“This used to be what they called ‘affordable housing’,” said Marco as they entered the yard. “But believe it or not, they make the best castles. Bars on the windows. Fireproof. The door’s made of solid steel.”
Keats smiled for the first time and said: “Could be a lot worse. It’s been—God, months since I’ve slept inside.”
“Tonight won’t be easy. You’ll still wake up in the middle of the night. Force of habit. But who knows? Maybe you’ll get used to it.”
He turned to the men who’d been following them. “You’ve met Flak. This gentleman here is Cochise. They’ll be taking care of your immediate needs. Get some rest, and we’ll see you tomorrow.” He walked away quickly as if he still had lots of business to attend to in whatever daylight remained.
The rest of Keats’ group joined him in the yard. Flak walked up and put his hands on his hips. He looked to be about 25 years old and had slate blue eyes. Like all survivors, he was rail thin, but his frame suggested an athletic past.
“Howdy,” he said. “You want to know why we let you keep your weapons?” He looked at Jamie, who smiled at him. Jamie was a teenager who’d grown up in a post-outbreak shelter. She had long brown hair and was very pretty, but slouched forward a bit with the awkwardness that came with being her age.
No one in the group answered Flak. Besides Jamie, they either eyed him suspiciously or looked at the ground.
“Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned since the world ended,” he said, “it’s that you should never rely on a fence. So just in case you guys get a knock in the middle of the night from Mr. Walker, we know you can at least hold your own. Because when it comes to the undead, we’re all on the same team, right?”
“Sure we’re not just a front line?” said Hemingway. “Keep us out on the periphery, close to the fence, while you guys stay in the middle?”
“Now that doesn’t sound like gratitude,” said Flak. “You know we’re feeding you, too, right? I’m coming back this evening with dinner. Now, why don’t you all go inside, get yourselves settled in.”
“Maybe we like it out here. Fresh air.”
Flak stared at him, still with his sparkling smile. “You ask yourself how you’d treat a bunch of folks you’d never met before, with things the way they are nowadays.”
Hemingway flexed his arms, straining the brown leather armor on his forearms. Keats stepped in. “We had a good talk,” he said to Hemingway. Then to Flak: “We’ll go in.”
“Good,” said Flak. “Be sure to clear the rooms first. You can never be too careful. And don’t spoil dinner! It’s a stew tonight.”
***
The house was full of empty cans, and other refuse from whoever had last used it as a shelter. To Keats, it seemed like a waste to throw away anything that had any potential for reuse. Then again, perhaps that’s what long-term shelter did to people: It brought back wastefulness, one aspect of humanity he’d been glad to assume extinct.
A steward had delivered half a barrel of water, and now Keats used some to clean off the river mud on his skin. He soaked a cloth and ran it along his arms, which were thin and veiny.
He looked into the hazy bathroom mirror and cleaned his face. It was a long, bony, and not particularly handsome face, especially with the wild beard he now sported. But he did have kind eyes, and a pang of sadness hit him as he thought about everything he’d lost, most especially the fiancée who fell in love with those eyes and had been gleefully waiting for him to finish school when the world ended.
She was in North Carolina; he was in Florida. The last message he got about her was from her father, who texted that she’d been bitten by some “drug addict” and had to be hospitalized as a precaution.
He tried to call his own parents and couldn’t get through. He tried texting, but it failed. He remembered a gigantic line outside the one pay phone still operating in town. He recalled the sound of helicopters, which were unnerving at first but then reassuring as the news brought reports of growing civil unrest.
Then the power went out. That’s when he decided to leave for North Carolina. That was 13 years ago—or was it? Every group they ran into had a different take on how many years it had been.
A knock on the bathroom door startled Keats. He opened it and saw Hemingway.
“They’re here,” he said. “Think you should come down.”
***
In the kitchen were Flak, Cochise and one other man, laughing and chatting with some of the same people they’d held at gunpoint only a couple of hours prior. They had just set up the stew pot, and Katie and Duck were scooping small bowls of it for everyone.
Flak was talking to Jamie, leaning against the wall like he was at a frat party. The only thing missing was a red plastic cup in his hand.
Keats and Hemingway stood at the staircase like disapproving parents, but eventually, Keats went to get some stew. He brought a bowl for Hemingway, who didn’t want it, but Keats insisted.
After everyone had been served, Keats announced: “Thanks very much for this. I think we need to keep the house closed for tonight, though. We’ve got a lot we need to talk about.”
“We’re just trying to be friendly,” said Cochise.
“I know that, and that’s nice of you. But we’ve been on the road a long time. Half of us still got mud all over us. So socializing will have to wait until tomorrow when we see Marco—”
“You think he’s some kind of dictator?” said Cochise. “If we decide to mingle a little bit with you guys, he’s OK with it.” He tilted his head in mock sweetness. “As long as we don’t hurt you.”
Hemingway strode forward, the floorboards creaking as he did so. He stopped two inches from Cochise and stood eye-to-eye with him. “You got a boss, we got ours. And he wants you to go.”
Cochise pressed against him like a boxer at a weigh-in. “When’s the last time you fought someone who wasn’t already dead?”
“You think we’ve lived this long playing pushover?”
“Enough,” said Flak, and Cochise relaxed a little. At the same time, Keats put his hand on Hemingway’s shoulder and pulled him back.
“You want us to go, we’ll go,” said Flak. “Y’all have a good night.”
The third man with them, whose name was Joseph, said, “Eat the rest of the stew. You need it, and there’s no way to refrigerate it, anyway.”
He turned to leave. Katie looked disappointed.
“Wait a minute,” said Jamie. “Flak’s going to stay a while.” Her voice had the same lilt of constant sarcasm that was so popular among teenagers before the outbreak. Keats marveled at how such an accent could survive the apocalypse, especially since she’d come of age in a shelter.
“You gotta be joking,” said Hemingway. “No way. We don’t know this guy from Adam—”
“We? Who’s we? Me and him were in the middle of a conversation. If you don’t want him around, we’ll go in one of the rooms and continue there.”
“Hell no. We are not allowing you—”
“Allow? You’re not going to ‘allow’ me to talk to someone? My parents got eaten a long time ago, mister. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“She’s right,” said Keats.
Hemingway turned and looked at him with a confused expression.
“She’s right,” Keats said again. “Let her visit with him. They can take the side bedroom while the rest of us talk about our plans.”
Hemingway started to say something else but stayed quiet. Cochise smirked and left. Joseph followed him after saying goodbye.
Jamie and Flak walked towards one of the bedrooms. Stuffed inside it were dishes, clothes, electronics, and other various crap that gets left behind after a quick exit. Jamie went to shut the door, but Keats grabbed it.
“Leave it cracked,” he said. Jamie rolled her eyes but relented.
Everyone else gathered in the living room and went over the day’s whirlwind of events. They spoke quietly, mindful of Marco’s man being in the other
room.
“I trust them,” said Tommy. “You see what they’re doing in this camp. Gardens, trying to clean things up. They wouldn’t do that if they were bad people.”
“What the hell makes you think that?” said Duck. He was a short, stocky man who was a mechanic in his former life. “Maybe they’ll make us do the shit jobs, and they’ll be the kings.”
“That’s called earning your keep,” said Tommy. “I’ll work for stew and shelter. Better than running around the woods sleeping in trees.”
“Agreed,” said Katie. “What’s the harm in staying a while?”
A white-light scream shook everyone from their seats. It had come from the bedroom.
Keats was the first one there. He gripped his bat halfway up as he rushed in through the door.
Flak stood there holding his nose. “Fucking bitch,” he said.
“I told you to stop, asshole,” said Jamie.
Hemingway and Pike entered the room and looked ready to rip Flak in half.
Suddenly the front door flew open, and Cochise stormed in with a rifle at his side. Some of Keats’ group screamed or shouted “No!”
“What the hell is this?” said Cochise.
“She was leading me on,” said Flak, “but hey. It’s OK. Just a little roughhousing.” He glanced at his hand and the small amount of blood that had come from his nose.
“I thought all you guys wanted to do was socialize,” said Hemingway.
“Oh, please,” said Katie. “She dragged him in there. And you can see what kind of mouth she has on her.”
“I think the best thing to do,” said Keats, “is for everyone to just go home.”
“We gotta teach him a lesson,” said Hemingway.
“No, it’s OK, please,” said Jamie. She sniffled. “Just leave, OK? Just get out.”
Flak began to leave. “Believe what you want,” he said. “But I’m not a rapist. She’s the one who freaked out.” He paused like he was going to say more but walked away instead. Cochise followed him, walking backward.
Pike tried to talk to Jamie, but she refused. She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door.
“That settles it for me,” said Pike. “I think we need to leave—now. No telling what they’re getting ready for.”
“That’s just what they expect,” said Hemingway. “I think we should lure someone in here for hostage.”
“Are you crazy?” said Tommy. “What happened there—Marco will handle that. He respects us. Why else would he feed us? We’ll let Jamie say what happened when she’s ready.”
“It’s only fair to Flak, too,” said Katie. Pike glared at her, but she stayed firm. “It’s not like we know her that well, either.”
There was a knock on the back door. Everyone hushed nervously.
“Who is it?” yelled Keats.
“Bart.”
“Who?”
“Bart! You asked my name, and I told you!” The voice sounded like it belonged to a 12-year-old boy.
Two of them moved to the door, everyone else prepared to fight. They opened it and saw not a boy but a woman, in her early 20s, who stood about five feet tall and looked like an elf in her faded black hoodie. She had a smooth wooden plank piercing her nose and a homemade tattoo of a hammer and sickle on her upper cheek. She held a pillowcase full of something in her hands.
“I heard there were some females here,” she said. She placed the bag inside. “That’s some, uh, hygiene stuff. Also, some toilet paper. That one’s for the girls AND guys.”
Pike chuckled. “Thanks. You had us worked up, though, banging on the back door like that.”
“Sorry. There’s sort of a curfew. Why’d the big man rush inside?”
“He forgot his chew toy,” said Keats. “You wanna come inside?”
“No thanks. Gotta run!” She darted away like a cartoon.
“Wait,” said Pike, who ran outside. “Can we trust these guys—?”
But she’d already disappeared into the night.
***
The square mile of town that Marco had fenced off had a building in the center: A church.
This was not an accident, Joseph explained as he escorted Keats’ group from their shelter. It was mid-morning, and the heat was starting to make itself known.
The church, he said, was one of the few buildings with a basement. It also had lots of square footage for gatherings and, if need be, a final stand against invaders.
“What about God?” said Duck. “Or did people give up on him a long time ago?”
“People can worship here, sure,” said Joseph. “One of our residents is a pastor, and I believe there are a couple of Jewish folks among us. In the end, it all comes back to love, right?”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard something like that,” said Keats. “I don’t think everyone here follows that ‘love’ doctrine.”
“I heard about that,” said Joseph. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise you.”
“So, is this a regularly scheduled service?” said Keats.
“Not exactly. This was something Marco called together at the last minute, once you all showed up. He figured it would be a good time to ‘gather the flock,’ as it were.”
They rounded a corner, and the church came fully into view. It was a majestic building, with a giant spire on top of a belfry. Marco’s men had done a good job of keeping it all clean, considering what they likely had to work with.
The inside was even more impressive. The crucifix behind the altar looked newly painted. The pews had all been polished and the sunlight beamed in like a colorful flood. The only thing that looked out of place was a large wooden octagon. Keats guessed that it was the base of a soon-to-be-constructed statue.
Duck crossed himself and prayed. “It might be a Baptist church,” he said, “but it’s close enough.”
People began to walk inside and fill the pews. Unlike yesterday, when almost everyone Keats saw was armed and male, this was a more diverse group, young and old, men and women.
Before long, nearly every seat was full. Except for the rifles some people had propped up on the benches, it felt like a normal Sunday service, pre-apocalypse.
Jamie walked down the aisle and sat next to Keats without saying anything. She stared at the ground until Keats asked if she was OK.
“Fine,” she said. “Just embarrassed.”
“For defending yourself?”
“Look,” said Jamie, “for the record? I don’t think we should write this whole shelter off just because of that one prick. At least he stopped when I punched him. Walkers don’t.”
Keats was about to tell Jamie that he didn’t want to give up on this place, either, when someone turned around and shushed him. Everyone else fell silent as a beautiful woman walked in from a vestibule. She had Lady on a leash and sat down in a reserved seat in a front pew.
Soon after, Marco walked in to loud applause. He wore a dress shirt like the one he had on yesterday except now he also wore a tie. His gun was still there, sitting in its holster.
He walked to the pulpit, waving and smiling at the crowd, who were still clapping. Eventually, he had to gesture for them to settle down, but he waited a while to do it.
“Thank you,” he said, booming his voice like an old theater actor. “So how are we today? Are we hungry?”
“NO SIR!” said nearly the whole crowd in unison. They said the words quickly, like taps on a snare drum. The only people silent were in Keats’ group.
“Are we weary?”
“NO SIR!”
“Are we pushing back against the hatred that’s trying to overcome this earth?”
“YES SIR!”
“And how are we doing this?”
“LOVE!”
“Absolutely right! We’ve got love here that keeps us safe, but we’re going to turn it into a love that conquers. A love that destroys, with holy blessings, the corruptible evil outside those fences.”
There were a few random shots of “Amen!” and
“Yes sir!” throughout Marco’s speech. Keats looked at Jamie, who rolled her eyes.
“And lest you think we have to do it ourselves,” said Marco, “we received a most holy blessing yesterday. We received, with open arms, a group of pilgrims who traveled here because they know this is where the battle begins to take back the earth!”
“What the hell?” Hemingway muttered under his breath. “We were looking for bug repellant, not on some fucking pilgrimage.”
“Let’s just see where this goes,” said Keats.
“As if we have a choice.”
“Yesterday, I talked to their leader,” said Marco. “A fine man who I trust quite a bit. Sure, they’re road-weary and haggard. We should all remember how fortunate we are to be protected here.
“But this man—Keats is his name—I could sense it in him. I could sense the love. The grand love that destroys evil!”
Katie sat in the row ahead of Keats. She turned back to him and smiled.
“LOVE is what the undead hate. LOVE is what can cure the sickness. LOVE is what keeps them away from our fence. LOVE—”
“Bullshit,” yelled a voice. The church hushed like a hermetic door sealing an airlock.
It was Hemingway. He stood up. Several of Marco’s men reached for their weapons, but their leader raised his hand to still them.
“You can hug and kiss your way out of one of those swarms? I lost my whole family, who I loved. I lost my whole platoon, which I loved. They got ripped apart and eaten. Love didn’t do a thing for them.”
Marco locked eyes with him. His gaze was soft, not challenging. “You’re right,” he said. “For a long time, hate was stronger than love. How could now be different?
“It’s because the love here flows as one. All our love comes together like strands of a rope. And who is threading it together? Who unifies the love?
“Let me be frank: I did not ask to be chosen. I never sought out enlightenment. Never wanted to be special. I was just a corporate stooge when the world ended. Woke up for work one day and the Army was going door-to-door, evacuating people.
“But not long ago—just after I arrived here, back when it was just a few boarded-up homes and some guys with a stash of guns—something happened. I had an epiphany, not just of the mind but of the soul.”
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