Maybe everyone in the world was and they’d just forgotten.
Before Alice had made it back to her family, they’d lost nearly half the cattle, pigs, chickens, and goats to thieves. Since her arrival, and with the implementation of a nightly watch, they hadn’t lost anything. Several times they’d been awakened by gunshots as whoever was on duty fired at coyotes or trespassers. The shots also had a deterrent effect since anyone who escaped the gunfire spread the word among the underclass of thieves that “those folks shoot back”.
One morning, the desperate bleating of a nanny goat woke Charlie. His father was on guard duty so Charlie tried to ignore the noise, figuring that if it were anything important Terry would have dealt with it or asked for help. When the noise persisted, Charlie pulled himself out of bed and looked out the window. From his window, he could see the goat standing in the pen adjoining the barn. It looked like its horns were caught in the fence again. They’d been locking the goats up at night but goats were notorious for being able to circumvent the best laid plans of men. Charlie would have to go deal with it now.
He slid on his clothes, grabbed his AR, and went downstairs. His muddy boots were on the back porch where he left them each night. He tiptoed down the steps, hoping that he wouldn’t wake his mother and grandmother. Both of their doors were closed and he assumed they were still sleeping.
Each night, the person on guard duty manned a lawn chair in the mudroom, which was a shed-type addition built onto the back the house. It was an uninsulated room with a storm door and several windows. There was a table beside the lawn chair with a big hunter’s spotlight on it. The mudroom had a good view of the farm structures so the guard could see if anyone tried to break into them. Then he or she could decide whether to hit them with the spotlight or pop a round off at them.
Charlie knew his dad would be sitting there with his .260 Remington bolt-action with the Nikon scope. It was his favorite gun to shoot, whether he was targeting groundhogs or deer. Charlie stopped off in the kitchen and grabbed a cold biscuit from the covered plate on the stove. He took a bite and continued out into the mudroom.
His dad was in the lawn chair asleep, the gun across his lap. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed, and his mouth open. Charlie smiled. While napping on duty was a breach of their new security protocol, Charlie always enjoyed catching his dad doing something he shouldn’t be. It gave him the opportunity to give his dad some crap. Charlie would get some mileage out of this.
He shoved the rest of the biscuit in his mouth and sat down beside his dad to put on his muddy boots. They were heavy rubber farm boots that came up to his knees. He propped his AR up against the door and tugged at a boot while trying to think of some creative way to wake his dad. Charlie didn’t want him to wake up in a panic and start shooting so he figured he needed to slip the gun out of his hands first.
He finished putting on the other boot and stood. He attempted to lift the gun from his dad’s hands but instead of his fingers falling away, they remained wrapped around the stock of the rifle. Charlie carefully reached down to remove his dad’s hands. He found the fingers cold and stiff. He dropped the hand and recoiled, drawing his own hands up in front of body. He felt a flush of icy water run through his veins.
“Dad?” he said. His voice was gentle. Pleading. “Dad?”
Charlie reached out, touched his dad on the shoulder. It was cool.
Charlie sagged to the ground, resting his hands on his dad’s arms. “Oh, Dad. Please, Dad. Wake up, Dad. Please. Wake up. Nooooo….” He broke down and began sobbing, resting his head against the sleeve of the blue hoodie his dad wore.
“Why, Dad? Mom came home to us. She got medicine for you. Why did you still die?”
Charlie cried for his father for a long time before he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and found his grandmother, her eyes red and filled with tears. “C’mon, sweetie,” she said. “We need to tell your mother.”
His grandmother led him up the steps to his mother’s room. Her consoling voice fell silent as they neared the top. Charlie knocked on the door, then pushed it open. The sun was just coming up, throwing hard, angular light through Alice’s window. She was sitting up in the bed as if she were waiting for them.
“Terry’s dead,” she said, taking one look at them. It was not a question. She felt it.
Both Pat and Charlie wished they could tell her that her assumption was wrong, but they couldn’t. Alice lowered herself back to the bed, her head resting directly against the tall oak headboard. She stared ahead. Charlie went to her and lay down beside her, instantly four years old again. He wrapped his arms around her and sobbed with the unbridled pain of his loss.
Alice shed no tears. She thought of the things she’d gone through since leaving for Richmond. She thought of her trip with Rebecca and the imprisonment in Boyd’s basement. She thought of the men she’d killed to get medicine for her husband. Those deaths had bought her husband less than two weeks. One week of life for each she’d taken to get those medications.
She held her son tight, clutching him to her chest. She could feel his pain, the ache of his grief. She hoped he didn’t look into her eyes. If he did, he might see that the blackness inside her left no room for new grief.
Chapter 20
Alice
With her daughter and grandson at a loss for how to handle a death in the home, Pat led them through how it was done when she was a child. They laid Terry’s body out on the kitchen table. They worked together to wrap his body in a burial shroud made of an old sheet. It was somber work that pained their hearts and soured their stomachs. None had any words for what had happened. In a world of impartial and boundless cruelty, this seemed a particularly nasty and unwarranted outcome.
When he was wrapped in the sheet, Pat and Alice began stitching the edges shut.
“I guess I need to dig my daddy a grave,” Charlie said. “Any idea where?”
“Near the pond,” Pat said without hesitation. “He liked to fish there. He enjoyed that spot.”
Alice nodded but didn’t say anything, just continued to crudely stitch the edges of the shroud together. With the Terry that she loved gone already, she was not too concerned about the fate of this empty husk. It seemed pointless to go to much bother about it. Had it just been the two of them, she’d just plant him off in the woods where it wouldn’t foul their water supply. Apparently her mother and son needed a little more from this. They needed it to be right somehow, though she knew there could never be anything right about it.
“When I was a little girl my daddy always helped folks dig graves,” Pat said. “He couldn’t much tolerate funerals but he felt like he did his part by digging the grave. He took a lot of pride in it. He had this old broad axe with an offset handle and he’d get in there and shave the walls of the grave smooth. He’d clean up the corners, square them off, and make them look real nice. People always wondered why he went to so much trouble for a hole that was just going to get filled back in, but when it was one of their folks being buried they understood. It was about paying your respects and everybody has to do that differently. For some, that happens in the chapel. For others, it comes from doing the little things that need doing.”
“I need to get a shovel,” Charlie said. He started off, then turned back to them. “Can we have… some kind of ceremony?”
Pat started to answer but looked at Alice, realizing it should probably be her place to make that decision. Alice was caught off-guard by the question but there was a pleading in Charlie’s voice. If he needed a ceremony to close this out, then she’d do her best to provide one.
“I suppose we can,” she said. “That would be nice.” On the inside, she knew it would be anything but nice. It would only keep the wound fresh that much longer.
“If we’re having a ceremony, then there should be a minister,” Pat said. “To make it official and all.”
Alice had no feelings on this, either. “Fine. If you can find one still willing to speak over
the dead.”
“Do you know one, Granny?” Charlie asked.
Pat could see the hope in his eyes. She could not bring his dad back to him but maybe she could help him feel better about what had to be done today. “I haven’t been to church since people started trying to steal the livestock. It’s a shame that people would steal them while a Christian woman was in church, but they did.”
“Did they keep having church after things got bad?” Alice asked.
“Reverend Jenkins did,” Pat said. “He even offered a meal every night for folks that didn’t have anything. People with canning and provisions would donate things, and we’d try to find some way to stretch it into a meal. It wasn’t much but a lot of folks came. Like I said, I quit going after people started stealing the stock. I haven’t even seen or heard from any of those folks since. People don’t visit much anymore.”
“So you’ll ask him?” Charlie asked.
“If your mother will lend me her car, maybe I’ll drive down there when we’re done and see if he’s still around. The parsonage is right behind the church so unless he’s out visiting he should be around there somewhere.”
“Unless he’s dead,” Alice blurted out. “Or found a safer place to hide.”
Pat looked at her daughter and tightened her lips into a frown.
“I’ll go with you,” Alice conceded. “It’s not safe to go anywhere alone.”
“Surely I’d be safe going no further than that,” Pat said. “It’s just a little piece down the road.”
“Nothing is sure now,” Alice said. “Nothing is safe.”
“Can I stay here?” Charlie asked. “The grave is going to take a while. I’d like to try to finish today.”
Alice nodded. “Keep your gun handy and your head on a swivel.”
“We’ll see if the preacher might be able to come by in the morning and say a few words over your father,” Pat said. “Would that be good?”
“Thanks, Granny,” Charlie said, hugging his grandmother awkwardly. He paused as if he was going to hug his mother, but hesitated. When she didn’t give any indication a hug was welcome he retreated. He picked up his AR and clomped out of the kitchen, the screen door clacking shut behind him.
Pat’s mouth was screwed tight. She kept sewing, her pace picking up until she was stabbing the cloth frantically. Alice watched her mother, noticed her hands were clutching the needle so hard they were turning white. They began trembling. Pat straightened and laid her face in the palm of her hand. She shook her head slowly.
“Mom, are you okay?” Alice asked. She wanted to reach out and touch her mom on the shoulder but she couldn’t do that any more than she could open herself to a hug from her son. Her hands wouldn’t move, wouldn’t stop sewing.
“This is tearing my heart out,” she said. “I’m not sure I can take this.”
Alice didn’t feel that ache. She wasn’t sure she felt anything anymore.
Chapter 21
Alice
With their immediate task done, the grim seamstresses climbed into the car and left the farm. As was her practice now, Alice placed her revolver under her right thigh. Her mother looked at it, then at her daughter, then back at the road. The stress of the world was wearing on Pat. She appeared at the brink of what she could deal with. The world had come so far from the place she knew. She came from a day when kids went to the movies on Saturday and church on Sunday. Entertainment was pouring a bag of salted peanuts down the neck of a cold bottle of Coke. This was a world of dark, and death, and car trips with a gun at the ready. It felt to her like a world without meaning. She remembered movies she’d seen over her life where people ended up in a strange land with the road back home having disappeared behind them. This world felt like that now, like the road back to the world she knew was gone and would never return.
They drove silently for ten minutes before pulling into the gravel parking lot of the Sugar Springs Church. From all appearances, it was indistinguishable from thousands of other small country churches just like it: frame construction, whitewashed exterior, and a tin roof with a bell tower. There was a little parsonage behind the church of similar construction. It was the only church Pat had ever gone to, though she’d been through several different pastors. The current pastor, Reverend Jenkins, seemed to have his heart in the right place but he was a little too modern for some of the traditional congregation, including Pat.
She was used to pastors who dressed up in a suit and tie when they went places. This man seemed to think a polo shirt and khaki pants was formal enough most days. He’d also instituted a policy of having a casual day the first Sunday of each month. This did not sit well with the women who’d dressed up in their best clothing every Sunday of their entire lives. Casual day was something that those fancy TV churches did or those big non-denominational churches with their sound systems and interpretive dancers. Little country churches did not have casual Sundays. In fact, they did nothing casually.
Alice expected the parking lot to be empty but there were several vehicles. “There must be something going on here,” she said.
“Maybe it’s a special service,” Pat said. “It could be a religious holiday but I’m ashamed to say I’ve lost track of the days.”
“It could be a funeral,” Alice said, recalling the reason for their own visit.
The parking lot contained a few vehicles, several tractors, bicycles of every manner, and even a few horses tied up to a nearby fence. Alice noted that there was a pile of manure behind each horse, making her wonder how long they’d been there. They parked the car and got out. The horses acted skittish, shuffling and pulling at their tied reins.
“I wonder how long they’ve been tied up here.” Pat asked. “Should we get them some water?”
“We need to figure out what’s going on first.”
The horses became even more agitated. Pat stared at them, her fear rising with their unease. She was a country woman used to the ways of livestock. Horses didn’t act like this for no reason. She heard a loud, metallic click and jerked her head, startled. Alice had cocked her revolver and was holding it at the ready. Pat looked up from the revolver to Alice’s face. Alice gestured toward the white double doors of the old church.
“Let’s go.”
They walked together, side by side. A crow cawed from a tree to the side of the church. Another landed on a fence and watched. The pair climbed the seven stone steps, Pat holding to the rail to steady herself. Her knees felt weak, as if she’d been squatting in the garden for way too long. Alice held the revolver up, both hands wrapped around the grip. Her eyes were wide. Sweat ran down her face.
They reached the top and stood outside the closed doors, listening. Things weren’t right. Every indication was that the church was occupied but it was way too quiet. This many people could not be this quiet. Pat swallowed hard, her mouth a thin line, and looked at Alice for support. Alice nodded at the door, pushing Pat with her will, encouraging her to open the door. One of them had to open it and Alice wanted to be ready to shoot if she needed to.
There must have been fifty layers of paint on the front door. Pat had never noticed that before. She found it hard to make her arm move. Tension stiffened her body.
She raised a hand and placed her spread fingers on the thick white paint, pausing as if she could sense something through the door. With her other hand, she clasped the handle, her thumb pressing down on the worn brass latch. There was a loud click from within the workings of the door. Pat shoved and the door swung inward with a groan.
The older woman immediately sucked in air, her mouth opening, lips curling. A scream rose but was strangled. Alice watched her mother with horror, then pushed her aside to see for herself. Pat staggered backward and doubled over the porch rail, choking and dry heaving.
Alice burst through the door of the church, waving the revolver in search of a target. Her brain raced between mechanically assessing for threats and processing the horror that was in front of her.
S
weep left. No target. No threat.
Pews of dead people.
Sweep right. No target.
A man, arms thrown backward, head hanging over the back of the pew. Vomit running from his mouth and up his face. Into his eyes. Into his nose.
Checking the corners. Gun moving. Eyes moving.
Children sprawled in the aisles. Mothers laying across them.
Glassy, unseeing eyes. No targets but also no one alive. No one alive at all.
There was the scuff of a step behind her and Alice spun, levelling her gun on the frightened face of her own mother. Alice froze, afraid to move, remembering how she’d fired at Gary in the stairwell of her old office building. She’d known it was him but couldn’t stop her finger in time.
Alice got control of herself and held her fire. “What the hell happened here? What have they done?” she croaked.
Pat wandered around, hand covering her mouth, eyes wide. “I don’t….” She was moaning, sobbing. “Good Lord, why? I’ve known some of these people all of my life.”
Alice moved up the center aisle, stepping around bodies, stepping over bodies. The smell was overwhelming. Not the rot of corpses but the stench of sickness – vomit and emptied bowels. Alice stepped on a red plastic cup, crushing it. The sound echoed. She noticed more red cups. Cups everywhere. How had she missed them?
“The cups?” she said. She was not sure if she was voicing a question or just processing what was going on in her head.
“Communion, maybe?” her mother asked, pointing toward the front of the church, plastic cups lined up along the altar. A cart held pitchers and more cups.
Valley of Vengeance: Book Five in The Borrowed World Series Page 10
