Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(71)
He continues. “So, here we are. Shamblers—I mean, the undead—are generating the electricity in the town, such as it is. We might be able to create more power if we could build more generators and improve the electrical infrastructure, but the Negroes and roughnecks have their hands full maintaining the barrier, and the Snyders refuse to make the whites within town work on the fence. They just waste their time having tea and drinking.”
I frown. “Mr. Gideon, I beg your pardon, but this all makes absolutely no sense. Shamblers, here, within the walls?”
He leans forward, a shine in his eyes that I’m pretty sure ain’t entirely from the electric lights. “With my help, they’ve turned this place into a Survivalist nightmare. They believe the undead, like the Negro, were put here to serve whites, and that it’s our place to guide, but not to labor. Meanwhile, the Survivalist drovers and laborers are tired of being forced to tend the fields. They believe it should be their turn to enjoy the good life. But the interior fence isn’t even finished, and it’s only the patrols that are keeping us from being overrun.”
“And all the people over there in the town? The fancy ones? They’re Survivalists, too?”
Mr. Gideon leans back suddenly, his expression shuttering. “Not all of them. But that’s all I’m going to say about that, Miss McKeene. The hour is getting late, and while I worry for the future of Summerland, it isn’t going to fall tomorrow. You should get back to your bed before the sheriff and his boys finish sleeping off last night’s revelry.”
I climb to my feet, clutching the jar of peaches. “Thank you for the food.”
“Don’t mention it. The town is headed for a reckoning, and I have a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better.”
I hesitate a moment before I reach into my waistband. Tom Sawyer was the last gift Jackson ever gave me, and I haven’t finished the book just yet. But I hate owing anyone a debt. And who knows, maybe if everything works out, I can find myself another copy. “Here. For the peaches.”
Mr. Gideon takes the book uncertainly, turning it over in his hands. “I . . . thank you.”
“Sweet dreams, Mr. Gideon,” I say over my shoulder as I climb the stairs.
“Sweet dreams, Jane,” he says, his voice far away.
I let myself out of the lab and slip past the outhouses and the abandoned hotel. The sun is just starting to hint at its rise over the horizon to the east, but it’s still mostly dark, and I’m almost to the saloon when I hear the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking.
“Well, hello there, Jane,” Sheriff Snyder drawls. He stands just a few feet behind me, grinning, and I’m once again reminded of the stories I’ve heard of alligators. “I do believe you are breaking curfew.”
I open my mouth to come up with some story to excuse myself, but the sheriff has a hell of a left hook, and I go down before I can utter a word.
It’s sad news that our neighbor to the east, Mr. Berringer, has been overrun. We’ve taken in twenty of the Negroes who lived on his land and a nasty old overseer named Duncan. I have a feeling that Duncan is not going to last here in Rose Hill. I must say that it is curious that so many of these men who subscribed wholeheartedly to the peculiar institution are turning shambler.
Chapter 27
In Which I Have Had Enough
When I come to, Sheriff Snyder and Bill have me by either arm and are dragging me through the dirt of the street. I try fighting, but that punch from the sheriff has me seeing stars and I’m no match for two grown men.
I’m tied to the whipping post in front of the sheriff’s office.
I try to climb to my feet, struggling against the ropes, alarm and a powerful headache both clanging in my head, but there’s no getting free. I’m dizzy, but whether it’s from taking a hit or the combination of exhaustion and hunger there’s no telling, but I fully recognize that I am not in a very good place.
Next to me comes a low chuckle. Bill is leaning against the pole, whittling and whistling, looking like he ain’t got a care in the world.
“You think you’re smart, doncha? Told ya you were going to learn some manners here. And it looks like the sheriff is just about ready to dispatch that lesson.”
“Bill.” The voice behind me is raspy. “Go round up the flock. They’ve slept enough, and this sermon requires sinners.”
“Yessir,” Bill says. He moves off, and the preacher shuffles nearer.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, Jane. You’re scared, and that’s natural. You’re wondering how you ended up here, if there wasn’t some kind of thing you could’ve done differently to avoid this whole mess.”
My heart pounds, loud enough that I’m sure he can hear it. I can’t see him, so when his breath tickles my ear, the scent of him filling my nose, I flinch.
“The reality is that you couldn’t do anything. This is all as God wills it to be. In the wake of the punishment laid down by the Lord are His laws laid bare. All His creations are not equal, but we are all His children, all with our place. The rapture, such as it is, is here, on earth. The white man ascends; his dark counterparts are His servants, laying the stones in the pathway to Heaven. That we ever thought otherwise, that we once entertained the notion of equality for all of God’s children on earth, that we fought and killed one another over it . . . well, we know how that turned out.”