Life Sentence (29 page)

Milton paused and turned back to Will. “I think
under normal circumstances, your fellow community members would
decide on some punishment for you, but now we run into the
difficulty that the victims of your crimes are members of a
different community, with different laws. Colonel, what punishments
do you have in your community for a crime like this?”

“The punishment for most crimes is death. Sometimes
we cut off a hand or tongue for lesser crimes. Really minor
infractions, like those committed by children, are punished with
public beatings.” I’d read of such law codes, of course, from the
past; even the ones in the Bible weren’t that different. But how he
could so matter-of-factly describe such barbaric punishments in our
day, without any visible embarrassment, shocked me.

My dad was standing next to me. “Figures,” he
muttered. “Bunch of savages.”

Milton did a better job of hiding his incredulity,
but he still couldn’t respond for a few seconds. “And your
community... has survived? With such laws?”

The colonel shrugged. “We had to have harsh laws to
survive.”

Milton cleared his throat. “Well, I’m sure you did
what you thought best. But if such are your laws, then I don’t
think we can do anything here today that would satisfy you or your
people. We have no such punishments. We never have. The most we
have ever considered is banishment, and under the circumstances,
with no one having been killed, I don’t think we would even impose
that. It makes no sense to us. But neither does war with other
living people.

“Perhaps someone explained to you, Colonel, we do
not wage war even against the dead. So the options we are
discussing here—extreme punishment or outright war—both of these
seem to us senseless, barbaric, and cruel. All we can do now is
forgive and protect Will, and leave the reaction and retaliation up
to you and your people. But I’m sure Jack has made it clear to you
that we are quite capable of defending ourselves.”

“I think I made that crystal clear, Milton,” my dad
growled. It was ugly, this side of him—ugly and inevitable.

Will had returned to being anxious, moving
restlessly from one foot to the other. He finally spoke up. “You
can’t do that, Milton. You can’t protect me and have people fight
and die over it. That’s really senseless. I guess it’s not
barbaric, it’s kind of the opposite of barbaric, but it’s
definitely senseless. Individuals have to sacrifice for the
community all the time. We’re taught that.”

“But the community can’t force people to sacrifice
themselves,” Milton answered. “That’s what creatures like ants do.
And the community can’t be forced to commit violence, just to avoid
the threat of more violence. That’s blackmail.” He turned back to
the colonel at this comment. The colonel only shrugged again.

“I understand,” Will said. “But I can leave the
community. There is no rule that a person has to stay in our
community. We’re all free to leave at any time.”

Milton nodded and sighed again. “That is a brave
suggestion, Will. As you say, we have no means to stop you. But if
your sacrifice wouldn’t even accomplish what it was meant to, what
would be the point? So I would have to ask the colonel—if Will
leaves our community and goes off into the wilderness, would this
satisfy you and your people that we meant you no harm or offense,
and we had adequately punished the person who had harmed you?”

The colonel frowned. “I think it would seem absurdly
lenient to any of my people, but perhaps, since you people are so
different and have grown accustomed to such strange, impractical
ways of life, perhaps we could overlook this lack of wisdom, this
harmful mildness that you embrace. I would take this report back to
my people, that the culprit has been caught and he will be exiled.
I would play down the fact that he chooses this willingly, if I
were you. But with that punishment, I think we would probably
refrain from further bloodshed and try to live with you more
peacefully.”

“What about them?” Will asked, pointing at the two
zombies, who still patiently and shamefacedly awaited the decision
of us, the living, though I wondered if they thought we really had
any jurisdiction or right to rule over them. I wondered it myself,
when I saw how calm and harmless they looked against the blustering
and threats of the colonel—and even, I thought, of my dad. “What
are you going to do to them?”

“I was going to put them back with the others,”
Milton answered.

The colonel waved dismissively. “You yourself said
that your people treat them like animals in a zoo. When a dog bites
someone in our community, we don’t beat the dog. That just makes
the dog more violent. We demand that the owner keep the dog
restrained, and we whip the owner for his carelessness. So as
bizarre as your treatment of the zombies is, I have nothing against
you keeping dead people locked up. As you said, if they get out,
they’re more likely to come and attack your city.”

Will stepped over by the two dead people. “I’m glad
they’re not talking about punishing you two,” he said to them. I
was just close enough to hear him. “That would be really unfair.
You’ll be safe back at your place. But I think you’ll have to stay
there now. I don’t think anyone will take you out again. But you
have lots of books, and I’ll tell Milton where the college is, to
get you more. I don’t think they’d object to that.”

“Of course not,” Milton agreed.

If Will’s voice had sounded sad, the look on the two
dead people’s face was heartbreaking. If Will’s mom and dad had
been there, they couldn’t have looked any more distraught at the
prospect of leaving him. Truman looked at Blue Eye, and she shook
her head.

“I’m sorry, Blue Eye,” Will said. “I don’t think
there’s a choice.”

Blue Eye poked her finger at her own chest, then at
Truman’s chest, and then she pointed at Will’s.

“You want to come with me?” Will asked.

They both nodded.

“No, you’d be safer back at your place. Besides, I
don’t know if they’d let you.”

Milton shrugged. It didn’t have the same distasteful
air as when the colonel did it. “Will, you’ll be beyond our
borders,” Milton said. “They would be no threat to us. We would be
as safe as if they were locked in some enclosure just beyond our
fence.”

The colonel again waved dismissively. Everything
related to the zombies, and not directly related to punishing Will,
seemed of no interest to him. “Kid, shooting at people is one
thing. It has to be punished, sure. But I mean, shit, it happens
all the time. But wanting to be alone with a couple
monsters
instead of with people
—
that’s just bat-shit insane. But
really—there are billions of those
things
out there. What
the hell difference would two more make? When they eat you and come
wandering back towards our city, we’ll just shoot them in the head
like we’ve always done. Until then, knock yourself out.”

I could see Will hesitate, but oddly, I didn’t think
it was because he was concerned for himself or our community—this
was the concern both Milton and the colonel had addressed—but
because he was concerned for the safety of the two dead people.
“Are you two sure?” he asked them.

They both nodded. And for them, there was no
hesitation that I could see.

“All right, then.”

There was movement in the crowd. I was surprised to
see Rachel move to the front. She paused there—embarrassed,
blushing—then stepped over towards Will. They stood close, talking,
but their voices were too quiet for me to make out what they were
saying.

The fate that the people decided on, after much more
discussion and recriminations, was that Will was to be banished.
Though I was so sad to hear that he would have to leave his family
and his community, I was relieved that we would be going with him,
and that Lucy had even been the first to suggest it.

After Will had agreed to this, I was surprised to
see a red-haired young woman walk up to him. She didn’t look as
unusually intelligent as Zoey, the younger girl we had seen, but
she seemed somehow reliable and confident, like someone you could
trust. Although she had an exceptionally pretty face, her body was
not delicate, but muscular and thick, like she was used to labor
and being outdoors. She glanced at Lucy and me, then spoke to Will
in a low voice that I thought only Lucy and I were close enough to
hear.

“Will,” she began, “I’m sorry you’re leaving. I
wanted to see you more.”

I thought Will looked surprised and a little
sheepish around her. He reminded me of how I felt around Lucy. I
felt glad and sorry for him at the same time, that he could lose
his composure and strength and confidence, but do so with a person
so beautiful and so obviously caring and trustworthy.

“I didn’t think you did, Rachel,” he said
quietly.

She smiled, a display of joy and regret, desire and
coyness, both revealing and concealing the way a woman’s beauty
always is. Perhaps all beauty does this, but in a woman it is the
most noticeable and mesmerizing. I could see immediately that, like
Lucy’s enchanting eye, this woman’s smile would be completely
disarming to a man she cared for, to a man she gave that special
look to. Will visibly slackened at the sight of it.

She stopped smiling and looked serious for a moment.
“I only said I wasn’t sure you were the father. Only you thought
that meant I didn’t want to see you.”

“And now you can’t. Now it’s too late.” He sounded
more petulant than angry—weak, hurt, unsure, insecure.

She slipped her hand under his and brought it up
slightly. Now was when she would show more of her true feelings, I
thought, when she would show whether she, too, could be vulnerable.
“Will,” she dropped her voice a little more, till I could barely
hear her, “don’t make me beg or apologize for who I am. I’ve been
wild, I know. But God Almighty, there’s so much misery in this
world, would you really begrudge me some fun, some little pleasure,
to make me forget all the pain and ugliness once in a while?”

He didn’t take his hand away. “No. I don’t. I just
thought it meant you didn’t want to be with me.”

“Will, we weren’t married. You never talked like you
wanted something more.” The muscles in her arm flexed as she
tightened her grip on his hand. “But all right, I’ll tell you what
I regret. I’ll tell you what I’m sorry for. It’s not for having sex
with lots of people. You knew I did that, and you have no right to
judge me for it.” She bent her head down and forward, to catch his
glance, since he was looking down. “The only thing I regret is not
realizing that of the men I slept with, you were the only one who
gave a shit about me. That was wrong and stupid and immature of me
not to see, and that’s how I hurt you, and why you misunderstood
me. For that I’m sorry, Will. I’m very sorry.”

He nodded and kept trying not to catch her gaze, I
think because he knew as soon as he did look in her eyes—which
sparkled more with tears in them now, thereby increasing their
terrible loveliness and strength—all the initiative and power went
to her, a prospect I felt sure he longed for as much as he dreaded.
“It’s all right. You don’t have to apologize. Like you said, I
didn’t tell you what I felt or what I wanted. Milton just said, I
don’t talk to people enough, and they don’t know what I’m up to. It
was the same with you, so it wasn’t your fault.”

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was, Will. All I
care about now is that you know I want to be with you.”

He lifted his head. “All right. But now you can’t. I
don’t see why you’re telling me this.”

He was looking in her eyes, and now she smiled
again. She was in control. And I think I was as glad of that as
Will was, though he didn’t know it. “Will, I spend most my life out
here, past the fence. Going back to the city is like a little
vacation from my real job, from who I really am and what I’m
supposed to do. So what’s so impossible or unbelievable about me
leaving too?” She tilted her head down a little and dropped the
fateful and captivating smile. It was a final show of vulnerability
and weakness, and an absolutely necessary one if it were to work
out how they both wanted it to. “Unless you don’t want me to?”

“Of course I do,” Will exclaimed a little louder. He
looked around at the crowds surrounding them, now very
self-conscious. “Let’s kind of discuss this later, okay?”

She smiled and blushed and let go of his hand.
“Sure, Will.”

I did not know what to make of such beautiful,
overwhelming devotion, especially following the harsh and
legalistic discussion over the fate of Will and ourselves. I could
not conceive of how these people lived, constantly going back and
forth between such extremes. As impressed as I was with the heights
of their virtue and bravery, I really would be relieved to get away
from them.

Although I was very glad to be going with Lucy,
Will, and his friend, I had at first felt some disappointment that
all my books, along with Lucy’s violin, were back at the storage
facility. I was also afraid that if we were marching into the
wilderness, we wouldn’t be able to carry such things. So my joy was
greatly increased when they granted us a few days to prepare for
our journey, and that when we left, it would be on a boat, floating
down the big river and away from here forever.

I had the time to pick out the books that most
interested me, and most importantly I had the time to finish this
journal. I will give it to the very kind and intelligent-looking
girl, Zoey, tomorrow when we leave. I think she would be interested
in it. And since the story so much involves her and her community,
it would be best if they had it. I am sure there will be plenty of
other things for me to record, stories of other people and places,
assuming the four of us are lucky enough to survive beyond this
place. I fear there will be things as horrible as some of the
events I’ve witnessed in the last few days. But I also hope that
there will be things as wondrous and good as these strange,
fascinating, but unfortunately very violent people whom we will now
leave behind.