The Land of the Shadow Read Online Free

something I’m doing wrong.”
    “I think it’s the Infection.”
    “Birds don’t get Infected.”
    “You know that for sure?”
    Carly blinked. “Well, no, but they didn’t drop from the sky because of it.”
    “They could be carriers, just like us.”
    Did that mean the chicks wouldn’t survive? Carly glanced over at Dagny, the only baby she knew of born since the Infection. Would other mothers face the horror of miscarriage or seeing their babies die soon after birth?
    “The thief prob’ly grabbed the broody hen because the others scattered while she just sat there on the nest. Break her neck quick, and he could get out of there without the other birds making much of a fuss.”
    “Is that why he took just one?”
    Miz Marson nodded. “Like as not. The others would squawk and flog. The thief would’ve wanted to grab it fast without making noise.”
    “Maybe we should take the next eggs and try incubating them ourselves. Justin thinks one of the solar panels would supply enough power to run an incubator.”
    “Speaking of solar panels, Bryce and David were fighting over that solar panel again last night. I could hear it all the way over at my place. It almost came to blows.”
    Carly took a deep breath. David had found the solar panel in the garage of an abandoned house. It hadn’t worked, but Bryce knew a little bit about batteries and electronics, and he had tinkered with the wiring until he got it working. Since their community didn’t have a specific use for it yet, Justin had said they should keep it for their personal use until it was needed.
    The agreement was that they would share the panel if Bryce fixed it. Bryce would use it during the day to power a radio he was using to search for messages on the airwaves and broadcast his own, searching for survivors who might know of the whereabouts of family members he was sure had survived the Infection. David would then use it at night to run a fan with the battery power the panel generated during the day. Predictably, their agreement broke down when one or the other hadn’t used his share and thought he should be able to use it in the other time instead.
    “I’ll talk to them. Justin—”
    Miz Marson jerked her head toward the window. “Do you hear that?”
    Miz Marson might have been elderly, but her ears were sharp. Carly listened hard and let out a small gasp of surprise when she heard it. Music. They exchanged an awed look for a moment, as though they had encountered a ghost of the dead world, and then Carly blinked back to reality.
    “I’ll be back. Please watch Dagny for me.”
    Miz Marson nodded and waved a hand. The request hadn’t been necessary.
    Carly followed the sound down the street, Sam trotting beside her, his tongue lolling as he panted. She pitied him his thick coat of fur. As she got closer, she could make out the tune and singer. She’d never particularly liked country, but hearing music again after all this time was a feast for her ears, and it made her eyes sting a little. She paused to savor it for a moment, but had a job to do.
    The sound was coming from the backyard of the house on the corner. Carly rounded the corner and saw Jason lying on a bench under an old Massey-Ferguson tractor, muttering as he twisted a tool up in the tractor’s underbelly.
    Jason and his wife had arrived in Colby a few months ago in the early spring. Carly liked his wife, Laura, who had worked in a health food store before the Crisis and knew about medicinal herbs. Though she had been familiar with them in pill form, she was now searching the nearby area to see what grew naturally. Jason had been a prison guard but worked on cars during the weekend, and his mechanical knowledge had come in handy. His current project was converting the tractor to be fueled by a wood gasifier. If he could get it to work, they would be able to cultivate more land than Shadowfax could by pulling the plow.
    Carly had to call his name twice before he heard her. He