Dahlia pawed tears from her eyes. Jumper put his arm around her shoulders but she shook her head and he let his arm fall. They turned toward the old man.
“Who are you?” asked Slow Dog.
He turned to him. “There isn’t enough time left in the world to answer that question in any way you’d understand.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” said Dahlia. “I mean . . . what’s your name? Can you tell us that, at least?”
The old man studied her and although she saw lights flickering in his eyes she was unable to use them to decode anything about him.
The old man gave her a smile that made him look old and sad. “You can call me Mr. Church.”
— 12 —
THE WARRIOR WOMAN
Rachael walked the path, gathering fallen weapons while Jason searched their would-be attackers for any more they might be concealing. Using the shotgun, he motioned for them to sit down one by one along the path, hands in plain sight. Alice sat off to the side with Tommy, holding him until his tears subsided.
The thumping of footsteps coming up the path made her tense and spin around, sword out. She lowered it when Peter and Claudia came into sight.
“We heard the screams,” Peter gasped as they both leaned over to catch their breath, hands on knees. “Are you okay?”
“The Apple Man went orc and attacked Tommy, and then we had some unexpected visitors.” Rachael nodded over her shoulder at the line of people. “We’re all fine though. The kid’s a bit shaken up, but no surprise there. Keep watch here, okay? I don’t know if there’s more of this crowd around, and I don’t want to get surprised again.”
Rachael picked up a Bowie knife and dropped it onto the now-sizeable pile of confiscated weapons, then strode over to the group of attackers. She looked at them one by one before crouching down in front of the man who’d held the gun on her.
“Look,” she said evenly, “we don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t have you threatening me or my people, so tell me who you are and what you want. And if you’re lucky I’ll send you on your way. No harm, no foul.” She tapped one palm absently against the hilt of the Elven dagger, once more sheathed at her hip. The man swallowed, his gaze never leaving her hand or the dagger.
She gave him time to work it through.
“I’m John, John Allens,” he said at last. “We’re from Happy Valley. We were on patrol, looking for one of our people. He went missing the other day, so we organized a search party. We saw you attack him.” His tone turned harsh. “Attack and kill him.”
Rachael winced. “I’m so sorry, but your friend was dead before I got to him. I don’t know how he died either, but he was an—” She stopped herself from saying “orc” because they wouldn’t understand. “He’d come back from the dead, just like most everyone else out there.” She kept her voice calm, almost sad, wanting to show respect for their loss. “We mean you and your friends and home no harm, I can promise you that.”
“M-Mr. Allens?” Tommy’s voice was soft, almost scared as he peaked around Alice’s leg.
“Tommy?” John Allens shot to his feet, apparently no longer concerned with Rachael or Jason’s weapons. “What in the hell are you doing out here? Your family’s got to be worried sick about you!”
Rachael stood as well, taking a step back as she looked from Tommy to John Allens. She kept her hand on her dagger hilt but made no move to draw it.
“Happy Valley? Happytown?” Jason muttered to her.
“Tommy, is Mr. Allens from Happytown?” she asked as the boy took a few hesitant steps forward.
The boy nodded sheepishly.
“We found Tommy wandering near the woods a little ways back,” Rachael explained. “He was looking for someone called the Apple Man. I’m guessing that was your friend.” She nodded toward the fallen orc. Allens looked over at the body and nodded. “We were trying to help Tommy find his way home when Pat attacked him. I had no choice but to quiet him.”
“You okay, son?” Allens knelt by Tommy, checking him over for bites and scratches. The boy nodded, passively submitting to the inspection.
“What’s Happy Valley?” Peter asked curiously. He was a thin, gangly young man with sandy hair and clear blue eyes. He looked like he should be playing sandlot baseball instead of being a part of this kind of violence. The self-aware hurt of that truth was evident in his eyes.
“We’re a town about a mile down the path,” Allens answered. “All survivors. Our community is gated, so nothing gets in, and we have been blessed with abundant land for farming and grazing, and lots of room for people. In general, we’ve been very lucky. Haven’t had any attacks by gangs or walkers, and the homes are a good distance from the gates. It’s a piece of heaven, even in these bad times.”
Rachael glanced at their weapons in the pile.
“How do you defend it? Do you have a guard or any watch set up, or any reinforcements of your fences?”
Allens looked uncomfortable and scuffed his foot on the ground, not meeting her eyes.
“We’ve sort of relied on volunteers.” One of the women in the group spoke up, her eye starting to swell from a close encounter with Jason’s fist. “We have lots of people willing to volunteer, whether it’s doing the farming or taking care of the animals or repairing the homes and fences or guard duty. A lot of folks willing to do the work, even though most of us don’t have much experience.”
“We had some firearms experience, but . . . ” Allens paused for a moment before continuning. “Well, we ran out of bullets about a month in. Both of these guns are unloaded.” Jason looked down at the shotgun in his hands and rolled his eyes. Allens noticed and gave a small chuckle. “Yeah, that shotgun usually gets people to back down before things escalate to the point where we’d have to call our own bluff.”
The woman nodded. “Now we just have to rely on what we have, mostly garden tools, baseball bats, rackets, stuff we can find around. Nothing that’s really good for defending against more than one monster at a time.”
Rachael nodded, turning to glance at the rest of her group, eyebrows raised. Peter and Jason looked dubious, but Claudia and Alice both nodded.
“Do you want help learning how to defend yourself with the tools you have?” Rachael included everyone in the question.
The woman looked shocked. “Why would you help us when we tried to hurt you?”
“You were defending yourself, your homes, and your friend. I don’t blame you for that. We’re not the best or most technically trained fighters, but we’ve figured out how to use what we have to survive. There’s different techniques for using different weapons, even shovels and axes. These techniques will help you use the weapons you have to effectively fight off the undead without needing bullets or more traditional weapons. Do you want to learn?”
A few of the men in the line nodded, while others looked skeptical. Allens and the woman spoke quietly for a moment. Then the woman stood, offering her hand to Rachael. “I’m Heather. Thank you.”
Rachael shook Heather’s hand with a warm smile. “Rachael. We all have to do what we can to help out our neighbors in these times. My friends and I need to gather our gear, and then we’re ready to go with you.”
She walked back to her friends, making sure to put enough distance between them and the Happy Valley folks to allow her to speak without fear of being overheard. “Tommy,” she said, “how ‘bout you go help your friends and we’ll be right there, okay?”
He frowned.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Alice said. “Go on, now.”
Reluctantly letting go of Alice’s hand, Tommy trotted down the path to Heather.
“Okay, gang. Thoughts?”
“It sounds great,” said Claudia. Peter nodded.
Jason was less than trusting. “How do we know this isn’t just a trap?” he said in a low voice. “How do we know they won’t kill us once we drop our guard?”
“We need to be cautious,” Rachael agreed. She thought for a moment, then
said, “Alice, Peter . . . wait until we’re far enough for you to follow at a distance. Stay out of sight. Once we find out where Happy Valley is located, go back to the school and tell Brett what’s going on, and where we are.”
Jason still didn’t look happy, but he nodded in reluctant agreement.
“Sounds like we’re going to be here for a few days, at least to help out,” continued Rachael, “but maybe they’d be willing to let us all stay for a little while after we’re done training them. Maybe we can share in some of their luck.”
Walking back over to Heather and Allens, Rachael grabbed the shovel off the pile of weapons and handed it to the woman. As the Happy Valley folks collected the rest of their weapons, Rachael noticed that Jason didn’t remove his hand from the knife at his belt.
She couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t sure how much she trusted these people either, but if they were telling the truth, she would be more than glad to help them protect themselves.
— 13 —
THE SOLDIER AND THE DOG
As it turned out, the old lady was a former middle school librarian named Abigail Smith. Thin as a rake handle but tough as steel. Shrewd-eyed and stern, but those were exactly the right qualities for this kind of survival. While the others cleaned and cooked the sheep, Abigail and I sat on roadside rocks and drank from a little bottle of bourbon she pulled out of a pocket.
I sniffed the whiskey, nodded, took a sip and was, for a moment, in a very happy place. Although Top and Bunny would likely label me a “beer guy,” I could appreciate a fine whiskey. As I wiped my mouth after a second sip I caught Abigail studying me.
“You look like you have a story to tell,” she observed, accepting the bottle back and taking a hellacious pull.
“Doesn’t everyone?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Some more than others. You military? You have the look.”
“Used to be.”
Abigail shook her head again. “No. That’s not you.” She gave me such a calculating and intense stare that I wanted to check for dirt under my fingernails and pay any late-book fees she might ask. “Some people come home from duty, take off the uniform and go back to being who they were before. Most, maybe. Others always look like they’re wearing that uniform.”
“You’re sharp. You ever serve?”
Another shrug. “I was one of those who went back to being who I was.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t think that’s entirely true.”
We handed the bottle back and forth. I told her my story, even some of the stuff that was classified as above top secret because why not? Secrets didn’t really matter. She listened, nodding, not interrupting. I like people who don’t interrupt. When I wound down, she put the cap back on the bottle and gave me her tale.
She’d been one year shy of a late retirement, and was planning to fight it, preferring to grow old and die among her beloved books. When the dead rose, Abigail was among the people who gathered in an emergency shelter, but first the power went out, then the back-up batteries failed, and finally the food ran low. That’s when she decided that waiting for help was likely to be a suicidal pursuit. So, she and a few others went out of the shelter to find a destroyed town filled with monsters.
There were younger men and women in the shelter, there were bigger and stronger people, but there was no one tougher. And by that, I mean tough of mind, tough of spirit. Over the next few weeks Abigail polled the survivors about their skills and put them all to work. Anyone who knew how to do basic household repairs or construction were assigned the task of reinforcing the shelter. Hunters were tapped to find weapons and ammunition, and to establish elevated shooting positions on the key routes leading up to, or away from, the shelter. People who could cook from scratch were tapped to work with scavenging teams to locate bulk staples and oversee nutrition. Those with first aid training were required to teach that to everyone else.
That’s how she did it. “Everyone has some useful skill,” she said, “even if they don’t know it yet. You get someone who played field hockey in school or was good at tennis or softball and you make them your front-line fighters. They may not know how to fight per se, but they’re used to hitting things in ways that don’t hurt their own backs and elbows and knees. The dead don’t require finesse out of us, but fighting them requires efficiency.”
I grinned and listened. The smell of roasting mutton filled the air and that was wonderful. Sentries with sharpened staves and bows patrolled the road.
“Then,” continued Abigail, “you have to think about other skills. Not fighting or direct defense. Anyone who was a therapist or had been in therapy long enough to understand what it means to really listen. Anyone who could tell jokes, sing songs, tell stories, read stories, entertain in any way—they’re important because once the walls are secure and everyone’s fed we all have to get through those long nights, don’t we? We have to have laughter and song because that reminds us of possibilities and it also reminds us that we’re people. Civilized people. If we lose that, then it’s a pretty short step downward into savagery and brutality.”
“That’s brilliant,” I said.
She tried to wave it off, but there was a little bit of a blush on those lined cheeks. “It’s practical, at any rate. I’ve always been like that, even as a little girl. Things should make sense, and if they don’t, then we have to make them make sense.”
“Preaching to the choir, sister,” I said.
Someone grumbled about us making too much noise, so we drifted off to the verge beside the road. She spread out a big blanket and we lay down and looked up at the stars. Baskerville lay between us, dreaming doggie dreams.
“Staying alive has become quite a chore,” said Abigail.
“A bit.”
“You’ve lived a harder life than most. Tell me, does it ever get easier?”
“Easier? Sure. I suppose,” I said. “You develop useful habits of survival. Routine helps with the fear and fills time so you don’t always feel the loneliness. And there’s always something new to learn, or a skill that you can focus on to improve. That lets you be more in your mind and less in your heart.”
She nodded, accepting that. “Have you ever felt in danger of losing all connection to your heart?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “And it would be much easier to be able to reach inside and pull the plug on all emotions. It would make the nights easier to get through.”
“But you haven’t done that . . . ”
“No.”
“I’ve met people who have,” said Abigail. “Out there. Since the end. There are some people who seem genuinely dead inside. Bands of Rovers, I think they’re called. Some loners, too. They seem to have forgotten what it’s like to be human. To feel compassion. All they seem able to feel is greed and hate and lust.”
“Those are emotions,” I pointed out.
“Don’t be pedantic. I’m talking about people who have lost both sympathy and empathy. Who are predators a lot more frightening than the living dead.”
“I know,” I said. “Met more than a few of those.” I told her about the Nu Klux Klan.
“Exactly,” she said. “The end of the world seems to have ended them.”
I thought about that for a moment, then shook my head. “I don’t think that’s right. I think these people were always like that. Hatred, misogyny, racism, sexual abuse, and all the violence that goes with those things aren’t a byproduct of Lucifer 113. No, I think what happened is that the comprehensive failure of the infrastructure took the cultural and legal shackles off of people who have always harbored those appetites. It’s just now there’s no one left to stop them or punish them.”
She turned and gave me a long, appraising look. “There are people like you.”
“Oh, hush now,” I said.
The stars above us seemed to move as the world turned.
“It’s a gift,” said Abigail after a pause so long I thought she’d drifted off.
“What is?”
&n
bsp; “The stars.”
Above us the roof of the world was painted with ten trillion chips of diamond dust. Some were planets, some were stars, and some, I knew, were whole galaxies. We could see the sweep of the Milky Way, too.
She said, “Before the plague there were always lights and most people—most of us—never really knew how much those lights washed away most of the stars. Even in the small town where I lived, there were lights. Street lights, stop lights, car lights.” She turned to me, her face edged with silver starlight. “Have you ever seen stars like this?”
“Before all this? Yes, but only in pretty remote places,” I said. “On ships far out to sea, in Death Valley, couple of deep deserts. And Antarctica once. A few other places. It’s humbling.”
“It’s everywhere now,” said Abigail. “A new twist on the Dark Ages, I suppose. And maybe that’s what this will be called. The New Dark Ages.”
“And yet,” I said, “look at how much light there is.”
She said nothing. When I glanced over at her I saw she was crying.
***
Later—much later—we got up and began walking along the road. Baskerville ranged ahead, silent for all his bulk, to make sure that we were not walking into danger. The world was full of monsters, but they were not everywhere all the time.
“Why are you out here, Joe?” asked Abigail. “What are you looking for?”
“Would it be corny to say I’m looking for hope?”
“A little.”
I grinned. “I’m looking for a man that I think is someone I used to know. Maybe you’ve run into him out here. Older man, very tough, exceptionally smart. Maybe wears black gloves . . . ?”
“Oh!” she said, smiling. “Mr. Church.”
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