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Prologue
Rev
There is a purposeand intelligence at work in this new world. Some might call it God or Fate, but I think of it as the Working.
I suppose you could say it’s a force for good, though you wouldn’t know it from the prophets it chooses. Murderers. Thieves. Liars. Men who have lived their lives on the wrong side of the law. No one’s ever accused me of being good, but here I am. A conduit of the Working’s plan. The Reverend.
It shows me things. Sometimes in dreams. Sometimes in waking glimpses. At first, the images and feelings I get don’t make sense, but when I trust the Working, it blesses me with understanding. I share that understanding with my brothers so we know what the next step is. Always only the next step. It’s not for us to know the Working’s end game. Only to do its bidding and trust its wisdom.
When I was wasting away in the pen in Tulsa, surrounded by rotting bodies, It showed me seven prison cells making a circle in an abandoned camp surrounded by mountains. Instinctively, I knewIwas one of the cells. And that to fulfill the vision, I needed to find a way out of the pen and head north. I guessed I would find six other guys like me there, convicts who somehow survived the end of the world.
The Working paved the way for me. It showed me how to escape. It showed me where to meet up with Jud and Doc. It predicted we would cross paths with Scrap along the way. When we made it to Eagle Peak, the Working let me know we had arrived. This was to be our new home, our headquarters. The others came along, and the seven cells were all accounted for.
Only then did the Working show me our heart. Cracked and bleeding, it throbbed weakly in the center of the circle of cells. With each disembodied beat, it drew us closer. Closer. And closer still.
We came from different directions: Shep from the garden, Scrap from the garage, Grim from his camper, Brawn from the lot, Doc from the treehouse, me from the common room, and Jud from the caretaker’s cabin. Each of us ached to fix the heart, but by drawing near it, we all became aware of oozing cracks of our own. We were all bleeding, and we hadn’t even known it.
As each of us reached through our bars and touched the heart, our cracks healed. Our bars vanished. We became whole. Whole individuals. And whole as a group.
I knew our heart would come to us, but I didn’t know when. I didn’t know what form it would take. I had a feeling it would be a woman. The way we cupped our hands around the healing heart and bent to shelter it spoke of loving.
The hope of finding a woman had been almost too wonderful to trust. But the Working hadn’t failed us yet. So, I shared all this with my brothers. And we waited. And waited. And waited some more.
It’s been two years, and the waiting is over. Our heart has come.
And she is more beautiful, delicate, and broken than I could have imagined.
I eagerly await my turn with her. I will take from her, but I will give in return. Just like in the vision. And, just like in the vision, I know I’ll have to be patient. I’ll have to be mindful of Cora’s wounds. And of my own.
There’s just one downside to getting familiar with Cora. Once I have her, once she belongs to me and the others, and once we belong to her, the Working will reveal the next step in Its plan.
See, right before that last vision faded, right after our bars disappeared and we began to feel whole, a sickly, green gas boiled up around the edges of Eagle Peak.
Something is coming. Something none of us will like. All I can do is trust that we’ll survive it.
Otherwise, what the hell is the fucking point?
Chapter 1
Cora
The leader of the settlementat Eagle Peak just gave me the best gift of my life. The head of my abuser on a pike. The gory present is nothing I would have wanted before the Virus wiped out nearly the entire human race. But after suffering for two years at Leon’s mercy, I’ve changed.
Forget new smartphones, clothes, and gift cards to use on iTunes. In this new world, I value protection. I value survival. I value justice. Jud is proving that he can provide those things for me, so I’m learning to value him, even though he is a moody, broody, bossy jerk most of the time.
Jud is one of seven survivors, all men, all convicted felons who somehow managed to escape their prisons and make their way here, to this rocky mountain north of Yellowstone. I stumbled across Eagle Peak three days ago, on the run from Leon, and have met three of the men who live here, including Jud, their leader, who ended my misery by ending Leon’s life.
Currently, I’m sitting on Jud’s lap as he steers the four-wheeler through the forest. He’s just shown me Leon’s severed head. Yesterday, Jud turned it into a boundary marker for what he considers his property. Apparently, similar grisly markers dot the woodsy landscape around Eagle Peak, donated by other men who crossed Jud’s path and were found to lack basic decency. How were they found to lack basic decency? Easy. Jud has a Gift that allows him to see into men’s hearts. If he sees nothing but selfishness or violence or darkness with no light to balance it, he ends them. Or he has Grim, his enforcer, do it for him. Grim’s touch is deadly. That’s his Gift, though the gentle Ukrainian thinks of it more as a curse. Because not even Doc, who has the Gift of healing, can fix what Grim’s Gift does to any living thing he touches.
The four-wheeler bumps and bounces along the trail back to the lodge, where I will meet the other men who live here. They’ve been gone on a scavenge, what they call a trip to gather supplies and fuel.
My stomach is a jumble of nerves. I’ve just gotten used to Grim, Doc, and Jud. Now there are four more strangers for me to get to know. And when I say, “get to know,” I mean it in a Biblical sense. At least, that’s what Jud expects. Practically as soon as I showed up in his territory, he decreed that I am never to sleep alone. Every night, I am to choose a different man to bunk with. That is the price of Jud’s protection.
Like most things the Judge says, he didn’t sugar coat his ruling. He made it clear that he expects me to getveryfamiliar with each of his men. As much as I bristled at this order at first, I’m coming to understand the reasons behind it. For one thing, this new world is dangerous. Sleeping alone means I’m unprotected. The last thing I want is to get swiped up by another Leon while all alone in the night. For another thing, none of the men here have seen a woman in two years. For all any of us know, I could be the only female survivor. That means the human race could die with the eight of us here on this mountain. Unless I get over my trauma and let one of these guys put a baby in me. Finally, last night proved that Jud has a sweet side behind all his bluster. He understands what I’ve been through, and he promises that none of the men here are going to do anything to me I don’t welcome.
After seeing what he did to Leon, I’m beginning to believe him. Deep down, he’s a good guy. Deep down, he cares.
So, yeah. Jud doesn’t sugar coat things, but he’s the one the others all look to. He’s the leader, the Judge. I’m trying to accept that it’s in my best interest to listen to him. It’s in the best interest of the others that I listen, too. If I defy Jud, the others might defy him, too. I don’t want to be the reason this settlement falls apart.
