The Land of the Shadow (9 page)

Pearl stood there, her huge backpack on the floor beside her. Justin’s hand fell away from his gun. “Evening.”

“Hi.” Pearl looked a little uncertain for a moment. “Can I talk to you guys for a minute?”

“Sure.” Carly stepped back to let her pass, and Justin offered her a seat at the kitchen table. Carly ducked down into the basement, took the pitcher from the shelf, and brought it upstairs. Pearl took the glass of cool water with a nod and a smile of thanks. The sun had set hours ago, but the air was still hot enough that tiny beads of sweat dotted her forehead.

“I take it you’ve decided to stay,” Justin said.

“Why do you think that?” Pearl replied, a little smile dimpling her cheeks.

“Because if not, you’d already be gone.”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess I would. I’ve still got some reservations.”

Carly refilled Pearl’s glass. “Of course you do.”

“What’s the catch? What do you expect of me?” Pearl pressed her hands flat on the table and leaned forward a little.

“Just that you contribute wherever you can,” Carly said. “We need every pair of willing hands.”

“And you’re the leader, right?”

Justin spoke up. “Carly and I are, yes.”

Pearl smiled at Carly. “You’re, like, the vice-president?”

“More like co-dictator.” Justin poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. “I’ll be blunt—this isn’t a democracy. Carly and I are always willing to listen to other opinions, but our decisions are final. If you can’t live with that, we understand. But that’s the way it is here.”

Carly cast him a reproving glance. “He’s exaggerating. We vote on most stuff. It’s more like we hold veto power. Rarely exercised, at that. We do make some rules, but we don’t boss people around all the time.”

“How can I know what sort of leaders you are?”

“Only by living here, I suppose.” Carly tapped her fingers on the table. “You’re always free to leave if you’re not happy here, Pearl. The fence we have is to keep people out, not keep them in.”

“That’s another thing I wanted to ask you.”

Justin waited for her to continue, but Pearl just stared down into her glass and turned it in her hands.

“The fence is a precaution,” Justin said. “A necessary one, as you saw in today’s events. Fortunately, we haven’t faced anyone yet who wanted to do us physical harm or organized raiding parties, but it’s always a possibility we need to be prepared for. And as the food supply dwindles, it’s going to become more likely.”

“What are you going to do about the fence-cutter?”

Carly exchanged a glance with Justin. He was the one who answered.

“Increase the patrols, set a few traps, and catch the bastard.”

“What will you do when you catch him? Assuming it’s a ‘him.’ ”

Both Carly and Justin had been using the male pronoun as an assumption, but the more Carly thought about it, the more she was almost sure it wasn’t a woman. Perhaps it was just her own prejudices, but the theft didn’t seem like something a woman would do. But she was always willing to consider the possibility.

“That depends on who it is,” Justin said. “And why they did it.”

“Is there a scenario where you would kill someone for stealing?” Pearl set her empty water glass down.

“Yes.” Justin met her eyes, cool and level. “It’s not like we can call the police, Pearl, and have them put in jail. It doesn’t work that way anymore.”

Carly couldn’t tell whether Pearl was unsettled by that response or not. She traced her finger in the condensation on the table.

“But you can’t prevent people from breaking in.”

“No, maybe not, but we can try. And we can be ready to deal with it when it happens.” Justin sat back in his chair. “Is your interest in this subject an indication of the area where you’d like to contribute?”

Pearl was startled. “I hadn’t thought about . . . I mean, I just wondered—”

“We can use another sharp pair of eyes in the Watchers.”

Pearl copied Carly’s tapping fingers. “I have to admit, this makes me nervous. You guys seem to have a really good thing going here, a prime target. Do you know what it’s like on the outside?”

“All too well.”

Pearl gave them a somewhat skeptical look.

“We were on the road for almost a year before we came here.” Carly took a deep breath. “We realize our security isn’t perfect, but we’re doing what we can with what we have. We are trying to prepare for the worst, while hoping for the best.”

Justin grinned at her. “
You’re
hoping for the best. Optimism is your job. I’m the heavily armed pessimist.”

Pearl laughed. Justin gave a little smile and shrugged.

Carly sat back in her chair. “He was probably better prepared to deal with this crazy new world than most. In the army, he saw what happens when social order breaks down.”

Pearl gave him a questioning look. Carly saw his jaw muscles tense a little. He didn’t try to hide his background, but he didn’t like to talk about it, either.

“She’s right. I’ve seen the worst of it. Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and a few other places I don’t care to mention right now. I’ve seen what happens when things fall apart. So, yeah, I admit to being a little bit of a cynic when it comes to human nature.”

Carly gave a significant glance at the handguns strapped to Pearl’s hips. “I think you’ve found another.”

Justin put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “I told you she would be a perfect addition to our community.”

Truthfully, he’d never said anything of the type, but she’d known he was thinking it. Carly pushed her chair back. “Pearl, if you’re going to stay—at least for a while until you see if it’s what you’re looking for—I’ll take you to a house you can use.”

Pearl opened her mouth to say something and Carly held up a hand. “Just for tonight. You don’t have to decide right now if you’re going to stay or not.”

Pearl hesitated just a moment but nodded.

They stepped through the screen door out into the warm, humid night. Sam followed, his nails clicking on the sidewalk. His ears were erect, swiveling as he scanned the darkness for threats. Carly patted him to try to reassure him, but Sam was as paranoid as Justin these days.

“Let me ask you something,” Pearl said. “Why do you
want
me to stay? I’m sure you don’t have a shortage of people asking to come in.”

Carly fell into an easy pace beside her. “We need
good
people. We don’t need dependents. We need the dependable. We’re trying to choose stones.”

Pearl raised a brow. “Stones?”

“To build a foundation.” Carly looked up at the stars, peeping between the gathering cloud cover. “We want this community to last, so we need to choose good people to be the basis of it.”

Pearl smacked her arm and swore.

“I’ve got some mosquito repellant,” Carly said. She pulled a small spray bottle out of her pocket. “I spray our mosquito netting every night to try to keep them away.”

Pearl sprayed it on, the scent of the tea tree oil sharp in the humid night air. “I heard that Mrs. Marson lady say that alligator fat was once used by the Native Americans in this region to repel mosquitos.”

Carly wrinkled her nose. “And every other living thing. Ugh.”

Pearl scratched her arm. “I think I’d rather stink than get eaten alive. This doesn’t smell too bad, though.”

“A bunch of essential oils mixed together,” Carly said. “We’re going to have to learn how to distill those out of the plants.” She sighed. So many things they needed to learn how to make and do before the manufactured stuff ran out. It was a deadline that always loomed large in her mind. Books only went so far, and Miz Marson’s knowledge sometimes had gaps they had no choice but to fill with experimentation.

At the end of the block was a small bungalow house. It had been empty before Carly’s group arrived in Colby, so they hadn’t needed to clear it of victims after the Infection they’d brought with them swept through town. Carly shoved away those terrible memories and reached into the rectangular metal mailbox beside the door. Her fingers patted around until she found the key.

The house was stuffy and smelled a little musty from being closed up for so long. Carly scanned the living room, preserved just the way it had been Before. Her gaze lingered on the dark television set. She hadn’t seen one of those in a while. Most people had shoved them into storage, those who still clung to some faint hope they’d be able to use them again someday. Others had thrown them out despite Justin’s suggestion they might contain components they’d find useful someday. Many electric lamps had gone the same way, tossed into the garbage pit on the edge of town.

“It’s not much, but it’s yours if you want it,” Carly said. “There’s other stuff at the furniture store if you want to change any—”

“This is fine.” Pearl ran her fingers over the flowered upholstery of the sofa. “It reminds me of my mom’s furniture.”

Her voice contained the same wistful sadness as Carly’s did when she spoke of her family. Carly’s throat tightened.

“My mom had green and white gingham.” She had lain on that couch while she watched the world fall apart. Carly took a deep breath and forced herself back to the present. “If you need anything, don’t be shy about asking, okay?”

“Thanks, Carly. I’m sorry I’ve been so suspicious. This place just seems to be too good to be true, you know? I keep expecting to open a door and find your Soylent Green factory.”

Carly nodded, though she had no idea what Pearl was talking about with the reference. She’d have to ask Justin later. But she understood what Pearl meant about it feeling too good to be true after being out in the wasteland. She’d had the same feeling when they’d first come to Colby and found it a still-functioning town, societal structure intact, shops still open. Mindy had been so freaked out by it, she’d refused to even go to the town meeting.

“Have a good night,” Carly said. She turned to go and stopped in the doorway for a moment. “Pearl? I’m glad you’re here.”

Pearl gave Carly a smile and dropped her pack on the floor with a thump, a sound that rang with a note of finality. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”

Chapter Four

Justin spent the night in his favorite tree—an ancient oak, with wide, comfortable limbs that were perfectly positioned to keep an eye on the house and to be able to scan the fence line through a night scope—but the intruder had not returned.

The whole town was on a state of high alert, the Watch patrols increased. At one point, he saw their newest resident ostensibly on an evening stroll, but he could see even at this distance that she was checking out the place. He grinned. Pearl was going to fit in better than she thought, but he wanted to have a talk with her.

His chance came when Pearl showed up for his class the next evening. It was a practical lesson in which he showed the students how to mix and use a homemade version of napalm, a simple mixture that clung to surfaces as it burned. The store mannequins he’d set up in a parking lot were blazing at the end of the night, and he warned the young men, all of whom had an excited, speculative gleam in their eyes, that he’d make them very sorry if he heard of them experimenting at home with it. The last thing they needed was a fire in town. One of his students, Kross, had proven himself very adept at explosives, but Justin didn’t want the kid screwing around and blowing himself up. Kross’s eyes sparkled with excitement, and a bit of a flush had crept up under his dark honey-colored skin. He lingered after class and suggested other mixtures, and Justin enjoyed explaining what wouldn’t work and why. A creative mind was always a pleasure.

Afterward, Justin didn’t head home, and Pearl showed no surprise when she answered her door. “You and I need to have a talk,” he said.

She nodded. “I thought you would want to.”

She gestured at the porch swing, and they both took a seat, their feet coming to a natural rhythm of pushing the swing in a gentle glide. They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the crickets and the creaking song of the frogs in the swamp.

“But this isn’t the usual getting-to-know-you chat,” she said, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You’re not the type to come over for small talk and a cup of coffee.”

“No.” Justin rubbed the back of his neck. “And I don’t want you to feel like this is an interrogation, but you can imagine I’d want to know people in the community where my wife and baby are living.”