The Apocalyse Outcasts

by Peter Meredith

  “You are scared otherwise I wouldn’t be here,” Ipes said, walking to the backpack and pulling out a toy zebra. It had a deflated air and, strangely, was like a corpse.

  Uh-uh. I’m not ascared, Jillybean said. There’s no danger now and so you can’t go running my body. So get out. You know daddy wouldn’t want you to do what you’re doing.

  Ipes laughed in Jillybean’s high, little girl laugh and said, “You are more afraid than you realize. The reason you don’t think you’re afraid is because I take all your fears and I hold them for you. I sift them for you. I keep some back and only give you what you can handle. This is what you’d be like without me.”

  Suddenly, Jillybean felt a rush of static run up her limbs, her face twisted, her jaw working on its bone-hinges. Her control was coming back and with it came a frightening chill. She came awake and knew things...or perhaps now understood what she already knew:

  There were monsters in the forest, some very close by. They would kill her if they found her. They’d eat her face as she screamed, or they’d open up the soft skin of her belly and pull out ropes of intestines, or they’d...

  “Stop it, please,” Jillybean whimpered. She cowered from her own imagination, shaking all over with Ipes and the Velveteen Rabbit crushed to her chest. Her cheeks had gone pale and, beneath the zombie shawl, she felt cold and clammy.

  There’s a lot more to be afraid of, Ipes whispered in her head. The bounty hunter. The slavers. Those stupid Believers who’ll kill you for no reason at all...the fact that your mom and dad are dead and that in reality, you are all alone in this world. All alone, except for me.

  Ipes began taking control again. Everything about her became sluggish. The night blurred into one big shadow and the stars slurred into smudgy points. Even her new fear lost its edge and grew stale.

  “I’m not alone. I have a family,” Jillybean insisted through lips that felt to have plumped up like sausages. “Remember this?” From far away, she saw her right hand come up; the pinky was extended up and was hooked.

  I remember, Ipes said. Now it was his voice that came up from the deep.

  “Sadie is my sister,” Jillybean exclaimed, her words crisp, coming off her tongue with a snap. “You’re going to have to get used to that idea.”

  But Mister Neil is not your daddy. Your real daddy gave me to you to protect you. He would not want you putting yourself in danger for...for them.

  “I know my daddy better than you,” Jillybean said, her eyes glaring at the zebra. “He wasn’t a coward. He fought for his family and I think he’d want me to do that too. I bet.”

  Ipes was quiet for a moment and then Jillybean remembered something that she couldn’t have remembered: she was sitting in a home in Philadelphia, the one with the doll house. Sarah was with her. Have you considered Jill? she heard herself asking. She needs a proper mother and father. Sarah had grunted: She’s not my baby. I don’t love her.

  “When...how?” Jillybean could barely form words, stunned by this new memory. “You taked me over before? And Sarah...doesn’t...”

  She doesn’t love you, Ipes said, finishing her sentence. She doesn’t want to be your mother, that’s what she said.

  Jillybean was confused and bewildered but also furious. She was hurt by what Sarah had said, but the betrayal by Ipes was too much. In a fury she began to stomp toward the nearest silo. People had begun to emerge. They stood outside of it huddling close like sheep in the rain.

  Stop, Ipes said. That bounty hunter is out there. He’s going to expect exactly this. When she wouldn’t stop he tried to dominate her mind, however her anger was such that she was able to throw him off, mostly. She stumbled and went dizzy. There was a moment when she found herself pointing the wrong way. Ipes didn’t feel like a zebra. He was more like a turtle all caught up in his shell, bunchy-like, as though he was outgrowing it and needed out.

  As Jillybean was about to break from the cover of the forest and head into the narrow valley, Ipes changed tactics. Fear struck the little girl like a fever. She went bunny, dropping into a crouch, too afraid to go forward or back. Behind, the woods came alive with all sorts of sounds: clicks and cracks, and snapping branches. In front, the land was flat and bathed in starlight. She knew she’d be seen for certain if she tried to cross the fields of grass.

  More Believers began to come up from the silo and some tried to run from the huddled mass. Only one left in a lurching stagger. It had to be Sarah.

  She was only a shifting shadow moving in a line about a hundred yards from Jillybean. In a rush, the little girl darted along the edge of the forest, cutting Sarah off, but as she drew close, Ipes sent more horrible visions into her head and she couldn’t bring herself to call out or even to move. Sarah walked on by.

  Jillybean shook and shivered, more afraid than she had ever been, except in those early days when her dad had left and her mom had wilted into death. She was perfectly paralyzed in fright and would have remained that way except she heard another human. It was the hunter!

  Stoked by the unnatural fear, Jillybean, didn’t consider the fact that the hunter could not have seen her, crouched as she was in the dense under brush. Like a startled pheasant she broke from cover and ran in a panic straight for Sarah, hoping for the protection of an adult.

  Sarah spun, holding a gun, but her arm dropped when she saw Jillybean. “Jillybean? Is that...”

  Too late Sarah saw the bounty hunter. He was dressed head-to-toe in black and looked more like a shadow than a man, all except for his face. In the dark, his face looked like an insect’s. Instead of shady pits where his eyes should be, there was some sort of contraption across his head.

  Night goggles, so he can see in the dark, Ipes said—not to her, but to himself. Jillybean’s fear had reached epic proportions and she had dislodged herself from reality. Ipes was in control.

  “Drop the gun,” the bounty hunter ordered, pointing his own.

  Sarah’s gun hand started to rise. It came up midway and her mouth came open as if she just remembered something. She let the gun fall.

  There was a small thump in the dirt which generated another of those chaotic memories within Jillybean’s confused mind. She was standing next to a house and in her hand was a tiny gun that just might fit her hand if she really needed it to—she pulled back some grass and hid the gun there and then stood. She stood, looked at the overgrown grass for a moment, and the knelt back down...

  “Sarah Rivers,” the bounty hunter pronounced in a voice as dry as dirt. “And Jillybean. You got the baby. Very impressive.”

  “You can’t have her!” Sarah hissed.

  “I can have anything I want and what I want now is Sadie Walcott. Where is she?”

  Sarah started to shake her head and stopped when Ipes spoke: “Down in New Eden. I can go get her for you.” Jillybean read Ipes’ true intentions: he wasn’t going to go into New Eden, he was going to run away. He was itching to run even then. His fear was as strong as Jilly’s, in fact it was the source of Jillybean’s fear and it was tremendous.

  “No. I don’t think so, Jillybean,” the bounty hunter said. “You’ve proven to be a little too resourceful, a little too cagey for my tastes. But that doesn’t mean you can’t help me. Your body will send just the right message.” The hunter in his black garb, brought up the black gun and pointed into Jillybean’s chest.

  For Jillybean, the progression of the night stopped. Time stood still as she realized that he was going to kill her.

  “Don’t look,” Ipes said. The words were spoken aloud, but they were meant for Jillybean. Her eyes closed and her connection to the world became so tenuous that she could no longer feel her galloping heart or her panicky-breath whistling in and out of her lungs. The only thing she could really feel was Ipes’ regret. It drew down her soul, making it heavy.

  In the end, he had failed her, and he had failed her daddy. He had done everything he could to keep her alive, everything and more, however it hadn’t been enough. The night sounded wi
th a click as the hunter thumbed off the safety and then there was the infinitesimal pause as he began to pull the trigger...

  Sarah leapt in front of Jillybean. “Wait! No don’t.”

  Fear, like black pus or rancid, burning bile had been building steadily in Jillybean's heart, it seemed to ooze from every pore, but the second Sarah put herself between Jilly and a bullet, the fear vanished. Just like that, Jillybean blinked her own eyes and felt the ground beneath her sneakers with her own feet. She breathed air and felt her cooling sweat like a line of ice down her back. Ipes was gone.

  I’m not gone. I’m right here. The little zebra was in her arms the way he was supposed to be. He swiveled his ears and looked about. But where is here? Where are we? This is like the forest in Hansel and Gretel. It’s freaky weird.

  “Shh,” Jillybean said. Her world had suddenly snapped back into place and she was desperately trying to make sense of everything, foremost of which was the question of why Ipes’ had stopped controlling her.

  Because maybe I was never controlling you to begin with, he answered. That was all you being cuckoo for coconuts. You were afraid and you tried to use me as a scapegoat.

  And why had Sarah jumped in front of her like that?

  Because she’s a better mommy that she thinks she is. I think she loves you as much as she can.

  Love? A better mommy...Sarah was right in front of Jillybean holding her back with a hand that was black and ugly smelling. Her face was scarred, her skin was rent and ragged, and her body sagged to the left. She looked used up, but she wasn’t backing down or whimpering in any way.

  Sarah had her good hand held out to the barrel of the gun. “There’s no need to hurt her. If you need a message sent, I’ll do it.” There was a sling across her shoulders; inside it was Eve swaddled and sleeping soundly. Sarah gently lowered the baby to the ground and then stepped forward with her hands up. “Just don’t do anything to Jillybean, please.”

  The bounty hunter must have heard the pain in her voice. He flipped up his night vision goggles and inspected Sarah. “Shit, you wouldn’t fetch a nickel in the markets. Crap.” This last he murmured in disappointment before he brought the rifle back up and fired.

  He fired without warning or preamble; the bounty hunter was too efficient for that sort of nonsense. He pulled the trigger and was done with Sarah Rivers. She stood for half a second, said, “No,” in a sad, quavering voice and then, as her muscles came unwound, she fell to the black dirt.

  Jillybean dropped down next to her and didn’t feel a sharp stick cut into her knee, or the cool of the leaves sticking to her shins, nor did she feel her tongue as she asked: “Miss Sarah?” The explosion from the gun, like a great rock splitting, was a shock to Jillybean however it was the bullet slamming home with a dull thud that took her to the brink of insanity once again.

  The bounty hunter came to stand over Sarah. He was going to shoot her again. He was going to punch holes in her and pin her to the ground with bullets. Jillybean knew it, and cared, but she found herself falling, falling into the deep void of her own mind where fear ruled. She was fading into that protective numbness and might never have come back, but she was pulled from the edge.

  Sarah touched Jilly’s hand. It wasn’t a grasping desperate hand, afraid of what would come in death. It was a soft hand. It held Jillybean’s with warmth.

  “You’ll…b-be…ok,” Sarah said.

  The words, the hand, the love in the last consciousness of her mind were, in the vastness of the world, tiny things. It was all Sarah had to give, and it was enough. Jillybean could handle pain, and danger and even fear, but she couldn’t handle them without a reason to. Sarah gave her that reason.

  “Not yet,” Jillybean said to the bounty hunter. She gave up the Velveteen Rabbit, placing it against Sarah’s cheek and rubbing it gently against her skin until the woman closed her eyes.

  “That’s a good touch,” the hunter said. “They’ll know I have you and the baby. Now, get back before you get splattered.”

  Jillybean didn’t. She felt Sarah’s hand slipping and hurriedly recited the only prayer she knew all the way through: “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul…”

  “Oh please,” the hunter scoffed.

  “…to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

  Somewhere in the brief prayer Sarah Rivers died. Her hand slid from Jillybean’s and fell upon her own breast and her head turned gently to rest on the Velveteen Rabbit. The bounty hunter saw it too. He slung the rifle and picked up Eve who had begun making little noises of fear. “Come on,” he said to Jillybean. “Get up. We’re leaving.”

  Slowly, she got to her feet and was pushed along by him, numb in body and soul, but not in mind. Her mind was again picturing a hidden memory: the house back in Philadelphia, and the tall grass and the little gun that just might fit her hand if it had to. She remembered hiding that gun because it scared her so much, but now she realized she had thought better of it at the last second. Just in case, she had whispered as she stowed it in the deepest part of her worn out I’m A Belieber backpack. Now she knew why she had never replaced it with something prettier.

  You can’t do it, Ipes said. You can’t kill him. The hunter is too good, even Captain Grey thinks so. We should just run.

  Running would only save her own life. What would happen to Eve? What would happen to Sadie and Neil? They would all die or be sold as slaves. The hunter would set a trap with the baby as bait and they would fall right into it.

  Because he’s too good, Ipes repeated. Do I have to remind you that you aren’t a gun fighter?

  That was true. She wasn’t quick like a gunman from the Old West, which meant she would need an excuse…or an accomplice. Eve didn’t like the rough handling she was receiving and had begun to make the warning noise she used right before she got really angry.

  Jillybean turned as she walked. “I have a binky for her if you want it. Do you know what a binky is?”

  “Yes.” Somehow he managed to be menacing in that one word, only Jillybean wasn’t menaced. She was too focused on the dangerous job at hand.

  “Sorry. You don’t look like the kind of person who would. I also have formula. That’s what means fake milk. Do you want it?”

  “The binky, for now,” the hunter said. His eyes were flinty and sharp in the night. When Jilly stopped and turned her pack around on one shoulder, he seemed to be looking right into her and when she reached into the pack she knew she was caught. He had read her correctly and now she read him: he wanted to catch her and he wanted to punish her, he wanted to cause her pain. Her hand came out of the pack and the hunter was right there gripping her wrist, hurting it.

  “Ow, no, ow,” she whined, her face twisting in pain. He squeezed until she was down on her knees in the dirt and he saw what she held.

  He relaxed his grip, slightly and looked at the pink binky somewhat puzzled. “I thought…”

  “It’s just a binky,” she gasped. ‘Let go, please. It hurts.”

  The bounty hunter gave her wrist one more tweak before taking the binky. He gave it a look of disgust and nudged into Eve’s mouth. When he looked up from the swaddled baby Jillybean shot him in the armpit. She had originally had the gun in her wet palms, but because of his knowing look she had left it at the top of the pack and pulled the binky instead.

  Now, it was in her hands where it fit just good enough to do the trick. Her first bullet went through both lungs and lodged in the intercostal space between the fourth and fifth ribs. When his knees hit the dirt he was face-to-face with Jilly. She shot him in the right eye and that bullet ricocheted around the inside of his skull, running tunnels through his brain.

  Although he died instantly, he teetered just long enough for Jillybean to take Eve from him before his face slapped into the wet earth. She stepped across his body, heading deeper into the forest, crooning softly, the gun still in her hand and the zebra tucked between her thin chest and the baby. She walked w
ithout purpose or direction.

  Jillybean was numb again; her mind adrift in sorrow and fear and heart-breaking pain. Added to this was the guilt of killing another human. She made excuses about how he was a bad man and how he deserved it, but they slid off the side of that new guilt, leaving it untouched and undiminished. She wandered in tears, reliving every aching day of stress since the apocalypse had begun. They felt like bricks that kept piling on and on and on until her psyche broke and she became nothing.

  She felt like a ghost in a world of ghouls, right up until Eve spat out her binky and smiled at Jillybean, showing all five of her teeth. Only then did the little girl stop and marvel at what she had saved and only then did she forget all the pain and fear. Only then did she remember that she was loved.

  Look at all that slobber, Ipes said making a face of horror. That’s scarier than any monster or bounty hunter.

  “Don’t be jealous,” Jilly chided, hearing her own voice like an echo in her skull. It grew more firm with each word. “This is our little sister you’re talking about.”

  Epilogue

  Sadie

  Georgia

  Sadie did not run with her usual speed or grace. Her lithe body was hobbled by pain, but she went on nonetheless with gritted teeth and barely audible curses. Her feet were blistered from the fire yet she was in better shape than Captain Grey whose sternum was the darkest of purple and whose face was ashen and pale from too much blood loss.

  And she was in better shape than Neil who was so overcome with grief that he had blundered about the night forest in tears until he had become so exhausted he couldn't even stand .

  So it was up to Sadie to go get the Humvee. Her feet weren’t the only thing slowing her down. Despair and depression had her wholly in their grip—she couldn’t seem to take a proper breath and her chest ached with misery and grief.

  Nico was dead and now Sarah as well. The woman who had been the best mother a girl could ever want was dead. That was shock enough, yet it was the mutilation of her body that kept coming to Sadie’s mind every time she blinked. Sarah looked to have been tortured over a fire pit. Her left arm had been a blackened husk and the smell…