Wanderers

by Chuck Wendig

  “No,” Stover went on, and Matthew knew what he was going to ask before he asked it, “I want to hear your thinking on the walkers.”

  “Oh. Ozark, I don’t know that I’m much of an expert. What’s happening there—”

  “What’s happening here, soon enough. They’ll be passing through Waldron tomorrow, it looks like.”

  “Maybe. Point is, I’m more concerned about the spiritual health of my parishioners. I just want them to make the right decisions for themselves and their families—and, of course, for God. If I can give them those tools, then whatever happens in the day-to-day is something they’re prepared for. The old teach-a-man-to-fish situation, you might say.”

  Now Stover stepped in closer. Uncomfortably so. The man was already quite the presence, like a grizzly bear standing on its back legs, but now this, this felt somehow like a threat. Or perhaps, in some bizarre way, an expression of comfort and camaraderie. Matthew hoped it to be the latter.

  “This situation with the walkers might be a spiritual matter.” Stover’s voice was low and deep. His breath was heavy with a rough, mineral stink—it smelled the way a bitten tongue tastes, of blood and meat.

  “How so?” Matthew asked, clearing his throat. He tried to take a step back, but Stover just took another step forward.

  “They walk like they’re on a pilgrimage. But there’s nothing godly or spiritual about them. I want you to imagine it, Preacher. I’ve read the accounts of families who are dealing with this, who have watched what happened to their loved ones. One day everything is normal, next thing you know, your wife, your son—or maybe you yourself—are gone. Your body stolen out from under you like that.” Ozark snapped his fingers. It sounded like a branch snapping off a tree in a storm. “Think about that, Preacher. One minute you’re you, the next—you’re one of them.”

  Matthew had to agree: That sounded horrific.

  “And what do you think they are?” the pastor asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. The boys at the yard are saying it’s terrorism—some Islamic shit, some drug they put in the water or sprayed over people. But I don’t buy that. Those animals in the Middle East aren’t that sophisticated. They live in caves. They don’t attack with fancy weapons—they drive cars and trucks into people. It’s guns and knives and maybe a crude explosive now and again. This is a whole other level. China, could be. They got weapons we wouldn’t believe. But I dunno.”

  “It is quite the puzzle,” he agreed, though to what he was agreeing precisely, he did not know. He nodded, though, and said, “You are right, I should take this up with my parishioners.”

  “Maybe it was the comet,” Ozark said, like he was barely listening.

  “Comet?”

  “Night before they appeared, that comet went past.”

  Matthew remembered hearing about the comet. Named after a Japanese astronomer? “I apologize, but I don’t follow.”

  Stover seemed irritated at that.

  “It’s a comet. Like in Revelation.”

  “You mean Wormwood.”

  “Wormwood. That’s right.”

  Matthew wondered aloud: “In the book they called it a falling star, and some translations don’t even name it—you have to understand, Ozark, Revelation is likely more a historical document than one about prophesying the end. John of Patmos was exiled and imprisoned as part of Roman persecution of Christians, and he wrote these coded letters to the churches in order to empower them and…” He struggled to contextualize it; it had been a long time since he’d had to go over this. Since college. “And paint a picture of their enduring cosmic reward under the aegis of Heaven.”

  “You’re saying it’s fake.”

  “I’m not saying it’s fake. I’m saying it’s metaphor.”

  “A metaphor isn’t something real, Preacher.”

  “It is real in its way. Like Obi-Wan said in Star Wars, ‘from a certain point of view.’ ”

  “You’re saying the Bible isn’t real.”

  “No, I’m saying it’s metaphor—”

  “The whole Bible is metaphor?”

  “No! No. I just mean—” His words stumbled over one another. “I just mean that one book.”

  “The Bible is one book, least it was last time I held one.”

  “The Bible comprises many books.”

  “Uh-huh.” Stover went quiet, stared cigarette burns into him. “Here’s what I know, Preacher. I’m not much of a good Christian, I confess. But something’s gone wrong. Gone sour. Maybe it was that comet, maybe I’m reaching, but I know that the word for Wormwood in ancient Greek—apsinthos—means ‘bitterness, from a bitter herb.’ ” He must’ve seen Matthew’s face, as he smiled, then, the great cleft of his mouth stretching wide in the center of that dark beard. “You didn’t think I knew that, did you? Too high-minded for my kind. No, I’m not a good Christian, but I can read. And maybe something did poison those waters, turn these people into those…things, those sleepwalking strangers. Maybe it was the comet. Maybe the Devil himself. Maybe this is a sign of something worse to come. Those walkers don’t serve God. God wouldn’t do that to Americans.”

  “I…will take that all into consideration, Ozark.”

  Then Stover softened a little. He took a step back, the smile on his face lingering longer. “I apologize, Pastor. Here you are, going about your day, and I’ve rolled up on you, pinning you down like a fly under a swatter. You don’t owe me your free time, and I admit…” He looked momentarily embarrassed. “I come on a little strong. I’m just concerned, is all.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Your free time is your time, and I look forward to what you have to say about it tomorrow during church.”

  “Tomorrow,” he repeated, almost like he didn’t understand the word.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday, isn’t it?”

  “It…is. I’m just not used to seeing you in attendance.”

  Now Ozark’s smile grew big and broad, like a billboard made of teeth. “Preacher, count on me. I’ll bring a few of my boys, too, as I think we could all use a little spiritual instruction in this strange and tumultuous time.”

  “So be it,” Matthew said, offering a wan smile. He didn’t know how to feel—on the one hand, he was happy that his church would see an increased attendance, and that Stover and his men might be inclined to seek out God when before they had not. On the other hand, Stover scared Matthew. He didn’t know why. Perhaps it was his size. Or his intensity. Maybe, to Matthew’s own shame, it was a class issue: Matthew grew up roundly middle-class, his father a banker, his mother a caterer, whereas Stover lived out on the fringes. He was backwoods in the truest sense: Though he wasn’t poor now, Bo said Stover grew up poor, once. If that was the problem, Matthew saw fit to conquer that prejudice in himself posthaste. “I look forward to seeing you in the morning, then, Ozark.”

  “I’ll see you, Preacher. Oh, word of caution—storm is coming tonight. Sounds like a big one, too. Maybe it’ll wash all those walkers away and come tomorrow we won’t have much to talk about.”

  With that, as he sauntered back to his truck, thunder rumbled far off in the distance, making Matthew jump just a little.

  Local Indiana Residents Protest Repeal of Healthcare Law

  …local resident Clade Berman, 45, stepped up to the microphone and gave state senator Olly Turell a piece of his mind on Tuesday. Berman, a local contractor, said to Turell, “Ten years ago I couldn’t get health insurance because I had a bum knee, and preexisting clauses kept me from keeping myself healthy. Those clauses being struck down helped me to get insurance again, but now you’re telling me you want me to get sick again? No safety net? We’re all living hand to mouth out here, Senator, and it seems you want us to suffer for it. To hell with that.” Those gathered showed their support in a rally of applause for Berman…

>   JUNE 19

  Ten miles outside Waldron, Indiana

  IT WAS 7 P.M., A few days from summer solstice, the longest day of the year, but way out over the cornfield the sky had gone so dark with the coming storm it looked like clouds of blackflies gathering over the horizon.

  Shana stood there, looking at it through her iPhone. She snapped a few pics of the brooding sky, then slid a few Instagram filters over them to make them look grimmer, nastier. A quick tap of the button and they were posted to IG.

  Lately, her IG following had doubled. In part because she’d been taking snaps of the walkers, the RV, things like that. Yesterday she took a quick shot of a couple of old white people on the side of the road holding up signs that said, WALKERS ARE TERRORISTS, except of course it was misspelled TERRARISTS, and she made up a hashtag for it: #WalkersAreTerrariums. That went kinda viral, got attached to anybody holding a stupid-ass, misspelled protest sign. Any other day that might’ve made her feel awesome but now mostly it just bummed her out.

  In the distance, lightning licked the sky.

  She wished she’d gotten a shot of it. Too late now.

  “I don’t like that storm,” Shana said.

  Her father, sitting behind the wheel of the RV, said: “It looks bad, but some things look worse than they really are. Besides, it could miss us.”

  “It looks like the end of the world out there. I don’t think you can dodge the end of the world.”

  “Storms out here in the Midwest are different from storms back east. Back home we get these big sweeping coastal fronts—” He moved his hands like a weatherman, made a whoosh sound. “And they push across us like a slow flood. Out here, though—you ever watch those tornado-chaser shows? They’re erratic, like snakes moving through grass. Never know which way they’re gonna turn, sweetheart. It’ll be okay.”

  It’ll be okay.

  Everyone wanted to keep telling her that.

  “If a tornado hits, they’ll get swept up in it. I know that not much seems to affect them, but I think a tornado will—”

  Her father, through politely gritted teeth, said: “I said it will be okay.” Softer now: “Have some faith.”

  That was the other thing: Dad was starting to say shit like that. Have faith. Ugh. He’d started talking, too, about going to church when they got back, like in his head he held some generic, preschooler’s idea of God: some big bearded Santa Claus analog watching over all the good little girls and boys to make sure they were okay. Shana went to Sunday school once, just once, at her mother’s urging. She stepped into the room, saw a bleeding guy nailed to a couple of beams on the wall, and she noped her way right out of there. Wailing, crying, Stop the ride I wanna get off. Years later, she poked through the Bible—because okay let’s be honest that was her Swedish Death Metal phase and suddenly a bloody guy on a cross held a certain romantic sway—and all she found was a few nice platitudes swaddled in a whole lot of hypocrisy, violence, and misogyny. No way was she going to church.

  Other problem with her father right now: He didn’t want to talk about any of this. He would not acknowledge what was going on, and what was going on here went well beyond weird and into the stuff of a Stephen King novel. The flock now numbered over two hundred walkers. And once every few hours, a new one would join the parade.

  With them came others. A new walker might bring loved ones—most came along weeping, screaming, trying to pull their loved one back from the brink of being lost to them. But they found the same that Shana had: Trying to rescue your loved ones doomed them. Seizures and screams. Bloodshot eyes and a fast-moving fever cooking them like an egg. So far, nobody since Mark Blamire had popped like a firecracker—those trying to restrain them either had stopped before detonation, or were themselves stopped by the other shepherds.

  (That’s what the media called them. Shepherds. Then there were the walkers, the sleepwalkers, the sleepers, the flock, the herd—lotta different names for them.)

  For every walker came two or three shepherds, and they came in their own procession. Some walked. Others drove vans or pickups, or brought along pop-ups and RVs, the vehicles easing along at a few miles an hour—sometimes stopping for a few minutes before starting their engines anew and driving forward. They had what they simply called the front guard and the rear guard: At the fore were half a dozen vehicles leading the flock, and following behind were another half a dozen. Some came along as long as they could, one day or a few days until obligations and life called them back. Some arrived and, like Shana and her father, never left. Others still did not follow the walkers but instead drove ahead, watching and waiting.

  Of course, the shepherds were not alone. The CDC was still here, now with a bigger presence. (They had a truck now that pulled along a mobile lab built onto a gooseneck trailer.) State troopers tagged along, same as they had in Pennsylvania—whenever they crossed state lines, new troopers picked up the mantle. They weren’t friendly and they kept their distance, and Shana got the feeling they were more their jailers than they were their protectors. The FBI had a rotating presence—black SUVs usually not following along but seen parked along the so-called parade route.

  And all that didn’t include the media.

  Shana hated them.

  They were fucking ceaseless creepers. Tourists zipping around like yellowjackets before the first frost, all cameras and microphones and questions all up in your shit. They even had a couple of “embedded” reporters now—someone from CNN and another from the BBC. News helicopters went over a few times a day, too, for those vaunted aerial shots of the flock. She wanted to punch them in the face anytime they got close.

  Particularly, anytime they got close to Nessie.

  Nessie.

  Nessie still walked at the front of the walkers—and sometimes, Shana had to remind herself that her little sister was the first of the flock (and she, herself, the first shepherd). It’s why she and her father chose to bring the RV to the front of the flock and stay up there ahead of the crowd—peering out the back window let them keep eyes on Nessie. Sometimes they could get close if the CDC wasn’t doing any testing, and when they were able to get close to her, Shana might brush Nessie’s hair or try to paint her nails. Nessie, like many of the walkers, got dirty—pollen stuck to their skin in a yellow shine, for instance. So they tried sponging her off best as they could. (Though they could not attend to her feet, which at this point were nearly tar black with filth.) Shana talked to her. Sang songs to her. Bitched to her.

  Dad stayed away.

  Because, Shana thought, he just couldn’t hack it.

  He was here, yes.

  But he wasn’t here. Not really.

  Soon, she knew, they’d run out of money. Which meant no food and no gas, which further meant Dad would dig deeper into Nessie’s college fund—meaning, he would carve into her future so that they could remain with her for however long this strange, unspooling dream went. He pretended it wasn’t true, but she heard him talking to some of the other families. Dad thought he was protecting her by lying to her.

  He should know better by now, she thought.

  A knock rapped at the RV door. It seemed super weird to get a knock at the door of a moving vehicle, but she had to remind herself—they were only driving five miles an hour to stay close to the flock. Her dad eased the brakes and asked her to “get the door” like it was the most normal thing in the world, and she hurried over and opened it up.

  At the door was Mia Carillo, one of the other shepherds. She was sister to one of the sleepwalkers: Mateo, or Matty. She wasn’t just his sister, but his twin sister. Though she was a few years older than Shana, the two of them hit it off, were fast friends. Mia was a raging snark-machine bitch, and Shana was all-in for that shit. Her father said they were like two birds of a feather, but Shana thought of them more like two dogs rolling around in dirt—and loving every second of it.

 
“Hola, Stewart family,” Mia said, waving as she entered.

  “Hola, chica,” Shana said, going for a fist-bump and blowing it up after, then moving in for the hug.

  Dad, too, said hi with a casual wave from the driver’s seat. He couldn’t keep the RV parked for long or the walkers would start streaming around it—so he asked: “In or out?”

  “Out,” Mia said. “We’re gonna play farme—”

  Shana punched her in the arm. Mia, little monstress that she was, didn’t refer to themselves as shepherds—instead, she said they were farmers. (Because, duh, farmers take care of the vegetables.)

  “Gonna go do the shepherd thing,” Shana said through gritted teeth, shooting Mia a fierce look. Mia winked and gave her a sly middle finger.

  “Give Nessie a kiss for me,” Dad said. “And watch the weather.”

  She swooped up her backpack. “You wanna go, Dad?”

  “No, I’ll just keep the Beast trucking along.” The Beast: her nickname for the RV. Dad hated it at first, maybe hated it still, but it stuck. She wanted to ask if he was sure—but what was the point? Like she said: He was here, but he wasn’t here-here. He’d stick to the truck, which meant she had to be the one out there. So out there she went, she and Mia.

  Off in the distance, thunder rolled: the lung-rumbling growl of a waking monster. Mia said: “You think the storm’s gonna be bad?”

  “I dunno,” Shana said as the two of them headed toward the walkers, past the CDC trailer, past a cop car. “I try not to worry about anything until I need to. Because honestly, what’s the point.”