Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(20)

Unfortunately the Attendant is providing the wrong kind of spectacle, because the shambler lurches off the stage and after the trio in the aisle. I launch myself off after her.

The shambler runs up the aisle toward the prone woman, who I can see now is the mayor’s wife. The serving girl looks up, her eyes round as saucers as the shambler bears down on her.

“Shoot it!” I shout to the Attendant in the aisle, but she drops her sidearm and runs, the girl with the smelling salts close behind. Needless to say, neither of them were ever Miss Preston’s girls.

“Damn it to hell,” I yell, this time not quite able to keep the language to myself. The shambler is close enough to Mrs. Carr to get a good bite out of her, and I decide to do the stupidest thing ever.

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo, catch a shambler by the toe.

I dive at the dead woman, grabbing her one-handed by the ankle. She goes down, flat on her belly, only a few inches away from the unconscious woman. The shambler kicks out, her heel catching me in the mouth and splitting my lip. I grunt and my grip slips. She tries to drag herself toward Mrs. Carr, and I grab the shambler’s ankle again with both hands and haul her back, groaning as I climb to my feet.

The dead woman lets loose a sound somewhere between frustration and fury. She twists around in my grip, lunging for me. The woman is faster than I expect, and I take a stumbling step back. My feet tangle in my skirts and I fall, the shambler following.

I throw up my hands, using my forearms to block the weight of her torso before she can take a bite out of my face. She claws at me as I hold her back, my hands locked around her throat. I push her up and away, locking my elbows and hiding my face in my shoulder, trying to avoid her scrabbling hands. She pulls at the brim of Katherine’s bonnet, more interested in yanking my face to her teeth than in freeing herself. I’m trying to figure out how to get her off of me when there’s a loud report and something cold and wet splashes on my face.

The shambler goes limp and I push her to the side, climbing to my feet as I wipe blood and the shambler’s brains off of my cheek. I look around to see who just saved my bacon, and I meet the eyes of the most remarkable man I’ve ever seen.

He stands at the back of the room, a rifle in his hand. His straight dark hair is chin-length, his jaw square, his skin the same deep brown as mine. He wears a strange outfit, some kind of canvas pants that I’ve never seen before with a checkered shirt. My mouth falls open, part shock and part plain old rudeness. I ain’t too proud to admit that I stare at him as he watches me. But it ain’t entirely my fault. I never saw an Indian before.

Of course I’ve read the newspaper weeklies about them: “The Chieftain’s Son,” “Plains Bride,” and my favorite, “Two Braves of Yellow Rock,” which is a story about two Cherokee brothers, one that chooses the white man’s way and the other who becomes the chief of his tribe. Momma loved those stories, and when the paper would come we’d read them together, marveling over tales of a frontier untouched by the blight of the restless dead.

Momma used to say the Indian was even worse off than the Negro, because instead of being taken from his land he’d had his land taken from him. The man looks across the rapidly thinning audience at me, just as I’m staring at the fellow that saved my life. But then the Indian gives me a scowl, as though I am the most repugnant thing he’s ever seen, and turns and leaves the lecture hall.

Well.

Katherine comes running up, a revolver in her hand, huffing and puffing as she tries to get a full breath.

I glare at her. “Where’ve you been?”

“I had to run all the way down the street to find those dimwits. They were still searching for the shambler you sent them chasing after.” Katherine looks at me and frowns. “What happened to my bonnet?”

I don’t answer her. I just take it off, hand it to her, and walk out to find Miss Duncan.

I’ve had enough higher education to last me a lifetime.





A few of the girls here seem to find all sorts of mischief, constantly in trouble with the headmistress. You’ll be happy to hear that I am not one of them.





Chapter 7


In Which I Receive Invitations Both Expected and Unexpected


Someone shakes me awake. I crack one eye open, notice the pale gray light filtering through the bars on the windows, and grunt. “You better be shaking me for a good reason.”

“Come on,” a voice says from the dark. It’s Katherine. She stalks off, and I reluctantly rise for our fourth straight day of house duty.

After we’d put down all of the shamblers, Mayor Carr had been kind enough to let us use his personal carriage to get back to the school. I’m guessing this generosity came on account of me saving his wife and all. The engine chugged through the twilight, moving down the road much more quickly than the rented carriages we’d taken to Baltimore. The steam engine had been nearly whisper-quiet, the hiss low enough that we didn’t attract a single shambler from the surrounding woods. The seats had also been more comfortable, and the interior large enough to fit all of us in one pony. I didn’t think the taxpayers would be too keen on hearing that their elected official traveled in unrivaled luxury while they were forced to ride in barrels pushed along by clanking old engines.

When we got back, Miss Duncan had marched us right into Miss Preston’s office. At first I thought maybe we were going to get a ribbon or something for our valorous conduct. What we got was another lecture.