The kids grinned and spread their wings, testing them, allowed to fly at last. One by one, they vaulted into the air.
This done, Brain called to the other children. “Gather around. I have something to say.”
The plague children crowded the yard to hear. Tiny mounted the porch and stood next to him. Brain scanned the faces. A large number looked shocked and scared, mostly kids who hadn’t yet developed their abilities. They’d needed more time to prepare, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Revolutions happened when they wanted, not always when they were planned.
For every kid who looked scared, two beamed at him, tasting freedom and willing to fight for it. Their torn and patched overalls were freckled with blood. A few wrapped torn pillowcases over wounds. One had knotted the principal’s rebel flag around his neck like a cape.
They’re enough, he thought. They have to be. The die is cast.
He raised his fist. “We are free.”
The children roared and hooted. After a while, he raised both hands for quiet. “Freedom requires sacrifice. The revolution demands everything because we demand everything. Out there, in the world of the normals, are our dreams. The normals will fight to keep our dreams to themselves. So must we be willing to fight to the death for them. Our dreams are worth nothing less.”
He left the porch and nodded to Burn, who smiled and thrust out his hands. The air grew hot. Dust swirled on roiling convection currents. Flames sprouted from a section of wall with a loud pop and hiss. Another. Then another. Bursts of chunked wood in all directions. Fire licked at the clapboards. Pyrokinesis. Within moments, the entire front of the house came alive in sheets of flame.
The crowd stepped back from the intense heat, quiet and solemn. The burning of the big house felt like a ritual. Ashes of the old South flowed up into the atmosphere on a thick column of smoke. Cinders floated back down like bad memories.
A little hand slipped into Brain’s and grasped it. Mary smiled at the big fire. Its light danced in her eyes.
“Pretty,” she said.
The big house collapsed in a startling chain of ear-splitting cracks.
Brain watched himself reborn in the flames. Aspects of himself rising up on convection currents. Elation at the prospect of being truly free for the first time in his life. Sorrow at Dog’s passing, which provided the spark that set this house ablaze. Hatred for the crumbling plantation house that was the normals’ America.
Conviction he would do whatever it took to win.
“Not pretty,” he told Mary. “Necessary.”
Together, the plague children watched the past burn to the ground.
Thirty-Seven
Sheriff Burton unlocked the arsenal and handed out Remington 870 shotguns. The grim deputies loaded their weapons and racked slugs into firing chambers. Ten good men, heavily armed and well trained, and it wasn’t near enough.
Beth watched all this with big, watery eyes. “Them kids really killed all their teachers out at the Home?”
“That’s right,” the sheriff said.
He checked his .38 long revolver to make sure it was loaded. He holstered it.
“All of ’em? Every single one?”
“Beth, we got to tend to this situation. As soon as it’s all done, I promise I’ll give you the lowdown.”
“Whatever you say,” she sniffed.
“If you’ve a mind to be useful, go on outside and get a head count on our posse. Find out who’s in charge and give him a couple of our radios.”
“I could do that,” she said and left.
“Those boys are gonna wreak havoc when we get out there,” Sikes said. “They ain’t properly trained, boss.”
“The Colonel trained them. And we happen to need a posse today. We need as many shooters as we can get.”
“Liable to shoot us in the back than shoot the uglies.”
“We need every man with a rifle knows how to use it. I been out to the Home. Some of them kids are big and mean. You saw what just one of them did to Ray Bowie. There are more than four hundred out there.”
“You don’t think they’re all like Bryant, do you?”
“How about you let me do my job how I see fit,” Burton said. “Like you should have done instead of start a war. Dumber than a bag of hammers.”
Pure blind rage had taken hold of him since he learned about Enoch’s murder in his holding cells. It hadn’t quit yet. He’d promised that plague boy he’d get a fair shake. A boy who was innocent clear as day and to whom Burton had taken a liking. Instead, not an hour after he left, Reggie Albod walked in and shot him down like an animal. Burton had been hoodwinked then railroaded. He had the feeling everybody was pissing on his boots and telling him it was raining.
He’d failed as both a law officer and a man. Failed not just Enoch, but some bigger cause he sensed but could not name.
“Reggie’s dying,” Sikes said. “He deserved to have his justice.”
“He’s grieving, not dying, and that weren’t justice. We just screamed from the rooftops the same laws don’t apply to us and them. They just found out what they are. Now we got to go deal with the hornet’s nest your stupidity stirred up. After that, drive out to Reggie’s and try to arrest him without him shooting us dead.”
“You really gonna arrest Reggie Albod?”
“That’s exactly what I aim to do.”
Sikes blanched. “Hang on. Are you gonna fire me?”
“I’ll deal with you later,” Burton said. “Until then, Bobby, shut your mouth and do your damn job.”
Meanwhile, things had come full circle for him. The kids were running amok. Maybe they had cause to let loose, but that didn’t matter anymore. Right or wrong, Enoch was dead, and there was nothing to be done for him now except arrest the man who did it. The abuse didn’t matter. The unending prejudice didn’t matter. The little voice in his head that said, Maybe we had this coming.
None of it mattered. The kids had murdered every teacher at the Home, and some, if not all of them, had to answer for it. The town needed his protection.
Beth’s high heels clicked across the floor as she hurried back. “I counted about twenty boys out there. They all got rifles and transport. Half of them are drinking.”
“I am fit to be tied,” the sheriff fumed.
“I’ll also have you know one of them boys asked me an indecent question.”
“Be a dear and get on the horn with Highway Patrol. Tell them our situation and ask for units. We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”
He put his hat on and squared it. Then he walked out to greet the Colonel’s homegrown militia.
Good ol’ boys and their hothead sons, standing around and sitting in pickups. Rifles and gear. Camouflage hunting jackets and billed caps. They poured coffee into cups from thermoses and topped them up from hip flasks.
A red-haired man dropped his half-finished cigarette, ground it out with his boot, and came over to shake Burton’s hand. “I’m Al Dawson. Nice to meet you, Sheriff.”
“Likewise, I’m sure. You in charge of these here men?”
“That’s right. I fought in ’Nam in ’68. Saw plenty of action over there.”
“Beth told me you brought around twenty shooters.”
“Nineteen including me. We got over fifty members in the county, but this bunch were all I could round up on short notice. The other boys will be sore as hell they missed out on the fun.”
“They ain’t missing nothing because this ain’t fun,” Burton said. “I’m going out there with a show of force but my aim is to bring this to an end peaceably.”
Dawson smiled. “Whatever you say, Sheriff.”
“Mr. Dawson, allow me to make myself clear. Right now, I am madder than a boiled owl. Any man who goes off hog wild and starts shooting kids without it being self-defense, I will jerk him bald and skin him alive. So was I clear or not?”
“Clear as day,” Dawson muttered.
“Good. Now load up your boys. We’re moving out.”<
br />
“All right, let’s move,” the man bawled, which sparked a cheer from his men.
The men climbed into their trucks and started them up. The vehicles idled in the sun. The sheriff’s department drove out first, five police cruisers strong. Burton’s Plymouth Gran Fury led the way, him in the passenger side cradling a shotgun and Deputy Palmer behind the wheel.
No lights or sirens. Burton didn’t want to start a panic.
As they neared the Home, breaks in the trees revealed a distant column of smoke coiling up to the sky. The Home, burning.
“Do you mind if I light up?” Palmer asked.
Burton normally didn’t allow it. “Go ahead.”
The deputy rolled down the window and tipped his head to torch a cigarette. He put his Zippo back in his uniform breast pocket and puffed.
Burton rolled down his own window for the air. “We’ll be all right.”
“Hell, I ain’t scared of no creepers.”
“Uh-huh. Hit the lights. Let’s make a show.”
The county cruisers bounced on the ruts, overheads flashing. They cleared the trees and drove into the yard.
“Good heavenly days,” Palmer said as the Home came into view.
“Stop here,” Burton said.
He got out, hitched up his gun belt, and strode off to inspect the ruin. The Home was gone, burned into a hot, smoking pile. The steel maintenance shed was the only building still standing. Smashed vehicles and parts lay strewn across the grounds. The yard had turned into a war zone. Bodies were everywhere, some torn to bloody rags and covered in ash. Two plague kids, shot stone dead.
Two men walked off to throw up. The rest growled among themselves. The sheriff didn’t hear them, but he could guess. Kill every one of them, they were saying. Avenge the Colonel. Finish it once and for all.
He crouched next to Dave Gaines, who lay twisted on the bloody grass. His head was turned the wrong way and his hand had been smashed to a red pulp. Gaines thought that since everybody else believed his bull, the kids would, too. The children’s rebellion had likely started with him.
Or maybe it had started long ago. The filthy house. The brutal discipline. Years upon years of abuse. Hard work in the fields. Growing up without mamas and daddies. Getting old enough to figure out they had no future. Looking at it through that lens, it surprised him it had taken this long.
A boy sank to his knees next to the corpse. Unlike the militia, he didn’t wear hunting clothes and had no gun. Burton was about to ask why he wasn’t in school when he recognized him as Archie Gaines.
“Sorry about your daddy, son,” he said.
Archie wiped his eyes. “I can’t believe he’s gone. What am I gonna do now with no family? We ain’t even got enough money to bury him right.”
“You got any other kin in town?”
“He was all I had, sir.”
“I’ll talk to Al Dawson. Maybe one of his men will take you in for a while. Help you out with everything you need to do.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“How’d you end up here?”
“Daddy said he were going out to the Home to quit. He got a new job. I had a bad feeling about it. I skipped school, went into town, and hung around. Then I saw these men outside your station. They told me what happened.”
“Your daddy were a good man, son. Never forget that.”
The boy’s face hardened. “No, he weren’t. But he were all I got.”
“What happened out there at the Albod farm?”
“I grew up,” Archie said. “Anything else happened don’t matter.”
“It matters to me. I want the truth.”
“Let him die with his name, sir. Please. My daddy deserves at least that.”
“All right,” Burton said, dropping it for now. “We are going out in the woods to find the kids who did this. I want you to stay close to him. Will you do that?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll stay by him.”
He nodded and left the boy to his grieving. He looked around, hands on his hips. Then he strode off toward the tree line, his deputies following. The undergrowth had been crushed flat by trampling feet.
“Gone feral, looks like,” Palmer said. “They’re gonna live off the land.”
Burton scowled. The forest went on for miles. If the kids split up out there in the deep woods, he could be at this a long, long while. He’d be hunting them all fall and winter. Best skip setting up a base camp and get moving right away. His men only had daylight for another six hours. He wanted to bag as many kids as he could before they scattered far and wide.
Dawson came over. “Where you want us, Sheriff?”
“I’ll take my deputies straight in the woods along these tracks. I want your boys to split up and range out on our flanks. If any of us sees kids, we give a signal on the radio so we can move in on them from all sides.”
The veteran spat. “We can do that.”
“Thank ye.”
Burton deployed his men in a wide skirmish line. The deputies entered the woods shotguns first. The posse waded into the foliage with whoops and hollers. Somebody belted out a rebel yell, and the rest of the men joined in.
“They got spunk,” Sikes said.
“Uh-huh,” Burton muttered. “Stay sharp.”
The walkie-talkie on his hip blared. “Testing, one, two, three.”
“I can hear you,” another voice said.
“Al, is that you?”
“No, it’s me. Randy. Al’s watering a tree.”
Burton waited until Randy was done laughing and pushed the talk button on his radio. “This is the sheriff. Clear the line. And shut it. Out.”
Silence on the radio.
The men marched on. Burton wondered if he’d ever track down George Hurst and give him Bryant’s last message. The kids called him Brain. Maybe he truly was smart. Smart enough to start a rebellion. Maybe even smart enough to get away somewhere remote and survive on his own.
A man yelled in the trees.
The skirmish line froze. The deputies raised their shotguns. Burton scanned the forest ahead before turning his head right. The line disappeared in the foliage.
The yell turned into a scream.
“Who’s that?” he called. “Who’s that screaming?”
The scream turned into a keening wail before dying out.
“I don’t see the posse,” a deputy called back from the right. “I lost them when they ranged out.”
Burton raised his walkie-talkie. “Dawson, this is Sheriff Burton. You there? Come in, over.”
Guns roared in the forest. Frantic shouts, the sound tinny and distant. Then shrieking. Shrieking like it was coming from five feet away.
“What the hell is going on?” Palmer said.
Burton pushed the talk button. “Speak to me, Dawson.”
“Sheriff, this is Earl Smith,” the walkie-talkie said.
“I read you, Earl. What’s your status? Over.”
“We’re ranging out on your left. What’s that shooting?”
“We don’t know yet. Stay put—”
A hunting rifle boomed. A scattering of gunshots, then thunder, which quickly petered out. Shouts and cries for help. Another flurry of shrieks.
“Earl,” Burton said. “Come in, Earl, over.”
A chorus of screams pealed through the woods.
“Form up on me,” the sheriff yelled. “Make a square.”
The deputies did as they were told. The right flank was quiet now.
“We’ll go left,” he said. “See if we can help those men.”
Sikes pointed. “Boss.”
Dozens of black shapes loped through the trees toward them.
“Hello,” a girl’s voice said over his radio. “My name is Catty Wampus. Breaker one-nine.”
“What are we doing, Sheriff?” Sikes said.
The briars on the right crackled. Bushes waved on their left, which was now otherwise quiet as the right. No screams, no gunfire, just deadly silence.
Whatever was out there, it had slaughtered twenty armed men in seconds, and it now had the sheriff and his men flanked.
Burton said, “We’re running.”
The deputies bolted through the undergrowth, hounded by the thrash of the children’s pursuit. A hunting rifle tore through the branches overhead and landed twenty yards in front of them. Sikes ducked and stumbled as another landed at his feet.
“They’re just kids,” he howled. “Just kids.”
The thrashing grew louder by the second.
“Hold up here,” Burton said.
He turned and fired his shotgun blindly into the woods. The deputies followed his lead, racking rounds and shooting as fast as they could. Smoke filled the air.
“Now move,” he roared.
They reloaded as they ran.
The Home smoldered where they’d left it. Archie Gaines sat in one of the cruisers. The sheriff and his men piled into their vehicles and roared down the dirt track toward the main road. Last in line, Burton and Palmer drove almost blind in the other cars’ dust cloud, bouncing off the ruts hard enough to break an axle.
“Pilot to bombardier,” Catty Wampus said over Burton’s radio.
He switched it off. Palmer gaped at the rearview.
“They’re coming,” the deputy cried and stomped on the gas.
The cruiser lunged like a charging bull. The car ahead appeared in the dust. He let up just in time to avoid ramming it. Stones rattled along the undercarriage. Burton turned in his seat to look out the back window.
Running figures materialized in the brown cloud.
“Hell’s bells,” he breathed.
Palmer jerked the wheel. Burton slumped against the door as the Plymouth mounted the road with a thump. The cruiser fishtailed as it left the dirt track, spitting stones from its tires.
Burton turned again to look out the back window. The plague children had reached the road. The fastest runners kept up their pursuit, smiling as if from the sheer joy of running.
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