A Shepherd's Calling (What Comes After Book 2) (5 page)

That matter settled, the Old Man turned back to Janessa. When his eyes locked with hers, she felt her head begin to spin with the power of that gaze. “Now... what did you see, Janessa? Tell me all of it.”

The young woman closed her eyes and took an uneven breath. “He fell off the tractor. It kept going for a bit after he fell, didn't stop 'till I got to him. He wasn't movin' and what was left of his head was mashed into the dirt.” The image of the body in the recently tilled earth was so clear and distinct, it felt burned into her vision. She wondered if she would see it in her waking moments, and that thought would have made her shudder even without Shane's eyes boring into hers.

“
No one else saw?” The Old Man's voice was low.

Janessa shook her head. “Calvin was the only other person around. Soon as he got to me, he helped me get the body in here.”

“
Why did you move it?” Shane's tone seemed equal parts irritation and curiosity.

“
Felt wrong just leavin' it in the field. Didn't wanna risk something else coming along and finding it before you saw it, either.”

“
So, you bring the body in here. Calvin comes to get me while you stayed and kept watch. Nothing else happened?” The Old Man looked back and forth between Calvin and Janessa. When they shook their respective heads, Shane asked the young woman another question. “And you came upon the body less than an hour ago?”

She nodded and swallowed hard. Heart hammering in her chest, Janessa licked her lips before croaking, “What should we do?”

Shane smiled and shook his head. “Well, ain't that the million dollar question.”

The Englishman sighed. “Look. You're over-thinking this. It was a terrible accident. Tragic, really. We tell the farmers what happened and-”

“
And what?” Shane's tone was acidic. “And they think we took matters into our hands. What else could it be? They didn't want to bring in another group, especially one the size Ray Summers had with him. None of them were more vocal about that than Allen here, and with good reason. We're low on food, thanks to game being just about hunted out and streams fished dry for the season. We've got nothing to share until our harvest, and even then we'll need to ration for the winter. Sound argument, really. And not one week after we go against their wishes and bring in said group, Allen himself ends up dead. 'Found' by one of the people he wanted turned away.” He paused and looked at Calvin. “Now, you tell me what happens next.”

Calvin glared at Shane for several seconds. Though his jaw worked and his nostrils flared, the Englishman said nothing before looking away from the other man. “Christ,” he spat, his frustration audible in the word. “You're right, as usual.” A pause. “What, then?”

“
Silence, for starters. Once we leave here, we must never speak of this again.” Something in the Old Man's tone sent a chill through Janessa.

“
Given,” Calvin replied. “Now, what are we going to do?”

“
The body needs to disappear. The only way to do that properly is at the slaughterhouse. It's already prepped for hogs, so it'll be good for this.” Shane watched Calvin and Janessa. His voice was quiet and he seemed very still.

He's on edge, waiting for something
, Janessa thought.
Watching for something. Like he thinks something's going to happen right now
. She gave voice to her puzzlement. “So, we bring him there and... what... store him 'till the farmers figure out where to bury him?”

When Shane didn't answer her, she glanced over at Calvin. The other man was standing with his arms folded over his chest, looking back at her. Where Shane watched her with an almost predatory focus, Calvin seemed to regard with her something akin to pity.

With a sigh, the Englishman spoke. “No, mum,” he said. “They can't know about this at all.” His 'at all' sounded like one word, 'atal'. “Shane means to break the body down so it's easier to dispose of.” Shuddering, Calvin turned to the other man and asked, “That's the way of it, yeah?”

The Old Man nodded. “It is.”

There was something unsettling about his reply and much what followed passed in a blur. Somewhere between casual and detached, it felt 'off' to Janessa. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but it sent up a red flag in her mind. She disconnected when Calvin began telling her what Shane really meant, aware of her surroundings, but emotionally and intellectually unresponsive. She was on auto-pilot when she saw Shane and Calvin wrapping the body in a blanket. With her as their scout, the two men carried the body through the short patch of trees to their makeshift slaughterhouse.

It wasn't until the body was on the block, with the two men putting on stained aprons and taking up cleavers, that Janessa truly grasped what was about to happen. When Shane pointed the totes and told her to lay them out, she did so slowly, feeling as though in a dream. She was still wrapped in that dream-like stupor when she realized both men were trying to get her attention. She saw them, blinked, felt things that were smooth and hard and oily being pressed into her hands. She looked down, saw bloody bones held in bloody hands, and watched those bloody bones disappear into a big, black contractor's bag. The bones were strange but the hands seemed familiar. So foreign was this experience that she felt she were remembering a scene from a movie, one that someone else described to her long ago. She did not feel as though she were actively participating in a moment of her own life.

Watching the production line of bones being placed into the bag was interrupted by raised voices. Janessa's return to awareness was heralded by Calvin's accent.

“
You can't be serious, man. You're not actually proposing-”

She could almost hear the Old Man's sneer. “You're right, I'm not proposing anything. I'm
telling
you what we should be doing. We've separated the meat from the bones; half the work has already been done. If we don't use it, we have to get rid of it and hope it doesn't attract animals. Or worse. Besides, I know you abhor a waste and that's
exactly
what this would be.”

Dimly, Janessa was aware that the two men had stopped breaking down the body. While they were still every bit as frantic, that urgency was now encapsulated in their debate. She saw them gesturing with their cleavers, making clumsy but emphatic motions with heavy gloves covered in ichor. In a different frame of mind, she would have been interested in the dynamics of their discussion. At the moment, however, her attention was focused on one thing only.

At the foot of the cutting table was a battered tote, open and lined with wax paper. Inside, cleanly cut and evenly layered, were neatly arranged cuts of meat. Reddish, purple, glossy and spotted with streaks and patches of white and yellow. The pieces were separated by strips of butcher's paper and seemed organized with an attention to order that belayed the haste with which they were being placed inside. The meat was striated muscle, she would later learn.

Turning her head, she crawled closer to the tote. She peered closely at a lumpy mass on the top layer of waxy paper. It was more purple than red and had a few blood vessels still attached. She stared at the muscle and just as she heard Calvin speak again, she imagined the disconnected lump of flesh twitched.

“
We knew this fella. However we felt about him or his mates, just 'cause he's dead and gone doesn't mean we should sup on his remains. He deserves better'n that.”

Shane grunted. “Ain't a matter of deservin'. It's a matter of making the best of a bad situation.” The butcher returned to his work, evidenced by the sharp thudding and wet snapping that once again issued from the table. “Let me tell you what happens if we toss the meat. Even if we manage to get it away from here with no one the wiser, and that's a big 'if', we still need to put it somewhere nothing else finds it. Winter's coming and everything with a nose will be looking. Since it's just the three of us, we'll either have to keep it close or risk people noticing we're gone. Not to mention what might happen to us if we stray too far away on our own. People notice we're gone, we need to tell them where we went and why, but they might find the holes in our story. Either way, they'll need to be taken care of, eventually. Even without more people disappearing, that route gets dangerous awfully quick.”

The Old Man's hands continued their work while he spoke. Smooth, practiced motions, that relentlessly turned an impossible task into smaller, more manageable pieces. “But if we only have the bones left to deal with...” He paused, wiped his nose with the sleeve just behind his heavy glove, then raised his cleaver and brought it down sharply. “Those keep longer, give us a better chance to dispose of them piecemeal. We can spread them out over a bigger area and take more time, make it less likely any single piece is found. But this,” he tapped the spattered steel of the cleaver against the mass of muscle he had just cut, before sliding the blade beneath the meat and flicking it across the table at his partner in crime, “this is evidence, as well. Like any other evidence, we deal with it the best way we can. The bones require a long-term plan. This we need to deal with a different way. A quicker way.”

Shane glanced at the contents of the tote and the remains on the table. A critical look on his face, he spoke to no one in particular. “We do it right and all of this could be gone the day after tomorrow. I'm sure Burt could dress it up so no one would suspect a thing.”

Janessa couldn't take anymore: she turned her head and heaved. The contents of her stomach made a heavy, spattering splash against the concrete. She coughed the last of it out, letting warm, thick streams trickle from her lips and down her chin. She coughed so violently, she needed to put her hands in the warm, semi-digested mess to prevent herself from falling into it.

“
Jesus, man. Don't just stand there: give her a hand.” Shane's voice was equal parts concern and disgust.

She felt strong hands on her shoulders. As they were helping pull her up so she was kneeling, she heard Calvin's voice close beside her. Janessa opened her eyes in time to see the next exchange between Shane and Calvin.

“
This is all well and good, making the body disappear. Leaving little trace. But what do we tell the farmers? Or the others?” Calvin asked.

The Old Man regarded both of them coldly. “There's nothing to tell, is there? The last time we saw him was at breakfast. Who knows what happened between then and now? Dangerous world out there, beyond our door. Maybe something happened. Maybe he just got fed up with life here. Who can say? Either way, he will be missed.”

Janessa felt the Englishman shudder. “And when someone starts asking questions?” His tone suggested he already knew the answer.

Don't take a genius to figure that out
, she thought. Her voice shaking from the post-vomit tremors still coursing through her, Janessa said, “They have an accident. Or disappear.” Even after she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, the young woman couldn't clear her lips of the acrid taste. She knew the sour flavor in her mouth had little to do with the residual bile sticking to her cheeks and tongue.

The Old Man seemed to be evaluating her. His expression took on a mix of consideration and praise, the corner of his mouth twitching upward in the smallest of smiles. In a mockery of Calvin's accent, Shane said, “By George, I think she's got it.”

Janessa had trailed off into silence, apparently finished with her tale. Tom allowed her time to take a pull from her water bottle before beginning his line of questioning.

“
How many 'accidents' did you have?”

The young woman shook her head. “None, believe it or not.” Seeing Tom's face, she qualified her statement. “Don't get me wrong, people had doubts. But no one said or did anything all through the winter. Knowing how Shane handled things, directly and... permanently. No one wanted to cross him, especially over something that. Even you picked up on it, right?”

Tom nodded and she continued. “And you'd only known him a couple days. He was real T.C.B. That's why he took us to the farm when Summers came back without you. He wanted to check on the place, make sure everything was okay. He'd always said that would be what did him in, that need to see things through.”

“
T.C.B.?” Tom wondered aloud.

“
T
ake
C
are of
B
usiness. Anyway, most of the people who had questions or thought something was wrong with the whole thing... most of 'em died from that cold/flu thing a bunch of us came down with.” She shrugged.

Tom's skepticism was written plainly on his face. Seeing it, Janessa said to him, “Seriously. We didn't have a doctor. Not a real one, anyway. Summers did what he could, but he was a field medic, E.M.T. or nurse or something. Not a doctor. And he was just one guy. He helped us figure out how to take care of the ones that could be saved. The rest...” She trailed off again, her voice sad and low. “There was nothin' we could do for 'em.”

Her response seemed genuine, so Tom let it go. He shared a look with Chris, the two men critical and appraising of each other and the young woman. Tom had only one other question for the siblings regarding their former community. He felt Chris would be interested in the answer, as well.

“
How long before you were eating people exclusively?” It was a cold question. His voice was cold in the asking.

Toby blinked. “Never. We always had vegetables, sometimes other meat, bread, fruit.” His confusion remained even under the relentless stare of the two men across from him. “What? You
asked
, man.”