Deathless Divide

by Justina Ireland

  As if to punctuate her words, a crashing bang comes from behind us. We all turn toward the front of town, when the banging comes again. Sue leads the way as we run toward the sound, and we skid to a stop in the middle of Nicodemus’s main street as the front gate, our last, best defense against the dead, comes crashing down.

  “Well, hell,” Sue swears.

  Katherine nods. She is calm, even as the dead begin to lurch into town. “Let us go find everyone.”

  Sue leads us, and we run down the last couple of empty streets to the livery where everyone has been staying. Lucas sees us first, jumping to his feet. “We ready?”

  “More than ready, we got dead in the town. Time to shake a leg,” I say.

  Lucas nods. “We don’t have much in the way of provisions, but we got canteens and a bit of jerky.”

  Ida walks up, rolling her shoulders as she tries to loosen up for a fight. “Then let’s take what we’ve got and get moving. If we head east, we’ll eventually hit the Mississippi. I figure that’s as good a goal as any,” Ida says.

  “Rear gate is our best bet. Front gate is bound to be swamped,” Sue says. Katherine and I nod in agreement.

  “We got to get everyone out and in an organized way,” I say, swinging my sickles and limbering up my wrists.

  Katherine draws her Mollies and moves the blades in slow circles.

  “Sue, we got enough Miss Preston’s girls to do a decent wedge?” I ask.

  Sue nods. “Yep,” she says, hefting her scythe. “I’ll take point.”

  Katherine takes a deep breath and forces a tremulous smile. “Well, then, let us lead the way.”

  The wedge is a triangular formation that’s meant to punch through large groups of the dead. It would be impossible to take out the entire horde, but it’s a good protective strategy that will keep the kids and folks that don’t know how to put down the dead a little safer as we make our way out of town.

  “The Summerland patrols will take flank,” Ida says, drawing her cavalry sword and lifting her chin. It’s a dangerous role, and from their grim expressions, they know what they’ll be up against. But there is confidence there as well. They have real weapons now, and their audacity speaks not to foolishness or pride, but to an understanding of their own worth. It’s a fine change. I nod at them so they know that I see them, even if it ain’t something that I have time to say out loud.

  “Let’s go, then,” I say, feeling heavy with dread at trying to flee yet another horde.

  At some point this has to get easier.

  We move out quickly. It doesn’t take long before we hear the sounds of more dead. Their moans echo through the town. It’s a maddening chorus, the breathy rise and fall of it, and it’s curious to hear only the dead and no sounds from the living, no screams of terror or shouts for help. It’s only half of a two-part harmony of terror, and hearing the dead alone raises goose bumps on my arms and quickens our feet.

  The people of Nicodemus still haven’t left their houses. I’ve seen this nonsense before. The fools are hoping to ride out the storm.

  We move down the dusty street, careful and alert, Sue having taken point, her scythe at the ready. I am surrounded on either side by Miss Preston’s girls, and behind me, Lily prays in a low voice.

  It doesn’t take long to find the dead. They clog the wide avenue, pouring in through the main gate like water through a busted damn. The walls to either side of the opening sway under the press of the dead on the other side, and, as we arrive, the horde begins to reach the houses closest to the wall. Now we hear the familiar duet, screams of fear and surprise coming from several of the houses as the dead push their way in, then, too late, the sound of gunshots.

  “We need to run,” Sue says. “Forget the wedge. If the shamblers are all concentrated on the southern end of town, we can make for the northern gate, but we have to move quickly.”

  “To the northern gate,” Katherine says, adjusting her grip on her swords. I glance over my shoulder and give Lily a reassuring smile, even though she doesn’t return it. But that’s no bother. The only thing that matters is that she stays safe. I don’t aim to break that promise.

  Sue leads our group through the town. I follow, Katherine and Lily hot on my heels, Ida and the Summerland patrols guarding our rear. Sue was right; the further we travel from the main gate, the easier the trek becomes.

  Ida falls into step next to me, cavalry sword glinting in the sunlight as we run in the opposite direction of the breaking horde. “That gate might be open, but we’ve still got an electric fence and bobbed wire beyond that,” she says. “Any ideas on how to get through?”

  “If the dead got through the electric fence in the front, then the circuit is broken. As for the bobbed wire, well, I reckon we have a lot of motivation to get through,” I say. Ida snorts in amusement.

  We’re moving quickly, a moderate pace that can accommodate everyone, when a shout goes up.

  “They’re coming!” yells a voice from the rear of our group.

  “Move!” comes another.

  “We gotta run faster, Sue!” I scream.

  My penny goes icy.

  And then we round the corner of a house to where the northern gate is—and run right into a pack of shamblers.

  It takes only a heartbeat to see what happened. Our friends guarding the gap lost their nerve and broke ranks, skedaddling out onto the prairie, leaving the breach open. They didn’t get far. The horde must have sensed them leaving and, within the barriers of the exterior fences, swung around the city wall, the edges of the pack catching the folks fleeing out ahead of us. Several prone forms lie just beyond the gate, shamblers upon them. The wet sounds of feasting turn my stomach.

  But not only did their cowardice spell their doom, it’s about to spell ours as well. A dozen or so dead meander in the shadow of the log fence. Lily screams and raises her rifle, getting off a single wild shot.

  It’s a lucky thing the girl doesn’t shoot anyone in the back.

  Our formation goes to hell, and we’re stuck in the midst of a proper melee, everyone spreading out to give themselves space to work. Katherine’s swords flash, but I don’t have enough room for my sickle swings. I push Lily behind me, and I get my left sickle up just in time to put down a tall male wearing Union blue. But swinging my right sickle would mean hitting Ida or Katherine, and I can’t do that. There’s nowhere to run.

  And the dead are lunging right for me.

  The world slows. The shambler in front of me was once a young white woman, blond hair, milky eyes. I have just enough time to admire her dress—a blue brocade frock that belongs in a ballroom. She throws her entire body at me, and I throw up my forearm to catch her throat.

  But I am too slow, and my penny is ice-cold, and I miss her throat.

  I miss.

  But she does not.

  I scream as her teeth sink into my forearm, but I don’t hesitate. I push her backward, using her body to block the rest of the oncoming dead and to give Katherine and the rest of the girls behind me space to fight. The girl doesn’t let go easily, and it’s only my boot in the shambler’s midsection that gets her off me, a fair chunk of my forearm going with her. Blood sprays across the remaining dead, but I’m swinging and swearing, the sounds of the girls from Miss Preston’s and the Summerland patrols matching my own.

  We fight like our lives depend on it, even though I know, my life’s blood falling into that Kansas dust, that mine is over.

  Soon there’s just the gate, littered with the remains of harvested shamblers.

  The world is quiet, everything fading away, blood thrumming in my ears. I can feel the gazes as they land on me, the soft inhalations as people realize what the blood steadily leaking down my arm means.

  “Jane,” Katherine says, taking a step toward me.

  I have no words for her. I have no words for anyone. But I lock eyes with Sue, and she understands.

  “Come on!” she says, pointing out the gate to freedom. “Jane will cover the r
ear, but we need to move, now!”

  Ida and Lucas and Lily are frozen, and everyone else hesitates as well, but only for a moment. They know that I’m done for, and ain’t no amount of sentimentality is going to change my fate. They all move past me, not looking back, and I’m glad for it.

  But Katherine doesn’t budge.

  “You need to go,” I tell her. I hate the way my voice shakes, and how my head feels too light by half. Tears burn hot trails down my cheeks, but I ignore them.

  “You are going to bleed out if you do not see to that arm,” she says, voice as cool and calm as a lake on a hot summer’s day. She rips off one more strip of her dress and uses it to bind my arm tightly. My left hand tingles, my fingers going numb. For some reason, that makes me laugh.

  Katherine quirks an eyebrow at me. She is still so composed, so controlled, as always.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I say.

  “Jane—” Her voice cracks, and her eyes well with tears. She clears her throat to speak, but before she does I point toward the prairie with my sickle.

  “I’m bit, Kate. Get the rest of Miss Preston’s girls on a line and escape while you can.” My heartbeat echoes in my head, and I wonder how long I’ll have until I start to turn. Ten minutes? Thirty? It doesn’t matter. It ain’t enough.

  “I’m not going,” Katherine says. “I’ll stay here with you.”

  “Y’all need to keep moving. I’m going to hold them off as long as I can. Here,” I reach under my shirt and pull off my penny, the leather breaking free easily. “Take this.”

  Katherine shakes her head but holds out her hand, and I drop the luck charm in it. Tears fall down her face now.

  More shamblers have met the group just outside the gate, and a little ways away Sue and Ida hack at the dead, trying to clear a way for everyone.

  “I’m going to wait with you, give you a proper end, Jane,” Katherine says, setting her jaw like she does when she gets it in her head about the right way to do a thing.

  “No. You do that and you’re going to need last rites right along with me. Besides, who is going to look after Lily?”

  Katherine looks over to where the girl cowers, eyes wide as the dead close in. Lily won’t make it on her own, and there’s no one I trust more than Katherine to keep her safe. Either way, we’re wasting valuable time, and they need to get out of Nicodemus while that’s still a possibility.

  “Don’t be sad, Kate. Jackson told me that life starts off bloody and ends that way, and I’ve always believed him. I guess I’ll get to see him again, even sooner than I expected. Keep Lily safe. Maybe go home, see your momma. Have a good, long life, do all the things you dream of.” Emotion makes my words stick in my throat, and I cough to force them out past the lump of everything I want to say to her. “And, Katherine—”

  Her eyes widen at me and I pull her in for a quick hug, and these last words I say near her ear so no one else can steal the moment from us.

  “Thank you for being my friend.”

  I let her go. She is speechless; tears now fall unchecked down her cheeks, and it’s too much for me to bear. I give her a quick grin, one more memory for her to carry with her, and then I dash off back the way we came.

  If I’m going to die, I’m going to do it fighting.

  My left hand is completely useless, quickly going to pot as the loss of blood and the shambler’s bite work against me. I barely notice when my sickle falls out of my hand. I can’t feel anything down my whole left side of my body, not even the chills. It’s just a slow-spreading numbness, and I ignore it and turn my attention to the dead.

  They seem to be moving slower. They’ve gathered after eating their way through the houses, and there are too many of them now for them to run much, so they just do their slow stride down the dusty lane. They don’t seem to care much about me, but I care a whole lot about them.

  Putting down the dead with a single sickle ain’t easy, but I keep swinging, taking down as many as I can, jamming them up so they can’t go loping after Katherine and the rest of the colored folks fleeing the town. It ain’t as much as I want to give. But I can only pray it’s enough.

  Too soon the shakes are on me, and I drop my remaining sickle. My body is wracked with chills, and it’s hard to think about any one thing. I can feel my mind slipping away, turning to something else.

  Something hungry.

  I have a memory of Jackson, the way he lunged at me, and I imagine shambler-me doing the same thing to Ida, or Sue, or Katherine, stealing away their life, their freedom, everything they’ve fought so hard to keep.

  I have to make sure I can’t do that.

  The sheriff’s office ain’t too far from where I am, and I stumble toward it, pushing the dead out of the way. They ain’t interested in me at all, and I wonder if I smell like spoiled meat to them. I’m already half shambler, and they know it, even if my heart doesn’t.

  I manage to let myself into the office and stumble into my old cell. The room is dark and empty. I shut the bars behind me, but anything more than that is beyond my abilities. The shambler bite steals my strength and my sense. I fall to the floor, hot and cold and disconnected, not unlike the time Jackson and I got drunk on rum in the woods behind Miss Preston’s, stupid and vulnerable, without the sense the good Lord gave a house cat.

  Thinking of Jackson brings the tears, and I begin to cry. I lie on the floor of the cell and sob in mourning of my own life, all the things I’ll never get to do, all the places I’ll never get to see. Not that there’s any place in particular I want to be; but lying on a dirty wooden floor, arm bleeding and slowly dying, ain’t it.

  I roll onto my back, look at the ceiling. I manage to cross my arms over my chest and I hug myself as tears leak down into my ears.

  Alone and heartbroken, I die.

  And that is the end of Jane McKeene.

  But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

  —Job 14:22

  —KATHERINE—

  Chapter 22

  Notes on a Heartbreak

  Jane disappears into the mass of restless dead overrunning the town, and I dash my tears and whirl toward the northern gate.

  There will be time to mourn later.

  Sue and Ida slash through the undead in tandem, the two of them a lethal combination. They move like they have fought together for years, and a sharp stab of grief nearly doubles me over. How am I supposed to navigate this mess without Jane? And how have I come to rely on her so completely in such a short span of time?

  The dead press in on all sides, and for a moment I fear we will be buried, until Sue pushes clear of the wall and we are on the other side, out of Nicodemus. After clambering carefully over the dead electric and barbed wire fences, there is nothing but plain before us.

  “Let’s move!” Ida yells, and everyone takes off, running as hard and fast as they are able. I holster my swords and follow, staying close to Lily, who has started crying quietly, the dead no doubt a reminder of the terrible end at their last visit. Running like this is not sustainable, especially in a too tight corset, but at this moment it is our best bet. We have to put distance between us and the horde, and while it is not very Christian of me, I very selfishly hope that they find enough to occupy them in Nicodemus that we have ample time to escape.

  I hope they find Gideon Carr and chew his face off.

  We have gone about a half mile across ground uneven with holes and rocks before we find the road. We all come to a disorganized stop, some folks bending over and retching from the exertion, others just panting heavily. My vision swims with black spots, and for a moment I fear I will faint.

  But then Sue is behind me, unbuttoning my dress and loosening my stays, all the while muttering at me, “You and this corset are a recipe for disaster.”

  I take a deep breath, and Sue laces me back up, looser this time.

  “Thank you,” I gasp.

  “Sit. Breathe,” Sue says.

  I take a few moments,
and while my breathing is nowhere near regular, it is better than it was. I have been away from Miss Preston’s long enough that I fear I am no longer in top form, and I make a note to spend some time each morning running through my drills. Maybe I can talk Jane into sparring with me—

  The thought dies a sudden death, and fresh tears prick my eyes. No, not Jane. Not anymore.

  I shake my head, and the tears fall unchecked once more. “Oh, Sue! I should have kept her safe. I should have—”

  I let myself fall into my grief, and as I sob Sue wraps me into a hug with her strong arms.

  “Jane wouldn’t want us to cry,” she says, even though her own voice is froggy with emotion. “She’d want us to keep going. She’d tell us some half-true story about Rose Hill Plantation and then berate us for wasting time.” She puts her hand on her hip and cocks her head in a familiar way. “Y’all better stop being maudlin and get moving ’fore that pack of shamblers catch up and make you supper.”

  I laugh and pull back, swiping at my cheeks. “That is an excellent Jane.”

  Sue shrugs, wiping away her own tears. “I’ve had some practice.”

  When I am feeling a mite bit better, we go to find the rest of what I have come to think of as our New Negro Council. Ida and Lucas have been watching us, and Ida starts speaking as soon as we walk up.

  “I’m sorry about Jane, but Sue is right. And we need to figure out just what to do about that.” Ida points to the road.

  Heading toward us is something large enough to kick up a whole mess of dust. It is moving too fast to be a horde. A quick look around shows that there is nowhere to hide from the thing bearing down on us, so I square my shoulders and adjust my bonnet. “Please see that everyone gets off the road, and tell them not to say a word. I will handle this.”

  Ida and Lucas nod, waving everyone back with quick instructions. Sue gives me a bit of side-eye, her face scrunched up in a puzzled expression. “What are you about, Miss Priss?”

  “I have spent the past few months pretending to be someone I am not, and I have a feeling those skills might come in handy once again. Oh, and if anyone asks, you are my Attendant.”