Hungry Independents (Book 2) (30 page)

“Thanks.”

“Maybe it’s time to break out something
better than baseball bats,” Mark said.

“No,” Jimmy said, before anyone else could
jump in.

Samuel nodded along. Scout met Hunter’s eyes
and they both frowned.

“We stockpiled all those guns for when there
was a need. I think this qualifies. We’ve seen what this guy can
do.” Mark placed his hand over his throat. “I’ve seen what this guy
can do up close.”

“I don’t think we need to make this worse
than it already is,” Jimmy said. “It’s just one bad guy. As long as
they’re not shooting at us, we’ll do the same.”

“They shot at me in Cozad,” Hunter said. “You
should see my jacket.”

“That was Cozad. I’m sorry, but I still say
no. We can vote, but I don’t think the numbers have changed since
the last time.”

Scout scanned the faces of the council, and
only one person looked like she had changed her mind about the gun
control they enacted back when Greg was alive. Scout couldn’t
believe it was his sister.

“I’ve never liked guns,” Vanessa said. “I saw
my share of gang violence before the plague, and I still remember
when all the adults died and all these stupid kids found guns and
started shooting and robbing each other. It was a miracle Scout and
I got out of St. Louis alive. But I’m not willing to let the father
of my child face a horseman of the apocalypse with only a baseball
bat for protection.”

“I agree that we’re up against some scary
stuff,” Samuel said. “But we got help now with the three saints.
Dylan and I took it to that dude last night. When he comes back,
we’ll finish the job without shooting up the whole town.”

Jimmy scooted out of his chair and paced,
rubbing the back of his neck. Ginger stared at him with haunted
eyes. Her silence was overwhelming since coming into Luis’s to
conduct this meeting. Molly, or Margaret, held little James,
rocking the sleeping baby. Ginger wrung her hands like they were
soaked with dishwater. Nothing about this was going to be easy,
from the fight to the aftermath.

“Catherine,” Jimmy said. “What can we expect
after we beat this horseman?”

Catherine had remained quiet through the
discussions. She was like that. Scout had even forgotten that she
was sitting beside him. He regarded her now with her back to the
chair, her hands folded in her lap, her legs straight out in the
air, and the permanent grass stains on her toes. She scooted
forward and her feet found the floor. “There’s no point in thinking
ahead right now, Jimmy. You have to take care of this and, like you
said, create your winter food supply. What comes next is just
another link in the chain. This is what’s happening now.”

“Okay, so how do we take care of the here and
now?”

Catherine stood and walked through the middle
of the circle to Jimmy. They were exactly the same height. She laid
her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “We’ll just
have to wait and see, silly.”

“You know more than that.” He turned his
head. “Doesn’t she, Margaret?”

Molly stared at the baby and everyone in the
circle guessed that Margaret knew just as much as Catherine about
everything. The difference was that Margaret used to be Molly. She
grew up with all the kids of Independents. Her friends should come
before her secrets.

Scout broke the silence for everyone. “Molly,
are we going to be able to beat this guy?”

Molly lifted her gaze. “My name is Margaret
now.”

Mark rocked forward in his chair. “You’re
still my sister, no matter what or who you were in a former life.
If you know something, you have to tell us.”

“No, Mark, I don’t. All you need to know is
that God is with us. He’s seen to it that all the pieces are here
at the right time to defeat this threat. I don’t know how this will
happen anymore than you do. I just know that you will defeat your
enemies if you have faith.”

Scout burst out of his chair. “This is total
crap. Why are we the ones having to deal with all of this? Why not
the kids in Denver?”

“Scout,” Hunter said. “We’re not the only
ones who have to deal with this.”

Scout followed Hunter’s gaze to where Henry
and his sister Sophie sat as the representatives of Cozad, their
community decimated by this horseman called Famine.

“All right, you have a point, but what about
all of us? I don’t suppose we can call upon the power that the
three saints are able to, nor do we have the power to heal
ourselves and grow wings like angel boy, nor are we all going to be
able to come back from the dead.”

Jimmy squared up to Scout. “What’s your
point?”

Scout spread his hands. “My point is that
most of us are just normal kids. How do we fight against this?”

“The same way you’ve fought since the start
of the plague,” Catherine said. “With everything you’ve got. We’ll
help you with the rest. You don’t have to be a saint or an angel
or—”

Dylan crashed through the door, his chest
heaving and his eyes wide with fear. “They’re here!”

“Who’re they?” Jimmy asked.

“All the guys that were out looking for that
dude are here with him. They’re setting fire to the food storage
building at the end of the block! Hurry!”

“I hope you grow some wings fast,” Scout said
to Hunter as they ran for the door.

Jimmy ran behind Scout and Hunter. He skidded
to a stop at the door and Mark slammed into him. Jimmy moved aside
and looked back at Ginger still sitting in her seat. Margaret held
their son. Jimmy went back to Ginger. “Let’s get you and the baby
someplace safe. Margaret, can you help?”

She shook her head. “I need to be out there
with them.”

Jimmy frowned, but understood. He searched
the remaining crowd. Luis busied himself gathering some of his
medical gear. “Luis, will you help me with Ginger and the
baby?”

“Yes, of course.” Luis rushed over with his
bag packed.

“We’ll all go together,” Vanessa said,
holding her baby. The older mother generated calm like a force of
nature.

Henry and his sister stepped forward. “Can we
follow you guys?”

Jimmy nodded. “Let’s go, but stay close.”

“Are you feeling better now?” Margaret asked
Ginger. “Somebody else can carry James.”

Ginger darted a glance at Jimmy and he felt a
stab of regret for allowing his identity to be revealed so
carelessly. Now he didn’t know how to talk to her about it.

“I’m okay,” Ginger said.

Margaret handed the baby to her and took off
after the first wave already out in the street. Ginger’s smile
returned with little James back in her arms.

They left through the back door to the dirt
alleyway where sunshine had been replaced by clouds rolling
overhead, promising rain. The smell of smoke reminded Jimmy of the
time when he thought Hunter had been caught in a house fire. The
black column rose at the end of Main Street like a puffy chain.
Jimmy hated the thought that the town he’d worked so hard to build
might burn to the ground. He hoped the dark clouds above would
unload and douse the fire.

Jimmy led the small party through a gate in a
chain-link fence and into a backyard. They crossed quickly and
skirted around the side of the house to the front. “We’ll go to
Ginger’s house in case the fire gets out of control. Plus, you
probably have stuff to take care of the babies, right?”

Ginger nodded. “Hunter and Scout have been
bringing baby stuff over for months.”

Jimmy made a mental note to thank Hunter and
Scout when all of this was over. Would he still be trapped in
Billy’s body? He wished he was a foot taller so he could at least
look Ginger eye to eye. She’d never take him seriously in this
body. The cruel fate that brought him back must have been laughing
at him.

Jimmy held up a hand when they reached the
edge at the front of the house. He scanned up and down the block
before waving the others to follow. Ginger’s yellow house, her once
colorful flowerbeds around the lone, leafless tree, had not
survived the infestation this close to Main Street.

Bunched together, the little group crossed
the street and started up the walkway when a groan, followed by a
scratching sound, brought them to a quick halt. A shambling form
paced in the dim shadows covering Ginger’s front porch. The tall
person’s head drooped, touching its chest as if it were looking for
something on the wooden planks. This looming figure rattled the
doorknob, which failed to turn, and then it sniffed the air like it
caught a familiar scent. The person turned slowly.

Caught in the open, the group stood with
nowhere to hide.

“Who are you?” Jimmy called.

The person groaned and moved into the yard.
Jimmy’s heart stopped. His trembling knees threatened to buckle.
Ginger screamed and little James began to cry.

Jimmy’s corpse, buried these past five
months, groaned again. His eyes were pale orbs and his gray mottled
skin hung in loose folds. The shirt he wore was torn and dirty, as
were his tattered jeans, but the boots looked to be in pretty
decent shape.

Jimmy, the one occupying Billy, noticed that
his dead body didn’t wear a hat. That was something at least.
“Ginger, Vanessa, I need you to run. I’ll hold him off.”

“I’ll help you,” Henry said.

Jimmy nodded. “Luis, you go with them.”

“We can all out run this thing,” Vanessa
said.

“You get a head start. We’ll be right behind
you.”

“Sophie, you have to let go of my hand,”
Henry said. “Don’t worry, I’ll be all right. Help them with their
babies.”

Jimmy didn’t hear any complaints from the
girl. He was too busy watching his dead body sniff the air and
stare at them with those pale eyes. The thing opened its mouth,
snapping it shut over and over like it wanted to talk, but the
action only produced groans and small clouds of dust.

Ginger, Vanessa, and the rest backed slowly
away to the street.

Dead Jimmy’s eyes followed the flight of a
butterfly as it flittered past his nose and down over the empty
flowerbed. The corpse groaned once more and shambled in that
direction like he wanted to chase the butterfly to pull its wings
off. The group’s slapping feet on pavement distracted him from the
insect and his attention returned to them. When they began to
leave, he groaned in great desperation.

Why had his corpse returned to Ginger’s
house? What would be controlling his body if his soul was inside
Billy? Did his dead brain contain memories of his previous life?
Whatever the deceased’s intentions, Jimmy had news—Ginger and the
baby were off limits.

The thing shifted his gangling walk towards
the retreating mothers and their babies. Jimmy cut off his dead
body’s pursuit like a crossing guard halting traffic. The corpse
towered two feet over him. Jimmy gagged and his eyes watered from
the stench of his own rotten flesh. He breathed in through his
mouth and balled his fists.

The creature stretched out an arm toward
Ginger, and Jimmy felt an instant of sorrow for his body. Then the
corpse looked down on Jimmy with those pale eyes. Like dirty motor
oil in a pool of milk, the paleness turned black. The thing’s mouth
dropped open, releasing a hollow screech that split down the middle
of Billy’s little spine.

Jimmy covered his ears. The creature swung
and clubbed him in the head. A stunned Jimmy dropped and shook the
fuzziness away. Henry cried out, and then the creature fell beside
Jimmy with Henry clinging to the corpse’s knees. Jimmy rolled over
and pushed up off the ground. His corpse groaned, twisted and
swiped at Henry. After he kicked his body, Jimmy pulled Henry to
his feet. The two boys backed away from the animated dead that
wobbled like a turtle trapped in its shell.

They hustled to catch up with Ginger and the
others at the end of the block. All around, screams echoed from
Main Street. A crowd of kids ran towards them, chased by a couple
of bat wielding boys that had been turned into pawns for Famine.
Jimmy searched the sky for angels or lightning bolts—any sign that
they weren’t alone in the fight for their lives.

“Where should we go?” Vanessa asked.

Jimmy turned in a tight circle of panic and
focused on the white steeple rising out of the neighborhood. “Let’s
go to the church.”

They hurried and others joined their
progress—Emma and some of the girls from town, along with some of
the Cozad kids. Emma introduced Wesley and Carissa to those in the
group who hadn’t met them yet.

“What’s happening back there?” Jimmy asked
them.

Emma spoke first. “Hunter is fighting the big
ugly kid with help from that new girl.”

“Barbie,” Wesley said.

Emma frowned at him. “Don’t interrupt me.”
She turned back to Jimmy and rolled her eyes before continuing,
“Catherine and Molly have been doing something to Scout, Samuel and
Mark. They’re glowing. They’re trying to stop the other boys and
put out the fire. Everyone else is running for their lives.”

“All right,” Jimmy yelled over the confusion
of the growing group of frightened kids. “Everybody, get inside the
church.”

They followed Vanessa and Ginger through the
doors. A lot of the kids gave Jimmy a funny look in passing. He
wondered why before remembering whose body he inhabited.

Henry waited outside, helping Jimmy hold the
doors open. “What now?”

Jimmy stared back at the billowing black
smoke where orange flames licked the tops of the buildings at the
other end of town. He saw the possessed boys fighting with Samuel,
Scout, and Mark. Dylan was there too. The bats were gone and now
they fought toe to toe with fists. The good side appeared to be
winning.

“Go inside and lock the doors. Have someone
guard every window and entryway. I’m going to see if I can
help.”