“He doesn’t talk much,” Amy said. “Jason could be even worse sometimes. I think they went through some bad shit. They don’t talk about that either. The way I see it, we’ve all been through shit and you’re either stronger or weaker because of it. I say you be strong. You seem pretty strong, May.”
For a moment, Jillybean was confused at the name. She recovered her wits in time so the lapse wasn’t noticeable. “I don’t think I’m strong at all,” she said. Although she hadn’t heard the voices in days, she felt that there was a layer around her brain as thin and as weak as an egg shell and if that broke there would be trouble. “By the way, shit is a bad word. You shouldn’t say it.”
Amy smirked. “You’re a trip, you know that?”
Jillybean had no idea what she meant by that, but it didn’t seem like a put down and so the little girl only shrugged and pretended that she was indeed a “trip.” When they reached the buses, she went right into action, ordering Jason and Amy around as if they were servants.
She had Jason fetch one of the sad, dead-looking bikes that were still in a rack on the side of the gymnasium, while Amy was sent to find out which was the most “intact” bus. By this she meant the bus with the best tires and the least corroded batteries. Thankfully they had been so well maintained prior to the apocalypse that two of the four were still serviceable. While they were at their tasks, Jillybean was busy as well. First, she cut a section of the tambourine so that it would fit around a bike’s sprocket, next she went about wrapping the copper wiring around the interior of the tambourine.
Todd returned and she directed him to hoist the bike that Jason had brought, using the chairs and the flagpole, so that the rear tire was off the ground. The magnets were epoxied in place on the largest of the gear teeth and then she used the microphone stand to hold the tambourine in place. Finally, wire was strung, running from the tambourine to the battery.
“Mister Jason, I need you to start turning the pedal. Do it real, real gently, but also do it fast, okay?” He grunted and started spinning the back tire, slowly building up speed. When she saw that he was running it correctly, she turned to Todd. “Fill the tank with what we have. Once you’re done, I’m gonna need you to take that big hammer and the Phillip’s head screwdriver and pop holes in the tanks of the other buses. We gotta get whatever is left in them.”
“There’s nothing in them. They’ve been siphoned. It’s obvious.”
Jillybean took up a stance in front of him, crossing her arms. “Sadie said that you were aposed to do as I say. There’s always a little gas in the bottom of them tanks. Every little bit counts.” He grunted. Jillybean rolled her eyes at the noise and turned to Amy. “You’re on monster duty. Make sure none of them get close.”
Amy’s blue eyes went wide and she turned a quick circle, clearly expecting a monster attack at any moment. It wasn’t likely. Sadie had done a good job of attracting every monster for blocks around—she had also attracted the bad guys. Just then a gunshot could be heard. And then another. Jillybean drew in a quick breath.
“Aw crap,” Jason said, working the pedal round and round, trying to get it to go faster and faster without upsetting the bike. He glanced up to see the stricken look on Jillybean’s face. “Try not to fret, little girl. Hatchet-Joe, the guy you called the big boss, he doesn’t like to kill women. He says it’s bad for business. Your friend is probably okay.”
Jillybean didn’t like the way he said: “probably.” It began to worry into her gut. Amy didn’t help, either. She was standing a few feet away, holding Jason’s baseball bat on her shoulder, gripping it with both hands. “He says everything is all about business with him. It’s why he never lets any of the guys punch the girls in the face. Why? Because it’s bad for business. ‘If you gots to correct them, hit ‘em in the belly.’ What a fucker. No, he won’t shoot your friend, he’ll just hunt her down. They’re good at that.”
“Well they won’t catch my Sadie,” Jillybean said, inadvertently using her sister’s real name. “She’s too fast. You’ll see. But this bus isn’t and that’s what means trouble. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Mister Jason, when you get tired switch with your brother.” Before going back into the school, she gave the rear of the bus a good long look. It was a good machine and she was glad that she had chosen it. She liked its size and the double wheels in the rear. It wasn’t speedy, and yet in a city as filled with the dead as this one was, speed wouldn’t be the deciding factor in escape.
She jogged into the school, hurrying through the empty hallways to the Earth Sciences room, where she hoped to find potassium nitrate. She went through every drawer and cabinet, her eyes flashing over the contents in a blink before moving on to the next.
“For all darn it!” No potassium and nothing close. Which meant she couldn’t make a smoke bomb. “But there was acetone,” she whispered, envisioning making Molotov cocktails. There were three bottles; it would take her two minutes to get them ready.
“But what if we use them? What would Hatchet-Joe do?” She imagined one of the trucks going up in flames during a chase. It would change things. The bad guys would go from trying to shoot out the tires to trying to shoot the driver. “No cocktails then.”
She stood, her mind turning as fast as ever. “Smoke would be best. We can make smoke easy.” In one of the cabinets was a backpack, old and ripped along one seam. Without a thought about who had owned it in the Before, she dumped out the contents and threw the bottles of acetone in. She slung it and ran for the art room.
There were tons of paper here as well as more accelerants. The oil pastels were the most intriguing to Jillybean. She wanted the smoke to be thick and black. She stuffed the backpack with what she could and then ran back to the bus. “Mister Jason, I need your help!” she said in a carrying whisper. Todd had taken over working the pedals.
“Hush, damn it!” he hissed back to her. She didn’t see the need to be overly quiet. The sound of engines was drifting through the night, but they were far off. At least a mile.
“It’s okay. Sadie is doing what she’s supposed to.” She went to the bus, pushed past Spot who was trying to nuzzle her with the side of his head and dumped the contents of the backpack onto one of the seats.
Jason was giving her a queer look. “I thought her name was Sally.”
Heat rushed into Jillybean’s cheeks, however the night hid it. “I-It is. What did I say? Did I say Sadie? W-well we knew a Sadie and I get mixed up sometimes. And my name is May.” As she said this her hands fluttered around, touching themselves, her chest and her lips. She knew she looked guilty and so she turned to the school. “I-I need some stuff.”
He followed after, his boots clomping along the tiles. She refused to look back until they got to the art room. Immediately, she grabbed a folded and very stained tarp, setting it on the ground. “I need all the paper you can get. And string, too. Put it on the tarp. It’ll make it easier to drag out.” He grunted.
“Sheesh,” she whispered, as she hurried away. In her desire to put some distance between her and Jason, she took the first turn she came to and was brought up short by a familiar smell: cut wood. It triggered the ghost of a memory. In some long ago time, she had gone into a lumber store holding her daddy’s hand. She remembered walking in the aisles and running her hands along the boards.
“We had a hotdog after,” she said, a smile playing on her face.
It was true she had been in many places like Home Depot in the last few years, but they were always huge, breathable spaces and the smells there were never so strong as this. Next to her elbow was a door that was cracked open a few inches. It was the shop room.
She stepped in, letting her maglite play over the different machines and the stacks of wood and the tools. “Cool,” she said as she saw more varnish and a few other seemingly innocuous items she could use. There was even a little handcart that she used to haul her discoveries out to the bus.
Now, all she needed was her sister.
Sadie was not i
n sight when she exited the school. This made her very nervous though what made her more so was Todd. “We can’t stay much longer,” he said, calmly working the pedal in circles. “The battery is as charged as it’s going to get. I’m giving your friend five minutes.”
“Five minutes for what?”
“To get back before we leave. You should get your stuff all packed up.”
Jillybean was stunned and only stood there as Jason loaded up the back of the bus with the stacks of paper; Amy turned away, pretending she hadn’t heard what Todd said.
“What are we going to do with all this stuff?” Jason asked breaking the spell Jillybean was under.
“Oh, let me show you,” Jillybean said. She went around and got in through the front of the bus and as she passed the chair she had dumped her items in, she picked up one of the bottles of acetone. The warning signs printed on it were obvious even in the dark: don’t drink and don’t light it on fire.
“Unless needed,” she said under her breath. “What you are going to do is pile that stuff up in the back of the bus. Yeah, just like that. Then, when the time is right, I’m going to dump some of this stuff on it and light it on fire. Like this.” Jillybean poured the acetone over the sloppy pile closest to the rear exit, tossed the empty bottle away and brought out her lighter. She snapped a flame into existence.
“Hold on,” Jason said, his forehead sprouting little lines as her hand came dangerously close to the stack of paper. “What are you doing? Careful, you’ll burn down the bus.”
Jillybean smiled pleasantly. “Yes, I will, but only if anyone tries to leave before Sadie gets back. It’ll burn right down to the wheels. Heck, it might burn them too.”
Todd stood, letting the bike tire slow. “Get away from there!” he snapped at Jillybean. “That’s not your bus and it’s not your damned gas.”
In answer, she picked up a piece of yellow construction paper and set it alight.
Chapter 24
Sadie Martin
It wasn’t just a four mile run. It was a four mile obstacle course, over fences and under cars and through culverts, all the while being chased by thousands of zombies and strangers bent on enslaving her. It was exhilarating.
This was where she excelled. In the pure physicality of the chase. After fifteen minutes of befuddling the slavers, she left them going in circles and loped back, cooling down with an easy jog. She felt great right up until she came back to find Todd hissing like a snake and threatening Jillybean with his axe.
“What the hell?” Sadie cried as she sprinted the last fifty yards. Jillybean, who was in the back of one of the busses, holding a lighter in one hand and a flaming piece of paper in the other grinned and snapped the lighter closed.
“Just silliness,” she said. “We can go…wait, I’m going to need a push-broom. Mister Jason, could you get one from the janitor’s office, please?”
He looked to Todd who slammed his axe down. “No, no! You don’t get to hold us hostage and then smile like nothing happened.”
Jillybean raised an eyebrow. Sadie had seen the look before and couldn’t help but grin. It looked as if Jillybean were appraising a crawly bug. “And you don’t get to leave people behind without a proper discussion. He was going to leave you behind, Sadie. Can you believe that?”
She pulled the .38 from her pocket. “Maybe we should leave them behind. Turn about is fair play.”
Todd ground his teeth, but with the .38 as the trump card there wasn’t much he could say. Amy went down on her bare knees to plead with Sadie. “You can’t leave us, it wouldn’t be right. And…and, he didn’t mean it. He was just taking care of his own, you understand, don’t you? And I wouldn’t have left you and neither would Jason.”
Sadie felt a strange thrill run through her. It was a rare day in which she held any real power. And this was life and death. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
Jillybean said: “Hmmmmm,” drawing it out. “I guess we could look this over, but only if they promise to be good.”
Todd looked pained as he said, “I promise. We all promise, okay?” Once more Jillybean raised her eyebrow and waited. Eventually, amended his statement, “We promise to be good, okay?”
“Yes,” Jillybean said right away. “Now get back on the bike and really spin the wheel. Mister Jason, the push broom, please. Miss Amy, if you will help me bundle the papers better. Sadie, can you run to the office and see if there are keys to the buses. They might be locked up.”
Sadie thought it nothing to be taking orders from an eight-year-old. Amy didn’t argue and jumped right up into the bus, while Todd and Jason shared a long look. “Let’s go,” Sadie snapped, jogging past them. She found the keys in a black lockbox in the receptionist’s desk. Ironically, the lockbox was unlocked.
They were ready to go a minute later. Once more, Jillybean took command, ordering Todd into the driver’s seat. Amy was told to keep hold of Spot in the front seat. Sadie figured she would have an issue being so close to the wild man, but she didn’t utter the smallest complaint. Jason and Sadie sat across from each other three rows from the back.
Jillybean occupied the seat in front of Sadie. She didn’t sit, she knelt on it waiting for Todd to start the engine. It started on the second attempt, eliciting a cheer which didn’t last. After the first rumble, the engine began to hitch and cough.
“Shit!” Todd snapped. “It’s the gas. Gas doesn’t belong in a diesel.” He stuck it in gear and chugged it forward. The bus felt as though it was hopping, but at least the engine was still going. Once they turned onto the street, things became better. The engine evened out and the vehicle no longer hopped as it had.
Everyone relaxed. Jillybean turned to Jason. “Is it far? And what is Bainbridge? Is it just a bridge? Does it go anywhere? Does it go to one of the islands? I seen a map of Seattle and there’s like a whole bunch of islands around it. They’re all pretty squiggly.”
Jason blew out as if having to hear the string of questions was more arduous than the four miles Sadie had run. “It’s an island and by road it’s about forty miles because we got to loop all the way around through Tacoma, but if we had a boat, it’s only two miles across the sound.” He was quiet for some time as the bus chugged along, then he said in a low voice, “You guys should cut Todd a break. He’s trying to hide it, but he’s freaked out. If Hatchet-Joe gets a hold of him, or any of us, he’ll do more than just kill us.”
“And what do you think would happen to us if you had stranded…” Sadie paused as Todd took a left. “Whoa, you can’t go this way. This is south right? Todd, were you deaf? This is the direction I took those guys.”
“This is the direction we need to go,” was his answer.
Sadie groaned, lifting her arms wide. “At least go around for Pete’s sake.”
“I would if I could,” was all he said on the matter. The answer left Sadie slack-jawed. She sat back, raised her arms again and then let them drop.
“He’s actually right,” Jason said. “We’re too close to the sound. The roads get jammed up good down there. And we don’t have enough fuel to go up into the foothills. Our only choice is to slip through. If we can get ahead of them, then we should be home free.”
Jillybean watched him as he spoke. She stared so hard that it made him uncomfortable. She stared until he looked away. Finally, she said, “I don’t think this was very well thought out and that’s what means you shoulda had a better plan. Maybe we should head to the water and look for a boat. Did they used to have a lot of them around here? Like for fishing or skinny diving?”
“Skinny? Do you mean scuba diving?” he asked. When she nodded, he said, “Yeah, I guess there was a lot, but they’re all gone now. The docks are all empty. I think when the stiffs came, anyone with a boat just lit on out of here. It’s why we came. We’re from Vegas. Lots of stiffs out there. Lots of desert and lots of stiffs. It wasn’t a good combo, let me tell you.”
“I wish I could have a boat,” Jillybean said. “Like a real
boat. I made a boat out of a bounce house this one time. That was fun, right Sa…”
At first Sadie thought that Jillybean had stopped because she had almost given away her name, but then she saw that her blue eyes were focused beyond her. She was looking out the dusty back windows. “Are they here?” Sadie asked.
“Yeah,” she breathed.
Everyone spun about, searching the dark. Sadie squinted, seeing nothing. Sliding from her seat, she walked in a hunch to the rear door and peered out until the moonlight glinted off the slightest touch of chrome. “Damn it! They’re back there about seventy yards. But they’re not getting closer.”
“Motherfucker,” Todd muttered, thumping a fist onto the wheel. “They’re probably calling in the others. Hey, little girl, do whatever you got planned. It’s show time.” He flicked on the headlights and gradually built up speed.
Jillybean rushed down the aisle just as the truck coming up behind turned on its headlights. She froze, transfixed by the light, a perfect target. Sadie reached out and hauled her down into the seat next to her. “No!” Jillybean said, struggling up. “We’re basing our defenses on the idea that they won’t shoot at us. They’ll go for the tires and that’s what is for a certainty.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Sadie asked, eyeing her sister.
She paused and jerked a shoulder. “Then we die just like all the rest. But I don’t think that’ll happen. They don’t think we have any guns so why shoot? Here, hand me a hammer, Mister Jason.” He gave her a claw-backed hammer which she used in an astounding manner: she bashed out the back windows. Next, she pushed open the rear door and, using a shoelace she slid from her pocket, she tied the door back.
Now, she was completely exposed. She was skinny, small, vulnerable, but also self-assured and determined. Sadie had little doubt that she would live even if it meant burning down the world to do it. She would certainly sacrifice the bus without the least hesitation.
The Undead World (Book 10): The Apocalypse Sacrifice Page 25
