Order of the Dead (59 page)

34

The sun was close to setting by the time Senna made it back to New Crozet. On
her way home, she’d reflected on what Brother Mardu had said about Equilibrium
Day.

This
was that day. This actually was Equilibrium Day and in
some harsh twist of irony, if that was what it was, the Order of the Dead had
been right.

There were townspeople waiting for her
at the gate, and as she got closer, they called for others. Some of them were
smiling, trying on an expression they hadn’t worn in years.

They nodded at her slightly, pursing
their lips, offering support. She’d returned alone, and they all knew what that
meant.

There was something else in their
eyes, too—in all of their eyes—something that was new and different. Something
she hadn’t seen in years, for so long in fact, that it took her a few moments
to recognize what it was.

What was in the background of their
faces now was a playing, uncertain hope, one that was pushing the boundaries,
but timidly, not wanting to risk going too far. The fear seemed to be crawling
down their faces and dripping off, no faster than molasses would, but that was
progress too. And the way they were holding themselves was changing, becoming
more expansive, as if their bodies were realizing that the cage had been
lifted, and now, for the first time in many years, there was space to spread
into.

Being the spotter she was, Senna could
sense the change in the forest, and she’d just made her way through it without
seeing any sign of zombies besides their corpses, and by now the townspeople were
suspecting it too. Their faces spoke of it plainly: were the zombies gone,
leaving nothing to pin New Crozet in place on its withered page in humanity’s
scrapbook? Were they finally free?

They let her inside. They were still keeping
the gate locked, even though it seemed that the virus really was gone from the
world, and that was the right thing to do, for now. It was too early to risk
exposing the town.

Jenny and Sasha stepped sheepishly out
from behind the adults. They approached cautiously at first, then, finally,
mercifully, put their hands on her, although they did it as if expecting an
electric shock. When none came, their readiness to jump backward and run, which
had been painted clearly on their faces, dissolved like the last traces of a
watercolor, and went off to find the fleeing mist that was now settling into
the ground.

They wrapped their arms around Senna, clinging
to her tightly, and she put her arms around the children and hugged them back. All
she could think was, thank you.

Sasha tugged at Senna’s sleeve. Senna
bent down, and Sasha tried to wipe some of the soot from Senna’s face, leaving
a trail where she rubbed. Sasha looked at the ash on her finger and saw bits of
orange in it. She wondered about this for a moment, then forgot it and said,
“You smell like fire.”

She’d see the sooty orange mixture
again in dreams, and only there, and she would never know that it was cinnamon,
because she would go through life without a full awareness of what cinnamon
was, experiencing it only twice in books, so the spice would never be more than
an abstract concept in her mind, weightless, odorless, and without color.

Senna nodded. “Like Alan,” she
whispered.

She thought of how much Jack had loved
Alan’s stories. And thinking of Jack made her think of Rosemary and how the two
had played and cared for Sasha in their own way. Rosemary had spent so many
evenings talking with Senna about the markets and the traders and traveling
among the settlements.

They’d all been alive just a short
time ago, just some hours earlier. And now they were gone. Gone.

She bit her bottom lip. The feelings
she was now having were too powerful to contain. She saw Rosemary’s face from
the previous night, and remembered what the girl had said in the cell, and she
understood why Corks had wanted to die.

Sasha tightened her grip around
Senna’s waist, then let up and Senna felt small fingers interlace with her own.
For a moment she thought she could look down and see Rosemary—albeit a younger
one who still held her hand from time to time—and she almost did see her, and
those strikingly inquisitive eyes, and the way her lips would part just before
she asked an insightful question.

The girl who wasn’t there was about to
ask about clothes before the outbreak, and why there were so many different
kinds, what all the brands meant, what it all meant, and how to make it better.

Alan was the one to go to for what it
all meant. He was the one.
He
was the one. And Rosemary was the one to
make it better, it was supposed to be her thinking up the new ways, her and
Jack.

Senna’s throat was closing up and the
tears were coating her face. Breathlessly, quietly, she cried, for all of them.

Elizabeth Clark emerged from the
crowd. Her eyes were raw, and she looked like she’d aged ten years in a night.
She walked toward Senna with her eyes trained on the ground, and, when she was
close enough, put her arms around Senna’s shoulders.

More townspeople came and joined Senna
and Elizabeth and the children.

Senna felt eyes on her, and she looked
up. Larry Knapp and Chad Stucky were standing a short distance away, and Amanda
Fortelberry and Betty Jane Oswalt were hobbling closer, each framed by skin
that was more wizened.

The tears stopped, allowing her to
take in what was happening. In the faces crowding around her was an
understanding that seemed to be limitless, an acceptance that was
unconditional, and the tears that now stood in her eyes were taller than any
that had come before.

She knew it then.

It was they who were the true Order: New
Crozet was the real Order of the Dead.

It was they who’d clung so stubbornly
to the idea of reviving the human race, not just in the physical sense, but in
the moral sense too. And in the end, somehow, both in spite of and because of
the losses they’d sustained, their cause had won out.

Senna drew the children closer to her,
and her mind turned to her unborn child, whom the townspeople would help her
raise, just as they would help to raise Jenny and Sasha. They were all her
family now. These people, this motley group of outbreak survivors, this was
Senna’s family.

She closed her eyes, and when the
tears tried to pour out of her again, she didn’t even try to hold back. As she
cried harder than she ever had in her life, the New Crozet townspeople welcomed
her into their arms, and when her legs tried to give out, it was they who kept
her upright.

The town itself was embracing her, taking
her in.

She knew she had to be strong for her
family, but maybe that meant letting them see her pain; perhaps that was what
true strength was.

Above her, the sky was ablaze once
more, as it had been during the market, when Alan had gone to find the woman
who was his greatest love, so he could point a finger at the sky, put an arm
around her shoulders, and take in the sight with her.

Today’s display was burning even more
brightly, encroaching on the outskirts of the day, which was cool after the
rain. At the epicenter of the inferno in the heavens, an orange fury was
billowing forth trails of grey smoke across Senna’s world, bearing the promise
of a distant, though reachable, warmth.

THE END

AUTHOR’S NOTE

If you got this far, I hope you enjoyed Order of the Dead. You helped Senna get
to the finish line, which for her was painted along the New Crozet perimeter
fence. She got to be reunited with her post-apocalyptic family there, and she
wouldn’t have made it back without your rallying cry. For that, Senna and I
both thank you.

I offer a sincere thank-you to my parents, my editors, Greg, Nika, Taly, Stephen,
Dave, and my friends. Thank you for your encouragement, and for taking the time
to give me feedback on Order of the Dead’s plot and writing style, and/or the
lack thereof. Your support has been, and continues to be, invaluable. Thank you
again.

Guy James