The Undead World (Book 1): The Apocalypse (19 page)

“
They? Was the son staring as well. He's awful young for that.” The boy was fourteen and almost six feet tall.

Her right shoulder did its little bob and she said,
“He looked some. He was a little bit more circumcised about it.”

A grin tried to creep across his face, but Neil fought it back.
“I think you mean circumspect. Circumcised is a whole other word.”

“
Oh yeah? I thought it sounded weird when I said it. What is circumcised? It sounds familiar...what? What's wrong? You look all weird.”

“
I do?” Neil asked touching his face. “I guess it's because I never figured that I'd be explaining circumcision to a girl, I mean a young woman. It...it has to do with the removal of the, uh membranous foreskin of the male genitalia. It...”

Suddenly Sadie burst into a barking laughter.
“You should see your face!” she said, hitting the steering wheel with her fist as she laughed. “Oh my stomach! Oh crap that hurts.” She continued to laugh until tears came and she fell over onto the seat.

“
You know what circumcision means?” Neil asked, feeling relieved despite that he had clearly been the butt of a joke.

“
Of course, you dolt!” she said as her laughter petered into a wheeze. “I'm seventeen, not seven. My friends and I used to put words like that into sentences to see if anyone would even notice. Though it never worked so good as on you.”

Neil didn
't know what to think about that, but at least he wasn't stuck explaining the birds and the bees, something that had him in a sweat. “I thought I was about to have to give you
The Talk
.”

She snorted again.
“I am good thank you. But when you do, don't use words like membranous or genitalia, it's either a wiener or a ding-dong. At least it is for normal kids. I can see your kids being all nerdy, walking around saying: I have to urinate through my genitalia...” Sadie stopped talking as she saw Neil's mouth turn down. She bit her lip before saying, “Hey I was joking around about the whole nerd thing. I think you're a real nice guy.”

“
I am,” Neil admitted. “That's what all the girls tell me.” Sadie missed the bile in his words. In her mind being nice was a good thing—and it wasn't just her. Every girl he had ever met had labeled him a nice guy, which essentially meant he was harmless, like a neutered dog or a toothless shark. For Neil it was the kiss of death. Whenever a girl had called him nice, he might as well have died in her eyes, unless of course they needed a favor: a ride to the airport, moving her furniture, or dog sitting while she was off to Vegas with some other guy.

Not that Neil looked at Sadie that way. To him she was little more than a child, but it was the fact that even in the infancy of her womanhood she saw him as a eunuch to be used and abused
and it bothered him.

“
What's wrong? Really,” she asked, her eyes and her mind disconcertingly sharp.

“
Nothing, nothing.” Nice guys didn't make waves. Instead they took the crumbs that life gave them and patted them into tiny cakes and pretended it was good enough. “I'm just getting sleepy.” The twilight had turned into true night at some point and now the stars and the zombies were beginning to show.

Out of the blue, Sadie mentioned,
“You snore...but I guess you knew that.”

“
Is it bad?” At her look he added, “How am I supposed to know if I snore? I'm asleep when it happens.”

After her half-shrug she said,
“You're right, how could you know. It's not that bad. It's like you just breathe loud is all.

That night Neil snored again and Sadie just sighed at the sound.

The four left just after daybreak with the general idea of “West” as their destination, though this was not always the direction they traveled. They made it a conscious decision to avoid anything that resembled a city and so they snaked their way north of Indianapolis and far south of Chicago.

Along the dusty back roads they found little hamlets which they stopped at to scrounge anything that they figured would be of some use
—and this included toothbrushes. Immediately Neil and Sarah set to brushing their teeth, moaning in pleasure since it had been a few days, while Chuck looked on with a disgusted look and puffing on a cigarette.

Despite the constant stopping and the wound-about route, they cut through all of Indiana and half of Illinois before they saw their
next human. They had entered a little nothing of a town from the east while at the same time a group of three military humvees came in from the west. The two groups eyed each other in an odd moment.

“
We should leave,” Sadie advised.

Chuck made a face and pulled out yet another cigarette.
“No, we should be cautious,” he countered. “I want to know what's going on. Who knows maybe they have a cure. You ever think of that?”

“
They don't have a cure. Look,” Sadie pointed at the men who began to go door to door. “They're scrounging just like us.” As was frequently the case she was right. The men went into homes with empty duffel bags and came out with them bulging. As the four of them watched an officer with two black bars on his helmet came down the street to greet them.

“
Where you folks headed?” He had a twang to his voice and quick blue eyes—they caressed Sadie before moving on to their belongings.

“
West,” Neil answered when Chuck only watched the officer from behind a shadow of smoke. “We're thinking of maybe going up into the mountains to find a little town to hole up in until this...whatever it is blows over.”

“
Oh yeah?” the officer said as he went around the monster truck. He even climbed up the fender and glanced at all the food weapons and fuel they had accumulated. When he hopped down he added, “I wouldn't do that if I was you. Everyone I meet thinking the same as you and come winter they're all going to starve. There's no food up in the mountains. No cities, no stores, and no farms.”

“
What about the Army?” Chuck asked. “Do you have any food? Or the government? Don't they have stock piles of everything in secret underground bunkers?”

The officer barely glanced Chuck
's way and then he headed for the Ranger to see what was in it. As he walked he said over his shoulder, “If there are secret bunkers full of food they were kept secret from you and me, both. And as for the government, all I can say is, what government? We haven't heard shit from anyone in nine days and before that they were even more clueless as to what was going on than anyone else. They actually thought that they could win this. Bunch of fucking morons.”

Neil held up a finger, but when the officer ignored him, he tapped the uniformed man on the shoulder.
“But they're the government. They have to be somewhere. Have you tried looking for them, or calling?”

“
My guess is they're all dead like everyone else.” The officer gave them a second once over and sighed. “Except for
The Island
, there isn't all that many of us left.”

This was of course an obvious truth
. The only soldiers any of them had seen had been dead ones, still the news coming from a man in uniform seemed to gain the weight of fact like it hadn't before and the four of them stood looking at each other with faces that had grown pale as they realized that the government was no more and the army was now in the looting business.

Sadie finally spoke,
“What's the Island? You said it like there's people there...could we go?”

Now the officer gave her an even closer look, as if judging her as he would a suspect horse. He turned to them all and looked them up and down.
“The Island is the last bastion of humanity that's left in America...at least as far as we're aware of. If I was you I'd go and see what the colonel thinks of you. If he likes you and thinks you have what it takes then you can stay. We're always looking for good men. And women of course.”

“
And if the colonel doesn't like what he sees?” Neil asked. When the officer had looked at him it had been with a bit of a smirk and Neil was fairly certain this colonel wouldn't think much better of him.

“
Then you'll have to find your own way in this world,” he answered, and then went on to explain about the Island in very general terms. After that he wished them the best of luck and left with his men.

Chuck was enthusiastic.
“We should definitely go. They have two-thousand soldiers there!”

While Sadie was definitely less happy at the idea.
“We shouldn't go. They have two-thousand soldiers and if they're anything like that guy, then no way. Could he be more inappropriate with all his staring?”

“
Oh please!” Chuck ranted. “All you women do is complain. When men look too much you complain. When men look too little you complain more. And if the guy is ugly then if he even looks a little, he's creepy, and if a guy's handsome then every look means he's in love.”

“
What are you saying?” Sadie asked, spitting the words out in her anger. “That my opinion doesn't count because I'm a girl?”

“
No, I'm saying let's check out this Island. So that one soldier was a little odd—yes, I thought he was weird too, all high and mighty acting, but that doesn't mean they'll all be that way. Let's check out the Island and if it doesn't work for us then we scoot on down the road. There's no harm in just taking a look.”

Though Sadie still seethed over Chuck
's rant, she agreed to the plan and Neil did as well, although he did so only for her sake only. He knew in his heart that no military man would see much value in him, but Sadie with her bravery and her street smarts would likely fit in just fine. They would be lucky to have her.

With a heavy heart he drove the monster truck west, following the directions the officer had set forth. The Island was only some forty miles distant, however they did not make it that day. An immense wave of zombies, inexplicable as ever, came down out of the farmlands of southern Illinois and the group was forced to pull over. There only other choice was to mow them down by the hundreds and that was just to sickening for both Sadie and Neil, who didn
't mind the wait, high up and safe as they were.

Chuck and his son, on the other hand, had to sit under blankets, afraid to move or make the slightest sound. It was a long evening for them, but eventually the swarm moved on and was replaced by a hellacious storm. It was loud and violent, yet it could not drown out the sound of a battle raging a few miles away to the west.

“That's the Island, I bet,” Sadie said. “They're being attacked by that swarm. Do you think they'll make it?”

Neil shrugged in the dark.
“I don't know. If that's the last bastion then I really hope so, but from what I've seen, fighting the zombies doesn't seem to work very well. Remember in Passaic? There were more zombies in uniform than normal zombies.”

“
Yeah,” Sadie breathed. They sat in the dark and watched lightning and artillery light up the sky and both of them wondered what they would find left on the Island in the morning. Would it be overrun? Would all they find is corpses and walking corpses.

“
Do you mind if I go up there with you,” Sadie asked in a little voice. “I'm cold.”

She wasn
't cold, she was afraid.

Normally she was a girl on the verge of being a woman
—a girl with a tight little body, with nipples that always seemed to defy anything she wore—but to Neil she was a girl who was afraid of the world. They fell asleep snuggled together, but only after Neil kissed her once on the forehead and only after she smiled at him.

At first light of day, the two vehicles approached the island from the south and Neil
's worst fears were realized. All they saw was death. Bodies were everywhere—some hundreds were hung up in bright coils of concertina wire. These bodies were grey and foul. More bodies littered the island; some were dead humans, some dead zombies. Nothing moved that was alive. Only the dead went here and there in that dazed way of theirs.

“
Shit,” Sadie whispered and for once Neil didn't correct her. That he didn't think he would be chosen to live on the island didn't mean he wanted to see the lucky few who did get killed. They drove on staring glumly, but then another island came into view.

All along this one the dead were stacked like rotting pancakes, but this was only on its outer edge where the concertina wire had held. On the interior of the island not a zombie could be seen. Instead the land between the rivers bristled with uniformed men, going here and there with purpose.

Neil and Sadie smiled at each other and then she asked, “Can I drive?”

He understood. The soldiers all seemed young men in great shape and Sadie didn
't want to be seen as 'just' a girl. “Sure, it's your truck,” he said, knowing that although she would be elevated in their eyes, he would suffer a corresponding lowering in their estimation. After all 'real' men drove, they didn't sit back and let their women do it.

In the end it didn
't really matter.

They were stopped before what looked like a very strange bridge and questioned by another officer. This one with a single silver bar on
his collar. He introduced himself, “Hey there. I'm Lieutenant Turner and I must say that is one perdy truck.”

“
Thank you,” Sadie said as she climbed down. Though she had complained about the soldier from the day before, she didn't seem to mind that the men on this side of the bridge all stopped what they were doing to watch her as she did. “I'm Sadie and this is Neil and Chuck and that's Charles.”

“
Charlie,” the boy was quick to interject. Just as Sadie, he didn't want to appear weak or young in the eyes of these men. “It looks you guys had a real fight last night.”

“
That we did. Them stiffs were insistent upon eating us.” Turner looked around, his smile fading a bit. “So, what brings you to the Island?”

“
We were looking to find shelter from the storm, so to speak,” Chuck answered. “We ran into a group of soldiers who suggested we come here. They said, uh that you'd take us on.”

“
Of course we would pull our own weight,” Neil added quickly. “We're not afraid of hard work.”

Just as the soldier from the day before
Lieutenant Turner gave them each a look and said, skeptically, “Not afraid of hard work? What did you do before?”

“
I was on Wall Street,” Neil said and when the lieutenant's smile became polite only, he added, “And Chuck here was a top notch mechanic. He can fix anything and I'm sure he taught his boy quite a bit, and Sadie...” he paused looking at the girl. She seemed suddenly very nervous, and had every right to be. The position of 'Loner Goth-girl' didn't seem to be in high demand on the Island. Neil cleared his throat and said, “She's a zombie killing machine. I've never seen anything like it. She walked the streets of Jersey as if she didn't even know the meaning of the word fear.”

“
Sometimes I was a little nervous,” she admitted, keeping her face an easy neutral. Out of sight of the lieutenant she squeezed Neil's hand in gratitude for his words.

“
You're from New Jersey, interesting,” Turner said. “And you're a mechanic? I'm somewhat of the Gate Keeper for Colonel Williams, but I think he would be interested in meeting you. Put any weapons you have in your vehicles and we'll go see if he has a few minutes for you.”

This sounded very promising and so the four hurried to obey. Even Neil had a growing hope. The Island couldn
't help bring it out of him. The soldiers were hearty looking men and their weapons were frightful in appearance, however it was the fact that they had survived the zombie swarm that had him wishing he would be allowed to stay. He could be safe here.

They were brought to a tent and then left to themselves, however this was for minutes only and then a soldier came in and said,
“The colonel will see you now.” The soldier led them to another tent where a tall man sat eating steak and eggs. Unbelievably there were four plates set out and he waved them to sit down as he chewed.

“
Sorry, I shouldn't have started without you, but I've got a zillion things to take care of this morning. I'm Colonel Williams.”

They introduced themselves and then sat. Charlie didn
't wait on any formality and began to eat with a gusto, while Sadie tried to be more discreet, however it was clear that after weeks of eating cold meals the food was too much to resist.

“
It's good to see young ones with such appetites, though sadly this isn't our usual fare,” the colonel commented. “We had the largest attack yet occur last night and our refrigeration units on the second island were damaged. We either eat or let the food spoil.”