The Harvesting (5 page)

“
Careful, little Ruskie,
it’s sharp,” he said.

I glared at him and pulled the sword
from the scabbard. It was like love at first sight.

My grandmother came and stood beside
us. “A shashka,” she said. “Where did you find that?” she asked Mr.
Beecher.

“
Auction,” he replied
simply.

“
What you want for it?”
Grandma asked him.

Now Mr. Beecher looked serious.
“Twenty.”

“
Ehh, no, no, no. I give
you ten.”

“
Fifteen.”

“
I say I give you ten so I
give you ten.”

My grandmother never lost a
negotiation. After a few more tries, Mr. Beecher finally consented,
and Grandma started digging around her sewing bag for the money.
Ten dollars did not seem like much, but for an old woman looking
after a young girl, it was a fortune.

“
Just look. Only someone
like
that
would
buy a sword for a little girl to play with,” a woman sitting at the
table next to Mr. Beecher whispered to her friend. The friend, a
woman in a bright pink dress, laughed.

The three of us looked at the women.
Giggling, they looked away. I recognized the woman who had gossiped
about my grandma. She’d been to our house before. My grandmother
looked long and hard at them both. She then turned, smiled at Mr.
Beecher as she handed him the ten, and nodded to me that it was
time to go. Her hand on my shoulder, she directed me toward the
door.

“
Thanks again,” Ethel, who
had not heard the rude comment, called with a wave.

My grandma smiled at Ethel but paused
as we passed the gossips. “Next time you ask me if your husband is
cheating, I won’t lie to save your feelings. Talk to your friend.
She knows more about it than I do,” Grandma said. “You see, Layla,
fools are not sown, they grow by themselves,” she added and then we
left.

With my white elephant in hand, I
smiled up at my grandma.

I moved toward the door of the
community center. A few of the fallen bodies twitched. A woman
whose arms had been blow off by the grenade snapped at me. A
snarling man who’d been blown in half pulled himself toward me.
With a heavy heart, I made short work of them. I climbed onto the
collapsed roof and carefully made my way to the door. Before I
reached the entrance, two more undead appeared. Taking careful aim,
I shot them.

When I got to the door, it was locked.
I paused for a moment and then knocked.

Jamie, Ian’s older brother, opened the
door. “Holy Christ, Layla! Is the Army out there or what?” he said
looking over my shoulder. Seeing nothing, he looked me over,
weapons hanging from every part of my body. “Jesus Christ,” he said
aghast and pulled me into a hug, dragging me inside. I suddenly
felt overcome by everything that had just happened. I leaned
heavily on Jamie. My body shook. I closed my eyes, but then
realized everyone must have been looking at me. I took a deep
breath and stepped back.

I recognized most of the faces in the
room. Neighbors, teachers, the Ladies Auxiliary, the firemen, all
faces I knew though some names I did not quite remember. Several
people were injured. The school nurse, Mrs. Finch—how white her
hair had become—was going from person to person trying to stop
blood loss and mend wounds.

My eyes scanned the room for Ian. He
was kneeling on the floor beside Kristie who was bleeding profusely
from a shoulder wound. She appeared to be in intense
pain.

“
Jamie, more will be drawn
in by the noise. They are scattered everywhere, all over the town,”
I said, forcing myself to look away, to focus on something
else.

Jamie nodded. “Alright guys, we need
to post a watch until we get ourselves together. Everyone with a
gun muster up,” Jamie called and then turned to organize the
group

Several of the men came up to
me.

“
Was that you out there,
Layla?” Tom, one of the firefighters, asked. Tom had been in
Jamie’s class in school. Too shy to ask himself, he once sent his
younger sister to ask me if I would go to a dance with him.
Unfortunately for both Tom and me, I said no. I had a crush on a
boy named Ian Campbell. As I looked up at Tom, however, I
remembered that I’d always found his hazel eyes
striking.

I nodded.

“
Nice shooting,” Gary, a
squeaky little man with thick glasses, added. I remembered Gary
somewhat. He used to come to Grandma’s cabin to help her with her
taxes. Gary shook my hand and then followed Jamie’s band of armed
men outside.

“
Thank you, oh, thank you,
Layla,” Ethel said, coming to kiss my cheeks. “Layla, where is
Grandma Petrovich?”

I looked down and fought back my
tears. Unable to speak, I just shook my head.

“
Oh no,” Ethel cried out,
and turned, putting her head on Summer’s shoulder.

“
Sorry, Layla,” Summer
said and set her hand on my shoulder, “but thank you all the same.
Good lord, Layla, where did you get those guns?” she asked absently
as she guided her mother toward a seat.

I looked back into the room. Ian was
calling for water. Kristie’s cousin, April, was hovering over them.
Kristie had gone into a seizure.

I followed the armed group outside. A
couple of gunshots rang out as they took down a few of the
approaching undead.

“
Man, that’s Mr. Corson.
Here you go, asshole. Thanks for failing me in Chemistry,” Jeff,
Kristie’s cousin, said with a laugh as he fired at the approaching
man.

“
Not cool, brother,” Will,
a high school aged relative of Summer and Ethel, chided
him.

I leaned against the handicapped
railing and looked at the bodies lying under the collapsed roof.
Their arms and legs stuck out. To my horror, I thought I recognized
some of them. I felt like I might be sick.

Jamie came and stood beside me. He
eyed me over. “What are you doing here, Layla?”

I opened my mouth to explain when
April came to the door. “Jamie, we can’t talk any sense into Ian.
Kristie’s gone. We gotta put her down before she turns. He won’t
listen. Please, come help.”

Jamie turned. I half followed but then
heard Jeff.

“
Someone ask Layla to do
it. I’m sure she’d have no problem,” he said.

Jamie stopped. “Can that shit right
now, man. That’s your cousin dying in there,” he said, silencing
Jeff. Then, casting an apologetic glance toward me, he went
inside.

I turned back. Overhead, a hawk
shrilled and flew out toward the lake. It was almost like the
creature had no idea anything was happening, like it had no idea
the world was ending.

Then I heard grunting behind me. I
turned to find a young child, perhaps seven or so years old,
running toward me. Her mouth was dripping with bloody saliva. My
hands shook. I pulled out the Magnum. I raised the gun and aimed. I
could not pull the trigger. The little girl kept getting
closer.

“
Layla,” I heard Tom call
in warning behind me.

The girl got closer. I couldn’t do
it.

“
Layla,” Tom called again,
panic filling his voice. A second later, a shot rang out. The girl
fell with a thud.

I turned to look. Ian was standing on
the collapsed roof, gun in his hand.

His eyes met mine. He cast me a
knowing glance and then went inside. Moments later, another
shot—inside the building—was fired. I knew then that Kristie was
dead.

Chapter 7

It took about two hours before the
undead who had been drawn to the community center were dispatched.
Inside, discussion and then argument began about what to do
next.

I stood by the door and listened. Tom,
Mr. Jones who owned the local gas station, Jamie who had done two
tours in Iraq as a medic, Pastor Frank from the Baptist Church, and
Mrs. Finch seemed to be leading the discussion. Many of the others
looked too scared or too shell shocked to think let alone talk.
Ian, who was red-eyed, sat on the floor in the corner.

“
What the hell are we
gonna do now?” Jeff asked as he removed his hat and rubbed his
sweaty forehead with his forearm.

“
We need to gather all in
one place,” Mrs. Finch said, her finger pointing.

“
No. We are safer in our
own homes,” Mr. Jones said.

“
And what would I do in my
house by myself? I don’t have any guns. I have no way to protect
myself. And lights are going to go off soon,” Mrs. Finch shouted,
her hands waving.

The more they talked, the more scared
the rest of the group looked. Frenchie Davis’ two children,
apparently the only two kids yet to survive, clung to their
mother.

“
We should get out of
town. We need to head toward a military base. We need to get
somewhere safe, get help,” Tom suggested looking at each of us in
turn.

“
The nearest base is more
than 300 miles. We’ll never make it,” Jamie replied
calmly.

“
We don’t even know what
caused it,” Mr. Jones said. “It could be anything. The food we eat.
The water we drink. Something else in the environment. We don’t
even know if we can eat the supplies we have. All of us could still
get sick. With the T.V. out, we’ve no idea what’s
happening.”

“
911 went down yesterday,
and now the phones are totally dead,” Mrs. Finch added.

“
Could be a bio-weapon, a
terrorist attack,” Tom suggested.

Jamie shook his head. “Whatever it is,
I heard it hit Canada too. It’s spreading.”

“
It could simply be the
wrath of God,” Pastor Frank said solemnly.

“
We need help. We need to
all get together then head to a shelter, a base, something,” Mrs.
Finch said, her fist pounding her hand to emphasize her words, her
voice rising as she spoke.

And on they went. Some voices started
to rise. The children started to cry. Finally, at some point, no
one could hear anyone over the shouting.

I noticed then there was
an air-horn canister on the shelf beside me. Frustrated, I picked
it up and blew the horn. The
wooong
silenced the room.

“
Right now we have no idea
how many people are still alive in
this
town. We need to secure this
place and get an accounting. First, we need to clear the dead
bodies—we can bury them in the baseball field. Then we need to go
around and see how many people are hiding in their houses. Once we
have everyone accounted for, we can call a meeting and ensure
people like Mrs. Finch are paired with others and can be kept
safe—maybe we could use the elementary school as a base. This town
is easy to defend. The lake has us protected on one side. The
forest is on the other. There are only two roads and one bridge
leading into this place. We need to get the town cleaned up then
barricade the roads and put guards there.”

“
Well, Ms.
Ancient-Warfare-Know-it-All,” April began, “what about the
bridge?”

Knowing how much she loved Kristie, I
let it go. “We blow it up.”

The room went silent.

“
And how do we do that? I
guess I could Google it, but the world just came to a fucking end,”
Jeff said.

“
Larry’s Tree and Stump
Removal—he has dynamite.”

Silence.

“
She’s right. We hunker
down. We keep each other safe. Most of us here can hunt and fish.
We can secure this place,” Jamie said.

I smiled at Jamie.

With a half-smile, he tipped the brim
of his hat toward me.

“
Until help comes, right?”
Ethel asked hopefully. Her obliviousness to the situation saddened
me.

Jamie smiled softly at her. “Ethel . .
. everyone . . . the reality is that help is not on the way. No
reserves have been dispatched to Hamletville. I mean, they could
barely evac New Orleans after Katrina. We’re not exactly high up on
a government list of priorities.”

“
We can be safe here, if
we stick together,” I offered.

Not everyone looked sure, but after
some consideration, the survivors agreed to be divided into teams.
Some were sent to patrol the streets. Some were sent to gather
supplies and convene at the elementary school. Fred Johnson went to
the town garage to get a backhoe to bury the dead. Jeff and a
handful of others headed off to Larry’s Tree and Stump Removal.
After his comment outside, I secretly wished Jeff would blow
himself up. We’d decided that two rings on the fire alarm meant
assemble at the elementary school gymnasium, four rings if help had
arrived, and six rings meant danger. Everyone was given medical
gloves and strict advice to avoid touching dead bodies.

Ian and April moved Kristie’s body
from the community center to the baseball field. I watched Ian go.
He did not look back. I went back to my dirt-bike and got on. The
body of the little girl still lay in the parking lot. I couldn’t
look at it.

I was about to kick start the engine
when Jamie came up to me. “Where are you headed?”