In some ways it wasnt so hard to stay safe, even now. A basic wall could keep Beaters away. A fence, even one that was only ten feet tall, like those that surrounded the schools courtyard. As long as there were no citizens close by, nothing to attract the Beaters and drive them into a frenzy of flesh-lust, nearly any barrier at all would be enough to make them lose their focus and wander back to their fetid nestlike encampments.
They said-at least, near the end of Casss second life-that the Beaters were waning. Cass wasnt so sure. It was true that they had formed larger and larger groups, nomadic little bands that took over neighborhoods and entire towns, so they werent appearing in sporadic places as much. They seemed to have flashes of longing for Before, just as everyone else did. You could see them sometimes, doing homely little things. It was like the bits of speech that sometimes bubbled from their lips, phrases that meant nothing, fragments that tumbled from whatever was left of their minds, dislodged from memory that had given way to the fever and the disease. Cass had seen one trying to ride a bicycle, and falling off when its jerky motions caused the wheel to spin and flip. It tried again and again and then suddenly lost interest and wandered away. Another time she had seen one at a clothesline, taking the pins off one by one and holding them in its ruined hand, then reattaching them.
Cass had known a woman who had been a social worker Before. Her name was Miranda. They had not been friends, exactly, but they had sheltered together in the library before a half-dozen Beaters came through a back door that had been left open one day and dragged her off.
Miranda had once worked with violent offenders, counseling them to look deep inside themselves to find the key to who they were before abuse and anger had changed them. She had been extraordinarily successful, the pride of the Anza County Correctional Systems Anger Replacement Therapy program. Miranda had believed that in those moments when the Beaters appeared to be connecting to a memory, miming some homely everyday task, there was a chance to remind them of who they had once been. That if you could reach them in that moment-if you could reconnect the splintered shards of memory-that you could reverse the process of the disease. That the afflicted would comprehend the horror of what they had become, and choose to come back.
Cass had known a woman who had been a social worker Before. Her name was Miranda. They had not been friends, exactly, but they had sheltered together in the library before a half-dozen Beaters came through a back door that had been left open one day and dragged her off.
Miranda had once worked with violent offenders, counseling them to look deep inside themselves to find the key to who they were before abuse and anger had changed them. She had been extraordinarily successful, the pride of the Anza County Correctional Systems Anger Replacement Therapy program. Miranda had believed that in those moments when the Beaters appeared to be connecting to a memory, miming some homely everyday task, there was a chance to remind them of who they had once been. That if you could reach them in that moment-if you could reconnect the splintered shards of memory-that you could reverse the process of the disease. That the afflicted would comprehend the horror of what they had become, and choose to come back.
Miranda had wanted to try it. It wouldnt be so hard to capture just one, she had argued at one of the town hall meetings Bobby held every few days. Bobby was the de facto leader of the ragtag group of a few dozen people sheltering in the library. Miranda tried to recruit a few of the men: one who used to be a deputy sheriff, several hard-muscle types whod worked in construction, and, of course, Bobby. They all listened to Mirandas plan: capture a Beater, bring it backrestrain it, observe it. Wait until the right moment and then she, trained in the ways of the desperate, the outcast, would speak to it.
Bobby listened, but he could not contain his incredulity. You think youre, what, some kind of zombie whisperer? Because you got a few crack whores to give up their babies? Is that it, Miranda, you think a Beaters like some guy beats his wife on payday?
Miranda had argued back, passionately. But when the Beaters came for her that day, breaking in that forgotten back door while the kitchen detail was cleaning up from a lunch of kaysev shoots and canned apple pie filling, when Miranda had taken some trash to the back hall by herself, it wasnt reasoned argument that issued from her lips. It was screaming, as raw and desperate as the screams of any of the others who were taken, screams that echoed in Casss mind on nights when sleep wouldnt come.
The school, though Cass guessed that they had not lost anyone that way here. In addition to the fences, brick walls surrounded the entire courtyard. The doors would be the type that shut automatically. Guards would be posted. They undoubtedly did all their harvesting and raiding at night. Maybe they even had a few flashlights, some batteries.
Why had they let this girl out on her own? It made no sense. Even though it should have still been safe-the Beaters rarely went hunting before the sun rose high in the sky-what adult, what parent, would allow a child to go out alone? Had she somehow gotten separated from others? Had some greater threat come along?
There was a sudden clang and the door to the school burst open and a woman ran out, wailing. Her flip-flops slapped against the pavement, and she stumbled at the kaysev-choked median that once kept the carpooling moms in orderly lines. A pair of men chased after her, trying to restrain her, but the woman shook them off. Sammi! she screamed, but Cass pulled the girl tight against her and held the blade to the soft skin under her chin.
Stop there, Cass yelled. And then she added the one thing that might convince them to do as she said. I am not a Beater!
She watched them look at her, watched the terror in the womans expression and the fury and determination in the mens slowly tinge with doubt. She felt their gazes on her ragged skin, her scalp where the hair was only now growing back. She waited, holding her breath, until she saw that they knew.
Until they saw that her pupils were like anyone elses, black and pronounced.
I dont want to hurt this girl, she called, trying to keep her voice steady. I dont want any trouble. I am not a Beater and I can She had been about to say that she could explain her appearance, but that was a lie. She couldnt explain, and no one else could either. I can prove it, if you let me. Im not asking to come in. I dont want anything from you except to be allowed to continue into town.
Let the girl go, one of the men said.
The woman sank down to her knees and extended her arms beseechingly. Please, she keened. Please please please please please
And something shifted inside Cass. A memory of Ruthie being carried away, screaming, sent to live with Casss mother and the man shed married. The man whod made her life hell. She remembered her own pleas, how she had gone down on her knees just like the woman before her now, how shed collapsed on the floor after the front door shut behind Mim and Byrn and the court people carrying her Ruthie away, how shed cried into the sour-smelling carpet until she could barely breathe.
She released the girl then and watched her go to her mother, jogging across the pavement, but not before glancing back over her shoulder. A defiant glance, sparked with victory. The girl felt shed won. Well, Cass certainly felt like shed lost, so maybe that was fitting.
The mother gathered the girl up in her arms as though she wanted to meld her to herself, and Cass had to turn away. The men must have thought she was trying to leave, though, because an instant later she was knocked to the ground and she felt the weight of them crushing her into the gravel-pocked asphalt. The rough pavement smelled like tar and scraped against her cheek. The blade had fallen from her hand. No matter; these men were guards. They would have their own. And it would be a quick death, better than she deserved.
She waited, but after a moment the weight lifted and a strong hand grabbed hers, pulling her up roughly.
Inside, he said, and that was the first word she ever heard Smoke say.
04
THEY HAD SET UP A KITCHEN OF SORTS IN THE schools courtyard, and a small crew was cooking over a fire in a makeshift hearth. Ginger: the scent of sautéed kaysev was in the air. A group of children sat at a table taken from one of the classrooms, eating, and Cass saw that theyd made the kaysev into a sort of pancake. Shed seen that before, when people were figuring out different ways to prepare the plant. After so many weeks of eating it raw, the smell of the cakes-made with a flour ground from the dried beans-prompted a powerful hunger she didnt know she was capable of anymore.
And there was another smell, one that made her doubt her senses. Is that-
Coffee. Her escort was a man of medium height, hard-muscled, with broad shoulders and powerful forearms. Sun-streaked brown hair fell into his chambray-blue eyes and he kept pushing it impatiently aside. His mouth was on the generous side, almost sensuous, but his expression was hard. Once a week, on Sunday. Its strong but you only get one cup.
You know what day it is? Cass asked, surprised. Who kept track, anymore?
The man didnt answer, but led her over to a door that stood open, propped with a stack of books. U.S. History, Cass read on the spines. Books, left out to the elements-who would abandon a book outside to be ruined?-but thoughts like that led straight to a spiral of despair.
Whenever something reminded her of Before, it was a quick trip back and it hit her hard. Like now: textbooks had been sacred, once. But books needed readers. And all the teachers were dead from hunger or disease or riots, or dragged off by the Beaters, or desperate, like Cass, just to survive. There was no one left to teach children like Ruthie.
Cass forced those thoughts from her mind as the man guided her into the hallway, his hand at her waist gentler now. Earlier, hed been rough as he searched her, patting down the ragged and stinking canvas pants and athletic shirt that stuck to her, the same clothes shed woken up in a couple of weeks earlier. Hed avoided touching her scabbed flesh, and stopped short of searching the folds and crevices of her body, for which she was grateful. Hed lingered at her hair, combing his fingers through its greasy, filthy length while he held the ends bunched in his fist. The stubble at the front had caused him to frown, but hed said nothing.