by Joe McKinney
Sobbing, wiping the tears from his face with the back of his hand, Colin slowly pulled himself out from under the bed.
Ed helped him to his feet.
“You won’t tell them how you found me, will you? Promise me you won’t.”
Ed looked at him. “Sure,” he said. “I promise. Now clean your face up and let’s go downstairs. Blow your nose while you’re at it.”
Margaret was holding a wet towel to Billy’s face when Ed and Colin came downstairs. Billy and the others were in the living room now, waiting for them.
Ed looked at Billy. “How you feeling, kid?”
Billy tried to smile, but his lips felt like two busted peaches. Everything hurt. All he could manage was a painful grunt.
“Everybody else okay?” Ed said.
He looked around the room. Julie was sitting on a barstool at the far end of the living room, crying quietly to herself.
Billy watched Ed go over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at Ed, and Billy couldn’t quite decipher the look on her face. Was she pissed at him? Was it something else? He wasn’t sure.
She said, “What about Barbie, Ed? You can’t leave her back there like that. You have to make sure she doesn’t come back.”
He nodded.
Billy and the others watched him slowly pull a pistol from his waistband and open the cylinder and check the rounds he had left there. Then he snapped the cylinder shut and made his way back down the hallway toward the master bedroom.
Robin looked at Billy. “What’s going on?” she said.
He shook his head, then took the towel from Margaret and looked down at his lap, waiting for the sound.
It came a moment later, a single pistol shot. They all flinched.
CHAPTER 39
It was August 6, three days after the death of Randall Gaines and Barbie Denkins in Emporia, Kansas, about 11:30 in the morning, when Billy Kline pulled the van to the side of the road and put it in park.
“Hey, Ed,” he said over his shoulder. “Ed, you awake?”
In the backseat, Ed pushed the brim of his Stetson up his forehead with his thumb and looked up. He’d been driving most of the night, the group deciding they were so close now it was best to drive on through until they reached the Grasslands, and he felt worn down, tired almost beyond sleep.
“Come here and look at this.”
Ed leaned forward in his seat, expecting to see more of the infected wandering the road. Over the last few days, they’d seen a bunch scattered in the roadside debris of abandoned cars and abandoned tent cities.
But there were no zombies. They were surrounded by green, rolling land all the way to the horizon in every direction. Had been for the last day and a half. Billy pointed up the road and Ed looked that way. He could see metal roofs and wooden structures in the distance, the roofs glistening like pools of motor oil in the sun. Off to one side, outside the camp’s perimeter fence, he could see a pair of yellow earthmovers cutting into the ground.
He opened the side door and climbed out. Billy got out, too. Jeff Stavers and the others pulled up alongside them. Soon, they were all standing in the middle of the road, looking north at the buildings of Jasper Sewell’s village. Up ahead was an old wooden billboard. Whatever it had once advertised was completely effaced now. The white paint was peeling off in large flakes. But in bold, red letters, the paint still fresh, were the words WELCOME TO THE GRASSLANDS. HERE THERE IS PEACE.
“We did it, Ed,” Billy said. “We got here.”
Ed looked at him and smiled. He couldn’t help it. The smile spread across his face and he could barely hold the wind in his lungs. He felt good. They had really made it.
Beside him, Jeff Stavers was shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. He held Robin’s hand with the other.
“What are you thinking?” she said.
“That it’s real. I think a part of me just didn’t believe that it would be real.”
That was it, Ed thought. He’s put his finger on it.
He took a deep breath and let it out. He closed his eyes and opened them again. The village was still there, its roofs dappled with sunlight.
It was real. Good lord, it was real.
From the top of a mounded earthen dome near the kitchen, Aaron Roberts stood watching the pair of vehicles as they approached the main gate. His gaze drifted to the earthmovers to his right. Zombies had gathered at the perimeter fence during the night and had to be put down. The earthmovers were almost done burying the bodies. On the loudspeakers, Jasper was praising the work they’d all been doing recently.
“We are becoming a self-sufficient island of God’s love,” Jasper said. “We are building the world anew here in the Grasslands, and each of you is a vital part of that rebirth. Each of you matters. People, people, people, don’t you see the wisdom of this? The United States government has abandoned its charge to the people it was formed to protect. The check that Martin Luther King Jr. was so determined to cash has bounced after all. The government has turned its back on you and on me and on God himself. Why, just the other day I was listening to them talking about us. Us, people, you and me. They were talking about us. And do you know what they had to say? They called us communists. They called us deserters. Do you hear those words, people? Do they make you mad? Well, let them call us what they will. Let them say whatever they want to say about us, for you and I know the truth, don’t we? We know we are building this community from solid rock. We have built our house on the best soil, and it will soon feed us the same way God’s love feeds our souls. Bless you all for your hard work. God loves you. I love you. Each and every one of you.”
Well spoken, Aaron thought. He personally had not heard the broadcast Jasper was talking about, but that didn’t matter. If Jasper said it, it was real. And Jasper had said the Family was doing well. Aaron felt proud of that. They’d organized effectively when the zombies appeared, and they’d fought like trained soldiers. Yes, indeed, let the government say what it would. They were taking care of themselves.
Aaron saw a boy of about fourteen coming out of the bakery with an armload of metal sheet pans. He called out to him.
The boy put down the sheet pans and came running.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
“Look there,” Aaron said, and pointed at the vehicles coming down the road. “Go tell Jasper we have some new arrivals.”
“Me?” The boy sounded amazed—and a little frightened.
Aaron ruffled his hair. “Yes, you. Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite. Go on now.”
“Yes, sir.”
The exterior wall surrounding the village was a hurricane fence some fifteen feet high, strung together between large, rectangular cedar posts, like enormously long railroad ties. Ed sat in the passenger seat of the van, watching a group of workers who were repairing a section of the fence, and whistled.
“Looks pretty well fortified,” he said.
“That’s good, right?” Billy said.
“Yeah, I guess so.” He nodded ahead. “Looks like they’re letting us in.”
Billy put the van in gear and they slowly rolled forward. On their right, they saw two large sheds, and next to those, a well house. Farther up the road, they saw a number of buildings. A few looked unfinished, but quite a few were impressively well situated.
“They’ve done a lot in a month,” Billy said.
“Yeah.”
A man in a worn, floppy farmer’s hat stepped into the road and held up a hand in greeting.
“The welcoming committee?” Billy said.
Ed nodded.
The man waved them off to the right, where two rows of vehicles already were. They parked and got out.
“Hello,” the man said. “Welcome to the Grasslands.”
Ed tipped his hat to the man. “I’m Ed Moore,” he said, shaking hands with the man.
“Aaron Roberts,” the man in the farmer’s hat said. “You folks look tired. Have you come a long way?”
“Sara
sota, Florida, for me and these folks here,” Ed said, indicating his group. “These folks here we met on the way up. They’re from California.”
Aaron nodded at Jeff Stavers and his group.
“Well, it’s good to have you.”
“Thanks.”
“Ed,” Aaron said, and then stopped himself. “May I call you Ed? We are very informal here.”
“Ed is fine.”
“Wonderful. Ed, I suppose you folks have heard stories about us. And about Jasper Sewell, our leader. That’s why you are here, right?”
“We’ve heard stories, yes. Quite a few, in fact.”
“I heard,” Kyra said, “that he can walk among the infected without them attacking him.”
Ed laughed. “Yeah, that’s the kind of stories I’ve heard, too.”
Aaron nodded. “That particular story is true.”
Ed frowned.
“It’s true. I saw it myself. It happened right in front of our church back in Jackson, Mississippi. Jasper walked right out into a crowd of the infected, scooped up a mother and daughter, and brought them safely inside our church. And he did it as calmly as you or I would order a cheeseburger. Just went out and got ’em.”
Ed nodded dubiously.
“Jasper will be meeting with you shortly,” Aaron said. “He likes to greet all new arrivals personally. Understand, though, please, that we have a quarantine rule here. Before you are allowed to mingle with the rest of the Family, we need to make sure that you are not infected or sick in any way.”
Ed looked at him. “The Family?”
“An affectionate term for our community here. The quarantine is only for a few hours, but I hope you can understand why it’s necessary.”
“Yeah,” Ed said. “Sure.”
There was a commotion from the direction of the buildings and Aaron turned that way.
“Ah,” he said. “Here comes Jasper now.”
Ed and the others followed his gaze up the road. There was a large pavilion just to the left of the main road, the largest building they could see, and a crowd was coming out of it, headed their way. And in the middle of the crowd, in a white suit over a gray shirt and wearing white shoes, was a man with unnaturally dark hair and a square, oddly plastic-looking face. He wore large, round sunglasses that, to Ed, seemed almost comical.
“Good Lord,” Ed said.
Later that evening, just before six, they were released from their quarantine.
“You must be hungry,” Jasper said to them.
“Yes, actually,” said Kyra. “Very much.”
“How very odd,” Jasper said. “There are times when I can hear the West Texas twang in your speech very clearly, and other times I can’t. Why do you suppose that is, child?”
“I…I don’t know. Uh, sir.”
“Jasper, please. Child, call me Jasper.”
Beside her, Colin took her hand. She turned slightly and smiled in his direction.
“Kyra,” Jasper said. “Would you permit me to ask you a personal question?”
“Uh, of course,” she said.
“Have you been blind since birth?”
“No,” she said. “It happened when I was four. I was in a car crash.”
“Ah,” he said. “How very dreadful. I’m so sorry. But tell me, do you enjoy listening to the radio?”
That stopped her. She stopped so suddenly, in fact, that Colin turned and looked at her.
“How did you know that?” she said.
“A hunch,” he said. “Repeat these numbers back to me. 67459089 and 14258463 and 78546338. Can you do that for me?”
Kyra smiled at him. “Of course.” And then she repeated the sequence back to him without hesitation.
Jasper laughed and clapped his hands together.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Exactly as I thought. Child, your ability for recall is impressive, but I bet you can do a lot more than that, can’t you? Your eyes are gone, but your mind compensates in other ways.”
Kyra blushed.
“I…maybe.”
“Of course you can,” he said. He turned to Aaron, who had been walking along behind them, silently observing the tour, and said, “Brother Aaron, I do believe we have found a radio room messenger.”
“A what?” Kyra said.
“Child,” Jasper said. “I think I have just the job for you. Yes, indeed, just the job.”
When the tour was done, they met in the pavilion for dinner. There was a prayer and singing, and Jasper spoke to them over the loudspeaker. Later, they were led through the line where they were served cafeteria style. Billy had a double portion of macaroni and cheese, pot roast, two chocolate milks, and a peach cobbler.
He sat down between Ed and Julie Carnes. Both were eating lightly.
“You’re not hungry?” he asked Ed.
“Not really, no.”
“What’s up?” Billy asked. “You’ve been acting weird since before our tour. Something wrong?”
Ed didn’t answer.
“Ed?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I was just thinking.” He looked around the pavilion, noticing the loudspeakers that carried Jasper’s voice across the village, but it troubled him that he hadn’t seen a single radio or TV or cell phone anywhere in the entire camp.
“Thinking about what?” Billy asked.
Ed let out a breath and slapped Billy on the shoulder. “Nothing,” he said. “My nerves are still a little raw from the road. Enjoy your dinner.”
CHAPTER 40
Four days after their arrival at the Grasslands, Jeff Stavers was leaning in the doorway of a classroom and watching Robin Tharp finish up her classes for the day. Jasper had seen the way Margaret O’Brien’s grandkids took to Robin during their quarantine, and he’d asked her to lead one of their classes for the village’s elementary-aged kids.
She glanced up from the book she was reading and smiled. He nodded back and slipped outside. Though it was early August, midafternoon, there was still a slight chill in the air, and it felt good. The sky above them was a limitless blue, broken only by a high, thin band of white cirrus clouds far off to the west. Jasper and his people did an amazing job of planning this place out, Jeff thought. They had fresh water from the Cedar River to the south and plenty of land for farming and cattle and development. He breathed deeply, and realized that he felt wonderful. He could really, finally, breathe.
“Hey there, handsome.”
Jeff turned. Robin was standing there, a copy of The Celery Stalks at Midnight clutched over her breasts. Kids ran around her on the way to the playground. One of them stopped to hug her, then ran off after the others.
“You sounded really good in there. I’d never be able to manage all those kids.”
She reached down and took his hand in hers. “I’m enjoying this. The teaching. It’s wonderful.”
“It shows,” he said. “What were you reading them anyway?”
She showed him the book.
“The Celery Stalks at Midnight. Cute. What’s that about?”
“It’s about a vampire bunny named Bunnicula who drains the juice from vegetables. There’s a cat named Chester and a dog named Harold who try to stop him but never quite manage it.”
“Bunnicula, huh? You know, I’d have thought that kids these days would have had enough of being scared.”
“It’s actually a pretty funny book. But you know, I don’t think kids will ever really get tired of scary stuff. It’s part of growing up, you know? You can read a scary story and compartmentalize it, own it, in a way, because it’s a bite-sized chunk of terror. Sort of like a vaccine against an illness. Once you master your fear of the scary stuff in the story, you can approach the larger world, growing up and stuff like that, with a little more self-assurance.”
They had been walking down a dirt lane toward the pavilion, but he stopped and looked at her. Really looked at her. “Robin,” he said. “That’s brilliant.”
She huffed.
“No, really. I mean it. You�
�ve really given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”
“I have a lot of life experience to back it up,” she said.
He nodded to that.
They started walking again, and he said, “So, you’re happy? You think we made the right choice coming here?”
“I think so,” she said. “Jeff, I love being a teacher. It’s wonderful. And Jasper’s great, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Jeff, you’re wonderful. Don’t take what I’m about to say the wrong way. You really are a wonderful man. Smart, caring, even a little sexy—in a dopey kind of way.”
“Thanks.”
“But you’ve got to understand something, Jeff. Even you, when you met me that first time—remember, in Colin’s limo?”
“I remember.”
“Well, even you, sweet as you turned out to be, when you looked at me that first time, you recognized me. You had this impression of me that was based on what I did. But Jasper, when he first saw me, he didn’t see a…Well, you know. He saw somebody who could teach children to read. He looked at me in a way I’ve never been looked at before. Do you have any idea how that feels?”
“I bet it feels great,” he said.
She gave him a sexy pout. “I knew you’d take it the wrong way. I wasn’t criticizing you.”
“How am I supposed to take it? You just lumped me in with every pervert who ever watched a porno.”
“You are a pervert.” She smiled at him, the tip of her tongue just visible between her lips. There was mischief in her eyes. “You’re a cute pervert, though.”
“Yeah, right.”
She took his hand as they walked past a group of squealing kids in the middle of a game of tag.
“So how about you?” she asked. “How’s life on the farm?”
He grunted. She meant the farming work he’d been doing in the vegetable fields. That first day, in quarantine, while Robin was discovering the teacher within, he’d gone through a rather embarrassing question-and-answer session with Aaron. After answering “None” to a whole string of questions about his experience with the practical survival skills of carpentry, plumbing, brick making, and animal husbandry, he’d been assigned to work in the fields. But it wasn’t all bad, the farming. He’d met another Harvard alumnus, a real-estate attorney from Maryland, and the two of them had had a pretty heated discussion about the recurrence of the True Thomas folktale in Keats’s poetry while they shoveled manure from the bed of a pickup.
