The Apocalypse Fugitives

by Peter Meredith

  Clara Gates had been standing with her head bowed and a vacant look to her staring eyes, but at Neil's words she dropped to the ground and started crying.

  "If she goes then I go," Shawn stated.

  Joseph leapt out of the tree with Jillybean right behind him. "I'm going too!" he said running into the clearing.

  Jillybean stopped at the edge of the tree line. She liked Joseph in an odd, making-her tummy-feel-weird sort of way, but that wasn't enough to declare that she was leaving too. She wasn't going anywhere except to find the River King with Neil and Captain Grey in order to rescue Sadie. No one had made mention of this yet, but she knew that was going to be their next adventure, and she couldn't wait.

  "Theatrics aside," Fred said. "A show of hands." For some reason he looked at Amy Gates first. The girl looked as shell-shocked as her mother. Like all the female prisoners she had been raped repeatedly and now she found out that her mother had been working with her captors. She said nothing.

  Next to her, William looking equally miserable and angry, raised his hand. "I vote to banish her. She has to go."

  John Gates also raised his hand. "You killed my mom and dad." He walked over and spat in the dirt in front of her. "You should die for that but if that's not what we are voting on then I say you go!"

  More hands were raised one by one with the verdict coming down on the side of banishment. The anger of the group was such that she was ordered by Fred Trigg to leave immediately with nothing but the clothes on her back. Neil hopped up quick to point out that Shawn was under no such restriction as he was innocent and that if he voluntarily left he could reasonably take a weapon and food since he had brought such items when joining the group.

  Fred argued that they didn't have much to begin with and allowing him to take a weapon would weaken the group. While he was talking, Jillybean grew so angry with him that she picked up a rock and imagined herself beaning him in the head with it.

  We could hide in those bushes and chuck it, Ipes said, excited by the concept, And then zip around using the forest as cover and scootch up next to Captain Grey and act like we'd been there the whole time! It was good plan in her view but it lacked a certain elegance to it. Then how about we throw some poo instead? Ipes suggested. Or how about we slip some inside his tent? Like in his sleeping bag.

  This was more her style. "Or put some in his shoes! When he goes to put them on…Splooshy!"

  Gross! Ipes exclaimed.

  They were just getting deep into their planning when she looked up and saw Joseph begin to cry. She abruptly forgot all about the "poop-shoe caper" as Ipes had classified it and nearly went into the clearing to hold Joseph's hand because he really looked like he needed a handholding, but she held back, knowing that boys were very weird about tears sometimes.

  Everyone stood as Shawn came off the Floating Island with a gun and a backpack. Michael hugged his brother and Jillybean saw Shawn whispered something in his ear. Michael then went to hug Joseph but oddly did not release his grip.

  The ten-year-old squirmed and yelled: "Hey! Let me go!" Michael wouldn't. His parents came and kissed him good bye and bade him to listen to his uncle and be like a son to him. When they left the clearing, Joseph's tears were too much for Jillybean. She went and sat in the dirt next to him and absently drew circles with a little stick as the boy cried. She wanted to pat him on the hand only she guessed he wasn't ready yet and would get mad, so she simply stayed near, ready to give him a sad smile if he needed it.

  During all this Amy Gates just sat there with her eyes glazed over. "Can I hold the baby?" she asked in a whisper. "I need to." Marybeth looked to Neil who nodded. The girl cried over Eve and the clearing was silent for a long time.

  "We should talk about what's going to happen next," the ex-prisoner, Big Bill said into the uncomfortable silence. Shrugs went all around until they got to Fred.

  "You're all welcome to spend the night," he said. "After that we can discuss who will be able to join us."

  "That's very generous of you," Captain Grey said, the sarcasm rich in his voice. He hadn't said much all evening, he only sat with his M4 in pieces before him, calmly cleaning and oiling it in the falling light. "Neil, Jillybean, and I are going to Colorado where I'm stationed. It's a good bunch of people out there, you'd all be welcome."

  "But first we're going to visit the River King to get my daughter back," Neil said. Grey nodded as if the statement had been a given. "Has anyone heard of him?"

  One of the ex-prisoners, a woman, raised her hand. She had a tic bouncing on her cheek and there were dark circles beneath her eyes. "He…he owns the Mississippi. That's what they say."

  "Meaning what?" Grey asked in a soft growl. It was his way of trying to sound nice but Jillybean thought it made him sound even more scary, like he could take a bite out of a person and smile around the meat.

  The woman wouldn't look up as she answered, "He owns the uh, the only way across the river. They say that he knocked down every bridge for a thousand miles so that his bridge would be the only one. He charges people to cross."

  "And he buys girls?" Neil asked. The woman nodded.

  Ipes didn't like the sound of that. You know you're a girl, he said to Jillybean. Maybe you should consider sitting this next one out. Jillybean kept her lips pressed tight since Joseph was right there otherwise she would have told the zebra that she wasn't ascared of the River King on account of the fact that she could swim.

  "Then he's a businessman," Neil said. "He understands the sanctity of the handshake. Of course we will just have to talk him down in price. I say we leave first thing in the morning."

  "I'd like to come as well," Michael said. "Me and my family. Probably all of us would like a change of scenery." He turned to Captain Grey, "Will you lead us?"

  "Hold on now," Fred griped. "You are jumping in way too fast, Michael. You don't even know these people. They could be freaks. They could be leading us into a trap." Fred glanced over at Captain Grey and recoiled slightly from the black look the soldier was giving him. "I'm-I'm just saying we shouldn't make any decisions about leadership or anything for a few days. Not until we know them better."

  "We leave in the morning one way or another," Grey said. In seconds he arranged the pieces of his M4 into a working weapon and pulled back the charging handle and then let the bolt snick home with an evil and conversation ending sound.

  The group broke up and as people were gathering together in knots to figure out where they would sleep, Jillybean suddenly leaned in close to Joseph and hugged him. It was a quick squeeze only and then she was hurrying after Captain Grey, glancing over her shoulder to see what affect the hug had.

  None it seemed. Joseph stood breathing from his slack-jawed mouth and blinking his puffy eyes.

  Jillybean! Ipes hissed. That was a boy in case you didn't notice.

  "Hush," she scolded the zebra. "I know that was a boy. He was sad."

  They went to Captain Grey's Humvee—he had liberated it from the bandits though technically it hadn't been part of the deal. Neil began working on getting a bottle ready for Eve.

  "I can feed her," Amy Gates said. She didn't look ready to give up her hold on the baby any time soon, which was an improvement in her status.

  When Jillybean had wandered down into the woman's prisoner section of the Piggly Wiggly, it was dark and smelled weird. She had moved slowly ready to bolt at the first hint of danger. There was little danger, however from the sad creatures she found chained to the rows of beds. A few of the women, especially the younger and prettier ones like Amy, were catatonic and didn't seem to even see the little girl. The others looked at her in wonder. With all the shooting and screaming a seven-year-old coming to free them was the last thing they had expected.

  "Is this a trick?" the first lady asked, eyeing Jillybean warily.

  "Like a magic trick?" Jillybean replied in confusion. "No, I got the keys. There's no trick, but I always wonder how they work." She didn't get to figure out the mystery of locks a
nd keys just then. Grey, as always hurried them along. He barked orders to the ex-prisoners and within minutes he had executed the terms of the deal and they had driven straight to the clearing.

  "I'd like to feed her if you don't mind," Neil told Amy. His look suggested he feared for his daughter's safety with the slightly imbalanced girl. Amy's face drooped.

  "Let her do it, Neil," Grey ordered. "You and I have some work to do before bed." The captain turned to Marybeth. "Mrs. Gates? Can you keep an eye on things here?" He lifted his chin indicating Jillybean and Amy.

  "I don't need watching," Jillybean said. "Asides, what are you guys gonna do? Anything cool?"

  "What we are going to do is none of your concern," Grey said sharply. "Listen to orders for a change and stay with the group." They walked away leaving her pouting.

  Amy hardly seemed to notice anything but Eve. "See how precious she is. You see little girl? See how precious."

  "I'm not that little," Jillybean said. "And my name is Jillybean."

  Amy's cheek twitched some more and she whispered, "Easter's on its way."

  Is she drunk? Ipes asked. She thinks your name is jelly bean when you said Jillybean clear as day.

  Jillybean shrugged. "Maybe she is." Without appearing obvious, she gave a glance to where Neil and Captain Grey were going. They were climbing into a Humvee! She turned back with a fake smile and said to Marybeth Gates, "I gotta go bathroom."

  "Oh, sure. You should be safe if you don't go too far," Marybeth replied. Jillybean saw her tears and noted how she stroked her niece's hair and how her sad eyes looked for solace in the baby. Marybeth would never notice…

  Notice what? Ipes asked, nervously. Where are you going? You just passed up a perfectly good bush to pee on. And there's another.

  She wasn't listening. Her attention was on the Humvee and on the forest around it. She saw the path through the trees it would have to take and so she darted off to her right. With her monster clothes and her grey makeup she wasn't easy to spot and she made her way unseen to an intersection point and found a bush to crouch behind.

  Do you know your panties are still on? Ipes asked. You're going to make a mess if you start to pee now.

  "Zip it, Ipes, or else," she scolded him.

  Grey steered the Humvee through the trees without the use of his headlights and thus was moving very slowly, so slow that it wasn't all that hard for Jillybean to dash out of her hiding spot and cling to the spare tire on the back. It was much harder to keep her grip. The tire was huge and it vibrated terribly as the vehicle bounced over logs and stuttered over humps and hillocks.

  Ipes, who still hung from the string around her neck, cried, You're going to fall off. Do something. By that he meant: let go and go back with the rest of the group, and be a proper child and see if there were any cookies to be had. She had no intention of doing any of that. She stuck the toe of her sneaker into the deep treads of the spare and began to climb. In seconds she was "safe" sitting on the top of the Humvee.

  You are gonna get in so much trouble, Ipes hissed. What would your mom say if she knew you were riding on top of this thing?

  "Probably the same thing you would say," Jillybean answered. "Because you're a chicken just like…" She bit off her words a second before speaking the horrible truth—it was fear that had killed her mother, not starvation. This was something she had never said aloud.

  The pair was quiet for the next few minutes. Jillybean sat with her feet on the spare tire and her skinny butt on the roof's edge. She knew her precarious perch bothered Ipes but she wanted to prove she wasn't afraid, both to him and to herself. Ironically she acted brave out of fear that if she ever stopped she would end up like her mother: so paralyzed by terror that she had been literally scared to death.

  Ipes cleared his throat and said, Some fear is ok. It's healthy. Like when you drove that truck into the building. I could tell you were afraid. But no fear is just silly, like when you freed Captain Grey from the boat people.

  "You couldn't be more wrong," she replied. "I was excited when I crashed the truck, not afraid. You were the one with all the fear. And about the boat, please!"

  Please, what?

  "I admit the roundy-roundy thing…"

  The propeller?

  "Yes, I admit the propeller made me anxious, that's what means only a little bit ascared because really, what else was there to be afraid of? Anyone who works that hard to hide is ascared of their own shadow. And asides I'm a kid. They didn't look like the kind of people that would hurt a kid."

  Oh, boy, we're stopping, Ipes said in a whisper.

  The Humvee came to a creeping stop in the same glade that Captain Grey had been kidnapped from the day before. Jillybean flattened herself out on the roof and perked her ears as the two men got out.

  "I think we should wait until we rescue Sadie. She would want to say a proper goodbye," Neil said.

  "Neil, no," Grey said in his soft growl. "Sarah is gone. What's left is just her body. It's not her. And there's the smell…"

  "We can wrap her in more sheets," Neil said jumping in at Grey's pause.

  "And there's disease. Neil, her body was simply on loan to us from the earth. We have to give it back. It's time."

  They were going to bury Miss Sarah! The thought struck Jillybean hard and she had to hold back her tears. She failed. They leaked down her face and one little sniffle was all it took. Captain Grey stepped on the bumper and hoisted himself up to stare right into her face.

  "What did I tell you?" he demanded, angrily.

  "You said to stay with the group," she replied. "But you're my group."

  "This is just like earlier!" he said, slapping his hand down on the roof in frustration. "I told you to stay with the damned truck and what did you do?"

  "I stayed with the truck for-reals. You can ask Ipes. He'll tell you, I never left the truck except to get the sticks and they were right there. I mean I could have like stretched real far but I didn't think you would mind if I walked just a few feet away."

  "You're being a pain," Grey said.

  Neil pulled Grey down by the tail of his BDU shirt. "It's ok, Grey. Jillybean just wants to be a part of this. We probably should have asked her to come along."

  Grey reached up with his hands out and Jillybean slid into his arms. "Weren't you the one who didn't want to do this in the first place?" Grey asked as he set her on the ground. "And now she's here you're ok with it?"

  Instead of answering Neil shrugged with a tiny lift of his shoulders and then looked around at the dark forest. Next his eyes went to the partially dug grave. A clod of dirt sat on the rim and he crushed it under foot. He opened his mouth and then shut it again.

  Do you think he heard the question? Ipes wondered.

  Jillybean shushed the zebra which made Neil look at her or rather through her. His eyes seemed focused on something behind her. It was unnerving to the little girl who glanced back just in case there was something coming up on her. There wasn't anything there. "You ok, Mister Neil? Ipes says people with fits act like this sometimes. Fit is what means they get all shaky and weird, but only sometimes, because sometimes they look like you look. We saw a doctor show once and the patient would stand there and not move and…"

  "I don't want to bury her because I'm afraid that I won't cry," Neil whispered. "I'm afraid that I'll have to fake it, because…because, she was my wife and a man has to cry when his wife dies, only I know I won't. I don't feel anything. Like I don't care. Like she was just someone…some stranger."

  "Oh," Grey said, quietly. "That, uh, that makes sense."

  "It doesn't make sense to me," Neil shot back.

  I'm with Neil, Ipes said. Why wouldn't he cry? Miss Sarah was nice. Jillybean could only shrug.

  Grey put a hand on Neil's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Grieving can be like that, Neil. There is no right way to grieve and no wrong way either. Trust me on this, the emotion will come and when it does you may wish it hadn't."

  Neil only answere
d with a quiet: "Yeah."

  The two men buried Sarah's body with few words and little fanfare and worst of all, in Jilly's opinion, no flowers. After a brief, sad prayer, Grey tamped down the dirt and started to leave.

  "Hold on, please. We aren't done," Jillybean said. She went around the glade taking a single pink bloom from each of the flowering plants that bordered the clearing. "Flowers are important. Specially to girls." She put them in a pile on the fresh turned dirt and arranged them as nice as she could. When she was done she stood and cleared her throat, imitating Neil before an important speech.

  "Dear Miss Sarah," she began as if reading a letter. "I'm sorry you died and I'm sorry the Believers were so mean to you. You were very pretty and nice and we really liked it when you fixed Ipes' neck. He says he likes you too and also he says thank you, too. Ummm…" She began rocking up on her toes and down on her heels as she struggled to find the right words. "Also I love you and so does Mister Neil and also Sadie. Sadie got captured so she can't be here but she loves you for-reals. And I know you loved me for-reals, too, though you pretended like you didn't. But I know you did because you saved me and that's what means love."

  Again she paused, this time because she could feel tears start to swell in her eyes. She couldn't think of Sarah stepping between her and the bounty hunter's gun without feeling the tears come. She blinked them away, thinking that it would be rude to cry in front of Neil. In her mind it would be like showing off. After a deep breath she finished, "Anyway, be good in heaven and don't be sad because we are all going to be ok. Love you, bye."

  "That was good," Captain Grey told her. "What did you think, Neil?"

  "I'm sure Sarah liked it," Neil said with a grin. The twerked upturned lips was a terrible lie; the grin was fake. Even Jillybean could see the misery behind it. "Come on, we should go," he said and started away.

  Captain Grey put out a hand as though he was going to grab Neil by the collar and pull him back, instead after only a slight hesitation he just patted him on the shoulder and walked him back to the Humvee. Jillybean carried the entrenching tool and spent the ride back figuring out how to re-fold it.