Sadie pointed the gun over her shoulder and fired, hitting the roof of the car with her first shot and the steering wheel right next to her leg with the second. If she could only spin around she would have a chance but the angle was wrong and the car too cramped. “Jillybean!” Sadie screamed and then she saw the little girl race back with a brick in her hand. There was a thump and Sadie was released.
Quickly she spun around and brought the rifle to bear just as the zombie raised its misshapen head once again. This time her bullet found its target and black brains showered the driver’s side.
Shaken and partially deaf from shooting from the inside of a car, Sadie climbed out. Jillybean made a face at the zombie and then asked, “What were you going to say?”
Sadie stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled it around. The little girl’s words had come with a ringing that wouldn’t leave. “I was going to say I love you.” Had she shouted that? Had the whole zombie community heard?
Clearly it hadn’t come out as well as she had wanted to. Jillybean looked slightly confused and a little disappointed. “Oh.”
Sadie stepped toward her and she stepped back.
“Jilly?”
The little girl shook her head. “No. She appreciates it, but it wasn’t good enough. And it wasn’t good enough that she had to kill that monster for you. You would have died without her and you’ll probably die now, sorry.”
“What do you mean?”
As an answer she pointed a small finger, eastward, behind Sadie. When the Goth girl turned her breath stuck in her throat. Straight down the road a black truck was barreling right at them. It wasn’t Neil or Nico or even Captain Grey—Sadie could see the familiar green camouflage of the bounty hunter.
Chapter 36
Sarah
New Eden
The handcuffs were very tight. After only two hours the skin at her wrists had chafed and parted. She had bled and for some reason this bothered Abraham far more than Sarah’s “crime”.
“That was a perfectly good robe,” he said, disapprovingly—this was after he had told her she would be burned alive. His own robe was so satiny-white that the yellow light from the single bulb dangling above seemed to slip off its surface and gather at his feet.
“Sorry for your loss,” Sarah said with heavy sarcasm. “I know how much you value robes more than people.”
“Some people, that’s true,” Abraham said with a little nod, “You, for instance. Deniers are the lowest form of life and cannot be tolerated to live a second longer than necessary. I mentioned the robe because it is a fine metaphor. Everything man touches is destroyed if his hands are stained with sin. What was pure is now stained, irrevocably.”
“Too bad. Maybe your zombie-brained bitch-pack shouldn’t have tightened these cuffs so much. Then we both would’ve been happy. I bet if you think real hard you can find another useless metaphor to describe that.”
Abraham’s smile slipped just the slightest before he could restore it to its normal brilliance. “Why are you here, Denier?”
“I came for Eve. You know that,” she said heatedly. “You know I’m her mother and after the little incident with the hand grenade you should’ve known I wasn’t going to just forget her. Any garden-variety prophet should’ve been able to see that. I wonder why you didn’t. My guess is because you’re a fraud.”
He ignored the insult. “And your friends? Where are they? Where are Sadie and the Russian? You didn’t travel all this way with only a lunatic as a companion.”
Sarah smiled, looking up at the ladder that Abraham had descended in order to get into her prison. Her cell was nothing but a ten-foot-deep pit with a trench at one end for her to crap into. Her smile turned into a chuckle. “Why on earth would I tell you where they are? So you could kill them? Here’s what I will tell you, that you don’t seem to realize: you’re an idiot, a real fucking idiot.”
“Lower your voice,” Abraham warned. “Right now we’re just having a conversation. If you push me, I could have the Sisters start filling in this hole with you in it.”
“That doesn’t scare me in the least.” Compared to being burned to death, being buried alive didn’t seem all that bad. Really, nothing she could think of seemed as bad as being burned to death. Every time fire or burning was mentioned, she felt her chest constrict in fear, though she did her best to mask her fear with a very real hate. She couldn’t stop sneering at Abraham. Even when she had laughed it had been around a curled lip.
Abraham noticed, and just like the more subtle insults she threw his way, he chose to ignore it. “Yes, I suppose it is hard to scare someone who has a death wish, so I’ll lay off with the threats. I do have inducements that you might want to consider.”
“It doesn’t matter what you offer. I won’t give up my friends, so don’t waste your breath. Besides, what could you possibly offer me? Once you tell someone they’re going to be burned to death, there’s not much more to say.”
“Maybe,” he said, touching the side of her cell, feeling the dirt. He made a face and wiped his hands together. “There are still things I can do for you. Eve, for instances. You could see her one more time.”
Sarah’s mouth came open like a starving man suddenly set before a feast. With a great struggle, she shook her head. “No, I won’t give them up. What do you want them for? Especially Nico, he’s not a Denier. Is it the money? Are you looking to cash in on the reward?”
He rolled his eyes. “Please! What would I need with money? The Lord has blessed me in ways beyond your ken, or to put it in a way you might understand, I have every worldly good available to me already. Were I to turn the two of them over to Yuri, it wouldn’t be for the money. Unfortunately, the world is once again embroiled in politics and intrigue. The truth is I would use the pair as a gesture of goodwill to our friends to the north.”
“Wow, that is noble of you, letting Yuri kill two innocent people as a gesture of goodwill. Let me think about it.” She glanced up at the light bulb for half-a-second. “Naw.”
Abraham’s smile vanished. “That’s what I thought. The hallmark of the Denier is extreme selfishness. I’m trying to bring two city-states together in peace but since you lack the vision to see that, I will sweeten the pot so to speak. I could make your passing easier.”
“How?” Sarah asked, hearing the hope in her own voice. Immediately she felt embarrassed by her weakness, but just the same, she didn’t retract the question.
“You may think that I am some sort of monster, but in truth, I do not wish to cause anyone pain, not even you. My wish is to free people who are trapped by sin to give them a chance at heaven. Sadly there are some who can’t be freed with reason and must be freed through the purity of fire. That being said, since it is not against God’s commandments, I will frequently give a Denier a hallucinogen before their purifying. You’d still feel the pain, but you’d be in such a state that you wouldn’t care. As an example, one girl just watched as the fire ate her right up. It was chilling, but at the same time comforting to know she wasn’t mentally there, feeling everything you or I would feel.”
The picture Abraham had painted was stuck in her head and she knew it wouldn’t leave. “You’re a sick fuck,” Sarah seethed. “You pretend the drugs are to help your victims, but I think it’s just so you get a better show out of them. Did you claim that one girl who let the fire eat her was possessed? Was her bizarre behavior your proof?”
Abraham shook his head with so much faux-sadness that if her hands weren’t cuffed behind her back she would’ve punched him. “Let us worry about you. The fire is a hard death. Think about it.”
Another sneering laugh cracked Sarah’s lips. “You should be more worried about your own death, prophet. History isn’t kind to religious leaders when their time catches up to them. Will they crucify you upside down like they did Saint Peter? Or stone you to death? Or do you have some poisoned Kool-Aid ala Jim Jones?”
His eyes turned hard, but not before Sarah was sure she saw a touch of
fear in them. “Laugh if you wish,” he hissed. “Laugh right into the fire. But look around as you do. I am the Lord’s Prophet. He has protected me. He has rejoiced in my presence here on earth. He has given…”
Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. “Blah, blah, blah. I’m not giving up my friends.”
His eyes flashed once more before he was able to control himself. With a great sigh, he went to the ladder and leaned back against it, hooking one heel on the lowest rung. “So be it. They’re probably at that little house we found Mark in not so many weeks ago. I shall send a team. When they’re found, you’re going to wish you had cooperated.”
“I really doubt that’s where they are,” she said icily. Surprisingly, he only shrugged and then turned around to head back up the ladder. “That’s it?” she asked. “That’s all the blustering you have for me?”
“I think it’s a little late for more blustering as you called it. I’m not angry since I never really thought you’d tell me. Did you expect torture?” Her facial expression spoke for her and he laughed in his big way. “How would it look if the Prophet of the Lord tortured people?”
“Not good, I guess.”
“Finally, your wisdom has shown through your insolence.”
“Are you expecting me to say thank you?” she asked as he paused after the remark.
“Since it was intended as a compliment, yes.” He started up the ladder saying over his shoulder, “See you in a few hours.”
“Wait!” Sarah hissed. There was a question inside that had been burning her guts for the last month. “Why do you want Eve so badly? You’re not going to do anything to her, are you?” He paused on the stairs and she saw his eyes shift down and away. She’d never had a clairvoyant moment in her life. Nor was she any more intuitive than the next person, but just then she knew with every ounce of her being what Abraham planned for Eve.
“Don’t you dare!” Sarah screamed. Abraham went up the ladder, considerably stiffer than when he came down. Because her hands were cuffed, Sarah tried to kick the ladder down. It was her intention to stomp him to death. “Don’t you dare, you sick fuck! Get down here!"
Then he was gone, and the ladder was drawn up.
"Don’t touch her, please." Sarah stood, begging up at the black hole above her. What Abraham was going to do to Eve was too much to bear. She fell into the shadows and cried until every drop of moisture had left her and she felt hollow and old.
The hours dripped by. At first her brain was too numb for her to do anything but lie on the hard-packed earth and moan in misery. Eventually, her throat cracked and her eyes were so bloodshot she could feel the veins in them like hot, red threads. When she realized that not only were her hands numb, but her arms all the way to her shoulders were as well, she picked herself up and tried to shake herself to get the circulation going again.
As she did she tried her best to plan and to plot her way into an escape, but her ability to channel even the least of Jillybean’s intuition failed her. With the steel cuffs so tight, there was no getting out of her make-shift prison.
Next, she tried to force her tired brain into creating some combination of words that she could scream to Abraham’s Believers before they set her on fire. Something that would get them to turn on him, to rise up and overthrow his insane rule. However, when she played Devil’s Advocate and took his side to rebut her own arguments, they melted like cotton candy in a storm.
Not only did he have “God” on his side he had the fantastic fear of God on his side. All she had were accusations and nothing else.
She was still racking her brain for an answer when an early dinner of ground venison and corn was brought for her by two of the Sisters, one of whom covered Sarah with a taser while the other placed a plastic plate on the dirt next to the ladder. Neither of the women spoke. Sarah glanced once at the food and then turned away. She was too afraid of what was coming to eat and the sight of it made her nauseous. After a few minutes she kicked the plate into the crap-trough.
It was nearly six p.m. by then.
She would be “purified” after the six o’clock service. That’s what Abraham had decreed earlier in the day when she had been brought before him. Though Sarah had been shackled, she had been accompanied by four Sisters, all of whom were armed. They had pushed her to her knees in front of him and he only stared until Shondra, her one-time best friend came forward to identify Sarah and denounce her as a Denier.
Abraham’s eyebrow twitched just a single time as he recognized Sarah, but he didn’t rant or rave. He feigned sadness at her betrayal and called her Judas. “Every great prophet of the Lord must bear this burden of a Judas in his midst. Pray there is only one denier amongst us.”
Obediently, the Sisters and Shondra had begun praying. Sarah had been too stunned to do anything more productive than to gaze around, hoping to catch sight of Eve.
Now, in her pit she strained to hear the frantic praying that would mean the service had started. The air was dead and fetid. It was heavy as well, like a weight that sagged her shoulders and bent her back. She leaned on the dirt wall and that was when she felt the vibrations through the earth.
My Life. My Death. For you.
She knew the words and began to mumble them under her breath. It was soothing in its way to be able to just turn off her brain and mindlessly chant. It seemed to go on longer than normal, but eventually it had to come to an end. The vibrations ceased and silence held sway in the earth.
Sarah began to shake uncontrollably.
Chapter 37
Sadie
Monticello, Georgia
Jillybean ran, disappearing from Sadie’s peripheral vision. The Goth girl couldn’t spare even a second to see which way she went. The black truck with the bounty hunter behind the wheel was going about eighty and it would be on them in seconds, if she didn’t do something to slow it down.
Up came the M4 and she sighted down it, feeling cool metal press against her cheek. At two hundred yards, the truck was too big to miss. She started ripping lead into it as fast as she could while all around her feet hot brass danced and skipped with a merry jingle on the pavement. Silver-white stars began appearing in the truck’s windshield, letting Sadie know she was on target.
The truck yawed hard to the side and stopped with a screech of tires. For a split second, Sadie felt a rush, thinking she had killed the bounty hunter, but then the black muzzle of his rifle appeared over the hood. She dove behind the Jetta as the air whipped and cracked around her.
After counting to five, she was about to leap up and return fire when she saw that the M4's ejection port was open—she was out of ammo! She started patting her pockets when she remembered the extra magazines were in her pack and that was in the Jetta which seemed to be disintegrating as the hunter kept her pinned behind it. She poked her head up for a second and felt the wind of a passing bullet.
“Holy shit!” she cried, ducking back down.
For a few more seconds the Jetta absorbed an amazing amount of punishment and then the tok, tok, tok of bullets thumping home ceased, it was replaced by the zip of them passing overhead. Sadie was confused; did he expect her to stand up?
The confusion didn’t last long. It was startled out of her by the roar of a second engine. In amazement, she turned to see Captain Grey’s Humvee charging. It blazed right past her, jinking hard, left and right. Without thinking of the consequences, Sadie jumped up and went for the extra ammo; she only had seconds.
Captain Grey was charging the hunter, virtually unarmed.
Neil had been armed with the axe. Nico, because of his bad arm had been given the shotgun and Sadie had been given Grey’s M4. Grey was charging with only his Humvee and a knife.
Sadie yanked open the back seat of the Jetta, stuffed her hand into the pack and, like magic, a magazine was right there. In four seconds the rifle was ready to fire. She pulled herself back out only to see the black truck taking off in peel of rubber. Thankfully the bounty hunter didn’t seem to realize th
at Grey’s charge was all bluff.
Quickly she lowered her weapon. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally disable the truck; the bounty hunter would come out shooting and it would be quickly apparent that no one in the humvee was shooting back.
When the two vehicles disappeared around the corner, Sadie took off at a sprint, not after Grey, but after Jillybean. Things had transpired so quickly that the girl had maybe a twenty-five second head start, which wasn’t much when Sadie’s speed was factored in. In a full sprint she raced down the side street Jillybean had disappeared down.
As expected the girl wasn’t in sight.
“Jillybean!” she called. No answer. Halfway down the block, Sadie slowed and tried using her brains instead of her legs. Jillybean couldn’t match her in speed. She would hide or use a trick of some sort. The street off the main strip did not boast much: a used book shop with all its windows blown out, a rib joint, an antique store, and a dive bar advertising a three-lane bowling alley in the back.
To her right a zombie was lurching in her direction, seeming to have come from the book store. Did the beast have any significance? Had it just been attracted by all the shooting, or was it heading her way because of something Jillybean had done? Sadie was almost paralyzed with indecision.
Since it was coming from a book store that could mean that Jillybean had run in there, hidden, and tossed out a magic marble to get the zombie to leave. Sadie took a single step toward the book store. Or...it could be that’s what Jillybean wanted Sadie to think. She knew that when Sadie saw the book store she would associate it with Jillybean. Would Jillybean employ a double-misdirection?
“Ugh! I hate using my brain,” Sadie cried.
The zombie was still coming. It was a slow one, gimpy because it was missing most of its left foot. Sadie concluded that it had been moving even before she had run down the alley—which meant that Jilly hadn’t included Sadie in her thinking when she had run away. Maybe. When Jillybean had started running away, she had to have thought the gun battle would last longer than it did, which meant the zombie was random.
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