Life Sentence (28 page)

The two men closer to her glanced back at her, and
they all stopped shouting.

In a lower but very firm and decisive tone, the girl
said, “Mr. Caine, tell Will what happened.”

“Will,” the man beside Jack began, “the men who
attacked Fran and the girls had attacked these people the day
before. When they attacked them they took the flag of this city.
That’s why it was on their truck. When you shot at them this
morning, you hurt innocent people. You have to stop now, please.”
He sounded very plaintive and sad, but like the girl, intelligent
and reasonable.

Will had said his father was one of the two men, and
I sensed such a bond between Will and this man, Mr. Caine.

I was now ashamed at the part I had played in all
this, but I also knew I couldn’t have let Lucy get hurt, back in
the city. So I felt shame, but not guilt. I could see Will was
distraught at what had happened, too.

“Will,” the tall man said, “you need to stand down
and come with us.”

“What?” one of the men by the other vehicle
objected. “We’re taking him prisoner!”

“You know you have no right,” Jack said with
exceptional evenness, clarity, and coldness.

Besides the girl’s rifle, every other gun was still
pointed at someone’s head. I again got that empty, icy feeling that
I was going to die next to Lucy.

“You have no… no… jurisdiction,” Jack said. “That’s
the word.”

The other man gave a snorting laugh. “Jurisdiction?
What are you talking about? There’s no jurisdiction or law
anymore!”

“Suit yourself,” Jack said. “But if there’s no law,
then there’s just guns, and we both got ’em, and that’s how we’ll
settle it. But he is definitely coming home with us now, and we’ll
decide what happens to him.”

There was a pause that seemed endless to me. Mr.
Caine spoke. “Colonel Reiniger, this doesn’t have to change our
agreement. You come with us, we decide what happens to Will, and
you report back to your people. If our decision is unacceptable,
then there’s war, but not now.”

“He attacked us again!” the other man said.

“All right, that’s true,” Will’s father said
wearily. “But so long as your driver isn’t too badly hurt, then I
guess what we’re asking you to do is to overlook this last
incident, to forgive that mistake, so we can decide on what to do
and not have more killing.”

“We were ambushed. You might try it again if we come
with you. I never should’ve trusted you,” Colonel Reiniger
said.

Mr. Caine sighed. “All right,” he said as he put his
hands up and walked over to the truck. “I’m putting down my gun.”
He set it on the hood of the truck. “I’ll stay here with your men.
Will is my son. It’s fair I stay here in his place. You go on
ahead. Is that fair enough?”

I was amazed all over again; these people were ready
to kill for no reason one minute, then ready to sacrifice
themselves for each other the next. I felt it was some kind of
mystery that I might never understand.

“Jonah, you don’t have to,” Jack said. “You
shouldn’t.”

“Or what, Jack?” He sounded exasperated as well as
weary. “You said it yourself—the other choice is we start shooting.
Maybe, if they’re lucky, then Zoey and those two,” he tilted his
chin towards us, “would be left standing, since they have a better
position behind us and the truck. I know the meek are supposed to
inherit the earth, but shit, Jack, I don’t feel like shooting
anymore today. And I want someone to get home.”

“No, don’t,” Will protested. “I’ll stay.”

“No, Will,” his father said, “Jack’s right—we can’t
let these people decide your fate. It’s not their place. You’re our
responsibility. You’re my responsibility.” He turned back towards
the men by the other vehicle. “Now, Colonel, is that fair, so at
least they can get home?”

The colonel stepped back and looked inside his
vehicle, like he was checking someone there. “His head’s banged up
and bleeding, but I think he’ll be all right,” he said. “He’ll stay
here with you and one of my other men, and they’ll take you back to
our base. I’ll take one man and go on after the truck. That is a
reasonable solution.”

I wasn’t sure if “reasonable” was the right word for
it, or if these kinds of decisions were supposed to be governed by
reason, but at least it seemed to be a non-violent solution.

“What about them?” the girl asked, gesturing towards
Lucy and me. It seemed to be yet another problem of being
mute—people tended to ignore and forget about you when they were
talking and making plans. Though in the preceding conversation, I
had been glad they’d left us out of most of it.

Will had joined Jack and Zoey, while Will’s father
had gone over to join the men by the other vehicle. “They’ll be
shot if we leave them here,” Jack said.

“We should take them with us,” Will suggested.
“Later you can take them back to the storage place where Milton put
them.”

Jack considered us. He pulled open the door at the
back of the truck. “All right, there you go.”

Lucy and I climbed in. They all looked at us for a
moment.

“I heard about what you did for Zoey,” Jack added.
He sounded a little contrite. “I’m sorry about the thing I said to
Zoey—you know, to shoot you. You all kind of showed up at a bad
time in the conversation, but saving someone’s life deserves a lot
better than how I treated you. I’m sorry. We’ll protect you now,
and we’re grateful for what you did for Zoey.”

I nodded. Lucy seemed a bit more sullen, but at
least she didn’t growl at them. I would’ve felt embarrassed if she
had, for I knew they were doing the best they could, given their
shortcomings and violent urges. The tall man closed the door, and
we were left in the dark. I put my arm around Lucy and held her as
the truck lurched forward and we bounced along to whatever these
people were going to decide was our fate.

I was so sorry to leave Mr. Caine with the people
from the River Nation, but he had been right—there was no other way
for us to leave without more people being killed. We couldn’t just
hand Will over to strangers, and we couldn’t expect them to trust
us without some sacrifice on our part. We drove in silence back to
the hole in the fence. In the time we had been gone, Rachel and the
other workers had put in many new posts, anchoring them in newly
dug holes with concrete; the fencing had been unrolled and secured
to them. Now they were just expecting us to deliver supplies, so
they could finish and go home. They must’ve been surprised and
curious to see another vehicle following us—the first new people
anyone in our community had seen in years.

We got out, and the workers gathered around us and
the two newcomers. Milton had also arrived while we had been gone.
He was invaluable for keeping the undead away from the people as
they worked on the fence, of course, but now I thought he would
help resolve this situation with Will, though I was completely at a
loss as to how.

If the people were amazed at the sight of two
newcomers who were not from our city, they were shocked and audibly
gasped when Dad opened the back of the truck and they saw two
zombies sitting there—zombies who didn’t try to attack, but who sat
meekly watching us. Well, the man zombie was meek; the lady zombie
looked much more dangerous—though Will and I were the only ones who
knew firsthand how savage she could be. She didn’t make any outward
signs of aggression now.

My dad explained everything—who the attackers had
been, what the River Nation was, how Will had attacked the wrong
people that morning, how there were now smarter zombies among the
dead, and how our community was now threatened with war against
another group of living humans. Everyone paid rapt attention to the
story, with occasional ripples of excitement and whispers through
the crowd. Everyone except Fran, who was still keeping watch from
atop the truck; I was sure she was ready to shoot the newcomers,
either living or dead, if she deemed it necessary, or if my dad
gave the command.

Milton shook his head slowly and sadly. “There is no
precedent for this. It has been years since Jack and I assumed any
kind of governing or judicial role over our people. And we have
never considered the implications of having to deal with a group of
people outside our community, whose customs and values might be
different than ours. This is serious and confounding. Perhaps if we
considered in what ways Will has broken our own laws, and then try
to justify them to these new people. First, I suppose we should
determine what damage has been done. Colonel, do we know what
happened to your citizens whom Will and these two dead people
attacked this morning?”

“The last report I received, three men had been
shot. This man from your community shot two of them. Both were
wounded quite severely; one of them may not walk again. The one
shot by these two
creatures
was less severely wounded and
should recover fully.”

Milton sighed. “Let us be thankful the damage was
not worse. Nonetheless, Will, there seems no way to take your
actions as protecting the living. There was no self-defense, except
perhaps by these dead people, if they were confronted suddenly with
a guard who tried to shoot them—
after
they’d been put in
that situation by
you,
Will. Most alarming is the
carelessness with which you pursued and shot at people, without
knowing their exact identity or guilt. We can be thankful you did
not kill anyone, but if you had done this to members of our
community, there would be grave punishment. And we cannot count the
lives of others—whom we were lucky enough to finally find today,
when we thought ourselves the only living people left—as any less
worthy of our concern. I cannot see any other way to interpret
this.”

There was a low and reluctant murmur of agreement
from the crowd.

“But I am also very curious about what you thought
you were doing by letting the dead out of their holding area. This
was a huge risk to yourself, but more importantly, to others, more
so in our community than elsewhere, since the holding areas are
just outside the fence. What led you to do such a thing?”

I could see Will was struggling with his own guilt
and regret. But on the topic of the zombies, he seemed to pick up,
as though this were something he had thought about much more, and
something he thought defensible—even if to the rest of us, it
seemed the most bizarre part of his behavior. “I didn’t mean to put
anyone at risk. These two...” he gestured to the zombies, who were
standing nearby, under guard. “They were different. You saw for
yourself, Milton, how different he is.”

“I did, Will. That’s why I explained to him why he
needed to be confined and kept away from the living. I’m not in the
habit of explaining myself to dead people, but I thought it
appropriate in his case.”

“Yes, and I think he appreciated that. But I spoke
to him more, and I could tell he knew more, and he needed more from
us. I found out his name. It’s Truman. I don’t think I’ve ever
known the name of one of the dead people we round up. I knew he
wasn’t dangerous.”

“But he was, Will. He shot a man. And the woman
killed a man and... ate him.”

“They did, but both times were to defend someone.
The woman saved Zoey. I couldn’t have gotten to her in time. And I
found Truman after he’d shot the man. He had only wounded him, and
the man was defenseless, on the ground, but they didn’t do anything
more to hurt him. I’ve never seen people more restrained. Well,
except the eating part. But I knew it was wrong to keep them locked
up. I know you’ve done a lot for us, Milton, and you showed us how
it’s wrong to kill the dead, but sometimes you treat them like
dolls or statues—these sacred, fragile things that you need to shut
up and look at once in awhile at funerals, like things in a museum,
or like they used to do with animals in the zoo. I think they’re
just people. At least, I know these two are. I’m sorry I hurt those
men, but I’m not sorry I let Truman and Blue Eye out.”

Milton nodded slowly. I looked over at the two
zombies. They obviously understood what had been said about them,
mute as they were. Unlike when I imagined a dead person looking sad
or angry, you could tell they were embarrassed to be the center of
attention, just like a “real” person would, and they looked
remorseful for their part in the unnecessary bloodshed and the
problems it now caused us. I could see Will’s reckless attack on
the River Nation had been the result of impatience, anger, and
thoughtlessness, but his relationship with these two
people
had been very well considered, thoughtful, and careful.

Milton seemed to agree. “Will, your actions with
these two dead people are not culpable, I don’t think. But like
your actions this morning, they do show a terrible unwillingness to
consult or explain yourself to others. So much pain could’ve been
avoided if you had just spoken to someone else. This is all the
more sad, since by what you just said, you can explain yourself to
others quite eloquently.”

When Milton turned toward me, I suddenly felt very
small and cold, even as the blood rushed to my cheeks and burned me
with shame. “And you, Zoey—how could you keep this information from
others? You were as aloof and secretive as Will. Perhaps if you had
told your father, we could have stopped Will before he attacked
other people. We cannot let our friendships endanger our community,
or they are no real friendships. I trust your father will find some
appropriate punishment that will teach you not to keep to yourself
so dangerously and with no concern for others.”

I had instinctively pulled closer to Dad when
accused, and he squeezed my shoulders. “Yes, Milton, I was thinking
about that on the way back here, that someone needs a lesson about
trusting and confiding in others.” I knew Dad would be fair, but I
still shivered to hear of some undefined punishment.