The Undead World (Book 5): The Apocalypse Renegades by Peter Meredith Page B

immediately clear.
    “Oh, here you go, Ms. Joslyn,” Jillybean said. Within the crate was a little green booklet: an instruction manual. After taking ten seconds to scan it, and getting the gist of the simple weapon, she handed it to Joslyn, who took it with just the tips of her fingers.
    “And what do you expect me to do with this?” she asked.
    “It’s a book,” Jillybean answered. “You read it. The words inside will tell you about the rockets.”
    William Gates smirked at the blatantly honest answer. “Maybe, Joslyn, you can give us all a class on how to work them, later.”
    “What’s next?” another of the ex-whores asked, looking squarely at Jillybean. She wasn’t the only one, either; all the adults were staring at her expectantly.
    “I guess we keep looking for more stuff,” she answered. “Maybe over by the airport?”
    The airport was a treasure trove of fuel. There were huge tanks filled with ugly smelling black liquid, only it turned out to be the wrong sort of fuel. It was all either for jets or helicopters. They did find a few weapons lying among piles of moldering bones in the control tower.
    “Suicides,” Joslyn said. Ipes explained what the word meant, but he couldn’t get Jillybean to understand the concept. In her mind, there was always a way out of any situation; killing yourself just seemed stupid to her.
    After hours of searching the grounds and buildings around the airport, and hardly finding anything worthwhile, the group headed back to the barracks, hungry and tired. They had barely found a thing to eat, but thankfully, one of the other groups had discovered a five-ton truck filled with cases and cases of MREs.
    Jillybean ate her dinner alone, sitting on the roof once again. Until the sun set she squinted into the glare, hoping to see the least sign of Neil, and after, when the dark hid the world, she sat straining her ears to hear something besides the constant moan of the dead and the evening bugs making their high-pitched clamor. She listened until her eyes began to droop.
    The next morning she awoke in her bunk with a heavy feeling in her chest. She knew as soon as her blue eyes blinked open that Neil hadn’t made it back. It had been two and a half days since he, Deanna, and Big Bill had left and so far there had not been a single word from them. It was exactly how she knew it would be.
    Ipes remained quiet, perhaps because he didn’t want to hear an I told you so . She gave it to him anyway: “I told you it was a mistake for Mister Neil to try to cross so soon. He should’ve waited.”
    True, but that doesn’t mean you were right to try for a rescue , he countered. In my opinion you were both wrong. You should have waited, not for a rescue, but just to let things die down. Besides you still don’t have a plan so what good is talking about a rescue?
    “I’ll get a plan going pretty soon.” Ipes gave her as skeptical a look as his cottony features would allow. “Don’t look at me like that,” she groused. “I know you don’t think we have so much to work with but you’re wrong. Who knows? What if we find a working tank? This is an army-man base. They probably had tanks and fighter jets and all sorts of stuff.”
    And who’ll drive it? Ipes asked. And how do you plan on getting a tank across the river? They weigh, like a whole lot and you blew up the only bridge, remember?
    “Oh yeah,” she answered, scratching her nose. “Well, then maybe we’ll get a helicopter. There were some down by the little airport. They can’t be all that hard to fly, at least for a grode-up. If Captain Grey was here, he’d be able to fly for certainty.”
    I wish he was here, too, so he could knock some sense into you. Helicopters are really hard to fly, harder even than airplanes.
    “Ok, maybe so, but still my point is that there might be all sorts of cool things on this base to help us free Sadie and Captain Grey. Maybe even a missile. You ever think of that?”
    Here’s what I