The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors

by Meredith, Peter

  “We can’t go this way,” Trey yelled. “Go back.” Jillybean reached past Ram and felt the now slick walls of the tunnel and then she found the feeder tube. The power of the water rushing from it peeled her hand back and it hit something soft; some part of Ram’s face.

  “We have to go back!” Trey screamed. “We’re fucking trapped.” The intense dark and the rising water had worked on his mind. He tried to climb over Ram and Jillybean.

  Right in front of her, there was a scuffle and hollering. She tried to back away from it but the water pushed her into the tangle of flailing fists. One struck her on the side of the head and ghost-light shot across her vision leaving her blinking.

  Ram was the stronger and somehow managed to hold Trey pinned on the tunnel wall. “Calm down!” he shouted in a bellow. “We can’t go back. It’ll be too much of a slog if we go back. It’ll take too much time. I say we let the water take us. It’s got to empty soon. A few miles at the most.”

  “You don't understand, I can’t fucking swim!” Trey cried. “I’ll drown.”

  “Just turn around and face down stream and keep your head up. Can't you tell how fast the water’s going? We can be at the ocean in five minutes! Go, or it will be too late.” If Trey took Ram’s advice, there was no way for Jillybean to know. The water had become a fury. “Get in front of me!” Ram cried. He reached around with blind, fumbling hands and brought her to sit in his lap—but not before she bonked her head once more.

  Before she could even blink away the pain, wind rushed past and water began to spray into her face. She reached out and the wall zinged against her finger tips. They were speeding down a black pipe and where it went no one knew. Periodically they were knocked to the side as they passed feeder tubes gushing with water; once they almost found themselves upended by the force. Minutes later they crashed straight into Trey. He yelled something but whatever it was became lost in the din and then he seemed to just evaporate in the impenetrable blackness.

  At the next feeder tube a geyser struck Jillybean square in the face. She sucked in a mouthful of water, began choking, and instantaneously fear seared her heart. She began to panic, thrashing around, smacking her head again on the top of the pipe. A mindless berserk flailing overtook her limbs, and she slipped lower in the water.

  Ram saved her. He took her and cradled her in his arms, keeping her above the water until before them the black of the tunnel gave way suddenly to a grey light and in a moment they had to blink away the dim light of a raining evening.

  Then they smashed square into Trey’s lifeless body.

  Chapter 19

  Ram

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Grey rain water roared down the trunk line with such force that the unmoving body of Trey was pinned against the grating that separated the tunnel from freedom, and Ram was jammed against him with Jillybean in between. With the weight and the power of the water, it took all his strength to keep her from being crushed.

  Desperately the little girl squirmed to keep her head up out of the water. She spluttered and coughed and Ram could see her mouth moving, forming words, but the noise was tremendous, so he shook his head to let her know he couldn't hear her. With gritted teeth, she squirmed harder, clawing at Trey and kicking off Ram until she had climbed to the top of the tunnel near the grating.

  Then she disappeared.

  There was just enough room at the top of the grate to fit her skinny torso and thin hips through just as neat as you please. Had Ram not been fighting for his life he would have been happy that she got away. Instead he barely gave her a second thought as he hacked and choked and retched out rain water, all the while straining to climb higher up the grating as the tunnel filled.

  There were only inches left at the top of the tunnel when he felt a vibration through the grating. Chung! Chung! Chung!

  Jillybean was doing something. The ringing noise was the sound of metal striking metal. It went on and on, longer than Ram thought she could bear with her skinny arms. But she proved more resilient than he knew; one second he was crushed against a grating unable to move any longer from the sheer volume of water striking him, and the next the grate swung open, and he shot out into a river.

  “Get Trey!” she cried, before Ram even knew which way land was. She was high up over the river, standing on the storm drain and pointing at the black man with one trembling hand. Trey was face down and unmoving not far from him.

  “Damn,” Ram whispered, guilt seeping into his waterlogged pores. With his draining strength he began to swim to Trey, but then stopped in mid-stroke as he realized that he was now swimming toward a zombie. Trey had been infected. He would turn. The only question was when.

  Ram began the swim back to the shore. Fully clothed it was an ordeal.

  “What are you doing?” Jillybean asked. She had climbed down from the pipe and now stood on the sand, holding herself as the rain struck her sideways. “You have to help Mister Trey.”

  Saying “no” to her was a difficult thing. For one she had saved him—twice now. And for two she looked so pathetic: a wretched orphan, bedraggled after a harrowing journey beneath the earth, and shivering in a cold downpour.

  “It’s better if I don’t,” he said. Beneath his feet he felt the river bottom; it was muck and mud. He staggered through it to lay on the shore.

  Jillybean came to stand over him. “I guess…I know,” she said, speaking to the lump beneath her shirt. “Ipes says Mister Trey is gonna be a monster soon and we should leave him alone. What about us? Do you know when we’re going to become monsters?”

  “I don’t. Hopefully not just yet.”

  “I hope it’s after dinner. I’m hungry and I don’t want to eat what the monsters eat. That’s grotey…no, I don’t think so Ipes. Ipes says I’ll like eating people when I’m a monster. What do you think, Mister Ram? Would you like to eat a person?”

  He struggled to sit up and needed Jillybean’s feeble strength to help him stand. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Maybe.” His mind was on their more immediate needs: shelter, warmth, and real food. Around them the city had effectively ended. They were on the edge of the shipyards, a dirty industrial area that had as its only redeeming quality a lack of zombies.

  “Come on, Jilly,” he said, holding out his hand. She took it without hesitation as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They tromped along the edge of the water, heading to a bridge. It was a major overpass; all concrete and painted steel. As they closed on it, Jillybean shied back.

  “That’s not safe,” she said. “It’s too open. Ipes says we can’t be in the open. We saw a show once about animals and there were mice and birds with big pointy fingers on their feet. And the birds would eat the mice if they came out of their…camel…camel-flodge.”

  Ram chuckled. “You mean camouflage. And you’re probably right. But we have to get across somehow.”

  “Ipes doesn’t think so. He says you are reacting to your environment. Whatever that means…oh. He says that you see a bridge and your mind thinks it has to cross it. But you don’t ask why. You don’t ask: what’s over there that’s better than over here? Ipes sure does talk a lot. He’s always going on…yes, you do...you do to!”

  “You’re being loud, little mouse,” Ram warned. The fact that she carried on conversations with her stuffed zebra didn’t bother him in the least. It was a coping mechanism and one that she clearly benefitted from. And besides, her time was nearly up. She was wan and shivered. Her eyes were bright as pearls compared to the dark circles beneath them.

  “Look there’s some stores,” he said pointing across the highway. “Maybe we can find one with something to eat.”

  The pair crept up to the embankment just off the run of asphalt and paused only long enough to look both ways. Not for oncoming traffic, but for zombies. The road was clear so they darted across holding hands.

  The stores were a disappointment. It was nothing but a dinky stripmall: a few vacant spots, a looted convenience stor
e, a drycleaners with a smashed in window, a Chinese restaurant that was blackened from an old fire, a florist’s shop where the tiled floor was blanketed in broken glass and dried petals, and finally a carpet store.

  Jillybean stuck her nose to the window and cupped her hands to see in. “It’s only a carpet selling place,” she said, dejectedly. “We should try in the asia place. They eat with sticks.”

  The restaurant had been ransacked down to the last fortune cookie.

  “How about we at least get some dry clothes,” Ram said. Though the window of the dry cleaners had been shattered, nobody had bothered to mess with the clothes. These still hung over head in compressed rows. “Here, I don’t want you to get cut,” he said, lifting her through the front window—she weighed next to nothing and her ribs were like a row of twigs he could snap without a thought.

  “They won’t have little kid clothes here,” she said, her face drooping.

  Ram set her on the counter and lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. “You don’t know that. Ask Ipes, he’ll tell you that little girls sometimes bring in fancy dresses to a place like this.” She gave a glance to the spongy zebra—it looked as sad as she did. “I’ll be right back with a dress,” Ram said.

  There wasn’t a single dress in all the hundreds of clothes hanging from the conveyored racks. The best he found was a suit that had been sized for a boy, and even it would have to be tailored in some way in order to fit Jillybean. With that in mind he poked his nose into a side room where he saw the glint of a white sewing machine.

  There were clothes on a rack, needing to be hemmed or brought in or even lengthened. Among them was a white gown made for a very small person. It conjured the image of a wedding in Ram's mind, and a bright summer day, and a ring bearer with her brown hair in a bun and her bright blue eyes, smiling.

  Excitedly he pulled down the dress and rushed back to Jillybean. With a flourishing bow, he presented it to her. “Your Ladyship,” he said. "I have your gown for the ball." Her face lit with such joy and emotion that unbelievably Ram felt himself close to tears.

  He blinked them back, reminding himself that he was the original badass. He was a warrior, a hard man, a slayer of zombies uncounted…and yet his eyes were hot…and so was his head.

  That explained his raw emotions: the fever had finally kicked in.

  “Go try it on,” he urged.

  “I have to go the bathroom, too,” she said. “Can you watch Ipes and maybe stay near the door. I’m just a little ascared.”

  He said he would and understood. The sun had set on a nasty day and there was very little in the way of light left in the sky for them to see by. Ram sat with one butt-cheek next to the sewing machine and felt sorry for the girl. Her guts were churning with the virus, so that she cried out in pains as they cramped her.

  "It'll be ok," he said, knowing that it wouldn't. His own stomach rebelled as well, but he clamped his lips shut against any outward expression of pain.

  A few minutes later she came out of the bathroom in the dress. Despite that it was all satin and pearls, and that it fit her as if she was born to wear it, Ram had to force himself to smile. Her skin was ashen and her pain drew down her pretty features: she looked more than half zombie already.

  "You are a princess," he told her.

  "I don't feel like one." She had to hold the wall to keep herself upright. "Is it almost time do you think? Becoming monsters, I mean?" When he hesitated telling her the truth she grew teary-eyed. "Don't let me be a monster alone, please. I'm ascared to be alone."

  Ram dropped to a knee, opening his arms. She flung her skinny body into him and again he had to remind himself what a tough motherfucker he was, how he was a rock, how he didn't cry just because a little girl was getting screwed over by the vagaries of life. Shit happened, right?

  "I won't leave you alone. We'll be monsters together. You and me. Now let me see you properly. Spin around for me. Give me a proper twirl."

  She spun and let the dress lift, showing off her coltish legs, and as she did she smiled. The smile gave her life; it brightened her face and the room, and Ram's heart. If there was anyone he would be a monster with, it would be this little girl.

  "Oh, hey. You have a tag," he said, pointing at the back of her neck. "I'll just snip that off." He dug through the drawers of the sewing table—the second one down held more than just scissors.

  "Holy cow!" he cried. "Look what I found." He brought up a handful of fortune cookies from the drawer—it was filled with them.

  "I had those once," Jillybean said in awe. "They have words in them on little pieces of paper. What, Ipes? Oh...he says they tell the future!"

  "Sometimes they do," Ram said handing her one. "Sometimes it's just a goofy saying. Or lucky numbers."

  "Oh. I hope mine is all three." She cracked her cookie, stuck half of it in her mouth and then tried to read the tiny letters, squinting mightily.

  "If you're going to try to read that, we need fire," Ram said. "Wait here. I'll go get some."

  In the flower shop, he found plenty of dried kindling. In the Chinese restaurant he found splintered boards, what once had been a table. In the carpet store he found six Persian rugs; they were three-by-five, but when rolled would make long-burning logs. And finally in the convenience store, among the trash behind the counter he found a lighter.

  Finally the dry-cleaners provided a steel tub to act as his fire place. In minutes they had a fire going in the sewing room. It was smoky as hell, but it was warm, bright and comforting. They sat huddled in a comforter that someone had left to be dry-cleaned. It was gigantic, big enough for both of them, and Ipes, to fit comfortably.

  "Now my little princess, what does your fortune say?" When he saw her puzzling over the letters he asked, "Do you know how to read?"

  Jillybean nodded in a tentative manner. "Some stuff I can read and some stuff Ipes has to help me with. Mine says: Love. Is. Like. Wild...flo...flo...worse?"

  "Flowers," Ram prompted. "Love is like wild flowers. That's nice."

  "There's more," Jillybean told him, holding up the piece of paper as her proof. "Love is like wildflowers...It. Is. Often. Found. In. The most...un—like—ly...unlikely places." She read it again to herself, her lips moving silently over the words. "Is that the future? I don't get it and neither does Ipes. He thinks it's a poem but it doesn't even rhyme."

  Ram was precluded from answering by a sharp pain in his stomach which had doubled him over and left him gasping. Jillybean saw and could do nothing to help. She only nibbled on the end of her cookie, with a fearful look on her face.

  "It's...it's just a saying," Ram managed to say after a minute of struggling against the pain. "It's a nice saying. I think it means that love can be found anywhere, even in places you don't expect to find it."

  "That is nice," Jillybean said, casting quick glances at his face.

  "What?"

  "You're all sweaty," she said, nervously. "And your face is not so good. Are you feeling much like a monster?"

  Ram touched his head. He felt very hot. Throwing off the comforter, he reasoned, "It's the fire. That's all. Here, read my fortune, will you? I'm not feeling well."

  She looked at the strip of paper for a long time with her mouth open, her lips very red compared to the awful white of her skin. "It says: The time is right to make new friends." Her hands dropped into her lap as if overburdened by the weight of the fortune. "I don't think we have time to make friends."

  "Probably not," Ram agreed. He felt a little better with the comforter off of him. "Do you want another cookie?" She'd only had the one; still she shook her head. In the last few minutes she had turned ghostly pale. "Maybe there's something else in that drawer. I could use some candy or something else. What about you?"

  "I don't think so. I think I might throw up again," she said listlessly. "I wish I knew what I did with the pink medicine. I think I dropped it somewhere in the tunnel."

  Ram did not like the way she had suddenly gone lethargic
or how she had broken out in a sweat; it plastered her hair down and turned her face shiny. "It's too hot in here now," he said, getting to his feet. "Let's get this door open a little bit. That's better. And let's see what's in these drawers, maybe there's something good." Despite his ebbing energy he tipped her a wink to try to rally her spirits; she only continued to look upon him dully, her eyes glazed and her mouth hanging slack.

  He knelt beside the sewing table and opened the bottom drawer, praying to find another bottle of Pepto, or anything that would help her to feel better. Instead he unearthed a hoard of chopsticks, enough to build a doghouse with, and a supply of soy sauce packets, enough to drown in, and beneath all that was a confused rash of buttons. They were of every color and caliber. He took a handful and let them sift through his fingers, enjoying the simple tactile experience.

  Jillybean looked over at the sound of them skittering back down among the rest. Ram gave her a smile which she returned tepidly. "Hey, I found a walrus in here," he told her.

  "You did? Like Ipes kind of walrus?"

  "No, much bigger." Ram turned away, took a pair of chopsticks from the drawer, and stuck them up under his upper lip making long "tusks" out of them—just doing so made him want to gag. He had to take a deep breath to steady his stomach before he turned back to her.

  "Hi. I'm Wally the walrus," he said around the wooden tusks. Just this little act took up much of his remaining energy. He had hoped for a giggle for his effort, but she could only smile briefly. Her face was cherry-red and fever-bright and that meant she was getting close. First was the fever. Then came the delirium, ranting and raving, then she would slip into a coma. Then she would come awake as one of them.

  She swallowed thickly and said with an effort, "Ipes says my dad used to do that, too, but I don't amember."

  "Oh yeah?" Having anything in his mouth almost had him barfing; quickly he pulled them out. "Do you want some buttons? There's a million in here. There's also some soy-sauce." He held up one of the packets.

  "No thank you," she said in a little voice, and then laid back into the comforter, unable to summon the energy to do anything but stare up at the ceiling, which was turning black from the fire. "Isn't that what you put on your food this morning?"