Crisis Event: Black Feast (14 page)

    Sadie sat in a chair six feet away from the fire bowl, and listened to the courthouse residents. An hour earlier she’d eaten the first full meal she’d had in weeks, and followed it up with three Ibuprofin tablets and a double shot of moonshine some innovative genius had made out of potato peels a month into the crisis.

The mood in the courthouse was light. All the cans Callie had carried away from the college had been opened and turned into what amounted to a feast for the thirty-one residents surviving at the heart of Shanksborough, Ohio.

While they’d eaten they’d listened to Sadie’s story, and had thanked her profusely for rescuing Callie from the cannibals—and for killing several of their enemies.

Sadie asked questions about the little community, and was told the professor and the woman in the cop uniform—May—had gotten together the day of the eruption and made plans to turn the courthouse and jail into a fortress.

“Professor Davidson was a history professor,” May told Sadie. “He convinced me we’d need to do something drastic. And since I was the chief of police, I was in a position to do it. Turned out he was right.”

“A bunch of townspeople tried to leave,” the professor said. “They packed up their cars and headed out. I expect they’re mostly all dead.”

Sadie nodded, and told them what she’d seen on the road between Boston and Shanksborough—the gridlocked freeways and farm-to-market roads, the dead bodies, the burned farmhouses and bombed out and shot up villages. She told them about skirting their fortress that morning.

“We heard you,” May said. “Thought you was one of them.”

“You might’ve got shot if you’d come down, even though you did wave,” Rich said. “The only reason we didn’t shoot you this afternoon was all the gunfire. I was watching through my scope. I knew you weren’t with them.”

“How’d y’all do this?” Sadie asked. “No one else I’ve seen did this.”

“Luck,” the professor said. “The right people in the right place at the right time, like so much of human history.”

“May appropriated these trailers and moved them in the day after the eruption,” Rich said. “You should’ve heard the townspeople howling about it. But May did it anyway. Told the townspeople to fire her next election. When everything went to shit a week later, the ones that griped the most were the ones who came begging for shelter.”

“What’d you do?”

“They let us in,” Rich said with a smile. “A lot of us are still here.”

“That was forgiving of them,” Sadie said.

“People are human capital,” the professor said. “They represent potential. Not food.”

Soon the discussion turned toward their enemies.

“We should attack them immediately,” May said. It was a claim nearly identical to the one she’d made after their meal was over. “We’ve got the numbers, and thanks to Sadie, they’ve got to be reeling and in shock.”

“We should wait until we know more,” the professor said. “All we know right now is they lost Big Jim and his mother, and whoever that was Rich shot off the bike. Sadie and Callie blew up six of their motorcycles, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have cars or trucks to send at us.”

“Or more bikes,” Rich said.

“That’s why we should hit them now…,” said a guy wearing a green John Deere cap. Sadie had met the man but didn’t remember his name. “Sadie and Callie both said they think those animals are holding more people prisoner. While we sit around eating, innocent people could be dying.”

“We could wait a week,” another man said. He was an old guy with a severe crew cut that screamed “ex-military.” “That’ll give us time to see what they throw at us. And once they’ve relaxed again, we could send in three or four of us to hit them again. See if we can’t take out more of their command and control ability. I could train some folks.”

The argument, which had never once gotten heated, went on and on, with most of the people living in the fortress at the center of town in attendance. Few of them spoke, but they were all listening, as if this was the best entertainment they’d had in weeks.

Sadie wondered about the food they’d eaten, and if these people were going to have enough to make it. Was the old meth-head cannibal right? Were they all going to succumb to savagery? Would they all eat the Black Feast eventually?

Sadie yawned and stretched, only slightly pained by the massive bruising that had developed across her back. She grew bored with the argument quickly. Her head was buzzing and she was ready to sleep. When the yawn was over and she dropped her hands to her sides someone took her by the elbow.

“Come on,” Callie whispered, and pulled her out of the chair.

“What?” Sadie whispered back.

“They’ll be at this for hours,” she said. “You should sleep.”

Sadie stood and grabbed her backpack and followed Callie. They moved quietly through the chairs and couches that had been arranged around the fire bowl. Cots and sleeping bags were lined the walls of the building, in the gaps between the padded bench seats that had once been part of the courthouse proceedings but were now for sleeping on.

Callie took Sadie to where a single mattress lay on the floor directly below the judge’s bench.

“This was where Jenna and I slept.”

“Oh,” Sadie said.

“We lost our sleeping bag to those bastards, but May loaned me a blanket and a pillow.”

“Who runs this place?” Sadie asked.

“Everyone, supposedly,” Callie said, “but really it’s the professor and May and Rich Landry, and a few others. They’re like a town council, and they decide everything by vote.”

“Sounds inefficient.”

“It is,” Callie said. “And frustrating. But most of these people have known each other their entire lives, so they trust each other.”

Callie pulled off her tennis shoes and unbuckled Sadie’s cop belt and took off the holster and shotgun and sat down on the mattress. She was wearing a clean set of clothes someone had given her, and Sadie’s MIT shirt and workout shorts had been washed and returned to her pack.

“Go ahead and ask me,” Callie said. “I’ve seen the way you’re looking at me when you don’t think I’m looking.”

Sadie winced. Then she sat down next to Callie and stared off at the fire bowl forty feet away.

“Why’d you kill her?” Sadie asked.

“She deserved it,” Callie said. “They all do.”

“Even Bryce’s kids.”

“They’re not kids,” Callie said, her voice rising. “They want to act like men, they can die like men.”

People around the fire turned to look at Callie. Earlier, May had taken Callie off and talked to her, and when they’d come back the cop had seemed so angry she wanted to kill someone on the spot. Maybe it was the reason she was arguing so vehemently for attacking the college.

Sadie knew Callie was oversimplifying things. People didn’t just choose to be evil. People were made evil by their circumstances.

Even if Bryce’s kids at had been born genetically predisposed to psychopathy, their experiences were what had made them monsters. But try explaining that to a rape victim whose girlfriend was murdered and eaten less than twenty-four hours ago.

When civilization goes away, so does nuance, complexity of thought, and progress.

Sadie was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “How come all these people stayed here? Why didn’t they try to evacuate, or go somewhere safer?”

“It’s their home. Where would they go?”

“I don’t know,” Sadie said. “East?”

“There’s nowhere safe,” Callie said. “Even with those assholes running around they’re safer here than they would be anywhere else.”

Sadie stared at Callie.

“You don’t know what’s happened, do you?”

“What’s happened to what?”

“To everything,” Callie said. “Where’ve you been?”

“Hiding,” Sadie said. “Hiking through the woods. Avoiding humans.”

“It’s a complete disaster,” Callie said. “The volcano destroyed the west, and something happened to Washington D.C. Then a bunch of nuclear plants blew up in North Carolina and Pennsylvania and the south part of New York. New York City is gone, There’s no government, and there’s no one coming to help us.”

Sadie stared at Callie in disbelief.

“The professor says the rest of the nuclear plants will eventually go up too, when the people running them finally give up and leave. That’s why Jenna and me were going to West Virginia. There aren’t any nuclear plants where my grandparents live. We just have to avoid any that have already blown up.”
    “That’s why he had the Geiger counter,” Sadie said, remembering the long-haired man’s pack.

“Who?” Callie asked, but Sadie didn’t respond.

That was only yesterday.

Sadie sat still and tried to breathe. She’d known things were bad, and had suspected there’d been some nuclear problems, but she’d never thought it would be this bad. Her head felt like it was about to float away from her body, and the sound of the discussion around the fire faded out so that all she could hear was the blood rushing through her ears.

“What will you do now?” Sadie asked, digging in her pack and pulling out stray 9mm bullets. She ejected her clip and reloaded it, then slammed it home and tucked it back into her parka pocket.

“I’m going to West Virginia,” Callie said. “My grandparents are old. They’re gonna need help. But first I’m going to Steubenville.”

Sadie tried to remember the maps she’d studied during her journey from Boston.

“That’s northeast of here, not south.”

“This guy who came through here a month ago said they’ve done better than most people. They’ve got guns for sale. And food. Seeds. We’re going to need them on my grandparent’s farm.”

Sadie felt her chest fill with dread.

“How’re you going to pay for stuff?”

Callie grinned.

“Not like you’re thinking,” she said. Then she looked around the courthouse to make sure no one was watching them. “I stole more than food from that bitch.”

Callie slipped a hand into the pocket of the pants she was now wearing. She pulled out a Ziploc baggie and held it close to her body. Inside the bag were hundreds of chunks of a crystalline substance.

“Is that—?” Sadie whispered.

Callie grinned again and stuffed the baggie into her pocket.

“It is,” she said. “And if I can get it to Steubenville I can trade it for everything I’ll need. You should come with me. It’s only fifteen miles. We could do that on your bike in a day. You could protect me. Maybe you’ll decide you want to come with me to my grandparents’ farm.”

“I can’t,” Sadie said. “I’ve got to get to Texas. My parents...my mom…”

Sadie felt like she was going to cry.

Callie slid beneath the blanket.

“You should lie down,” Callie said. “You can sleep here with me. I won’t try nothing.”

Without a word, Sadie took off her parka and boots. Then dug inside her backpack and pulled out the Geiger counter and some spare batteries. She held it out to Callie.

“Take this,” Sadie said. “It’ll tell you if there’s radiation. And keep that shotgun. You’ll have to find more shells, but it’ll kill anyone you’re close enough to shoot it at.”

Callie sat up again and hugged Sadie.

“Thanks,” she said. “You really should come with me.”

“I can’t,” Sadie said, remembering her own grandfather, and his land. She felt guilty that she hadn’t thought much about her parents, who might or might not still be alive in Texas. But before she allowed herself to get too far off into the horrible country called “Regret Land,” Sadie lay down on the mattress next to Callie, and smiled when Callie threw the blanket over the two of them.

“You won’t try nothing?” Sadie whispered. “I’m not your type, huh?”

Almost instantly she regretted it.

Callie had just lost her girlfriend to cannibals and been forced to see her butchered body. “Sorry. I didn’t think about Jenna.”

“It’s okay,” Callie whispered. “I guess I’m still in shock or something. I don’t feel much of anything. Except a desire to kill every last one of those bastards.”

Sadie was quiet for awhile, and they lay listening to the discussion around the fire. She was beginning to think Callie had fallen asleep when she whispered: “You’re my type. You’re a lot like Jenna. I’m just not
your
type. Besides. I’m not into hooking up and hauling ass.”

Sadie laughed softly. Then she snuggled backward until she was tucked against Callie, who responded by throwing her arm over Sadie and hugging her.

“When are you leaving?” Sadie asked.

“Soon as I wake up,” she said. “While the assholes are still asleep.”

“Wake me up before you go,” Sadie said.

“Okay,” Callie whispered, and Sadie felt Callie’s arm tighten against her, the kind of hug you give a lover. “Thanks for everything.”

Sadie was trying to think of something clever to say, some self-deprecating and witty response. But as soon as her head had touched the pillow, and she’d snuggled in close to Callie, she had lost most of her ability to think.

She closed her eyes, listening to the murmur of voices coming from around the fire.