A heavy fog had draped itself on its surface. She could barely see ten feet in front of her and down on the surface it was even worse. It gave her an idea and her first thought was: Is it possible to make fog? Her next question was: If so, how can I control it?
A fog that thick would make getting on the base nothing but a matter of snipping some wires. But a fog could not be controlled—however fire could.
“Time to go,” Neil said, breaking her concentration. She gave him a half-smile and then started to lug the welding equipment up. “Do you really need that stuff?” he asked.
“I think I might. And we’ll also need to find some chemicals. Do you know where people keep potassium nitrate? I know they use it for rockets and fertilizer, but I don’t know where any spaceships are and I never did see potassium nitrate on any farm.”
Neil picked up the oxygen bottle and put it on the deck, saying, “Maybe you did and you didn’t know what it looked like. I doubt I would be able to recognize potassium unless it was in a big barrel with the letter ‘P’ stenciled on it. I just know it’s in bananas.”
“Actually, it would have a ‘K’ on it, but don’t ask me why, and I know what it looks like. I saw pictures of it in my chemistry book. It was called: Chemistry- A modern Molecular Study. I know it makes a lot of smoke if you mix it with sugar and sodium bicarbonate, that’s what means baking soda. We’re going to need that, too.”
“More stuff?” Neil said. “Then I guess we better get moving and hope this fog doesn’t stretch the entire way to St Louis.”
The fog was only a small bank and did not last for more than a mile, and very soon, they were driving the pontoon through the middle of St Louis. It was a dreary, scary and very dark place. Even the magnificent Gateway Arch was frightful—there were bodies dangling from it, hundreds of feet in the air.
Neither of them knew how they got up there and neither hazarded a guess.
The pair went into the city dressed as zombies and lurching like zombies, and were soon surrounded by more zombies than they could count. Thankfully, Neil held it together.
“What’s first,” he whispered when they were alone enough to talk.
Jillybean’s brow crinkled as she looked around the dead city. “We have to find a Radio Shack and a chemical store.” There wasn’t either in sight, though she didn’t really know what a “chemical store” actually looked like.
“You aren’t going to find chemicals around here,” Neil said in a hiss. He was right. They were downtown where there were stadiums and museums and office buildings where grown-ups used to work, staring at computers all day.
“Follow me,” he said and headed straight to the closest hotel…or what remained of it. The upper floors of it were just as black as night, and in spite being as cold as a tomb, the building reeked of smoke as though a fire was even then eating at its supports. It seemed like a dreadful possibility as the building swayed and groaned around them.
She followed him in, confused. “There aren’t going to be chemicals here, neither.” Though in a way, she was wrong. The fire that had burned months before had unleashed all sorts of chemicals, almost all of them hazardous. But he wasn’t there for chemicals. He was there for a phone book.
“It’s sort of a throwback, but for whatever reason, hotels always seemed to have phonebooks,” he said, not only finding one behind the front desk, but also finding an entire stack of maps.
In no time, he discovered the locations of three Radio Shacks and six farm-related equipment companies, including a giant complex that was a stone’s throw from what had once been Merchant’s Bridge, but was now only a few concrete pillars rising up out of the river.
The Radio Shacks were spread out, so they were forced to stick the battery in another car and fill it part of the way with gas. It was annoying to have to do this, yet again, but in the end it saved them hours of walking time.
Well before midnight, they were back on the now laden down pontoon, streaking south at full speed. Because she knew she’d be busy, Jillybean had picked up a second spotlight. It lit the river and with her newly augmented V, Neil had no problem steering clear of obstacles in their way.
As the hours and miles raced past, Jillybean began work on a dozen projects at once, happy to have something to do instead of dwelling on the hidden memory of what had happened to the Colonel that sat inside her like a time bomb.
There were minor tasks that had to be completed, such as the re-charging of all sorts of batteries, and larger tasks such as preparing the drones which, according to the box, were Phantom 4, remote controlled quadcopters with a built in HD Camera RTF 4 Channel 2.4GHz 6-Gyro Headless System with a stated flight time of twenty-eight minutes.
The flight times were significantly altered when Jillybean attached the secondary payload to the drones: the inner workings of a claymore mine with remote controlled detonator.
Next, she went to work on the creation of her own fog bank. Starting with small amounts of her three ingredients, she huddled in the back of the boat with the wind blocked as best as possible with stacked boxes.
In the river warehouses that once belonged to a company called AMD, she was able to find hundreds of pounds of potassium nitrate. The place stank to high heaven because of it. The smell was so bad that her face twisted into a grimace as she scooped out a tablespoon’s worth from the one barrel she had brought on board.
The baking soda was also easily found, though not in great amounts. Every house seemed to have at least one small box of the stuff. The simple sugar was simply not to be found in any amount. Luckily, the Budweiser brewery was three blocks from the river and in it they discovered vast amounts of one of the key ingredients of beer: malted barley, which was a fine sugar substitute. There were sacks and sacks of it, looking like flour and smelling like vomit. The entire factory reeked of it—but it would work for her needs.
Onto a frying pan, she combined one tablespoon of the barley to the potassium and then added a third of a teaspoon of the baking soda. After giving it a quick stir, she lit it and then leapt back as it sparked into an uneven flame that jumped as if little volcanoes were hidden within it.
It also belched forth a fountain of smoke out of all proportion to the size of the fire.
“Is it supposed to burn like that?” Neil asked.
Clearly it wasn’t. She tossed the flaming pile into the river and said: “That was just a first attempt.” It took seven more tries to get the right mixture and when she did, the concoction only smoldered instead of bursting into flame and yet the smoke that came from it was the thickest yet.
The combination was five parts to three to one and when she tried it on a larger scale, the result was just as promising and the smoke output correspondingly larger. Next, she began working on the thermal fuses. This proved a challenge and she spent a dozen miles just sitting there racking her brains trying to figure out a way to take the charge from a battery and turn it into heat.
She had almost given up when she saw the bent butt of a cigarette sitting next to Neil’s foot. Just like that she had the concept for her fuse. It started with a nine-volt battery, the inner coil from a car cigarette lighter, wire, electrician’s tape and a remote controlled switch.
She tested the switch first, using a hand held radio that was set to the frequency of the switch. It sparked right away and when she leapt back, she noticed that Neil was slowing the boat and that the sky in the east was just beginning to take on a lighter hue.
“Are we there yet?” she asked, somewhat alarmed. She wasn’t ready. The smoke bombs still had to be made, and the real bombs had to be modified as well, and she had to fashion flotation devices and…
“Yeah, basically. We just passed Indian Creek,” he said. “Thank goodness there was a sign or I would have just kept plowing right down the river. We have to get out of sight before the sun comes up.”
It was an easier than expected task. Two miles from Cape Girardeau, an arm of the Mississippi, only a hundred feet wide snaked
inland. There was a sign here as well warning of “shallows” for the next three hundred yards.
The arm was heavily wooded on both banks, but on the eastern side there was a marsh into which Neil guided the pontoon. He found a spot where mossy willows acted as a screen, hiding them from casual observation.
Turning off the engine, he smiled at first and then looked around them in concern. He even glanced over the side of the boat, making a face. “This water stinks.”
Ipes thought so too. And you’ll be wanting to get in it to look for a house to hole up in? Maybe you should leave me behind so I can guard the boat.
“From the crocodiles?” Jillybean asked, slyly.
Crocodiles? Ipes also looked over the edge of the boat this time, shaking so badly his stripes began to blur. Maybe you can leave me a gun or one of the bombs.
“You’ll be safe with me,” she said and showed him a gallon-sized ziplock. He was still complaining about both going and not going when she zipped it up. When she saw that Neil was only looking at her in confusion, she said: “We need to go get a lay of the land—that’s what Captain Grey always said about looking around. We have to find out what, if anything has changed.”
A guilty smile spread across his scarred and misshapen face. He was embarrassed that he had witnessed her talking to Ipes. “Right, I know. We’ll go as monsters. It’s just…never mind. Let’s go.”
After bagging a few items, including a pair of tasers, a set of binoculars, a change of clothes, and her pack, she slid into the frigid waters making a high noise in the back of her throat. Neil, holding a triple bagged drone, did the same thing, except his noise reached a higher note, almost a keening noise.
“If you had testicles, you’d understand,” he said, his teeth chattering. She had her cold parts, so she didn’t understand in the least.
They crossed through the slag of the swamp, which rose only up to mid-chest on her but since the muck beneath the black water was like a cross between molasses and honey without the good smell, she did an ugly doggy-paddle.
Neil slogged until they reached that little arm of the river where the channel was too deep to walk. There were only a few dozen zombies here and they couldn’t handle the water, so the pair swam across unharmed. Once on the other bank, they couldn’t be so blasé about appearing human.
Jillybean changed clothes, while Neil looked out for zombies. Because he hadn’t had the foresight to bring his own clothes, or perhaps because he knew he could go anywhere for a new and dry set, he waddled in a squishy way to the nearest house and emerged a few minutes later in a strange arrangement of woman’s clothing that were torn and tattered in lines that, to her were too obviously made by scissors. The zombies didn’t notice and that was what counted.
“Don’t laugh,” he whispered as he made erratic walking motions toward Jillybean. “The guy who lived here must have been five hundred pounds. Everything was huge.”
As the woman’s outfit floated on him, she could only guess how big the man’s outfit had been. As someone always on the receiving end, she, of all people, knew not to laugh or make fun. At least it hid the drone, she thought. It was strung up on his back under the layers of the cloth.
She only nodded, a slight motion of her head, before starting on the slow trek to Cape Girardeau. It wasn’t far in the standards of the new undead world, just a couple of miles. A distance almost no one would have walked a year before unless it was for exercise.
For them it was nothing and they ground their way to the fenced perimeter. The base had tripled in size and now the original fence wasn’t even in sight. The original had also been electrified but perhaps because it was so much longer now, it was just an ordinary, but very tall double fence.
Jillybean should have been in character, moaning and swaying—they were only a mile from the prison and the sun was above the tree tops. They had to be careful, however her eyes and her mind were somewhere else, picturing the city of Cape Girardeau in flat, map form.
Neil interrupted her imaginings by nudging her and jerking his head to the right; she followed as he led them around the partially enclosed city. There was little to see. The houses and businesses this close to the fence were clearly false fronts, designed to fool the zombies. No one lived anywhere close and the only sign of humanity were the partially drawn curtains beyond the fence where hidden eyes stared out.
Even Neil wasn’t fooled. He lifted his one eyebrow and cocked his head again. They ambled slowly away. As much as they wished, they couldn’t make the mistake and hurry now, and so, with the expanded perimeter, it took them three hours to walk around the outer fence.
And although she had seen some promising spots to make an assault from, she hadn’t seen any blatant holes in the defenses. She was rewinding everything she had seen in her mind when Neil said: “The base is really coming alive. Strange, how they’re all moving towards one spot. Maybe they serve breakfast in one location.”
They could see down a road that crowds of people were walking to the southern end of the base. “Maybe,” Jillybean answered. “It would allow for mass rationing if needed. This is pretty lucky, either way. If everyone’s indoors, it’ll make flying the drone over the base less chancy.”
The two moved away from the fence, crossed through a park and headed for the tallest building around: the Rush Limbaugh Sr. Courthouse. Neil stared at the name on the building and then grunted. “It’s the little things that always take me back.”
Jillybean didn’t know what that meant and so Ipes told her: Nostalgia. It’s like remembering stuff, like Christmas or a fun time. Though I don’t know why Mister Neil would feel it for a courthouse.
“Maybe he went to jail and had ice cream with his dad or something,” she suggested. Once inside where it was grey and depressing, she realized that she was probably mistaken. There weren’t any ice cream stations or anything fun at all.
We’ll make our own fun. Can I fly the copter first?
“Sorry, but it takes thumbs and all you have are hoofs. And asides, I thought of the drones and that’s what means I get to fly it first.”
Ipes groused about this, while Neil had no problem letting Jillybean run the copter, though he was very meticulous about reading the instructions, something Jillybean had only scanned.
They were just beginning to test the controls, which were slightly too big for Jillybean’s small hands when a strange sound came to them. They both turned to look south. “What the heck?” Neil exclaimed. “Is that cheering? It sounds like a football game or something.”
Jillybean, who thought that football had whistles and guys saying hut-hut, could only shrug. “Let’s find out.” She thumbed the up arrow on the controls and the drone lifted straight up. “How’s the picture?”
Neil held a synched iPad in his hands. “Looks good. You can see everything and whoa, you can zoom in and out.”
She glanced over at the screen; it looked just like mini TV. “Cool. Zoom out so I can see us.” She sent the drone higher while Neil zoomed out. In seconds, she could see herself, though it was only the top of her head since she was looking at the screen.
Next, she ran the drone to five hundred feet until it was almost too small to see. “Okay, let’s see what that noise is all about.” Using the screen to guide her, she propelled the drone south until she was over a huge crowd of people sitting in a circle of bleachers.
“Can you zoom in, Mister Neil? I can’t see what that is in the middle.” Seen from above, the cage looked like a simple square and even when he zoomed in to full magnitude she couldn’t tell it was a cage except by the shadows of the bars.
“Move it to the left a little,” Neil said, squinting down at the screen. “Everyone is looking at something just out of the view of…” He stopped, stunned by what came into view and they both stared in silence as the last of Grey’s soldiers was stripped of his flesh and his humanity and eventually with a whack of the axe, his life.
“Who was that?” Jillybean whispered. “That wa
sn’t Mister Captain Grey, was it? That couldn’t have been…”
“Shh! This thing has sound.”
“…99! Wow! Who saw that coming?” It was the River King’s voice, sounding amplified and slightly distorted. “And if that soldier could take 99 how many can the great captain take? We have saved the best for last. Let’s bring him out so we can see him close up.”
Captain Grey was marched out of the cage to stand in front of the crowd. Jeers rained down on him. The king let the crowd express its savagery until a rock was thrown.
“Stop that! We can’t have fair betting if he’s injured. If you want to see more blood, you’ll have to wait until tonight. In exactly eleven hours and twenty-eight minutes, you’ll get all the blood you can handle.”
“The best for last,” Neil said, tears in his eyes, his face slack. “They’ve killed her. They killed my Sadie.”
“And they’ll pay,” Jillybean said. There were no tears in her eyes; the ice in her soul was back and colder than ever.
Chapter 38
Neil Martin
By all rights, Neil should have been petrified. He was minutes from pitting his weak body and Jillybean’s mind against four thousand of the most horribly evil people he had ever known to save Captain Grey.
He should have been afraid, but he was too tired and too angry and too bitter to be afraid. In the last year and a half, since the start of the apocalypse, almost everything he cherished had been taken from him.
All that he had left was his friendship with Captain Grey and his odd relationship with Jillybean. He knew she wanted a mom and a dad, or just one of them if she couldn’t have the full set. And they both knew he was a natural father-figure and yet, they would never be father and daughter.
Strangely enough, it was because she didn’t really need a father. She was so amazingly self-sufficient that he felt useless around her. He didn’t feel like a dad and he sure as heck didn’t act like a dad.
The Undead World (Book 8): The Apocalypse Executioner Page 38
