The Harvesting (24 page)

“
She’s not going to make
it,” one of the men said.

They stopped and laid the woman on the
ground. Then they both just stood over her. No one did anything.
The new arrivals watched in horror as the woman lay on the ground,
jerking and bleeding, seemingly dying.

“
Isn’t someone going to do
something?” one of them whispered.

“
Do something,” Jamie told
the two men.

They looked blankly back at
him.

“
What happened?” I asked
the survivors.

“
We aren’t exactly sure.
We think one of our people who got sick grabbed her. We didn’t see
it happen,” a man told me.

“
Christ,” Jamie swore and
pulled some medical gloves from his pocket. He started pulling them
on.

“
She’s one of them. You
know that, right?” I whispered to him.

He nodded and bent down to look at the
woman.

“
Don’t do that,” one of
the men said, but no one moved to stop him.

Jamie ripped the woman’s shirt away to
reveal a nasty wound on her side. It was clear she had been bitten.
As Jamie cleaned the wound, I kneeled down beside him. The woman
breathed hard, blood sputtering from her lips. Her body
twisted.

Jamie took the woman’s hand. He felt
her wrist. “No pulse,” he whispered to me, but the woman was
clearly moving.

We both looked at the injury. I
remembered how it looked when April turned. This was not the same
thing. I didn’t know what I was seeing. It was almost as if her
body as trying to heal itself, and at the same time, the infection
fought her. The battle seemed to have been going on for a while.
Moments later, we watched as the wound finally sealed itself
closed. Then, something strange happened. The woman’s moon-like
white skin started to regain color. Her pale skin took on a rosy,
healthy glow. We watched as it spread across her stomach and up her
neck to her face. Her lips turned pink, and the blush of life came
to her cheeks. Her eyes closed. A moment later, she opened them
again. They were now hazel colored. She lifted her hand and wiped
the blood away from her mouth, grimacing at the taste.

Jamie took her arm again, his fingers
pressed against her wrist.

The next moment I felt a tug on the
back of my pants, and then, startling all of us, heard a
gunshot.

The woman jerked.

I jumped up and turned to find Rumor
standing there with my gun in her hand. She was wearing a long,
golden ball-gown, the trimming barely hiding her breasts. The gun
in her hand made for a stark contrast.

Jamie and I looked at the injured
woman; the shades of life momentarily back in her face were now
frozen in the grimace of death. Rumor had shot her between the
eyes.

“
I guess it is a good
thing you ignored me after all,” she said, handing me back my gun.
“You’re very useful to have around. Why would I ever let you go
home,” she motioned to the others to take the woman
away.

“
Welcome, all,” she said
to the newcomers. “Where have you come from?”

“
New York, Westfield
area,” a woman said.

“
Go inside. You’re safe
here,” she said and motioned the newcomers to the hotel. She then
motioned for Jamie and me to follow her.

We walked behind her. A crewman walked
at her side. “What happened?” she asked, switching to
dialect.

“
She bit into one of the
infected. She didn’t know. Then it attacked her,” he replied in the
same.

“
I told you all to be
careful.”

“
We’re sorry.”

“
You’re sorry, but I was
the one who had to shoot her. Let’s not be sorry next
time.”

“
Da,” he replied
abashed.

“
Of course, maybe there
will be no more survivors now that someone has taken out the
radio,” she said, switching back to English. She did not look back
at us, but I knew where her comment was directed.

When we got to the door, Rumor
stopped. She looked at Jamie. “Thank you for trying to help my
friend,” she said and then went inside leaving Jamie and I to stand
looking at each other not knowing what to think. I told Jamie what
she had said.

“
That woman had no pulse
when I knelt down. She was as dead as a corpse. But after she
turned, I felt her blood. She had a pulse. It was like her heart
had started again.”

“
The blood,” I said, “the
undead blood revived her?”

Jamie shook his head. “I don’t know,
but . . .”

I looked back at the boat.

“
What does it mean?” he
asked.

“
I don’t know.”

The rest of the night passed
uneventfully. I don’t know if Rumor decided I was too dangerous to
mess with, had another plan waiting for me, was expressing true
gratitude toward Jamie, or had just taken the night off, but
neither I nor Frenchie were disturbed that night. I knew I should
stay awake. I knew I should try to figure out what to do next, but
my body could bear no more. Adrenaline can only take you so far.
After all, I was human. I lay down that night in Jamie’s arms and
slept soundly.

Chapter 29

Early the next morning there was a
sharp rap on the door. “Layla,” I head Tom call. “Layla . . .
Jamie,” he called again, knocking hard.

I jumped out of bed and unbarred the
door, flinging it open.

Tom, looking frantic, was on the other
side. “You need to come quickly,” he said.

Jamie was just rolling out of bed. “Is
it Ian?”

Tom shook his head, and then noticing
our state of undress, looked away, embarrassed. “Sorry, guys,” he
said, “but it’s urgent.”

Jamie and I slid our clothes on and
grabbed our weapons. Rushing outside, the three of us crossed the
nicely manicured lawns of the HarpWind Grand to the lakeside.
There, the HarpWind was poised at the edge of a cliff 40 feet above
the water. Several people leaned against a fence and looked below.
I noticed that Dusty and Buddie were there; they both looked very
upset.

As I walked toward the fence, my blood
began to cool. Jamie and I looked over. There, far down on the
rocks below, lay the body of Pastor Frank.

“
I was out walking,”
Buddie said, “when I saw him there.”

Just then a group of five people from
the hotel ran across the lawn and joined us.

“
What is it?” a woman with
wild curly red hair asked. She looked over the side.

“
Another accident,” a
bystander said. She had been standing by Dusty and Buddie when
Jamie, Tom, and I had arrived. I looked at her. She was an older
woman, about seventy or so, with curly gray hair.

The red-haired woman instructed the
two men with her to go down and get the body.

“
I’m coming too,” I said,
joining them. The others from Hamletville were fast on my
heels.

“
Oh, it’s okay, we can
take care of it,” she replied.

“
I said I’m going. We all
are,” I told her sternly, and we followed the two men as they wound
down a narrow flight of stairs on the cliff-side. When we got to
the bottom, we jogged over to Pastor Frank’s body. The cold lake
waves were breaking on his feet. He lay face down.

Buddie leaned down and turned him
over. His face was frozen in the grimace of death. He was pale
white, his skin tinged blue around the edges. His eyes, a sort of
light golden brown color, were alarmingly wide open.

I heard Dusty inhale
sharply.

Jamie leaned down and closed the
Pastor’s eyes. He turned and looked up at me.

“
What happened?” Tom
wondered aloud.

One of the two men looked back up at
the others standing by the fence. “Must have slipped. Ground is
still wet. If you’re not careful, it’s really easy to
fall.”

I looked at the man. Did he really
think we were that stupid?

“
That’s why you have a
fence though, isn’t it?” Buddie asked, and I watched his eyes work.
He was calculating: distance, trajectory, broken vegetation,
injuries. When he was done, he looked at me. Buddie shook his
head.

I nodded.

The two men bent to pick up Pastor
Frank’s body.

“
Here, let us,” Dusty
said, grabbing the Pastor’s shoulders. Jamie took his legs and
Buddie, Tom, and I followed behind. The two men led us back up the
stairs. At the top, Jamie and Dusty, each out of breath, lay the
body down.

The red-haired woman kneeled and
looked over the pastor. “I’m sorry,” she told us. “There is a
garden in the back of the hotel. We’ve been interring people there
as needed.”

Buddie had moved away from the group
and was examining the cliff edge.

“
You have that need a
lot?” I asked.

She looked sharply at me. “People have
come with injuries, diseases, as I am sure you can guess. You were
out there. You know what it was like. Unfortunately, some guests
have not made it.”

She motioned to the men to take Pastor
Frank. “We’ll see to him,” she said.

They left then, taking the body with
them.

I went to the older woman who was
standing with the other bystanders. She had teared up. “Such bad
luck,” she said, setting her hand on my arm. “He was a priest,
wasn’t he? That is so unfortunate. We didn’t have any men of the
holy cloth here until he arrived.”

The holy cloth. “You
said,
another
accident?”

She nodded. “I was here on vacation
when the outbreak began. I’ve seen so many newcomers found—it’s
wonderful—but there have been a few unfortunate accidents. It’s so
sad, to endure so much and then die in a fall or the like. Truly a
shame. I’m sorry for your loss,” she told me and patted my arm. She
turned, and with a small group of others, headed back to the
hotel.

I joined Tom, Jamie, and Dusty. Buddie
joined us a moment later. “He definitely did not slip and fall,”
Buddie told us.

I gazed out at the lake. Beautiful
pink and purple clouds, the last of the shimmering sunrise, were
just dissipating.

“
What do you mean?” Tom
asked Buddie.

“
I mean, however he died,
it wasn’t like they said it was.”

They looked at me. I shook my head,
not knowing what to say. I guess Rumor got her payback after
all.

Jamie looked worried. “I need to check
on Ian.”

I nodded. “Let’s make sure everyone
else is accounted for,” I said, pulling the list of room numbers
from my pocket.

“
We’ll get it,” Dusty
said, nodding to Buddie and taking the list from my
hands.

“
Who is with Frenchie?
Tom, can you go check on her and the girls? I’m going after Pastor
Frank’s body,” I said.

Tom nodded, and he, Buddie, and Dusty
headed back to the hotel.

Jamie took me by the arm. “Wait for
me.”

“
Ian is so vulnerable. He
needs you with him,” I replied. “I’ll be fine. I’ll come as soon as
I get some answers. Besides, it’s daytime,” I said.

Jamie pulled me into a quick kiss, and
we headed off in opposite directions. I went east, following the
direction they had taken Pastor Frank. They’d went around the side
of the hotel toward the back.

As I rounded the side of the island, I
kept one watchful eye on the HarpWind and another on the nearby
grounds. It was still very early, and the mist was just clearing.
In some places it was still quite foggy. I had been walking past
rows of small ponds when the mist got thick. The hair on the back
of my neck rose, and I felt the familiar buzz of the supernatural
in the air. Carefully, I sought for the cliff-side to orient
myself. As I neared it, the mist cleared. I could see very thick
vegetation growing in a sloping angle toward the water, not a
drop-off like the front of the hotel. And then, in the distance,
for just a moment, I spotted tall trees that seemed to emerge from
the misty side of the lake. Then, the brush rustled.

I pulled my sword.

A moment later a red fox appeared
before me. She sat and looked expectantly at me. I knew at once the
creature was not what she seemed. “Go ahead. I’ll follow,” I told
her.

She trotted into the brush. At first
it looked like I would need to slash a path through the thicket,
but then I noticed some very old, eroded wooden stairs embedded in
the slopping earth.

Pushing the thicket aside, I followed
her.

Low to the ground, the fox bolted
easily through the thickets. I, on the other hand, pushed my way
through. Scratched from head to toe and covered in cobwebs, I
finally emerged in a swampy area. High cattails grew there. I
looked back. Only the roof of the HarpWind was visible.

Sitting on a grassy tuft, the fox
waited. Once I’d turned to her, she led me across the wet terrain.
Moments later we emerged on the rocky shoreline. In the distance
were the tall trees I had spotted. They were on a small island that
was, perhaps, fifty feet from the shore of Enita Island.