The Devil's Alphabet

Above them the gray sky took on indigo hues. Color seeped into the air, painted the grass with faint greens and yellows, rusted the leaves at the edge of the clearing.

Jo looked at him, then looked back at the bushes behind her. He followed her gaze but didn’t see anything. He stood, stared up the slope into the trees. They were still a half hour’s hike from the top of Mount Clyburn.

“I don’t know what you want me to see,” he said to her. He moved behind the bench, still peering into the woods, and his foot came down on something round and hard.

He reached down into the long grass and picked up a metal flashlight streaked with mud. Jo’s flashlight, he decided. He clicked the button, and the light snapped on. After months in the woods, the batteries were still good.

She looked up at him over her shoulder, her gaze steady. She’d come here that night, he realized. She’d left the house after the girls were in bed, then made her way up to this place, following the flashlight. She’d sat on this bench, waiting.

And this is where she died.

He clicked off the light and came around to the front of the bench and kneeled in front of her, instantly wetting his knees.

“Who was here, Jo? Who did you meet? Was it the reverend?”

She gazed down at him with oil-black eyes. Then she smiled-a very un-beta smile that summoned the girl she’d been-and then rapped her knuckles against his forehead: tock, tock. Figure it out, knucklehead.

He stood up, looked back the way they’d come, then at the path that led down to the farm, the Co-op. This clearing was the halfway point. He started down the slope, then realized that Jo wasn’t following.

He looked back. She sat on the bench, her eyes on him. She was going no farther.

He lifted a hand. He knew that she wasn’t really there, but he was nevertheless reluctant to leave her behind. Yet again.

She nodded toward the woods behind him. Finally he turned and started down.

Chapter 21

“MAYOR?” ESTHER SAID. “A couple of them stormtroopers to see you.” The charlie woman looked nervous. Until a few days ago she’d been just the elementary school’s cook, and then Rhonda had promoted her to administrative assistant to the mayor. Mostly that meant answering the phones.

“Just a second, Esther,” Rhonda said. She loaded another ream of paper into the photocopier and slammed the door. Full circle, she thought. Here it was the crack o’ dawn and she was working the copy machine like she’d never stopped being church secretary. Harlan never used to write his sermons until the last minute-couldn’t even tell her the scripture he’d be using until Saturday night-so she used to have to come in early on Sundays to type up the programs and run them off.

Rhonda had commandeered the elementary school for her quarantine headquarters because it had the most phones, computers, and photocopiers-and because nobody was using it. School had been canceled because almost all the teachers lived outside of Switchcreek. She’d have to do something about that, eventually. Idle children equaled insane parents.

Rhonda picked up one of the finished copies and turned to Doctor Fraelich, who was tapping at a computer. “You’re sure Dr. Preisswerk got this to the newspaper?” Rhonda asked.

“Eric met with them yesterday-it’s definitely going out this morning.” The doctor looked haggard from lack of sleep. Well, join the club, Rhonda thought.

“Let ’em in,” Rhonda said to Esther. The woman moved aside and two National Guard soldiers in breathing masks stepped into the room. Rhonda thought she recognized the lead one as an assistant to Colonel Duveen, but she wasn’t sure.

Rhonda said, “You know, it would really help us if y’all wore name tags.”

“Likewise,” the assistant said.

“Young man,” Rhonda said sharply. “Do not mess with me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at the other soldier. “Colonel Duveen would like to see you-as soon as possible.”

“I bet he would,” Rhonda said. She took a few more copies of the document and tucked them into her bag. “Esther, keep running those. Make sure you hand one to whoever wants one, and make sure everyone has one of the blue sheets.” She nodded to the light blue, half-size instruction sheets stacked on the table next to Dr. Fraelich. Rhonda took an inch off the top of one stack and put those in her bag too.

“Good luck,” the doctor said.

Rhonda followed the Guardsmen outside. It was not yet full light, and the cold breeze teased at her fortress of hair. Everett stood beside the Cadillac, waiting. “I’ll take my own car,” she told the soldiers.

Evidently this was permissible. The soldiers got into the Humvee and Everett held open the Caddy’s passenger door for her.

“Did you get any sleep?” Rhonda asked him. He’d been on duty nonstop since the quarantine began, and last night she’d sent him out to the car to take a nap.

“You’re the one who should be resting, Aunt Rhonda,” the boy said. “You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends.”

“I’ll rest a little easier after today,” she said.

Everett followed the Humvee the three blocks to the Cherokee Hotel, which the Guard had commandeered as their headquarters. He hopped out to open her door. “You want me inside?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just keep the phone on in case the newspeople call.”

The soldiers were holding the door for her. Oh so polite. Rhonda walked up the front steps, patted the shiny, much-rubbed cheek of the wooden Indian by the door, and went inside.

The renovation project had been proceeding on and off for three years, whenever Rhonda had extra money to pour into it. When it was done it would be the world’s first hotel that could accommodate all three clades-and skips in wheelchairs to boot. The new ceilings were high enough for argos, the doors broad enough for charlies. For the betas she’d specified that the women’s restrooms outnumbered the men’s four-to-one. Before Babahoyo, people thought it was a waste of money-everyone who could use the new features were already residents in Switchcreek. But she’d always intended it as a model for the outside world to follow, and if not that then a political statement. And now that there’d been a second outbreak Rhonda looked like a visionary. Someday Ecuadorian clades would visit.

Colonel Duveen had made his office in the banquet room. The walls had been stripped to the studs, but the wiring was all in place and bare bulbs lit the big room. His desk was at one end of the room, ten yards from the desk of any assistant. Duct-taped cables snaked across the bare wooden floor.

The colonel didn’t look up from his papers until she was almost on top of him. Typical power gesture-she’d used it herself. She said, “It’s awful early for a meeting, don’t you think?”

He smiled and removed his glasses. “I appreciate you making time for me,” he said. In defiance of his own regulations, he wore no breather mask. His voice was soft, and his boyish haircut and earnest eyes gave him the look of a Mormon missionary. She’d found it hard to believe he’d served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan- until she started working with him. He permitted no bullshit. She respected his competence and liked him because he didn’t underestimate her.

“Rumor has it,” he said, “you have something planned for this morning.”

“Oh, Colonel, I would have told you sooner, but it’s all been decided in such a rush.” She opened her bag and gave him one of the blue instruction sheets. “The march starts at eight-thirty a.m. Or oh-eight-thirty for you military types.”

He frowned at the sheet. “You want to walk all the way down to the north gate?”

“We’re putting in two little crosses there,” Rhonda said. “It’s a tradition around here-when someone dies in an accident, they put up a little white cross to mark the spot.”

“Those are for car accidents, aren’t they?”