Rumor has spread through the mountains. The whole region is obsessed with them.
It is a bad time for their kind. They had grown used to anarchy in the centuries that followed the fall of Rome. Now that government is returning to Western Europe they have been forced to the hinterlands.
Not a day passes that they do not have news of disaster. Ancient names are dying, names taught Miriam by her father: Ranftius, Harenberg, Tullius. All Europe is inflamed against them. Idiots creep about with crosses and garlic, spouting bad Latin.
Idiots though they be, the Inquisition is winning. Not a town west of the Oder has not burned at least a few.
The church bell begins to peal.
There is a horrible shriek at the door. Miriam’s sisters, now wild to escape, throw back the greasy cloth. A crowd of thirty or forty people is outside, standing around the overturned brougham. Her brother is being handed among them, his clothes being ripped from his body.
Suddenly, there is a shaft of light — other villagers have broken into the rear wall of the inn. Miriam moves quickly. She digs herself into a pile of hay in a corner. The roar of excited voices fill the room.
Heartsick and terrified, Miriam huddles in absolute stillness. The voices drown the frantic shrieking of her sisters.
Protect them, her father had said.
How can she face his memory now? And what of her mother, who died during the birth of the triplets? Was her death pointless?
Miriam is stronger than the three of them together because she has for a long time been better fed. But is she strong enough to free them from these maddened villagers?
The voices have become joyous as the villagers loot the carriage and rob the captured sisters. They are finding a few pitiful gold pennies, to them the treasure of kingdoms.
Suddenly men and women bustle over and pull away some of Miriam’s cover. She prepares herself to face them, but they rush off. The straw is to start a fire. They have not noticed her.
Against one wall of the inn stands a great iron spit, used no doubt when this village had porkers large enough to roast. There is crackling as the straw blazes up around logs.
Realizing what is going to happen, Miriam’s sisters begin to bellow her name. “MIRIAM! MIRIAM!” A part of her is secretly glad that they do not know where she is hiding. She tells herself over and over that she cannot save them, she cannot prevail against fifty people. She lies amid the fleas and lice, feeling rats run over her from time to time, listening as her siblings bawl their pleas for help.
She has never been so needed. Again she remembers her father. He was a hero.
She begins to remove the straw, starts to sit up. But she freezes, the spectacle before her is so awful. Her youngest sister is naked. They lash her to the spit. Then she is laid across the flames.
A great sizzling starts, like parchment burning. She shrieks and shrieks, her urine steaming into the flames, her head shaking, her hair smoking and red with fire.
They damp the fire and slowly begin to turn the spit.
Her screams continue a long, long time. After an hour her voice breaks and all that issues are hisses.
Miriam’s other two sisters slump in a corner, tied as tightly together as two geese on market day.
It is night before all three are roasted.
Miriam has bitten her lips raw to keep from screaming. Her whole body buzzes with the pain of a thousand flea bites. Until late at night the room is filled with the sharp odor of cooking flesh and the gay shouts of the crowd. Of course they are gay, they have captured gold and been sated with her sisters, more meat than they have eaten in years. As dawn threatens, the villagers drink their foul black beer and have their couplings. Then they sleep.
Miriam bursts from her hiding place and runs. She lifts her brother’s body from the mud where it has been thrown and carries him into the forest, rushing as fast as possible through the trees, wild to escape this horrible place. Her heart aches for her lost sisters, but she dares not even approach their bones.
Soon she is in a dawn-filled glade. Flowers bob at her feet, the Carpathian massif rises in the clear sky. Before that majesty she shouts her grief. The sound is absorbed.
She is flooded with an agony of loneliness. Perhaps she should deliver herself to the villagers. But she cannot go back, cannot give herself to the flames. The beauty of life remains. Let the dead be their own heroes.
With her brother in her arms she sets out to cross the mountains, intending to seek a better land beyond.
9
JOHN HAD WAITED to return until Miriam was gone. It was the safest way. It was easy to defeat the electrostatic barrier. He came in through the disused tunnel he had used for his escape. He had a mission here. He went through the silent rooms. Scattered around the library were newspapers, all containing sensational stories about his crimes. He sneered at her caution. This was a big city. The police had a long way to go before they brought him to ground.
He paused, shut his eyes. Another hallucination was beginning. This time a healthy girl of about fourteen swam into view before him. John ignored the delicious figment, impatient with this latest side effect of his desperate hunger. She stepped forward, her smell filling his nostrils. It was maddening; he swiped angrily at the empty air. The hunger cloyed and strained within him. Soon he must take to the streets again.
He went upstairs, paused in the door of their bedroom. Although he was on his way to the attic he wasn’t in any hurry. There was something to be savored in how he intended to harm her.
Tom had coaxed Sarah out to a celebration after his conversation with Sam Rush. She had wanted to stay with her lab group, but he had managed to convince her that the project could go through its next phase without her in attendance. Her failure to get Miriam Blaylock to return to Riverside had stopped much of the work anyway. Without a subject, they couldn’t very well make observations.
“You’re celebrating a man’s destruction,” Sarah said as they sat down to a Mexican dinner at Las Palmas on Eighty-sixth Street.
“I’m celebrating nothing of the kind. Hutch still has his job.”
“The biggest discovery in history, and you took it right out of his lap. You.”
He winced. “OK, I’m an ogre.”
“Ambitious bastard.” She smiled. “I wish I could punish you, Tom. God knows you need it. But the truth is I’m so damn relieved, I can’t see straight. Knowing that we’re out from under Hutch is — well, it does deserve a celebration.”
“I’m only an ogre when it comes to protecting your work.”
“Wipe that sincere smirk off your face, my love. It makes you look like a card sharp.”
“I think I resent that.”
“You love it.” She lifted her glass of beer. “Here’s to you, you bastard.”
“And to you, bitch.”
“Don’t call me names. I don’t deserve it.”
He could see a real argument developing out of this, so he said no more. The waiter returned and they gave their orders. Tom was surprised to hear Sarah order the biggest dinner on the menu; she normally subsisted on nibbles and snacks. Sometimes he thought a handful of birdseed a day was all she really needed. “At least you’re really hungry for once. That’s a good sign.”
“Developing neurosis. I’ll be as plump as a pigeon in a few years.”
“You don’t care?”
Her eyes flashed. “Tonight I want to eat. There’s nothing the matter with that.” She paused. “I’m ravenous, as a matter of fact. A second ago I felt like taking a salad right off that tray.” She gestured toward a waiter wheeling among the tables.
Their food was served promptly. For five minutes Sarah was silent, digging at her enchiladas and tamales. “Care for more?” Tom asked.
“Yeah!” He signaled the waiter and she ordered another round. An appetite was fine, but she was going to turn into a sausage if this kept up. “Got a pencil and paper?” she asked. “I’ve had some insights.”
“I’ll memo
rize them. Tell me.”
“One. We’re correct to assume that Miriam is evolved from a primate ancestor. She’s too close to us not to be. Two. We therefore need skeletal X rays so that we can determine which primate line is involved. Three. One thing is certain, she and her kind are in some sort of symbiosis with us, otherwise why would they keep themselves hidden? They take something from us we wouldn’t otherwise give.”
“Why does that follow?”
“What else would be their motive for secrecy? And it’s not a matter of being overlooked. It is deliberate. It must also be hard to do. It can’t have been easy to remain undetected for so long.” She paused, ate a couple of bites with birdlike speed. “I wonder what they take from us. I wonder if we’ll find out.”
Tom envied her the clarity of her mind. She had reduced the whole affair to two important questions.
Suddenly she stopped eating. She dropped her fork on the plate and looked up at him, her face pallid. “Let’s get out of here.” Tom obediently paid the bill and they went out into the crowds thronging Eighty-sixth Street. Smoke billowed from chestnut stands, radios under the arms of geeks blared disco music. They passed a Chinese restaurant, a German restaurant, a Greek restaurant. Only when they had rounded the corner onto Second Avenue did the crowds thin.
“I’m going to lose my lunch, I’m afraid.”
“OK, honey.” He wasn’t surprised, the way she had eaten so much spicy food. “Can you make it —” She let go in the gutter. Fortunately, their building was just at the other end of the block and Herb, the late-shift doorman, had seen it happen. He trotted up with a towel in his hand. “Doctor Roberts,” he said in a gruff, surprised voice. “Jeez, you must have got the stomach flu, ma’am.”
Tom was holding her head. He brushed her sweating face with the towel. Cars rushed by three feet away. Pedestrians passed up and down the sidewalk. A fire truck, complete with balancing Dalmatian, roared by. Sarah coughed mightily.
“Oh, I feel awful,” she moaned. “Tom I’m so cold!”
“Come on, let’s get you to bed!”
“Can you make it, Doc? You want I should carry her?”
Sarah staggered to her feet. “No thanks, Herb.” She tottered into the lobby on Tom’s arm. His mind inventoried the various types of food poisoning it could be. The onset was too sudden for botulism. They hadn’t had mushrooms, so it couldn’t be that. Probably old friend salmonella, or just plain overeating. He’d keep her quiet and warm, she’d be on her feet in no time.
“Gonzalo,” Herb said into the housephone, “come watch the door. I’m goin’ upstairs with the Docs.”
They rode up quietly, the only sound in the elevator Sarah’s breathing. “Tom, it’s going to happen!” Her voice quavered.
They were at nineteen and rising. “Just another second, honey.”
Herb looked miserable, he was about to get one messed-up elevator. But he didn’t, she made it as far as their foyer. Tom was half angry with her, half pitying. She didn’t have to eat like a hippo, after all. But she was suffering for it, and he suffered with her. “C’mon, honey,” he said, “it’s bed and bucket time.” All he got was a moan.
He left her sprawled on the bed with their mop bucket on the floor beside her and strict instructions to use it. Then he went about cleaning up the mess in the foyer without getting sick himself. Herb had slipped away while he was bedding her down. The man couldn’t be blamed.
When he returned to the bedroom he was surprised to find her sitting up. “I’m better,” she said. She glared, as if daring him to contradict her.
At that moment the doorbell rang. “God damn, they never leave you alone — who is it!”
“Herb again. You got a package.”
Tom pulled the door open. “A Fleet Messenger come up and delivered it while Gonzalo was workin’ the door, Doctor Haver.” It was a compact box wrapped in beautiful blue paper and tied with a ribbon. It was addressed to Sarah. With a shrug Tom took it to her.
“Who could have sent me a present?”
“Open it, maybe there’s a card inside.”
She shook it and listened.
“Expecting a bomb, sweetheart?”
With a slight smile playing across her face she tore it open. At once powerful perfume filled the room. There were six cakes of yellow-green soap.
“Good God, throw it out, throw it out!”
“Miriam sent it.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little sweet? As a matter of fact —”
“Come on, honey, it’s nice.” She held a bar to her nose and inhaled. “Wonderful. I told her how much I liked it while I was at her house. She’s just being considerate.”
“All right already, seal it up in something for now. Let me get used to the idea.” Then a thought struck him. “Good God, I know that soap!” He took a bar in his hand. Sure enough, a label was imprinted on it, Brehmer and Cross, to the Trade. Tom burst out laughing, tossed the soap on the bed.
“What the hell’s so funny? She has it made up specially.”
“Oh, yeah! Sure she does! You know what that stuff is? Mortician’s soap. They use it on corpses. That’s where in hell I’ve smelled the damn stuff and why it makes me sick. They used it on Gran Haver when I was a kid. Kept her from stinking up the living room.”
Sarah touched the bar of soap, withdrew her hand. Tom came close to her. “Her thought processes are different from ours.”
“But she said —”
“Who knows what she said? You shouldn’t assume you understand her motives. Maybe it’s some kind of joke.”
After a long silence Sarah said that she supposed it must be. There weren’t any arguments when Tom threw the soap away. Her nausea appeared to have stopped and she didn’t have any significant fever so they contented themselves with doing nothing for now about her sickness.
“You probably don’t even need electrolyte replacement,” Tom commented.
“Good. I really don’t even want water right now.”
“Wait till you feel thirsty. Hey, look at this.” He was glancing through TV Guide. “‘Great Performances’ is on thirteen at nine. It’s nine now.”
While they were watching, Tom noticed Sarah rubbing her right arm. “You OK?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you sprained it in the street.”
“It’s hurt all afternoon.”
Midway through the show she turned on her bedside lamp. “Tom, look at this.” There was a pinhole lesion on her forearm.
“Did you give blood?”
“When would I give blood? Maybe something stung me. I’ll bet that’s what made me sick.”
Tom examined the wound. The bruise running along the vein, the redness of the wound itself — it looked for all the world as if Sarah had been given a transfusion.
“A spider bite,” she said.
Tom noticed a rasping undertone. Sarah was scared. He touched her shoulder. “If that’s what it is, not to worry, it’s a mild one.”
“Yeah. Mild.”
“That’s right, darling. No myalgia, no cramps. Those are both present when you have a serious spider bite.”
She sighed. “It’s disgusting, but I’m incredibly hungry again.”
Tom didn’t know what to say. His mind moved through the catalogue of her symptoms. He thought of suggesting that Sarah check into the hospital but immediately dismissed the idea. The symptoms were too minor. Thousands of people suffered slight cases of food poisoning or insect bite and never went to a hospital. Yet Tom worried. He looked at her face. Its color was poor, and its unusual roundness indicated slight edema. Her skin felt cool and rather dry. “Hungry or not,” he said at last, “I think you ought to try to get some sleep. We’ll eat a big breakfast in the morning.”
She didn’t argue but her eyes were pained. They took off their clothes, settled into bed. After five minutes with Time , Tom turned out the light. He patted Sarah’s bottom, then listened to her tossing and turning for what seemed a long time. Onl
y when her breath became regular and deep did he begin to relax. A last touch told him she had no fever. Finally, sleep took him as well.
* * *
Thunder rolled and blue lightning flashed against the ceiling. Sarah stared into the darkness that followed the flash. Hadn’t that been a silhouette in the hall? Sheets of rain fell. The wind moaned past the building. She lay absolutely still, barely breathing, waiting for more lightning so she could see.
When it came the hall was empty. Her heart began to beat more slowly. She had been about to wake Tom. Now she withdrew her hand and threw her forearm across her eyes. Her skin crawled, she ached, she was freezing. A vision came to her, of a Big Mac and double fries and a huge, cold Coke. Disgusting, she hardly ever ate that sort of stuff. Yet it remained there, a powerful temptation. Her eyes went to the clock on the dresser. It was hard to read the dial from here but it appeared to be about two-thirty.
A bad time to go outside in New York City. She visualized the McDonald’s on Eighty-sixth Street: a few people huddled over coffee, maybe a couple of cops taking a break. She could almost smell the place, a scent of heaven.
She slipped out of bed slowly and very carefully. If she woke Tom she sure as hell wouldn’t be able to do what she intended. The McDonald’s wasn’t far. She would probably be fine. She pulled on jeans and a sweat shirt and laced up her jogging shoes. As she left the apartment she noticed that Tom — typically — had forgotten to lock up. She paused to lock both the dead bolt and the mortise lock with her key and then went to the elevator. For a supposedly ruthless type Tom was surprisingly absentminded.
The elevator doors opened onto an empty lobby. There was a stentorian rattling sound — Herb asleep at his post. The lobby doors were locked to the street so Sarah would have to let herself in when she got back.
Outside the air was storm-fresh, smelling wet and green. But for the soughing of the wind the street was quiet. Sarah found the emptiness of it all quite wonderful. She strode along feeling as if she had acquired a sort of secret power just by coming out at this hour. She went two blocks down and turned east on Eighty-sixth. The McDonald’s was open, as she had known it would be. There were many more people inside than she had visualized. In fact the place was humming. She had to spend five minutes in line, finally all but hopping from foot to foot with hunger.
The Hunger Page 20
