There were two men and three women who looked to be in their forties, although looks were deceiving with people who had been starved as badly as this bunch. They all could easily have been in their late twenties. Nothing ages you like an apocalypse.
Two teenage guys and two young girls—eight or nine, maybe—rounded out the group.
“Hello,” I called.
“H-h-hello,” the guy in the lead replied.
“What brings you to Speranta?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
“Heard Zik brought his family here and that they were doing all right. Heard it was safe here. That you had food.”
“Nowhere’s safe anymore, I guess. But we’re doing okay. And we have food to share with those who’re willing to work hard and contribute.”
“Th-th-that’d be us.”
I stretched out my good hand to him. “I’m Alex. Or Mayor Halprin. Some folks call me Captain though, ’cause of the hook, I guess.”
“I’m Roy Feldman,” he said as we shook.
“You look more like Peter Pan than Captain Hook,” one of the teenage boys said.
I raised my eyebrows. “I’ve never heard that one before.”
“Sorry.”
I ushered them all into Longhouse One. We had walled off a chunk of it to serve as our medical clinic. I left most of the newcomers in Belinda’s care, but Roy and I walked over to the kitchen area.
“How do you know Zik?” I asked once we were settled in with a bowl of dried kale chips and glasses of water.
Roy took a kale chip. He ate slowly but steadily, as if he were afraid that at any moment I would snatch back the
bowl. I didn’t eat any—I had eaten enough kale chips to last a lifetime. “We were neighbors in Stockton.”
“Why’d you leave?” I asked, although I figured I already knew.
“People been disappearing for more ’n a year. You just wake up and they’re gone. Nobody talks about it or complains. Red gets wind of a complaint, he cuts out your tongue. Heard he’s got a string of ’em hanging in his bedroom. Dried up like old leaves.”
Eww. His bedroom?
“We’ve heard reports he’s trading girls to the Peckerwoods,” I said.
“It’s not just girls anymore,” Roy said, “whole families disappear. If you’re in tight with Red, you’re okay, but anyone else . . . ain’t that many left who aren’t part of Red’s circle. Figured it was time we got out before we disappeared. Went over the wall last night, me and my neighbors.” “What’s he want with whole families?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Roy said. “But I s’pect the meat we’ve been eating in Stockton lately ain’t pork.”
Chapter 64
I convened the council that night to share Roy’s news. I finished up my summary by saying, “I want Red’s head on a pole. Give me some options.”
Ben was shaking his head. “They have 150 men under arms behind a wall, and we have fewer than nineteen hundred rounds for our guns. Any kind of direct attack will fail.”
“Alex,” Darla said, “we can’t right all the wrongs of this world. And when you try, that’s when we get into trouble.”
“But they’re killing each other—”
“Let ’em!” Darla was almost yelling now. “They’ll get weaker and weaker. Eventually they’ll be exactly like those three cannibals we killed in Freeport.”
“She’s right,” Uncle Paul said. “We can’t risk our people.” “We can welcome anyone who escapes,” Dr. McCarthy said.
“If they attack us, our odds will be much better,” Ben said. He and Ranaan—the Iraq War veteran—had developed an elegant plan for defending our spread-out settlement, and we had drilled on it endlessly. Whatever longhouse was attacked would hunker down to repel a siege, while all our forces from the other longhouses gathered to fall on the attackers in the flank or rear. Meanwhile our network of snipers would exact a terrible price on any attacking force. I was thankful we hadn’t had to put it to the test, but I had every confidence it would work, unless we were attacked by an absolutely overwhelming force or one with artillery, an air force, or tanks.
“What would you do in Red’s place, Ben?” I asked. “He’s running out of food, people are fleeing, and he probably knows that we’re well prepared for an attack.”
Ben replied almost immediately, “I would attack Warren.”
I wrote a long missive to Mayor Petty, summarizing what we knew about Stockton, and a shorter letter to my mother, begging her to reconsider and move to the safety of one of our longhouses. I even offered to put her in the newest one, Longhouse Five, where she would rarely see either me or Darla if she preferred not to.
Belinda volunteered to deliver the letters. I wanted to do it, but everyone on the council objected. Only Dr. McCarthy objected to Belinda going, and he was overruled.
Belinda slipped into Warren overnight, putting both letters through the mail slot at Mayor Petty’s house. “It was easy,” she told me the next morning. “They’re sitting ducks.”
The weeks crawled by without any word from Ed. Neither Mayor Petty nor my mom responded to my notes either. To be fair, we had no routine way to communicate with Warren, but it was only about five miles from there to Speranta. Someone could have come.
More escapees joined us from Stockton. Never again nine at once—they came in dribs and drabs of twos, threes, and fours.
My unease grew with every passing day. The very air around me felt charged, electric. Nothing was stable: Ed’s missing expedition, Stockton’s starvation and descent into cannibalism, Mayor Petty’s denial about their vulnerability. I felt a little like I used to when I was sparring and my opponent launched a jump kick at me—he was committed and would have to come crashing down, and if I was in the way when it happened, I would get hurt.
Almost seven weeks after Ed’s expedition left, the kick finally landed.
Chapter 65
I woke from a deep sleep to the sound of Max shouting, “Everybody up! Full mobilization!”
I was the only one who was supposed to call for a full mobilization. I sprang out of bed in my underwear. I grabbed my pants and boots and ran for the phone without taking the time to put them on. Darla was already half-dressed.
Rebecca was on the phone, monitoring reports from the other longhouses and sniper nests. “Report,” I said as I stood in front of her, jamming my feet into my pants.
“Large force, two hundred plus, inbound about a mile and a half to the northwest. They’re headed right for us, right for Longhouse One. I already told everyone to mobilize.”
“Good.” I finished buttoning my pants—a neat trick when you have to do it one-handed—and then reached for the phone. “Longhouse One going to siege mode. Snipers stand ready. All other forces converge on Longhouse Three and await orders.”
I sat on a bench to pull on my boots. “Send a runner to the door when they’re at half a mile,” I told Rebecca.
“Got it,” she replied. Ben, over at the shortwave set, started scolding her for “incorrect military etiquette.” I ran to the front door and grabbed the bullhorn we kept hanging beside the door.
They were moving very slowly. I must have waited more than half an hour before Max ran up to tell me the range had closed to a half mile. I opened our heavy, wooden front door and stared out into the black night. A few dim lights moved to the northwest in odd, bobbing paths, like ailing will-o’-the-wisps.
I raised the bullhorn to my lips and shouted, “This is Mayor Halprin. Halt, or you will be fired upon!” For a moment, nothing changed. Then the lights stopped moving. I sent Max back to Rebecca at the phone to find out if our sniper overhead could give me a more detailed report. Then someone yelled back from the group ahead; all I could make out was, “One person . . . talk.”
“One unarmed person will be allowed to pass,” I yelled back through the bullhorn. Then I waited. A light detached from the group ahead, growing brighter as it approached. Whoever was carrying it was mov
ing fast, running. In less than two minutes, she was close enough that I could make out her face: Nylce Myers, who had accompanied Ed’s expedition to Worthington.
Chapter 66
I ran out to meet her, giving her a hug. But we didn’t have time to linger. “Who are those people?” I asked.
“Most of Warren,” she said. “Everyone who’s left, anyway.”
“Wait, where’s Ed?”
“He’s . . . I don’t know. The Reds got us. We were holed up in a farmhouse south of Warren last night. Only a day from home. They must have taken out our sentries. Suddenly they were among us, knives out. Ed surrendered—there was nothing else he could do. I slipped away to get help.
“I didn’t have my boots on. After a few hours hiking through the snow like that, my toes were turning black. I stopped in Warren for help—I was afraid I wouldn’t make it the last five miles here. I begged Petty to send a messenger to you, and he promised he would, first thing in the morning. But the force of Reds that caught us was on its way to Warren. They slipped in and took the city at knifepoint, almost without a shot. Everyone who could, ran.”
“Is Mom out there?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“She’s okay. I don’t know about Ed and the others, though. We found Eli. We had him and his family, his pigs, and a bunch of snowmobiles we captured from the Peckerwoods. The expedition was a huge success, but now—” Nylce’s voice choked off somewhere deep in her throat. I ushered her into the longhouse and called a platoon to accompany me outside to meet Mayor Petty.
He was enthroned on his wheelchair, Mom at his right hand, Sheriff Moyers on his left. I didn’t see how they had been moving him through the ice and snow—carrying the wheelchair like a palanquin, maybe?
“Mom,” I said as I got close.
“Son,” she said cautiously.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Wish you’d come earlier.”
“We don’t need to stay long,” Mayor Petty said. “Just need to rest up, get back on our feet, and we’ll go retake Warren.”
“Anyone who’s willing to work hard and live by our rules is welcome,” I said. “And you can head back to Warren whenever you’re ready.” Suddenly it struck me, though: the man in front of me was responsible for the massacre outside of Warren. The man next to him, Sheriff Moyers, had carried it out. Many—maybe a third—of our settlers had been on Stagecoach Trail that night. They had lost parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and children on that road. I detested Mayor Petty, disliked him personally as well as everything he stood for. But some of the victims would hate him, and who could blame them? I still couldn’t turn him away—he was, what, my stepfather now? If I sent him away, my mother would certainly follow him. And angry as I was with her, I still loved her. I needed her here in Speranta, safe. But how would I keep the other settlers from ripping Mayor Petty to shreds?
“That’s fair. It’s only for a few days, like I said,” Bob Petty replied.
I had no illusions about his men returning to Warren. Once they got used to living in heated buildings, flipping a switch for light, and sleeping in the safety of a well-thought-out defensive system, most of them wouldn’t want to return to Warren. Mayor Petty might, but I would wager nearly anything that he would be mighty lonely. “Come on, then. Let’s get you checked in.”
I raised my arms in a huge V at the closest sniper tower, signaling that everything was okay. If I had crossed them over my head instead, the shooting would have started.
Sheriff Moyers picked up Mayor Petty, slinging him awkwardly over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Petty had enough of his right leg left that Moyers could hold on to it. Mom folded up his wheelchair and hung it from her back by an attached loop of cord. That answered the question of how they were transporting him—and why they were moving so slowly.
I rushed ahead to the longhouse, calling Anna, Charlotte, Uncle Paul, and Rebecca into a hurried conference. “I need you guys to clear everyone out of Longhouse Five. Move them into One through Four. I want Petty’s people in Five and none of ours.”
“You think Petty’s group is dangerous?” Charlotte asked.
“No,” I replied, “I think our people are liable to kill them.”
Uncle Paul got it right away. “I’ll go over there now and explain it to them.”
“You go with him,” I said to Anna, who was still ably managing our food stores. “Make sure there’s no more than a day or two of food left in Five. It’s possible that they’ll disappear—I don’t want to lose any critical supplies if they do.”
Rebecca went back to monitoring the phone, and Charlotte prepared to do a preliminary census of the newcomers. When they finally got to the longhouse, Dr. McCarthy and I met them at the door.
Mom opened the wheelchair, and Sheriff Moyers set Mayor Petty down in it. When Petty looked up, his eyes caught Dr. McCarthy’s, and they glared at each other for a moment.
“Doctor,” Petty said frostily.
“Ex-Mayor,” McCarthy replied.
I broke the standoff. “Dr. McCarthy will see to your wounded,” I said. “The rest of you line up, please— Charlotte needs to ask you a few questions before we get you settled. Tomorrow, after you’ve had a chance to sleep, she’ll conduct a more thorough interview and give preliminary work assignments.”
“We’re going to be assigned jobs by a child?” Mayor Petty asked. Charlotte was fifteen, but to be fair to Mayor Petty, she looked quite a bit younger.
“Yes,” I said flatly. “If you have a problem with that, feel free to return to Warren. Now.”
“It’s fine, I’m sure,” Mayor Petty grumbled.
Then I got the biggest shock of that evening. My mother peeled off her coat. She was pregnant.
Chapter 67
“You’re, you’re, you’re—”
“Pregnant,” Mom said. “You’re going to have a little brother. Or sister.”
“Half—”
“Yes. Half brother. Or half sister.”
“I thought you were too old?”
“I’m only forty-one!”
“Oh.” What was happening? My mother had gotten remarried, decided to have children, and told me nothing of any of it. We had grown that far apart? To be fair, I had completely forgotten how old she was, but still. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Thank you,” Mom said. “I—I’m sorry we’ve struggled with each other lately.” She held her arms halfway up as if thinking about asking for a hug, but then she let them drop back to her sides.
“You don’t owe me an apology.” She did owe Darla an apology, but I didn’t see anything to be gained from starting up that argument.
Mom gave me a tired half shrug instead of answering.
“I’d better go help Charlotte.” I retreated to the kitchen area where Charlotte was interviewing newcomers and recording data for her census.
As the sun came up, our snipers reported seeing a huge column of smoke. I climbed Turbine Tower 1-A to get a look for myself. A hazy smudge was drifting across the sky toward us, from the northwest. I had no doubt what was causing it. Warren was ablaze.
It was almost noon by the time we got all the newcomers settled in Longhouse Five. I was dead on my feet. The only difference between me and a zombie at that point was that a zombie could easily have outthought and outrun me. But as long as Ed was out there in Red’s untender care, I couldn’t rest, wouldn’t rest well until we had rescued him or learned his fate. I called a council meeting.
Once everyone was seated around a table, I opened the meeting. “We’re going to attack Stockton and get Ed back.” Several people spoke up at once.
Darla: “You can’t—”
Uncle Paul: “No, we don’t—”
Ben: “There’s a high probability—”
“No!” I said, banging my fist on the table. “I wasn’t asking for an opinion. We are going to attack Stockton. Ed has put his life on the line for us over and over again. We’re not leaving him or our other people with
Red one minute longer than we have to. Now here’s the subject of this meeting. How do we attack Stockton without getting slaughtered?” “We use subterfuge,” Ben said. “Any kind of direct attack on a walled enemy with similar numbers but superior firepower would be doomed to failure.”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
Ben’s plan involved shoveling shit. Literally. A lot of it. I, along with three other people, pedaled a Bikezilla from greenhouse to greenhouse, raiding the compost piles for our latest . . . deposits.
In the compost piles, we separated layers of feces with organic material—mostly wheat straw, sawdust, and wood chips—which helped the decomposition process somehow and kept the smell down to tolerable levels. Now we were picking the filler out with our shovels as we worked. We needed the pure . . . shit . . . for Ben’s crazy project. Three other teams were doing the same thing in other greenhouses. Ben wanted a—there’s really no other word for it—shitload of human feces.
By the time the bed of our Bikezilla was fully . . . loaded, you could smell us coming from a mile away. We pedaled up to the workshop we had built for Uncle Paul and Darla not far from Longhouse One.
They were outside working on an old, enclosed U-Haul trailer that was tipped on its side. Its wheels were gone, and in their place were two snowboards. Darla had a welding helmet on; she was attaching a strut to the underside of the trailer. Sparks flew from her torch.
Uncle Paul came to meet us, wrinkling his nose as he approached. “Good timing—we’ll be ready to load it in a half hour or so.”
“Thirty-minute break,” I told the guys working with me. I rubbed my hand and hook in the snow, trying to clean up, even though I knew I would get dirty again shortly. The rest of the shit-loaded Bikezillas showed up while we waited.
When the trailer was finished, we tipped it upright so it rested on the snowboards and started filling it. Six inches of feces, then a sprinkle of warm water from one of the greenhouse heating tanks. Then another layer of feces, and so on. We had to keep the inside of the trailer wet and warm to get the effect we needed. Darla and Uncle Paul watched for a few minutes, making sure we were doing it right, and then headed inside the workshop, saying they were going to work on the fuse. I figured they were just trying to escape the stench, but whatever.