“Miss, I’m afraid we can’t let you in without checking you for weapons,” says the shorter one. He’s got a sly look to him, like a fox promising to be good around the hens. “The mayor’s inside, and we’re tasked with keeping him safe. So, are you gonna let us pat you down or not?”
As polite as they’re being they must not realize Katherine is really a Negro. No surprise there. She’s haughty and well-dressed enough to pass as the daughter of a man of middling political success.
Katherine must have decided the same thing, because she crosses her arms and gives the guard that narrow-eyed look of hers. “I have already told you I have no weapons, and I will most definitely not let you touch me. Now, will you please let me by? The rest of my class is already inside, and I do not want to miss a moment of the esteemed professor’s lesson.”
The short one smiles, revealing a gap where his front tooth should be. “Well, how about that. The pretty little lady here doesn’t want to miss the professor’s lecture.” He gives the other copper, who has a big gap between his front teeth, a bit of side-eye before looking her up and down like a sweet in a display case. “Sweetheart, what are you really here for? You a working girl? If you’re looking for a bit of coin, you ain’t gonna find anything but disappointment in there with those grandpas.” The two of them chortle a little, and Katherine flushes.
An ugly feeling rises up in me. I may be a liar and a cheat, but I absolutely despise bullies.
“Ay, hey there! Hoo-wee, I bet dis a humdinger of a lecture if it can get old Jelly Belly out of city hall. Dey ain’t serving food, is dey?” I chuckle a little, then shuffle my feet in a little dance, and the cops stop laughing. They forget all about Katherine and push off of the doorframe and move over to me.
“What you doing here, girl? This ain’t no place for your kind.”
“That’s right.” The taller, leaner cop looms over me, and I duck my head in a pose of mock humility. Behind them, Katherine draws herself up, a huffy look coming over her, and I shake my head just a little.
“Why, I jes looking for m’lady. She’s come here for dis lecture, and shore enuff I done lost her.” I shake my head like I am the dumbest Negro to ever walk the earth. For a moment I’m afraid it’s too much. But there’s no danger of that with these two.
“Oh yeah, and who’s this lady you’re looking for?” Gap Tooth moves close enough that I can smell his foul breath and I’m wishing I had a pocket full of mint to offer him.
“Why, the mayor’s missus, of course. I brought her broach, ’cause she don’t like to go out without it. She got it from the Belle of Baltimore herself! That fool Attendant of hers forgot it, and the house girls sent me out with it.” I paw at my skirts, like I’m looking for something. “Now where did I put that fool thing?”
I keep feeling around like I’m searching for something small. There’s movement out of the corner of my eye and I look up and scream, giving it all I got. The cops stumble back a little, reaching for their billy clubs.
“It’s the dead! I just saw one, oh Jesus, oh Lordy, oh good God above, please help me. Where’s the patrol when you need them? This is why it ain’t safe in the city, no matter what those politicians would tell you. It ain’t safe!” I fall to my knees on the steps of the entryway and begin to pray, like I’m absolutely terrified. A few passersby on the street look at me and then hurry in the opposite direction of where I point. I sob and even manage to squeeze a few tears out. It’s overkill, but ain’t no sense in doing something if you ain’t going to go for broke. “Shamblers in the city! Oh what is this world coming to when even the city ain’t safe? Ain’t nothing but dead walking around in Baltimore, and we’re all gonna end up joining them.” I shake my head in denial, like this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
Here’s a thing about me: I have always considered pursuing a life on the stage if this whole killing-the-dead thing doesn’t work out.
The police officers don’t know what to do, looking between me and the street where I pointed, their confusion clear. I look up from my praying and give them a look of complete alarm, widening my eyes till they near water from the effort. “What—what are you still doing here? Ain’t you gonna go catch that shambler?”
They look at each other and take off down the avenue in the direction I point. I jump to my feet and approach Katherine, who watches me with a scowl.
“What was that?”
“Now don’t go giving me that sour look. That was just a bit of acting. My momma always said the best way to get what you want from people is to give them what they think they want. They expected me to be stupid, so I used that to our advantage.”
I move to enter the university, but Katherine doesn’t budge. “You just lied to officers of the law,” she says. “And why were you talking like that? You never talk like that.”
I shrug. “Sometimes you have to live down to people’s expectations, Kate. If you can do that, you’ll get much further in life. Now quit dallying and get inside before they come back.”
I push Katherine ahead of me through the fine double doors, anxious to escape before what passes for lawmen return.
The lecture hall is inside and to the right of the main entryway and we easily find our classmates. They sit in the last two rows of the room, the space reserved for Negroes. If the hall had a balcony we’d be up there, but it doesn’t. Directly in front of us are a few of Baltimore’s educated colored men, who teach at the city college for Negroes. I recognize a few of them from their visits to Miss Preston’s. Most of them are Survivalists, and I don’t much care for their message of knowing one’s place and following along with the natural order. “Grow where you’re planted,” they say, while telling us what great futures we’ll have bowing and scraping for our white betters. Seems to me those “enlightened men” worry more about keeping the mayor happy than the plight of colored folks.
It’s surprising our class was even able to get seats. The lecture hall is packed to the rafters. Toward the middle of the audience is a group of well-dressed ladies, their pale skin glistening in the heat. Their dark-skinned Attendants are stationed along the wall, looking bored. Katherine eyes the white ladies, with their fine clothes and decorative fans. There is hunger in her gaze before her usual expression of disdain returns. I understand that look, though. Those ladies are the crème de la crème of Baltimore society, and their brightly colored dresses are the height of fashion. Who wouldn’t want to be one of them?
But that ain’t our future. Ours is leaning against that wall, ready to give our lives for a few coins, should it come to that.
In front of the ladies, closest to the podium, are the men. Most of them are large, their width an indication of their wealth, and Mayor Carr is largest of all. He’s a big bull of a man, dominating the second row, wearing the red-and-white-striped ascot of the Survivalist Party. Survivalists believe that the continued existence of humanity depends on securing the safety of white Christian men and women—whites being superior and closest to God—so that they might “set about rebuilding the country in the image of its former glory,” the way it was before the War Against the Dead. I don’t particularly hold no truck with the notion, since being a Negro pretty much puts me in the inferior column. But people really seem taken with the mayor, especially those that are just as pale as he is.
The only reason I recognize Mayor Carr is because his picture is in the newspaper nearly every week, the headlines proclaiming this victory or that accomplishment, usually in relation to containing the shambler threat and securing the Baltimore city limits. It’s the Survivalists that lobbied to retake the cities nearly a decade ago, the idea being that if the cities were safe they could provide an anchor to regain the continent. But I don’t know about all that. Momma used to say that a politician was a man that had perfected the art of lying, so I always read those articles with a certain amount of skepticism before turning over to the serials. The serials are the best part of the paper, anyhow. Reading about adventures o
ut west or the tragedy of fine ladies with lecherous husbands always makes my day.
I don’t recognize any of the other men around Mayor Carr. They look a lot like him, with their chin whiskers and pale skin and bold ascots. There are a few members of the Egalitarian Party in the rows as well, with their yellow-and-blue-striped ties, but they are far outnumbered by the Survivalists.
I settle into a chair, perching on the edge, careful not to bump the gun strapped to my thigh. Up front, the professor, a bald white man with small spectacles and a florid face, has already started delivering his remarks. He stands at a lectern in the front of the room, wearing a suit that is several years out of fashion, rambling on about organisms and spoiled milk. When he starts talking about things like pathogens and disease transmission I look sharply at Katherine, who is staring at me like I just grew an extra head. I give her a smug grin. Her sainted professor is talking about the same science-y facts I did in the carriage.
That gets me to pay attention.
“So these pathogens, or very small creatures, are transmitted from one victim to another through the bite of an infected corpse. Over the years these pathogens have evolved, which explains the shift from the Gettysburg strain—which would turn the victim only after he expired—to today’s dominant strain, which initiates the transformation in the victim only a short time after they’ve been bitten. We’ve taken to calling this the Custer strain.” He chuckles a little at his own joke, but when no one in the audience joins him he clears his throat and continues. “It’s named after Custer’s stunning defeat in Cleveland at the hands of his own infected men, of course. Now, overseas in Scotland, at the behest of a doctor there, Mr. Joseph Lister, they have had great success with burning their dead, which prevents the corpse from rising after burial. In addition, a few of our own local academics, including Mr. Irvington, have just returned from a sojourn to British India. There, the raj has ordered the beheading of their dead regardless of whether they’ve been bitten. This has kept the rates of infection from both the Gettysburg strain and the Custer strain very, very low.
“In addition—and more relevant to our discussion today—there is comparably less of the infection west of the Mississippi River, especially amongst the Indians. It’s similar to what we’ve seen in the South with the Negro, where the plague often fails to spread widely within populations of colored peoples.”
There is considerable murmuring at this, and Professor Ghering smiles, his full-moon face glistening. I lean forward and frown. Fewer cases of the shambler plague amongst Negroes? That is a bald-faced lie if ever I’ve heard one.
The professor wipes at his brow with a pocket square before continuing. “I personally believe that the low rate of infection amongst the red man and the Negro is a direct consequence of the fact that neither the Indian nor the Negro is as highly developed as their European cousins, and thus show some of the resistance to the pathogen that we see in animals. Many argue this is an indication that, as polygenesis proponents have speculated in centuries past, the Negro is descended from a species entirely separate from the European Homo sapiens—one more closely related to the wild apes of the African jungle.”
The crowd stirs again, while a few of the girls from my school look at one another in shock. I’ve learned a bit about evolution thanks to the books and newspapers Jackson smuggles me, and the comparison doesn’t sit well. I cross my arms, as next to me Katherine mutters, “He did not just compare Negroes to apes.”
I grimace. “Oh yes, he did. I told you this man was a crackpot.”
At the front of the hall, Professor Ghering holds his hands up for attention, a benevolent smile on his face. His eyes scan the room, not even bothering to land on our group in the far back. I guess he pretty much figures where we stand on the whole nonsense, being beastly Negroes and all.
“Now, I believe this divergent ancestry indeed gives the Negro and the Indian a natural resistance to the undead plague. Not only that, but I am going to prove that a simple vaccination can increase this resistance, much the same way Louis Pasteur has vaccinated livestock against various diseases in France.”
Katherine sniffs. “Livestock.”
I know what she means. The more this man talks, the less I like him.
The professor is feeling his oats now, and he struts across the stage confidently. “And in order to validate this theory, I have prepared a demonstration that I am certain you shall all find fascinating.” At that he gestures to the side, offstage. There’s a creaking sound, and then a chorus of moans echo through the auditorium.
It’s the dead.
They say once you hear the shambler’s call you never forget the sound, and I don’t know who “they” are, but they’re right. It ain’t a moan, and it ain’t a groan; it’s a sound somewhere in between, mixed with the keening whine of a starving animal. I’d been hearing that noise in the distance, past the walls of Rose Hill, since before I can remember, but the first time I heard it up close was the day Zeke was devoured. The second was when I was a little girl sleeping with my momma in her big four-poster bed, the major standing over us with a look in his bright yellow eyes like he was about to enjoy a whole pan of cobbler. Neither memory is one I want to revisit, so when that sound fills the lecture hall it takes everything I got not to jump up, whip out my revolver, and start plugging away at anyone that ain’t looking right. But I don’t. Instead, I dig my fingers into my thighs, biding my time so I can see what kind of foolishness this professor is playing at.
The rest of the room ain’t so patient, and several of the men in the front are already drawing their guns and aiming up at the stage, not waiting to see where the sound is coming from. But the professor holds his hands out in a placating gesture. “Gentlemen, please. The situation is completely under control. You may retake your seats and put away your firearms.”
The creak-creak-moan sound resolves itself into a colored man pushing a sheet-covered contraption. I can tell from the size and shape that it’s a shambler’s cage. They use them during roundups, which are usually in the spring after the first thaw. The risen dead will lie down during the winter, since, like most folks, they don’t much care for the cold. The first few warm days of the year, the patrols will put out cages and tie a chicken or turkey or hog to the metal bars inside. Since shamblers can’t resist living meat as they wake, they’ll come out of the woods, jamming into the cage. Once it’s full, the patrols will close the steel door and set the whole mess on fire. It ain’t fancy, but it keeps the undead from attacking settlements and multiplying like rabbits come the spring.
This cage is on the smaller size, like the sort a farmer might use in his field, and once the man has pushed it into the middle of the stage the professor pulls the sheet off with a flourish. Inside are three shamblers: two men and one woman, all white folks. Sympathy for them twinges through me—I ain’t seen a sight like this in a while. They ain’t decayed much, so they must be new turns, and it makes me feel a little maudlin to think that a few weeks ago they probably had lives, families that loved them, jobs they didn’t care for, petty grievances they nursed grudges over. Now they’re nothing but yellow-eyed creatures out of a nightmare.
“Ladies and gentlemen, here we have three specimens, all recently infected. I would like to thank our fine Mayor Carr for allowing me to utilize these poor souls, gathered from the outskirts of Baltimore County, for our demonstration before their disposal.” A smattering of uncertain applause breaks out around us, and a sick feeling sits heavy in my belly, like I just ate a peck of too-green apples. But the professor ain’t finished. “I’d also like to introduce you to my assistant, Othello, who will be helping me with my demonstration.”
The colored man next to the professor waves at the crowd uncertainly. A murmuring intensifies, the room buzzing like a beehive poked with a stick. Under it all, the calls keep coming from the cage, and my sick feeling gets near to crippling. Katherine grabs my arm, horror widening her eyes. “He is not about to do what I think he is. Is
he?”
Nothing that is about to take place on that stage is going to be good. I can feel it in my gut. I reach under my shirt for my penny. It’s cool to the touch despite being nestled against my skin, and I know that danger is near.
A lady’s Attendant is always supposed to have a pleasant expression, but I can’t seem to keep a grimace from my face. I shift in my seat, rearranging my skirts so I can more easily reach my sidearm. “You need to be ready to get the littler girls out. I’m pretty sure this ain’t going to end up well for poor Othello, and this time Iago ain’t going to have anything to do with it.”
Katherine gives me a confused look before nodding as she gets the gist of what I mean, even if she doesn’t get the reference. Now that most of the chatter has died down, the professor has moved across to the cage.
“Now, Othello here is going to willingly submit to a shambler’s bite in order to demonstrate the increased resistance of a vaccinated Negro. Earlier this week Othello received a series of shots, which were painless.” The professor takes out his handkerchief and mops his brow once more before tucking it back into his pocket. I’m certain he ain’t told the truth the whole time he’s been up there, since he’s sweating like a murderer in church. What is this man playing at?
The professor continues. “This experiment is intended to ratify the prudence of our mayor’s Negro patrols, which, under the close guidance of our excellent keepers of the peace, fulfill their role of service that God intended, keeping our city safe. Just as the undead plague is born of God’s will, so also is the Negroes’ resistance—vaccinated Negro squads make sense from both a moral and a scientific standpoint. I am confident that this experiment will also demonstrate that the Negro and Native Reeducation Act is entirely unnecessary. The cities are safe, the controlled territories are largely secure . . . Why should our citizens pay to educate colored boys and girls to do a job they’re already biologically equipped to do? And when our esteemed mayor finds himself in the District after being elected senator”—the professor pauses for applause from the Survivalists up front—“I’m sure he will make every Baltimorean proud by helping to repeal the NNRA.”
Dread Nation Page 5