CHAPTER 30

“Looks like somewhere between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and seventy,” said Aaron, handing the binoculars to his son, Thomas. “Must be every zombie in Bismarck down there. What do you think?”

Thomas was nineteen, and he was enjoying playing at soldier, Aaron could tell. The last few weeks had changed him, added a lot of responsibility on his young shoulders. But he seemed up to it. It brought out a seriousness that Aaron always suspected was there, but had yet to see before the outbreak. He was pleased to see it now.

Thomas took the binoculars and scanned the crowd of zombies out in the parking lot below them. Aaron watched the boy’s lips move as he counted, his brown hair dancing on his forehead in the light breeze, and he was proud.

“Split the difference,” Thomas said. “Call it one-fifty. I see a couple of fast-movers, but nothing we can’t handle.”

“Okay,” Aaron said.

He looked behind him. They had three eighteen-wheelers standing by and twenty men to help load them. The men seemed calm, not at all nervous, almost bored. But then, they wouldn’t be the ones down there turning themselves into bait.

To Thomas, he said, “Okay. You and your team move out. Remember, make lots of noise. Keep them engaged. But keep yourselves safe. Got it? No heroics.”

“I got it, Dad.”

Aaron laughed to hide his nervousness. “Good boy. Now go on. You remember where we’re supposed to meet?”

“Dad, I got it.”

Aaron nodded. “Okay. Go on.”

He watched Thomas and another man get into the bed of a waiting pickup and take up their rifles. The pickup turned down Century Avenue and headed to the Lowe’s parking lot. Across the street were a Burger King, a Jack in the Box, and a Taco Bell. Farther along was a grocery store. The infected had no doubt zeroed in on the smell of rotting food, and even if Thomas was successful in his diversion, Aaron and the others would still have to be on the lookout for stragglers coming out of the Dumpsters and from behind the stores.

The pickup moved out slowly, exactly as they’d rehearsed back at the Grasslands.

Aaron held his breath as the pickup turned into the Lowe’s parking lot and pulled to a stop at the edge of the crowd of zombies. Thomas and the other man leaned out of the bed and threw Molotov cocktails into the crowd. A few of the zombies caught fire as they moved toward the pickup, made it a few feet, and dropped to the ground.

A fast-mover erupted from the slowly advancing crowd and Thomas dropped it with a well-placed shot from his rifle.

“Good boy,” Aaron muttered. The zombie crowd was getting really close to the pickup. “Okay, that’s close enough.”

After an agonizing wait, the pickup lurched forward, traveling at a crawl.

Walking speed.

The zombie crowd lumbered after them. Those few who managed to close the gap with the pickup were shot. The rest lumbered along, children to the Pied Piper.

It took forty minutes for the crowd to leave the parking lot.

“Okay,” Aaron said, waving a hand for the men behind him. “Load up.”

Aaron himself climbed into the passenger seat of the nearest eighteen-wheeler and told the driver to move it out.

They had a Lowe’s to raid, a village to build.

It was nearly sundown when they rolled into the north gate of the Grasslands. Using preexisting roads had saved them a huge amount of time and effort, and also influenced the shape of the village itself. Most of the buildings were clustered around the intersection of the main road and a small county service road. They had a slab set for the pavilion, which Jasper had dictated would be the communal center of the community. Across from that was the first of three education tents, the radio room, and the office, where Aaron spent most of his day. Farther on were the supply shed, the tool room and vehicle garage, and the woodworking shop. On the west side of the main road were the kitchen, laundry, doctor’s office, infirmary, pharmacy, bakery, vegetable stand, and auxiliary dining tent. To the east were the first three of six dormitories for the single men and women, and farther on beyond that, on the far side of a low, rounded ridge they called East Hill, were the cottages where the families lived. They were doubled up now, tripled up in some cases, but that would get better soon.

They approached the intersection, and Aaron held up a hand for his driver to stop.

“Let me out here,” he said.

The driver nodded, slowed the rig to a stop, and waited.

“You guys know what to do?”

“We sure do,” the man said, and grinned. There was a large gap between his front teeth and Aaron found himself smiling back.

“Good. Get this stuff unloaded tonight so we can make an early go of it in the morning.”

“You got it.”

With that, Aaron climbed down from the truck and made his way to the West House, where he hoped to find Jasper. It was after dinner, and Jasper always spent at least an hour in his quarters, reading or handling the Grasslands’ business. Aaron tried to handle most of the day-to-day operation of the Grasslands village himself, because he knew that Jasper preferred to devote his efforts to the spiritual and intellectual development of the community, but a certain amount of mundane management was unavoidable in a community this size, and like it or not, Jasper was becoming as much an administrator as he was a spiritual focal point.

Aaron arrived at Jasper’s quarters and climbed the stairs to the front porch. The front door was open behind the screen door.

“Jasper?” he called into the house.

There was no answer.

Inside, the house was hot and dusty. A white ceiling fan spun slowly in the living room, and the remnants of the late-afternoon sun shone through the windows.

He heard moaning and the sounds of a bed creaking from a back room and turned down the hallway.

“Jasper?”

He rounded the corner and stopped in the doorway of Jasper’s bedroom. A young married couple was in bed with Jasper. Aaron tried to remember their names, but couldn’t. The man was facedown on the bed, Jasper mounting him from behind, while the wife knelt beside Jasper, licking his chest, her hand running through his black hair.

Aaron nodded and left the room. He went out to the porch and sat in a lawn chair and waited.

Jasper appeared thirty minutes later, his arms around the couple. They exchanged a few pleasantries, then Jasper wished them both a good night and sent them back to their cottages.

Aaron watched them link hands, smiling at each other as they walked back up the hill to the communal center of the Grasslands.

Jasper sat in the lawn chair next to Aaron and sighed.

“I despise engaging in homosexual activity,” he said, and sighed. “But, regrettably, it is necessary so that I can connect to our younger male Family members.”

Aaron nodded. He knew this. It had been long ago, nearly fifteen years now, since he and Kate had shared Jasper’s bed. But there was no latent jealousy there. Aaron understood that it wasn’t about sexual gratification. Rather, it was a necessary stage in a Family member’s development. All members of the Family had to connect with Jasper symbolically, and sexual activity was an important part of that process. Of course, it was no longer necessary for Aaron and Kate. They were well beyond that phase now.

“How was the trip into Bismarck?” Jasper asked.

“Fine,” Aaron said. “Went off without a hitch.”

“Got everything on the list?”

“Down to the last bolt. We raided Lowe’s and the Ace Hardware. I think they have a few more hardware stores in town, but we’ve nearly cleaned Bismarck out.”

Jasper nodded.

The two men sat in silence for a good long while, comfortable with each other’s presence. Out beyond the fence, the prairie stretched into darkness. The sun had turned the sky a stunning flood of crimson and bronze and yellow, and the land beneath it was black. Aaron felt immensely happy.

Jasper said, “And Thomas? How did he do?”

Aaron smiled. “Ah, Jasper, you should have seen him. He made me proud.”

“I’m glad. A son should be a father’s joy.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Tell me,” Jasper said, after another long pause. “Has young Thomas found a lady friend among our Family?”

“Not yet,” Aaron admitted. “Though Kate has tried to introduce him to a few.”

“Well, he’s young. Still, it would be nice for him to set an example for the other youngsters in the Family. Nothing says a new beginning quite so well as a wedding.”

“I agree,” said Aaron. “And I know Kate would agree.”

“Yes, I think she would,” Jasper said. He breathed in deeply, obviously pleased with the smell of grass in the air. “Tell young Thomas I am looking forward to welcoming him and whatever wife he chooses to the Family.”

Aaron smiled.

“I will, Jasper. Thank you. I know he will be honored.”

Jasper nodded, and they watched the sun sink into the prairie. Jasper removed a tangerine from his pocket and slowly peeled the rind away, tossing the bits into the grass.

He offered a segment to Aaron and Aaron took it.

“I was listening to the radio today,” Jasper said. He was talking slowly, pausing to eat sections of the tangerine as he tore them loose. “There is bad news out of China. They still refuse to acknowledge that they’ve had any outbreaks within their borders, and yet CNN reported that their military has bombed at least thirty of their own cities.”

“Disgusting,” Aaron said.

He knew government lying was a sore spot with Jasper. Close as their home in Jackson was to New Orleans, they were able to witness the complete, epic failure of the American government to protect its citizens in the time of a natural disaster.

It was in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that Jasper began using his pulpit to condemn the government’s policies on disaster readiness. He studied public documents and FEMA policy and procedures and researched the backgrounds of various leaders within Homeland Security and FEMA, and what he discovered was a dizzying web of corruption and ineptitude that amounted to a racially motivated conspiracy. More and more, his sermons began to zero in on the range of this conspiracy. Hurricanes Rita and Ike only served to reinforce his suspicions and strengthen the arguments he made from the pulpit. People began to take notice. FBI agents showed up at their church and tried to pose as new members. Aaron himself had seen them following him in the grocery store, watching him from cars parked across the street from the church.

And then, when Hurricane Mardell had struck Houston, Jasper’s warnings began to receive national media attention. The quarantine zone around the Gulf Coast and South Texas was the final step in the government’s campaign against blacks and Hispanics and the southern whites, whom the government considered as tainted because they lived with them. The necrosis filovirus was not a naturally occurring disease, Jasper said. It was bioterrorism. It was the government’s final solution.

And now, it seemed, the conspiracy had spread worldwide. China and India were fighting an undeclared war against each other’s refugees. The Middle East had retreated completely into Islamic fundamentalism, with the wholesale slaughter of Americans within their various borders hailed as the fulfillment of Allah’s will. Europe was reduced to a gigantic street brawl from Madrid to Moscow. Africa, it was said, was already dead. The world was flaming out.

Aaron took another tangerine slice from Jasper and said, “I heard the same broadcast today on the radio. Things are not looking good. It’s no wonder they’ve made us a target.”

“They’ve had us in their sights for a long time, Aaron. This is nothing new. Only the scope of their attack has changed.”

Aaron nodded.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jasper said. He was looking toward the large cluster of vehicles they’d collected since their arrival. All in all, they had roughly three hundred and eighty cars and vans parked in a wide, flat, grassy area west of Jasper’s cottage. They’d removed some one hundred and twenty heavy-duty and light trucks from the west lot, and those were parked up along the main road, near the north entrance, where they were being used as work trucks to help build and supply the Grasslands.

“Yes?”

“All those vehicles have radios. My guess is a great many of the people in our community have radios as well. Possibly TVs, too. I want all of that confiscated, Aaron. I want anything that can be used to acquire lies spread by our government confiscated. Can you handle that for me?”

“Absolutely,” Aaron said. “I’ll have it done tonight.”

“Excellent. Shall we go up together? I’d like to address the Family now that we’ve got our new public address speakers installed.”

Aaron nodded happily, and together, they made their way up to the Pavilion.