PART ONE
NEW ALAMO, TEXAS
LATE AUGUST
THE STILLNESS
It is the secret of the world
that all things subsist and do not die,
but retire a little from sight
and afterwards return again.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, ESSAYS: SECOND SERIES
1
GABRIELLA “GUTSY” GOMEZ BURIED HER mother on wednesday. And again on Friday.
This was the world and that’s how it was.
2
THE SIGN OVER THE CEMETERY read “Hope.”
Gutsy kept trying to believe in the sign, but every day it was getting harder to understand what the word even meant. Hope for what? Hope for who? Hope for where?
She stood in the road, one hand on the bridle of the weary, patient old horse; her other hand on the broad-bladed machete that hung from her belt. All the metal fittings on knife and bridle had been sanded down and painted in flat colors. There was nothing reflective on anything she wore, on the horse, or on the work cart. Reflections were dangerous this far from town. The wheels of the cart and the harness strapped to the horse were greased where they needed grease and padded where they needed padding. Reflection drew one kind of trouble and noise drew another.
“Come on, Gordo,” she said, and the horse bobbed his head and followed, big hooves clomping softly on the dusty ground. He knew the way as well as she did. Maybe better, since he had taken his three previous owners here over the years. Gutsy’s neighbors, Old Henry and Jackie Darling, then her mother. Twice. Gutsy wondered if Gordo would pull her cold body here someday. The horse had maybe two or three years left. Gutsy doubted she had that much time herself.
“Hope,” she said. “Right.”
She turned and looked at the silent form that lay wrapped in sheets in the back of the wagon.
“We’re here, Mama,” she murmured. “We’re back.”
The grave was on the far side of the graveyard, in cool shadows beneath the sheltering arms of an ancient cottonwood tree. Gutsy had picked that spot because it was quiet and there were some wildflowers growing between the tree’s gnarled roots. As she approached, though, it was obvious that the tranquility had been torn apart. As the ground had been torn.
She stopped and studied the scene, frowning.
“What the . . . ?” she breathed, and a heartbeat later the machete was in her fist. Gordo gave a nervous whinny and stamped his feet.
The grave was open, yawning like a black mouth in the dark soil.
But it was wrong.
When someone came back and somehow fought free of their shroud and clawed up through all that dirt, the scene was a mess. The surface would be chopped up, dirt thrown everywhere, long scratch marks to show where the cold fingers had pulled the body out of the grave. Gutsy had seen that many times.
This was not like that.
The dirt was heaped in two piles on either side of the hole. Neat piles. As Gutsy crept close, eyes flicking left and right across the cemetery, she knew that her mother had not done this. She stopped by the edge of the grave, at the end where she had laid her mother’s head down, and saw smooth patches on the sides of the hole. Shovel marks.
Someone had dug her mother up.
The soiled white shroud lay across one hump of dirt, and it had clearly been sliced open by a sharp knife. The rope Gutsy had tied around her mother’s ankles, knees, wrists, and arms lay like severed snakes, their ends showing clean cuts.
Gutsy hefted her machete, the heavy blade offering only cold comfort. It would protect her—as it had many times—but not against everything. Not against a swarm of the dead. Not against a gang of the living. Not against a gun.
She turned in a slow circle, eyes narrowed as she looked at everything, accepting nothing at face value, making no foolish assumptions. Ready.
Inside her chest, Gutsy’s heart felt like it had already been attacked and gravely wounded. She had barely begun to grieve for her mother, had not even taken the first steps forward as an orphan, when her mama had shown up in the yard last night. That had been bad. So bad.
If she thought Wednesday night had been the worst thing she had ever experienced or ever felt, she was wrong. Thursday night was so much worse.
So much.
And now, Friday morning was spinning out of control. A pretty morning here in south Texas had become a storm of ugliness, and it was only going to get worse. She had no doubt at all about that. So much worse.
Someone had dug her mother up, had freed her from the shroud and ropes, and either set her on the road back to town, or brought her there. The former possibility was thin because there were gates and guards, but strange things happened sometimes. The dead, though mostly unable to think, occasionally found ways back into town. That was why so many people thought there was something unnatural going on. Demons, maybe. Or ghosts.
Gutsy didn’t believe in those kinds of monsters. Never had. Last night, though, she had come dangerously close to believing in the supernatural. She’d convinced herself that Mama had somehow found her way back home; that, despite being dead, Mama had known where her home was. Gutsy knew it was wishful thinking, but she’d clung to it for as long as she could.
Now, in the harsh light of day, the second possibility seemed far more likely. That someone alive had done this.
Normally, having solid, common-sense ground to stand on would have been a comfort; it would have calmed her. Not now. No way.
Who would do such a thing?
Why would anyone do this?
A hot breeze blew through the cemetery, picking up dust and pieces of dried weeds. It blew past her, rasping across her face and then moving on, howling its way into the Broken Lands beyond the wall. Gordo whinnied again.
Nothing else moved.
There was no one else there. It took a long time for Gutsy to accept and believe that, but after five long minutes she lowered her machete. The blade fell from her hand, landing with a dull thud. She squatted down beside the empty grave, wrapped her arms around her head, and began to cry.
Some of the tears were bitter.
Some were as hot as the rage that burned in her chest.
The world was full of monsters. Gutsy knew that as well as anyone left alive. Not all those monsters were the living dead.
That made it all so much worse.
3
THE MEMORIES CAME TO HER like a swarm of monsters. Grabbing at her, holding her down, biting her, making her bleed. Making her scream.
Two days ago . . .
“I’m sorry, Gabriella,” whispered her mother. “Please forgive me.”
Her voice was so thin, so faint, as if she was already gone.
Gutsy sat on the floor beside her mother’s cot. The air was thick with the smell of soaps and disinfectant and aromatic herbs, but the smell of dying was too strong to be pushed aside. Nothing could stop the infection. Nothing. Not alcohol, not what few antibiotics Gutsy and her friends could scavenge. It raged beneath her mother’s skin, set fire to her blood, and was taking her away, moment by moment.
“It’s okay, Mama,” said Gutsy, careful not to squeeze too hard. Her mother’s hand was hot, but it was frail and felt like it could break at any second.
Gutsy’s words were muffled by the mask she wore, and she hated that the doctor made her wear gloves. No skin-to-skin contact, and even with those precautions Gutsy had to take a scalding-hot shower afterward. Mama had insisted too, because she had been a nurse at the town hospital. Not before the End, but trained by Max Morton, the town doctor after the dead rose. She’d been part of a team of hastily trained nurses who tried to form a kind of wall between the people in the town and the constant wave of death that always seemed ready to crash down. Death never rested.