Dread Nation

by Justina Ireland

  Jackson’s jaw tightens, and I answer for him. “Lily was about to turn twelve.”

  What Katherine knows—what we all know—is that the Negro and Native Reeducation Act mandates that at twelve years old all Negroes, and any Indians living in a protectorate, must enroll in a combat school “for the betterment of themselves and of society.” The argument went that we benefitted from compulsory education, as it provides a livelihood for formerly enslaved, who couldn’t find gainful employment after the war. Whites, therefore, were excluded from the law, although some went to the combat schools of their own accord, since it was good to know how to protect one’s self in these dangerous times. Still, there’s a difference between an education officer showing up with a group of armed men and carrying someone off, and their enrolling in a school on their own.

  “Lily is fair,” Jackson says. “She’s passing, like you, Katherine. I figured if she lived with a white family, the education officers would leave her alone. The Spencers are Egalitarians, and they don’t truck with the Survivalists and all their nonsense about Negroes being inferior.” Jackson sits heavily in one of the chairs. “I just wanted to keep her safe.” There’s so much heartache in his voice that I almost go to him, almost offer what little comfort I can. But that ain’t my place anymore, and I swallow my concern like a bitter draught.

  That’s when a chorus of bells sounds from out behind the house, and I quickly extinguish the lantern.

  Something tripped an alarm.

  Jackson is moving toward the back of the house, and Katherine peers out the window. “There are people approaching.” She turns around, her expression indistinguishable in the dark. “They don’t look like the dead.”

  I join her at the window, and she’s right. A lantern swings back and forth in the night, revealing at least three people. “Those ain’t shamblers, but I’m betting they’re trouble nonetheless.”

  Jackson waves us back toward the bedroom. “The Spencers have a shamblers’ hole. This way.”

  We hurry through the house. In the windowless rear bedroom he flips back the rug, revealing a small door in the floor. He pulls it up and we tumble down into the darkness. I feel around, moving forward until my hands brush against a dirt wall. I half expect to kick something soft and yielding in the dark until Red Jack whispers, “They ain’t down here. This is the first place I checked when I couldn’t find them.”

  I’m wondering why Jackson dragged us out here in the middle of the night if he’s already checked the house thoroughly. But there’s no time to ask him now. He pulls the trapdoor shut, and the small space is loud with the sound of our breathing. A shamblers’ hole is a last resort when a homestead gets overrun. Sometimes hiding out away from the dead for an hour or so can mean the difference between life and undeath.

  The Spencers’ hole was built for a family, so there’s more than enough room to move around. I take deep breaths and force my heart to slow, Jackson and Katherine doing the same. Less than a dozen breaths later the sound of boots on the wooden porch echoes through the house, along with voices.

  For a moment, I think maybe this is it. Maybe this is my final moment, the scene that leads to my death. But the penny in the hollow of my throat is warm to the touch, and I know that this ain’t the end. When it’s time for me to die that penny will be cold, of that I have no doubt.

  The realization is calming, and my heart finally settles down. Someone grabs my hand in the dark and squeezes. I ain’t sure whose hand it is, but I squeeze back anyway. Not because I’m scared, but because it just seems like the right thing to do.

  The boots pause for several long moments before advancing into the house. Once inside, it’s a lot easier to decipher what the voices are saying.

  “I saw a light on in here. I know I did.” The boots sound closer, walking toward us. They pause over our heads.

  “I didn’t see anything. You sure you aren’t imagining things? You’ve been skittish ever since we left. Even tripped over that warning alarm like a greenie.” The voice is hoarse and accompanied by a rasping cough. I recognize the second speaker.

  Someone grabs my arm, hard. I swallow a yelp. “That’s Miss Anderson,” Katherine whispers, her breath warm on my ear.

  A feeling, half sick and half rage, blooms in my middle. If Miss Anderson is involved, then I know those folks above can’t be up to any good.

  “Rupert’s got a thing about shamblers,” a third voice says, low and even. “Too much time out west in the wide open. He thinks he’s safer behind the walls in Baltimore than he is out here.” There are footsteps, and the voice sounds again from a new place. “Come on, we need to clean out what’s left. The mayor wants everything belonging to the Spencers packed up and out of here by morning.”

  The voices subside, and I lean back against the dirt wall and let myself think. What did that mean? Did the Spencers leave of their own accord? Or did something happen to them, and these people are trying to cover it up? There’s no way to tell, and Jackson looks fit to burst as we listen to the people above move in and out of the house.

  “That’s it,” comes a voice from above after a little while. “We don’t need to pack up the bigger furniture. Mayor said just their personal items need to be collected. Now, what are we going to do with the rest of this stuff? Sell it?”

  There’s a cough, and Miss Anderson says, “Have some respect. These aren’t pickaninnies we’re talking about. The Spencers are a fine upstanding family.”

  I clench my hands at the slur rolling off of the lips of one of my instructors. I knew there was a good reason I didn’t like that woman. If I could deck her I would, but I’m trapped in a hole in the dark, so all I can do is listen as she keeps talking.

  “You and a few of your boys can come back tomorrow and get the rest,” she continues. “Load it on their pony in the barn and send it along on the next train.”

  “I ain’t coming back here again!” says Rupert. “Are you out of your mind?”

  Rupert and Miss Anderson start arguing, and the other man finally interrupts. “Quiet! Both of you. Rupert, grab the trunk. Miss Anderson, would you be so kind as to assist me in a visit to the Johnson homestead? The mayor believes Mr. Johnson has been organizing demonstrations in opposition to his run for Senate, and I find that mid-night visits elicit the most reliable results.”

  “Of course, Mr. Redfern.”

  Their footsteps echo as they leave the house. There are a few moments of swearing and thumping as Rupert takes the trunk out, then silence settles back over the night. The sound of our breathing seems to echo as we wait to make sure the trio is gone.

  I ain’t sure how long we spent in the shamblers’ hole, but by the time Jackson opens the door I’m groggy and sorely in need of sleep. He climbs out and comes back with an all clear. I can’t see his face in the gloom, but I can tell that he’s holding back some feelings by the lack of spring in his step. Who can blame him?

  We’re quiet until we clear the barrier gate. Jackson locks it carefully, even though we all know the Spencers ain’t never coming back. Katherine holds herself, cupping her elbows in her palms. Once we’re within the shelter of the forest I clear my throat. It’s likely dangerous to talk in the woods, but there are some things that need saying and no one seems willing to break the silence.

  “Well, I always knew Miss Anderson weren’t no good.”

  Katherine’s voice comes through the near dark. “So, do you think the Spencers are . . . ?” She can’t finish the thought, and Jackson can’t speak, either.

  “Dead?” I say finally. “Truthfully, I don’t know. It was hard to tell from what they were saying, but . . .” Jackson lifts his eyes to mine. “I don’t think so. The way Miss Anderson was talking about taking care of their things, it sounded like they’re still alive, somewhere. What we do know is that wherever they’ve gone, Miss Anderson and those men she was with were ordered by the mayor to cover it up.”

  “Maybe the Spencers were attacked by a big pack of shamblers but th
ey weren’t bitten and even though they survived, the mayor doesn’t want anyone to know,” Katherine suggests. “He doesn’t want people to think Baltimore County is unsafe again. So he packed them up and sent them off somewhere against their will.”

  I shrug. “Maybe. Or maybe they just picked up and moved to a different city on their own, and the mayor doesn’t want anyone to know about that, either, seeing as how popular they were. We’ve all heard stories of folks leaving without so much as a how-do-you-do, though not as much recently. . . . Still, they could have found somewhere they like better than here. Maybe Philadelphia? Wherever it is, it must be pretty nice if they were fine leaving their things behind.”

  “They didn’t leave.” Jackson’s voice is almost too quiet to hear. “Not on their own. Lily would have gotten word to me.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have the chance. It’s not like she could tell a message runner that she’s your—”

  “You don’t know her like I do, Jane,” he snaps. “Even if you always think you do.”

  I don’t say anything to that, because what’s the point? He ain’t going to listen to reason. Jackson might not like it, but if the Spencers did move on, at least they didn’t leave his sister behind like unwanted dishes.

  “Well, either way, we need to get on back,” I say after a long moment. “The sun’s coming up.” When I go on my nightly escapades I’m usually back soon enough to get a bit of sleep, but that’s not happening tonight. The sun peeks across the horizon, shading the world gray as dawn approaches. If it takes half as long to get back as it took to get here, we’re going to be much later than I’m comfortable with. I start walking.

  “You can’t just leave,” Jackson begins behind me. “We have to— Jane?”

  I freeze. My penny has gone ice-cold.

  “What is it?” Jackson says.

  “Trouble.”

  An unmistakable groan-growl echoes through the trees.

  “Is that . . . ?” Katherine starts, her voice trailing off.

  I turn around, searching for the sound. Jackson clears his throat. “On your left,” he says, voice low.

  I turn, and sure enough there stands a shambler, lips pulled back in a hungry snarl. It looks like the little white girl I saw along the side of the road a few days back. Guess the patrols didn’t take care of her after all. This close it’s easier to see details, like the ragged red ribbons at the ends of her braids and her sickly yellow eyes. She’s no more than nine or ten years old. I don’t recognize her, and that’s a mercy. It’s hard having to kill the dead you once knew.

  I take out my sickles, ready to end her, when Katherine makes a choked sound. “Bide your time,” she says, one of the tenets of defense we’ve learned at Miss Preston’s. I’m ready to snap out something rude when I notice the movement in the trees. Behind the little girl is a whole pack of shamblers, their clothing in tatters, their gray skin hanging loose. There are a few colored folks mixed in with the group, but they mostly look white, scarily nondescript and similar in that way shamblers get when they’ve been not-dead for a while. From their clothing they’re originals, people that got turned during the first dark days back during the war, before the armies realized that they had a bigger threat to fight than each other.

  I don’t even stop to wonder at a pack this large roaming the woods so close to Baltimore. I just spin my sickles in my hand, relishing their comfortable weight. On my right, Katherine has my spare set of sickles out, and on my left, Red Jack has pulled out a long knife from God knows where.

  Around my neck, the penny is now cool against my skin, no longer icy. The small shift lets me know that my time ain’t up, at least not today.

  We take a step forward, and the shamblers attack. They’re slow and ungainly, tripping over their own feet, tangling in the dense underbrush, dragging themselves along the ground when they can’t find their footing. Old shamblers are the best. They’ve lost enough of their humanity that they’re dog-dumb, attacking without any sort of organization. Newer shamblers are as fast as regular people, but the long dead are like grandmas, shuffling along. Their danger comes from the large packs they travel in. Killing ten people at once may not be difficult for three people trained in combat, but it’s hard for a lone person green as the grass.

  I cut down the little girl first. The sickle whistles as it slices through the air, singing in the moments before it separates her head from her body. The gore that gushes out ain’t blood but a thick black ooze. The smell, of dead and decaying things, is the worst. But this ain’t my first waltz, and I keep moving through the pack, letting my blades do the work.

  My sickles ain’t like regular blades that you’d use in the field. Instead of a crescent moon curve they’re a half-moon, the blades weighted and sharpened on both sides to easily cut in either direction. They’re designed to separate a head from a body, since that’s the quickest way to put a shambler down. I like to call this harvesting, because you can’t really kill the dead, can you? Plus, it soothes my soul to think I’m doing some good when I end a shambler, sending them on to their well-deserved immortal rest.

  I cut through a woman in an old-fashioned dress, noticing her long bedraggled hair more than her features. When her body falls to the ground I turn to harvest a large man crawling toward me, his mouth opening and closing without making a sound, his clothing that of a field worker. His dark head separates easily from his body. I spin and let my blades cut through the neck of an old white woman lunging for my throat, her stringy gray hair hanging loose. Her slate strands pick up leaves and twigs as her head rolls away from me across the forest floor. It’s such an odd detail to notice in the heat of the fight, but that’s just how it is sometimes.

  And then, there is no more movement.

  I breathe heavily, my sickles and hands covered in the inky mess that is a shambler’s blood. Katherine removes the head of a bearded man, shoulders heaving as she searches for any more dead. Jack is bending down and wiping his long knife off on a younger woman’s dress. Everyone seems fine.

  “No bites?” I ask between heavy breaths as I wipe my hands off on my trouser legs. Both Katherine and Jack shake their heads. “All right.” I glance at the sky and the increasingly pink horizon. The world had already gone to shades of gray as dawn approached, but now colors are starting to bloom. It didn’t take us long to take down the pack, but it was time we didn’t have. “Me and Kate are going to have to run back to make it before classes start. We need to meet up again to figure out how we’re going to deal with this.”

  “What’s there to figure out? The Spencers are out there somewhere, and my sister is with them.” Red Jack’s jaw is set, and there’s a ruthless glint to his eyes that makes me think he’s got murder on the mind.

  “That’s great and all, but did you hear one clue in that conversation that could tell us for certain that they’re still alive, and if so, where they’ve gone? There’s still a lot of country between here and the closest protected city. We set out half-cocked on a rescue mission, we’ll get taken down by shamblers before we’re five steps past the county line.”

  “You say ‘we’ like you’re involved in this, Janey-Jane. Like you get a vote.”

  My temper flares at his dismissive tone. “Oh, so now you don’t need my help? After I snuck out and spent most of the night huddled in a shamblers’ hole, you can suddenly handle this all by yourself? You’re too good for my blade work?” I’d like to carve my initials into his fool face.

  Jackson’s voice is even. “This is my problem, and I’ll handle it myself. I trust you ladies can find your way back to your school.”

  And just like that, Jackson, the boy I once kissed in the moonlight, is gone, replaced by Red Jack the ruthless criminal. There ain’t no arguing with him once he’s got his mind set like this. “We’ll be fine,” I counter. “Don’t you worry none about us.”

  He gives me a curt nod and bows fluidly to Katherine. “Thank you for accompanying us on our trek this evening. It’s nice to k
now that such a beautiful rose can use her thorns effectively.”

  Katherine nods and gives a polite smile at the compliment. Without a backward glance in my direction, Jack sets off on his own course through the woods.

  Katherine looks at me, and I point my sickle behind her. “Road.”

  She nods, and we walk. Once our feet hit the hard-packed earth we set off in a run, settling into a pace just light enough for speech.

  “These . . . sickles . . . are . . . great. Where did you get them?”

  I scowl. Katherine would have to ask the one question I don’t feel like answering. “The set you have came from Jackson. Keep them. I like these better.”

  Both sets came from Red Jack, of course. The set that Katherine holds were a birthday present. The set I hold? A parting gift. There is probably something to be said about the fact that the gift I got when he put me aside was nicer.

  I pick up the pace so that there’s no more breath for Katherine’s asinine inquiries.

  My social calendar is always full at Miss Preston’s, and the number of fine folks I meet really is a credit to the education I am receiving here. It’s true that being a Negro has its drawbacks, but I couldn’t tell you what they are—that’s how happy I am being taught my place here at Miss Preston’s. I may not ever get to be a debutante, but catering to the fine white women of Baltimore is a far more worthy endeavor.

  Chapter 10

  In Which I Receive an Unwelcome Invitation and Am Forced to Accept It

  Katherine and I manage to get back to school, wash up, and change without being discovered. We miss breakfast, and when Miss Duncan asks where we were, Katherine sheepishly says we both overslept and got to our chores late. The excuse works, mostly because everyone knows that Katherine and I don’t really get on well. No one would expect her to lie to protect me.

  I sleepwalk through the day. I’m dog-tired, and my body feels twice as heavy as we do our scythe work. There are no fine ladies to watch us today, so the drills are tolerable. After the midday meal we practice shooting, and even though I’m hitting my target, my aim is off. Miss Folsom, the firearms teacher, scowls at my shot grouping.