“We are,” Jacob replied, turning to Bradley. “Just ain’t a priest, is all.”
“And Sister Gibson? She’s not a nun neither, is she?”
“Nope,” Jacob said. “Sure ain’t.”
Charlotte opened the door at the back and walked into the kitchen. Skillets and pots filled with half-rotting, half-cooked food sat on the range. Just beyond Charlotte, Jacob saw that one of the windows was shuttered. Brown butcher paper covered a hole in two of the glass panes.
Charlotte looked around and, her mouth shaping a silent “oh,” went left and disappeared around the corner. “Here, Mr. Smith,” she called from within the kitchen, “I found something.”
Jacob walked in quickly and ducked his head around the corner to look at her. A small table stood in the corner, away from the stove. A closed door led from the kitchen and another opened out into the alleyway. Charlotte stood in the middle of the small room holding a large, curved shard of glass. She gazed down at it, her mouth agape. The piece looked to have come from an oversized jar of some sort. “What is it?” Jacob asked.
“I have no idea,” she said, turning the object in her hands, “but I think it’s a clue to what’s going on.”
“Be careful with it then.”
“Is there anything to put it in?” she asked.
Jacob looked around, but anything that was cloth had been removed with the rest of the home’s furnishings. He stripped off his jacket and handed it to Charlotte. She wrapped the shard in the black cloth.
“Often,” she said, closing her eyes, “I can get a feel for an object.”
“Feel for an object?” Pvt. Bradley asked.
“Yes, Private. Feel where it came from and what it really is.”
“Can you backtrack it?” Jacob asked, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “To its source, I mean?”
“Sometimes. This is wrapped up with so much negative feeling and emotion, raw hate, that it’s probably left a bright, shining path to its origin.”
“Who’s the owner?” Jacob asked. He already knew the answer, but he wanted it spoken aloud. It would give him something to hunt.
Something thudded against the pantry door. Jacob’s instincts took over.
He stepped past Charlotte, shoving her back towards Bradley. Another thud, this one shaking the door in its frame. He cursed again as his hand went to his empty hip.
“Thought y’all cleared this place, Private?” Jacob asked, sidling backwards against Charlotte. Dammit. He knew he should have come armed.
“We did! The red ‘X’ says we did. You saw it on the door.”
The latch on the door broke.
An afflicted spilled out.
It was big, and, from the look of his clothing, had once been a sailor. The creature stood at least six-and-a-half feet tall. Muscles, big enough that Jacob couldn’t really discern a neck, bulged under its torn shirt. Vague tattoos crisscrossed Sailor’s arms and shoulders, blending with its grey, dying skin. Its skin sagged with the sickness.
If Sailor was powerful enough to beat the door open, Jacob sure didn’t want to get in its way.
The afflicted trudged towards Jacob, its milky-white eyes staring into nothing. “Here,” Charlotte yelled, handing the skillet off the stove to Jacob. He looked from Sailor down to the cast iron pan. Maggots crawled in the rotten meat. The Templar hefted the sturdy weight in his hand.
“I can’t get a clear shot,” Pvt. Bradley said from the rear. “You gotta move.”
“Don’t worry,” Jacob said, “I got this.”
He shuffled forward, pan reared back like it was his broadsword. He swung at the afflicted, hitting it in the side of the head and sending rotten food and maggots across the kitchen. Reverberations from the iron shot up Jacob’s arm. The force of the blow knocked Sailor back, but didn’t kill it.
Jacob cursed as Sailor, unfazed, straightened and came at him. Jacob wanted to sidestep the creature, but between the cramped quarters and the need to protect Charlotte, he was cornered. The afflicted came at him, a low groan rumbling in its chest.
It was on him.
Charlotte screamed as Jacob and the afflicted locked in a grapple. Jacob dropped the skillet as he tried to fight off Sailor. The creature’s superior weight and strength bore down on Jacob, forcing him to his knees.
Sailor’s dripping jaws crept closer to the Templar’s face. Panic welled in Jacob as the afflicted’s hot, rank breath blew across his throat.
“Private!” Jacob hollered. Sailor weighed down on his locked arms, knocking him backwards onto the kitchen floor. “Miss Gibson?” he shouted. Sailor’s gnashing teeth were coming closer and closer to his throat. He looked up as he frantically shoved at his attacker.
Charlotte had pulled her habit up around her waist on her right side, exposing long, black stocking-covered legs. She was fiddling with the garter on her thigh.
“What in the Hell are you two doing?” Jacob shouted, unable to, despite the overwhelming smell of grave breath, take his eyes from Charlotte’s calves and thigh.
“Saving your life,” Charlotte said. She pulled out the small, two-barreled derringer Jacob had given her in the hotel room. “Hold still,” she said, putting the muzzle of the tiny pistol to Sailor’s animated head.
She fired crosswise, keeping Jacob from the bullet’s trajectory. Greyish-white brain matter sprayed over the kitchen wall. Sailor slumped down atop Jacob, releasing rot gas from every orifice. Blood began to pour from Sailor’s mouth as Jacob twisted away, shoving the newly minted corpse off him.
Jacob stood and dusted himself off. He touched his face, feeling for any fluid. None of the blood had gotten on him. That was better than a Christmas miracle in his book.
“Thank you kindly, Miss Gibson,” Jacob said, smiling wanly.
“At least one of us had the presence of mind to come armed, Mr. Smith,” Charlotte said, returning the smile. “And the owner is Potestas.”
“Figured that,” Jacob replied, leaning back against the stove and looking down at Sailor’s rotting corpse.
“You two done with your investigating?” Pvt. Bradley asked from the living room. He sounded out of breath. “Or can I go back to the barricade already?”
The trio stood on the street. The sun had risen fully above the buildings now. Jacob stifled a yawn and shook his head.
“Well, we should get you two back to your wagon.”
“Yes, Private, you’re absolutely right,” Charlotte said. She cradled the wrapped glass shard against her chest like a swaddled newborn. They started down the street.
“Think you’ll be able to stop this?” the private asked.
“Reckon so,” Jacob said, hoping the lie stuck. If Charlotte could backtrack that glass to Potestas, they could likely stop the infection from spreading. From where he stood, though, that “if” looked almost too tall to leap.
They walked in silence.
On other blocks, the city had come awake. Carts made their way onto the street, people left for work, shop owners swept their front porches and opened the doors for customers, ships loaded and unloaded goods. Business and life went on for the time being. Here, though? A crumpled newspaper blew across the baked pavement.
More Springfields fired ahead, just up the street. A pistol fired off three shots. Silence, then a scream, followed by howls. Another Springfield fired. Pvt. Bradley looked back at Charlotte and Jacob, his hand on the rifle slung over his shoulder. His eyes frantically danced back and forth between the two imposters. His gaze settled on Charlotte for a moment.
They heard another rifle shot from near the brothel-cum-clinic. The boy looked back at Jacob.
“Go on, son,” Jacob said. “Reckon we can find our way back to the wagon.”
The young private nodded. Another scream, followed by a rifle’s shot and report. Bradley took off running down the street.
“Where do you suggest we go from here?” Charlotte asked.
“Get back to the wagon and follow where that glass
leads us.”
They started off down the street. Pvt. Bradley was twenty or so feet ahead of them. Gutteral cries came from the intersection. The soldier unslung his rifle and turned the corner ahead, disappearing from view. Another series of rifle shots followed.
Charlotte and Jacob picked up their pace.
Jacob held out a hand to Charlotte when they neared the corner. He walked up and peeked his head around.
Bodies lay scattered on the street. Some were soldiers, their blue uniforms torn irreparably, their faces mauled by bite marks and claws, their stomachs torn and their entrails collecting dust and dirt on the street.
Others were civilians.
Most had been put down with bullets to the head, or been clubbed till their faces were beyond recognition. The black blood drenching their clothes looked like some foreign tar.
One boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen, sat against a street lamp not far from the entrance to the St. Nicholas saloon. His legs stretched out into the street. He held his thick, white, ropy intestines. Jacob thought the boy must be dead, but then he blinked and looked down at his fistful of organs. He tried to stand, but fell back against the lamp. He began trying to put his guts back into the open cavity of his stomach, mewing quietly from the effort and pain.
Jacob looked away, searching for the private.
Pvt. Bradley, in the middle of it all, stood over a corpse. He stabbed it with his bayonetted rifle, sliding the thin blade into the brain through the eye socket.
“They’re dead,” yelled Pvt. Bradley, waving his left hand in the air. “All the afflicted are dead.”
Soldiers came out of the saloon, rifles pressed against their shoulders. Jacob looked back at Charlotte and waved her forward with his hand. They went around the corner together.
“Don’t look too hard, Miss Gibson.”
“I – I’ll try not to.”
“We’re going to the wagon and we’re going to get. Hear me?”
“Yes.”
Jacob ushered her down the street. She still cradled the shard. Some men from the barricade through which they’d entered advanced up the road towards them. There were three soldiers, two enlisted men and the lieutenant from earlier. They’d missed the fight, but that didn’t matter.
The enlisted men supported their commanding officer between them. His skin had gone green. They debated whether they should put him down now or wait for another trooper to do it. The lieutenant barked orders for the other two men to get it over with.
Jacob and Charlotte stopped and watched them pass.
“Cock my revolver for me,” the lieutenant slurred out through cracked lips, “if you’re yellow.”
“Was he bitten?” Charlotte asked as they passed by.
“No ma’am,” the one supporting the lieutenant on his left side said, “he just come down with it. Seen it happen before.”
“It ain’t my business, Father,” the soldier on the lieutenant’s right said, “but they’d shoot me for desertion were I to leave. You two, though, you folks got a chance. I’d leave this city to burn for its sins.”
Jacob put his hand on Charlotte’s shoulder and turned her back to the wagon. They walked down to it and Jacob helped Charlotte climb up on the passenger side.
They turned the wagon around and drove out past the undermanned barricade.
Charlotte had Jacob turn riverward at the next intersection.
They had come back to the docks near where the Isabella’s berth had been. Jacob had been wrong about the city coming awake. Instead, New Orleans felt deserted.
Ships were here, sitting in their berths, empty of sailors and deck hands. Jacob, shielding his eyes against the glare, looked out west, downriver to the Gulf of Mexico. More ships anchored out there, waiting for word of an all-clear in the city. Jacob imagined that’s what the Union blockade had looked like just three years earlier. Ships just waiting.
“It’s just ahead,” said Charlotte.
“Where?”
“I’ll say,” she replied.
Jacob drove the wagon about two blocks farther up New Levee. Still no one in sight.
“Here.”
They got down from the wagon.
“I’m not armed,” Jacob said.
“Remember?” Charlotte asked, patting her thigh. “I am.”
Jacob grunted.
They walked up the street. A pack of dogs ran across their path. One stopped and looked at Jacob and Charlotte, seeming to take their measure. They held sand in the dog’s mind, Jacob guessed. The pack turned and ran upriver in the direction of the square.
“The diocesean office ain’t far away,” Jacob said.
“Let’s just take a look. Alright? If anything feels wrong, we leave.”
“Fine. Just feel like I’m in my birthday suit without my gear, that’s all.”
They walked a little farther along, Charlotte with her eyes closed and lips parted.
“There,” Charlotte said, almost gasping. She pointed at one of the little warehouse buildings on their left. “That’s it.”
Jacob took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. He looked up and down the street, out at the ships anchored and waiting in their berths. He turned out to the ships down the Mississippi. He spun and looked at Charlotte in her nun habit. Black stockings flashed in his mind. He took a deep breath and sighed.
Charlotte opened her eyes and looked at him. “You haven’t the affliction, have you?”
“What?” Jacob asked. “Hell no. Sorry. No, I mean.”
“What’s the matter, then?”
“Just thinking. Just thinking, that’s all.”
“That’s it, Jacob,” Charlotte repeated, pointing again to the warehouse. “That right there.”
“I know. Let’s go.”
They crossed the street to the opposite side. They skirted around refuse and debris from broken crates. All the smells of the city assaulted them: rotten vegetables, wood smoke, brackish water, urine. They stopped in front of the warehouse.
“It’s deserted, I think,” Charlotte said, her voice a whisper.
“How do you know?”
“Feelings, like everything else. I can’t see through walls, if that’s what you mean, but I have a good sense of most places. Our destination is empty of people.”
“Anything else?”
“Whatever has been left behind is evil. But we already knew that, didn’t we?”
They went down around the edge of the building. It was only about twenty feet wide, but stretched almost a hundred long. They followed the alley that ran along the warehouse’s edge, coming to a wooden door on their right.
The door opened inward, but looked sturdy.
Jacob gently pushed Charlotte back. He looked back at her, eyebrow raised. She didn’t respond. Jacob reared back and kicked the door. He kicked it again, clearing the way.
Jacob went inside.
The first room had once been an office. Two boarded-up windows looked out onto the mud-alley Jacob and Charlotte had just walked in from. An open door to their right led off into the warehouse. The remnants of a chair that looked to have been kicked to splinters sat piled in the corner. A layer of dust lay over everything. Boot scuffs in the dust on the ground led deeper into the warehouse.
“Need to find a light,” Jacob said over his shoulder, grinning, “lest you can see in the dark, too.”
“No,” Charlotte said. “We certainly need a light.”
They walked through the door. Jacob felt along the wall on his left. A lantern hung there. Jacob pulled it down. He took a lucifer from his pocket and struck it on the wall. He lit the lantern and held it out in front of them as they walked farther into the room.
The warehouse’s beams stretched onward like the ribs of some great beast. To the left of the door was a space large enough for a wagon. Wooden doors big enough to allow a cart were set on rollers. From the looks of it, the doors led outside. Boxes and boxes of large caliber cartridges had been stacked nearby.
Ten sets of unmade bunk beds ran down the length of the building on their right. Footlockers sat at the foot of each. Three tables with chairs surrounding them stood on the left, dirty dishes piled on two of them. Four large bottles sat on the third. They were curious looking, dome-shaped pieces of glassware with short necks and large, capped-off mouths. Green and brown water filled the bottom inch of each bottle.
Jacob and Charlotte walked closer to the bottles, Jacob holding his lantern up high. He leaned in close and looked within the nearest. Something covered the top of the water. He reached out to the top of the bottle and, careful to not lift it from the table, shook.
The inside of the dome came alive with mosquitoes. Hundreds of them flitted and buzzed in a black swarm. A shiver went down Jacob’s spine and his hair stood on end as Charlotte gasped beside him. He left the bottle where it was and walked farther into the room.
Two doors at the end of the room led out. Between them, pinned to the wall, was a hooded corpse. A sign hung from its chest. The sign read: “Remember that Secrecy is Paramount. Don’t Wear a Confederate Hat on the Street.” Someone had driven the sign into the body’s sternum with a railroad spike. Jacob didn’t have to look beneath the hood to know that the corpse had red hair and freckles covering its face.
“Who is that, do you think?” Charlotte asked, shuddering.
“Someone who couldn’t remember to not wear his goddamn hat.”
They walked over to the door on the right. Charlotte put a hand on it. She breathed deeply and put an ear to the wood. Charlotte squinted her eyes and made a face. She looked back at Jacob, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“There’s something there,” she said in a lowered voice, “but I can’t tell what it might be.”
“Thought you said this place was empty. Is it Kukluxers?” he asked. She shook her head. “Afflicted?” She shrugged.
Jacob touched her shoulder and gently moved her behind him. He pushed the door open and stepped back. The darkness was thick enough to spread on cornbread. But nothing went for Jacob’s jugular, so that was something. He brandished the lantern and stepped into the room.
The New Orleans Zombie Riot of 1866: And Other Jacob Smith Stories Page 17
