Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(16)
The rest of the room ain’t so patient, and several of the men in the front are already drawing their guns and aiming up at the stage, not waiting to see where the sound is coming from. But the professor holds his hands out in a placating gesture. “Gentlemen, please. The situation is completely under control. You may retake your seats and put away your firearms.”
The creak-creak-moan sound resolves itself into a colored man pushing a sheet-covered contraption. I can tell from the size and shape that it’s a shambler’s cage. They use them during roundups, which are usually in the spring after the first thaw. The risen dead will lie down during the winter, since, like most folks, they don’t much care for the cold. The first few warm days of the year, the patrols will put out cages and tie a chicken or turkey or hog to the metal bars inside. Since shamblers can’t resist living meat as they wake, they’ll come out of the woods, jamming into the cage. Once it’s full, the patrols will close the steel door and set the whole mess on fire. It ain’t fancy, but it keeps the undead from attacking settlements and multiplying like rabbits come the spring.
This cage is on the smaller size, like the sort a farmer might use in his field, and once the man has pushed it into the middle of the stage the professor pulls the sheet off with a flourish. Inside are three shamblers: two men and one woman, all white folks. Sympathy for them twinges through me—I ain’t seen a sight like this in a while. They ain’t decayed much, so they must be new turns, and it makes me feel a little maudlin to think that a few weeks ago they probably had lives, families that loved them, jobs they didn’t care for, petty grievances they nursed grudges over. Now they’re nothing but yellow-eyed creatures out of a nightmare.
“Ladies and gentlemen, here we have three specimens, all recently infected. I would like to thank our fine Mayor Carr for allowing me to utilize these poor souls, gathered from the outskirts of Baltimore County, for our demonstration before their disposal.” A smattering of uncertain applause breaks out around us, and a sick feeling sits heavy in my belly, like I just ate a peck of too-green apples. But the professor ain’t finished. “I’d also like to introduce you to my assistant, Othello, who will be helping me with my demonstration.”
The colored man next to the professor waves at the crowd uncertainly. A murmuring intensifies, the room buzzing like a beehive poked with a stick. Under it all, the calls keep coming from the cage, and my sick feeling gets near to crippling. Katherine grabs my arm, horror widening her eyes. “He is not about to do what I think he is. Is he?”
Nothing that is about to take place on that stage is going to be good. I can feel it in my gut. I reach under my shirt for my penny. It’s cool to the touch despite being nestled against my skin, and I know that danger is near.
A lady’s Attendant is always supposed to have a pleasant expression, but I can’t seem to keep a grimace from my face. I shift in my seat, rearranging my skirts so I can more easily reach my sidearm. “You need to be ready to get the littler girls out. I’m pretty sure this ain’t going to end up well for poor Othello, and this time Iago ain’t going to have anything to do with it.”
Katherine gives me a confused look before nodding as she gets the gist of what I mean, even if she doesn’t get the reference. Now that most of the chatter has died down, the professor has moved across to the cage.
“Now, Othello here is going to willingly submit to a shambler’s bite in order to demonstrate the increased resistance of a vaccinated Negro. Earlier this week Othello received a series of shots, which were painless.” The professor takes out his handkerchief and mops his brow once more before tucking it back into his pocket. I’m certain he ain’t told the truth the whole time he’s been up there, since he’s sweating like a murderer in church. What is this man playing at?
The professor continues. “This experiment is intended to ratify the prudence of our mayor’s Negro patrols, which, under the close guidance of our excellent keepers of the peace, fulfill their role of service that God intended, keeping our city safe. Just as the undead plague is born of God’s will, so also is the Negroes’ resistance—vaccinated Negro squads make sense from both a moral and a scientific standpoint. I am confident that this experiment will also demonstrate that the Negro and Native Reeducation Act is entirely unnecessary. The cities are safe, the controlled territories are largely secure . . . Why should our citizens pay to educate colored boys and girls to do a job they’re already biologically equipped to do? And when our esteemed mayor finds himself in the District after being elected senator”—the professor pauses for applause from the Survivalists up front—“I’m sure he will make every Baltimorean proud by helping to repeal the NNRA.”
The professor smiles a little and inclines his head in the direction of the mayor and the man sitting next to him. Old Blunderbuss, as the newspapers call Mayor Carr, was the one that established Baltimore’s Negro patrol squads a few years ago, right after I arrived at Miss Preston’s. Before he was elected, the squads had been integrated, but now few whites serve in anything but command roles. I suppose it might have been a controversial move if it hadn’t been so successful. As Momma once said, “Keeping the peace in this country isn’t that hard, as long as nobody important dies.”
I don’t like this blowhard professor very much. I get the feeling his research is less about science and more about the mayor’s impending run for Senate.