Ruby is a different story. She’s been extremely vocal about how Stony saved her in Chicago, and how he protected the Chos, and made sure the Tines boys were watched over. There have been quite a few shouting matches in the past year, and one fistfight. (Ruby held her own.)
Willie Tines came by the burned house once, to pay his respects to Mrs. Mayhall. He told her he felt terrible about destroying her son and her farm. Like most of the residents of the enclave, he is a haunted man. His wife was bitten during the outbreak, when she ran into a group of LDs coming in from the north. The two boys escaped the wreckage and the monsters and made it to the nearest house—but you know the rest of that story.
“You have nothing to be forgiven for,” Wanda told him. “No more than any of us. A lot of people in town say they have you to thank for their lives.”
“Ma’am, nothing I did made a damn—made a bit of difference. We all should have died.” Better than almost anyone, Willie knew that the town should have been wiped out. It wasn’t just that the southern barricade was breached; it was that every one of their defenses failed. The zombies marched in from all directions. The living fled their homes and headed toward the schoolhouse, and the hordes followed them.
“And then they just … stopped,” Willie said. “They turned around and wandered away. Like they couldn’t even see us anymore.”
Wanda nodded. She’d heard versions of this story from everyone in town, though not everyone had played a role as heroic as Officer Tines’s. It would make an excellent movie, if there were still movies.
Tines said he’d come over to say good-bye—he was leaving town. “My wife got in touch with me,” he said. “She’s living—well, staying less than fifty miles from here. She misses the boys. And the boys miss her.” It was like he was asking for her blessing. Most of the town considered him a traitor for leaving the enclave to live with the dead.
“Family should be together,” Wanda told him. “Period.”
A few days later, a federal helicopter flies low over the enclave. It’s a big green Huey, two rotors, and it lands in the old soy field behind the burned house, sending ash and debris swirling into the air. USMRA is in big white letters near the nose: United States Midwestern Regional Authority.
Ruby jams her rake into a pile of ash and pulls off her gloves. Part of the reason the excavation is going so slowly is that she wants to check every load that’s removed from the pit. Kwang scoops out a pile, then dumps it on the ground, setting out pile after pile. Ruby, and sometimes Alice with her, goes through it, shoving aside chunks of wood and building material, looking for bones and teeth. It’s filthy work. It would be grisly work, too, except that they haven’t found any remains.
Ruby hurries over to the aircraft. She knows that the rest of the townspeople will be rushing over here any minute. It’s strictly against the covenant for a federal craft to enter the town limits, and people will be pissed. They’ll be especially pissed at Ruby if they find out that she’s the one who called them.
The big side door opens, and three soldiers in camouflage jump out, holding rifles. Just behind them comes a woman in a blue flight suit. It’s odd for the director of an eight-state area to be dressed like a pilot or a mechanic, but Delia’s never been interested in convention.
Ruby and Delia have never met in person, and they’ve only talked on the town’s landline phone once. All their other communications have been by letter, an old-fashioned medium revived by the fall of the cell towers. The USMRA maintains an intermittent postal service that they allow the breathers to use. Ruby assumes all their letters are being read by intelligence officers. Delia says, “I was beginning to think you were going to have the funeral without me.”
“We’re running into delays,” Ruby says. “We haven’t found the body yet.”
“Will you?”
“I don’t know, have you found my mother yet?”
It sounds like sarcasm, but there’s a note of desperation to Ruby’s voice. Delia’s voice softens. “Sorry, kid. We’re looking. Crystal was a friend of mine, and I’m not giving up. But you have to understand that it’s still pretty chaotic out there.”
Crystal hadn’t contacted anyone in the family, and no one had seen her. She could be dead, or turned and suffering from amnesia, or … anything. Breathers are fighting with LDs, LDs are fighting each other, and whole areas of the country are still without power—electrical or political. Ad hoc governments—half school board, half street gang—are seizing authority in the vacuum. And that’s just in the United States. Everybody in Easterly thinks it’s got to be a lot worse in the rest of the world.
“After your service we’ll do one of our own,” Delia says. “A full state funeral. The Lump will officiate.”
“Whatever,” Ruby said.
“Of course, we’d like to display the body. If you find it.”
Ruby is shaking her head. “Absolutely not. We never agreed to that.”
“I don’t think you realize what he means to his people.”
“I don’t think you realize what he means to his family.”
Perhaps that’s a smile on Delia’s face—but Delia’s half skull turns every expression into a leer. She says, “Your uncle had a talent, kid. He made families wherever he went.”
After a moment of silence, Delia shrugs. “Just think about it.”
“I’ll talk to Gram and Alice.”
“Tell them we’re going to publish his papers,” Delia said. “We’ve got almost a complete collection of Sunday Deadlines—the Deadtown prisoners kept them hidden from the guards all the way until the Big Bite. Plus we’ve started an oral history project, recording all the stories of the outbreak before they’re forgotten, and a lot of those stories are about Stony. If you’ve got anything he’s written—anything at all—we’d sure appreciate it.” Ruby has never told Delia that she has Stony’s memoir, and has suggested it was all lost in the fire. But Delia suspects she has it, and Ruby knows that Delia suspects she has it. To explain the various relationships in play—between Ruby and Delia, the living and the dead, the locals and the feds, and midwesterners and easterners—would require several economists, a team of anthropologists, and a theologian.
Delia says, “We’re planning on a Stony Mayhall Library. We can build it near here, if you think the rebels wouldn’t burn it down.”
“I want money for a memorial,” Ruby says. “Nothing big. Just something out by the highway, where they found him with his mother. Something simple, just their names maybe.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Delia says.
Kwang has shut off the backhoe, and he’s walking stiffly toward them. And down the lane comes Alice, pedaling like the witch in The Wizard of Oz. Ruby, seeing that her time is running out, says, “Did you bring me the package?”
Delia calls up into the helicopter, and someone throws down a thick square wrapped in paper and tied with twine. Delia hands it to Ruby. “Straight from Calhoun’s personal collection.”
Ruby looks at the parcel. It’s heavier than she thought it would be. “You know, I can’t figure out why the Commander would commit suicide in his bunker like that.”
“Yeah, tragic,” Delia says. “Very Adolf Hitler.”
“Hitler was losing. Calhoun was about to win everything. But you were there on the island, right?” At her look, Ruby says, “Stony told me you were going there. You must have tried to get to Calhoun. He killed your friend, right? Mr. Blunt?”
“My best friend,” Delia says. After a moment, she says, “I got to the island a couple of days after the bite. I never got into the fortress, though. No one could get inside it.”
“Right, right,” Ruby says. “I heard that.” She frowns. “But you know what’s weird?” Her voice has taken on an innocent, I’m-Just-So-Curious tone. “Stony helped build that place, and it’s just not like him to leave out a secret passage. A back door or something. He was kind of OCD about that kind of thing. I mean, that’s what he told me once.” He’d told her n
o such thing. But Ruby has read Stony’s memoir, several times, and has come to certain conclusions about his character. “Did he tell you about anything like that—a way to get into that bunker?”
Delia goes very still. She’s ready to say something, but then Kwang huffs up. One of the soldiers steps in front of him, blocking his way. Kwang calls, “Everything okay, Ruby?”
Delia signals for the soldier to let the man pass. She says, “You must be Kwang.” She pronounces it correctly, rhyming it with swan. She offers her hand and says, “Stony always looked forward to your letters.”
Kwang says, “No offense, Director, but a bunch of angry townspeople are going to be showing up with pitchforks soon.”
“I’ll be on my way,” Delia says. “We’re flying back to headquarters in St. Louis, but I’ll be in touch.” She nods at Ruby. “Let me know when you find him.”
Ruby and Kwang step back and watch the Huey take off. As the helicopter clears the edge of the enclave, Kwang says, “We found him.”
He shows her the plastic arm he’s spotted, melted almost to a blob. After a few minutes of combing through the latest pile they find a long bone, a femur, blackened but distinctly human. The hunt is on in earnest.
That night Ruby and Alice move all the bones they’ve found to the house that they and Gram are “borrowing.” The owners evacuated during the outbreak and haven’t returned. Ruby has set up two foldout tables in the basement, and there they begin the jigsaw puzzle portion of the process.
Alice is the expert here, but Ruby is a fast learner. By the third day of reconstruction Alice only has to make a shape with her hands and say, “Look for a bone that looks like this,” and Ruby retrieves it from the dwindling collection. The skeleton is all but complete. The rib cage and spine and three limbs are in place, and the skull, deeply fractured, rests on one cheek, looking away as if embarrassed by his nakedness. Of the missing bones, it’s quite possible that he’d misplaced those before the fire.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Alice says to her.
“You do?” Ruby says.
“It’s wrong. You can’t make a shrine out of him. He doesn’t want to be a religion.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what Delia wants. Stony’s an icon to them. They want something to worship so they can all feel good about their undead paradise.”
Ruby says, “We’re not giving anything to Delia.”
“Come on, what did she promise you? She had to offer you something.”
“I told her I wanted a memorial. For where he was found.”
“And what else?”
“Nothing else!” Ruby says. “We’re not giving her the body.”
“Then why are you doing this? Why don’t you just let him lie?”
“Because he deserves a decent burial,” Ruby says. It’s the reason she keeps handy to whip out whenever anyone asks. It’s all she had to say to her grandmother to get her to go along with the idea. “And because he is an icon. If we don’t bury him, if we just leave him out there in that ash pile, then his followers will try to dig him up themselves. They’ll run off with pieces of him like he’s a, what do you call it—a relic. One of those finger bones of the saints.”
Alice narrows her eyes, as if Ruby is the one with the religious ideas. And perhaps she is.
“We’ll have the funeral immediately,” Alice says.
“What?”
“Before Delia can make her move. You don’t understand these people. I’ll set up the chapel for Thursday.”
“That’s the day after tomorrow!” Ruby says. “That’s way too soon. Maybe—”
“We have enough bones.”
“Yeah, but not all of them. If we keep looking …”
Alice sets down the tiny bone she’s trying to place—an ankle or wrist bone, only Alice knows—and takes off one of her work gloves. “Thursday, or no funeral at all. I’ll hide the bones myself.”
Ruby is angry, but she knows better than to argue with Alice when she’s like this. “Anything else, General?”
“I’ll ask Mom if she wants to speak at the service. I assume you’re going to say something?”
“Uh, sure, aren’t you?”
“The last time Stony and I saw each other it was an argument, which I won. No sense ruining my streak.”
This is completely wrong, of course. Alice did not win that argument. Not completely. Besides, this is obviously an example of Alice using her gruff exterior to hide her true feelings.
“I’m going to bed,” she says, and Ruby says she’s going to keep going for a while. “Take your best guess on them,” Alice says, meaning the bones. “I’ll straighten them out in the morning. Then we’ll get him into a coffin before Mom accidentally sees him.”
After several minutes of fiddling with a few bits that look like chips off the old skull, Ruby goes to the cardboard box in the corner. Inside is the package from Delia, as well as a red Etch A Sketch she found in an abandoned house. She unwraps the package, revealing a shiny white ghost—one of Calhoun’s Integrity Suits.
Oh, Ruby.
It’s a full-body model, from head to individual toe pockets. It is padded and reinforced to support a body—specifically, Calhoun’s ideal body. There are foam inserts to add superhero definition to the abs, and structural wiring to keep feet and spine and shoulders in alignment. It raises serious issues about what kind of shape Calhoun’s body was in without the suit. It’s quite possible that all Delia had to do to kill the man was unzip him.
Ruby pushes the two long tables next to each other. On one table lies the disjointed skeleton, and on the other the unzipped I-Suit. One by one, she transfers the bones into this Halloween costume. A laborious process. She’s trying to be so careful, fitting each tarsal and scapula into its assigned slot, but isn’t it doomed to failure? The bones are not wired together, or even glued. As soon as she tries to lift the suit, the whole agglomeration will jumble to the bottom. Bag o’ bones indeed. The plan is ridiculous.
She keeps at it for hours. She gets sweaty and cranky, swearing at Stony for the condition of his bones, which hardly seems fair. Sometime late in the night she picks up the final piece. She slips the skull under the mask-like hood and zips the suit up to its bony chin. Then she lifts one of the suit’s hands and places it atop the Etch A Sketch.
“I know you’re in there, Uncle Stony.” She is addressing the mannequin on the table. “Time to get up.”
Ah. This is sad. The girl is so distraught with grief, she’s delusional.
“I know you can hear me, motherfucker.”
Hey now.
“Just move your hand, then. I couldn’t find a fucking Ouija board, so this will have to do.”
The suit does not move, the fingers do not twitch. Of course not. Stony is no more in this bag of bones than he is in the empty water bottle she keeps beside the table, or in her left tennis shoe.
“Okay, fine,” she says. “You want to play hardball?” She goes upstairs to her bedroom, trying to keep quiet so as not to wake her aunt and grandmother, then quickly returns to the basement. She’s holding a large stack of paper bound in a thick rubber band. And a box of matches.
“Yeah, I bet I’ve got your attention now, don’t I?”
The manuscript isn’t Stony’s memoir—that’s in the binder, and it’s a lot thicker. Besides, even Ruby knows that there may be some historical value to that. But this—this is nothing. Stony’s amateurish attempt at fiction.
She lifts the cover page into the light. “Christmas for the Dead,” she intones. “A Jack Gore, Deadtown Detective Novel.” She strikes a match.
A stray breeze from a corner of the basement ripples the flame, and the match goes out.
“Shit,” she says. She looks around the basement. Studies the deflated suit on the table. Then she crouches, guarding the matches with her body, and lights another. The breeze whips up, to no avail. When she stands up, the cover page is aflame.
Damn it.<
br />
It’s no easy thing to animate a collection of ossified odds and ends, even pieces that used to belong to me, even ones so lovingly arranged by my deranged niece. Maybe with time and effort I could persuade myself to own it. Settle into this loosely wrapped junk shop. Convince myself that I am here and no place else. Inside this second skin, not soaked into the soil of my hometown like rainwater.
My problem last year—my whole unnatural life, really—was learning how to forget myself. The brain eaters were coming. People were dying. All I had to do was let go of the particular arrangement of bones and skin that I’d grown up in and take on a new, larger body. I thought I could do it. I’d learned so much in Deadtown about defining my body on my own terms. What was the difference, really, in moving around a dead stick, and becoming the ground it was stuck in? Purely psychological. A mental backflip. Yet I couldn’t make it happen. I couldn’t let go of this body, until Officer Tines burned it down like an old house.
It was an accident.
Suddenly I was kicked out like a stubborn teenager and forced to find a new home. And once I was out … well, I adjusted. Now it’s difficult to remember what I saw in the old place.
The page she’s holding transforms from a thing on fire to fire itself, and Ruby drops it to the floor. She stamps on it—a little vigorously, I think. She’s crying now, but angry tears. Is she mad at me, or herself?
I really don’t want her to be angry with herself.
She sits down against the cinder-block walls of the basement, her forehead on her arms. Eventually she hears a faint sound, a scratchy squeak, and looks up. The hand of the suit isn’t moving, but the white knobs of the Etch A Sketch are turning. Then they stop.
She lifts the arm of the suit and picks up the red tablet. On the gray screen is a wobbly message: PLEASE STOP
Ruby, despite the fact that she was expecting this (or only pretending to expect it? Breathers are complicated), squeals in what could be fright or surprise.
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