Deathless Divide

by Justina Ireland

  Jane snorts—so loud that I almost do not hear the terrified whinnying of the horse.

  We jump to our feet. “Shamblers,” she says.

  “Get everyone up,” I say, unsheathing my swords. For once, Jane does not speak, just heads inside the cabin while I make my way silently around the side of the building, hoping that I am not too late for the poor animal.

  The eastern edge of the land is sliding to pink as the sun begins to rise, but there is enough moonlight to see a group of lumbering, grasping figures trying to climb the corral to get to the horse. Those are not rustlers—their strange, jerking movements mark them as only one kind of creature.

  The dead.

  I count seven dead before they turn their attention to me, deciding I am likely the easier target. They are fast, recently turned, and I have barely swung my sword to decapitate one before another is upon me.

  My Mollies are not about flash and dash, like Jane’s sickles. There are no spins or kicks or any kind of full-body theatrics. The Mollies are about discipline. Keeping two swords moving at all times, marking the interlocking patterns and defending while also ending the dead—decapitation being the preferred method for such a task—it is all a difficult endeavor, one that requires an inner tranquility. That is why I love the weapon. There is nothing that brings me greater joy than killing the dead, and the only time my brain quiets, where my fears and worries seem far away, is when I wield the swords like an avenging angel.

  Moonlight catches on my dancing blades as I step forward, swinging them through necks, removing heads and working the perimeter. The Mollies are not the kind of weapon you would want to use in a crowd; they shine in one-on-one combat, a quick and efficient weapon to put down a single target, and I have to keep moving so as not to be overrun. But by the time Jane comes back with Jackson, I have felled the lot of them.

  And I did it all while wearing a corset. Stick that in your eye, Jane McKeene.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  I nod. “There were seven of them, fresh turned. I cannot tell whether these were folks from Summerland, but there are surely more on the way. As soon as the sun is up, we should move.”

  “I’ll take another look around the perimeter and make sure there ain’t any others,” Jackson says. He moves off, gun drawn.

  I wipe my swords off on the long dress of one of the dead. It is hard not to think of her as a woman—some homesteader, or maybe a fine Eastern lady—who found herself out on the prairie hoping for a new life beyond the terror of the woods. One of the women I met at Summerland had spoken about Kansas as being the new Promised Land. “Any place where you can see the dead coming is a blessing. All of this flat, nearly barren earth is a godsend.” Of course, seeing the dead coming does not mean that a body is safe, but I was not about to dash her dreams.

  And now, this dead woman, so recently grasping and hungry, is nothing more than a dress to clean my sword. I sometimes wonder if people would hope less if they knew it was inevitable that it would end in tragedy.

  I shake the thought and turn my attention to Jane, taking the opportunity to let her notice that I harvested seven all by myself and while wearing a corset, but she is just scowling at the bodies like they have somehow personally wronged her. “What has got you so vexed?” I finally say.

  “Do you think we’re killers, Kate?”

  The query catches me off guard. Not because it is a line of thought I have not considered before now, but because I am not used to Jane wanting to discuss moral quandaries. After all, she rebuffed my efforts to discuss her killing of Sheriff Snyder but moments ago. She has always seemed to me to be a person of uncompromising beliefs, even if she and I disagree on the nature of those thoughts.

  More important, Jane’s question tracks too closely to my own train of thought, and I am uncomfortable with the coincidence. “What do you mean? You think I am morally compromised?” My heart begins to pound, and the old anxiety returns, the fear of judgment, of failing, of not being enough. I never expected to feel that with Jane. I have never expected her to find me . . . inadequate.

  “No, that ain’t it; I just been wondering if putting down the dead, doing what we have to do to survive, well . . . if it makes us bad. And not going-to-hell kind of bad, because I ain’t sure I believe in all that folderol, but bad like old, dead Sheriff Snyder. Are we murderers?”

  Jane talks so fast that I am having trouble following her, and I take a deep breath before I answer. I do not want my words to be inadequate, because I know she needs to talk about what happened with the pastor and the sheriff back in Summerland. After all, it has been less than a day since Sheriff Snyder pointed a pistol to my temple and promised to end my life. But this is a conversation of another sort, although I truly believe the two matters to be linked. I do not understand Jane’s mind well enough to be sure I will not provoke her into some sort of irrational nonsense in response.

  And so I give her the only response I can in the moment. The truth.

  “I think . . . that we become whatever we need to be to survive,” I say. “Back in Nawlins, my mother was a placée—um, a kept woman.” I cannot quite see Jane’s expression, and it feels like too much effort to look up as I unearth this bit of my soul, so I just keep cleaning my blades as I talk. “But she was shrewd, and when she realized she could make more money operating a brothel, she did just that.”

  I take a deep breath, willing the tightness in my chest to loosen just a bit. Talking about Maman always does this, and it seems silly that after being away from her for nearly five years I should still have such a reaction. I force my voice to remain light. “Maman said that a person becomes whatever they need to be to survive. And that is what I think we are, Jane. Not killers. Survivors. The only goal of this world is to stay in it as long as possible. And no one gets to judge how a body does that, especially when the alternative is being eaten.”

  I stand and give Jane my best smile, the one that is friendly and open and accepting. The dawn is beginning to paint the world in shades of gray, and there is an expression on her face that looks near enough to relief that some of the tension drains out of me. It is as though my feeble attempt at eloquence has helped her set to rights something that was troubling her, and the way her shoulders relax—as though for one second she can just be—gladdens my heart.

  “Thank you,” she says. “I needed to hear that.”

  A shout comes from the back side of the house, as well as a shot and then another. It is nothing good, but even worse is the heavy silence that takes its place.

  Jane and I exchange a look and then sprint toward the sound, running over the uneven ground as fast as the watery morning light will allow.

  . . . Nothing in his life

  Became him like the leaving it. He died

  As one that had been studied in his death,

  To throw away the dearest thing he owed

  As ’twere a careless trifle.

  —Shakespeare, Macbeth

  —JANE—

  Chapter 5

  In Which My Heart Breaks

  Jackson meets Kate and me as we round the corner of the cabin. I heard only a couple of shots, and I don’t see any shamblers behind Jackson, though the light still ain’t great. But I’m tired and out of sorts, and I don’t even rightly know my own mind. I can only hope I’ll be useful in a fight, if it comes to that.

  “We got to move,” he gasps. “Now.”

  The fallen ladies run out of the front of the cabin, wide-eyed with fright. “Sorry,” the Duchess huffs. “We were trying to get ourselves together.” She holds Thomas, who sucks on a leftover rabbit bone, and my stomach gurgles angrily in response. With the dead descending upon us we don’t have time to look for anything to break our fast. But going hungry looks to be the least of our problems.

  I turn to Sallie. “Can you get the horse and wagon ready to move?”

  She nods. “Nessie, you come help. It’ll go faster with the two of us.”

  They run off, and
I turn back to the Duchess. “See if there are canned goods of any sort and fill whatever buckets or jars we can find before we move. We’re still a day from Nicodemus, and at this rate it’ll be a long way on an empty belly.”

  The Duchess nods and heads back inside, nearly running over a bleary-eyed Lily coming out, a rifle clutched in her small hands.

  “Shamblers?” she asks. She rubs her eyes and yawns. “How many? Where?”

  “The dead,” Jackson says, voice calm, “are everywhere. Always. Don’t ever forget that.” There’s a tone to his voice that I don’t recognize, and his eyes are strange, intense. I wonder if he had gotten hold a bottle of spirits to make the night go easier.

  But it’s Lily who sees it first. I follow her gaze to Jackson’s left arm.

  To the dark trail on the light brown skin of his wrist, dripping onto the ground next to him.

  “What happened to you?” she asks. Her voice is slow and careful, carrying with it a lifetime of fear, loss, and worry. The worry we all feel, looking at him now. My heart pounds in my head, rattling my brain as I hold my breath, wanting for it to be something other than the inevitable.

  Wanting for him to lie to me.

  “You’ll have to go without me,” he says, voice flat. “It’s okay, it’s okay. . . .” He’s unsteady on his feet, his movements erratic, and I instinctively push Lily behind me, into Katherine’s arms.

  “No,” Lily begins, trying to fight against Katherine’s embrace, swinging her rifle wildly. I holster my sickles and catch the firearm on its next pass, jerking it out of Lily’s hands so that Katherine can wrap her arms around the girl, keep her away from Jackson.

  “Let her go,” he says, voice thick.

  “Jackson—” I start, but he shakes his head.

  “Let us say good-bye. You and I both know I ain’t got long, and the last thing I want is the two of you fighting about this moment after I’m gone.” He moves his gaze to Lily. “You can’t do anything, Lily-bird. So settle.”

  Lily walks toward Jackson, her steps slow and deliberate; Jackson falls to his knees, and Lily nearly bowls him over. She’s crying and he’s clutching her tightly, murmuring soft things that are for her alone. I feel a pang of jealousy. Jackson was never so soft with me, and now he never will be. If I hadn’t already lost him, I’m losing him now.

  What a spiteful girl I am. Even in his last moments I’m thinking about myself.

  Lily steps backward when Jackson releases her, walking over to Katherine, who opens her arms once more. Lily throws herself into her chest and begins to sob, turning to hide her face in Katherine’s bosom. Katherine looks down at the girl in her arms, her expression goes from shock to misery, and she wraps her arms around Lily, murmuring soft words.

  “They came up out of the grass. I ain’t even see them,” he says. “They were just kind of crouched down. Almost like they were waiting for me.” He looks over my shoulder to Lily and lowers his voice. “Get her out of here. I don’t want her to see.”

  “You’re—” The words catch in my throat; I have to force them out. “You’re not going to change for a little while yet.”

  “I ain’t talking about changing. I’m talking about you finishing this.”

  I open my mouth to object, and Jackson grabs my wrist, his hand sticky with his lifeblood.

  “Please,” he says, voice husky with all the things that have passed between us, years of fighting and kissing and all those messy emotions in between.

  I understand why he’s asking me and not Katherine. Especially right now as she comforts Lily. It’s everything he said to me earlier. And I hate him for it. I should yell at him, I should fight him, because it ain’t fair. It just ain’t. Not more than a handful of hours have passed since he broke my heart, and now to do this, to have to deal his mortal blow. That ain’t something I should have to do.

  But this world ain’t ever just. And I can’t tell him no.

  I never could.

  “Kate, you and Lily go wait with the wagon,” I say. “Jackson and I are going to take a stroll.” My voice is even and an unnatural calm descends over me. Tears threaten, and I take a deep breath and push it down. All of it. My shame over murdering the sheriff, my heartbreak over Jackson’s revelation, my fear over the fate of my mother and Aunt Aggie, and this: my rage at this no-good world taking every damn thing I care about. I will feel nothing, and once all those emotions are locked away tight I can do anything.

  I can survive.

  “Let me come with you!” Lily screams, fighting to get free of Katherine. She ain’t too little to know what comes next. She’s grown up in this world of misery and loss just like the rest of us. She knows that Jackson ain’t coming back, and that there ain’t no way to survive a shambler bite.

  But Jackson shakes his head. “No, Lily-bird. This ain’t for you to see.” He walks over and embraces her for a short moment before kissing her on the forehead. He kneels and whispers something in her ear, and she’s crying too hard for me to hear what he tells her.

  I want to cry, too. I want to sob bitter tears of grief and disappointment and rage. But I don’t, because I ain’t got time. There are more dead headed right for us, and if we don’t get moving, Jackson won’t be the only one we lose today.

  Lily sobs brokenly, and I hand Katherine the rifle as she pulls the younger girl away, toward the wagon and our escape. Jackson and I don’t move, just watch them leave.

  “You got the chills yet?” I ask. Everyone knows how the change works. First, the numbness, then the chills, making a body shake so hard that anyone nearby would think they’re having a fit. And then, right before it happens, a yellowing of the eyes and drooling, like they got the scent of frying pork chops stuck in their nostrils. I’ve seen it happen, heard people scream and snap through the change as it overtook them.

  But it’s never been someone close to my heart. Jackson is the first. He’s been a handful of firsts for me; this one is by far the worst.

  “No chills, but I can’t feel the bite anymore. We need to move,” he says, setting off back the way he came. His long legs eat up the distance, tracking through the knee-high grass, and I damn near trip over the shambler remains lying in the weeds.

  “At least you gave them what for,” I say, pulling out my sickles. It’s cold comfort, but I ain’t sure what else to say.

  I walk behind Jackson, watching the way his shirt plays across his back, thinking to yesterday when I did the same thing. How dreadful the memory is, how unfair. It’s a doorway to all sorts of better memories and worse ones besides. I have to fight to lock them down. It’s too seductive to wish for simpler times, to get lost in the softness of nostalgia.

  “They were fast, too fast, which means there’s most likely more of them out there.” Jackson stops. We’re far enough away from the homestead that all that’s visible is the rough outline of the house. He starts to shake, and tears leak from the corners of his eyes. “Do it now, Jane. Don’t make me go through the change.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t. Not until I know it’s real.” I won’t risk killing him if by some bit of luck I don’t have to, and his shoulders slump with the realization of it. For some reason, I think of Gideon’s vaccine—his confidence that he’d found a way to render a shambler bite harmless. But here I am, watching my best boy turn, helpless to do anything but witness his end.

  Hope is deadly, and some part of me wants to believe that all those lies about Negroes being immune to the bite are true. But my eyes tell me otherwise.

  Jackson is turning, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  The sky is brightening by degrees, the sun painting colors into the rough landscape. Now I can see the fear naked on Jackson’s face, the realization that there’s no way out of this.

  “You know it’s real. I wouldn’t lie about something like this,” he says.

  Tears break free, and I laugh and wipe them away. “You can’t blame me, though. You never were any good with the truth.” I need him to joke w
ith me, to be as dismissive as he was when we ran together. Even last night, as he tore out my heart and stomped it to smithereens, he still wore that cursed half smile of his, as though it was just another bit of meaningless conversation. Earnestness ain’t something I can tolerate right now.

  I am barely holding myself together.

  But Jackson ignores the unspoken plea in my voice. And who am I to dictate the tone of his last moments?

  He falls to his knees, wrapping his arms around himself. He shakes, and behind him the sun is rising in a bloody sort of way. It makes me wish I was some kind of artist, that I could render the beauty of Jackson and the sky in oil paints, shades of red and love. I want to stop time, to freeze this moment forever.

  “It’s funny, I ain’t got a lot of regrets, Janey-Jane,” he says, the old nickname cutting through me like a dull, rusty blade, lodging right in the softest spot of me. “I’ve always lived my life knowing just what kind of man I was. But I’m sorry things didn’t work between us. I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you needed.”

  “It ain’t supposed to end like this,” I say, and look away.

  “Jane.” He waits for me to look back, and that’s when he stills for a moment. In the growing sunlight he is a vision. The red in his curls glints like fire, and his eyes are as green as spring leaves. He’s a creature out of myth and lore, a satyr dancing and luring innocent maidens into his wood. Jackson ain’t looking at me so much as looking through me, like he sees a world much better than the one we live in. A slight smile parts his full lips. He is everything I have ever wanted. “You know that ain’t true. It was always gonna end like this.”

  I take a shaky breath, but halfway it lodges on a sob. This time, I let the tears fall.

  “No one gets out of here alive,” he continues, and for half a heartbeat my penny goes icy before warming back up. “Like my daddy used to say: it begins bloody, and it ends the same way.”

  It ain’t the kind of thing I’m expecting, and I have to fight to swallow around the lump in my throat. It’s all so damn unfair. “Damn you, Jackson. Damn you for this.”