But she didn't—not for a long time.
The Church of the Nazarene was packed. The pews were full and people stood three-deep around the sides. Even then, they weren't all inside. Others stood in the churchyard by the open windows where they could hear and still keep watch with the rifles and shotguns they held.
There was none of the running and playing that usually accompanied a town meeting. No children under the age of eleven were present, and most of those were in the parsonage which had been converted into a makeshift hospital. All who had been bitten were running high temperatures with frequent bouts of vomiting.
Robbie stood beside the lectern with papers in his hands. The silent, pinched faces stared back at him colored with hope, despair, fear and confusion. Robbie shuffled the paper and cleared his throat. He looked tired and kept running his fingers through his tousled hair.
"Yesterday evening and this morning," he began slowly, "we contacted everybody in the valley, to tell them about this meeting and to get a head count so we would know how many people have... died and how many are missing. I have it here. Do you want me to read it or pin it up on the board?"
He lifted his eyes and surveyed the people pressed into the church, but there was no response. Doc Morgan, sitting in the front pew, looked around and said quietly, "Why don't you read it, Robbie."
Robbie nodded, "Okay. These are the known dead. Or-vie and Little Cleatus. They drowned when Orvie's car ran off the road into the creek." A woman began weeping softly somewhere in the rear of the room. Robbie looked up briefly and then continued. "Uh . . . Edith Beatty, Caroline Walker and Joe Bob's wife died this morning from infected wounds. Everyone bitten is sick but only those three have died. Doc can answer your questions about that. The Reverend Jarvis, Mavis Sizemore, Miss Proxmire, Betty Whitman, Bobby MacDonald were . . . killed by the children yesterday. We found the Whitman baby in the woods this morning. He had gone nearly a mile up the valley but was dead when we found him. We also found Danny Sizemore hanging from a rafter at Mavis's place. He seems to have killed himself."
Robbie wiped the moisture from his upper lip with the side of his hand. "Pete and Prissy Morgan had been . . . were dead when we went by there this morning. They had six little kids—three of them not in school yet. Barbara Ann and Delton Reeves were killed when they attacked Joe Bob's wife last night. The bodies weren't there this morning but Pauly is sure they were dead. Pretty Walker was killed when she tried to kill Caroline. The Ellis baby died after falling from her crib. She apparently tried to climb out. That's eighteen we know for sure are dead." His voice was low and without emotion.
Robbie shuffled the papers without looking up. "As for the missing ... the best we can figure thirty-seven children were . . . affected. Two of those are eleven and the rest are ten or younger. Except for the five known dead, they've all disappeared. Seven of them are under two years old; one even younger than the Ellis baby. We don't know how they managed.
"Agnes Bledsoe and her husband went by his brother's farm last night and didn't find anyone there. Calvin Watson was gone this morning. Somebody had broken in. There was no one at my ... my sister's place this morning. And no one at Oss Morgan's. Oss's team came into town yesterday. There was blood on the wagon. Eloise Harper hasn't been seen since she left the schoolhouse. Able Pritchard, Will and Pansy Reeves, Gil MacDonald, Sonny Morgan and Carroll Gilmore didn't come back last night after going to look for their kids. Counting the children, over fifty people are missing."
"What about the Sullivans?" someone asked.
Doc snorted and Robbie shook his head. "I don't know. We went up to the Hollow this morning but they wouldn't let us."
"Took a shot at us!" Doc said with indignation.
"Must be a lotta kids up there," the same man said.
"Usta be." Doc grimaced. "Them Sullivans been inbreedin' up there in the Hollow like a bunch of pigs ever since old Hiram Sullivan had a fallin' out with Cleatus Morgan nearly two hundred years ago. I don't know how many of 'em survived the diphtheria that went through there in twenty-seven. I tried to vaccinate 'em but they took a shot at me then too."
"We can't worry about the Sullivans," Leo Whitman said bitterly. "I lost my wife and baby. Nearly everybody here lost somebody. We gotta figure out what to do about it. Robbie's been pussyfootin' around, not sayin' what needs to be said. Our kids have turned into wild animals, murderin' and eatin' human flesh. We need to go in and exterminate all of 'em. Like we would a pack of wolves!"
A murmur swelled from the crowd. "I don't believe what I'm hearing!" Mrs. Pritchard's voice carried over the other sounds. "You're talking about murdering our little children! My Mandy!"
"They killed your husband," Leo pointed out.
"We don't know that Able is dead!" she cried. Frances took her mother's arm and tried to calm her. Doc stood and held up his hands. When they quieted he said, "Maybe Leo's right and maybe not. That's why we're havin' this meetin'— to decide what to do. We need to find out what's going on. Maybe it will pass. Maybe it will pass and they'll come home."
"Could you shoot one of your grandkids, Doc?"
Doc looked at the floor for a moment and then shook his head. "I don't know. Joe Bob's wife wouldn't have been able to."
"We need to keep anything like that from happening again," Robbie said. "Some of you live pretty far out. You have to take care of your fields and your stock. They've already wiped out three families."
'I'll keep my shotgun with me."
"The ones who didn't come back last night had guns."
"What are we supposed to do? Lock ourselves in our houses?"
"I don't know." Robbie leaned against the lectern and wished he could sit down. He had been on horseback since dawn. "Everybody has to be aware of the situation so we can come up with something."
"I think the first thing we have to do," Doc said quietly, "is capture one of them. Ask them why they're doing this. Ask them what has happened to them."
"Capture?"
"You're talkin' about 'em as if they were animals!"
"No," Doc shook his head. "They're not animals. Animals don't think and plan. Animals can't open doors and windows and pretend to be your children so they can get close enough to kill you. If we can't stop thinking of them as our children, we may not have a chance."
Ludie Morgan put more wood in the stove and checked the gauge on the pressure cooker. She scalded Mason jars and sliced cucumbers to soak in lime water, humming to herself all the time.
Meridee sat at the kitchen table watching her. "You don't need to do all this Aunt Ludie," she said with considerable awe.
"Gotta get your cannin' done. Don't want to let the garden go to waste. When these green beans and pickles are done, I'll pick a bunch of those nice green tomatoes and make chow-chow."
"I wasn't really planning to can this year. I've got enough left over from last year to feed the whole town."
"Then why plant a garden?"
"Force of habit, I guess." She looked out the window but couldn't see the church from where she sat. "How long do you think the meeting will last?"
"Lord knows. Folks get to jawin', never know when to quit. I coulda told 'em bad trouble was a comin'."
Meridee knew she shouldn't say anything, but she did. "How did you know?"
Ludie moved air across her shiny face with a paper fan. "I know the signs. I didn't just come to town on a wagonload of watermelons. Only last week I heard a goatsucker two nights runnin'. I even found a crow's feather on my front stoop. And for the last three nights the lightnin' bugs have been so thick you could sew by the light. Them two old dogs of mine been layin' in the yard pantin' like lizards and the weather barely warm."