The Scattered and the Dead | Book 3 | The Scattered and the Dead

by McBain, Tim

  For now, everything was still. Quiet. Eerie. Everything but that trickle of wet creeping closer.

  He held his breath, and he could hear his heart in his chest. That crooked muscle rattling his ribcage. Blood thundering all through him. That pounding thrum of wet and red that separated the living from the dead.

  And he could hear Lorraine breathing next to him, the wind sucking in and out of her with the faintest rasp.

  His hand sought hers in the dark. Found it. Held it.

  And then the flow of the water uprooted them once more. Picked the car up. Sent them bobbing back toward the surface like an apple.

  They popped out of the black, and the water’s roar gurgled around them again. The noise was suddenly welcome, even reassuring after the quiet below.

  The corpse still clung to the hood of the car, which Louis found sort of amazing. It looked something like a wet cat at this point. Soggy and smaller and wrong.

  But his attention didn’t linger on the dead thing. Something wasn’t right.

  They rode backwards now, Louis realized after a few confused seconds. The car’s trunk sliced their path through the rapids. They’d made the full 180 degree rotation somewhere in the confusion.

  He craned his neck to try to check the rear windshield every few seconds. He hoped to see where they were headed, even if he knew the black of night would make that impossible. In any case, the inability to do anything about it would make the knowledge useless.

  The water would take them where it would, where it wanted. He could do nothing about it. Neither of them could.

  Powerless. Totally powerless.

  But alive, he reminded himself. Alive and mostly dry for the moment.

  Some water had seeped in and pooled on the floor, but they’d been lucky. The rapids had swept them up before the wet could penetrate everything. Before they’d gotten water logged and sunk for good.

  He remembered that black silence beneath the surface. Total quiet. Total nothingness. And he shuddered.

  The current surged around them. They seemed to be riding higher now. Different from before.

  The water reached for the corpse clinging to the hood. Lapped at it in spurts like it wanted to swallow it up.

  The dead thing wobbled. Trembled. Recoiled from the black fluid. It looked like a bug about to get blasted off the windshield by the airflow.

  At last the water ripped the corpse away from its perch. One big swell sloshed over the front end, detached its grip. Loosened it. Plucked the thing free with a single stiff jerk.

  And the dead thing slid over the hood, falling, arms flailing as it disappeared into the murk.

  Izzy

  Ripplemead, Virginia

  9 years, 37 days after

  When they reached the bend in the road that meant home was only a little over a mile away, Erin slowed her bike so she was riding alongside Izzy.

  “Race you,” she said.

  Izzy squinted at Erin through the loose curls of her hair fluttering in the wind, pretending to think it over. Then she switched gears and started to pedal harder, pulling ahead.

  “OK,” she said, calling back to Erin.

  “Cheater,” Erin shouted, but Izzy could hear in her voice that she was smiling.

  Even without the smiling and the offer to race, Izzy could tell Erin was in an especially good mood. Izzy had been humming various cartoon theme songs almost the whole ride back, and normally Erin would have gotten super annoyed after five or ten minutes of that and would have barked at Izzy to knock it off. But today she hadn’t said a single word about the humming, not even after an especially loud rendition of the Pokémon theme song.

  Erin nosed ahead on her bike, cackling as she furiously worked her legs.

  Izzy was glad that Erin was so happy about the bunker cache. Izzy was happy too, of course. The food and variety of other supplies would have been a great haul all on their own. But the ammo and weapons, plus the reloading tools? It was a gold mine.

  Izzy only hoped it was enough to clear up whatever was bothering Erin lately, because she’d been different the last few weeks. More anxious. Quicker to get irritated. Even Marcus had noticed and asked Izzy if she knew what was causing it. That’s when Izzy had really started to worry, because Erin and Marcus told each other everything. If Marcus didn’t know what was wrong, then it had to be bad.

  Erin turned back and stuck her tongue out. Whatever had been bugging her, it obviously wasn’t bugging her now.

  Izzy spotted the final hill. Once they were up and over it, the turn off to the compound would be in sight. Except Erin hated calling it “the compound,” so it was really the turn off to “the farm.”

  Erin’s progress slowed as they reached the middle of the ascension. Izzy chuckled to herself. She’d let Erin take the lead, hoping she’d wear herself out before this last uphill leg. Now it was time to see if her strategy would pay off.

  Izzy stood up off her seat and stomped down on the pedals, lurching forward with each pump of her legs. Beads of sweat began to break along her hairline and the back of her neck.

  She closed on Erin, drawing up beside her and then lumbering out in front.

  “Hey,” Erin said between two heaving breaths.

  Izzy glanced back and saw Erin doing her damnedest to keep up, but it was too late. Izzy’s plan had worked. Erin had used up all of her energy taking and keeping the early lead.

  Izzy was losing momentum by the time she crested the hill, but it didn’t matter. The rest of the ride was downhill, and Erin couldn’t hope to catch up now.

  She admired the landscape that spread out below. The rolling mountains in the distance. The NO PASSING ZONE sign that someone had vandalized so it now read, “NO ASSING ZONE.” The crook where the river bent toward their little homestead.

  Her eyes came to rest on the thirty-seven car pile-up that formed a natural barrier to entering the small neighborhood they’d commandeered. It was a good tenth of a mile or so away, but even at that distance, Izzy immediately noticed something out of place.

  There was an extra vehicle. An old boat of a car from back when no one cared about gas mileage or aerodynamics. Izzy knew every house, traffic sign, and rusting heap of metal here by heart. And this car didn’t belong.

  She came to a screeching halt and gave a little whistle, a signal she and Erin used to indicate possible danger. Without a word, they both moved off the road, into the bramble of black raspberries, Queen Anne’s lace, and ditch lilies growing along the shoulder.

  “What is it?” Erin asked. Her cheeks were flushed from the exertion of climbing the hill.

  “A car.”

  “Where?”

  “Parked in front of the pile-up,” Izzy explained.

  They’d moved back down the other side of the hill, out of sight of the permanent traffic jam, but Erin glanced that way as if she might be able to see through solid land.

  “Show me.”

  They crept closer to the hilltop, using the dense foliage as cover. When the car was in sight, Izzy pointed it out.

  “What the fuck?” Erin whispered to herself.

  Izzy’s heart galloped away in her chest. Things had been going so well. And now this.

  She watched Erin’s reaction. She seemed more confused than worried, which was odd, because Erin usually worried about everything.

  “Is it raiders?” Izzy asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Erin said. “It’s not their typical vehicle choice, anyway. They go in more for pickup trucks so they can haul back their victory spoils. And they usually come in a group of vehicles so they can be sure they have the upper hand in terms of numbers.”

  “Maybe it’s a random wanderer,” Izzy suggested. “Someone lost or needing help.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or someone we know. Someone from Roanoke.”

  “Except no one from Roanoke is supposed to know exactly where we are.”

  After several agonizing moments of quiet, Erin finally spoke again. She got
out her weapon.

  “Let’s leave the bikes here and approach on foot,” she said. “Stealth mode. We’ll cut through the woods to reach the car, give it a once over to see if we can figure out anything by inspecting the vehicle up close. Then we’ll head to the farm. OK?”

  Izzy nodded, getting out her gun as well.

  The slid into the deeper shadow of the forest beyond the road. The noise of the cicadas was so loud and constant, Izzy would have believed it was coming from inside her own head. Grasshoppers sprung into the air as she and Erin slipped through the undergrowth with barely a whisper of foliage and grass.

  When they drew in line with where the car was parked, Erin called for a halt at the tree line. They crouched there for a full minute, waiting. Making sure the car wasn’t some kind of trap engineered to lure them in.

  With a wordless nod, Erin gave the signal to move forward. Erin took the lead, keeping low, but moving steadily closer to the car.

  Black soot pocked the big boat of a car, almost like the enamel had been singed.

  The windows were open, and Izzy poked her head inside, giving the interior a quick once over.

  There were some dark smears on the upholstery, but then the whole thing was pretty filthy altogether. Empty water jugs, red plastic gas cans, and soiled towels littered the back seat. Nothing that screamed raider.

  Erin moved past her, heading for the rear of the vehicle.

  “I want to look in the trunk,” she said. “See if you can find the release latch, will ya?”

  “OK,” Izzy said, opening the driver’s side door and leaning in.

  “I think—” Erin’s words cut off suddenly.

  Izzy peered through the windshield at her. Erin’s eyes were wide, fixed on something on the back end of the car.

  “What?” Izzy asked.

  “That son of a bitch.”

  And then Erin was launching herself through the mangled wrecks and sprinting toward the farm.

  “Erin,” Izzy said, chasing after her. “What is it?”

  But she didn’t answer. She kept running, bounding through the overgrown weeds that had once been yards. Izzy lost sight of Erin when she zipped in between two houses, but Izzy continued on, knowing she had to be heading for their house.

  The untamed tangle of brush and long grass transitioned to the carefully tended patches of Marcus’ gardens, which sprawled all over the neighborhood. Squash and beans and corn here. Strawberries, asparagus, and raspberries there.

  And then Izzy could see their house. And across the street, the kids playing in front of Ned and Katie’s place. That was a good sign. If the kids were out and playing, nothing could be that wrong.

  So then what had gotten Erin so upset?

  Whatever the car meant to Erin, it had sparked something in her, some fury that gifted her with a speed Izzy couldn’t match. By the time Izzy made it to the driveway leading up to their house, Erin had already barged inside. The screen door thwacked shut behind her.

  Izzy slipped through the door and headed toward the sound of voices. She could hear Marcus in particular, asking Erin what the hell she was doing.

  Izzy found them in the kitchen. Erin had her pistol out and aimed at the back of a man’s head. Her jaw was clenched so hard it was shaking.

  “Did I or did I not tell you that if you ever came back here, I’d shoot you on sight?”

  Delfino turned around, hands raised in the air.

  Father

  Rural Maryland

  9 years, 39 days after

  By the time they wheeled into the conference room, the meeting was already underway. The voices tangled over each other, some fierce debate in progress here. And then all heads turned as Fiona pushed Father’s chair into the room. The words cut out to nothing, to quiet, to the faintest awkwardness.

  The conference room had once been a classroom here on the campgrounds. Foam tiles formed an off-white grid on the drop ceiling, with veins of light gray separating the cells. The carpet was the thin rough stuff found only in bottom of the barrel construction jobs — the kinds of industrial grade projects where the contractor spared every expense.

  The room reminded Father of something he could never quite place, perhaps a community college classroom that was fading from his memory now, the remnants in his head no longer enough to piece together a real memory, just the shards of shattered feelings, fragmented images. That colorless tinge that mostly forgotten things tend to take on eventually, as though our memories must bleed to gray as we lose them.

  One by one, the nine council members stood like this was some military proceeding. A tribunal or whatever the hell. The soldiers standing at attention like he was some high ranking general. He resisted the urge to say “at ease, soldiers.” Thankfully they sat down again after a few seconds.

  All of this military crap started creeping into the council’s ways about the time Lucas turned up. For the thousandth time, Father admonished himself for giving Lucas a seat on the council. The man had returned the favor by bringing him nothing but trouble.

  Marcia Simmons spoke up then — a forty-something woman who wore a perpetual smile and sported gray streaks in her black hair that almost looked like evenly placed stripes.

  “We were just talking about the Sovereign Cities problem. Again.”

  Father wasn’t surprised. For months Lucas had been trying to whip the council into a frenzy about that gang of bikers anytime Father wasn’t around, trying to start a war.

  Goddamn Lucas. For the most part, the men had never been as useful as council members compared to the women. He thought he remembered Ray alluding to that once — that the soccer mom types, like Marcia, made the best council people. They took their responsibilities seriously, worked hard, and the power made them feel needed, made them feel important. That was seemingly enough for them. Of course, Father thought the subtext there meant Ray thought women were more malleable, easier to manipulate. An old-school sexist, more or less.

  In any case, Lucas was a bulldog. The women on the council didn’t bring these flights of grandeur the way men like Lucas did, these pangs to go out and dominate. To attack. Women like Marcia knew to leave well enough alone, at least in Father’s few years’ experience as a political leader.

  As always when the Sovereign Cities became the topic, Lucas spoke up right away, angling toward inciting fear in them all. He stood.

  “I don’t need to elaborate much on how real of a threat the bikers pose. How many times have the raiders attacked us through the years? How many times have they lobbed grenades over our walls, tried to sneak into our borders by night, picked off our people on the roads?”

  He tapped his finger on the table three times, bending at the waist just a touch.

  “Like I said, I don’t need to detail it. You’ve all lived it. You’ve all lost people. You all know.”

  His eyes moved from person to person, making a pronounced flash of eye contact with each before he moved on, giving this moment of focus to everyone but Father, whom he ignored entirely.

  “And now they marshal their forces, stockpile their weapons, build their armies up to numbers that soon will be enough to overwhelm us. Unchecked, they build their might. Waiting only for the right time to flex their muscle. To strike when we least expect it. To be done with us once and for all.”

  Now it was a single thump of the fist on the table to emphasize his next line.

  “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We should take the fight to them. Attack on our terms, not theirs. Because the problem isn’t going away. The threat is never going away. It’s only getting worse. Until we do something, it will only get worse and worse.”

  Lucas was an effective speaker, even with the flecks of spit flying out of his mouth now and again. Something persuasive happened when he got to yelling, sharing his passion. No doubt about that. Father thought he sounded like Hitler. Hitting all the consonants as hard as gongs. He could picture Lucas’ long face dotted with the narrow toothbrush mustac
he, screaming German nonsense at a huge crowd, holding them in rapt awe with his appeals to nationalism and violence.

  This was another of those moments, Father knew, when he must rise to the occasion. Beat back another of Lucas’ sales pitches for war. It was a moment to show strength, show wisdom, to be more than a withering man in a wheelchair, growing old before his time.

  It was time.

  He raised a hand, and all heads once again turned his way. He let the hand drop back to the side of the chair, fingers slack on the top of the wheel, and he made a show of thinking what to say. Some theatrical gathering of thoughts etching lines on his face, little quirks around his lips.

  He had to put a new spin on the same concept he’d bandied about before this crew so many times. How did you keep charming people over and over with the same words rearranged? How did you express an old idea in such a way that it felt new? This was his challenge these past few months.

  “What Lucas here says is rational enough,” he began, at last, when the silence felt ripe enough to pick. “We can’t say what those who rule the Sovereign Cities might want, might do. They certainly don’t seem all that neighborly, what with the all the bodies they leave strung up from the trees on the roads heading into their towns.”

  He, too, locked eyes with each person, one by one, though he did so quicker than Lucas had. Just long enough to add a pregnant pause in his speech where he wanted it.

  “And yet, it seems to me, that war could still be avoided. They’ve made no aggressive act toward our camp in years, nor toward our people. Of all the known settlements in the area, it’s our two who have the firepower to assure mutual destruction. I think there’s something to be said for that. Maybe if good fences make good neighbors, well-stocked armories make great neighbors. Why would we press a fight that most likely ends with both sides losing?”

  He threw his arms out to his sides, hands cupped toward the drop ceiling. He caught Lucas grimacing out of the corner of his eye.

  “Peace has virtues too numerous to list. And I’m afraid it’s all too easy to take those virtues for granted if you have the good fortune to live with them long enough. Think back on the world as it was before the disease set in, before the plague swept through the streets and wiped out our families, before the dead rose up from the Earth, the abominations who wander the land even still — the restless things that hunger only for living flesh. Think about life before all that. The order we had back then. The peace. Pretty good, right? It feels like forever ago now. A time and a place that seems closed off to us. Gone for good. Somewhere across a bridge into the past that was long ago burned. I still believe we can have that life again, if we work for it. The peace. The order. All the benefits that come with them. Rebuilt infrastructure. Flourishing technology. Ever improving health care. But not if we spend our resources, spend ourselves, engaged in endless conflict.”