The Harvesting (22 page)

I climbed into the bed. Jamie pulled
the covers up and soon, despite my firm assertion I would not
sleep, I was lost in dreams.

Chapter 28

I woke around noon the next day with a
blaring headache, reeling from a strange dream. In the dream I saw
a mix of odd images that disturbed me. Ian was there foremost and
with him were people with human bodies who had tails and heads like
animals. They were all drinking high-end cocktails. We were in a
small, strange room piled high with heaps of garbage. The place
smelled putrid. On some of the piles were corpses. To my shock, I
turned to find Ian fucking one of the corpses. Its mouth, wide
open, expelled flies each time he thrust into it. Standing beside
him, a female creature with a face something like a fox or coyote
laughed and stroked her own genitals as she watched. I woke feeling
sick to my stomach, my head pounding.

“
Here,” Jamie said,
handing me an aspirin and bottled water.

“
What are we going to do
when pain killers run out?”

Jamie shook his head. “You’re
something special. Buddie was by early this morning. I had him
check in on Frenchie. I told him what happened last
night.”

“
You’re probably anxious
to check on Ian. Let me get dressed,” I said and tried to stand.
The room spun wildly. I sat back down.

“
When did you last eat
something?”

I shrugged and sat back in bed. My
head was killing me.

Jamie returned with a dark chocolate
candy bar. “Enjoy, it’s my last one,” he said.

“
Boy, it must be love . .
. the last chocolate bar,” I said and then broke off a piece,
handing it to him.

He smiled at me.

“
I guess I should enjoy
it. Between the undead trying to eat me alive and these people
trying to kill me in the middle of the night, I probably don’t have
many meals left.”

“
Don’t say that. Anyway,
Buddie stayed for a bit this morning before he went down to keep
watch on Frenchie so I could check on Ian. Ian actually looks
really good. They’ve got an IV pumping hooked up and have started
him on medications. He was looking a lot better. He was grumpy, but
he seemed like he felt better.”

“
I hope you didn’t tell
him . . .”

Jamie shook his head. “No, he has
other things to focus on.”

I rubbed my eyes. My head still ached.
And I was confused. Why were they curing Ian but trying to kill me?
“We need to check on everyone, make sure everyone else is
alright.”

“
You’re in no shape to do
anything. Besides, just look out the window. Half the people in the
hotel are outside playing croquet.”

“
What?”

Jamie pulled back the curtain. I
looked out at the lawn. Below I caught sight of happy people
cheering as they putt croquet balls across the green. I watched
Ethel cheer as her ball passed through the wicket.

“
We need proof. We need to
prove to them you’re right. Once they believe, we’ll find a way
home,” Jamie said.

“
There is no home
anymore,” I said and the moment I said it, I knew it was true.
Rumor would never let us leave and even if we did escape,
Hamletville was the first place they would come looking. Where
would we go now? Where could we hide?

Jamie reflected on my words. I could
see the reality sink in with him as well. “We’re out of the garden.
Now we’re like everyone else, looking for somewhere to be
safe.”

Just then, there was a knock on the
door. Jamie rose to answer it. I could hear Buddie and someone else
on the other side of the door. I pulled my robe on. Jamie let
Buddie and Kiki in.

“
How are you feeling?”
Buddie asked me.

I smiled at Buddie. Like my grandma,
he’d always been somewhat of a recluse, keeping to himself at his
cabin by the lake. During hunting season, however, you would see a
lot of him. Buddie was always the first man out of the woods, a
bear or deer in tow. He would smile abashedly for his picture in
the local paper. People used to talk about him, how he would take
trips abroad or out west for big game hunting. Despite his efforts
to avoid it, he was a good source of gossip. He would also stop by
the library pretty often; I remembered him from my days hiding with
Mrs. Winchester. He was quite young then. Mrs. Winchester once told
him that she thought he’d read more books than anyone in town. I
remembered being impressed. “Like someone kicked my ass, but
otherwise fine,” I replied, then smiled at Kiki.

“
I left Tom with Frenchie.
I told Kiki and Tom about what happened last night.”

I imagined then the look on Tom’s
face. He had been so sure we were going somewhere safe. I could not
imagine what he might be thinking now.

“
Kiki noticed something I
thought we should check out,” Buddie added.

“
I was out this morning
with the others when I noticed a short-wave radio antenna on the
roof of the hotel. It got me wondering who I heard when I made the
transmission this winter,” Kiki said. “There is something off about
these people. I noticed it last night. You’re right, Layla, they
aren’t—well, I don’t know what they are. Anyway, after what Buddie
told us this morning, it just made my skin turn all goose-bumps. If
I can find the radio room, I might be able to see if it was them on
the radio. Maybe that’s how they really found us.”

I nodded. “I’ll get
dressed.”

Despite the fact my head was still
aching, I pulled my clothes on and strapped on my weapons. I slid
the shashka into the scabbard and attached it across my
back.

“
If she sees that--” Jamie
said.

“
She can take it from my
cold dead hands,” I replied.

Buddie chuckled.

“
Don’t tempt her,” Jamie
said.

We went outside. Kiki showed us the
shortwave antenna. Trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, we
rounded the building looking for the antenna wire. A few seemingly
normal people noticed us but didn’t take an interest.

Kiki’s sharp eyes scanned the
building. “There,” she said, pointing to the wire.

The antenna line ran across the roof
and was anchored to the side of the building. It ran down the side
of the HarpWind to a window on the second floor.

I grinned at the others. “Shall
we?”

We entered the hotel through the
maintenance entrance on the first floor and followed the stairwell
to the second floor. None of us were roomed on the second floor,
and no one had yet been there.

Kiki reached to push the door open,
but I held back her hand.

My blood rushed to my hands, and they
began to feel tingly. “Something is off here,” I said. “Go
careful.”

Jamie pulled his gun and pushed open
the heavy metal door. It opened with a click.

We entered the hallway to find it
empty. It was decorated with yellow brocade wallpaper and a
matching floral designed rug. A side table stood at the end of the
hall. On top of it was an ornate vase with a wilted flower
arrangement.

We walked quietly down the hallway,
listening for any sound. No one seemed to be moving.

“
Do you think they sleep
here?” Jamie whispered to me.

I shook my head. “Too much light,” I
replied. “We never see them in the daylight. Seems they avoid the
sun.” Large windows had flooded the hall with light on either end.
We came to a cross in the hallway.

“
Kiki and I can go right,
you guys take the left,” I said.

They nodded and we split up. Kiki and
I walked carefully down the hall. We passed the laundry facilities
and maid’s closets. We then came to a number of administrative
offices. I heard voices.

Kiki and I stopped. An office door
near the end of the hall was opened. People were inside talking.
Their voices were heated.

“
Fine. I’ll gas it up, but
tell her we are low on fuel,” a man said.

Pulling Kiki, we dodged into a side
laundry room. We ducked low behind a heap of unwashed sheets. From
the smell of the room, they had been sitting there a long
time.

I saw a man storm down the
hallway.

We heard someone move in the room next
to us. “Have it ready by nightfall. She wants them out and back as
soon as possible,” the woman called behind him.

“
Yeah, yeah,” the man
replied.

The woman had come to stand in the
hallway. I could see her from my hiding place behind the laundry.
She was one of those unusual people I’d seen last night. Everything
about her smacked of vampire, except she seemed fully alive: rosy
cheeked, beautiful, glowing. And she also seemed in the know about
Rumor’s plans. I wondered then what kind of unholy alliance these
otherwise seemingly human people had entered into with the
vampires.

Just then the radio attached to her
hip blared with a loud static sound. “Office,” someone
called.

“
Now what,” she grumbled.
“Go ahead.”

“
There are two guys
creeping around on the second floor. Go chase them out,
please.”

“
I’m on it,” she replied,
and with a huff, headed down the hallway where Jamie and Buddie had
gone.

I slid out. When the woman turned the
corner, I motioned to Kiki.

She followed behind me. We went into
the office. In a room behind the main desk we saw another, smaller
room. The door was just slightly ajar.

“
There,” Kiki
whispered.

We quickly entered the small radio
room. I closed the door behind us. The roof-top antenna was strung
in through a window. I stood in front a mass of equipment I did not
recognize.

Kiki, however, sat down and right away
slid on the headphones and began adjusting dials.

“
You said you did a
project in school?” I whispered. Her deft hands told me that she
knew more than just one project.

“
I’m studying engineering
at the university,” she whispered. “Well, I was.”

As Kiki turned the dials, I saw her
listening intently. I noticed then there was a large map of the
Great Lakes region taped to the wall. The map was dotted with small
pins. Hamletville was marked with a red pin.

Papers were strewn across a desk. I
leafed through them.

“
I got something. I’m not
sure what it is,” she said, listening.

I leaned in and listened with her.
“That’s German. They are broadcasting contamination reports in
German cities. You can get Germany on this radio?”

“
Short-wave can pick up
for thousands of miles. We didn’t pick up much, but I wasn’t sure
if that was because our radio was so poor or if there was nothing
to pick up.”

She began moving dials again. I picked
up a paper. On it had been written the words Barcelona Lighthouse
and numbers relating to bands and kila-and mega-hurtz. I handed it
to Kiki.

She adjusted several dials and then
listened. After a moment, she pressed up the volume.

“
Barcelona . . . Spain?” I
asked.

She shook her head. “No,” she said and
then listened, “they are saying Barcelona Lighthouse in Westfield,
New York. They are on Lake Erie,” she replied, listening. “They
have a looping distress call running.”

I heard the static of a walkie-talkie
again.

“
Yeah, I’ll get it. It’s
just over in New York. I forget the name.” The woman was
returning.

Kiki pulled off the headphones. I
dropped the paper and pushed open the window. “Jump,” I told Kiki.
Following behind her, I bounced out of the window. For the second
time, I landed on the roof of the porch. I did not like that this
was becoming a trend. Motioning to Kiki, we ran down the porch roof
against the side of the building. I waited breathlessly for the
woman to shout but heard nothing. When we were a good distance from
the window, I motioned to Kiki. We went to the side of the porch
and carefully climbed down a flower lattice. We dropped onto the
porch, surprising two older women who had been sitting there
half-sleeping.

“
Nice day today,” I said,
and grabbing Kiki’s hand, we ran down the porch toward the front of
the hotel.

“
Oh my god, it’s like they
are rounding people up,” Kiki said.

“
Not anymore. What do we
need to do to take that radio out?”

“
We can pull down the
antenna—that will hurt them. If I can get back into that room, I
can kill the radio for good.”

“
That’s what we need to do
then,” I replied. “I guess we’ll need a distraction.”

“
Set something on fire.
That always works in the movies,” Kiki replied.

Kiki and I reached the front of the
hotel. We scanned for Jamie and Buddie and for the right
diversion.

“
There,” Kiki
said.

I followed her gaze. There was a small
building sitting near the end of the hotel.

“
Looks like a lawn shed or
something,” Kiki added.