People who say dead bodies look like they’re just sleeping have never seen a dead body.
At least three hundred people filled the field, all dead. Some were in pieces. Those who remained intact still had giant holes in them. Holes as big as baseballs. Several didn’t have heads at all. They’d been running north toward the curve of the Pantano.
I didn’t recognize anyone.
I didn’t until I did.
Sheriff Jake was there, just like I’d imagined. Everyone had been shot in their backs, but not him. He was down, facing the threat, his two deputies by his side. His deputies were my age, but I didn’t know them.
Rosita gasped at the sight of a crumpled little form. There was only one child in the group. One of the two-year-olds. It was a boy, not one of her nieces. Still, it was a child. A murdered child.
“That’s Henry,” Rosita said of the little boy, gasping. “He’s wearing the pajamas my great-aunt made for him.”
The boats,I thought. They’d been running to the river to get onto the boats. They hadn’t made it.
“I’m going to throw up,” Sam said moments before he did indeed vomit.
“This is real,” Axel said, also bent over like he was going to spew. “This is real.”
Of course it’s real,I thought. Yet I knew exactly what he meant. His brother fell to his knees and also vomited on the ground.
Next to me, Rosita cried softly. Lulu detached herself from the group and stepped forward, going to one knee. She examined the bodies with an almost clinical expression. She started snapping pictures with her bracelet. A moment later, Rosita’s ever-present camera drone zoomed forward and also started taking video of the scene.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
Lulu continued to get closer, twisting her bracelet, zooming in. “People need to see this.”
The bodies were all concentrated behind the playground for the school, which had been repurposed as some sort of municipal building, but recently renovations had started to turn it back into a school. The building was cratered and smoking. It appeared a bunch of people had taken shelter there. I couldn’t get inside now, even if I wanted to. It was reduced to a pile of rubble. Those hiding within had been attacked, and they had run. They’d made a break for the trees, heading toward the boats, and been caught in the field. This was the same field where they held the carnival after harvest.
The same field where Sheriff Jake won the chili cook-off every year.
I stared at the scattered bodies, a strange numbness crawling over me, like I was being enveloped by some sort of alien creature. The last time I’d seen a dead body was when Grandpa Lewis had died. I remembered that day, finding him in his room, and I could just tell. Hisstillness had been too complete. His eyes were closed, but his head was turned in such a way that made him seem so wrong. It wasn’t even an unnatural angle. Just…uncomfortable. Lulu had cried and made me fix his neck before we called Mr.Gonzales.
Why am I thinking of this now?I watched Tito and Axel, both brothers now on their hands and knees. Tito, who was the biggest, strongest person I knew, had tears streaming down the side of his face as he gasped. He’d witnessed a terrible farm accident when he was younger, and he’d been mute ever since. Was this as bad? I wondered. Would I lose my voice, too?
Lulu suddenly had another cigarette in her mouth, and she lit it. She held a second cigarette up in the air. Rosita peeled off of me and grabbed it. Rosita had quit smoking months ago, right when they’d lifted the ban on pregnancy. The camera drone continued to circle the scene.
“They were running,” Lulu said after a moment.
“Can’t they see we’re not terrorists?” Rosita asked after she took a deep drag. “It’s mostly old people. Do they not care? What kind of monsters would do this? Poor, sweet Henry.”
“That’s why they chose us,” Lulu said. “Don’t you see?”
I didn’t see. I had my hands on my back, and I walked in circles. I didn’t know why we were still standing here. Yet it seemed wrong to leave, like we were abandoning them.
It was Sam who responded.
“You’re right,” Sam said, coughing. He stood and wiped his mouth.
“Because of Henry?” Rosita asked. “I don’t understand.”
“There’re only, what, about fifty of those two-year-olds on the whole peninsula? Like thirty births and a bunch of twins,” Sam said. “After that, the youngest of the Orphans are just now turning twenty-one. There are hardly any kids. If they wanted to do this here, they had to do it before everyone started giving birth. Killing pregnant folks is bad enough, but babies? That’s a bad look.”
Lulu had turned to look at Sam. She nodded.
“But why?” Rosita asked, echoing my own question. “Why kill anyone at all?”
“The mechs have all been reloaded. Please make haste,” Roger said over the band. “We do not know when they will come back online.”
