by Valerie Puri
Water sloshed around as Tulsi scrubbed her own skin. “Leave it to Ethan to save the day.”
“He’s pretty good at that,” Jennie agreed. “Did you know he and his father were fighting them on the ground?”
“Foolish Ethan has a death wish.”
“No, I don’t think so. He did it to save Arborville and us. I wish he wouldn’t do things like that, though. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
“Me neither.”
A thought occurred to Jennie. Why hadn’t she realized this before? Tulsi and Ethan grew up together. They were close. She was the first person he went to when he couldn’t stay in his own home.
“Do you have feelings for Ethan?”
Tulsi laughed. “Don’t worry, Jennie, he’s not my type. Besides, he’s like a little brother to me.”
Jennie sighed and scrubbed her knee. “Speaking of family, it seems like Ethan and his father are back on good terms. I guess facing death together will do that.”
Tulsi hit the water with a crack. “I hate these damn monsters. Today’s was the worst attack I’ve ever seen. Their numbers are increasing. Where does it go from here? They attack again tomorrow, and this time they actually do get into Arborville?”
“They’re collecting at the wall surrounding my settlement. I don’t even want to think of how many are there now. If we destroy those lemerons, others shouldn’t be drawn through Arborville. But there’s still the docile issue…”
“What’s a docile?”
Jennie blinked, dazed. “You don’t have them here?”
“How can I answer that question, since I don’t even know what a docile is?”
“Right… I guess I just thought you might have them too. A docile is like a lemeron, except it doesn’t have the same urge to kill. They do simple tasks around the Commune, but only from within an enclosed cell. We have this special blue glass to keep them contained and passive. It turns out, lemerons are drawn to dociles just like they are to each other. Things turned bad when we found out this secret group called the Order was abducting our people and turning them into dociles.”
“So the dociles are why we are dealing with the sudden influx of lemerons? You and your people are the reason we were almost annihilated?” Tulsi snapped.
“Wait, are you accusing me of having something to do with this?”
Tulsi narrowed her eyes. “Maybe. What you say next will help make up my mind.”
“I’ve been trying to stop the people responsible,” Jennie said defensively. “I never knew they could be created, but this group is using the process to take out anyone who stands against them.”
“That’s the corruption you mentioned earlier?” Tulsi asked.
Jennie blushed, embarrassed of the wretchedness taking place in her community. She doubted anything like that happened here.
“Yes,” she admitted.
Tulsi scoffed. “Well in that case, I’d like to change my earlier answer. I’ll take a lemeron attack over that kind of corruption.”
“If we don’t do something about all the dociles in the Commune, it will only draw more lemerons.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Jennie wrung out the rag and scrubbed her face.
“I don’t know. That’s where I need Belle. She’s better than me at figuring these things out.”
“If we help get rid of the lemerons at the wall, that should give you time to fix things inside your community.”
Jennie’s heart fluttered with hope. “So, you’re agreeing to help?”
“I’m only one person, but yes, I am. I’ll try and get the others to help too.”
Jennie’s grin tugged at her scabbed lip, but she didn’t care. She was finally on track to help save her people. She couldn’t wait to tell Marlene.
Thirty-Five
Marlene
Here she was again, resigned to a tower to look out the window at life happening below. Only it was a sleeping loft instead of her spacious chambers in the Sanctuary tower.
There was no privacy. There wasn’t even room to stand. But at least she had a little porthole window to look through. She heard every word of Jennie’s and Ethan’s hushed conversation earlier. They were talking about her behavior during the battle. It should have bothered her, but she was numb.
Marlene shivered, freezing from inside. Shards of emotion flitted through her mind in tangled fragments. She tried to catch them, but they floated just out of reach, leaving her cold and haunted. She was losing herself to the curse.
Replaying the fight over and over in her mind, she tried to figure out what triggered her episode. The last thing she remembered was cutting down lemerons. Then it all went hazy. A fog blurred her vision. She remembered rage emanating through her body. It started from her chest, then spread all the way to her fingers and toes. Everything in her wanted to destroy, kill, devour.
It was the damn song. It got louder when she was surrounded by lemerons. The closer she got to them, the louder the humming buzzed in her head. Now that the lemerons were dead, she was herself again… mostly. The song fading to a whisper in the back of her mind.
Looking out the window for an escape, she watched the aftermath of the battle. Men heaped the motionless lemerons and set them to the torch. The fire rose, licking the low-hanging branches, singeing the dying leaves. Why would they risk burning down their own homes to destroy a bunch of dead monsters?
Marlene frowned. That’s exactly what she did before she left, only not in the literal sense. She upset the balance of everything when she addressed the Commune. She finally revealed Victor for what he was and told the people of the lemeron threat. She was pretty sure she called everyone a bunch of fools. They earned it, though, for letting Victor and his pet Sash bring this doom upon them. She figuratively burned the Commune to the ground and left her people behind to deal with the ashes.
It was time to tell Brenden about who she really was. He was her husband, after all. He deserved to know.
She climbed down the ladder and sat beside him.
“My love, there’s something I need to tell you,” she ran her finger over the red patch on his bandage. He would likely have a scar on his forehead, but he was alive.
“What happened to you today? You became someone else out there.” He shook his head.
She sighed, her breath shaky as she exhaled. “No, not someone else. Something else. I don’t really know how to tell you this, but I want no more secrets between us.” Marlene began. “I have been alive for a very long time, over two hundred years.”
Brenden frowned. “What? Is this some kind of joke?”
“No. I really am that old. It’s possible because of my curse, as I like to call it.”
“What are you talking about?” Brenden asked.
“It’s best if you don’t ask questions right now, maybe later. I’m having a hard enough time telling you this.”
“Carry on then,” he squeezed her hand.
“When I was in my thirties, I got sick. A lot of other people did, too. They called it ‘Grey Fever’ because anyone who got it had their skin turn grey. Their muscles would atrophy, leaving just skin draped over bones.”
“That sounds familiar,” Brenden cut in. “That’s what the lemerons look like.”
Marlene nodded. “I recovered from the Grey Fever, but I was the only one. Everyone else died, or so people thought. Before those who died were buried, they came back to life. But they weren’t really living. There was no intelligence there, just anger, violence, and their intent to kill.
“The morgues and hospitals were the epicenter of it all. Grieving families gathered around their loved once who succumbed to the fever. As they mourned, those they lost woke up and slaughtered them all.” Marlene shuddered. “You’ve never seen so much gore. I pray you never do.”
Brenden’s face grew pale and his hand twitched in hers.
“I watched as society crumbled. My father packed up our family and moved us to safety. But
the disease spread. Soon people forgot the name of it. It didn’t matter anymore, because there was no cure. Anyone with Grey Fever became known as a lemeron. It’s derived from the Latin word ‘lemures’ which means ‘ghosts.’ That was when the world fell into ruin and became overrun with walking corpses.” Marlene swallowed. “That was a little over two hundred years ago.”
Brenden blinked at her. “No one, except for you, remembers how this all started. I can’t believe you lived that long,” he rubbed his eyes. “How is that even possible?”
“It turns out the lemerons can’t die from old age, and neither can I. I’m cursed to live an eternity in a world consumed by destruction. I tried my best to carve out a safe place for my people. I founded the Commune two hundred years ago.”
She squeezed Brenden’s hand. “Only when I met you did I start living again. I was picking wild strawberries in the forest clearing when you approached. I was wary of strangers, but you showed me a kindness I hadn’t experienced in decades. You shared your heart with me. You reminded me what it meant to have something to fight for.”
Brenden placed a comforting hand on her arm.
“Today I saw you pinned down by lemerons. I had to destroy them for threatening your life. In doing so, my anger took over. I lost all of my senses except the urge to kill. It’s an effect of Grey Fever. You hear the vibrations of the other lemerons. It’s like a moth drawn to a flame. The more of them around, the louder the song, and the easier it is to succumb to it.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Brenden asked.
“So that you understand that it wasn’t really me who nearly killed you. It was the monster inside of me, my curse. It was the effects of Grey Fever taking hold of me once again.”
Brenden shifted in his chair, taking her other hand in his. “Is there a way to help you get better?”
“Yes,” she said. “Kill all the lemerons. Only then will I be free from the song.”
Thirty-Six
Belle
Belle's first act as interim elder was to go to the wall. Travis and his father were among the twenty or so people accompanying her. Three people carried a very tall ladder. They wove through the apple orchard, the ladder catching on low branches.
Belle gagged from the stench. She covered her mouth and nose with her hands, trying not to throw up.
Mr. Caraway and Travis propped the ladder against the wall. It just reached the top.
"I'm going up," Belle announced.
Travis steadied the ladder as she climbed.
She had been up ladders countless times before at the solar farm, but never one this tall. It wobbled as her weight shifted from foot to foot on her ascent. The wood creaked under the strain of her weight. Her heart raced.
Don’t look down, she told herself.
She grabbed a stone at the top of the wall. A piece crumbled from her touch and fell to the ground below. Pulling herself onto the ledge, she tried to catch her breath. With the stench wafting up from below, that was easier said than done. She covered her nose with her sleeve, the fabric doing little to lessen the smell of decay.
Looking over the outer edge of the wall, she peered below. Her eyes grew wide at the sight.
“There are so many of them,” she whispered.
It looked like there were a thousand gathered at the wall. They were in a constant state of motion. With no way forward, they still walked, bumping into each other and the wall. From above, their movements looked like ripples on the surface of water. Calm, but always moving.
Belle looked through the trees in the distance. More shambled her way.
“It’s hopeless. There’re too many,” she said.
A snarl came in response.
One by one, the lemerons at the base of the wall looked up at her. Those yellow eyes gleamed with rage.
Her blood went cold.
All at once, they surged in her direction. They tore through each other, trying to reach her. Those closest to the wall took the most damage. Some collapsed to the ground, dead. More filled the gap, stepping on their dead kin.
A cold sweat broke out across Belle’s forehead. She’d seen more than she wanted to. There were far too many to fight on the ground. If Jennie and Marlene brought back even a small army, the lemerons would overwhelm them. She had to do something. But what?
Climbing back down, she was relieved to be back on the ground. The stone wall would hold for a time, but it was crumbling.
Her thoughts drifted back to Jennie and Ethan. They left through one of the four gates. They were little more than wood doors that hadn’t been repaired or reinforced in years. That had to change.
“What did you see up there?” someone asked.
The others looked on expectantly, waiting to hear her assessment.
“There are too many,” she said.
“What are we going to do?”
Belle squared her shoulders. If she was an elder, interim or otherwise, she would do some good for her people.
“We’ve neglected our defenses for years. For far too long, we’ve assumed the wall would stand for hundreds of more years,” Belle pointed to the stone that fell from the top of the wall. “But now it’s crumbling, the gates are rotting. We will perish if we don’t do something about it. Alan,” she called out.
The man who helped Jennie’s dad haul Victor away stood at attention.
“You and Mr. Caraway are blacksmiths. Forge braces for the doors.”
“Yes, Miss Joiner,” he said.
“Travis, work with Mr. Crow to replace all the rotten wood on the doors. Once you’re done, help Alan and your father attach the braces.”
“Okay, Belle.”
“The rest of you,” Belle put her hands on her hips. “We need scaffolding. Gather help from others and get to work. Build eight towers evenly spaced around the wall. We need to give our people a reliable way to get up there. Only then can we have patrols on the top of the wall. Our best bet is to defeat them from above.”
“Where will we get all the wood?” Mr. Crow asked.
He was a middle-aged man and a skilled carpenter, just the right person to fix the doors. But he had a point. It would take a lot of wood to build the scaffolding. They couldn’t risk sending anyone to the forest to chop down trees. She looked around the Commune, searching for the answer. Then it came to her. She smirked.
“We can use more than just wood for the scaffolding. I know where we can get a lot of concrete blocks and blue glass… the strongest building material we have.”
Mr. Crow crinkled his forehead.
“Where are we going to find all that?”
“Underground,” Belle crossed her arms.
Time to level the playing field, Isaac.
Belle and her builders would tear apart the Order’s secret processing facility, and there was nothing they could do to stop them.
Thirty-Seven
Sash
For the first time in over a week, Sash travelled the dank tunnel beneath the Commune. The lab behind him, revenge in front of him.
He licked his lips. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on that curly-haired girl again. She would pay for attacking him and escaping. No one ever got away from him. Sooner or later, he always tracked down his target.
It was more important than ever to take her out. He couldn’t understand why the Commune people would elect her of all people. She was just a stupid girl. Now that she was an elder, she would have influence and power. Gnashing his teeth, he grumbled.
She was nothing more than a filthy undesirable. Belle Joiner had to go. Now that Isaac sanctioned her removal, Sash would make sure that happened. He already gave her a chance to become something greater than the filth she was. But she threw that away the moment she jabbed him with that needle.
Sash wouldn’t even bother with processing her anymore. No. He would just wrap his hands around her skinny little neck and squeeze the life out of her. He clenched his fists, imagining the feeling of her throat crushing in his grasp.
He ascended the steps, emerging in the little shack concealing the tunnel entrance. Voices drifted through the cracks in the old door.
“This is the place?” A man asked.
His voice was familiar. Sash frowned, trying to place it.
“Yes. We’ll find what we need in there,” a girl answered.
This wasn’t right. No one was supposed to know about this place except for those in the Order. These people were undesirables.
“Let’s break it down,” the man said.
Sash knew that voice. The memory of who owned it tugged at the back of his brain. He just had to think. He remembered hearing it when it was dark outside. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to remember.
That’s it.
His eyes snapped open. That man was the scum who ran away. Sash remembered that night when he interrupted a meeting between two undesirables. He incapacitated and bagged the woman - Madam Marie as he found out later - but this coward ran. Sash vowed that eventually, he would get him. Today was the day.
“Perfect,” he sneered.
He could take him by surprise. It didn’t matter that he was with a girl. He would get his target first and get her after.
Sash flung the door open. Rushing forward into the daylight, he body-slammed the man, knocking him to the ground. Sash landed on top of him. He yanked the black bag from his back pocket. Pulling it over the man's head, he cinched it closed around his neck.
He was in his element. Everything around him faded away, leaving only Sash and his victim.
The man held up his arms defensively and tried to pull the sack off his face. Sash went for the tranquilizer to stop his squirming. Sash uncapped the needle with his teeth and raised his arm, ready to plunge the needle into the man’s neck.
Just as he was about to bare down, someone grabbed his wrist and wrenched the syringe out of his hand.
