James Robert Smith, page 18
“Where do you think they came from?” Gudger asked as Dawkins came back inside carrying a pail of fresh water. There was a good spring just downhill from the tower and it was an easy jog to bring it up to the cabin.
“Hell if I know. From the looks of them, I don’t think it was from City of Ruth. Somewhere else. As soon as they can speak, someone can ask them.” Adler looked down at the woman again. They’d gone over every inch of her body looking for sign of zombie bite, but that wasn’t one of her problems. She had precious little flesh on her to bite, at any rate. They’d administered the antihistamine cream to more than half of the fifty sting sites they’d found on her. And they’d pulled a number of bloated ticks from her joints and scalp, also.
“I’m going to lay some wet towels on them,” Dawkins said. His face was pinched and red, and Adler feared the youth would descend into some kind of attack of sorrow. But he hoped if the kid kept busy he’d avoid that.
“Yes,” Adler agreed. “Doc Wein said that’s the best we can do until he gets here. Keep them cool and keep the stung areas cleansed.
Just as Dawkins knelt to apply a cool towel to the woman’s forehead, her swollen eyes barely opened and her lips parted. “Help my daughters,” she said.
Dawkins almost fell back, but steadied himself as he went to his knees and took the woman’s right hand in his own. “We have your children,” he told her. “They’re here with you. On our cots. They’re going to be okay.”
“Oh, thank God,” the woman replied.
“What’s your name?” Dawkins asked.
“Ellen,” she said. “Ellen Gaskin.”
Dawkins smiled at her, although he wasn’t sure the poor woman could tell that through the tortured flesh of her face. “What about your daughters? What are their names?”
“Denise is the oldest. She has blonde hair. Annie is the youngest. She’s nine and has red hair. You said they’re okay? Are you sure?”
“Yes, Ellen. They’re okay. They’re sleeping. Their breathing is regular and they’re just sleeping.”
“The hornets,” Ellen said, her voice trailing away.
“Yes. We saw the hornets when you stirred them up. That’s why we came.”
“Maybe…maybe it was God’s hand, then. Maybe it was a blessing.”
At that, Dawkins was struck dumb. He looked up at Adler, as if asking for help. Adler raised his hands, palms up, to let the youth know that he was doing just fine.
“Where did you come from?” The tears that had seemed so near to the surface just moments ago had receded with the effort to assure Ellen Gaskin.
“Soul…Harvest. We left Harvest…I’m not sure how long ago. A few days ago. Maybe a week. It rained on us. We got cold. We couldn’t find anything to eat.”
“Harvest? Where is that?” Gudger was addressing Adler, who was far better informed on local geography than he was.
“Seems I’ve heard the name before. Maybe from something I heard at a council meeting. Hell…I’ve forgotten.” Adler motioned to Gudger. “Bring me a bowl of that stew. And try offering some to the children. Just hold a spoonful under their noses and see what happens.”
Cradling the woman’s shoulders in his left arm, Adler lifted her up just a bit and passed a spoonful of the stew back and forth under her nostrils. She drew in a deep breath of the scent and leaned forward, her mouth open. Gently, the man ladled the contents onto her tongue. Ellen closed her mouth and savored the stew. Tears formed in her swollen eyes and streamed down her puffy cheeks. “Feed my children. Please.”
Adler choked back a sob. “We have plenty. My friends are going to feed the kids now. Don’t worry.” Crying, Ellen Gaskin opened her mouth again and waited while Adler continued to feed her. When the bowl was empty, he gently lowered her back to the cot and waited while she sipped water from a pottery cup.
Looking up, he saw that the children were sitting, now. Both of them were feeding themselves and looking suspiciously up at Gudger and Dawkins who sat nearby, watching the kids consume the stew. But the children remained silent and made no sounds at all, and didn’t move except to feed themselves and to steal glances at the reclining form of their mother.
“Where is Harvest, Ellen? I’ve heard of it, but I can’t remember where it is.”
“It’s not a town,” she finally said. “It’s a church. We were taken in there and cared for when my husband was killed. They promised to take care of the women and children there. And they did. But…”
“What is it, Ellen? But what?”
“We were starving.” She began to sob. “We had to leave. I had to find food for my daughters. We were all starving in Harvest. We’re not evil. We were just hungry.”
“That’s okay, Ellen. No one will blame you for taking care of your children.”
“But it’s not just that,” she said, trying her best to open her eyes, to allow Adler to see past the swollen flesh. “We left them. With…with that war getting ready to start.”
“War? What are you talking about? The undead?”
Her small, bony hand reached up to grip Adler’s shoulder, pinching the fabric of his cotton shirt. “No. Not the soul-dead. Not just them. But those horrible people from City of Ruth. They’re going to attack, any time now. And I left my fellow Christians!” She wailed and seemed to slump in on herself.
When Adler looked up from her tear-streaked face, Gudger and Dawkins were staring at him.
“Roland Thompson was right,” Gudger said.
“Melissa Warner, too. What they’ve been saying about City of Ruth. They’re really going to start a war!”
“Shit,” Adler said, hissing it under his breath. They’d have to debrief the first Council members who arrived at the cabin with Dr. Wein.
Tilly Ponders:
Tilly was waiting for Rick when he returned. When he came in he was carrying a new portfolio. The deacons of Ruth had been good to her husband; she had to admit that. They’d put him to work as a painter of portraits and posters almost immediately after their arrival. The job was not without some measure of status and comfort for them. She noticed that Rick was also lugging an oblong box that she recognized as one similar to one he’d owned when they’d still lived in Columbia.
“What did they give you?” she asked.
Rick went to the single oval table in the center of the room and put the things there. First the large black leather portfolio and then the tan box. The items covered the tabletop. There was a hint of a smile on Rick’s face, so she knew that he was happy. It was his expression of smug accomplishment for, she knew, having actually done nothing at all.
“Paints, boards, paper, brushes. They want me to paint murals, now. One of the supply teams found a lot of this stuff on a recent push. Deacon Sim told me that they had to travel almost to Charlotte to find the things I asked for.”
“Murals?” She swept her dark hair back from her face. One of the ladies had given her some makeup, and she had plucked her eyebrows and rouged her cheeks, hiding the old acne scars. She was quite striking for the first time in a while. Rick noticed, but made sure not to mention this fact to his wife.
“Yeah, murals. I always told you that bringing my old portfolio along was going to pay off. You thought that I was crazy for keeping it all during those first few months. My talent has been our ticket here.” He smiled slyly at his wife and winked at Maya who stood nearby, watching. “You can thank me anytime you feel like it.”
“What kind of murals?” Her fingers were tracing lines on the surface of the art box; she ventured toward the latch to open it. Rick made no move to stop her, nor instructed her to stop what she was doing.
“Well, you know these people. They want scenes from the Bible. Scenes from the life of Jesus. Typical stuff. But they know talent when they see it, and I’m going to give them something new.”
“You’d best do exactly the kind of thing they want, Rick.”
“I will give them what they want. They’re picking the events and scenes and I’m going to paint them. All very Sistine Chapel-ish.”
Tilly closed her eyes and bit her tongue. Rick enjoyed comparing himself to great men. She wasn’t going to rise to the bait and allow him to measure his abilities to those of Michelangelo. He would do it if she just gave him the slightest excuse.
“All I’m saying is that you should just give them exactly what they ask for. Don’t try to sneak anything in. These people aren’t as stupid as you’d like to think.” She turned to face Rick. Maya was sitting and watching, only pretending to be interested in a coloring book she had on her lap, the red crayon centered in the middle of it, lodged between the pages. Little Rick was in the bedroom, napping.
“I don’t think they’re stupid,” Rick said. “After all, they recognize talent. They’re just a little primitive in their thinking is all.”
“Primitive. Whatever. Just don’t try to put one over on them. I don’t want to think of what they might do if you piss them off.”
“What are you getting at?”
Tilly knelt and lifted the coloring book from Maya’s lap. “Honey, why don’t you go and join Rick Jr. in the bedroom. You need to get a nap, too.”
Maya was not fooled by the oblique methods of her mother, but was willing to cooperate. “Okay, Mom.” She took the coloring book from her mother’s hands and trotted to the bedroom, turning to close the door behind her before lying on the floor to begin coloring and ignoring the sounds of her parents’ discussion. It wasn’t, she knew, any of her business.
“Did you notice that Bill Adkins wasn’t at service today?”
Rick blinked. Generally, he didn’t pay much attention at all during the required worship services that they attended. He made a point of going all but comatose during the sermons and rituals. Tilly had even had to nudge him awake on a couple of occasions. There were always people watching and she didn’t know exactly what would happen if Rick eventually succeeded in snapping the patience of these people.
Finally, he replied. “No, now that you mention it, I didn’t notice. He usually talks to us.”
“He wasn’t there today,” Tilly said. “That’s why he didn’t talk to us.”
“Well, there’s other services during the week. Maybe he went to one of those.”
“No. He wasn’t there because he was somewhere else.”
Rick sat down. He liked Bill Adkins. They discussed music when they were able. The guy had played the sax before everything fell apart, and he knew quite a lot about jazz music. Rick’s thing was rock, of course, but he could talk to Adkins about music theory. “Where was he?”
“He’s in the infirmary.” She let that lay there for a moment.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He got bit.”
“What?” Rick almost stood, but remained sitting. “How? What the hell happened?” The City of Ruth was, if anything, secure. The Nuttman family hadn’t seen a single member of the undead since they’d been taken into the place. It was kept spotlessly clean of such things. It now encompassed an entire town, complete with LNG facilities, roads, houses, shops, all surrounded by well-maintained pickets and guard towers and overseen by the church and its board of deacons.
“They sent him outside. They sent him on a scrounging mission.” Tilly joined Rick at the table, sitting beside him, looking him in the eye.
“But Bill isn’t cut out for that kind of thing! He can’t run. You know…he has that thing with his leg. His right leg. Shorter than the other one.”
“Disabled, yes.”
“Why would they send Bill out on a scouting mission? What were they thinking?” Rick stared at the floor to keep from looking into Tilly’s eyes and addressing the obvious.
“You know why they did it. You’ve noticed! There are almost no people of color here. Almost no black men. No Asian men.”
“Sure there are. There’s Doris and Wanda and Angela and Tonya and…”
“Those are women, Rick. There are almost no black or Asian men at all.”
“Well…it’s the luck of the draw. It’s just the way things happened.”
“Goddamn it, Rick.” Her voice rose and her eyes glanced to the front door, looking to see if there was a hint of a shadow of anyone standing on the other side, listening. “I’ve talked to some of the women. There were lots of non-whites here for a while. But less and less every month. They’re weeding them out, Rick!”
“How?” But he knew.
“They send them out.” She pointed. “Out there. Whenever they go out to search for LNG or gasoline or canned goods or clothing, they send out crews. One deacon or another runs the main crews. The core of the group stays in the center, near the vehicles and the heavy weapons. All of the people doing the dangerous work are on the perimeters. They get sent out into the bush, if you want to look at it that way.
“Those are the ones who get bit.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, Rick. That’s what happened to Bill Adkins.”
“But why Bill? He’s harmless. He doesn’t rock the boat.”
“I don’t know what he did, if anything. Maybe just being is all it took. But they sent him out and he got bit by one of those deaders and now he’s in the infirmary.”
“Goddamn.”
“Yeah. You can be sure about that. They bring them back and they let them die where they can be watched. And then they take them out in a controlled environment. No more so-called people of color.”
“But…they’re always preaching brotherhood.”
“What is with you? It’s all bullshit, Rick! That’s why I’m telling you to keep your nose clean! You piss these guys off and you’ll find yourself riding shotgun on a flatbed truck looking for pork&beans out in the bush!”
Rick thought of Adkins. His smiling face. His knowledge of music. His meek demeanor. “They won’t do that to me,” he said. “I’m far too valuable to them.”
Tilly knew better than to argue this point with him. But she’d done as much as she’d been able. Now, what she wanted to do was buy some time. Enough so that they could think about getting the hell out of Ruth. There was, she knew, still the city of Sparta and the confederation of villages up in the hills. With any luck at all she could get herself and the children out before they decided that half-Asian children weren’t wanted in the City of Ruth.
She just hoped she had the time.
Signs and Portents:
CITIZENS OF SPARTA
Preacher Chase of the City of Ruth
Invites you to join the company of the saved.
You are being led farther and farther astray from
Jesus.
Your leadership is flawed.
Throw off the yoke of false gods and join our congregation.
We are coming.
All are welcome.
The posters had been placed in strategic areas around town. Not in very many places, but effectively for all that.
One had been tacked directly to the old City Hall, which was now the Town Council building. This was where the Spartan government was located. This was where the councilmen gathered to plan and to decide and where they chose when and upon what to ask the citizens to vote. It was an especially nasty place to have used.
A second poster, garish red with black ink, was found on the women’s barracks. And on the mess hall adjacent to that barracks. A fourth was on the very front of the warehouse where grain was stored, and where the town’s entire salt supply was located, stacks and stacks of what had been blocks of salt licks originally intended for cattle and deer, and now set aside for that and everything else.
Roland Thompson and Dr. Wein had gone to the various locations after being alerted to their appearance and had torn them down, leaving no trace but for the small holes left by the thick metal tacks that had been used to affix them to the wooden surfaces where they’d been placed. They had them, now, in the main office of the Council Building.
“When did these go up, you think?” Wein was looking at Thompson who was, in turn, glaring at the perfectly printed posters.
“Last night. Probably well after midnight. Before first light. Smart move printing them on dark red paper that way. The black ink on red shows up fine in the light, but in the dark it would have been hard to notice, even with the pass of a flashlight.”
“Who was on guard duty?”
“Shit,” Thompson said. “I’m not sure. Good, reliable folk, though. I know the men and women who patrol the town, and not a one of them is slack-ass. They take these jobs seriously.”
Wein sighed. “I’m sure they do. I’m sure they’re all great. But somebody got through the patrols and put these four posters up in very conspicuous places without a single alarm being raised.”
Roland looked up from the posters for the first time and gazed at Dr. Wein. “What are you saying?”
“How did that happen without anyone seeing anything?” Wein didn’t know how to put it any clearer.
“Let’s see. That would be four posters placed in three quadrants. So three teams of three each. Nine men and women patrolling carefully, using the occasional flashlight, none of them seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary. Are you saying we’re dealing with nine accomplices?”
“I’m not saying that. But how did somebody sneak into town like that and put up those posters? This is some serious shit, Roland. These guys in City of Ruth aren’t playing games. They’re serious. They intend to come up here. I know that. You know that.”
“Shit. Look. We’ll get the three teams in here today and go over their stories. Maybe someone did see something and they misinterpreted it. Otherwise…” He didn’t want to say it, but it needed saying.
