The Harvesting (16 page)

I eyed my options. At the back of
Figgy’s Old Vine Tavern was a stairwell leading to an upstairs
apartment. It had a perfect line of fire on the street. I bolted up
the steps and seconds later was raining bullets down on the
oncoming horde. Careful to watch for civilians, I shelled the
undead. Accuracy was a problem at this range, but their injured
bodies fell and were more easily plucked off by the shooters
below.

Moments later I heard a
loud
BOOM
. My
ears rung. A cloud of heavy smoke occluded the view for a moment; I
then realized what had happened. Jeff was standing a few feet away
from the old cannon that once sat outside of the VFW. The cannon
had been parked in the center of the street just opposite the
barricade. In front of the cannon, several undead lay on the
ground, their bodies pierced with kitchen knives and other pieces
of scrap metal. Jeff clambered away from the cannon and up onto one
of the trucks.

I kept my eye on the barricade and
blasted until the clip was empty. Like a complacent fool, I had not
brought another.

I heard Jensen scream and watched him
being pulled off the roof of the truck into the horde. I raised my
gun, but if I shot, I could hit the living.

I pulled out the Glock and headed back
down the stairs. Two of the undead who had spotted me met me at the
bottom. They were easy marks.

I moved toward the dozen or so undead
still straining at the townspeople. I jumped on top of a car and
emptied the gun. It was not enough. The undead continued to make
their assault.

Having left the Magnum with Frenchie,
I was alone with my sword. I then saw Tom swinging axes in both
hands and chopping his way through the undead horde. I bounded down
and worked the other side of the crowd. Two arrows whooshed past my
ear as Buddie Fowley appeared. Buddie had been found alive during
the initial sweep. We all knew Buddie for his archery; he was the
town’s big game hunter. I turned to see the arrows hit their mark.
With our Medieval weapons in hand, the three of us made the last
stand for the town. We cut, slashed, and pierced our way through
the remaining undead. The war was over shortly after; we had won
the day.

Exhausted, I crawled into the back of
one of the pick-ups and sat looking at the broken barricade. Main
Street trailed off in the distance. The cannon pointed down the
long road. A moment later, I heard a single gunshot. Jensen. I
heard someone cry. I pulled a cloth out of my pocket and cleaned
the bloody goo from the blade of my sword. I stared down the street
beyond the broken barricade. Part of me was keeping an eye out for
any stragglers. Another part of me was wondering about that voice
I’d heard. I wanted to run, but I knew there was nowhere to
go.

About ten minutes after it was over,
two cars pulled up. I could hear Jamie’s voice in the crowd. He
found me a few minutes later.

“
You okay?” he
asked.

I didn’t know how to
answer.

He stepped in front of me, blocking my
vision of the road. It broke the trance. “Layla,” he whispered,
tipping my chin up toward him. “You okay?” he asked
again.

“
Yeah, it is what it is,
right?” I replied, kissing his hand. I slid the sword back into the
scabbard then climbed onto the roof of the truck. People were
sitting around looking hopeless.

I whistled sharply, getting everyone’s
attention. “Town meeting in two hours. Between now and then we need
to get this barricade refortified and these bodies moved. Who can
help?” I asked.

There was a silence for a moment and
then a flood of volunteers. Within five minutes the arrangements
had been made and everyone went to work.

I bounced off the truck and grabbed
Jamie by the hand. “Ditched the bike. Wanna help me see if she
still runs? We need to head back to the school.”

“
Why?” he asked as we
walked toward my bike.

“
I left Frenchie there,” I
replied, not wanting to get into Ian’s issue yet.

As we passed the body of the boy I had
killed, Jamie stopped. “Hey, that was the Klienstivers’ son. He was
some kind of piano virtuoso. I guess they used to home-school him
so he could spend time practicing the piano. He played at the
church sometimes. Nice kid.”

Guilt wracked me as I
looked down on him. He
had
tried to kill me. I wondered then—why? Why were
they trying to kill us? Consume us? I then realized that the boy
looked practically intact save a nasty scratch across his
still-fleshy, though pale and somewhat saggy, chest.

“
Hey, didn’t you say they
should just be bones by now?” I asked Jamie.

He shrugged. “Guess I was wrong,” he
said as he picked the bike up. “Looks like you just broke a
mirror.” He climbed on the bike and started it. “All good. I get to
drive this time,” he said, and we headed off.

I could not help but look back at the
boy’s body once more and think of how he had paused when I’d taken
his hand. The implications made me shudder.

Chapter 19

“
Cancer,” Mrs. Finch
whispered to Jamie and me.

Ian sat looking at the floor, his chin
propped in the palm of his hand.

“
Are you sure?” Jamie
asked aghast.

I stared at Ian.

“
There is only so much I
can tell. I did a quick blood and urine analysis and a physical.
From the symptoms described, test results, and the condition he is
in, it is most likely cancer. I can’t even say for sure what kind,
but based on his pain could be liver, stomach, or pancreas. I just
can’t know.”

Jamie went silent, and Ian still had
not looked up.

“
What about treatment?” I
asked.

Mrs. Finch shook her head. “Chemo and
that sort of thing are just not feasible. There might be some meds
in the pharmacy, but we’re shooting in the dark without a proper
physician.”

“
And what if you’re
wrong?” I asked.

“
Layla,” Jamie said with a
frown.

Ian looked up. “She’s right,
Layla.”

“
So we do nothing? We just
wait for him to get sicker and—“

“—
and die” Ian
finished.

Frenchie tapped the glass of the
office window. The alarm on the community center had rung more than
two hours past. By now, everyone was waiting, and it was already
dark. Nerves were running high. I waved to her that we were
coming.

“
Let’s go,” Ian said and
rose to leave.

Jamie took him gently by the arm, but
Ian shrugged his brother off. “I’m good,” was all he
said.

Ian sat at the back while the rest of
us went to the front of the gym.

I sat down on the stage.

“
The barricade is back in
place. Tomorrow we’re going to kick on enough juice to weld. We
bulldozed steel and scrap in and will do more tomorrow. For
tonight, it is good enough,” Tom informed the crowd.

As he spoke, I thought about how much
fuel was left in town. Already reserves were getting
low.

“
What happened today? Who
were those people?” Ethel asked.

“
Mostly farm folks,” Fred
Johnson replied.

“
All at once?” Ethel
asked.

It was a question that had been
burning in everyone’s mind.

“
Looks like pack
mentality,” Buddie added.

“
Mentality? Like they are
thinking?” Summer asked.

“
Something like that, you
know, like animals . . . maybe,” Buddie answered.

“
There could be more
attacks like this. There are at least four dozen more farms and
vineyards out there, and those are just the ones near us,” Mr.
Jones added.

“
Well, we lived, didn’t
we,” Jeff commented.

“
Barely,” Dusty added,
“and we lost Jensen.”

The room was silent. Suddenly I saw
Will and Kiki who had been keeping watch by the door stiffen and
pull their weapons.

“
Movement,” Will
called.

A dozen armed citizens raced across
the room, but something in me froze. My whole body felt stiff.
Jamie headed toward the door, turning to look inquisitively at me
as to why I had not followed. I neither moved nor said a word.
Confused, he went ahead. My hands shook. My ears were ringing, and
the strange feeling of electricity filled the air.

At the door, people were talking and
moments later the crowd broke into smiles. They then ushered two
strangers into the room: two men soon stood in the center of a
circle of the townspeople.

I watched them from afar. I knew
without a doubt that something about them was not right. They
smiled in a very pleasing manner, but it was a false smile.
Physically, they were both very attractive. One was tall, muscular,
and had shoulder length sandy hair. The second was shorter and
darker in complexion. His head was shaved, and he had heavy
eyebrows and wore a hawkish expression. They were both dressed
rather oddly. Their dark clothing looked too tight, buttons closed
too close to the neck, and the fashion seemed outdated. My hands
trembled.

Jamie was standing a bit back from the
crowd, and I could see from the expression on his face that he was
not sold either. Regardless, Tom led the men to the front of the
room. Everyone had risen from their seats to get a closer
look.

“
Layla, these men have
come to speak to us,” Tom said excitedly. Tom’s jubilant nature
overcame him, and he didn’t wait for my reaction but pressed the
two men forward.

They paused and looked at me, but I
said nothing. I slid off the stage.

The two men looked around the room. I
noticed the tall one pause when he saw Kira and Susan. He stared at
them as the other began to speak.

“
My name is Corbin,” the
dark haired one began.

I stepped between the girls and the
fair-haired man’s gaze and pulled the shashka from its
scabbard.

Startled, the stranger looked at me.
His eyes were icy blue. He tried to feign a smile.

I lifted the sword and set it on my
shoulder.

He looked away.

“
This is Finn,” Corbin
said, referring to the fair one. I noticed that Corbin’s eyes were
also ice blue. “We have just arrived by boat. As you know, the lake
has thawed, and we are going around looking for
survivors.”

“
Where are you based?”
Pastor Frank asked.

Corbin looked the pastor over in great
detail before he answered. There was something odd in Corbin’s
movements, a sort of strange control. “There is a very large group
of us on Enita Island at the HarpWind Grand Hotel. The island is
isolated. The disease never came there. We have been able to keep
the hotel running using much of its Victorian era equipment. We’re
trying to collect as many survivors there as possible.”

“
Why?” Jamie
asked.

Enita Island was famed for its
seclusion and opulent Grand Hotel. I’d once seen a documentary
about it but had never been there myself. Unreachable by land, one
had to take a ferry to get there. The story was plausible. The
storytellers were not.

Corbin considered Jamie. “There is
survival in numbers. We are well armed and have considerable
supplies. We also have three doctors.”

I looked back at Ian who was still
sitting. He’d heard.

“
The island is completely
sheltered. These creatures cannot reach the place. It is a place of
safety, a place to begin again. Our goal is to find people to join
us there,” Corbin added.

“
What about help from the
outside, the government?” Kiki asked.

Corbin shrugged. “There is no
government. Everything has fallen.”

“
How did you find us?” I
asked them.

They both turned and looked at me and
then exchanged a glance between them. In that moment, I heard a
strange murmuring sound in my head.

“
We were cruising the
shoreline and heard the sound of gunfire. Was there an incident?”
Corbin asked.

“
Yeah, man, but we whooped
ass,” Jeff replied.

Corbin smiled at Jeff as one might
smile at a small, stupid pet. “We can keep you safe from such
onslaughts. Last I knew, these creatures cannot swim.”

Several people laughed.

Ian had risen and was standing at the
back of the crowd. He was listening intently as the townspeople
began shooting a barrage of questions at the strangers: how many
already there, kinds of supplies, space available, plan for the
future, etc., etc. Corbin and Finn had ready answers. Too many
ready answers. And all of the answers they had were good ones. In
that moment, I remembered something my grandma used to say: “I ran
from the wolf only to run into the bear.” Whatever they were
selling, I wasn’t buying.

The questioning went on for what
seemed like an eternity. They had heard nothing from the outside
either. They were gathering what survivors they could. They already
had more than 100 people at the hotel. They heard the cities were
overrun. They had no idea what caused it. We weren’t safe where we
were. They wanted to hit the reset button on civilization, starting
over on their island.