Year One, Page 29

  “I don’t know. It’s my first day on the job.”

  “I’m in. I’m in.” Chuck did some jazz hands over the keyboard. “Yeah, baby, haven’t lost my touch.”

  “Can you get the power on in here?” Manning demanded.

  “Do bears shit in the woods? Give me a mo or so. Jesus, I’ve missed this. Missed the hell out of this.”

  “That.” Manning leaned over Chuck’s shoulder, tapped a section of the monitor. “Just that. If we bring everything back on line, we’ll end up blowing the system. Just this station. We’ve got everything shut down. Bring it on line, and we’ll test it. One step at a time.”

  “And done. Probably.”

  Manning let out a breath. “Try the lights, Wanda. Just the lights.”

  When at the flip of the switches they flashed on, Chuck pumped a fist in the air. Manning just pressed his fingers to his eyes. Then he dropped his hands, looked at Max. “At the end of your first day on the job, I’ll be buying the beer.”

  He turned and met Wanda’s grin with one of his own. “Okay, team, let’s get the lights on.”

  * * *

  In the parking lot of the mall, cars lay on their sides, or on their roofs like turtles on smashed shells.

  Crows, vultures, rats pecked and gnawed on carcasses of dogs, cats, deer. And what had once been human. The air reeked with the stench of decay and garbage.

  Jonah drove past the remains hanging from a noose. A cardboard sign still draped around the neck.

  UNCANNY BITCH BACK TO HELL

  As he circled the lot, he saw no signs of life other than the gorged birds and well-fed rats. At some point, he thought, they’d send a crew of volunteers to burn or bury the dead, clean up the garbage, dispose of the piles of feces.

  He pulled up at the front entrance, in front of shattered glass doors, and wondered what made some portions of the human race so foul.

  He got out as Poe pulled in beside him.

  “They’re long gone.” Kim got out, standing with her face like stone. “The bodies have to be at least two or three weeks old.”

  “Could come back,” Poe said.

  “Why? It’s a big, empty world. Plenty of other places to desecrate and destroy. I wish we hadn’t come.”

  When her voice cracked, Poe put an arm around her. She stiffened her shoulders. “But we did. We should get whatever we can.”

  “The dead deserve better.”

  Jonah nodded at Aaron. “We’ll give them better. We’ll come back as soon as we can, and give them better.”

  He thought of the body hanging. They’d cut it down before they left. They could do that much now, then come back for burial or burning.

  “First we have to look after the living.”

  * * *

  Lana took Fred’s advice and transplanted some herbs in pots. Setting them in the sun near the kitchen door gave her a happy moment. She knew seeing them, smelling them, harvesting them would give her many more.

  She’d gardened for the first time in her life. Helping hoe and weed rows of carrots and beans, being taught how to stake tomatoes. She’d seen hillocks of potatoes, the trailing vines of squash and pumpkin, eggplants. The growing stalks of corn.

  And she’d heard children playing while she worked.

  Best of all, after a thorough inspection of what she determined would be a community kitchen, she had plans.

  She opted to work on them while sitting on the front porch with a glass of sun tea. Absently, she laid a hand where the baby kicked, then looked up when she saw Arlys.

  “I heard you’ve been busy.”

  “I had a wonderful day. Do you have a minute? I’ve got sun tea.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’ll get you a glass.”

  Even more wonderful, Lana thought as she went inside, to have a visitor, to just be able to sit and talk without worrying about what danger might lurk on the next mile of road.

  “No ice, but I chilled it.” Lana wiggled her fingers as she offered Arlys the glass.

  “Thanks. Wish list?” She tapped a finger on Lana’s legal pad.

  “A couple of them. The community kitchen project. Do you know Dave Daily?”

  “Sure. Big guy, big laugh.”

  “He was a short-order cook and he’s all in on the project. And we’ve got a couple of people who have experience in dressing game. I’d love a smokehouse—ham, bacon, and so on. I actually found a book in the library on how that works.”

  Impressed, interested, Arlys studied Lana over the rim of her glass. “You have been busy. I spent some time with Lloyd, working on the agenda for the public meeting.”

  “You’re worried about it.”

  “There are bound to be objections, people who don’t like being told what they can do, what they can’t. But we need it, and we need it before something happens, and we don’t have a solid structure to deal with it. I did an editorial bulletin on tolerance versus bigotry, on acceptance versus outdated fears. It didn’t hit the mark with everyone.”

  “I worked at the gardens this morning. Almost everyone’s friendly and helpful. But a couple of people kept their distance. From Fred, too. How anyone can look at Fred and see anything but light and joy is beyond me.”

  “She was my first personal experience with the magickal. Maybe that’s why it’s been easier for me than for some. For some, their first experience was with the frightening, the deadly. The Dark Uncanny. It’s harder to convince them to accept that those who have abilities beyond ours aren’t built to harm.”

  No, Lana thought, not all magicks were of the light.

  “Max’s brother. His own brother. He turned. He and the woman he was with. I think she was always dark, and she turned him. They killed one of our group. A harmless man—a boy really. Would have tried to kill all of us, especially…” She pressed a hand to her belly. “Max had to make a choice, and he chose light. He chose what was right even though it meant destroying his own brother. He loved Eric, but he chose light.”

  “It must have been horrible for him.”

  “It was, and still is. I’ve never seen power like that. Huge and black.” It still haunted Lana’s dreams. “They were giddy with it, drunk on it.”

  “Fred and I saw it in the tunnels, getting out of New York.” Thinking of the … thing flying through the tunnels, she nodded at the words. “Huge and black.”

  “Then you know. It’s not hard to see why anyone who faced that has fear.”

  Lana turned her head, then rose as she saw the pickup. “That’s Eddie and Flynn.”

  Arlys stood beside her. “Someone’s with them.”

  When he spotted them, Flynn pulled up in front of the house.

  These are good people, he told Starr.

  I don’t know them.

  You never will if you sit in the truck.

  She got out reluctantly as the women came down. Lupa and Joe leaped out.

  “This is Starr. She doesn’t want to be touched.”

  A ragged shirt, torn jeans over a bone-thin frame, Lana noted. Hair tangled and matted. Suspicious eyes.

  “I’m Lana. This is Arlys.”

  Starr hunched her shoulders as others wandered closer or stopped to stare.

  “I only got here yesterday,” Lana continued. “I know it’s a little scary at first, but—”

  “I’m not scared, and I don’t have to stay.”

  Fred jogged up, rhinestone-studded pink sunglasses perched on top of her bouncy red curls. “I saw the truck come back. Hey, hi!”

  “This is Fred.” Arlys laid a hand on Fred’s arm, warning her back. “Starr doesn’t want to be touched.”

  “Oh.” Fred’s face went to instant sympathy. “It feels weird, right, everybody looking at you and wondering? But this is a good place. Maybe you want to come with me—Arlys and I live right down there. You could come inside, clean up a little.”

  “I don’t have to stay.”

  “Well, even if you leave, you could have some clean clo
thes and maybe something to eat first. Then you can decide.” Fred stepped back, gestured. “Come on.”

  Starr took a step forward, then another. Then followed Fred down the sidewalk.

  “Full of light,” Lana acknowledged.

  “Glad she’s off our hands.” Eddie rolled his eyes. “I don’t think she’d stick that knife of hers in my ribs, right, but it made for a nervous ride back, man. Jittery ride.”

  “She won’t hurt Fred. She’s afraid, and she’s wounded.” Flynn tapped his heart.

  “She took a swipe at you, but yeah, you’re right. We found her about fifteen miles north. Flynn says she’s like him.”

  “She’s afraid of that, too. We saw a party of Raiders, headed south. They didn’t see us. We found no one but Starr. Some dead, but no living. We brought some supplies, but we felt we should bring her back. We can go out again tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know if that’s…” Lana trailed off, then gestured. Beside the door of a house across the street, a light flickered on.

  “Hot damn! And I’m talking hot food, hot showers, and hot damn!” Eddie slung an arm around Flynn’s shoulders. “Dude! Let there be some frigging light.”

  * * *

  In the kitchen of the house she shared with Arlys, Fred set out a snack bag of potato chips and a can of Coke she chilled.

  “You should probably have something healthy, but this is quick, and what I’d want. I’m a faerie,” she said easily as she got a bag of chips for herself. “But you’re like Flynn, right? I’ve gotten pretty good at guessing.”

  Starr eyed the chips suspiciously. And longingly. “I don’t know what I am.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. I was totally freaked when I first got these.” She brought her wings out, fluttered them while she munched on chips. “People wanted to hurt me, too, and Arlys. But we found more people, good people. Now we’re here.”

  Helpfully, Fred opened Starr’s chips, popped the tab on her Coke.

  Warily, Starr reached in, took a single chip. After a tiny, testing bite, she stuffed it into her mouth, grabbed more.

  And began to weep fat, silent tears as she ate.

  “I’m not going to touch you.” In sympathy, Fred’s eyes filled, spilled over. “But you could imagine I’m giving you a hug. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you. I wish bad things didn’t happen.”

  “It’s all bad.”

  “No, it’s really not. But it can feel like it.”

  “It killed my father, my little brother, the bad. The Doom.”

  “I’m hugging you again. Your mom?”

  “They killed her. The ones that hunt us.”

  The shiver jumped up Fred’s spine. “Raiders.”

  Starr shook her head. “Not them. Others. We tried to run, but they caught us. They raped us, again and again. And laughed. We’re Uncanny, and they can do what they want to us.”

  Fred’s wings drooped, receded. “I’m going to sit down with you. I won’t touch you, but I need to sit down.”

  “And they hurt us.” The words tumbled out of Starr, bitter and barbed. “Kept hurting us. My mother said—inside my head, she told me to run, and go into the tree. To stay until it was safe. Not to come out, no matter what.”

  Starr swiped at her face, smearing dirt with tears. “My mother screamed and fought and tried to run—away from me so they left me to hurt her. And in my head she screamed, RUN! So I ran and ran. When I heard them coming after me, I went into the tree. I heard her screaming, but I didn’t come out. I didn’t come out until they went away.

  “They killed her. They hung her from a tree.”

  “Oh, Starr, I’m so sorry. It’s not enough, but I’m so sorry. Your mom loved you. She wanted you to be safe.”

  “They killed her because I ran away.”

  “No.” Fred got up, dug up a paper napkin, tore it in two to share. “They’d have killed both of you, and she knew it. She loved you and made sure they didn’t kill you.”

  “I didn’t have a knife then, so I couldn’t climb the tree and cut her down. But I found one, and I went back. I tried to find them so I could kill them. But I couldn’t find them.”

  “I think your mom was as brave and loving as any mom ever. I think she’d be glad you’re here with us now. You could live here with me and Arlys if you want. We have room.”

  When Starr just shook her head, Fred tried to think of the best solution. “Maybe, at least for now, you’d rather have your own place. We have apartments. You could have one. You’d be with us, but on your own, too. I can show you one, and get you some clothes and supplies. You could, you know, clean up, get some real food, maybe rest for a while.”

  “I can leave whenever I want.”

  “Sure, but I hope you won’t want to. New Hope’s a good place to…” She trailed off, glanced up at the ceiling light. “Are you doing that?”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “The light’s on. If you didn’t … Holy cow, I think they got the power back.” Fred swiped her tears away, smiled. “I think that makes you our lucky Starr. The day you come, we get the power back on.”

  * * *

  When Max and his crew rolled into town, cheers greeted them. People rushed out to flock around the truck.

  Max saw Lana laughing, running toward him.

  Caught her when she jumped into his arms.

  “You did it.”

  “I gave them the spark. They did the rest.”

  She pressed her lips to his ear. “We’re going to take a hot shower. Together.”

  “Best prize in the box.”

  Someone thumped him on the back; someone else pushed a beer into his hand.

  Eddie whipped out his harmonica. A woman sat on the curb with a banjo. When Jonah drove in, people danced in the street.

  “Power’s on.” Jonah said it like a prayer. “They got the power on. Go on, Aaron, find Bryar, and give her a whirl. We’ll get this unloaded later.”

  “I will.” Aaron opened the door, glanced back. “Don’t carry it with you.”

  Jonah turned the ambulance into the school lot. Got out, turned to Poe and Kim. “Go on and celebrate. We’ll have plenty of volunteers to help unload in a bit.”

  He shot them a smile that faded the minute they joined the crowd. He couldn’t take the crowd, not even to go through them to get to his house and close himself in. So he went in the side entrance of the school. He sat down behind the desk, dropped his head in his hands.

  He didn’t hear the door open again, or the voices. He was too far away in his mind. He heard nothing but his own tortured thoughts until Rachel touched his arm.

  “I couldn’t find you. Poe said he saw you come in here. So we…”

  “We’ll step out.” Max took Lana’s hand.

  “No. No, don’t.” Pale, eyes deep with misery, Jonah sat up.

  “What happened?” Rachel demanded. “Poe didn’t say.”

  “We got plenty of supplies and equipment from the hospital. No trouble there. And then we went to try the mall, the one where we had trouble before.”

  “Raiders?” The hand on his arm dug in. “You ran into Raiders?”

  He shook his head. “No, they’d gone. Trashed a lot, inside and out. Christ, pissed on stacks and racks of clothes. Kim bagged them anyway. Piss washes out, she said. Found the usual vandalism. Broken glass, obscenities painted on walls, garbage in heaps and piles.

  “And bodies. People mutilated, rotting. Animals, too. Inside and out. Rats and carrion tearing at them. We…”

  He stopped, cleared his throat. “We need to take a crew back, dig graves or … maybe another mass pyre. The bodies have been there awhile. I…”

  He looked at Max and Lana.

  “The place can be cleansed and purified,” Max said. “We can do that. The souls of the lives lost can be blessed.”

  “It needs to be. Aaron felt it, too. We didn’t talk about it much, but he felt it. And I, and I— Don’t we have some whiskey?”

  Rachel w
alked to a cabinet, took out a bottle, a glass. She poured two fingers.

  Jonah downed it, breathed out.

  “I don’t think it was all Raiders. There … something else. And whoever, whatever, it felt worse. They hanged a woman—an Uncanny. We all felt we couldn’t leave her like that. We had to at least cut her down. We got a ladder. I climbed up to cut the rope.

  “I see death,” he told Max and Lana. “That’s my gift. Death, physical trauma, sickness. I climbed up to cut the rope, and what was there of her turned, brushed my arm. I saw her life. I saw flashes of who she’d been. I saw what they did to her. I heard her screams. I saw her death.”

  He pressed his face to Rachel’s breasts when she put her arms around him. “Her name was Anja. She was twenty-two. She was like Fred. They hacked off her wings before they—”

  “Don’t.” Rachel stroked his hair, his back. “Don’t.”

  Max pulled up a chair, sat beside the desk. “This is new for you, seeing the life of the dead?”

  “Yeah. Just one more gift.”

  “It’s hard for you, but I think it is a gift. A gift to those who lived. Someone remembers them. It’s something all of us want. For someone to remember us. We can help you. Lana more than me.”

  Max looked at her when Lana said nothing. “You have an empathy. A healing touch.”

  She stepped up. “I think you have what you have, Jonah, because you do, too.”

  “What does it mean that if I could find the ones who raped her, mutilated her, murdered her, I’d kill them without a single qualm?”

  Max rose. “It means you’re human. I’ll go back with you and bury her.”

  “When you mark her grave with her name,” Lana said, with a hand on the child who stirred inside her, “when you say the words over her, you’ll free her soul. You’ll ease your own. Mark her grave with her name, say her name.” Lana looked at Max. “I feel that.”

  “Then it’s right. Then it’s what we’ll do. I’ll go with you now. We can send a crew for the rest tomorrow.”

  Jonah nodded, rose, and shook Max’s hand. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Late in the dark of night, Max lay awake with images ripe and clear in his head. He hadn’t seen, hadn’t felt what Jonah had as they’d buried the desecrated remains of a young woman who’d done no harm.

  He hadn’t seen her life, the brightness of it. He’d seen only death, cruelty, only waste. And had imagined too well the fear, the agony of the end of that life as Jonah laid the stone at the head of the mound, as he himself had used fire to carve the name.

  Mark her name, say her name. So it was done, and Max hoped the young woman who’d done no harm found peace.

  He believed Jonah had, at least for now, in the ritual of respect.