Feast by Jeremiah Knight Page A

silent nod, and Jakob returned it. That nod, simple as it was, said a lot. Promises were made. Trust sought and given. One way or another, Peter was going to return for the kids, and leave this place.
    Jakob stepped inside the cell and pulled the gate shut behind him. He even put the latch back in place.
    “Much obliged,” Boone said, slipping the padlock into the latch and locking it once more. “Ya’ll ready?”
    Ella crouched by the gate, fingers hooked around the chain link. She whispered to Anne, who nodded a few times and then said, “Love you, too,” loud enough for Boone to hear. Peter doubted the pair were sharing typical parting words between mother and daughter. But there was no way for Boone to know that. In part, because they’d spoken softly, but also because he was a few bricks short of the world’s smallest chimney.
    “Ready,” Ella said when she stood back up.
    Boone led them back toward the farmhouse. It was three stories tall, white and in a very simple sense, it reminded Peter of his own home, before he blew it up. But there were a few obvious differences that stood out. The windows were barred on the lower floors. Peter wasn’t sure if that was to keep monsters out, or to keep people in. Maybe both. But with the twenty-foot wall and armed guards, keeping monsters out was a solved problem.
    Maybe the bars came before the walls? Peter wondered, but he knew he was just being hopeful, and that could be a fatal mistake. He chided himself for trying to find the best in the people who lived here. He should be on the lookout for the worst. Presently, that was Boone.
    “Be polite,” Boone said, as he led them up the farmer’s porch stairs toward the front door. Peter imagined the door had once been solid wood, but it was now a slab of steel. “Tell the truth. He can always tell when someone is fibbin’, and there ain’t no faster way to wind up in the Questionables. If he offers something, accept it. And if he asks you to do something for him, only appropriate answer is a ‘Yes, sir,’ and a nod.”
    Peter was surprised by Boone’s aid. The man had grown more friendly since taking them from the truck. He’d made some threats, sure, but most of them, aside from the sexual allusions directed at the girls, also included ways to avoid unsavory outcomes. Peter had gone out of his way to be agreeable, and it seemed to be winning Boone over. He doubted the man who’d organized this outpost of humanity would be as unperceptive, but maybe there was a way to avoid violence?
    There I go hoping again, Peter thought.
    Boone thumped his fist against the steel door three times. “It’s Boone. Here to see Mason.”
    The sound of locks snapping open came from the other side.
    Boone motioned to the door with his head. “Takes ’em a while. Not sure why, but Mason keeps the place locked up tighter than a nun’s poontang.”
    The opening door kept Peter from having to come up with a reply. A black woman dressed in a traditional maid’s uniform bowed as she opened the door. “Mistuh Boone,” she said in an old-fashioned, Southern accent, stilted and unnatural. “Massa Mason is expecting you. He’s in the study.”
    Massa? Peter thought. Did I hear that right? Peter went rigid as his eyes shifted from the uncomfortable maid, to the foyer wall where a large Confederate flag hung. A hint of music wafted through the air. It sounded pleasant enough on the surface, but in the current environment it felt more like acid in his ears. He heard the lyrics, ‘With a holy host of others standing ’round me, still I’m on the dark side of the moon,’ and he recognized the song as James Taylor’s Carolina in My Mind .
    Mason, whoever that was, had a deep love affair with all things Southern: good, bad, the ugly and probably even worse. The poor woman at the door was the last straw for Peter. He no longer wanted to just escape this place alive, he wanted to stage a coup in the process. There were good people here,