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The Rovers and the townies were caught in a moment of indecision as to whether to fight me or each other. That was stupid. They should have fought me.
Ah well.
I didn’t bother with my gun. Too noisy and bullets are hard to find. I had a katana and forty-plus years of practical experience with it. So I laid in with a will.
The blade is so perfectly made. The layered steel hammered and honed to a thing of art by a master sword maker. It’s not a chopping weapon; it’s surgical, and in the hands of an expert it seems to melt its way through flesh and bone with long, sweeping movements. I am an expert.
So, long story short . . . they all died.
Rachael killed a few. Baskerville took some. I killed everyone else. The forest was ringing with whistles and war was coming, so there was no time for anything but the killing. There was no time for mercy or giving quarter or anything else.
Does that make me a monster?
No. It makes me alive.
— 40 —
THE SIEGE OF HAPPY VALLEY
It all nearly fell apart right there. Right then. The crowd seemed to come alive in the wrong way and surge toward each other like a raging surf and a fragile levee. People were going to die right in front of her, and then no one would be left to fight the Rovers.
Suddenly a shot rang out and everyone froze. Mr. Church had climbed up next to Dahlia and he held an automatic pistol in one gloved hand. The gunshot and the gun itself were nothing compared to the actual palpable presence of the old man. He owned the moment and every single person there knew it. Felt it.
“Dahlia was speaking,” he said into the uneasy silence. “She was telling you how you can all survive this. Be smart and listen.”
He lowered the pistol but did not put it away. It lifted Dahlia’s heart to have him there, but in the brief fight she had seen her Pack members move to break up the battle rather than descend into mindless violence. That lifted her even more. Even Slow Dog seemed to want to calm things down rather than bust heads.
“You people from town, you have to make a choice right now,” said Dahlia. “Either you fight with us, or you go into those pens where you kept your helpers.”
None of them spoke. She saw hard faces and resentment and anger. She wanted to see remorse. She wanted to see lightbulbs of understanding flash on, but this wasn’t one of those old Hallmark movies. This wasn’t a Disney ending.
She turned to Slow Dog. “Do it.”
Immediately the bigger members of the Pack began herding the townies toward the pens. The few members of the Pack who had guns—their own or those taken from the townies—had to use the threat of them for emphasis. No shots were fired, though. No one died. There were angry, ugly words, and some people still had to be pushed, but it got done. Mayor Van Sloane turned coldly and walked, with a show of great dignity, after them.
That left the helpers—a word she hated but had no immediate replacement for—and her own Pack. An army of two hundred. She immediately had everyone share out arms and count ammunition. Forty-nine guns but not enough ammunition for a war. Plenty of bows and arrows, though.
“Okay,” she said, “here’s what we’re going to do . . . ”
— 41 —
THE WARRIOR WOMAN, THE SOLDIER, AND THE DOG
When it was done I hurried over to Rachael, who was flushed and weeping. She stood by the guy who had been tied next to her, and as I approached I saw that she wept for more than what had happened to him. She wept for what she had to do. Her friend’s eyes were open, but they were empty of everything except that bottomless hunger. The other intended victim, the girl, was crying hysterically, banging her head against the pole to which she was bound.
“I’ll do it,” I said, reaching for the weapon Rachael had removed from the dead fingers of the woman she’d been fighting. But Rachael shook her head.
“Jason is my friend,” she said. Using “is,” not “was.” That hurt to hear. I waited until she’d quieted the young man before I cut her friend loose. The girl wrapped her arms around Rachael, clung to her.
I cut Jason down and laid him on the dirt. The two women knelt with me. The younger one, I learned, was Claudia. She bent forward and buried her face against Jason’s chest and wept with deep but silent tears.
Rachael grabbed my wrist. “Joe . . . how are you even here? I feel like I’m in a weird dream.”
“There’s no time for campfire tales, kiddo,” I said. “Those whistles are trouble coming.” I gave her the rundown on the Rovers and she told me about Happy Valley.
“Is it me,” she said, “or has a disproportionate number of total fucking assholes survived the apocalypse?”
“Sadly, it’s not you.” The whistles were constant, but they weren’t that close to where we were. That wasn’t all that much of a comfort.
