The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice

by Peter Meredith

  Like a veteran of a thousand zombie battles, Todd thudded his boot into the chest of the nearest one, sending it stumbling back. Then, almost casually, he raised the axe as the second came at him. In midair, he reversed it so that the hammer end struck, creating a tremendous dent in the top of the zombie’s head.

  The beast collapsed. Todd hefted the axe a second time as the zombie he had first kicked came back into the fight. It wasn’t much of a fight. One more swing decided things and as the zombie fell, Todd turned back to the group. “You can come, but we’re not slowing for any of you and if that guy runs off, then too bad. And if he starts barking, I’m going to clock him.”

  “Oh, he’s a good boy,” Jillybean said, patting Spot on the head. “He’ll be quiet, I promise.”

  “Good. Bainbridge is just across the sound. We need a car with good tires so keep your eyes peeled for one. Let’s move out.” Todd took the lead and was quickly followed by Amy and Jason. Sadie wanted to grab the younger brother and thrust him back behind her. She thought they should have a man in back to take up the rear and Spot didn’t count.

  “Go,” she said to Jillybean, pushing her to follow after Jason. Spot stuck to her side like glue and Sadie came last, holding the .38. Todd set a hard pace and soon had Jillybean flagging. But there would be no slowing even if they wanted to. Behind them came an army of zombies, stumbling along in ragged lines, with more joining the chase every few seconds.

  As they hurried along, Sadie kept an eye out for cars with a full set of good tires. There weren’t many and when they did find one, Todd would rush to it, peer in through the driver’s window, curse and then go on.

  Jillybean couldn’t understand the behavior. “Do you think he’s looking for one with the keys in it? Cuz that’s silly. We can hotwire a car, easy. And I’m tired so that’s what we should do.”

  “I have no idea what he’s doing,” Sadie answered. “You should ask him.” When it came to satisfying her curiosity, Jillybean was fearless and relentless. She worked her way to where Todd marched along. In order to catch up, she had to add a quick skip to every other step.

  “I’m looking for a car with a stick shift,” he answered. “You know what that is? Good. Tell me if you see a car with one. We can pop the clutch to get it started.” Of course, she had to know what “pop the clutch” meant and he was in the middle of an explanation when headlights blared in their faces and an engine turned over.

  Todd snatched Jillybean’s hand and broke to the right toward the closest home. The front door hung open by a few inches. He shouldered his way in and raced through the house, while behind them, the truck that had been sitting in the dark raced up. It jumped the curb and barreled down on Sadie who managed to leap up the porch stairs before she was run over.

  Sadie blazed into the house, but had to check her natural speed. The house was a shambles and had been one even before the apocalypse. It had been the home of a hoarder and among the piles of crap, there might have been some useful items to find. They didn’t have time to look. The truck’s doors could be heard opening and further away, more engines were coming to life.

  As she ran, Sadie pulled down towering stacks of magazines and threw over chairs—it wouldn’t be enough. They were moving too slowly through the maze of a house and by the time they reached the backyard, the bad guys would be only steps behind.

  The .38 will slow them down, Sadie thought. But what if they had guns as well? And what if theirs were better? Theirs had to be better and they had to have more ammo. Sadie had all of six shots. It wouldn’t be enough. She wasn’t the only one who thought so.

  A crap-filled hall that was barely wide enough to fit Sadie’s thin hips, led to a dining room with towering stacks of chipped and faded china. That led to a kitchen where years of newspapers were bundled in heavy bales, and the thousands of plastic spoons and knives were wrapped like spears of asparagus and thrust in shoe boxes and wine boxes.

  The smell here was alive and rancid. It was horrible, and strangely fresh. The dark made Jillybean look like an apparition as she splashed about with an old milk jug, spilling what looked like spoiled gravy about. It was some sort of vile combination of bacon grease and overused cooking oil and this knowledge was accompanied by a sudden need to hurl.

  Sadie staggered to the side to keep from being wetted by the concoction and as she did she felt something coming up the funnel of her throat. Jillybean seemed unfazed by the smell. She threw down the plastic jug and as it glugged out the last of the slick grease, she dug out her lighter.

  The newspaper, dry as a wasps’ nest, went up so quickly that it almost seemed as though something had exploded. It went up so fast it nearly caught two of their pursuers in the blaze. They yelled and cursed, thrusting their arms up to keep their faces from being burned off. As they fell back, Sadie grabbed Jillybean and together they ran through a covered porch and then out into the backyard.

  There was almost no yard to the backyard. With the dozens of rusting cars, broken bed frames, and the refrigerators laid out on their back like strange coffins, it resembled a miniature junkyard. There was only a single narrow path through the trash and with the new light of the brewing fire behind them, they were able to catch up to the others as they struggled over a wooden fence that was leaning back at an angle that would have invited a normal boy to use it as a ramp for his bike. It would cost a kid his teeth if he had.

  The slats of the fence were rotted and broke underfoot. Todd had fallen through and was up to his scrotum in splintered wood, while Amy was seconds from the same fate. “Not there,” Jillybean said. “Use the posts. Watch.” The fence posts were old and wormed through and through. Most had been snapped off at the base and yet they were still able to bear weight. Jillybean ran right up one and then hopped off into the next yard.

  Spot followed her and, as Jason and Amy helped Todd get clear of the fence, Sadie went next. It was a little like walking a tightrope which was fine with her. She was in her element. Her body was young and strong. Had she been alone, she could have run circles around the idiots chasing after them.

  They waited for the others to get over the fence and then they charged through the next backyard, this one thankfully empty save for the waist-high weeds. In seconds, they found themselves on a street mid-block. Todd ran to his right, passed three houses and then ducked around to the back of the fourth. In a sense, they were doubling back.

  A fence was scaled, a street was crossed, zombies were dodged and then they were lost in another neighborhood, moving slower now. Todd took the gas cans and let Jason lead. In the moonlight, Sadie caught sight of him as he passed. She jerked a little. Jason was impossibly handsome. Unlike so many others, he was clean shaven and his hair hadn’t been hacked by the local barber or entwined in a dirty ponytail. His brown hair was swept back in waves. His jawline was perfect and his teeth white.

  “Is he like Morganstern was? Handsome, I mean?” Jillybean whispered, catching Sadie staring.

  The reminder of Morganstern, whom Sadie had barely known, caused a moment of guilt. Then came sadness at the thought of what might have been. “Yeah, a little. Now, hush. We don’t want to attract attention.” There were more zombies. There were always more zombies. They began following the little group, lurching in another long conga line.

  Jason took them through another neighborhood, moving along the streets in short bursts. They were careful to keep close to cover: bushes, cars, houses. They were careful but they couldn’t do anything about the zombies. Jillybean tried to suggest they mix in with them, but the others wouldn’t listen.

  Eventually the trail of beasts was picked up by the driver of the Porsche. He came prowling up behind as they ducked through another yard. They hadn’t been seen, however it was only a matter of time.

  “We could hide in there,” Jason suggested, pointing. Before them was a baseball field, its bases covered by the grass encroaching from the outfield. Beyond that was a half-sized basketball court with fissures zigzagging through
its asphalt leading to a brick school.

  Amazingly, the school was intact. A door was propped open, however, none of the windows were so much as scratched. The same was true of the four yellow school busses that were parked neatly in a row. The gas caps were off, but otherwise they looked ready to roll.

  “No, we can’t hide, at least not here,” Todd said. “With all those damned zombies, it’ll only be a matter of time before they find us. What we need is a car.”

  “Would you settle for a bus?” Jillybean asked, her eyes gleaming in a way Sadie recognized. “If so, I can get one of them going, I bet.”

  Chapter 23

  Jillybean

  “I would take a bus if we could get one,” Todd said, “but those are all going to be automatic. We need a stick-shift.”

  “Maybe we could try to distract the zombies,” Amy suggested. “I was with a group last year that used a loud speaker to…” She stopped as Jillybean walked away. “Where’s she going?”

  “I’m gonna get the bus going,” Jillybean said and then slapped her thigh. “Come here, Spot.” The dogman didn’t look back. He happily did his ridiculous trot, gazing fondly down at Jillybean as she headed for the buses.

  Sadie gave Todd a shrug. “She can do it. She just needs that gas you have. Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Todd asked, incredulously. “I don’t even know you. And really, what I do know doesn’t lead me to trust you at all. You’re going around Seattle with a guy who thinks he’s a dog and a know-it-all little girl.” He shook his head at her. “That’s not too smart, if you ask me.”

  Jillybean had stopped after only a few steps, waiting to see what sort of decision the grown-ups would come to. She wasn’t terribly offended at being called a know-it-all. It wasn’t true, of course. She knew a lot, especially about important stuff such as math and science and surgeoning, but she didn’t know everything. Besides, even if she did know everything, that wouldn’t be a bad thing, despite the tone of the man’s voice.

  “And you think you know what smart is?” Sadie asked, her voice dripping with acid. “You have no idea what you’re talking about or who we are. If you were smart, you’d give her a chance.”

  “Then I guess I’m not so smart. Good luck with that bus.” Todd turned and began walking off, heading to the right of the school. Amy gave Sadie a what-can-you-do smile and Jason nodded curtly before following after his brother. They had taken all of four steps before they heard the sound of an engine coming in their direction.

  Todd immediately turned around to go back the way they came, however the yard they had just crossed through was swarming with zombies. “Inside!” he hissed, pointing towards the school. The six of them ran for the school, zipping inside the open door just as the truck puttered by.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Amy asked.

  “I doubt it,” Jason answered, peering out through the glass. “It’s the zombies I’m worried about. If that guy saw them crowding the yard, we’re through. He’ll call the others and they’ll hound us down.”

  Amy put her back to the doors and slid down until she was sitting with her legs out. “I don’t know if I can keep this up all night. I thought we’d just, you know, escape. You know slip away.”

  Jason stepped back. In the dark, Jillybean couldn’t gauge his expression, however, he sounded hurt as he asked: “Are you changing your mind? You said you’d do anything to get away.”

  Amy shrank into herself and her shrug made her seem smaller. “I did. I just didn’t know it would be like this. I…I…” In mid-stutter, she noticed everyone staring at her, including Jillybean. “Hey, how fast can you get that bus going?” She sounded like she was grasping her last straw.

  That depended on so many variables that Jillybean didn’t want to give an answer. Were the materials she needed in the school? Were they spread out all over the place? Were there monsters lurking in the depths of the building? Would everyone simply obey her commands or would they ask useless questions such as this?

  “Twenty minutes, probably. Maybe thirty.”

  “That’s too long,” Todd said. “If they didn’t see those zombies on this pass, they will on the next. We should go out through the back. It’s only another five miles to the sound. Maybe there’ll be a boat.”

  A snort of derision escaped Sadie. “There’s never a boat. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that there’s never a boat when you need one. Just like there’s never a stickshift around when you need one. If you want to get to Brainbridge, you’ll listen to her.”

  “It’s Bainbridge and…” Todd interrupted.

  Sadie cut him off. “That’s not listening. Here’s the plan: I’ll take care of the zombies. I’ll lead them away.” She paused long enough to come stand behind Jillybean and put her hands on her shoulders. “While I’m gone, you will do everything this girl tells you to do. She knows what she’s doing and she will save your lives if you let her work and don’t ask too many questions. Got it?”

  Todd stood facing the window and was very slow to answer. “You’re asking me to trust a little girl. How old is she, six?”

  “She’s eight,” Sadie replied. “I’m not asking you to trust her. I’m asking you to trust me. Me and her have travelled all the way from New York together, and this right here,” Sadie twirled her finger as if she were stirring soup with it, “is nothing. We’ve been through far worse.”

  “I trust her,” Amy said. “She seemed super smart before.”

  Jason shrugged, suggesting he could go either way. Todd sighed. “Fine. We’ll try the bus. But let me warn you that if the shit hits the fan while we’re waiting for her to get it going, we’ll leave you guys like that.” He snapped his fingers in Sadie’s face.

  “Then you’ll get caught, just like that,” Sadie said, snapping her fingers right back. “Listen to her and don’t waste her time asking questions. You’re going to want to. Just don’t.” When they each agreed, she turned and held out her pinky to Jillybean. “Sisters?”

  “Always,” Jillybean answered, grinning and hooking the pinky with her own. They were being hunted as usual, but she had Sadie and that made it alright.

  Sadie took a long breath as if she were about to dive into the deep end of the pool, and then slipped out the door, running with an easy stride straight for the masses of zombies that were struggling to get over the short chainlink fence. Jillybean’s smile dimmed as she turned towards the dark of the school.

  “She’ll be fine,” she said, over her shoulder as she dug out her palm-sized maglite. She pointed it down the hall and, just like the outside of the building, the inside was in surprisingly good condition. For the most part, the lockers were all still shut and there were only a few spills of papers or books along the edges.

  With Spot hanging near her elbow, Jillybean headed straight in, hoping to find a map of the school posted on the wall, but other than that the obligatory fire escape plan there was nothing. She gave the map a glance, memorizing the layout in a blink. It would have been more helpful if it pointed out where the home economics room was or where the art supplies were kept.

  Intuition told her that the music room would be near the gymnasium. This proved true. “Miss Amy, I need a tambourine and a microphone stand,” she said. “And make sure all the clinky things are out of the tambourine.” Amy started to ask how she would get them out, but Jillybean was already moving on.

  Near the main office she found the janitor’s “office” though cubby was a more descriptive term. “Mister Jason, sir I need all the tools you can carry. If there’s wire in there, bring it.”

  “Bring it where?”

  This was one of those stupid questions that they had been told not to ask. “Out to the buses of course.” She turned on her heel and marched away, shining the light left and right at every door. “I need the science room or a home economics room or a…ah here we go, an art place. Can you find me some super glue, Mister Todd?”

  He grunted out a “Sure,” and ducked
into the dark room. He had his own flashlight which he used judiciously, covering the lens unless needed. Jillybean tried to copy the action, but just found herself mostly blind and she didn’t have time for blindness. She needed to find magnets and she had been in enough schools to know that if they were anywhere, they’d be in a science room.

  Which is exactly where she found them. In a room labeled “Earth Sciences Lab” she found, not only magnets, but also a long-beaked funnel that she figured would be useful and a roll of already stripped copper wire. “Perfect,” she whispered. Spot barked and for a moment, she thought about loading him up in some way, but worried that he would shake everything off at the first chance. “Maybe you should go guard the buses,” she said to him. It really wasn’t a command that an untrained dog would understand, still he loped off back the way they came.

  She had her arms full when she left the room and nearly ran into Todd. “They had epoxy not super glue,” he said, showing her a tube. It looked like a tube of toothpaste. She gave it a flash of her light and read the tiny writing. The epoxy seemed like what she needed, only just a bit more stuck-up sounding.

  “If it will stick stuff together really good, then it’ll work,” she said, giving him an encouraging smile. He didn’t seem to know what to do with the smile. It made him look uncomfortable and Jillybean had to wonder what was wrong with her smile. Most people liked it. She pulled her lips in, saying: “Maybe we should go.”

  Todd grunted once more, perhaps thinking that grunting was a proper form of communication, something Jillybean did not. In silence, they headed for the back lot of the school, meeting Amy on the way. She held up her items. “Is this good?”

  “Yeah. Hey, can you take the glue from Mister Todd?” Todd handed over the glue and raised an eyebrow. “I need two folding chairs and one of the flags from the office, thanks.” He opened his mouth to say something, which would have been preferable to another grunt; however, he closed it again and left without a word.