Ashes, Ashes Read online

  They walked back toward the square. A few people were sweeping the grimy puddles of rainwater away. Others were making piles of cans, rocks, and chunks of brick and sharpening sticks. More were unrolling large carpets woven from bright strips of plastic or squatting on the ground making repairs or dismantling pieces of machinery. Lucy could only guess where the heaps of gears and chains and oddly-shaped metal bits had come from and what use they could be now.

  After Grammalie Rose’s explosion of conversation, she’d reverted to silence again. When they reached a long awning, she grunted and stopped. A narrow table of pine planks stretched at least twenty-five feet beneath the canvas tent. It was supported in five or six places with sawhorses. Knives of varying sizes gleamed on the rough surface. There were pots and pans, wooden cutting boards, colanders, and more of the plastic tubs. A fire crackled and smoked at the far end.

  Lucy dropped her containers on the ground with a relieved groan and eased her backpack off. She worked her arms around, trying to loosen her shoulders. Maybe now she could go sprawl out somewhere, enjoy the last of the sun’s warmth, and take a nap.

  Grammalie Rose raised an eyebrow as if she knew what was passing through Lucy’s mind. They locked eyes for a long moment. Lucy was on the verge of walking away when Grammalie Rose said in a mild tone, “You don’t work, you don’t eat.”

  Lucy nodded shortly. Her stomach felt like an empty balloon. She’d had no food for more than twenty-four hours. The old woman thumped her on the back. “Not so sullen, wilcze. The preparers get to eat first,” she said, “and everyone must take a turn. This is not some cruel sort of punishment dreamt up especially for you.” She made a croaking noise that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle and pushed her toward the table. There were people down at the far end scrubbing potatoes. They were surrounded by mounds of dirty yellow spuds, and yet they chattered and laughed together.

  “Henry!” Grammalie Rose called, and pointed to one of the tubs Lucy had hauled.

  Henry was small and dark, maybe in his early twenties, with brown hair that stuck up in a duck’s tail over his forehead and twinkling brown eyes.

  “Henry, this is Lucy.”

  Henry grinned at Lucy and stuck out his hand. She shook it, conscious of her filth-encrusted fingers. “Leo told me about you,” he said. “He said you seemed okay.”

  “I am.”

  “Hmm.” He ran his eyes over her in a not entirely clinical way.

  “You don’t look like a doctor,” Lucy said, trying to cover her embarrassment.

  “Oh, I’m not a doctor, but I do my best.”

  She felt vaguely unsettled.

  He checked out the rest of their containers. “Looks like bean soup tomorrow. We’ll have to soak them first.”

  Grammalie Rose grunted. “I’ve been making bean soup since your father was your age. Let tomorrow take care of itself.” Henry made a face and skipped backward to avoid a slap. “First things first,” the old woman said in a louder voice. “Take the onions and the carrots, malpa.”

  Henry staggered off, bowed under the weight of two tubs, and Grammalie Rose showed Lucy where a large bowl of tepid water was. Next to it was another slimy block of soap, this one off-white and shapeless. “Wash well, wilcze,” the old woman said, sinking down on a bench. Even though her eyes had closed as if she were resting, Lucy still felt them on her back.

  She rolled her sleeves up above her elbows and scrubbed her hands with the soap. It smelled of industrial strength solvent and lard. Her fingers tingled now as if they’d been sprayed with an acid solution, and the bandaged wound across her palm stung. She also took the opportunity to wash her arms and the back of her neck, too, so although she smelled of paint stripper, she felt a little cleaner.

  There were six skinned dead things on the table that needed their innards removed, and she was pretty sure that was next on the list of chores. Whoever had skinned them had left their little white tails attached. “Letting us know they are not cats,” Grammalie Rose said, touching a cotton ball tuft.

  “Do you hunt cats often?” Lucy asked. Meat was meat, but cats were carnivores and never tasted good. Most carnivores didn’t. She’d caught a weasel in a snare once and boiled it up, and the meat had been stringy, gamey, and really tough.

  “Not often, but when the hunters bring them, they remove the fur and the tails so we can pretend it is something else.”

  Looking away from the sad little carcasses, Lucy’s attention was captured by a hooded, cloaked figure that approached the table and carefully picked up the tub Lucy had used to wash her hands. The water was almost black with grime and bits of insect wings floated in it. His hands were gloved.

  “Good,” said Grammalie Rose. “Sammy, please bring us some fresh water if you can.”

  The man nodded. His hood slipped back a little and Lucy gasped. His features were covered completely by a mask. It was smooth and beautifully ornate, painted a luminescent white with gold filigree and flourishes around the cutout ovals where the eyes should be. His own eyes burned red behind the mask. A bow-shaped mouth was molded half-open and colored with more of the gold paint. The skin of his neck where the mask ended and his cloak gaped was blackened and cracked, as if it had been charred in a terrible fire.

  Lucy stepped backward. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she was unaware that her arm had knocked over a bowl and sent garlic and beets spilling onto the ground. He was a S’an. He was infected. A walking time bomb.

  Without realizing it, she must have spoken out loud. Grammalie Rose pinched her elbow. Lucy half turned, and her fists came up defensively. The old woman batted them down. Lucy tried to form words but was unable to. Her brain was speeding. Those other strange people in the fields must be S’ans, too. She didn’t understand how this could be. Everything she had ever been told said that they were carriers of the disease, as much as the urban birds were. They were to be avoided, and yet they were here. Working and mingling as if they were regular people.

  The pinch became increasingly painful. She dragged her gaze from the S’an and stared at Grammalie Rose.

  “I will slap you if I have to,” the old woman said in a ferocious voice. “Are you going to faint?”

  Lucy shook her head. Her legs felt weak, but her head was clear.

  “Listen to me. You hate because you are scared, and you fear because you don’t understand.”

  A shiver of horror ran up Lucy’s spine.

  “The S’ans are to be pitied, not feared,” Grammalie Rose said. “They have survived the disease, but they are damaged. Their skin, their bodies, are ravaged. Do you hate him because he is not so pretty as you?”

  “No, I … I …” Incredibly, through the fright, she felt a flush of shame. The S’an was three feet away and Grammalie Rose was carrying out this inquisition in front of him. “No,” she said again, feeling like she was being hauled up in front of the class and reprimanded for cheating on a test. She knew that everyone under the awning was staring at her.

  “Do you know where the name came from?” Grammalie Rose asked, relaxing her grip a little. Lucy felt the tips of her fingers buzz as the blood flooded back in. She thought back to the news reports.

  “They are escapees from the sanatoriums, right? Driven insane by the second wave of the plague? After the disease mutated, people started losing their minds and their legs fell off and they craved fresh brains and stuff….” Her voice trailed off. It sounded sort of stupid when she said it out loud.

  Grammalie Rose snorted. “Zombies, huh? I used to love those old movies.” She let go of Lucy’s arm, nodded to the S’an who was still standing there, holding the sloshing tub in both arms. He shambled off, spilling water in a trail behind him, but before he went he winked at Lucy.

  She stared after him, her mouth open. She closed it with a snap.

  “That is an urban myth arising out of fear; because they were infected, but against all odds survived with their skin burned and cracked and their eyes bloody. They are not craz
y people.”

  “But don’t they carry the contagion still?” Lucy asked. Her hand had gone to her knife; she rubbed her thumb over the hilt, tried to control the shaking.

  “No.”

  This was contrary to everything Lucy had heard.

  She rallied her thoughts. “I thought the symptoms meant the sickness is still there. His eyes are red. He’s still bleeding under his skin. He was wearing gloves.”

  “No. His immune system remains weak, but they are no more sick than we are. The gloves and robes shield his damaged skin from the sun. He wears the mask to protect our sensibilities.” Grammalie Rose put stress on the words. Her black eyes were flashing with anger. Lucy stepped backward, tripping over a beet. She bent down to pick it up, noticed the other vegetables and the fallen bowl, and started piling them together.

  It seemed impossible, but surely if the S’ans had been living with the settlers for all this time then they must be all right. Leo had said that people were scared so they had to be careful. Somehow Sammy and the others had checked out. She got to her feet. She needed time to get her head around this.

  Grammalie Rose bent with a grunt and picked up a garlic bulb that had rolled near her foot. She handed it to Lucy, who put it in the bowl with the rest.

  “You look to be good with a knife, wilcze. Think you can deal with the rabbits? Small pieces for a stew.” Grammalie Rose spoke calmly, as if nothing had happened.

  “Uhh.” Lucy was startled.

  “Good. I’ll be over helping to peel that mountain of potatoes. Otherwise we’ll never eat today.” She nodded grimly at her and made her slow way to the far end of the table where Henry and the others stood. After a few seconds more of staring at Lucy, they got back to work and the hum of conversation started up again.

  Lucy rubbed her nose with the back of a hand covered in blood. She’d already gutted and filleted three of the rabbits. The chef’s knife she was using was very sharp, the edge honed beautifully. The S’an—Sammy—had not come back again, but the expectation of seeing him was making her jumpy. Part of her wondered where Aidan was. He was the only person she sort of knew in the camp, and he’d disappeared. She cut the pieces of glistening red meat into chunks and pulled another rabbit toward her. Using a cleaver, she chopped off the cotton ball tail. The knife whacked through the bone and into the board. She rocked it back and forth to loosen it.

  “Whoa!” Henry jumped backward, his eyes wide in mock alarm. “Do you think you can put the knife down for a second?”

  After a moment, Lucy recognized the teasing note in his voice. She smiled back reluctantly. The wood in front of her was covered in deep cuts. She hadn’t noticed how much pressure she’d been exerting.

  Henry slouched against the table. Freckles sprayed across his nose and cheeks. His eyes were dark brown and round like a child’s. The spike of hair made him look like a cartoon character. He held a plate. On it was a loaf of bread and a small bowl filled with green-tinged oil.

  Lucy’s belly rumbled audibly, but she was so hungry, she didn’t care.

  He pushed the food toward her. “I thought you might be hungry. It came out of the oven about fifteen minutes ago.”

  Hastily wiping her filthy hands on her pants, Lucy tore off a chunk of bread and shoved it into her mouth. It was still warm. Henry watched her with an amused expression. “You can dip it in the oil, if you like. We have to make our bread with water, no milk you know, and it makes it sort of dense … and hard to swallow.”

  She stopped chewing for a minute. “Tastes pretty good to me.” She took his advice, though, and swirled the next chunk in the oil. It was fruity and rich, and absolutely delicious. From the far end of the awning, the mouthwatering smell of onions, garlic, and carrots simmering in oil wafted into the air. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed fried food until now. The thought of fried potatoes made her giddy.

  Henry pointed to the other side of the square where the remains of a building stood. Someone had attached frayed lengths of canvas from the two remaining corner uprights to make a rough roof. “Used to be an Italian deli,” he said. “Nothing survived in the shop, but they had a cellar filled with wine and bottles of oil. The wine’s gone now, unfortunately,” he concluded. He met her eyes with a wry look. “But we’ve got enough oil to fry a mountain of potatoes.” He rummaged in his back pocket and brought out a stub of pencil and a tattered notebook. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

  “Sure, I guess,” said Lucy, brushing bread crumbs off the front of her shirt.

  “We keep an informal sort of census now. So many people coming and going,” Henry said. “Name?”

  “Lucy Holloway.”

  “Age?”

  “Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in a … few months.” She realized that she wasn’t sure exactly how soon her next birthday was.

  He nodded. “Nice to have another mature person here. It’s mostly little kids and the DAs.”

  Henry answered her querying look, lowering his voice: “Doddering Ancients, but don’t let Grammalie Rose hear it.”

  “What did she call you? Malpa?”

  “Polish for monkey. She thinks she’s so funny!”

  He jotted Lucy’s responses down, and then swept his gaze over her. His eyes widened in appreciation. “I’d say you’re healthy. Very healthy.” Henry scribbled something else.

  She blushed. There was no mistaking the fact that he was checking her out. He must be, what, at least twenty-one? Her hand crept up to her messy hair. Boys were so weird. Working in the fields all afternoon had covered her skin with a fresh layer of stink. Plus manure. And blood. And still, he was flirting.

  Henry put his notepad away and leaned on the table.

  “So. Grammalie Rose was a bit rough on you?”

  “Yeah, because of the …” She corrected herself. “Because of Sammy.”

  “Hey, it was a shock for me, too, when I first came here, but soon enough you realize that they are just regular people.”

  “I guess,” Lucy said. “So how many are there?”

  “Three in this settlement. But there are more out there.” He waved his hand in a vague way.

  “And they help with the chores?” She fought to keep her voice neutral.

  Henry shot her a look. “Yeah, everything but the cooking. Bits of them, you know, fingers and the like, kept falling into the stew, so we put a stop to that.”

  Lucy gasped, and then caught the wide grin spreading across his face. She went red. Henry put up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

  “Sorry—couldn’t help myself. Corny as it sounds,” he continued, “we’re like a family. Literally, in some cases.”

  She looked at him.

  “Emi and Jack are siblings.” His face fell, and Lucy remembered that these were the names of the little kids who’d been grabbed earlier. “And Sammy is Aidan’s brother.”

  “Really?” Lucy said. “I mean, how could that be? That one of them is fine and the other is …” She broke off. No one else in her family survived.

  Henry raised an eyebrow and she got the feeling he’d read her mind. “There’s no clear answer. Most people died if they got sick. Sammy’s lucky to be alive,” he said.

  She nodded, and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

  “If you think about it, Sammy and Aidan beat the odds. Two brothers in the same family.”

  “But Aidan didn’t even get sick. He has no scars … does he?”

  Henry’s mouth twisted. “Luck again, I guess. Of those who contracted the mutated hemorrhagic smallpox in the second wave, maybe one in a million survived, even with the vaccine. Most died within seventy-two hours. Those are some bad numbers. The regular pox left about one in one hundred thousand alive, so if you look at it like that, you and I, and everyone else here are blessed. Right? A few scars here and there, maybe, but nothing like what the S’ans have to bear. Pretty soon you won’t even notice a difference.” He shot her a grin, and she couldn’t help but grin back at him.
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br />   “How do you know so much about it?”

  “I was a premed student before.”

  “So how many unvaccinated people survived?”

  He looked startled. “None. Big fat goose egg.” He made a zero with his thumb and forefinger.

  “No, seriously,” she began before noticing his face. The smirk was gone. He shook his head.

  “Basically that’s why the majority of the deaths were adults aged thirty to sixty. The kids and teenagers were okay ’cause they were up to date on their shots including the reinstated ones.”

  Lucy nodded. She remembered her classmates back in grade school complaining that they’d had to get a whole slew of new injections after the first bird flu cases had been diagnosed.

  “… and the older people like Grammalie had been given live smallpox inoculations during the War, but the rest of them … Nope. One hundred percent mortality.”

  Her mouth shaped itself into an O. Her hand crept up to her left shoulder and pulled the rolled sleeve of her shirt down so that it covered her upper arm.

  None. Zero. That made her an even bigger freak than the S’ans. She remembered the thick folder in the nurse’s office. The countless blood tests. What exactly was wrong with her?

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, I just ate too fast.”

  “Okay, well give a holler when you’re done,” Henry said, pointing to the cutting board, and sauntered away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CAMP SCAVENGER