Dead Reckoning

by Lackey, Mercedes;Edghill, Rosemary

  White Fox returned from settling Nightingale in the stables. He looked utterly grim. “I should have gone with her,” he said.

  “Then I would be faced with the need to rescue both of you,” Gibbons answered sharply. “At least this way we’re free to plan.” She frowned. “But without the information she went to find, I am not certain just how we’re going to rescue her.” She knew she didn’t need to go into detail. They’d both seen the “zombie army” Brother Shepherd could command. Even if she pushed the Auto-Tachypode to its top speed, Jerusalem’s Wall was hours away. And reaching Jerusalem’s Wall was only the first step. They’d have to find Jett and free her. If they succeeded, Shepherd would know his secret was out—and that would be bad enough. It would be worse if they were delayed at Jerusalem’s Wall until after sundown.

  White Fox regarded her silently for a moment. “As I was saying before Nightingale arrived, Doctor Singer—”

  Gibbons stopped to glare at him. “I assume there is some obscure and inscrutable reason to tell me this story now, Mister Fox,” she said wrathfully. “But I cannot imagine what it could be. So why don’t you just tell me what you want me to know?”

  “The gentleman who summoned Doctor Singer to attend his wife assumed she was ill, yet the truth was far simpler. In just that way, you wish to know how these “zombies” are created, because you believe knowing that will tell you how to lay them to rest. But I think you might well be hunting the wrong hare. You already know how to kill them. Salt.”

  “I know it put down one of them, Mister Fox,” Gibbons replied, her irritation growing. “But Mister Finlay wasn’t one of the ordinary run of zombies—if one can even imagine such a thing! I can’t assume the same method will do for all of them, because—”

  “But you do know that, Gibbons,” White Fox persisted. “You have not just the answer, but its proof. Remember what Jett told us about the meal she was served?”

  He didn’t say anything more. Her eyes narrowed and she dredged the fragment of information out of her memory. Suddenly her eyes widened in realization. “There was no salt in it, not in any of it.”

  White Fox nodded. “That must be deliberate. If Brother Shepherd has, as you think, engineered a scientific method of creating walking dead, the absence of salt—”

  “Tells us he knows salt will put them down!” she almost shouted. “By heaven, I would bet that there is not one grain of salt anywhere on that property! Tarnation! I have been hunting the wrong hare! I need to determine a way to get salt into a great number of the creatures at once—and as quickly as possible!”

  She went to her makeshift desk and began feverishly sketching and scribbling. There was no time for fear. She had work to do.

  Hours later, her sketches had become a weapon. Gibbons could only thank Providence (and her own determination to be prepared for anything) for the fact that she carried a length of fire hose in her supplies. Normally she filled the Auto-Tachypode’s boiler with buckets. But water sources weren’t always conveniently situated. She kept the hose stored under the wagon to save space, but now she’d need to have it instantly ready for use. She rummaged out another hose-clamp. In her first test, the hose had immediately torn free of the pipe end when it was pressurized, though White Fox had clearly gotten the valve wrenched down as tightly as it would go.

  “The only way we are going to fly to Jett’s rescue is if we can get this thing working properly! Otherwise we will surely fall beside her, which is not, I think, what she would wish! Hand me that screwdriver, please, and come lean on this wrench!” Gibbons said. “You are much stronger than I am.”

  Gibbons stepped back. White Fox moved quickly to obey. He hadn’t made a single protest all this time, though Gibbons knew he doubted Jett was still alive. It might be that this rescue attempt was a forlorn hope—and possibly foolhardy was well. There were only two of them. And if Nightingale had come tearing back here without Jett …

  Then Jett was almost certainly already dead. Or worse, one of the zombies by now. The sensible thing to do would be to point the Auto-Tachypode north and not stop until they reached the walls of Fort San Antonio. They could say Brother Shepherd was building a militia, that he planned to take over this part of Texas, that he had an arsenal and was going to make himself into a little tin-crown king. That would get the Army to come on the double, and Gibbons could make sure she was there, and handy with answers, when they discovered just what sort of force Brother Shepherd had under his command. The best thing, the most intelligent thing, the most logical course of action was to carry a warning to others.

  “Bother logic!” Gibbons snarled aloud as she screwed down the final fitting on her device. “Help me get this into the back of the Auto-Tachypode!” she commanded. “We’re going after Jett.”

  * * *

  The first thing Jett realized was how cold she felt. For a moment she thought Nightingale must have thrown her, because she was lying against something hard and every muscle ached. Then memory returned. Shepherd. The zombies. The “inner prayer house.” She floundered upright, gritting her teeth at the surge of nausea and pain. But at least her hands were free.

  She had a muddled memory of Shepherd removing the collar and the remaining handcuff bracelet, then walking her over into the cell. Was he gone? He’d left the lamps lit. She crawled over to the cell door and used the bars to drag herself to her feet. She tried the door, but of course it was locked. Still getting her bearings, she held her breath, listening intently for any sign she wasn’t alone. Nothing. Still holding on to the bars for support, she turned around to look at the interior of her prison.

  David’s body was lying on the floor at the back of the cell.

  The sight of him galvanized her to full alertness. “He died two days ago—but our Blessed Founder has promised to raise him up on the third day.” Sister Catherine’s words echoed through her mind.

  Today was the third day.

  David was going to rise as a zombie tonight.

  It had been around noon when Shepherd brought her down here. What time was it now? How close was it to sunset? What did Shepherd have to do to raise up a zombie besides dose somebody with that swamp water of his? He’d injected her with it—

  If that poison’s going to kill me, I’m going to make sure he goes first, Jett vowed grimly. She had to get out of here. How? The walls and the back were solid rock, and the bars went all the way up into more rock.

  The keys! Gibbons gave me half the keys in Alsop!

  Had the jailhouse key been one of them? Had Shepherd taken her reticule? She patted herself down quickly. No. She still had it. She dredged up her skirts and wrenched the neck of the bag open to pull out a fistful of keys. She sorted quickly through them to find the likeliest-looking one. She might be able to pick a lock, but she couldn’t pick one blind and working backward.

  Was this the jailhouse key? It looked like it. She groped around the lock plate to make sure it had a regular keyhole, then clutched the key in her fingers and reached through the bars until she was at the best angle she could manage. She closed her eyes so she could concentrate. Her fingertips ached with the strain, but if she dropped the key she might be dropping her only means of escape.

  There. It was in the keyhole.

  She tried to twist it, but it wouldn’t turn. She had to get a better grip, and to do that, she had to let go of it. The moment she did, the key fell from the lock and bounced away.

  She could see it. It was caught in the raised fringe at the edge of the carpet. Was it out of reach? She got quickly down on her knees, then stretched out full-length, straining to reach as far as she could through the bars. Her fingertips just brushed the teeth of the key. She scrabbled frantically and brought it under her fingers.

  The air turned suddenly cold.

  Jett recoiled, clutching the key in her hand. Everything down here smelled of putrefaction—to the point she’d almost gotten used to the smell—but suddenly the stench was stronger. She dragged herself to her feet agai
n, glancing anxiously over her shoulder. The corpse in her cell was still immobile.

  Once more she fitted the key into the lock. It fit, but nothing she could do would make it turn. With a muffled curse, she threw it through the bars. The air was cold enough now to make her shiver. She breathed through her nose, trying to ignore the stink of corruption, because when she breathed through her mouth, she could taste it. Over and over she held her breath to listen. She was almost sure she could hear something. A sound like a wind blowing through dry autumn leaves, or a hundred voices all whispering at once. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood and chose another key. If she wanted to escape, she didn’t dare hurry.

  She fit the second key into the lock, gripped it tightly, and twisted.

  The key turned.

  Suddenly she heard a distant thud, loud enough to drown out the whispering Jett wasn’t sure she heard. Another. Then: footsteps. Shepherd had opened the cellar doors. She’d been unconscious too long. He was coming back.

  An instant more and she was easing the cell door open. The room spun dizzily as she stepped through it. She was weaker than she’d realized. But if Shepherd was back, the cellar doors were unlocked. She looked around frantically for a weapon, any weapon. At last she picked up one of the lamps. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. She moved toward the doorway to hide.

  But she’d miscalculated the time it would take Shepherd to get here. He came through the doorway when she was still in plain sight. She threw the lamp at him and ran toward another one. He batted the first lamp reflexively away. It struck the floor, where the alcohol inside it spilled from the reservoir. And suddenly the carpet was in flames.

  “Get her!” Shepherd shouted.

  He hadn’t come alone this time.

  She grabbed another lamp and whirled around. The man behind her lunged for it—and for Jett—but he missed. The lamp arced through the air, struck the edge of the table, and smashed. A second man seized her around the waist, swinging her around. Jett kicked and fought, forcing him to lift her off the floor, then flung her head back as hard as she could. There was a crunch. Broken nose, she thought with a flash of glee. She managed to land a lucky kick that sent his partner sprawling into the middle of the flames. He howled in fear, beating out the fire with his hands.

  Shepherd threw a pitcher of water over him before stepping up to Jett and punching her in the stomach. Hard. As she choked and gagged, he hit her across the face. It was an open-handed blow, but it was on the same side he’d hit her with the gun-butt earlier. For an instant, the world went white.

  It took both of his bullyboys to hold her down on the marble slab as Shepherd wrenched her arms behind her back and cuffed her again. This time he closed the cuffs so tight she knew she would soon be unable to feel her hands.

  The others yanked her upright, one holding onto each arm, and turned her to face Shepherd. She fought and struggled, but she couldn’t get loose.

  “It’s time for you to join the purified army of the Blessed Resurrected, Miss Gallatin,” Shepherd said.

  “No!” she shouted desperately. “Listen to me! Shepherd isn’t a holy man! There aren’t any Blessed Resurrected! He doesn’t bring the dead back to life—he animates corpses! He’s a thief and a madman!” For a moment she dared to hope her words had some effect.

  “He pays well,” one of the men said.

  Shepherd chuckled. “Brother Nathan was one of my first followers. He is a pure spirit, truly blessed with the wisdom of the Lord. As is Brother Saul.”

  “I’ll see the lot of you burn in Hell!” Jett cried.

  The man Shepherd had called Brother Saul laughed. “Save us a seat, darlin’.”

  Shepherd gagged her with a handkerchief. She tried to spit it out, but he tied it so tightly it dragged her mouth open into a parody of a smile. Now she couldn’t speak.

  But she could still scream.

  They carried her up the stairs into the bunkhouse. The bunkhouse was bakingly hot, but after the chill of the underground rooms, the heat was a relief. Shepherd opened the outer door without stopping to close the cellar doors. As her captors dragged her outside, she saw it was just dusk. Shepherd’s whole “congregation” was standing in patient rows outside the door of the ranch house, as if they were soldiers on parade. Bizarrely, the organ she’d seen in the chapel had been brought out and placed to their right. A dozen tall wrought-iron candelabrum, their fat tallow candles flaring and guttering in the night air, provided light. Their presence gave the scene a weirdly exotic look.

  But Jett spared only a passing glance for the grotesque set-dressing. The thing that riveted her attention was in the center of the compound. A post had been placed there, sunk deep into the ground. It was taller than she was, the raw wood still oozing where the twigs and bark had been hastily trimmed away. As Brother Nathan and Brother Saul dragged her toward it, Sister Catherine stepped forward carrying a length of rope. Brother Nathan took the rope, and Brother Saul forced Jett back against the post. She smelled the sharp scent of pine gum. Brother Nathan lashed Jett quickly and efficiently to the post, then stepped back.

  Sister Catherine came forward. Jett tried to speak, to warn her—It’s a lie, everything Shepherd told you is all a lie, your boy Davey’s dead and he isn’t coming back—but she couldn’t form intelligible words through the gag. She shouted as loud as she could and whipped her head from side to side.

  “Don’t worry, Sister Jayleen,” Sister Catherine whispered, leaning close. “Brother Shepherd is a kind and merciful shepherd. You’ll see that soon.”

  Jett stared at her in horror, her heart sinking at Sister Catherine’s words. Sister Catherine leaned closer and kissed her on the cheek, then turned away to resume her place among the congregation.

  “My dear brothers and sisters in the Fellowship of the Blessed Resurrection,” Shepherd said. He walked forward to stand between Jett and his congregation. “I have told you many times that to build the Jerusalem of Fire is no easy task. Its path is a hard path—a stony path—a path walked in renunciation! The weight of such privation lames the foot and twists the back! Yet the body broken for everlasting Glory is raised up in health and strength at the walls of the Jerusalem of Fire!”

  As Shepherd began to preach, Nathan and Saul moved to stand on either side of the organ.

  “Have I told you it is a hard road? I tell you yet again—your eyes will be washed in salt tears a thousand times before you see its end! And at its wayside stand many—the liars, the idlers, the thieves, the drunkards, the unchaste—eager to offer you comfort and ease! Many times have I spurned them! But you must have faith only in God, and from men ask proof! Here is my proof—the woman sent to seduce me from the path of righteousness!”

  Shepherd gestured sweepingly toward Jett as a murmur ran through his congregation. He moved closer to them and spoke in confiding tones, but Jett could still hear him perfectly well.

  “You might say to me, Brother Shepherd, you are a humble and a God-fearing man. You might say to me, Brother Shepherd, God has given into your hands the power of the patriarchs of old. Surely—surely!—it is your right to strike down this red-mouthed harlot who has set herself against the ordained will of God! And I would say to you, it is not I, but God Almighty, the Throne of Wrath, the builder of the Jerusalem of Fire who will punish or pardon. I have already forgiven this woman, and I will do so again before you all.”

  He turned back to face Jett. “Corrupt vessel of sin and evil, I hold you blameless for your vileness and error! And yet—” He turned to face the congregation once more. “And yet, surely it is God’s right to punish—if He will punish—or pardon—if He will pardon! And so I have prayed to Him to send His holy angels to mete out his judgment!”

  He strode to the organ and seated himself on its bench. As he did, Brother Nathan stepped behind it and began to pump the bellows. From the first terrible chords Shepherd wrung from the instrument, Jett realized what was about to happen. The Fellowship began to chant in time to the
music, turning it into a grating wail of despair. Jett couldn’t get free, but there was nothing to keep the knotted ropes holding her from sliding around the stake. With a great effort she could turn herself until she was facing the bunkhouse. If she was going to die, she wanted to see it coming.

  The wind turned suddenly, bitingly cold.

  A moment later, the first of the zombies staggered from the open door of the bunkhouse. Somehow it was worse not being able to see them clearly, but from the movement of the shadowy shapes in the flickering candlelight, Jett could tell that more and more zombies were coming. The first ones had walked a few steps away from the door and stopped. As more emerged, they jostled the ones in front of them forward a step at a time. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to which ones stayed at the back, which ones moved to the edges of the mob, which ones pressed forward.

  There’d been—Jett thought—sixty zombies (at most) in Alsop the night the town was killed, and not many more the following night. There were three times that number here, and somehow she couldn’t keep herself from thinking there must be more down there in the dark: rotted corpses that had fallen to pieces, fragments too decayed to walk but still (horribly) animated, twitching bits of decaying flesh pulling themselves toward the stairs any way they could. Shepherd played on, but none of his congregation was chanting any longer. And still the zombies stood motionless. There was light enough for Jett to see the zombies clearly. The ones at the front almost looked as if they were still alive. Some of them.

  What are they waiting for? Jett raged, even though she knew. They were waiting for Shepherd’s order. However it would be given. “Come if you’re coming!” The gag reduced her scream to unintelligible grunts. She didn’t understand why Shepherd hadn’t set them on yet. Suddenly a horrible suspicion struck her. He knows! He’s known all along I wasn’t alone! Maybe he’d seen Deerfoot’s tracks. Maybe he’d sent Nathan or Saul to Alsop to spy. Maybe he’d gone himself.