Swan Song (26 page)

The wounded animal fell on its side a few feet away from Sister, its legs kicking frantically. She sat up, stunned and dumbfounded, and saw Artie struggling to rise, too. His feet went out from under him, and he flopped down again.

A figure wearing a dark green ski mask, a beat-up brown leather jacket and blue jeans glided past Sister. He had on snowshoes laced around battered boots, and slung around his neck was a cord that pierced the necks of three empty plastic jugs, knotted at the ends to keep them from sliding off. On his back was a dark green hiker’s pack, a bit smaller than the ones Sister and Artie carried.

He stood over Sister. “You okay?” His voice sounded like steel wool scrubbing a cast-iron skillet.

“Yeah, I think so.” She had bruises on bruises, but nothing was broken.

He planted the rifle he was carrying butt first in the snow, then unwrapped the cord that held the plastic jugs from around his shoulder. He set these down, too, near the still-kicking animal. His pack was shrugged off, and then he unzipped it with gloved fingers and took out an assortment of various-sized Tupperware bowls with sealed plastic lids. He set them in an orderly row in the snow before him.

Artie came trudging toward them, holding his wrist. The man with the ski mask looked up quickly and then continued his work, taking off his gloves and untying one of the knots in the cord so he could slide the jugs off. “Sonofabitch get you?” he asked Artie.

“Yeah. Gashed my hand. I’m okay, though. Where’d you come from?”

“That way.” He jerked his head toward the woods, then began to uncap the plastic jugs with rapidly reddening fingers. The animal was still kicking violently. The man stood up, pulled his rifle out of the snow and began to smash the animal’s skull in with the weapon’s butt. It took a minute to finish, but then the beast made a muffled, moaning sound, trembled and lay still. “I didn’t think anybody else would be coming this way,” the man said. “Thought everybody was long gone by now.” He knelt again next to the body, took a knife with a long, curved blade from a pouch at his belt and cut a slit in the gray underbelly. The blood gouted. He reached for one of the plastic jugs and held it beneath the stream; the blood pattered merrily in, rapidly filling up the jug. He capped it, put it aside and reached for another as Sister and Artie watched with sickened fascination. “Thought everybody else must be dead by now,” he continued, paying close attention to his work. “Where are you two from?”

“Uh… Detroit,” Artie managed to say.

“We came from Manhattan,” Sister told him. “We’re on our way to Detroit.”

“You run out of gas? Have a blowout?”

“No. We’re walking.”

He grunted, glanced at her and then went back to his task. The stream of blood was weakening. “Long way to walk,” he said. “Hell of a long way, especially for nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there’s no Detroit anymore. It was blown away. Just like there’s no Pittsburgh or Indianapolis or Chicago or Philadelphia anymore. I’d be surprised if any city’s left. By now, I guess the radiation’s done a number on the little towns, too.” The flow of blood had almost stopped. He capped the second jug, which was about half full, and then he carved a longer slit in the dead animal’s belly. He thrust his naked hands into the steaming wound up to his wrists.

“You don’t know that!” Artie said. “You can’t know that!”

“I know,” the man replied, but he offered nothing more. “Lady,” he said, “start opening those Tupperware bowls for me, will you?”

She did as he asked, and he started pulling out handfuls of bloody, steaming intestines. He chopped them up and began filling the bowls. “Did I get that other bastard?” he asked Artie.

“What?”

“The other one I shot at. I think you’ll remember that it was chewing on your arm.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” Artie watched the guts being stuffed into brightly colored Tupperware bowls. “No. I mean… I think you hit him, but he let me go and ran off.”

“They can be tough motherfuckers,” he said, and then he began to carve the animal’s head from its neck. “Open that big bowl, lady,” he told her.

He reached up into the severed head, and the brains plopped into the big bowl.

“You can put the lids on now,” he said.

Sister did, about to choke on the coppery smell of blood. He wiped his hands on the beast’s hide and then slid the two jugs back on the cord and retied the knot; he put his gloves back on, returned the knife to its pouch and the filled Tupperware containers to his pack, and then rose to a standing position. “You two got any guns?”

“No,” Sister said.

“How about food?”

“We’ve… we’ve got some canned vegetables and fruit juice. And some cold cuts, too.”

“Cold cuts,” he repeated disdainfully. “Lady, you can’t go very far in this weather on cold cuts. You say you’ve got some vegetables? I hope it’s not broccoli. I hate broccoli.”

“No… we’ve got some corn, and green beans, and boiled potatoes.”

“Sounds like the makings of a stew to me. My cabin’s about two miles north of here, as the crow flies. If you want to go back with me, you’ll be welcome. If not, I’ll say have a good trip to Detroit.”

“What’s the nearest town?” Sister asked.

“St. Johns, I guess. Hazleton’s the nearest town of any size, and that’s about ten miles south of St. Johns. There may be a few people left, but after that flood of refugees washed in from the east I’d be surprised if you’d find much in any town along I-80. St. Johns is about four or five miles west.” The man looked at Artie, who was dripping blood onto the snow. “Friend, that’s going to attract every scavenger within smelling distance-and believe me, some of those bastards can sniff blood a long, long way.”

“We ought to go with him,” Artie said to Sister. “I might bleed to death!”

“I doubt it,” the man countered. “Not from a scratch like that. It’ll freeze up pretty soon, but you’ll have a blood smell on your clothes. Like I say, they’ll come out of the mountains with knives and forks between their teeth. But you do what you want to do; I’m hitting the trail.” He shrugged into his pack, wrapped the cord around his shoulder and picked up his rifle. “Take care,” he said, and he started gliding across the snowy highway toward the woods.

It took Sister about two more seconds to make up her mind. “Wait a minute!” He stopped. “Okay. We’ll come with you, Mr.-”

But he was already moving again, heading into the edge of the dense forest.

They had no choice but to hurry after him. Artie looked over his shoulder, terrified of more lurking predators coming up behind him. His ribs ached where the beast had hit him, and his legs felt like short pieces of soft rubber. He and Sister entered the woods after the shuffling figure of the man in the ski mask and left the highway of death behind.

Thirty-One - [Wheel of Fortune

Turning]

The outlines of small, blocky one-story buildings and red brick houses began to appear from the deepening scarlet gloom. A town, Josh realized. Thank God!

The wind was still shoving mightily at his back, but after what seemed like eight hours of walking yesterday and at least five today, he was about to topple to the ground. He carried the exhausted child in his arms, as he had for the past two hours, and walked stiff-legged, the soles of his feet oozing with blisters and blood in shoes that were coming apart at the seams. He thought he must look like a zombie, or like the Frankenstein monster carrying the fainted heroine in his arms.

They had spent last night in the windbreak of an overturned pick-up truck; bound-up bales of hay had been scattered around, and Josh had lugged them over to build a makeshift shelter that would contain their body heat. Still, they’d been out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wasteland and dead fields, and both of them had dreaded first light because they knew they had to start walking again.

The dark town-just a scatter of wind-ravaged buildings and a few widely spaced houses on dusty lots-beckoned him onward. He saw no cars, no hint of light or life. There was a Texaco station with one pump and a garage whose roof had collapsed. A sign flapping back and forth on its hinges advertised TUCKER’S HARDWARE AND FEEDS, but the store’s front window was shattered and the place looked bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. A small café had also collapsed, except for the sign that read GOOD EATS! Every step an exercise in agony, Josh walked past the crumbled buildings. He saw that dozens of paperback books lay in the dust around him, their pages flipping wildly in the restless hand of the wind, and to the left were the remains of a little clapboard structure with a hand-painted SULLIVAN PUBLIC LIBRARY sign.

Sullivan, Josh thought. Whatever Sullivan had once been, it was dead now.

Something moved at the corner of his vision. He looked to the side, and something small-a jackrabbit? he wondered-darted out of sight behind the ruins of the café.

Josh was stiff with cold, and he knew Swan must be freezing, too. She held onto that Cookie Monster doll like life itself and occasionally flinched in her tormented sleep. He approached one of the houses but stopped when he saw a body curled up like a question mark on the front porch steps. He headed for the next house, further along and across the road.

The mailbox, supported on a crooked pedestal, was painted white and had what appeared to be an eye, with upper and lower lids, painted on it in black. The hand-lettered name was Davy and Leona Skelton. Josh walked across the dirt lot and up the porch steps to the screen door. “Swan?” he said. “Wake up, now.” She mumbled, and he set her down; then he tried the door but found it latched from the inside. He lifted his foot and kicked at its center, knocking it off its hinges, and they crossed the porch to the front door.

Josh had just put his hand on the knob when the door flew open and the barrel of a pistol looked him in the eyes.

“You broke my screen door,” a woman’s voice said in the gloom. The pistol did not waver.

“Uh… I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t think anybody was here.”

“Why’d you think the door was locked, then? This is private property!”

“I’m sorry,” Josh repeated. He saw the woman’s gnarled finger on the trigger. “I don’t have any money,” he said. “I’d pay you for the door if I did.”

“Money?” She hawked and spat past him. “Money ain’t worth nothin’ no more! Hell, a screen door is worth a bagful of gold, fella! I’d blow your damn head off if I wouldn’t have to clean up the mess!”

“If you don’t mind, we’ll just go on our way.”

The woman was silent. Josh could see the outline of her head, but not her face; her head angled toward Swan. “A little girl,” she said softly. “Oh, my Lord… a little girl…”

“Leona!” a weak voice called from inside the house. “Leo-” And then it was interrupted by a strangling, terrible spasm of coughing.

“It’s all right, Davy!” she called back. “I’ll be there directly!” She turned her attention to Josh again, the pistol still stuck in his face. “Where’d you two come from? Where’re you goin’?”

“We came from… out there.” He motioned toward one end of the town. “And I guess we’re going that way.” He motioned to the other end.

“Not much of a travel plan.”

“I don’t guess it is,” he agreed, uneasily watching the black eye of that pistol.

She paused, looked down at the little girl again and then sighed deeply. “Well,” she finally said, “since you’re halfway broke in already, you might as well come on in the rest of the way.” She motioned with the gun and retreated through the doorway.

Josh took Swan’s hand, and they entered the house.

“Shut the door,” the woman said. “Thanks to you, we’ll be up to our ears in dust pretty soon.”

Josh did as she asked. A small fire was burning in the fireplace, and the woman’s squat figure was outlined in red as she moved about the room. She lit a hurricane lantern on the mantel, then a second and third lantern placed strategically around the room to give the most light. The pistol was uncocked, but she kept it at her side.

She finished with the lanterns and turned around to get a good look at Josh and Swan.

Leona Skelton was short and wide, wearing a thick pink sweater atop ragged overalls and furry pink slippers on her feet. Her square face appeared to have been carved from an apple, then dried under the sun; there wasn’t a smooth place on it for all the winding cracks and ravines. Her large, expressive blue eyes were surrounded by webs of wrinkles, and the deep lines in her broad forehead looked like a clay etching of ocean waves. Josh figured she was in her mid-to-late sixties, though her curly, swept-back hair was dyed garish red. Now, as her gaze wandered between Josh and Swan, her lips slowly parted, and Josh saw that several of her front teeth were silver.

“God A’mighty,” she said quietly. “You two got burnt, didn’t you? Oh, Jesus… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to stare, but…” She looked at Swan, and her face seemed to compress with pain. There was a glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Oh, Lord,” Leona whispered. “Oh, my Lord, you two have been… hurt so bad.”

“We’re alive,” Josh said. “That’s what counts.”

“Yes,” she agreed, nodding. Her eyes found the hardwood floor. “Forgive my rudeness. I was brought up better’n that.”

“Leona!” the man rasped, and again he was savaged by a fit of coughing.

“I’d best see to my husband,” she said, leaving the room through a hallway. While she was gone, Josh looked around the room; it was sparsely furnished, with unpainted pine furniture and a threadbare green throw rug in front of the fireplace. He avoided peering into a mirror on one wall and walked toward a glass-fronted cabinet nearby. On the cabinet’s shelves were dozens of crystal spheres of varying sizes, the smallest about pebble-sized and the largest as big as both of Josh’s fists clenched together-about half as big as a bowling ball. Most of them were the size of baseballs and perfectly clear, though others held tints of blue, green and yellow. Added to the collection were different kinds of feathers, some dried-out corncobs with multicolored kernels, and a couple of fragile-looking, almost transparent snake-skins.

“Where are we?” Swan asked him, still hugging her Cookie Monster. Beneath her eyes were dark purple hollows of fatigue, and thirst burned the back of her throat.

“A little town called Sullivan. There’s not much here. It looks like everybody’s already gone, except these people.” He approached the mantel to examine some framed Polaroids displayed there; in one of the pictures, Leona Skelton was sitting in a porch swing with a smiling, stout, middle-aged man who had more belly than hair, but his eyes were young and a bit mischievous behind wire-rimmed spectacles. He had his arm around Leona, and one hand appeared to be creeping toward her lap. She was laughing, her mouth full of silver flash, and her hair wasn’t quite as red; in any event, she appeared to be at least fifteen years younger.

In another picture, Leona was rocking a white cat in her arms like a baby, the cat’s feet stuck up contentedly in the air. A third picture showed the pot-bellied man with a younger fellow, both of them carrying fishing rods and displaying bite-sized fish.

“That’s my family,” Leona said, coming into the room. She had left the gun behind. “My husband’s name is Davy, our son’s named Joe and the cat’s called Cleopatra. Was called Cleopatra, I mean. I buried her about two weeks ago, out back. Put her deep, so nothin’ could get at her. Have you two got names, or were you hatched?”

“I’m Josh Hutchins. This is Sue Wanda, but she’s called Swan.”

“Swan,” Leona repeated. “That’s a pretty name. I’m pleased to meet the both of you.”

“Thank you,” Swan said, not forgetting her manners.

“Oh, Lordy!” Leona bent and picked up some farming and House Beautiful magazines that had tumbled off the coffee table, and then she took a broom from the corner and started sweeping dust toward the fireplace. “House is a godawful wreck!” she apologized as she worked. “Used to be able to keep it as neat as a needle, but lately time slips away. I ain’t had no visitors for quite a number of days!” She swept up the last of the dust and stood staring out a window at the red gloom and the wind-lashed remains of Sullivan. “Used to be a fine town,” she said listlessly. “Had more’n three hundred people livin’ right around here. Fine people, too. Ben McCormick used to say he was fat enough to make three more folks. Drew and Sissy Stimmons lived in that house, over there.” She pointed. “Oh, Sissy loved her hats! Had about thirty of ’em, wore a different hat every Sunday for thirty Sundays and then started over again. Kyle Doss owned the café. Geneva Dewberry ran the public library, and oh, Lordy, could she talk about books!” Her voice was getting quieter and quieter, drifting away. “Geneva said she was gonna sit down and write herself a romance someday. I always believed she would.” She motioned in another direction. “Norm Barkley lived down there at the end of the road. You can’t see the house from here, though. I almost married Norman, when I was a young thing. But Davy stole me away with a rose and a kiss on a Saturday night. Yes, sir.” She nodded, and then she seemed to remember where she was. Her spine stiffened, and she returned the broom to its corner as if she were giving up a dance partner. “Well,” she said, “that was our town.”

“Where’d they all go?” Josh asked.

“Heaven,” she replied. “Or Hell. Whichever claimed them first, I reckon. Oh, some of ’em packed up and lit out.” She shrugged. “Where to, I can’t say. But most of us stayed here, in our homes and on our land. Then the sickness started hitting folks… and Death moved in. It’s like a big fist a-knockin’ at your door-boom boom, boom boom, like that. And you know you can’t keep it from comin’ in, but you got to try.” She moistened her lips with her tongue, her eyes glazed and distant. “Sure is some kinda crazy weather for August, ain’t it? Cold enough to freeze a witch’s tit.”

“You… do know what’s happened, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Lee Procter had the radio goin’ full blast at the hardware store when I was there buyin’ nails and wire to hang a picture. I don’t know what station he was tuned to, but all of a sudden there was a godawful squallin’, and this man’s voice came on talkin’ real fast about a state of emergency and bombs and all. Then there was a sizzlin’ noise like grease in a hot skillet and the radio went dead. Couldn’t raise a whisper on it. Wilma James come runnin’ in, yellin’ for everybody to look up at the sky. We went out and looked, and we seen the airplanes or bombs or whatever they were passin’ overhead, some of ’em near about to collide with each other. And Grange Tucker said, ‘It’s happenin’!’ Armageddon is happenin’!’ And he just plopped down on the curb in front of his store and watched those things fly past.

“Then the wind came, and the dust, and the cold,” she said, still staring out the window. “The sun went blood-red. Twisters passed through, and one of ’em hit the McCormick farm and just took it away, didn’t leave nothin’ but foundation stones. Not a trace of Ben, Ginny or the kids. ’Course, everybody in town started comin’ to me, wantin’ to know what lay in the future and all.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t tell ’em I saw skulls where their faces used to be. How can you tell your friends somethin’ like that? Well, Mr. Laney-the postman from Russell County-didn’t show up, and the phone lines were down and there was no ’lectricity. We knew whatever had happened had been a whomper. Kyle Doss and Eddie Meachum volunteered to drive the twenty miles to Matheson and find out what was goin’ on. They never come back. I saw skulls where their faces were, too, but what could I say? You know, sometimes there just ain’t no sense in tellin’ somebody their time’s about up.”

Josh wasn’t following the old woman’s ramblings. “What do you mean, you saw skulls where their faces were?”

“Oh. Sorry. I forget that everybody beyond Sullivan don’t know about me.” Leona Skelton turned from the window, a faint smile on her dried-apple face. She picked up one of the lamps, walked across the room to a bookcase and withdrew a leather-bound scrapbook; she took it to Josh and opened it. “There you go,” she said. “That’s me.” She pointed to a yellowed picture and article, carefully scissored from a pulp magazine.

The headline read, KANSAS SEER FORETOLD KENNEDY DEATH 6 MONTHS BEFORE DIXON! And below that, a smaller line proclaimed, Leona Skelton sees riches, new prosperity for America! The photograph showed a much younger Leona Skelton surrounded by cats and crystal balls.