Ashes (24 page)

The bodies of the three kids still lay where they'd fallen—where she'd killed them—in the parking lot of the convenience store. Which begged another interesting question: why weren't the Changed lunch for run-of-the-mill scavengers? Scavengers had clearly visited. Ned was still dead, but headless now, and something else had wandered away with Ned's left hand. But the Changed hadn't been touched.

And someone else had been there.

The back door of the convenience store had been forced from the outside. In the office, there was only a pile of car mats and the reek of bourbon and infection—and nothing more.

Tom was gone.

The pop of distant gunfire jolted Alex from yet another fitful night's sleep. She registered the slash of morning sun in an already too-bright and very cold room, the soft bed, and the comforting, oh-so-normal aromas of sausage and eggs and fried potatoes and … yes …
coffee
. Yet what she felt was not hunger or gratitude but a horrible sinking sensation, like when you go to sleep hoping the world will change only to wake up and find that it hasn't. Yes, she was safe and warm and fed and clean for the first time since leaving the ranger station, but Tom was gone and she had failed.

More shots. Not many. After three days—almost Thanksgiving now—she was getting used to the gunfire, which was sometimes more, sometimes less.

She pulled the pillow over her head to blot out the noise and light. She had nothing to be thankful for. She had failed. Tom would never have failed her. She should never have left him. God, this was so unfair. First her parents, then the monster and her life and school and friends, then Aunt Hannah, then Ellie and Mina, and now
Tom …

She had to get out of here; she had to find Tom, and then Ellie, too. Gather supplies; she could get a pack, a map, a gun. But then what?

There was a quick rap on the door, more a formality than anything else. The knob turned and Jess poked her head into the room. “I thought I heard you moving around,” she said. “Time for you to come downstairs. Matt's here to take you to meet the Reverend.”

“Why?” Three days, and her body still felt like one big bruise; her back ached, her throat was raw, and her hands were a quilt of healing cuts and scrapes. “It's not like it changes anything.”

“Now, none of that self-pity, girl.” Jess had the look of a spinster librarian: dry and efficient, with steel-gray hair pinned in a bun. All she needed was a pencil behind one ear and cat's-eye glasses on a keep chain. “Corinthians says,
God is faithful, and with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It means stop feeling sorry for yourself. God is testing you.”

“How do you figure that?” Alex said, feeling very sorry for herself.

“How do you think?” Jess counted off on her fingers. “Let me see. You survive the attack. You don't change. You rescue a child. You nearly get eaten by wild dogs. You nearly get eaten by the Changed. And you're almost lynched. Oh, and the dogs like you. Did I miss something?”

Yeah, I failed the one person who would've died rather than hurt me.

“I don't see how those are tests. They just happened.”

“Then you are very blind, and it's high time you woke up. You're not the only one with problems. Every single person here in Rule has lost someone they cared about, and some of us more than one. I watched my girls drop dead in front of my eyes, but I thank God my grandson was spared. Our lives are a ruin, but you don't see us all dragging around with long faces, feeling sorry for ourselves. Everyone works, and that includes you, young lady. Now get your little butt out of bed before I drag it out.”

“You're not my mother,” Alex said, and then thought,
Oh boy, did that sound like Ellie or what?

“And thank our Lord for that,” Jess retorted. “I am not a bully, Alex, but neither you nor I, nor anyone else here, has time for a pity party. There's a puppy downstairs going crazy because he wants to see you and there is work to be done.”

“I don't have to listen to you.”

“Under my roof, you do.” When Alex didn't reply, Jess lowered herself to the bed with a sigh. “Look. I don't enjoy this. I'd much rather we just get along.”

Alex thought that was probably true, but Jess was hard to read. As straightforward as she appeared to be, her scent was … well, what Alex imagined
white
smelled like
.
Not mist; nothing shadowy like Chris. Jess's scent was a blank. “You can start by leaving me alone,” Alex said.

“I can't do that. I know this sounds trite, but if Tom meant this much to you, then he wouldn't want to see you like this. He sounds like he was a very fine, very brave young man, and he saw something in you worth saving—not once but several times over. You can try telling yourself that it was a reflex, that he would've done it for anyone, that he didn't have a choice, but remember one thing: in the end, dear, he chose you over his friend. He chose
you
.” Jess brushed a hank of hair from Alex's forehead. “Scripture says,
By faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
”

“What does that mean?” she asked miserably.

“It means you must honor Tom's sacrifice. You must honor
him
. He would want you to live.”

“Living feels like a punishment.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Everyone I care about is gone.”

“As long as you're alive, there is hope,” Jess said. “Hope is saying that I will live one more day, and that is a blessing, too.”

“Where's that from?”

“The Book of Jess,” she said. “Now get up. Don't make Tom's suffering all for nothing.”

In the kitchen, Jess was puttering over a skillet as Alex's house-mates—a plump, cheery sixteen-year-old named Tori, and Lena, an arrogant-looking brunette Alex's age—washed and dried. A much older man, weather-beaten and craggy as a cowboy, slouched at a white, farm-style kitchen table. Chewing, he looked up from a mug of coffee and half-eaten muffin, then swallowed and said, “Well, good morning, sunshine. How'd you sleep?”

“Fine, thank you, Doc,” Alex said. Kincaid had told her the very first day that it was either Matt or Doc, and Alex just couldn't wrap her head around being on a first-name basis with a guy pushing seventy-five. After her icy room, the kitchen—warmed by an old-fashioned cast-iron stove and filled with the intoxicating aromas of cinnamon, nutmeg, and apples—was a relief. Alex's mouth watered, and her stomach growled.

The kitchen's side door opened, and Ghost crowded in. Spying Alex, the puppy let out a happy yawp, scampered over, and, in general, made a fuss. Grinning, Alex bent to give the squirming puppy a tummy rub. “How you doing, big boy?”

“More like
fat
boy,” said a third girl, who'd come in with the dog. Sarah was tiny, with very dark eyes and bones as delicate as a porcelain doll. Dragging off a rose-pink knit cap, she shook out a tumble of blonde ringlets. “He practically rolls down the steps.”

Lena said to Alex, “Yeah, now that you're done sulking,
you
can go out in the cold for a change.”

“I don't mind walking him.” Kneeling, Sarah scratched Ghost's stomach, then giggled as the puppy dissolved into helpless squiggles. Her face turned wistful. “My brother had a dog—this really cute little cocker spaniel—only he got hit by a car.”

“Well, since there are no cars, you won't have to worry about that anymore,” Lena said.

“I'd love your help, Sarah,” Alex said, ignoring Lena's eye-roll.

“Alex, I made up a plate for you.” Tori turned from the sink, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her cheeks were dotted with color and her hair had frizzed from the steam. “Why don't you sit down and I'll—”

“You know, she's not a cripple.” Lena dropped a dried plate onto a stack with a clatter. “Stop being such a suck-up.”

Alex pushed to her feet. “It's okay, Tori. I can get it.”

Tori's eyebrows crinkled and her mouth formed a tiny, hurt O. “I'm
not
sucking up,” she said to Lena.

Lena snorted. “Yeah, right. Just because Chris keeps hanging around doesn't mean that Peter—”

“Lena,” Jess warned.

“What? I'm just
saying
. I don't get why you're all treating
her
like she's any different from
us
.”

“Well,” Sarah began timidly, “I
did
hear that the dogs—”

“The dogs, the dogs, the dogs.” Lena did another wildly exaggerated eye-roll. “They don't know everything. What if the animals change? Has anyone thought about that? It's not like the animals didn't go apeshit that first day.”

“Thank you for that stunningly precise scientific observation, Lena,” Jess said, expertly flipping an egg. “When you get your degree in veterinary medicine, I'll be sure to ask your opinion. Now, the last time I looked, those dishes weren't drying themselves.”

Lena gave a mug a half-hearted swipe. “When does
she
start? You would never let us get away with this shit.”

“Oh, my ears,” said Kincaid.

“Lena Christina Stoltz.” Jess hacked off two thick slices of brown bread. “I will not tolerate abusiveness in my house. One more trashy word out of that sewer mouth and I will speak to the Reverend.”

“You're bluffing.” Lena threw her towel aside. “You won't do it, and the Council won't turn me out, because you need us; we're just so
Spared,
we're so
valuable
.”

“Lena, they just want to protect us,” said Tori.

“Protect us? We're prisoners. They won't let us leave.”

“But it's for our own good.”

“Just because the adults say that doesn't make it true.” Lena glared at Jess. “You can keep me here a million years, but you'll
never
make me agree with you.”

“I don't care if you agree,” Jess said, calmly pouring coffee into a silver thermos. “But let's be clear. When you are Chosen—”

“I'll kill myself first.”

“When you are Chosen, you may do what you wish under your own roof. But so long as you remain here, you will follow the rules, or I
will
ask the Reverend to reconsider. I don't think you want to test me on that.” Jess capped the thermos. “Is that understood?”

The kitchen had gone very quiet. Even Ghost was still. Tori looked on the verge of tears, and Sarah was milky-white. Alex's eyes kept sliding from Lena's pale face to the floor, but her mind whirled.

Chosen? What's that? And Lena tried to leave, but they wouldn't
let
her? Wait just a minute….

“Yes, ma'am.” Lena's voice was small, but Alex could smell the hot, peppery sting of her fury.

“Excellent.” Jess tucked the thermos under one arm and picked up the wrapped sandwich. “Now, if you'll excuse me, that poor guard's waited long enough in the cold for his breakfast.” The door closed behind her with a decisive snick.

No one moved for a moment, and then Sarah crossed to Lena and touched her arm. “It'll be okay,” she said. “I miss my mom, too.”

Lena shook her off. “I don't miss that bitch,” she hissed, and rushed from the room. In another moment, Alex heard her storm up the stairs.

Kincaid broke the silence. “Tori, I would dearly love another muffin, if you wouldn't mind.”

Kincaid had brought a gentle, swaybacked pinto named Honey for her, but Alex balked. “I've never ridden a horse,” she said, ignoring the guard who lounged against the front gate, looking amused. His dog, a fawn-colored pit, capered up to Alex for a pat. “Why can't we walk?”

“Because it's faster to ride,” Kincaid said. “Believe me, if you end up assigned to one of the farms, you'll be happy to have a horse.”

“Yeah,” the guard drawled. He sucked back steaming coffee. “Otherwise, you'll be getting up before you go to sleep.”

“Come on, Alex,” said Kincaid. “And leave off with that dog.”

“Yeah, yeah, I'm coming,” said Alex, but she was grinning. Sensing that Alex's attention was wandering, the dog had rolled onto its back and was plaintively pedaling air. Alex stooped to scratch the dog's ruff as the pit bull groaned. “It's not my fault.”

“Looks like we got ourselves our own little dog whisperer,” the guard said, shaking his head. “Lucy doesn't like anybody, but seeing is believing, I guess. Lucy, come on now, heel!”

With an almost human sigh, the pit rolled to its feet and gave Alex a reproachful look:
Do something
. Then, head hanging, the dog walked slowly back to the guard and settled onto its haunches with an audible harrumph.

It took her a few tries before she could boost herself onto the saddle, and some more time for Kincaid to fuss with the stirrups and go over what the reins were for, how to sit, what to do. Then they headed for town, the pit woofing encouragement.

“That's good. You're getting the hang of it,” Kincaid said. He was astride a lean, leopard-spotted Appaloosa. “Couple of days and you'll be cantering with the best of them.”

“Mmm.” She was thinking,
Yeah, maybe canter right on out of here.
Unfortunately, Honey seemed happy to take all of life at a walk. Even so, the animal's easy motion was pleasant. Every dog they passed—and they went by quite a few—let out a friendly bark and tugged at its leash, tail frantically whisking back and forth.

Kincaid eyed her. “Dogs always this friendly?”

“Not with me.”

“Uh-huh.” Kincaid watched a guard wrestle a chocolate lab to a sit. “Well, you keep this up, you'll never be lonely.”

Jess's house was a little west of the village center, perhaps less than half a mile away. As they rode, Kincaid gave her a rough idea of Rule's layout. The village itself had always been a small, virtually closed community, a stopover between the now-defunct mine and other towns that catered to the men who worked there. After the attack, however, Rule had expanded to protect nearby assets, principally forest, outlying farms, and livestock. All the major roads were barricaded at one-mile intervals beginning five miles from town and guarded twenty-four hours a day. More foot patrols, with their dogs, roamed the woods. The only road into the village was northeast. Anyone not allowed to stay was escorted to the southwest corner thirty miles north of the mine.

“You got pretty much free rein in town, though you always got to have an escort if you want to go anywhere outside the village center,” Kincaid said. “Tempers still run a bit high when it comes to the Spared. We don't want anything happening to you.”

The way he and everyone else said
Spared
and
Changed
made her very uncomfortable. That
Chosen
thing, too—what was that about? The whole scene felt way too religious, what with this reverend in charge and his Council of Five. Maybe these people all belonged to some kind of cult, like Jonestown or Waco or something. Look at Jess, spouting Bible quotes. They seemed pretty organized, too, like they had a set of rules in place from way before. “Is that why I need to meet this reverend and the Council? So they can figure out what to do with me?”

“Sort of. The Rev's pretty hands-on, and the Council runs things and decides who goes where and does what on the basis of need.”

“Did you elect them or something?”

Kincaid shook his head. “The Five Families have been running Rule since the village got started. The Reverend's family—the Yeagers—are the most important. They're the richest, the first of the Five Families to settle Rule going on over a hundred and fifty years now. Owned the mine, built the village, started the church. The Rev and his brother took over the mine after their father died. Mine pretty much tapped out twenty years ago, but you got men here worked that mine their whole lives. That kind of loyalty and sense of family carries through in times like these. The Yeagers took care of people before, and people figure they will now.”

“So everyone listens to Pastor Yeager?”

“Reverend. Yeah. Let's just say he's the final arbiter.”

“What if everyone else on the Council disagrees with him?”

“Never happened yet.”

Everyone always agreed, always came around to one guy's way of thinking? That didn't sound good. They couldn't
always
see eye to eye, could they? “But what if I want to leave? Ellie's out there, and Tom—”

“Well, as I get it, you have no idea where they are. That right?”

“No, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be looking for them.”

“You got some bright ideas where you should start?”

She bit back a snarky retort. “No.”

“Then, until you do, might be best if you find a way to fit in here.”

“But Rule's not my home,” she said. Lena's words ghosted through her mind, and she was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. “You're not my family.”

“Well, let's see what we can do about that,” he said.

The village center wasn't much. A large white church and rectory stood on the northwest corner. To the west was a sprawling, two-story village hall with high, arched windows and a clock tower made of old-fashioned brownstone. Due south, the square was lined by an ancient five-and-ten, a bakery next door to a small grocery called Murphy's, Martha's Diner—breakfast 24/7—and, at the end of the block, a combination Christian bookstore/ coffeehouse: Higher Grounds. Directly across the square from the coffeehouse was a shuttered bar, which from the looks of the vintage ads for Blatz and Ballantine beer festooning the brick face, hadn't done business since the dinosaurs. Guards patrolled the sidewalk in front of the grocery, five-and-ten, and coffeehouse. Martha's was also open, judging from the lacy scent of brewing coffee, maple syrup, and pancakes. Men in camo gear hunched over tables ranged along a steamy front window. Spying Alex, their dogs scrambled to their feet.

Definitely getting worse
. She saw more dogs butting their noses against the diner's plate glass, and she smelled how much rounder and more fecund their scents grew when they spotted her.
Mina wasn't nearly this bad, and it's only been, what, a week? Ten days?

She felt eyes on her and turned to see Kincaid studying her. She didn't know him, but she didn't sense anything bad rolling off him either. He smelled like a comfortable leather coat, something her dad might have worn, edged with a hint of something lightly floral. Powder? She said, “Do you know why they're doing that? I've heard that the dogs don't like people who are going to … you know. But me …”

“But you, they love.” Kincaid's shoulders moved in a small shrug. “Dunno yet. Let me think on it.”

The church's front door opened, and a gaggle of children spilled out. They were all young—none were older than ten or eleven—and they tumbled over one another, racing for a playground just off the rectory. Seeing the children, listening to their shrieks and laughter, hearing the joyous barking of the dogs—all this brought an unexpected crush of grief to her chest, and she had to look away.

Belatedly, she realized that she'd pulled back on the reins and now Honey stood, her breath smoking, patiently waiting for Alex to make up her mind. Kincaid had also pulled up and was watching her. When their eyes met, Kincaid said, “Still gets to me.”

“It seems so normal,” she said.

“That's because it is. We try to make things as normal as we can.”

Yeah, right, normal little things like gunfire and guards.
She'd heard no other shots since awakening, but she wondered who they were shooting—and where. And why.

“We don't want them to grow up dumb either,” Kincaid said. “School's one thing they all have in common. Gives them a routine. We got a guy used to be principal over at Merton Elementary. You'll meet him when you start class tomorrow.”

“I'm going to school?”

“Oh yeah. Just because it's the end of the world doesn't mean you get to cut.”

“That is so not fair.”

“Cheer up. We got some good teachers that have come out of retirement. Kind of ironic, you think about it. We do our time and get put out to pasture and now we're the ones left picking up the pieces.”

Put out to pasture?
She opened her mouth, but then turned at the rapid clop of horse hooves. A hay wagon bounced down a snaky cut that jagged through the woods. This time, Peter was driving; Jet was perched on the driver's seat alongside Peter, and Chris trotted behind on a muscular blood bay. Instead of hay, the wagon was crammed with people—all blindfolded. More refugees who might be just valuable enough to keep, she figured. When Jet caught her scent, the black shepherd barked a greeting, and Chris turned, spied them, and lifted a hand before continuing on. She watched as the wagon rolled to a halt in front of the village hall.

“What goes on in there?” she asked.

“That, young lady,” said Kincaid, “is what you are about to find out.”