The Land of the Shadow (25 page)

Carly glared at him. “What would you have us do? Just shoot them all?”

“They’re dead already. They’re the walking dead. The person they were . . . that’s all gone. With no one to take care of them . . .” Jason scratched his head and looked around, as if hoping someone would jump in to lend support. “Well, Grady gave a damn good comparison when he said it was like dumping a dog alongside the road. They’re going to get in an accident or get sick or starve because they can’t feed themselves now the stores are empty and even the houses have been picked clean. At least with Marcus they have food and shelter.”

“You gotta be shitting me.” Carly gaped at him.

“In the grand scheme of things?” Jason jerked his head toward the window. “Have you been out there, Carly? I know you were right after the Crisis, but maybe you don’t understand what it’s like now. Anyone who comes upon these people is going to take whatever they have. We’re down to the wire now. Anyone who hasn’t settled in and set about the business of growing their own food is in trouble. And those who are growing food have to be prepared to defend it.”

“Do you see now why this group concerns me?” Justin asked the room at large. “Yes, I’m paranoid. It’s what kept me alive for all these years. And what my instincts are telling me is we need to batten down the fucking hatches and be prepared to defend what is ours, what we’ve worked for, what we’ve built here. Anyone who isn’t prepared to do that can leave, no hard feelings.”

“Justin, we have children here.” Reverend Davis put an arm around his wife’s shoulders, as though it would help protect her from the threat outside their walls.

“I have a plan for that,” Justin said. “Trust me when I say I’d be the first to go if I didn’t think my daughter was safe here, but I think—no, I
know—
this is the safest place for her. Out there, you’re sheep amidst the wolves. Here, we’re strong together. Here, we can defend each other.”

“Do you think it will come to that?” The Reverend’s voice was low, but it could be easily heard in the silence of the courtroom.

Justin thought for a moment. “I can’t say for sure, but it’s what my gut is telling me. These guys are predators. While we were traveling, I found two bridges that were out, and I don’t think it was just natural weathering that caused it. The only intact bridge leads unsuspecting travelers straight into Clayton, where this group is waiting for them. I think they’re funneling people into a trap, robbing them . . . and who knows what else.”

Pearl shoved away from the jury box and came over to stand by Justin and Carly. “I think what they do is travel from place to place, setting up a temporary base while they ravage the surrounding area. People are scattered for the most part, not in a fortified community like we are. Most people can’t fend off a group of this size. After they’ve raked up every resource they can, they move on.”

Pete took off his cap again to wipe his forehead. “Can we pay ’em off?”

Justin considered. “Possibly. I can’t say what will happen when they come. I don’t even know
when
they’ll come. But I do know they’re coming, sure as the sun will rise. And I know I want to be ready for anything. For that, I need you to be with me. If you don’t think you can stand beside us on that Wall, you can go now, with no hard feelings. But if you stay, you’re making a promise. A promise to defend what we’ve built here, to spill your blood if necessary.” He looked over at Carly and took her hand in his. “I think we’ve built something special here, something worth defending. Not just the means of survival, though these days, that’s a precious thing in and of itself. It’s all of us and the way we’re working together, like the pioneers of old.”

Justin stood. “I’m not going to ask you to raise your hands or sign a pledge. I’m simply going to ask you to stay. And if you do, know that’s your pledge, your word of honor. We can do this. We can hold this place, I know it. We have to stand together and work as a team.”

“As a unit,” Carly said. She touched the ring he wore, her father’s ring, which bore the symbol of their military unit, a symbol no one else would recognize because it had been secret, but a symbol which stood for everything he believed in.

“So, let’s get started on those Watch assignments . . .”

Chapter Ten

After the meeting, Carly, Justin and Kaden stopped on the courthouse lawn. Carly winced at the glare of sunlight, which intensified her headache. She used a hand to shade her eyes.

Justin stretched to release the tension in his neck muscles. “I was thinking we could move into the Sutton place. There’s already a chicken coop over there, and it’s not much farther from the barn than our house.”

Carly nodded. Justin knew of her reluctance to use any of the property of the people she’d known in Colby before they were stricken down by the Infection. Mrs. Sutton had been kind enough to come over and welcome Carly and Justin’s group to Colby when they first arrived, and brought along a basket of eggs and vegetables. Carly had been so touched at this anachronistic gesture of neighborliness, she nearly cried. But that was all in the past, and practicality had to overcome sentimentality.

“Let’s check it out before we go pick up Dagny,” Carly said, and Justin put an arm around her waist. Mrs. Sutton’s place was a small, one-story house. Carly had never been inside, although she knew Justin had searched it for useful things. Barring any major maintenance issues, she was sure she’d be able to adapt to the house, but they needed to know what sort of things the house might be missing.

“I’m going to go back to the barn and take care of the animals, and get all our new stuff loaded up in the wagon,” Kaden said. “I’ll meet you over there later.” He didn’t look at them while he said it, and he walked off without his usual quick hug or kiss on Carly’s cheek.

Carly opened her mouth to call after him, but Justin laid a hand on her arm.

“Let him process it,” he murmured. “We’ll talk to him tonight, okay?”

“He was . . . I haven’t seen him like that since he first came to live with us.” Carly chewed her lip as she watched Kaden’s retreating figure. “He has to be feeling unsettled, and I haven’t spent much time with him yet, because we had the meeting and—”

“Carly.” Justin’s voice was soft but firm. “Give him a bit to think it out on his own. He’ll come to us when he needs it, okay?”

She nodded, though she still wasn’t assured. Thinking of the fire brought back thoughts of all they’d lost. “I’m glad you moved all of the drugs to Stacy’s clinic so we didn’t lose them in the fire. Six rifles, twelve handguns, and I don’t know how much ammo—”

“Stop,” Justin said. “Carly, I don’t give a shit about the guns. We have all we need, and we can always get more.”

His confidence seemed odd, and she suspected it was false. He’d been squirreling away every weapon he came across since they left Juneau, trading food and other supplies for them with every person who came to Colby’s gates. And it wasn’t just his military training or his oft-repeated axiom of Lewis to have double the weapons he thought he’d need. He knew it would be a very long time—perhaps not in their lifetime—before guns were manufactured again. It was one of the reasons he encouraged the young men to learn to hunt with bow and arrow—weapons and ammunition that could be reused and crafted by a skilled and patient carver—and the slingshot. Kaden had one that braced on his forearm and was almost as powerful as a .22 caliber handgun.

Justin took the key from under the mat and unlocked the door. Hot, stale air billowed out. Carly stepped inside and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. Sam pushed past her and went to sniff every object with intent interest—he’d be busy with that for hours.

The house had been built within the last twenty years or so. It had an open floor plan, with the living room flowing into the dining room, separated from the kitchen by a tall counter with bar stools along the side. Mrs. Sutton had liked blue. While the carpet and walls were beige, everything else was blue: the sofa, the easy chairs, the lamps, and even the art on the walls.

Justin looked at the long painting over the sofa and grimaced. “I remember one of my foster mothers once saying that buying art to match your decor was the height of bad taste, and I think I see what she meant. What is that thing supposed to be, anyway?”

“A Picasso-style whale?” Carly tilted her head sideways to examine an object in the corner that appeared to be very feminine eye, surrounded by long eyelashes. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s probably supposed to be a commentary on economic neo-colonialism, or something,” Justin said with a grin. “You know how modern art is.”

“
Was,
” Carly said, her voice soft.

His smile faded. “Yeah.”

They walked into the short hallway beside the kitchen and found two bedrooms across the hall from one another.

“Have a preference?” Justin asked.

Carly shook her head. They were both about the same size. They’d have to put Dagny’s crib in—Carly remembered they didn’t have one anymore. Yet another irreplaceable loss—the crib Justin had built for Dagny before she was born. The pain of it was a physical ache that made her wince, and she was glad Justin was peering into the rooms instead of looking at her. She started to ask him if he would go to the furniture store to get a crib from one of the storage rooms when he opened the next door and pointed his flashlight into the gloom. “Here’s the basement.”

She went into the bedroom to the left as he clomped down the stairs. She opened the closet door. Full of clothes. She’d have to clean it out before she could feel comfortable in here.

“Hey, Carly, come here.”

Turning on her own flashlight, she made her way down the stairs. “What is it?”

“Look!”

“Oh, wow.” The basement was finished. There was a spacious family room area and, as she shone her light around, she saw a bedroom through an open door. “It’s so cool down here.” Almost like it was air conditioned. She could have wept with joy.

Justin grinned and gave her a hug. “Great, huh?”

“Amazing.”

Most of the houses in this area didn’t have basements because of the high water table, and those that did were usually damp. This one must have been well-sealed or at a high enough elevation to avoid problems.

Justin pecked her cheek, and they both went off exploring their new domain.

A king-size bed stood in the middle of the bedroom, flanked by lamps on matching night stands. There were no windows, which normally Carly wouldn’t have cared about, but in light of the fire, she was conscious of the need to have an escape route. She backed out of the bedroom and shined her light around the basement, opening every door until she found what she was hoping for. There were a set of wooden steps leading up to a pair of slanting metal doors that presumably led outside.

Carly went back into the bedroom and opened the one door she hadn’t checked, expecting to find the closet, and saw a large whirlpool tub and a big tile shower with a glass door. She sighed wistfully. She’d always wanted a big tub like that. Now she had one, but didn’t have hot water to fill it. She reminded herself with a wry smile to be more specific about her wishes in the future.

“Shower’s nice,” Justin said from behind her. “Once I get the water hooked up—”

She frowned at the toilet. “Water pressure in the shower will be great, but will we be able to use the toilet? Is the sewer line connected below?”

Justin frowned. “I would think so, or they’d have to have some sort of pump to make the water go up to the pipe. I’ll check it out.”

He led her back out to the family room area. A big screen television sat there, as useless as a glass hammer, as her dad used to say. The furniture that went with it was useless as well. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had the leisure to lounge on the sofa.

“There’s an exercise room right next to this one. If I clean out all of the equipment, it will make a great bedroom for Dagny.”

“What about Kaden?”

Justin shrugged. “He can camp out in the main room, but knowing how teenagers are about privacy, he’ll probably want one of the bedrooms upstairs.”

Carly gave a little shriek when an arm grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into the dark bedroom.

“We’d better test our room,” Justin murmured, his breath hot against her ear. “Just to make sure it suits us.”

It was a hard, fast test, because they didn’t know how long Kaden would be before he came to the house, but the results were very satisfying. Carly saw stars in the darkness as she came apart in Justin’s arms, and she was still dazed and wobbly while she pulled her clothes back into place.