Dread Nation

As Jane and Katherine enjoy a dinner supplied by Katherine’s admirers, they are interrupted by a visit from the sheriff, who asks Katherine if he can “borrow” Jane because there has been a shambler breach (374). As Jane prepares to leave, she asks Katherine to keep an eye on Lily and make sure she’s safe. Jane fears that this breach might bring down the town, and when she meets with the rest of the assembled group, even Gideon doesn’t know how the breach in the wall came to be. None of the Black citizens are armed, and since Jane now has her sickles back, she gives her cavalry sword to Ida. As the Black workers grab weapons from the armory, they discover rows and rows of real weapons, even though they had previously only been given “garden tools for defense” (379). Jane sees the sheriff’s man who took her penny and demands it back, but he refuses and tells her that she has “bigger things to fret about” (381) as they prepare to take on the shamblers.

As the sheriff leads them to the breach, Jane realizes that there are only around thirty defenders and most of them are Black. It isn’t enough people to defend a town the size of Summerland. They reach the field and see “a couple hundred undead moving toward [them]” (384-385). The sheriff orders the group to get ready to fight, but people start to run away and won’t face the shamblers. Jane takes over and starts giving orders, and people listen to her. The sheriff gives Jane “the darkest of looks” (387) for taking over his command but allows it. Gideon lights up the field with flares, and Jane is chilled to see the shamblers standing and waiting. The battle begins, and Jane continues to call out instructions until the field is clear. Gideon warns Jane that the sheriff won’t forget that she usurped his power.

Jane recalls a traumatic memory from her childhood in which mother tried to drown her. Jane remembers how she blamed herself because. Auntie Aggie intervened and saved Jane’s life, and although Jane loved her mother, she grew to fear her after that. The day after the battle, Jane harbors a similar fear of the sheriff. He waves it off in Katherine’s presence, but Jane believes there will repercussions for her actions. She tells Katherine about the strange moment in the battle when the shamblers seemed to be reasoning and waiting. Jane and Katherine meet Gideon for lunch, and Jane asks if the food rations are because Baltimore County has fallen to the shamblers. Gideon explains that the Eastern cities were always doomed, and he reveals that his father is Abraham Carr, Baltimore’s mayor. Gideon states that there have been similar breaches over the years, and he has noticed that based on their clothes, the shamblers that show up in the prairie “are coming from all over the continent and congregating in places like this” (407). He also believes that the shamblers can communicate with each other like insects, and he believes that a bigger horde is coming that will number in the thousands. Jane and Katherine realize they need to deal with the sheriff if they’re going to make it out of town alive.