No, he’s not.
Jilly walked on, not saying anything, thinking of her dad and, to a lesser extent, her mom. She had always loved her mom, but it was her father to whom she had been especially close. Ever since his disappearance she had clung to the hope that he would return one day like he used to: with presents in hand and a huge back-breaking hug for her.
From her lips a sigh ran out into the dark only to be answered by a low moan.
All thoughts of her father disappeared.
Don’t say a word, Ipes said in such a low voice that she had to wonder if he even spoke the words aloud or that they had originated somewhere in her mind. Either way it was wasted advice since even her breath had become stuck in her throat as surely if she had swallowed her acorns.
Gently now, he said. Turn around but don’t let…
Too late. As she had turned, her Power-Puff backpack scraped against the invisible wall making a noise that could only be defined as human made. Almost immediately there came a quick thumping and slapping from down the trunk line. It was a quirky noise and the girl could imagine the monster crawling like a giant mechanical insect right at her.
Jillybean fled, running with one hand above, to keep her head from whacking on the low ceiling, and one hand on the wall. There’ll be an intersecting tunnel soon. Hurry! Ipes cried.
She couldn’t hurry any faster. Even before the zombie she had been tired and now only a minute into her race she felt the air in her lungs burn and soon a stitch seemed to stab into her side and yet the monster came on without pause and it drew steadily nearer until Jillybean began to make a fear-filled noise in her throat as terror built—she wouldn’t make the other tunnel, it was too far.
With the monster huffing just feet behind her, Ipes cried, Drop the back pack, but don’t drop me! She let it fall and within two strides there came an odd sound behind her as the monster found the backpack. In the dark, it attacked the pack without a second thought, thinking there was a little girl still attached.
Now stay quiet, Ipes warned. She was tired and it hurt to breathe, while her back was on fire from running hunched over as she had been, yet not for a second did she consider complaining. Complaints were for the weak and the decadent, for the people of before, the people who could afford to complain. Jillybean couldn’t. Not anymore. She inhabited the world of black and white, life and death. Whining wasn’t a part of that world anymore.
Instead she blew air in and out of her puffed cheeks as she hurried on, walking not running, hoping to come to the side tunnel before the monster quit with the backpack. The hope was in vain. Very quickly, or so it seemed to her, the monster tossed aside the pack and again there came the nasty wet slapping of flat palms on cement and thumping of knees.
You’re almost there, Ipes said as she began again to run. Even quicker than before her breath grew labored and loud. Just breathe nice and easy. We’re going to make it. Ok? Can you get a marble out as you run?
With her high-water pants being so tight, it was a struggle. After a few seconds she got one out, but she had no idea what good it would do her, not with the monster closing again. Then her hand left the wall suddenly and struck the nothingness of a side tunnel. She ducked into it and, just like that, she knew what to do with the marble. With an easy motion she threw it down the old tunnel giving the monster something to chase.
It went after it like a rabid dog and not twenty feet away there was a scrabbling of claws on cement and a ferocious growling. Jilly began to back away down this new tunnel, running air in and out of her lungs as though she wasn’t dying to suck it in as quick as possible, feeling light-headed in her need for oxygen.
Nice and easy, Ipes said in her mind. It'll be alright. Just keep going nice and easy.
She breathed as gently as possible, taking step after step away from the monster who was still in the other tunnel scrambling after the marble like a playful kitten—a giant fanged kitten with dead eyes and a hungry mouth.
Suddenly it went quiet, and she knew that the monster was listening for her. Now she went perfectly still, not even shaking in her fright.
Don't freeze up, Ipes said and again it felt like an echo in her mind rather than real spoken words. Keep backing up. Remember it can't hear you. You're like a tiny mouse that walks unheard.
Step by step she backed away, putting more than the length of a football field between her and the zombie, and just when she felt she was far enough away to breathe easier a new danger came to her in the form of gunfire. The sound of the gunshots, which were slow and steady and loud, like a blacksmith's hammer, came vibrating down the tunnel to stir the black air.
Her first impulse was to slink down and go "bunny", holding completely still until the possibility of danger passed, however Ipes knew better.
Run, he urged.
"Which way?" she asked. Running forward to where someone was shooting seemed as bad an idea to her as running back to the monster. Certainly the person was either shooting at other people or shooting at a lot of monsters, and neither option was a good one in her mind.
Straight ahead! Ipes insisted. The monster can hear the gun too. He's coming.
Sure enough, the sound of the monster's slapping palms came to her as though from far away. Because of the perfect dark the sound seemed to be coming from below her as if the tunnel had somehow turned on its side and had become a deep hole in the ground that went straight down.
The monster in the dark was an immediate fear and so she fled from it, heading toward the steady gunfire. Having heard plenty of gun play in the last year, this steady bam...bam...bam...like a deadly metronome was strange to her. Why would anyone shoot with such bland repetition? Normally, back when there was more people and more gunfights...that sort of normal, the shooting would erupt suddenly and build to a crescendo before petering away to nothing.
This sounded more like someone shooting without a real purpose. It lacked a sense of urgency and made it easier for Jillybean to run along toward it. After only half a minute she found one of the smaller feeder tunnels that pulsated along with the gun. It ran at a diagonal upwards while a feeble light washed downward making her blink. The light had all the color and strength of old dishwater, yet it dazzled her wide eyes and sent a surge of hope through her chest.
She crawled up until it leveled off for a span of three feet, ending at a solid wall from which rusting iron rungs sprouted. It was a tall climb, especially for such a young person, however she didn't even pause as behind her the monster found the feeder tunnel as well and the nasty slapping turned into a grunting as the thing slithered on.
Up and up she climbed with Ipes warning her not to look down until the real light of day struck her full in the face and had her eyes watering. She was just about to squeeze herself out of the sewer when Ipes warned: Don't move! There's a monster right there.
A lady zombie stumped awkwardly past. It was barefoot save for the fact it had the remains of a high-heeled shoe dangling from an ankle. Though this made for an uncertain stride, it kept on going as fast as it could toward the shooting, ignoring completely the little bundle of rags that Jillybean appeared to be, huddled in the gutter.
When the thing passed her by, the girl scampered up and hid behind the split trunk of a crab-apple tree. Peering between the "Y" of the boughs she watched as the sewer monster emerged into the light of the morning.
It was nasty even compared to its brothers. Crawling around in the unyielding concrete tunnels had worn away the skin and tissue of its hands and knees so that only shreds covered the exposed bones. The top of its head was similarly eroded except here the bone had been cracked and looked like a dented egg shell. None of this seemed to affect it in the least. Like an unoiled and rusted robot, it lurched into a standing position and immediately followed after the growing horde which was in the process of converging on a single man just down the street from Jillybean.
She recognized him and his Humvee. It was the same person whom she had seen earlier.
&nb
sp; "What do we do?" she asked Ipes in a whisper. The man was utterly surrounded and despite the pistol hammering away she didn't think much of his chances. Neither did Ipes.
What can we do besides get out of here?
"I can't just leave him," she shot back. "Oh, why doesn't he run?"
Ipes sighed so that his little shoulders drooped theatrically. I think it's too late for him to run. We should go. You don't want to see him...uh-oh.
Uh-oh indeed. It was clear even to the six-year old that the human had run out of bullets. Frantically he began searching his clothes and, seeming to imitate him, Jillybean dug about in the pockets of her high-water jeans as well—he searched for ammunition, while she was after the last magic marble.
But it's your last! Ipes cried.
"We can get more," she said, finding the marble at last in the depth of her pocket. She dug it out, kissed it, and without another word let it fly. Her practice at beaning the old monster Mrs. Bennet paid off and the marble flew straight down the street unleashing its magic with every loud clack, clack, clack it made as it struck the pavement.
The grey skinned beasts turned to stare at it as it bounced around and Jillybean knew the man would be ok. He would get away. He'd run for his big SUV and get away. But what of her? She knew the answer to that as well; it would be the same as always: she'd be alone in a world of monsters.
Chapter 4
Ram,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
After so much firing, the gun in Ram's right hand felt as though he had just plucked it from a furnace, though to be certain he hardly noticed. What concerned him completely was that it was empty. So were his pockets. His last clip had straight up disappeared and with it the chance at the only good death left in this new world.
Trapped and alone, the horrifying idea of being eaten alive sent a terror, like a bolt of lightning, racing through his every fiber and the result was a berserker’s charge that bowled over the zombies in front. With the virus already in him, he no longer feared the touch of the beasts and so he attacked, kicking with his powerful legs at those in front and then slinging another into a throng of its horrible mates.
Another, a slight zombie: what once had been a fifteen year-old sophomore with a baby face, Ram used as a battering ram to try to smash his way out of the yard, it didn't work. He then ran through the enclosed yard, dodging this way and that, hoping to get to the house or maybe the street where his Humvee sat alone and untended, only he couldn't, the zombies formed a wall three deep that he dared not try to bust through.
That game of Red-Rover could only end with him becoming a feast. With no other choice he spun and saw the slimmest of chances at a few more minutes of life. Two of the zombies that had succumbed to his head shots had dropped one atop the other just feet from the hedge that ran along the adjoining property. Without hesitation he took off at a sprint heading right for them.
Only someone inebriated to a point well past stupidity or someone in the most desperate of straights would have thought his idea a good one. His plan was to use the dead as a spring board to try to clear the hedge.
He didn’t quite make it as he envisioned. The image in his head had him clearing the shrub with enough room to land cleanly, enabling him to hop up and make a decent run for safety.
What happened instead was that he only partially cleared the hurdle and became stranded with one leg up in the air and his face in a moldy pile of leaves on the other side of the hedge. Now there came a pause, a moment of confusion and he dared not move. The zombies still in the yard were confounded by his leap and wandered back and forth trying to find a way through the hedge, while the ones in the street hesitated for only a moment before they collectively began to head Ram's way.
He could see their legs through the lower part of the hedge and the sight, ensnared as he was hanging upside down, made his panic double. He could feel it like bomb in his chest set to explode and that was when a sound like slapping glass on pavement came to him. Quickly his mind assessed the noise: unbelievably it was the sound a large marble would make if it had been tossed in the air to land on cement.
It didn’t make sense to Ram or to the zombies. The undead on the front side of the hedge turned and began to gape as the marble bounced crazily along knocking into cars and dancing to an unknown and unheard tune. The minds of the undead were such that their incomprehension rendered them almost paralyzed—the human had suddenly disappeared and now there was this...this thing bopping about. They stared, trying to render the marble into meaning.
To Ram the erratic clack, clack, clack was a thin slice of miracle. Every zombie head had turned to watch the passage of the ball of glass and as they did he lifted his hooked shoelace off a branch and, righting himself, ran, low and hunched, along the hedge until he made the street where running in such a manner was no longer prudent. He sprinted past a group of gawking zombies and made it to the safety of his Humvee before any of the beasts could even comprehend what had just happened.
They were quick to catch on however that their meal was escaping and in a second the zombies were pounding on the side window and clawing at the door. Feeling a need to cackle madly at his luck, Ram started the engine and tore out of there, but not before glancing in the rear view mirror.
There, behind the zombies a good thirty yards or so was a little girl with fly-away brown hair and huge blue eyes in a pale face. Her skin was of such alabaster that the word vampire ghosted through Ram’s mind. The world had so turned on its head that for a split second it was an actual idea that he was slow to give up on.
However, that the girl was still human, standing alone and fearless so close to the host of undead was impossible. It just couldn’t be. A little girl on her own would have died long ago. She would've been caught and killed and turned...now he understood, she was one of them.
“Just a white zombie,” he rationalized. He glanced once to the road and when he looked back she had disappeared behind the horde that followed after the retreating vehicle.
"It's just as well," he said before turning the mirror to point at a more pressing matter for him than funny looking zombies: the three scratches that ran from the hollow of his throat to the top of his chest. They were raised and angrily red.
The sight killed the relief he'd been feeling over his close call. He hadn't saved himself, after all; he'd just put off his death for a while longer.
With a growing depression settling in, he drove and barely saw the road; his haunted eyes wouldn’t leave the mirror showing him the marks that were a badge of his coming death. Eventually, when he found an open stretch of road that was clear of stiffs, he pulled over and went about reloading his Beretta with a new clip.
And then he wasted one of his precious remaining hours simply sitting there with the gun in his large brown hands. At first his mind was blank; it dwelt on nothing at all. He stared at the gun and for a while that was enough. But then he turned it around so that the round bore pointed at his left eye. It seemed inviting.
"Why wait to die?" he asked in a whisper. There was no good answer to that, except to acknowledge that waiting wouldn't help him in the least. In fact it would hurt very much.
Very, very much.
"I should just..."
Impulsively, he stuck the gun to his temple. "I should just..." A second time he couldn't finish the sentence.
How many soldiers had he seen in this exact same position? A hundred at least, and always he had urged them to just do it. Pull the trigger, get it over with, but none ever had, not so early. Most of them waited until the pain and the fever had kicked in, while a few never did pull the trigger.
Now Ram knew why.
What if the virus doesn't work this time? What if I'm immune? What if some scientist pulls up in the next ten minutes with a cure? These questions ran through his head, just as he was sure they had gone through those other men's heads.
When they couldn't pull the trigger Ram had secretly called them fools.
"Am
I the fool now?"
The gun had slipped from his temple. He brought it up again and was prepared to pull the trigger right then, however he paused and for some reason glanced into the rear view mirror. Instead of seeing the reality of himself with a gun to his head, he saw the memory of another person with a gun to her head.
Julia.
There she was in the reflecting glass, twisting the gun into her red hair, grinding the sight of the barrel into her skin. He had begged her not to kill herself, which in retrospect had been a mistake. She had died anyways. And for what? Nothing.
Ram's right hand bunched, drawing the trigger ever closer to the point where the inner springs of the gun would take over and complete the process of sending a bullet into his brain, but then the woman in the mirror seemed to speak to him:
I didn't just die, she reminded him. I was murdered. And I didn't die for nothing, I died to save my baby. Don't you remember? Don't you know why you're here?
He knew. He was there for revenge. Before that morning, the demand for revenge had been a fire in his gut. Now, it suddenly seemed like an empty concept. It seemed like a mirage. Then again life was now little more than illusion to him. It consisted of bits of time broken into tiny pieces of which he had very few left.
Ram blinked away the memory and took to staring into his own eyes, seeing the truth of his predicament: he was afraid to both pull the trigger and afraid not to. It was an impossible decision.
Something drew his eye. Far away, above Philadelphia there was a distant smudge in the air. Smoke on the horizon. It meant humans. Maybe, it meant Cassie.
The gun dropped onto the seat next to him. The decision whether or not to pull the trigger was too much for him, so he decided not to decide. Not just yet. In order to delay it he turned the Humvee back east, toward the smoke, hoping to find...something, but what, he had no idea.
The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors Page 4
