Horizon

by Sophie Littlefield

  Others approached. Too many. It was impossible.

  Cass tried to choose among her targets, a pair that were making an end run around the panel van, bypassing her to get at those behind her, and a knot of four or five that jostled each other as they ran.

  She could not stop them all. She would die here. Cass wondered if she could shoot herself at the last minute, if she could be disciplined enough to kill as many as she could and save that last bullet for herself. Rage surged through her but rage would not be enough, it could not make her faster or more accurate.

  But she had to try. She focused on a squat, limping one, steadied herself, and was about to fire when it suddenly jerked and fell. And then the one next to it spun, its head burst in a cloud of blood.

  Who had shot? Not Dor, who was fifty feet ahead, crouched over a fallen Beater, finishing it with his blade.

  The ground pounded under her feet and a blurred form approached, moving faster than any human or Beater.

  A man on a horse, galloping toward them from the east.

  As it grew closer Cass saw that it was a brown horse with a white diamond on its muzzle, its lips bared in furious effort as its rider dug into its flanks, urging it faster, leaning slightly out of the saddle as he fired again. And there were others—three other horsemen riding directly into the battle. The blinding rising sun had obscured their approach, but who were they? Cass had not seen a horse since early in the Siege and the bioagent that killed the cattle and made mass slaughterhouses everywhere. But these were healthy-looking specimens, large and powerful, their hooves pounding the dry, cold earth.

  The Beaters seemed confused, catching the scent of the humans on the horses, torn between them and the prey on land. Cass heard the sound of an engine and saw that someone had gotten back into the pickup and was heading straight for the Beaters. The undercarriage and wheel wells were red with gore from running over corpses. It came too close to one of the horses, spooking it, and it reared up on its back legs. For a moment the rider looked as though he would be thrown from the saddle, but then the horse settled and braced stiff-limbed with its ears flattened, until the rider spurred it on again.

  The horsemen circled the remaining Beaters, cutting them down efficiently. In moments there were no more of them on their feet. One of the horsemen galloped after the ones who’d dragged Brandt away, and a series of shots proved that he’d found them.

  Suddenly, there was quiet on the field. The screams of an injured Beater were abruptly cut off when the pickup drove over it, and seconds later, the driver cut the engine. Dor turned to the scattered crowd.

  “Everyone, stay together until we’re sure there aren’t any more,” he yelled. A few yards from Cass, Mrs. Prince lay under the Beater that had killed her, her legs sticking out awkwardly. Behind her, the crowd started to draw back together, the silence punctuated with cries and sobs.

  Then a new voice rang through the air.

  “People! Anyone with an injury of any sort, stand here to my right! Line up single file! Everyone else, stand with four feet between you and the next person! We will come around to check you out. Please, do not fall out of line until you are told to.”

  The speaker was the rider of the brown horse, a broad man with red hair and a graying red beard. He wore sunglasses of the sort that were once favored by snowboarders and skiers, his expression inscrutable behind them.

  “Who the hell are you?” Dor demanded.

  “My name is Damon Mayhew. I’m—we’re—here to help.” He gestured at the other riders, who had spread out along the front edge of the crowd. Now Cass noticed the gear stowed on the horses’ packs, all of it dusty and hard-used. “We saw your flares. We were sheltering a few miles from here, to the northeast, along the river. Took us a little while to break camp but we came as soon as we could.”

  “We’re obliged for the help,” Dor said, but there was no mistaking the suspicion in his voice. “But I’ll thank you to let us handle this.”

  Mayhew spoke impatiently. “Look, we can hash this out later. Right now we’ve got a real problem and we need to deal with it now. We need to make sure no one was compromised.”

  “We?” Dor demanded, his lip curled in contempt. “We? Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you just get here a few minutes ago?”

  Mayhew’s frown deepened, but otherwise he didn’t react to Dor’s challenge. Instead he pointed at the ragtag crowd. “Like I said, there’ll be time for this later. For now, you get one person infected in a group this size, think about how much damage he can do. Not even knowing it, even. What we have to do, anyone who came anywhere near those bastards, they strip and we check them out. No exceptions.”

  All eyes were on Dor, who glowered at Mayhew. “None of that’s exactly groundbreaking,” he said. “We have our own procedures.”

  Dana stepped forward from the crowd. Only then did Cass realize that she hadn’t seen him anywhere in the fighting, again—again he’d stayed behind in safety with the others, despite the fact that he was armed and carried a weapon with him everywhere on the island, an exception to the council’s own policies.

  “I’m in charge here,” Dana said. “Why don’t you and I discuss your proposal, Mayhew. Your men can start this safety check or whatever you want to call it.”

  “No.” Dor practically spat the words. “Mayhew’s right about one thing, we don’t have a lot of time. Here’s how we’ll do it. Anyone who’s armed, who was in the fight, we stay away from the others. Tonight or whenever we find shelter, we’ll check then. The fever takes at least that long to turn. But we can do that on our own, Mayhew. These people don’t answer to you.”

  “They answer to me.” Dana’s voice rose, belligerently. “You’re a laborer, Dor, and a, a philanderer. We’re all grateful for your bit in the canoe yesterday, but you’re not a council member. And this isn’t the time to start pretending you are.”

  The crowd buzzed, but no one contradicted Dana. Cass knew it was a critical moment, that whoever played the crowd’s fears most skillfully would lead, qualified or not.

  “You’re weak, Dana,” Dor said, not bothering to hide his contempt. “You’ll get us all killed. And you—Mayhew—we don’t know you. We don’t know what your agenda is. Why should we trust you?”

  Mayhew was implacable behind his dark lenses. “You want to know my agenda? Fine, I’ll lay it out for you. We come from the East. Like, beyond the Rockies, get it? We’re here to help you, but unless we get moving, we’re all screwed.”

  He reached for his gun, but Dor was faster, his own out and ready before Mayhew had his out of his holster.

  “I’m offering to hand this over to you,” Mayhew said tightly. “Mine and the rest of my men. As a symbol of trust.”

  “Dad. Stop it.”

  Sammi burst from the edge of the crowd, hugging herself, looking miserable.

  “Please, you’re just making it worse,” she pleaded. Her face was flushed with anger and embarrassment, and Cass realized she was ashamed of her father. “Just do what the guy says, okay?”

  Everyone looked from Sammi to Mayhew to Dor. Dana opened his mouth to protest but then shut it after it became clear that no one was going to be following his notions.

  The resolve seemed to drain from Dor as he watched Sammi, flanked by her silent friends, fade back into the crowd. Dor, who’d taken the front line without a second thought, who was wearing the blood of the creatures that he’d killed, bowed his head and turned away.

  The crowd shifted its attention expectantly at Mayhew.

  “I promise that tonight, once we find adequate shelter, we’ll share everything we know,” Mayhew said as though Sammi hadn’t spoken. “We’re not here to take over your people. We’re trying to carve out a future for everyone and we’re all in the same boat now that the fever’s gone east. When you hear
what we’ve got to say, you can choose who you want to lead you, but you’ll be doing it from a place of knowledge because right now, my friends, I think you’re acting from fear, understandably.”

  This man said his words gently, his face sympathetic. But behind his sunglasses, Cass was certain his expression burned with thoughts and plans that he wouldn’t be sharing.

  As everyone began to divide into the groups he had asked for, Cass watched Mayhew’s frown curve—ever so slightly—into a smile so brief that Cass wondered if she’d conjured it from her imagination, the spoils of Dor’s defeat.

  Chapter 26

  MAYHEW’S MEN DISMOUNTED their horses; one of them stayed with the animals as the rest moved into the crowd.

  “If you were within eight feet of a Beater, go with Bart here,” Mayhew ordered, indicating a tall, broad-built man with ruddy skin and pale hair cut almost to his scalp. “If the person next to you was, see that he goes.”

  Those who’d stayed with the crowd separated themselves from those who fought, some sheepish, some defiant. Soon eight people had assembled around Bart: Cass and Dor and five other men and Darla Piehl, who had surprised them all by producing a little .22 from her backpack and hitting a target some thirty feet off.

  The examination didn’t take long. They took off their shirts and coats and examined each other’s bare skin, Cass shivering in just her sleeveless undershirt. Fat Mike squinted at an old scratch she’d gotten while pruning, tracing its shape delicately with his finger, then nodded his approval.

  “What’s that?” Terrence Godin asked, peering closely at Owen Mason’s shoulder. Everyone looked to see what he was pointing to—a small gash smudged with drying blood.

  “Got it when I fell,” Owen said. “I tripped on the first one I put down when I was trying to get close enough to take a shot at the rest.”

  Terrence was silent for a moment, bringing his face closer to the wound.

  “I don’t know, I guess—”

  “Quarantine,” Mayhew said. “It’s the only way.”

  “What do you mean, quarantine?” Dana demanded. Cass wondered if he was beginning to bristle from ceding away his position of leadership and was now looking for a fight. “You see any, like, locked rooms we can stick him in around here?”

  Mayhew stared at him from behind his dark glasses for a moment before answering. Off his horse, he did not seem quite as imposing, but he was still well over six feet tall and at least two hundred twenty or thirty pounds, his hair held in a loose ponytail secured with a bit of leather cord.

  “Way we handle it, the man walks ten paces behind. We post one armed man back there with him. Deal is, if he comes closer than the ten paces he gets a warning. Three warnings and he’s shot. Not shot to kill, but in a situation like this, being on the move, I guess you don’t need me to tell you that’s a death sentence anyway.”

  There were a few protests from the crowd, a crescendo of voices as the issue was debated. Owen started to object, then appeared to think better of it. He touched his wound, his fingertips coming away bloody, and he stared at them for a moment before wiping them on his pants.

  “Come on,” Dana protested. “There’s no need for that. He’ll be glad to stay back, without a guard, won’t you—”

  “Mayhew’s right.”

  Dor, who had been standing silently off to the side, spoke quietly. He’d regained his composure since Sammi’s outburst, but his eyes were deeply troubled.

  “We can’t take any chances,” he continued. “And we’ve got to be a lot more systematic about these things. You have my vote, Mayhew.” His tone implied that his vote did not necessarily carry much respect with it.

  Mayhew stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Look, you—what’s your name?”

  “Owen Mason.” He mumbled, but that was nothing new; Cass couldn’t recall a time when Owen met anyone’s eyes when he spoke.

  “Owen. You need to understand that there’s nothing personal about this.”

  “What the hell, man, I don’t even know you. How could it be personal?”

  “I’ll watch him,” Dana said. “Since you’ve decided to take over my job, Mayhew, I guess I might as well make myself useful somewhere. Don’t worry, Owen.”

  He walked through the crowd, glaring at his fellow council members. After a moment, Owen followed, taking a wide route around the crowd, already the leper, already the outcast.

  “We need to get moving,” Mayhew said. “We need to find shelter well before nightfall so we can set up sentry, get everyone fed.”

  “I think we could have figured that out, at least,” Cass muttered.

  There was something about Mayhew’s placid confidence that bothered her. Or maybe it was only her age-old issue with authority, her difficulty with following orders. That, if nothing else, had made the QuikGo a perfect job for her; after her boss showed her how to work the cash register, the locks, the lottery machine, she was pretty much on her own. And she liked it that way. The gardening was the same—no one told her how to move from task to task, when to start, when to end her day.

  “I’m sure you could have,” Mayhew said easily. “Cass, is it? I don’t suppose you want to ride with me.”

  “No, and if someone’s going to ride, we’ve got some older folks, some others who might be a better candidate.”

  Mayhew nodded, raising an eyebrow. “Of course, I’m sorry, I should have thought of that. Maybe you could help me figure out who’d be the best to give a breather to.”

  Cass nodded, but as the crowd gathered closer and she helped Mayhew sort out rides, she felt everyone’s eyes on her. But she couldn’t help what any of them thought. Not her dad, or Smoke. Or Sammi. Or Valerie. She was like anyone else, trying to make the best of a bad lot of choices.

  But as two men watched her from opposite ends of the crowd, she had a feeling her most difficult choice still lay ahead.

  Smoke insisted on walking. Cass held his hand, ready to catch him if he stumbled, but he was surprisingly steady.

  “Tell me everything,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  She didn’t know if he meant Dor, but she wasn’t willing to go there. And so, instead, she started with the night they’d freed him from the Rebuilder headquarters in Colima.

  She told him that she and Dor had killed four people that night, and that other innocent people had died in the fighting. When she described the baby farm, he winced and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “God, Cass,” he whispered. “Did Sammi…”

  “She’s fine. We got her out before they—before anything happened. But we brought some of the other girls with us. Pregnant ones. One of them miscarried when she got to New Eden, but the others…one’s due in a couple of months. The others not long after.”

  For a moment neither spoke, considering the damage done to those girls, just another new variety of horror.

  Cass told him about coming to the island, about the welcome they received in the waning days of the year. About the Mothers’ House, and the House for Wayward Girls; the social committee and the friends Sammi had made. She described Garden Island and the many plants she’d cultivated. She said nothing about Dor, and Smoke didn’t ask.

  That was not the only subject Cass stayed away from. She didn’t tell Smoke she was drinking. Besides, she had quit; even if she wanted to, she couldn’t drink now. There was no liquor among the vehicles’ paltry supplies, and she’d abandoned her half-empty bottle at the last minute. So far it wasn’t too bad, but then again the first few days of sobriety were never the worst.

  The other two times she’d quit, she’d had to deal with headaches, clammy skin, heart palpitations, even a faint tremor in her hands. But she’d been drinking much more then. On New Eden, she almost always limited herself to just enough to dull her edges, which w
as sometimes harder than being sober. She could do this. She would do this, and not just because she didn’t have a choice.

  The last two times, she’d quit for Ruthie. In the lonely nights on the back step of the Mothers’ House, she thought about quitting so she could gain the approval of the others, for Ingrid and Suzanne and Jasmine. Even last night, she had thought she was quitting for Smoke. But now, as she caught him up to the world he had missed, recounting the details of the night when she and Dor had rescued him from the Rebuilders, she realized something unexpected. She’d done a few things right.

  She was far from perfect; she’d faltered once they arrived in New Eden. But she had come a very long way with little help. She’d been strong when the chips were down, and brave when courage was called for. Today she’d spilled Beater blood and lived to tell about it, and tomorrow she would get up and do whatever it took to protect her loved ones.

  She would do everything for them except this one thing: this time, she was getting sober for herself.

  When she had told Smoke everything she could think of, he was silent. The crowd’s energy was beginning to flag, the scenery changing very little as they traveled north on county roads, but at least they had seen no more Beaters.

  “The men I killed,” Smoke finally said. “Have they been missed?”

  Cass shrugged. “We’ve already lost more than a dozen people. People seem to have assumed those two were among the ones who ran back with the first wave. I…didn’t correct them.”