Black Creek

by Dan Kemp

  Just ahead, a row of newly-built homes sat alongside a bank of trees, a few among them still under construction. From a distance he identified #15, at the end on his right. James quickened his pace as they approached the door, but Skye lagged behind.

  "Wait," Skye said.

  James turned back to her. "What is it?"

  The young woman raised her hands in front of her. "Will you take these chains off of me?"

  James nodded and moved closer to her, taking hold of the shackles at both of her wrists. He drew on the fires of the earth and the iron began to glow red hot. Skye bit her lip, resisting the pain, but didn’t cry out as the metal melted and fell away from her hands. Skye gasped as they fell, then lifted both arms in front of her face, looking at the small ring-shaped burns left behind.

  "Here, I can heal those too," James said.

  "No," she said. "Leave them."

  James nodded and turned back to the door. He knocked, and after a moment the door opened. Hope smiled as she greeted him, and he kissed her, pulling her in close and taking in the scent of her hair.

  "I missed you," she said, hugging him tight.

  "I missed you too too," James said.

  Jess

  Jess's dreams had been a dizzying tangle, and her head still reeled slightly as she sat up in bed. A sliver of morning sun creeping through the curtains blinded her, so she leaned forward to pull them shut, then let herself sink back into the soft quilt.

  When she was on the road, the hunger and lack of sleep had been an effective distraction. Since arriving in Black Creek, her idle mind had begun to revolt against her. During the day it was all she could do to hold back the flood of confusing memories, and they overwhelmed her when she slept.

  Individual memories and entire lifetimes whipped through her consciousness, each of them simultaneously unfamiliar and yet unmistakably her own. It was her story, she knew, but it was one she didn't want. She was the little girl from Pittsburgh who grew up to be a cop, not the immortal daughter of a supernatural psychopath who destroyed the world.

  So, once again, Jess pushed it all to the back of her mind, until the pounding in her head began to recede and she was able to sit up without feeling sick. Finally she stood, loving the feeling of the plush carpet underfoot as she made her way to the bathroom.

  Jess stared longingly at the shower as she dampened a washcloth at the sink and scrubbed it across her bare chest and under both of her arms. The town was under a water restriction until the power could be restored. On her first day back, she’d used their entire daily allotment of water for a shower, which felt very much deserved. Now, Jess wrung out the towel and washed her lower body before patting herself dry.

  She couldn't wait to shower again.

  Could definitely be worse though, Jess reminded herself as she rolled a stick of deodorant under each arm.

  Back in the bedroom, Jess opened the closet to reveal a pair of dark blue uniforms hanging inside, each wrapped in clear plastic, like new. She stripped the wrapping from one and rubbed the fabric. It was soft, clean, but clearly previously used. The little brass tag read J. Neil.

  As she dressed, she wondered where they had found the uniforms. The patch on the shoulder had been re-embroidered to read "Black Creek Police Department." Dorian told her they would have new uniforms made, but these would do the job for now. They even fit her pretty well.

  She found Rachel sitting at the kitchen table and staring out the window. She jumped when Jess wrapped her in a hug from behind.

  "Oh! I zoned out a little," Rachel said.

  "Feels weird to have the luxury."

  "You hungry?"

  "Definitely," Jess said, and she was.

  "Well, look at you." Rachel had only just now turned around and noticed Jess's outfit. "Looking good."

  "Thanks," Jess said. "First patrol today, after breakfast. Time to meet the town."

  In the three days since Dorian had offered her the job, Jess had gotten set up in a little office building in the middle of town, but today was her first time putting on the uniform. There weren't any specific expectations as far as time spent on the job, just that if something went awry inside the town, she would have to take care of it. Maybe after a while, with enough growth of the town and a couple other officers, they could figure out shifts. For now, Jess was happy enough to have something to do.

  It was already a scorching early morning when Jess and Rachel left their apartment, making their way toward the fire hall. A handful of other people fell in around them heading the same direction as they went. Jess nodded and smiled to those she already knew and introduced herself to those she hadn't met yet.

  "Jess Neil, the new chief of police. But call me Jess,” she’d usually say.

  The crowd in the cafeteria was buzzing this morning, and not just due to her presence. Though a few interested eyes were cast her way, most people seemed to be absorbed in their own excited conversation. "Did something happen?" Jess asked as they moved through the serving line.

  Rachel shrugged. "Not sure. Does seem like it though."

  "Jess! Rachel!" As they walked with their food trays in hand, a voice called out to them from the throng. Jess searched for a moment before she saw Meredith sitting alone at a table nearby, waving her hands in an attempt to get their attention. They took seats across from her.

  Between her rosy smile and a clean set of clothes, Meredith looked better than Jess had ever seen her, at least since the first time they'd met. Just from her mannerisms she seemed cheerful, like an enormous weight had been taken off of her.

  "How are you feeling?" Rachel asked.

  "Fine. I'm going back to the clinic for a checkup later today, but the doctor said I should be fine."

  Meredith had indeed been released the morning after her injury. Jess was still somewhat shocked to see her sitting here, as if nothing had ever happened. That doctor truly saved her life.

  She’d stayed with Jess and Rachel that night. The next day, as Dorian requested, Rachel went to talk to the children. Jess didn't have the stomach for listening to whatever terrible stories they had to tell, and Rachel's somber head shake when she returned later that night confirmed what she had suspected.

  Meredith had gone along, though. It turned out she had been a summer camp counselor for years, and still loved children. After meeting them, she immediately volunteered to help take care of them. As Rachel later said to Jess, it might have been therapeutic for all parties involved.

  "How's daycare going?" Jess asked, getting a slight chuckle from Rachel.

  "Great! Hope's with them right now, we've been kind of taking shifts."

  "So what's up with Hope? Where did she come from?"

  Jess tried to keep the tone of the question casual, though it was anything but. That first morning in the cafeteria, Jess had been willing to write it off as nothing when Hope stared at her from way across the room. Since then though, the woman seemed to fixate on Jess every time she saw her.

  Hope was friendly enough, and when her gaze was met she would always casually look away as if she hadn’t been staring. What irritated Jess more than anything was that, rather than an intimidating glare, it was a look of intense curiosity, like a scientist staring at a puzzling result.

  "I guess her husband is friends with Dorian," Meredith said. "She told me Dorian was looking for him all this time. He just got here this morning, right before I left the house. James. Must be somebody pretty important, everybody's been talking about him this morning. He seemed nice, though."

  "James, as in the Church of James?" Jess asked.

  "I didn't think of that. Surely Dorian wouldn't let him in if he was one of them."

  Jess had significantly less confidence in Dorian's scruples, but she didn't say so. The Church was nothing but a scourge, she had seen that with her own eyes. On the other hand, Martin—her father, though it made her sick to think of him that way—had told her James was the true enemy, and asked her to help him fight the man, whoever he was. Th
at fact alone made her think this James must be good after all. There were a lot of questions that still needed to be answered.

  "Speak of the devil," Jess said, nodding toward the big open doors where Dorian had just entered.

  He looked his usual handsome, overconfident self, today wearing what looked like a personally-tailored suit rather than combat gear. He smiled and made conversation with a few people across the hall before Jess was able to catch his eye.

  "New look, boss?" Jess asked.

  "Old look, actually. Feels good. I hope being back in uniform feels as natural for you?"

  "It's been a long time since I wore a patrolman's uniform. But yes. Anyway, I wanted to ask you about the man who arrived this morning."

  "Word spreads fast," Dorian said with a sigh. "He did make a bit of a scene."

  "Is he a friend, or a problem? Is he related to the Church?"

  "He's a friend. I'm sure you do have a lot of questions. Come to the town hall at sundown, a few of us will sit down and talk."

  "Alright," Jess said. Dorian nodded at Meredith and Rachel before taking his leave.

  The three of them finished their breakfast and then parted ways outside the fire hall. Jess passed a row of homes and waved to a young couple who were tending a small garden. Past those homes, farmland stretched out further than she could see. In one distant field, she could make out a herd of cows wandering lazily about. She followed the road between the fields on her right and the denser city streets to her left. Inside one open workshop, an old man was hammering away on a big metal something or other as a young man watched over his shoulder.

  Most of these buildings were still empty, an investment for the future, as Dorian told her. It was a future that wasn’t hard to imagine. Until now, the people here had been merely surviving, getting by on bare necessities alone. But the town was growing. One day, things could maybe get back to normal here. Once the power was back on, anyway. Whatever else she thought of Dorian, she had to give him credit for what he'd accomplished here.

  The road led her past the break in the wall, where a handful of men stood aside as a piece of construction equipment rumbled through the checkpoint, heading through the forest toward the power station. Jess figured this was as good a place to start as any, so she mounted the ladder on the side of the wall and climbed up.

  One lone guard sat in a chair in the little shack atop the wall, staring out at the forest below. He nodded at her as she stepped off of the ladder.

  "Chief."

  "Call me Jess, please," she said. The arrangement, according to Dorian, was that his men would guard the walls and be in charge of any action outside the walls. Everything inside the walls was her own jurisdiction.

  "Alright. I'm Rick." They shook hands. "How can I help you?"

  "I'm just kind of going around and introducing myself, getting a feel for how the town operates. What works, what doesn't. Are you always on watch?"

  He laughed. "God no. We rotate all the time. Wall duty, guarding the dam and the lake. That one's a little more interesting than this at least. Raiding is mostly what we look forward to."

  "How often does that happen?"

  "Eh, until this attack happened we've pretty much had a party out every day. Some small, some big. Always looking for supplies."

  "How dangerous has that been?" Jess asked.

  "It's dangerous," Rick said, shifting the automatic rifle that lay on his lap. "But, until the other day, we'd only lost eleven men in almost two years. Biggest threat is the fucking dinos. Most people out there are alone or not too well equipped. Other big groups like ours are rare and pretty easy to avoid."

  "So where are we getting the supplies? Just scavenging, or are we taking things by force?"

  "Mostly scavenging. Anything we steal has been from people who deserve it. The Church and all that. At least since I've been here. I've heard things were a bit messier early on."

  "Eventually everything out there will be gone, though."

  "Right."

  His reply was interrupted by a boom and a tremor in the earth, and Jess put a hand on the railing as the wall shuddered beneath her. The booming footsteps continued, and Rick stood up and leveled his rifle at the treeline. His demeanor though, was much more casual than Jess felt herself.

  She could see the treetops rustling and breaking, first far out in the woods and then moving steadily closer. Finally, the trees at the edge of the forest were brushed aside by an enormous creature. The tyrannosaurus paid them no mind as it crossed the road and plunged back into the trees on the other side. Jess exhaled the breath she now realized she'd been holding.

  "Yeah, keep moving, you big fucker," Rick said, taking his seat once again. "Anyway, what were we talking about?"

  Jess couldn't help but laugh a bit at that. "How do you feel about Black Creek? What would you like to see different?"

  "It'd be nice to have a shower in the morning again. And take out the pieces of shit who did this to us. Other than that, I'm pretty content."

  Jess took her leave and moved on. She spent most of the day talking to everyone she came across. There were plenty of guards and fighters, most of whom seemed primarily concerned with striking back at the Church. Their reactions ranged from insistence that Dorian should already have led an attack, to confidence that their leader would do the right thing.

  Among his own men, even those who disagreed with his decisions, Dorian was very popular. Universally, they had immense respect for his willingness to fight alongside them rather than lead from behind, and to do so rather skillfully.

  She talked to a tailor named Julia in her store, who assured her that a fresh batch of uniforms would be ready for her soon. Jess thanked her, and told her there was no rush. One street over, a barber in a clean white apron swept the steps in front of his shop as he hummed a cheerful tune. He waved to Jess as she passed by, then went back to sweeping.

  In a cozy little coffee shop near the edge of town, which Jess hadn't even known existed, she met a pair of carpenters who were father and son. The two men were taking a break and chatting with a husband and wife, who were farmers. In all, they seemed fairly content with the state of things. They certainly seemed hesitant to complain, for fear of sounding ungrateful for their position.

  "I'm not looking to cause trouble," Jess assured them. "I just want to get an idea of how things can be improved."

  The farmers glanced at each other and then the woman spoke. "Well, there's a lot of supplies we need. We've had the requests in for a while, but sometimes it seems like we're not high priority. But how will people eat when our equipment breaks down?" The man nodded.

  "I see. Do you all think we should keep being restrictive about who we let in, or should we be trying to bring in as many people as we can?"

  The younger carpenter answered. "Well, it's not really up to us. But, I think we all remember what it's like out there. I understand why we had to be selective, and maybe we still need to be, until the wall is fixed and they deal with that cult. But I'd like to see more people let in eventually." The other three nodded and murmured their agreement.

  "Do you think Dorian is open to that?" Jess asked.

  "I'm not sure." It was the older carpenter who spoke this time. "I hope so. I like him, hell I owe him my life. But underneath his friendly demeanor, he's a hard man. That's the kind of man you need in charge to survive these days." He looked like he might go on, but hesitated and then sipped his coffee instead.

  "I think we all sleep better at night knowing he’s protecting us," the female farmer said. Though they wouldn’t say it, either out of respect for Dorian or distrust for Jess, a silent implication of a desire for change was there, it seemed to her.

  The morale of Black Creek overall was surprisingly high, considering what had happened so recently. Jess asked a lot of people the same questions, and opinions varied. Most seemed to trust Dorian implicitly, though they might have a small complaint or two. There were others though, who thought perhaps Dorian's place
ought to be out in the field, and guarding the walls. At the very least, many seemed open to the idea of someone else running the town.

  One construction worker whom she spoke to in the afternoon told her, "Once things are better, we ought to have an election. I'd vote for Dorian, I'll tell you that. But whoever wins, at least then it's official."

  And that was all Jess really needed to hear.

  Just as the sun disappeared behind the walls, Jess made her way to the town hall. The main room had the same eerie atmosphere it had the last time she'd been here. With the power out, the only light came from torches and lanterns arrayed in a circle around a metal table and chairs.

  Jess was the last to arrive, and Dorian locked the door behind her as she took a seat next to Kristof.