The Harvesting (14 page)

I cast an eye outside; it was almost
dark, and I needed to get back. I didn’t want to wake him nor did I
want to leave him. I sat, indecisive, at the side of his bed. I
stared down at him and stroked his hair. The setting sun cast a
soft pink glow on him. “See,” my grandmother had told me. “See
everything.” I stared down at Jamie and in that moment I knew two
things: first, I knew I loved Jamie, and second, I knew that
knowing who I really loved was not the only thing my grandmother
had wanted me to see. At last I decided I couldn’t stay any longer.
It was now dark, which made it dangerous to be out, and I had to
make sure that Santa came for the girls.

Before I left, I set a small package
on the pillow beside him. For lack of better wrapping, I had placed
my gift inside one of Fisherman’s Wharf’s dark blue napkins. I
kissed Jamie on the forehead then went outside, locking the door
firmly behind me.

I hopped on the snowmobile and headed
back across town. I took a short-cut through a field near the
Fletchers’ farm. As I crossed, I saw something strange in the
middle of the field. In the dim light, I saw a figure standing
waist deep in the snow. I turned the snowmobile toward it. The
headlight of the snowmobile revealed it was one of the undead. I
pulled to a stop as I approached him. It was bitterly cold, the
temperature well below zero. The creature was frozen in the snow,
but little by little, it was forcing itself to turn and face me.
Its arms seemed to have been frozen into position. With great
effort, it turned its head just slightly to look at me. I could
hear it make a sound like a breath.

I recognized Clark, the boy who’d
helped me at the grocery store the day I’d arrived, at once. His
skin was frozen stiff, but I could still make out his face. Clark
lived down by the lake. What was he doing out here?

I unzipped my jacket just enough to
pull the gun from its holster. I shivered as the wind hit me and
wished for a moment I still had on my old sweatshirt.

“
Sorry, Clark,” I said,
and taking aim, I shot him in the head, sending frozen chunks of
blood and brains onto the snow. They fell like crimson colored
petals on the pure white canvas. The body, though momentarily
rocked by the gunshot, remained frozen in place.

I holstered the gun. I wondered if
Santa was fighting his way through the undead this year as well. I
turned the snowmobile and headed home.

Back at the cabin, I stashed the
sweaters for Ian and Frenchie then handed my backpack full of gifts
to Frenchie who smiled thankfully at me. The girls were excited to
show me their Christmas tree ornaments. The small pine tree
glimmered in the firelight. Their sweet, creative minds had made a
masterpiece out of a trash pile.

“
Beautiful, just
beautiful,” I whispered to them, kissing each on the
cheek.

“
Ohh, this is nice,” Susan
said, feeling the cashmere sweater.

“
This too,” Kira said,
running her hand across the smooth black satin camisole that stuck
out of the back of my pants.

“
Okay girls,” Frenchie
said. She eyed me over. “Make-up too,” she observed, “and perfume.
You do look nice. Now, question is, where did you go?” she asked
with a grin.

“
Where do you
think?”

“
If you’re using your
head, then I know where you went.”

“
Mommy, you’re funny.
Layla always uses her head. It’s right here,” Kira said, patting me
on the top of my head.

“
There’s your answer,” I
said with a laugh.

The next morning I woke to the best
sound I had heard in months: the girl’s excited laugher. I stumbled
out of bed to find the girls in a heap of gifts, tiaras on their
heads.

“
Santa came!” Susan
yelled. The girls danced around excitedly. In that brief moment I
saw something new: hope.

Chapter 17

When Ian arrived later Christmas day,
I gave him his gift. He loved it, but he smiled abashedly,
admitting he’d pretty much forgotten it was Christmas.

Later, after we’d finished eating
lunch and Ian was getting ready to head back into town, I asked him
to stop by and check on Jamie. “He has the flu. He was looking
pretty grim yesterday.”

“
You were by his place?”
Ian asked. It was hard to miss the jealous tone in his
voice.

I saw Frenchie’s eyebrows rise, but
she said nothing and continued to clear the dishes.

I nodded and handed Ian the sweater.
“Don’t forget your gift.”

With a distracted smile, he stuffed it
into his bag. “I’ll be back tomorrow. We need to start planning the
New Year’s Eve party,” he said. Unconsciously, he leaned in to kiss
me. I turned my cheek.

Looking embarrassed, Ian gave me a
light peck and then turned to leave.

“
Be careful,” I called as
he stepped out onto the porch. He waved, jumped onto his
snowmobile, and left, closing and locking the gate behind
him.

I closed the front door, sliding the
bars into place.

I turned to find Frenchie looking at
me. She was grinning.

“
Well, spit it out,” I
told her.

She shrugged. “You’re using your
head,” she said with a grin and went into the kitchen.

Ian returned the next day with the
news that Jamie had started feeling better. I was relieved. We then
got to work planning the New Year’s Eve party. I was hyper-aware of
the fact that Ian had plans, and not just for the party. I would be
his friend, I would forgive him for the past, but that was all
there could be between us. Ian and I had nothing in common, no
connection except our shared past. When I first arrived I thought I
wasn’t over him, but the more time I spent with him I realized I
had buried any real feelings long ago. I did not love him anymore.
It seemed that Ian, on the other hand, thought the end of days had
given him the chance to live a life almost missed. His misguided
hope was becoming a problem.

“
Hey, I have other news
for you,” Ian said.

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“
Kiki and Gary finally had
some luck with that radio.”

“
Really?”

“
They were able to pick up
a signal and communicated for just a minute with
someone.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Well, I guess someone
asked where we were. They were able to give our location, but they
couldn’t get the signal to come back in again.”

“
At least we know we
aren’t the only ones still alive,” I replied. “Maybe in the spring
we can consider looking for other survivors.

Ian nodded.

In that same moment I noticed how
tired he looked. Ian was not well and had started to look gaunt.
Though he said he was fine, it was clear that he was having pain in
his stomach. His meals became smaller and less frequent. When I
tried to get him to eat more, he always said “leave it for the
girls.” I didn’t buy it and as every day passed, I started to worry
more.

Just after Christmas, Ian and I let
the others know our idea about the party. At first people seemed
resistant, but after a little convincing, the idea grew on them.
Frenchie, Ian, and I, and a handful of others, spent two days
reorganizing and decorating the elementary school gym. While
Grandma’s warning to be watchful was ever-present in my mind, the
cold winter weather seemed to have ground to a stop the movement of
the undead. With the exception of finding Clark in the Fletchers’
field, it had been weeks since anyone had seen anything.

On New Year’s Eve day, residents who
could stand the cold weather were brought in by snowmobile or
horse-drawn sled for the party. It turned out that the “decorative”
Victorian era sled that had sat in the post-office lobby longer
than I could remember still worked. With a little reconfiguring,
Fred Johnson had gotten it running again. They’d managed to lasso
in the Fletchers’ horses, and Fred had become the town
taxi-driver.

“
Looks beautiful,” Summer
gushed when she entered the gym. We’d found supplies from a recent
prom whose theme had been something celestial. The entire place was
decorated with silver crepe, stars, and moons. It was not overly
done, just enough to make the event feel festive. Summer looked at
least twenty pounds lighter. Her mother, who had always had
dark-brown hair, had gone completely gray.

“
I only had one bottle of
dye left,” she told me when she saw me looking at her hair. “I
wanted to save it for when we are rescued,” she explained with a
laugh.

Rescued by whom, I
wondered.

The others slowly trickled in. By the
dinner hour there were thirty five of us. Harkening back to older
and happier days, we shared food, eating at a long table in the
middle of the room.

Jamie was one of the last to arrive. I
heard his snowmobile buzz in. Moments later he entered, smiling, a
large bag strapped to his back. I could tell he was up to
something. I rose and fixed him a plate. He had just finished
taking off his winter gear when I came up to him.

“
This enough for you?” I
asked, holding up the heaping plate of food.

He looked at it and me. “Who could ask
for more?” He set the bag down and joined us at the
table.

Ian was talking to Dusty and pushing
his food from one side of the plate to another.

Jamie sat down and rubbed his hands
together as he eyed over the plate. I slid into the seat beside
him. He was about to dig in when he looked at his
brother.

“
Hey Ian, stop yapping and
eat something,” he said.

Surprised, Ian looked up. He said
nothing, only nodded, and took a large bite of food. I turned to
Jamie, wanting to share my worries about Ian’s health, but
something told me that he might not take my concern as
intended.

“
What did you make,
Layla?” Jamie asked, turning back to his food.

I watched him eat a spoonful of beans.
“The beans,” I replied.

He stopped for a moment and then
chewed thoughtfully. “Hey, they are actually good.”

Ethel, who had listened to the
exchange, laughed.

Jamie looked inquisitively at
her.

I smiled. “Ethel made those. I made
the rice.”

He looked down at his place. “I don’t
have any.”

I laughed. “I know.”

Several people around us chuckled, and
I noticed then that no one had eaten the rice. Well, at least I had
tried. I would remember, in the future, not to waste supplies with
my weak attempts at cooking.

As the light began to wane, Tom and
Mr. Jones disappeared. A few minutes later there was a strange
humming sound. A back-up generator kicked on. The emergency lights
in the gymnasium cast a soft orange glow. Summer and several of the
others had lit candles Pastor Frank had brought with him. The room
had a magical glow.

We had raided the liquor store and
cases of champagne sat cooling outside. In the meantime, people
were drinking wine and bottles of beer. Keeping Grandma’s warning
to be ever-watchful in mind, I didn’t touch a drop. Others,
however, did not hold back, and soon rowdy laughter filled the
room.

Jamie, who’d also gone missing,
finally reappeared with a cart on top of which he had something
hidden under a sheet. Taking the cart to the end of the room, he
pulled off the sheet to reveal an old gramophone. Jamie pulled out
a record and put it on the player; he then wound the old machine.
Dropping the needle, the gymnasium filled with the sound of 1920s
big band music.

The stunned room fell silent. The
music echoed.

The stir of mixed emotions in the room
was palpable. Not sure what else to do, I went to Jamie and grabbed
his hand. With a spin, he turned me onto the floor, and we broke
out into dance.

The room fell into a clapping cheer
and soon nearly everyone joined us.

“
You’re amazing,” I told
Jamie. “Where did you get that?”

“
Don’t you remember? It
was in the library.”

I smiled at him, and we moved across
the floor grinning at one another. I felt like I was in a strange
limbo in time. While I had refused to wear the big bird dress, I
did manage to shop-lift a new coffee-colored satin halter gown from
Lil’s shop.

Jamie smiled as he spun me, the
cheerful gramophone music inspiring our steps. “You look beautiful,
but I’m not sure if those accessories match,” he said.

I had to laugh. While I wanted to look
nice, I was also pragmatic so had worn my knee-high steel-toed
winter boots and my guns were holstered, my sword belted. “Never
know when you’ll need to kick ass,” I said with a smile.

“
So it seems Santa and his
elves were at my house.”

“
Oh really?”

“
I had this strange dream
that an angel came in and took care of me. I woke to find my house
clean, soup warming by the fire, and the heavenly smell of perfume
in the air.”

“
Oh?”

“
Yeah, I don’t know what
that perfume was, but it was amazing. I plan to buy stock in
it.”