The Apocalypse Exile
The Undead World Novel 6
By Peter Meredith
Copyright 2015
Kindle Edition
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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
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)
Chapter 1
The Night Before
Jillybean/Eve
In the dead of night, the barn was worked over in shadows and even with her night eyes as tuned as they could be, the little girl could not make out the gun. It sat where the shadows pooled deeply and because it was the color of pitch itself, she had to find it by feel alone. She wished she could’ve plucked it up from memory, however that memory was being withheld from her. All she knew was that he carried one, somewhere.
When they had been waiting for the River King to deliver the renegades and the payment that he had promised in exchange for his pontoon bridge, she had seen him with the gun in his hands. Even the memory sent a shiver of hate down her back. She couldn’t stand him with his stupid sweater vests and his gruesome face and his high and mighty attitude. He was as small and weak as a woman, and he was also bossy and mean and ugly, and by golly, he would pay.
First Neil would pay and then that stupid baby would get what was coming to her.
The baby would pay because she hated it, pure and simple, but with Neil, she had actual reasons to kill him. For one, he had taken her guns. They were hers by all rights. She had won them in combat...at least she had won the .22 in combat. She couldn’t remember where she had picked up the .25 caliber handgun. It was sometime in the long ago. Her memory was like that. Things either happened yesterday or the day before or in the long ago when everything was hazy and all she saw in her mind were incomplete and blurry images. All that mattered was that she remembered the gun.
She also remembered the second bounty hunter they had sent to kill her...Earl? Ernie? Harold? His name was something like that, but it hardly mattered what it was, because he was dead. Earl or Ernie, or Harold had tried to kill her, only she had been quicker and smarter and he had been dumb and slow. He had thought that she was weak. But she wasn’t. Jillybean was weak for sure. When Eve had shot the bounty hunter, Jillybean had been in tears over a stupid stuffed animal of all things.
Eve had shot Earl or Ernie, or Harold like a dog, just like she had shot the first bounty hunter—though in truth she liked dogs, except for the bitey-ones of course, and she wouldn’t really shoot a dog, not unless she had to. And especially she wouldn’t shoot a puppy. She loved puppies. They were always so soft and cute and they had such big paws for their size. She liked how they would trip over those paws when they were playing...
“Stop it, Jillybean!” Eve hissed under her breath. “I know what you’re doing.”
Jillybean was trying to distract her, trying to stop her, trying to keep her from doing what was right. It was right and good that Neil be made to pay. He had unfairly taken her guns and he also looked at her funny all the time and he always told her what to do and where to sit and when to eat. And worst of all, he kept saying: I’m so sorry, Jillybean, which was just bullshit.
Inside her, Jillybean was mad at the swear word. She made a noise like a marble falling on a dinner plate. It was an annoying sound and it kept going: clack, clack, clack. “Stop it,” Eve hissed. “So what if it’s a bad word? Everybody else says it. Everyone says all sorts of...”
Just then Neil rolled over.
Eve went stock-still, not daring to move. She’d been too loud and that was Jillybean’s fault as well. Everything was Jillybean’s fault. It was she who had saved Neil from the monsters when she was only supposed to have saved Captain Grey. Captain Grey was strong. Eve didn’t need anyone but him. The rest could all die and she would be perfectly happy and that went doubly for Neil. That Neil was still alive was just wrong. He had taken her guns. He had mocked her with his eyes. And he kept calling her “Jillybean” and that was also stupid and wrong and she hated it so much!
Neil smacked his lips as if he were dreaming of something tasty. Eve knew it meant he was asleep because there was never anything tasty any more. It was always canned beans or canned corn or canned crap. Eve was just about sick to death of it and that was Neil’s doing, too. He always made her eat stupid vegetables which tasted icky and gross. She hadn’t had anything good to eat since her mom had died. Her mom used to make all sorts of yummy treats.
An image of an apple pie with a wedge missing came to mind. It was golden brown and the edges bubbled as if it were still piping hot. Then came an image of a slice of pie on a plate. There was vanilla ice cream on top, just starting to melt. And now came an image of lasagna with cheese oozing down the sides. She loved her mom’s lasagna.
Eve’s stomach growled, loudly. It was as loud as a lion’s roar in the little girl’s ears, but Neil didn’t budge. The barn was a shade of black that made normally straight lines twist and it made static shapes contort into amorphous blobs, but it wasn’t exactly a quiet place. Many of the stupid renegades snored and others talked in their sleep and still others thrashed about or even yelled. In all that, the growl of Eve’s stomach went unnoticed and her earlier whispering probably hadn’t been heard by anyone, even on a subconscious level.
Jillybean tried to distract her some more, sending memories and images through her head, but when she pictured a juicy watermelon, Eve remembered about the black seeds and how once when she was very little she had choked on one. Just like that, Jillybean was thrust back deep into the subconscious of her mind where everything was echoey and vague and hard to grasp. Jillybean felt tiny in there, just a mote of dust floating around in a chasm.
“Finally,” Eve whispered when Jillybean was gone. She bent, feeling for the gun, her small hands touching the lump of darkness immediately in front of her. It was Neil’s back. Then she felt his belt and then a shoe, and then the floor of the barn. She reached over him and felt part of a blanket and then vinyl and buckles. His backpack—this was it!
Ever so slowly, she crept her fingers around it until she found the open zipper of the main pouch and then she dug into it with greedy hands. The gun was right on top. Its grip was very big compared to her tiny finger
s.
She could’ve searched further and perhaps found the smaller pistols that Neil had stolen from her, but it was the big gun she wanted. She was going to suicide Neil. Eve knew all about suicide. The renegades had frequently talked about killing themselves: when they would do it and why and most importantly, how. A lot of them liked the idea of shooting themselves in the brain and that’s what Eve planned on doing to Neil. One shot, bam right to the head and then she would scamper back to where she had laid out her bedroll. Once there she would pretend to be frightened by the noise and she would act like everything was so alarming and scary—she might even pretend to be Jillybean because everyone loved Jillybean and wouldn’t blame her for a second because she was so pure and sweet.
Eve liked the idea of using her hated rival in order to cover up a...was this murder? Murder was wrong and bad and Eve was never either of those two things. She couldn’t remember a single instance of her ever being bad or wrong. And killing Neil wasn’t murder if it was justified. That was a word she had plucked from Jillybean’s mind and neither of them was sure exactly what it meant. As far as she could tell, the word made seemingly bad things okay to do. And this really wasn’t all that bad since Neil had been mean first.
With her moral compass adequately centered on the grey area between right and wrong, Eve bent to the task of ridding herself of Neil. In order for her to orient herself properly, she leaned over him, looking like an eager night creature.
His breath was a soft whistle. Oh, so gently, she reached out and touched his hair so she knew where to shoot. Next she checked the safety on the gun—she knew all about safeties and guns in general; she was very smart when it came to simple methods of killing. The gun made a little click noise as she set it to fire. Now it was just a matter of pulling the trigger, dropping the gun and running for her bed of blankets.
She shook in excitement as she brought the gun up. Since it was so big, she held it two-handed and used both thumbs to draw the hammer back. To Eve the sound of the springs working inside the heavy metal gun was very loud in her ears and she was sure everyone had to have heard. The baby heard them, at least.
Just as the hammer came all the way back, the baby made a noise of anger. It was a tiny little cry that had Eve’s heart in her throat.
That sound is the real Eve, a voice in her head said. You’re not the real Eve. It was that danged Jillybean talking again. She was always nagging about something. A part of Eve wanted to use the gun to silence that voice forever. A hot bullet would stop its hated sound in a heartbeat. It would also stop you, Jillybean said.
“Just shut up,” hissed the little girl. She pointed the gun at her own head, digging it into her temple, threatening Jillybean. Finally, she was quiet, but the baby wasn’t. She was making a soft whining sound and it was only a matter of time before someone would flick on a flashlight. When that happened, Eve would be caught for certain. You better do something. She didn’t know if the thought had originated with her or with Jillybean, but it didn’t matter, because it was correct.
Leaving Neil, the little girl slipped over to where the baby was lying, bundled in a soft quilt that had stupid yellow ducks stitched all over it. Eve hated the baby as much as she did Neil. She hated that everyone loved the baby and thought she was so perfect. But she wasn’t. She was disgusting and smelled like old poop, but for some reason, the entire group was straight up stupid over her. If she smiled they made such a fuss and if she pouted they all bent over backwards to stick something in her mouth.
“I’ve got something I can stick in its mouth,” Eve snarled. Just then she wanted to stick the pistol in the baby’s mouth and pull the trigger. It would be wholly justified, because if she didn’t kill it someone would wake up and catch her with the gun and then Neil would still be alive and he would sit her down and subject her to one of his useless “talks.” She hated the talks, they were so boring and pointless.
Eve stuck the gun in the baby’s face and her moral compass didn’t flick out of the grey area, it didn’t even budge, and the only bit of “bad feelings” she had over the coming murder was that it would be too dark to see the baby’s pink brains blast across the barn. She would like to see that.
The barrel was an inch away from the perfect little lips when Jillybean spoke into her mind: They’ll know it was you. Babies don’t suicide themselves.
This stopped Eve. Yes, she wanted to kill the hated little thing, but she couldn’t be caught doing it. That would mean more than just a talking to. The group didn’t understand about the real truth, and they didn’t understand her higher moral view which was stated simply: if Eve thought something was good then it was good even if everyone else thought it was bad.
If she got caught, they’d kick her out of the group. Eve didn’t want to be alone. She hated Neil and the baby and thought the rest were pathetic, but they were better than being alone. Being alone was bad.
Just then, the baby made another sound and Eve’s rage kicked up a notch until it was nearly overpowering. Somehow a nasty idea made it through: Strangle the baby tonight. Shut its stupid mouth forever. No one will know it was you. Maybe you could even stick a magic marble in its mouth. They will think it was an accident. And then tomorrow kill Neil. Suicide him. People will understand. They’ll think he was all sad. People suicide themselves over being sad. Stupid people that is.
“Yes,” Eve whispered, putting the gun down on the edge of the quilt. “And Neil is real stupid. Everyone knows that.” There was a magic marble in her pocket, only she didn’t want to use it. She wanted to feel the death. She laid a hand on the baby’s mouth and clamped it down firmly. The baby tried to move its stupid head but Eve was strong. When she wanted to be, she could be much stronger than people would ever give her credit for.
She was strong, but also gentle. It wouldn’t do for her to leave red finger marks on the baby’s ugly face. That wouldn’t be right or smart.
The baby’s dimpled little hands came up and grabbed Eve’s thumb; her eyes were huge and staring and her face was changing colors. Eve couldn’t see the color change, but she could imagine it: pink then red, then blue, then purple, then...dead. Eve was grinning wickedly. Her lips pulled back showing off her little kid teeth as if she were just on the verge of taking a bite from the squirming baby.
Inside her, Jillybean was frantic, trapped in her own body, forced to watch from the grinning squints of Eve’s eyes as her baby sister made feeble gestures toward living. The baby wriggled and kicked, but her muscles were growing weaker with every passing second.
Though Jillybean was denied the use of her body, she still had the full ability of her mind. It was an immature mind with wide gaps in knowledge and yet it was still a powerful mind. She knew what she knew and she could still think with the perfect clarity that astounded those of a middling intelligence. She understood that she had lost the battle for control of her body, but she had not lost the battle of her mind—that was still up for grabs. However it could not be won through debate or in the arena of ideas. Eve’s emotional state was too powerful for logic—her hate was so immense that it wouldn’t even wilt before Jillybean’s reasoning.
There was only one way to win the battle of her mind and that was to shut it down.
Jillybean let out a scream that trembled her eardrums and caused her eyes to bug out. Inside the silken cavern walls of her soul it rang, while outside her body, the barn and the people in it went on with their night undisturbed—the scream was entirely internal. It was a psychic storm that only affected Jillybean and Eve; it was silent but still tremendous in its scope.
Eve knelt over the baby, stunned by the explosion of “noise” within her and, as Jillybean had hoped, it practically paralyzed Eve. Gasping, she fell forward, her hands leaving the baby to break her fall.
The baby, the real Eve, filled her lungs to their fullest, but she did not scream. She needed air too badly to scream just yet. The scream came four seconds later and it was loud enough to bring on the dead, and to fina
lly stop Jillybean’s psychic blast. Jillybean slumped forward, feeling as though a bomb had gone off inside her skull. Eve was still there inside her, sharing control of her body but, as Sadie woke and started to scramble around for the baby. Eve pushed Neil’s gun under the ducky quilt. She then vanished into one of the crevices of Jillybean’s mind to escape any blame.
“It’s ok, Evie,” Sadie mumbled, slowly coming awake. The girl put out a hand and the first thing she felt was Jillybean’s skinny arm. “Huh?”
At the touch, guilt rushed over Jillybean, engulfing her, swamping her, so that she was drowning in it. She grabbed the crying baby and stood, holding her to her chest. It wasn’t easy. Her legs wobbled and her hands shook; even her lips jabbered up and down as she whispered: “It’s ok. It’s ok. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Suddenly a beam of light, an accusing white eye blared into her face, blinding her. “Jillybean?” Sadie asked in confusion.
The single word was filled with such a sensation of blame that it seemed as though that even in sleep, Sadie knew everything about the gun and how it had been Jillybean’s tiny hands that had been smothering the baby. Jillybean felt the guilt to such a degree that she wanted to die. She wanted to suicide herself. Tears streamed down her face, dropping delicate, clear flowers onto the baby’s forehead...no, not ‘the baby.’
“Her name is Eve,” Jillybean said and louder she added: “You are the real Eve, not her.”
All of this only made Sadie screw up her face to a greater degree than it had been. “What did you do, Jillybean?”
The question was a bullet to the seven-year-old’s heart and she nearly spilled everything pent up inside of her, only others were coming awake, now. Neil was one of them. Jillybean couldn’t look in his direction. The guilt over wanting to kill him was another anchor on her soul. Not kill, suicide him—the words came trickling up from some black part of her.
“I-I was j-just going to the bathroom and I-I tripped on Eve,” Jillybean lied. The lie came so easy to her that it was horrible. When had she become so comfortable with lying? Her daddy had taught her that lying was bad, that it was just wrong. That meant she wasn’t just bad, she was wrong too.
The Undead World (Book 6): The Apocalypse Exile (War of The Undead) Page 1
