by Glenn Cooper
Her hateful look didn’t last long. It was replaced by a scintilla of surprise when Edison’s bullet pierced her forehead.
Mickey blinked in amazement. “Mr. Edison, you are totally badass.”
“Am I? Now I know.”
Edison ordered Mickey to go to the kitchen and get a few handfuls of food.
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
“And Joe, you find the keys to the bus and see if it starts.”
Mickey resisted his own munchies and returned with a box of Ritz Crackers and a bag of cheese puffs. They waited in the hall for Joe to come back in and when he did, he said the bus started up fine.
Edison took the box of crackers and stepped over Monica’s body on the way up the stairs.
With Joe and Mickey behind him, he stood at the master bedroom door, took a few bracing breaths, and flung it open.
Pastor Snider and his five sons were all standing upright, startled by the last gun shot. The room was a mess and it stank from a blocked-up toilet. Edison started flinging crackers inside and there was a mad scramble for them. That gave him, Joe and Mickey enough space to advance inside and get themselves in a defensive posture.
When all the crackers were consumed, Edison fired a single round into the ceiling. The six amnesiacs scuttled to the walls and corners and stared at him in terror and confusion.
“Maybe you can understand me, probably you can’t,” Edison said. “I’ll say it anyway. From now on, I am your father—even you, Pastor Snider, you son-of-a-bitch. I will take care of you like a father is supposed to. I will give you food, I will give you shelter. I will be fair, but I will also be firm. And you will obey me like children are supposed to obey a father. Otherwise you will pay the price.”
He opened the bag of cheese puffs and tossed one up in the air. The oldest Snider boy caught it.
“Now follow me and once you’re inside the bus, you’ll get the whole bag. All right?”
They followed the cheese puffs down the stairs and out the door showing no interest in their dead wife and mother. When he tossed the bag inside the bus, they clamored to get it and Joe closed the door on them.
“And that’s how you get shit done,” Edison said, proud of himself. “Just like leading cattle, only easier.”
They went back inside and bagged up all the food and drink, and when the pickups were loaded, and they were about to leave, Joe asked if they hadn’t forgotten something.
“Snider’s got a daughter, remember?”
Inside one of the upstairs rooms, he and Mickey found Jo Ellen Snider, the fifteen-year-old, hiding under the bed.
Joe pulled her out by the ankles then pushed her onto the bed when she tried to hit and bite him.
“We taking her?” Mickey asked.
“I don’t want her,” Joe said. “She’s got pimples and she’s kinda fat.”
Mickey grinned. “Can I have her?”
“Knock yourself out, man. I’ll drive the bus. Go on and put her in my truck. Take the long way back, if you catch my drift.”
“You don’t think I’m going to get into trouble on account of her age?”
“Don’t sweat it, amigo. There’s no such thing as underage anymore.”
*
To Edison’s way of thinking, there was no time to waste. The world was changing fast. Most people had come down with the virus, but there were others who had not. He imagined that alliances were forming all over the place among the unblighted. What were the odds that he was the only one who was thinking long-term and strategically? Pennsylvania was a big state. The Midwest was a big region. America was a big country. To his mind, he had the kind of skills that mattered. If the power stayed out, electricians were out of a job. Bankers and lawyers were out of a job. Politicians too. He had the skills a man needed to survive and thrive. He could hunt and fish, dress a carcass, grow things. He could organize men.
And he had a better Biblical sense than all of the candy-assed preachers he knew. Yes, he was attuned to a merciful God, but he was also simpatico with a vengeful God. He always had a notion as to how the country ought to be run. He was sick of diversity and inclusiveness and making nice to all manner of deviants and inferiors. Now he had a chance to do something about it, to rebuild something better and righteous. Amidst the chaos and the death, he had never felt more alive.
His epiphany came when he heard little Cassie say her first words: “Doll my.”
They could learn. They could be taught.
But Edison wasn’t interested in having them learn who they were. He wanted to teach them to be who he wanted them to be.
He couldn’t do it alone. He always assumed that Brian would be the one to get the farm. That went out the window the day he got sick. Sick or not, Brian had been his son. If he could take it back, he wouldn’t have bashed his head in, but seeing him like that, violating his own mother, had been too much. It was all on Joe’s shoulders now. He was a hot-tempered kid—Edison knew his faults—he was more like his father than Brian was. I got an heir and a few spares, he would always say proudly. The oldest spare was now the heir.
Edison called the new boys his militia. He called the hay barn, his boot camp. Edison had never been in the military, but he’d seen enough movies to know how these things worked. You assembled your recruits, the drill sergeants broke them down, then built them back up into a cohesive fighting force. Only these six young men were already broken down. They didn’t know shit, they didn’t remember shit.
“Empty heads and clean slates,” Edison said, rubbing his hands in the morning chill.
The hay barn was the largest outbuilding on the farm. In a few months it would be freezing cold. They’d worry about that later, but for now, it was habitable.
Mickey’s job this morning was to keep the edibles flowing and wield a rake to make sure that no one got out the barn door. It’s okay to bruise them, Edison had told him, just don’t put them out of commission. When Edison was younger, he’d owned quite a few hunting dogs. His training regimen relied on simple commands and food, lots of food and that was how he started.
“Okay, boys, get your asses up!” he yelled, banging a couple of pot lids together.
Pastor Snider, the five Snider boys, and big Ryan Mellon had been sleeping in the hay. They stood up fast and protected their ears from the clanging. When the noise stopped, the youngest Snider unzipped his fly and urinated. The other militiamen, seeing this, did the same.
This sent Mickey and Joe into hysterics, but Edison was more thoughtful.
“No one taught them to do that,” he said. “They just knew how. That’s something to take notice of.”
“Look at that, Mr. E,” Mickey said. “They even know how to stow their peckers.”
“Good thing for you,” Edison said. “That would’ve been your job.”
Edison climbed on a hay bale for authority.
“Boys, I am your father. Say father.”
No one made a sound.
“Mickey, gimme that loaf of bread.” He opened it and held up a slice. “Say father. Fa-ther.”
One of the Sniders said, “Fa-ther.”
Edison tossed him a piece of bread, but Ryan Mellon snatched it out of the air and shoved it in his mouth. Edison had a length of laundry line in his pocket. He pulled it out, jumped off his bale, and whipped Ryan a few times, shouting, “No! Bad boy!” The young man ran away, but Joe caught him and dragged him back. Edison made a show of putting a slice of bread into the hand of the boy who correctly said father. He said, “Good boy! Good boys get food.” He snapped the cord in the air. “Bad boys get whipped.”
Back on the hay bale, he poked his own chest and said, “I am your father. Who am I?”
The boys were staring at the bread. Another one said, “Father,” and he got a slice and a good-boy.
“Who am I?” Edison repeated.
Ryan said, “Fa-ther,” then flinched when Edison climbed down and got closer.
“Here, take this bread,�
� Edison said. “Now you are a good boy. Good boy.”
Ryan gobbled the bread and said, “Father. Good. Boy.”
Joe sidled over to Mickey and said, “Shit, these boys are already smarter than you.”
Mickey leaned on his rake handle and puckered his mouth. “Fuck off, why don’t you?”
Before long, all of them learned to call him father—all except Pastor Snider, who opened his mouth expectantly whenever bread was doled out.
“The pastor’s slow off the mark,” Edison said. “Rest of them are gonna leave him in the dust.” He paused to consider his next lesson.
“You going to teach them their names?” Joe asked.
“I am not. They’re part of a group. They’ll all just be my boys.” He suddenly grinned. “I’ve got the next thing they’re gonna learn. Joe, tie the pastor to that beam so he don’t slide down.”
Joe manhandled him and roped him up until he resembled a man about to be burned at the stake.
“Joe, stand here beside me,” Edison said. “And, Mickey, give us another loaf of bread.” When his son was next to him, he loudly said, “Good man!” and gave Joe a warm hug, followed by a kiss on the cheek. “Good man!” He pointed to one of the older Snider boys. “Say, good man!”
The boy said, “Good man,” and got a piece of bread tossed his way.
Joe said, “I know that boy pretty well. Jacob’s got a reputation.”
“Reputation for what?” Edison asked.
“He’s a mean son of a bitch. He was always in trouble for brawling. He’s got a screw loose. His old man used to beat the crap out of him all the time. You didn’t know that if he laughed in church, or said something out of line, Pastor Snider would whip him till he bled when they got home?”
“I didn’t pay no mind to that,” Edison said. But he took a new interest in Jacob and said to him, “Say good man again.”
“Good man,” the boy said.
“Very good!” Edison said, doling out another piece of bread. “Now do this.” He hugged Joe again.
Jacob seemed confused and looked at Joe. Edison slowly approached him, gently took him by the hand, and pulled him over to Joe.
“This is a good man. Put your arms around him, like this, and say, ‘good man.’”
“Good man,” the boy said, squeezing Joe’s chest.
“For fuck’s sake, Pa, don’t make him kiss me,” Joe said.
Edison was delighted and gave the boy two pieces of bread as a reward, and before long, all of them were calling Joe good and hugging him for bread.
“Now for the flip side,” Edison announced. He got up in Pastor Snider’s face and said, “This is a bad man. This is what we do to a bad man.”
The pastor howled at the sharp punch to the gut and he began to cry.
“We hit the bad man,” Edison said. He pointed to Jacob and, dangling the loaf of bread from its wrapper, he said, “Come here, boy. He is a bad man. What do you do to a bad man?”
Jacob looked confused but when Edison balled his fist and did a roundhouse in the air, the boy ran forward and delivered a heavy blow to his father’s midsection, leaving him gasping and coughing.
“That’s a good, good boy!” Edison whooped. “What is he?” he asked, pointing at the pastor.
“Bad man,” Jacob said, reaching for his bread.
By the time the loaf was gone, each of the boys had a turn and Pastor Snider was barely breathing. Edison had Mickey give the militiamen a jug of water to chug, then dumped the rest on the pastor to revive him.
“Joe,” Edison said, “Go get your Remington.”
“What for, Pa?”
“Just do what I say, all right? I’ve got a hunch.”
Edison took the rifle, detached its five-round box magazine, emptied it, and ejected the live round in the chamber. He asked Joe which one of the boys hunted.
“All of them, I expect.”
“All of them use a bolt action?”
“Probably. Why?”
“If these boys know how to get their johnsons out to piss without being taught, then maybe they can handle a rifle without being taught. Let’s see, why don’t we?”
There was no more bread left but Mickey had a bag of tortilla chips, and as soon as it was opened it got their attention.
“Father has a rifle,” Edison said, holding it up. “Which boy wants the rifle?” He raised it to his shoulder and said, “Which boy wants to make the rifle go, BANG!” He had Mickey give him the chips. “Come on, now. Father will give these to the boy who wants the rifle.”
Ryan took a step forward.
“You want it, boy?” Edison said. “Say rifle.”
“Rifle.”
“Good boy! You get some.”
He handed him a few chips and when Ryan crunched them down, he gave him the rifle to hold. The boy kept staring at the box magazine Edison had left on the hay bale, and when Edison asked if he wanted it, he held out his hand.
What happened next was nothing short of astonishing.
Ryan smoothly seated the magazine, smacked it locked with the heel of his hand, and threw the bolt back and then forward, in a chambering motion.
“Holy shit,” Joe said.
Edison smiled so broadly he almost pulled a muscle. He dipped into the bag and exchanged a huge handful of chips for the rifle. The other boys looked on jealously.
After he praised Ryan to the rafters, he passed the rifle back to him and said, “Shoot the bad man.”
Ryan put it to his shoulder. He aimed by feel, pulled the trigger and dry-fired.
“Yes!” Edison shouted. “Good boy! You shot the bad man!”
All of them, to a boy, were able to fire the rifle without instruction. They had all spent countless hours in the woods, schooled by their fathers. They all willingly aimed at Snider and pulled the trigger on Edison’s command. They all got tortilla chips and high praise.
“Give me a round,” Edison told Joe.
“You’re not serious.”
“I’m damned serious.”
Edison pulled the bolt, pressed a heavy round into the chamber, and pushed the bolt forward.
“Father wants a good boy to shoot the bad man,” he said.
“You’re giving one of them a loaded rifle, Mr. E?” Mickey said.
Edison unholstered his pistol. “With insurance, I am.”
“Which good boy wants the rifle?” he asked.
Jacob Snider, said, “Mmm.”
“You trying to say, me, boy?” Edison gave him the Remington. “Go on, boy. Father wants you to shoot the bad man.”
As Jacob took aim, Edison raised his pistol. For insurance.
The boy smiled. Pastor Snider stupidly smiled back at him.
The round tore through the pastor’s upper lip and left a hole the size of a baseball at the back of his skull.
Edison’s ears were ringing as he shouted, “Now that is one motherfuckin’ good boy!”
27
Jamie began running into the woods, but Linda shouted for him to stop.
“Take this!”
She waved her service weapon in the air and caught up with him.
That’s when he had the presence of mind to lock the car. He hit the button on the remote and the horn beeped twice.
She wiped rain from her eyes. “I’ll go that way. If you find them, fire into the air, okay? I’ll do the same.”
The woods behind Holyoke High School weren’t very large, but Jamie had no way of knowing that. The rain and fog and low branches whipped his face as he ran. In his mind he conjured a vast forest where Emma might be lost forever. He slid and stumbled on wet leaves and jutting roots as he shouted the girls’ names.
He heard something.
Dogs?
He switched gears and called for Romulus.
Suddenly the woods came to an end. He saw another building made of brown brick and white concrete, and a sign for the Peck Middle School. In the near distance were playing fields and tennis courts.
Dog
s were definitely barking nearby.
He ran around one of the buildings and blinked into the pouring rain.
“Emma!”
She and Kyra were in the middle of an unholy circle of barking and growling dogs, and the only thing keeping them at bay was Romulus, yapping away and snarling whenever one of the larger dogs got closer.
Jamie’s legs were wobbly with fear. The largest dog noticed him and began barking out a furious rat-a-tat. He was about fifteen yards away in the poorest of daylight, but he could still see its incisors jutting from a curled upper lip. He fired once into the dark sky and then everything went quiet.
But only for a second or two.
The gunshot seemed to make the alpha dog crazy.
It lunged for Emma, but Romulus stood his ground and intercepted the attack. The other dogs were ginned up into a frenzy of barking, as if they were ringside spectators, egging on the fighters.
Jamie yelled for the girls to run but they were immobilized, like statues. He ran forward, waving his arms and shouting, as Romulus and the larger animal became a single violent, kinetic mass of fur and flesh.
He thought he heard the word, “shoot,” but the barking and growling was too loud to be sure.
Then, a blast, from behind, and one of the dogs fell. Then another blast, and a second dog crumpled. The four remaining dogs took off running toward the tennis courts and then the only thing he could hear was the beating-down rain and the girls’ crying.
He started sprinting forward, but turned at Linda’s angry shouts from behind. She was running at full speed, two hands on her AR-15, screaming at him, “Why the hell didn’t you shoot? They could’ve been torn to pieces! What the hell’s the matter with you?”
He muttered, “I didn’t want to hit the girls. Or my dog.”
When he reached them, he gathered Emma and Kyra in his arms and let them cry into his shoulder.
Emma pointed and shrieked, “Rommy.”
Jamie let go of them and knelt in a blood-filled puddle to untangle the two dead animals. One of Linda’s shots had torn through both of them.
“Oh Rommy,” Jamie said taking him into his arms, “you were such a brave little guy.”
