"Slow down," Noah said. "We're close to Black Mountain Road. The church is a couple of hundred yards from the junction."
Devon pulled the car into the driveway of a pile of rubble that had once been a house and turned the engine off. "Can we cut across by foot?"
"We can. Few of the houses here have fences. Why? What is your plan?"
Devon lifted his hood and turned around to look at Jessie in the back seat. "Noah and I will walk down. Hold on!" He put his hand up to stop her protesting. "When you hear a gunshot, come get us. Down this road and left. You won't be able to miss it; we'll be the ones disrupting a public execution. Oh, and put your foot down."
She wanted to argue, he could see that. But she knew that this was the only chance they had.
"I'll do it on one condition," she said, echoing his words of earlier.
"What's that?"
"If there's no chance … if you can't rescue them … just come back to me. Don't be an idiot."
Devon pulled his hood down again, but she could see his face widening in a smile. "Me? An idiot? You wound me."
She darted forward, lifted the black cloth from under his chin and kissed him. "I love you."
And, along with the joy in his heart, came the bitter pain of fear and desperation. But he simply nodded, covered his lips again and jumped out of the car, praying he would live to see her again.
Chapter 13: Sedition
"We've lost ten so far, and another thirty-three are ill," Libby Hawkins said. "If it carries on like this, then we'll solve your problem for you."
Hick was surveying the nearest beds in the school gymnasium as if he could see the droplets of moisture in the air that carried the pathogen. He turned back to Hawkins, more in response to her tone of indignation than the words she used. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"A hundred and nine of us arrived here and you made it clear from the start that we weren't welcome. The more of us die, the better as far as you're concerned. Isn't that right?"
Hick blinked in surprise at the venom in her voice. She was, of course, correct, but he thought he'd hid it a little better than that. "No, not at all. I was worried that extra mouths would be a strain on the town, but I did the deal with your mother and I'll stick to it. But look, you're obviously exhausted. Why not go home and get some rest. You brought your own nurses, after all. They can handle things while you recover a little. Can't have you comin' down with it, can we?"
She sneered at him, but there was a hint of reluctant gratitude, as if she'd finally been given permission to give in to her human frailties. "Okay. But tell me this. D'you think it's a coincidence that this new strain emerged just after the firestorm hit?"
"I sure hope it is. But why?"
Libby shrugged. "Why any of it? What's the point of wiping out 95% of the population? You know, I still don't think people quite get what's happened. It's like they're in some sort of emergency state, but if and when things stabilize, there's going to be a world of delayed grief."
Intrigued, Hickman leaned closer. "What d'you mean?"
"We've all lost people we loved. In Ezra, every single person is a survivor of a tragedy that all but wiped out their families—those that lived locally and relatives across the country. All the time they're focusing on staying alive, where the next meal is coming from and whether they can sleep safely at night, the impact of that is kept at bay. But once those things are assured—or once they get used to being hungry—their minds will begin to process the scale of what's happened and what it means to them. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of people they will never see again. Then we'll have a whole different type of trouble to deal with. I think many won't want to live in the new world when they see it for what it is."
She leaned back against the wall of the gymnasium. Hick jumped as a woman in the nearest bed coughed. He'd found himself spellbound by this prophet of doom. Like her mother, she was not to be underestimated.
Libby shook her head, straightened up and dropped her clipboard on a school desk that functioned as one of four stations for the medical staff to work from. "I guess we ought to hope we can get to the point where people have time to think about such things. Thanks for coming by, Mr. Hickman. I'm off to bed." She shook his hand.
"Get some food inside you first," he said. "Canteen's open."
She nodded, pulled her coat over her shoulders and headed for the far corner of the gymnasium. The school canteen was now feeding a sizable percentage of Hope's population. It had been Martha's idea to centralize the preparation of meals—it was much more efficient to keep the school's ovens running rather than those in hundreds of kitchens across the town.
It was a good idea that Hick had transformed into a great one by adding the requirement that anyone choosing to use the canteen had to first donate their supplies to the general pool, along with a contribution toward the diesel generators that kept the school running. Gert and his civil defense squad were responsible for enforcing it, which kept it at arm's length from Hickman himself. Of course, it was generally those who were running short of supplies themselves who opted to give up what remained and rely on the communal canteen, but it still boosted what they had on hand.
Hickman watched Libby go, then, keeping as close to the edge of the gymnasium as possible, he made his way past the rows of beds toward the exit. He turned back before he left, and took in the entire scene for the first time. There must have been a hundred beds in there, dragged out of the nearest houses. They were of all different types, giving a bizarre, otherworldly appearance to the scene, as if a hundred people had been beamed from their bedrooms by teleportation.
Every few seconds someone would cough, but it was the silence between that freaked him out the most. Nurses moved between the beds. Hick recognized some of them—one was a teacher, one a mechanic—and felt a surging pride in the dedication of Hopers to each other and especially to those who'd come from Ezra. But the warmth was swept away by the chill of realization that these were only the worst cases. If there were a hundred here, there might have been two hundred and fifty still at home coughing their guts up. As with most flu outbreaks, it was taking the elderly and the sick first, but some fit, young folk were dying too. It was a puzzle. Doctor Pishar had told him that flu generally killed less than one in a hundred of those it infected, even among the elderly. Even the Spanish Flu, had no more than a 20% mortality rate, but this outbreak was running at over 50% mortality among old people. This could partly be explained by the lack of drugs to help fight the infection, but still, it felt as though this disease was a kick in the teeth to a species already on its knees.
Paul Hickman felt a twinge of guilt as he walked out into the bright sunlight. He had a small stockpile of antivirals in his basement that were well enough hidden to evade Ned Birkett's betrayal, but if he admitted to them, he'd face questions and, worse, he might not have enough for himself if he came down with it. He pulled out the antibacterial wipes and cleaned his hands. He felt a twinge of guilt, but just a twinge.
As he climbed into his car, he glanced back at the school and sighed. He was finally in undisputed control of Hope. The council existed in name only. Gert Bekmann had proven himself reliable, efficient and loyal. Hick's main opponents were dead, likely dead or close to death. So, this is what victory feels like?
His eyes swept the playground, not looking for anything physical. He supposed that what he was seeking was the sweet taste of triumph. It wasn't enough to have achieved his aims of taking control and, therefore, being able to mold the city to suit him, even if it meant that he could prepare for Sam's homecoming.
His mind flicked to her as he tried to paint a mental picture of his daughter, and he reached into his pocket to pull out a photo he'd printed on cheap inkjet paper. In it, Sam was smiling at her smartphone camera and, right next to her stood Jessie Summers. They must have been in some nightclub just before Jessie returned to Hope. Maybe that was the night her husband had changed the locks on their apartment. Never could keep her legs togeth
er, that woman. He carefully folded the dog-eared paper, making sure the crease was across Jessie's face, not Sam's, and put it back in the inside pocket of his jacket.
He wondered what Sam looked like now. Still the same? Or had she been changed like so many others? Hick rubbed his eyes as if to bring himself out of the unfamiliar introspection. How much had he changed? Not much, he decided. In a world of constant flux, Paul Hickman was a constant. Or was he?
The key was turning in the ignition when he thought he heard something. He rolled down the window and stuck his head out into the frigid breeze. Yes, there was something. Voices singing.
He jumped out of the car and turned around, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. The church. Two blocks down. Hymns drifting through the clear air. It was St. Barbara's, not the Mormon church farther up Main Street, and Hickman found his curiosity piqued. St. Barbara's was an Orthodox church built eighty years ago to serve the Greek community of this part of Nevada. But, since an equivalent had been built in Ely, attendance had dried up and there wasn't even a resident priest anymore. He certainly hadn't heard singing coming from there before.
Interest aroused, he drove along Main Street and parked along Avenue J. By the time he was walking up the steps toward the door of the brick and tile building, the singing had stopped and one voice boomed in the silence. Ward McAndrew.
Hick froze, then crept to the side of the door so he could listen unobserved.
"…and what message can we find in this cataclysm? What is the Heavenly Father telling us?" McAndrew's rich voice rose and fell.
Someone coughed, then someone else called out, "That we have sinned?"
"Not just that." McAndrew said. "We have been spared for a divine purpose. We are like Noah and his family, the only survivors of the great deluge which God promised not to repeat. But humanity has fallen; it has fallen low in these degenerate days."
Again, silence fell as the last echoes of his voice faded away.
"We have an opportunity to show the Lord God that we are worthy to be the seed of a new and better civilization that honors the Commandments and the glory of our Creator. For if we do not do this, we will simply repeat the mistakes that led to the cleansing. And to know what is expected of us, we must look at the means of destruction that He chose. Technology!"
This time, as he stopped speaking, Hick heard a susurration, as if people were whispering to each other.
"Outside of Hope, it was electricity and the technology it powered that brought about humanity's destruction. And so we must abandon them and the evil that derives from their use. We must live a simpler life, a purer life. A life in harmony with our world, not in conflict with it. Do I not speak the truth?"
Mumbled agreement seeped out of the partially opened door. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
"But there are those who seek to return to the old ways; the bad ways that brought about disaster. They are the true enemy among us, for they will squander our final chance. And it is worse than that, my friends. For they wish to go beyond what we had before; they wish to strip us of our rights and freedoms. Soldiers on our streets, seizing precious supplies at gunpoint and taking them who knows where? We are living under a military dictatorship, further from God than we ever were. And I say it must stop! It must stop now!"
Hick's blood chilled as he listened, and turned to ice when he realized that the mood in the congregation, which had been lukewarm at best, was now running a fever. Voices rose like a tide that threatened to sweep out of the church and throughout the whole of Hope. He shrank against the wall beside the door, straining to make out words among the noise inside.
But hold on, Hick. There could only be, say, a hundred people in that church and he reckoned the passion would cool a little once they'd left it and gone about the day-to-day business of staying alive. Ward McAndrew, however was a problem. That old troublemaker could agitate like a piece of grit in an oyster, but he wouldn't turn into no pearl. If McAndrew got his way, they'd all be digging the fields like peasants. The oldest and the youngest would die first as he sought a version of the past that had never existed. Disease, cold and starvation would be the fruits of his revolution.
The braying of a hundred sliding chairs brought Hick back to the present, and he hauled himself to his feet and scuttled across the road toward his car. He wanted desperately to watch them come out—to see if he recognized any of the faces—but his car was parked in full view of anyone who came down this street and he didn't want McAndrew to know he'd been overheard. Not yet, at any rate.
He got back in the car and reversed it into a side road before heading away from the church and into the dust roads that ran along that side of the copper mines. It was only as he stopped shaking that Hick realized just how freaked out he'd been by what he'd heard. He'd always considered the people of Hope to be putty in his hands so that once he'd eliminated the other strong characters in the community, he could mold them any way he wished. But, just as he'd seen off Rusty and Martha, Ward McAndrew pops up like a dandelion in a perfectly manicured lawn. The simple answer would be to cut him down, but Hick suspected this particular weed had deep roots. A scarlet-tinted image of the past might be unrealistic and dangerous, but it was powerful magic in a world turned upside down.
The car rattled along the dust and grit track running parallel to the town until he took a left and emerged among the ranch houses and shacks of the periphery. He would consider a strategy later. For now, he had to speak to Gert Bekmann.
Chapter 14: Execution
Devon crouched as he jogged along the lane, head scanning left and right, searching for betraying eyes. Noah led the way and, every now and again, he would gesture at a building and form the word "Amish" with his mouth. He needn't have bothered to point them out as it was obvious which were Amish places—they were the ones that weren't burned down.
Right now, they were creeping past a low single-story shop made of wood with letters spelling Antiques in weathered green paint above the entrance. A single fuel pump with an Esso logo and a sign saying No Smoking in this area stood beside the front door next to a red fire bucket filled with sand and cigarette butts. Inside, it was dark and once he was satisfied that no one was home, Noah accelerated again, darting across the road and over the white picket fence of what had once been a large house judging by the size of the black scar in the middle of the plot. The surviving residents had been busy here, clearing away the wreckage and preparing to rebuild.
Again, Noah slowed as they spotted the intersection with the main road through Wareham. So far, they'd seen no one, but, as they sidled along the chipped and faded red-painted wall of a large house, Noah hissed a warning and pointed ahead. Two buggies clip-clopped along, one after the other. They both had gray hoods and were pulled by chestnut horses. "They're moving fast," Noah said. "Must be late. Hurry."
He waited until they'd disappeared behind the corner of a building that faced the main street, then darted across the yard of the red house and over the fence into the next plot, cutting off the corner entirely. It was an idyllic landscape on a bright March morning, but Devon barely noticed as they entered a stand of cedars, footsteps crunching on the needle-strewn floor. He flattened himself against the rough trunk of a juniper as Noah gestured at the long stretch of grass beneath them.
A white wood church stood pristine against the blues and greens. It had a small spire that pointed like a sharpened pencil at the sky and a light gray roof that crowned a row of narrow windows. The church sat on grass surrounded on two sides by rectangles of asphalt. One was being used as a parking lot and they watched as the two buggies found space among the others and the occupants got out to hurry toward the church. The doors were flung aside so the crowd could hear what was being said inside. Devon guessed the church could accommodate sixty or seventy, with five times that number listening outside. The Amish stood in a group of blacks, browns, straw hats and bonnets to one side, and the newcomers in their plainer clothes to the other.
"Look," Noah said. He gestured at a wooden platform that the crowd was keeping its distance from. Three men stood there, dressed in black, their faces covered but with the unmistakable glint of steel at their hips. "I told you. They will kill them," he sobbed.
As he spoke, the crowd moved as if making space, and six more figures in black emerged into the sunlight, rifles slung on their backs. Among them stumbled three others. Anna, Amanda and a bewildered-looking Margie. Their faces were bruised and one of Amanda's eyes looked to have closed up. A lump formed in Devon's throat as he realized that they had no chance of stopping this. They couldn't take on nine armed men, especially when they were surrounded by innocent people. But come what may, he wasn't prepared to risk their lives for the sake of Amanda and Margie. Would he have felt the same way if it was Jessie down there being taken to her death? Guilt and pity surged in his throat.
Amanda, Margie and Anna were lined up in front of the three men with knives. One of the other men pulled black cloth from his pocket and wound it around Amanda's eyes. He felt strangely proud of her as she simply stood there, a slight shake of her head the only sign of her terror. Margie, on the other hand, finally seemed to understand what was going on and she screamed so that the sound echoed around the parking lot, bouncing off the walls of the church and disappearing among the cedars.
Devon moved forward, as if he was going to burst out of the trees and … do what? But Noah grabbed his shoulder to stop him, and they both watched as Margie was subdued. Devon felt tears running down his cheeks, and he vowed to make them pay for every blow they struck. He pressed his hands to his head, forcing his fingernails into the rawest of his burns, forging his rage in the furnace of pain.
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