Jillybean went for it, eagerly, her stomach growling. Chances were that the owners of the house had set it alight in a last ditch effort to stop rampaging monsters. If so, it was a good bet that there was a cache of hoarded food inside.
She wasn’t disappointed. A locked trunk sat in the middle of the living room begging to be broken into. Without a pause, Jillybean knelt down in front of it and dug in the back of her wild hair for the simple tools she kept there.
Three broken paperclips and an hour later, the lock finally clicked. With excited fingers, she lifted the lid to discover a treasure: seven cans of soup, a bag of flour, a half bag of rice and two cups of sugar in a tin. The owners of the house likely thought the stash was meager. In contrast, Jillybean’s heart raced at the find and she put off the idea of bathing until she had collected some wood and stacked it on a cookie sheet. She started a fire right there on the kitchen floor.
Using a screw driver, she poked two holes in the lid of a can of tomato soup, set it directly into the flames and then stared at it, mesmerized. She saw in the licking flames images: her picking every strawberry from a wild patch she had stumbled upon, her stuffing her cheeks with crab apples and later getting a bad case of the runs, her chasing crows from a carcass of a fawn, and finally, her coming across an opened and very stale bag of marshmallows. They were so hard they couldn’t be chewed. She let them dissolve in her mouth and after finishing the bag, she had a case of the shakes as the sugar raced through her system.
This was the fare she had been living on over the last few months. She was wretchedly malnourished.
The smell of the soup had her stomach hurting, while drool pooled in her mouth. It was a struggle for her to wait until the red juices started to boil up out of the can, and, sitting at the kitchen table, her left leg shimmied, pumping up and down as if it was running a race. When the juices finally started to bubble, she fished the can out of the fire with a heavy pair of barbecue tongs.
With Ipes unhelpfully pointing out her eroding manners, she slurped down the entire can of soup. How barbaric, he muttered when she sat back, her tummy comfortably full. To spite him, she let out a burp and then stuck her paw in the empty can, bear-like and scraped up any juice she might have overlooked.
Are you done being disgusting?
“Almost.” She licked each finger and then tried to force out a burp like the boys at school used to do, however she was unskilled in that area and only managed to look as if she were about to vomit.
Instead of a burp, a sigh escaped her as she sat back and gazed up at the smoke-blackened ceiling. A moment after the sigh, as the kitchen had become pleasantly warm, she yawned, suddenly overcome with a desperate need to sleep.
Forgetting the smoldering fire, she took Ipes upstairs and found a girl’s bedroom. As tired as she was, she couldn’t sleep right away.
“What if I wake up crazy again,” she asked Ipes.
You would never know, so try not to worry too much. You need sleep. Proper sleep. She didn’t know what he meant by that, exactly. Before she could ask, he said, you had nightmares all the time and yes you would kick me in your sleep.
“Oh, sorry. Though I’m sure you…” Another yawn stretched her little mouth and caused her eyes to spring tears. She fell asleep soon after without finishing her sentence.
She didn’t dream as far as she knew and was utterly confused when she woke up with a sound ringing in her head. “Was that a gunshot?”
Ipes swiveled an ear. I don’t know. Maybe it was an… A second gunshot rang out. It was distant, a mile off at least, but sounded closer in the still air. Okay, it was a gunshot.
The pair waited to see if there would be another and as they did, Jillybean looked around, frowning. The shadows were wrong and the noises were way off. The birds were doing their wake-up songs and the sun was coming in through the wrong window and the air had that just warming up quality it had as it got over its night shivers.
“It’s morning,” she said. “How strange. Did I sleep the entire night…” She stopped as fear gripped her. “Was I crazy again?” she asked her stuffed zebra.
Crazy? No, you were just sleepy. Remember what Mister Neil always said about how you needed rest to get better. Well, I guess you did that. So, now that you’re all better, what do you say to a bath?
She was sure she wasn’t all better. Her head felt, well haunted, actually. It was as if she was still hearing an echo of that gunshot in her mind. It was mixed with others. And there were near silent screams running beneath that and the sound of fire crackling, and not the kind of fire that kept you warm, either. It was the kind of fire that ate boats and buildings and people.
Speaking of fires, maybe we should get that one downstairs going again. We can heat stones and water and use soap, lots and lots of soap.
“What about that gunshot? Maybe there are people.” Along with her new-found sanity she discovered a great sense of loneliness. It seemed like forever ago that she had been around real, living people.
You have me. What more do you want? And besides they could be bad people. They could be slavers or bounty hunters or they could be just plain mean.
“Or they could be nice,” she countered. “Or they could be in trouble and need my help.”
Ipes grumbled over the idea of her helping people. He pointed out how small she was and how weak, and how they were big people for sure and big people could make do on their own and that they probably… “Oh, hush,” she said, cutting him off in mid-rant. “I think I’ll be less crazy if I find nice people to be around.”
So far, the only really nice people she knew lived in Colorado and, as much as she loved Mister Neil and Sadie, she felt a nervous, guilty sickness in her belly at the idea of seeing them again.
Without any further argument, she slipped out of the house on cat’s feet and angled straight through the forest in the direction she had heard the gunshots. The woods were close and at times were difficult to traverse, especially as she tried to move quietly.
A ghostly wail off to her right told her that at least one monster had also heard the sound of the gun and was moving ever closer. She angled to her left for ten minutes until she could no longer hear the creature and then she struck diagonally to her right.
After another ten minutes, she slowed her pace even more and began searching for any sign of a human presence. It wasn’t long before she found something: blood. Along the forest floor were drops of blood stretching across her path, forcing her to choose right or left. In both directions, the forest seemed to go on forever and so, on a whim, she went right.
Traveling in a hunched stoop, her eyes locked on to the trail of red drops, she crept along for a few hundred yards until she came upon what looked like a crime scene. At the base of a sycamore, she found a pool of blood that was still warm. A few feet further on she discovered what looked like a mass of intestine and other entrails.
She shrank back, her face twisted in a mask of fear. Ipes was all for running. What did I tell you, Jillybean? There’s a killer in the woods!
“That’s not what you said,” she corrected. “You said slavers or bounty hunters. Most bounties are only paid for living people.” She edged forward, her senses on full alert, her body primed to dart in any direction at the least sound.
So far, she and Ipes were the only ones making any noise, and in truth, Jillybean was moving so quietly she probably couldn’t have been heard from twenty feet away. First, she inspected the pool of blood and then she crept to the pile of innards, shooing away a fly and poking at them with a stick.
What are you doing, Jilly? Ipes hissed from the crook of her arm. What happens if they come back?
“Why would they? They got whatever they were after it and carried it out of here. I’m starting to think it was a deer. Look, there’s a tuft of fur and right there is a hoof print.” The tension in the air bled away.
Oh, well it’s still gross. You shouldn’t touch it. You might get rabies or scabies or whatever it is thes
e things carry. They’re not all like Bambi, all cute and pr…
He trailed away as a new sound came to the forest: that of a truck rumbling to life—it wasn’t close and soon it rumbled away out of earshot. “Drat,” Jillybean whispered, alone once more—alone and hungry. The soup had been the day before and now her tummy made its own rumbly sound.
She dropped into a squat, hunched over the deer guts considering them. Jillybean? Ipes asked. We have food back at that burned-up house.
“There’s not enough to last and there’s no guarantee we’ll find nice people or our way back to Colorado before winter.” The zebra nearly lost it when she shoved him into her shirt and commenced to dig in the guts. “Stop pretending to be sick. It’s distracting and that’s what means it’s annoying. Hmmm. Which part do you think is the liver? Ipes? Is this it? Ipes?”
Don’t talk to me. I’ve fainted. I’m unconscious.
“Hmph!” she snorted. “No wonder you’re a herd animal. You would starve to death as a lion.”
I’m still unconscious. Can a person throw up when they’re unconscious?
She didn’t bother pointing out that he wasn’t a person. Ignoring him as best as she could, she pulled at something flat, ugly, and maroon, guessing correctly it was the liver. Next, she coiled the intestines and was momentarily taken back when a greenish massed poured from the bottom of it.
“I didn’t want that anyways,” she said, swallowing loudly. In her time with the fugitives, she had seen a number of deer butchered and had never been grossed out. It was different now that she had her red hands wrist deep in the steaming pile. After taking a breath, she went on, going so far as to sling the coiled rope over one shoulder.
Because Captain Grey used to say that the heart was where “all the good stuff” was, she tried to yank it out only it wouldn’t come unstuck from the hose-like arteries that ran out the top of it. Although she could have taken the kidneys as well, she thought they were too gross and settled on taking just the intestines and liver.
Weighted down with her mucky mess of offal, she grew tired on the way back to the house, and after twenty minutes, her attention wandered to such a degree that she practically walked into a monster standing silently in the shade of the forest before she realized it was even there.
It had to have seen her. It had to know she was just a little girl. She wasn’t in her monster costume, after all. But it was right on top of her and she couldn’t do anything except drop her chin to her chest and let out a low moan.
That’s not going to work, Ipes hissed in her ear. Run! Drop that stuff and run!
She couldn’t. The monster, a tall, lean thing, dressed in rags and smelling like death and poop came to leer over her. Its moaning breath was worse than an overflowing latrine and Jillybean nearly heaved up the remnants of yesterday’s soup. If she had, or even if she retched or just coughed, she would be killed right there.
Without a weapon, she could only rely on her big brain, except she could think of nothing except to keep moaning and start praying.
Her prayers went unanswered. The monster grabbed her, its diseased claws digging into the soft flesh covering her.
Chapter 3
Jillybean
The claw on her shoulder dug deep, sending something warm dripping down the front of her shirt. Her moan went higher, nearly turning into a frightened whimper, but she held back the tears by the barest of margins.
Even Ipes refrained from making a single sound. The monster had her in its grip, but it was still uncertain. It bent down and sniffed Jillybean, it’s hot, horrid breath blowing her brown hair this way and that. And then, with a shove, it turned away from the little girl, looked up at the hot sun and went back into the shade.
What the heck? Ipes asked. Why did it do that?
Remembering the barely human image she had seen in the mirror, Jillybean knew the answer. She had fallen to such a disgusting state that even when she wasn’t trying, a monster thought she was one of them. This made her so sad that she wanted to cry, but just then she couldn’t even frown. It was still too close.
Gradually, she moaned and teetered her way through the forest until she was far enough away then she fell to her knees, shaking all over and feeling too weak to even stand. Right away she clutched her shoulder where the monster’s claws had dug in…and she felt the coiled intestine. It “bled” pinkish juices all down the front of her shirt.
An unsteady laugh escaped her. “Do you think it’s ruined?”
What? Your shirt or the intestine? As if it matters which! Your shirt needed to be burned anyway, and the intestine is intestine, for crying out loud. It was ruined the second it was pulled out of that deer.
She glanced at it and frowned. “I don’t think I can eat it now, even if I cooked it. But, it still might come in handy.”
How? Do you plan on jumping rope with it? Are you going to use it as streamers for your next birthday party?
“You’re being gross. I can use it to trap other animals or maybe to bait fish. Do you think there is such thing as an underwater trap? I mean for fish. I know they have them for lobster and stuff like that.”
In the old world, back before the monsters, she had never been one for fish except for the kind that made “fish sticks.” In the new, monster-filled world, she was far more open-minded. The only problem was in catching them. Sitting on the edge of a pond, lazing in the sun with a fishing pole in her hands, seemed fine for one of those July days where it felt as though summer would last forever, however she found herself in October and the days were getting shorter.
And if we get going to Colorado, then we’d be fine. I’m sure Captain Grey’s got them all set for winter by now.
Jillybean sighed, “Getting there’s the problem. I don’t think I should try to drive through the lands of the Azael. If they see a lone car, I bet they’d come after it for sure and I’m not all that good of a driver.”
Oh, really? I would never have known.
“Hush! You should try driving with sticks tied to your legs. It isn’t easy, you know.” She stooped and picked up her bundle of intestine and the liver she had set aside, nearly dropping Ipes out of her shirt and into the sticky pile.
“Sorry,” she said, absently, no longer thinking about fish traps. “If I can’t drive, I’ll have to walk. Say, ten miles a day, divided by seven hundred miles puts my ETA in Colorado sometime in February.”
A vision struck her of a blinding snowstorm sweeping across the prairies that made up long stretches of eastern Colorado and practically all of Kansas. The cold would be intense and if the snow got any deeper than four inches, she’d have to cut her projected ten-miles a day in half.
“That would put me well into March, if I even make it alive.” Freezing to death was a distinct possibility, but so too was starving to death. Every house along every major highway had to have been picked over a hundred times.
So…what are you saying? Are you not going to make the attempt until spring? Oh, Jillybean that would mean an entire winter alone. That can’t be good for you. Remember the crazy?
As she still had one foot in the land of crazy, it wasn’t something she was going to forget anytime soon, unless of course she went back to being super crazy and then she’d never know, and then she’d die. Her mom had died from a case of the crazies so Jillybean knew it could happen.
“I’ll have you with me, Ipes.” She said this without enthusiasm as if she knew in her heart that the toy zebra wouldn’t be enough to keep her mind from slipping down the rabbit’s hole once more. Unfortunately, she could see no other way except waiting out the winter.
Maybe you shouldn’t rule out driving, Ipes suggested. For one, we can swing way south where it’s always warm. And we can take backroads. There’s no law saying that we have to take a highway, right? Think about it. We can take a road trip, just the two of us. We can explore America. Hey! We could go see the Grand Canyon…just as long as we don’t get too close to the edge. That has to be written down as
an untouchable rule. And I bet there’s an Oreo factory out there somewhere, just waiting to be explored and looted. So, what do you think?
In truth, Jillybean thought it sounded lonely, but it was better than spending an entire winter cooped up in…she still didn’t know where she was. Finding that out would be her first order of business.
“There’s no sense planning to go somewhere when you don’t where you are to begin with. That’s logic. Really, this could be Colorado, after all.” Colorado wasn’t all green mountains and icy peaks. There were deserty plains and forests of pine and pretty towns tucked up in lush vales. Who knows? Maybe they had this sort of deep forest as well.
She went back to the half-burned up house and quickly found its address on a letter. The state initials were M.O. Ipes thought it meant Montana, to which Jillybean had asked: “As in Hannah Montana? That’s a person, not a place.” He explained that Montana was a state, but he had no idea where it was in relation to Colorado.
They began a new search, this time for an atlas. They found a globe, but there weren’t any words on it that marked states. In frustration, Jillybean slapped it so it spun around on its axis. When it slowed, she spun it again and found herself mesmerized by it. The globe went round and round until she felt herself beginning to float in a strange way as if the floor had fallen away and…
Jillybean! Ipes cried, suddenly, bringing her around. Hey, you don’t want to do that. Come on, let’s find a new place. One with a map and an intact roof.
She noticed that the room had cooled off and that the sun was slanted in the sky. “Was I dreaming or…” She broke off, realizing that she hadn’t been dreaming or even asleep. She’d been sitting in the same place, staring for hours. She’d been crazy again.
A wave of fear swept her and she quickly jumped up. “This house is no good,” she declared, rushing about, gathering odds and ends: The food, the liver and intestine, a knife, a lighter, a partial box of candles and some string.
The Undead World (Book 8): The Apocalypse Executioner Page 2
