The Walking Dead: Invasion (7 page)

The crying carries out into the night and echoes up into the black sky.

The other caravan members—now gathering by the open doorway—stand paralyzed.

Not a single one of them is aware they are witnessing an epochal exchange of power.

*   *   *

For the rest of that night, and for most of the next day, Jeremiah helps the surviving members of the convoy deal with the tragic loss of their spiritual guide and moral compass. No one feels like driving, so they secure the periphery and place guards at key points around the site, and Jeremiah urges people to vent, to express themselves, to pray, and to remember their leader.

They bury the man in the southeast corner of the KOA camp, near a grove of pecan trees. James says a few words, and then a few other alpha dogs have their say, each one of them eventually breaking down and sobbing, unable to continue. The death of Father Murphy hits them hard. Jeremiah can see they need to let out the grief.

By sundown the next night, very few caravan members have wandered away from the makeshift grave site. Most linger over the loosely packed pile of earth, as though they are houseguests who refuse to leave a beloved relative's abode, praying, sharing stories of Father Murphy's generous spirit and acts of kindness and legacy of courage in the face of Armageddon. Some share flasks of cheap, stale moonshine … or home-rolled corn-silk cigarettes made from the local tobacco that still stubbornly grows in profusion in south Georgia and along the northern edges of the panhandle … or the same beef jerky that they've been sharing for weeks now, ever since they hit that deserted truck stop outside Jacksonville.

Jeremiah watches all this until he gets an idea right around sundown.

“Folks … if I may say something?” He rises to his full height at the edge of the burial mound. Still dressed in his black mourning suit and threadbare tie, he looks more than ever like a strange government man from another age—a revenue agent or an auditor come to take stock of the caravan's books. He holds a leather wine bota filled with the same awful whiskey he'd been sharing for hours with James Frazier, Norma Sutters, Leland Burress, and Miles Littleton. “I know it ain't my place to speak at such a solemn and important occasion such as this.” He looks around the group with a humble, contrite expression. “I didn't know the Padre even remotely as well as y'all. I have no right to say anything on his behalf. All I want to say is, you measure a man
not
by what he makes in his life, you measure a man by what he leaves behind. And let me tell ya, old Patrick L. Murphy left behind a whole mess of love, and one great big dream.”

He pauses, and this is Jeremiah Garlitz's genius: the ability to hold an audience with well-chosen silence. He lets silence work like a river cleaves mountains, like a tiny sapling takes root and grows into an enormous redwood. He makes love with silence.

“Father Murphy left behind a dream of solace and succor in the face of the End Days … a beautiful dream amidst the beasts of hell … a dream of something more than survival. He left behind a dream of life. He wanted y'all to flourish.
Together
. Moving, always moving. Like a stream turns into a river and a river turns into the sea.”

More silence. Some listeners begin to clear their throats, fight tears, and bow their heads. They need this. They need to release something, and the silence gives them permission. They listen so closely to the silence, Jeremiah feels as though he can hear their heartbeats.

“I don't know about y'all, but in my short sweet time with the Padre, I realized he knew something that I didn't. He knew the key to paradise—and no, I ain't talking about heaven right now. I'm talking about paradise on earth. Even amid these desecrated times, these horrible ruins, he held the key to paradise, and you know what that was? At the end of the day, do you know what paradise is?”

Another beat of dramatic silence as Jeremiah makes eye contact with each listener—dirty, plague-worn, terrified faces staring back at him, hungering for salvation and answers, eyes moist with sorrow.

“It's us.
Us!
With good treads on our tires and a few gallons of high test in our tanks.” He raises his voice. “That's all Father Patrick Murphy ever wanted. For us to stay together, and stay on the move. That simple. That's what the Padre's paradise is … the
convoy
. On the move. Just as the ancient Israelites escaped from Egypt! The convoy! Just as the Hebrews wandered Canaan!” He lets out a triumphant shout: “THE CONVOY!”

Leland Burress, a heavyset former pipe fitter from Tallahassee who has been known to regularly vent about the Jews controlling the banking system, springs to his feet and makes a ham-hock-sized fist and cries out, “Damn straight!”

Jeremiah grins a beatific sort of grin full of humility and earnestness.

Across the makeshift burial site, a portly woman in a floral print sundress turns away, her lips pursed with disdain and incredulity.

*   *   *

Norma Sutters stands on the far edge of the pecan grove, listening with a sour look on her face, as the preacher finally gets to the point of his little impromptu sermon. The whole speech strikes Norma as not only inappropriate but also a little disturbing—the way the big man in the black suit coat has almost seamlessly taken over the ceremony, and the subtle tone of condescension in his voice as he blatantly tugs on the heartstrings. Norma Sutters knows all the signals. She has dealt with a rogues' gallery of hypocrites in her life. This guy is off the scale.

“You all right?” Miles whispers to her. The young man standing next to her in the hoodie and the tarnished bling from happier times furrows his brow. It's obvious from the look on his face he senses something as well, but he apparently can't quite articulate it.

She shushes him, putting a plump finger to her lips, indicating they should pay attention to what the preacher is saying.

“Friends, I humbly come to you today with a proposition,” the preacher is now announcing to the group, letting out the stops on his big baritone, lifting his voice to the heavens, projecting with the skill of a backwoods Olivier, so that the far edges of the crowd can hear every breath, every dramatic pause. Most preachers are just naturally theatrical and vociferous, but there's something about this guy that Norma can't quite pin down. Something manipulative. And scary. “I have no right to stand in the shoes of our dearly departed Padre—no one does—but I will gladly, in tribute to his legacy, volunteer to step up. With your blessings, with your approval, with your help, I will gladly take the reins of this great community—this mobile fraternity of God-fearing Christians—if you'll have me, if you'll give me that honor.”

Murmurs of approval ripple through the two dozen or so mourners still lingering there in the purple twilight and the dense shadows of crooked pecan boughs hanging over the grave site. Miles had secretly shared with Norma earlier that day his belief that Leland Burress would be the one to take over. Leland was a far more likely candidate to replace Father Murphy than some interloper with a Bible and a cross. Leland had started the convoy back around the early days of the outbreak. An independent gun shop owner from Jacksonville, Leland and his late wife had lived in a trailer park near the St. Johns River, and when people had started dying and coming back hungry for human flesh, Leland followed his instincts to move and keep moving.

A breeze blows the faint odor of rotting flesh across the musk of fallen pecan shells. Norma feels sick to her stomach as she shares a loaded glance with the young man standing next to her. “Mmmmm-hm … what a surprise,” she mutters under her breath with wry disgust.

Across the bare ground of the freshly dug grave, the big preacher does what all salesmen do naturally—he goes for the close: “I don't expect y'all to accept me right off the bat, to trust me as much as y'all came to trust that dear, dear man we just put in the ground. I don't expect y'all to make a decision this important without giving it a lot of thought, without takin' a vote, without being
dang sure
.”

One final dramatic pause. One final moment of eye contact with practically every listener, and then: “But I promise you this, and I assure you that this is the God's gospel truth: If y'all accept me as your leader, I
will
lead. I have been in the wilderness for nigh on to a year now, and I have survived, and I will do everything in my power to make sure
all
y'all survive, each and every last one of you, and I will pray to the Lord Almighty that He helps me make sure that all y'all prosper. Because y'all are God's children, and we will prevail!” A few shouts of approval mingle with his words. “WE! WILL! PREVAIL! TOGETHER! AS ONE!!”

Now the hollering drowns out his words and sets Norma's teeth on edge.

As the crowd gathers around the big man, a victory celebration breaks out, reminding Norma of the campaign headquarters of some two-bit politician. She signals to Miles, and the two disgruntled listeners discreetly slip away into the shadows beyond the pecan trees.

The Reverend Jeremiah Garlitz, flush with boisterous approbation, doesn't notice the hasty departure of his only two skeptics.

 

FIVE

The next morning, just before dawn, as the caravan sparks its engines in a series of rumbling reports and coughing blasts of carbon monoxide, Jeremiah assumes his newly acquired throne behind the wheel of the priest's battered RV, on the same shopworn pilot chair that the previous leader had planted his bony rear end for so many months. At first demurring at the offer to drive Father Murphy's beloved Winnebago, with its rattling portraits of the Pope and church-sponsored Little League teams, Jeremiah eventually reconsiders, coming to the conclusion that it might be an elegant little piece of symmetry.

Now Jeremiah proudly pulls onto the main road with the weight of the entire convoy behind him, an early morning mist coming down like gunmetal steel curtains in the gray dawn. The air has an acrid tang to it, like burned circuits, and the sky is so low and opaque it has the look of old charcoal, like something taken out of the ground. This part of Florida has a primordial feel to it, all mossy and moldy with a patina of furry age on every surface, every fence post, every mailbox and road sign and power line.

Reese and Stephen follow immediately behind the RV in the dented Escalade, each young man healing nicely with the benefit of the caravan's first aid and medical provisions. Behind the SUV come the fourteen other vehicles, each filled with plague-weary, shell-shocked former acolytes of the dead priest. The vote to make Jeremiah the new leader—simple “Yes” or “No” declarations on torn paper ballots gathered in Jeremiah's hat—had been almost unanimous, with the identities of the only two members of the caravan to dissent still unknown to Jeremiah.

He would keep a close eye on morale, and maybe one day he would ferret out the pair of Philistines who had the gall to vote against him.

The previous night, Jeremiah had explained to his newly acquired disciples that part of his new leadership platform would be to explore neighboring states rather than clinging to the coastline. He assures them there are more opportunities in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina to find untapped resources. What he does
not
tell his followers is that the seed of an idea has taken root in his brain. It was sparked by the secret removal of Father Murphy, and it has been growing ever since. It may be the greatest single inspiration to kindle within Jeremiah Garlitz since the conception of his apocalyptic church.

They cross the Georgia state line around 5:00 that afternoon. They reach the outskirts of Atlanta by midnight. Low on fuel, hungry, sore and exhausted from the long drive, they make camp in a clearing on a wooded hill not far from the same landscape across which Jeremiah and his followers had traversed on their fateful journey to Woodbury. Is there a silent clarion calling Jeremiah back to this godforsaken place? Was this Jeremiah's personal Gethsemane, the mysterious wooded hill on which Christ ate his last supper and was subsequently cornered and arrested by the Centurions?

That night, the big preacher calls Stephen, Reese, Leland, and James to his fire pit.

“Boys, it's high time we launch another fuel run.” He announces this in the flickering light of the fire. “I want you four to light out around dawn, and take two vehicles so you can cover more ground.” Jeremiah gives this order with confidence, his mantle of leadership already second nature to him. “Look for gas, diesel, even roadside dives that might still have fryers with oil on the premises.”

The men disperse to prepare for their mission, and the preacher spends the rest of that night awake in the RV, guzzling cold instant coffee, drawing sketches, making notes, and just generally strategizing on how to bring his grand idea to life … or
death
, he thinks with amusement. The concept will make him as powerful as any post-plague man has ever been—the true one-eyed king. He works almost all the way through sunrise, eventually falling into a deep sleep on the RV's sofa bed, oblivious to the fact that a member of his new tribe has been spying on him all night.

Outside the RV, the shadow of a plump African-American woman lurks behind a skein of undergrowth less than thirty feet from the trailer's rear bumper. She has been listening intently to everything—including the occasional faint mutterings of the preacher talking to himself, sometimes in the gibberish of ancient “tongues”—much of it making little sense to her. All she knows, at this early stage, is that this preacher, despite his natural charisma and oratory skills, is clearly as mad as a hatter, and probably as dangerous as a poisonous snake.

*   *   *

Later that day, Jeremiah holds court in front of his RV, perched on an old woven lawn chair, a small toddler named Melissa Thorndyke curled like a pet cat on his lap, thumb in her mouth, sound asleep. Completely relaxed behind the circle of vehicles and temporary barricades, puffing a stale Dominican cigar, sipping instant tea, his shirt collar open to reveal his hirsute upper chest, he's chatting with the patriarchs of two separate families—Chester Gleason and Rory Thorndyke, both men former laborers, meat-and-potatoes types, perfect specimens for Jeremiah's new army. In fact, Jeremiah is about to kick off a motivational discussion of the walker horde and their purpose in the Rapture when he's interrupted by the voice of Stephen Pembry.