Turned

him I assumed to my dismay that he would make his way straight over to me, but though he did move steadily towards me he wove a winding path through the people, stopping to say a quiet word with his head close to them, praying, hugging and shaking hands.  The two young men that he’d had with him the day before, who I presumed to be his sons, followed behind him as silently as if they were deaf, dumb, and mute, as eerily as specters.  I could have believed that no one saw them but me for the attention they received despite the heavy clubs and pistols they wore at their belts.  The preacher stayed between me and the table where everyone dropped off their bowls before exiting and Ryan still sat at the table eating a bite now and then as he talked so I stayed where I was hoping that the preacher was not angling towards me and trying to hide the twitching of my leg.  Eventually he stepped up to me, his face uncomfortably close to mine, with the two young men behind him. He extended a red hand.  It was soft and sweaty despite the chill morning. “I’m Reverend Edwards, the pastor for this community and these are my sons Jonathon and Aaron.”  I unconsciously wiped my hand on my pants as the handshake ended. The ends of his sleeves and his collar were frayed, his tie was threadbare, and he smelled of smoke and sweat but his clothes were unstained, and his shoes shone.  He bore himself proudly. It was as if time had split asunder and deposited him here in this desolate cold wilderness. “I hope that you’ll be attending services this Sunday,” he said.  I didn’t answer not knowing what he was talking about.  “Your brother has not yet graced us with his presence.  We hope that if you enjoy it you might encourage him to attend.  It is hard for the people to be torn between their faith and their leader.”

“I’ll think on it,” I said.

“Do that?  Think hard on it, for your eternal life hangs in the balance.”  His two sons stared ahead dull-eyed and sullenly behind him.  I felt trapped between them in the wall as if I would be crushed by the preacher’s slowly encroaching body.  His voice grew even quieter as he went on.  “I heard that you were mucking, but that now your brother has relieved you of that duty. Yet some of my flock still must muck.  Family is important but even more important is this community and of the supreme importance are the Lord and his plan for your eternal salvation. Your brother has done the Lord’s work in building up this camp, but it could be so much more, it could almost be a representation of His paradise on earth, if only he would exile the vampires.”  His voice grew loud enough that the whole room was able to make out his words.  “Cast them out. Cast out those whose souls have already been deemed unfit.  To keep them here is a sin and the Lord and his people do not long tolerate sin. Already the yoke grows heavy.”  His eyes glimmered as if they were afire and I shivered. He stepped away from me and then added.

“You’ll find many brethren and many pleasures in the Lord.  Come to service, others here will tell you how it lifts their burdens.”  With that he left to a chorus of voices wishing him well.  I could feel their eyes upon me as I went to put my dirty dishes in their place and followed the men to congregate outside in the chill morning air, bummed a cigarette off of someone and smoked it off by myself looking away down at the glint of the sun on the river and breathing in the smell of an outhouse underneath the smoke.

Ryan soon came out, sweeping me up in the crush of the men as we set off towards the river at a fast walk.  The ever-ubiquitous dogs followed behind us happily, but up the hill from us a couple of figures moved at our speed through the pasture carrying rifles.  The animals gave them a wide berth.  Ryan fell in beside me with most of the group in front of us.  For the most part they were younger than us, just boys really, as young as 10, though a few were men with silver hair, wrinkled faces, and painful shuffles.

“So, you were mostly a ranger then?”  Ryan asked.  I must have looked puzzled, so he put in, “That’s what we call those who wander, pretty much everyone who doesn’t live at the camp.  What’d you call us?”

“We didn’t know you existed down south where I was.  I was a ranger if that’s what you want to call it.”

“Then you won’t know much about gardening then. Of course, not many of us knew much about gardening anyways. Before your brother came, we planted these fields in the early spring and then ran north as the vampires returned with the warmth. Staying put works a lot better though.”  He grabbed his belly and shook it.  “The proof’s right here.”  He laughed and I chuckled uncomfortably.  The motion felt unnatural and my throat felt locked up. “Lucky for you it’s late in the year and a lot of the hard work has already been done.  You’ll be fine.”

It was only a short walk, following the same path that the vampires had used to bring me into the village and soon we entered the tall fields of corn.  Their deep green shone in the sun and glittered with dew.  As we walked, I saw the two figures trotting off to the east, cross the ridge and disappear.  No one else seemed to notice.  The dogs disappeared into the corn, but we pressed on.

“We’ve already done the first harvest on this field,” Ryan explained.