The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors (10 page)

Going slow and careful—in her mind like a blind three-toed sloth
—she walked directly away from the creature until she came to the wall of the gym and then she hurried despite the danger. The wall, if followed far enough, would lead to an exit. There would be two if not three in a gym of this size.

And there it was! Jillybean’s face lit up as her hands felt the smooth, cool metal of the door; and there were the handles…and something else. Hard as steel, with consecutive roundish loops.
Jilly’s heart sunk. It was a chain, and next her hand felt what could only be a padlock. There was no getting through this door. And if this one was chained that meant they all were.

There was only one way out, the way she came in. Almost at that second, the little kid monsters,
who had been for all this time struggling to open the gym door with their near useless brains had stumbled on the concept of pull instead of push and the gym door swung open. The school hall had seemed dark before, but compared to the pitch of the gym it was practically aglow and enough light fell inwards to show Jillybean standing there looking tiny and vulnerable.

It also showed the giant monster
at the far end of the gym. It was huge, over six and half feet tall, and wide as one those football players her daddy had liked to watch. Yes it was big and scary, but it was the strange fact that the monster was completely naked that sickened Jillybean. It was a subconscious revulsion that manifested itself with another sharp pain deep in her intestines, which brought a groan from her lips.

You got
ta suck it up, Jillybean
, Ipes told her.

Tears welled and threatened, but
Jilly didn’t seem to notice, her fear was too great. “I can’t,” she whispered in the single second left before the monsters charged and she fell to her knees in surrender.

Chapter 9

Jillybean

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The pain in her tummy sent a shiver running along her limbs and a moan that was somewhat zombie-like escaped her lips.

Please Jillybean
, Ipes begged her.
Get up. They’re coming! They’re coming!

Across the gym from her the kid zombies stormed through the double doors, while the giant monster at the other end of the rectangular room let a
low bellow of a moan, and charged, shaking the floor as he came.

“I can’t,” she whispered. Her muscles had gone limp and sweat beaded under the brown wisps of hair at her forehead. She felt like crying and she did
. The monsters were going to eat her no matter what, and crying felt like the best thing to do at the moment.

In his
terrific anxiety Ipes was squirming like mad against her chest.
At least throw a magic marble, please.

It was all she had the strength and will to do. The marble flew through the air, landing at the feet of the nearest child monster and releas
ed its magic. Just as it clacked on the wood the last of the kid monsters came through the gym doors, which shut behind it, halting the stream of light. The dark was so complete, it was as if she had blinked and forgot to open her eyes again.

After the sewers the dark no longer frightened her, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say she gained strength in the comforting safety of it. The monsters were as blind as she and their headlong rush became a jumble as monster ran into monster. When this occurred, there would be a savage thrashing noise intermixed with growls, and then just as quickly the two would part again, only to run into another of their kind
, seconds later.

Now will you go?
Ipes begged.

The very idea of crossing forty yards of open floor with monsters flying all about had her sagging again. It would be a deadly game of
blind man’s bluff and she couldn’t see herself coming out the winner. And yet she had no choice and so she stood, leaning against the chained door trying to force herself to leave the meager safety of it.

Her magic marbles had been so
effective that before making the dash across the gym she chucked one to the far end of the gym where she had last seen the big monster. If there was magic in this marble it wasn’t apparent. Above the roaring and the moaning, and the constant crashes that shook the walls, the sound of the marble was a little thing and if any of the monsters were distracted there was no way to tell.

We don’t have a choice
, Ipes told her.
You have to make a run for it.
Just don’t drop me, whatever you do.

With a deep breath Jillybean plunged into the chaos. After a bare two steps she plowed directly into something huge and fleshy, and bounced off again, losing her footing in the process and thumping to the hard wood floor.

It was the giant. Above her the air roiled with its stink and swished with the passing of his clawed hands as it swept at the dark, hunting for its meal. Madly she kicked away from it only to have another of the monsters trip over her in the dark. She could hear its nails scraping at the wood as it tried to right itself in time to get her, however fear had a good hold of Jillybean's mind and she jumped up and began running with her hands outstretched, going in the wrong direction, but thinking that any moment she would find the right doors.

Instead her lead foot struck something
hard and unyielding. Whatever it was had an awkward shape like strange stairs, only there weren't any stairs in the gym.

They're bleachers
, Ipes said.
You went the wrong way!
She turned to her right feeling the old wood with her left hand, running her fingers over carved letters and splintered boards; though it was only for a few steps and then Ipes was pounding his soft hoof onto her arm and saying,
No. The other way. Go back the other way
.

Making sure to keep at least one hand on the bleachers, she turned but was forced to pause as there came a violent shaking along the
wood. The vibrations grew in intensity, coming closer, and all she could do was cringe, but then they stopped altogether and Ipes urged her forward. She ran in a shuffle until the bleachers became air beneath her trailing fingers.

To the right,
Ipes said with excitement.

She did as she was told, moving right until she hit the wall
, where she splayed her fingers and swept her small hands all around. Seconds later the metal of the door was against her palm, and there was the bar, that when depressed would...

Yes!
Ipes cried in joy as the light struck them full force. At that moment the chaos behind them ceased as though a switch had been thrown.
Run and don't look back
, Ipes ordered.

Running wasn't going to be a problem
. Jillybean stretched out her skinny legs and bolted. Behind her the door closed, but not a moment later it thumped and then shuddered under the fists of the giant. This only spurred her on until she found the door to the outside; she leapt the plastic-backed chair and then she paused as a new wind struck her in the face. It was brisk and bewildering, having brought with it dark clouds.

How long was I in there
? she wondered. It couldn't have been long because there was the same man tied to the pole. At the sight of him she stopped, remembering she had been looking for glass before the monsters had come back. She bent over the trash strewn grounds once again; unfortunately the only glass she could find was from the school windows, which had shattered into thousands of little cube-like pieces that reminded her of diamonds.

Forget the glass
, Ipes suggested.
Look for scissors or a knife. But hurry, they'll figure out how to get out of the gym soon
.

With her head wagging from side to side, Jillybean searched the playground, dashing from pile
of refuse to pile of crap. At the bottom of a plastic blue cube that looked like the sort of crate that milk was delivered in she found a pair of scissors. They were safety scissors and were small enough to fit her hand.

"I've got some scissors," she told the man.
She held them up for him to see as she ran to him and tried to smile encouragingly, hiding her doubt. In her experience safety scissors were too safe. Most of the time they could barely cut construction paper and now she was going to have to try to scissor through thick laces.

He started to shake his head, but after a quick glance at the school he changed his mind. "Ok...ok, give it a shot, but hurry. And if the stiffs come back, promise me you'll leave. You run away and don't look back." Sweat gleaned on his misshapen face and there was such a wild cast to his eyes that Jillybean
couldn't find words to answer him, though she did nod in a small way before skirting around to his back. He spun on the pole and demanded, "Promise me that you'll leave."

"I promise," she said in a voice as small as she was. Satisfied, he turned and she began a vain struggle with the plastic handled scissors. Even if they had been sharp, which Jillybean doubted very much they had ever been, her hands were far too weak for the job and not one thread parted from the rest. She even tried sawing with the blunt metal. Back and forth her hands went in a blur until she slipped and fumbled the scissors.

"Stop," the man told her. He spun, shuffling his feet so that he had turned halfway. "It's not working. Just go. Get out of here, before..." A sadness swept him, stopping his words and now his head hung so that his brown eyes stared only at the cracked asphalt.

Take his advice, Jillybean
, Ipes said with a sigh.
There's just no getting him off that pole, not unless that giant comes out and lifts him off
.

"I guess, but..." she started to say, however the image of the naked monster grabbing the man and pulling him off the pole and then eating him, stopped her. It was a horrible vision
, nevertheless it spawned an idea. "What if we lift him off?" she mumbled to Ipes. "Or what if we get some stuff for him to stand on and he can, you know, climb off?"

Thinking she was speaking to him, the man asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Getting you off the pole," Jillybean replied, scanning the rubbish for something sturdy enough for the man to stand on. There were a couple of chairs that were too short, and a teacher's desk that was too big for her to lug over, and a number of weak plastic bins of the sort that Jillybean had as a kindergartener. They held pencils and crayons, and her shoes or her lunch, and it fit snuggly into her cubby—one of these could support her weight, but certainly not the man's, he was just too big.

The man took in the trash excited at first, but with fading hope as he turned in a slow circle and saw little in the refuse that could help him. "Just go," he said again, and now he slunk down to an awkward sitting position.

Jillybean wouldn't be defeated without a try and so she put Ipes on the ground next to the man and then ran for one of the chairs. Seconds later she scraped it back to him making more noise than she wished. She stood it next to him against the pole and said, "Try this."

He made a face after glancing at it and then the height of the pole. "It's too short. Please, you said you would go. You promised."

"The monsters aren't here yet," she reminded him, and then went for the second chair and after she pulled it over she stood there staring, as her brain tried to work out some configuration of the two that would get him high up enough to allow him to slip his arms over the top of the pole.

In a moment she made a noise of desperation. She couldn't see how it
would work. "Help me, Ipes, please. We have to get him up high enough so he can get over the top."

As the man looked at her in a funny way, Ipes considered things.
We need to make a stair for him that is at least, let's see...he's about six foot, and the pole is seven. With his hands behind his back, I'd say the stair needs to be four feet tall at a minimum
.

"Stairs? We don't have time to make stairs," Jillybean said. "And asides he can't leave the pole to go walking up stairs."

"What?" the man asked. "What stairs? What are you talking about?"

She waved him to be quiet as Ipes answered her
:
We have to build a crude set of steps, because he can't magically hop four feet straight up while tied to a pole. And the stairs will have to go around the pole, like a spiral staircase. Now hurry and get all the books you can find. And those crates, and those little bin things
.

As the man continued to sputter out questions, she dashed off, going from pile to pile, picking up books and plastic bins and sticking them in one of the plastic containers. When she got back she was short of breath and sweating up a storm.

"Can you get up, Mister?" she asked.

"What?"

"Stand up," Jillybean said. "We gotta build stairs so you can get up off that pole." She didn't wait and began stacking books next to him, however Ipes stopped her.

No, the crate first
, Ipes ordered.
He's going to go up sort of to the side and back. It won't be easy so the first step should be sturdy. Now push the chair over here. Turn it around so the back is to the pole. Great. We'll need the books in order to
...

He stopped as their came a series of metallic bangs coming from the school. It was the sound of a door being knocked against a wall repeatedly. It was the sound of the monsters escaping from the school in a manic rush.

"Hurry," the man whispered, afraid. He had stood and watched her construct the rude stairs with a touch of hope, but now his brown eyes were big in his face as he stared over the playground and to the school. "You can hear them coming!" It was true. They were coming around the school, thankfully they were taking the long way, which would give them maybe thirty seconds.

Thirty seconds was not much time.  Still it was enough time for one attempt and so the man tried to step up onto the crate; instead his foot upended it.

Guide his feet.
Ipes commanded in a rush
. He can't see where he's going.

Jillybean
returned the crate to its position. "Lift your foots. I'll put them on the crate." Half their time was spent getting him from the ground to the crate to the chair.

Now the books
! Ipes cried, waving his stubby hooves in the air.
Make four stacks that are as even as you can get them. Then we'll put the next chair on top of those
.

She dropped to her knees and stacked all the books she had into four piles.

It's not enough
, Ipes said.
And you don't have time to go get more. We should go. Tell him sorry and let's go!
The moans and the running, slapping feet were louder now. The monsters would be around the corner in seconds.

"What about the bins?" she asked.

The man tore his eyes from the sound of his coming doom and took in the situation. "They'll crack under the weight of the chair. They're too flimsy." He sighed in resignation and she was sure he would remind her of her promise again, however Ipes interrupted.