But right now the idea of a warm bath and a meal eaten from a bowl with a real spoon made him delirious. “You okay?” he asked Swan, who stared into space.
“I’m better,” she replied, but her mind had drifted back to her mama, lying dead under the dirt, and to what PawPaw—or whatever had taken hold of PawPaw—had said. What did it mean? What was the giant supposed to protect her from? And why her?
She thought of the green seedlings growing from the dirt in the shape of her body. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. She really hadn’t even had to do anything, not even knead the dirt between her hands. Of course, she was used to the tingling sensation, to feeling sometimes like a fountain of energy was coming up from the earth and through her backbone ... but this was different.
Something had changed, she thought. I could always make flowers grow. Bringing them up from wet earth when the sun shone down was easy. But she’d made grass grow in the dark, without water, and she hadn’t even tried. Something had changed.
And it came to her, just like that: I’m stronger than I was before.
Josh crossed to the window and peered out at the dead town, leaving Swan alone with her thoughts. A figure caught his attention out there—a small animal of some kind, standing in the wind. Its head lifted, watching Josh. A dog, he realized. A little terrier. They stared at each other for a few seconds—and then the dog darted away.
Good luck to you, he thought, and then he turned away, because he knew the animal was bound to die, and he had a sickened gutful of death. Davy coughed twice and called weakly for Leona. She brought the buckets in from the kitchen for Swan’s bathwater, and then she hurried back to see about her husband.
32
SISTER AND ARTIE HAD found a little piece of Heaven.
They walked into a small log cabin, hidden in a grove of naked evergreens on the shore of an ice-skimmed lake, and into the wonderful warmth of a kerosene space heater. Tears almost burst from Sister’s eyes as she stumbled across the threshold, and Artie gasped with pleasure.
“This is the place,” the man in the ski mask said.
Four other people were already in the cabin: a man and woman, both dressed in ragged summer clothing, who appeared to be young, maybe in their early twenties—but it was hard to tell, because both of them had severe, brown-crusted burns in weird geometric shapes on their faces and arms and under the torn places of their clothing. The young man’s dark hair hung almost to his shoulders, but the crown of his scalp was burned bald and splotched with the brown marks. The woman might have been pretty, with large blue eyes and the fine bones of a fashion model, but her curly auburn hair was almost all scorched away, and the brown crusted marks lay diagonally, like precise penstrokes, across her face. She was wearing cutoff blue jeans and sandals, and her bare legs were also splotched with burns. Her feet were swathed in rags, and she was curled up next to the heater.
The other two were a thin older man, maybe in his mid-fifties, with bright blue burns disfiguring his face, and a teen-age boy, sixteen or so, wearing jeans and a T-shirt with BLACK FLAG LIVES! in untidy, scrawled letters on the front. Two small studs were pinned in the boy’s left earlobe, and he had all of his rooster-cut orange hair, but gray burn marks streamed down his strong-jawed face as if someone had lit a candle over his forehead and let the wax drip. His deep-socketed green eyes watched Sister and Artie with a hint of amusement.
“Meet my other guests,” the man in the ski mask said, laying his pack on a bloodstained porcelain counter next to the sink after he’d shut the door and latched it. “Kevin and Mona Ramsey”—he motioned toward the young couple—“Steve Buchanan”—toward the teenage boy—“and the most I can get out of the old man is that he’s from Union City. I didn’t get your names.”
“Artie Wisco.”
“You can call me Sister,” she said. “What’s yours?”
He peeled off the ski mask and hung it on the hook of a coat-rack. “Paul Thorson,” he told her. “Citizen of the world.” He took off the jugs of blood and lifted the Tupperware bowls with their grisly contents from his pack.
Sister was shocked. Paul Thorson’s face was unmarked by burns, and it had been a long time since Sister had seen a normal human face. He had long black hair flecked with gray, and gray swirled back from the corners of his mouth in his full black beard. His flesh was white from lack of sunshine, but it was weathered and wrinkled, and he had a high, deeply creased forehead and the rough-hewn look of an outdoorsman. Sister thought he resembled a mountain man, somebody who might have lived alone in a shack and come down to the valley only to trap beavers or something. Beneath black eyebrows, his eyes were a frosty gray-blue surrounded by dark circles of weariness. He shrugged off his parka—which had made him appear a lot heftier than he actually was—and hung that up as well, then started dumping the contents of the bowls into the sink. “Sister,” he said, “let’s have some of those vegetables you’re carrying around. We’re going to have asshole stew tonight, folks.”
“Asshole stew?” Sister asked, and frowned. “Uh ... what the hell is that?”
“It means you’re a stupid asshole if you don’t eat it, because that’s all we’ve got. Come on, let’s have the cans.”
“We’re going, to eat ... that?” Artie recoiled from the bloody mess. His ribs were hurting, and he had his hand pressed on the pain under his coat.
“It’s not too bad, man,” the teenager with orange hair said, in a flat Brooklyn accent. “You get used to it. Hell, one of those fuckers tried to eat me. Serves ’em right to be eaten by us, huh?”
“Absolutely,” Paul agreed, going to work with his knife.
Sister took off her pack, opened the duffel bag and gave him some of the canned vegetables. Paul opened them with a can opener and dumped them into a big iron pot.
Sister shuddered, but the man obviously knew what he was doing. The cabin seemed to be only two large rooms. In this front room, along with the space heater, was a small fireplace of rough stones, a fire burning cheerfully within it and throwing off more warmth and light. A few candles melded to saucers and a kerosene lamp were set around the room, which contained two unrolled sleeping bags, a cot, and a nest of newspapers tucked away in a corner. A cast-iron stove and a good-sized pile of split logs stood on the other side of the room, and when Paul said, “Steve, you can get the stove going now,” the boy got up off the floor, took a shovel from beside the fireplace and put burning pieces of wood into the stove. Sister felt a new rush of joy. They were going to have a hot meal!
“It’s time now,” the old man spoke up, looking at Paul. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
Paul glanced at his wristwatch. “Nope. Not quite yet.” He continued chopping up the intestines and brains, and Sister noted that his fingers were long and slender. He had artistic hands, she thought—particularly unsuited to the task they were now performing.
“This your place?” she asked.
He nodded. “Been living here ... oh, about four years now. During the summer, I’m the caretaker for the Big Pines Ski Area, about six or seven miles that way.” He motioned in the direction of the lake behind the cabin. “In the winter, I cozy on in and live off the land.” He glanced up and smiled grimly. “Winter came early this year.”
“What were you doing on the highway?”
“The wolves go up there to chow down. I go up there to hunt wolves. That’s how I found all these other poor souls, wandering around on I-80. I’ve found quite a few more, too. Their graves are out back. I’ll show you, if you like.”
She shook her head.
“See, the wolves have always lived in the mountains. They’ve never had reason to come down before. They eat rabbits, deer, and whatever other animals they can find. But now the small animals are dying in their holes, and the wolves can smell new food. So they’re coming down in droves to Supermarket I-80 for the freshest meat. These people made it here before the snow started falling—if you can call that radioactive shit snow.” He grunte
d with disgust. “Anyway, the food chain’s been knocked off kilter. No small animals for the big ones to eat. Just people. And the wolves are getting real desperate—and real brave.” He plopped the hunks of innards into the pot, then uncapped one of the blood jugs and poured the stuff in. The smell of blood permeated the room. “More wood in there, Steve. We want this shit to boil.”
“Right.”
“I know it’s time!” the old man whined. “It’s got to be!”
“No, it’s not,” Kevin Ramsey told him. “Not until aftet we’ve had our food.”
Paul added the other jug of blood to the pot and began to stir it with a wooden spoon. “You people might as well take off your coats and stay for dinner, unless you want to head for the next restaurant down the road.”
Sister and Artie looked at each other, both of them queasy from the smell of the stew. Sister was the first to take off her gloves, coat and woolen cap, and then Artie reluctantly did the same.
“Okay.” Paul lifted the pot and put it on one of the stove’s burners. “Stoke that baby’s engine and let’s get the fire up.” As Steve Buchanan worked on the fire, Paul turned to a cupboard and produced a bottle that still had a little red wine left in it. “This is the last soldier,” he told them. “Everybody gets one good jolt.”
“Wait.” Sister unzipped her knapsack again and brought out the six-pack of Olympia beer. “This might go better with the stew.”
Their eyes lit up like penny candles.
“My God!” Paul said. “Lady, you just bought my soul.” He gingerly touched the six-pack as if afraid it might evaporate, and when it didn’t, he worked one can from its plastic ring. He shook it carefully, was pleased to find it hadn’t frozen. Then he popped the tab and tilted it to his mouth, drinking long and deep with his eyes closed in rapture.
Sister handed beers to everyone but Artie and shared the bottle of Perrier with him. It wasn’t as satisfying as the beer, but it tasted fine anyway.
The asshole stew made the cabin reek like a slaughterhouse. From outside came a low, distant howling.
“They smell it,” Paul said, glancing out a window. “Oh, those bastards are going to be all around this place in a few minutes!”
The howling continued and grew as more wolf voices added dissonant notes and vibrato.
“It’s got to be time!” the old man insisted after he’d finished his beer. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s almost time.” Mona Ramsey had a gentle, lovely voice. “But not yet. Not yet.”
Steve was stirring the pot. “It’s boiling. I think the shit’s as ready as it’s gonna be.”
“Great.” Artie’s stomach was about to curdle.
Paul ladled the stew out in brown clay bowls. It was thicker than Sister had thought it would be, and the smell was heavy, but not quite as bad as some of the things she’d scavenged from garbage bags back in Manhattan. The stuff was dark red, and if you didn’t look too closely you might have thought it was just a bowl of hearty beef stew.
Outside, the wolves howled in unison, much closer to the cabin than before, as if they knew that one of their kin was about to go down human gullets.
“Down the hatch,” Paul Thorson said, and he took the first sip.
Sister tilted the bowl to her mouth. The soup was bitter and gritty, but the meat wasn’t too bad. The saliva suddenly flooded into her mouth, and she gulped the hot food down like an animal herself. After two swallows, Artie had begun to go pale.
“Hey,” Paul said to him, “if you’re gonna puke, do it outside. One speck on my clean floor and you sleep with the wolves.”
Artie shut his eyes and kept eating. The others attacked their bowls, scraping them clean with their fingers and holding them out for more like orphans from Oliver Twist.
The wolves howled and clamored just outside the cabin. Something slammed against the wall, and Sister jumped so hard she spilled asshole stew on her sweater.
“They’re just curious,” Steve told her. “Don’t sweat it, lady. It’s cool.”
Sister had a second bowl. Artie looked at her in horror and crawled away, his hand pressed against a throbbing pain at his ribs. Paul noticed, but he said nothing.
No sooner had the pot been cleaned out than the old man said irritably, “It’s time! Right now!”
Paul put aside his empty bowl and checked his wristwatch again. “It hasn’t been a whole day yet.”
“Please.” The old man’s eyes were like those of a lost puppy’s. “Please ... all right?”
“You know the rules. Once a day. No more, no less.”
“Please. Just this once ... can’t we do it early?”
“Aw, shit!” Steve said. “Let’s go ahead and get it over with!”
Mona Ramsey shook her head violently. “No, it isn’t time! It hasn’t been a whole day yet! You know the rules!”
The wolves were still growling outside, as if they had their muzzles right up to the cracks in the door. Two or more of them started a gnashing, howling fight. Sister had no idea what everyone in the room was talking about, but whatever it was must be vital, she thought. The old man was near tears.
“Just this once ... just this once,” he moaned.
“Don’t do it!” Mona told Paul, her eyes defiant. “We’ve got to have rules!”
“Oh, fuck the rules!” Steve Buchanan banged his bowl down on the counter. “I say we do it and get it over with!”
“What’s going on here?” Sister asked, puzzled.
The others stopped arguing and looked at her. Paul Thorson glanced at his wristwatch, then sighed heavily. “Okay,” he said. “Just this once, we do it early.” He held up a hand to ward off the young woman’s objections. “We’re only going to be about an hour and twenty minutes early. That’s not enough to hurt.”
“Yes it is!” Mona was almost shouting. Her husband put his hands on her shoulders, as if to restrain her. “It could ruin everything!”
“Let’s vote on it, then,” Paul offered. “We’re still a democracy, right? Everybody say ‘aye’ who wants to do it early.” Immediately the old man shouted, “Aye!” Steve Buchanan stuck his thumb up in the air. The Ramseys were silent. Paul paused, listening to the call of the wolves, and Sister could see him thinking. Then he quietly said, “Aye. The ayes have it.”
“What about them?” Mona pointed at Sister and Artie. “Don’t they get votes?”
“Hell, no!” Steve said. “They’re new! They don’t get votes yet!”
“The ayes have it,” Paul repeated firmly, staring at Mona. “One hour and twenty minutes early won’t make a big difference.”
“It will!” she replied, and then her voice cracked. She started sobbing, while her husband held her shoulders and tried to soothe her. “It’ll ruin everything! I know it will!”
“You two come with me,” Paul told Sister and Artie, and he motioned them into the cabin’s other room.
In the room there was a regular bed with a quilted cover, a few shelves of paperback and hardbound books, and a desk and chair. On the desk was a battered old Royal typewriter and a thin sheaf of typing paper. Balls of paper were scattered around an overflowing wicker trash can. An ashtray was full of matches, and tobacco ash had spilled from the bowl of a black briar pipe. A couple of candles were set in saucers on a little table beside the bed, and a window looked out toward the tainted lake.
But that was not all the window revealed.
Parked behind the cabin was an old Ford pickup truck, the battleship-gray paint flaking off its sides and hood and red creepers of rust starting to eat through the metal.
“You’ve got a truck!” Sister said excitedly. “My God! We can get out of here!”
Paul glanced at the truck, scowled and shrugged. “Forget it, lady.”
“What? What do you mean, forget it? You’ve got a truck! We can get to civilization!”
He picked up his pipe and jammed a finger into the bowl, digging at a carbon deposit. “Yeah? And where might that be?”
&nb
sp; “Out there! Along I-80!”
“How far, do you think? Two miles? Five? Ten? What about fifty?” He put the pipe aside and glared at her, then he drew a green curtain shut between this room and the other. “Forget it,” he repeated. “That truck’s got about a teacupful of gas in it, the brakes are shot, and I doubt if it’ll even crank. The battery was fucked up even on the best of days.”
“But ...” She looked out at the vehicle again, then at Artie and finally back to Paul Thorson. “You’ve got a truck,” she said, and she heard herself whine.
“The wolves have got teeth,” he replied. “Sharp ones. Do you want those poor souls out there to find out how sharp? You want to pile them in a pickup truck and go for a nice excursion through the Pennsylvania countryside with a teacupful of gas in the tank? Sure. No problem to call a tow truck when we break down. Take us right to the gas pumps, and we’ll pull out our trusty credit cards and be on our way.” He was silent for a moment, and then he shook his head. “Please don’t torture yourself. Forget it. We’re here to stay.”
Sister heard the wolves howling, the sound floating through the woods and over the frozen lake, and she feared that he might be right.
“Talking about that bum truck’s not why I asked you in here.” He bent down and pulled an old wooden footlocker out from beneath the bed. “You two still seem to have most of your marbles,” he said. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but those people out there are hanging on by their fingernails.”
The footlocker was sealed by a fist-sized padlock. He fished a key from his jeans pocket and opened the lock. “We play a little game around here. It might not be a very nice game, but I figure it keeps them from letting go. It’s kind of like walking to the mailbox every day because you’re expecting a love letter or a check.” He lifted the footlocker’s lid.