Deathless Divide

by Justina Ireland

  “I know, Jane. I know.” A shudder passes through him, and he stills. He closes his eyes. “I love you, Jane. I know what I said before, but I’m asking you now: keep Lily safe for me.”

  “How am I supposed to do that in this godforsaken world—” I start to ask, but there ain’t going to be no answer forthcoming.

  Jackson’s shoulders slump and he falls forward. The sun is up now, and the world has gone bright.

  And I can see lurching, stumbling forms in the distance.

  I know I need to get our band of survivors back on the road to Nicodemus, but I can’t leave. If there’s one thing Jackson could always be counted on for, it’s getting himself out of one situation after another. Part of me is hoping this will be one more story he’ll be telling out the side of his mouth with half a smile, the danger long past.

  But then the form on the ground lets out a growl, a shambler’s moan, and I know Jackson is gone.

  So I raise my sickles, and do what I must. Swiftly.

  And as Jackson’s head separates from his body, I fall to my knees, sobs wracking my body.

  I will never let myself love someone again.

  I’m still sobbing as I drag myself to my feet. I want to run out to the middle of the prairie and just lie down, see if I can pull myself together, or if my parts just disintegrate and float away on the wind. But time ain’t a luxury I have.

  I also can’t leave behind the valuables on the body. If anything, Jackson wouldn’t want me to. I clean off my sickles before I grab his hat and tip it upside down like a basket. Into it goes his pistol and the big knife in his belt. His pockets yield a gold watch on a chain and not much more. I’m just about to leave when I decide to pull off his boots and find a letter inside the left one. It’s written in a messy hand, and I only have to glance at the first few lines to realize that it must be from his wife.

  Curious—Jackson didn’t know how to read. Did he begin his marriage by lying to the girl? It makes me ache for him and hate him at the same time.

  I tuck the letter in with everything else and make my way back to the homestead as quickly as possible.

  Everyone is in the yard when I arrive, the wagon laden and set to go, and the short run has given me time to compose myself. I’m numb, the loss too fresh to hurt properly just yet, and there’s still our own necks to consider.

  “There’s a whole mess of dead about a mile away. Maybe two. We have to move.” I force myself deep, deep down into the place in my mind where everything is quiet and cold and my heart ain’t breaking. Luckily it ain’t as hard as a body would think.

  How does one go on when they’ve lost their heart? By being heartless.

  I hand the pistol to Nessie, and she eyes it hesitantly. “I don’t know how to use this,” she says.

  “You want the knife instead? We’re about to move fast and hard to Nicodemus. Everyone needs a weapon, and no more than two people plus Thomas on the wagon at a time. We cannot let that line of dead catch up to us, or we’re all shamblers.” My voice is hard, but I don’t have any softness for Nessie, nor anyone else. And not a lick of pity, besides. “If any of you fall behind, I will leave you.”

  “Jane—” Katherine begins, but I shake my head at her.

  “We don’t have time for kindness, Kate,” I say, and she says nothing, just nods.

  Nessie takes the pistol. “Keep it pointed at the ground until you’re ready to use it,” I tell her.

  My words are blades aimed at everyone around me. I’m taking my fear out on them, and it ain’t fair, but I can’t quite help it. I refuse to lose anyone else today.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Nessie says, her voice soft. The words create a fresh lump in my throat, and I say nothing, just tuck the knife in my belt before I move on over to Lily. She watches me with a sullen expression, tears leaking down her light brown cheeks.

  “Here. This is yours,” I say, handing her the hat and the pocket watch. I keep the letter—of course I do. I ain’t proud of it, but I want to see what love looked like to Jackson, to see what he’d say to this girl that he never said to me. Even with him gone, I’m still jealous and petty, but it’s the only connection to him that I have.

  Even if he ain’t anything that was even remotely mine.

  “I hate you,” Lily says, her eyes locked on one of my sickles.

  I glance down and realize that, in my haste and anguish, I missed cleaning a spot, Jackson’s blood drying near the hilt.

  “I know,” I say.

  And with that, we run for Nicodemus.

  Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

  —Ephesians 4:26

  —KATHERINE—

  Chapter 6

  Notes on a Horde

  Jane sets a grueling pace away from the homestead, her usual scowl back in place, barely bothering to check the underbrush that lines the road away from the house for shamblers. At first I think to engage her, to caution against recklessness. With the loss of Jackson fresh on everyone’s mind it is too easy to panic, to run like frightened livestock. But once we have crested a slight rise and I look back toward where we spent the evening, I understand Jane’s urgency. A mass of dead lurches toward us, a mile or so behind. It is impossible to tell how fast they are moving, but even if they are strolling all we need is for the wind to shift, for them to catch the scent of us. At top speed, they will close that distance quickly.

  And out here in the open, with nothing for defense apart from the few weapons between us? Well, our odds are not good.

  Sallie, at the reins of the lightened wagon, and with Thomas seated behind her, sets out with the horse at a trot. Jane and I can keep that pace beside them—our stamina comes from years of training at Miss Preston’s. But Lily, Nessie, and the Madam do not have that experience.

  We have only gone a mile or so before everyone is winded and their steps falter.

  “Jane, they need to get into the wagon,” I say, voice low.

  “The horse will wear out,” she says. “If that happens, we’re all done for. They’re just going to have to keep up.”

  “What do you know about horses, Jane McKeene? How many have you raised and cared for?”

  She says nothing, only presses her lips together, a muscle working in her jaw.

  Just as I thought. I am trying to be gentle with Jane because of what she has been through; over the past few days, she has experienced a lifetime of pain and danger. But my patience is nearing its end. “We must put distance between ourselves and that horde,” I say. “The farther away we are, the less we risk them detecting our scent. What we need now is speed.”

  This time, she ignores me, and that is when my temper flares.

  “Sallie, please stop the wagon,” I call.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Jane demands, but the wagon is already stopping.

  “Lily, Nessie, Madam, please climb into the wagon.” I look to Jane, but she has fallen silent. “Sallie, keep the horse to a quick walk, make sure not to strain him.”

  “Oh, he’s a big boy. It’ll take a lot to do that,” Sallie says, smiling as an exhausted Nessie climbs up next to her. “But, Jane, let me know if you think we need to change the speed.”

  Jane is not the only one who is scared, and Sallie’s words make me realize that these people will do whatever Jane tells them to. They see her as a fighter, someone who knows what it takes to endure in these end times. No matter the command, they will follow rather than argue.

  I doubt Jane realizes that.

  Once everyone is settled, Sallie flicks the reins again. I strip off my swords as I run, putting them in the back of the wagon. “Jane, put your weapons up.”

  She looks at me, eyes wide. “What?”

  “Disarm yourself and walk with me.”

  “There’s an army of dead on our heels and who knows how many around us, and you want me to put up my sickles?”

  “Yes. Disarm or be disarmed.” The challenge in my voice is clear.
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  Jane’s scowl deepens, and she drops her sickles and pistol in the wagon.

  “Sallie, have the horse trot for a little while,” I say.

  She raises a hand in acknowledgment, and the wagon picks up the pace, pulling away from Jane and me.

  I put my hands on my waist and wiggle. The corset is not very flexible, but it allows enough movement for what I have planned.

  “Kate, I don’t know what’s got into you, but—”

  She does not get to finish the sentence, because I slap her full on the cheek. Not as hard as I could, but enough to get her attention.

  “What the—”

  I hit her again, this time the other cheek. Her brown skin is ruddy, and I take up a defensive stance.

  “This ain’t the time for such nonsense,” she yells.

  “This is the time. You are frustrated and out of sorts, and your grief is a fresh brand that has not begun to heal. I know what you have been through, and the Lord knows you are entitled to deal with your emotions as you see fit. I personally would find solace in the Scripture, but there is no Bible about. You need to work through what is going on in your heart and, well, I figure this is as good a way as any.” I put up my fists.

  Jane shakes her head. “What are you blabbering on about?”

  “It is going to take time to deal with the events of the past few days, but time is something we do not have right now—and in the meantime, you cannot take it out on them.” I point at the cloud of dust that marks the wagon’s passage.

  “So you think you and I should just have at it in the middle of the road until the dead catch up?” she asks. She is breathing hard, and her expression has gone stony, a sure sign that my words found their mark.

  “I am going to do what I can to get you to focus, Jane. I am going to be your target because I can handle your ire in a way they cannot. Sometimes a little physical release, directed and controlled, can quiet the heart just a bit.” I do not tell her about the way my heart breaks for her loss, nor the constant, creeping waves of panic that lap at my consciousness. Heartfelt confessions have never moved Jane the way that actions do, and if I want to help her, if I want to show her that I am her friend, I have to do that in a way that she understands.

  And if there is anything Jane understands, it is combat.

  “I am sorry . . . I am sorry that this world demands more of you than you should have to give. But that is not a reason to expect more of these untrained women and children than they have to give. We have the ability to protect them, and so we have the responsibility to do so, as long as we are able. Putting their survival solely on their own shoulders? Making them run alongside the wagon like livestock while they slowly succumb to exhaustion? That is not who we are, Jane. We can survive without being cruel to one another. I refuse to believe that we have to be like those we hate in order to carry on.”

  Something in her face shifts, some piece of whatever she is working through falling into place. I am jubilant that I am getting through to her.

  And so I am not watching for the fist that comes flying toward me.

  The punch is a good one, aimed right for the space below my corset. I backstep too late, and she catches the corset’s edge. My breath whooshes out of me, and the force of the blow sends me stumbling back a few steps.

  “You want a fight?” she says as I gasp for air. Her face is a blank mask. All of her emotions have retreated, leaving nothing but an expression of polite interest. She has locked herself down tight, focusing on nothing but the moment. “Well, then, let’s go.”

  I take a deep breath and straighten. The corset absorbed some of the blow, but not enough. Jane is not pulling her punches.

  So then, neither will I.

  It was customary to spar at Miss Preston’s. The instructors ignored no aspect of our education and knowing how to defeat a living person as well as the dead was part and parcel of our instruction in protecting well-to-do women. While the dead may let their hunger overwhelm them, the same may be said of live men and their passions. A Miss Preston’s girl was tasked with protecting her charge against all ravenous monsters, not just the undead sort.

  Grappling in the middle of a dusty road, with a cadre of dead on one side and a wagon of terrified women on the other, however, is definitely not something a Miss Preston’s girl should do. But if I cannot help Jane through this, these emotions she would rather bottle up than contend with, then she will misstep when it matters most. I cannot let that happen. I owe her my life for saving me back in Summerland.

  And I have few enough friends as it is. I need to hang on to the ones I possess.

  I sidestep Jane’s next punch, and the follow-up that comes behind it. Her swing is wild, uncontrolled, and I easily land a blow of my own to her midsection. She doubles over, and I place my hands on my hips. “Honestly, Jane, you are fighting angrily, and your form is amateur. Remember your lessons for once, will you?”

  I barely have time to dodge the kick that comes for my head, and as I dance out of the range of Jane’s foot my own anger surges, hot and fierce.

  “You looking awfully red in the face there, Kate,” Jane drawls.

  She is right. A slap or a punch is just sparring; a kick has the ability to immobilize me, if she were to land it, maybe long enough for the horde to overtake us.

  “Jane, that was a very bad decision.”

  I step in close, faster than she is expecting. Not everything I know about combat was learned at Miss Preston’s. After running away from home, I spent several months living in Bayou la Southe. That had not been my plan, but life cares not for the plans of Negro girls, passing light or otherwise. I learned a lot running with the Laveaus, a group of disgraced voodoo women who dedicated themselves to stopping the slavers that ran their cargo up and down the Mississippi River. And one of the things I learned was how to fight dirty while wearing a corset.

  I wait for Jane’s next swing, catching her arm and pulling her forward. Her momentum means she falls into me, her torso open and unprotected, so it is easy to bring my knee up into her midsection.

  The breath goes out of her, and I take the opportunity to spin around behind her, locking my arm around her throat.

  “You are out of sorts. You need to rest, to let yourself grieve and come to terms with what happened in Summerland. Losing Jackson is just compounding your distress.”

  She flails, making a terrible gurgling sound that I ignore. In my mind I recite Psalm 23, it is much more pleasing than listening to Jane choke. Before she loses consciousness, I release her. “Look at yourself,” I say, my voice made of razors. “You are sloppy, your moves are reckless. I know feelings are never something you want to talk about, but you cannot handle this all by yourself. You just. Can. Not.”

  Jane coughs and heaves. Tears fall from the corners of her eyes, and murder is writ large on her face. I really cannot blame her. I did best her but good.

  For a moment I am worried Jane will swing at me again, but then her shoulders slump and a long, low wail comes from her.

  “It ain’t fair,” she says, her voice almost too quiet to hear.

  “No, it ain’t,” I agree, my tongue tripping over the improper English and my heart aching for her once more. “And I am so, so sorry.”

  Jane sobs brokenly, her body shuddering. I pull her into my side, supporting a good deal of her weight, and let her cry, the kind of release she would not allow herself. We begin to walk.

  The day is still, and our luck holds. We are able to keep pace with the wagon a hundred yards ahead of us, and the horde behind keeps its distance.

  And for now, this is enough.

  This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeits of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. . . . An admir
able evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star.

  —Shakespeare, King Lear

  —JANE—

  Chapter 7

  In Which Our Luck Runs Out. Again.

  A dozen or so miles from the homestead, and a couple of headachy hours after I’ve managed to stop crying, the dead catch up to us.

  I walk sullenly beside Katherine after our middle-of-the-road fisticuffs. I’m still sore about her using that neck hold on me, and my throat aches every time I swallow. But I’m also impressed that she could be so ruthless. I ain’t ever seen that side of her before, and I wonder what other kinds of tricks she has up her sleeve.

  I’m also planning on making her show me.

  But the truth is, since having it out with her, I have felt a bit better. The loss of Jackson is still an aching wound, and I know it will be for some time. But focusing on keeping our group of survivors alive gives me something else to think on. I have to get us to Nicodemus. Only then will I let myself fall to pieces over Jackson—and ponder the difference between a survivor and a killer in this cruel world.

  I’m thinking about Jackson’s letter from his sweetheart when under my shirt my penny goes icy. At the same moment, Sallie stops the wagon.

  “Jane! Katherine! We got a problem!” she yells.

  Katherine and I don’t hesitate. We run around to the front of the wagon. We’d been expecting the dead to come up from behind us, the horde that’s been trailing us from Summerland, but it turns out they weren’t what we needed to worry about. A dozen or so shamblers have congregated in the road, like flies on manure, swarming a wagon that looks very much like ours.

  “Looks like some fellow travelers ain’t make it,” Nessie murmurs. She holds the pistol I gave her, Jackson’s gun, in a white-knuckle grip. Shame for lashing out at her earlier washes over me, heating my face. I reach up and take it from her, tucking it into my belt loop.