Jocelyn couldn’t tell him the entire truth, and while the sheriff talked, she contemplated how much she wanted to say. But his tale was so horrifying that she had little time to do that. Now he was finished, and she still was unsure what parts of the truth to reveal.
Her hesitation must have prompted him to say, “I promise I’ll believe what you have to say, no matter how outrageous it may sound.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. I can’t tell him of my illness or of killing those four people. I just can’t. I don’t know how to be open and honest about my illness. I have never been.
“From July twenty-sixth until August twenty-sixth, I stayed alone in a cabin in the mountains with no electricity or indoor plumbing.”
“Why would you do that?”
“You said you’d believe me, right?”
The sheriff nodded. “No matter how outrageous.”
In the diffuse light, Jocelyn eyed some cans of fruit on a shelf behind the sheriff. “I’m in training to be a shaman. This was my last task before being initiated as one.”
The sheriff grunted, though it didn’t seem a rejection of what she said, more of a “hmm” kind of grunt. “You mean you heal using plants and herbs. I’ve heard of this.”
“It’s much more than that, though that is part of it. Are you aware of the Wiccan religion?”
He grunted and raised an eyebrow. “You’re a witch, then?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m Catholic, but I practice magic like Wiccans do. And the Catholic priests do, too. That’s what the rituals and incense are all about. They don’t inform the laity of this aspect, but I know because the use of magic has been passed down to me through the generations.”
“So, this isn’t new to you. You were raised with it.”
She nodded. “By my grandfather, my mother’s father, yes. My mother knows nothing about the magic side of Catholicism though, and my father left before my grandfather approached me with it.”
“Does it work? Well, I’m sure you believe it does, but how well does it work for you? This is not something I would have believed a week ago, but now . . .” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you mind if I got something to eat?” Jocelyn asked.
“Not at all, ma’am. There’s plenty of canned food in here and out there.” He gestured toward the doors to the main part of the store. “I’ll go with you, though I ate about an hour ago.”
“No, I’ll just eat something in here.” Jocelyn worried about looting in the sheriff’s presence. “I, uh, have a little money . . .”
The sheriff grunted. “Rules have changed, ma’am. If it makes you feel better, you can leave some cash in the register, but I wouldn’t bother. I haven’t. As far as I’m concerned, that money isn’t worth anything.”
Jocelyn nodded. She came to the same conclusion, but didn’t want to be rude in front of the sheriff.
Now Jocelyn craved the canned fruit behind him. She had eaten a lot of canned fruit over the past month, but nothing lately.
“You said you thought it was a disease, though,” she said. “Isn’t that believable without something magical going on?”
“Hell, I’m not versed in the ways of science, other than forensics. To me, all this shit is magic. I mean, what kind of pathogen could bring back the dead, or make people eat brains? Oh, Alexander explained it, how they’ve revived brains in animals, how viruses always came up with ways to spread themselves—in this case, by eating brains—and how nanotechnology can coordinate all of it, even to heal, so that normal weapons are not useful against them. No, he explained it all, but it kinda went in one ear and out the other.”
“Nanotechnology. That could explain a lot.”
The sheriff grunted yet again. “You’ve studied such things?”
She shrugged. “I have a PhD, though in History, but I’ve learned in school, and from others, and from reading magazines like Scientific American.”
“I wish I spent more time reading that stuff.”
“And I wish I traveled more. Now it would seem the only traveling I’ll be doing is to Colorado Springs.”
“Oh? Why Colorado Springs?”
“I heard a garbled radio broadcast. I’m not sure, but from what I could make out this Peterson Base—”
“—Peterson Air Force Base,” the sheriff corrected.
“Is that in Colorado Springs?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, it seems it may be under the control of the military.”
“May be?”
“As I said, it was garbled. It was hard to make out. It seems there may be a new president.”
“So the government’s up and running,” the sheriff said. “That really is good news.”
“Do you mind if I grab that can of peaches behind you?”
“Not at all.”
As Jocelyn got up to grab the can of peaches, she noticed the tingling on her neck had stopped. She wasn’t sure when, though it had been a while. She opened the can with the pull tab and fished out a wedge with her dirty fingers—she was now used to eating things dirty, with the limited water supply of the cabin—and savored the sweet flavor. Then she extracted more, stuffing her mouth before chewing and exploding her mouth with peachy goodness.
“Do you mind getting back to your story, ma’am?”
“Please. Call me Jocelyn. This ma’am stuff is making me feel as old as my mother.”
“Okay, Jocelyn it is. Are you stalling?”
Yes, she was. She continued to chew slowly, waiting until she swallowed her entire mouthful before continuing.
“It’s a hard story to tell.” She decided she would take the secret of killing
