Prisoners in the scarves of the Azael were hauling the dead to the fire and heaving their limp bodies in. The smell turned Sadie’s stomach. She wanted to leave, but first she handed Neil the doll. “Jillybean left this on the ridge. I thought you should hold onto it just in case she comes back.”
Neil looked at it in the same way Sadie had been looking at the bodies. He took it, holding it as though he was handling a soiled diaper, and went to the fire. He threw it into the middle where the flames were blue and hot enough to melt metal. “I think she might be ok, now,” he said. “She just needs to know that she’s been forgiven. I want you to find her, Sadie. Find Jillybean and forgive her.”
That’s what she’d been doing for two straight weeks. She’d started her search in the hills around the valley, going in ever widening circles. Two days later she was investigating the eastern slope of the Rockies from Loveland to Colorado Springs. This was dangerous as there were roaming bands of Azael everywhere.
They were leaderless and in many cases hungry and growing hungrier. Sadie adopted a shoot first and ask questions later approach that kept her alive. When she felt it was safe, usually when she was able to corner one alone, she talked to them and found rumors of Jillybean’s passing.
The little girl moved like a ghost among them, stealing whatever she wanted and frequently sabotaging cars or equipment. Some talked about her as if she was an evil spirit that was bent on revenge. Sadie let them believe it.
The “spirit” moved gradually south east onto the plains. Sadie tried to leap ahead of her quarry. She found a car and zipped to the dusty town of Flagler, Colorado which, as seen from a distant hill, looked like nothing more than trash strewn along the highway. The closer she got, the more the description fit.
Sometime in the last month, a tornado had rendered much of the town nothing but rubble. One of the few remaining buildings on the eastern side of town was a monumental silo that stank of rot and was home to a thousand bats. It overlooked four hundred square miles of Colorado and Sadie should have been able to see a mouse try to creep by. She wasted two days in the tower.
She tried only once more to lay in wait for Jillybean in Pratt, Kansas another prairie town that was depressingly flat and brown. Jillybean hadn’t come that way either. Undeterred, Sadie headed to Missouri, where she went in search of the river.
Her pace slowed as she traveled with much more caution. She was a wanted woman in five states, six if she counted Gunner in Alabama, and more than once she had to evade gangs of dangerous looking men. Luck was on her side and she made it to the exact little river and the exact little bridge.
One way or the other, Jillybean was coming to this spot. Sadie knew it as fact. She picked out the perfect spot to set up camp. She was far enough away where she could see the bridge and under enough cover that she could remain practically invisible. She had started with enough food for four days, mostly cornmeal she had ground herself.
Now she was down to two days’ supply and still no sign of Jillybean. When the sun went down, Sadie threw her mosquito net over herself and, since lighting a fire was out of the question, ate a mixture of cold soup and corn mush. After her dull meal, she watched the stars and then slept.
As she had for the last couple of weeks, she slept soundly, deeper than she had ever in her life, perhaps even too deep. She woke when dawn was new and the forest was still hung in the gloom of night. Regardless, she knew she wasn’t alone. She’d been alone for so long that she had gotten a feel for it and she knew right away that someone was near. Slowly, she reached out her hand for the M16A2.
“Don’t,” a little voice said, it was a little voice and yet full of danger.
Sadie’s hand stopped. “Jillybean?” she asked turning her head slowly. There was a shape in the dark that hadn’t been there when the sun had gone down. And there was a glint of shiny metal—a knife.
“Yes,” Jillybean replied, simply.
“It’s me, Sadie.”
“I know. What do you want?”
She had come to forgive Jillybean, but for some reason that answer seemed wrong somehow. “I came because I care about you. How’d you find me, anyway? This is the perfect hiding spot.”
“I found you because it was the perfect hiding spot. It’s where anyone with any sense would come if they were looking to capture me. So...” she paused and Sadie just caught sight of Jillybean’s pink tongue licking her lips, nervously. “So, how is everyone? How’s Captain Grey?”
Sadie found it strange that she would ask about him first. Did she know and was just testing Sadie? “He was alive when I left.” That in itself was a miracle. An hour after the battle, Margaret Yuan had taken one look at Grey and had shaken her head.
“He’s beyond me,” she had said.
Deanna had flown at her and pinned the smaller woman to the wall. “You’re going to try and save him and you’re going to hope to God you succeed,” she growled.
Neil had put a hand out and, as if his touch was magic, Deanna had broken down sobbing and that was when the surgeon had walked in. He had been King Augustus’ personal doctor. He had fled with the rest, but had been quickly captured along with an entire truck filled with medical supplies.
Sadie had been told all of this later, but when she had walked into the clinic to inspect Jillybean’s old room for clues she was shocked to see the place crawling with the Azael. Outside the clinic had been hundreds of wounded soldiers, but inside there were Azael?
Her gun came up and she had loudly demanded to know what was going on. Deanna, her blonde mane flowing over her fatigues glared her into silence. “These are my volunteer blood donors.” She had her own gun out and Sadie could tell by the look in her eyes they were going to volunteer their blood or she was going to take it by force.
“Grey’s going to be ok,” Sadie said to Jillybean. “And we have Kay to thank for that. She was in such a hurry to get away that she took a hairpin turn too sharp and crashed the bus she was driving. It blocked the highway and trapped all the trucks the Azael had brought with them. We captured everything they had as well as a bunch of prisoners, including a real surgeon.”
Jillybean flashed a smile like a Cheshire cat but it faded quickly. “And Mister Neil? How is he?”
“Nicked up some, but you know him, nothing slows him down. He’s, uh, really the reason I’m here. He wanted me to say that you’re forgiven.” It sounded lame and Jillybean’s ghostly smile in the new light suggested she thought it was, too.
“He can’t forgive me except for what I did to Eve and, in truth, I don’t need to be forgiven for that. I didn’t hurt Eve. I would never hurt Eve or you, Sadie. I only have the knife because I didn’t know your motives.”
It felt strange sitting in the half-dark with the girl. For some reason, she felt like she was the child and Jillybean was the adult. “You seem to have your head on straight again. Oh, you’ll be glad to know Neil burned your doll.”
“I knew he would,” Jillybean said. “Neil is frequently so much smarter than I give him credit for. Tell him, thank you for me will you?”
“You aren’t coming back with me?” Sadie asked. “I could help you find Ipes. I know that’s why you’re here. You have a hole in your heart and you’re looking to fill it. We can help with that. Me and Neil and Captain Grey and Deanna, we all love you.”
Finally true sunlight spilled over the horizon and Sadie saw a much changed Jillybean. Gone were the dark shadows beneath her eyes and the bruises and the cuts and scrapes. She was smaller than Sadie expected as well. The dark and her mature voice had made her seem older and bigger.
She was tiny and still so vulnerable that it hurt Sadie’s heart to know she was all alone. It seemed impossible that this girl had slain kings and had torn down kingdoms.
“I love you, too, Sadie, but I can’t be with people yet. I don’t have a hole in my heart; I have a hole in my mind. I’m not complete like a normal seven-year-old. I can feel it. I’m missing something and I think it’s someth
ing I have to find on my own.”
This struck Sadie hard. All her life she had felt incomplete and had looked to be completed by those around her. That had been ok when the people around her were good, like Neil and Captain Grey. However, when the people had been bad, it had been disastrous.
But she had been alone for two weeks now and they had been a good two weeks. She felt strong and revived from the ordeal of the war. She smiled at Jillybean, feeling suddenly light-hearted. “Maybe you should find what you’re looking for on your own. But will you come back when you find it?”
Jillybean hesitated until Sadie stuck out her pinky. Then the girl grinned, showing her rows of baby teeth, becoming once more simply a child, once more her little sister. “I will and I’ll tell you all about my adventures. I just hope Ipes doesn’t get me into too much trouble on the way home.”
The End
Wow, that was fun, at least for me it was.
As always, I hoped you enjoyed the book and as always I beg for an Amazon review and a quick mention on Facebook so that I can continue to write what I think are pretty good stories(Most people agree, except for those whose chests seize up over the occasional errant comma.) I am glad to say that this isn’t the last you’ve heard of Jillybean. Because of popular demand she had surfaced in a 30,000 word novella in Tales from the Butcher’s Block:
Tales of horror from one of the masters of the genre. Peter Meredith delivers stories that will keep you devouring them one after another. From the Pen—a gift that just keeps on killing, to The Eyes in the Storm—a beast that feeds on those who dare to go out when nature is at its cruelest, to The Haunting at Red Feathers—a true haunting that has the young couple trapped in the woods with a demonic presence, begging: “Don't let the night catch me here!”
Seven tales in all come from the Butcher’s Block and that includes The Witch: Jillybean in the Undead World.
What is more terrifying than a mad woman who is snatching up the children of Rippling, Missouri in order to breed the perfect zombie? A seven year old girl with fly-away brown hair and a gift for destruction.
What the readers say about Tales From The Butcher’s Block:
“No frills, just raw and earnest fear.”
“Fun and scary, it will have you turning the pages to see if she gets it in the end...”
“This has everything I love in a good story: interesting characters, vivid details, solid pacing, and a unique, fascinating premise.”
Fictional works by Peter Meredith:
A Perfect America
The Sacrificial Daughter
The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead: Day One
The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead: Day Two
The Horror of the Shade: Trilogy of the Void 1
An Illusion of Hell: Trilogy of the Void 2
Hell Blade: Trilogy of the Void 3
The Punished
Sprite
The Feylands: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Sun King: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Sun Queen: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Apocalypse: The Undead World Novel 1
The Apocalypse Survivors: The Undead World Novel 2
The Apocalypse Outcasts: The Undead World Novel 3
The Apocalypse Fugitives: The Undead World Novel 4
The Apocalypse Renegades: The Undead World Novel 5
The Apocalypse Exile: The Undead World Novel 6
The Apocalypse War: The Undead World Novel 7
Pen(Novella)
A Sliver of Perfection (Novella)
The Haunting At Red Feathers(Short Story)
The Haunting On Colonel's Row(Short Story)
The Drawer(Short Story)
The Eyes in the Storm(Short Story)
The Witch: Jillybean in the Undead World 1(Novella)
The Apocalypse War: The Undead World Novel 7 Page 40
