Fermata: The Spring: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series (The Fermata Series: Four Post-Apocalyptic Novellas Book 2) (5 page)

"It leaks, you see," Hettie supplied helpfully, obviously following Vick's silent train of thought.

"I remember," Vick said, "there's a crack and they were planning to close off that area and rebuild the wall."

"The engineers moved in piles and piles of sand," Hettie said, "and were working on sandbagging the position. Watch what the creatures do."

Since there was also a telescope at that window, and a stool, Vick sat down and put her eye against the viewer. She could clearly see that the dead had begun to methodically fill sandbags. As the pile of finished bags grew, others in the promenade carried them and stacked them against the seawall. Vick took note of the fact that the bags at the base were stained with moisture.

"How long have they been doing this?" Vick asked.

"Only about six months," Hettie answered. "They work for about two hours each day and then go on about their business. I suspect they are given leave from work to attend to the task because those government engineers seem to have abandoned their post. It does make one wonder why we pay our taxes, doesn't it?"

Vick straightened and grinned. "Well, you know what they say, Hettie. The only two things in this world that are certain are death and taxes."

For a second Hettie looked confused, and then comprehension crossed her features and she laughed with a melodic twitter that made her eyes dance. "Oh my. You made a joke. And a rather clever one. Death and taxes. How amusing. Have I asked your name?"

"It's Vick."

"That is not a proper name for a young lady," she said reprovingly, but she was still smiling.

"Victoria."

"Well, Victoria, I've thought about it, and I quite like you. I've packed the things I need the most and we can leave now. You and your friend can return for my sundries at your convenience."

"I like you, too, Hettie," Vick said. "And I need you to do something for me."

"What's that, dear?"

"Lift the three book limit on checkouts."

Hettie laughed again. "Since everyone has abandoned their responsibilities but me, I am quite prepared to assume the task of rewriting our lending policies, Victoria. Please take whatever you feel your library requires. Would the book carts in the utility area be helpful?"

Chapter Five

“How long are you going to stay mad at me?” Vick asked as she sat down beside Lucy.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Lucy grumbled, taking a long drink of her beer.

“Are you going to let me tell you what happened?”

“I don’t have anything else to do,” Lucy said, staring fixedly ahead of her.

Vick started talking. She told Lucy everything, from dead Sam in the park, to finding Hettie in the library, to the “promenade” that morning. By that time, Lucy had shifted to watch Vick as she talked, a look of both consternation and incredulity on her face.

“You trying to tell me that a 9 millimeter slug popped out of this dead guy’s head and the hole healed up?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“And you think he wrote his own name in that notebook?”

“Yes.”

“And before you shot him, you looked in his eyes and somebody was home?”

“Yes.”

Lucy let out a long, low whistle and leaned back against the iron railing that flanked the back steps. “What the hell?”

“Hettie says they’ve become increasingly coherent in their movements.”

“You want to translate that out of Crazy Librarian and into
 
English?”

Vick smothered a laugh. “She told me the dead used to wander around and walk into things, but that now most of them use the sidewalk and seem to have some place to go.”

“And so they all just walked together down to the seawall first thing and started filling sandbags?”

“We watched them through the telescope. It’s a spot in the seawall that’s cracked. I read about it in the paper before this all happened. It caught my attention because I was interested in global warming and rising sea levels,” Vick explained. “The Corps of Engineers was planning to section off that part of the city due to the danger of flooding while they repaired the damage. They never got the chance.”

“And the dead are actually filling up the bags and stacking them?” Lucy asked.

“Hettie says they work for about two hours every morning and then break up and go their separate ways. But they’re always back the next morning, walking down the street. I swear to you, Lucy, they looked like some kind of undead marching band.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes and then Lucy spoke, her voice thick with emotion. “I thought you were dead.”

“Lucy, I . . . “

“I’m not finished,” she said sharply. “I thought you were the kind of dead I’d have to hunt down and make deader. Have you ever once thought what it would take for me to put a bullet between
your
eyes, Vick?”

Vick grew quiet, and then said softly, “I just always hoped if I ever became one of them that you would.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” Lucy said. “And you know I would, just like you would for me. I asked you if you ever thought about what it would do to me?”

Vick fumbled for words. “Lucy, I . . . it was never my intent. . . I didn’t . . .”

“Why don’t you just shut up for once, huh, Vick?” Lucy said, once again staring out in the yard. “I never asked about what kind of life you had before the shit hit the fan, and you never asked about mine. You didn’t ask about my mom who had a real close personal relationship with Johnny Walker, or my dad who wanted to do things to me that no dad should do. He didn’t, because my grandma stopped him. But until I left the house for good when I was 14, I never slept one night through. You didn’t ask about how hard I worked not to get hooked on any of the drugs people like me take mainly because they can’t stand being nothing in the world. You never asked about Bruce, who was pretty much all I had in the goddamn world. He had shit for brains, but he never hit me and he never screwed around on me.”

Vick sat silently beside Lucy and felt her cheeks grow warm.

“It never hurt my feelings, Vick, because from that first day you treated me like a friend. It didn’t take a genius to see you were better than me . . .”

“I do not ever want to hear you say that again,” Vick said in a low, level tone.

“See?” Lucy said, turning to Vick. “You see what you did right there? You always treated me with respect. Until last night. You knew I didn’t want you to go into the city alone, and the last thing you said to me was that you weren’t going to get yourself killed. Then you didn’t come home. I’ve never spent a longer night in my life. Other than Grandma, you’re the only person in this world I have ever really cared about. So what happened last night is what I don’t want to happen again. Now that you’ve told me everything, I understand why you stayed, but we have to work out some better way to communicate. You matter to me Vick. I’m not living through another night like last night anytime soon. I’m real goddamn sorry if you don’t like somebody giving a rat’s ass if you live or die, but I do. Deal. And learn to back down on some things. I have feelings, too.”

Several minutes passed before Vick finally said, “You’re right. I was wrong. And I apologize.”

“Jesus, Vick,” Lucy said, blowing out a long, frustrated breath, “I don’t want an apology. I need you to see that you aren’t in this alone anymore and you haven’t been for a long time. I really need you to stop acting like the Lone Ranger, because I sure as hell am not Tonto.”

“Not even if I get you a headband and a feather?” Vick ventured, teasing with her voice and saying something far more with eyes that unflinchingly met Lucy’s own.

“Kiss my ass, Kemosabe,” Lucy said, but she was grinning. “Now would you just drink a beer with me so we can call this thing done?”

Vick accepted the bottle Lucy offered to her and twisted off the top. They clinked the longnecks and Vick took a long, slow pull.

“You drank that like you needed it,” Lucy said.

“I did,” Vick said, “because we have problems.”

“Really, Vick?” Lucy said. “I hadn’t picked up on that.”

Hettie insisted on taking over the study as her own, and it was pointless to argue. Vick suspected the old lady felt more comfortable surrounded by books than by people. During Hettie’s first week at the house in Maine, Vick often got up at night to check on her and found the woman hard at work arranging the books and cataloging the volumes, including everything Vick had brought home from the library.

As she worked, Hettie talked. At first Vick thought she was talking to herself, until one night she heard Hettie say, “I miss you, Arthur.”

Vick leaned quietly against the door frame and listened. “I’m not sure I’m quite right anymore, dear. Everyone at the library deserted their post, but you know me, I couldn’t leave my books.”

Hettie hummed an aimless little tune and Vick heard her moving around inside. “I wish I knew what happened to you, Arthur,” she said, sounding uncertain. “I did come home, but you left the front door open, and you dropped the groceries on the walk. The milk was ruined, Arthur. That’s a very expensive waste. I just don’t think we make enough money to let good milk spoil so carelessly.”

Vick dropped her chin and closed her eyes, swallowing against the knot that rose in her throat as she listened to the woman talk.

“I want you to know I waited for you for two weeks, Arthur,” Hettie said. “And then I felt it was imperative I return to work. I left you a note, dear, but if you tried to contact me, the switchboard didn’t ring you through.”

A small sob echoed in the night. “I think this is a nice new position for me, Arthur. Victoria and Lucille are quite lovely, and Beth reminds me of our little Kathy, God rest her soul. I hope you can hear me, Arthur, because I will be working here now if you come looking for me. This is an unusually long business trip for you, dear. I won’t talk any more now, but do call when you get this message.”

And that’s when Vick heard the phone being replaced in the cradle; the phone that hadn’t worked in three years. “Oh, Hettie,” she whispered sorrowfully.

“Who is there, please?” Hettie called out in her crisp professional voice.

Vick rearranged her face and said, “It’s Victoria, Hettie. I was going to have some tea and cookies. Would you like some?”

“That would be lovely. If you will, bring them in here, please. We need to discuss your conception of organization, Victoria. Honestly . . . .”

When Vick returned with the tea, she found Hettie sitting at her desk . . . well, Hettie’s desk now. The woman was using an old-fashioned dip pen and she was writing something in a flowing hand. Vick put the cup down beside Hettie and watched as she wrote . . .
 

“One cannot reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.”

“What is that, Hettie?” Vick asked.

“It’s a quotation of Lao Tzu, dear,” the woman said, humming, dipping her pen into the ink again and beginning to sketch with it. Vick watched as the house in which they were sitting emerged in light, damp strokes, complete with a rendering of the makeshift moat. “They don’t like it, you know.”

Vick pulled up a chair and sat down. “What don’t they like, Hettie?”

“Water. It’s why you have that silly ditch, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Vick said. “That’s right. The dead won’t cross it.”

“It’s because they can’t see themselves when it runs, and if they can’t see themselves they might get lost when they pass through the gateway.”

“The gateway?”

Hettie looked up and recited, “'Long, long ago, even before the reign of King Arthur, the land was blessed with enchantment and great fertility. Throughout the realm, maidens stood guard over the sacred wells, offering their healing waters with golden cups to any journeyers who might pass. Indeed, some say that these were the very waters of inspiration, offering transport between the worlds.”

“I’m sorry, Hettie,” Vick said frowning, “I don’t recognize that quote.”

“It’s from a book about King Arthur, dear. The story is called ‘The Rape of the Well Maidens.’ But the bad men can never get the cup. The cup will only appear before a knight who is pure of heart.”

“The cup, Hettie?”

The old woman finished her drawing and gently wiped her pen nib with a piece of chamois cloth. “What else would hold water, dear? Now. Our discussion. I assume you learned your alphabet in school, Victoria, but that is not how one organizes books in a library . . .”

Hettie continued her lecture as she got up and moved to the first bookshelf. Vick reached over and rotated the big leather book to get a better view of what the woman had drawn. She saw her own face and Lucy’s on one side of the townhouse, and Hettie and Beth on the other. In a neat, deft hand under herself and the child, Hettie had written, “Lazarus, come out!”

Vick leaned back in her chair. Lazarus. The man Jesus raised from the dead?

A terrible suspicion began to creep into Vick’s mind, so terrible she reached for the small gun she kept in a holster at the small of her back even when they were securely inside the house. “Hettie?” she said, making the woman’s name a question.