Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  “See?” Artie held up mink coats in both hands. “I told you there were more!” He was standing knee-deep in blackened finery: leopardskin cloaks, ermine robes, sealskin jackets. He chose the best coat he could find and shrugged painfully into it.

  Sister Creep paused to poke through a pile of leather bags and briefcases. She found a large bag with a good, solid strap and slipped it over her shoulder. Now she no longer felt quite as naked. She looked up at the black façade of the building that the leather items had blown out of, and she could just make out the remnants of a sign: GUCCI. It was probably the best bag she’d ever had.

  They were almost to the geyser of water when a flash of lightning made things on the ground glint like embers. Sister Creep stopped, leaned down and picked one of them up. It was a piece of glass the size of her fist; it had been melted into a lump, and embedded in it was a scatter of small jewels—rubies, burning dark red in the gloom. She looked around herself and saw that the lumps of glass lay everywhere in the debris, all of them formed into strange shapes by the heat, as if fashioned by a maniacal glassblower. There was nothing left of the building that stood before her but a fragment of green marble wall. But she looked to the ruins of the structures that stood off to the left, and she squinted to see through the twilight. On an arch of battered marble were letters: TIF ANY

  Tiffany’s, Sister Creep realized. And ... if that was where Tiffany’s had been ... then she was standing right in front of...

  “Oh, no,” she whispered as tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, no ... oh, no ...”

  She was standing in front of what had been her magic place—the Steuben Glass shop—and all that remained of the beautiful, sculptured treasures were the misshapen lumps at her feet. The place where she’d come to dream at the displays of cool glass was gone, ripped from its foundations and scattered. The sight of this waste against the memory of what had been was as nerve-shattering as if the door of Heaven had been slammed shut in her face.

  She stood motionless, except for the tears crawling over her blistered cheeks.

  “Look at this!” Artie called. He picked up a deformed octagon of glass full of diamonds, rubies and sapphires. “Have you ever seen anythin’ like this before? Look! They’re all over the damned place!” He reached into the debris and brought up handfuls of melted glass studded with precious jewels. “Hey!” He laughed like the bray of a mule. “We’re rich, lady! What’re we gonna buy first?” Still laughing, he threw the pieces of glass into the air. “Anything you want, lady!” he shouted. “I’ll buy you anything you want!”

  The lightning flashed, streaked across the sky, and Sister Creep saw the entire remaining wall of the Steuben Glass shop explode in dazzling bursts of color: ruby red, deep emerald, midnight sapphire blue, smoky topaz and diamond white. She approached the wall, her shoes crunching on grit, reached out and touched it; the wall was full of jewels, and Sister Creep realized that the treasures of Tiffany’s, Fortunoff s and Cartier’s must’ve blown out of the buildings, whirled in a fantastic hurricane of gemstones along Fifth Avenue—and mingled with the melting glass sculptures of the magic place. The hundreds of jewels in the scorched green marble wall held the light for a few seconds, and then the glow faded like multicolored lamps going out.

  Oh, the waste, she thought. Oh, the awful, awful waste ...

  She stepped back, her eyes stinging with tears, and one foot slipped on loose glass. She went down on her rear end and sat there with no more will to get up again.

  “You okay?” Artie walked carefully toward her. “Did you hurt yourself, lady?”

  She didn’t answer. She was tired and used up, and she decided she was going to stay right there in the ruins of the magic place and maybe rest for a while.

  “Aren’t you gonna get up? The water’s just over there.”

  “Leave me alone,” she told him listlessly. “Go away.”

  “Go away? Lady ... where the hell am I gonna go?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t give a shit. Not a single ... rotten ... shit.” She picked up a handful of melted glass and ashes and let the mess fall through her fingers. What was the use of taking one more step? The little man was right. There was nowhere to go. Everything was gone, burned and ruined. “No hope,” she whispered, and she dug her hand deeply into the ashes beside her. “No hope.”

  Her fingers closed around more junk glass, and she brought it up to see what kind of garbage her dreams had been twisted into.

  “What the hell is that?” Artie asked.

  In Sister Creep’s hand was a doughnut-shaped ring of glass with a hole at its center about six or seven inches around. The ring itself was about two inches thick, and maybe seven inches in diameter. Jutting up around the top of the ring at irregular intervals were five glass spikes, one ice-pick thin, a second about as wide as a knife blade, a third hooked, and the other two just plain ugly. Trapped within the glass were hundreds of various-sized dark ovals and squares. Strange, spider web lines interconnected deep within the glass.

  “It’s shit,” she muttered, and she started to toss it back on the trash heap when the lightning flashed again.

  The ring of glass suddenly exploded into fiery light, and for an instant Sister Creep thought it had burst into flame in her hand. She howled and dropped it, and Artie yelled, “Jesus!”

  The light went out.

  Sister Creep’s hand was trembling. She looked at her palm and fingers to make sure she hadn’t been burned; there’d been no heat, just that blinding flare of light. She could still see it, pulsing behind her eyeballs.

  She reached toward it, then pulled her hand back again. Artie came closer and bent down a few feet away.

  Sister Creep let her fingers graze the glass before she jerked her hand away once more. The glass was smooth, like cool velvet. She let her fingers linger on it, and then she gripped it in her hand and picked it up from the ashes.

  The circle of glass remained dark.

  Sister Creep stared at it and felt her heart pounding.

  Deep within the glass circle, there was a flicker of crimson.

  It began to grow like a flame, to spread to other points within the ring, pulsing, pulsing, getting stronger and brighter by the second.

  A ruby the size of Sister Creep’s thumbnail flared bright red; another smaller one winked with light, like a match glowing in the dark. A third ruby burned like a comet, and then a fourth and a fifth, embedded deep inside the cool glass, began to come to life. The red glow pulsed, pulsed—and Sister realized its rhythm was in time with her own heartbeat.

  More rubies glinted, flared, burned like coals. A diamond suddenly glowed a clear blue-white, and a four-carat sapphire exploded into dazzling cobalt fire. As Sister Creep’s heartbeat quickened, so did the bursting into light of the hundreds of jewels trapped within the circle of glass. An emerald glowed cool green, a pear-shaped diamond burned white hot and incandescent, a topaz pulsed a dark reddish brown, and now the rubies, sapphires, diamonds and emeralds by the dozen were awakening with light; the light rippled, traveling along the spider web lines that wove all through the glass. The lines were threads of precious metals—gold, silver and platinum—that had melted and been trapped as well, and as they ignited like sizzling fuses they set off still more explosions of emerald, topaz and amethyst’s deep purple.

  The entire ring of glass glowed like a multicolored circle of fire, yet there was no heat under Sister Creep’s fingers. It was pulsating rapidly now, as was her heartbeat, and the vibrant, stunning colors grew still brighter.

  She had never seen anything like this—never, not even in the display windows of any store along Fifth Avenue. Jewels of incredible color and clarity were caught within the glass, some of them upwards of five and six carats, some only tiny specks that nevertheless burned with ferocious energy. The glass circle pulsed ... pulsed ... pulsed....

  “Lady?” Artie whispered, his swollen eyes shining with light. “Can I ... hold it?”

  She was reluctant to give
it up, but he stared at it with such wonder and longing that she could not refuse him.

  His burned fingers closed around it, and as it left Sister Creep’s grasp the glass circle’s pulse changed, picking up Artie Wisco’s heartbeat. The colors subtly changed as well, as more deep blues and greens swelled and the white-hot glare of diamonds and rubies faded a fraction. Artie caressed it, and its velvety surface reminded him of the way his wife’s skin had felt when she was young and they were newlyweds just starting out. He thought of how much he loved his wife, and how he longed for her. He had been wrong, he realized in that instant. There was somewhere to go. Home, he thought. I’ve got to get back home.

  After a few minutes he carefully gave the object back to Sister Creep. It changed again, and she sat holding it between her hands and peering into its beautiful depths.

  “Home,” Artie whispered, and the woman looked up. Artie’s mind would not let go of the memory of his wife’s soft skin. “I’ve got to get back home,” he said, his voice getting stronger. He suddenly blinked as if he’d been slapped across the face, and Sister Creep saw tears glint in his eyes. “There ... ain’t no more phones, are there?” he asked. “And no policemen, either.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh.” He nodded, looked at her and then back at the pulsating colors. “You ... ought to go home, too,” he said.

  She smiled grimly. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “Why don’t you go with me, then?”

  She laughed. “Go with you? Mister, haven’t you noticed the buses and cabs are a little off schedule today?”

  “I’ve got shoes on my feet. So do you. My legs still work, and yours do, too.” He pulled his gaze away from the ring of fiery light and peered around at the destruction as if seeing it clearly for the first time. “Dear God,” he said. “Oh, dear God, why?”

  “I don’t think ... God had much to do with this,” Sister Creep said. “I remember ... I prayed for the Rapture, and I prayed for Judgment Day—but I never prayed for anything like this. Never.”

  Artie nodded toward the glass ring. “You oughta hold onto that thing, lady. You found it, so I guess it’s yours. It might be worth something someday.” He shook his head in awe. “That’s not junk, lady,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s sure not junk.” He suddenly stood up and lifted the collar of his mink coat around his neck. “Well ... I hope you make out okay, lady.” With one last longing gaze at the glass ring, he turned and started walking.

  “Hey!” Sister stood up, too. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I told you,” he replied without looking back, “I gotta get home.”

  “Are you crazy? Detroit’s not just around the block!”

  He didn’t stop. He’s nuts! she thought. Crazier’n I am! She put the circle of glass into her new Gucci bag, and as she took her hand away from it the pulsing ceased and the colors instantly faded, as if the thing were going to sleep again. She walked after Artie. “Hey! Wait! What are you going to do about food and water?”

  “I guess I’ll find it when I need it! If I can’t find it, I’ll do without! What choice do I have, lady?”

  “Not much,” she agreed.

  He stopped and faced her. “Right. Hell, I don’t know if I’ll get there. I don’t even know if I’ll get out of this damned junkyard! But this ain’t my home. If a person’s gotta die, he oughta die tryin’ to go home to somebody he loves, don’t you think?” He shrugged. “Maybe I’ll find some more people. Maybe I’ll find a car. If you want to stay here, that’s your business, but Artie Wisco’s got shoes on his feet, and Artie Wisco’s walkin’.” He waved and started off again.

  He’s not crazy anymore, she thought.

  A cold rain began falling, the drops black and oily. Sister Creep opened her bag again and touched the misshapen glass circle with one finger to see what would happen.

  A single sapphire blazed to life, and she was reminded of the spinning blue light flashing in her face. A memory was close—very close—but before she could grasp it, it had streaked away again. It was something, she knew, that she was not yet ready to remember.

  She lifted her finger, and the sapphire went dark.

  One step, she told herself. One step and then the next gets you where you’re going.

  But what if you don’t know where to go?

  “Hey!” she shouted at Artie. “At least look for an umbrella! And try to find a bag like the one I’ve got, so you can put food and stuff in it!” Christ! she thought. This guy wouldn’t make it a mile! She ought to go with him, she decided, if only to keep him from breaking his neck. “Wait for me!” she shouted. And then she walked a few yards to the geyser of the broken water main and stood under it, letting the water wash the dust, ashes and blood off her. She opened her mouth and drank until her stomach sloshed. Now hunger took thirst’s place. Maybe she could find something to eat and maybe not, she considered. But at least she was no longer thirsty. One step, she thought. One step at a time.

  Artie was waiting for her. Sister Creep’s instincts caused her to gather up a few smaller chunks of glass with jewels embedded in them, and she wrapped them in a ragged blue scarf and put them into her Gucci bag. She nosed around the wreckage, a bag lady’s paradise, and found a pretty jade box, but it played a tune when she lifted the lid and the sweet music in the midst of so much death saddened her. She returned the box to the broken concrete.

  Then she started walking toward Artie Wisco through the chilly rain, and she left the ruins of the magic place behind.

  17

  “GOPHER’S IN THE HOLE!” PawPaw Briggs raved. “Lord God, we come a cropper!”

  Josh Hutchins had no idea what time it was, or how long they’d been there; he’d been sleeping a lot and having awful dreams about Rose and the boys running before a tornado of fire. He was amazed that he could still breathe; the air was stale, but it seemed okay. Josh expected to close his eyes very soon and not awaken again. The pain of his burns was bearable as long as he stayed still. He lay listening to the old man babble on, and Josh thought that suffocating probably wouldn’t be such a bad way to die; maybe it was only like getting the hiccups just before you went to sleep, and you weren’t really aware that your lungs were hitching for oxygen. He felt sorriest for the little girl. So young, he thought. So young. Didn’t even have a chance to grow up. Well, he decided, I’m going back to sleep now. Maybe this would be the last time. He thought of those people in the wrestling arena at Concordia and wondered how many of them were dead or dying right now, this minute. Poor Johnny Lee Richwine! Busted leg one day, and this the next! Shit. It’s not fair ... not fair at all....

  Something tugged at his shirt. The movement sent little panics of pain shooting through his nerves.

  “Mister?” Swan asked. She’d heard his breathing and had crawled to him through the darkness. “Can you hear me, mister?” She tugged at his shirt again for good measure.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I can hear you. What is it?”

  “My mama’s sick. Can you help her?”

  Josh sat upright. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s breathing funny. Please come help her.”

  The child’s voice was strained, but she wasn’t giving in to tears. Tough little kid, Josh thought. “Okay. Take my hand and lead me to her.” He held his hand out, and after a few seconds she found it in the darkness and clenched three of his fingers in her hand.

  Swan led him, both of them crawling, across the basement to where her mother lay in the dirt. Swan had been asleep, curled close to her mother, when she was awakened by a noise like the rasp of a rusted hinge. Her mother’s body was hot and damp, but Darleen was shivering. “Mama?” Swan whispered. “Mama, I brought the giant to help you.”

  “I just need to rest, honey.” The voice was drowsy. “I’m okay. Don’t you worry about me.”

  “Are you hurting anywhere?” Josh asked her.

  “Shitfire, what
a question. I’m hurtin’ all over. Christ, I don’t know what hit me. I was feeling’ fine just a while ago—like I had a sunburn, is all. But, shit! I’ve had worse sunburns than this!” She swallowed thickly. “I sure could use a beer right now.”

  “There might be something down here to drink.” Josh started searching, uncovering more dented cans. Without a light, though, he couldn’t tell what they contained. He was thirsty and hungry, too, and he knew the child must be. PawPaw could surely use some water. He found a can of something that had burst open and was leaking out, and he tasted the liquid. Sugary peach juice. A can of peaches. “Here.” He held the can to the woman’s mouth so she could drink.

  Darleen slurped at it, then pushed it weakly away. “What’re you tryin’ to do, poison me? I said I need a beer!”

  Sorry. This is the best I can do for now. He gave the can to Swan and told her to drink.

  “When’re they comin’ to dig us out of this shithole?” Darleen asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe ...” He paused. “Maybe soon.”

  “Jesus! I feel like ... one side of me is bein’ cooked and the other’s in a deep freeze. It hit me all of a sudden.”

  “You’ll be all right,” Josh said; it was ridiculous, but he didn’t know what else to say. He sensed the child close to him, silent and listening. She knows, he thought. “Just rest, and you’ll get your strength back.”

  “See, Swan? I told you I was gonna be fine.”

  Josh could do nothing else. He took the can of peaches from Swan and crawled over to where PawPaw lay raving. “Come a cropper!” PawPaw babbled. “Oh, Lord ... did you find the key? Now how’m I gonna start a truck without a key?”

  Josh put an arm under the old man’s head, tilting it up and then putting the broken can to his lips. PawPaw was both shivering and burning up with fever. “Drink it,” Josh said, and the old man was as obedient as an infant with a bottle.