“Look!” Steven cried. “What’s that?”
Kesha looked. There was a small group of human figures near what appeared to be the entrance to the cemetery. They were standing in a half circle.
“Maybe you should pull to the other side of the road,” Madison advised. “Just to be—”
Before the governor’s daughter could complete her sentence, the Chevrolet began to sputter like an old man out of breath. The engine stopped, started, and stopped again. The coiled springs underneath the seats creaked with every change in velocity. The lone headlight flickered once and went out.
Kesha held her breath for a full ten seconds, willing this to be some temporary hiccup. Steven emitted frustrated sighs as he fumbled with the keys and depressed the gas pedal. Despite his best efforts, the engine would not turn over.
Steven put his head down on the steering wheel for a moment, defeated. Then he turned around to the back seat.
“Can we go the rest of the way on foot?” he asked.
“I guess so,” Madison said. “As long as you can still carry me.”
“Guys . . . I’m not so worried about that right now,” Kesha said.
The car had stopped less than twenty yards from the cemetery gates, where the mysterious crowd still lingered.
Kesha had the two flashlights Steven had found inside the farmhouse. They were now on the seat beside her. Madison grabbed one of them and turned it on.
“Hey!” Kesha said. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s not like they didn’t see us coming . . . and didn’t hear this rust-bucket die,” Madison said. “Steven, can you open my door and put me on your shoulders again?”
Steven dutifully obeyed. Kesha rolled her eyes and turned on the other flashlight.
As if in answer, a bright white beam appeared from the group standing at the cemetery gates.
“At least we know they’re human,” Madison said as Steven hoisted her onto his shoulders. “Unless those things learned how to use flashlights.”
Kesha didn’t think they had. When Madison was sufficiently secure atop Steven, they made their way up the shoulder of the road to the cemetery gates. As they neared, more flashlights clicked on. The beams probed Kesha first, then lingered on Madison and Steven. Kesha pointed her own flashlight at the ground.
“Hello there,” Kesha called, giving a wave she hoped looked friendly.
“Pssst, hey,” Madison whispered. “Don’t tell them who I am.”
“What?” Kesha said.
“Just don’t,” Madison snapped.
Kesha thought Madison was being silly, but decided to comply.
The group in front of the gates looked like hunters—some old, some middle-aged, and some almost as young as Kesha. Each held a rifle and a flashlight. More than a few had donned blaze-orange hats and vests. They looked absolutely exhausted. Some leaned on their guns for support, or against each other. One lolled against the cemetery fence in full catnap mode.
Kesha smelled smoke and, beneath it, something foul, like burning nylon. Inside the gates of the cemetery was a giant pile of dead zombies, each carefully shot through the forehead. The pile had been set on fire some time ago, but the bodies had not burned very well. They needed gasoline to do it right, Kesha thought. But it had become too precious a commodity to waste on the undead. Now the pile smoldered in fits and starts.
“Howdy,” said a man from the group. He had long white muttonchop sideburns and a barrel-chest, like an old-time boxer.
“Hi,” said Kesha. “Are you guys keeping the graveyard safe?”
“Trying to,” said one of the young men closer to Kesha’s age. “When they come up, we put them back in the ground. Haven’t been as many as we thought there’d be. We think they’re alive in their graves, but they can’t break through the coffins. At least most of them can’t.”
“Is she hurt?” Muttonchops asked, probing Madison’s swollen ankle with his flashlight beam.
“I’m fine; it’s just twisted,” Madison called back, hiding her face behind Steven’s head.
“Looks broken from here,” the man replied. His tone said that Madison could lie if she wanted, but it wouldn’t change the condition of her ankle.
“Y’all are headed up to the capitol?” the younger man asked. He had peach fuzz on his upper lip and a Beatles haircut that didn’t suit him, but Kesha couldn’t help thinking that he might have looked handsome after a bath and a good night’s sleep.
“Um, yeah,” Kesha said cautiously. “Actually, we are.”
“Don’t act surprised,” Muttonchops said with a grin. “Half the people in the state seem to have got that notion. Don’t worry; you’re close. It’s not more than three miles up the road. You’ll start seeing the campfires soon.”
“Campfires?” Kesha asked.
“Oh, you’ll see,” Muttonchops said with a toothy smile.
“Okay,” Kesha answered warily.
“Y’all heard any news?” asked the younger man with the peach fuzz. “About, you know . . . everything?”
“No,” Kesha said. “We’re coming from the southern part of the state. It’s crazy down there. Zombies. People looting and killing.”
The hunters nodded grimly.
“Did you see any, like, Army soldiers or anything?” the young man asked hopefully.
Kesha shook her head no.
“Kesha, we should get moving,” Madison called from Steven’s shoulders. She was still doing her best to keep her face in the shadows.
“Yeah, we should,” Kesha said to the hunters. “You be careful out here.”
“Ha!” Muttonchops said. “You be careful.”
“What does that mean?” Steven asked.
Muttonchops paused to consider his words before speaking.
“There’s trouble brewing up that road, son. Something’s gonna happen. That many people? You mark my words.”
Kesha nodded, and their trio moved off toward the capitol.
After less than ten minutes, they began to encounter other refugees. People who had traveled here on purpose, perhaps like them. There were families in RVs and campers. Some had pitched tents in green spaces and on lawns. Others still were sitting on lawn chairs and blankets.
Almost everyone seemed to have started a small fire. Flashlight batteries were at a premium, as was gasoline. But Indianapolis was largely a wooded city, and Hoosiers remembered their campfire training from Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Everywhere Kesha, Steven, and Madison went, people were making little fires out of whatever wood was available. Carefully crafted topiary had been sacrificed to the cause. Neatly planted rows of trees had been uprooted from expensive-looking subdivision landscaping and thrown into fires. It was a little cooler than it had been during the day, but most people were not using the campfires for heat. It was light they so desperately desired.
As Kesha pulled closer to the capitol building, the camps on the ground got so thick she could hardly walk without stepping on someone or something.
“This is like at Conner Prairie when they have the Fourth of July fireworks and the symphony plays,” Madison said. “People just cover every square inch.”
Despite what the hunters had said, the multitude assembled here did not look particularly alarmed. People were cooking hot dogs on sticks and chatting. More than a few were sharing cases of warm beer. There were guns everywhere, sure, but no one seemed to be angling to use them.
“This isn’t so bad,” Steven observed. “I don’t know what those dudes at the graveyard were so worried about.”
Yet no sooner were the words out of his mouth than the tone of the crowd began to change. And Kesha saw why.
As they closed on the capitol and the network of hotels, convention centers, and office buildings surrounding it, the way forward terminated. A makeshift barrier had been erected. It was composed of fire trucks, police cars, and National Guard vehicles. Yet beyond the barriers were flashlights, headlights, and other illumination that might have come f
rom generators. Perched atop the barriers were armed guards with M-16 rifles.
“So this is where all the police are,” Kesha observed.
They drew closer, and it became apparent why the police and National Guard were on watch. The genial campground underfoot petered out and was replaced by men and women who looked ready to riot. They faced the barricade wordlessly and seemed to be waiting for something. Their faces showed an eerie mix of resolution and desperation. Some held bricks or bats. Guns were brandished openly. In the mix, Kesha saw automatic rifles that looked superior to anything the National Guard troops held. One man even wore a bandolier of grenades.
Suddenly, a questionable-looking man in camouflage pants and a muddy IU sweatshirt grabbed Kesha by the shoulder as she slunk past.
“Get back from here,” he said. “This is no place for kids.”
“Is there another way through?” Kesha asked.
The man shook his head.
“They’re all like this,” he answered. “All the streets around the circle are blocked off.”
“And they won’t let people in?” Madison asked from atop Steven’s shoulders.
The man frowned.
“No, they won’t,” he said.
“Why are you guys out here with guns and stuff?” Kesha asked.
“Because they’re not doing anything,” the man replied. “People here are dying. Old folks don’t have their medicine. We don’t have power or light. Everyone’s going to run out of food in a few days. Meanwhile, they won’t even give us any information. We haven’t heard squat.”
Madison shot Kesha a look that said “You see what I mean?”
“You kids need to go back the way you came,” the man concluded. “It’s not safe here.”
The teenagers began to back away. Madison whispered into Steven’s ear.
“Take me over to the sidewalk, then take me all the way up to the barricade. It’ll be like working the side of the lines at Disney World.”
“Okay,” Steven whispered back.
Steven took the lead and picked his way through the militarized crowd. Eventually, he found a sidewalk underfoot and followed it north toward the barrier. Kesha followed close, and tried to think of ways they could look less like teenagers. She turned off her flashlight and held it low so that casual onlookers might think it was a gun. She also kept her head down.
Steven’s progress along the edge of the street was looking good. The dark office buildings and parking structures beside them loomed overhead like the ebon walls of a mountain range. Kesha could not remember seeing downtown so crowded. It was like when they shut off part of the circle for a summer rock festival, but instead of jockeying their way toward Styx or REO Speedwagon, these Hoosiers were clamoring toward vengeance.
Steven reached the front of the crowd with no trouble. Soon, there was only one man between him and the barricade. This guy was all leather and bandannas and piercings. A sawn-off shotgun dangled almost playfully from his fingers. He stood with his back to Steven, staring down the National Guard troops who were using an armored personnel carrier as cover.
In the space between the two sides, a heartbreaking scene was playing out.
A gentle-looking, overweight man in khakis and a golf shirt was down on one knee in front of the barricade. From behind, he almost looked like a suitor proposing. In his arms was a very old woman who could not have weighed more than ninety pounds. She was apparently dead, or near to it. The man was crying.
“She needs her medication,” the man was saying. “She needs her dialysis! This is my mother! Do you hear me? My mother!”
The National Guard and police did not appear unmoved, but they said nothing.
“You have to let us through,” the man said. “You have to help us.”
There was no response from behind the barricade.
Someone a few feet behind Kesha shouted: “Let us in, you stupid bastards!”
Another shouted: “Look what you’re doing! Look!”
The soldiers and police did not move. After a few minutes, members of the crowd stepped forward and helped the kneeling man back to his feet. He still held his unconscious mother in his arms as he meekly reentered their angry folds.
“Jesus,” said Kesha.
“Come on,” Madison said, clicking her heels against Steven’s sides as if he were a horse. “Take me up there.”
Steven looked doubtfully at the armed men and women on the barricade, then trotted forward. Kesha followed.
Steven came to a halt in front of a National Guard soldier—a man of about twenty-two with pale skin, short hair, and a large wart on the side of his nose—and waited for Madison to speak. The soldier looked the trio over with a frown. His eyes lit on Madison’s destroyed ankle, but he did not look impressed. Kesha remembered that this was a soldier who had just turned away a man’s dying mother. A teen with a foot injury probably didn’t even register.
“Excuse me,” Madison began, “but you have to let me through.”
Madison’s voice had abruptly changed. Despite the unpleasantness of their situation, it made Kesha crack a smile. The governor’s daughter had summoned fifteen years of privilege and entitlement and oodles of money, and distilled it down to the iciest tone of voice Kesha had ever heard. It was—in its own way—a powerful accomplishment. Kesha wondered if it would be effective.
The national guard soldier did not immediately respond.
“My name is Madison Burleson. Hank Burleson is my father. I need to see him right now. Your job is to make that happen as quickly as possible.”
The soldier did not move.
“If you ask anybody, they will tell you that my father is looking for me.”
The soldier sighed. He took a few steps to his left, to where another guardsman leaned against the armored personnel carrier.
“Do you know anything about a Madison Burleson?” the soldier asked his colleague. The other soldier said that no, he didn’t.
Incredulous, Madison sharpened the point of her moneyed accent as far as it would go. It was now close to a parody of British aristocracy.
“I am the daughter of the Governor of Indiana. You will take me to see him this very mom—”
“And I’m the president’s nephew!” the soldier shot back. “Haw, haw, haw.”
The other troops were in need of a good laugh, and they all guffawed in Madison’s face.
“The governor’s daughter,” said one of them. “That’s a new one.”
“Look, missy, I don’t care who you think you are,” said the soldier with the wart. “My orders are to not let anybody through the barricade. So that’s what I’m gonna do. Not let anybody through the barricade. Is that too complicated for you?”
Kesha guessed that the soldier was not from Indianapolis. This accent was straight bumpkin, right out of the cornfields. A more cultured recruit might have picked up on the cues that said Madison was telling the truth. On this son of the soil, her charms were lost entirely.
“You have to let me through,” Madison tried one final time.
The soldier looked her square in the eye.
“That may be so,” he said. “But I’m still not going to. Now move back.”
And the soldier raised his M-16 a little. Not as though he was planning to fire, but enough to say that he might give Steven a poke with it.
Kesha could tell Madison was scandalized. She had told them who she was. She had used an upper-upper-upper-class accent. She had done all of the things that had always worked. And yet it had not worked. Her head sagged in defeat as Steven backed away from the barricade and they reentered the mob.
“C’mon,” Kesha whispered to Madison. “We’ll try another street with a different checkpoint. I’m sure somewhere there’s a guard or a police officer who’ll recognize you.”
“Yeah,” Madison said slowly. “Okay.”
Kesha realized Madison was crying.
Kesha made eye contact with Steven. She gave him a look to say buck up, they wo
uld solve this. But Steven looked pretty defeated, too. Kesha remembered that he was a nomadic carnival worker with no knowledge of this place. This world. He had also been counting on Madison’s reputation to resolve things. To create safety and success for them.
But it hadn’t, had it?
Still, Kesha knew there could be no giving up. Not when they were so close.
“We can still do this, guys,” Kesha added. “We’ll walk around and try the next barricade. C’mon. Follow me.”
Kesha led the way through the roiling crowd. Downcast and disheartened, Steven and Madison followed after.
25
The governor was asleep in his office, in a chair positioned just beneath the campaign banner on his wall. Or so it first appeared to Doug Huggins.
The office was almost completely dark, though the shades had been pulled back and all the windows opened. The emergency vehicles and conflagrations outside cast some light into the expansive chamber, but not into every corner. The chair that contained the slumbering body of the state’s highest executive remained cloaked in shadow.
Huggins crept closer to the chair, wondering if he should address the governor directly or simply clear his throat. Then the smell of expensively cured tobacco hit him, and the cherry on the governor’s cigar suddenly glowed in the darkness like a bright red eye.
“She’s dead, Huggins,” the governor said from behind the curling smoke.
Who was, Huggins wondered . . . ? Burleson’s daughter? Had word arrived of her demise? But no. The governor did not sound displeased enough. The governor loved his daughter. Actually, truly loved her. It could not be as bad as that.
His wife then?
“So . . . do you want to be mayor of Indianapolis?” Burleson said coolly.
“What?” Huggins said. “What do you mean? Who is dead, exactly?”
“Mayor Brown is dead,” the governor said, taking another puff on his Cuban. “She turned into one of those things. Her own security detail had to put her out of her misery. Apparently, a bite from those zombies can change you into one of them. Horrible, Huggins. Just horrible. I guess it was the one that jumped her down by the circle.”
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