Struggling against the vicious melee, even as her body was pinned down, Else screamed as a blade passed through the tangle of arms and pressed into her side. The white-hot pain flared through her body.
“Stop!” a woman’s voice rang out. The riders hesitated and slowly withdrew into a circle around Else, who clutched her wounded side and made it to her knees before vomiting blood on the ground.
“What is the meaning of this?” Sister Mary strode through the ring of people. She stopped in front of Else, gently sinking down on one knee and pressing her hand against the spreading bloodstain on the woman’s shirt.
“Stay out of this, Sister,” Donna rasped from her seat.
“I asked, what is the meaning of this?” Sister Mary repeated.
“She burned the convent, she destroyed my research. She’s going to pay,” Donna rasped.
“Your abominable work was destroyed because it was God’s will that it be destroyed. You shall not raise a hand against his will.” Sister Mary helped Else to her feet. Her left eye was swelling shut, and blood dripped from cuts and abrasions on her face.
“His will?” Donna crawled out of the chair, standing and brushing aside the hands that tried to help her. “Your fucking ideas are insane. You would all die without me.”
“No, we would survive because God wills it,” Sister Mary said. “Your meddling with the Lord’s creation is what has brought his wrath down upon this place. There will be no more experiments. No more monstrosities in God’s house.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Donna snarled. Else could see months of friction and growing tension between the scientist and the devout leader of the convent reaching an explosive point.
“You are forgiven, for that is God’s mercy,” Sister Mary declared. “You should use your God-given talents to help shape and guide us to a successful future. You shall not do the devil’s work with your foul experiments!”
Donna screamed in rage and ripped the bandages off her face. Her right eye had burned away, along with a good chunk of her scalp that now oozed yellow plasma.
“You think your God did this to me!?” the scientist screamed. “This cunt, right here! She did this!”
“Else is God’s child; his rod and his staff. She has achieved so much in her short life. All of it with the Lord’s blessing and you shall not harm her.” Sister Mary’s voice remained level, but her tone was stone cold.
“You can’t take her away from me!” Donna screamed as Sister Mary supported Else and helped her limp towards the gate. “I’m going to use her to save the fucking world!”
Else stopped and twisted in Sister Mary’s arms. “No,” she said through a split lip and bloody teeth. “You’re never going to see me again. You will have to find some other way to make your soldiers. I’m going to leave and find a place to live and raise my son. We may have to fight and maybe we’ll suffer. But we sure as hell won’t let anyone like you use us as a fucking science experiment. Never again.”
Else started hobbling away again. The crowd parted and let Sister Mary help her through. Outside the walls two women came forward and helped Else climb into the back of a horse-drawn wagon.
“Take her back to Mildura, see she is given medical aid, and no one harms her,” Sister Mary instructed the women who climbed up and took the reins.
Else squeezed Sister Mary’s hand. “Sister, I’m sorry I said your beliefs were stupid. I don’t believe like you do, but I can see how your faith makes you strong.”
“God watches over all his children,” Sister Mary said, a smile crinkling the corners of her mouth, “even the ones who deny his existence.”
Else sank back on the wagon floor, her skin already starting to burn and itch as her cells repaired the damage.
Chapter 15
Water trickled into Else’s mouth, waking her with a start, her hand snapping out to grab at the half-seen shape nearby.
“Whoa!” Eric said, tumbling off his chair. “You must’ve been fuckin’ hard on alarm clocks.”
Else blinked. Rache was rising from a mattress on the floor and stretching sleepily. Hob was crouched near the door, and he gently reached out and shook a blanket-draped Anna, who lay sleeping next to him, the cord of his leash gripped in her hand.
Cassie came forward, Lowanna and Else’s baby filling her arms and sleeping soundly in spite of the sudden noise.
“How long did I sleep for?” Else asked, her hand scratching at the dressing under her shirt where the skin itched.
“All day and all night,” Rache said. “We were worried about you, thought you might have gone into an unconscious or something.”
“You mean a coma. But I told you she was just sleeping,” Hob muttered, his gaze set on the floor.
“You did good,” Anna said, without any tone of praise or warmth in her voice.
“Baby,” Else said, sitting up and extending her arms. Cassie transferred him and moved Lowanna to a more comfortable position.
“He’s getting so big,” Cassie said. “Going to be a strong man, that one.”
Else nodded, reacquainting herself with every curve and pore of the baby’s face.
“People are leaving,” Eric said. “They reckon it’s not safe here. Dead are turning up, following the stink of the others or something, some reckon.”
“We are leaving too,” Else said, looking up and meeting the gaze of everyone except Hob in turn.
“We’re going west? Towards the ocean?” Rache said hopefully.
“No, back the way we came, north and east. Up the coast, in Queensland, we can build ourselves a community there in the bush. Plenty of trees for building, lots of food for hunting, and it’s close to the ocean, so people can fish and Rache can find a boat to be the captain of.”
“I dunno about these buggers, but I’ve followed you this far and it ain’t killed me yet,” Eric said. “Reckon I can follow you a bit further.”
The others nodded in agreement. “Right you lot, we’ve got some organizing to do,” Rache said. “Get the word out we’re going to a safer place. Any who want to come with us can do it. Get vehicles, weapons, horses, anything you can to help ship supplies and kids.”
“I’ll go and tell our people you are okay,” Cassie said. “They will come with us, and I reckon most of them living here might want to start somewhere new too.”
Else sat in the shaded gloom of the shelter, her baby sleeping in her arms, only looking up when a shadow fell over her.
“Hey missus,” Joel said, one foot resting against his knees in a figure 4 stance. “I hear you lot are going on a walkabout?”
“Hey Joel. Yeah, we’re going back to Queensland. It’s a long way, but everyone agrees that we might have a better chance up there.”
Joel nodded. “Reckon I could show you lot a faster way, avoid them roads and shit and get there a bit quicker, aye?”
“And Billy and Sally and your people?” Else asked. “They will come too?”
“Sure, they’re keen to keep moving. We’ll see you safe back to your house in the bush.”
In the end, less than half the Mildura residents chose to join the convoy, swelling their numbers to nearly five hundred. They crossed the river, with an armed party fighting the few remaining evols and clearing a path along the dusty highway for them to take their first steps on the long journey towards a place that finally they could call home.
* * *
The sun rose in a fire of orange and red that turned the sea to gold and painted the sky in broad strokes of color, from the dark purple of a bruise to the healthy pink of a laughing baby’s cheeks as the sun rose through an oncoming front of heavy rain cloud.
Else sat in the sand and cradled her son as he nursed at her breast. Behind her the people were preparing for the last leg of the journey to a new place they would call home. She thought she might not see the ocean again for a while. Although, she thought, maybe, just maybe, she could live long enough to see the lands across the oceans. Those painted places of
the maps and atlases she had studied.
Did the dead rule over the living in the Americas, Europe, Africa, or Asia? Else watched the waves and hissing against the golden sand of the beach and decided there would be plenty of time to find out. For now, she had work to do.
Her son grizzled and twisted against the warmth of her skin. Lifting him free of the sling, she held him up to the last rays of sunlight and told him his name.
Tankbread 2: Immortal Page 26
