The Last Survivors Box Set

by Bobby Adair

  “A fungus?” Beck asked. “Like a mushroom?”

  Jingo nodded. “There are many types of fungi.”

  “How did they hope to profit by that?”

  Jingo laughed. “It will seem ridiculous to you.”

  Beck leaned closer. “Tell me.”

  “A certain kind of fungus grows under the toenails of some people, causing them to turn yellow. A group of men and women hoped to make money by providing a cure for this.”

  “Wait?” Beck raised his hands and looked perplexed. “They were going to profit from people’s dissatisfaction with the color of their toenails?”

  “Yes.”

  Beck laughed and laughed some more. Then he stopped. He looked at Jingo, as if he might chastise him. “And that was the cause of man’s fall?”

  “You might say it was the spark that ignited the flame,” said Jingo, “and like any spark, that spark turns into a fire that eventually burns a house down. The people who saw the fire when it was small had the opportunity to put it out, but they didn’t.”

  Beck nodded. He thought of the nineteen thousand lives that Blackthorn had sacrificed to avoid a famine, and he knew that was true.

  Chapter 71: Franklin

  “May I bring you something to eat, Father Franklin?”

  Franklin blinked his eyes and looked up. He’d been staring again at nothing but the pew in front of him. He was not interested in the pew, of course, but the pew was sitting in his line of vision when his eyes had settled, his head had lolled forward, and his posture had slumped. It was his habit now. He’d lost track of how long he’d been there. As he’d sat, he’d watched more and more of the clergy finding reason to come in and sit apart from one another, joining him. He’d accepted that the pews might never seat the townsfolk again, at least not during Franklin’s life. That’s what Tenbrook wanted. And now, with the raw wound of Fitz’s betrayal angering and hurting Franklin every second he was awake, he knew Tenbrook would get what he’d wanted. He’d won.

  Novice Joseph asked again, “May I bring you something to eat?”

  “No.” Franklin hadn’t been tempted by the thought of food since he’d spent that morning in Tenbrook’s lair.

  “You need to eat something.”

  Franklin said nothing, gestured nothing. He’d already answered the question. Why waste energy repeating words to be nothing but polite? He needed his energy to wallow in his heartache and humiliation.

  Joseph walked around the pew and scooted along the front edge of the one on which Franklin sat until he was standing right beside Franklin. He pointed at the seat and whispered, “May I?”

  Franklin answered with the slightest of nods.

  Joseph seated himself, took a moment to get situated, leaned over, and put his elbows on his knees as though preparing to immerse himself in prayer. He didn’t, though. He turned his head and looked up at Franklin, whispering, “You don’t need to do this, Father.”

  Franklin said nothing. His choice to torture himself through the pain in his heart was something he did have to do, not because he felt it would make anything better, but because his heart was aching from Fitz’s betrayal, and because somehow the suffering had become all he wanted out of his waking hours.

  “Food stores are short because of the early snow,” said Novice Joseph, “but I’ve been doing my best to stockpile extra food in our larder. We still have no trouble getting what we need from the market.”

  Franklin didn’t know what Novice Joseph was talking about.

  “I’ve heard about you fasting,” Novice Joseph sat up and pointed across the rows and rows of pews all the way to the back of the Sanctuary, “and one by one, the rest of the clergy has come to join you. Have you not noticed? They all know you are doing it for the good of The People.”

  Franklin turned around, catching sight of the rows of faces behind him. The clergymen’s heads were bowed and they were assuming the same position as Franklin. In his distressed emotional state, he hadn’t realized what they were doing.

  “No one is eating now. Their novices are in the back row now, doing the same.”

  Franklin furrowed his brow as he surveyed the rows of clergymen. It felt like he was breaking from a trance. They weren’t joining him in the way they believed. In the quietest voice he could muster, Franklin whispered, “I’m not doing this for the good of The People.”

  Novice Joseph smiled and looked around to check the distance to the nearest clergy, as though one or two of them might have moved. He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “I know why you’re here, and I understand now what Father Winthrop saw in you. I understand why you’re the Bishop of Brighton. You’re a genius.”

  How Novice Joseph concluded that Franklin was a genius for having made the mistake of loving a Barren Woman did nothing but underscore how stupid a novice Joseph must be. It made no logical sense. Not one speck.

  Novice Joseph studied Franklin’s expression for a moment and said, “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

  Franklin asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “The fast,” answered Novice Joseph. “I don’t understand how you knew what had to be done, but you did. You knew the other Fathers would be so shamed by your morality and sacrifice that they’d be compelled by their faith in The Word to join you. In doing so, their hatred of you for burning Father Nelson has been forgotten.”

  “Forgotten?” Franklin scoffed.

  “No, no,” Novice Joseph whispered, putting a hand gently on Franklin’s arm to calm him. “You’re right, not forgotten. Perhaps forgiven. I think in joining you, they’ve learned to respect you. They hated you after you burned Father Nelson. I believe they’d have eventually plotted to have you done away with, if you hadn’t started this fast.”

  A time existed not so long ago that Franklin would not have believed that any Father would dare conceive of such a sin, but Franklin was learning all about the depths of men’s and women’s animosities and the things they were capable of doing to one another. Franklin said, “They’ll always hate me for Father Nelson.”

  “No,” Novice Joseph shook his head. “Not now. They’ve all heard you speak. You have the gift to move men’s hearts with your words. They’ve all heard and seen. Because of Father Nelson, they’ve harbored doubts. Now, because of the fast, they believe that your words aren’t empty, that they mean to you as much as they mean to The People. The clergy is with you.”

  Franklin sat up and looked around. Every clergyman who’d gathered from the townships and villages had remained in Brighton after the army marched. They were all in the pews, silently meditating or praying. “All because of my…” Franklin was reluctant to voice the lie, “my fast for The People?”

  “Yes,” Novice Joseph confirmed. “Every one of them.”

  Chapter 72: Franklin

  With a back aching from sitting in a pew for so many long hours, Franklin got up. Most of the clergymen had retired to their quarters already. Some were snoring on the benches. Aside from that, Franklin heard no sounds in the dark Temple.

  He pressed his palm to the wood of his bench, testing its softness, deciding whether to spend another night sleeping where he spent his daylight hours sitting. He’d beaten himself down far enough that he felt like he’d reached bottom. It was time to trudge through the coming days under Tenbrook’s rule, until the days turned to months and the months to years. He’d worked so hard, traded so much of his integrity away to stay in Winthrop’s good graces, just to have a chance to one day sit in Winthrop’s seat and make Brighton better than what it was.

  But not now.

  Fitz had deceived and used him to serve her ambition, a life sharing her bed with one man rather than sharing it with them all; a councilman’s wife pulling his strings like a puppeteer. And Franklin had eagerly let her. And that was the se
ed of the epiphany: Franklin, regardless of his title, was never destined to be a leader. He’d been Winthrop’s novice, then Fitz’s puppet, and now Tenbrook’s servile dog, just as Winthrop had been Blackthorn’s barking pet. And if Franklin shucked off Tenbrook’s yoke through some miracle, it wouldn’t change a thing. Another strong-willed buffoon would appear, see Franklin’s inherent flaw, and take advantage of it.

  Franklin would always have a master. That was his fate.

  So what did it matter whether the master was Winthrop or Tenbrook?

  It didn’t.

  Franklin stretched his stiff knees and ambled out of the dark Temple, headed down the hall toward his quarters. Fitz would be there in the bed they shared. But she’d be asleep, and Franklin would sleep too, under a warm blanket with a pillow under his head. And tomorrow, he’d eat. No, he’d gorge. And he’d send Fitz to The House of Barren Women to fetch him a new whore, and he’d have his way with whomever she brought. And tomorrow night, he’d sleep in the same bed with Fitz again. He’d do the same the following day, and the next. And he’d make Fitz hate him, and in that hate, she’d learn the price of her treachery. And when she finally ran out of false patience and her anger flared, Franklin would tell her to go back to the whorehouse and spend the rest of her life on her back, or else keep his bed warm at night and pretend to be somebody of importance while she fetched new whores at his whim.

  That would be her punishment.

  Franklin would never be free of Tenbrook, but he’d make sure Fitz got what she deserved for putting him at Tenbrook’s mercy, and he’d enjoy the pleasures of the position for which he’d paid so dearly. He’d never be cold again. He’d never be hungry. He’d never labor and sweat. He’d never look at a woman with unfulfilled desire. He’d have whichever ones he pleased, whenever he wanted.

  Franklin quietly turned the knob on the door of his quarters and inched the heavy wooden slab open.

  The room smelled of smoke and Fitz, and for a second, his heart fluttered painfully to remind him how deep his feelings for her ran.

  He closed the door behind him as he stepped inside.

  The fire had burned down to embers that glowed dim red, giving Franklin just enough light to find his way to the bed.

  He sat down, took off his shoes, and stood back up and removed his Bishop’s robe before sitting back on the bed. That’s where he stopped, finding it suddenly too painful to lay down in the bed with her.

  He wanted to hate her, but it hurt too much.

  “I was giving you space,” she whispered.

  The words, gentle and apologetic in their sound, were nothing but deceit. Franklin knew that now. But knowing made it worse than he realized, because he couldn’t discern the falseness in them. Fitz was good with her lies. No wonder Winthrop had taken such a liking to her when Franklin’s job had been bringing him nightly harlots.

  “Lay down,” said Fitz. “You need to sleep. We don’t need to talk tonight. Let me hold you.”

  Franklin shook his head and stared at the shadow of his shoes on the floor, regretting coming into the room in the first place. He wanted to grab his shoes and sleep in the pews again. He wanted to run through the fields in the dark until he reached the gate through the circle wall, and then run into the woods, taking his pain and humiliation with him into the forest. After that, he didn’t care what happened. He just wanted to be free.

  Why did it have to be Tenbrook she’d bedded? Why did it have to be the man Franklin hated and feared more than any other?

  Suddenly he felt her whore’s hand on his back. He shuddered.

  “Are you sick?” Fitz asked. “You’re shivering.”

  “I’m not shivering,” Franklin croaked. “I just don’t want you to touch me.”

  The sound of the blanket being pushed aside and a pillow being knocked to the floor made it clear that Fitz had sat up in bed behind him.

  “What?” she asked, angry, challenging. “You don’t want me to touch you?”

  Franklin shook his head.

  She pulled roughly at his shoulder in an attempt to turn him to face her. “You better look at me and tell me what’s going on.”

  Chapter 73: Beck

  Beck and Jingo sat by the fire while Ivory and Melora slept. It had been a long day of walking and only Oliver was still awake with them. As usual, Jingo continued speaking. “The toenail color profiteers chose to change the genetic code of another fungus so that it would kill the fungus that was discoloring the toenails. What they didn’t realize at first, what nobody even guessed until a year after they were selling their product, was that that fungus they engineered was the spore that we have today, the one that infects men, twists their bodies and minds and turns them into what you call demons.”

  “You say it took a year before people realized the fungus was something other than a cure for toenail discoloration. Did they not wonder why demons were running in the streets?” Beck asked.

  “That is where we get back to the idea of the spark,” said Jingo. “The spark turns into a small fire, which if conditions are right, eventually turns into a large fire. And just like today, no person infected with the spore instantly changes from a human to a demon. It takes months, or even years. Or, in rare cases like me, the person never changes into a demon, but is changed into something else.” Jingo rubbed a hand over the fungal lumps on his head. “We all look like monsters, I suppose, but for some of us, the fungus opens our minds to a vast potential rather than twisting it and turning us into beasts.”

  Beck nodded.

  Jingo drew in a deep breath. “In Brighton, as soon as you suspect that a person is infected, you burn them. In ancient times, that was unthinkable.”

  “What did you do with them, then?” Beck asked.

  “At first, nothing. It took a long time for symptoms to show. At first there were what you call the smudges, and people didn’t know what to think of them. Our doctors took a long time to discover the cause. At first, nobody knew what the smudges would turn into. By the time the first people looked and acted like the demons we have today, the spore had infected hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions.” Jingo put a hand over his mouth and rubbed his lips as though he were trying to capture some particularly vile words before they escaped. “I suppose if we had known at the time where it would lead, we could have done something to stop it. We could have employed the solution you use in Brighton. We could have burned all of the infected and perhaps stopped the spore. But probably not.”

  “Why not?” asked Beck. “How could that be? If you had guessed, or your scientists had figured it out, then surely you could have done something.”

  Jingo nodded. “Eventually we did figure it out. We did understand the cause. We did know where the spore infection led. But millions were infected by then. Tens of thousands had died at the hands of the demons. It was a different disease that finished us off.”

  “Another pitfall?” Beck was shocked. “What was that?”

  “Our human nature,” said Jingo. “It is hard to send a smudged mother, child, or man to the fire.” Jingo paused. “It must be hard for you three ministers—”

  Beck nodded. “I’ve had regrets and uncertainties more times than you could know.”

  “Imagine what a family would go through if they were to make the decision themselves? How long would the parent of a diseased child wait before putting him in the fire? Would he do it after the warts showed up? Or would he wait until the child killed a sibling? Would he ever do it?”

  Beck glanced at a sleeping Melora, having heard the story of her mother and brother as they’d eaten their midday meal during the day’s hike. He said, “In some cases, a parent might never do it.”

  “Imagine the argument?” said Jingo. “A parent wouldn’t want to kill an infected child. The neighbors might want to. There would be fights. Peop
le would take the law into their own hands. Neighbors would murder neighbors. Others would organize on the side of the infected, in hopes of curing them, or at least handling them humanely. Others would want to destroy them all. Then there’d be the profiteers, looking for ways to make money on the suffering. Worse than that would be the charlatans. They’d profit by selling false cures, and the families of the sick would pay anything.”

  “And your leaders?” asked Beck. “Why didn’t they do the necessary thing? Why didn’t that stop the spread of the spore? Why didn’t they do something with the sick?”

  “For the very same reason leaders often fail,” said Jingo. “They are too concerned with protecting their power and fighting with their political rivals. The game of politics consumes them. They lose sight of their purpose, which is to see to the well being of the people.”

  Beck nodded at that. It was the same in Brighton. It always had been. He feared it always would be.

  “Our politicians were never able to come together with a solution, except when it was too late, when billions were infected,” Jingo said.

  The conversation ceased as Jingo focused on bending and stretching his knee, wincing at some pain that Beck assumed was related to the spore. After that, conversation came to a stop. Beck was overwhelmed by the revelation, and by feeling a weight of guilt because he’d been a participant in a governmental system just as inept as the one the Ancients had, the one that had wiped out their billions through selfishness and incompetence.

  Jingo seemed depressed for having relived the memories of all humanity’s failures leading up to the fall. Beck was depressed because of the futility that he saw in Brighton’s brutal struggle to live. The council inflicted the most painful solutions on The People while doing little to build a better life, at least not in the long run. They were simply bouncing their way from disaster to disaster. As Jingo said, they would think they were succeeding, until a big enough pitfall swallowed them and finished the fall that had started with the Ancients.