Now, there was movement in the valley. Men came out of hiding. Most walked for a few hundred feet in strange directions and then pitched onto the ground. From above, with their shredded clothes and mudded faces, they looked like dead zombies scattered everywhere—it was what the Azael was expecting to see.
Other groups weren’t nearly so visible. The hills along both roads were studded with men, dug in and camouflaged only waiting on the word to unleash a much needed vengeance. They waited well over an hour for their chance. An Azael truck crested the far hill. It was a five-ton, bristling with men and guns.
“We got bogeys at Red,” Grey said into the radio. “Anything at Blue?”
A one word reply came: “Negative.”
“Looks like Jillybean was right about this, too,” Grey said. “This is where the fight’s going to be.”
No one said anything to that, they were watching as the truck took on the great mound of corpses. With all wheels turning, it plowed into the mound and promptly got stuck as it became embed up to its axles in the muck of flesh and blood. A second truck tried with equally disastrous results. The rest pulled over and their men piled out, but they did not advance.
“What are they waiting for?” Deanna asked. She was nervous, frequently wiping her hands on her camouflaged pants. Like all raw recruits, she clearly wanted the fighting to start, perhaps afraid that her courage would fail her.
“I hope they’re not waiting for the Strykers,” Grey said. Everyone had agreed that it was likely that men on foot would precede the vehicles and thus the one anti-tank crew was stationed closer to the front of the valley, hoping to knock out the vehicles after the men were engaged.
But that wasn’t the case. A Stryker appeared next. It paused with its sharp angled nose pointing downward; it gunned its engine and went at the mound with its eight wheels digging in and churning. With ease, it went right up the mound and then it went at the next ugly hill without slowing.
“Do I give the order to fire?” Neil asked in a wavering voice; it was clear that he knew in his gut that it was too soon, however one of the Strykers was right beneath the single anti-tank crew—they wouldn’t get a better chance to destroy it than this. One colonel nodded, another shook his head, tentatively and the third was studying his map as if it contained the answer; after a moment he slowly nodded, but it was far from convincing. Neil turned to Grey: “Do I do it?”
“No,” Grey answered without hesitation. To shoot too soon would turn the fight into a slugging match. He was certain that his men would give the Azael a sharp whipping; however he also guessed that the Azael would be able to retire in good order; they would live to fight another day, perhaps a day in the near future and perhaps they would come back with stronger weapons and better tactics.
However, by holding their fire and allowing the Strykers access to the valley it would give the main host of their enemies precious minutes to march themselves into the trap that had been set for them. They would walk into a kill zone and it was unlikely many would walk back out again. Of course, having the Strykers able to roam at will would put the defenseless soldiers lying in the fields at the entrance to the valley in grave danger. Their casualties would be horrific.
Neil stared at the Stryker, his hand holding the radio shaking. He watched as it bypassed the hill they were on and seconds later it rumbled out of range of the carefully emplaced anti-tank missile crew. They were now committed to a costly battle.
The next Stryker came on in an equally simple manner and behind it came thousands of the Azael on foot. They were dressed in their swirl of scarves that made it seem as though a strange, morbidly happy parade was marching over the remains of the undead. There were thousands of them coming on, rank after rank. They walked with mincing steps and many tripped over the uneven ground. Up and down the hills they came, but Grey had already turned from them.
He had to get to the Strykers.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Deanna demanded in a hiss.
“Where I’m needed,” he answered. “Here, use this.” He handed her the scoped rifle; she shoved it back at him.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she seethed. “If you’re not well enough to lead your company, then you’re not well enough to fight!”
Neil took her arm and pulled her back. “I’m afraid you’ve fallen in love with the wrong man. This is who he is. Don’t interfere. Don’t come between a man and his destiny.”
She glared at Neil as if looking at a cockroach. “You’d sacrifice your best friend, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” Neil answered without hesitation. “I’d sacrifice him, you, me and everyone on this hill to free us from this menace. Your choice, Deanna is to let him go or take the rifle and go with him and guard his back.”
“Neil!” Grey growled. “Shut your mouth.”
Neil didn’t blink. “Go with him, Deanna and take Michael. Stop those Strykers. It’s your one mission.” He paused and then glanced at Sadie. “I want you to go as well. I’ll be safe here.”
Sadie stepped forward, her thin face set in a rock of courage. Deanna looked like she was going to spit out something angry however at the last moment she pursed her lips tight and said nothing. Michael only shrugged and shouldered his rifle. Grey ground his teeth and glared fiercely, but he knew he couldn’t disobey a direct order, nor did he have time to argue. The Strykers had paused just on the verge of the valley, perhaps waiting for their infantry to catch up, but they wouldn’t wait too much longer.
Grey led the way, trying his best to ignore the pain and the awful thump of his pulse in his left bicep—he could almost hear his own heart tearing out the stitches keeping his artery held together. There was a quarter of a mile between them and the Humvee that was safely hidden on the far side of the long, rocky hill. He began jogging at his best pace.
Very soon he was winded and his strength began to flag.
As Sadie had run ahead, Deanna took the long rifle from him while Michael, who was a buffalo of a man, came up under his right arm and practically carried Grey along. Still, with the steepness of the hill, it was slow going. They had just caught sight of the Humvees nestled in the woods when there came a smattering of gunshots which was returned with fantastic vigor as if all five thousand of the Azael had opened up at once.
“No!” Grey cried. Someone had fired too early and now the soldiers were in deep trouble. Not only were the Strykers loose in the valley with nothing to stop them, the trap that had been set up had been sprung too soon— the army of the Azael had yet to fully enter the kill zone.
Ignoring the pain and his spinning head, Grey raced to the closest Humvee. He could hear Neil screaming over the radio: “Everyone fire for God’s sake!”
Chapter 34
Jillybean
At eleven, the power was cut as she knew it would be; Neil would never take a chance that someone might accidentally flick on a light switch at a crucial moment. This was what Jillybean was waiting for in order to begin her plan of escape but she didn’t jump up right away. Instead she laid there for a few moments, sighing deeply.
She was leaving and even if she somehow managed to not die, she would be alone without her friends. They’d become only memories to her, just like Ipes was a memory and her daddy an even more distant one. Right then, she missed them both terribly, especially the zebra. When he had left, he had taken a part of her with him. He had taken the part of her which knew what it meant to be happy—she hadn’t had a real laugh since he left.
“Doctor Mrs. Yuan?” she called out, not wanting to dwell on that any longer.
Margaret was there in a second. “Don’t be afraid, dear. The power will be back on in the morning.”
“I’m not afraid. It’s been dark plenty since the monsters came. I just gotta go baffroom before bed.”
As always, Margaret broke protocol and uncuffed Jillybean and escorted her to the toilet. She was still careful, however, keeping a beam of light on her at all times. The little girl did he
r business, making a point of yawning heavily. Margaret then walked her back to her room where she cuffed Jillybean to the metal frame.
“Goodnight and sweet dreams,” Margaret said and shut the door. Jillybean knew that she wouldn’t come back to check on her; Margaret didn’t really understand about her at all.
The second she had left, Jillybean, who was wearing only a hospital Johnny that had been cut to fit her, reached to the back of her neck and dug through the mass of brown curls to where she kept a paperclip tied to a strand of hair. She had known before she had poisoned General Johnston that she was going to be captured and searched. She had also guessed that the search would be cursory.
In seconds, the clip was free and she began to work it into the keyhole of the handcuffs. It was then that Eve reared up inside of her. “No,” Jillybean hissed. “If you want to escape, you will have to stay inside. I have a plan and you’ll only screw it up.”
Eve was quiet, taken back by the force of Jillybean’s wrath. She then sneered: A plan? Who are you going to kill?
“The king of the Azael if I can and maybe a lot more of them, but you have to remain inside until I’m done and only then can you come out.”
Will there be a bomb? Eve asked, gleefully.
“I hope so. Now hush so I can concentrate.” She really didn’t need to do much concentrating, the plan was fully developed in her mind. There had been nothing else to do during the last day. She even had twenty-two separate contingency plans just in case something went wrong at any given point. One of those contingency plans included a separate way to release herself from her cuffs if she couldn’t do it with the pin.
Thankfully, they snapped open with ease. The clip went back in her hair and the cuffs she tied to her Johnny. The only other thing she took from the room was the doll that Neil had given her. She really didn’t understand it as a gift...well, the doll was a doll and a pretty one and that was thoughtful, however the cryptic message that came with it—Just don’t let her have it. She doesn’t deserve it—didn’t make any sense.
Eve was too strong to be denied anything. The only reason why Jillybean was still in charge was that Eve needed her mind.
Cryptic message or not, Jillybean liked the doll and wasn’t going to part with it unnecessarily. She tucked it under her arm and slipped to the door. She almost didn’t need to creep. The dark was so thick that she could have skipped down the hall and no one would’ve seen.
Still, she was careful. Her steps were light as air as she made her way to the back door where the sign that read: Alarm Will Sound! was barely readable at five inches. Without electricity, the alarm of course did not sound, though she had a contingency just case it did: running.
It didn’t blare and she didn’t run. She made her way quickly and stealthily out the door and across the valley to the Big Thompson River and followed it until she came to the cabins where Amber D and her family rotted eternally away.
Jillybean needed shoes, even if they were too small and she needed proper clothes and she needed more of everything. Her plans and their contingencies included a need for string, tape, a kitchen knife, a lighter or matches, a backpack, needle nose pliers, wire and something heavy that she could use as a weapon—the tire iron from the Honda parked out front would work just fine she figured, and lastly a set of keys which, unfortunately she found in the pocket of one of the corpses.
They were wet and smelled of something vile. She took them down to the river and dunked them in the cold water until they glittered up at her defying the night.
What do you need keys for? Eve asked. The Honda can’t have any gas. Are you just stalling? I’ll take over if you are.
“They’re part of the plan,” Jillybean said. “And no, I won’t tell you what part, so don’t even ask.”
She didn’t find everything on her list at Amber D’s little cottage. It took her a number of tries at different places but she ended up with everything she needed and some things that were strictly luxuries such as a blanket and pillow. The frilly white dress that hung to her knees, which was the hardest item to find, was both a necessity and a luxury—luxury only because it was so cute.
The dress wasn’t practical for battle and so she stowed it in the backpack. Wearing borrowed blue jeans and a white long sleeved shirt with a Power Puff girl emblazoned on the front, she went back to the river. It was getting close to one in the morning at this point but Jillybean had plenty of time; she knew the walking speed of a zombie and she knew the distance they had to travel. She used her new found math skills to calculate a 7 a.m. end time for the march of the zombies.
Plenty of time.
She traveled up the river, just a little ghost in a world of shadows. As she neared the entrance to the valley, she started to come across little knots of soldiers hidden in ravines or in little holes in the ground like those a woodchuck might make. It was easy to avoid them since the men spoke quietly to each other. Their whispers carried further than they realized and she was able to slip around each group.
And then she was climbing the first of the hills and her breath was quick. As she crested the first, she saw down and to her right the highway she had used twice already to get to Estes. It was covered in the dead, but instead of standing around as they had been, they were pushing expectantly forward.
Jillybean smiled, briefly. The smile was pulled into a gaping “O” as she was overcome by a yawn. It was a signal to get moving again. She climbed out of the valley and came to the first ridge and looking back she had a great view—it would be here that King Augustus would direct his battle.
He would want to be close enough to watch the progress but not close enough to be hurt.
The little girl walked all around the ridge; her eyes were now well accustomed to the night and she was able to take in every nuance of the land. It did not hold much promise of escape which was too bad, she would have liked to get away if she could.
The one contingency she couldn’t plan for was her ending. Eve was unstoppable. She was quiet only because she wanted to see an explosion and she wanted the king dead. And Menis, that slimy bastard, Eve said. She was always listening unless Jillybean was especially guarded. And Brad, too. He has to pay for hitting us.
Jillybean knew that in the end, she would take over. It was a foregone conclusion, and that was ok with Jillybean. She was tired of living with so much pain and guilt. Eve would bury her in the blackest part of her soul and Jillybean wouldn’t fight it. She would go and never come out.
“But first things first,” she whispered and then began walking along the hills that stretched seemingly forever eastward. She only went a little over a quarter of a mile, to a point overlooking the highway. The dead were still flowing, but in the morning she figured this was where the bus, filled with the thirty-two sex slaves, would end up. They would be in the back of the line of vehicles just like always.
“Now for bed,” she announced and then went back further into the hills and found a little rut in the earth that had collected leaves. Wrapping herself in the blanket and then covering her entire body with the leaves she settled down to sleep and, like any veteran, was out in seconds.
Five hours later, the sun woke her though she didn’t immediately jump up. Her eyes cracked and her ears perked up, hearing the clop-clop-clop of horses; the sound was going right-to-left, meaning the horses were heading east. The horsemen of the Azael had done their part; the zombies were in the valley and the army would be coming next.
Jillybean crept forward until she could see the now mostly empty road. There was a crow picked body below her that was long dead and a little ways down was a fresher corpse, the flesh of which squirmed unpleasantly from a fever of maggots feasting away.
There were also a number of zombies crawling or scraping along. These were purposely run over by three big army trucks that snorted up the incline. The two strange looking tanks came next and after them came six Humvees. In the lead vehicle, Jillybean saw the king and two of his brothers—Eve flared
up in hatred and Jillybean had to turn away to control her.
After the Humvees came the thousands of soldiers. They marched up in their silly scarf outfits. They thought that they were only going to have to deal with zombies, something Jillybean found amusing. After the soldiers came more trucks filled with all the supplies that had been needed for the siege.
Each duke had their own set of vehicles and Menis, because he was out of favor with the king, had his bringing up the end of the convoy. The only vehicle behind his was the whore-bus. It was always last, as though the Azael were embarrassed by it.
The bus stopped seventy feet down the road from where Jillybean had guessed that it would. She was just starting to shift laterally when there came a great blat from an engine. This was followed by a revving noise that echoed in the hills.
“I’d better hurry,” Jillybean said to herself. She paused to pull from her backpack the three items that would free the women: handcuffs, the tire iron and the set of house keys she had taken from Amber D’s mother. The cuffs went loosely around her wrists; the tire iron went down the side of her pants where it bulged, obviously if one was observant; the keys were kept hidden in her hand.
As she made her way down the hill with her backpack bouncing, she saw the mean woman who guarded the bus step out to stare up the road as the noise of the five tons trying their luck getting over the mound of dead before Red Gate 1increased. The old guard had a bent cigarette in the corner of her dry, gash of a mouth.
Her eyes widened as Jillybean came down the hill right at her, the sun glinting from the handcuffs. “Where the hell did you come from?” the woman demanded with one glance at the cuffs and a second up the hill.
“The king sent me,” Jillybean lied. “But I had to use the baffroom real bad.”
The woman grunted and smirked. It was obvious what she was thinking: Idiot, you should’ve run away. “Well get up there.” She pointed nicotine stained fingers up at the bus.
Jillybean mounted the first step which was very high for such a little girl and, as she did, she simultaneously slid a hand out of the loose cuffs and dropped the house keys she’d been carrying in her closed fist. They clinked loudly and lay twinkling in the morning light, sending out brilliant silver shards. This was part one.
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