Fire Birds (31 page)

“Andrew, give the word, and I’ll try to put it out,” Dan said.

The others turned to Andrew and waited for him to make a decision. He was quiet a moment then he sighed.

“God led me to retake Clayfield and the church,” he said. “We just need to trust God will protect it. Maybe this is divine providence. Maybe he’s using this to destroy our enemies.”

“Yeah,” Somerville said. “Go with that.”

“We’re just going to watch it burn?” Gail said.

“We’re going to cry out to God,” Andrew replied. “Let’s get that horse put up then we’ll put on a pot of coffee. We’re going to pray for rain.”

Nicholas Somerville, Cheryl, and I didn’t stay up with the others. We didn’t pray, and it didn’t rain. I don’t know about Cheryl and Somerville, but I didn’t sleep very much either. I lay awake worrying about Sara and the town and everything. My mom always told me that worry was faith in reverse. Maybe my worry negated the faith of the others. I did worry pretty hard.

When the sun rose, I had already been up for an hour. I was standing alone in the front yard with a cup of coffee looking to the west when Somerville came outside.

“No rain,” he said flatly. “How’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t much,” I replied.

He looked with me toward Clayfield. “Is the fire out?”

“Looks like it,” I said. “I don’t even see smoke.”

He nodded. “Who left?”

“What?”

“The Prius is gone.”

I turned and looked at the driveway. The little car was missing.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t hear anyone leave.”

“You wouldn’t have heard it,” he said. “It’s a Prius.”

The front door opened, and Gail stepped out. She gave us a timid wave and sat down.

“Good morning,” Somerville said. “Who left? Do you know?”

“Dan and Pastor Andrew drove into town to have a look when they saw the fire was dying,” she replied.

“When was this?”

“Dunno,” she shrugged. “After we got done praying. During the night.”

“Were they coming right back or did they plan to stay a while?” he asked.

“Dunno,” she shrugged again.

He turned back to me. “It’s just as well,” he said. “I was going to suggest the same thing. I don’t see the point of everybody going, but it’s a good idea to send a couple of people to scout it out. The powers that be might be satisfied with the damage they’ve done here and plan to move on.”

“They don’t completely clean out the infected?”

“What I saw in Missouri was they’d go where the crowds were. Sometimes that meant there were survivors there and sometimes not.”

“In that case, we dodged a bullet,” I said. “Sara and Christine had every zombie for miles surrounding this place for days. We’re lucky the aircraft weren’t in the area then.”

“The place is still surrounded,” Somerville said. “What’s up with all the dead bodies on the ground outside of the back pasture?”

“Grant and Christine did that,” I said. “I can’t move them. There are too many.”

“Let’s just hope they’re not too obvious from the air. They might decide to hit this farmhouse just to make sure.”

Within an hour, everyone was up. There was plenty of oatmeal and coffee. Dan and Andrew returned as we were finishing breakfast, and they had someone with them. When the little silver car quietly stopped, Andrew and Dan got out. Then Andrew held open the back door while Grant crawled out of the back seat. When I saw him through the window, I stood without thinking, and my cereal bowl fell from my lap to the floor.

“Sara,” I whispered. I ran out of the house to meet them. “Where’s Sara?”

Others from the house came outside and gathered around us. Grant had a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. His pants were torn and singed and stained with blood. His left arm was in a sling made from his own ripped t-shirt, and his hand was wrapped in another bloody cloth. His eyes moved over me as if he didn’t recognize me.

“He ain’t said nothin’ since we found him,” Dan said. “Do you know him?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Grant. This is Grant. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew said. “We found him in the county jail of all places. The poor boy won’t talk to us and won’t let us see to him. I think maybe he’s messed himself.”

“What happened?” I said again, staring into Grant’s wide and scared eyes. “Where’s Sara?”

He shook his head, “He took her. I couldn’t stop him.”

I looked down at the sling. “Can we see your arm?”

He looked down then up at me again.

“I think he’s in shock or somethin’,” Andrew said. “We just led him around like an old mare on a rope. He’s just a big puppy dog like this.”

“Grant, is your arm broken?” I asked slowly as if talking to a small child.

He shook his head.

“What about your hand?” I asked, reaching for the bloody cloth sticking out of the sling.

“No,” he said. “Don’t touch it.”

Cheryl stepped in. “Let me take him, hon. I know some first aid, and Tim was trained as a field medic.”

I looked back at Tim. “Really? Tim was in the military?”

“Let us take your friend,” she said. “We’ll do our best.”

They led Grant into the house, and I turned back to Andrew.

“You found him in the jail?”

“The jail had caved in on one side,” Dan said. “We could see right down into the lower level. He was down in there in the corridor between the cells. He had a case of MREs, an empty water jug, and half a bottle of Jack in there with him.”

“Let me have the keys to that Prius,” I said. “I’m going out to look for Sara.”

“Cool your jets, son,” Somerville said from behind me. “We need to get some information from that boy first. Ain’t no sense in driving around with no direction in mind.”

“I can’t just sit around,” I said. “At least when I thought she was with Grant, I thought he could keep her safe, but–”

Cheryl ran out of the house and headed for one of the cars.

“Cheryl?”

“I gotta get the other medical supplies,” she said. “His fingers have been cut off. He ain’t got nothing but a thumb and pinkie on that left hand.”

I started to go to the house, but Somerville stopped me. “Let them do their work.”

Andrew seemed unfazed by all of it. To me, it came across as being callous. He raised his arms and motioned the others to gather around.

“I’m pleased to report the town is still there for the most part. Praise God,” Andrew said. “Several buildings were destroyed on the northeast side within a couple of blocks from the courthouse. We did lose three buildings on the east side of the square, but they’d already been damaged by the fire from the drug store. City Hall and the police station were both heavily damaged. The National Bank across the street was too. It’s gutted. The trees and grass on the courthouse lawn burned, and the courthouse itself is a little scorched, but it’s still there. The cars we parked were burned, but still function as a wall. The important thing is that the church was unharmed except for a few broken windows. Hundreds of the dead have been destroyed. These drones were a gift from God.”

“That’s great news,” Somerville said, “but don’t be lulled into thinking the drones are our friends. They’d burn you if they got the chance.”

“God will protect us,” Andrew said with a broad smile. “He’s workin’ all things out for our good. Now, I’m ready for something to eat. After breakfast, I think we should resume our work on the court square.”

“I think you should wait a while,” Somerville said. “The last thing we want to do is all be out together as a group with those birds in the air. Besides, right now, the important thing is finding that girl. Sara has been out there now for days, and now we know she’s in this bastard’s hands. She should be our priority. Once Grant is up to talking, we can split up and search. We’d be less obvious like that.”

“Have faith, councilman,” Andrew said.

Somerville looked at me and, under his breath, said, “I’m still waiting for the rain.”

Andrew, Dan, Gail, and Laney went into the house, but I just kept standing there in the driveway. I was nonplussed. Nicholas Somerville stood there with me quietly digging at the ground with the toe of his boot.

Then he sighed heavily and said, “Sometimes we have to make concessions. I know I’m new now, just coming back and all, but I’m real desperate to see this group stay together and for it to include us. We’re running out of people in this world. We can give Andrew some reins here.”

“You’ve changed some,” I said.

“Nah,” he said. “I’m the same old Nick. I was kind of hard in the beginning because I thought I needed to be, but I held public office once too, you know. You don’t get anything done in that job if you don’t know how to placate.”

“Who’s going to placate me?”

“Listen, son, what we do here is we advise, then we sit back and make them think it was their idea. I know just enough Bible to be dangerous. I think I can come up with some scriptures that I can throw around in conversation to make Andrew and the others think about their actions.”

“Meanwhile, Sara could be a hundred miles away,” I said sullenly.

“Ain’t nobody stopping you from looking,” he said. “You can leave now and look for her, but all you’re going to do is waste time and gasoline until we hear what Grant has to say.”

I looked at the ground. I knew he was right. Even in a little town like Clayfield, it would take weeks to do a door-to-door search.

“We had a similar talk, me and you, at the river a few weeks back. Remember?” he said.

I nodded.

“I know you need to find her. I need to find Judy.”

“You don’t need Sara for that,” I said, softly. “Grant is back now. He could show you.”

“It ain’t going to be like that. We’ll find that girl then I’ll get them to fly me south. With any luck, I’ll talk that whole bunch in Biloxi into coming here to Clayfield. We need to build our numbers here. I can be persuasive. I surprise even myself sometimes.”

Cheryl came out to the porch then stopped. “Am I interrupting?”

“No,” I said. “Did he say anything?”

She walked down the porch and came out to us. Then she hesitated before she spoke again.

“What?” I said.

“He fought Bruce trying to protect Sara. He lost his fingers when he grabbed the blade of the sword.”

“Where’s Sara?”

“He doesn’t know,” she said. “But he said that Bruce took her, and he wasn’t gentle about it. He beat on her some. He raped her there on the road.”

I felt tears burning my eyes, and I turned my head so they couldn’t see my face.

“He wasn’t alone,” Cheryl continued. “There were others with him. Grant said he saw at least three more.”

“What?” I said. “Where would he find others?”

“Maybe they were with him the whole time and–”

“No,” I said. “When I saw him, he was alone. He said he was with a group, but he never led me to believe they were close by.”

“Makes sense,” Somerville said. “I doubt anyone could survive out there very long without someone to watch their back.”

“I did,” I said. “Until lately, I haven’t had anybody but me.”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” Cheryl said. “I was just about to tell Andrew. Everyone will want to know if there is a possibility of trouble from another gang.”

“We can’t wait any longer,” I said. “Now that we know what there is to know, we have to go out. We have to do something.”

Somerville nodded, “Okay, but what and where?”

“I don’t know. I’d say the court square would be a good place to start. I’m sure that fire attracted their attention as much as it did ours.”

“He might have left now that he’s got her,” Cheryl said. “They could be anywhere.”

“Well, if we don’t find them in a couple of days, I’ll head west,” I said. “She told me he was headed west when she met him.”

“West is kind of general, don’t you think?” Somerville said.

“What else do I have?”

“I’m going in to talk to the others,” Cheryl said. “They need to know.”

“I have a few more guns that I haven’t moved from the barns,” I said. “I’m going to get them. Get everyone ready to go.”

I left them and went into one of the barns. From one of the stalls, I retrieved the wheelbarrow. Then I pushed it to the base of the loft’s ladder. Leaving it, I climbed up. In the loft, I kept a .22 rifle, a 12 gauge shotgun, and the lupara-style .410. There were also two boxes of shells for each weapon. I hauled them down to the wheelbarrow then pushed it to the second barn. From that barn, I collected a .22 revolver, a .30-30, and another 12 gauge along with two more boxes of shells for each. I did all of this in a daze. It didn’t feel real. It seemed so much quieter around me. The air was hot and still. When I returned to the house, I could hear loud voices inside.