The Apocalypse Outcasts
The Undead World: Novel 3
By Peter Meredith
Copyright 2014
Kindle Edition
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Fictional works by Peter Meredith:
A Perfect America
The Sacrificial Daughter
The Horror of the Shade Trilogy of the Void 1
An Illusion of Hell Trilogy of the Void 2
Hell Blade Trilogy of the Void 3
The Punished
Sprite
The Feylands: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Sun King: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Sun Queen: A Hidden Lands Novel
The Apocalypse: The Undead World Novel 1
The Apocalypse Survivors: The Undead World Novel 2
The Apocalypse Outcasts: The Undead World Novel 3
The Apocalypse Fugitives: The Undead World Novel 4
Pen(Novella)
A Sliver of Perfection (Novella)
The Haunting At Red Feathers(Short Story)
The Haunting On Colonel's Row(Short Story)
The Drawer(Short Story)
The Eyes in the Storm(Short Story)
Chapter 1
David Wolf
New York City
In the month since Yuri Petrovich had perfected and demonstrated his vaccine, the Nordic Star had come to resemble, both in smell and appearance, the Grand Bazaar of Marrakesh. Vibrantly colored stalls lined both sides of the new pier where the cruise ship was docked while nearly every cabin onboard had been converted into a storefront of one sort or another.
Crowds bickered and bartered over every conceivable item, from the obvious: ammunition, food, and fuel—to the exotic: heroin, helicopters and even humans.
In her hatred, Cassie Mason had opened a door to the Seventeenth Century and now a new slave trade had sprung up. These poor creatures, their necks encircled in steel, were exclusively women.
David Wolf had his sights on one in particular, an Irish-looking girl with abundant red hair. She was small and pale with the fine bone structure of a sparrow. Her eyes were large and green and showed every single emotion that turned in her mind. Mostly it was fear that sat in those pretty eyes.
Wolf could see that she feared him, but there was little he could do about that and less that he wanted to do about it. He was an easy man to fear. His own eyes were grey and empty. They were flat, just like his every expression. Even when he felt an emotion, beyond contempt, no one could tell.
He seemed to be the kind of man who could kill without the least qualm, which was exactly the kind of man he was. He was a sociopath and no longer bothered to hide it. Now, his lack of moral underpinnings was a distinct advantage in this new post-apocalyptic age.
“Let me smell that one,” Wolf said, lifting his scruffy chin to indicate the Irish-looking girl.
Along with six slaves, there were two small, rat-like and swarthy men in the ship’s cabin. Unlike the pale girl, they didn’t fear David Wolf in the least. They had noted his size and his rough exterior, and that the knuckles of both his hands were crisscrossed with old scars, but they knew Nordic Star security would defend them if he turned nasty.
There weren’t many laws onboard the Nordic Star, but if one of the few was ever broken, justice was blindingly swift, and the penalties savage. Yuri Petrovich had learned his lesson. Before his two ferry boats had been sunk by a six-year-old girl, he had tried to skimp on security. Now his black garbed thugs lurked everywhere, ready to crack skulls at the first hint of trouble.
“You wanna smell her?” one of the two men asked. “What? Her pussy? Naw. Not until I see your tally sheet.”
Wolf didn’t twitch a muscle. His tally sheet would remain in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t about to divulge how much he was worth, not at this stage of the bargaining. “How much is she?” he asked.
“Eight thousand,” the man replied, setting the price ridiculously high in preparation for the haggling that he hoped would commence. Wolf had come by every day for the last week to ogle the redhead and now his obsession couldn’t be suppressed. Still, his willpower was formidable. He stared at the man, allowing an uncomfortable silence to come between them. “What?” the man asked after a minute. “I said eight thousand. You got nothing to say to that?”
According to his tally sheet, David Wolf was worth in gas, food, and other miscellaneous items, fourteen hundred 9mm bullets. The 9mm cartridge, also going by the names: 9x19mm, 9mm Luger, 9mm Parabellum, and 9mm NATO, all described the same cartridge and was the most abundant bullet currently available. It was basically the “Dollar” of the new undead world. Fourteen hundred was a goodly sum, but clearly not goodly enough.
“You got an hourly on her?” David asked, testing. If there was an hourly he wouldn’t bother. He wasn’t interested in a rental with the option to buy, and he definitely wasn’t interested in someone else’s leftovers.
The man who had, up to now, done all the talking rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. His partner, working a tag team shook his head in a display of sadness, still trying to hook a sale. “No way, my main man,” he said with a foreign accent. “These aren’t those kind of girls. No one’s going to pony up eight large for a used-up girl. Am I right? Here, tell me, how much ya got? Maybe we can work a deal for another girl. What about this one? Her name’s Jennifer. She’s sweet and not that bad to look at. And she can cook. You can cook, right Jen?”
The woman in question was long in the face and reminded Wolf of an aunt of his who was very likely dead. She nodded timidly at the question and kept her eyes down at the carpet. Wolf barely gave her a glance. His main focus was on the Irish girl. She had caught his attention. She was the one for him. She had that certain something that stirred want in him. It was a rare feeling for him.
“No. I want the other one,” he said. There it was spoken aloud: want. He understood have better.
“Oh, my main man,” the salesman said in a sad tone. “You can’t afford her. I can see that.”
“I can do five thousand.” Though his tally sheet said fourteen hundred, he had another two-thousand—mostly in fuel—squirreled away in a shed in some crappy New Jersey town. The remainder he would scrounge up. The girl was very much like the first car he had ever purchased: shiny, sleek, and hot. The car, a 2002 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder, had been way out of his price range but he knew he had to have it and when David Wolf put his mind to something he was extremely focused.
“Let’s not play around,” the salesman said with a laugh. “Look at her. Have you seen anyone like her since the apocalypse? She is a natural redhead. Oh, yes, my main man, the collar matches the cuffs with this one. She is perfect. Skin as soft as silk and clear as marble. And,” he laughed again and gave Wolf a wink, “she’s virtually untouched.”
“Virtually?”
“Come on. Do you expect her to be a virgin, in this day and age? Please. If you want a virgin, go see my cousin Sami three doors down. He’s got a couple of twelve-year olds with skinny legs and no ass. Who wants that? Not you, my main man. You want a woman who knows her way around things, you just don’t want her all used and up and flapping. Am I right? I am right. Ok, ok. For you, I’ll do seventy five hundred.”
Wolf stepped closer and gazed down at the Irish girl. She was on her knees, holding a light summer dress tight to her thighs as though she feared he would yank her dress up to check to see if she really was a natural redhead. He squatted down next to her. She was clea
n, smelling of shampoo and a light perfume.
“Let me see your teeth,” he ordered.
After swallowing once she opened her mouth hesitantly sticking out a soft pink tongue. Her teeth were small, even, and white. Her breath was warm. He took one of her tiny hands in his and turned it this way and that. He then checked her ears; they were small with a single piercing in each. It was good.
“Seven thousand,” Wolf said. “Fourteen hundred today. Two thousand tomorrow. The rest in a couple of weeks.”
The salesman considered this while running his hands through his greasy, thinning hair. “I could go as low as seven if you had the full amount now. But you want me to also pay for her room and board for another couple of weeks? No way, my main man. We have quick turnover here. I can’t afford to have a girl hanging around, and what happens if you come back without the rest of the payment?”
“You keep what I’ve given you,” Wolf replied. “Give me three weeks from tomorrow to get you the rest of the money. Plus, I’ll throw in another hundred for storage, but I want her in one piece. If she’s been pawed over…” He didn’t need to finish his sentence. The cold message of death in his eyes was enough.
“Three weeks?” the salesman said to himself quietly. He screwed up his small eyes in thought, looked at the carpet, at the girl, and then shrewdly he examined David Wolf. “Ok. You have until noon, three weeks from tomorrow. Not a minute later.”
Wolf turned to leave, but then paused and asked the girl, “What’s your name?”
Again, she had to swallow audibly before she could answer: “Brandee.”
His lip curled. “Sounds like a stripper’s name. From now on your name is Erin. I like that better.”
When he left the slave deck, as the lowest deck of the Nordic Star had become known, he went straight to the message boards on display on the top deck. His grey eyes scanned the notices, looking for the telltale pistols in the corners that were the universal symbol for a gunman for hire. There were only a few: people looking for armed escorts into one Black zone or another. These interested him, but the timing was off. Either the expeditions had already occurred or were coming up weeks out.
His eyes then fell on the bounties. There were over a dozen, most for piddling amounts and for trifling reasons, however two were for substantially more:
Reward!
Dead or Alive
Sadie Walcott
Female Caucasian
Age: 17-20—Height: 64”—Weight:100lbs
Black hair, brown/dark eyes
Nico Grekov
Male Caucasian
Age: 26—Height: 71”—Weight:180lbs
Blonde, blue eyes
^5000 reward will be paid upon receipt of either fugitive aboard the Nordic Star.
The pair is thought to be traveling with a 36 year old woman; *Sarah Rivers: Blonde, Blue eyes, 64” 105lbs
*No bounty is to be paid for any person or persons traveling with wanted fugitives.
*Bounty hunters will not be reimbursed for any expenses incurred.
His eyes bugged at seeing the number ^5000. For a bounty, it was astronomical and suggested that Yuri was less interested in getting the two fugitives than he was in sending a message. The message was obvious: Don’t fuck with Yuri.
Wolf took the notice, folding it into his pocket. Like everybody else he had heard the story of the vaccine demonstration and what had happened in its aftermath. The story had grown and warped with each telling. In one version the teenage girl, Sadie, was actually a master ninja who had killed a dozen men with her bare hands. In another, it was Nico, her Russian boyfriend, who had planted bombs on the ferry boats in a botched attempt to free one of the prisoners.
Wolf didn’t really care what the real story was. He had money to make fast. There were hundreds of eyewitnesses who had seen the ships go up in flames and the fight in the water afterwards, but only one who saw what happened on the bottom deck of Nordic Star, just before that.
He left to find a woman named Donna Rice. She lived on a barge just upstream. Rumor had it she was reluctant to tell her tale; unfortunately for her David Wolf could be extremely persuasive when he needed to be.
Chapter 2
Sarah Rivers
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
With her muscles tensely bunched and spring-loaded, Sarah swept into the kitchen holding her shotgun steady despite the sweat slicking her hands. Her denim blue eyes, sharp and quick, flicked all around the room. The fact that it was clear of zombies did not cause her to relax much at all. Instead, her breathing picked up in tempo: the cupboard doors were unexpectedly and amazingly closed. A closed door meant that perhaps, just perhaps, no other forager had been here before her.
The room was still, with a frozen quality, as if the oxygen in the air hung in sheets. The floor was layered in eight month’s worth of fine grey dust. It was perfectly even and Sarah ran tracks right through it, hurrying to the first cabinet, her long blonde hair swinging gently behind.
The cabinet held glasses, mugs, champagne flutes, brandy snifters, tall plastic gas station giveaways. She went to the next cupboard finding plates, bowls, saucers... “Shit,” she crabbed, going to the next in line.
From the front stairs, Nico called out in his accented voice, “You is find something?”
Before she answered, she swung back the cupboard door that was closest to the refrigerator. Before the apocalypse, this would have been the territory of spices and cooking oil, and odds and ends such as dry white wine and molasses. In every other house they had been through in the last few days this cupboard was generally strewn with a confusion of toothpicks, muffin sleeves, and grey, green, and white particles—the remnants of what used to be.
This particular cupboard was wonderfully different. The spices were faultlessly arranged like soldiers on parade and ordered alphabetically: Allspice leading the front left column, Tarragon heading up the last on the right.
“Nope, there’s nothing here,” Sarah lied as her eyes ran up the fully stocked shelves. At the sight of the cornmeal, the tin of flour, and the bag of sugar, her stomach rumbled. Then she saw something that really got her going.
“Oh my God,” she said in a whisper, touching the feet of a five-inch tall bear filled with golden honey. It was a struggle not to pop its top right there and pour it down her throat.
From the second floor, Nico cursed their luck, causing Sarah to blink—the honey had mesmerized her. “Let’s try the next house,” she called out. In a hurry she left the kitchen, making sure to shut the door to her prize behind her and trying her best to appear disappointed.
The Russian came slowly down the stairs. “Maybe we should try garage. The door is not open. That is usual good sign.”
Shaking her head, Sarah began walking to the front door. “No. Let’s not waste our time. We’ll go to the next one.” Nico viewed her as almost his “mother-in-law” and was usually quick to knuckle-under when she made demands. Not this time.
“I suppose nothing in kitchen must mean rest of house empty.” Russians were generally ham-handed in their approach to sarcasm, they always over did it. Nico even added a tremendous eye-roll to his windy sigh.
“Yep, let’s go,” Sarah replied. She was out the door before he could work up a second sigh; his usual when he didn’t get his way. Once outside she glanced at the house and began repeating its number under her breath: “One-forty-two Clermont. One-forty-two Clermont.”
Nico came out, keeping his chiseled features neutral. “So next place, da?” he asked, making sure to walk in a wide circle around her. As a matter of habit in spite of its rudeness, she stepped away from him as though he had something catchy.
Nico was her daughter’s boyfriend and a fine man in Sarah’s eyes, but she could not bear to be near him, or any man for that matter, not after her experience aboard the Nordic Star. Even in the car she would practically lean on her door, and she always kept her Beretta close. Even then she could feel it warm against her hip, as if it wer
e alive—the opposite of her heart. That organ was ice cold, and frequently felt odd, as though it were foreign to her, like it didn’t belong.
When a man was near, even a gentle man such as Nico, her heart seemed to swell. It would balloon inside as if it could take up her entire chest and it would pump so violently she could see the pulse in her wrist jumping like there was something beneath her skin fighting to get out.
If there wasn’t a man nearby, her heart was a little, rotten thing. What should have aroused it, such as Neil being sweet, Jillybean being cute, Sadie cracking her jokes and then holding her hand, did nothing whatsoever to stir emotion within it. Sarah was dead inside.
“Yeah, let’s check out the next one,” she said, while in her mind she repeated the words, one-forty-two Clermont. The house had been the first fully intact home they had chanced upon in days. The moping willows hanging over a dirt drive and the chaotic overgrown shrubbery were the likely reasons why; it was practically hidden from sight, even when they were standing on the sidewalk.
Heading to the next house, a boxy, ranch-style home that had clearly been broken into already, Sarah whispered: “One-forty-two Clermont,” and felt something new: guilt. Her family needed whatever supplies had been in that last house. The five of them had burned through the stores Nico had stolen from his former employer, Yuri Petrovich, and now they were down to a couple of days’ worth of food. They were getting so low that Jillybean had set a clear pitcher of water filled with chopped pine needles in the morning sun just the day before.
“They’ll be fine,” Sarah said, under her breath, trying to convince herself. They should be fine, but she wouldn’t be. She would need everything in that house and more. She would need it to feed herself and to barter with. “Besides, they have each other.”
Sadie was in good hands with Nico, and Neil was at the height of happiness raising seven-year-old Jillybean. All that Sarah had was the memory of being repeatedly raped and the hope that she would be strong enough to go to New Eden and fight Abraham and his sick cult for her baby daughter, Eve, no matter what the cost.
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