*
The End Day cheer and the buzz kicked up by the radio died quick and quiet deaths. The mood became sour and disgruntled in a matter of days, kept from falling into a senseless, hungry stupor only by the continued labour in the fields.
People began to come to Norman, to single him out from the crowd and demand to know what they were going to do, what the Big Plan was, and from where they’d be getting their next meal.
Each time an angry face appeared in front of him, his patience would wane all the more rapidly. While he spent most of his time at the school in search of privacy, people still made their way into the building, usually under transparent pretences—delivering lunchboxes to children who’d already eaten, or ‘homework’ that Norman hadn’t set—to question him. Their expectant, pleading—yet almost hostile, demanding—stares ate at his nerves like acid.
He suspected that even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t have helped much—not without Alexander. With their prophet shut away, the people were aimless, their efforts impotent.
Soon, he too stopped leaving home unless it was necessary, withdrawing from a city that was beginning to wilt.
XVII
New Canterbury looked as haggard as its drooping populace under an ugly sky. The sun had disappeared behind black clouds hours before. Now, as it dropped below the horizon, the bulging thunderclouds overhead looked fit to burst.
Jason crouched low to the ground atop the hill, tapping his fingers to the beat of the timepiece in his palm. He glanced to the ticking second hand and nodded.
9:30: lights on, then shift change for the guards.
The lazy bastards he’d been charged with babysitting these long weeks better be right. If they were off by so much as ten seconds, he’d skin every last one of them.
But maybe they weren’t as useless as he’d thought.
He smiled as a thousand twinkling lights cast the city’s heart alight. A moment later, he sensed movement about the shadowed rooftops as the sentries were relieved. His sneer grew only wider as the first dainty drops of rain began to patter down around him.
Showtime, he thought. If tonight was the night, then it had to be now, before the new guards’ night vision could settle. Under the cover of the storm, it would be a cakewalk.
“Are we ready?” said a voice beside him; flat, quiet, almost a sigh.
Jason turned to Him, and for a moment dared to look into the shards of emerald that were his eyes, suspended between flowing locks of auburn hair and a face obscured by black cloth. “We’re ready.”
The pigeons were cooing in the forest nearby. He hated that fucking racket.
As Jason grimaced, one of the damned rats with wings fluttered over and alighted upon His palm, bobbing and pecking. He uncurled his fingers to unveil a small pile of seeds, which the bird set to without hesitation. He stroked its head and looked back to the city. “You have a way in that won’t cause any problems this time?”
Jason wasted no time with boasting or jesting. Last time, they’d almost gotten Him killed. The others had all paid for that—paid for it dearly. Jason had delivered the lashings himself. “We have,” he said.
“Then let’s get to it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jason was left alone on the hilltop as He stalked towards the tree line, the pigeon still perched aloft upon his raised index finger, muttering to it all the while.
Jason turned back to the city as the others stepped up around him. A few of them were slaves from the coast, and eyed their waiting prey with forlorn reluctance. But none of them would lift a finger against Him. Jason had made sure of that. If they ever wanted to see their wives and kiddies again—with their skin still on, that was—they would do whatever He told them.
He felt a delicious stirring in his limbs—one that stole all the way down to his groin—as he unsheathed his knife and sang, “Oh, little pigs, little pigs, let me come in…”