The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse (36 page)

Sarah glanced up from the baby in alarm.
“Neil! I need to have a
long talk
with you before it gets dark.” Sadie snorted at the silly code word as Neil hurried down the ladder.

“
What about you?” he asked Sadie. “Do you need to talk?”

“
I'm good,” she said, walking away to stroll across the soft front yard of the house.

“
If anyone wants to talk they'll have to come up here!” Ram exclaimed, sweating and wincing as he went back up to the loft with another bag. “I'm not coming back down for nothing.”

So they went their ways and they did so in foolish contentment. Cassie went her way as well, only she did so with revenge in her heart.

The house that came with the barn, as the group saw things, was a big one with tall Greek columns and a long drive that was bordered with straight trees that were lined up like a hundred sentries on parade. Sadie sat in a rocker on the front porch and pictured the fabulous life it must have been like living there.

“
Probably like
Gone with the Wind
,” she said. Then, as the sun crept below the trees, she decided it was time to go into hiding as they did every night. She came around the side of the house thinking this was where she wanted to live if ever the zombies could all be killed and then suddenly she froze in place—her mouth came open and she threw a hand up to her eyes as lights blared in her face and an engine roared into the night. Someone was in the Suburban! And they were leaving! Sadie jumped back as the SUV flashed by and there she saw plainly Cassie in the driver's seat and next to her was the unmistakable silhouette of Eve's car seat.

And then Ram was limping like mad and pointing a rifle at the fleeing Suburban. He fired twice before Sadie screamed,
“No! Don't shoot. She has Eve. The baby's in the there.”

Ram ignored her and went to one knee and fired three more times before she jumped in front of him.
“Get out of the way, damn it! I'm aiming at the tires.” Sadie jumped back and watched as the SUV slewed to the right after Ram's next burst. Then it went down the hill and was out of sight.

“
She killed Julia,” Ram said, his mouth hanging open and his eyes unblinkingly large. “And she has the baby.”

In a rage, beyond any ability to think, Sadie took off running. No one could catch the Suburban if she couldn
't.

Julia was of two minds. One part of her dwelled on the feeling of contentment, the like she had never known. The baby was hers! She was a real mother. It was a sensation that couldn't be described, beyond the meager concept of being complete.

When she had heard the news that she was barren
—a word that was horribly appropriate when dwelt upon—she had allowed herself to be fooled into thinking that it didn't matter. After all, men weren't judged on whether they could procreate, but only on whether they could get an erection. When it came to babies they fell all over themselves to keep it from “happening to them”, while men with a vasectomy walked around as if they had won the lottery.

Julia
's contemporaries, other professional women, were quick to point out how good it was for her career that she couldn’t conceive. These same women looked down their noses at stay at home moms, saying that
these
were the women who were incomplete.

Ha! What a joke her friends were. They scorned God and worshipped evolution, conveniently ignoring their own teachings. Evolution wasn
't about racking up degrees and lording them over anyone with only a bachelor's degree; it was about the continuation of the species. And evolutionarily speaking Julia was a dead end.

But not anymore.

She bent over the portable car seat and rubbed her cheek against the softest skin in the whole world and knew all of that was just junk. Julia had been blessed with this tiny person even if she hadn't come from her, and now she was a mother and now she was complete.

And also aggravated. Cassie took up the other part of her mind and it was no wonder. Julia blamed herself for Cassie
's attitude, at least partially. What had she said wrong? What had she done, or didn't do? These were the questions that came to her mind as she watched the black girl swinging in a tire that hung from a huge shade tree in the back yard of the house.

Eve drew her mind back to what was important by making a little noise
—a sigh—and Julia smiled, feeling her soul like a hot breath inside of her. And when she looked up again there was Cassie with Neil's axe raised above her head and murder in her ferocious eyes.

“
Not the baby,” Julia begged in a whisper, her new motherhood coming out in full force as she leaned forward putting her arms out to cover the car seat. This left her dreadfully exposed with no way at all to defend herself, however, love spoke and overrode her sense of self that her friends had always dwelled upon. There were things so much larger.

The three words held the axe at bay, momentarily.
“I coulda been her mom,” Cassie hissed. “But you wouldn't let me.”

“
I'm her mother,” Julia said. “Do what you want to me, but please don't hurt her.”

Cassie
's eyes flicked to the baby. “Uh-uh. You gonna see her die and you're gonna live with that.”

The girl glowered in a sudden rage, and brought the axe back as though she were going to split a log when she was really aiming to hue the baby in two. Julia could
've leapt back, instead she lurched forward with the cry that had Ram stirring, throwing herself over the car seat, protecting her baby and feeling the bite of the axe and knowing in that second of death that she was a real mother.

Sadie saw the possibilities—the group had come off of I-41 and had taken three lefts in a row, which meant Cassie would have to retrace the route exactly—she wouldn't take a chance on Atlanta, not after committing such a horrible crime.

With a fear for little Eve that was near to madness, Sadie launched herself at the forest, heading
north-northeast, directly for the highway which was just over a mile and a quarter away. Through the dark forest was the quickest way and the most dangerous; the stiffs seemed to come alive at her passing and they went unnumbered and despite their horrifying appearance went almost unnoticed. The girl had no time for zombies when she had a ghoul to kill.

If Sadie saw in herself one redeeming quality, it was her dogged, fierce loyalty, and it was
this that propelled her at speeds she had never surpassed, so that she came upon the highway in just under six minutes. Still she missed Cassie. A long ways down the road Sadie saw the retreating taillights.

She fell against a tree, her breath hucking out of her, tears coming in a rain, and the black pistol swinging at the end of her arm as if it were nothing more than her Power-Puff lunch box she used to take to school with her when she had been little. It used to knick her leg just as the pistol had. As a purely defensive mechanism, she turned from the distant lights and pictured the pink lunch box she had carried for so long and in her mind she saw herself as the little girl she had been with the huge Anime eyes, and she remembered running with the box swatting her leg as she beat the boys time after time in every race they could conceive.

All of this was better than picturing what Cassie was going to do to Eve.

“
She better not do anything to...” she began, however a zombie came hurrying forward to die a second time. With animalistic fury, Sadie jammed the gun in its face and pulled the trigger. It fell in a most satisfying manner.

More zombies came and Sadie
's rage was large in her. “What did Eve do to deserve this?” she asked a three-piece suit wearing zombie before knocking him out of his one remaining shoe and sending his brains littering into the forest.

“
Nothing!” she gasped and then turned one last time and jumped in her sneakers. The SUV had turned! She could see its far away headlights take a left. On impulse, Sadie began jogging after it—and then the truck took another left. It was coming back in her direction on a parallel course to the highway and Sadie saw exactly where it was heading.

Just on the edge of twilight she could see a house with a barn. It had to be
where she was going. Everyone liked Neil's barn concept, including Cassie. With hope lending her strength, Sadie took off running for it, while behind her trailed a legion of undead.

They would have to wait.

Cassie beat her to the house by a full minute and was nowhere in sight as Sadie came up to the SUV, which had settled in a rearward list on two flat tires; Ram's aim had been spot on.

Without hesitation she went to the driver
's side and not only was it locked, it seemed to come apart in her hand. The glass, a clear sheet one second, exploded into a thousand pieces the next, as a blast split the air behind her.

Sadie threw herself to the right as more gunshots sounded and bullets thumped into the Suburban. Blindly she returned fire, but her aim was to the stars since she couldn
't chance hitting Eve. Cassie wasn't burdened by the welfare of anything and she shot her gun hot and all Sadie could do was run to the side of the house and hide.

There she had two forms of death to choose from: death under the rending jaws of zombies, or death from a bullet. An easy choice. When the first stiff came up she plugged it from a range of four feet; two more went down in the same manner and then she stuck her head around the corner of the house and saw that Suburban
's doors were flung wide.

Now with a bit of breathing room from the zombies, Sadie sprinted to the Suburban and glanced in
—no baby. She was about to head to the barn when she heard Eve's little lamb cry coming from the house and turning in mid-step she followed the sound, holding her gun out ahead of her like every television cop ever.

As quiet as a shadow, Sadie slipped across the hardwood floors, ignoring the country decor, the Hummel figurines, the fancy
bone china in the dining room credenza. All of her senses were tuned to that little cry, while her body was on a hair trigger, ready to shoot the first thing that moved, only the house was still and unearthly quiet save for Eve.

The baby was crying somewhere below her and when Sadie found the stairs she had to pause despite her need to save Eve. The dark below was impenetrable and it sent a nasty trembling coursing through her muscles.
“Cassie,” she whispered. “I won't hurt you if you give up the baby. Cassie! Don't be stupid.”

The words felt foreign to her tongue because regardless of her fear, or maybe because of it, she was in a killing mood
—her, just a girl from Passaic was now behind a gun that she was more than willing to use. Only there wasn't another person in the basement, except for Eve. Down the stairs she went, slinking low, hoping to make herself less of a target, however no shots rang out and she found little Eve in her car seat a few feet from the bottom of the stairs.

“
Shhh,” she said gently, while staring all around with wide eyes. There was a dim, dim light filtering in from the tiny rectangular windows set high up in the basement walls, this wasn't enough to see Cassie. She could be anywhere...or nowhere.

“
Sadie, you dumb bitch,” Cassie said in a whisper from up the stairs. Sadie spun, confused. Why was she up there when the baby was down here? The answer was suddenly obvious and the shaking that she had tried to ignore grew stronger so that she had to hold the gun with two hands to keep it from falling.

“
Here they come,” Cassie said. “Can you hear all them stiffs? All this shooting has got them coming from miles.”

“
Cassie, please...” Sadie whispered her voice shaking along with her body. “Let us go. We never hurt you.”

“
You gonna shoot it?” Cassie asked.

“
It? What it?”

“
The baby. Man you dumb. When the stiffs come for you, are you gonna kill it? Or let it turn into a little baby zombie?”

“
I'm going to kill you, is what I'm going to do,” Sadie hissed in impotent fury. She didn’t dare try to go up the stairs just then, she’d be an easy target. “I swear it.”

“
Yeah right...oh, here they come. I left the front door open and now your guests are arriving for dinner. See ya, bitch.”

Above Sadie
, the floorboards began to creak and groan under the weight of many, many zombies. They weren't slow either, they were coming right for the stairs, drawn by the sound of...Eve. It was only just registering on Sadie that the baby was still crying.

“
No...shhh. Eve please be quiet.”

Eve’s
little eyes were wide in the dark and her tiny fingers were splayed and the zombies were coming to eat her. In her mind Sadie went down the “how to stop a baby from crying” check list that Sarah had told Julia in the car only the day before. Unfortunately, Sadie didn't have time to try any of those remedies.

She checked her gun...four bullets left, the sight of them, so few, left her staggered. She wouldn
't be able to fight her way out and with the baby bleating as she was there wouldn't be a chance at hiding. There would only be death. Could she shoot the baby? If she did she would have to shoot herself next; there was no way she could live after doing such a thing.

But what was her choice?

Kneeling down, Sadie turned the gun on Eve. It wouldn't stay still in her grip. It shook and shimmied, and her hand went weak and numb so that it didn't feel like her own. “Oh God, please help me,” she whispered. But God did not give her the strength to kill the baby.

And then, as the beasts came into the kitchen above, she remembered a movie where a woman accidentally smothered her baby to death when she was just trying to keep her quiet. There had been soldiers near who would
've killed them if they had heard.

“
No, I won't,” Sadie whispered, but the memory of the movie wouldn't leave and in desperation, as the zombies came closer, her hand crept out to Eve's tiny face. Sadie started to cry. “Maybe a little,” she said, thinking she would just hold her hand there for a little while and it would be alright…somehow.

But then Eve grabbed Sadie
's finger in her tiny hand and her grip was beautiful and miraculous, and Sadie knew she couldn't hurt the baby. Not ever. She turned the gun up the stairs not knowing what else to do, and then as she waited in misery at what was to come, Eve saved herself.

The baby
's grip was insistent on Sadie's finger and she had just enough strength in her tiny muscles to pull the finger right into her mouth where she immediately went to sucking on it as if it was a pacifier. Now the only sound was the zombies shuffling about above. Sadie lifted the baby in her arms, making sure her finger stayed securely plugged between Eve's lips, and hurried to explore the rest of the basement desperately hoping to find another way out.

The dark and a few stairs would not keep the zombies away all night.

They had heard something and wouldn't give up the hunt for hours and Sadie was sure Eve wouldn't be mollified by the finger for too long. There was a central hallway of some twenty-five feet and from it sprouted rooms; she went to each, in a vain hope—there was only one way out—all the room were just that: little squares with tiny box-like windows set high up. No knowing what else to do, she went back to the stairs and saw scabby legs already heading down.

Holding back a scream she ducked into what was a storage room and in the dark kicked something. This brought the zombies quicker and they thumped down the stairs in their eagerness
, making a moan that had Sadie shaking and near to throwing up. In her growing panic she stepped back and her foot came down on something small which triggered an idea. She dropped to a knee and felt around. In the blackness her hand found a Matchbox car; she knew it by feel alone, and she sent it skittering down the end of the hall where it rattled up against the walls. And when she heard a rush of feet go by, she made a break for it.

There were more zombies in the first room where the stairs came down, but these she ignored
—it was dark and confused and they were slow to recognize what she was. Up the stairs she ran, pausing only to use one of her four remaining bullets; there was a stiff halfway up and there was no getting around it.

With the gunshot all pretence of sneaking went out the window. Eve quit her finger and didn
't just cry, she wailed in earnest, but there was nothing to be done. Sadie charged up into the kitchen coming face to...the thing barely had a face and lost what it did have when Sadie used bullet number two. When it fell back she dashed through the kitchen and into the hall where she was able to dodge around the first creature in her way, but there was a second and Sadie was forced to use her third bullet.

If there had been only a single zombie at the front door she would
've escaped—she killed one and in a snap a second was right there. She beaned it across the forehead with the now useless pistol, and ran for the stairs to the second floor as behind zombies fell over themselves to get up at her.

And then more were on the stairs above her. She was trapped, but not alone. She had Eve who was wailing in fright...and Neil. Amazingly he came in right after the last zombie and in his hands was Ram
's SAW. Like the world's smallest action hero he let the thing rip, nearly hitting Sadie in the process. The weapon seemed to rise on its own as he shot and the rounds whipped past her, one parting her spiked hair. She dropped on her butt, clutching Eve to her as Neil corrected his aim and tore the zombies to shreds.

“
Behind you,” she pointed. There were so many that one gun wouldn't do it. He shot through the doorway clearing it momentarily and then Sadie pulled him out into the night. She nearly stumbled at the sight of them all. “We got to run for it,” she said despite that she saw that it would be useless.

“
No,” he said, breathlessly and staggering in her grip. It was clear that he had done just about as much running as he was capable of, besides zombies were flocking in from everywhere. Even alone and unwinded, Sadie would have had a tough time of it.

“
The barn!” he cried, and then they ran, and with their burdens neither was all that fast. Still they made it before the zombies and found that the barn wouldn't do. There was a hayloft, however it had stairs just as neat as you please and even if they had an axe to destroy them they didn't have time to use it. “Go,” he said looking sick at the sight of the stairs. “I'll draw them to me. You and Eve can escape.”

The short run to the barn with Eve had proved that wasn
't going to be an option; she was just too unwieldy and besides her cries would bring the zombies to them like moths to a light. “No, we’ll go up. Maybe there something in the loft that'll help.” There wasn't. There was pitchfork, a rake and piles of hay. Sadie placed the baby in the hay and armed herself with the pitchfork.