Covenant

by Jim Miesner

  “It’s a boy,” said Marlena.

  “He’s so beautiful,” said the woman. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe he’s so beautiful.”

  “He’s amazing,” said the father. “You did it.”

  She rubbed his shoulder and Marlena stepped back as the new parents stared at their son together. Her arms, hands, chest and one cheek were stained with blood as she looked at the family with a huge smile.

  Before long they heard other engines getting closer. At first, Sam thought it was John and Emmanuel, but it wasn’t them. Two older buggies pulled up with wagons half the size of Emmanuel’s. One held a small pile of corn, some ears charred, others stained by sooty hand prints. The other cart held old cracked and peeling leather suitcases. A man and women stepped down from them, probably in their fifties.

  “It looks like it’s all clear out there,” the man said.

  The woman rushed over to the new family with her arms open. Her wrinkled, soot covered face beamed with a smile as the mother handed her the new baby.

  “It’s a boy,” said the father.

  “My sweet grandson.” She turned to the older man. "We're grandparents."

  "We are," he said and tickled the baby’s chin as it cried again.

  In the distance, Sam heard the sounds of more engines returning.

  “What’s the name?” asked the grandfather.

  “Samuel,” said the father.

  Jenny dug her elbow into Sam’s side.

  “That’s a good name,” said the grandmother as she bobbed the baby up and down in her arms.

  "It means, heard by God," said the mother.

  "I hope so," said the grandfather. "I hope he's listening." He tickled his chin again and the boy squirmed. "Hi, Sammy."

  “Do you need anything?” Marlena asked.

  The new father shook his head. “You’ve done enough.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Marlena.

  “We’re fine,” said the mother.

  “What happened?” Jenny asked. “What was all that smoke?”

  The mother and father looked at each other before the father cleared his throat.

  “They burned everything we had.”

  “Who?”

  “Who else? The Coven, of course.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they can. Because it’s what they do. To them we’re just vermin, we’re just-.”

  “Chris,” the mother said and touched his arm.

  The father shook his head and then nodded. “Sorry.”

  “Here,” said a man’s voice.

  Sam turned and was surprised as the grandfather held out the child for her and dropped it into her arms. She looked down at it as it cooed, with its little face swaddled inside the soot-covered blanket. Jenny pulled on her arm trying to see the baby as Sam tilted it toward her and she smiled.

  “He’s so beautiful,” Sam said.

  The child’s little hand grabbed her finger as it cooed and then a moment later the lights from John and Emmanuel's buggies came over the hill. The baby shut its eyes tight and squirmed before it wailed again. The mother reached out for it and Sam handed her baby back as John came to a stop nearby and dismounted, followed behind by Emmanuel and Daniel.

  “Where are you headed?” Marlena asked.

  “South,” said the mother.

  “Come with us,” said Marlena. “We have a small farm. You can rest there before your journey. It’s not far.”

  “No, they can’t,” said Emmanuel.

  “What?” asked Marlena, “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t have a farm anymore,” said Emmanuel, as he approached.

  “What?”

  “It wasn’t just their farm, they’re burning everything.”

  “Our flocks?”

  He nodded.

  “Gone.”

  “What about Sonny and Sarah? Did they?”

  Emmanuel looked down at the ground and shook his head.

  “I buried them.”

  Marlena swallowed as she stared off into the distance. “Why are they doing this?”

  “Because they’re Coven,” said the grandfather.

  “I don’t remember them ever being this bad,” said the grandmother. “Never. Not my whole life. What about the truce?”

  Penny baaed.

  "The truce was for their good, not ours,” the father said. “You can never trust people who've taken children from their families. Are murder and arson really much of a stretch?”

  Sam's posture stiffened. Part of her wanted to run away, another part wanted to apologize. How had she ever justified that? She looked at every one of them but if any knew who she was, no one said a word. How couldn't they see it? She scratched the wool sweater she had yet to take off.

  The mother put her hand on the father’s arm again, and he took another breath before he looked back toward Emmanuel. “I’m sorry. Thank you.” He turned to Marlena. “Thank you both.” Then made his way to the cart and grabbed an armful of what little corn they had.

  “No, we couldn’t,” said Emmanuel.

  “Please, take it.” He held out the corn in his arms. “We wanted to thank you for your help. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have saved anything. Besides, we have family that’s not far. We’ll be fine.”

  Emmanuel pressed his lips together, nodded and took the corn in his arms. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” said the father.

  “I like your nose ring,” the mother said as she held the baby against her breast.

  It took Sam a minute before she realized she was talking to her. She felt the ring in her nostrils with her thumb and index finger, almost forgetting it was there.

  “Thank you.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “It was a gift," Marlena blurted out.

  The woman smiled at her and stared longer waiting for the second half of an answer that never came. Finally, she cleared her throat and looked around at everyone.

  “Come with us,” she said. “We have family in the mountains. It doesn’t look like anything has been burned there. We should be safe from the Coven there. We’re going to try to make it by morning.”

  “We have some unfinished business that we have to take care of first,” said Emmanuel.

  “Where are you headed?” asked the grandfather.

  “East,” Daniel said. “Our friend has a helicopter.”

  Marlena squeezed his shoulder.

  “He does?” asked the father. “Wow. I guess you could go almost anywhere.”

  His wife patted his shoulder and looked around the group. “If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

  “We better get going,” said the father. “If we want to make it before sunrise.”

  Emmanuel and he exchanged hugs as Marlena and John helped the new mother to her feet and into the back seat of the buggy. Hugs and handshakes were passed around the group, spattered with messages of good luck and God bless, before the grandparents, new father and mother climbed up into their vehicles.

  “Thank you all,” said the mother as she looked around the group. “We can’t thank you enough. Remember, if you need anything. Come find us.”

  Emmanuel nodded. Marlena and the woman exchanged one last hug before everyone waved their goodbyes again and then they were gone in the night. They stood there watching them leave a moment before Jenny put the bedding back out and John threw the bloodstained wool onto the fire. The father must have rekindled it when they arrived.

  “They broke the truce,” Marlena said. “Do you think Scully’s…” She bit her lip.

  “I don’t know. Let’s pray not,” Emmanuel said, anticipating her unfinished question. “He’s not easy to find.”

  “Should we head out?” John asked. He looked at Emmanuel and then Marlena.

  Emmanuel itched his chin. “If they know we’re here, leaving now won’t stop them from finding us. On the other hand, if they don’t know we’re here, it would be better to get re
st and decide what to do in the light of day. I think we could all use it.”

  “It’s harder for them to find us during the day, too,” Sam said. “Our heat signatures won’t stick out as much.”

  “Okay,” said Marlena. “Then it’s settled.”

  John nodded.

  One by one the others began to lie down. No one asked any more questions.

  “I’ll take first watch,” said Emmanuel.

  He stirred the fire with a stick. It was several minutes before John’s snoring signaled he was asleep, and Sam saw Jenny passed out. Not long after, Daniel and Marlena followed suit. She didn’t understand how they could fall asleep so fast. Wasn’t adrenaline coursing through their veins like hers? It had to be, but for them this was life. Out here they had learned to sleep when they needed to, Sam never had. The source had always taken care of that for her, flushed away any worries, anxieties or fears.

  Emmanuel continued to poke the fire and push the coals together.

  “If there’s anything you aren’t telling me,” he said. “We deserve to know why they are doing this.”

  “I’m sorry about your sheep and your friends… I think they’re scared. That’s why they are doing this.”

  Sam looked down at Jenny’s peacefully sleeping face as the air whistled out of her cute little nose, and she stirred and rolled to her other side.

  "Do you know what it could be?" Emmanuel asked. The flame from the fire lit up his face and danced in his eyes.

  “I think there might be something wrong with the source.”

  “What do you mean?”

  "I heard the council talk about an end to our way of life. We believe... They believe the source isn’t just food. It keeps everything in balance. Stops our emotions from controlling us."

  “Mind control?”

  Sam shook her head and laughed. “No, but…” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s hard to explain, but when it’s inside you, it’s like you’re not the same. It’s like you’re living another person’s life.”

  He poked at the fire.

  "I don’t remember it ever being like this either,” he said. “Jenny has something to do with it, doesn’t she?"

  Sam nodded. “I’m so sorry you got dragged into this. I’m sorry about your friends Sonny and Sarah and your farm.”

  Emmanuel twirled the stick in the fire. “They weren’t friends. We barely knew them. Get some rest.”

  Then he turned his back to her and Sam lay down and looked up at the star-filled sky. Distant dune buggies came and went. She imagined others fleeing from the fires, maybe traveling to their families as well. People that would give away their last bit of food for a neighbor in need, while hers were setting fields ablaze, killing people and animals. For what? Why was Jenny so important? Tears wet the corners of her eyes as something boiled inside her. After all of this, even if they let Jenny go and welcomed her back with open arms, she could never return. She would rather die than be a part of that.

  Ripping the nose plugs out and inhaling the cool night air along with the smoke from the charred campfire, Sam stared up at the stars. She lay there for what felt like forever before the darkness enveloped her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sam felt the soft wool bedding move before it baaed and licked her cheek. Jerking back, she wiped her face. What kind of sheep licked people's faces? At some point in the night, it had found company alongside her. Pushing it away, she stretched and looked out over the horizon to see the sun peek through a haze of smoke. In the distance, three small black columns rose into the sky. It hadn’t been a bad dream.

  Everyone was passed out except for John who was standing over the campfire. He flipped something in a pan and Sam heard it sizzle as it came back down. It smelled different. It didn’t register until she saw him crack another egg and then another.

  Her hand rushed to her nose out of instinct and she clamped off her nostrils as she felt around her bed for the plugs that she had been so ready to discard the night before. Where were they? In her panic, she climbed over a lump that shifted underneath her.

  “Ugh,” Jenny groaned.

  Sam’s hands felt under Jenny and then moved through the wool bedding.

  “Stop,” Jenny said.

  “I can’t find my plugs,” Sam said through gritted teeth, expecting something to come up at any moment.

  Jenny rolled over and Sam felt the spot she had been laying in for the second time but there was nothing there. Then a gurgle in Sam’s stomach made her pause as she stopped her search and turned away. She waited for nausea to overwhelm her, but it didn’t come. Her stomach just continued to groan.

  One by one the others awoke at the commotion.

  “Everything okay?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Yup,” said John and smiled. “Cooking eggs.”

  Emmanuel turned and looked at Sam as she knelt over the edge of the bedding holding her nostrils with one hand and bracing herself with the other.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Sam shook her head back and forth, afraid what might come out if she spoke. Then she took a breath and spoke through her clenched teeth. “I smelled eggs.”

  “Are you sick?”

  She put her hand on her stomach. “It’s different.” Her stomach gurgled again. “It feels different.”

  “You sound hungry,” said Daniel.

  “They don’t get hungry,” said Marlena. “They get sick.”

  “She’s not sick,” said Jenny.

  Sam opened her mouth. It always came like clockwork at the smell of food. If it didn’t, then what did that mean? That something inside her wasn’t working right? Which could mean something much, much worse was happening to her. She unpinched her fingers just enough to let the smell of frying eggs hit her again. The smell smacked her across the face and lifted her off her feet. It surprised her. Distant dreams flooded in. Memories of another life. A dark-haired man and woman she didn’t recognize. A small village full of huts with thatched roofs. People cooking breakfast over a fire. The sun just rising over the tree tops.

  “Sam?” Emmanuel said. “Sam?” he said again and shook her shoulder.

  His face was right next to hers and she jerked away again. Leaning farther out over the side of the bedding, she felt a gag start in the pit of her stomach, then retched but nothing came. As soon as she paused, it passed. She sat there still smelling the chicken eggs. There wasn’t any nausea or a headache, only the sounds from her stomach as it moaned like some dying animal at the sizzling of the eggs in the pan.

  “How is that possible?” Marlena asked. “Why isn’t she getting sick?”

  Everyone was staring at her now.

  “Sam?” asked Emmanuel.

  It didn’t make any sense. Sam alternated pinching and unpinching her nose as if the act might somehow jump-start the process.

  “What?”

  “How are you not sick?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just how it progresses. Maybe there are some foods that don’t trigger it.”

  Marlena grabbed a bottle of something from off her cart and uncorked it next to Sam. “Smell,” she said.

  Sam took her hand away from her nose and let the aroma of whatever was in the bottle percolate up her nostrils. She winced at the smell. It smelled like some kind of chemical or fruit that had gone bad but she couldn’t place it.

  “What is it?”

  “Wine.”

  Emmanuel took a cooked egg from John and brought it up to Sam. Other than the orange she had never been this close to food before. Her stomach moaned again but when she saw the white and yellow blob jiggle in his hand, her cheeks puffed out and her hand flew to her mouth.

  Emmanuel jerked back his hand in response and Sam waited a moment before she took her hand away.

  “I can’t believe you ingest those.”

  Emmanuel tilted his head to peer up her nostrils as if he expected to find something stuck in there.

  “Is she better?” Daniel asked.
r />   “When was the last time you felt sick or had headaches?” Emmanuel said.

  “I don’t know, maybe about when we first saw the smoke.”

  “She’s cured,” Daniel said.

  Sam shook her head. “We live in a sterilized bubble. All the microbes and bacteria in your environment are toxic to us, but our aversion to food is different. It's a preventative measure. An artificial system created to help keep us from eating.”

  “Why?”

  "The Covenant wouldn't exist if there was a choice. The point is if that isn’t kicking in then it means it failed. It means something is very wrong.”

  She turned to Jenny. “Did you do anything to that water Marlena gave you?”

  “Water?” Marlena asked.

  “Jenny said you gave her the boiled water from when you cooked corn. It’s in my canteen.”

  “We roasted the corn.”

  Everyone turned to Jenny.

  “Sorry, I must have been confused.”

  She fidgeted and got up.

  “Maybe when you emptied yourself out?” Emmanuel asked.

  "No," said Sam. "What did you do, Jenny?"

  Jenny stared at the canteen that laid next to Sam’s bed.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that you weren’t drinking. I didn’t want you to die. I didn’t know what else to do."

  "What did you do?

  Jenny brushed her fingers through her hair. "You kept getting sicker… I read a book once about elephants. They do it with their babies. They’re born without the microbes they need to digest food. I’m sorry. I knew you would be mad.”

  Sam reached down and opened up the mouth of the canteen as the smell hit her in the face. This time she couldn’t help but gag as she dropped it to the ground and started to retch all over again.

  “I’m sorry. You were just so sick.”

  Sam gagged. Emmanuel tried to put his fingers over her nose to plug it but she pushed him away.

  “Plug your nose.”

  She shook her head and gagged. “Not that-” she said and pointed to the ground.