The Zona Read online

  “Glad you’re back,” Terence said. He gestured to the stranger. “This is Eric the Dead, my friend.”

  “Why do you call him ‘the Dead’?”

  “By all rights he is a dead man. Years ago, the Church sent me to make him a Goodman, by rope or blanket. He chose the blanket.”

  “It wasn’t as easy as all that.” Eric said.

  “All humility aside, it was that easy. I stuck a gun in this poor, polite man’s face and asked him how he wanted to attain perfection. He had the nerve to tell me to shoot him dead.” Terence looked away from Eric. “That didn’t work for me. I had stopped shooting people long before. I couldn’t go against my word and bind him. It was a problem, a situation. I had no choice but to let him live. So instead of punishment I took from him an oath. He had to change his name and location. He had to help anyone I sent his way.”

  “What was his offense? Why were you sent to apprehend?” Lead asked.

  “No one told me, of course. Church doesn’t work that way, as you know. Far as I could tell it had to do with Eric’s profession. Man was a pharmacist before the Storms, sat on a pretty good stash of medicine and whatnots. He was doctoring in what remained of the Prescott Parish before being expelled for witchcraft.”

  “I’m not a witch,” Eric said defensively. The accusation still held an obvious weight and pain with the doctor. “Ignorant peasants didn’t understand the workings of my medicine and assumed magic.”

  “The order came, he was designated a mark, I was handed the bounty. Pretty sure that’s it, not unless he did something unsavory and didn’t tell me.” Terence looked at Eric and chuckled. “Wouldn’t that beat all, if you were really a murder or sex pervert or something gruesome, and I still let you go.”

  “Why did you stop killing?” Lead asked.

  Terence’s expression turned solemn. He looked to the boarded window.

  “I was a grown man when the Storms struck. I lost a lot. Everything that made sense vanished. You may or may not get what I tell you, but that kind of thing puts a hole in a man. I joined up with the Guards in California, later we joined with the Zona Militia, Arizona at the time. I stopped trying to make sense and started following those who told me they understood what was happening. My life found purpose with the Guards and the Church. They ordered me to strike the cause of the Storms, to extinguish sin and make the world whole, to do my duty and earn my place in the lesser inherited Earth. I can’t say I believed them, but at the same time belief didn’t matter. With them I had purpose. With them I helped raze Vegas. With them I swept and crushed the Mexican scavenger parties in the Hot Zones. With them I hunted and murdered or imprisoned enemies of the Church, the marks. The killings didn’t fill the hole. One day I found myself facing a blanket Goodman in Saint John’s Town and I couldn’t pull the trigger. I lashed him in my rage. I beat him till he lay bleeding out on the floor of his cabin, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. Afterward, I nursed him to health. He became the first Dead. His name was Jackson Corning. I brought him back to life and he helped me keep alive the others who wouldn’t go to Purgatory, he renamed himself Aaron Century, though I always called him Aaron the Dead.”

  Lead’s face turned white. He tried to swallow against the lump in his throat. Anxiety filled his chest with imaginary needles. Terence saw Lead’s panic. He nodded knowingly at the Preacher.

  “I put Century under the blanket.” Lead said. “I gave him the choice and he attacked me.”

  Lead rubbed the numb palm of his left hand against the bubbled scar on his chest.

  “I know,” Terence said solemnly. “Just like I knew they’d send you to me after Century was put down. If they figured out Century, they’d know about me. I don’t agree with how Century took after you, but I knew after he was laid low you’d come for me.”

  Terence leaned against a wall.

  “I didn’t know if you’d put me under until I saw you. One look and I knew. You’re not mindless, kid. You’re like me, a man with a hole, but not all the way empty. You’re a man who’s starting to figure that killing doesn’t fill that hole.”

  Terence turned his attention back to Eric the Dead.

  “We’ve got Crusaders scouring our trial. Anywhere we set becomes dangerous ground. I’m sorry, but you and yours need to move to another station.”

  Eric nodded at Terence. Terence looked back to Lead.

  “You get to make your choice now. If you ain’t had your fill of the Church, we’ll knock you out, blindfold you, and put you somewhere safe where you can continue your life until a Crusader or Preacher puts you down. Maybe you’ll go to Purgatory. If, on the other hand, you’re done with the Church, you can come with me. I’m headed to New Pueblo. It’s a hidden place. They live the old ways outside of Church jurisdiction. I can’t make any promises to what life there will be aside from different.”

  Lead let the words sink in. He thought back over the years of wondering, hunting, and killing. He had killed under the name of God’s will, and every death bound him with an anchor of guilt. Every murdered face stared at him when his eyes closed. He whispered the prayer for wisdom and forgiveness. Terence remained silent.

  “I’ll go with you.” Lead said.

  “Good. We leave tomorrow. Get some sleep; I’ll come for you later.” Terence and Eric left the room.

  The next morning, men parted ways outside of C.R.A.S.S. To the west of them, a churning wall of dust marked the winds of the Storm Boarder. The ex-Preachers journeyed south, the pharmacist and his mule wagon of lab equipment journeyed north. The men continued in their lives and in parting, unknowingly severed forever from each other, for there comes a point in all men’s lives when they see each other for the last, and this was that point for the ex-Preachers and Eric the Dead.

  VI. That which occurred in Las Vegas

  Lead pulled the cloth mask off of his face and watched Terence twist smoke and fire out of a nest of desert branches.

  “That day in Yucca, I recognized you from Vegas. That’s what kept me from gunning you dead,” Lead said.

  Terence stopped his twisting and blew life into the embers. He tipped the smoking ashes into a crushed pile of tumbleweed. The dry brush exploded in the heat. Dust hung in the air and reflected the firelight, enveloping the ex-Preachers in a luminous cloud.

  “That was a bad bit. If there’s a Hell, my place in it was earned that day.” Terence looked back at Lead. “What part did you play?”

  Lead shook out his face mask, giving the dust back to the air. He spoke.

  Plague and famine were long standing residents of Zona Refugee Camp Three. They took their toll daily.

  Military tents housed survivors and uncollected corpses in numbers not significantly favoring one over the other. The fugees who had yet to join the corpses did not survive by will but by chance. They spent mornings and evenings staring at the razor wire perimeter, watching well-fed guards stand and chat and smoke. The fugees were waiting for the virus, or for their bodies to finish its closing cycle from lack of nutrition and clean water. The dead were sometimes recovered and discarded onto a funeral pyre south of the perimeter. The wrong wind brought the scent; the fugees grew accustomed to it eventually. The water of the nearby river receded in the heat, returning to primordial muck as the climate became less favorable. The water the fugees took was thick with grit; it killed from the inside out, with coughs of blood and vomit. Every few days guards distributed rations, but it was never fulfilling, there was never enough to eat.

  Over time guards were rotated less, which meant less supplies and food. They too became leaner, like jackals. The guards’ uniform changed twice in the seven years of Leonard’s confinement. The first was subtle, the second, not so much. One day new guards arrived without the stars and stripes patch. They were in uniform, but the American flag was gone. A discolored rectangle on their shoulder marked the absence. No one mentioned it, no one asked, no returning guards carried it. Months later, the guards took to wearing silver crosses around thei
r necks. The discolored patch was covered by the Zona’s crucifix-in-star. They started referring to each other as brother. The female guards vanished from rotation. Then the Inspection Committee came.

  Leonard had grown tall in the camp, but his body was meager and his stomach was distended from malnutrition. His arms and fingers were long and thin, his chest sunk in contrast with his bloated stomach. The muscles in his limbs developed like rope close to the bone. Unlike many others, Leonard still could walk and stand, and for this reason he was escorted by guards to the inspection. Leonard was placed in a line with other young boys of passable health. A tent at the end of the line housed the Inspection Committee, whose job was to conscript boys into the service. The Committee was tasked with leaving those who were dying of the Rot or New Malaria or any of the plagues, and to take those of use and promise.

  Leonard entered the tent and stripped off his soiled singlet. The inspecting guard shined a light down his throat and tapped his teeth with a metal pick. Another inspecting guard shined a light on Leonard’s testicles and anus, looking for telltale signs of the Blossoms. Leonard stood still and forced himself not to tremble until he was told to exit the tent.

  Outside a young guard gave Leonard a loose-fitting pair of camouflage pants, a beige T-shirt, and white athletic shoes. Leonard dressed quickly out in the open. Another guard handed Leonard a .38 caliber police revolver.

  “What’s your name, boy?” The gun distributer asked.

  “Leonard, Camp Three, number 2305.” Leonard said.

  He knew what the gun was and it frightened him. He shifted its weight in his hands and tried to find a way to hold it without appearing menacing.

  The guard scratched Lead’s information in a large leather-bound book. He looked at Lead’s nervous shifting.

  “Boy! Pocket that weapon!”

  Lead shoved the pistol in his pocket and instinctively held his hands out.

  “You’re now in Lead Group Two, number 2305.” The guard handed Leonard six bullets from a box sitting on his table.

  “Hold still.”

  The guard uncapped a felt pen and wrote LG2-2305 across Leonard’s shirt. Another guard escorted Leonard to the back of a pick-up truck where he waited with a group of hollow-eyed fugee boys. No one spoke.

  They drove out of the fugee camp, north along the river to a town called Bullhead. In Bullhead, the boys were unloaded and marched into a circus tent. A one-armed guard directed them to banquet tables where they were served warm bread and soup. While they ate, a barber clipped their hair ragged and short. More guards came and collected the hair trimmings in plastic bags.

  The pistol bulged uncomfortably in Leonard’s pants. He had loaded it during the truck ride. He had considered the shape and weight of each bullet before loading it into the tumbler. Each new item was wealth unimagined, magic.

  At the end of their meal, a man with a long salt and pepper hair climbed onto the center banquet table. An enormous silver cross hung down the front of his red satin robes. He stepped over plates and bowls, but paid them no regard.

  “Boys!” He said extending his arms to the heavens.

  He jerked his head skyward and shook as if in convulsion, when he looked back at the boys his face was smiling with joy and rapture. His eyes showed wild and crazed. His voice boomed and echoed throughout the tent with strength inexperienced by the pitiful fugee boys.

  “Boys! Thou art lucky! Thou hath survived the Apocalypse! Thou hath survived the Rapture! Thou hath survived the Plagues and the Viruses! God hath judged thee!”

  The man paused as though waiting for applause. When none came from the bewildered fugees, he continued.

  “He hath found thee unworthy with the rest of us to be taken in the Rapture, but worthy like the rest of us to inherit what remains! Thou art lucky to be given the chance to prove worth! Thou art the meek! Thou art the meek who shall inherit this Earth!”

  His eyes swept the room, pausing to look into each awestruck face of each fugee boy.

  “God hath graced us with his divine wisdom, and in that wisdom he has granted us the means for redemption. Thou will be redeemed! We shall be redeemed!”

  The man threw his hands to the heavens.

  “Redemption!”

  The guards in the tent immediately threw their hands in the air and repeated the cry. The man shook his fists.

  “Redemption!”

  A few of the fugees caught on and slowly raised their hands.

  “Redemption!”

  The man was lifted off of the table by two stone-faced guards. The fugee boys kept their hands raised. Leonard’s belly was full for the first time in memory, tears rolled down his cheeks as a guard placed a small square of chocolate in front of him.

  “I don’t blame you.” Terence said.

  Lead covered his eyes.

  “Don’t condescend to me,” Lead hissed. “Have you ever been so hungry? Have you ever so wanted for food, for purpose, for answers and direction?”

  Terence looked hard at Lead. His answer was slow and deliberate.

  “Yes, I have. Do not feel shame in what you say. Please go on.”

  The days at Church Camp stretched to weeks. The fugees were separated into groups for living and training. Leonard was placed in Lead Group Two, which consisted of seven boys aged thirteen to seventeen. In charge of their group was a grizzled veteran everyone called Jones. The boys were from refugee camps all over the Zona, all with similar stories of hunger, plague, and abandonment.

  Each morning Jones ran them through calisthenics. The boys were made to run around their dorm tent until the dust kicked up a slow cyclone; then they did stretches, push-ups, and sit-ups. Afterward they were given rations of broth and made to do the exercises over again. Those who did not complete the regimen were given no broth and were held out from the afternoon feed line. The fugee boys worked tirelessly to be fed. They were given two meals a day in addition to morning broth. The food made them feel like royalty. No one missed more than a meal during those first weeks.

  Group Leader Jones showed them how to use their assigned weapons; how to field strip and clean. He pulled Leonard from the exercise regimen and showed him the trigger, the sight, the safety, and how to quickly reload. At night, Jones read to the boys from the Bible. He made hand gestures in the light of an oil lamp and the boys imagined they saw angels and spirits in the shadows. Jones told them stories of the old world and its evils. He took them to the crucifixion of the boy who had accidentally discharged his firearm. They watched the boy scream as the sun burned his face and blood dripped from his impaled wrists, to be swallowed in the desert dust. The lesson was not lost on them.

  Leonard and the fugees grew stronger. They grew to love the guards who fed and commanded them, especially Jones. Once a week they stood in front of a stage with all the other fugee boys and guards to watch the red robed preacher testify. The guards referred to this as Group Meeting and the message was always the same; they were lucky, they should be dead or in Heaven, but God had both rejected them and saved them. The world had been destroyed by the storms and plagues, which had been brought by sin. Always the red preacher pontificated on the sins of man. Now was their time. They were the inheritors. The world was theirs to claim and the old mistakes could be righted. Redemption was at hand.

  The routine went on unchanged for two months. Leonard was comforted by the structure of the day, in always knowing what was expected. During the Leonard’s ninth Group Meeting, the red preacher gave a new message.

  “Thou art the survivors,” he said. “Thou art blessed in the Lord’s eyes if thy purpose is redemption and redemption is at hand. Children, the old world was a place of sin. The old world was a place of placation and disregard for right, for holy, for good.”

  The red preacher thrust his right hand into the air for all to see. A black crucifix was freshly tattooed across his palm. It sweated blood.

  “Children, thou will be saved and in claiming thy salvation thou will strike against the h
eart of the old world’s sin. Thou will be vessels of the Lord. Thou will be the flaming sword of Gabriel come to life in a swift fist that strikes the heart of the old world and all of its sin. Just north of us, children, just over the horizon lies the capital of sin, the city of sin, the gathering place for all that is sick and unholy, Las Vegas! Those old enough, those of us who were men before the Storms know without convincing. Las Vegas is the city of sin on purpose, the capital of whores, criminals, blasphemers, homosexuals, and race traitors!”

  Leonard looked to the guards and fugees. They all watched silently, consuming the red preacher’s every word, held by the magic of his zealotry.

  “Who wants to show God we’re grateful to be alive?”

  One of the guards broke the silence.

  “I!” Said the guard.

  Then the others joined in. Slowly at first, but building upon faceless mob confidence. The voices of hundreds came together as a roar, the roar of animals.

  “Who wants to earn this world? Who wants to claim this world!?”

  The red preacher was no longer looking to the crowd. His face was lifted up and screaming to the heavens. The guards and fugees roared on.

  “Who wants to tear sin asunder!? Who wants to tell the Almighty that we understand!? Goddamn it, we understand!”

  The red preacher leaped across the stage waving his hands and shouting. The crowd had taken to chanting in rhythm.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  The red preacher waved his hands at the floor, signaling for silence. The chanting died down.

  “I’m going to Las Vegas.” The red preacher said in a whisper, just loud enough for the crowd to hear.

  “I’m going to Las Vegas to purge its sin. I’ll welcome company, but if I have none, I’ll go alone.”