The day after: An apocalyptic morning (83 page)

              "I might still be able to counter his influence," her image said. "It will be harder to do while he's still alive, I know that, but I think I can still convince everyone where their best interests lie before its too late."

              "Do you have any remorse for what you've done?" Paul's voice asked her image.

              "Just that I wasn't able to move faster," her image replied.

              The crowd gasped a little at this last line, most of them starting to see now that Jessica was certifiably nuts. Jessica herself simply sat placidly throughout the entire playing of the tape. Not a single time did she react in any way to something her recorded image said.

              Paul flipped off the VCR and made a motion to one of his assistants that they should go shut down the fire engine. He then returned to the microphone. "I have no further evidence to present," he said. "You have heard from the man she tried to kill this morning and you have heard her say that killing him was exactly what she intended. Many of you actually saw the incident in question as it took place. Now I will give Mrs. Blakely the opportunity to speak in her own defense if she wishes." He turned to her. "Jessica? Anything you'd like to say?"

              "Yes," she said, standing up and walking slowly over to the microphone, stepping carefully since she was not able to use her hands for balance. Frank and Barbara, the two armed guards watching her, trailed her over there, taking up position a few feet behind her.

              "I will now turn the floor over to Jessica Blakely," Paul said, stepping away to give her room.

              Her speech was rambling and nearly ten minutes in length. It was clear that she thought she would be able to twist the viewpoints of the townspeople back around to her own as she had always been able to do in the past, but this time her words served only to show the depth of her breakdown. She started off by rehashing all of the "values" that had been lost or were heading out the door since the arrival of "that evil, perverted man". She mentioned the sanctity of plural marriage and monogamous commitment more than ten times, using that as the anchor of her discussion.

              "Not only is that man living in sin with a teenage girl and a slut at the same time," she ranted, "but now I have witnessed him encouraging homosexuality between the two of them. Just last night they engaged in this perversion right in our own bathing area! Is this the kind of morals that you want your children to grow up following? Is this the kind of man that you want leading them?"

              Had she stayed with this theme she might have picked up a few converts. But next she began to explain how killing Skip was a perfectly justifiable reaction to this offense against town morals. "He has seduced you all as surely as he has seduced that young child," she told them all. "He has convinced you that your morality, that the values you hold sacred just don't Micker anymore. And you people, in a moment of fear and weakness brought on by the violent attack upon our town, an attack that may very well have been staged by Mr. Adams himself just for this purpose, you have begun to listen to his words. Well hear me now. His way is not the way this town should travel. His way is the way of evil and perversion. What kind of society will we have here in a hundred years if we follow his teachings, if we accept the degradation of our most cherished institutions? What kind of world will our grandchildren have if we turn on backs on these institutions now? We will have chaos and destruction! We will have our descendants perpetually living in sin! And for this, to protect these future children and grandchildren, to protect the future of humanity itself, I acted as I knew was correct and tried to remove this evil man from the equation."

              She said much more after this, mostly retouching on points she had already made, but that last line was what stuck in everyone's head. Jessica was insane and she was dangerous to everyone.

              When she finally finished up and went back to her seat, a satisfied, confidant smile upon her face, Paul stepped forward, resuming his place before the microphone. His expression was somewhat pained. "You've heard the evidence and the testimony, folks," he told the town. "Now let's vote on guilt or innocence. Remember that two-thirds majority must be achieved. All who find sufficient evidence to find Jessica Blakely guilty of the crime of attempted murder, please say aye."

              The ayes were not shouted out enthusiastically by any means, but they were shouted out. There was no question that nearly everyone in the room said one. Jessica's expression, which had been confidant, suddenly turned to shock. "What?" she screamed. "What are you idiots doing?"

              Paul ignored her. "More than two-thirds majority is clear," he said. "Jessica Blakely has been found guilty of attempted murder. The only punishment that we can possibly have for a crime of this caliber is exile from the community. Now we all know what that means and I'm sure that no one here is very happy about having to do such a thing, but there is no other option. We do not have a jail here, nor can we allow Jessica to walk among us any longer. It is my recommendation, which I make with a heavy heart, that exile it should be. Let us vote.

              "You can't do this!" Jessica screamed. "You can't vote me out of this town!"

              "All in favor of permanent exile for Jessica Blakely as the punishment for her crime, please say aye."

              A subdued, but overwhelming "aye" echoed throughout the room.

              "No!" Jessica screamed, standing up. "This is my town! I was president of the homeowner's association! You can't kick me out of here! You can't!"

              Frank and Barbara quickly stepped up to push her back down in her seat. She twisted out of their grasp and fell to the floor with a thump. When they bent over to pick her back up she began thrashing and kicking at them. "Let me go!" she demanded. "You can't do this!"

              "Jessica Blakely," Paul said formally, ignoring the ruckus, "your fate has been decided by the community. You will be exiled from this community forever. Sentence will be carried out after breakfast tomorrow morning."

              "You motherfuckers!" she screamed as Frank and Barbara finally were able to pull her to her feet. "I won't go! You can't kick me out of this town! This is my town, do you hear me? My town!"

              They dragged her away forcibly. She kicked, screamed, spit, and yelled all the way.

              It was close to 11:30 that night when Skip finally made his way home. He had been over at the maintenance shed with Steve since the community meeting had broken up, trying to ready the water tank for transport. Using a welder that had been found in one of the houses, they had attached three reinforcement straps and a large hook that could be used to support the tank from beneath the chopper. They had filled it with water (which weighed a little more than jet fuel per gallon) and, with the help of Jack, who had been hanging out with them, hoisted it into the air to check for leaks and balance. The balance was just a little off but not enough to worry about. Satisfied that it was as good as it was going to get, Skip had drained it once more and stored it in the shed. It would receive its real test the next day.

              The house was empty as he entered it, the fireplace blaze long extinguished, all of the lamps dark. He lit a candle just inside the doorway and then made his way to the bedroom, stopping at the bathroom along the way to relieve himself. Inside the bedroom he found Christine and Paula both in the large bed, sound asleep, Christine on the left side of the bed, Paula on the right. He stared at them for a moment, listening to their breathing, looking at their faces. He smiled as he watched them, feeling contentment for the first time since Jessica had pulled a gun on him that morning.

              He undressed slowly, putting his gun on the nightstand and dropping the rest of his clothing into the laundry hamper they used. Naked, he blew out the candle and then crawled into bed between his two women. They were both wearing pajamas - Christine a long T-shirt, Paula a flimsy nightgown - but he enjoyed their warmth nonetheless as they both snuggled up to him from either side.

              The feel of their two bodies against him helped put his mind at ease and soon he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

              Paul tried to feed Jessica breakfast in the morning but the moment her hands were untied she picked up the tray and threw it at him. He ducked just in time to avoid having a plate of steaming eggs hit him in the head and then he and the two guards - Christine and Mick - wrestled her to the ground and put the restraints back on her.

              "You're not throwing me out of this town!" she screamed as they put the rope on her. "You can't!"

              "We can and we will," Paul said mildly. "And if you don't want your last hot meal, that's your problem. Come on. Let's go."

              She had to be dragged forcefully from the room since she refused to stand on her feet. Wordlessly Paul and Mick grabbed her by the armpits and pulled her down the hall and through the main entrance of the center. Christine trailed behind them carrying the backpack that they had loaded with twenty pounds of canned food for her. Throngs of people leaving the breakfast area for their work assignments watched this spectacle silently, several shaking their heads at the obvious insanity they were witnessing.

              "This is my town!" Jessica screamed as they pulled her bodily into the back of the Dodge Ram that served as the wood gathering truck. "My town and I won't leave it!"

              They slammed the tailgate shut once she was inside and Mick crawled in after her. He had to kneel down on her back to keep her from getting back up. "Jessica, for God's sake," he told her, pushing on her legs with his hands to keep from getting kicked, "have a little dignity why don't you?"

              "Fuck you," she screamed back. "Get off of me! I'm not leaving this town!"

              "You are," he said. "So just accept it."

              Christine climbed in the back of the truck to help Mick and Paul climbed in the front. He started the engine and pulled slowly out of the parking lot, heading through the streets to the main gate. Every person he passed looked at the truck, knowing who was in it and where it was going.

              Whenever the subject of exiling someone from town was discussed in Garden Hill, the term "walking across the bridge" was used. Indeed it had become the euphemism for exile. However, now that the time had come to actually do such a thing, it had been unofficially decided that sending Jessica away in that direction constituted cruel and unusual punishment. There were no towns for many miles on that side of the bridge and, as the helicopter expedition had proven, no people except for corpses and those who fed off of them. So instead of turning left from the main gate, the direction the bridge lay in, Paul turned right, heading for Interstate 80.

              They reached it three minutes later. The onramp to the westbound lanes was still intact and Paul utilized it, coming to a halt just at the point where the ramp met the freeway surface. He got out, leaving the engine idling, and opened up the tailgate. Christine and Mick got off of Jessica and pulled her out of the truck, trying to get her to stand on her feet.

              She refused to do this, slumping to the pavement while screaming obscenities.

              "Get up, Jessica," Mick said impatiently, reaching down and pulling her to her feet again. He held her up while Christine untied the knots in the rope.

              "Take your backpack," Paul said, trying to hand it to her.

              "I'm not leaving," she said. "You can't make me go!"

              With a shrug, Mick began to drag her down the freeway. Christine stepped up and grabbed her other arm to help him. Paul walked behind with the backpack. Ignoring her screams and curses, they pulled her thirty yards to the west, until they were standing next to the large sign that Skip had put up warning all stragglers that they were approaching a guarded area. They then let go of her. This time she remained standing.

              Paul tossed the backpack down at her feet. "It's time to leave, Jessica," he told her. "I wish it wouldn't have come to this, but it did. You need to go now and never come back."

              "I'm coming back in," she said. "You can't stop me from living in my own town. You can't and you won't."

              "You stay on that side of the sign," Paul told her. "The guards have orders to treat you as any other straggler now. If you set foot over the border, they'll fire warning shots at you. If you don't go away, they'll kill you."

              "They wouldn't dare," she said defiantly. As if to prove her point, she stepped back across the invisible line.

              "Get back," Christine said, pulling the .45 from her holster and pointing it at her. Beside her, Mick did the same.

              "You wouldn't shoot me," she said, taking another step forward.

              Christine stared at her menacingly. "I would do it in a second after all you've put me through since I've been here," she told her, keeping the gun leveled on her face. "You are no longer a citizen of this town. Now get back over on that side or I'll put one right between your eyes."

              Jessica, despite the insanity that she was dealing with, despite her refusal to see Christine as anything but a child, could plainly see that she meant exactly what she was saying. If she took another step into Garden Hill territory, she would be killed as an intruder. She stopped in her tracks.