The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (13 page)

She asked him about the men who chased them.
And he finally explained that he’d been around a long time, and it
could have had something to do with old debts. Though he promised
her that he had done nothing wrong or illegal.

“I was just avoiding trouble, Dawn,” he said.
“Sometimes that’s the best you can do.”

While that explanation didn’t reassure her
much, she was still upset about the situation with Carmen, so she
let it stand. Before her curiosity got the best of them, Mr. Jay
sidestepped more questions by telling her he wanted to make an
early start the next day. She should get to bed early and he’d go
too after he’d given a couple of his books a quick glance.

Dawn dozed off but woke back up to find her
friend still reading in dim candlelight.

“Go to sleep.” Mr. Jay turned his green eyes
to her. From their faraway look, Dawn could tell that he had been
deep in thought.

“What do you think happened to her?” She
pushed herself up on one little elbow. Her nose still twitched at
the chemical they had used to remove her beard.

Mr. Jay sighed, turned all the way around on
his makeshift chair. He set his hands on his knees and leaned
forward. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “We’ve talked about that
before.”

Dawn nodded. “But I was just thinking about
it.”

“Well, you’ll have a lot of nights like
that.” He smiled warmly. “At least until you know more or get used
to not knowing.”

“You think that will happen, Mr. Jay?” she
asked.

He chuckled, “I doubt it.”

“And
you
don’t know…” She struggled
with conflicting urges. Dawn had moments of obsession on the topic
but she was sure that Mr. Jay was tired of it. Momentarily, she
pondered returning to sleep.

“No I don’t.” Mr. Jay leaned back with one
elbow on his table. “But I remember the stories about the riot. It
was a bad one by all accounts.” His head drooped forward; his brown
beard dusted his chest. “What I heard was that there was a big
group of living people in a town called Severance. Now that’s a
long way north and west of here as you know, and when I heard the
story I happened to be traveling north of it.

“But I heard a group of living people were
trying to get rid of all the dead people in the town. They asked
them nicely at first, but the dead people had no place to go, and
they had a right to stay in Severance, since most had lived there
when they were alive. But the story goes that the living people
believed the walking dead caused Change. That really wasn’t fair
since they rose
after
it. It was just a matter of time
before something bad happened.”

Dawn’s mother had brought her to Severance.
The town was just a main street that you could see to both ends of
with no buildings taller than three stories. It used to be a bigger
place her mother said, but pointed to burned ruins as the cause of
its shrinking. The forever child could still feel the thrill as her
mother led her by the hand over the street’s cracked asphalt. It
was so different from Nurserywood—she corrected herself—it wasn’t
called Nurserywood in those days. People were just starting to come
there to hide and had built a little village around old
campgrounds. And they didn’t even have a giant yet.

She had heard about towns and cities in
stories, but seeing one and hearing about them were two different
things. She couldn’t remember anything before Nurserywood. Her mom
told her sometimes the first years of a child’s life were like
that. Nurserywood was like Severance since it had people and
buildings—though in the forest, there were old cabins and rough
shelters of woven branches, cloth and plastic. And there were no
paved roads only paths. So her first sight of the town was
surprising. In those early days, forever children were still
numerous enough that they were still accepted as children. They
hadn’t started to really scare anyone at that point and everyone
was more worried about the dead.

Dawn saw her first walking dead man in
Severance. It terrified her—and her mother too. Part of the reason
they had traveled to Nurserywood was to stay clear of the Change
and the dangers it brought. They weren’t in Severance five minutes
before a dead man stepped right out of the rain.

They were taking shelter from a downpour by
the eaves of an old building. People still got out of the rain back
then, because they thought it might stop. But the building had
boards where its windows should be. Her mother said that was not
the way things were when she had visited a year before on a trading
mission. They were snuggling under her mother’s long woolen cloak
when the dead man appeared.

He hurried in with his collar pulled around
his ears. One of his eyes was missing—just a hole of twisted flesh
instead, and there was a great piece of skin hanging down from one
cheek that exposed the teeth on that side. His clothes were like
rags. He stood there looking terrible and awkward before staggering
into the rain again and he was gone.

“So,” Mr. Jay continued, “the living people
decided one day to chase the dead people away. And they did. They
formed a big group, with the sheriff and the police helping, and
they ordered every dead person out of town. The dead people didn’t
know what to think; they were surprised by the action. Never
imagined their neighbors could do this. So they left, and the
living people celebrated.” Her friend chuckled sadly. “But that was
a mistake. The dead people went harmlessly enough. It all looked
fine and the people of Severance tried to return to their lives
like nothing had happened. But the dead gathered just outside of
town. They were angry—outraged being thrown out of their homes. And
they decided to fight for what was theirs.” He rubbed his knees.
“You see the living made a mistake. It turned out that they had the
most to lose in a fight.”

Dawn’s mother managed to get a job cooking
for a restaurant on the main street—she had coaxed the owner with
the spices and recipes she brought from the fields near
Nurserywood. For about two weeks Dawn helped at the restaurant. She
could not remember the name of the place but remembered the owner
was a black man who smoked too much. Dawn was happy at that time,
if she did feel a little exposed and over-pinched. All the women in
Severance loved her dark curls and her big brown eyes. They
squeezed and pinched her every day.

But she could remember the man who owned the
restaurant chasing dead people away, even if they just wanted a
glass of water, and he pushed them from the sidewalk out front. She
remembered him taking a big gun and going with the others to send
the dead people away.

“One night, the dead decided that the time
had come,” Mr. Jay said in hushed tones. “They had lived their
lives in Severance, and they were not about to lose it in death.”
The magician’s features flickered in the eerie candlelight. “So
they marched into town. The living suspected such a thing might
happen, and had kept a watch. So the dead people met a blockade of
living people at the edge of town.” Genuine sadness softened his
features.

“One story said a living man threw the first
punch, and the other said the dead started it. But it didn’t matter
it was going to happen anyway.” Mr. Jay pulled at his beard.
“You’ve got to remember, this was fifteen years after the Change
and these people were terrified—all of them. And things just
exploded!”

Dawn could remember the night. She was
napping in the little room the restaurant owner had lent them—her
mother was still finishing up the last of the dishes. But Dawn came
out of a dream into a nightmare. There were explosions and
screams—the light that usually burned yellow outside their little
room was gone. In its place was a blue-white flickering—like broken
wires or lightning. More screaming followed, and the loud bang,
bang, bang of guns. Then her mother screamed. Dawn ran out of the
little room and into the strange blue-white light, her eyes blurry
with sleep. She ran along the hallway that led to the kitchen.
There was another scream and then a big crash of glass.

She hurried into the dining area and dove for
cover behind the counter. There was a great dark group of people
filling up the whole building. The air was musty and smelled of
smoke. She didn’t recognize the people. Dawn remembered most that
they were monsters in the eerie light—faces white and round-eyed
and their hands were more like claws than fingers. There were loud
sounds: snapping and cracking, struggling grunting, glass breaking
and crunching under foot, and screaming and screaming.

When she finally gathered her courage to look
up again—the restaurant was empty. Both of the big windows were
broken; chairs were thrown around and tables upset. She had a stark
memory of a man’s leg lying under a table looking strange, it sock
and shoe twitching. There was nothing else. “Mommy?” was all she
could say.

“And so the story goes that the whole town
burned that night.” Mr. Jay grew more somber with the telling. His
eyes were sad. “And when authorities finally got there to help,
there was no one left. There were a few dead people limping and
crawling, too badly damaged to go wherever the others went or tell
what happened—but I never heard more than what I’ve told you. No
one else was ever found.”

“But, so.” Dawn’s eyes felt heavy with the
memory. “What do you think happened?”

“Nobody knows, Dawn.” Mr. Jay moved over,
knelt beside her and rested a hand on her forehead. “Nothing
good.”

The forever girl couldn’t remember much more.
She could remember a terrible feeling, little more and she could
conjure up images of blood and destruction—and loneliness for days
and days. And she remembered trying to find Nurserywood and hiding
and eating garbage and sneaking into old buildings to get cans of
food. She didn’t know how long she wandered. But wherever her
spirit had gone for that time, she remembered it first coming back
when she heard Mr. Jay singing by a campfire.

18 – Morning After

Sister Karen Cawood woke with the smell of
liquor and cigarettes hot and suffocating around her face. Her
stomach lurched and she gasped, gulping for air. Above her,
flickering fluorescent light burned through her eyelids. She pushed
at the sheets with numb hands, wrestled them off her body. Kicking,
she rolled over. A man grumbled. Pressed to her right side was a
thick muscled back, skin as black as soot. She squirmed, turned the
other way: another man. This one was white, completely covered with
tattoos. An orange moustache drooped away from his lips.

He smiled blearily and growled, “Hey
baby!”

She pushed away dizzy, vomit rising in her
throat. Head lifted, waves of sickness buffeted her. Naked, she
wobbled to her knees. The tattooed man pulled at her
forearm—snarling and nauseous she slapped at him. He laughed.

The black man rolled over, his face gray.
“Chill out, baby.” A long fingered hand reached out to steady her.
“It’s late. You’re at my place…”

“Don’t touch me!” She pulled away, pressing
her hands to her face; their sour smell turned her stomach.

“It’s just
me
,” said the black man. He
turned his harsh gaze at the other man. “What the fuck you do to
her, Sam?”

“Nothing man! I crashed just like you and now
she’s going all—
fuck
!” The tattooed man pushed himself up on
his elbows. “She’s just coming down man, freaking out.” He
scratched at his pierced genitals, and Cawood slapped a hand over
her mouth, barely catching the vomit.

We drive you from us, unclean spirits all
satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions,
assemblies and sects
.

“Oh, fuck baby!” The black man frowned. She
knew his name, but couldn’t find it. “Shit, man she sicked up in
the bed!”

“Not my fault.” The tattooed man lit a
cigarette. “Anyways, she wasn’t sick earlier.”

“Sorry…” Cawood muttered from behind her
slimy hands, and then tumbled off the bed. Her breasts and belly
slapped the cold tiles. A beer bottle rolled noisily away.

“You’re right man!” the black man said and
laughed, distracted from his own hangover. Cawood crawled away.
“Maybe she eat too much.”

“Yeah, sister ate lots!” Sam chuckled. “Fuck,
that’s a sweet ass!”

Cawood vomited harshly, noisily.

“She drank too much,” Sam murmured. “Drank
me
dry anyway.” They both laughed. “Fuck man, what time is
it?”

Half blind, her vision and mind jumping, she
pushed at a pile of clothing on the floor looking for her own.

“Fucking late…not even morning,” the black
man groaned, watching Cawood. “Don’t make a mess, baby.
Fuck
!”

Cawood’s chest was constricted by dry heaves
and darkness. Emotional sickness welled up from her consciousness.
She wiped at a string of spittle. There was another. Where was the
other man? Her mind replayed a sick image—the other man on top of
her—and a man below, the black man—Dave. The other, the white man
with sandy hair—her abdomen ached. Her whole body ached. Where was
the other?

“Just remember shooting that fucking shit was
your idea, Princess,” Dave snarled and pointed. “
Your
idea.”

Cawood found her miniskirt and jacket—the
material was cold and damp to the touch but it covered her. She
barely heard the words. “What did you give me? The drug…RUFI’S?”
There were fingernail scratches on her stomach. “What did you say?
Shooting what? Drugs?”

“Oh shit,” Dave said, and Sam started
laughing. “I knew that was going to happen. But we got you on film
saying it was your idea…don’t get all holy roller on us now,
sister.”

A tremor of panic started below the level of
her pain and worked upward, rising slowly at first then increasing
in speed as realization sunk in. “
Filmed
it?” The throbbing
pain in her brain disappeared with the thought. “Filmed what?”