The Queen of the Dead Read online

  “Do the dead see colors or are they like dogs used to be?” Jenn asked. The blanket was sky blue or had been before the dust of a dozen years had settled into its fibers. Still it was hardly camouflage in the traditional sense.

  “I suppose you mean to ask if they have red-green color blindness? I would say it’s doubtful as they are still genetically human and thus have the prerequisite trichromatic cone cells necessary to discern the color spectrum in the same manner as normal humans do. And yet…” Jillybean snapped her fingers, excitedly. “And yet, do they perceive color?”

  Jenn shrugged and laughed. “I know it’s you Jillybean. You don’t have to prove it.”

  “Of course, I’m me. Jenn you may not realize it, but you might have stumbled upon a profound question. What if the dead could not see the color orange?”

  Another shrug. “They’d step on a lot of pumpkins?”

  Jillybean laughed. “You are too cute. No. They would…” She stopped as the impaled zombie made one last lurching bid for freedom. It snapped the hunk of wood square in half and came lumbering inside, scraping the remaining point along the wall. Jillybean dragged Jenn back into the bedroom and shut the door. Without looking in the direction of the closet where a hissing laughter crept out from the cracks, she went to the window.

  It was almost rusted shut and squealed like a frightened pig as she jerked it open. It got stuck after only a foot or so. Jillybean strained with all her might as behind her the beast came thundering along the hall, plowing straight into the door and smashing out one of the panels. Because the shaft of wood caught on the jamb it could only get its monstrous head and one arm through.

  “Open it! Open it!” Jenn yelled hammering on Jillybean’s back.

  “The dresser!” she yelled back as she squatted down to get her shoulder beneath the window.

  The dresser Jenn had been hiding next to was a tall, sturdy hunk of varnished oak. With its drawers full, it weighed several hundred pounds. Jenn must have had a gallon of adrenaline coursing through her blood because she heaved the thing over with only a grunt.

  It was heavy enough that it caved in the zombie’s face, turning it into a bloody wreck.

  “Come on,” Jillybean called. She had gotten the window up another five inches and after kicking out the screen, she squirmed through the opening, her pack catching on the top and slowing her down. Jenn shoved the pack down and then pushed Jillybean out—behind her the zombie was going crazy, tearing the door and the dresser to pieces.

  There was no time for niceties and Jenn dove through the window right after Jillybean, landing on her. The two scrambled away from each other as the zombie threw aside the broken dresser and rushed full tilt at the window. It hit with what seemed like an explosion. Wood and glass sprayed everywhere. It landed between them, the bloody shaft of wood sticking straight up out of its back like a flagpole.

  It was looking Jillybean square in the eye and trying to reach for her, however it had driven the spear of wood a foot deep into the earth, managing to stake itself in place. That still didn’t stop it. With mindless, horrific strength, it dragged itself toward her, the shaft of wood tearing it in two. It died with its fingers scraping the ground four inches from her toes.

  Jillybean could have run away, but she had maliciously egged the creature on and had grinned at the gaping wound. When it died, she felt the grin and knew that for a moment, Eve had been on the verge of climbing back into her mind and taking over.

  Standing, she arranged the shredded blanket around her, taking her time, trying to regain her composure. Forcing a smile back in place, she acted as if nothing had happened. “We are definitely going to do a study on zombie eyesight. I’ll even give you top credit. It’ll be Lockhart and Mar…” She stopped, startled by a something in the window. It was a face—her own face sneering down at her.

  Chapter 4

  They slunk away from the gruesome corpse of the creature and Jillybean alternated between edgy silence and nervous, fast-paced patter, none of which made a lick of sense to Jenn. Finally, she pulled Jillybean into the remains of a coffee shop where the familiar, somewhat reassuring scent hung vaguely on the air. “What’s wrong? Are you worried about your pills?”

  “I think Eve has gotten loose,” Jillybean whispered, touching the side of her head gently. She was crouched under the shredded blue blanket as if Eve were a giant and Jillybean a mouse.

  Jenn was confused. “Are you talking about Eve, the mean girl inside you? She got out? Out of your head? Is that possible?” Before Jillybean could answer Jenn crossed herself three times and spat behind her in some sort of hybrid voodoo ceremony—and for once, Jillybean didn’t roll her eyes.

  “Yes,” Jillybean whispered. “I saw her back at that house. We have to get away. If she’s following us…” She paused, swallowing loudly. “There’s no telling what sort of mischief she’s capable of. She’s diabolical.”

  “Diabolical, that’s like really mean, right?” Jillybean nodded, glassy-eyed. Jenn tried to reassure her, “Either way, it should be okay. There’s a hospital that’s not far.”

  They were in a neighborhood where the houses were tiny and crammed in on top of each other with many of them having no yard or just a little scrap of green between the street and their stoops. The earthquake had hit the neighborhood hard and most of the houses were spilt over on their sides. The ones that were still upright had runty stoops that yawed back leaving little chasms. Anyone visiting would have to leap across.

  Of course, the only visitors were the dead. With so little greenery, there weren’t many of them, which was a blessing.

  The two scampered through the neighborhood, erring on the side of caution so that it was nearly four in the afternoon before they reached the hospital. At the sight of it, Jillybean stopped short. “This is where she brings us? Why?” Her tone had been nasty and cold, and not her own.

  Jenn looked askance at her, and Jillybean couldn’t even generate a fake smile. The darkness rose and fell within her. When it was at high tide, she drowned and when it ebbed she came back to life. Just then she was in that frightening zone where the darkness was at chin level and when waves of despair or fear swept over her, she would be herself for a second then darkness—herself—then in a crowd with three or four others trying to be heard and seen—then darkness.

  “There’s a drug place here called a pharmacy,” Jenn said, speaking softly as though she were talking to a mental patient, which, in a way she was. “It’s just inside, but we have to hurry. We’re going to lose the light soon.”

  Jillybean was half-drowned in darkness when she heard her own voice snap, “This is a waste of time. We don’t need any more drugs. Does anyone remember what our last liver function test showed or is it just me?”

  Jenn paused in the doorway, her eyes big around and frightened, but it was only for a second. Relief appeared next. “That was Eve, right? Does that mean she’s back inside you? That’s good news if you ask me. The idea of her running around doing who knows…” A sound to her left interrupted the words gushing from her mouth. She jumped but it was only a pinecone leaping from the branch of a pine tree.

  This too was reassuring in its way. “A storm is coming,” Jenn said, her head bobbing slightly, a look of satisfaction on her face. Finally, she had a sign. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but it was better than going about blind.

  Jillybean pulled back her hood, studied the sky and then shot Jenn a look. “I’m guessing you didn’t consult a barometer.”

  “I don’t know what a barometer is, but a falling pinecone almost always means a change in the weather. I only mention it because of One Shot. He was hit right here.” She pulled back her ghillie suit and indicated a spot on the left-hand side of her stomach just below her ribcage. “Will he die from that? I mean if you don’t help him, like tonight or tomorrow?”

  “Why would we want to help a low-life drunk like that?” Jillybean snapped, viciously, her eyes had grown quickly dark. “He attacked us,
in case you forgot.”

  The anger had come out of nowhere and Jenn paled before it. After a breath, she collected herself, saying, “That’s not what I asked. I need to know if he’ll die one way or the other. What is here?” Again, she patted her stomach on the left side. “Is that where your liver is?”

  Jillybean blinked until her eyes began to clear. “No. Your liver is on the other side. Your intestines are there, and behind them is one of your kidneys if the bullet reached that far. Of course, if the bullet spun, there’s no telling where it went.” She sighed, staring again past Jenn at the sky but not seeing the vast blue expanse dotted by white gulls or the darkness quietly sliding out of the north. She was desperately trying to focus on One Shot and his wound.

  Part of Jillybean cared, part of her felt guilt, part of her wanted a ham sandwich and part of her wanted to watch him bleed to death. She could feel the parts…no, the pieces of her mind like the gears of an engine working against each other.

  “I-I need to make a list,” she said, “We’re going to need a lot of stuff, wait, I mean supplies. Hey, uh, uh, girl, do you have something to write with?”

  “It’s Jenn and I bet we can find some paper inside.”

  “Right, Jenn, I remember.” And she did, too—sometimes, and sometimes she had no idea who the girl was.

  The two went inside and if Jillybean had needed Jenn to be a rock of confidence and courage, she would have been out of luck. Jenn was dead white and shockingly timid. The hospital was on the verge of collapse and had been for years. Its bones were not sound, its footing unsure. With the rising wind, the structure swayed, letting out slow ominous groans, as if the building itself was dying.

  Jillybean had to drag Jenn through a lobby strewn with trash to the front desk where she happily found pen and paper. Lots of pens, luckily. The first five were maddeningly dry and as Jenn stood there gripping the desk to keep from running, Jillybean tried pen after pen until she found one that worked.

  “Oh, thank God!” Jillybean exclaimed. She began writing, speeding the pen back and forth, whispering to herself: “Pinzettes, forceps, retractors and, and, and…” She began to sway, her eyes losing their focus. “Maybe we should get the pills first,” she said to Jenn, holding onto her with a fierce grip. “Where are they? The pharmacy, I mean.”

  The hospital was a clump of somewhat connected buildings. Jenn took them on a roundabout path, avoiding the interior of the buildings at all cost. When they got to the pharmacy they were both hesitant about going in. It was so thoroughly trashed that it looked as though it had been the epicenter of the earth quake.

  Shelves were overturned, bins were cast about, pill bottles were everywhere as were the remains of thousands of pills, capsules and vitamins. Jillybean stared at the mess with a growing dread drawing across her face.

  “What? Did you hear that?” There had been a sound. She fought her blue blanket ghillie suit, struggling to pull out her flashlight. When she did, she lit up the corner where the shadows were deepest, looking for whatever had spoken to her in that slithering, snake-like voice. There wasn’t anything in the corner, nothing but that unnerving darkness that silently returned every time she pointed the light away.

  “There’s nothing there, Jillybean” Jenn said, taking her by the arm and leading her deeper inside the pharmacy. “We have to hurry before the storm comes.”

  Jillybean wanted to scream There Is No Storm! She held back. Screaming at Jenn would only be ladling out an equal measure of her problems without diminishing them in the least. Gritting her teeth against her anger, she said, “I’m looking for psychotropics.” She began to spell out the name of a medicine but saw that Jenn was lost after the third letter. Jillybean told her to keep watch at the front door, though there was little to keep watch for, at least outside. They both knew, the danger was all inside.

  As soon as Jenn left, the voice was back. She was right. A storm is coming. A great black storm. An image of a hundred black ships flying along under black sails blinked into her mind.

  “The Corsairs,” she whispered.

  Yesssss, the Corsairs. Just like you wanted. Remember, you think three steps ahead. You saw this com…

  “Shut up!” Jillybean cried, in a sharp whisper. “I’m here for Zyprexa. That’s all that matters right now.” She had tried other drugs: Propranolol had given her horrifying nightmares, Lithium had turned her into a drooling zombie, Sycrest had swollen her up like a balloon, and others, all useless or potentially dangerous.

  Luckily, there was very little demand left for Zyprexa and a great deal of supply. Unfortunately, it was mostly tainted or otherwise corrupted by age and storage conditions. And this was the case when she found a small supply. In half the bottles the pills were yellow, and in the other half they were almost dissolved into powder.

  She chose a few bottles where the pills were only slightly crumbling away and with gentle fingers took three, twenty milligram tablets and swallowed them without water. After a moment’s hesitation, she took three more. Six was too much; she knew that. She also knew she was right on the edge of a full breakdown, and the possibility that she might not come back from it was always on her mind.

  “But not today,” she told the darkness, her mouth curled into a sneer. She glared at the corner daring that thing to talk again. “I didn’t think so.” The pills had an immediate placebo effect and for that she was grateful. The darkness inside her pulled back and with a clear head she went to the surgery wing and began picking out the items she would need to operate on One Shot.

  Unlike the rest of the hospital, the surgery wing was bright and although there was some evidence that the instruments had been pawed through, Jillybean was able to find everything she needed, or rather nearly everything. In order to use a portable X-ray machine, she would need a way to generate a steady current of 220 volts of electricity; an impossibility within her current time constraints.

  Everything else lay at her fingertips and she filled her backpack before proceeding down to where she had left Jenn.

  Jenn’s first words to her were, “You okay?”

  “Sure, I guess. Why…” Just then Jillybean noticed her hands were shaking. She touched her forehead and felt the heat and the sweat. “Yes…I’m just feeling a little…” She swallowed saliva that tasted like pennies. “I’m just a feeling…” It felt as though her heart was going so fast it would burst. A check of her pulse revealed that it was racing but was so light that she would likely faint any second.

  She laid down and checked her pulse again; nothing had changed. “This isn’t good. Possible ventricular tachycardia.”

  “What’s that?” Jenn asked, taking a step back and covering her mouth with her hand. “Is that a disease? Did you get it in there?”

  “It’s a condition of the heart brought on by an overdose of my meds. It will likely lead to ventricular fibrillation and then to death. Could you be a lamb and run into the pharmacy for me?” Jenn acted as though Jillybean had asked her to run into a snake’s den.

  “In there? For what?”

  Large black blobs began to float in Jillybean’s vision. “I can’t think. Hold on. Let me see. The usual medication is um…Procainamide or Sotalol. I’m sorry, I don’t know their generic names, but the PDR will tell you.”

  “The PDR?” Jenn asked, suddenly terrified. “Is that a kind of book? I-I can’t read really good.”

  “Never mind. Just help me up,” Jillybean said, missing the stark look of relief on Jenn’s face. With one arm thrown over Jenn’s shoulder, Jillybean wobbled back into the pharmacy. She needed something that could correct abnormal heart rhythms, but the usual medicines were full of mold or smelled like ass. She had to settle for a barbiturate called Pentobarbital.

  She took one pill, hesitated and then popped three more. She expected them to be not very effective but the meds worked rapidly and in ten minutes she actually giggled, feeling a strange giddiness. It was almost like being drunk. Her heart still ran faster than it should ha
ve but she didn’t care. “Do you know they kill people with this stuff? Or they used to.”

  “Are ‘they’ the people in your head?” Jenn asked and then thought better about the question, not wanting to bring any of them out just then. “Let’s not worry about that. We have to get back before…”

  “Before what? Before the storm comes?” Jillybean was feeling so good that she was about to make a joke and was just gesturing upwards when she noticed the heavy clouds. They hung low and ponderous, and pulsed with chaotic winds. “How’d you do that? Was that a trick? Like magic?” She had snorted out the word, magic and sighed, smiling in a dreamy way at Jenn. “I think the Pentobarbital is working a little too well. I feel good. You know, relaxed.”

  “How relaxed?” Jenn asked, in alarm. “Too relaxed? We still have to get across the bay.”

  Her meaning was clear: Jillybean would have to get them across the bay—and that was alright with her. Just then pretty much everything was alright. “Hey, you wanna hear something crazy? I once used a bounce house to get across the Mississippi. I’d like to see you top that.”

  “A bounce house? I don’t know what that is.”

  Jillybean was strangely crestfallen to hear this. “You don’t know what a bounce house was? That’s so sad. So, so sad. It was an inflatable house that little kids would jump around in. Sort of like an enclosed trampoline. My friend Becca had one brought in special for her sixth birthday party. We had fourteen kids in it at once and we were bouncing off one another like those little Lotto balls used to. That was so, so much fun. Too bad Becca is one of them now. I saw her after, you know, and that was sad, too. I only knew it was her because of her red hair, that’s how mauled her face was.”