* * *
At first, she goes still, as though gobsmacked by the sheer scale of the place. It takes a long moment for the vast, spacious room filled with enormous shadowy objects to even register in her brain.
She slowly scans the showroom, which is arrayed with shiny new farm implements, the beam of her miner’s light passing across the high-gloss Kelly green fenders of John Deere tractors, the gleaming candy apple red tusks of Case harvesters, the gigantic scoops of backhoes, the enormous blades of reapers, and the countless rows of riding mowers, diggers, transports, wagons, and attachments sitting in the dark like cadavers in a carpeted morgue. The high ceiling, at least fifty feet above the floor, houses massive gantries, inverted lighting long ago gone dark, the rustle of birds up in the ironwork like termites eating away at the place.
“Is this sweet or what?” the boy enthuses, striding across the showroom floor, his footsteps silent on the thick pile carpet. Lilly sees a massive company sign on a banner spanning the back wall: “CENTRAL MACHINERY SALES.”
“Good God,” she utters, taking a few more steps in toward the center of the room. She can smell the welcoming perfume of new upholstery, fresh lubricant, immaculate tire treads, and shimmering steel joints like jewels in elaborate settings. “How the hell did you find this?”
“I kind of accidentally found that opening in the basement,” he explains with a sweeping gesture of his skinny arms, indicating the totality of the dark showroom, a modicum of pride in his voice as though explaining the genesis of a winning science fair project. “I was just wandering, and I noticed some parts of the ceiling were, like, dripping, like water draining or something. And then I realized that the drain was in the floor of a basement. C’mon.”
He takes her by the hand and leads her across the showroom to a side door behind a cashier’s desk. Lilly draws her pistol. They make their exit carefully, stepping through a malodorous vestibule into the overcast afternoon. Trash blows around their feet as they survey the grounds of Central Machinery Sales—the deserted parking lot, the security fence, the streetlights and power lines.
“Holy Christ, is that what I think it is?” Lilly nods toward a holding tank. The size of a Volkswagen Bug, the horizontal tank is rust-pocked and sun-faded, but the legend stamped on the side is still faintly visible: “F U E L.”
“Is that full?” Lilly asks.
“I think so. C’mere.” The boy crosses the gravel lot to the edge of the fuel tank, makes a fist, and pounds on the side. The ringing sound is flat, and accompanied by the slosh of fluid inside the reservoir. “Sounds like it’s half full.”
Lilly looks around. “Looks like the fence is still intact. And the place is walker-free?”
“Yep.”
“Oh my God.” She looks at the boy. “Oh … my … God.”
“I know.” He grins. “Whaddaya think?”
“Oh. My. God.”
“Sweet, huh?”
She stares at him. “I’m not sure yet, but this place might just change everything.”
* * *
“Reverend, with all due respect … you’re leading us straight into Injun territory.”
The voice comes from the rear of the Winnebago, the sound of it warbling as though coming through a tissue of liquid. James Frazier stands behind the pilot seat, bracing himself on the nearest cupboard as the vehicle clamors over rough road, rattling and thudding furiously, knocking dishes askew and sending books tumbling off shelves. Some of the preacher’s remote control toys topple, sending plastic airplanes, model cars, transmitters, and batteries skittering across the floor. James cringes with each bump, his flannel shirt sweat-damp under the arms. He glances out the passenger window as the camper roars past a fence post on which a walker head has been impaled as some sort of warning, the pasty cadaverous face still openmouthed, still looking hungry, still gripped in agony for eternity.
“Trust, James! Trust in the Lord, and trust in your humble clergy!” Jeremiah buzzes with energy, despite the fact that his rosacea has returned with a vengeance this morning. Dressed in his trademark black frock coat, now bunched in the middle with a heavy bullet bandolier, he glances up at the rearview and takes in his square-jawed reflection: the rosy patches across his cheeks and chin, the moistness of his eyes, his prominent nose already broken out in darkened capillaries as though he were a skid-row juicer on his last bender. The skin disorder has a habit of breaking out when the preacher least expects it, often in times of great upheaval or stress. It also seems to be advancing. For years, it had only caused a faint swelling in his eyes and a reddening of the cheeks, as though he were blushing. But lately the condition brings on severe flushing, a burning in the eyes, and visible blood vessels. And today is shaping up to be the worst outbreak yet. It’s been brewing ever since they left camp.
The caravan has been on the road for hours, following the preacher west, toward the state line, where scouts have seen signs of another super-herd brewing. The official purpose of the journey—the ostensible reason that Jeremiah has given to his followers—is reconnaissance: The preacher wants to gauge the threat level of this so-called ungodly swarm of monsters. But what very few people in the convoy know is that Jeremiah is returning to the scene of devastation that claimed the lives of his fellow parishioners almost a year earlier. He is returning to the river of blood, to ground zero, where dozens of his flock were devoured. And the real reason he’s returning to this cursed territory is to execute the first few brushstrokes of his masterpiece.
A third voice behind James: “Relax, Jimmy, the good reverend knows what he’s doing!”
In the rear of the cabin, around the L-shaped dining table, Reese Lee Hawthorne and Stephen Pembry are dressed in heavy leathers for battle, loading their weapons with knowing smiles, the smiles of disciples embarking on a great mission. Reese snaps a magazine into his Mossberg 12-gauge, then pumps the forearm slide, injecting a magazine. “We’re gonna get in and get out,” Reese proclaims. “Fast and hard, before anybody knows better.”
James runs fingers nervously through his thick thatch of ginger-colored hair. “You don’t understand.… Where we’re headed, along the border, where the river meets the barrens … this is Scorpion territory.”
Stephen Pembry looks up from his loading. “The motorcycle gang, you’re talking about?”
“Exactly.”
“What gang?” Reese snaps the slide and throws a look at Stephen. “What are you talking about?”
Stephen sighs. “Ragtag group of scuz-balls from Birmingham, banded together after the outbreak, formed a sort of tribe … fueled on crystal meth and fear along the Chattahoochee River.”
“They’re animals!” James gazes from man to man with a worried expression. “Believe me! You get within a mile of their territory, they will take you down and cook you on a spit for barbecue!”
“That’s ridiculous,” Stephen Pembry counters with a dismissive wave. “Urban legend.”
“Have you ever met up with one of them guys?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What makes you such an authority? Have you met up with one?”
After a brief pause, James lets out a sigh. “It doesn’t matter whether I have or not … I’m telling you these dudes are bad fucking news.”
Stephen shakes his head and slams a full magazine—the last eight bullets in his arsenal—into his Glock. “You ask me, I bet these biker boys are all bark and no bite.”
James starts to say something else when the deep baritone voice from the front cuts him off.
“Why don’t you boys ask one of these Scorpion fellas yourselves?!”
All heads snap up, gazes fixing themselves on the pilot seat.
The preacher leans forward in his contour seat, goosing the accelerator. The RV rumbles faster and faster, the distant chain-saw noises of motorcycle engines rising on the wind. Reese, Stephen, and James now quickly move toward the front of the camper to see just e
xactly what the preacher is talking about.
Through the massive windshield, the flatlands along the Chattahoochee spread in all directions under a bleak magnesium silver sky—an arid, sepia-toned wasteland of fallow fields, immolated farmhouses, and errant wreckage littering deserted dirt roads. On the convoy’s flanks, kicking up clouds of dust and debris in the wind, a half dozen tricked-out motorcycles converge on the lead vehicle. The closer they get, the more clearly the details of their riders come into focus.
The closest biker looks huge, with greasy, long gray hair flagging under his World War I Kaiser helmet, his gigantic tree-trunk arms sleeved with tattoos. He has a sawed-off shotgun on his back, and wears a tattered leather vest, a necklace of fleshy objects banging against his barrel chest. The objects dangling on the necklace may or may not be human ears or fingers or pieces of a face or all of the above. His mirrored aviator glasses reflect the RV menacingly as the massive Harley approaches.
“‘Will the circle be unbroken!’” Jeremiah sings out joyfully, keeping a close eye on the progress of that first biker. The other five riders close in fast behind the first—most of them ragged, tattooed thugs in shades and war paraphernalia—their individual thunderheads of dust whirling up into the greasy sky. Some of the men reach for weapons, drawing from saddlebags and packs. Jeremiah carefully keeps the RV on course, zooming at top speed along the abandoned river road, his gaze locked on his side mirror and the reflection of the big leader with the gray hair. “’By and by, Lord, by and by!’”
The first shot rings out, a loud pop and a ding sparking off the front quarter panel of the RV.
“Sweet Jesus!” Reese cries out. “Brother J—what’s the plan here?!”
James screams at the top of his lungs: “I told you! I TOLD YOU!”
“Get on the two-way,” the preacher calls out with surprising calm. “Tell Leland to bring the big Mack up to the front when we stop.”
Reese scrambles to find the walkie-talkie, which has fallen off a shelf with the rest of the books and knickknacks and dishware.
“‘Will the circle be unbroken!’” the preacher croons off-key as he fixes his gaze on the side mirror. He can see the big man on the closest bike preparing to fire again, a few of the other bikers preparing to launch a salvo of buckshot into the RV’s tires. The preacher continues rejoicing. “‘In the sky, Lord, in the sky!’”
Jeremiah yanks the wheel at the perfect moment, and the front corner of the massive RV slams into the closest rider, creating a dull thudding noise that reverberates through the bones of the vehicle and launches the enormous man with the gray hair into the air. The impact throws the massive Harley into the slipstream, end over end, until it comes down in front of two other riders who are coming up fast.
In his side mirror, Jeremiah sees the two riders, unable to successfully swerve out of the way, collide with the careening motorcycle, the collision a chain reaction of pinwheeling metal, exploding shards of fiberglass, screams, geysers of blood, and bodies catapulting through the air. The chorus of hysterical yelling from outside sounds muffled, indistinct, like wind whistle.
The other three bikers pull off to the east, while the rest of the convoy swerves right, one by one, each vehicle coming to an abrupt halt in a fog bank of dust. Jeremiah registers all this in a split second, his laser focus on the mirror. He lifts his boot off the foot-feed.
In the oblong reflection he can see the remaining three bikers circling around, skidding to a stop, the riders yelling at each other. One of the bikers pulls a pistol-grip shotgun. Jeremiah pumps the brakes, bringing the massive vehicle to a bumpy stop in a whirlwind of dust. More toys fall off their shelf in back, batteries rolling across the floor. Without hesitation, without a scintilla of wasted energy, Jeremiah slams the shift lever into reverse and stomps on the accelerator pedal.
The RV lurches.
The gravitational force throws the younger men forward, Reese slamming into the sink, Stephen and James holding on for dear life. The camper roars backward, the power plant screaming, the infrastructure rattling and threatening to crack apart. In Jeremiah’s mirror, the three surviving bikers loom closer and closer, looking up with shocked expressions, scrambling to aim their weapons, trying to get off a few shots. As the massive RV bears down on them, they try to scatter. Jeremiah skillfully steers the rear end with its massive tow rig and steel ladder directly at the three fleeing bikers. The sound of horrified cries rings out.
The impact throws two out of three bikers skyward and pulverizes the abandoned Harleys.
The RV thumps as dust and debris and broken fiberglass rain down. Jeremiah slams on the brakes. A mangled chrome pipe clatters to the ground next to the RV’s cab as the vehicle skids to a stop, a few other pieces of shrapnel falling for a few seconds, until finally, mercifully, silence descends on the barren landscape.
For a moment, the three men in the back of the RV are thunderstruck, paralyzed, as the sound of dripping fluids and dwindling screams from outside fade beneath the wind. Jeremiah stretches like an old cat that was just sunning itself and now wants to investigate its food bowl.
“Everybody okay?” he inquires, twisting around in his seat to inspect his troops.
At first not a single one of them can utter a word of response. Finally Reese manages to say, “Yessir, fine and dandy.”
“What just happened?” James Frazier looks at the others, his eyes ablaze. “What was—?”
“Progress, son.” The preacher climbs out of his swivel seat, takes a deep breath, and squeezes his way through the camper’s rear cabin. “And you know what they say about progress.”
James is still holding on to the sink as though he thinks he might fall at any moment. “I’m … not sure … what you mean. What do they say about progress?”
The preacher pauses, smiles at the younger man, and gives him a wink. “You can’t stop it.”
Then Jeremiah turns and searches through a nylon rucksack for his machete.
NINE
“What in God’s name is he doing now?” Norma has her plump hand to her lips, her fingertips shaking as she sits on the passenger side of Miles Littleton’s muscle car, watching the aftermath of the preacher’s gonzo attack on the motorcycle gang.
Through the window, in the gray overcast afternoon, about a hundred yards away, several caravan members are visible, standing reverentially around Jeremiah, as though waiting for him to preach, as he drives a machete through the skulls of fallen gang members. He does this rather quickly and forcefully. Wind gusts and blows detritus around his legs, flagging the tails of his coat.
“What the fuck is this dude’s deal?” Miles wonders aloud. “And why are we still here?”
Miles Littleton continues to hold the steering wheel with white-knuckle intensity, even though the vintage hot rod is parked and idling on the side of the road about sixty or seventy yards away from the accident scene. The engine rumbles softly, as comforting to Miles as a mother’s heartbeat. The car is his security blanket. Miles grew up in Detroit—before moving to Atlanta at age eleven with his divorced, heroin-addicted mom—but his years in the Motor City made him a believer in good old American-made production-line muscle. He had stolen many classics in his day, but the one he always drove—the one he lived in and pampered and doted on like the first girl he ever kissed—was the 1972, four-speed, 426 cubic inch Hemi-V8 Dodge Challenger.
In fact, he and Norma currently sit in the latest incarnation of this first love, a gas-guzzling two-door hardtop sedan in Plum Crazy purple metallic with a tricked-out four-barrel Magnum and glass packs, which Miles has managed to hold on to even amidst this impossible post-plague energy crisis.
“Give me a second,” Norma says. “I just want to see what he does next.”
In the distance, Jeremiah turns to the few surviving riders lying here and there, clinging to life, battered and bloody in the dirt. They look like fallen soldiers in some brutal desert war. Jeremiah motions to a large box truck idling nearby. Leland Burress stic
ks his head out the driver’s window, giving a wave and then backing the huge vehicle up to the death scene. The preacher and his three young associates start lifting the victims onto makeshift stretchers. One by one, the three survivors are loaded into the truck’s rear cargo hold.
“I promise you one thing,” Miles comments bitterly as he watches. “He’s not taking them guys to the emergency room.”
Norma shakes her head. “But what in the wide world of sports does this have to do with them poor folks in that tunnel?”
“Nothing … The dude’s obviously fuckin’ nuts.”
“I don’t know.” Norma chews on a fingernail. “I think he’s nuts like a fox. I think he’s got a master plan.”
“Good for him. I still say we blow this place, get the fuck outta here. This ain’t about us; it ain’t our concern. Know what I mean?”
“I hear you, Junior, I just … I’d like to know exactly what this creepy-ass preacher’s got up his sleeve.”
“Why? What difference does it make?”
Norma watches the last of the injured bikers being loaded into the Mack truck. “I don’t know.… Maybe we can do something about it.”
“You’re gonna go and get your ass killed.”
Norma sighs. “Maybe.” She looks at him. “Listen. I’ll make you a deal.”
Miles shakes his head. “Oh no. Don’t be doing this shit to me.”
“C’mon, I promise we’ll get away from these people soon enough.”
Miles wipes his mouth nervously. “Norma, you’re gonna get both our asses killed.”
“Just stick around another day or two, just until we figure out what he’s doing.”
“Norma—”
“I promise you, we’ll take off—as soon as we figure it out.”
In the hazy distance, behind a dust devil of whirling litter, the preacher marches back toward the RV, looking all proud and satisfied and imperial. He looks like a third world dictator to Miles—like a cracker version of Fidel Castro—and this makes Miles all the more nervous. Miles finally looks at Norma. “Okay, one more day and then we’re gone with the motherfucking wind.”