“Sir, I ain’t going to need to know how things work when I’m dead from a shambler’s bite. Would you please look at this sickle?” I hold it up higher so that he can see what a disgrace his “weapons” are.
Quick as a snake, the sheriff’s boot lashes out, hitting me in the shoulder. I stumble backward, and something hits me in the back of the head. I drop the sickles, and as I fall to my knees someone kicks me again in the back, the boot digging deep between my ribs.
“Hold there, now Bill. She’s still gotta work.”
I climb shakily to my feet, rage coursing through my veins. The pain is a distant throb to my desire to do a little sickle work across Bill’s face.
Ida runs to my side. “Don’t worry, Sheriff, it won’t happen again. We’ll school her up right.”
The sheriff says nothing, just nods and spits, missing me by only a few inches. What is with these men and all their spitting?
Ida grabs my arms and whispers into my ear, “That right there is suicide. The sheriff is a whole lot of mean and not a lot of smart. You might as well poke a rattlesnake. Your death’d be easier.”
I say nothing, steeling my expression to blankness. I just pick up my sickles and storm over to where the rest of the girls gather.
I’m getting out of here. But before I do, I’m going to get a little payback of my own.
I trust you aren’t getting into too much mischief, Jane. You were always such an impetuous child, and I genuinely hope you aren’t letting your temper get the better of you.
Chapter 23In Which I Taunt the Devil
The attack leaves me in a black mood for the rest of the day. I talk to no one, only opening my mouth to answer questions when asked. My job is to walk the top of the exterior wall.
I’d thought the walls around Baltimore had been a sight, but Summerland’s wall puts it to shame. It stands at least the height of three men and looks to be made of stacked mud bricks. There are bits of grass mixed in with the mud bricks to hold it together, and the wall is at least half as wide as it is tall. I ask one of the girls standing next to me, “How did they build such a thing?”
She glances at Bob and Bill before answering in a low voice. “You know the story of the Pharaoh and the Israelites?”
The holy book is not my favorite tome, but I know it well enough. I nod and she continues, “Let’s just say this wall was built like the pyramids: most of the builders didn’t live to tell about it, and ain’t no Moses come to liberate them.”
After that we are split into teams and assigned sections to patrol.
On the way out here, we had picked our way through an inner, double-strung bobbed wire fence and the interior fence, which boasts five lines of wire. It’s a crime that a place with such excellent defenses would have such terrible weaponry available to the patrols.
Behind me Bill’s smug satisfaction radiates off him in waves, and the spot on my back that met his boot aches. More than once I imagine sinking my rusty sickles into his skull.
But I don’t. Instead, I shove my anger down, burying it deep, letting it temper my soul. Auntie Aggie always said the hard times make us stronger. If things continue like this, I will be nigh on invincible by the time I take my leave of Summerland.
I am teamed up for patrol with the dark-skinned boy that winked at me earlier in the day. His name is Alfonse, and he seems to be a nice enough fellow, if maybe a little too chatty. After twenty minutes of him relating to me his life story, I finally tell him, “I ain’t interested in anything you have to say unless it’s how to get out of here.” He clams up after that, shooting me a few black looks when he thinks I ain’t looking.
The wall we walk gets more disgusting the more of it I see. On the far side, in the space between us and the rest of the world, are some dead. Actual shamblers, walking around, moaning for a bite to eat, all grouped up like they’re going to share a secret. There ain’t a lot of them, but there’s enough. The wall is too high for them to climb, but it’s got some footholds in it so a person could climb down if needed, and I’m about to do so and end them when Alfonse says, “We ain’t supposed to kill them, just make sure they don’t try to climb the wall.”
“What’s the point of that?” I asked, the sound of their wailing making me feel more than a bit stabby.
Alfonse shrugged. “The sheriff has this idea that killing one just attracts more of them. If you do it, you’ll get in trouble, and the sheriff is quick with the whip.” The sickly sweet stink of rotting corpses hangs heavy in the air, and every time the wind shifts, I gag.
Me and Alfonse are walking our stretch of wall for what must be the tenth time when I hear the most god-awful, bloodcurdling scream.
A little ways down the wall behind us, a girl has slipped into the no-man’s-land of the prairie. Another girl is climbing down the wall, to save the girl who fell, it appears.
And a knot of shamblers is already running toward the both of them, hell-bent on dinner.
I turn to run to their assistance, but Alfonse grabs my arm. “We ain’t supposed to leave our posts.”
“Alfonse, you any good at math?” He shakes his head, and I sigh. “Well, I am. Two people with glorified butter knives ain’t going to be able to take on that many shamblers, especially when a few of them look to be new turns.” It
