What Befalls the Children: Book 4 in the Troop of Shadows Series

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  Fergus knew he was acing this impromptu test, but the last question was especially easy. “It’s a word that is the same upside down. Like swims. Did I pass?”

  “Not yet. How do you get your hair to do that?”

  A man standing barely five-feet tall tended to be overlooked. Choices were limited if the objective was to be noticed. One could wear high-heeled shoes or opt to make a statement with clothes or coiffure. He had chosen the latter. The notoriously spiked red hair had become his calling card. People didn’t soon forget a man with hair like his.

  “My hair and its mysteries are a story to be revealed over a campfire while roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories.”

  Serena Jo smiled. He was in.

  “Fine. You’re on probation. You’ll conduct classes for the children for two hours every morning. You’ll be under constant surveillance until such time as I’ve deemed you harmless. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Pops, he can stay with you, since you’re the one who brought him in.”

  Skeeter dipped his head.

  “If you do anything to cause me concern, one tiny misstep, we’ll kill you. You can leave now if you have any reservations. We’ll put the blindfold back on and lead you out of the holler. But if you choose to stay, you’re one of us. Nobody leaves. That’s how we stay safe from the madness that’s happening out there.”

  “Very well. I accept the terms.”

  Serena Jo turned her back and glided away. The other folks returned to their tasks. Fergus blew out a relieved breath.

  Skeeter clapped his back and smirked. “This way, little feller. It’s gettin’ airish. Got a blanket?”

  “Yes. It’s in rather a sad state, however. Could do with a good washing.”

  “We’ll tend to that tomorrow. Tonight you can borrow one of mine.”

  “Skeeter, I have to ask you something,” Fergus said as they strode through the primitive village toward a shanty that looked slightly less dilapidated than most. A well-worn dirt road meandered throughout the dwellings. The aroma of cooking food permeated the air. His stomach rumbled.

  “Go ahead and ask,” Skeeter said. They stepped onto a wooden porch with only a few missing boards. He reached into another pocket, pulled out a matchbook, and lit the lantern hanging near the door.

  “How many people have worn that blindfold?”

  “About half a dozen since Chicksy.”

  “Are any of them still here?”

  “Just one now.”

  “Me?

  “Yep.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They didn’t work out.”

  “I see.”

  “Best mind yerself. My daughter don’t like things gettin’ gaumed up. She keeps the trains runnin’ on time.”

  “Gaumed up?”

  “Messed up.”

  “Ah, I see,” Fergus said, “Yes, she seems like quite an impressive woman.”

  “Son, you got no idea.”

  “I hope she doesn’t decide to kill me.”

  “Can’t make no promises.”

  “Skeeter, why does she talk the way she does?”

  The old man opened the shanty door and stepped inside. Soon the glow of a second lamp lit up the interior. Fergus was delighted to see that the tiny space was clean and orderly. There was only one bed. He would be sleeping on the floor, but at least he would be sleeping inside. Skeeter was right. The weather was getting colder.

  The faded blue eyes settled upon him. He could see some kind of inner conflict playing out on the wrinkled face.

  “You mean why does she sound educated?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because she is educated. She left the holler and went to the college in Knoxville.” The old man’s tone had transitioned from friendly to stern.

  “You sound as if you disapprove...”

  “Folks don’t leave the holler for a reason.”

  “Why is that?”

  “None yer business.”

  “I see.”

  “No you don’t. But maybe you will in time. Anyways, when she did come back, she weren’t the same. She knew a lot of useless stuff, but also some stuff that weren’t so useless.”

  “She’s the leader here.” The deference given to Serena Jo had been evident. Even the shotgun-wielders seemed to acquiesce to her. He had noticed it in their body language, as well as some snippets of scythen picked up from unintentional senders.

  “That’s right.”

  “No offense, but it seems that in a culture such as yours, a man would be in charge.”

  Skeeter’s expression softened. Thankfully.

  “That’s usually true. But when Chicksy happened, there weren’t no better person to take over than my daughter. Everyone knew it. Nobody fought it. Except for one feller, but he ain’t gonna give anyone no more trouble.”

  “I assume he’s buried around here somewhere?”

  Skeeter cackled. The various nuances of his laughter repertory were fascinating. This one sounded ominous around the edges.

  “We got our own cemetery up yander.” A calloused finger pointed in a vague northerly directly. “Goes back for generations. You gotta walk through all the old graves to get to the new ones.”

  “How new is the newest?”

  Skeeter didn’t cackle. He merely grinned, exposing teeth that were straight and white. These folks must have superior genes to fare so well under semi-primitive conditions. Surely regular dental checkups were not woven into the Appalachian lifestyle.

  He didn’t answer the question. “Leave yer stuff here. It’s just about supper time. I’ll introduce you to the Whitaker clan. You’re in for a treat, little feller.”

  Chapter 2

  Ray

  Ray lay in bed, thinking about what his work day would look like. He knew one of the solar panels needed to be replaced, but he didn’t relish the notion of climbing to the roof unless he was going to fly the drone. Few people had known about his condition — back when there still were people — and he hadn’t included agoraphobia in the psyche section of the government’s exhaustive job application nineteen years ago. Why would he? As a twenty-three-year old, fresh out of Georgetown’s graduate program, he had carried a mountain of debt. He had needed the job. Desperately.

  It was his M.S. in Health Systems Administration that had gotten him the interview. If he had told the human resources manager he was terrified of open spaces, it might not have mattered, considering the nature of the job opening. Being top of his class and excelling in an area of study particularly suited for working within the country’s new Strategic National Stockpile program provided him with a foot in the door. But he hadn’t mentioned the mental health disorder. Instead, he dialed up the charm, aced the emotional intelligence and skills assessment sections, and been offered a job in middle-management. Ray could be charming when he wanted to be. But there had been no need for a long time. As one of two inhabitants living in a secret government warehouse near Tremont, Tennessee, he had no need of charm.

  He did, however, desire an occasional conversation with someone who wasn’t insane.

  No matter how intense the sporadic bouts of loneliness, they were better than being out there. People had gone nuts when the end came. None of the stockpiled pharmaceuticals filling up a corner of his warehouse had been useful at the end. There was no cure for Chixculub. The pandemic ravaged the globe, unchecked, decimating the world’s population to near-extinction levels. He wondered, as he often did, just how many people were left, scratching out some kind of life in a world without technology. Without medicine. Without electricity and food and clean water.

  He had all those things and more. Co-existing with Lizzy seemed a reasonable trade-off.

  “Time to get up,” he said aloud to himself. That was happening more and more these days, and he didn’t fight it. Humans were hard-wired to vocalize. Otherwise, the default method of communication might have evolved into sign language or even more X-Files-ish
...telepathy. The notion made him smile.

  After making the bed, he brushed his teeth in the small sink of his utilitarian bathroom. His apartment — originally his office back when he’d been in charge of the place — wasn’t luxurious. The annual budget of the Strategic National Stockpile had only been a half-billion. It was one of the few truly no-frills programs within the US government. The modest allocation bought vast quantities of items which would address a variety of possible threats to the country, back when there had been a United States of America. The government stored those items in six secret warehouse locations scattered between Seattle and Boston.

  The Tennessee facility was the second largest. From the outside, it looked like a sizeable but otherwise unremarkable storage building nestled within a sea of smaller storage buildings. The inside, however, was anything but unremarkable.

  Two Walmarts placed side by side with their drop-ceilings removed would be similar in size and area. Plastic-wrapped pallets containing gas masks, gurneys, ventilators, and hundreds of other emergency and medical items were stacked to dizzying heights on industrial storage units. The shelf-stable food, packaged similarly, spanned six rows alone.

  Ray wouldn’t starve for a thousand years.

  Nerve agent antidotes, antivirals, antibiotics, insulin, and dozens of other medicines filled the refrigerated section, kept cool with electricity generated by the very solar panels he dreaded replacing. If Yellowstone’s super volcano erupted and spewed sun-blocking ash particulate into the atmosphere, he had a backup plan for powering the facility: generators and dozens of propane canisters populated the entire back wall of the facility.

  Painkillers — morphine, OxyContin, codeine, and other similarly addictive, high-theft drugs — occupied their own secured chamber. He and his former assistant had been the only people who knew the lock code. They had learned that lesson early on in the program.

  Everything he needed for a comfortable life was here. Although he didn’t always feel lucky, he knew he was. Surely nobody else left alive had fared so well. The warehouse had become home, and he maintained it as immaculately as two dozen government employees had before the end came.

  The only glitch — the proverbial thorn in his side — was the creature who lived there with him, incarcerated in what had been the employee breakroom, when there were still employees. Lizzy had remained tied up for two days while he’d secured her quarters, creating an escape-proof environment that allowed him to sleep at night though a psychopath slept under his roof.

  At least there would be time to take the drone out for a spin later.

  He finished dressing, heated two bowls of instant oatmeal in the microwave, and ate his portion quickly. At a brisk pace, he walked to the prison block.

  “We hear youuuu,” came the voice on the other side of the improvised mesh fence. Made of galvanized 14-gauge steel, the mesh would have been used in emergency quarantine or crowd control situations. Here, it served as prison-cell bars. Plastic cutlery would prove ineffective against it, and anything that might actually compromise it had been removed long ago.

  “I hear you too, Lizzy. I guess that makes us even.”

  Musical laughter floated through the mesh. Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded lovely.

  “Oatmeal today?” said the voice. The timbre was dulcet and the accent unmistakably southern.

  “Yes.”

  “We can smell it, just like we can smell you. Mmmmm. Hope you put a lot of sugar in there. A few fingers and toes of local children would be delightful too.” More musical laughter.

  “Very funny, Lizzy. Your witch allusion is a nice change from the Catholic nun you pretended to be last week.”

  “We keep you entertained. There’s no denying it. Think how lonely you would be all alone in this cavernous space.”

  He stood beside the mesh now. The person on the other side stared back, smiling and unblinking. The dilated pupils looked like miniature black holes...event-horizon irises, the green hue of fairy-tale poison.

  Of all the personas she had displayed during their time together, the current one felt most representative of Lizzy’s true nature. A child-eating, wicked witch of the forest seemed about right.

  “You know the drill.” He waited while she stepped away, turned her back, and placed both hands against the opposite wall with fingers splayed. Looking at the straight black hair instead of those soulless eyes was a relief.

  He unlocked the twelve-inch hatch at the bottom of the mesh. He had rigged it to be secure, but even if she somehow managed to open it from her side, she would never fit through.

  He placed the plastic bowl on the floor inside, hyper aware of her the entire time, and then re-secured the thumb screws. He was glad today was not laundry day. That took longer and required back-and-forth interaction to retrieve her soiled linens and clothing and supply clean ones.

  “We could use more toothpaste,” she said, keeping her hands on the wall and turning only her head, owl-like. A human shouldn’t be able to swivel her head that far backward.

  “Then you’re using too much. You’re not due for more toothpaste until next week.”

  “You’re a tough nut, Ray. We like that about you. You’re a challenge to us.”

  It wasn’t the first time she had said those words. They always made his skin crawl. He did a mental recap of her prison, recalling every facet of the security he had integrated while she had been tied up for those two days last year. His OCD demanded the review. Going back over everything he had done to keep him safe from Lizzy made him feel better.

  He knew what she was capable of.

  “I’ll be back at dinner,” he said, and turned to go.

  “Nothing warm for lunch today?” The musical voice was petulant now, a complete affectation. Lizzy didn’t give a rat’s ass about food. It was fuel for her body and nothing more. Eating a cold MRE for lunch wouldn’t bother her in the slightest. It was just another way to taunt him.

  He didn’t respond. His spreadsheet told him she had three more days’ worth of lunch MREs still stored in her quarters.

  He turned the corner of the corridor leading away from Lizzy, contemplating the ten hours until dinner time. Nine would be filled with chores, leaving one hour for flying. The drone camera presented the perfect solution for a person like him to enjoy the great outdoors. And seeing through the eagle eyes of his Phantom made him feel less like a jailer shackled to a psychopath. Those moments spent soaring over the picturesque valleys, forests, and rivers of Smoky Mountain National Park made him feel free. Maybe today he would spot a cougar or a wild boar. He had almost given up on seeing any new people. Considering how it had worked out when he’d spotted Lizzy eight months ago, perhaps that was for the best. Three years after the plague, he doubted there were many humans left out there.

  Chapter 3

  Willadean

  “Willa!” Serena Jo’s voice floated through the torn mosquito netting of the bedroom window. There was only the one bedroom in their house, and Willadean shared it with her mama and her twin brother.

  She loved them both, but, lordy, sometimes she got tired of smelling their farts.

  “Coming, mama!” she hollered back.

  She returned her journal and pencil to their hiding place inside her lumpy mattress; she had slit the fabric near the corner that faced the wall. Did Mama know it was there? Maybe. Probably. She didn’t miss a damn thing. But so far, she hadn’t said anything about it. And Harlan wouldn’t, since he didn’t talk. He probably knew too, so she was careful about writing anything mean about either of them.

  Just in case.

  When she sprinted through the front door, she saw her brother and the other children gathered around the strange little man with the spiky hair and wiry crimson beard. When she’d handed him the fiddle yesterday, then listened to him play and heard his quick answers to Mama’s smart questions, she knew she had found someone worthy of her attention. He was clever, that one, and she had long grown tired of eve
ryone else in Whitaker Holler. Even Cricket, sometimes. She figured this unusual fellow would provide plenty of material for the book she planned to write. Maybe she would make him her Main Character, or MC, as they were called in the literary world.

  “Children, Mister Fergus will be your teacher for two hours every morning immediately after breakfast. I don’t have time to do it any longer and he’s qualified.”

  “Will he teach us about astronomy, Miss Serena Jo? I have my grandpappy’s old compass. I think I figured out how to use it, but I could use some help. What about school on the weekends? Do we get the weekends off?” Cricket asked, gazing up at Willadean’s mama with adoring eyes. Her best friend had a crush on her mama, which was both hilarious and disgusting.

  Serena Jo smiled. She was especially pretty when she did that. It made her look less inexorable. That was a word Willadean had discovered in one of the books they’d brought from Knoxville. It meant hell-bent-on. If there was anyone in the world who was inexorable, it was her mama.

  “No weekends. Just Monday through Friday. Is everyone keeping up with your calendars? It’s important to track the passing of time.”

  A dozen heads nodded.

  Willadean had been tracking more than just the passing of time in her journal.

  “Very good. It’s chilly this morning, so classes will be conducted inside the school house. Autumn has arrived.”

  “What if it’s purdy outside, Miss Serena Jo?” Did Cricket even care where classes were held? Or was he just thinking of questions to ask so he could stare at her without looking creepy?

  Willadean snickered. “That’s pretty, doofus.” She elbowed her way through the group, stopping a foot shy of their new teacher. She studied him. His sky-blue eyes twinkled with amusement. A grin appeared within the wiry beard. He had nice teeth.

  He studied her right back for a few seconds, then said, “You must be Willadean.” His voice was deep for such a small man. “Your grandfather told me about you.”

  “Pops has a penchant for tall tales. You know what penchant means? Don’t believe a word he says.”