North

by Frank Owen

  He was rewarded. Out from a foyer ambled a white-haired boy, with a scraggly tabby cat on a piece of string. And Felix knew that face, despite the bloodied blouse and the dirt-caked trousers. He’d seen this boy before – outside his shack with a posse – and thought even then that the kid had seemed a little young to be out with a band of killers. When he got closer, the old man would see the killing eyes of the Callahans: Viking eyes, ice-blue. He would bet on it.

  ‘Uncle Felix!’ called the boy from across the street. He was waving.

  34

  By lunch all three volunteers were bleeding from their ears. Adams had reappeared with a fresh plaster on his cheek. He kept fingering the edges, like a boy irritating a scab. But he was back with a vengeance, briskly resuming captaincy so that Buddy had to step down, disgruntled. Adams’s first order was to forbid the three volunteers to drink anything before one o’clock, so it was no surprise to the Southerners in the Capitol Building when the vomiting began.

  When one of the tasters blacked out, Ruth was sent to insert some surgical tubing directly into his stomach, and they pumped in the tap water as fast as the cramps allowed. The two others gulped at water bottles. It was a kind of magic, thought Dyce, to watch their symptoms start easing immediately. There would be weeks of recovery now, but they would probably survive. Wouldn’t they?

  Just after lunchtime, Adams asked all three of them – Dyce, Ruth and Vida – to meet him in the war room.

  ‘Really? He calls it the war room?’

  ‘Oh, Mama. Just hear him out.’

  ‘You aren’t ready.’

  Vida licked her cracked lips. ‘I need to test my new leg, don’t I? If I don’t start using the muscles pretty soon, they’re going to wither. Then I’ll never walk down the aisle.’

  Ruth grimaced at the joke. She knew she wasn’t going to win. She fussed around her daughter, re-bandaging Vida’s leg as tightly as she could. Then she went scrounging for crutches.

  They limped crossways down the corridors. The pain made her sweat at first, but Vida kept telling herself to send her mind away. The building obliged with distraction. The heavenly scenes she’d glimpsed on her way in were real – frescos painted across the walls back when the Capitol Building was first built. White pioneers, rosy-cheeked and smiling, plowing the land and holding bushels of wheat, surrounded by the plenty that is industry’s godly reward. Even the dogs that peered out from behind the wagons seemed happy. But Vida looked closer. The only people not smiling in the frescos were the Native Americans, offering food to the newcomers for the blankets that would spell their end.

  Not a lot different, Vida thought as she shuffled down the hallway. America was built on viral warfare. The seeds of it lay dormant in the history: Renard had just given them a dark, moist place to sprout. And if they did manage to get rid of that fucker, another – worse – one might spring up in his place. What is wrong with us? she wondered. This is just the latest cycle. It’s never, ever going to end. She felt the small being inside her womb like a stone.

  When they got to the room, Adams had positioned himself like a magnate in his swivel chair, staring as though looking at the view, though the window was boarded up like all the others.

  Dyce felt his chest tighten. This wasn’t good. The man was gearing up to tell them something important, and that something looked to be unpleasant.

  He helped Vida onto the leatherette sofa and then stood behind her, pretending to study the maps on the wall.

  ‘First thing,’ said Adams. ‘I been away for a bit.’

  ‘We noticed,’ said Dyce.

  ‘Sometimes I got to get away for a while. Do some strategizing. I need peace and quiet every now and again. Got me a room back there where I do my thinking.’

  Dyce thought of madwomen in attics and lunatics chained in cellars. He watched Adams carefully.

  ‘But enough about me. Dyce, boy, how’re you feeling? You been drinking only the rainwater, right? Those mushrooms still doing their work?’

  ‘The water tastes like birdshit. All good so far, but I got some insurance in case that changes.’ Dyce patted the mushrooms in his pocket.

  ‘Amen to that! Vida, I see you’re hale and hearty. And Ruth, you are your usual charming self. So now, to business,’ said Adams. ‘We’ve all been waiting a long time now, you know that?’

  ‘For what?’ Vida asked. ‘The Second Coming?’

  Adams sighed. ‘For the cure, my fighting friend. To put into action all the plans that we’ve worked so hard on for so long.’ He waved a discolored hand at the maps. ‘Don’t you want to bring an end to all this? I do. And I’m going to be frank with you. It’s confession time.’

  This guy, thought Dyce, not for the first time, is not all there.

  Adams stood up, untucked his shirt from his trousers and lifted it off over his head without undoing the buttons. Ruth folded her arms.

  On Adams’s bumpy hip was a series of tattoos, dark against his skin, a long row of them. Next to that was a cut that looked fresh, the edges rubbed black with ink.

  ‘You seen these on anyone else yet?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Dyce said carefully. He stepped closer to get a better look. ‘What do they mean?’

  ‘These are my sin stripes, buddy boy. Like boy-scout badges. Old and new, side by side.’

  ‘Sins?’

  ‘We’re all sinners, I know, I know. But these are my special sins – the ones that I committed not because I chose them, but because of Renard and his dirty water. I drank his poison, people, day after day. He did this to me.’ He smiled crookedly, and the plaster moved.

  ‘I have other sins, ones from before the War, and those are mine alone. But these ones I kept track of, because I needed reminding. You get a good long look now, because each one of these came from a virus Renard gave me. A different one every time, because that was how he did it. I was one of the unlucky ones.’

  Adams tapped his temple, and Vida caught herself beginning to feel sorry for him.

  ‘You mean brain sickness? You one of those who get the crazies?’

  Adams looked at her with his sad eyes. ‘Even at the beginning I knew something was going bad. Other people didn’t understand. The water helped cure them of whatever they were suffering – the fevers, the bleeding.

  ‘But it didn’t work for me. I guess some of us are resistant. You know a bit about that, I’ll warrant. I drank that water the way they did – religiously, you might say – and still I could feel something changing. It wasn’t fair. It was like things were crawling over my brain and I couldn’t scratch them, you know? Inside my skull. Under the bone.’

  ‘Are you saying it was the water, not the viruses?’

  ‘I’m saying the water cures the viruses – mostly – but it also drives some people crazy. A side effect. Some say Renard meant it that way. When the population dips, like it did after the War, then sexual assaults go up. No coincidence, I’m telling you.

  ‘So I want you to know how it worked out, and how I know what I know about ole Renard. Me, I did some things to try to make the brain stuff go away. Some pretty terrible things.’

  Looks like he’s just fine now, thought Vida. Looks like he’s proud of some of those things.

  ‘Now this one here,’ Adams pointed a black-tipped finger at the first stripe on his hip, ‘that’s where I set my parents’ house on fire. They didn’t die in the blaze, though. This next one, I beat this guy who came to my door selling bags of dried peaches. He lived, so it’s just a stripe. The next one, I stabbed a girl in my office in the eye with her pen: she didn’t want to go out with me. I liked the taste of that one. Next, I raped my landlady one day when she returned my spare key.’

  Vida’s eyes were dry and sore. He was so matter-of-fact.

  ‘And this fresh one here is from last night. While you all were sleeping, I was swinging a baseball bat at one of the scientists. I broke her arm in four places – just shattered it, like glass.’

  Hope it was Jill, though
t Ruth, and then washed the wish away.

  Adams was spreading his hands across his flesh. There were stars like asterisks on that row. ‘This last line is for murders. There’s twelve. The first two are my parents, because they survived the fire but I shot them about a month after that. The itch, it came back, but at least they got to go together, right? The next bunch are strangers: that all happened around about the same time. It was a bad day. Then three policemen, soon after that, with a tire iron.

  ‘But I want you to know, most are from a few years back. I can recognize the symptoms now, before it comes down real bad. I’m used to it. When I feel it coming on, I’ve got a place to go. They lock me up. I asked them to. But all these – I gotta own them, or else it will mean nothing.’

  Dyce understood with a jolt that Adams was asking their permission, pleading with them. He wanted them to understand! He held Vida’s hand tightly, ready to jump if they had to. But Adams was just staring off into space again, picking at the edge of the sticking plaster on his cheek. A corner came away and he grimaced with satisfaction as it peeled off.

  Vida cleared her throat. ‘Does it stop?’

  ‘Does what stop?’

  ‘The itch. When you . . . you know, hurt people.’

  ‘Isn’t that the most terrible thing? It does. It helps a lot. For a while there’s just quiet – like white noise.’ Adams shrugged.

  They were all silent, listening for it.

  ‘I got something else to show you.’ He pointed to his face. The skin where the plaster had fallen away was curling like a leaf. ‘You see this?’ He stretched his jaw and they saw it very clearly – the ragged hole clean through his cheek. They could see the jagged line of his teeth clenched in an everlasting grin. When he spoke again, he whistled, the air being sucked through the gap like a man with a tracheotomy.

  ‘That’s what I got for fighting against the system. Hole in my head. Poetic justice, you might say. Soon as I knew it was the water, I stopped drinking it. And I was better for a while. I really was. But the thing was, then my body started to fall apart on me, the way everyone’s is going to if they don’t have the antidote. My flesh began to flake off my bones, in itty-bitty bits, like a . . . like a leper.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, it’s a non-stop fight to build my resistance: both kinds. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid to die – but I’m sure as hell not going without Renard. We’re both going to the hot place, but I’m just warming the seat for him.’

  ‘Was there anyone else? Like you, I mean?’ asked Vida.

  ‘You mean hardcore bonko? What do you think? It affects people differently. Men, mostly. The testosterone starts talking. It never shuts up. Maybe it just takes what’s already there and amplifies it.’

  Vida thought of the man who had come sniffing around the plane when the traffic had dammed the highway.

  ‘At least here in the building we can keep tabs on it. Folks go straight to the shackles if they start acting weird. Kind of like werewolves at that time of the month. Teaches you not to trust anyone. And that goes double for yourself. Still, shit happens, as the Good Book says. And it’s going to keep happening if we don’t do what needs to get done.’

  Dyce knew where this was going, but Vida was still curious.

  ‘What do you mean, “what needs to get done”?’

  ‘Those donor substrates aren’t working. You saw that, clear as day. Bottom line: what we need is some human tissue. Supply and demand. We got a lot of people to save.’

  35

  When the boy threw an arm around Felix, the old man stiffened, but then returned the embrace. It would have been heartbreaking not to: the kid was covered in scratches.

  ‘Someone pull you through a bush backward?’

  ‘Just about.’ He thumbed at the scraggly tabby cat on the length of string. ‘This is Linus.’

  ‘Well, look at that. Linus. Feisty, ain’t he? I used to have a cat. Dallas. Big old tuxedo.’ Felix bent down and called the cat, but it stayed back, tight at the end of its leash. He stood again.

  Kurt nodded. He looked keen and fit, despite the ridiculous blouse he was wearing, and Felix suddenly felt every hinge and knob of his ancient skeleton. Goddam! The boy reminded him of himself, going off to New York all those years ago with nothing but attitude.

  ‘Uncle Felix, do you really remember me?’

  ‘Kurt, ain’t it? You were running with that Callahan posse.’

  ‘Well, are you surprised to see me?’

  ‘I’ve had a lot of surprises, kid. The way things have been shaping up, I might’ve guessed you’d be here, where the action is. You just happen to be passing through Des Moines?’

  He knew the answer, but he wanted to see what story the kid would spin. From what he recalled, he had a tongue on him. Whip-smart too, which set him a couple of rungs above the rest of his godforsaken family.

  ‘Came looking. Heard news of you from a nice fat lady in a diner in Saratoga.’ Kurt grinned and plucked at the blouse.

  Felix suddenly realized why the tabby looked familiar. It was Norma’s cat. He felt his stomach subside slowly. He swallowed his disapproval. ‘I don’t think I want to know the rest of that story, son.’ There were a whole lot of bloodstains on that blouse, and they weren’t Kurt’s.

  ‘Last two Callahans on the continent, you and me. Gotta stick together, right? I figured together we might do more damage than either of us alone.’

  ‘That right? Well, right now I’m in need of a bit of nature. I been holed up in that there building too long, so I’m going to get some air. You care to join me?’

  ‘Your car or mine?’ Kurt asked, beaming.

  Felix couldn’t help smiling back at him. There was something wholesome about the boy, something blond and corn-fed and American that you didn’t see a lot of these days. And who was to say how he’d really come by that cat? Maybe old Norma had been in a generous mood. That swan pendant wasn’t hers, not that he could remember.

  ‘How about we take a walk?’

  The old Callahan and the young one set off in silence, the cat pulling now and again at the string, graceless and unwilling, but Kurt just yanked at the creature’s throat and cursed until it got moving again. They passed boarded-up buildings, gutted fridges, mattresses vomiting stuffing. Felix was still getting used to the idea of privation in the North; all the housing concrete had got siphoned off into the Wall, and the rest of the infrastructure had sure suffered. The earlier buildings were mostly intact; it was the newer, shoddier ones that were crumbling. Oldies are goodies, he thought. Ain’t that always the way?

  They had reached the river.

  ‘Here’s as good a place as any.’

  He eased himself down, and they sat with their legs dangling off the edge of a concrete platform – the foundation of a new bridge that would never be. The moss was encroaching. Felix looked out, wondering where to start. Sometimes it was all too much. A man lived with it best if he didn’t think too hard. What would Kurt think of the tapes? Maybe if you were born into this world, there was no telling what was the old you and what the new. Like being born with a brain virus.

  They stared at the water. In places the surface of the river was smooth, but in others it twisted and knotted – the brown and the gray blending – and it was hard to tell exactly where it first happened. A mess of sticks and plastic bags had caught on a submerged rock and a great blue heron stood on top of it, surveying the new world.

  ‘That sad pronghorn your doing?’

  ‘Found it like that.’

  ‘You know much about them?’

  ‘I know how they taste. I know where the liver is.’

  Felix snorted. ‘Good on you, son.’ He studied the boy. Sometimes he forgot how smart the younger ones were, and that was a mistake that was going to cost him one of these days. He wasn’t the only person in the South who had studied and watched and figured out how to survive. The truth was that the end of the world had a way of culling the slowest people
; they were long dead. And they hadn’t burnt all the books yet back at the Callahan place, Felix wagered. Maybe they weren’t read a whole lot by the others, but Kurt looked like the kind of kid who’d had a lonely time of it. Felix knew how that was. Maybe that was what they had in common: they were loners. Books were trustworthy. You knew where you stood with them. They never changed, and they never got sick and left you to fend for yourself.

  Kurt clocked the attention and shrugged. He was proud of his portable pantry.

  ‘Pronghorns,’ said Felix. It was the prelude to something. Kurt scrunched up his face and Felix knew what he was thinking: ninety per cent of everything anyone ever said was to hear their own voice. Did it matter? The kid didn’t have to take it to heart. But it had to be said.

  ‘You know, people reckon the way things are right now is the way they were always meant to be. It helps them to feel okay about what they did to get here. What do you think of that?’

  Kurt couldn’t give a shit either way, but he respected Felix enough to watch him carefully.

  ‘Well, I don’t think it’s true,’ said the old man. ‘Take that pronghorn on your car. I had a book on them. A whole book all about them in my shack.’

  ‘Was it a recipe book?’ Kurt asked, and Felix smiled, then continued.

  ‘Recipe for disaster, maybe. People showed up on this continent from fucking Italy, Columbus and his crew, and they look out at this new land and there’s a goddam pronghorn running like the wind across the prairie. It’s a fucking blur.’ Felix raised his arm and shot a finger in a great arc. ‘So these Eye-talians look behind it to see what’s coming – because if something’s running, then something’s chasing – but there’s nothing. There’s nothing chasing it. Anyway, if you discover a new world, you expect some crazy shit. There’s no need for explanation.

  ‘Then comes Lincoln and Jefferson and everyone else, and then it’s the twentieth century, and the scientists, the ones who wrote my book, they want to explain why the pronghorn runs away from nothing. For them, well, there’s got to be a reason. So they set up their cameras. They see a mountain lion stalking down the talus, slinking low, getting close, then – wham! – it jumps and they’re off. The chase, right. But compared to the pronghorn, the lion is treading water – slow as a turtle on crutches – and it gives up. The pronghorns are jumpy fuckers, so they keep running at top speed. Nothing on the continent can come close to catching them.