The Undaunted (Book 2 of The Undesirables)

Chapter 18: The Correspondent

"Says me," replied Jillian, steeling herself. "Says me and my pistol." She drew the weapon from its hiding place at the bottom of her duffel bag. It was a Russian Tokarev pistol that she'd stolen off the dead body of a Soviet Officer. She didn't point it at Natasha, she just held it within the girl's clear view.

Natasha looked at the pistol, and then at Jillian's face, trying to read it, trying to decide if Jillian really would shoot a little girl. "She's bluffing," Natasha announced to the other children.

"Don't test me," Jillian warned. She pointed the gun at Natasha.

Natasha threw the rice at Jillian in a tantrum. "I hate you!" she screamed.

Jillian's heart skipped. The children needed the rice more than she did. Without it, how could they possibly survive? But the survival of nations was at stake. That was more important than the lives of children, wasn't it? Jillian had to be strong, she had to be ruthless. She had to be the woman Dr. Parsons thought she was.

"The flour, too," Jillian demanded.

Natasha made a face of disgust and then dropped down the bag of flour, too.

Jillian caught it before it burst on the hard brick.

"Let's go," Natasha growled to the other children. "There's nothing for us here." They began to scramble down the mound of rubble.

"Wait!" Jillian commanded. "You can have it back – for a price."

Natasha hesitated and eyed Jillian with mistrust. "What price?"

"I need a battery. A big battery."

"Where would we find a battery?"

"In a vehicle, a car or a truck, they use batteries to start."

Natasha's expression brightened. "There are tanks and military trucks everywhere."

"Not a military vehicle, they don't use batteries to start. It has to be a civilian vehicle, a regular vehicle, something from before the war. Find me one and I'll give you back the flour and rice."

Natasha thought for a moment and then nodded. "Follow me."

* * *

Natasha and her friends took Jillian on a mile hike northeast of the chemist's shop. Then they led Jillian through a labyrinth of alleys created by seemingly random barriers of collapsed walls and broken pavement. Finally, they reached a wooden shed perched between two ruined buildings that somehow hadn't burned. Natasha pulled open the heavy shed door, which squeaked on its hinges. The shed was dark inside.

Jillian stepped forward into the darkness and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. The shed, it turned out, was a garage, and it was just large enough to house a single "Emka", which was the Soviet version of the Model B Ford. The passenger car looked to be in perfect condition, untouched by the war that had destroyed everything else in the city. Jillian was momentarily tempted to commandeer the vehicle and drive it away. But of course, if she had she wouldn't have gotten far – the streets were unpassable rubble.

And there was another problem: the driver's seat was already occupied. A woman's cadaver was pinned between the seat and the steering wheel. "How'd she die?" Jillian asked.

Natasha shrugged.

Jillian approached the car and peered in the window. The woman's body was grotesque, her stomach bloated by putrefaction and her skin green and blistered. The woman might have been pretty in life, but in death she was repulsive. Jillian reached for the car latch and opened the door.

The putrid smell of the decaying body made the children scream and run back outside. Jillian retched until she, too, was forced to escape to the clean, outdoor air.

"Why'd you open the door?" Natasha asked, accusing.

"I had to. The battery's under the driver."

"Be careful with the body."

Jillian nodded. She took a scarf and wet it with water from her canteen before tying it around her face. Once again, she wished she had a soldier's gas mask. Then she went back inside.

The wet cloth over her nose and mouth did little to deaden the smell, but it helped psychologically. Jillian grimaced as she took the dead woman under her arm pits and dragged her carefully to the garage floor. As she lay the body down, she wondered once more how the woman died. The car wasn't damaged and there weren't any apparent wounds on the woman's body.

Jillian went back to the car and saw the keys were already in the dashboard. Maybe the battery was dead – maybe the woman couldn't get the car started. Jillian pressed the ignition button and her heart leapt with excitement when the starter whirred. The engine didn't catch, but the battery definitely had power. Jillian checked the gas tank and sure enough the car was out of petrol -- the engine had run the tank try. Suddenly Jillian realized how the woman had died. She'd run the car in the closed confines of the garage and asphyxiated on the exhaust fumes. It had been suicide.

Jillian opened up the panel beneath the steering wheel. Sure enough, there was the six volt battery. She grabbed a wrench from a wall of hanging tools and unclamped the battery. Then she lifted it free from its housings.

When Jillian emerged from the garage, the battery cradled in her hands, she smiled at Natasha. "Thank you." She put down the battery, reached into her pack, and handed over the bags of flour and rice. "You deserve this."

Natasha just frowned and took the food.

"How did you know where to find the car?" asked Jillian.

"I knew the woman," Natasha said, referring to the cadaver.

"Really? Who was she?"

"My mother," Natasha replied, without emotion. Then she turned to her "brothers and sisters". "C'mon, it'll be dark soon."

The children began to scurry away, but Jillian yelled out to Natasha. "Where are you going?"
"It's a secret!" Natasha yelled angrily back.

"But what if I find more food? Where can I find you?"

Natasha hesitated, struggling with herself. Finally, she shrugged. "We live at Pavlov's house." Then she ran off deeper into the city.

"What's Pavlov's house?" Jillian called back to the children, but they'd already scurried out of earshot.

An hour later Jillian was back in her hiding place. She'd hooked up the Emka's battery and it worked. She relayed a coded message to her contact in neutral Turkey about the railway station and then turned off the radio to conserve the battery's power.