The Book of M. Peng Shepherd
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a pealing scream, high-pitched, hysterical. Ory froze.
He knew that sound.
He was down the stairs, out the back door of the unit, into the grass, dashing toward the shriek in an instant.
It was a rabbit, and that was its unmistakable dying cry.
A fox or coyote would bolt, maybe drop its prey if he could get close enough. There had been no food in the apartments, but damn it if he was going to go home with nothing at all. He and Max would eat rabbit tonight, fresh, succulent meat that hadn’t been dried and salted and sitting in their cupboard for three months. If he could give Max the memory of a delicious, freshly cooked meal for as long as she had left, maybe that was worth more than five cans of tasteless, cold non-perishables, now or ever.
Ory sprinted past the second row of apartment buildings to the back courtyard where the community pool was, hands already outstretched to spook an animal. But as soon as he rounded the corner, he stopped dead.
“Oh, shit,” he finally managed. It came out like a squeak.
Thirty feet ahead of him, gathered in a casual circle on the empty pool’s cool deck, was an entire crowd of people watching the one in the center take a rabbit out of a makeshift trap. They turned to him one by one, eyes calmly sliding from their prey to Ory cowering in the middle of the grass.
“Oh, shit,” he repeated, dumbstruck.
There were so many of them. He hadn’t seen so many people at once for so long. He hadn’t even seen a single other person but Max for at least a year.
And they were all armed.
Do something, he thought wildly. Some looked surprised, others amused. They were all healthy, all clean. Their hair looked washed, their clothes mended. There were no hollow cheeks, no bones jutting out. The men’s arms were nourished enough to have muscle. More muscle than his own. Run, Ory. Fucking run. But he couldn’t move. He just stood there staring at them all.
The one in the center finally stood up. It was an older woman, with a worn face and graying hair shaved close to her skull. Ory watched, petrified, as she gently let go of the rabbit wriggling in her iron grip, as if it was nothing, as if there were still three grocery stores at every intersection, and didn’t even cast a glance after it as the terrified creature shot off into the weeds to safety. Silently, she stepped through the group to the front. Her eyes were hard-lined, mouth frowning. And now in her hands was a bolt-action hunting rifle, already cocked. Slowly she lifted the long dark barrel and pointed it at him.
“You’re too late,” she said.
ORY STARED AT THE WOMAN IN SHOCK. AT THE WEATHERED hunting rifle swaying gently in her easy, sure grip. The muzzle hovered just south of his sternum.
“You’re too late,” she repeated.
Too late? Too late for what?
“He’s gone,” another of them said, and spat.
“He’s not gone, he’s got a shadow. Look.” The woman pointed at the ground behind Ory with the neck of her gun, like it had always been part of her arm. His shadow was huddled on the grass, a withered shape of terror.
“Too late for what?” Ory finally managed. It had been so long since he’d talked to another person besides Max that it felt strange to speak to them, as if he’d forgotten what language was and accidentally made sounds that weren’t words. His hunting knife felt pitifully light on his belt now as he cowered.
They all looked at one another, as if trying to decide what he’d meant by that.
“To join us,” the man next to the woman with the gun said. The smoke from his homemade cigarette was bitter. “No seats left. The group’s already long been set.”
“I—” Ory glanced nervously between them, trying to glean the man’s meaning from their faces.
“Twelve is the most,” he continued. “Only have room for twelve.”
Ory didn’t know what to do. He edged his hands up even higher over his head, trying to show he wasn’t a threat.
The woman in front finally lowered the barrel of her rifle slightly. “You haven’t been out much, have you?” she asked.
Ory shook his head.
They all looked from one to another silently again. Ory snuck a glance at the cracked, weathered cool deck where they were gathered. Twelve bodies, four shadows. Four shadows. He stared. Four. Shadows.
Finally they all looked back to the woman at the front, one by one, waiting for her verdict.
“You have anyone?” the woman asked. She was one of the four.
“Yes,” Ory said. “She, uh …” He gestured lamely to his own silhouette.
That seemed to soften them. The wrinkles in the woman’s face deepened, and she scratched the short velvet buzz on her head with the back of her hand. “How long?”
“Seven days.” He tried not to think of how many were left. How many more days that she’d still talk in funny voices when he was upset until he laughed. How many more days that she’d bravely attempt to make meals out of their scant ingredients, even though she was the worst cook they’d both ever met. How many more days that she’d sit in silence with him in the mornings and watch the sun come up through their tiny kitchenette window. He loved those sunrises with her.
“I’m sorry.”
Ory shook his head, refusing to accept the sympathy. Sympathy made things real. “She’s very strong. She’s only really just started forgetting,” he said. He tried not to stare at the group of shadowless at their center. He wanted to ask them what to do. How far gone were they? Did they have rules? How were they making it work? Most of all, how were the ones with shadows not afraid of the ones without? At what they might do at any moment—like the deer, or maybe worse—if they forgot something?
“That’s pretty impressive for seven days,” one of the shadowless ones whistled. His blue eyes were unnaturally clear.
“He doesn’t even remember which one of us he’s related to,” a woman next to him joked, and a couple of them laughed. The shadowless man grinned sheepishly. After they quieted, two women with jet-black skin muttered, “Tell him already,” to the one with the gun.
“You ought to head south, to New Orleans,” she said at last. “Something’s happening there.”
“What’s happening?”
“We don’t know,” she confessed. “But something. Everyone’s heading for it. Arlington’s almost emptied out; we’re the last group that we know of. We were waiting for—” She cut off abruptly, but Ory knew the tone. He’d heard it often in the beginning. It was the tone of someone who’d refused to give up a hope she shouldn’t have anymore. “We’ve heard a lot of stories,” she finally continued. “A lot of names.”
Ory thought of the ones he knew. The One with a Middle But No Beginning. The One with No Eyes. The Stillmind. “They’re rumors,” he said. “Just a bunch of rumors.”
“But they’re all about the same place,” the woman replied. “Whatever the names mean, they’re all about someone or something in New Orleans. That can’t mean nothing.”
That much was true. Whenever one of the names came up, almost always so too did the city. But what it meant, if anything at all—that was the part that mattered to Ory.
The woman cleared her throat. “Besides, we’ve heard rumors about D.C., too. Bad things are happening there. And it’s spreading. We waited as long as we could.”
“Bad things?”
“I