Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One)

by Murray, J. L.

  Jenny shook out her hand. “Do what?”

  “Jenny...”

  “I just clocked the guy, okay? It's not rocket science. He choked me, I punched him.”

  “But how?” she said, looking perplexed. “He was bleeding everywhere. And when you grabbed me before you left bruises. Why are you so strong?”

  Jenny shrugged. “I've been on my own for a while.”

  Lily frowned, then shook her head. “You're not really one of us are you?”

  “No,” Jenny said after a long pause.

  Lily sat on her cot, carefully avoiding the sick on the floor. “What's going to happen to you?”

  “They'll probably kick me out in the morning,” Jenny said, hoping it was true. Hoping that was all that would happen to her.

  “I don't want you to go,” Lily said, her voice so soft Jenny barely heard it.

  Jenny stepped over and sat down next to her. “Come with me, Lily,” she said. “You don't have to live like this. There are other ways. No one will mess with you. I can protect you. My friends can protect you.”

  “No one can protect me now,” she said, her voice a monotone. “The damage is done.”

  “What do you mean?” Jenny said. “No one thinks like that. Not out there.”

  Lily looked at her. Even in the dim light Jenny could see that something was wrong. “I'm with child,” she said. “I can never leave.”

  “That's stupid,” Jenny said. “Of course you can leave.”

  “And raise my child out there?” she said. “With the undead around every corner?”

  “Better than down here,” Jenny said. “What if you have a girl? How old will she be before Joshua does the same thing to her?”

  Lily put a shaking hand over her mouth. “God has abandoned me,” she breathed.

  Jenny put an awkward arm around her. “No, Lily. God is telling you it's time to fight back. There's a better life somewhere else.”

  “A life of sin,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Is that how you live?”

  “Jesus loved sinners,” Jenny said. Lily laughed through her tears. After a few minutes, she had cried herself out. They sat in silence for a while. “Lily?” Jenny said. “Do you know what's in the subway cars?”

  The girl went rigid. She didn't look at her. “Subway cars?” Lily said.

  “On the other side of the tarp,” Jenny said. “What's over there?”

  “Why?” Lily said, her voice cold.

  “I'm looking for someone,” Jenny said. “Someone told me he came here, and I think he might be in the subway cars.”

  “If this someone is in the subway cars,” she said softly, “then only God can help him. And God isn't helping anyone any more.” Jenny felt her let out a shuddering sigh. “I think I'd like to go to sleep now.”

  “Okay, Lily,” Jenny said.

  “If you're not here in the morning,” she said, without looking at her. “I'll understand. But...” she swallowed hard. “I'm glad I met you. And I wish you could stay.”

  “Thank you,” Jenny took her arm from around Lily's shoulders and slowly rose. Her limbs felt weak and wobbly. She told herself it was from the adrenaline of finally smacking Joshua around. But she suspected it had more to do with Lily. She lay down on her cot fully-clothed. Her hand throbbed as she waited for everyone to fall asleep.

  SIX

  Time creeped by. It seemed to take a very long time for the encampment to settle down this night. When the men and women did head for their own living spaces, they slowed as they passed, peering in at Jenny curiously. Jenny could see the silhouette of a man up on the platform outside her door. One of Joshua's friends. That was a problem. Jenny couldn't fight everyone in the compound. She was pretty sure that at least one of the men would be better at fighting than Joshua. There wasn't anything for it, though. She'd just have to wait. Hopefully he'd leave and she could make her exit.

  Jenny looked over at the dark lump that was Lily. She felt an almost painful stab of guilt, deep in her gut. She couldn't make Lily leave, and Jenny couldn't – and wouldn't – stay. Jenny sniffed and looked towards the doorway again. The man was gone, or out of sight from Jenny's view. She strained to listen.

  It was growing quiet. Lamps were being extinguished. Jenny could hear the squeak of the knobs that adjusted the wicks as, one by one, people put out their lights. She heard men talking somewhere towards the cooking area. Occasionally a voice would rise as if about to yell, but the other voices would hush the speaker. Jenny thought she heard a scuff, as of someone's shoe meeting with the crumbling cement. It sounded as though it was right outside. She assumed the man was still out there, but she listened for what seemed like an eternity and didn't hear it again. Maybe she was listening so hard that she was hearing things that weren't there.

  The men's voices were trailing off. Jenny could hear the heavy steps of their boots as they passed. Someone stopped outside her door and she tensed. She could hear him breathing heavily, as though he'd been running. Jenny knew it was Joshua. After a few seconds, though, another set of footsteps joined him. The breathing quieted.

  “Joshua,” Jenny heard a voice say. “Leave it be. Enough is enough.” There was a strangled sound and then muffled sobbing. After what seemed a long time, the noises subsided and the two men shuffled away without another word. So that was it. Jenny sighed and all the tension left her body. She wasn't going to die tonight after all. But not for lack of trying. She'd been damn sloppy. This whole thing had been a disaster. She shouldn't have come back.

  Except, she couldn't stay away, knowing Casey was here. She owed him.

  Jenny waited even after she was sure everyone was sleeping. She didn't want anyone to try to stop her. She didn't think they could, but best to err on the side of caution. She could take anyone down here, Jenny was certain of that. One-on-one was a sure bet. Probably two or three at a time. Maybe four on a good day. But some of the few men in the subway were pretty big. Slow and soft, but big. If they ganged up on her....

  After Jenny was satisfied that everyone was definitely, assuredly out of the way, she pushed off the blanket. Her body was twitchy, muscles coiled to the point of discomfort, sweating under the thick wool dress. The moisture just made the itch of the fabric worse and Jenny had to bite her cheeks to keep from scratching.

  She swung her feet off the cot and onto the floor, slowly so her boots didn't scuff the floor and wake up Lily. As quietly as possible on a mattress filled with newspaper, she sat up. She watched Lily's body rising and falling with her breath. Jenny put her hands on her knees and pushed herself to her feet. She stood in the dark for three full breaths, listening. No one else made a sound, no one came running to tackle her to the ground. No one stopped her. Jenny stepped through the door, down the tracks, past the kitchen and stopped just short of the dark, cool train tunnel. Casey was in the train car. She could feel it. Taking a breath, she walked along the stitched-together tarp, toward the place where her brother was. Where he had to be.

  As Jenny made her way, though, a nagging thought stuck in the back of her head. Something she didn't want to ask because she was afraid of the answer. Why? What purpose could it possibly serve? To trap a boy – a man now, she reminded herself – in a subway tunnel full of Righteous freaks? Did he know something? Was he a threat to Joshua? Could it possibly be a coincidence that two members of her family were here?

  It didn't matter. She was taking Casey out of here, whether he was a prisoner or a skeleton. If he was dead, Jenny knew one thing: it was going to be Joshua on that fucking pole.

  She pulled up her skirt and took out the gun. She should have let Declan come with her. She stepped from the hell of the Righteous camp into the dark, humid cool of the open tunnel.

  The light from the full moon beckoned to Jenny from the end of the tunnel. It was like a giant flashlight in the sky. That opening was her way out. The car Declan had given her was parked up there. All she had to do was walk out and drive. She could be back, safe with him in less th
an fifteen minutes. It was easy.

  Just fucking run.

  Jenny shook her head, Declan's words echoing. This was Casey.

  She looked to her left. The subway cars seemed to glow. The paint had peeled most of the way off on one side and the silver glinted brightly in the moonlight. One of the cars had fallen on its side, the windows broken. The second, directly behind it, had been ripped open somehow. Wrecked probably. Rusty metal jutted up into the watery light, plagued with rust. The third, though it had come partway off the tracks, stood upright and intact, almost pristine on the outside. If Jenny didn't know the trains hadn't run in years, she could have sworn it had recently derailed and was waiting for someone to come and connect it again.

  The windows were blacked out.

  She swallowed bile. What the fuck was going on here?

  Jenny took a step toward the train car. The tarp behind her rustled and she turned, flicking the safety off the pistol. The tarp shuddered as a breeze blew fresh summer air down the tunnel. Jenny exhaled. She was practically shaking. What the hell was wrong with her? But she knew what was wrong. She didn't want to know what had become of Casey. And yet, here she was, walking toward the blacked out car.

  She peered into the windows set in the door, but someone had slapped on some flat black paint messily, the now-dry drips apparent for the length of the car.

  “Casey?” Jenny whispered into the door. “Casey, are you in there?” It was so quiet. “Casey?” she said louder. “It's Jenny. Are you in there?”

  Something shifted inside the car. The train trembled for a split second, and then was still again. Jenny leaned back and looked at the door. It looked like it was broken, held together with only a padlock and a latch that had been hammered into the metal. She pulled at the lock expecting it to hold, but it came open in her hand. Someone had forgotten to lock it. She looked behind her again, but she was still alone. Jenny pulled the lock from the latch and held it in her hand, looking at it for a moment. Slowly, she pulled open the latch. It only squeaked a little. Setting the lock on the ground, she pulled out her knife, tucking the handle up one tightly-buttoned sleeve.

  She pulled open the doors. They hung loosely on their hinges, like they'd been hit hard from the inside. But they didn't make a sound. No squeaking or rusty hinges. Jenny frowned.

  “Casey?” she said into the darkness. The smell hit her then and she gagged. Decomp. So he was dead then.

  Someone groaned.

  Hope flamed inside of her, filling her up. “Casey?”

  A scraping sound. Jenny stepped up and peered into the doorway, trying to see inside. She covered her nose with the back of her arm, being careful of the blade. She stared into the black of the car. This was no good. She was going to have to walk away and get Declan. Maybe she could convince him to come alone with her, without the crew. The crew meant violence, and violence meant death. Jenny didn't want to be responsible for innocent people dying. But she also wasn't about to walk into a pitch-black coffin that reeked of the dead. There might be a rotter in there.

  Or it might be Casey.

  Just fucking run.

  She straightened. This was crazy. She needed to get out of here.

  Just fucking run.

  She started to step back from the door. Then she heard the scrape of a footstep directly behind her. She started to turn as a blunt pain shot up from her lower back and she was pitched into the car. Her head met something hard and she heard a dull thud before the pain exploded in her skull. Everything went white for a second. Jenny sucked in air, but it was rancid and vile. As her vision cleared she could hear someone behind her making noise. Shoes against concrete. The sound of metal against metal. A voice, a woman's.

  “Now you'll stay away from my husband. Heathen whore.”

  “Cora?” Jenny heard her own voice echo. She gathered her bearings. She was on the floor of the train car. The cold metal she was leaning against was the pole she had cracked her head on. Someone had pushed her. Cora. She touched her forehead and it came away wet and sticky. Blood.

  Oh, God.

  She realized she was no longer holding the gun. The knife was still securely wedged in her sleeve, though she felt a dull throbbing in her left hand, like she'd sliced it in her fall. There was a fumbling at the door. In a flash, Jenny realized what was happening and pitched herself forward, ignoring the piercing pain in her head. She forced herself to her feet, the dizziness nearly sending her flying. She caught the pole and pushed herself hard toward the door.

  The lock clicked into place. A woman laughed softly. And Jenny heard the sound of something moving in the darkness.

  She shoved at the door. “This isn't funny, Cora,” she said, her voice high to her own ears. “Please. There's something in here.”

  “We knew you were Heathen,” Jenny heard Cora say from the other side of the door. “Joshua and I. No one else. Only the two of us. We knew the whole time. He was going to kill you and put you next to your wicked relative. It was poetic. But then things changed.” She was quiet for a second, as if composing herself. “I'll not have your filth on my husband.”

  “I don't want your husband,” Jenny said. She kicked the door and felt her boot bounce off the thick glass.

  “Don't be stupid. Everyone wants Joshua,” she said. “His seed will repopulate the earth.”

  “Gross,” Jenny said. The slow creaking and scratching behind her seemed to be spreading to either side. “Cora,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Are there rotters in here?” Cora didn't answer, but Jenny thought she heard her chuckle. “Cora, please let me out. I'll leave. I'll never come back. I didn't want to hurt you. I just wanted my brother back.”

  “Your brother?” she said quickly.

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “I thought he was here. But he's not. He's not fucking here.” She felt a prickle of tears behind her eyes and it felt like failure. Like shame. “Don't do this. Please.”

  “Goodnight, Jenny.” She heard the sound of Cora's footsteps on concrete, receding.

  “Cora! Stop this. It's murder.”

  Cora responded in a low voice, as if talking to herself. “All flesh is grass.”

  “Fucking let me out of here, you crazy bitch!” Jenny heard the rustle of plastic as Cora slipped back around the tarp. Fuck.

  The noises were growing louder. Closer. Jenny squinted into the darkness, but couldn't make anything out. She pulled the knife out of her sleeve and blindly cut it through the air. Squatting down, she waved the knife in a horizontal arc in front of her with one hand, and felt around on the ground with the other for the gun. The floor was sticky with bits of debris everywhere. It smelled even worse down low. She found the pole that she had crashed into, but she didn't feel the gun. She sliced into the air over and over, the blade making a whooshing sound. The groans were growing louder.

  Jenny stood, her head still swimming and pulsating from what was no doubt a minor concussion. Blood wasn't streaming into her face any more, but it hurt like a mother. She felt like she was going to pass out. But if that happened, she was dead. She waved the knife through the air and it chinked off of glass. A window. She kicked at the glass, the contact vibrating the nerves up her leg. It was solid when she pushed on it. She needed that gun. Turning, she felt along the floor with her feet, trying to find it. She wanted to shoot at the door, try to hit the lock. Jenny remembered that always working in movies when she was a kid, though she had her doubts. But she had to try something.

  She heard a soft scraping sound along the floor behind her. She stabbed with the knife into the pitch darkness but only met air. Then she felt something touch her foot. She screamed and stabbed down towards the floor, both hands on the hilt of the knife. It connected with something both soft and brittle at the same time. A hissing sound rose up from the floor along with the stench of a very old rotter. The hand relaxed on her ankle and she kicked, her foot going right through what she guessed was a skull.

  Jenny turned, waving the knife again, this time up
and down, blindly. She may as well have been wearing a blindfold. Her only way out was to fight. If she could find the gun she could shoot one of the windows and kick out the glass. Maybe. The rotters were old, she was pretty sure. At least the first one was. She could do this. She'd done it before, just never in complete darkness.

  The knife chinked off metal. She felt with her other hand. Another metal pole. Jenny stopped to listen and a putrid smell filled her nose and mouth. The knife hit something soft and her knuckles grazed something slimy. She took the handle of the knife in both hands and stabbed up, towards the place she imagined the head was. The knife went in deep and soft, like it was going through cold butter. A rattling groan came from inches in front of her face. She pulled the knife out. This one was much taller than she'd assumed. She realized that she must have hit him in the neck. Dry, scratchy fingers grazed her arm with a sound like paper. She kicked out as hard as she could and felt a reverberating crack followed by a thump. The rotter had gone down. Jenny suspected she'd broken his leg, possibly both of them. Stepping forward to smash his head, she screamed as something caught hold of her hair. Jenny spun round and one of the tiny Righteous-style braids was yanked from her head with a ripping sound and a flash of pain.

  “Fuck!” A new rivulet of blood trickled down her neck. She stabbed with her right hand and the knife ripped through a thick, brittle skull this time. Its head made a sickening noise like a rotten pumpkin when she brought her boot down.

  It was eerily quiet. For a golden second she thought she'd gotten them all. Then she heard a scraping sound to her left. She turned, barely breathing. A creak like old leather. The smell of it permeated the air as she listened to it take each scraping footstep. She waited, still and listening.

  A hand grasped at her dress, weak and slow. The rotter's teeth jangled together softly. The knife went in quick and smooth, and as she twisted the blade, she felt it go still. It dropped lightly onto the floor.

  Jenny took a step back and her boot slipped on something hard. She caught herself on the pole and heard something slide across the floor. The gun.