“I’m sorry about this,” Sadie said. “I was trying to save my…my mother. Sarah’s my mother.” The words felt strange, but right.
“You can only stay for a little bit,” Steve said, listening to the door. “They know I helped you before, or at least they have a guess that I did.”
“Can you give me a half hour to…”
Just then the sound of voices slipped through the cracks of the door. They could hear sporadic knocking and then Steve’s door was thumped on.
“Under the bed,” Steve hissed to Donna. He then pointed Sadie to the closet. It was nothing more than a broom closet.
“Yes,” Steve said, louder. “One second. I’ll be right there.” His voice was high and it shook with nervousness. From the closet, Sadie heard the door open.
“Where is she?” a gruff voice demanded.
“You mean Donna? She’s out. What with all the commotion…”
“Cut the shit. I’m talking about the white girl.”
“Just search the place,” Cassie said.
Sadie, realizing that she was caught, opened the closet door. She meant to brandish the hand grenade, but she was caught up in a dress of Donna’s and was slow to step out. There was no question she was seen however. Cassie looked her dead in the eye and said, “Kill the race traitor.”
There was a man in the room with them. He was very large and strong, with shoulders that were wider than the door itself. Before anyone could voice the slightest peep of protest and before anyone even noticed the grenade in Sadie’s hand, the man stabbed Steve in the chest with one of the makeshift knives. In a flash of dull metal the blade was five inches deep.
Steve keeled right over.
At Sadie’s horrified look, Cassie smiled a wicked smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t kill you so fast. You’ll wish…” Now Cassie saw the grenade.
For the second time, Sadie pulled the pin. This time the bomb did not cause the slightest unease in the Goth girl. She dropped the pin on the carpet where it bounced once and then gleamed up at them. It was trod upon as Sadie stepped forward.
“Is that real,” Cassie asked, slowly backing into the hall. As answer, Sadie opened her hand, letting the spoon spring back.
“Shit!” the large man cried. He turned to flee, and Sadie, with a feeling of utter calm, tossed the bomb over his shoulder and into the hall.
There came a pause in which Sadie slammed the door shut and threw herself onto the bed and covered her ears, thinking, as she did, that she hoped that Sarah had felt this very same tranquility when she had detonated her grenade.
A second later, the bomb discharged, torturing the very air with its violence. Even in the next room Sadie felt a moment of disorientation, however she knew she didn’t have more than a moment. She jumped up and rushed to the door. There she was forced to step over bloody bodies to get by. Unbelievably the most horrid one began to move. It was the man who had killed Steve.
With an odd, womanly grunt he moved to the side, but then Sadie saw that it was Cassie who was moving the body. She had used the man to shield her.
“I’m gonna kill you, bitch,” Cassie growled in a voice that wasn’t human. Her face was bloody and wild and so thoroughly filled with evil that Sadie fled instead of attacking her when Cassie was probably at her weakest.
It was a fatal mistake, one that she would come to regret
In a full out sprint Sadie booked down the hall and right past one of the guards that Cassie had set in place. The man gave chase, but Sadie had the fear of the devil in her and she raced away from him as if he was standing still. She went up three flights of stairs and as surely as she had been energized a minute before she now hit the limit of her endurance…just as she ran into another of the Cassie’s guards.
There was no doubt he recognized her. It was one of the same men who had kept guard over her, Neil, and Ram all the night before. He looked her up and down, then, unbelievably, he turned his head to the side and began to pick at the wall.
“You better get off the ship and fast,” he whispered as she edged by.
She had no idea what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. Instead she staggered on, heading further up the stairs, going slower and slower with the weight of her exhaustion. She had only one goal in mind: find Sarah and, hopefully, Eve.
She did not find them. Instead she found Cassie. “You is so stupid,” the black girl said.
Sadie could only muster the breath to ask, “How?”
“How did I get here so fast?” Cassie asked. “The elevators work just fine, dumbass.” With that, Cassie launched herself at Sadie and began to pummel her with punches that came thudding home with bad intent.
Sadie had never been much of a fighter, while Cassie had been raised on the streets where violence was a way of life. The black girl was not only a very good fighter, she was also stronger and fresher. She hit Sadie three times before the Goth girl even knew what was happening. After that Sadie could only try not to get hit square while hoping that someone would come to her rescue.
No one did. A hundred people on the deck watch Sadie bleed and not one lifted a finger. They either didn’t care or they were too afraid of Cassie. Sadie didn’t blame them. Cassie was crazy and rabidly dangerous.
Now that Ram was dead, the only person she knew who would stand up to her was Neil. And he did not come riding in to save her on a white horse. Neither did odd little Jillybean, or Sarah.
Sadie was on her own with just her wits to save her. They weren’t enough either. Out of desperation, she took a punch to the temple just to get close, in order to grapple Cassie. Sadie held on tight, intertwining her fingers in the black girl’s hair. Only when she was sure Cassie wasn’t getting away did she launch herself off the boat.
Over the railing the two fell with a splash, and both came up spluttering: Sadie, because her limbs were like lead weights; Cassie because of the surprise move. She wasn’t surprised for long.
“You think this will help you?” Cassie asked as she swam at Sadie. “You think cuz I’m black I can’t swim?”
Sadie felt a foolish moment of guilt because the thought had crossed her mind. She had hoped to prevail in the new medium, however Cassie was a better swimmer. In desperation Sadie tried the trick she had used earlier: attacking from below.
Cassie met her under the water and the tables were turned. The stronger girl held Sadie below the surface until the need for air was too much. Sadie bucked and twisted and squirmed and in the end her need to breathe overcame her rational mind—she sucked in the green river water, and when that didn’t satisfy she sucked in more and more until the water before her eyes went from green to black, and her body went completely still, inside and out.
Chapter 42
Sarah
New York City
The grenade was thrust in her hands so suddenly and so unexpectedly that Sarah immediately dropped it with a heavy clunk upon the deck. It was a strain to bend down to get it. The black eyes she sported for all to see looked bad, however they didn’t give her anywhere near the pain that seared her insides where the colonel had rutted with a vengeance.
It hadn’t been sex for him. He had aimed to hurt her and he had succeeded, repeatedly.
As she crouched, with the hand grenade partially hidden in her hands, Cassie came by, glanced down at her battered face and moved on without recognizing her one time companion.
“I must look like shit,” Sarah said in a whisper. A woman next to her agreed, though she was pleasant enough to help her up. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” the woman answered. “Looks like you’re having some man trouble. That’s a damn shame, but what can you do? Things are different now…and…and is that a hand grenade?” When Sarah nodded the woman gave her a shrug and added, “I guess you got it covered.”
As the night had been exciting enough for her, the woman took her leave. Sarah hid the bomb beneath her shirt much the way Sadie had, and then slowly, painfully walked up the stairs to the ne
xt level. She was basically devoid of fear at this point. In her mind Sadie was too quick to be caught, so she didn’t waste any time worrying on her account. Neil and Jillybean had each other. And Sarah had her bomb. She touched it gently, almost as though she were caressing a tiny baby beneath her shirt.
Still gimping, Sarah went to the doomsday cult suites. They weren’t hard to find: A robed man stood out front.
“I’d like to see Abraham, please.”
Again she went unrecognized. “A new convert? Abraham will be so pleased.” She was led into his presence. As always he was robed in white and his hair was so perfect that Sarah wondered if it was in fact a wig he wore. The fake messiah raised his hands in a welcoming manner until that is he discerned who it was under the bruises.
“I see you are living the fate of a denier,” he said as if her appearance saddened him.
“I’m here for my baby,” Sarah announced. She produced the grenade, holding it in two hands. Immediately Abraham’s followers leapt in front of him, protectively.
Abraham shook his head so that his mane flowed easily. “I would sooner hand Eve to the devil himself. Why should I make deals with one of his henchmen?”
“You don’t understand,” Sarah said, pulling the pin on the grenade. “I’m taking my baby or I’m taking your life.”
Abraham stepped forward with his hands raised to the ceiling. “It is you who does not understand. You can not hurt me.” He glanced to one of his followers and then touched him on the shoulder. “Timothy. Show the Lord our God your full devotion.”
Timothy was a portly man with thin hair that hung like a greased curtain from his head. He was extremely unattractive, the kind of man who, in the old days, would more likely worship a beauty such as Sarah than any dusty preacher. Now was a different time.
He came up to Sarah, nodding gently with his hands out for the grenade.
“I’ll blow us up, I swear!” she cried, backing to the corner of the room. Unbelievably he kept coming and she saw that she would be forced to either give up the grenade or use it. She wasn’t going to give it up. Sarah tried to heave the heavy bomb but Timothy was quick enough to grab her wrist as it went back.
Now she couldn’t throw it. The best she could do was to drop it behind her and hope that some of the metal pieces would hole Abraham through the heart. She let the grenade go and then tried to run to the other side of the room.
Timothy showed his devotion like a true believer. He dropped on the grenade and cuddled it to his body. When it exploded, the force of the blast straightened him out, and, of course, killed him immediately.
Unbelievably, Abraham was all smiles. “What a beautiful soul our dear friend Timothy possesses! Lord, we thank you for the blessing of Timothy.”
“You’re messed in the head,” Sarah said. Just then it was she who felt messed in the head. The colonel’s fists had given her a number of concussions and now the hand grenade’s explosion had only added to the addling of her mind.
Abraham looked down on her with sorrow. “You were a good mother. Eve is perfect. For that I will not have you killed by fire as all witches should be. Instead we will let your soul be cleaned in the purifying water that the Lord our God has given us.”
“Huh?” she asked.
“Tie her hand and foot and throw her overboard,” he said to one of his minions. He then breezed out of the room leaving Sarah speechless. In moments the curtains of the suite were shorn of their ties which went around her extremities. She was then hefted to the window and dumped out. Fortunately it was straight shot to the water below, unfortunately her foot hit the side of the boat on the way down adding a ninety degree rotation to her fall. She struck the water flat on her back with, what was in her mind, a thunderous slap.
She was so stunned that she could only lay there, floating as the water infiltrated her clothes and shoes. Slowly she settled deeper into the river until eventually its green water slipped into her mouth. Barely could she muster up the energy to care.
And then came another explosion from inside the ship. Due to the nature of sound through different mediums, the explosion was far more urgent for her out in the water than if she had been in the boat.
“Sadie,” she whispered. Sarah had been so focused on Eve that she had barely given thought to the other girl she claimed as a daughter. With a groan she rolled in the water and began a style of swimming that resembled the crawl of an inch worm. Her destination: a strange run of metal that hung from the side of the Nordic Star. She was surprised to see they were the stairs of the gangway.
They were nothing short of a miracle.
With her hands tied behind her back she could barely float, but the stairs not only afforded her a platform to rest on, it also sprung dangerously jagged slivers of metal in all directions from the rough treatment it had received.
With a will, Sarah went to work on the cloth binding her hands; they ripped relatively easily. In a minute she had freed herself, and, wasting no time, she began to climb the ladder. Halfway up, she heard a scream and a splash. At the other end of the boat Sadie and Cassie were in the water, battling for their lives. In seconds it was clear that Cassie was the better swimmer and the better fighter and as Sarah watched, her daughter was thrust under the water and held there…and held there…and held there, until bubbles gushed to the surface.
Ignoring the pain in her body, Sarah dove into the water. She may have been average with guns and dreadful at street fighting, but Sarah Rivers was a shark in the water. For three years she had captained the Danville High swim team and for seven years she’d been the ultimate blonde lifeguard, turning heads and saving lives.
Sarah knifed through the water and almost took Cassie unawares. The leader of the Blacks was so busy holding Sadie’s limp body beneath the river that she barely turned in time to confront this new menace. Having not seen Sarah’s power-boat-like stroke, Cassie turned confidently and foolishly. She reached out to deal with the blonde with her strong right arm, thinking she would drag this woman under the water as she had Sadie.
However, being attacked in the water was nothing new to Sarah; in fact life guards are frequently attacked by panicked swimmers. They are trained to expect it.
Sarah took the arm at the wrist and forced it across the front of her body, turning Cassie almost ninety degrees as she did. This was standard for saving lives and had this been a rescue instead of a killing, Sarah would have turned the girl all the way around and settled her onto her firm bosom where Cassie would have calmed rapidly.
Instead she turned the black girl with one hand, scissor kicked upwards with her legs so that she rose up out of the water practically to her navel, and then plunged Cassie beneath the surface of the water with her right hand, using all the strength in her shoulder and back. Cassie was strong as a lioness and fought like one, however her strength was more than balanced by Sarah’s position on top of her.
Sarah held the struggling woman beneath the water and had a second to weigh life versus death. Her daughter was face down in the water not seven feet away. By Sarah’s estimation the girl had not taken a breath in a full minute and Sarah knew that every second she waited to attempt to revive her would make the job that much more difficult.
But saving Sadie meant allowing Cassie to live, and who knew how many more lives that would cost in the long run?
The decision had to be made in the next few seconds, but Sarah didn’t know which way to turn. She knew what Ram would say if he were still alive: he would vote to kill Cassie. His motivation would be revenge. Neil would go the opposite direction: he would vote to save Sadie, but only out of selfish love. But what would Sarah Rivers do?
The old Sarah Rivers had been a foolish optimist and would try to do both…and so would this new one.
Killing would have to come first and if the reviving had any chance, the killing would have to happen sooner rather than later. To facilitate it meant taking chances. Sarah took a huge breath and reached down into the water with her
right hand searching for Cassie’s throat. The black girl immediately attacked the arm, grabbing it and using it to pull herself up. Sarah allowed the move, knowing that if she got to the throat and squeezed, Cassie would find it impossible to hold her breath.
In seconds their positions were almost reversed, however Sarah used her legs in the opposite manner than Cassie had. The black girl had been trying to force her way up, Sarah kicked them deeper into the murky water. It was unexpected and frightening, and since Cassie hadn’t had a good breath in twenty seconds she tried to break away. In order to do so she had to push off of Sarah. It was exactly what the older woman was hoping for.
Just as on the surface, a hand reach out to push and Sarah grabbed it and swung it neatly aside, again turning Cassie. Now instead of trying to hold her under, Sarah sent her fingers clawing for the larynx, digging at it with desperate strength. One vicious squeeze was all it took.
A gush of bubbles shot upwards. Now, getting frantic for air herself, Sarah broke away, angling for Sadie’s limp body and hoping that Cassie wouldn’t be able to recover from sucking in a lung full of water, eight feet below the surface of a river.
A glance back told her that the girl wouldn’t. Cassie was just a dim shape bucking beneath the water. Sarah turned to her next job. She broke into the air right next to Sadie and immediately turned her over, going into CPR mode: tilt the head, pinch the nose, fully seal the pale blue lips with her own and breathe, and repeat, and repeat, all the while kicking like mad with her legs toward the shore.
Once her feet hit the rocky bottom things went much faster. “Sadie! I’m right here. You’re going to be fine,” Sarah cried out. But she wouldn’t be fine. A very large part of Sarah knew her daughter had never stood much of a chance. Seven years of lifeguarding through high school and college had taught her the harsh lesson that very, very few people were saved when they had been submerged as long as she had.
Sarah had personally brought back six people from the brink—five of whom had been submerged for less than thirty seconds. Of those who had been under longer than thirty seconds she had saved only one in her eight attempts.
The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors Page 39
