Dread Nation

by Justina Ireland

  “Have you lost all the sense in that pretty head of yours? Fighting is suicide. We need to run.”

  “Jane, where are we supposed to go? We’re in the middle of the prairie. It’s better to shelter in place here than take our chances on the open range, where they can just run us down.” Katherine flounces off toward the sheriff’s office, and I turn to Ida.

  “Don’t listen to her. Tell the patrols to grab whatever weapons they have and any rations they can find and leave. Pretend like you’re going out to face down the dead if anyone asks you. I’m going to take care of the sheriff while you all get out. Half the folks should head north and half should head east. We need to get clear of the wall before the shamblers get into town.” Walls didn’t just keep things out, after all. They also kept folks in. I worry that everyone will try to flee the same direction and the wall will end up a grand choke point, serving up panicked folks to the dead.

  Ida gives me a lopsided grin. “Got it. Good luck.”

  I give her a wink and run inside of the saloon. I pause just past the threshold, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Once they do I realize that the saloon is empty excepting for the bartender, polishing glasses.

  “Where’s the Duchess?” I call.

  “In her room back down the hall.”

  “She got company?”

  “Nope.”

  “There’s a horde headed this way, you need to grab what you can and get out of town.”

  The bartender looks at me all wide-eyed. “What about the wall?”

  “That damn wall ain’t helping anyone now. Only running can save us.”

  I dash full tilt down the narrow hallway. When I get to the Duchess’s room the door is closed, and I knock.

  “Duchess, it’s Jane. We need to get out of town.”

  There’s rustling on the other side of the door, and then it opens a few inches. I walk in.

  “Shut the door behind you.” The room’s got a sick, coppery scent to it, and I do as the Duchess asks. It’s pitch-dark, the curtains drawn, and hotter than the dickens.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m going to cut right to it, my dear. The sheriff knows that Katherine ain’t a real lady.” There’s a choked sound to her voice, and I swallow the lump of dread in my throat.

  “How you know that?”

  “He came by this morning for his weekly appointment and told me.” The curtain draws back, flooding the room momentarily with light, and I get the glimpse of the Duchess’s face, her lips swollen, eye blackened, before the curtain falls back into place.

  My heart nearly stops. “I don’t understand. How’d he find out?”

  “That father of his. He apparently followed up with a couple of the newer families in town once the sheriff took a shine to Katherine, and after some conversation it seems they remembered a pretty blond Attendant who was light enough to pass from a couple months back. Sheriff Snyder threatened me, told me he’d kill me if I didn’t tell him the truth. She’s dead, Jane. Both of you are.”

  I can scarcely believe this is all happening, right now. “All right. I need to go get her. But we’ve got even more pressing issues to tend to.”

  “I tell you the sheriff is out for blood and you say there’s something more important than that?”

  “There’s a horde on its way. Big enough to wipe us off the map. We don’t get the town evacuated, we’re all dead.”

  The Duchess doesn’t move for a long time. “We can just hole up here. The wall—”

  “The wall is wrecked, it ain’t going to do naught for us but trap us in.” What is it with people and their fixation on this damn town? “We need to run, you need to gather up your girls and make a break for it.”

  The Duchess doesn’t answer for a long moment, and I take a deep breath. “Please. You’ve been kind to me, and if it wasn’t for you I’d most likely be dead of infection of some sort. You have to grab what you can and run. I know it feels hasty, but trust me when I say Summerland ain’t safe. It never was.”

  And with that, I run out of the room, hightailing it to Katherine, hoping I ain’t too late.

  Oh Jane, I was a fool. So, very, very naive. I’m afraid it’s all gone wrong, and the only person I have to blame is myself. I knew one day my secret would be out—Auntie Aggie told me as much—but I never thought it would ruin everything we’d built.

  Chapter 37

  In Which I Sin Yet Again

  I dash across the street, dodging the folks gathering in the road. The drovers are bunched up in front of the sheriff’s office shouting and waving guns. From snippets of conversation I gather that they want the sheriff to open the door, tell them what’s happening. They still can’t see that it’s time to cut bait and hotfoot it out of town.

  “Move,” I yell, pushing through the drovers, throwing my sharp elbow into soft bits when a few of the men refuse to budge. A particularly large man looms before me, an impassable wall, so I change my trajectory, moving parallel to the boardwalk until I find an opening. All the while a little voice in my head is urging me to hurry to the sheriff’s office. How long does it take for a man to strangle a woman? My brain runs through a million violent tableaus, and still I haven’t made it to Katherine’s side.

  “That’s it,” I mutter. I grab the man in front of me, boosting myself up onto his shoulders. He’s barely had time to react before I’ve hopped to the next man, using the drovers as stepping-stones. I lose my balance before the sheriff’s door, tumbling against it. It bangs open and I half fall into the office.

  “Now, Jane, that’s what I call an entrance,” the sheriff drawls. “We were just coming to find you.” He gestures with his pistol, the business end pointed right at me, and I crawl the rest of the way in, the door closing behind me. I try to climb to my feet, but before I can, a boot lodges itself in my side, digging into the soft spot just below my ribs. I instinctively curl into a ball.

  “Boys. Boys! There will be plenty of time for that later. Get her on her feet.”

  “Elias, this is highly unnecessary. Kill them and be done with it.” The pastor’s voice is ice water on my soul, and the wave of fear I’ve been fighting to hold back threatens to drown me.

  “Not now, Pop. Let me deal with this in my own way.”

  I’m hauled up by hands on my upper arms, my breath still a bit ragged from getting kicked.

  “Kate, you okay?” I ask. I can barely see her in the gloom of the office. The window was boarded up sometime between last night and today, and the furniture is all pushed around, almost like the sheriff is planning on hunkering down in his office rather than facing the nightmare that’s about to greet the town.

  “Oh, I’m fine, Jane. But I do believe the good sheriff has lost his mind.” Her voice is just as matter of fact as ever, and my relief bubbles up in ill-advised laughter, which I swallow back down.

  “Well, good to know.” I shift my weight, and address the sheriff. “You do realize there’s a horde on the way.”

  “Gideon may have mentioned it.”

  I keep my voice even. “There’s no way a place like Summerland will survive a pack of that magnitude. Your big pretty wall didn’t save your sorry hide, what do you think a few boards on the window will do?”

  “The Lord will see us through this trial the same way he saw the Israelites through the desert. I’ve sent the patrols out to put down the approaching pack, after which those men out there will repair the wall, and things will be as they were.”

  “The Lord helps those who help themselves, Sheriff. We need to hightail it out of here. Get that father of yours to pray for us along the way. Otherwise none of us are going to see the sunset.”

  There’s a long pause and then a wheezing sound, like someone is choking on a hard candy.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Language, Jane,” Katherine says. “And I do believe that sound is the sheriff laughing.”

  “I am indeed having a good chuckle. I figure that the only way this is actually happening
is if someone is having a go at me. Because there is no way that some random darkie girl is telling me how to run my town.” The sheriff grabs Katherine, Bob and Bill taking that as a cue to raise their guns as well. I can feel the weight of their regard, but I stand my ground.

  From his chair, the pastor sighs. “It’s about time.”

  Outside, the clamor grows as people begin to pound the door. The number of folks in the streets must be increasing as word of the approaching horde begins to make its way through the town. At this rate we’ll have mass hysteria before too long, and when that happens we’re all goners.

  “Sheriff, the horde on its way is of remarkable size. We need to leave, not try to save this godforsaken place. Why can’t you see that?”

  “Summerland is a city on the hill,” the pastor says, raising his hands in supplication, as though he’s appealing to a higher power.

  I ignore the man and direct my words to the sheriff. “This town was built by Mayor Carr and his politician cronies. You willing to give your life for some rich man’s delusions?”

  “Delusions? Summerland ain’t no delusion. This place is the foundation of a new America, one that embraces the promise of greatness our founding fathers once made. Don’t you see? Darkies, they got their place, and it ain’t brushing elbows with respectable folk!” He yells this last bit at Katherine. Spittle flies from the sheriff’s lips as he speaks, and as she fights to maintain her sense of calm she still flinches away from the sheriff’s crazed words.

  Even in the low light, I can see an unholy gleam in the sheriff’s eyes. Plenty of folks share his attitude, but something fundamental has snapped in him. I wonder what pushed him over the edge, what made a man so coldly reasonable sink into what very much looks like madness.

  Maybe he truly did fall in love with Katherine. And maybe the knowledge that she was playing him broke his heart as well as his mind.

  My heart pounds, and mentally I’m counting the seconds as they tick past. How much closer is the approaching horde? Have they breached the wall? Have they reached the interior fence? I turn to Bill, who sweats, his shotgun shaking visibly. “You look like a man who wants to live. Please tell the sheriff that ain’t no amount of proselytizing is going to keep that undead horde from overrunning us.”

  Bill points the rifle at me. “What’s that mean?” He turns to Bob, who is just as agitated as the sheriff. “What does that even mean?”

  “To proselytize means to preach a certain way of thinking, in this case the cause of the Survivalists,” I answer, mentally calculating distance and time. Each moment talking with these fools means we’re a moment closer to death. “Even Daniel Boone couldn’t have survived a horde of shamblers, there ain’t no way we’re going to.”

  While I’m talking, I edge closer to Bill. He’s distracted, terrified at the thought of a horde descending on the town, and even Bob looks a mite bit unsure. If I work quickly, I could grab Bob’s rifle and take him out of the equation.

  I catch Katherine’s eye, and something about the jut of her chin makes me think that she’s thinking the same thing I am, that maybe she’s also planning a bit of heroics. It’s dark, though, and only a small bit of light filters through the window, so I could be wrong. I raise an eyebrow in Bob’s direction and she twitches her head.

  Anyone else, and I would question this reckless act. But this is Katherine. She’s a Miss Preston’s girl, and I trust her with my life.

  I grab the barrel of Bob’s gun, spinning around and using my momentum to wrest it from his grip. He falls forward, unbalanced, and I put him in front of me as a shield just as Bill pulls the trigger. Bob falls and I quickly level the shotgun at Bill. This close, the buckshot rips through his chest, sending him to the ground, his rifle clattering to the floor. Two down, one to go.

  I rack the shotgun and turn it on the sheriff, who now points his revolver at Katherine’s temple. Her defiant look changes to one of naked fear, and I swear to myself. I’d thought she was planning her own maneuver, but since she still has a gun pointed at her head, maybe not.

  “Looks like we got ourselves a bit of a Confederate standoff,” I say, ignoring the voice inside that urges me to hurry.

  The sheriff gives me an evil smile. “If you don’t want me to paint the wall with her brains, you’ll put the shotgun down right now.”

  “Just shoot the pickaninny!” the pastor yells, lurching to his feet. Spittle flies from his mouth, and the distraction is just what I need to end this whole mess.

  Katherine must think so as well. She goes limp in the sheriff’s arms, dragging him off-balance. Sheriff Snyder stumbles forward so I pull the trigger.

  As does the sheriff.

  The sheriff flies back, but I am frozen in time and space. All of the ruckus outside disappears, and there is only a rushing sound in my ears. I am certain that my recklessness has just killed Katherine.

  But then she quickly scrambles to her feet, scooping up Bill’s fallen rifle as she crosses the room to stand next to me. A heavy relief nearly weighs me down; the sheriff’s shot went wide.

  Katherine turns around and looks behind her. Blood spatters the side of her dress. “You shot the sheriff.”

  “That I did.”

  “You tore apart his throat,” she says, voice flat, and I think she might actually be in a bit of a battle haze.

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better I was aiming for his face,” I say. I’m still reeling from thinking I’d murdered Katherine and the overwhelming joy I now feel. The last time I felt this way was when Jackson came traipsing through the door. “Miss Folsom was right. An inch really does make a heap of a difference.”

  “She was talking about long range with a rifle, Jane.”

  I shrug. “Whatever.”

  Katherine stares at me, and I give her a small smile. “You just killed a man, and you’re smiling?” she says.

  “Well, he wasn’t a very good person. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Katherine looks back at the sheriff’s dead body, lifting one of her fair hands to her cheek, which is dotted with bits of the dead man. “I worry about your immortal soul, Jane.”

  I flash her a toothsome grin. “Ain’t you got enough real world problems to keep you busy?”

  She starts to laugh, the sound quickly turning into a broken sob. I wrap her up in my arms and squeeze her tight.

  “Hey. Hey! It’s okay. You’re okay, and we’re okay. Well, at least until that pack of shamblers gets here.”

  Her arms wrap around my middle, returning the embrace. “I know, I just, for a minute, I thought he was going to kill me. I’m not ready to die, Jane.”

  “Well, then, I reckon we should get out of here.”

  “Negress Jezebel,” comes a wheezing voice from the side of the office. We turn. In my joy at seeing Katherine unharmed I’d completely forgotten about the pastor. He lies on the ground, a hole in his shoulder and blood soaking his jacket. I have my answer as to where the sheriff’s wild shot got to.

  “Harlot,” the preacher says, bloody foam flecking his lips. He struggles into a sitting position.

  Katherine takes a step forward but I put her to the side, handing her the shotgun I hold. “Why don’t you go see what else the armory has in your size? We still got a whole bunch of dead to face.”

  “What about him?” she says, her voice uncertain.

  “Oh, I’ll take care of him.”

  “But . . .” She drifts off, pushing her lips into a thin line.

  I bend down to pick up the sheriff’s revolver. It’s a nice piece, and the heft and weight of it feels just right in my hand. The sheriff’s hat, with its wide brim, is a few feet away and mostly free of blood. I pick it up and put it on, adjusting it so that it sits at a jaunty angle.

  Katherine scowls at me. “Jane.”

  “What? He’s dead, he ain’t going to need it anymore. Besides, this is a quality bit of haberdashery.” Katherine says nothing, and finally makes her way to the armory. “See if they got a belt to
hold my sickles,” I call. Her response is silence.

  The preacher’s breath is coming in pants and whistles now, and his front is pretty well soaked through with blood. He won’t last much longer. I grab a chair and swing it over near where he reclines on the floor. His breaths come faster as I sit down, and I give him a wide smile.

  “Now, now, no need to panic, I ain’t going to kill you. I reckon that leak in your chest is going to do that.” I cross my legs and lean back in the chair, the revolver heavy in my lap. “Since you’re a man of God, I’m going to tell you a story, confess some sins.”

  The pastor doesn’t respond, so I continue.

  “You recall the Years of Discord? I was only a child, but I remember them. The constant fear of someone turning, the packs of dead prowling the countryside, the news that another person had died, only to return and eat half the household. It was unbearable. I still picture the fear on my momma’s face whenever we got word another person went missing. But we endured. We came to be self-sufficient, we built strong fences. And we learned to work together to survive.

  “But my momma’s husband? Well, he was a man like you. Enamored of the past. Stubborn. He returned home after things had settled, as the Years of Discord came to an end, as something like that order you speak of was restored. And he brought with him all the fear and turmoil of that time.

  “He had the idea that he was still the master of the plantation, that the old ways should hold sway. He beat anyone who stepped out of line. He sent children out on patrols. People died needlessly, and he counted it the price of progress. He had it in his head to build something like your Summerland right there on Rose Hill, and damned if anyone was going to stand in his way.

  “So one night, after he had gotten a bit drunk and more than a bit violent, I snuck down to my momma’s study and stole her gun. And the next morning, while he was still abed, I shot him twice in the head, the way my momma had taught me to put down a shambler.”

  The pastor’s eyes go wide with terror and I shrug. “See, the problem in this world ain’t sinners, or even the dead. It is men who will step on anyone who stands in the way of their pursuit of power. Luckily there will always be people like me to stop them.”