Plaguelands (Slayers Book 1) (11 page)

I felt sorry for them. Just as they felt sorry for me not knowing the glory of God, I wished these people could have embraced our way of life and found that eternal life they were seeking. I wished that they could have opened their minds to technology and medicine. As long as they relied on their Space-God to take care of them, they would never truly take care of themselves.

Leah excused herself to go make a batch of tea. I think she was being overcome by her emotions and needed a minute to herself. The only person I’d ever lost was Semper, and even then, I was ill-prepared to deal with it.

Rebekah came over to the couch where I was sitting and took my hand in hers. I could see her eyes were red with sadness, but she wasn’t crying. She was learning to deal with the trauma she had recently experienced. Though her father and brothers had died at Highway Bridge, she hadn’t watched it happen first-hand, and hadn’t felt powerless about it like she had with Obadiah.

“What was Highway Bridge?” I asked her. “No one ever wants to talk about it.”

“It was a battle between our folk and the monsters of the east,” she said solemnly. “They came, looting and raping and murdering from somewhere in the Heartland. They burnt every town and murdered every man, woman, and child, and then ate their victims. They didn’t have guns. Most were unarmed or had big blades. A rider came from town to town warning us and asking us to gather enough men and guns to make a stand. We sent everyone we could to the old highway bridge over the Big River, but could only muster a few hundred men. I guess the monsters had tens of thousands. Our folk ran out of bullets and were about to be overrun when they decided to blow up the bridge. They stopped the monsters, but everyone on the bridge died. Everyone. Only a handful of men made it home. That was four years ago. Before I left to live with Grampa.”

Leah came around the corner back into the living room carrying an old tarnished silver teapot and cups, which she handed to us and filled as she spoke.

“Those monsters, from the Heartland, oh good Lord they are hideous,” she said. “They’re filthy, covered in boils and pus. They have bloodshot eyes and scars all over and hardly speak a word you can understand. Some of them—we call them ‘hulks’—they’re as big as a full grown grizzly. You can empty a rifle into them and they barely flinch. And their leader….”

Rebekah sipped her tea slowly. I tasted mine and it was unlike the teas I’d tasted before. It was grassy flavored with bits of fruit.

“Do you like it?” Leah asked. “It’s a blend of Mormon tea and dried blackberries.”

“It’s tasty,” I told her, though I still hadn’t made up my mind.

Rebekah resumed our conversation. “But those monsters are just tools of the most evil creature on this planet. The devil walks among them. Oh, he looks like a man, sure, and calls himself ‘The Reverend’ but we know he’s the demon ruler of Hell.”

“The Reverend?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Leah nodded, “a reverend is a preacher or a holy man. Well this man believes he was sent by God to cleanse the world of nonbelievers. He led the monsters at Highway Bridge. He has the blood of thousands on his hands. And he prophesized you would come.”

I was startled. “Excuse me?”

“At Highway Bridge, right before they attacked, he supposedly yelled out that one day, a boy from the West would come bearing a magic glass with all the knowledge of the world inside it. He said that if anyone ever found this boy and the magic glass, to turn him over and be bestowed power and riches in this life, and a seat at the left-hand of the Father in the next one.”

“But I don’t have a magic glass,” I protested and then stopped.

Rebekah knew what I was thinking. “Your notebook,” she said.

Leah looked at me with deep concern in her eyes.

“Do you have it with you?” she asked.

I nodded and withdrew the computer from my bag. I turned it on and Leah was perplexed and amazed by the glowing screen. I showed her how it was linked to the Library in the capital. Every book ever written, every journal from every distant expedition…every video, movie, song, and map ever created.

“This is frighteningly amazing,” she said, gently touching the device. “This is exactly what he spoke of.”

She looked up at me with fear.

“You have to leave.”

“No,” Rebekah said on my behalf, clutching my arm possessively.

“You’re not safe here,” Leah said worriedly. “Someone will see you. Someone will remember the Reverend’s words. Someone will try to take you and your glass to him. These are good folk, but you can never trust the hearts of men. You need to leave.”

I didn’t want to put anyone in danger, least of all Rebekah. But I couldn’t help feel that I had brought her so far to a place that wasn’t much safer than the place we’d left. Maybe we should have gone west together. Maybe we should have snuck into the Preserve and taken a train home together. She would never have gone for such a scheme at the time. I was stunned, speechless, trying to figure out my next actions. With my actions in Old Vancouver, aiding and abetting Semper’s escape, evading the Police…I was a criminal, and criminals were detested in the Republic.

“I don’t know where to go,” I stated. “It’s a long hike. And with all that happened, I don’t know if I can even go home. I broke a lot of our laws, even if they don’t know it yet.”

Leah moved over to where I was and kneeled on the floor in front of me, holding my hand in hers.

“You’re a good boy, Pax,” she smiled. “You brought me back my Rebekah from the clutches of death. You have a good soul, and the Lord will bless and keep you if you head home.”

Rebekah looked really sad. I could tell that she didn’t want to let me go, but I had accomplished what I’d set out to do. She was safe. I needed to move on. I didn’t belong with these people. I wasn’t a farmer. I wasn’t sturdy or rugged. I was a child of the Republic, destined for space and a robot-body. It was time to accept my fate and head home.

“You certainly can’t go back out on the street looking like that, young man,” Leah said as she looked intently at my clothes. “We’ll get you some different clothes. You don’t need to attract any more attention to yourself. I bet my grandson Michael was your size, let me see if I can find something that will fit you.”

She hurried to the other room. Rebekah clutched my arm tightly and squeezed herself up against me. It was obvious she didn’t want me to go, but she didn’t say a word otherwise.

Leah returned from the back of the house carrying a flannel shirt, some boots, and some canvas pants. She also had a blanket for me to wrap my backpack with and disguise it. She held the clothes up to me and nodded approving me, then patting me on the rear and shooing me into the other room to change.

The clothes felt itchy and heavy compared to my normal garments. They were baggy and smelly, but they fit. The boots were clunky and heavy. I would certainly change back into my normal clothes as soon as I got out of town.

Rebekah and Leah smiled when they saw me. I guess maybe I could have passed for any other member of their society for at least a little while.

“Let me pack you some food,” Leah said, walking into the kitchen. “I don’t have much, but it should get you a couple of days out.”

Rebekah walked over to me and looked up into my eyes. She was only five centimeters shorter than me. She raised herself up on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms over my shoulders, planting a kiss on my lips. Her hand reached up to the back of my head and held me close to her. She clutched my hair in her fingers, refusing to let me go. I don’t know how long we kissed, but we were startled when Leah coughed from the doorway, holding a sack with some bread, meat, and cheese for the trail.

“Before you leave town,” Leah said, “you’ll need to go see Noah the Librarian. He’s the keeper of all the town’s knowledge and he’ll want to know you were here. He’s two streets west, on your way out.”

“You be safe, Pax,” she stated, coming over to give me a hug. “And thank you again for bringing her home safe to me.”

I quickly embraced her and then turned back to Rebekah.

“I want you to stay,” Rebekah said with puffy eyes. “You…you…can’t…don’t….” she stuttered. “I love you.”

Love. It was a word I had always heard in fables and fantasies. An animal impulse. A chemical reaction. I had loved my parents and they had loved me, but never this type of love. I had never known anything that made my heart race or my palms sweat or my head feel so light and dizzy as I had felt being in her presence.

“I love you, too, Rebekah.”

When the words crept past my lips, it was a complete surprise to me, albeit a pleasant one. One that made me swell with pride and want to scream and shout at the top of my lungs. It was an affirmation that I was worthy of something that felt so wonderful. Loving someone else, I determined, was just as valuable as being loved by them.

She sniffled. We had been through a lot together, and if she felt even half as ill as I did at the thought of being apart, then she couldn’t bear it any more than I could.

I hugged her again and kissed her long and hard, one last time.

“Thank you,” she mouthed quietly.

“Thank you, both, for everything,” I said.

“It was no bother. Don’t forget to see the Librarian,” Leah said.

And with that, I turned around, grabbed my backpack off the floor next to the front door and stepped outside into the hazy brown sky of Montana.

I walked along the street and this time no one stopped and stared. My disguise was working, although I’m sure I was walking strangely in the uncomfortable boots.

I headed two streets west and found the Library. It was an unimpressive brick structure with a few boarded up windows and a hand-painted sign that said “Open” on the front door.

I pushed open the door and entered a dimly lit room. Reading at a table in the center of the room, under a makeshift skylight in the ceiling, was an old man. Very old. Frail and feeble and wrinkly in a way I’d never seen. I couldn’t even guess his age, but he was definitely the oldest person I’d ever seen.

“Hello, young man,” the elderly man said, his aged voice crackling and warbling.

“Hello, sir. Leah said I should come speak to you.”

“Aw, that Leah is a great woman,” he smiled. “I’ve known her since she was a baby.”

“You’re the Librarian?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed,” he replied.

“My mother is a librarian, back home,” I said.

“Oh is that so?” he asked. “And where might home be?”

So I told him. Of Valhalla and the Republic. Of the Preserve. Of my trip to Magic Valley with Rebekah. I talked to him for the better part of two hours and he was fascinated, hanging on my every word. Never once did he contradict me or disbelieve the words I said. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met since leaving the Preserve. His mind was so…open.

“It’s a shame you can’t stay in town longer, son,” he said, wringing his hands. “I don’t have a successor and my days are numbered, as I’m sure you can tell. You’d make a wonderful Librarian.”

“Why don’t you have a successor?”

“Most of the folk in this town can’t read or write a lick,” he said sadly. “The few that
can
read, only read the Bible and they have a hard time reading new things they ain’t read before. Mostly they don’t have the open minds or the desire to learn. I tried to find a new librarian years ago but no one wants my job. They criticize me for sitting in here alone—day-in, day-out—with my books, but when they have a problem they can’t solve you better believe they’re here with all their questions.”

He licked his lips as he finished, “This world is full of people who want you to do the thinking for them. And all the answers, to every problem ever imagined, have already been solved. They’re in here-“ he waved around “-in these books. Ripe like apples in the fall, just waiting to be picked.”

“I really must get out of town before it gets much later, sir,” I said to him. “Thank you for talking with me.”

“The pleasure, son, has been all mine.”

He reached for my hand and awkawardly shook it as I stood up, then gathered my things and turned to leave. I didn’t really know how to do a proper handshake and it felt strange.

“If you ever come back this way,” he shouted, “you might think of a job as a librarian! I think you have it in your blood!”

I stepped back onto the street and the light was already becoming dim from the setting sun. I figured I could get two hours out of town before I needed to set up camp somewhere. I looked back down the street toward Leah’s house, wanting to go back and spend just one more night with Rebekah, but I knew I needed to get going.

Turning west, I hefted my bag on my shoulders and clomped down the street in my clunky boots. Little puffs of dust flew up from the dirt road and settled on my pants. I was exhausted unlike any tired feeling I’d ever known. But I needed to keep moving. Getting out of town was the only way to protect myself…and Rebekah.

I had just barely passed the last row of homes on the road headed west when I saw a figure sitting in the shade of a lone cottonwood tree. I instantly knew who it was.

At the sight of me, she stood up and ran hard toward me, throwing her arms around me as we collided like atoms in a fusion reaction, our heat building and exploding as we melted into each other.