Keep Mama Dead

by S. James Nelson

  “I didn’t know she’d prepared you. I didn’t know you had endless second-life days. I didn’t think that zombies would be up here and we would need the spell cast so quickly. I thought—I thought we could keep your mother’s role a secret, and protect her. And protect the nation.”

  The last few days rushed through Thomas’s mind. Everything that had happened had new meaning. And how different everything would have been if Mama had only talked with either Thomas or Mr. Milne before fading. So much could have been different.

  But if things had been different, Mama wouldn’t have come back to life. She never would have told Thomas those things.

  “It’s fine,” Thomas said. “It’s fine.”

  Mr. Milne’s eyes watered. “You have to do it. You have to cast the spell right now.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Everyone, including Stanley, had gathered close around Thomas and Mr. Milne, into a tight semi-circle. Only Charles stood off to the side, with an injured expression of anger. Thomas thought he might try something, sabotage them. Was he that stupid? That prideful?

  Thankfully, Papa exhibited a rare bout of silence, and just looked on, his face strangely ponderous.

  About twenty yards off, Miss Sadie had her back to them, talking with Brady, who stood another twenty yards on. They parleyed in the approximate center of the space between the Bakers and the zombies hiding by the bushes and trees. Thomas couldn’t hear anything they said.

  “I don’t have enough second-life days,” Mr. Milne said. “Just trust me. Here’s what you need to do.” He pointed at Thomas’s hat. It lay up against the altar, unforgotten in the scuffle, resurrection, and crisis. “Take the red cloth from around the hat and place it on the ground in the shape of Sanctuary.”

  Franky, closest to the hat, picked it up and gave it to Thomas. Then he backed up. So did the others: Papa, Eli, Clara May, Charles. They gave him room. For the first time in his life, they gave him some space.

  Thomas began to unwind the cloth. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d unwound it. Probably when he’d taken it off of the last hat, and put it on this one. The outer layer of the red cloth had faded to nearly pink, but the layers beneath still bore some of their crimson. The cloth was about four inches wide, and four feet long. When he’d finished unwrapping it—in only a few seconds—he leaned in close to Mr. Milne, to listen better.

  Something tickled the back of his mind. This seemed right. Familiar. Did he know the spell? Had Mama taught him?

  Mr. Milne’s eyes widened as if he’d realized something.

  “Do you have that bumblebee? Your mother’s bumblebee?”

  Thomas reached into his pocket, and withdrew both of the little figurines. He held them out in his open palm. He glanced past his siblings at Miss Sadie. She’d moved closer to Brady, and he closer to her, so they stood perhaps ten yards apart. They gestured animatedly at each other.

  A crazy thought came to Thomas.

  What if she was betraying them? What if she was in cahoots with Brady, and they were plotting something right then? It seemed plausible, suddenly, for half a dozen reasons.

  “Good!” Mr. Milne exhaled and shook his head in relief. “You need one of those buzzers. You place it inside the protective shape of Sanctuary you made with the cloth.”

  Thomas nodded. It sounded right. It felt right. The word “buzzers” seemed familiar. He’d heard it somewhere. He almost felt that if he opened his mouth and spoke, the rest of the spell would just come to him, would just flow out of his subconscious mind.

  “Mr. Milne!”

  Mr. Milne, distracted by the call, turned and looked up at the source: Brady. He’d stepped a dozen feet past Miss Sadie, and held something cupped in his hands.

  “No!” Miss Sadie shouted, and leaped after Brady.

  “I guess negotiations didn’t go so well,” Franky said.

  Brady opened his hands and blew into them. A shard of shining white light lifted from his palms, whining. It hovered for a split second, flashing and twirling, as if getting its bearing, then shot through the air in a straight line, fast as a hummingbird. Toward Thomas’s family.

  He didn’t know what it was. But it couldn’t be good.

  * * *

  Thomas barely had time to duck as the whining sliver of light sped toward them. The family began to scatter. Papa hit the ground faster than them all, as if he’d practiced the dodge all his life. Eli stepped in front of Clara May and wrapped his arms around her. Mr. Milne lifted his arms to his face, covering them with his forearms and biceps.

  Miss Sadie tackled Brady from behind.

  The shard of light struck Mr. Milne in the arms. Its whine ended as he fell backwards, arms stiff. Stanley scrambled to get out of the way. Thomas tried to catch him, but was still too busy dodging the shard to succeed, and Mr. Milne fell backward.

  The back of Mr. Milne’s head struck the rock with a thump. He laid supine, arms spread wide. Blood flowed from wounds in his forearms. It didn’t gush, but if it didn’t slow, he could bleed out in an hour or so. Worse, he looked skyward with a glazed expression, not unlike the one Mama had borne during her final living days.

  “No!” Thomas said.

  He knelt by Mr. Milne’s side and lifted his hands to do something. But he didn’t know whether to shake the man, slap him, or try and stop the bleeding.

  He only knew that he needed Mr. Milne to tell him how to cast the spell.

  You don’t need him. I taught you the spell, you idiot. Think! Think!

  Miss Sadie screamed as she rolled on the stone with Brady. He fought her, trying to leverage his weight to pin her down, but she was too fast, and rolled away, somehow pulling a pistol out of the holster at his side. Thomas watched with fascination as she took aim at him. He scrambled to get away.

  She fired the gun. The sound rose loud and clear above the wind. Just beyond Brady, a spot of stone shattered. The bullet whirred off in some unseen direction. Brady swore as he scrambled away.

  She shot again.

  Another spot of rock exploded just past Brady.

  “She’s a terrible shot,” Charles said.

  Papa nodded. “Point blank range, and she missed.”

  “Twice,” Franky said.

  Clara May knelt next to Mr. Milne, across from Thomas. Solemnity covered her face.

  “We have to help him,” Thomas said. “He has to tell me how to cast the rest of the spell. He didn’t tell me everything!”

  His mind raced to try and understand what else Mr. Milne might have told him. It felt close. Right on the edge of his consciousness. He knew it. He knew the spell. Mama had always taught him how to do things. If this was important—and surely it was—she would’ve made sure he knew the spell.

  Clara May slapped Mr. Milne. Twice. It took Thomas a moment to realize that the deafening sound wasn’t the sound of her hands hitting his face, it was Miss Sadie firing two more shots.

  But neither action—the shots and the slaps—succeeded. Mr. Milne remained wide-eyed and vacant; Brady continued to scramble away, shouting as he went. He’d nearly reached the zombies.

  “It’s no good,” Clara May said. “He’s like Mama was.”

  Thomas growled.

  Miss Sadie shot two more times. Brady seemed unaffected, but just past him the head of a zombie jerked backward as bits of flesh scattered from its face.

  “Terrible shot,” Papa said, shaking his head. His neck waggled.

  “Pathetic,” Franky agreed.

  “Kill him!” Miss Sadie shouted.

  She threw the gun, emptied of bullets, over the edge of the cliff to her right, and began to run back toward the Bakers.

  “Kill that worthless zombie lover!” she said.

  Eli started to fire. Charles and Franky raised their weapons and began to shoot. Thomas feared for Miss Sadie—she clearly didn’t know how bad of a shot Eli was—but he couldn’t really give her all of his concern. He needed to cast that spell. And Mr. Milne wasn’t going
to help him.

  He turned back to the red cloth, which lay on the ground in a pile. He’d dropped it in the scramble to get away from the shard of light. Fortunately, he’d kept a hold on the bumblebees. What had Mr. Milne called it? A buzzer?

  A buzzer.

  “Keep firing!” Sadie shouted. She came around the altar, toward Thomas. “You’ve only got a few seconds, Thomas. Once your family runs out of bullets, Brady will send the zombies after us.”

  “Thomas,” Papa said. He crouched low behind the altar. He raised his rifle, aimed toward the zombies, but looked at Thomas. “You cast that spell. We’ll hold them off. A man’s got to do his part. We’ll do ours. You do yours.”

  Thomas had no idea how to respond to that. It was probably the first time Papa had ever offered to do anything that approximated work.

  “Why aren’t they shooting back?” Eli shouted.

  He paused his firing to reload, but the others continued to shoot.

  “They don’t want to risk killing me,” Miss Sadie said. “They know they can get us once our bullets are expired. Take your time shooting. Don’t shoot them all in a hurry.”

  “Why aren’t the zombies rushing?” Charles asked.

  “I threatened to jump off the cliff,” she said.

  As if to emphasize it, she stepped closer to the edge—within just a few feet.

  Thomas shook his head. He needed to concentrate. He had to cast the spell. What was the word that had stuck out? Buzzer. What did it mean? Buzzer. Buzzer. Buzzer. Where had he heard it?

  Clara May continued to try and get Mr. Milne’s attention. She slapped him. Hard.

  “Stop that!” Miss Sadie said. “It won’t work. Just control his bleeding. Since the light didn’t hit him in the face, he’ll come out of it in a few minutes. Just stop the bleeding.”

  Knowing he needed to act, Thomas knelt on the ground and began to arrange the red cloth into the shape of Sanctuary, a vaguely rectangular shape, taller on the right than on the left. Mr. Milne had told him to do that. Then he should put the buzzer inside it. He placed his bumblebee inside, and put his Mama’s back in his pocket.

  Miss Sadie knelt by him. He could feel her shoulder next to his, could feel her breathing hard. Was he breathing that hard? Yes. Yes, he was.

  “What is that shape?” she asked.

  “Sanctuary.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes,” he said. He didn’t have time to explain, but Mama had taught him that shape. She’d had him draw it in the dirt and on the erase board with chalk. She’d drilled it into his head when he was just a kid. For some reason, it had been important to her that he know the shape.

  And now, suddenly, he understood why.

  He needed it for the spell.

  He bit his lip. She’d taught him, and he hadn’t even known it. What else had she taught him? Why hadn’t she just taught him the blasted spell outright?

  To spare him as long as she could.

  “Is that where the buzzer goes?” she said, pointing to where he’d placed it inside the cloth, near the right side.

  Buzzer. That was it.

  In the midst of all the gunshots and Clara May still slapping Mr. Milne and the floral scent of Miss Sadie and the freshness of his Mama’s love still burning in his soul—in the midst of all that confusion, it came to Thomas.

  He did know the spell. Mama had taught him.

  Of course I did. It was my duty.

  At times, I let the barrier fall. For days or weeks, our country would sit, vulnerable to attack because I resented the responsibility placed upon me. I hadn’t wanted it. I hadn’t asked for it. Always—always—my sense of duty won out. Duty is a notion I have come to despise. I wanted Thomas to be free of it as long as possible.

  Chapter 33: Thomas’s sacrifice

  Thomas looked at Stanley, who cowered near the altar. Papa sat next to the dog, ducking low behind the cover of the altar. The poor mutt had always hated gunfire. No doubt he struggled to maintain control, to not run away. What a good dog.

  Unfortunately, he needed to die.

  Gunshots still rang out, although less often, now. Every few seconds the sound registered from the line of his brothers and Eli. They stood in front of the altar, in a neat little row. The sound of their gunshots echoed from the canyon walls all around, so that it seemed people fired at them from the tops of distant cliffs. The zombies still stood the hundred yards off, near the clumps of trees, waiting. Every now and then, one of them would take a bullet and stagger, or simply jerk to one side. But the zombie always seemed to shrug the injury off.

  “Stanley!” Thomas called, and held a hand out to the dog.

  Stanley perked up and looked at Thomas, who motioned for the dog to come. Trembling, Stanley slunk over to Thomas and Miss Sadie, ruining the shape of Sanctuary in the process. He nearly kicked the buzzer away, but Thomas snatched it up and put it in his pocket.

  “Good dog,” Thomas said.

  He put an arm around Stanley’s shoulder and pulled him close.

  “What are you doing?” Miss Sadie said. “We only have a minute, and you’re loving on your dog.”

  Thomas frowned at her. “I have to kill him for the spell.”

  Her face blanched. “How do you know?”

  He didn’t have time to explain it, but many of the little things Mama had taught him—made sure that he understood—were parts to the spell. The little couplets she’d made him memorize were instructions. His dog, knife, toy bumblebee, cloth around his hat—all things she’d always told him to keep near—they were the things he needed to cast the spell.

  He wouldn’t have figured it out without Mr. Milne’s instructions, but those made it certain.

  Dog guts outside the red cloth of flame

  Outline our protected country name

  He needed to create the shape of Sanctuary with a red cloth, and set the cloth on fire. But before he did that, he needed to outline the cloth shape with the guts of a dog.

  So many strange things about Mama and how she’d treated him suddenly made sense. And the couplets taught him everything.

  A year for a mile and a day for a day

  The buzzer in my place creates the way

  And:

  I give my days and burn them away

  To protect the shape that beneath me lay

  The shape of the guts and cloth created the shape of the barrier, and for every year of second-life days he sacrificed, the shape would extend out from him one mile in proportion to the shape that surrounded the bumblebee on the ground, in relation to where the bumblebee sat inside the shape.

  There were other couplets that she’d taught him. Half a dozen more. Thinking over them, he understood that they clarified what he should do, and outlined what he should say, how he should cast the spell.

  Of course, Mr. Milne couldn’t have cast the spell. “A year for a mile and a day for a day.” To extend the barrier out from him by a mile, he needed to sacrifice a year of second-life days. To make it large enough to cover all of Sanctuary, he would have to use at least thirty years of second-life days. No normal person had that many second-life days.

  But he did. If Mama was right. What if he cast the spell and only ended up extinguishing all of his second life?

  You won’t. Just trust me. Your well of days will never deplete.

  And besides, how could he use that many second-life days? Thirty years? Impossible. He’d only ever used a few weeks at a time, when casting the spell to soften the dirt back at the farm—and that took all his effort, left him exhausted for hours afterward. He didn’t have the strength of soul to burn away thirty years—especially having just endured a considerable beating from Charles. Even on a good day, he couldn’t have done it.

  But he would have to try. His Mama had raised him for this purpose. It was his responsibility. As part of it, he needed Stanley’s guts. He had no choice in the matter.

  But he didn’t have time to tell all of that to Miss Sadie.
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br />   He looked up. The zombies had started forward. Longer periods of time elapsed between the gunshots. Eli stood with his pistols pointed down, exhausted of ammunition. Franky held his rifle on his shoulder, barrel up to the sky. If he’d had ammunition, he’d be reloading or aiming.

  Thomas hugged Stanley close with one arm, and reached for the knife at his side. He’d worn it for days and not used it once. Not even thought of it once. It had never even occurred to him to use it in the fight with Charles.

  “What are you doing?” Miss Sadie repeated.

  Thomas stood and stepped off to the side, away from Miss Sadie and the crumpled cloth on the ground. Stanley followed, and once they’d gone half a dozen steps, Thomas knelt again. He pulled Stanley close with one hand and clutched the knife in the other.

  The dog, still trembling from his fear of the gunfire, licked Thomas’s face.

  “What are you doing?” Miss Sadie said again.

  Thomas took the moment to enjoy one last bit of affection from his friend. The dog’s eyes gleamed with devotion and friendship. His breath stank like always.

  He remembered when he’d first gotten Stanley. Mama had brought him home from a trip into town, along with several other puppies. The other puppies had all taken to Charles or Franky, but Stanley had nibbled on his fingers and fallen asleep in his lap. Then he’d promptly peed on Thomas without waking.

  And the next day, when Thomas had been out in the field working, Stanley had stayed with him. He’d cavorted in the corn stalks and played in the irrigation ditch. Day after day he’d stayed with Thomas. He’d gone with Thomas to make trouble with his friends, and stayed with Thomas when all his friends had gone off and gotten married. He’d hunted with Thomas, and known when to keep quiet. Year after year, he’d stayed by Thomas’s side, as stupid and goofy as any dog had ever been. As loyal as any friend had ever been.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “I’m sorry I need to ask this of you.”

  Stanley looked up at him, eyes unwavering as if to say, Whatever it is, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you need.