The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse (29 page)

“
Then let him,” Sarah replied. “Go ahead Neil.”

Sadie glared once and then disappeared again, leaving Neil even more bewildered.
“What is this about, Sadie? I thought you liked Sarah.”

“
I do, it's just she's practically blind!”

Sarah
's anger softened a little. “What am I blind to?”

When Sadie hesitated, Neil spoke,
“If we're missing something, you have to tell us. You just can't lash out. Now come on down and we'll talk about it. And I got a boat, with a motor and gas and everything. We could take it right down the Mississippi if we wanted to. I just want you to be there when we go. What do you say?”

“
Can I talk to Sarah alone?” Sadie asked. “This is between us, Neil. So if you could wait back in the house...”

“
No, that's not how we're going to do this,” Neil replied stepping back so he could see the teen better. “We three need to be a team...that is if you want to?” he said this to Sarah. It wasn't really something they had talked about.

“
Before I say yes, we need to hear what she has to say. And I want the full truth. Half-truths will breaks up a part just as sure as outright lies will. Can you be truthful with me, Sadie?”

“
Yes,” Sadie said in a low voice. “You don't see Neil like I do. You don't see his good qualities.” Sarah looked at Neil, who only shrugged, not knowing what good qualities he possessed that either of them had seen yet.

“
I'm looking at him right now,” Sarah said, looking his way. “And I do see his good qualities. He's a nice guy. And he's...”

Sadie interrupted,
“No, he's not a nice guy. He hates being called that. Neil is smart and brave, and he's loyal to those people he cares for. He did everything he could to get those soldiers to let me stay on that Island, even though he knew they'd never take him.”

“
It was a mistake to even try,” Sarah said. Her words were harsh, but that only set Sadie off some more.

“
You see, Neil? She won't understand. I'm trying but she's got her own shit to worry about. She'll never understand you, like I do.”

Neil grabbed his hair and pulled at it in frustration.
“Are you saying you like me, Sadie? I'm sorry but that wouldn't be right...”

“
No. I don't like you like that. I just want Sarah to.” A lull of thick silence followed the statement and as it went on Sarah and Neil only stared at each other not knowing what to say. After a bit, Sadie spoke again, “I let those zombies into the house so that you could save her. So that she could see your brave side. So that she could see you as a good man and not a nice guy. She only thinks you're sort of goofy and I hate that.”

“
I don't think that at all,” Sarah said, looking stricken over the accusation, yet at the same time Neil could see her searching for something nice to say about him. “Really, you're a...”

Neil shook his head.
“Don't. Just don't.” He went to the door of the barn and looked out at the cold day. The rain had picked up again which made him realize that his precious gas was only covered by a ratty shirt he had found in the bottom of the boat. “I got work to do,” he said and left.

“
Neil, please,” Sarah called, hurrying after him, her feet still bare despite the cold. “We have to talk.”

He kept walking, his anger large in his mind as a way to compensate for his mortal embarrassment. Of course as a
“Nice Guy” he did his best to hide his true feeling because that's what nice guys did. “Sadie is just mixed up,” he said. “It's not her fault so please don't take it out on her. We should just do our best to keep an eye on her.”

“
Yes I agree, but I wanted to talk about us,” Sarah said, stepping around the rocks and larger puddles. “It's not a good time for me. I just lost my parents and you know...”

“
Why are you telling me this?” he asked cutting right across her, his anger now growing so great that even his vaunted niceness wasn’t covering it any longer. “I didn't ask you out, did I? I'm sorry if you think I'm pining away for you, but I'm not. And I don't have a crush on you and I definitely am not doodling your name on my damned notebook in 5th period, so don't give me that crap about it not being a good time for you, because we both know it would never be a good time for you!”

“
I know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that, but Sadie put me on the spot and I just wanted to be clear.”

Neil had been marching angrily back to the boat and now he climbed in and stood there looking at everything, seething as the rain pelted him, but as always his inherent niceness pushed its way forward and kept him
from exploding on her in his rage. Yet he did sneer, “You were clear alright. Is this how you were back in the old days? Did you walk around telling men not to bother before they even knew your last name? I have to say, cutting a man off preemptively when he wasn't even going to ask you out is kind of rude, if you must know. Especially as the thought never even crossed my mind. Which it didn't.”

Sarah hung her head and the rain dripped from her nose and even as mad as he was
, Neil had to resist wiping the drops away, or giving her his coat. “Sorry,” she said again. “I guess that wasn't very nice of me.”

“
It happens, right? We all have our moments,” Neil replied, regretting having made her upset, turning back into the nice guy just like that. He gave her a smile to show there weren't any hard feelings. “We have to make sure Sadie is clear on all of this: You don't like me in that way and I don't like you in that way. Not at all. Here, this is for you.” He reached into the bottom of the boat and handed her one of the backpacks. “It's just some shoes and some clothes and some grape jelly I thought you would like...and some more of that perfume you were wearing. It's nothing really.”

Hundreds of zombies, 27 rounds left, and a girl who had his heart in a tight grip, bleeding with a virus fighting to get into her system. Ram had zero choices. Running wasn't an option and fighting would have to wait. In his pocket was Julia's only hope, and he didn't so much as hand her his rifle, as he threw it into her arms and dug out the first bottle of vodka that he had hoped would ease them back into a more intimate relationship.

Instead she screamed as he poured it into the jagged wound the broken glass had slashed into her flesh.
“Shoot, damn it!” he yelled and then grabbed her leg and squeezes so that the blood and alcohol blended and came out pink. Another bottle joined the first and then the M16 started ripping the air with its thin thunder. He then spread the gash as far as it would go and poured a third bottle into the wound.

It would have to do for now.

“Come on,” he said and then not waiting even for a second for her to figure out what he meant by that, he yanked the gun from her grip and threw her over his shoulder. Whether she could run or not he didn't know or care. Some primal part of him had taken over and now he was Tarzan and she was Jane, and this was no longer a PC world—there were zombies to worry over, many, many hundreds of them.

She had laid out those who had gotten close, some with head shots and some with hits that were just good enough. It gave him a lane and he pelted
through it across the street where another low brick building sat ignored by the empty world. Thankfully glass doors were in vogue for front entrances.

Dumping her on her butt and dropping his gun in her lap, he said simply,
“Cover me.”

Julia might have been a psychologist by training with a woman
's soft heart, but just then she was a Spartan in her soul and with the horde closing, she shot with nerves as cold as ice. She aimed low, at knee height and a miss of a stiff in front still meant that the one behind stumbled and fell, making it an obstacle course for the dead.

While she was buying time with the few remaining bullets, Ram was looking around in a growing panic; this time there wasn
't a handy stone for him to use to break the glass and he feared to waste even a single bullet. With no other good choice, he threw himself against the glass door and all that happened was a shock went through him from shoulder to shoulder. He didn't try a second time, knowing it would do little beside bruise him. Instead he lashed out with a grunting front kick that set the power of his two-hundred and twenty pounds in a three-inch area across the ball of his right foot straight into the glass—it shattered and so did something within him. A searing pain raced up the tibia in his lower leg and right through to his knee, making his teeth clench.

With him operating in fight or flight mode, the pain was nothing
. However when he went to kick out the extra glass in the door, so that he and Julia could get through, his knee buckled and he went down. He knew that he injured himself badly, yet just then it didn't matter a hill of beans to him. His mind had set itself a goal and the punishment his body took in gaining the goal was secondary and of trivial importance. With his elbow he cleared the glass and then he reached for Julia who was already kicking backwards with her good leg, firing all the while. By the shirt, he took her and dragged her through the low opening, pushing her head down to keep her scalp from being sliced open.

“
I'm empty,” she said, showing him the open port on the side of the M16, and not at all upset with her rough treatment. With the danger, she didn't even seem to notice how he had manhandled her and in truth neither did he.

Ram stared at the gun for a second and with his mind still in its
Fire bad / Girl Pretty
mode, he could not quite make the connection between her words and the actual fact that they were out of ammo. All he knew was: “We shouldn't stay here,” he said.

The gun went across his shoulder while she slung an arm over him for support. Together they hobbled on through an unknown building where one set of cubicles looked like another and their only saving grace was that the zombies, in their zeal to get at their victims, had plugged the hole behind them with three of their wriggling bodies. Ram didn
't know this and he pressed on as fast as he could, heading down a central corridor with no particular destination in mind.

“
Where are they,” Julia asked, glancing over her shoulder with every other step. He was about to say he didn't know, but there came a bang and a shattering of glass. Instead of answering he opened the first door on his left—the one on the opposite side of the building from which they had entered. He touched a finger to his lips to suggest she be quiet and he gave him a look that said:
No duh
.

The two spread out, each hobbling; Julia went to the back wall, while Ram looked up at the noise dampening ceiling panels, wondering if he could get Julia up there and if they would hold even her slight weight. It didn
't seem likely except where the walls ran together and so he limped to what looked like a break room; as he did there came a thumping and a rush of feet from the hall. The stiffs were hunting them.

Julia glanced at him, more pale than he had ever seen her and then went back to searching the desks and rooms, looking for something, anything that would save them. Ram was beginning to think that being saved wasn
't possible. He felt that putting off death for another minute, or another hour, or a single day was the best they could hope for. So he looked again to the ceiling, seeing in it a moment's refuge.

He just had to get up there. With a near silent grunt he gently placed a chair up on the desk nearest to the break room and was just wondering how he was going to get his gimpy bulk up on it when he heard a short, urgent whistle from Julia. She had one hand pointing out the window, while the other waived him over with frantic motions. There was no hurrying Ram, impaired as he was by his bad leg and limited by the fact that any noise would alert the beasts that had descended upon the hall just beyond the doors. Still she tried.

“Come on!” Julia hissed. “She's leaving.”

Finally Ram came up to the window and saw the Bronco, slowly drifting down the street. Their salvation was right there and what was more, there wasn
't a stiff in sight.

Reaching for a tall,
four-legged stool, Ram warned, “It's going to be loud. We may not make it.”

“
I don't want to die here,” she said, nodding and pointing at the window. “Do it. Break the glass.”

It was easier said than done. His bad leg kept him from putting his full power into the swing and so the first attempt saw the chair rebounding off the
window and nearly coming out of his grip. It made a noise like a stunted gong, though in its effect it might as well have been the dinner bell. The zombies went into an instantaneous frenzy. The door shook as they attacked it, but worse, in a visceral way, was that the walls began to vibrate as the beasts tore at the paneling and the thin sheetrock beneath in order to get at them.

“
Again!” Julia cried, slapping a desk with the flat of her palm repeatedly. A second time he swung and this time the glass flashed into a spider's web of cracks. Behind them was a splintering cracking noise—the zombies were breaking through the door!

Ram didn
't need Julia's urging; he began the hammer at the glass faster and faster as a small hole widened slowly. When it was just big enough he grabbed Julia by the arm and pushed her to it.

“
It's not big enough for you,” she said pulling back. The first zombie began to slither through the hole in the door, unmindful of the sharp angles of wood. “We both go!”

Ram had fully intended on going, he had only wanted her to get to safety first. With a growl at even this tiny delay he went berserk on the glass, making the hole large enough with three tremendous swings of the mangled chair.

“Go,” he said, breathing great gusts of air. He couldn't wait to help her through as he had planned instead he had the dead to deal with. Like horrible snakes the stiffs slithered through the opening they had made and already there were four of them in the room. In the first second he knocked one sprawling with the chair and in the next he over turned the desk at his feet and pushed it in the path of another.

“
Ram! I'm through,” Julia called. She then went limping out into the street calling Cassie back, as well as calling every zombie in the vicinity to her. There weren't any on the street, however there were plenty still trying to get into the building and these came charging around the far end. “Shit, shit, shit. Ram! Come on,” she cried.

In the art of zombie warfare subtlety was wasted and Ram had learned well his lessons. There was only attack, attack, attack until the beasts were all dead. Unless...one was winded and weakened through injury; and unless there was a way to escape. Ram smashed the third zombie with the awkward weapon, but it took three tries to bring it down
and then the fourth was on him, arms and taloned hands reaching. Defense was normally useless since a single scratch could doom a person, but now Ram brought up the stool to chest height and when the zombie reached through the metal it had effectively handcuffed itself. With its arms extended and trapped, Ram simply pivoted the creature back the way it came and shoved it at the next beast coming at him.

He didn
't wait to see how much this was going to slow any of them down, instead he launched himself in an ugly one-legged dive through the window.

Julia was screaming for Cassie to stop, but the Bronco
's brake lights didn't go on until Ram joined her on the street, waving his arms and screaming. Only then did Cassie put the car in reverse and back toward them as fast as her limited ability would allow. Few people practiced driving in reverse at top speed, and by the way Cassie fishtailed the Bronco all over the road, it was clear she wasn't one of those few. Ram had to pull Julia back to keep her from being hit.

“
I thought you were dead,” Cassie said as soon as they climbed in—she didn't need to be told to floor it when the doors were slammed shut and locked—stiffs were all over the place scraping at the glass and the paint.

The sudden acceleration pinned them to the leather seats
—Julia grabbing the
Oh Shit
bar above the door to hang on, however Ram was left to sway back and forth in a growing nausea as he pulled out the final two bottles of vodka.

“
Let me see that leg,” he said to Julia. To Cassie he barked, “Slow down! Nothing's chasing you.” Julia scooted close, her face pulled by fear at what the possibilities were with the wound. The cut was on her inner thigh and in order to get a better look, Ram took her blood soaked jeans where they were torn, and with a quick violent motion, ripped them wide, exposing her soft pale skin from knee to pelvis and then some.

On impulse from such a move she tried to close her splayed legs, but Ram, in a motion that bespoke his masculinity and strength laid her thighs wide open
with his large hands. For him it was an act that was non-sexual in nature and he was too absorbed, to mixed in his emotions to notice how dominant his mannerisms and position was, nor how pink in the cheeks Julia had become, nor how she put her shaking hands out to him as if to ward him off. Or even how big Cassie's eyes had grown in her dark face as she looked back.

He didn
't notice any of this because he was sick, not only with fear for Julia, but also sick with Cassie's driving. She weaved left and right as she kept her chin half turned from the road. He was also nervous for himself. There was a cut on his left forearm that he hadn't noticed before, and it, coupled with his stomach's strong reaction had him wondering if he were infected as well.

“
Face the road, damn it,” he seethed.

“
I just trying to see what the hell you doin back there,” Cassie replied, pointing her chin at Julia's spread legs and prone position. Only then did Ram see what the women saw and he grabbed a shirt from one of the packs and covered her.

“
She bit?” Cassie asked in the same tone of voice as if she were asking if Julia had only stubbed her toe. “Cuz if so she needs to get the fuck out.”

“
It's her damned car,” Ram snarled. Uncapping the fourth bottle he began working the alcohol into the wound, which begun to bleed afresh.

Julia grimaced as he did so, grabbing the bar tighter.
“I got scratched is all…on glass,” she said in a high voice. “This is just a precaution. Ram, you're bleeding as well. Do you know that? You need to save some for yourself.”

“
I have one more,” he said, handing it to her. “Could you do it? I don't know if I can reach well enough.” She sat up, arranging herself better and then with soft hands explored his wound, cleaned it thoroughly as Cassie watched and drove all at once.

“
Will that work?” she asked. “Cuz if it don't you know what I gots to do.”

“
It might,” Julia said. “Especially for me. I wasn't bit, but what about you, Ram? Did you get bit?”

“
I don't know...or I know I wasn't bit, but I don't know if I was scratched by one of them. I can't tell from this angle. Does that look like glass made it?”