Dinner came and went. No complaints this time. The sun was setting, three workers armed with revolvers similar to the one Henry had carried closed the gate the train had come through, and slid a plank in front of it, locking it shut, then took watch. After preparing the bowls for breakfast, it was time to go to bed. Unlike Unionsville, these workers didn’t work during the night. Margaret untied the drapes, closing the kitchen tent. She had lit a lantern that stood on a tree stump next to her cot.

“I only have one bed, you can have it if you want,” she told me.

“It’s okay, I can sleep on the ground,” I replied.

Took my coat off, bundled it together, and laid it on the ground next to Margaret. Used it as a pillow.

“Goodnight, goodnight, don’t let the mad ones bite,” Margaret blew the lantern candle out.

She had a fur blanket, I didn’t. Wondered if we couldn’t have left the stove on during the night because the cold gave me goosebumps. Kept my hand on the rifle for the entire night, and eventually managed to fall asleep, but not for long.

Gunfire awoke me in the middle of the night.

“GET IT OFF OF ME!” someone screamed.

Margaret seemed to be deaf to the sounds outside. I got up, put the coat on, and brought my rifle with me out of the tent. Two of the workers were shooting into the air, a bird dove down, attacking one of them. Pecked him in the eyes. The third worker rolled around on the ground relentlessly trying to get a squirrel off of his face. I aimed at the squirrel. Bang. The squirrel was thrown off the worker’s face by the impact of the bullet, but shook it off and jumped onto the man again. Shot it once more, this time in its head. Killed it. Just now noticed I did not have to put a new round in the chamber after every time I pulled the trigger. It seemed to do so automatically, so I could focus on shooting. The worker got hold of the bird’s foot and pulled it away from his eyes. He frantically waved his revolver around, shooting everything but the bird. Helped him by shooting the bird. Went straight through and into the worker’s chest. I had miscalculated the strength of the bullet. The last worker remained unharmed.

“Thanks for the help,” he said, “the wall keeps the big animals out, but we can’t do anything about the birds, and the squirrels manage to climb over. We were two hundred men when we laid the foundation to the bridge, can you believe it?”

“Sounds like you have a serious problem with pest control,” I pointed out.

“You could say that.”

The worker who had been attacked by the squirrel stood up.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he said in agony.

“You know what this means, Sam, don’t you?” the unharmed worker asked.

“We don’t know if it’ll happen to me! I’ve got God on my side!”

I was starting to doubt if there even was a God. He didn’t seem to be doing much work around here, at least. Would he really have let Haraldstown exist?

“Do you really want to go mad?” the unharmed worker wondered.

“No, just let me be! Let’s wait this out!” Sam, who had been attacked by a squirrel said.

His body started shaking violently, the veins in his neck bulged out.

“Little girl, put him out of his misery,” the unharmed worker told me.

I wanted to see what happened, though, so I watched and waited. Looked as if he contracted all the muscles in his body at once. All of a sudden, it stopped. He stood straight up with his eyes closed. Pieces of loose skin hung from his face where the squirrel had scratched. The eyes opened, they had the same red glow as the reindeer’s. He began running towards the unharmed worker with his hands behind his back, fingers tensed like he thought he had claws. The unharmed worker fired his revolver at Sam multiple times before Sam dropped dead.

“Why didn’t you shoot him?!” the man exclaimed.

Didn’t answer. The worker I had shot in the chest was on his feet. He jumped onto the unharmed worker, and dug his nails into the no longer unharmed worker’s skin. Started chewing on his scalp, not minding the hair. I decided it was time to act, and shot the mad worker twice, he fell off.

“Y- you let him attack me!” the no longer unharmed worker stuttered.

Why had I waited so long to do anything? This craziness phenomenon was all new to me. Truth was, I didn’t mind it. Just like I had to defend myself against Henry, nature had to defend itself against us. We poisoned its water, hunted its residents, chopped down their homes, pushed them away with our towns and factories, but not here. Here, nature had a chance to retaliate, every night, a chance to slow humanity’s never ending progress. The madness was just nature’s self defense. I just wanted to watch, see how it all played out, but my curiosity had taken the life of an innocent man. Or, well, his life wasn’t taken yet, so I took care of it. Bang.

Other workers came out of their tents, Larry was one of them. Don’t know how much of it he saw. The overseer had also arrived at the scene.

“Leah, please explain to me why three more of my workers are dead!” the overseer said.

“The mad ones got in,” I replied.

“I see one dead bird over there, and a squirrel over there. That’s two.”

“Sam and the other guy went mad and attacked the last guy.”

“You’ve got one of those automatic rifles, don’t you?”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then why didn’t you protect him?!”

“It just happened so fast.”

“It hasn’t even been one day. One day, and four of my workers are dead!” the overseer threw his hands in the air, “I want you out of here right now!”

I didn’t protest, serving food all day wasn’t very fun anyways, but Larry did: “You send us out there at night, we die!”

“Maybe the little girl can get a taste of her own medicine then. Get. Out.” The overseer pointed at the gates. Three new workers opened the gates for us while the overseer returned to his tent, mumbling curses along the way. One of the workers that had opened the gate glared angrily at me on our way out. I understood he wasn’t happy about having to stay up and getting no sleep but really, I was only responsible for one death that night.