Free The Hallowed Ones by Laura Bickle

ordered from English painters who mimicked old designs. They had no real knowledge of the symbolism in them. To them, they were just pretty pictures. To the Hexenmeister, they were images designed to beckon good fortune, friendship, and fertility—and to ward off bad luck.
    “There are more to do. Different signs.” He rubbed his gnarled, stained hands like they ached.
    “Would you like help carrying the cans?”
    He shook his head. “No, Katie. It’s late. You run along home to your family.”
    His eyes stared out unblinking into the night, and I stifled a shudder. It was as if he saw something in the darkness that I could not.
    “Yes, Herr Stoltz. Have a good evening.” I left him in the field, looking up at the stars.
    He wasn’t the only one out this evening. As I approached my house, I saw an unfamiliar figure pacing outside. As I neared, I realized that it was Mrs. Parsall, dressed in my mother’s clothes, but minus the prayer bonnet and with the addition of her own sneakers. Mrs. Parsall was stouter than my mother, and the buttons strained against her belly. I smiled for a moment, seeing my friend cast into our world.
    But when she turned, the expression on her face wiped away my amusement. She held her cell phone, and her lower lip quavered.
    “Mrs. Parsall, what’s wrong?” I reached out to rub her arm.
    She blew out her breath. “I spoke with Dan.”
    I perked up. “Your husband is all right?”
    “Yes. He’s all right. But . . .” She shook her head, and I could see her reaching out for words. “He says that something terrible has happened.”
    “Come sit.” I guided her to sit down on the back step of the house. Her hands were shaking, and she took three tries to get the phone back in her apron pocket, failed. I took the phone out of her hand and noticed that the battery symbol was blinking on it.
    “Please shut it off,” she said. “The big button on the right.”
    I pushed it, and the phone display faded with a musical chirp that sounded like a pale imitation of birdsong. The insects seemed unaffected by what had spooked the ravens. We listened to the crickets for some time, watched the last of the summer fireflies rise to swim in the field, before she spoke again. Her voice was stronger.
    “Dan says that they think there was a terrorist attack. A biological weapon.”
    “Here?” In our little corner of the world, that seemed improbable. “How?”
    “They don’t think it started here. They think it began in DC, that it’s spreading west. A contagion.”
    “A contagion?” I echoed. My skin began to crawl.
    “Something that causes violence, madness. They don’t understand it yet; they’re just gathering intelligence from afar.” Her words ran over each other. “Dan says they’ve closed the borders to the United States.”
    “No one gets in or out. Like here.” My head was swimming.
    “Like here. In quarantine.”
    “What are they going to do about it?”
    “No one knows. The military has no idea how the contagion is spread, how much of the rioting is panic, and how much is due to the contagion itself. In the end, it may not make much difference. The U.S. military is operating largely out of ships off the coasts, where they are intercepting radio and television transmissions.” Her eyes lowered. “From what Dan says, it’s complete havoc. Philadelphia and Boston fell. Fell like New Orleans after the hurricane.”
    “And your children?”
    She hiccupped back a sob. “Most colleges are on lockdown, according to Dan. The National Guard is there. He’s trying to find out.”
    I threw my arm around her. “They’ll be all right.”
    “I hope so.”
    I wrinkled my brow, trying to understand. “How can a sickness cause evil?”
    “There are a lot of theories that suggest that evil is a sickness. Every time some twisted SOB in the newspaper kills his girlfriend’s children, there’s always some psychiatrist who comes forward to say that the guy’s mentally ill.”