The Harvest

  Today, he stood still and listened.

  There was a faraway bark of a dog. A few wind sounds. The grit under his shoes as he shifted back and forth. No music. Spooky.

  He turned a corner away from the main street. He had decided that today he would find somebody—a human being or a Contactee, it didn’t matter. Murdoch just wanted to look at a new face, ask some questions. The name of this little street, posted on a rusty sign at the intersection, was elm. Every one of these towns had an Elm, or an Oak, or maybe a Peach or a Magnolia as they pressed on into Georgia. What better place to find out what had happened to everybody? Everybody lived on Elm. He decided to knock on the door of the first house he came to.

  The first house on Elm was a little bungalow with a tiny front yard. It had a wooden porch, and on the banister, five terracotta pots of dead flowers. Murdoch stepped up onto the sagging porch and nudged aside a child’s red wagon. He pushed the doorbell and listened as the buzzer rang inside.

  Nothing stirred.

  He opened the screen and knocked at the door. The sound of his knock seemed to make the silence heavier.

  “Hey!” he said. “Hey, anybody in there?”

  This was a strange thing to be doing, and he was suddenly aware of himself—a lonely figure, thin in his ragged uniform, his hair grown long and his stubble unshaven. Christ, he thought, I must look like a scarecrow. What if somebody did open the door? One look at me and they’d close it in a hurry.

  But no one answered his knock.

  He tried the knob. The door was locked.

  He looked up and down the street. He’d never broken into a house before. Well, fuck it, he said to himself. I’m coming in there. Heads up, you ghosts.

  He put his shoulder against the door and pushed. The door was old, and wood rot had gotten into the framing of it. The latch sheered out of the molding with a creak and a snap. Murdoch peered into the inner darkness.

  Who had lived here? Somebody with kids, judging by that wagon. The room inside, now dimly visible in the watery daylight, was dusty but reasonably tidy. A brick-red sofa stood against one wall. Above it hung a framed oil color of a woodland sunset. There was a TV set, a stereo, an empty fish tank. Some kids’ toys were scattered on the floor.

  Also on the floor…

  Murdoch stared at it a long time before he recognized it for what it was: A human skin.

  * * *

  After he vomited over the porch railing, Murdoch selected a long willow branch from among the windfall on the neighbors’ lawn. He was reassured somewhat by the weight of the stick in his hand. He was otherwise unarmed—but what was there to shoot at?

  All up and down this rainy street, nothing moved.

  Murdoch clutched the stick and forced himself to climb the three steps up to the porch, to cross the intervening space to the door, open it, step once again into that terrifying dimness.

  The skin lay at his feet. It hadn’t moved.

  But it was definitely a skin. Fragile, empty—almost transparent. But human, Murdoch thought. Its shape was difficult to discern; it was folded into itself, accordioned together; but one arm projected, a fragile white papyrus, with a hand like an empty glove and five delicate, pale fingers.

  It reminded Murdoch of a discarded skin of a spider he had once found in an empty locker—spider-shaped, but so delicate that a breath would carry it away.

  He lowered the willow branch until it was almost touching the empty human skin, then pulled it back, revulsion winning out over curiosity.

  He stepped over the hideous thing and deeper into the house.

  The house was a bungalow with only a few rooms: this living room, the kitchen, two bedrooms, a bath. Murdoch investigated them all, flicking on lights where the daylight didn’t reach.

  He found two more skins: one in the kitchen; one—smaller, which made it somehow more horrible—in the child’s bedroom.

  Leaving that room, he felt dizzy; and realized he’d been holding his breath as if something in the house might infect him… might suck away his substance, might drain him as thoroughly as these people had been drained of themselves.

  He hurried to the door, but stopped there.

  He turned back. He took a firm grip on the willow stick and held it with its narrow end pointed at the first of the skins.

  The urge to poke at the thing was as strong as the urge to turn and run. There was something childish about this, Murdoch thought. He was like a little child poking at a rattlesnake’s shed skin. He dreaded it… but he couldn’t help wondering about it. Would it crumble or would it fold? If it broke at his touch, would it make a sound? Would it move in leathery fashion, like parchment, or would it rattle like sun-bleached cellophane?

  He touched the skin with his stick.

  In fact, it made only the faintest noise as he turned it… a whisper of membranous surfaces, like the murmur of leaves in an autumn tree, or the turning of a page in an old dry book.

  Murdoch thought he might vomit again. He turned and stumbled to the porch railing.

  That was when he saw the girl.

  * * *

  “You don’t look so good,” she said.

  Murdoch didn’t think he could stand much more startlement. One more shock and his ventricles might explode. He looked up from the railing with a terrible, emasculating dread.

  But it was only a girl, standing on the sidewalk with a frown of concern.

  A local girl, judging by her accent. She wore a too-big man’s windbreaker over a yellow T-shirt. Her blue jeans were tight, and she had sneakers on her feet. Murdoch pegged her at about eighteen, but she might have been younger or older. Her head was cocked and she was studying him with patient sympathy.

  “You found those skins in the house, huh? First time you seen one?”

  She was pretty in a stringy-haired kind of way. Her face was a perfect oval and her eyes were intelligent.

  Murdoch tried to reassemble some masculine composure. “First time,” he admitted. “Christ! You’ve seen them before?”

  “Yup.”

  “Scary as hell.” She shrugged.

  The nausea had passed. Murdoch straightened and undamped his hands from the railing. “You, uh, live here?”

  “No—not this house. This’s where the Bogens used to live.” She pointed: “I used to live a couple doors down. But I moved out of there. Guess where I live now!”

  He felt like saying: Girl, there are three dead people in this building—nothing left but their packaging. Under the circumstances, maybe a guessing game kind of verged on bad taste.

  But here was a new face, which was what he’d set out to find, and he didn’t want to chase her away. “I can’t guess.”

  “The Roxy,” she said.

  The Roxy? A theater? Did this town have a Roxy Theater? Was there an old trestle town like this that didn’t?

  “I turned the manager’s office into kind of an apartment,” she said. “And I taught myself how to run the movies.”

  He said, “You were running a movie last night? Last night when it was raining?”

  She brightened. “How’d you know?”

  “Heard the music.”

  “It was 42nd Street.There was an old-movie festival playing when Contact came. Those are the only films I can find. I got 42nd Street and Golddiggers of1934 and The Maltese Falcon.I don’t play ’em much. It’s pretty hard work by yourself. And if you see ’em too often, what’s the point? But on a cold night like that…”

  “I understand,” Murdoch said.

  “Already, I could sing that 42nd Street song in my sleep.”

  “Uh-huh. Hey, what’s your name?”

  “Soo,” she said. “Two ohs. It’s not short for anything. Soo Constantine.”

  “I’m A.W. Murdoch.”

  “What’s the A for, A.W.?”

  “Abel,” he lied.

  “Mmm… I like A.W. better.”

  “So do I. Soo, tell me—are there more of those, uh, those—”

  “S
kins?”

  “Are there more of those skins around?”

  “Most every house,” she said. “If you look. I hope you’re not planning to look.”

  “No, I just… well, Christ, it took me by surprise. I mean, is everybody in town like that?”

  “Nearly. ’Cept me.”

  “Well, what happened to them? Do you know?”

  “They left, A. W.,” she said flatly. “They went away. But not their skins. They just used up their bodies and they left their skins behind.”

  * * *

  “A radio,” Colonel Tyler said. “Maybe that’s something we ought to have.”

  Murdoch, cooking dinner over the hot plate, wondered what this might portend. “Sir, a radio?”

  “To contact other people. Other human beings.”

  Tyler sat in the hotel chair where Murdoch had left him this morning. He hadn’t shaved, which for the Colonel was a serious omission. Murdoch had pegged Tyler for the kind of man who’d shave in a hurricane and stock the storm cellar with Aqua Velva.

  “I think we need that contact, don’t you, Mr. Murdoch?”

  “Sir, how many of those Coors have you been into?”

  Tyler looked at the can in his hand, then set it aside. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Nothing.”

  Tm not drunk.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Maybe you should have a drink yourself.”

  “Later, sir, thanks.” Murdoch served out equal portions of canned corned beef hash. Tyler liked canned corned beef hash, but Murdoch thought it resembled dog food too closely. It was like ladling out hot Alpo. “Shitty weather, sir.” The rain had returned with a vengeance; there was occasional sheet lightning and a muted, continuous thunder.

  Tyler accepted his bowl of hash and held it in his lap. “We’re nothing without a community, Mr. Murdoch.”

  “No, sir.”

  “A community defines the perimeters of behavior the way a border defines the perimeters of a nation.”

  “Mm-hm.” Alpo or not, Murdoch was hungry tonight. He sat opposite the Colonel and gazed past him at the window. Nighttime now. Night came early these days.

  Tyler was frowning. “Skins, you say.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Murdoch had told the Colonel about the skins he’d found. He’d kept quiet about Soo Constantine, however. Murdoch couldn’t explain his reticence even to himself, but it seemed better that way. Soo was a new and particular discovery. His own.

  “Just their vacant… their empty…”

  “Skins, sir, yes.”

  “Horrible.”

  Murdoch nodded.

  “What do you suppose happened to their insides, Mr. Murdoch?”

  “I think—” Soo had told him this. Best be cautious. “It’s possible they just kind of faded. Disappeared from the inside out. Didn’t you get that hint in Contact, sir? That it would be possible to leave the body behind?”

  “I never thought—not like a lizard shedding its scales, no. I wouldn’t have expected anything that repellent.” The Colonel took a halfhearted spoonful of the hash. “And the Helper?”

  “Nearly assembled.”

  “I would prefer not to linger in this town, Mr. Murdoch.”

  “Sir, the weather—”

  “You were never scared of rain before we came to Loftus.”

  “It’s a cold, dirty rain. Some of these mountain roads could wash out.”

  “We can deal with that.”

  “Yes, sir. I’d just prefer to deal with it when it isn’t storming.” Tyler showed him a baleful look. “Something in this town attracts you?”

  “Shit, no, sir.” But Murdoch felt himself begin to sweat. “Community,” Tyler said. “A human presence.”

  “Sir?” Was the son of a bitch psychic?

  “We need a radio for the sake of community, Mr. Murdoch. Maybe we can be more effective in numbers than we are individually. Between the two of us, frankly, there isn’t much in the way of discipline. We say the words, but it’s reflex. You don’t respect me as a superior officer.”

  Murdoch was startled. “That isn’t—”

  “It’s not your fault. On the road, we’re simply two men. All the structure has fallen away. I should have understood that when I talked to the President.

  He was in Lafayette Park, Mr. Murdoch, with his shirt undone at the collar. The center cannot hold—isn’t that what the poet said? Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. Anarchy is without structure; it flows like water. Mr. Murdoch, do you suppose we’ve lost structure entirely? Has it gone that far?”

  “I—wouldn’t know.”

  “If there were more of us,” Tyler said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s as if we left our own skins behind. Our skins of propriety. Our skins of good conduct. Suddenly we’re raw; our nerves are exposed. We’re naked. With the right provocation, we could say or do anything.”

  “Yes, sir,” Murdoch said, realizing as he spoke that his friendship with Colonel Tyler had also peeled away; that the skin of amicability had been shed in this room and the thing beneath exposed: a queasy mutual fear.

  * * *

  After dinner, he left the Colonel and hurried into the dark street. He was meeting Soo at the Roxy, and he was already late, according to the digital watch on his wrist. Since Contact, Murdoch had kept two watches, one on his wrist, one in his pocket, so when he replaced the battery in one watch he could set it by the other.

  The Roxy was easy to find. It was one more peeling Main Street movie theater, its blank marquee shedding rainwater in cold sheets. Murdoch hurried past the empty ticket box, inside to the lobby where Soo had turned on the lights.

  She was waiting for him, still wearing her yellow T-shirt, one hand cocked on her hip, standing in the doorway of the auditorium. Murdoch looked at her and felt weak all over.

  Probably it was only the effect of a long separation from female company. What it felt like was high-octane, knee-buckling, adolescent lust. She was a compact package of curves and smiles and he wanted to pick her up in his arms and feel her weight. Soo, he thought. Some kind of weird southern name for a young girl. He said it twice to himself. Lord, Murdoch thought, take pity on a soldier.

  “You shaved,” she said.

  He nodded, blushing.

  “There’s no more candy at the popcorn stand,” she said. “But I got some Cokes in a cooler. The movie’s ready to go. It’s 42nd Street.We can watch it from the projection room. Come on, A.W.!”

  Speechless, he followed her upstairs.

  * * *

  Between reels she talked about herself; while Murdoch, listening, writhed in a fever of hormonal suspense.

  He watched the words come out of her mouth—the way her lips moved when she talked.

  “I wasn’t born here. I was born in a town two counties east. Town of Tucum Wash, if you call it a town, really a gas station and a post office. They bused us thirty-five miles to school every day. Well, I hated that place. It’s a common story, I guess. Everybody hates their hometown—especially if they come from a little wide-place-in-the-road like Tucum Wash. So when I graduated high school I came here looking for work. To Loftus, yeah, I see you smiling. Bright lights, big city, right? I guess you must have seen all kinds of places. But I’ll tell you, A.W., I never wanted much more than Loftus. Loftus isn’t bad. I worked at the K mart checkout and two nights a week at the Sandwich Castle in the mall. It’s actually an okay kind of life. I kept myself in TV dinners and I had some fun. Had a boyfriend. Dean Earl was his name. Oh, he’s gone—you don’t have to look so long in the face. Dean didn’t mean that much to me. Except every Friday night or sometimes Saturday we’d come here to the Roxy. I love movies. I won’t watch ’em on video. Like watching a postage stamp. Plus it don’t smell right. You know what I mean? You ever smell a theater? People think, oh, popcorn, but it isn’t the popcorn. In summer it’s that air-conditioning down the back of your neck, smells like cold metal, and the smell o
f sweaty people comin’ in with their jackets over their shoulders and mopping their faces with handkerchiefs, waitin’ for that chill to shiver up their spine. And when everybody’s cool, the lights go off and the movie starts. Course I can’t make it be like that. But when folks started leaving, you know, leaving, I couldn’t help but think of the Roxy and how nice it would be to come here all by myself. And I did. Maybe you think I’m crazy. But it’s nice here. It’s not the same, but it reminds me of the old days. Well, maybe I am crazy. A.W., let me work this machine! Your hands are cold. You’re still wet from the rain, aren’t you? Shivering like a pup. You want dry clothes? You know, I thought you might get wet. I picked up some clothes at the K mart after we met this morning. Clothes about your size. Bet that A.W. comes out in the rain, I thought. He looks like he’d come out in the rain. Take that shirt off. Your shirt! Well—mine, too, if you like.”

  * * *

  Later, Murdoch felt obliged to tell her about himself.

  They shared a mattress on the floor of what used to be the office of the manager of the Roxy Theater. She was naked in the faint light, sitting cross-legged in a curl of woolen blankets. Murdoch was full of quiet wonder at the sight of her. Five minutes ago, they’d been joined in a passion so intense that Murdoch thought they might penetrate each other’s skins, occupy each other’s space. Now she was sitting apart from him, a little aloof, but smiling, in a blur of light from a high window where the rain washed the dusty glass. It was after midnight by the watch on Murdoch’s wrist. He felt a need to justify himself.

  So he told her about growing up in Ukiah, leaving home, enlisting, discovering his aptitude for machines. How he had learned the tolerances and mannerisms of small arms, their maintenance and renewal, their weaknesses and strengths. A weapon was a complex environment in which a small event—the squeezing of a trigger, say—led to vastly larger consequences: the discharge of a bullet, the death of a man, the winning or the losing of a war. But only if everything was in balance; only if the weapon was correctly toleranced, unworn, clean and dry here, oiled there. It captured his imagination. In a world Murdoch often found confusing, here was a map he knew how to read.