the laser pointer and the three guard-monsters. It had been good to put her mind to work, but it had been even better when Ernest had come along. He had banished the static completely. It was such a blessing, that she was willing to overlook almost anything, even how he had hurt her arms. She would take that pain a thousand times over rather than hear the voice in her head again.

  But now he was gone and the feeling of being alone…of being abandoned had rushed back threatening to overwhelm her. Along with it came the haunting voice in the fuzzy static—Ernest isn’t coming back. He’s tired of you and tired of your uppity ways. Why do you have to act like you’re so superior to everyone? Like you’re so much smarter? It’s annoying. You’re annoying. You drive them away. Why else would Neil leave without looking for you?

  “Ipes?” she whispered, feeling herself
start to jitter. “Help me.”

  We should do something to pass the time, he said, quickly. Let’s figure out how to work the radio scanner.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said, dropping down to the old grey boards of the dock. “That’s a good idea.” She dug out the scanner from under the other goods they had recovered from the boat. It looked like nothing more than an over-sized walkie-talkie with a whole mess of buttons and two knobs. Thankfully, it was properly complicated and she set her mind to work unraveling the puzzle it represented.

  Every once in a while she wiped the sweat from her eyes with the heel of one hand or took a pull from the water jug she carried in her Ladybug backpack. Without an instruction manual, the scanner should’ve been beyond her ken—she had it figured out in twelve minutes. The first thing she discovered was that it worked too well. There were literally hundreds of conversations going on at once on hundreds of frequencies.

  Which one was the River King using?

  She would listen in on a fuzzy-sounding conversation for a few minutes and then punch to the next one. One problem she had to contend with was that the River King didn’t have a distinctive voice. Anyone of the people jabbering away could’ve been him. A second problem was the fact that he might not even be using a radio just then.

  “This is impossible,” she griped, sitting up. “It was a dumb idea.”

  No, it wasn’t, the zebra said. Your friends are out there and they need you.

  “You got it backwards. I need them. I need Sadie and Eve and Mister Neil and Mister Captain Grey. I’m ascared, Ipes. I’m ascared that my head isn’t right…like it’s broken inside.” She was whispering by the time she finished the last sentence.

  I can help, Ipes told her.

  “How?” she asked. Before he could answer, something got in her eye and she began to blink rapidly. When her vision cleared she jerked in surprise; there was a map unfolded in front of her and the scanner was spewing out words.

  “Say again advance team. You are breaking up.”

  “Must…missed turn…no signs…what are…to Baker…” While the first was fresh and clear, this voice was distant sounding.

  “If I hear you right, you missed your turn?”

  “…firmative.”

  “What you’re looking for is route 34. Go west on 34. The king will follow once we’re hitched up.”

  “West…34…”

  Jillybean looked down at the map. The pointer finger of her right hand rested on a strip of road: I-34. The town of Baker, Missouri was a little dot, no bigger than a freckle sitting just at the tip of her finger.

  “What did you do?” she asked Ipes. The zebra was positioned on one corner of the map. A rock sat on the other.

  You needed help, so I…you know.

  “You took me over,” Jillybean said. “You did! Why? You don’t think I could have figured it out?”

  No, but it would have taken too much time. Have you considered the fact that maybe I’m smarter than you, he suggested.

  “You were using my brain!”

  No, I was using your thumbs. Look at these things, he said waving one his flappy hooves at her. Trust me, I was just trying to help you.

  There was that word, trust. Just then she didn’t feel as though she could trust anyone, including herself. He was lying, but about what she didn’t know. “You need to tell me how you found the right frequency. I know you used some sorta trick or you woulda let me do it myself. Now tell me what it is!”

  Shush, he’s coming.

  There was Ernest hurrying up the dock toward her. His presence only added to her confusion. Why was he here? He couldn’t have found a car so quickly. That would be impossible.

  Hide the gun! Ipes suddenly hissed. She wanted to ask why, but there wasn’t time. She slid it beneath her rags.

  “I found a truck,” he announced when he was halfway to her. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing at the map and the scanner.

  “Ipes found out what frequency the River King was using.” Was it her imagination or did Ernest shoot the stuffed zebra a suspicious look? And did Ipes return the look? Jillybean’s head was spinning. “He…he also found out where they’re going.”

  “Where?” Ernest asked. His eagerness made the little girl lean back. Involuntarily, one hand went protectively to her chest while the other pointed to the little dot, which represented the town of Baker. “Hmmm, Baker. Thirty-nine miles. Do you know what sort of head start they have?”

  She shrugged her slight shoulders. “I dunno, but they have trucks, probably big ones to move the pontoons. Is your truck a big one or is it like a normal one that can go fast?” Somehow she knew the answer. It slipped out in the way she had said your. His truck was just big enough to haul a boat such as the one tied to the dock, probably the very truck that had…

  Jillybean, Ipes said, interrupting the train of her thought. Don’t over think this. He has a truck that will get us closer to our friends. That’s what counts.

  To her, that was only part of what counted. What about the glaring fact that there was a boat on the river! Who could possess such a craft except…

  Ipes again interrupted her train of thought, this time by applying another of his psychic slaps. Her head flew back and her mouth came open. Her legs from the knees down, seemed to disappear and she pitched forward onto the map.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard Ipes say using her own mouth. She was inside herself, looking out. Ipes wasn’t in complete control however; she was still aware and that meant she could fight back. Her right hand was splayed across the state of Missouri. She concentrated on it and with all the energy she could muster she tried to lift it off the map. It felt like she was lifting an anchor. A grunt escaped her as her hand came up.

  “You ok?” Ernest asked.

  The hand was up and now; gradually she began to feel her arm and then her shoulder. When her mouth was her own she said, “I…I ated something bad, I think.” The truth, that she was crazy, wasn’t something she could say out loud. Yes, that was the plain truth. It was crazy that she could feel Ipes in her mind. He was a warm presence; he was afraid for her, which made it easier for her to deal with the fact that he was there at all.

  She could also feel the owner of the cruel voice. It didn’t have a name. It was in her mind held back by what felt like a plane of glass, a very, very thin plane, as brittle as an autumn leaf.

  “I’ll be ok,” she said, groping her way to her feet. There was a muscle on her cheek that wouldn’t stop be-bopping up and down and her eyes kept blinking even when she wanted them to stop. She wouldn’t look up at Ernest. “We should get going,” she said.

  He stared down at her for a long time before saying, “Go wait in the truck. It’s the white one. I’ll get the stuff.”

  Beyond the dock was a line of low-slung warehouses that stank of the undead and molding cotton. Jillybean found the truck parked on the street in front of the first one. It was very quiet.

  The voice in her head spoke, suddenly, He’s going to kill you.

  “Ipes help me out,” Jillybean pleaded. “I promise never to put you in time-out again if you can just stop that voice.”

  I can’t, the zebra said. She’s a part of you just like I’m a part of you.

  “No that can’t be true,” Jillybean hissed. “She’s mean and I’m not mean. Do…do you think I’m mean?”

  Yes you are, the voice said. You blew up the barge and the bridge and you set fire to the ferries and do you remember what you said about killing the people on them? You said they were bad people, so it was ok. Were they all bad? Did you know for sure, or did you just burn them up because they were in your way?

  Jillybean remembered it all, because the voice wanted her to remember, just as it wanted her to know about Ernest. What a coincidental life Ernest lives. He just happens to escape the school? He just happens to find you in the woods? He just happens to come across a boat when there are no boats and, then he just happens to come across a truck…have you checked
the fuel gauge, yet? How much do you want to bet it’s nice and full?

  Against her will, her feet carried her to the truck’s edge. She pulled herself up; the truck’s tank was full.

  You see and you understand.

  “I don’t!” she wailed. “Ipes, please help me.”

  Ask him about the frequency. Ask him how he knew…

  A pain shot through her head like a bolt of lightning. It was Ipes doing that psychic slap again. She reeled from it, holding onto the side mirror to keep from falling.

  “Don’t play on that,” Ernest snapped. He held a heavy box of the C4 in his arms and on his back was his pack. His eyes were weird again. They weren’t angry, they were uncaring to a chilling degree. It was the opposite of how he usually looked.

  This is how he usually looks, the voice said. She wanted to whimper, but she held back for fear of what Ernest would think. He thumped the box down in the truck bed and tossed his pack in the back seat of the cab. He started to walk away.

  “There’s an easier way,” she called after him desperately. Yes, there was something not quite right about Ernest, but Jillybean was more afraid of the voice than of the man. “Let me show you.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. He had a blanket in his pack—how she knew this she couldn’t say. She pulled it out and hurried up to Ernest and then went past him knowing he would follow. “We can get it all in one trip, but it might ruin your blanket in the process. Is that ok?”

  “I’m not married to the thing,” he answered. “I won’t be broken up if it rips.”

  “Good…that’s good. So were you married, before?” she asked. She needed to hear someone, someone other than Ipes and that nasty voice, speak. She felt her mind needed it.

  “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “Oh…what about babies? Can we talk about babies?”

  “We didn’t have any.”

  “I had Eve,” she said. “She wasn’t mine but then again she wasn’t anyone’s. Here, help me lay out the blanket flat. Now we put all the stuff on it…”

  “And we drag it back, I get it,” Ernest said, interrupting. Instead of sounding happy she had saved him five trips, he sounded put out. “Sometimes, Jillybean you…never mind.”