Wanderers

by Chuck Wendig

  “Shh,” he hissed at her, then turned back to the TV.

  Now, on the TV, they showed the flock.

  And by the gods, it was moving along. And shepherds were moving with them. Not a soldier among them. The newscaster’s voice played over: “Some say it was the attack on Corley that helped change President Hunt’s mind and caused her to reverse the order only hours after committing to it.”

  Corley pumped a fist. Yes.

  “Mister Corley, if we could talk about your condition—”

  “We will,” he said, curt and clipped. “But for now, no talky-talky.”

  “He’s a real pain in the ass,” the old man in the bed said. “One broken cookie, you ask me.”

  Corley sat, transfixed.

  Some say it was the attack on Corley…

  …that helped change President Hunt’s mind…

  He did it. She reversed the order.

  They cut to an interview with a girl—no, the girl, the one who took the photo. A name displayed underneath her: SHANA STEWART. It identified her as shepherd, as the sister to the “first sleepwalker,” and best of all, the one who took the photo of him taking a rifle butt to the skull.

  She was saying, “It was pretty scary, they started shooting in the air, which scared us all pretty good. That gave them the chance to wrangle us up, putting people in cuffs—like, those plastic zip-tie cuffs. Eventually they got me and they…” Here she looked upset. “They f…they messed up my phone.” She held up the phone, the screen spiderwebbed with cracks. “Then just dumped it in my lap like garbage. It still kinda works.”

  The interviewer said: “But they didn’t destroy your photos.”

  Shana shook her head.

  She went on to say that one of the local reporters came up to her as she sat handcuffed on the side of the road, asked if he could see her photos. She said yes, and next thing she knew, they had the iconic photo of Pete getting clocked. She had other photos, too, of him down on the ground—them breaking his guitar, them kicking him. They showed two of those. Pete winced. That looked painful. His pounding brainpan reminded him that he was looking at himself, not at someone else. Celebrity was weird like that, sometimes. He felt distanced from his own image, like he and the person on camera were two different entities. One a shadow reflection, like in a circus mirror, of the other.

  The interviewer asked, “What made you want to take those photos?”

  “I dunno. I just thought somebody should. And it didn’t look like the news cameras could get as close as I was.”

  “Your sister, Vanessa—”

  “Nessie.”

  “Nessie was the first walker.”

  “That’s right.”

  “If you could talk to her now, what would you say?”

  Shana turned away from the interviewer and looked right in the camera. Steely-eyed, she said: “I’d say, Nessie, nobody is going to hurt you. I’m with you to the end. That’s what it means to be a shepherd.”

  “Oh, she’s good,” Pete said. He turned the television off and tossed the remote to the old man—who failed to catch it, and the remote went skidding off the bed. “I mean, not as good as me. Obviously.”

  The doctor finally said, “Can we talk now?”

  “I’ve got a concussion, that’s what you’re going to tell me.”

  “I am. Yes. You suffered a mild injury to the brain—”

  “Not my first. My first was in Rio, 1985, playing at some…festival, and some saucy drunken things threw fruit onto the stage—not panties, but fruit, of all things, and my gods, that shit was slippery. Fell, cracked my head on an amplifier. Second was in Tulsa, 1991, I was—” He was about to say, Really high on cocaine, but he decided this was not the time. “Whatever, point is, been there, done that, this egg’s already cracked. I need to get out of here.” I need to get back to the flock.

  To my flock.

  “We’d prefer to keep you overnight—”

  “No need.”

  “You need to take care of yourself. No strenuous exercise, no deep concentration—it could worsen the concussion, Mister Corley.”

  “Too late for me. Already fucked, this brain.”

  “You had quite a few calls over the last several hours—maybe one of those people will tell you what I’m telling you, that you have to stay in bed.”

  The old man in the bed said: “Yeah, your phone was making a helluva racket, all kinda beeps and bops.”

  Pete grabbed the phone. There he saw messages stacking up from his wife, from Landry, from his publicist Mary, even from Elvis. His wife was worried about him, and was pissed.

  Her texts read, in a series:

  You’ve gone off the reservation again, haven’t you?

  Call me, Pete.

  Pete, seeing you on TV, what the hell are you up to?

  What are you running from now?

  Then, having caught up with all the news, her last text, two hours ago: I hope your head is broken open like a coconut, you dick. The kids are worried about you and so am I despite everything. Call me, asshole.

  His publicist texted, all caps: CALL ME.

  Landry sent him a text that said only: The world was ready for Bowie.

  Elvis texted: Well played, jerkoff. This isn’t over.

  He snapped his fingers at the doctor: “You. I can get a cab out of here right? Or an Uber, a Lyft, something?”

  “What? Yes, but I’m not the front desk at a hotel—”

  “Good.” He shed his robe right there and started kicking around for his clothes. He found them in a drawer and started to hike on his pants. At the shocked doctor’s face he waved her off. “Oh, stop. You see this sort of thing all the time, love, don’t you? Though maybe not this sexy.”

  “Can I just watch my squid show?” the old man groused.

  “All right, I’m out,” Pete said. “It’s been real, it’s been fun, though I wouldn’t say it’s been real fun.”

  Woozy, his head feeling like a broken fishbowl, he marched out of the hospital room in search of an elevator as the doctor called after him.

  MARTA VALLEJO-MARTINEZ, REPORTER: You’ve just come out of the hospital. Why did you come out here to support the sleepwalkers and shepherds and CDC?

  PETE CORLEY: You know why, love. I don’t need to tell you or your audience, they’re all sharp as a stitch.

  VALLEJO-MARTINEZ: In your words, if you please?

  PETE CORLEY: Oh, you know, sometimes it’s in a man to just harden up and do the right thing, isn’t it? These people need me! I mean, clearly.

  VALLEJO-MARTINEZ: And does this impact the release of the next Gumdropper tour or album?

  PETE CORLEY: I should say it does. We’ll get to it when we get to it. For now, my head’s been rung like a bell, so if you don’t mind? My people await the return of their prince.

  VALLEJO-MARTINEZ: You heard him, folks. It doesn’t look like Pete Corley is going anywhere. This is Marta Vallejo-Martinez, reporting from WBCC, Sioux City, Iowa.

  JULY 3

  Beacon, Iowa

  “I’M A FUCKING ASSHOLE.”

  Marcy looked over to see if someone was talking to her.

  She was. It was the girl. Shana Stewart. Darkness had settled in, the fields of corn rising up on all sides like gently swaying, waving walls, and so Marcy had not seen her approach. As before, she’d stayed way off to the side, feeling once again that she did not belong.

  So the girl’s presence was something of a surprise.

  “You’re not an asshole,” Marcy said.

  “I am. I’m a real jerk.”

  “You’re not a—” She sighed. “Okay, you were a little bit of a jerk. But you were right, too. I’m just a hanger-on. An impostor, a stowaway.”

  “Maybe. But way I figure it, we’re all stowaways
. None of us are supposed to be here because none of them”—she gestured to the flock of walkers—“are supposed to be here, either. That’s what tonight was all about. People want us gone. So maybe we need to stick together.”

  Marcy nodded. “Okay. Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. And I’m sorry. Thanks, by the way. You know. For punching that guy and saving my ass.”

  “They still got you, though.”

  “Yeah. Soon as they started shooting, shit kinda fell apart.”

  “Guns tend to do that.”

  “I guess.”

  Marcy wasn’t fazed much by gunfire anymore, but she could tell the girl was. Who wouldn’t be? “Sucks they broke your phone. But I’m glad you got your photo on TV. That’s kinda big.”

  “Maybe. I hope so. I dunno.”

  They walked together for a little while. All around was the din of the crowd—the energy was high, lot of folks excitedly chatting about what had gone on. The soldiers had left. Nobody was seriously hurt. The events of the evening were intense, but relatively brief. Everyone was alive and awake despite the night stretching on. Many walked on in the dark, though others illuminated the way, as they did every night, with flashlights and headlights and the lights of their phones. A few carried torches. People drank beer and toasted with hot dogs bought from a nearby stand a town or two away.

  “I guess it’s almost the Fourth of July,” Shana said.

  “That’s right, it is.”

  “Happy Independence Day.”

  “Thanks. You too. And happy birthday.”

  Shana paused. “How’d you know it was my birthday?”

  Marcy hesitated. She didn’t want to tell the girl how she knew, not yet. So all she said was “A little bird told me.”

  “Oh. Well.” She offered a sad smile in the half dark. “Thanks. I’m gonna head back to the flock. You should come over.”

  “Maybe I will soon.”

  “Okay. Bye, Marcy.”

  “Bye, Shana.”

  She watched the girl head back toward the parade of people.

  What she wanted to tell Shana, but dared not, was that she knew about Shana’s birthday not because of some so-called little bird.

  It was because the girl’s sister, Nessie, had told her.

  * * *

  —

  IN THE CDC trailer, which was presently parked behind the flock by a mile or so, Benji sat back in one of the chairs, quiet and still. Most of the others had gone home. Arav was with the flock. Cassie had gone back to the hotel to take some calls related to Garlin and the fungus. Sadie was here, next to him, her hand on the table atop his.

  For a while, they sat in silence. Just breathing. Listening to the nightsong chorus of crickets and katydids.

  “That was something,” Sadie finally said.

  “It was.” Something did not cover it, of course, but what would? Benji had no words to describe it. He knew only how he felt, which was stripped down, hollowed out, blisteringly tired and yet somehow achingly alive.

  “Your plan worked.”

  “It did.”

  Somehow, it really did.

  But at what cost?

  Corley was in the hospital. Other shepherds had been hurt, too, by the soldiers. Many were scared, traumatized by gunfire—gunfire that, as it turned out, came from a pistol held in the hand of Dale Weyland, who fired it up at the air to pacify the crowd through fear.

  Still. They retained control of the flock. For now. He wondered how long it would be before Hunt fell prey again to politics. The political season was already a venomous one. And Hunt was caught between the Scylla and Charybdis—the crushing rock and the whirlpool—of taking some action versus taking none at all. In politics you couldn’t please everybody, but you still had to do the calculus to please most of everybody, or you didn’t get the votes. Too few votes meant Ed Creel would become president.

  At that, Benji shuddered.

  Sadie looked poised to say more, but then a knock came on the trailer door. Whoever it was did not wait to be summoned.

  Dale Weyland stepped through the door.

  “Dale,” Benji said.

  “You did it,” the man said, waltzing in with his chest puffed out, his chin up, his tongue shoved into the pocket of his cheek. He offered a soft golf clap as he entered. “Well played.”

  “It’s not like that,” Sadie said.

  Benji offered a wry, insincere entreaty: “As you’ve said, we’re on the same side. Neither of us are the enemy.”

  “Yeah,” Dale answered, sniffing loudly like a bull ready to charge. “I’m not so sure about that anymore. I tried to do the right thing but you—you tricky bastard. That thing with Corley, huh.” He kissed his fingers like a chef after a particularly delectable meal. “Genius. Truly, I mean that.” He may have meant it, but he sounded pissed. “You manipulative prick, you have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”

  “I kept these people out of military control. I ensured that the shepherds could remain with their friends and their families. It’s a shame you don’t see it that way.”

  “I’ll tell you what I see, Doctor Ray: I see a weapon walking free. Like a dirty bomb in a wheeled suitcase rolling down a hill toward a busy intersection, and here I am, the only sonofabitch waving his hands and trying to warn everybody. But then people like you come along and ask everybody to remain calm, stay where you are, don’t make any sudden moves. And I just see that bomb rolling closer and closer and closer.”

  “Now you know how I felt with Longacre,” Benji said.

  “Fuck you and fuck Longacre. Those people are a bomb.”

  “They’re not a bomb. They’re not a weapon.”

  “Do you know that? For sure?”

  Benji did not answer that. Because honestly, he didn’t.

  Dale went on:

  “Consider this my prophetic warning to you, Doctor Ray—there will come a day, maybe tomorrow, maybe a week from now, maybe months from now if this thing is still rolling, that you’ll regret sending us away. Having the walkers under military control isn’t just about protecting the people outside the flock. It’s about protecting the flock itself. People out there don’t like them. They distrust them. They want them gone. When that wave comes crashing down on your beach, you’ll wish out loud I was still here.”

  “You’re leaving us, then?”

  “Uh-huh. I am. I don’t want a part of this circus anymore.”

  “They’re pulling you off the job,” Benji said. “Aren’t they?”

  “Again: Fuck you.”

  “You will be missed,” Benji said, doing his best to ladle as much sarcasm atop those four words as he could.

  “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, Benjamin.”

  “Happy Independence Day, Dale.”

  The man stormed out.

  Sadie looked over at Benji. “You’re very civil.”

  “I know, I should be meaner.”

  “No, I mean it as a compliment. Most people would go toe-to-toe with a gorilla like Dale Weyland and they’d just end up covered in monkeyshit.” She winced. “Sorry, apeshit, to be precise. Point is, you stay levelheaded. You keep the fight on your turf.”

  “I wanted to punch him.”

  “And the fact you didn’t says more about you than it does about him. Besides, one suspects his own mother wants to punch him.” She lowered her voice. “Frankly, she probably did punch him, which is why he’s such a massive jerk.”

  He squeezed her hand.

  “I’m proud of you,” she said. “Proud to know you. Proud to…be with you, if that’s what this is.”

  “It is,” he said. “And I’m proud to know you, too.” He sighed. “We have a lot ahead of us. We’ve only just begun to crack this thing, I fear.”

  “Don’t worry about that right now. W
orry about what you have in front of you.”

  “What I have in front of me is you.”

  She grinned, her eyes twinkling. “Like I said. Now let’s go find a hotel room with a comfy bed and canoodle until we pass out.”

  “Deal.”

  * * *

  —

  SHE DIDN’T WANT to do it but she had to do it.

  Shana threw open the door to the RV and entered with the darkness and clamor of a storm front. Her father, sitting in the driver’s seat as was his way, startled. “Shana. You’re okay. I’d get up, but I’m, you know.” He gave a look down at the steering wheel. The vehicle plodded along at a couple of miles an hour.

  “You want a hug? Then pull over and hug me.” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “But you won’t, because that would require the bare minimum from you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Shana, I don’t understand what this is about.”

  “Really? Really? No idea, huh?”

  He sighed. “I know you’re mad that I wasn’t out there with you, but the army men, they made me pull over to the side of the road. I couldn’t get out, couldn’t go anywhere—”

  “And what happened after that? They’ve been gone for hours. Did you come out and see if I was okay?”

  “I saw you on the news, I have my phone—you seemed busy—but wow, you got to stand next to Pete Corley! That’s really something.”

  “Where are you?”

  He laughed a little like it was a joke. “Honey, sweetheart, I’m right here—”

  “No, I mean, where are you? Why are you here? What is the fucking point of your presence if you’re not actually present? You came along on this ride, and why? You don’t go out to be with Nessie. You don’t go out to be with me. You’re here, but you’re not here.”

  A look of consternation crossed his face. This was the start to his anger—anger that for him was slow to rouse, but when it hit, it hit hard. “Shana, that’s not fair and you know it. I spent a lot of money on this RV and it’s given you a place to rest your head every night—I have to keep this thing moving, and I have to keep paying for gas. Strangers are keeping our farm afloat. My youngest baby is…is sick, my other daughter hates me, my wife up and left—and maybe, somehow, was responsible for making Nessie sick somehow—”