The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors (9 page)

T
rey blew out with a dismissive sound. “Like I don’t know that.” He then turned back to his prisoner and sent his fist into Ram’s face. Ram’s knees buckled and he dropped onto his butt.

“You like that? Huh? Do you?” Trey asked in a hard voice. “
Cuz if you don’t give me the truth, I got more of that. A whole lot more. Now, look at me.” He took Ram’s hair and pulled his head back so that he was forced to stare up into Trey's pitiless black eyes. “We’ll start simple. How many men do you
Spics
gots?”

Ram shook his head and steeled himself for the next blow. “Twenty thousand.”

Trey gave him a
what can you do
look and then punched Ram again in the face.

“Son of a bitch,” Ram seethed. He knew how this was going to go: he would be tortured and then when he was used up he would be fed
to the zombie children. “Son of a bitch,” he said again, this time quieter. His life since the apocalypse felt wasted. Everything he had cherished had been destroyed, and now his death would be a waste as well. There would be no getting close to Cassie now…not as a human anyway.

The thought gave him an idea, a very bitter idea. “One more,” he said to Trey. “I’m not feeling it. Come on, right in the kisser.” With this
he bared his teeth, giving his enemy an easy target. Trey smirked and then hit him again. The blow dazed Ram so that he sagged to the side.

Shaking his hand, Trey asked, “Was that better?”

His knuckles were bleeding. Ram saw the blood and the cuts and sneered, “Yeah. Now let Jermy give it a try. I’ll tell you who can hit harder. But you got make it in the same spot so it’s fair.” The right canine and the front tooth next to it were both loose and he figured he’d lose them with the next punch. It was worth it to infect a couple of Cassie’s foot soldiers. He hoped they would go back and turn into stiffs among the rest of them; they’d been the ultimate Trojan horse.

Jermy
stepped up, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand and Ram clenched his teeth. Unfortunately he did so with an expectant smile.

“Wait!”
Trey cried, grabbing his friend’s arm. He wore a stunned expression as realization set in. “He wants you to hit him.”

“No shit,”
Jermy said shrugging off the hand.

Trey grabbed him again. “But why? Why would he want that? What’s the only reason he’d want us to hit him in the mouth?”

The man who’d been keeping watch answered. “Maybe he’s infected. Maybe he’s trying to get you-all infected. Nigga, let me see your hand.”

“
No….he’s faking,” Trey said, pointing with his left hand while his right, he hid behind his back. “He’s trying to mess with us. Think about it, Omar. Wouldn’t you do the same thing if you were getting jacked up?”

“If I’m faking then
Jermy won’t mind taking a swing,” Ram challenged. When the tall man took a step back instead, Ram hocked up a good loogie and spat it at him, hitting him in the side of the face. He grinned a bloody grin as Jermy went into a frantic dance trying to wipe the bloody spit away with his jacket. He then tore off the jacket and flung it away.

In a fury,
Jermy came stalking back with gun drawn, however Omar stopped him. “No one fuckin’ move,” he said with his gun pointed, amazingly enough, at Trey who looked at it with huge eyes. “I need your gun, Trey. You know our laws. We don’t let anyone back in who’s been bit.”

“He’s faking it!”
Trey cried. ‘You know he is.” Omar’s gun didn’t budge an inch.

“I got scratched this morning,” Ram said matter-of-factly. “I only have a couple hours left. It’s one of the reasons why I volunteered to come here.”

Jermy, who was right in front of Ram, looked to Omar for guidance. Omar jerked his head toward Trey. "I guess I need that gun you got," Jermy said.

Trey
dropped his chin down to his chest as the gun fell out of his hands. Before he could change his mind, Jermy bent quickly to pick it up. In a second it was unloaded, even the chambered round was jacked out of it.

Trey
looked at it and shook his head. “No, I don’t need it. He’s faking. You’ll see.”

“Here, take it,”
Jermy demanded. He forced the gun into Trey's hand and then stuck the single bullet into his front pocket. “Don't puss out, nigga. You know what you need to do...or do you want me to take care of you?"

Trey
backed away in something of a daze. "No. I'm good. I gots this. I gots..." his words trailed off and then he turned and fled as if Jermy was bent on killing him.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Ram
called after him. “I’m sorry.”

“You can shove that sorry up your ass,” Omar said. “It’s your kind what started all this, so don’t expect me to do you any favors. Come on
Jermy. You need to wash yourself better.”

“But the ropes,” Ram said as they walked away. “You can’t leave me here alone. Please.”

Omar turned. “You want company? Alright, you got it.” He stooped and picked up a stone half the size of an apple and whipped it at the school where it struck an upper floor window. The crash of glass was alarmingly loud. What was worse were the faces that began to appear in the windows.

They were little kid faces, only they had been warped by death and disease and now they were feral, sharp toothed
little beasts, and they were very hungry. They came to feast.

Chapter 8

Jillybean

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A minute after the glass came crashing down, interrupting the still afternoon, the first magic marble left her hand, over the objections of the zebra.

Ever since she heard the car pass overhead, Jillybean had been in a state of the rawest excitement. First there had been smoke, and smoke meant people. Then came the car, and cars definitely meant people. And lastly there were voices drifting down the drain pipes! Voices
only
came from people.

You should be careful
, Ipes cautioned.
Just don’t go running up there
.

What a nervous-
nelly, she thought to herself. Aloud she said, “I’ll be careful of the monsters, but not people. That’s just silly.” It turned out that there wasn't a chance to just go running up anywhere. The two of them couldn’t a find a way up to the street that wasn’t blocked. In the black beneath the earth the pair went in circles until Jillybean had enough and turned on the heavy flashlight—again over Ipes’ objections. The light helped greatly and the two found a feeder tunnel that opened up on the far side of the school.

“Which way?” she asked from between two rusting
relics that had once been cars.

Ipes made a humph noise as he was wan
t to do when he felt put upon.
If I tell you, will you even listen?
he asked. She promised she would and so he directed her unerringly around the two-story school. And that was when he was proved sadly right about the necessity of being careful around humans.
We should go
, he said as Ram took another punch to the face by Trey.

“But they’re hitting that man,” she replied.

And what would you do about it? Are you a gun fighter or a ninja? No. You’re a little girl and little girls do not fight. Now come on. I never thought I would yearn for a sewer like some sort of abysmal rat, but it is what it is.

The little girl refused to budge. “We can’t just leave him. He might need our help somehow,” she argued.
In this she was proven right not two minutes later. The three black men left, but not before one threw a rock in a high rainbow arc at the school. Jillybean cringed at the sound, however the cringe turned into a look of horror as monsters came hurrying down out of the building.

“Ipes! They’re kid monsters
," she cried in horror. "Oh no. Look at them. Look at them, they’re so gross.” She was so terrified by the sight of them that she froze, hunkered down, turning rabbit against her will.

It was the cautious zebra that focu
sed her once again.
They are indeed. Now we should get going
.

Her first thought was: To where? She had no clue where she was, only a vague idea of where she had been, and was afraid to think of where she was going,
especially alone as she was.

She replied to the zebra with a simple: “No.” And then she fished out the first magic marble
and kissed it. The little zombies, fourteen in all, had exited a side door and were just nearing the corner of the building and would see the man, who was alone and standing against a pole, in a second if she didn’t do something.

With a grunt, she threw the marble at the school with the full intention of having the monsters turn in her direction—which was exactly what they did. Like a gaggle of BFFs the zombies changed direction in midstride as though part of a gruesome clique and followed the sound of the marble, eagerly.

They came dangerously close to the hiding girl and now she took a wild chance and hucked another marble, this time down the very street she crouched upon. Thankfully the monsters went after the retreating marble without looking once in her direction. The little girl slunk to the far end of the car and watched them go through two sets of aged and dirty glass.

Now’s our chance
, Ipes said, however Jillybean stopped suddenly. She'd had a queasy feeling in her tummy that had been growing for most of the afternoon and now it doubled her over. She gasped in pain.
Are you alright?
the zebra asked.
You’re white as a ghost
.

The feeling passed as quickly as it came and she assured her friend that she was ok.
She then ran around the end of the building with her backpack flouncing on her back and her brown hair whipping about crazily from a new wind.

Surprisingly the man glared at her
, and as she came up he lashed out with his long legs trying to kick her.
Careful, he might be crazy
, Ipes warned.

“You think so?”she wondered, with the zebra clutched in her skinny arms protectively and keeping just out of reach from his legs.

It sure seemed that the man was nutty, especially when he asked the strangest question: “You can talk?”

Ipes was perplexed at the question.
Does he mean me or you?

Jillybean shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Who are you talking to, Mister?”

Where before the man had ogled Jilly with wide-eyed bewilderment, now he blinked slowly as if in partial understanding, and then he lifted his head and stared over her. “For a moment I thought you were one of those zombies,” he intoned with a voice that was dry and empty as a corn husk. He dropped his gaze back to the girl and added, “You should get out of here. They’ll come back soon.”

“I could untie you,” she said and then skirted around him, keeping her distance out of fear
of his feet until she was straight on to his back. She then went at the knots with her tiny fingers, however they proved ineffectual compared to the strength of the bindings.

When she made a noise of frustration the man turned around the pole and she stepped back timidly. His face scared her. It was swollen and misshapen on one side, and there was blood, and the eyes were mostly empty of
thinkings so that he appeared to her as half a monster on the way to becoming a full one.

“You tried, now get out of here before they come back. I heard them on the other side of the school.”

With a flutter of fear growing in her chest, she looked past the man at the building, while her feet took involuntary steps away. However it was then that Ipes spoke up as contradictory as ever.
Since we’re here, we might as well save him. Those are only shoelaces he’s tied with. Find some sharp glass and we can cut him free
.

The s
choolyard looked more like a junkyard and so Jillybean went about looking down for three seconds, searching for a large enough piece of glass, and then looking up for two, afraid she would see the little kid monsters charging at her. Down her head would hang and then up quick—down and then up, repeated over and over.

The man hissed continually for her to leave, however she ignored him and continued her hunt until her greatest fear came into reality. There, on the side of the building, were the little kid monsters and they were horrible.

Stay perfectly still
, Ipes warned her.
When they start eating the man we’ll slip away and get back to the sewers
.

“No,” she said in a stern whisper. It was true the kid monsters were wicked and loathsome in her eyes, and it was also true that they struck fear into her by their very presence. Yet despite her age she was able to comprehend the nature of the fear
within her. It was a gut reaction to the
possibility
of becoming one of them.

It was this understanding that allowed her face her fear and once she did, it became less. And the monsters became less. For the most part they were small and even skinnier than Jillybean. She saw that many were missing hands and some even arms, while most limped.

And they were not particularly bright. With their focus on the pole and the man they did not see her at first. It wasn’t until she purposely drew their attention, going from
still rabbit
to
flying deer
that they even saw her. Then their jackal-like instincts took over. Instead of indulging in an easy meal of a bound man they gave chase as Jillybean dropped her backpack and booked it in a dead sprint for the school, hoping to lead them away.

Why on earth did you bring me?
Ipes cried from the crook of her arm.

She couldn’t spare the breath to answer him. With the pack hot on her heels she made straight for a door
in the building that sat ajar. Someone had stuck a plastic backed chair in the gap to hold it open and Jillybean leapt on it as agile as a monkey and then another leap had her in the decaying school. It was surprisingly and unnervingly dark.

There could be more of them in here
, Ipes said. The warning was wasted. With the pack clawing their way over and around the chair she had nowhere else to go. With echoing steps she ran down the main hall looking into every room as she passed. They were empty, each promising to trap her.

T
hen she ran out of hall. It ended at a set of double doors and her mind guessed: Gymnasium. She was correct. The doors opened into a dark that was as intense as the sewers had been. It was like dashing into a pool of ink and yet, with the pack of kid monsters coming she had no choice but to head in.

Almost immediately she fell forward as her foot struck something. Thankfully it was the beginning of a soft mat, the kind she used to tumble on when she took gymnastics. By feel she knew it.

Get up!
Ipes screamed. The gym doors had shut with a reverberating crash which seemed to have woken something in the dark. A moan drifted along the black. It wasn’t the high squeaking moan of a kid monster, it was something more. It was something big.

Its footfalls were heavy thumps that she could feel coming up through the padded mat and when it knocked into things in the dark there were booms and thundering bangs.
An all encompassing fright seized the little girl. She leapt up and dashed in the direction she thought was the way out, however the walls and the double doors wouldn’t come to her outstretched hands. They felt nothing but air, while behind, the huge monster came steadily on.

It too was hampered by the lack of light
, yet it tracked her, not from the patter of her tiny feet, which made barely a sound—it was her ragged breathing that drew it on. With her overwhelming fear and the dregs of her sprint still on her, Jillybean huffed air like an asthmatic.

Ipes diagnosed the problem,
You’re breathing too loud!

Of course knowing what the problem was and being able to do anything about it were two different things. She couldn’t run from the monster and breathe lightly at the same time. No matter how hard she tried, it still heard her and closed the distance between them with each passing second.

Get out a magic marble
, Ipes said, though in the dark his voice sounded so much like her father’s that she didn’t question what she thought was a useless demand. What good would a marble do? Given the choice between a following a bouncing marble and a huffing and puffing girl, a zombie would go for the girl every time.

As she ran with shuffled steps she dug
out a marble.
Listen carefully, Jillybean
,” Ipes ordered.
I want you to toss that marble gently ahead of us. When it lands I want you to take a deep breath and hold it, then juke to the right
.

The term “Juke” wasn’t in her mental dictionary, at least not in her conscious dictionary. Her subconscious was a different story and held thousands of words that she had never uttered, but had memories attached from which she could draw meaning:

Sitting on her father’s lap in front of the TV, while he swigged beer that made his breath funny. She had been small, smaller even than now, small enough that when he jiggled her up and down on his knee, it was like trying to stay upright on a bucking bronco. It made her giggle and she loved him for it, but he was only half paying attention to her. He was such a good dad that he could parent with half his brain tied behind his back. Most of his mind was on the “Game”. Football. It was an unfathomable activity to a four-year-old.

He laughed in joy and hugged her around the middle. “You see that?
Mareno just juked that linebacker out of his shoes.”

Someone losing their shoes could be funny and so she turned to the game, only everyone had their shoes on that she could see. A man did catch her attention long enough to affiliate the word juke with this memory. He was cheetah fast and when confronted by a hulking man he dodged to the side making the bigger man stumble and fall.

Juke: The process of changing direction in midstride to avoid a collision with another.

The marble left her hand,
gently as ordered, and as it did she sucked in a huge breath and juked to the right. The marble went clack, clack. The huge beast went stomp, stomp. And Jillybean trembled in fear with her lungs burning and her stomach beginning to pain her once more. The monster brushed by, its slow mind focusing on the only noise left to it. Second after second slipped away until ten had passed and the giant thing was well away.

Slowly, Jillybean let out her breath and
, with a feeling akin to triumph, she sucked in air covering her mouth to muffle the noise. She had done it. The monster was at the far end of the gym scrambling around after a silly marble; and if she was to knock into something else, she had more marbles to confuse him.