Zombie Abbey

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  “I did, but we have to be prepared, Father. At the very least, we must find a way to secure the perimeter. Perhaps arrange for a series of sentries to patrol it with weapons in order to keep a lookout for incoming threats? The farmers and villagers we’ve taken in should be good for that. Daniel says—”

  “Oh, who cares what Daniel says?”

  Kate was about to say, “I do, Father.” But then it occurred to her: What was the point?

  Earlier, the duke had accused Father of making a hash of things. At the time, she’d bristled at those words. Who was this young man, no matter that he might outrank an earl, to come into their house and say such things to her father?

  But now she saw that perhaps the duke was right. Father might make a hash of things, if they let him.

  There was little point in arguing, however. Much better to mollify him, send him on his merry way, and then…

  And then do whatever needed to be done.

  “You’re right, Father,” she said brightly, patting him on one silver arm. “It’s a silly plan. We don’t need it.” Then she gently, lovingly, lowered his face mask until it was back in the position it had been in when he first entered. “Now, why don’t you get out of that thing? You must be sweltering there, inside Fred.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Once I slip out of this thing, perhaps your mother and I can go for our walk.”

  “Father, you can’t be serious!”

  “But we go for a walk every weekday. Why should this one be any different?”

  “You must promise me, Father, that you won’t today. It’s too dangerous out there.”

  “Fine.” Then he gave out a sigh so loud, it echoed its resignation metallically within the confines of Fred. “Fine.”

  …

  “Tell me again: Why do I need to do this?” Grace said.

  Grace stood in a long-neglected room on the far south side of the abbey. It was the north where the family did most of their living. Grace knew there had been a time when the whole abbey had been used, when her ancestors had employed enough servants to fill all the attic bedrooms, including the ones now used by the farmers and villagers who had come to stay. Back then, the abbey had been like its own small kingdom. But time had gradually changed that, the last war further reducing things, so now these rooms on the south side saw very little use.

  When Daniel had told Father that he needed some space in which members of the household could practice their use of weaponry, that it was too dangerous for them to do it outside but it had to be done, Father had mentioned these rooms.

  “There’s one in particular,” he’d said. “It has a massive tapestry on the wall that I’ve never been particularly fond of. You can shoot the whole thing up, for all I care.”

  And so here they were: Grace holding a rifle against her shoulder, while Daniel urged her to shoot the whole thing up.

  “Everyone needs to learn,” Daniel said now.

  “Yes, but why?” Grace said. “I’ve never wanted to know how to shoot anything, and I still don’t want to know.”

  “Well, we’re all being called on to do things we’ve never wanted to do.”

  She supposed that was true.

  “And you never know,” Daniel went on. “You’re safe enough, for now, so long as you’re inside. But who knows what might happen later? And do you really want to be a prisoner in here for the rest of your life?”

  The rest of her life?

  “No one knows how long this will go on,” Daniel said. “It may end quickly, and I certainly hope it does, or it could go on for a long time. In any event, you must be ready. We must all be ready. At least if you learn how to defend yourself, it will be possible for you to go outside if you want to. Now, let’s try again. You see that huge stag on the far right corner of the tapestry?” He pointed. “Let’s see if you can hit that.”

  She tried, she really did. Daniel had shown her how to clean the weapon and load it and demonstrated for her how to use it. When she’d been awkward with the weapon, he’d even put his arms around her from behind, his hands covering hers as he guided her in the proper way to hold it. She knew that what they were doing was meant to be serious business, but the feel of his hands on her hands, his breath against her neck, and the sensation of his body coming lightly into contact with hers from behind—she couldn’t help but wonder if it gave him the same feelings, the same stirrings it gave her, just like had happened when they’d danced together.

  Still, it was a serious business. And a part of her wanted to please him, she really did. But after taking aim, as she went to pull the trigger, all she could picture was that instead of a tapestry stag, it was a real stag standing there and, unwilling to watch the beautiful creature die, she squeezed both eyes shut as she fired rather than simply squinting the one.

  “Did I hit it?” she asked anxiously, opening her eyes.

  “Let’s just say we’re going to need to work on your aim a bit more,” Daniel said with a rueful grin. He pointed to a hole in the tapestry that was about as far from her intended target as one could get.

  “Oh, I’m hopeless at this!” she cried.

  “You’re not. And if you are, it’s only because you don’t appear to want to be good at it. But all you need is some practice. Well, that, and maybe learn to keep at least one eye open.”

  “You’ve just had so many more years to get used to doing such things,” she said. “I’ll never catch up.”

  “‘So many’?” He smiled. “You make me sound ancient. Just how old do you think I am?”

  “Why, you’re twenty-one.”

  “And who told you that?”

  “It’s just something I heard,” she said. And she had. She’d heard it when she’d made a point of seeking out Mr. Wright after lunch and asking him. At the time, she’d thought: He’s five years older than I am. He’s almost a third again as old as me.

  “Well, you heard wrong,” Daniel said.

  What? Was he even older than that?

  “I did?” Grace said.

  Daniel studied her for a long moment, as though weighing something. Finally: “I’m seventeen,” he said.

  Just a year older than her?

  “But how is that possible?” she said. And how could Mr. Wright be so far off?

  Then he told her a story: about lying in the first place to get work in the house; and then lying again later on so he could go to war.

  “I wish I hadn’t done that last part,” he said. “And you mustn’t tell anybody about this. Or, at least, I hope you’ll choose not to.”

  “I won’t if you don’t want me to. But why would they care?”

  “Because I lied to get the job in the first place. Because I’ve been lying ever since. If that got out, they’d fire me.”

  “I hardly think so,” she said, finding herself laughing for the first time since Merry died. And then died again.

  “You don’t?”

  “Of course not!” She laughed again. “You’ve grown too valuable. No one would fire you now!”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “But if you were worried about getting fired,” she said, “why did you tell me?”

  “I’m not rightly sure. I’ve never told anyone about that before, not even Jonathan, and I work more closely with him than anybody. I guess I just felt like I could trust you. And I didn’t want to lie to you.”

  He’d lied to everyone, he’d lied to everyone else for years, but he didn’t want to lie to her?

  “I’m glad you told me,” she said. Then she thought of something. “Daniel,” she asked, “what’s your last name?”

  It seemed odd to be having such a conversation with someone, a conversation about fears and trust, and yet not know the last name of the person to whom one was speaking.

  He just looked at her.

  “Is that a complicated question?” she asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

  “It’s not,” he said. “It’s just…”

  “Just what
?”

  “In the years since I’ve come to live here, I’ve practically forgotten I even have one. Sure, in the two years I was away at war, all the other soldiers and officers called me only by my last name. But here at the abbey? As a footman? Like the rest of the help, except for senior staff, I’ve never been granted the dignity of a last name. Here, I’ve only ever been Daniel.”

  It was, quite possibly, the most he’d ever said to her at one shot.

  “Well, I’d like to know what it is, Daniel-who-isn’t-twenty-one-but-rather-seventeen.”

  “It’s Murray,” he told her.

  “Daniel Murray,” she repeated softly.

  Then she raised the rifle so that the butt of it rested against the shoulder of her silk dress.

  “Show me again how to use this thing, Daniel Murray,” she said, smiling. “I can’t promise I’ll be any better at it now than I was before, but at least I can try.”

  …

  “Nothing like a little archery to get the appetite going!” Lizzy laughed.

  She was in a different long-neglected room on the south side of the abbey than the one Grace and Daniel had used. Father had directed her there, saying, “I’ve never cared for the tapestry in that room, either!” He’d said it jocularly enough, and she’d laughed with him. But then she’d been troubled when his mood had seemed to sharply shift as he added, “It doesn’t matter anymore anyway, though. Why not just shoot the whole place up?”

  She’d been troubled then, but she was laughing now for she was, indeed, shooting the whole place up!

  “I’m good at this!” she said, quite pleased with her use of bow and arrow. She’d aimed at the stag. She’d hit the stag!

  “You are,” Cousin Benedict said, smiling. “But then, when Will Harvey suggested this, I thought you would be.”

  When Will suggested a bow and arrow for her, explaining that it was obvious she had talent with guns but that she should practice with other weapons in case one day their ammunition ran out, she’d expected him to be the one to accompany her, to teach her.

  And then she’d been disappointed when he had not, telling her that Cousin Benedict should accompany her instead.

  “But is that what Daniel wants?” she’d objected. “Didn’t he say that you—”

  But whatever Daniel might have said, it didn’t appear to have made much of an impression on Will Harvey, who’d already hurried away.

  Now that she was here with Cousin Benedict, though, she found she was having a fine time.

  After the meeting in the drawing room earlier in the day, Kate had said something to her about Cousin Benedict turning out to be “a disappointment.” She’d further gone on to say, “You’d think the man would have more fight in him. Did you see the way he just let the duke take his role away from him and give it to Daniel instead?”

  On the one hand, Lizzy knew it was impolitic to pose the question to him. On the other hand, she just really did want to know.

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t what bother me?”

  “Father was all prepared to have you lead us, but then the duke stepped in and gave all the power to Daniel.”

  “I don’t know about all the power,” Benedict said, genially enough. “But no, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”

  “I just would have thought…” But Lizzy let the thought trail off, unwilling now to cause offense.

  Was Kate right, then, in what she’d implied? Was Cousin Benedict, after all, a bit of a coward? If that were the case, Lizzy didn’t want to make him feel worse by pressing him about it. Bad enough for him to know himself to be a coward; he didn’t need her to be going on and on about it, as she knew she had a tendency to do about things. No, she’d just raise the bow, nock another arrow, and—

  “Why would it bother me?” Benedict said, stopping her. “We all want the same thing: for us to be safe. And who better to be in charge of that than the person who seems to know more about it than anyone else here? Which in this case happens to be Daniel. Don’t you think it would be silly of me to insist on power over everything merely because I had the good fortune to get born to a higher station in life than he did?”

  “Good God!” Lizzy said, stunned.

  “What?”

  “You’re…you’re just so…sensible!”

  “And is that a crime?” Cousin Benedict laughed.

  “Not at all. But it’s not exactly something you see around here every day.”

  “Well, I suppose we’re no longer living in times that are like ‘every day.’ If this were every day, or any day, I’d want to sit by the fire, feet up on a stool, a good book in my lap, perhaps gazing out at the lawn every so often.” Benedict sighed. “How I long for such a day.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Lizzy said. Then she wrinkled her nose. “Well, except for maybe the book part, unless it happened to be a particularly exciting one.”

  “Book or no book, that’s not going to happen now. We must all do our part, and I am content to do mine.” He paused. “Do you mind if I take a turn with that?”

  “You mean this?” Lizzy indicated the bow and arrow.

  “Yes,” Benedict replied. “Daniel said we must all be prepared. And Daniel is right.”

  Lizzy handed the items over, and as he accepted them from her, she noticed that he grasped them rather awkwardly. Had he never shot a bow and arrow before? And here he’d been sent along to tutor her! As he tried, and failed, to nock the arrow perfectly the first time, Cousin Benedict appeared to notice something.

  “What are those on your feet?” he asked.

  “You mean these?” Lizzy said, shifting one foot to the toe and then tilting the ankle of that foot against the ankle of the other, as though modeling the worn dirt-encrusted lace-up black boots she now wore on her feet. “It’s all the rage in Paris. I call them my sensible boots. Do you like them?”

  …

  “I still have to get the wine properly decanted!” Mr. Wright cried. “With everything that’s been going on here today, I clean forgot. Oh, I do hope His Lordship won’t be too displeased if the wine isn’t fully decanted.”

  Mr. Wright hurried off to his office, bottles in hand, there to perform his ministrations.

  In the past, Fanny had found Mr. Wright to be a bossy man, a stern man, an overly officious man. None of that had bothered her much, not even when he was yelling at her, which he so often was. It was his job. But now she found herself thinking for the first time, What a silly man.

  Did he think it mattered anymore now what state the wine was in?

  Fanny had had her small tastes of wine in the past, knocking back the dregs of Mr. Wright’s and Mrs. Murphy’s glasses when those glasses had been brought to the kitchen for her to clean after their nightly tipple. Those dregs had ranged from sherry to whatever grand wine the family and their guests had been enjoying at dinner if there was any left over; it wouldn’t do for the family to be served leftover day-old wine the next night, and so Mr. Wright and Mrs. Murphy would finish the rest, sometimes sharing it with Mrs. Owen if there was enough. And Fanny got the dregs.

  As far as Fanny could tell, it was all bitter, and whether it was served straight from the bottle or allowed to rest in a crystal decanter for a long time first, it wouldn’t change that fact. The one good thing about wine was that it left you feeling a bit soft around the edges afterward, the world gone pleasantly a little blurry.

  Fanny didn’t want her edges softened now, and she couldn’t see any advantages in letting the world go a little blurry. On the contrary, she felt as though she needed to see it all as clearly as possible in order to survive everything that was going on.

  But no matter what else was going on, Fanny was expected to behave as though none of it was. She still had to cut up the vegetables just so (“No, Fanny!” Mrs. Owen cried. “I said to dice those carrots! What do you think Her Ladyship is, a stevedore?”); she had to help make sure nothing being served included any food items Upstairs m
ight have partaken of in the last twenty-four-hour cycle of meals (“Didn’t they have some salmon yesterday, Fanny?” Mrs. Owen said. “Oh, it’s so hard to keep everything in my mind today, and I can’t remember where I put yesterday’s meal cards. Best to just toss that salmon. We can do something instead with the trout.”).

  And now here was Mr. Wright, that silly man, worrying about his wine.

  What did any of it matter now?

  Fanny said as much to Mrs. Owen as they worked, side by side.

  “People still have to eat, Fanny,” Mrs. Owen said. “And I’m sure His Lordship would feel that there’s no reason why they shouldn’t still do it nicely. And I, for one, happen to agree with him. Just because the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, there’s no reason for us to stop cooking proper meals, nicely served up.”

  Now Mrs. Owen was sounding like Mr. Wright.

  “So stop your moaning about, Fanny, and all your…philosophizing, and get back to work. I could use some help with these trout here. They won’t clean themselves.”

  Fanny went back to work. She worked and she worked until all the food preparations had been made and the other servants had brought the series of courses upstairs. She worked straight through until dessert was brought up and then, rather than retiring with the others for a quick bite, she went to do something she’d been wanting to do all night.

  She hurried back into the kitchen a short time later, rushing to put her apron on over her dress so that they could commence with the cleaning up.

  “What are you wearing, Fanny?” Mrs. Owen demanded.

  “Yes, Fanny, what are you wearing?” echoed Mr. Wright, walking into the kitchen, a thoroughly empty decanter in his hand, a thoroughly disappointed look on his face.

  “Do you like it?” Fanny said, putting one hand to the shoulder of the scarlet-red garment. She’d have put it on earlier, had been eager to, but she hadn’t wanted to get food stains all over it. Now, though, she figured it would be safe to wear it during the cleaning-up part. A little soap and water wouldn’t hurt it any, not like greasy fish might.

  “No, I don’t like it,” Mr. Wright said. “It’s not your uniform!”