"Timothy's office," Betty trilled. She flicked a hand at the doorway with a smile that didn't soften her eyes. "Go on."
Betty let them inside and clicked the door shut. The room was spacious, every inch cluttered with small collections: vinyl records, license plates, Coke bottles, comic books. Eli and Jane stood in the middle of the mess between a large table and two worn sofas. Three doors lined up in front of them, each leading to a smaller room. A voice drifted from one on the left.
"Is that our esteemed guests I hear?" A man emerged. He wore faded jeans, a holey cardigan over a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and glasses on the tip of his nose. "Hi there. I'm Timothy."
"Eli." He took the man's offered hand. "That's Jane."
Timothy smiled wide beneath a white handlebar mustache. "Let me just look at you a minute. I've seen the same hundred faces for six years."
Lime-colored eyes examined their faces and clothes, and he moved around and behind them. Eli, his skin crawling, expected a flicker of recognition. It never came.
"Is your room comfortable?" Timothy asked. Eli and Jane nodded. "Good. Have a seat."
He plopped on one sofa; Eli and Jane sat on the other.
"That part of the building used to be the old county jail, back in the day," the man said in an easy, jokey tone. "Matter of fact, the courtyard here — which you probably haven't seen yet — was the sight of a hanging back in the 1930s. Famous mobster. I forget his name."
Timothy grinned at them again and shook his head as if in wonder. He sat back, crossing his legs at the ankle and locking his hands behind his head.
"So, what can I tell you about this place? We have animals — cows, goats, chickens, geese. Nice big garden. Excellent security. And we're all natives. This was an emergency shelter, you see. We all flocked here when … you know. Over the years, a few outsiders have come and gone..."
Timothy let the words trail off and stared at Eli's side, chewing his lip. Eli saw the question in his eyes: was Eli a friend or foe?
"Last time I saw you, you were pale as a fart, half-dead, and bleeding."
"I hear," Eli said. "Jane says I owe you a thanks."
Timothy's mustache flickered at her. "Well, she threatened to tear my throat out if I didn't help. Never seen a woman so hysterical."
Jane's jaw clenched. "He's exaggerating."
"But she didn't say what happened. Tell me, Eli, how'd you get stabbed?"
He knows. The thought jumped into Eli's mind with a flip of his stomach, even though it was absurd. Timothy's eyes narrowed, waiting for Eli's answer, probing into his soul. What does he see?
Eli cleared his throat. "Not stabbed. Hunting accident."
"What kind, exactly?"
The corner of Jane's mouth flickered. "The kind where an inexperienced woman shouldn't try to skin a rabbit."
"Ah." Timothy sat back, brought a hand to his jaw. A few seconds later, a knock came at the door; a blond head poked in and Timothy waved it in the rest of the way.
"Sorry," the man began. He was tall, with a small head and sloped shoulders. He nodded at the unfamiliar faces in the room, but his gaze stuck on Eli. Goosebumps sprouted across Eli's skin. The man shook his head. "We've got about ten of 'em at the wall now, Timothy. Men want to use up some arrow stock. Looking for your okay."
Timothy sighed deeply and nodded. "Go ahead. Have Rocky, Mike, and Ben get to making some more right away."
"You got it." The man tipped his head at them again, then clicked the door shut behind him.
"Andy," Timothy said. "Runs our security."
Eli trembled, pictured the forms pacing the roof, the men who fell to the street, bullets in their bodies.
Timothy's voice cut through his thoughts. "Where you two from?"
Jane answered again. "Down south."
"How many people?"
"'Bout the same as here," she said.
"You do well for yourself?"
"Well enough."
Timothy cleared his throat. "You see any other survivors out there in the great beyond?" The question hung in the air. Timothy's bushy eyebrows rose, with something like hope shining in his eyes. Was the world full of people, or littered with bones? Eli pitied him.
"Not many," Eli said. "Yours is the second place we've been. There may be more."
Timothy yanked his glasses up into his wavy, gray hair, rubbed his jowls. "Well, that ain't good news, is it? Many of them creatures out there?"
"Too many to count," Jane said.
"And somehow you've made it this far." Eli sensed the question behind Timothy's words: How did you survive?
"It's not easy. But if you're quiet, calm" — Eli imagined Frank's body, crumpled on the forest floor — "it's possible."
"Why are you out there at all? Away from walls, safety, food. Into the lion's den, as it were?"
Beside him, Jane's light breaths quickened with nerves.
"A mission." It was half-true, and Eli felt a surge of pride and purpose. "To unite any survivors we find."
"Right." Timothy leaned forward on his knees, like he was talking to a small child. "And I called the president this morning, and he says the Army is coming to save us." He spread his hands. "Be serious."
Eli's neck flushed with heat. "We don't even know how many people are out th —"
"And we don't know what kind of people, either."
"We still need each other."
Timothy chuckled, shook his head. "All right, then." He stuck out a thick-fingered hand and ticked off his points. "How are you going to get people to leave their homes? How will you get them safely through the wilderness? And where's everyone going to go? Not to mention that if you trap every survivor in one place, there's a greater chance they'll all be infected."
Heat burned a knot in Eli's chest. "There must be a way to fight them."
"And who do you propose will lead all these survivors. You?"
"Haven't gotten that far."
"Well, I have. And I've no interest living under someone else's thumb." He studied Eli and Jane with eyes reduced to slits. "Or leaving my home to live with people I don't know or trust."
"Fair enough."
Timothy fixed Eli with a hollow glare. "People have climbed my walls and tried to steal my animals, my food. People have shot at us. Strangers have charmed their way in and raped our women. People are worse than any of those creatures out there..."
Eli waited for a memory to flash behind Timothy's eyes. He tensed. But again, recognition didn't come.
Eli's hopes deflated and he croaked, "You're right." Timothy's smile returned.
"Well, all that nonsense aside, I did have a reason for asking you here. I have a little spiel to give you." He cleared his throat. "If you stay here, there's a probation period and we have strict rules. Misbehave, you get a strike. Three and I send you packin'."
Timothy crossed his legs again, swept his arm over the couch. "How's that sound?"
"Just fine," Eli said. Jane nodded. "But we ain't staying."
Timothy's brows shot up. "Very determined to complete this doomed mission, then?"
"I am."
"When are you taking off?"
"In the morning," Eli said. "If you'll have us until then."
"I will."
Timothy shimmied to the edge of his seat and slapped his hands on his knees. His lime eyes turned to stone.
"However, you've already broken one of my rules. I understand you had a visitor last night." Eli and Jane traded glances and Timothy grinned. "Rule one while you're here: stay out of our business. Rule two, don't go wandering in my town. Understood?"
"Sure, sure."
Timothy stood and herded them to the door and into the hallway, now stirring with strange faces and laughter. He slapped Eli on the back with a wink and flick of his mustache.
"Hey, I'm no dictator. I'll still feed you while you're with us," he said. "Come to dinner tonight. It'll be fun."
He disappeared into his expansive rooms before they could answer.
Chapter 20
At dinner, Eli waited for someone to reveal him as a murderer.
They dined in an airy room with large windows gazing out on the dead town outside. Utensils clinked on plates and candles flickered on tabletops. To Eli, the room swirled with color and light and dozens of faces, conversations throbbing in his ear. He imagined what they were saying.
"Boy, that man looks awful familiar," said one.
"I could swear I've seen him before," said another.
"Isn't he the one who shot at us?"
He sat at a table in a corner by a window, staring at the tablecloth, ignoring the voices and the staring eyes. One face stood out among the blurred crowd — Andy. He sat at a nearby table and kept glancing at Eli with a scowl, puzzling out who this familiar stranger was. He waited for Andy's words to ring through the room. Imagined himself sitting at the table, the man's finger in his face and the words spoken: This is the man who stormed the courthouse four years ago, killed our friends, ran away like a coward.
What would Jane say?
A restless, anxious energy jabbed his organs, and he bobbed his leg under the table, dug at his nails. Then he heard his name, jolted, and found Jane eyeing him.
She pointed with her fork. "Eat."
Eli stared down at a skinny turkey leg, two small boiled potatoes, a little pile of beans. The meal turned his stomach, but he cut a potato and tried a small piece; it fought bile on its way down his throat. As he chewed, he searched the room — the faces lined up at three long tables, the people standing in shadowed corners or next to the tall windows, milling around the buffet table — wondering.
Which one is Susan? Will she talk to us?
Andy's hard gaze locked on him again. Eli turned away to study the sprawling view outside the window. Jane and Timothy's voices resounded in his ears: something about Parasites, and how people in Elsberry called them a hive.
"Timothy," Jane cooed, "could I trouble you for another helping? It's been a long time since I've had such good food."
A hiccup of nerves bubbled in Eli's throat. Jane must have found Robin alone; this was how they'd planned to get her away from Timothy's watchful eye. Eli's job was to keep him distracted.
Timothy patted Jane's hand. "I suppose it's all right. Not too much, though. Don't need you eating us out of house and home."
Jane rose and Eli watched her from the corner of his eye until she was out of sight. In her absence, Timothy leaned in, a half-drunk cup of vodka sloshing in his hand, and continued the conversation.
"I'm telling you, Eli, it's mind control. It's the only way to explain how they act."
Eli forced two cold beans into his mouth and swallowed. "How so?"
"Just watch 'em sometime. The way they look at each other with those dead eyes and seem to know what the other is thinking." Timothy gestured with his cup. "They move as one. Have no personalities. Like they're limbs of the same creature."
"Sure, sure," Eli said, but his thoughts were on Jane and whether she'd found Susan.
"My theory: it was a chemical attack started this whole mess," Timothy continued. "Terrorists, I think. That's what they said on the news."
"Heard that, too. And that it was the flu and something in the water. Or zombies."
Timothy rolled his eyes. "'Course, it don't matter now, do it? What it was?" Timothy took another swig of his vodka; wrinkles slashed crevices across his cheeks. "We're outnumbered and doomed to live hidden behind our walls."
Timothy gulped his vodka; Andy stared at Eli over the leader's shoulder. Gunshots rattled through his eardrums. A body fell from a roof.
"What's your theory?"
Eli peeled his eyes away. "No idea, really."
"Come on, let's hear it. It's not like we can prove who's right and wrong."
Eli glimpsed over Timothy's shoulder again. Andy was gone. "A girl back home thinks they've just forgotten who they are."
"That's a nice story." Timothy's mustache, sodden with liquor, flicked with a sarcastic grin. "Do you think that's true?"
"No," he whispered. "They ain't human no more."
"So what are they, then?"
Timothy's question was left hanging. Jane swept back to the table and sat down, her plate laden with a small hunk of turkey and a single potato. She winked at Eli.
"What you two talking about?" Jane said.
Timothy raised his cup. "Post-apocalyptic philosophy."
Jane plopped the potato in her mouth.
Timothy rapped Eli's arm. "Answer my question."
Andy reappeared; he squinted at Eli once more, cocked his head and appeared to decide something, then made his way over.
Blood rushed to Eli's face.
"Eli," Timothy pressed, tapping his shoulder.
"They're animals. Just part of nature, I guess."
Timothy nodded, as if Eli's ideas had made him give up his own. "And nature is cruel, isn't it?"
Andy advanced. Jane looked up from her plate, smiling at the new arrival. Eli wished he had time to explain himself. "It doesn't mean to be."
Timothy grinned again and raised his glass. He opened his mouth to say more, but Andy sidled up to the table. Eli stopped breathing and the room vanished. Candles extinguished, sinking the room into a swath of black; the buzz of conversation faded to nothing. To Eli, Andy was the only person in the room, and theirs the only conversation.
"This is going to sound weird," Andy said, "but I think I know you."
Eli's stomach dropped. "Really? Whereabouts?"
"You look just like this guy who worked with my brother at Homestate Savings and Loan. Ben Richmond, his name was."
Eli's heart kickstarted. Candles sputtered to life and voices rang in his ear again. He chuckled. "'Fraid not. Name's Eli."
Andy slapped his thighs. "That's a shame. It was a long shot." He patted Eli's shoulder. "Guess running into people you know is a thing of the past, eh?"
"Guess so," Eli said weakly.
Andy turned to Timothy and said something about arrow production, then walked off and joined his friends by the window. Breathless, Eli concentrated on the view outside: the sun had fallen, the land beneath starting its slow descent into invisibility. A thin ribbon of road cut through the green: Elsberry's main street, where he'd walked four years earlier, gun drawn. And where he walked two days before, half dead.
The same route, the same place, and no one knew him. He should be relieved, but the thought burned in his chest like a poison.
He wouldn't be punished for his crimes.
"Timothy," a voice called.
Eli's trance broke and the room focused. Someone was leaning over Timothy's shoulder, whispering into his ear. His cheek creases dragged his mouth into a frown. "Excuse me." He left the table.
Slowly, Eli realized Jane had draped her hand on his arm. "Eli, I found her." She pointed to a far corner. "Let's go."
Eli stood on shaky legs and downed the last of his water, then followed Jane through the horde, forcing himself to forget he was nervous. Energy pulsed in his limbs and chest.
Lily. Rooney. Meagan. Dana, Lynn, Bonnie.
Timothy had disappeared; he leaned in to Jane. "We need to make this quick."
She nodded and led him to the corner farthest from the window, where two middle-aged women stood in shadow, speaking closely.
"That's her, on the left." Jane tilted her head at a tall woman, her dark hair tied in a messy braid hanging over one shoulder. As Eli and Jane approached, she regarded them with keen blue eyes framed with deep smile lines.
"Susan?" Jane said. Eli glanced at the other woman, concerned by the way a muscle twitched in her cheek. "Do you have a minute?"
Susan nodded and her companion left. They drew close, and Jane spoke quietly and quickly.
"Robin told us you knew someone called Simon."
Susan's thin lips stretched thinner. "I'm not supposed to talk to you," she said weakly. Her blue-eyed glance turned downward.
Eli crept closer. "Look at me.
" She obeyed. "Simon murdered a boy in our town. Then he kidnapped our friend. She's twelve."
Little lines sprouted above the woman's brows. "Not my Simon."
Jane shifted her body so she could face the crowd.
"'Fraid so," Eli muttered huskily.
Susan brought a hand to her tanned forehead and sighed deeply. "I didn't recognize him, you know. Last time I saw him he was a scrawny thing. He came back with a beard."
"What kinda kid was he?" Eli asked.
The woman shrugged sharp shoulders. "Sweet. Mischievous. A dreamer. I was his fifth-grade teacher. Used my class to read National Geographics he hid in his textbooks. He wanted to be an explorer."
"What happened?"
"Usual story. Wrong crowd. He got into a lot of trouble." She hung her head. "He spent two years in jail before the Fall. A week after he got out, the world ended."
"Jesus," Jane breathed.
"Why did he leave here?" Eli said.
Susan laughed. It was a pleasant, musical sound. "Too penned in, I think. He used to say that the world had become a wild place again. He wanted to explore it."
"When did he leave?"
"Just after the flu spread. Last time I saw him, he was crying. His best friend here had just died."
"When did he come back?"
Jane tapped his arm. "Eli." He looked over his shoulder and caught Timothy's white hair weaving through the crowd on the far side of the room.
Pressure built in Eli's chest.
"Susan," he pressed.
"Two months ago, I think."
"You talk to him?"
"A little."
"Where had he been?"
"He didn't say. But he said something about a girl. Seemed to be quite smitten." A pall fell over Susan's face. "He wasn't the same. Simon was always trouble, but he was a sweet boy. When he came back he was cold. Reminded me of one of them: no life in his eyes."
"Is it true that Rooney left with him?"
Susan opened her mouth to answer, but a girl shrieked and she jumped inside her skin. Jane stretched to her full height and peered in the direction of the sound, her brows low and jaw set.
"Get your hands off me!"
Everyone in the room fell into a deep, tense quiet. Two heads bobbed above the crowd, struggling with something between them. Every head in the room turned to the scene. The girl shrieked again, her voice splitting the air like an ax cracking through wood. Eli ran through the mob, between the bodies. He spied arms flailing and red hair whipping through the air.
The Human Wilderness (A New America Trilogy Book 1) Page 16
