by neetha Napew
"Hi, there!" Jim called, waving back.
"Happy Christmas to you, and may choirs of angels sing you to your rest."
The voice was gentle and educated.
Jim craned as high as he could to watch the figure as it vanished slowly behind him. Then a rolling section of the blacktop made it vanish altogether.
They were silent for a long time after, wondering about the different kinds of desolation Earthblood had visited on people. And about how little they could do even for those close to them, and nothing for others at all.
When it came time for them to try to find a reasonably safe and secure place to pass the night, they conferred briefly.
At Nanci's suggestion, they decided to take a narrow track off to the right that led into the higher ground to the east. "Snow is melting fast, and the wind smells as if it's set fair for a day or so. There's less chance of our being spotted if we keep off the main highways. And more chance of finding an abandoned house for shelter."
It was sensible advice, and Jim passed it forward to Jeff Thomas, who was taking his turn at the wheel. The ex-journalist nodded, grinning back at Jim. For the first time in an age, Jeff looked something close to happy.
There was an occasional shower of heavier rain, breaking through the misty drizzle and rattling on the roof of the horse trailers. Jim moved to the rear of the rocking and rolling vehicle, hanging on to the sides to steady himself. "Good job none of us suffer from travel sickness," he said. "This is worse than the worst reentry simulation."
Sly was cradling his wooden doll, Steve, singing his own erratic versions of Christmas carols to it. Heather was dozing next to him, one arm thrown across her eyes. Nanci was sitting in the other corner, patiently fieldstripping and reassembling the Heckler & Koch automatic.
She caught Jim watching her. "This is all a bit like connecting neck bone to collar bone and thigh bone to hip bone," she said, smiling in the dim light of the trailer.
"Are we going to learn the truth about you, Nanci?" he asked. "Ever?"
"Whole truth and nothing but the truth, Jim. You want to bare a woman of her mysteries?"
Carrie had also been dozing, but now she sat up. "Well said, Nanci. Fact of life is that a man is always asking a woman questions, and a woman is never answering them."
Jim laughed. "Wrong. Truth is that what a woman wants from a man is whatever the man happens to be right out of at that precise moment."
They laughed at Jim's response, then fell silent. About a half hour later they all felt the sudden slowing as Jeff hit the tractor's brakes, and the convoy quickly came to a complete halt.
The noise of the idling engine made it difficult to hear, but Jeff made his intention obvious. He was leaning out of the window and pointing about a mile ahead of them, down a slope to the right.
"He looks like stout Cortez on a peak in Darien," said Jeanne McGill.
"House!" shouted Jeff. "And there's smoke coming from a chimney."
They all stared down at the rectangular white building. There were three burned-out barns to the southern flank, and one ramshackle outbuilding still standing. Gray smoke curled from one of the redbrick chimneys, but was flattened by the rain, vanishing before it had gone fifty yards.
Jim noticed that makeshift shutters covered up most of the windows. But in a world where anarchy ruled, that wasn't at all surprising. There was also the shattered remnants of a satellite dish in the side yard and a large radio antenna fixed to the main chimney.
The slushy, muddied snow that carpeted all of the surrounding fields was unmarked by any evidence of recent livestock movement, though the trail ahead of the tractors was deeply furrowed with regular use.
"Let's go ahead," said Jim. "It worked last time. Might work this time. It doesn't look too much like a fortress."
"Looks pretty cold and miserable down there," said Jeanne McGill. "There's a big pond, still covered in ice. It almost runs up to the house. If they've got a cellar, then it must be nearly underwater."
"Everyone get their guns ready for action," warned Nanci. "Keep it in your minds, all of you, that being careless for a moment can mean being dead for a very long time."
But just for once, it turned out that there was no need for any concern.
As the tractors rumbled slowly down the uneven trail, the front door of the house opened. A tall, skinny man stood there, the fading light glittering off his silver hair. He carried what looked like an M-16 at his hip.
Nanci was watching through the front slit of the horse trailer. "Someone else with a gun in an upper window," she said. "An LMG's my guess."
The man held up the rifle as a sign for them to stop, making a gesture for the engines to be turned off. They were a scant two hundred yards away.
"If you're friends, then you can come ahead and stay one night with me and the woman. You get to do some chores to pay your way. You don't want that, then keep on going, back the way you just come. No through road here."
Jim held his hands out wide. "Sounds a good deal to me. We'll come in."
"Can we just see who's inside those trailers, mister? See who we're letting in."
"If that machine gun opens up," said Nanci, talking out of the corner of her mouth, "then it'll go through the walls of the horse trailer like a straight razor through a baby's throat."
"Nice image, Nanci." Jim lifted his voice. "Sure thing, mister. Eleven of us. Men, women and children." He called behind him. "Everyone outside for a moment."
They filed out, standing in the watery dirt. The man gave them a once-over, then he made a sign to the shadowy figure behind the upstairs window. After a brief pause he beckoned to them. "Welcome," he said. "Oh, and a real good Christmas to you all."
"DAVE BRADLEY. Wife's Norma-Jean. Been married forty years next week. Been here all of those years. Saw our living vanish when that damn virus turned green to red. But we're hanging on for a while longer. Time'll come when we have to get out. Could be before Easter."
"Where would you move to?" Jim was sitting with all the others around a long, scrubbed pine table in the big kitchen of the farmhouse. There was the smell of cooking from the wood-burning stove in the corner.
"North. Heard folks say there might be some good things happening somewhere up around Seattle." Bradley laughed. "'Course, rumors since Earthblood are thicker than ticks on a coon dog. More bread, Carrie?"
"Thanks."
Dave Bradley had a thin, lined face, topped with a scrub of silvery hair. His wife looked a few years younger, her long graying hair tied back in a roll. She wore an ankle-length flowered dress in faded gingham.
The food was excellent, a kind of stew made from canned vegetables but enriched with chunks of tasty meat. Slightly chewy, it had a tangy flavor that nobody could identify. Norma-Jean Bradley giggled at their questions and refused to tell them what kind of animal it came from. Jim guessed it was probably some kind of chicken, with snake and rabbit tying for second place in the possibility stakes.
The visitors were made very welcome. Dave showed the women and girls to a big dormitory room on the first floor, with beds stacked wall to wall. "Be surprised how many visitors we've had in the last few months," said Bradley. "Still some folks on the move. Like those old vids about the dust bowl a century ago. Tom Joad and having the do-re-mi, boys."
The males shared two rooms on the top floor. Jim shared with Sly and Paul, while Mac and Jeff had a smaller corner room with two single beds, just along the corridor.
"Those two rooms are for me and the wife," said Bradley. "We choose to keep them locked. Mementos and stuff. Kind of private. Also keep the cellar shut up. Nothing personal against any of your party. No kind of personal offense meant."
"None taken," replied Jim.
SLY AMBLED UP to Jim, an endearing smile on his innocent, wide face. "Can me walk outside?"
"Sure, Sly. Want me to come with you? Or Heather, or anyone else?"
"No. Want to be alone. Talk to Dad."
"You all right?"
"Fine. But don't go far and don't be gone for long. It's stopped raining, hasn't it?" Sly nodded. "All right. See you soon, son."
Sly walked outside on his own. He was aware that Christmas was somehow real special, and it seemed to him that this was an important time to speak with his father. The concept that Steve Romero had been dead for weeks hadn't quite worked itself through. He still clung to the idea that his father had moved sort of sideways from everyone else, that he'd likely reappear one day. But in the meantime he could see and hear everything that Sly said and did.
The sky was clear, and he could hear the bubbling of a stream somewhere nearby. It was warmer, and he swung his arms like a windmill as he walked out through the rotting stumps of what would once have been a flourishing orchard.
He looked back to make sure that he wasn't losing his sense of direction, checking that the lights of the house were where he thought they should be.
The land stretched for miles and miles, with no vegetation to break the monotony. To Sly's left stood the fire-scarred ruins of the old barns, and he picked his way toward them, skirting the edge of the pond.
He felt a need to confide to his father his fears about all the traveling they were doing. So far, so often, his head was spinning, and he no longer knew where they were or when they might find something that he could call home.
The ground was uneven by the ruined buildings, and Sly concentrated on where he put his feet, using the streaks of pale moonlight to help him.
Suddenly someone shoved him in the back, and he tripped and fell over, gasping with shock as a flashlight dazzled him for a moment.
The voice was vaguely familiar. "Well, I'll go fuck a camel, Alison. If it's not your dummy son."
"Mommy?" said Sly, hardly able to speak for the heart-stopping fear.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Zelig was taking his turn at the steering of the M113, struggling to remember how it worked, not wanting to ask in front of everyone else in the vehicle. So far, in the first half hour of his spell, it had gone all right. He hadn't driven into a ditch or plowed into the vehicle in front.
Now it was getting closer to evening, and he felt a little more relaxed. He called up his main communications officer, checking if they'd gotten any bulletins in from any of their watchers and listeners.
"Nothing, General."
"We guess right, and Jim does like I think he might, then we must have people in the region where he could be right now. Who do we have?"
There was a long pause as the man checked his lists. "Four or five, General. Want codings?"
"Tell me."
"Broken Arrow, Tumble Spinner, Double Baker and Fallen Whiplash."
"Nothing from any of them?"
"No, sir. But they all have set radio schedules. Time for all of them to broadcast this evening."
MARGARET TABOR had chosen to retire early that Christmas evening. The weather was still closed in, and there seemed little prospect of getting the two Chinooks into the air. One of the men under her command came from that region, and he swore that the snow would clear eventually from the west, when the temperature would rise and the clouds lift.
She had pressed him, smiling constantly, until he'd grinned and said that, yeah, he'd swear that on his life. Then she'd ceased smiling.
JIM AND CARRIE had been helping Norma-Jean Bradley with the washing up in the trim kitchen, wiping grease off the blue-and-white china plates and bowls, dunking the pewter-handled cutlery in the hot, sudsy water.
"It was real good," said Carrie. "But you have to tell us what the meat was in the stew."
"Guess I couldn't do that. Not less'n Dave gave his word of agreement to me."
"Rattlesnake, was it?" said Jim. "Come on. Best kind of secret is one you share with others."
Dave Bradley came into the kitchen carrying all the mugs from the coffee. "That boy Sly is all right, is he? Saw him go out and he ain't back yet."
"He's fine, Dave," said Jim. "I'd trust Sly with my life. He said he wanted to have a few words with his father tonight, with it being Christmas and all."
"I thought you said his father was dead, Jim?" asked Norma-Jean.
"Sure. Sly kind of knows that, but he believes that Steve can still see and hear him."
"Least the weather's better. You near finished the washing? Thanks for the help, folks." He turned to his wife. "I got my special chore to do soon. Extraspecial now."
She looked a little worried. "Maybe best to leave it until the… the later time for it."
"Yeah, maybe."
"If you have a minute," said Jim, "then me and Carrie would like to know your secret, Dave."
"What?" His voice became sharp and overlaid with something close to real anger. "What's that?"
"Hey, chill out, Dave. We asked Norma-Jean what the meat was, and she said she couldn't tell us."
The older man shook his head ruefully. "Sorry I snapped at you there. Too much suspicion and too many strangers, Jim. All right, I'll show you."
In the parlor Jeanne McGill was pedaling breathlessly at an old harmonium, made in Woodstock, Canada, by D. W. Karn and Company. Mac and Paul and Jocelyn were joining in with a hearty rendition of the old favorite, "Shall We Gather at the River." Sukie sat on the sofa, leaning against her father, flicking through an old book of stereoscopic pictures of national park views.
Jeff and Nanci weren't there. Mac caught Jim's questioning glance and jerked his head toward the top floor. Breaking off for a moment from the hymn, he said from the corner of his mouth, "Up there, and don't ask what they're doing because I don't know and don't want to know."
Dave was in the hall, standing by the locked door to the cellar, holding a brass oil lamp whose golden glow seemed to fill the building.
"Down here," he said. "Welcome to the farm for the Bradley kitchens."
As soon as he opened the door, Jim Hilton knew. "Oh, sweet shit on the plow," he whispered.
The sour damp smell reminded him of the bayou country of Louisiana where he'd once done a survivalist training course. Brackish water lapped at the steps ten feet below them. And the ceaseless popping of the hundreds of iridescent green frogs, splashing away, disturbed by the light.
"Jesus, it was frogs I was eating!" Carrie Princip shook her head. "Well, I'd never have thought it."
"Not just frogs," said Dave Bradley, showing all his oddly perfect teeth in a broad grin. "Look here, on the stairs and all the walls."
He angled the lamp, stretching out with it so that Jim and Carrie could see what he wanted them to see.
Snails.
Hundreds of snails. With yellow-and-brown whorled shells, each one as big as a silver dollar.
Thousands of silent snails, the walls crisscrossed with the silvery sheen of their slimy trails.
"Now, admit it—they were good, weren't they?" asked Dave Bradley.
"Well…" said Jim hesitantly.
"Folks would never even try them, once they knew. So most times we just don't say that it's snails and frog meat they're tucking into." Norma-Jean grinned broadly. "You aren't the first to relish them cooked my special way, and I figure you won't be the last."
"Shut the door before they start coming up the stairs at us," said Carrie. "I swear that I'll have nightmares about them tonight." She squeezed Jim's hand. "And this is another fine mess that you've gotten me into."
He kissed her on the cheek while Dave Bradley and his wife looked on.
As he broke away, Jim glanced down at his watch. "Hey, Sly's been gone for… for long enough. I'll just go and take a look for him."
"Don't forget to take your gun with you," warned Dave. "Never know what sort of mean critters you might run into out there in the dark."
"Sure. Like frogs and snails, for example." He went back into the parlor and picked up the Ruger, sliding it into his holster. Jeanne was now playing "The Old Chisholm Trail," her face flushed with the exertion.
"I'll come with you, Jim," offered Carrie.
"No. No need for you… Well, I guess company's no bad thing. Got your purse gun?"
"One day someone'll blow your balls off with a purse gun, Jim Hilton, and then you won't think it's so damn funny. Come on, let's go find the boy."
They pulled on quilted parkas, though it was twenty degrees warmer than it had been the previous night. Jim left his open so that he could get at the big revolver. Carrie carried her .22 in the right-hand pocket of her waterproof coat, taking Jim's advice and leaving it unzipped.
They went through the kitchen, pausing by the bolted back door. Suddenly there was a soft rapping on it, repeated almost immediately, louder.
"That you, Sly?"
"Yeah, Jim. Me Sly."
"Had a good walk and talk?" Jim stooped to slide across the bottom bolt when he realized that the teenager hadn't answered him. "Sly?"
"What?"
"I asked if you had a good walk and talk? You spoke to Steve? To your father?"
The bottom bolt was open, and he stretched for the top one, leaving only the big triple dead bolt at the stout, steel-lined door's heart.
Carrie reached out and touched Jim on the arm. Her voice was a soft whisper. "Something's wrong with him. Maybe he's had an accident of some kind."
"Me spoke to Dad and Mom like always, Jim."
The brass key was cold under his fingers. Jim had been about to turn it and open the door. Now he stopped and turned to look at Carrie. He raised his eyebrows, mouthing the word, "What?"
"Me spoke like always to Mom and Dad."
The stress was unmissable. Sly was trying to give them a message of some sort. A kind of warning.
Carrie moved very close to Jim. Hardly breathing. "His mother? You think that Alison Romero's out there and he's trying to let us know?"
"Clever if he is. But it can't be. Can it? I'll keep him waiting a minute longer. Go check from an unlit upstairs window and then warn the others if it looks like some kind of an ambush or a trap."
"Sure."
Dave Bradley appeared in the kitchen, grinning broadly. "Nothing beats a good old singsong around the…" He let his words trail off as he sensed the strained atmosphere. "What?"
