This was postponed, first by the C.N.A, who checked his vitals, frowned at his lack of urine production in the urinal and then left to get his breakfast. Then his plans were interrupted by Margaret Yuan, who clucked like a mother hen while she surveyed his chart, and then by Deanna, who didn’t wait for Margaret to leave the room to kiss him full on the lips.
Deanna smelled like sweet pears which seemed impossible with a war going on. He couldn’t help smile at her and he really wanted to tell her of his progress in walking and healing in general, however he knew her: she would cluck worse than Margaret ever would and she would insist on staying with him in order to curb these fledgling attempts at freedom.
So he simply breathed her in and smiled, happy that she was happy. He was encouraged that the Azael were being frustrated in their attempt to overrun the valley and that the people were fighting back with such determination. And he was happy that Neil was doing so well as governor. Overall her visit was a blessing and yet he couldn’t wait for her to go.
He abhorred the urinal and everything it represented: imprisonment, frailty, an old man’s death…and he had to pee, badly. Thankfully, Deanna didn’t stay nearly as long as she wanted to; Neil was keeping her so busy that she was also scheduling times in order to relieve herself.
The moment she was gone, he was up, finding himself much steadier than the day before. His head hardly spun at all and when he stood before the toilet he didn’t need to hold onto the wall with his good arm. He then paced his room thirty times before being caught in the act by a most irate C.N.A. who could not understand anything beyond what the “doctor ordered.”
Satisfied with his exercise, at least for the moment, Grey ate his breakfast, asked for seconds and ate that as well, and considered thirds—he was healing after all and he knew that a good appetite was a sign in the right direction. However, a third helping felt like too much and he ignored his ravenous belly.
Before his eleven o’clock nap, he walked twice more, knowing on an elemental level that it was the right thing for his body. He then ate and slept again.
When the Azael attacked and the gunshots began to ring out on the eastern ridgeline, it felt strangely expected to the captain, as though he had been waiting for exactly that. As the C.N.A and Margaret ran to the windows in fear, and Jillybean huddled under a log, watching the battle unfold, Grey reached over and pulled out his IV, letting it trickle onto the floor.
His clothes had been scissored into rags when he had first come in and so there was nothing he could do but walk out of his room in his hospital gown. The C.N.A, stared in amazement, while Yuan threw what could only be called a medical hissy fit. She slammed a clipboard down on the counter and then pointed a finger into his face, demanding that he get back into bed.
“Sorry, I can’t do that,” he said as he pushed his way through the front door. He wasn’t stupid. He knew he wasn’t close to being healed and so he kept his left arm held tight and he didn’t go past his depth. There was a single Humvee left in the parking lot and he helped himself to it.
The engine’s roar was satisfying to his soul. One-handed, he steered the vehicle to the armory; what once had been a museum dedicated to the rather limited history of Estes Park. Since everything was more or less history now and not a single person in the valley had cared about the dull nick-nacks and old timey pictures, they had been tossed into a dumpster without a qualm and now the place smelled of that particular military odor which civilians always turned their nose up at but which modern day warriors greeted with the familiarity of a son coming home for the holidays.
Grey, who hadn’t hesitated a second, was one of the first men to the armory and, despite his lack of uniform; he carried the weight of authority in his voice. “The mortars!” he barked when he saw a man lumbering under the weight of a crew-serviced fifty caliber machine gun. A fifty cal wasn’t the worst weapon under the circumstances, but it wasn’t the best either and it was an officer’s duty to make sure his men had the very best weapons and training for any given circumstances.
“Get two mortars loaded in this Humvee!” he ordered, hoping that no one else noted the frailty he was hearing his own voice. “Who here is rated with the 252?” he asked. Of the dozen or so soldiers present, only four hands went up. Grey was a little surprised that it wasn’t more since General Johnston insisted that the men were cross-trained in a variety of weapons.
Still, four was good enough. Grey pointed at two of the men. “You are my gunners. Grab four men each as your crews. We’re heading up to Loveland Heights which...” A wave of dizziness almost sent him falling into an ammo crate of mortar rounds. After a breath, he steadied himself and went on: “Loveland Heights is close and there’s a dirt path to the top. And...and we will be well within range. Now, let’s go kick some ass.” He meant for his let’s go kick some ass statement to come out in a roar to fire the men up; however it came out quiet and phlegmy.
Regardless, the men rushed around, taking what they needed, before dashing for the Humvees parked in back. Grey trailed them, limping and fighting the pain in his body and the dizziness in his head. He was too slow to get in the lead Humvee which blasted out of the parking lot sending gravel machine gunning out the back, so he headed for the second.
Every seat was taken except the driver’s spot. Grey began to ease himself into it when a PFC came up. He was a young man, as all PFCs were, with a bristle of brown hair trimmed so short a man could putt right across it. “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s my seat. I’m driving.”
“Not today, son,” Grey answered and slowly lifted his burned right leg into the vehicle. The PFC put out a hand and easily stopped Grey. “What the hell are you doing?” Grey demanded. “Remove that hand. That’s an order in case you’ve lost your hearing along with your mind.”
The soldier didn’t budge. “I’m sorry sir. We need a driver who can use both hands. Besides, you’re...you’re too injured to fight.” Gently, but with a strength Grey was too weak to deny, the man pushed Grey back. He climbed into the vehicle but before he drove away he added: “My name is PFC Victor Shields if you feel the need to bring me up on charges.”
“Son of a bitch,” Grey said, quietly to himself when he was breathing in the exhaust of the speeding Humvee. “Do I look that pathetic that a damned PFC is brazen enough to talk to me like that?” He glanced down at himself and decided that the answer was yes. Not only was he covered in bandages, his hair shot up at all angles, he had five days of growth on his face and his white ass hung out the back of his hospital gown. He looked pathetic.
Embarrassed, he glanced around for another Humvee—there were none in the parking lot, though more were speeding toward the armory.
Not wanting to be seen in such a sad state, Grey limped away down the block, with all of his wounds flaring up. Each step was a misery for him and he was just beginning to think that he could very well faint right there on the side of the road when he saw a Humvee parked in front of the Holiday Inn two blocks away.
“I can make it there,” he assured himself. He almost didn’t. His head was spinning and his muscles flagging by the time he staggered up to the Humvee. He was pleasantly surprised to see Neil and Michael Gates in it. What he didn’t see was the pistol in Michael’s hand. Nor did he see that Michael’s index finger was curled around the trigger and that the hammer was back, meaning the weapon was within a flinch of going off.
Grey’s stagger ended in a stumble. He thumped heavily against the passenger side window causing Michael to jump. There was a shockingly loud bang! from inside the Humvee followed by a crack!
Neil sat in the driver’s seat with his mouth hanging open. Behind his head the window had a hole in it with a thousand cracks emanating from it. “Did I do that?” Grey asked, opening the back door. His words came out in a tortured whisper—his throat was scratchy dry and for the first time he was missing his IV.
“No,” Neil said. “This is all my fault.”
That made no sense to Grey. He had fi
nally seen the gun in Michael’s hand and it clicked in his fuzzy thinking that the bang had come from it. “Put away the gun, Michael before you hurt someone.”
“I intend to hurt someone,” Michael answered bring the gun up so that its smoking barrel was inches from Neil’s face. “Him. He killed Marybeth.”
“That’s...wrong,” Grey told him, still whispering. “It was the Azael who shot her. You can’t blame anyone but them, but...but if you were going to blame someone else you could me. I took all the blood that was available.”
This explanation failed to budge the gun even an inch, Neil was still staring right down the barrel. He didn’t seem too alarmed, in fact, he seemed relaxed, perhaps even relieved. “He’s right, Grey. I killed Marybeth. I turned off her IV.”
“Oh,” Grey said, his head spinning so badly that the confession of murder lacked the impact he had expected.
“That’s why he has to die,” Michael said. He thumbed back the pistol’s hammer and asked: “Any last words?”
Still, Neil appeared completely unruffled. “Yes, I guess I do have a few. In my defense, Marybeth asked me to kill her. She knew we were almost out of blood and since she wasn’t going to live much longer she wanted to give Captain Grey a chance. I didn’t want to do it, even for your sake, Grey, but she made me.”
“She made you?” Michael scoffed. “She was too weak to make anyone do anything. If she was so set on this, why didn’t she turn the IV off herself?”
Grey knew the answer. “That would be suicide. It’s something that can’t be forgiven.”
“That’s what she said,” Neil agreed. “So she asked me to do it. She said that I was forgiven, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like I’d deserve it if you shot me, Michael.”
“Don’t do it,” Grey said; with every word uttered, his whisper had degraded to almost nothing. “You should thank him, Michael. He didn’t kill your wife, he save her from an eternity in hell. Now...now if you guys don’t mind, I feel pretty shabby and...and I think...I think I might...”
He was suddenly too weak to finish his sentence. He stayed conscious long enough to hear Michael crying and the sound of mortars rumbling in the distance.
Chapter 28
Jillybean
Back in rags. Back to stumbling along when she should’ve been skipping. Back to plotting and blood and explosions and death. Back to fighting her own mind as much as she was fighting any enemy.
The only thing new was the contemplation of death. She was walking toward death in a star-filled night. Death, in dirty Keds was making its way to this unknown and, as far as she knew, innocent general. That was sad, but what was sadder was the tortured deaths of thirty-two women, who were equally innocent.
While Eve was perfectly happy with the assignment, Jillybean had balked at the idea of assassination. “Please, don’t make me.” She had cried and begged on her knees, but it had been in vain.
“Let me help you understand,” Brad said and then he had gone among the women on the bus with a belt, whipping them into tears until they were pleading in one harsh voice for Jillybean to save them. “You can end all this suffering,” Brad told the little girl, his eyes blazing, his face aglaze with sweat. “Just do as the duke told you and put the pills in the general’s drink without anyone seeing, and they’ll live.”
She had four bright green pills sitting in a little Ziploc baggy in her pocket. She was afraid of touching them, thinking that the poison in them would leach out into her skin. Still, they were always on her mind. When she was supposed to be paying attention to the monsters around her, she was feeling the baggy through her monster clothes and wondering about death.
Death was also coming for Jillybean.
It had its long, bony fingers stretched out for her soft throat. She knew this for a fact because she wasn’t going to be able to kill this general and get away with it. Everyone would know who had poisoned him and they would grab her and put her in jail, but only for a little while, only until they decided to kill her.
She’d be a murderer and everyone knew what became of murderers: they were shot with a gun or stabbed with a knife or fed to the monsters or hung like those poor people she had seen dangling from a telephone pole outside the town of the Azael.
Subconsciously, she touched the skin of her neck as a lump built in her throat. She didn’t want to die and she especially didn’t want to die by being hung.
None of the ways were particularly agreeable to the little girl though she held out hope that taking one of the pills wouldn’t be so bad. The duke’s strange and scary chef had handed over the pills in their baggy saying: “One should do it but give him all four, just in case.” He had grinned a dark crescent that had reminded Jillybean of the entrance to a carnival fun house that she had gone into with her parents years before. The fun house had been freaky but it was flowers and candy compared to the duke’s skeletal cook who chilled the little girl to the bone.
Again, she touched the baggy, thinking that Deanna hadn’t seemed to have suffered at all when she had been drugged. If the general went out just as peacefully, Jillybean decided she would then swallow one, too.
All of this was, of course, dependent on whether Eve would allow it. Jillybean could feel the other girl getting stronger and stronger the closer they came to the Estes Valley. She also seemed delighted at the prospect of killing the general.
And I won’t let you kill me, neither, Eve said. Trust me. I’ll get us back home in one piece.
Jillybean wanted to know where Eve considered home, but she couldn’t ask. The monsters were squished in on her too much for her to make even the slightest sound; they would be on her in an instant with their fangs and their claws.
She’d already had a near miss a few minutes before. All of the monsters were scary and disgusting, but she found herself next to one whose intestines were hanging outside of its body in a knot that looked like a child’s attempt at tying a bow. One loop of it was fatter than the rest like an overinflated inner tube, and when the beast stepped oddly on something underfoot and lurched into Jillybean, the intestine, wet and tacky to begin with, burst, releasing a torrent of hellish, black soup onto the little girl.
The smell of the putrefying juices was dizzying and she couldn’t help retch. The zombie, ignoring the fact that its intestines had just ripped open and were now dragging on the ground, turned on her with its jaws wide and hungry, and its eyes blazing. It would have eaten Jillybean right there but a monster just behind it had heard the human sound from the human girl as well and had eagerly rushed forward, stepping on the hanging entrails of the first.
The two had fallen in a jumble, giving Jillybean a chance to lose herself deeper into the crowd. She had cried beautiful clean tears that had streaked her mudded face and the entire episode had turned her mind to death.
It wasn’t a good topic for a girl who needed to keep her wits about her. Thankfully, she saw the steep hill that she and Brad and clambered up days before. As casually as possible, while still remaining in monster-mode, she angled for the hill. The real monsters shied away from it which meant it was, thankfully, clear of them. She went up it on a diagonal—a very difficult thing to do as she still had to lurch and use her arms only occasionally lest she look too human again and have them all after her.
Eventually, she made it up and once over the crest of the hill, she was able to stop and rest. The view below her made up for the harshness of the walk along the crowded highway. In the dark, Estes Park was a bowl of serenity snuggled among high peaks and rugged mountain ridges. It looked peaceful as if war was a million miles away instead of knocking on its front door.
There were lights in the valley, making the place seem magical to Jillybean after so much time in the dark. And there were burning bright fires that shot sparks high into the sky. Even from a distance, Jillybean thought the sparks looked like fairies escaping the earth.
Perhaps best of all, the air was clean and pure. The Azael always kept themselves surrounded
by the monsters so that they lived in a perpetual stink. Jillybean filled her lungs, deeply and nearly choked; the black gunk from the exploding intestine was still on her monster rags glistening in the star light. Quickly, she pulled off her outer garment and chucked it aside.
That was better, but what would have been the very best was if she could get an entirely new set of clothes. She’d been wearing the same two outfits since she had been captured and they were both grimy and smelled sour. Looking like a raggedy urchin was something her mother would have frowned upon and so Jillybean decided that before she met anyone, she would find a change of clothes.
She crept down out of the hills, avoiding the fires where there seemed to be both crowds of people and monsters, and she kept shy of the lit homes and businesses. Her tiny feet pattered in the dark until she came up to a number of cabins by the side of a river.
They were rental properties, but she mistook them for cozy little homes. One of them had a pine needle and pollen covered Honda parked in front. Going up on tip toes, she peeked inside and saw a pair of car seats in the back: one for a tiny baby and another for a bigger kid, both were trimmed in sun-faded pink—pink, that’s what meant they had been for girls. Grinning, she went to the front door of the cabin, hoping to find a little girl’s room inside that she could raid.
Instead she found a sad scene of death that suggested that there had been monsters in the valley before the soldiers came. The front door had been torn down; there was glass strewn and chairs overturned. In the single bedroom there were the remains of three bodies, two of which were very small and the third was scattered in pieces, a bone here a bone there, a pile of clothes in a thatch of moldering flesh.
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