This Dark Earth

by John Hornor Jacobs

  She doesn’t even nod. She looks at me, sucks her teeth. I take Ellie to the crib in the corner. Mom meets me there and lays her down. Ellie doesn’t make a noise.

  “Then they drove by, in armored trucks, a line of ’em. And police cruisers, talking on their PAs. Don’t understand how they could’ve avoided the EMP, but maybe they were . . . I don’t know . . . shielded or something. They told us they were gonna lead the undead away. Down Main, away from everything, and then shoot them. They said any survivors needed to head to the Chili’s on I-30, where a transport would pick us up. Maybe five hundred dead folks were following, just trailing along. Once they passed, it was like it had just rained and washed the leaves from the street. No zombies anywhere.

  “At the Chili’s, there were men. They looked nervous, I remember. This was two and a half, three years ago. They had an eighteen-wheeler. They were all cops or army guys with big guns. They told us to get in. It felt wrong, but we got in anyway because the zombies were starting to come back—this was outside of Dallas and it was still burning, so there were millions of dead stumbling around, black and stinking from the nuclear strike—”

  She stops, brings the whiskey to her mouth, and breathes into the liquor. I can see the moisture from her breath fog the glass. She swallows some and winces.

  It’s a long while before she continues. Mom looks at me, worried. Knock-Out places a hand on Mom’s shoulder. Wallis steeples his long fingers and is still, watching, listening, thinking. I can’t tell if he’s as scared as I am.

  “We drove north for hours. In and out of days, seems like, but might’ve been just a few hours. When we stopped, they circled the armored vehicles, keeping us in the cattle cars, waiting, while they rested. They didn’t realize that someone was sick. When she turned, she killed most of the people in the other transport before they responded. They shot everyone, even the living folks. From then on, we had armed guards.

  “Next day, we pulled into New Boston—north Texas—an army depot there. It’s fortified, row after row of chain link. They separated the men from the women, put the women in a locked barrack, and put us in a holding pen. Jennifer—”

  She breaks. I see it happen, I’m watching. Her face crumples, and I’ve never seen anyone as helpless as her, ever. I’m sorry now I was hard on her at the gate. I shouldn’t have been.

  “They wanted the women for their brothel. Sixty men, they became slavers just to get laid. They never let the girls see sun. They rounded up the men, walked them out to a field.” She looks down at her hand, the glass in it, as if discovering something new. “The men. They shot them.”

  Her voice itself is like a gunshot.

  “How did you—” Mom is wondering what everyone is wondering.

  “They stopped me going into the pen. They stripped me. Two of them held me down—” She sobs once, loudly, and then shivers. “But they didn’t put me in with the other women after. They laughed and beat me. Put me to work, being their dog. They had this collar, for the Dobermans that walked the perimeter. They put it on me and shocked me with a remote. Like a goddamned dog. That’s what they called me. Dog. Bitch. I would’ve . . .”

  Knock-Out pours her more whiskey. She rolls the glass in her hands as if warming it, but she’s just looking into it, losing herself. She’s not here with us anymore, she’s somewhere else, somewhere back in Texas. She’ll always be there, I think.

  “I would’ve tried to . . . tried to . . . something. Kill them. Poison them. But they had Jennifer. I couldn’t kill myself. I couldn’t abandon her. So I waited and wore the collar and did what they told me to. I stayed their dog. I cooked their food. After the water went out, I carried their buckets of shit to the cesspool. I did their laundry. I tended their livestock.” She drinks the whiskey, puts down the glass, raises her hands in an open gesture. “They didn’t rape me again.”

  Before she looked like a man, but now, with the tears, she looks like a boy, maybe someone my age. It’s hard to imagine what she’s been through.

  “They heard your broadcasts on the ham radio. They listened to your messages about the tactical superiority of bridges. They listened. There were more and more zombies coming every day, and it took more and more resources to wipe them out, so when your broadcasts came—telling how to distill water, to purify it, to fortify a bridge, to make a murderhole—they began preparing to move. The depot, all of us. North. I heard they were planning on wintering in Texarkana, some bridge there.

  “The night before they were going to move, I was able to get us out . . . it seems so long ago. But it was just last week.”

  She’s done crying now. Her voice is hard, but she’s not trying to be tough. She’s just telling it like it happened. I like this woman. I didn’t like the woman at the gate.

  She says, “At night, they would shackle me to a wall. I was entertainment to them. They took one of the doghouses for the Dobermans, sprayed it out with water, and threw some wool blankets in it. That was where I slept for a long time, until I started stinking. Then they didn’t want me touching their food or washing their clothes. The big man there, Konstantin, he ordered them to give me a hutch near the brothel. They had these little portable buildings, like folks used to keep in their backyards for storing lawnmowers. This was my home. A glorified doghouse. But they let me wash and started making sure I had better food. At night they would chain me in, padlock me to a wall.

  “But the night before we were supposed to move, the man on watch forgot to chain me. I don’t know why, maybe the excitement of the day, maybe he was just distracted. I wasn’t allowed anywhere but the laundry and kitchen, and at night I was supposed to wait on a bench beside my hutch for a man to come lock me in. There were always so many men about, I knew I had to wait. Like a good dog. And I always did. But this night—”

  She makes a fist as if she’s crushing something. “This night, he didn’t come to shackle me. I only had a little time. I went back to the kitchen and took a knife, returned to the bench, and waited for him. His name was Jerry Mayfield. When he finally turned up, it was late and all the off-duty men had gone to the barracks. He was distracted and didn’t bother to frisk me or even pay much attention to me at all. I stabbed him in the belly the minute he stepped into the hutch. He tried to yell, but I stuck the knife in his throat. He didn’t take long to die . . . and there was blood . . . everywhere. When he started turning revenant, I led him into the main barracks. At one point, he was so close to me I didn’t think I was going to make it away from him. But once he’d killed a couple of slavers, I ran to the guards at the brothel and screamed bloody murder. After they ran off, I set the women free and grabbed Jennifer. She was . . . she is . . . different now. The bastards . . . used her, used her hard. I slashed tires and had planned on killing the rest of the horses and cattle, but . . . I couldn’t bring myself to do it and time was getting short. So I saddled two horses, took the rest. I didn’t want to take an armored vehicle because they’d be able to hear it and follow. And the dead too.

  “After a day’s ride, it wasn’t hard to loot houses for guns and ammo. Even some food. But we had to keep moving. It wasn’t until a few days into our ride did we start getting a following.”

  She shakes her head and looks at Wallis, points at his chest.

  “Don’t know how bad I hurt them, but . . . I know it wasn’t bad enough. The gunfire stopped after a few minutes. So they must’ve put down all the revs I seeded there.”

  She lifts her glass and tilts it up, even though the whiskey is long gone. Knock-Out pours her just a bit more. “I don’t know a lot, but I know this: They’re takers. They want what you have. This bridge.” She points at Mom. “These women. They’ll be coming. Maybe not this month. Or the next. Or even this year. But they’ll be coming, in force. They know where you are.”

  She closes her eyes.

  Keb opens the tent flap with the other woman, Jennifer, standing beside him. Mom comes to her, shoos Keb away, and looks at me.

  “I need Milly.
Please go get her. And set up another tent, please, near the Garden, away from the others. These women need rest.” She turns to Knock-Out and Wallis. “This tent is now an examination room. Leave the water and whiskey. I’ll come update you once I’ve gotten them settled.”

  Mom smiles at me and then turns back to the woman, Jennifer. I run for Milly.

  Wallis catches me on the way back to the Wall.

  “I need you to outride for me.”

  That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day. I don’t get to leave Bridge City very often. And right away I know why and where he wants me to go.

  “Mom isn’t going to go for it.”

  “Let me take care of that. But I need your eyes. I can’t trust Jasper or Keb alone for this, and I can’t risk Knock-Out. So that leaves you.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it. But Mom—”

  “I’ll deal with Lucy. It’s time you start assuming some of the leadership responsibilities around here.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. It’s not like Mom is royalty. She, Knock-Out, and Wallis just turned out to be the best people to lead, that’s all. And I’m just hanging around all the time. Probably because of Ellie. So I hear stuff. And I have a brain, unlike Keb or Jasper.

  “All right. When?”

  “In two days. I’m considering having you take the women’s horses. This is covert, so you’ll be going as quickly and quietly as you can. You don’t want to pull up to the slavers with an army of undead at your back—”

  He says it and then gets a funny look on his face. I laugh.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I’m just glad I was here to witness the genius, Captain.”

  Wallis frowns at me. “Lieutenant. That’s all I’ll ever be. You don’t assume rank without promotion.”

  “Oh? Sorry.” I’m thinking about the Wall. The sun is going down, and I’m sure the boys are wading in zombies. I need to get back and help with the headknocking.

  “So . . . no. You’ll need to take a Bradley instead maybe. Or motorcycles. Loud ones. And ride slow. Draw as many of the dead as you can—swing through Fort Smith, Hot Springs, Arkadelphia. Draw all the revenant population you can to the south. But still get out and then don’t draw any back here.” He’s deep in thought now, quiet and chewing at his lip.

  “We should go see Joblownski. He needs to be in this conversation.”

  Wallis nods his agreement, shows his perfect white teeth, and claps me on the shoulder.

  “Let’s go.”

  The Wall must wait.

  Joblownski tinkers with his still. He’s got two: one for water, one for moonshine. And he can make the shine from anything. He can take a shoe, an ear of corn, three Twizzlers, and make a liquor that will get you high. Mom spends time with him, though not to get high. They’re trying to get a filter that’ll keep out the nastiest water-borne diseases from all the shamblers. A filter that’s microns fine.

  And that is fine with him. But today he tinkers with the rainwater distillery.

  “When’re we gonna be drinking from the river, Joblo?”

  He glares at me, stands, dusts off his knees.

  “Gimme a sec, boy, and I’ll get you a cupful.”

  Wallis grins and sticks out his hand. It’s something he does now, instead of saluting. He shakes everybody’s hand. Everybody’s. Knock-Out calls it “glad-handing.”

  They shake, and Joblo looks me over. “I’ve been thinking about your idea, Gus. We might be able to get the dam working. Trouble is, well have to go out and turn off all the electrical stuff in the town. You ever read The Stand?”

  I shake my head. I was just ten when the world ended.

  “Huh. That’s too bad. Well, failing that, we can make little generators from outboard motors or anything that’ll spin in the water. Give us a few volts, enough to charge batteries, maybe run a TV and the like, instead of using up gas. Might be able to rig some solar panels on the nearby houses, run wires over here to the bridge. But that’ll take a shitload of human resources. Men always guarding our backs, my engineers—”

  “Joblo, we can talk about this later. Right now I need to figure out the best way to draw zeds. We’ve got a problem. And this might be a solution. What’s the loudest vehicle you’ve got?”

  At this, Joblownski cocks his head, grins, and begins to talk in very excited tones.

  It’s near dark by the time I return to the Wall. Frazier spits on the ground in front of me and again I have the urge to chuck him over the Bridge, but Blevens and Ellroy are watching.

  “So what’s up with the lady riders, huh?”

  “They had some info on gas reserves down south.”

  “Bullshit. There’s more to them than that.”

  “No, that’s it.” I walk over to the rack and take out my preferred headknocker. I’ve got a belt for it back in my tent. “We’re gonna head out Friday, see if we can find the reserves.”

  “We?” Ellroy looks at me. “Who’s we?”

  “Keb, Jasper, and me.”

  “Bullshit.” This from Blevens. “The doc would never let you.”

  “Mom’s cool with it. And it’s time I start pulling my own weight around here, beyond the Wall.”

  “Shit, man, you need to start pulling your weight inside the Wall.”

  I laugh. “Screw you, Lindy. I haven’t been fucking around in the Garden, making moon eyes at Cindy.”

  He splutters and turns red. Ellroy and Blevens laugh.

  “Jesus Christ, you kids are fucking killing me. There’s still fifty, sixty zeds at the gate. We’ve got to clear them out before morning. You know the rules. No dead by dawn.”

  Frazier is such a prick. I pull a lighter, a Zippo, and go around to the torches. Citronella. They smell lemony and drive away some of the flies. The shamblers follow us, and the flies follow the shamblers.

  Lindy lights some torches on the other side of the murderhole. The night gets darker, and the zombies on the other side of the gate moan. Stars wink overhead.

  Frazier and Blevens turn on electric flashlights, charged in the Bradleys. We check the inner gate. It’s locked down.

  Lindy and I open the outer gate and let in the dead.

  In the early morning light coming through my tent flap, I pack my gear. I can’t sleep late anymore. Those long Saturday mornings with cartoons and cereal are so long gone I’m having a hard time remembering them. The look of television. The taste of milk and sugary cereal.

  I remember air-conditioning, and riding in cars. Riding in cars everywhere. I remember radio. And rock ’n’ roll. And school, my classroom and teachers. There was noise all the time, the hum of a fan, the buzz of cars and whine of airplanes. Cars honked and their alarms chirped. People mowed their yards and blew leaves from their drives. Radios sang from above kitchen sinks. There was constant noise. The noise of industry and the fabric of life. Now, all we have is moaning. It’s constant, except for those times after we’ve cleared the murderhole and the last of the zeds go over the side. Then suddenly it’s quiet and the stars above draw our eyes up, up into the sky, and then I feel how small we are. Then the cicadas whir and something, someone—someone dead—moans out in the night. And then another moan. And then another. And soon they’re all gathering at our gate again.

  But I remember airplane trails across the sky, and the glow of halogen lights at night. I remember.

  All that is gone.

  It’s hot in the tent, and sweat beads down my cheeks and drips off the tip of my nose.

  The big .357, my headknocker, various knives and pointy things, I lay them all out on my cot. I oil the revolver and sharpen the knives. I spread out my armor, check and see if it still fits. I’ve grown a few inches since the last time I was outside the walls. The pants and vest don’t fit anymore. The helmet is still okay. I guess the old noodle is still the same size.

  The old noodle. That’s what Dad used to say.

  I can’t remember his face
anymore. I have some pictures, but they’re like the river—I’ve looked on it so often, and even though it’s always changing, it never really changes. I know every picture of him like I know this gun, or how to knock heads. I know it like I know the stink of the dead and the smell of wood smoke and citronella candles. I could scratch his face in the dirt, or on a stone with a piece of charcoal, I know every line of his face so well. But I can’t remember the sound of his voice, the crooked smile, the smell of him. I can’t remember the sight of him walking, how he’d move. But I can remember when he began to curse and spasm. I can remember him bent on the floor tight as a bowstring.

  When I’m finished packing and maintaining my gear, I give the tent a look, checking out all the books stacked in the corner. There’s Caesar’s Gallic Wars. I’ve got Roman Armaments and Siege Engines. A Guide to Building a Ballista. And, most important, Medieval Fortifications: The Feudal Way.

  If I don’t come back, I’ll miss them.

  I wander down to the Mess, where breakfast is being served. As always, there’s noodles and condensed milk. But today is a good day and there’s fruit salad swimming in syrup. Canned Salad, the people call it. I get a bowl of pasta, some beans, catfish—which is what we mostly eat at Bridge City—and some of the Canned Salad.

  Jasper, Keb, Cindy, Barb, and Dina are all sitting at a table and wave me over. Barb pats the seat next to her. It makes me feel a bit funny, Barb looking at me like that. She’s plump, but not fat, and ten years older than me, I think. She was in college during the Big Turnover. They say she made it nearly five months living off the food she’d found in the apartment block she’d barricaded herself in.

  Dina, like Mom and Knock-Out, has burns from a nuclear strike. Mom’s always saying people are going to start dying from cancer soon. I don’t like to think about Barb being dead. Or Dina.

  Or Mom.

  I sit next to Barb and she presses her leg against mine under the table. Her leg is warm and soft, and I’m having a hard time thinking.

  “So,” Barb asks, her voice low, “what’s this secret mission you three are going on? Keb and Jazz won’t tell us.”