Cell

  "I don't think people should see we're in here, that's all," she said. She flicked the sneaker. What she had called a Baby Nike. It spun. The laces flipped and clicked on Tom's highly polished table. "I think it might be...bad."

  Tom looked at Clay.

  "She could be right," Clay said. "I don't like us being the only lit-up house on the block, even if the light's at the back."

  Tom got up and closed the curtains over the sink without another word.

  There were two other windows in the kitchen, and he pulled those curtains, too. He started back to the table, then changed course and closed the door between the kitchen and the hall. Alice spun the Baby Nike in front of her on the table. In the harsh, unsparing glow of the Coleman lantern, Clay could see it was pink and purple, colors only a child could love. Around it went. The laces flew and clicked. Tom looked at it, frowning, as he sat down, and Clay thought: Tell her to take it off the table. Tell her she doesn't know where it's been and you don't want it on your table. That should be enough to set her off and then we can start getting this part out of the way. Tell her. I think she wants you to. I think that's why she's doing it.

  But Tom only took sandwiches out of the bag--roast beef and cheese, ham and cheese--and doled them out. He got a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge ("Still cold as can be," he said), and then set down the remains of a package of raw hamburger for the cat.

  "He deserves it," he said, almost defensively. "Besides, it would only go over with the electricity out."

  There was a telephone hanging on the wall. Clay tried it, but it was really just a formality and this time he didn't even get a dial tone. The thing was as dead as... well, as Power Suit Woman, back there by Boston Common. He sat back down and worked on his sandwich. He was hungry but didn't feel like eating.

  Alice put hers down after only three bites. "I can't," she said. "Not now. I guess I'm too tired. I want to go to sleep. And I want to get out of this dress. I guess I can't wash up--not very well, anyway--but I'd give anything to throw this fucking dress away. It stinks of sweat and blood." She spun the sneaker. It twirled beside the crumpled paper with her barely touched sandwich lying on top of it. "I can smell my mother on it, too. Her perfume."

  For a moment no one said anything. Clay was at a complete loss. He had a momentary picture of Alice subtracted from her dress, in a white bra and panties, with her staring, hollowed-out eyes making her look like a paper-doll. His artist's imagination, always facile and always obliging, added tabs at the shoulders and lower legs of the image. It was shocking not because it was sexy but because it wasn't. In the distance--very faint--something exploded with a dim foomp.

  Tom broke the silence, and Clay blessed him for it.

  "I'll bet a pair of my jeans would just about fit you, if you rolled up the bottoms to make cuffs." He stood up. "You know what, I think you'd even look cute in em, like Huck Finn in a girls' school production of Big River. Come upstairs. I'm going to put out some clothes for you to wear in the morning and you can spend the night in the guest room. I've got plenty of pajamas, a plague of pajamas. Do you want the Coleman?"

  "Just... I guess just a flashlight will be okay. Are you sure?"

  "Yes," he said. He took one flashlight and gave her another. He looked ready to say something about the small sneaker when she picked it up, then seemed to think better of it. What he said was, "You can wash, too. There may not be a lot of water, but the taps will probably draw some even with the power out, and I'm sure we can spare a basinful." He looked over the top of her head at Clay. "I always keep a case of bottled drinking water in the cellar, so we're not short there."

  Clay nodded. "Sleep well, Alice," he said.

  "You too," she said vaguely, and then, more vaguely still: "Nice meeting you."

  Tom opened the door for her. Their flashlights bobbed, and then the door shut again. Clay heard their footsteps on the stairs, then overhead. He heard running water. He waited for the chug of air in the pipes, but the flow of water stopped before the air started. A basinful, Tom had said, and that was what she'd gotten. Clay also had blood and dirt on him he wanted to wash off--he imagined Tom did, too--but he guessed there must be a bathroom on this floor, too, and if Tom was as neat about his personal habits as he was about his person, the water in the toilet bowl would be clean. And there was the water in the tank as well, of course.

  Rafer jumped up on Tom's chair and began washing his paws in the white light of the Coleman lantern. Even with the lantern's steady low hiss, Clay could hear him purring. As far as Rafe was concerned, life was still cool.

  He thought of Alice twirling the small sneaker and wondered, almost idly, if it was possible for a fifteen-year-old girl to have a nervous breakdown.

  "Don't be stupid," he told the cat. "Of course it is. Happens all the time. They make movies of the week about it."

  Rafer looked at him with wise green eyes and went on licking his paw. Tell me more, those eyes seemed to say. Vere you beaten as a child? Did you have ze sexual thoughts about your mother?

  I can smell my mother on it. Her perfume.

  Alice as a paper-doll, with tabs sticking out of her shoulders and legs.

  Don't be zilly, Rafer's green eyes seemed to say. Ze tabs go on ze clothes, not on ze doll. Vut kind of artist are you?

  "The out-of-work kind," he said. "Just shut up, why don't you?" He closed his eyes, but that was worse. Now Rafer's green eyes floated disembodied in the dark, like the eyes of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat: We're all mad here, dear Alice. And under the steady hiss of the Coleman lamp, he could still hear it purring.

  9

  Tom was gone fifteen minutes. When he came back, he brushed Rafe out of his chair without ceremony and took a large, convincing bite from his sandwich. "She's asleep," he said. "Got into a pair of my pajamas while I waited in the hall, and then we dumped the dress in the trash together. I think she was out forty seconds after her head hit the pillow. Throwing the dress away was what sealed the deal, I'm convinced of it." A slight pause. "It did indeed smell bad."

  "While you were gone," Clay said, "I nominated Rafe president of the United States. He was elected by acclamation."

  "Good," Tom said. "Wise choice. Who voted?"

  "Millions. Everyone still sane. They sent in thought-ballots." Clay made his eyes very wide and tapped his temple. "I can read miiiyyynds."

  Tom's chewing stopped, then began again... but slowly. "You know," he said, "under the circumstances, that's not really all that funny."

  Clay sighed, sipped some iced tea, and made himself eat a little more of his sandwich. He told himself to think of it as body gasoline, if that was what it took to get it down. "No. Probably not. Sorry."

  Tom tipped his own glass to him before drinking. "It's all right. I appreciate the effort. Say, where's your portfolio?"

  "Left it on the porch. I wanted both hands free while we negotiated Tom McCourt's Hallway of Death."

  "That's all right, then. Listen, Clay, I'm sorry as hell about your family--"

  "Don't be sorry yet," Clay said, a little harshly. "There's nothing to be sorry about yet."

  "--but I'm really glad I ran into you. That's all I wanted to say."

  "Same goes back," Clay said. "I appreciate the quiet place to spend the night, and I'm sure Alice does, too."

  "As long as Malden doesn't get loud and burn down around our ears."

  Clay nodded, smiling a little. "As long as. Did you get that creepy little shoe away from her?"

  "No. She took it to bed with her like... I don't know, a teddy bear. She'll be a lot better tomorrow if she sleeps through tonight."

  "Do you think she will?"

  "No," Tom said. "But if she wakes up scared, I'll spend the night with her. Crawl in with her, if that's what it takes. You know I'm safe with her, right?"

  "Yes." Clay knew that he would have been safe with her, too, but he understood what Tom was talking about. "I'm going to head north tomorrow morning as soon as it's light. It would probably
be a good idea if you and Alice came with me."

  Tom thought about this briefly, then asked, "What about her father?"

  "She says he's, quote, 'very self-reliant.' Her biggest stated worry on his behalf was what he rolled himself for dinner. What I heard under that is that she isn't ready to know. Of course we'll have to see how she feels about it, but I'd rather keep her with us, and I don't want to head west into those industrial towns."

  "You don't want to head west at all."

  "No," Clay admitted.

  He thought Tom might argue the point, but he didn't. "What about tonight? Do you think we should stand a watch?"

  Clay hadn't even considered this until now. He said, "I don't know how much good it would do. If a crazed mob comes down Salem Street waving guns and torches, what can we do about it?"

  "Go down cellar?"

  Clay thought it over. Going down cellar seemed awfully final to him--the Bunker Defense--but it was always possible the hypothetical crazed mob under discussion would think the house deserted and go sweeping by. Better than being slaughtered in the kitchen, he supposed. Maybe after watching Alice get gang-raped.

  It won't come to that, he thought uneasily. You're getting lost among the hypothetical, that's all. Freaking in the dark. It won't come to that.

  Except Boston was burning to the ground behind them. Liquor stores were being looted and men were beating each other bloody over aluminum kegs of beer. It had already come to that.

  Tom, meanwhile, was watching him, letting him work it through... which meant that maybe Tom already had. Rafe jumped into his lap. Tom put his sandwich down and stroked the cat's back.

  "Tell you what," Clay said. "If you've got a couple of comforters I can bundle up in, why don't I spend the night out there on your porch? It's enclosed, and it's darker than the street. Which means that I'd likely see anyone coming long before they saw me watching. Especially if the ones coming were phone-crazies. They didn't impress me as being into stealth."

  "Nope, not the creep-up-on-you type. What if people came from around in back? That's Lynn Avenue just a block over."

  Clay shrugged, trying to indicate that they couldn't defense against everything--or even very much--without saying so right out loud.

  "All right," Tom said, after eating a little more of his sandwich and feeding a scrap of ham to Rafe. "But you could come get me around three. If Alice hasn't woken up by then, she might sleep right through."

  "Why don't we just see how it goes," Clay said. "Listen, I think I know the answer to this, but you don't have a gun, do you?"

  "No," Tom said. "Not even a lonely can of Mace." He looked at his sandwich and then put it down. When he raised his eyes to Clay's, they were remarkably bleak. He spoke in a low voice, as people do when discussing secret things. "Do you remember what the cop said just before he shot that crazy man?"

  Clay nodded. Hey, buddy, how ya doin? I mean, what the haps? He would never forget it.

  "I knew it wasn't like in the movies," Tom said, "but I never suspected the enormous power of it, or the suddenness... and the sound when the stuff... the stuff from his head..."

  He leaned forward suddenly, one small hand curled to his mouth. The movement startled Rafer, and the cat leaped down. Tom made three low, muscular urking sounds, and Clay steeled himself for the vomiting that was almost sure to follow. He could only hope he wouldn't start vomiting himself, but he thought he might. He knew he was close, only a feather-tickle away. Because he knew what Tom was talking about. The gunshot, then the wet, ropy splatter on the cement.

  There was no vomiting. Tom got control of himself and looked up, eyes watering. "I'm sorry," he said. "Shouldn't have gone there."

  "You don't need to be sorry."

  "I think if we're going to get through whatever's ahead, we'd better find a way to put our finer sensibilities on hold. I think that people who can't do that..." He stopped, then started again. "I think that people who can't do that..." He stopped a second time. The third time he was able to finish. "I think that people who can't do that may die."

  They stared at each other in the white glare of the Coleman lamp.

  10

  "Once we left the city, I didn't see anyone with a gun," Clay said. "At first I wasn't really looking, and then I was."

  "You know why, don't you? Except maybe for California, Massachusetts has got the toughest gun law in the country."

  Clay remembered seeing billboards proclaiming that at the state line a few years ago. Then they'd been replaced by ones saying that if you got picked up for driving under the influence, you'd have to spend a night in jail.

  Tom said, "If the cops find a concealed handgun in your car--meaning like in the glove compartment with your registration and insurance card--they can put you away for I think seven years. Get stopped with a loaded rifle in your pickup, even in hunting season, and you could get slapped with a ten-thousand-dollar fine and two years of community service." He picked up the remains of his sandwich, inspected it, put it back down again. "You can own a handgun and keep it in your home if you're not a felon, but a license to carry? Maybe if you've got Father O'Malley of the Boys' Club to cosign, but maybe not even then."

  "No guns might have saved some lives, coming out of the city."

  "I agree with you completely," Tom said. "Those two guys fighting over the keg of beer? Thank God neither of them had a .38."

  Clay nodded.

  Tom rocked back in his chair, crossed his arms on his narrow chest, and looked around. His glasses glinted. The circle of light thrown by the Coleman lantern was brilliant but small. "Right now, however, I wouldn't mind having a pistol. Even after seeing the mess they make. And I consider myself a pacifist."

  "How long have you lived here, Tom?"

  "Almost twelve years. Long enough to see Malden go a long way down the road to Shitsville. It's not there yet, but boy, it's going."

  "Okay, so think about it. Which of your neighbors is apt to have a gun or guns in their house?"

  Tom answered promptly. "Arnie Nickerson, across the street and three houses up. NRA bumper sticker on his Camry--along with a couple of yellow ribbon decals and an old Bush-Cheney sticker--"

  "Goes without saying--"

  "And two NRA stickers on his pickup, which he equips with a camper cap in November and takes hunting up in your part of the world."

  "And we're happy to have the revenue his out-of-state hunting license provides," Clay said. "Let's break into his house tomorrow and take his guns."

  Tom McCourt looked at him as though he were mad. "The man isn't as paranoid as some of those militia types out in Utah--I mean, he does live in Taxachusetts--but he's got one of those burglar alarm signs on his lawn that basically says DO YOU FEEL LUCKY, PUNK, and I'm sure you must be familiar with the NRA's stated policy as to just when their guns will be taken away from them."

  "I think it has something to do with prying their cold dead fingers--"

  "That's the one."

  Clay leaned forward and stated what to him had been obvious from the moment they'd come down the ramp from Route One: Malden was now just one more fucked-up town in the Unicel States of America, and that country was now out of service, off the hook, so sorry, please try your call again later. Salem Street was deserted. He had felt that as they approached... hadn't he?

  No. Bullshit. You felt watched.

  Really? And even if he had, was that the sort of intuition that could be relied upon, acted upon, after a day like this one? The idea was ridiculous.

  "Tom, listen. One of us'll walk up to this guy Nackleson's house tomorrow, after it's full daylight--"

  "It's Nickerson, and I don't think that's a very smart idea, especially since Swami McCourt sees him kneeling inside his living room window with a fully automatic rifle he's been saving for the end of the world. Which seems to have rolled around."

  "I'll do it," Clay said. "And I won't do it if we hear any gunshots from the Nickerson place tonight or tomorrow morning. I certainly w
on't do it if I see any bodies on the guy's lawn, with or without gunshot wounds. I watched all those old Twilight Zone episodes, too--the ones where civilization turns out to be nothing more than a thin layer of shellac."

  "If that," Tom said gloomily. "Idi Amin, Pol Pot, the prosecution rests."

  "I'll go with my hands raised. Ring the doorbell. If someone answers, I'll say I just want to talk. What's the worst that can happen? He tells me to get lost."

  "No, the worst that can happen is he can shoot you dead on his fucking welcome mat and leave me with a motherless teenage girl," Tom said sharply. "Smart off about old Twilight Zone episodes all you want, just don't forget those people you saw today, fighting outside the T station in Boston."

  "That was... I don't know what it was, but those people were clinically insane. You can't doubt that, Tom."

  "What about Bible-Thumping Bertha? And the two men fighting over the keg? Were they insane?"

  No, of course they hadn't been, but if there was a gun in that house across the street, he still wanted it. And if there was more than one, he wanted Tom and Alice each to have one, too.

  "I'm thinking about going north over a hundred miles," Clay said. "We might be able to boost a car and drive some of it, but we might have to walk the whole way. Do you want to go with just knives for protection? I'm asking you as one serious man to another, because some of the people we run into are going to have guns. I mean, you know that."

  "Yes," Tom said. He ran his hands through his neatly trimmed hair, giving it a comic ruffle. "And I know that Arnie and Beth are probably not home. They were gadget-nuts as well as gun-nuts. He was always gabbing on his cell phone when he went by in that big Dodge Ram Detroit phallus of his."

  "See? There you go."

  Tom sighed. "All right. Depending on how things look in the morning. Okay?"

  "Okay." Clay picked up his sandwich again. He felt a little more like eating now.

  "Where did they go?" Tom asked. "The ones you call the phone-crazies. Where did they go?"

  "I don't know."

  "I'll tell you what I think," Tom said. "I think they crawled into the houses and the buildings around sundown and died."