The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice

by Peter Meredith

  “No,” Jillybean said, stepping away from the green bag. She opened her mouth to explain to Eve that she would avoid bloodshed if at all possible, but one of the women shot her light down at her. It was like a brilliant white eye and she crumpled beneath it, going down to huddle in her knobby-kneed ball.

  “It’ll be okay, honey,” the woman said. “You guys don’t look infected. But just in case, we have to clean you with lye. Try not to get any in your eyes.” A hose was pulled to the edge of the pit and the two girls were doused with achingly cold water before they were ordered to clean themselves from head to toe with a bar of soap that had a harsh chemical smell.

  When they had, they were rinsed down, and told to move closer to the edge, where they had a much more pleasant smelling shampoo poured on their heads. It helped to get rid of the awful lye smell. You’ll fetch a better price when you smell good, Eve said. They’ll probably dress you up all pretty and put lipstick on you like a whore. What do you think about that?

  Jillybean was terrified of the idea and she began shaking so badly that she thought her teeth would fall out of her head. She wouldn’t have noticed if they had; she was reliving the time she’d been raped and her eyes were glazed over and unfocused. Eve was making her remember. Eve wanted out, because Eve would know what to do. Eve knew what it took to survive. Eve was a cold-blooded creature who would kill anyone, including Sadie. She would sacrifice Sadie because…

  “Stop,” Sadie said, gripping Jillybean’s arm.

  The little girl jumped a little as though she had been startled out of a dream. She looked around, confused. One of the women had left and the other was staring down into the pit at Jillybean, but her expression couldn’t be read behind the plastic shields of her mask.

  “You were sort of hissing a little,” Sadie whispered. “Try to keep it together, okay?”

  Jillybean nodded, feeling jittery inside. Jittery, but no longer terrified. Eve had almost taken over and Eve was never afraid. It was the only good thing about her.

  The other woman came back carrying two large white towels. “Up the stairs you two,” she said as if it were strange that they were still down in the pit. When they climbed out they were handed the towels.

  “Let’s get out of here,” one of the women said the moment Sadie and Jillybean looked dry. “I hate this place and I hate these masks. Thank the Lord, you two weren’t infected. That would have been bad.”

  Still shivering, the two girls, wearing only the towels clutched around them, were escorted out into the May sunshine. Immediately, the two women pulled off their masks. Each of them sighed and turned to face the sun. One was an older lady, somewhere in her forties. She had grey streaks wound all through her otherwise dark hair. The second lady had chestnut colored hair. She was soft and very white, her skin the color of cream, though there was a high pink in her cheeks.

  The men were still there, and still masked. The driver nodded his alien-looking head and said: “They’re clean? Thank the Lord. Walt, burn their clothes. The rest of you…”

  “There’s a gun in my coat,” Jillybean blurted out. “It might go off if you put it in a fire.”

  For a long time, the leader looked at her without expression, eventually saying: “Okay, thanks. Rachael, she looks like she’s Corina’s size. Do we have anything to spare?”

  The younger woman nodded. “I could probably scare up something for her to wear, but I got to hurry, services are going to start any time.”

  The others all agreed and, except for one man who went into the repair shop to light the clothes on fire, and the leader who took the minivan and drove away, everyone hurried around the end of the building, leaving Sadie and Jillybean all alone. They looked at each other and both shrugged at the same time.

  “That was strange,” Sadie said. She turned a little circle, gazing around at what she could see of the town. The repair shop had been tucked away so there wasn’t much to see except the backs of a few buildings and more farmland. “So, do we wait for clothes or what?”

  There was nothing stopping them from attempting to escape across the fields, except perhaps the fact that neither of them had shoes. “I guess we wait,” Jillybean answered. “If they are this lax all the time, escape should be easy as a pie. They didn’t seem all that smart, neither. Maybe because they thought I was a kid, they didn’t even frisk me. Silly, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Sadie agreed and then limped to the curb and sat down, tucking her toga of a towel between her legs. Jillybean emulated her and then yawned. It had been a long night followed by an even longer morning, and the sun was still only a quarter of the way into the sky.

  The two sat there, getting more and more sleepy. Finally, Jillybean couldn’t keep her eyes open even for another moment. She laid her head in Sadie’s lap and was asleep in seconds.

  An odd clicking sound came into the dream that she was having of sitting in a tree like a bird and eating soup. It was a fast tat-tat-tat noise. She blinked and for a moment was so baffled by what she was seeing that she wondered if she was still dreaming.

  Four people on bikes were pedaling down the street. Two were women and two were children—girls with pink helmets and white dresses. They had baskets attached to their handle bars and streamers of silver. One of the girls had attached a playing card with a clothes pin to the back tire and it was that which was making the tat-tat-tat sound.

  Jillybean sat up feeling numb. She couldn’t stop staring. Next to her, Sadie wore the same stunned expression. “Hi,” the goth girl said when the four came to a stop in front of them. A moment later they saw that it wasn’t four people, but five. Strapped in a toddler chair behind Rachael was a little boy of about three. Unbelievably, it was her son. They had the same sea-grey eyes and the same rose to their pale cheeks.

  “Hi,” one of the girls said, jabbing her kickstand into the grass. This was Corina and she was very nearly Jillybean’s height. “This is for you,” she said, holding out a little bundle of pink. She also had the same color to her cheeks and her hair was thick and brown…just like Rachael’s.

  She held the bundle out, but Jillybean didn’t take it from her. It didn’t seem real. None of it, not the bikes, or the white dresses, or the matching apple cheeks. Twenty minutes before, she had been in soot-stained pit with guns pointed at her naked body and now she was outside in the sun and the air was perfect and the people were smiling and Corina wore a Little Mermaid watch on her wrist. And her mom was right there.

  How could that be? No one had a mom anymore and no one had a brother. That wasn’t possible.

  Jillybean’s lips started to quiver and tears sprang up in her eyes. She turned away from the scene because it wasn’t real. It was a scene in her head. An image or a mirage. She was dreaming or she was crazy. Yes, she was crazy. That made far more sense. She was still in the pit. They were going to kill her because they thought she was infected. She would die. They would shoot holes into her and it would hurt so badly. And they would dump gasoline on her and set her on fire until she was nothing but the black stuff in the pit.

  Or had all that happened already and she was dead? That made sense, too. She was dead and was only a ghost. It made sense. She could hardly feel her hands and her bare feet were numb and her mind was floating out of her…

  “Hey, Jillybean,” Sadie said in a low voice, speaking into her ear. There was a hand on her shoulder. Sadie’s she assumed. “What are you doing? We should get dressed.”

  “But they aren’t real. None of this is real.” Jillybean had a sudden horrible thought. What if Sadie wasn’t real? What if she had died? What if she had drowned in the river? What if a monster had scratched her? What if she was the one who died in the pit and Jillybean was making her up just like she had made up Chris? How could she know? How could anyone know?

  A tremor ran through her little body and she began to shake all over. Sadie grabbed her and squeezed her in a bear hug. “They’re real,” she whispered, “just like you and me. Okay? Trust me. Come on, t
hey have a dress for you. I know you like dresses.”

  That was only partially true. Ever since the rape, she felt vulnerable in dresses and only wore them with pants underneath.

  “Hi,” a voice chirped behind them. It was Corina, looking concerned. She had her helmet off and her hair spilled down her shoulders. “Here’s a dress you can have. My name is Corina Julian Woods. I’m six, how many years are you?”

  Sadie gave Jillybean a nudge. In a daze, she turned to Corina, but didn’t answer right away. The other girl had let her bike drop with a clatter and was skipping over with a big smile on her face. She was missing her two front teeth just like La-La.

  Beyond her, Rachael was unbuckling the little boy, who was squirming and eager to get down. “Hold still, Connor.” The other woman, thirtyish with straight blonde hair just like the gap-toothed girl, stood, straddling her bike. She reached out a hand and poked Connor in his round belly.

  The moment was surreal. Sadie had to nudge Jillybean a second time to get her to talk. “I’m eight and my name is Jillybean.”

  “Jellybean?” the gap-toothed girl asked. “Is that really your name? It doesn’t sound like a name to me. A real name is like Connor or Corina or Brian. Not Jellybean.”

  “Anita!” the blonde woman barked. “Mind your manners.”

  “Sorry, mom.”

  “I thought she said Jillybean,” Corina remarked. “Did you say Jillybean?” It was only then that Jillybean remembered she was supposed to be keeping her name a secret. She tried to think of a lie to cover her mistake, only she was still too mixed up in the head and she only nodded. “That’s a cool name if you ask me. Here’s the dress. It’s the nicest one I have, but you can have it. My mom said that Jesus would want me to give it to you. That’s cool, right?”

  Corina spoke very rapidly and Jillybean had trouble keeping up, especially when she mentioned Jesus. The only thing she knew about Jesus was that he’s born every December 25th and that Jillybean “creeps the bejesus out of people.” Everyone thought so.

  “I guess that’s cool,” she said, reaching for the dress. As she did her towel fell in a pool around her feet. She looked at it glumly as the girls and the moms and little Connor stared at her skinny body. With its bruises and its scratches and her ribs sticking out, it was an ugly body.

  The little girls were perfect and beautiful and their stares transfixed Jillybean. She began to cry again. Sadie stepped in front of her, taking the dress and draping it. “She’s just overwhelmed, is all. She really likes it. Lift up your arms. Jillybean? Lift up your arms. There, look how pretty you are.”

  “I say she’s beautiful,” Corina said.

  “Me too,” Anita chirped.

  Jillybean looked down at herself. The dress had a bow right on her belly and there were flowers stitched all over it. When she looked up, she found herself face to face with Corina. They were inches apart. “Turn around, let me see,” the girl said.

  Jillybean turned and felt the dress flare slightly; it was scary and wonderful. It was a reminder of how vulnerable she was in a dress, but it was also a reminder of the time when Ram had given her a dress so long ago. She had twirled and he had smiled and he had loved her.

  “I like it lots,” she told Corina. “Thank you.”

  Corina beamed showing even white baby teeth. “I knew you would like it. My mom said I was really very pretty in it and now you are. Oh, hey. I have shoes for you, too.”

  “I’ll get them,” Anita cried and ran for the bikes. She snatched up a pair of white shoes from Corina’s basket and dashed back. She handed them over like they were a great prize. “Here go. Try ‘em on.” Unfortunately, they were too small and Jillybean had to go to the church barefoot.

  But at least she didn’t have to walk. Corina was excited to let her ride behind her. They wobbled badly at first. “What are you doing?” Corina asked. “Put your hands around me. You act like you never did this before.” Jillybean was ashamed to admit that she hadn’t. She had missed a huge chunk of what most kids would call a normal childhood. She’d been too busy surviving.

  Church was another thing she had never been to before, except of course for the evil church of the Believers. That weighed on her mind as she rode with Corina’s bottom bopping up and down in front of her face. “I didn’t even know it was Sunday,” she said aloud.

  Corina glanced back. “It’s not Sunday, it’s Tuesday.”

  “Then why are you going to church?”

  “Oh, we go to church every day. Morning and night, even when it snows real bad.” Corina went on to relate a story of the previous winter’s harshest blizzard, but Jillybean wasn’t listening. She was trying not to panic.

  They had made it to the church and there was the old man with the silver in his hair and the pudge about the middle. He had been dressed in black before, now he was in a robe of green. People were streaming into the church and each stopped to shake hands with the man. He would grin and clasp their hands, but his eyes were always on Jillybean.

  Expertly, Corina stopped the bike near a line of others. “Come on. I wanna get seats near the front.”

  Jillybean had her hand taken by the girl and was dragged along. She felt alone and vulnerable in her new dress. She was acutely aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing any panties and that, not only was she shoeless, her feet were still black from the soot of the pit. And it wasn’t just the priest, everyone stared.

  She wanted to run from the church and from these new types of Believers and as she got closer, her heart began to race and her breath raced in and out. Then she was in front of the priest.

  “Hi Father,” Corina chirped. “This is Jillybean. My mom says she needs to be saved.”

  Time slowed as Jillybean turned to Corina in dread. Saved? Saved from what? What were they going to do to her? What torture was being planned or were they going to sacrifice her like Sarah had been sacrificed? Were they going to burn her after all?

  The priest reached for her with soft hands and Jillybean fell back, tripping, only to be caught by another man. “I got you,” he said and she recognized the voice as the man who had driven the minivan. She tried to tear away from him, but his hands were rough and callused and strong.

  There’d be no escape from him, she realized and in the panic that suddenly raged through her, she fainted straight away.

  Chapter 14

  Sadie Martin

  Jillybean’s sudden fainting spell worried Sadie mostly because it made no sense. The pit had been frightening and the water from the hose terribly cold, but from then on, they had been treated rather well. Rachael and Nadine, Anita’s mother, had been kind to them as could be, and the two little girls had been innocent and accepting, treating Jillybean more like a long lost cousin rather than as a stranger. Even the priest seemed kindly and gentle, not to mention very frail.

  The unknown reason for the faint was worrisome, however its length was even more so. She didn’t regain full consciousness for over twenty minutes, despite Sadie whispering her name in her ear and shaking her. By the time she blinked her eyes open, she had been carried down the long hill into the town. It had never been a bustling metropolis and could boast only a lone doctor’s office and even it was little more than a suite of four rooms, a short hall with an eye chart at one end, a reception desk and a single couch with a stack of Highlights on one armrest.

  “She got the fever, doc?” Sheriff David Woods asked. He had been the driver of the minivan as well as the person who had caught Jillybean when she fainted. He was a mountain of a man, so tall that his sheriff’s hat scraped the top of the door frame as he came in.

  The doctor, a woman named April Danahy, at least according to the diploma on the wall, was bent over Jillybean, her long strawberry blonde hair spilling down, creating a curtain that hid both her face and Jillybean’s. “No, no fever. Probably anemia or dehydration, or a combination of both. If you’ll clear out, I’ll work her up and give a diagnosis.”

  Woods scoffed. “No wa
y. Did you hear Corina? She called her Jillybean.” He gave Sadie a long look before asking. “Is that really her? Is that the girl in all the rumors?” He asked this with his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol as if Jillybean was about to pop her eyes open and start killing people.

  “I really don’t know what you’ve heard about anyone,” Sadie answered, lying easily. She had heard the name “Jillybean” sweep through the crowd as half the people in the church had paraded down into town following after the sheriff. “Her name is Jillian, but people sometimes call her Jillybean, but she’s not famous or in stories or any of that. She’s just a kid who’s been through a lot.”

  “Uh-huh, right,” the sheriff answered, holding Sadie in a steady gaze. He wasn’t moving from the room and his hand was still on the gun.

  The doctor rolled her eyes. “Will you please wait in the other room, David. I think I can handle one little sick kid. Besides, I doubt very much this is her. She’s too small to have done half the things people say she did.”

  With the sheriff safely pushed out the door to join the throng outside in the street, Doctor Danahy began a closer inspection of Jillybean. She had a cuff on her arm and was inflating it when she noticed the little girl had her eyes open, cooly watching the woman in the process of taking a blood pressure reading.

  “Hello Jillian, I’m Doctor Danahy. How are you feeling?”

  Jillybean’s eyes flicked to Sadie and then back to the doctor. “Feeling? Hungry,” she answered.

  “I’m sure we can rectify that in a jiffy, but first we need to check to see why you fainted. Have you ever fainted before?”

  “No.”

  “Before you fainted did you feel any numbness or tingling, perhaps in your arms or hands? No? What about your vision? Was it clear?”

  Jillybean tried to sit up. “I think I’m fine. Can we go now, Sadie? I don’t like it here and we don’t know these people and she might not even be a real doctor.”