That Thing sat in the tent she had woken in that morning. So far, no one had told her what to do or otherwise bothered her. Around midday, Nancy brought some bread that had been cooked on a stick over a fire. It was good, but not as good as the bread Grandma Grace made. After lunch was when things changed.
The activity level in the camp increased. A large number of people gathered together, facing toward part of the woods where a path disappeared into the trees. That Thing saw the people she had met so far and plenty of strangers, but they were all like her, covered with spots.
Four men, probably men, came from the woods carrying a large box on their shoulders. Each man wore ragged animal skins from head to toe. They limped and stooped as though broken in some way. Over their faces, the skins had eye holes of odd size, not quite in the place eyes should be. A crooked painted line mocked the position of a mouth. A triangle of skin, in a different color, represented the nose, but off center and rotated.
The box was large enough to carry a person comfortably. Skins and furs covered this too, but all in very light colors, some almost white. Two long, sturdy poles ran along the bottom, and these sat on the shoulders of men carrying the box. That Thing remembered seeing something similar in an old book Grandma Grace had shown here. In the book, it was how important people were carried.
The men staggered to a central location where everyone could see them, and then they lowered the box to the ground. Each man, they were probably men, shuffled a couple of steps to the side, surrounding their box. They lowered their heads.
After a brief moment of nothing happening, there was a sound from inside the box. Something emerged from the top, as though walking up steps. As it came out fully, it appeared to be a person, also covered completely in ragged furs and skins. These coverings were similar to the ones on the box, light grays and white, looking very clean and almost gleaming in the afternoon sun.
The figure stood for a moment. Then it reached up to pull back its hood, revealing its face.
It was a woman, in her mid twenties. Her skin was pale, almost white, and her spots were various light shades of gray. That Thing thought she was very pretty, especially for a spotted person.
The more unusual part was the woman’s hair. Many spotted people had spots on their skin, but it only rarely appeared in the hair as well. This woman’s hair fell long and straight, mostly white, but with gray bands that matched her spots. Unlike the dirty, oily hair of everyone else in the camp, hers seemed clean and the sun glinted off as though her hair contained silver.
She spoke in a powerful but pleasant voice. “I am called Enoch. I bring you a message of hope, love, and blessedness from Brother Silus.”
The four men raised up their heads and their hands, bringing their hands up to head level. With fingers splayed, they shook their hands and bowed back down while muttering, “Brother Silus.”
The people of the camp exchanged glances with each other, not sure what to make of the spectacle.
The woman continued, “Silus was a man of God. He served the Lord the best he could. He preached the Holy Word. He preached about the hubris of man and how it would damn everybody. But that was before the Storm.”
The four men performed their splayed hand bow again, this time muttering, “Rum, rum, rum, rum, rum.”
“It was then that Silus learned that the Lord had a plan. The Lord saw what man was doing with science and DNA and space travel, and the Lord knew it was time to start over again. He had done it before with the great flood, but this time it was with a Storm.”
Once again, the four did their part, “Rum, rum, rum, rum, rum.”
“Silus stood in his church, preaching to what he thought were the faithful when a glowing hole opened up beneath him. He was sure he was being cast into the fires of damnation.”
The four did, “Fell, fell, fell, fell, fell.”
“But that is not what happened. The hole deposited him in the sky. Lightning struck his body, cleansing his self righteousness from him. Then he fell again, this time through the trees beneath him, only to land on soft ground below. He was alive, but damaged.”
“He asked himself why the Lord would treat His faithful servant in such a manner. He got his answer when he got back to town. The town was gone but for some rubble. His church was nothing but parts of a foundation. The Lord had saved him to continue to do God’s work.”
The four said, “Saved, saved, saved, saved, saved.”
“For many years, Silus traveled the world, trying to teach the Word of God. Everywhere he went, he found man trying to rebuild, trying to return to the path from before the Storm.”
The four men returned to, “Rum, rum, rum, rum, rum.”
“That’s when he found us. All around, there were people like us, those who were marked by the Storm.”
Another, “Rum, rum, rum, rum, rum.”
“He knew that God had marked His chosen people to be the future of this world. He saw how the old world people treated us, with hatred and evil-filled hearts. He knew his purpose, and it was to take care of us. We are the Damaged Ones, the ones touched by God, the ones to inherit this world.”
She paused to look around.
“Come, brothers and sisters, come and join us. You will be safe and free, and you will be doing God’s work. But it must be your choice.”
“Choose, choose, choose, choose, choose.”
Four more spotted people came out of the woods from the same direction as the caravan. They wore the same type of ragged clothes, but with their faces uncovered.
Enoch motioned to them. “These servants of God are here to answer your questions. Tomorrow, we will return to Silus and those who choose to do so can follow.”
She stepped smoothly back into the box.
The four bent men picked up the box, shouldering the poles, and moved back toward the woods. The new arrivals moved into their place and waited for any who may want to chat.
News from the Wilderness
Mike stood looking over the smoldering remains of Grandma Grace’s house. He knew it was necessary when someone died of the Cough, but it was a waste of materials and all the things that had been inside the house. More importantly, Grandma Grace was smart and whose smarts were going to be missed during the hard times.
“Hey, Mike, I think you want to hear this.”
Mike turned to see Mario with two other guys. He had seen the other two before, but they looked like hunters. Those types usually didn’t like villages.
Mike continued, “This is Seth and Jake. They were hunting east of here and saw something worrisome.”
Mike nodded to the two men. “What did you see?”
Seth started, “It was Spotties, a large camp of them. They had tents, fires, everything. I never seen that many of them before.”
Jake added, “I didn’t even know there were that many!”
Mike took a deep breath through his nose, held for a moment and pushed it out. “This is what I was afraid of. Everybody keeps treating them bad and the next thing you know we got a bunch of them ready to get revenge. You can’t keep slapping a dog without getting bit.” He stared into the distance for a moment. “How many do you think were there?”
Seth seemed to dig into his head for an answer. “There were at least fifty of them, and probably closer to eighty.”
Mario could tell Mike was stressed, but he was stressed too. “So, uh, what do you think we should do about it?”
“Nothing for the moment. We gotta wait till Tyler and Zach get back to see if we are getting any help. In the meantime, I guess we better keep an eye on things. We don’t want a sneak attack catching us.”
All nodded their heads in agreement.
Turning back to Seth, Mike asked, “Do you know exactly where this camp was?”
“Oh yeah, we call it Owl Hollow,” he turned to Jake, “Wouldn’t you say that’s where it was?”
“Definitely,” Jake answered. “It was Owl Hollow. That’s the little valley between the Old House Hill and Dead Herd.”
Mike thought about it a bit. They made repeated efforts to change the names of those hills, but post-Storm names had stuck. That also meant the Spotty camp was fairly close with plenty of woods in between. The Spotties tended to blend in with the trees and brush pretty easily, what with their natural camouflage. Someone was going to have to sneak out there and keep a watch.
Focusing back on Seth and Jake, he said, “Would you boys mind going back out there and keeping an eye on things? Nothing too dangerous or close; just enough to let us know if the Spotties are coming our way. I’m sure we could give you something in trade.”
Jake seemed a little worried, swaying from foot to foot. “Is there going to be a fight?”
“Probably,” Mike answered. “They killed one of our people last night and put a couple arrows in another. They told him to bring a message that they were going to get us. We sent some people over to Wood Hill and New Chicago to get some help. We haven’t heard anything back yet.”
Seth and Jake exchange glances and seem to come to an agreement. “Sure,” Seth said, “we’ll do it. If you got any honey, butter, and bread to eat on the way, it would be appreciated.”
Time to Talk
It was late afternoon in the camp; the sun would set early in the valley. Tom and Oak stacked firewood for cooking. That Thing and Juanita chopped carrots on a board nearby.
Nancy approached with her bow in one hand and a couple of dead rabbits in the other. “We have meat for supper,” she said as she laid the rabbits on the ground. “It’s not a lot of meat, but it will make a stew.”
“What do you think?” Tom asked her.
“About what?”
“We were talking about this Silus and his messenger,” Oak clarified. “We were talking about whether we should go.”
Nancy began cleaning a rabbit. “I was thinking about that too, while I was out. I’m not sure yet, but I’m probably not going.”
“Why not?” Tom asked.
“Well, all the things they promised, I’ve already got. As long as I stay out of the Plaino villages, I’m pretty safe. I can live off the land without any trouble. I don’t really need somebody’s divine mission to do all that.”
Oak asked, “But what if Silus is right? What if we are the chosen of God and we have a mission? Shouldn’t we try to get involved and do our part? As it is, the only purpose we have is to stay alive and to stay away from the Plainos.”
Nancy set the rabbit carcass in a nearby pot and started work on the second. “I figure if God has some mission for me, He is more than capable of putting me in the right place at the right time. I don’t need to go hunting for it. What do you think, Juanita?”
“I don’t know. I was sorting of siding with Oak, but you’ve made some good points too. I probably just need to sleep on it.”
Nancy shrugged. “Yeah, well as long as you don’t sleep on it while on guard duty. We got third shift tonight.”
The rest of dinner passed quietly with no further conversation.
Noone bothered to ask That Thing what she thought. She wasn’t sure what she thought, still getting used to the camp. It was odd that people would just hand her a bowl of rabbit stew. She never belonged anywhere and now two different groups were inviting her to join.
A preacher once came to Grandma Grace’s place. He seemed nice enough at first, but once he was in, everybody was wrong and he was right. When Grandma Grace disagreed with him, he screamed about how women needed to know their place and he slapped her. She nearly crushed his skull with the fireplace poker. The men of the village bound his hands, gagged him, and tied him to his donkey. The donkey carried him out of the village to who knew where.
This Silus sounded like he might be the same kind of preacher. If he was, that was bad. On the other hand, villagers had talked about good preachers from before the Storm. Maybe Silus was one of those. Something just made her uncomfortable about the whole thing.
At least she was exempt from guard duty, whatever that was. They said she hadn’t shown that she could use a bow or move stealthily yet.
New Arrivals
It was late afternoon and the sun would set soon. Mike watched the new activity in town.
Tyler had returned earlier from Wood Hill followed by a dozen men from there. They set up their tents in the center of the village. Each had ridden a horse of his own, and there were a few pack horses, all now tied to a rope stretched between posts. Most of the newcomers carried bows and machetes. Three carried rifles, and two pistols. Firearms weren’t very common anymore, but there were stories of more being made in some village way out east across the grassy plains.
Mike turned away from the tents to watch the next group arrive. Zach made it back from New Chicago with about twenty new men. They also rode horses, pulling up as they approached Mike.
Zach pointed to an older man on the horse next to him. “Mike, this is Boss Henry. He’s the leader over in New Chicago.”
Mike waved to him. “Glad you men could come. I’m Mike Billings, sort of the leader around here.”
Boss Henry looked around at the village and the farms around it, nodding his approval. “It looks like you got a good set up. Probably need to build some fortifications around though. Starting to hear tales of bandits. Afraid of work but more than happy to run in and pick a little village clean.”
“Yeah,” Mike said, “we’ve been thinking about that lately, especially with the new Spotty threat.”
“Spotties,” Boss Henry said. “You know, I’ve never heard of there being more than one or two anywhere. How’d they get an army?”
“Don’t know. Guess they’ve just been slowly collecting the ones run off from anywhere else. Anyway, a couple of hunters found their camp, said there’s about fifty to eighty of them.”
Boss Henry’s face contorted as he did his calculations. He looked back at his men and then stared forward a moment. “They got guns?”
Mike shook his head. “Nobody has seen any, but they all seem to have bows. Based on what they did to two of our guys, they know what to do with an arrow.”
“Alright,” said Boss Henry, “where do you want us to set up? Let us get settled and we can all have a pow-wow about what’s next.”
Within minutes, the New Chicago group were setting up camp next to the Wood Hill group. Boss Henry insisted that his men begin building a dirt wall to act as cover for firing out toward the woods if need be. The villagers, realizing this was a good idea, gathered their shovels to help.