Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(15)
The only reason I recognize Mayor Carr is because his picture is in the newspaper nearly every week, the headlines proclaiming this victory or that accomplishment, usually in relation to containing the shambler threat and securing the Baltimore city limits. It’s the Survivalists that lobbied to retake the cities nearly a decade ago, the idea being that if the cities were safe they could provide an anchor to regain the continent. But I don’t know about all that. Momma used to say that a politician was a man that had perfected the art of lying, so I always read those articles with a certain amount of skepticism before turning over to the serials. The serials are the best part of the paper, anyhow. Reading about adventures out west or the tragedy of fine ladies with lecherous husbands always makes my day.
I don’t recognize any of the other men around Mayor Carr. They look a lot like him, with their chin whiskers and pale skin and bold ascots. There are a few members of the Egalitarian Party in the rows as well, with their yellow-and-blue-striped ties, but they are far outnumbered by the Survivalists.
I settle into a chair, perching on the edge, careful not to bump the gun strapped to my thigh. Up front, the professor, a bald white man with small spectacles and a florid face, has already started delivering his remarks. He stands at a lectern in the front of the room, wearing a suit that is several years out of fashion, rambling on about organisms and spoiled milk. When he starts talking about things like pathogens and disease transmission I look sharply at Katherine, who is staring at me like I just grew an extra head. I give her a smug grin. Her sainted professor is talking about the same science-y facts I did in the carriage.
That gets me to pay attention.
“So these pathogens, or very small creatures, are transmitted from one victim to another through the bite of an infected corpse. Over the years these pathogens have evolved, which explains the shift from the Gettysburg strain—which would turn the victim only after he expired—to today’s dominant strain, which initiates the transformation in the victim only a short time after they’ve been bitten. We’ve taken to calling this the Custer strain.” He chuckles a little at his own joke, but when no one in the audience joins him he clears his throat and continues. “It’s named after Custer’s stunning defeat in Cleveland at the hands of his own infected men, of course. Now, overseas in Scotland, at the behest of a doctor there, Mr. Joseph Lister, they have had great success with burning their dead, which prevents the corpse from rising after burial. In addition, a few of our own local academics, including Mr. Irvington, have just returned from a sojourn to British India. There, the raj has ordered the beheading of their dead regardless of whether they’ve been bitten. This has kept the rates of infection from both the Gettysburg strain and the Custer strain very, very low.
“In addition—and more relevant to our discussion today—there is comparably less of the infection west of the Mississippi River, especially amongst the Indians. It’s similar to what we’ve seen in the South with the Negro, where the plague often fails to spread widely within populations of colored peoples.”
There is considerable murmuring at this, and Professor Ghering smiles, his full-moon face glistening. I lean forward and frown. Fewer cases of the shambler plague amongst Negroes? That is a bald-faced lie if ever I’ve heard one.
The professor wipes at his brow with a pocket square before continuing. “I personally believe that the low rate of infection amongst the red man and the Negro is a direct consequence of the fact that neither the Indian nor the Negro is as highly developed as their European cousins, and thus show some of the resistance to the pathogen that we see in animals. Many argue this is an indication that, as polygenesis proponents have speculated in centuries past, the Negro is descended from a species entirely separate from the European Homo sapiens—one more closely related to the wild apes of the African jungle.”
The crowd stirs again, while a few of the girls from my school look at one another in shock. I’ve learned a bit about evolution thanks to the books and newspapers Jackson smuggles me, and the comparison doesn’t sit well. I cross my arms, as next to me Katherine mutters, “He did not just compare Negroes to apes.”
I grimace. “Oh yes, he did. I told you this man was a crackpot.”
At the front of the hall, Professor Ghering holds his hands up for attention, a benevolent smile on his face. His eyes scan the room, not even bothering to land on our group in the far back. I guess he pretty much figures where we stand on the whole nonsense, being beastly Negroes and all.
“Now, I believe this divergent ancestry indeed gives the Negro and the Indian a natural resistance to the undead plague. Not only that, but I am going to prove that a simple vaccination can increase this resistance, much the same way Louis Pasteur has vaccinated livestock against various diseases in France.”
Katherine sniffs. “Livestock.”
I know what she means. The more this man talks, the less I like him.
The professor is feeling his oats now, and he struts across the stage confidently. “And in order to validate this theory, I have prepared a demonstration that I am certain you shall all find fascinating.” At that he gestures to the side, offstage. There’s a creaking sound, and then a chorus of moans echo through the auditorium.
It’s the dead.
They say once you hear the shambler’s call you never forget the sound, and I don’t know who “they” are, but they’re right. It ain’t a moan, and it ain’t a groan; it’s a sound somewhere in between, mixed with the keening whine of a starving animal. I’d been hearing that noise in the distance, past the walls of Rose Hill, since before I can remember, but the first time I heard it up close was the day Zeke was devoured. The second was when I was a little girl sleeping with my momma in her big four-poster bed, the major standing over us with a look in his bright yellow eyes like he was about to enjoy a whole pan of cobbler. Neither memory is one I want to revisit, so when that sound fills the lecture hall it takes everything I got not to jump up, whip out my revolver, and start plugging away at anyone that ain’t looking right. But I don’t. Instead, I dig my fingers into my thighs, biding my time so I can see what kind of foolishness this professor is playing at.