Swan Song Read online

Chapter 15

 

  a pinpoint of ruby-red light flickered and began to grow.

  Other colors flashed like distant lightning: emerald green, pure white, deep midnight blue. The colors strengthened, merging into a small, pulsating ring of light that Swan at first thought was floating in the air. But in the next moment she thought she could make out a hazy, indistinct figure holding that ring of light, but she couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. She almost turned around, but did not, because she knew there was nothing behind her but a wall. No, this sight was only in the magic mirror - but what did it meani

  The figure seemed to be walking, wearily but with determination, if as whoever it was knew he or she had a long journey to finish. Swan sensed that the figure was a long way off - maybe not even in the same state. But for a second she might have been able to make out the facial features, and it might have been the hard-edged face of a woman; then it went all hazy again, and Swan couldn't tell. The figure seemed to be searching, bearing a ring brighter than firefly lights, and behind her there might have been other searching figures, too, but again Swan couldn't quite separate them from the mist.

  The first figure and the glowing circle of many colors began to fade away, and Swan watched until it had dwindled to a point of light like the burning spear of a candle; then it winked out like a falling star and was gone.

  "Come back," she whispered. "Please come back. "

  But the vision did not. Swan aimed the mirror to her left.

  and behind that shoulder reared a skeletal horse, and on that horse was a rider made of bones and dripping gore, and in his skeleton arms was a scythe that he lifted for a slashing, killing blow. . .

  Swan turned.

  She was alone. all alone.

  She was trembling, and she set the mirror glass side down on the desk. She'd had enough magic to last her a while.

  "Everything's changed now," she remembered Leona saying. "all that was is gone. Maybe the whole world's just like Sullivan: blowin' away, changin', turnin' into somethin' different than it was before. "

  She needed Leona to help her figure out these new pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, but Leona was gone. Now it was her and Josh - and Rusty Weathers, too, if he decided to go with them to wherever they were headed.

  But what did the visions in the magic mirror meani she wondered. Were they things that were going to happen, or things that mighti

  She decided to keep the visions to herself until she'd thought about them some more. She didn't know Rusty Weathers well enough yet, though he seemed okay.

  When Josh and Rusty returned, Josh asked the other man if they could stay for a few days, share the water and Gravy Train - and Swan wrinkled her nose, but her belly growled.

  "Where do you two figure to be goin'i" Rusty inquired.

  "I don't know yet. We've got a strong-backed horse and the gutsiest damned mutt you ever saw, and I guess we'll keep going until we find a place to stop. "

  "That could be a long time. You don't know what's out there. "

  "I know what's behind us. What's ahead can't be much worse. "

  "You hope," Rusty said.

  "Yeah. " He glanced at Swan. Protect the child, he thought. He was going to do his damnedest, not only because he was obeying that commandment, but because he loved the child and would do all in his power to make sure she survived whatever was ahead. and that, he realized, might be like a walk through Hell itself.

  "I reckon I'll tag along, if you don't mind," Rusty decided. "all I've got are the clothes on my back, my magic jacket, the box and the mirror, I don't think there's much of a future here, do youi"

  "Not much," Josh said.

  Rusty looked through a filmy window. "Lord, I hope I just live long enough to see the sun come out again, and then I'm gonna kill myself with cigarettes. "

  Josh had to laugh, and Rusty cackled, too.

  Swan smiled, but her smile faded fast.

  She felt a long way from the little girl who'd walked with her mother into PawPaw Briggs's grocery store. She would be ten on the third of November, but right now she felt real old - like at least thirty. and she didn't know anything about anything! she thought. Before the bad day, her world had been confined to motels and trailers and little cinder block houses. What had the rest of the world been likei she wondered. and now that the bad day had come and gone, what was lefti

  "The world'll keep turnin'," Leona had said. "Oh, God gave this world a mighty spin, He did! and He put mighty tough minds and souls in a lot of people, too - people like you, maybe. "

  She thought of PawPaw Briggs sitting up and speaking. That was something she hadn't wanted to think about too much, but now she wanted to know what that had meant. She didn't feel special in any way; she just felt tired and beat-up and dusty, and when she let her thoughts drift toward her mama all she wanted to do was break down and cry. But she did not.

  Swan wanted to know more about everything - to learn to read better, if books could be found; to ask questions and learn to listen; to learn to think and reason things out. But she never wanted to grow up all the way, because she feared the grownup world; it was a bully with a fat stomach and a mean mouth who stomped on gardens before they had a chance to grow.

  No, Swan decided. I want to be who I am, and nobody's going to stomp me down - and if they try, they might just get themselves a footful of stickers.

  Rusty had been watching the child as he mixed their dinner of dog food; he saw she was deep in concentration. "Penny for your thoughts," he said, and he snapped the fingers of his right hand, bringing up between his thumb and forefinger the coin he'd already palmed. He tossed it to her, and Swan caught it.

  She saw it wasn't a penny. It was a brass token, about the size of a quarter, and it had Rydell Circus written on it above the smiling face of a clown.

  Swan hesitated, looked at Josh and then back to Rusty. She decided to say, "I'm thinking about. . . tomorrow. "

  and Josh sat with his back against the wall, listening to the shrill whine of the wind and hoping that somehow they would survive the forbidding corridor of tomorrows that stretched ahead of them.

  Forty-six

  The Homewood High School gymnasium had become a hospital, and Red Cross and army personnel had rigged up generators that kept the electricity going. a haggard Red Cross doctor named Eichelbaum led Sister and Paul Thorson through the maze of people lying on cots and mattresses on the floor. Sister kept the duffel bag at her side; she had not gone more than five feet from it in the three days since their gunshots had been heard by a group of sentries. a hot meal of corn, rice and steaming coffee had tasted to Sister like gourmet delicacies.

  She'd gone into a cubicle in a building marked INCOMING and had submitted to being stripped by a nurse in a white suit and mask who had run a Geiger counter over her body. The nurse had jumped back three feet when the counter's needle almost went off the scale. Sister had been scrubbed with some kind of white, grainy powder, but still the counter cackled like a hen in heat. a half-dozen more scrubbings brought the reading down to an acceptable level, but when the nurse had said, "We'll have to dispose of this," and reached for the duffel bag, Sister had grabbed her by the back of the neck and asked her if she still liked living.

  Two Red Cross doctors and a couple of army officers who looked like boy scouts except for the livid burns across their faces couldn't pry the bag away from Sister, and finally Dr. Eichelbaum had thrown up his arms and shouted, "Just scrub the shit out of the damned thing, then!"

  The duffel bag had been scrubbed several times, and the powder had been sprayed liberally over its contents. "You just keep that damned bag closed, lady!" Eichelbaum fumed. One side of his face was covered with blue burns, and he had lost the sight in one eye. "If I see you open it once, it goes in the incinerator!"

  Both Sister and Paul Thorson had been given baggy white coveralls. Most of the others wore them, and rubber boots as well, but Eic
helbaum informed them that all the "antiradiation footgear" had been given out several days before.

  Dr. Eichelbaum had put a Vaseline-like substance over the burn marks on her face, and he had examined closely a thickened patch of skin just underneath her chin that looked like a scab surrounded by four small, wartlike bumps. He'd found another two warts at the jawline under her left ear, and a seventh right at the fold of her left eye. He'd told her that about sixty-five percent of the survivors bore similar marks - most probably skin cancer, but there was nothing he could do about them. Slicing them off with a scalpel, he'd told her, only made them grow back larger - and he showed her the angry black scablike mark that was creeping up from the point of his own chin. The most peculiar thing about the marks, he'd said, was that they appeared only on or near the facial area; he hadn't seen any that were below the neck, or on a survivor's arms, legs or any other area of skin exposed to the blasts.

  The makeshift hospital was full of burn victims, people who had radiation sickness and people in shock and depression. The worst cases were kept in the school auditorium, Eichelbaum had told her, and their mortality rate was about ninety-nine percent. Suicide was also a major problem, and as the days passed and people seemed to understand more about the disaster's scope, Dr. Eichelbaum said, the number of people found hanging from trees increased.

  The day before, Sister had gone to the Homewood Public Library and found the building deserted, most of the books gone, used as fuel in the fires that kept people alive. The shelves had been ripped out, the tables and chairs carried off to be burned. Sister turned down one of the few aisles where shelves of books remained and found herself staring at the antiradiation footgear of a woman who had climbed up a stepladder and hanged herself from a light fixture.

  But she'd found what she was looking for, amid a pile of encyclopedias, american history books, Farmer's almanacs and other items that had been spared burning. and in it she'd seen for herself.

  "Here he is," Dr. Eichelbaum said, weaving through a few last cots to the one where artie Wisco lay. artie was sitting up against a pillow, a tray-table between his cot and the one to his left, and he was engrossed in playing poker with a young black man whose face was covered with white, triangular burns so precise they looked like they'd been stamped on the skin.

  "Hiya!" artie said, grinning at Sister and Paul as they approached. "Full house!" He turned his cards over, and the black man said, "Sheeeyat! You cheatin', man!" But he forked over some toothpicks from a pile on his side of the tray.

  "Look at this!" artie pushed the sheet back and showed them the heavy tape that crisscrossed his ribs. "Robot here wants to play tic-tac-toe on my belly!"

  "Roboti" Sister asked, and the black youth raised a finger to tip an imaginary hat.

  "How're you doing todayi" the doctor asked artie. "Did the nurse take your urine samplei"

  "Sure did!" Robot said, and he hooted. "Little fool's got a cock that'd hang from here to Philly!"

  "There's not much privacy here," artie explained to Sister, trying to keep his dignity. "They have to take the samples in front of God and everybody. "

  "Some o' these women 'round here see what you got, fool, they gon' be prayin' on their knees, I be tellin' you!"

  "Oh, Jeez!" artie squirmed with embarrassment. "Will you shut upi"

  "You look a lot better," Sister offered. His flesh was no longer gray and sickly, and though his face was a mass of bandages and livid scarlet burn marks - keloids, Dr. Eichelbaum called them - she even thought he had healthy color in his cheeks.

  "Oh, yeah, I'm gettin' handsomer all the time! Gonna look in the mirror one of these days and see Cary Grant starin' back!"

  "ain't no mirrors around here, fool," Robot reminded him. "all the mirrors done broke. "

  "artie's been responding pretty well to the penicillin we've been pumping into him. Thank God we've got the stuff, or most of these people here would be dead from infections," Dr. Eichelbaum said. "He's still got a way to go yet before he's out of the woods, but I think he'll be okay. "

  "How about the Buchanan kidi and Mona Ramseyi" Paul asked.

  "I'll have to check the list, but I don't think either one of them is critical. " He looked around the gymnasium and shook his head. "There are so many, I can't keep up with them. " His gaze returned to Paul. "If we had the vaccine, I'd put every one of you into rabies shots - but we don't, so I can't. You'd just better hope none of the wolves out there were rabid, folks. "

  "Hey, Doci" artie asked. "When do you think I can get out of herei"

  "Four or five days at the minimum. Whyi You planning on going somewherei"

  "Yeah," artie replied without hesitation. "Detroit. "

  The doctor cocked his head so the one good eye was fixed firmly on artie Wisco. "Detroit," he repeated. "I've heard Detroit was one of the first cities hit. I'm sorry, but I don't think there is a Detroit anymore. "

  "Maybe not. But that's where I'm going. That's where my home is, and my wife. Jeez, I grew up in Detroit! Whether it was hit or not, I've gotta go back there and find out what's left. "

  "Prob'ly the same as Philly," Robot said quietly. "Man, there ain't a cinder left in Philly. "

  "I have to go home," artie said, his voice resolute. "That's where my wife is. " He looked up at Sister. "I saw her, you know. I saw her in the glass ring, and she looked just like she did when she was a teenager. Maybe that meant something - like I had to have the faith to keep going to Detroit, to keep looking for her. Maybe I'll find her. . . and maybe I won't, but I have to go. You're gonna go with me, aren't youi"

  Sister paused. Then she smiled faintly and said, "No, artie. I can't. I've got to go somewhere else. "

  He frowned. "Wherei"

  "I've seen something in the glass ring, too, and I've got to go find out what it means. I have to, just like you have to go to Detroit. "

  "I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Dr. Eichelbaum said, "but where do you think you're goingi"

  "Kansas. " Sister saw the doctor's single eye blink. "a town called Matheson. It's on the Rand McNally road atlas. " She had disobeyed the doctor's orders and opened her bag long enough to stuff the road atlas down into it, next to the powder-covered circle of glass.

  "Do you know how far it is to Kansasi How are you going to get therei Walki"

  "That's right. "

  "You don't seem to understand this situation," the doctor said calmly; Sister recognized the tone of voice as the way the attendants had addressed the crazy women in the asylum. "The first wave of nuclear missiles hit every major city in this country," he explained. "The second wave hit air force and naval bases. The third wave hit the smaller cities and rural industries. Then the fourth wave hit every other damned thing that wasn't already burning. From what I've heard, there's a wasteland east and west of about a fifty-mile radius of this point. There's nothing but ruins, dead people and people who're wishing they were dead. and you want to walk to Kansasi Sure. The radiation would kill you before you made a hundred miles. "

  "I lived through the blast in Manhattan. So did artie. How come the radiation hasn't already killed usi"

  "Some people seem to be more resistant than others. It's a fluke. But that doesn't mean you can keep absorbing radiation and shrug it off. "

  "Doctor, if I was going to die from radiation, I'd be bones by now. and the air's full of the shit anyway - you know it as well as I do! The stuff's everywhere!"

  "The wind's carried it, yes," he admitted. "But you're wanting to walk right back into a supercontaminated area! Now, I don't know your reasons for wanting to go to - "

  "No, you don't," she said. "and you can't. So save your breath; I'm going to rest here for a while, and then I'm leaving. "

  Dr. Eichelbaum started to protest again; then he saw the determination in the woman's stare, and he knew there was nothing more to be said. Still, it was in his nature to have the last word: "You're crazy. " Then he turned and stalke
d away, figuring he had better things to do than trying to keep another fruitcake from committing suicide.

  "Kansas," artie Wisco said softly. "That's a long way from here. "

  "Yeah. I'm going to need a good pair of shoes. "

  Suddenly artie's eyes glistened with tears. He reached out and grasped Sister's hand, pressing it against his cheek. "God bless you," he said. "Oh. . . God bless you. "

  Sister leaned down and hugged him, and he kissed her cheek. She felt the wetness of a tear, and her own heart ached for him.

  "You're the finest lady I've ever known," he told her. "Next to my wife, I mean. "

  She kissed him, and then she straightened up again. Her eyes were wet, and she knew that in the years ahead she would think of him many times, and in her heart she would say a prayer for him. "You go to Detroit," she said. "You find her. You heari"

  "Yeah. I hear. " He nodded, his eyes as bright as new pennies.

  Sister turned away, and Paul Thorson followed her. Behind her, she heard Robot say, "Man, I had an uncle in Detroit. I was kinda thinkin' about. . . "

  Sister wound her way through the hospital and out the doors. She stood staring at the football field, which was covered with tents, cars and trucks. The sky was dull gray, heavy with clouds. Off to the right, in front of the high school and under a long red canopy, was a large bulletin board where people stuck messages and questions. The board was always jammed, and Sister had walked along it the day before, looking at the pleas scribbled on scratch paper: "Searching for daughter, Becky Rollins, age fourteen. Lost in Shenandoah area July 17. . . "; "anybody with information about the DiBattista family from Scranton please leave. . . "; "Looking for Reverend Bowden, First Presbyterian Church of Hazleton, services urgently needed. . . "

  Sister walked to the fence that surrounded the football field, set the duffel bag on the ground beside her and wound her fingers tightly through the mesh. Behind her came the sound of a woman wailing at the bulletin board, and Sister flinched. Oh, God, Sister thought, what have we donei

  "Kansas, huhi What the hell do you want to go way out there fori"

  Paul Thorson was beside her, leaning against the fence. There was a splint along the bridge of his broken nose. "Kansas," he prompted. "What's out therei"

  "a town called Matheson. I saw it in the glass ring, and I found it in the road atlas. That's where I'm going. "

  "Yeah, but whyi" He pulled up the collar of his battered leather jacket against the cold; he'd fought to keep the jacket as hard as Sister had fought for her duffel bag, and he wore it over the clean white coveralls.

  "Because. . . " She paused, and then she decided to tell him what she'd been thinking since she'd found the road atlas. "Because I feel like I'm being led toward something - or someone. I think the things I've been seeing in that glass are real. My dreamwalking has been to real places. I don't know why or how. Maybe the glass ring is like. . . I don't know, like an antenna or something. Or like radar, or a key to a door I never even knew existed. I think I'm being led for some reason, and I've got to go. "

  "Now you're talking like the lady who saw a monster with roaming eyeballs. "

  "I don't expect you to understand. I don't expect you to give a shit, and I didn't ask you. What are you doing hanging around me, anywayi Didn't they assign you a tenti"

  "Yeah, they did. I'm in with three other men. One of them cries all the time, and another one can't stop talking about baseball. I hate baseball. "

  "What don't you hate, Mr. Thorsoni"

  He shrugged and looked around, watching an elderly man and woman, both of their faces streaked with keloids, supporting each other as they staggered away from the bulletin board. "I don't hate being alone," he said finally. "I don't hate depending on myself. and I don't hate myself - though sometimes I don't like myself too much. I don't hate drinking. That's about it. "

  "Good for you. Well, I want to thank you for saving my life, and artie's, too. You took good care of us, and I appreciate that. So - " She stuck out her hand.

  But he didn't shake it. "What have you got that's worth a damni" he asked her.

  "Huhi"

  "Something valuable. Do you have anything worth tradingi"

  "Trading for whati"

  He nodded toward the vehicles parked on the field. She saw he was looking at a dented old army Jeep with a patched convertible top painted with camouflage colors. "You got anything in that bag you could trade for a Jeepi"

  "No. I don't - " and then she remembered that deep down in her duffel bag were the chunks of jewel-encrusted glass she'd picked up, along with the ring, in the ruins of Steuben Glass and Tiffany's. She'd transferred them from the Gucci bag and forgotten them.

  "You're going to need transportation," he said. "You can't walk from here to Kansas. and what are you going to do about gasoline, food and wateri You'll need a gun, matches, a good flashlight and warm clothes. Like I say, lady, what's out there is going to be like Dodge City and Dante's Inferno rolled into one. "

  "Maybe it will be. But why should you carei"

  "I don't. I'm just trying to warn you, that's all. "

  "I can take care of myself. "

  "Yeah, I'll bet you can. I'll bet you were the bitch of the ball. "

  "Hey!" somebody called. "Hey, I've been lookin' for you, lady!"

  approaching them was the tall man in the fleece-lined coat and Stroh's beer cap who had been on sentry duty and heard the gunshots. "Been lookin' for you," he said as he chewed a couple of sticks of gum. "Eichelbaum said you were around. "

  "You found me. What is iti"

  "Well," he said, "I kinda thought you was familiar the first time I seen you. He said you'd be carryin' a big leather bag, though, so I guess that's what threw me. "

  "What are you talking abouti"

  "It was two, three days before you folks got here. Fella just come ridin' along I-80 like he was out on a Sunday afternoon; he was on one of them French racin' bicycles with the handlebars slung low. Oh, I remember him, 'cause ol' Bobby Coates and me was up in the church tower on lookout, and Bobby punches me in the arm and says, 'Cleve, look at that shit!' Well, I looked and I seen it, but I still didn't believe it!"

  "Speak English, friend!" Paul snapped. "What was iti"

  "Oh, it was a man. Pedalin' that bike along I-80. But what was real weird was that he about had thirty or forty wolves followin' him, almost at his heels. Just paradin' along. and just before he gets to the top of the hill, this fella gets off his bike and turns around - and them wolves cower and slink like they was face-to-face with God. Then they broke and ran, and this fella walks his bike to the top of the hill. " Cleve shrugged, puzzlement scrawled across his bovine face. "Well, we went out to get him. Big fella. Husky. Hard to tell how old he was, though. He had white hair, but his face was young. anyway, he was wearin' a suit and tie and a gray raincoat. Didn't seem to be hurt or anything. He had on two-tone shoes. I remember that real well. Two-tone shoes. " Cleve grunted, shook his head and directed his gaze at Sister. "He asked about you, lady. asked if we'd seen a lady with a big leather bag. Said you was a relative, and that he had to find you. He seemed real eager and interested to find you, too. But me and Bobby didn't know nothin' about you, o' course, and this fella asked the other sentries, but they didn't know you, either. Said we'd take him into Homewood, give him a meal and shelter and let the Red Cross folks look him over. "

  Sister's heart had begun pounding, and she felt very cold. "What. . . happened to himi"

  "Oh, he went on. Thanked us kindly and said he had miles to go yet. Then he wished us well and pedaled on out of sight, headin' west. "

  "How'd you know this guy was looking for heri" Paul asked. "He could've been searching for some other woman carrying a leather bag!"

  "Oh no," Cleve answered, and smiled. "He described this lady here so well I could see her face right in my head. Just like a picture. That's why I thought you looked familiar at first, but I just this morni
n' put it together. See, you didn't have a leather bag, and that's what threw me. " He looked at Sister. "Did you know him, ma'ami"

  "Yes," she replied. "Oh, yes, I know him. Did he. . . give you his namei"

  "Hallmark. Darryl, Dal, Dave. . . somethin' like that. Well, he's gone west. Don't know what he'll find out there. Too bad you two missed each other so near. "

  "Yes. " Sister felt as if her ribs had been laced with steel bands. "Too bad. "

  Cleve tipped his cap and went on about his business. Sister felt as if she were about to faint, and she had to lean against the fence for support.

  "Who was hei" Paul asked - but the tone of his voice said that he was afraid to know.

  "I've got to go to Kansas," Sister said firmly. "I've got to follow what I've seen in the glass ring. He's not going to give up looking for me, because he wants the glass ring, too. He wants to destroy it, and I can't let him get his hands on it - or I'll never know what I'm supposed to find. Or who I'm looking for. "

  "You're going to need a gun. " Paul was spooked by both Cleve's story and the terror in Sister's eyes. Nobody human could've gotten through those wolves without a scratch, he thought. and on a French racing bicyclei Was it possible that everything she'd told him was truei "a real big gun," he added.

  "There's not one big enough. " She picked up her duffel bag and started walking away from the high school, up the hill toward the tent she'd been assigned to.

  Paul stood watching her go. Shit! he thought. What's going on herei That lady's got a ton of guts, but she's going to get herself slaughtered out there on old I-80! He thought she had about as much chance to get to Kansas alone as a Christian in a Cadillac had of getting to Heaven. He looked around at the hundreds of tents in the wooded hills, at the little campfires and burning lanterns that surrounded Homewood, and he shuddered.

  This damned town's got too many people in it, he thought. He couldn't stand having to live in a tent with three other men. Everywhere he turned, there were people. They were all over the place, and he knew that pretty soon he'd have to hit the road or go crazy. So why not go to Kansasi Why noti

  Because, he answered himself, we'll never get there.

  Soi Were you planning on living foreveri

  I can't let her go alone, he decided. Jesus Christ, I just can't!

  "Hey!" he called after her, but she kept going, didn't even look back. "Hey, maybe I'll help you get a Jeep! But that's all! Don't expect me to do anything else!"

  Sister kept walking, burdened with thought.

  "Okay, I'll help you get some food and water, too!" Paul told her. "But you're on your own with the gun and gasoline!"

  One step at a time, she was thinking. One step at a time gets you where you're going. and oh, Lord, I've got such a long way to go. . .

  "Okay, damn it! I'll help you!"

  Sister finally heard him. She turned toward Paul. "What'd you sayi"

  "I said I'd help you!" He shrugged and started walking toward her. "I might as well add another layer to the shitcake, huhi"

  "Yes," she said, and a smile played at the corners of her mouth. "You might as well. "

  Darkness came, and an icy rain fell on Homewood. In the woods the wolves howled, and the wind blew radiation across the land, and the world turned toward a new day.

  Forty-seven

  The bicycle's tires made a singing sound in the dark. Every so often they thumped over a corpse or veered around a wrecked car, but the legs that powered them had places to go.

  Two-toned shoes on the pedals, the man leaned forward and pumped along Interstate 80, about twelve miles east of the Ohio line. The ashes of Pittsburgh flecked his suit. He'd spent two days amid the ruins, had found a group of survivors there and looked into their minds for the face of the woman with the circle of glass. But it wasn't in any of their heads, and before he'd left he'd convinced them all that eating the burned meat of dead bodies was a cure for radiation poisoning. He'd even helped them start on the first one.

  Bon appetit, he thought. Below him, his legs pumped like pistons.

  Where are youi he wondered. You can't have come this far! Not yet! Unless you're running day and night because you know I'm on your ass.

  When the wolves had come out to first snap and then fawn at his heels, he'd thought they had gotten her, way back in eastern Pennsylvania. But if that were so, where was the leather bagi Her face hadn't been in the minds of the sentries back at Homewood, either, and if she'd been there, they would be the ones to know. So where was shei and - most importantly - where was the glass thingi

  He didn't like the idea of its being out there somewhere. Didn't know what it was, or why it had come to be, but whatever it was, he wanted to smash it beneath his shoes. Wanted to break it into tiny fragments and grind those pieces into the woman's face.

  Sister, he thought, and he sneered.

  His fingers clenched the handlebars. The glass circle had to be found. Had to be. This was his party now, and such things were not allowed. He didn't like the way the woman had looked at it - and he didn't like the way she'd fought for it, either. It gave her false hope. So it was a humane thing, really, to find the glass circle and smash it and make her eat the shards. There was no telling how many others she could infect if she wasn't stopped.

  Maybe she was already dead. Maybe one of her own kind had killed her and stolen her bag. Maybe, maybe, maybe. . .

  There were too many maybes. But no matter who had it, or where it was, he had to find the glass circle, because such a thing as that should not be, and when it had gone dark and cold in his grip he'd known it was reading his soul.

  "This is my party!" he shouted, and he drove over a dead man lying in his path.

  But there were so many places to search, so many highways to follow. She must have turned off I-80 before she'd reached Homewood. But why would shei He remembered her saying, "We keep going west. " and she would follow the line of least resistance, wouldn't shei Could she have taken shelter in one of the small hamlets between Jersey City and Homewoodi If so, that would mean she was behind him, not ahead.

  But everything and everyone was dead east of Homewood and that damned Red Cross station, righti

  He slowed down, passing a crumpled sign that said NEW CaSTLE NEXT LEFT. He was going to have to pull off and find a map somewhere, maybe retrace his route along another highway. Maybe she'd gone south and missed Homewood entirely. Maybe she was on a rural road somewhere right now, crouched by a fire and playing with that damned glass thing. Maybe, maybe, maybe. . .

  It was a big country. But he had time, he reasoned as he swung off I-80 at the New Castle exit. He had tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. It was his party now, and he made the rules.

  He'd find her. Oh, yes! Find her and shove that glass ring right up her. . .

  He realized the wind had died down. It wasn't blowing as hard as it had been even a few hours before. That was why he hadn't been able to search properly yet. He had trouble searching when the wind was so rough - but the wind was his friend, too, because it spread the party dust.

  He licked a finger with a cat-rough tongue and held it up. Yes, the wind had definitely weakened, though errant gusts still blew in his face and brought the smell of burned meat. It was time - past time - to get started.

  His mouth opened. Stretched, and began to stretch wider still, while his black eyes stared from a handsome face.

  a fly crawled out onto his lower lip. It was a shiny, ugly green, the kind of fly that might explode from the nostrils of a bloated corpse. It waited there, its iridescent wings twitching.

  another fly crawled from his mouth. Then a third, a fourth and a fifth. Six more scrabbled out and clung to his lower lip. a dozen others seeped out like a green tide. In another few seconds there were fifty or more flies around his mouth, a green froth that hummed and twitched with eager anticipation.

  "away," he whispered, and the movement of his
lips sent the first group of them into the air, their wings vibrating against the wind until they found their balance. Others took off, nine or ten at a time, and their formations flew to all points of the compass. They were part of him, and they lived down in the damp cellar of his soul where such things grew, and after they made their slow radius of two or three miles they'd return to him as if he were the center of the universe. and when they came back, he'd see what they'd seen - a fire burning, sparking off a ring of glass; or her face, asleep in a room where she thought she was safe. If they didn't find her tonight, there was always tomorrow. and the next day. Sooner or later, they would find a chink in a wall that brought him down on her, and this time he'd Watusi on her bones.

  His face was rigid, his eyes black holes in a face that would scare the moon. The last two things that resembled flies but were extensions of his ears and eyes pushed from between his lips and lifted off, turning toward the southeast.

  and still his two-toned shoes pumped the pedals, and the bike's tires sang, and the dead were ground under where they lay.

  BOOK

  TWO

  Forty-eight

  Snow tumbled from the sullen sky, sweeping across a narrow country road in what had been, seven years before, the state of Missouri.

  a piebald horse - old and swaybacked, but still strong-hearted and willing to work - pulled a small, crudely-built wagon, covered with a patched dark green canvas dome, that was a strange amalgam of Conestoga and U-Haul trailer. The wagon's frame was made of wood, but it had iron axles and rubber tires. The canvas dome was a two-man all-weather tent that had been stretched over curved wooden ribs. On each side of the canvas, painted in white, was the legend Travelin' Show; and, beneath that, smaller letters proclaimed Magic! Music! and Beat the Masked Mephisto!

  a couple of thick boards served as a seat and footrest for the wagon's driver, who sat draped in a heavy woolen coat that was beginning to come apart at the seams. He wore a cowboy hat, its brim heavy with ice and snow, and on his feet were battered old cowboy boots. The gloves on his hands were essential to ward off the stinging wind, and a woolen plaid scarf was wrapped around the lower part of his face; just his eyes - a shade between hazel and topaz - and a slice of rough, wrinkled skin were exposed to the elements.

  The wagon moved slowly across a snow-covered landscape, past black, dense forests stripped bare of leaves. On each side of the road, an occasional barn or farmhouse had collapsed under the weight of seven years of winter, and the only signs of life were black crows that pecked fitfully at the frozen earth.

  a few yards behind the wagon, a large figure in a long, billowing gray overcoat trudged along, booted feet crunching on snow. He kept his hands thrust into the pockets of his brown corduroy trousers, and his entire head was covered with a black ski mask, the eyes and mouth ringed with red. His shoulders were bent under the whiplash of wind, and his legs ached with the cold. about ten feet behind him, a terrier followed, its coat white with snow.

  I smell smoke, Rusty Weathers thought, and he narrowed his eyes to peer through the white curtain before him. Then the wind shifted direction, gnawing at him from another angle, and the smell of woodsmoke - if it had really been there at all - was gone. But in another few minutes he thought they must be getting near civilization; on the right, scrawled in red paint on the broad trunk of a leafless oak tree, was BURN YOUR DEaD.

  Signs like that were commonplace, usually announcing that they were coming into a settled area. There could be either a village ahead or a ghost town full of skeletons, depending on what the radiation had done.

  The wind shifted again, and Rusty caught that aroma of smoke. They were going up a gentle grade, Mule laboring as best he could but in no hurry. Rusty didn't push him. What was the usei If they could find shelter for the night, fine; if not, they'd make do somehow. Over the course of seven long years, they had learned how to improvise and use what they could find to the best advantage. The choice was simple; it was either survive or die, and many times Rusty Weathers had felt like giving up and lying down, but either Josh or Swan had kept him going with jokes or taunts - just as he had kept both of them alive over the years. They were a team that included Mule and Killer as well, and on the coldest nights when they'd had to sleep with minimal shelter, the warmth of the two animals had kept Rusty, Josh and Swan from freezing to death.

  after all, Rusty thought with a faint, grim smile beneath the plaid scarf, the show must go on!

  as they reached the top of the grade and started down on the winding road Rusty caught a yellow glint through the falling snow off to the right. The light was obscured by dead trees for a minute - but then there it was again, and Rusty felt sure it was the glint of a lantern or a fire. He knew calling to Josh was useless, both because of the wind and because Josh's hearing wasn't too good. He reined Mule in and pressed down with his boot a wooden lever that locked the front axle. Then he climbed down off the seat and went back to show Josh the light and tell him he was going to follow it.

  Josh nodded. Only one eye showed through the black ski mask. The other was obscured by a gray, scablike growth of flesh.

  Rusty climbed back onto the wagon's seat, released the brake and gave a gentle flick to the reins. Mule started off without hesitation, and Rusty figured he'd smelled the smoke and knew shelter might be near. another road, narrower yet and unpaved, curved to the right over snow-covered fields. The glint of light got stronger, and soon Rusty could make out a farmhouse ahead, light glowing through a window. Other outbuildings were set off beside the house, including a small barn. Rusty noted that the woods had been cut away from around the house in all directions, and hundreds of stumps stuck up through the snow. There was just one dead tree remaining, small and skinny, standing about thirty yards in front of the house. He smelled the aroma of burning wood and figured that the forest was being consumed in somebody's fireplace. But burning wood didn't smell the same as it had before the seventeenth of July, and radiation had seeped into the forests; the smoke had a chemical odor, like burning plastic. Rusty remembered the sweet aroma of clean logs in a fireplace, and he figured that particular scent was lost forever, just like the taste of clean water. Now all the water tasted skunky and left a film on the inside of the mouth; drinking water from melted snow - which was about all the remaining supply - brought on headaches, stomach pains and blurred vision if consumed in too large a dose. Fresh water, like from a well or a bottled supply, was as valuable now as any fine French wine in the world that used to be.

  Rusty pulled Mule up in front of the house and braked the wagon. His heart was beating harder. Here comes the tricky part, he thought. Plenty of times they'd been fired on when they stopped to ask for shelter, and Rusty carried the scar of a bullet crease across his left cheek.

  There was no movement from the house. Rusty reached back and partially unzipped the tent's flap. Within, distributed around the wagon so as to keep its weight balanced, was their meager total of supplies: a few plastic jugs of water, some cans of beans, a bag of charcoal briquettes, extra clothes and blankets, their sleeping bags and the old Martin acoustic guitar Rusty was teaching himself to play. Music always drew people, gave them something to break the monotony; in one town, a grateful woman had given them a chicken when Rusty had painstakingly picked out the chords of "Moon River" for her. He'd found the guitar and a pile of songbooks in the dead town of Sterling, Colorado.

  "Where are wei" the girl asked from the tent's interior. She'd been curled up in her sleeping bag, listening to the restless whine of the wind. Her speech was garbled, but when she spoke slowly and carefully Rusty could understand it.

  "We're at a house. Maybe we can use their barn for the night. " He glanced over to the red blanket that was wrapped around three rifles. a . 38 pistol and boxes of bullets lay in a shoe box within easy reach of his right hand. Like my old mama always told me, he thought, you've gotta fight fire with fire. He wanted to be ready for trouble, and he started to pi
ck up the . 38 to hide under his coat when he approached the door.

  Swan interrupted his thoughts by saying, "You're more likely to get shot if you take the gun. "

  He hesitated, recalling that he'd been carrying a rifle when that bullet had streaked across his cheek. "Yeah, I reckon so," he agreed. "Wish me luck. " He zipped the flap again and got down off the wagon, took a deep breath of wintry air and approached the house. Josh stood by the wagon, watching, and Killer relieved himself next to a stump.

  Rusty started to knock on the door, but as he raised his fist a slit opened in the door's center and the barrel of a rifle slid smoothly out to stare him in the face. Oh, shit, he thought, but his legs had locked and he stood helplessly.

  "Who are you and what do you wanti" a man's voice asked.

  Rusty lifted his hands. "Name's Rusty Weathers. Me and my two friends out there need a place to shelter before it gets too dark. I saw your light from the road, and I see you've got a barn, so I was wonderin' if - "

  "Where'd you come fromi"

  "West of here. We passed through Howes Mill and Bixby. "

  "ain't nothin' left of them towns. "

  "I know. Please, mister, all we want is a place to sleep. We've got a horse that sure could use a roof over his head. "

  "Take off that kerchief and lemme see your face. Who you tryin' to look likei Jesse Jamesi"

  Rusty did as the man told him. There was silence for a moment. "It's awful cold out here, mister," Rusty said. The silence stretched longer. Rusty could hear the man talking to someone else, but he couldn't make out what was being said. Then the rifle barrel was suddenly withdrawn into the house, and Rusty let his breath out in a white plume. The door was unbolted - several bolts were thrown back - and then it opened.

  a gaunt, hard-looking man - about sixty or so, with curly white hair and the untrimmed white beard of a hermit - stood before him, the rifle held at his side but still ready. The man's face was so tough and wrinkled it resembled carved stone, and his dark brown eyes moved from Rusty to the wagon. "What's that say on the side therei Travelin' Showi What in the name of Judas is thati"

  "Just what it says. We're. . . we're entertainers. "

  an elderly, white-haired woman in blue slacks and a heavy white sweater peered warily over the man's shoulder. "Entertainers," the man repeated, and he frowned as if he'd smelled something bad. His gaze came back to Rusty. "You entertainers got any foodi"

  "We've got some canned food. Beans and stuff. "

  "We've got a pot of coffee and a little bit of salt pork. Put your wagon in the barn and bring your beans. " Then he closed the door in Rusty's face.

  When Rusty had driven the wagon into the barn, he and Josh untied Mule's traces so the horse could get to a small pile of straw and some dried corncobs. Josh poured water into a pail for Mule and found a discarded Mason jar for Killer to drink water from. The barn was well constructed and kept the wind out, so neither animal would be in danger of freezing when the light went out and the real cold descended.

  "What do you thinki" Josh asked Rusty quietly. "Can she go ini"

  "I don't know. They seem okay, but a mite jittery. "

  "She can use the heat, if they've got a fire going. " Josh blew into his hands and bent over to massage his aching knees. "We can make them understand it's not contagious. "

  "We don't know it's not. "

  "You haven't caught it, have youi If it was contagious, you'd have caught it long before now, don't you thinki"

  Rusty nodded. "Yeah. But how are we gonna make them believe thati"

  The rear flap of the wagon's canvas dome was suddenly unzipped from the inside. Swan's mangled voice said from within, "I'll stay here. There's no need for me to scare anybody. "

  "They've got a fire in there," Josh told her, walking toward the rear of the wagon. Swan was standing up, crouched over and silhouetted by the dim lamplight. "I think it's all right if you go in. "

  "No, it's not. You can bring my food to me out here. It's better that way. "

  Josh looked up at her. She had a blanket around her shoulders and shrouding her head. In seven years, she had shot up to about five feet nine, gangly and long-limbed. It broke his heart that he knew she was right. If the people in that house were jittery, it was for the best that she stay here. "Okay," he said in a strangled voice. "I'll bring you out some food. " Then he turned away from the wagon before he had to scream.

  "Pass me down a few cans of those beans, will youi" Rusty asked her. She picked up Crybaby and tapped the cans with it, then moved over to pick up a couple. She put them into Rusty's hands.

  "Rusty, if they can spare some books, I sure would be grateful," she said. "anything'll do. "

  He nodded, amazed that she could still read.

  "We won't be long," Josh promised, and he followed Rusty out of the barn.

  When they had gone, Swan lowered the wooden tailgate and put a little stepladder down to the ground. Probing with the dowsing rod, she descended the ladder and walked to the barn door, her head and face still shrouded by the blanket. Killer walked along at her booted feet, tail wagging furiously, and barked for attention. His bark was not as sprightly as it had been seven years earlier, and age had taken the bounce out of the terrier's step.

  Swan paused, laid Crybaby aside and picked Killer up. Then she cracked the barn door open and cocked her head way over to the left, peering out through the falling snow. The farmhouse looked so warm, so inviting - but she knew it was best that she stay where she was. In the silence, her breathing sounded like an asthmatic rasp.

  Through the snow, she could make out that single remaining tree by the spill of light from the front window. Why just one treei she wondered. Why did he cut the rest of them down and leave that one standing alonei

  Killer strained up and licked into the darkness where her face was. She stood looking at that single tree for a minute longer, and then she closed the barn door, picked up Crybaby and probed her way over to Mule to rub his shoulders.

  In the farmhouse, a fire blazed in a stone hearth. Over the flames, a cast-iron pot of salt pork was bubbling in a vegetable broth. Both the stern-faced elderly man and his more timid wife flinched noticeably when Josh Hutchins followed Rusty through the front door. It was his size more than the mask that startled them, for, though he'd lost a lot of flabby weight in the last few years, he'd gained muscle and was still a formidable sight. Josh's hands were streaked with white pigment, and the elderly man stared uncomfortably at them until Josh stuck them in his pockets.

  "Here're the beans," Rusty said nervously, offering them to the man. He'd noted that the rifle leaned against the hearth, well within reach if the old man decided to go for it.

  The cans of beans were accepted, and the old gent gave them to the woman. She glanced nervously at Josh and then went back to the rear of the house.

  Rusty peeled off his gloves and coat, laid them over a chair and took his hat off. His hair had turned almost completely gray, and there were streaks of white at his temples, though he was only forty years old. His beard was ribboned with gray, the bullet scar a pale slash across his cheek. around his eyes were webs of deep cracks and wrinkles. He stood in front of the hearth, basking in its wonderful warmth. "Good fire you got here," he said. "Sure takes the chill off. "

  The old man was still staring at Josh. "You can take that coat and mask off, if you like. "

  Josh shrugged out of his coat. Underneath he wore two thick sweaters, one on top of the other. He made no move to take off the black ski mask.

  The old man walked closer to Josh, then abruptly stopped when he saw the gray growth obscuring the giant's right eye.

  "Josh is a wrestler," Rusty said quickly. "The Masked Mephisto - that's him! I'm a magician. See, we're a travelin' show. We go from town to town, and we perform for whatever people can spare to give us. Josh wrestles anybody who wants to take him on, and if the other fella gets Josh off his feet, the whol
e town gets a free show. "

  The old man nodded absently, his gaze riveted on Josh. The woman came in with the cans she'd opened and dumped their contents into the pot, then stirred the concoction with a wooden spoon. Finally, the old gent said, "Looks like somebody beat the ever-lovin' shit outta you, mister. Guess that town got a free show, huhi" He grunted and gave a high, cackling laugh. Rusty's nerves untensed somewhat; he didn't think there would be any gunplay today. "I'll fetch us a pot of coffee," the old man said, and he left the room.

  Josh went over to warm himself at the fire, and the woman scurried away from him as if he carried the plague. Not wanting to frighten her, he crossed the room and stood at the window, looking out at the sea of stumps and the single standing tree.

  "Name's Sylvester Moody," the old man said when he returned with a tray bearing some brown clay mugs. "Folks used to call me Sly, after that fella who made all them fightin' movies. " He set the tray down on a little pine wood table, then went to the mantel and picked up a thick asbestos glove; he put it on and reached into the fireplace, unhooking a scorched metal coffee pot from a nail driven into the rear wall. "Good and hot," he said, and he started to pour the black liquid into the cups. "Don't have no milk or sugar, so don't ask. " He nodded toward the woman. "This is my wife, Carla. She's kinda nervous around strangers. "

  Rusty took one of the hot cups and downed the coffee with pure pleasure, though the liquid was so strong it could've whipped Josh in a wrestling match.

  "Why one tree, Mr. Moodyi" Josh asked.

  "Huhi"

  Josh was still standing at the window. "Why'd you leave that onei Why not cut it down with the othersi"

  Sly Moody picked up a cup of coffee and took it over to the masked giant. He tried very hard not to stare at the white-splotched hand that accepted the cup. "I've lived in this house for near 'bout thirty-five years," he answered. "That's a long time to live in one house, on one piece of land, ain't iti Oh, I used to have a fine cornfield back that way. " He motioned toward the rear of the house. "Used to grow a little tobacco and some pole beans, and every year me and Jeanette would go out in the garden and. . . " He trailed off, blinked and glanced over at Carla, who was looking at him with wide, shocked eyes. "I'm sorry, darlin'," he said. "I mean, me and Carla would go out in the garden and bring back baskets of good vegetables. "

  The woman, seemingly satisfied, stopped stirring the pot and left the room.

  "Jeanette was my first wife," Sly explained in a hushed voice. "She passed on about two months after it happened. Then one day I was walkin' up the road to Ray Featherstone's place - about a mile from here, I guess - and I came across a car that had gone off the road and was half buried in a snowdrift. Well, there was a dead man with a blue face at the wheel, and next to him was a woman who was near 'bout dead. There was a gutted carcass of a French poodle in her lap, and she had a nail file gripped in her hand - and I don't want to tell you what she did to keep herself from freezin'. anyway, she was so crazy she didn't know anything, not even her own name or where she was from. I called her Carla, after the first girl I ever kissed. She just stayed, and now she thinks she's been livin' on this farm with me for thirty-five years. " He shook his head, his eyes dark and haunted. "Funny thing, too - that car was a Lincoln Continental, and when I found her she was decked out in diamonds and pearls. I put all that junk away in a shoe box and traded it for sacks of flour and bacon. I figure she didn't need to ever see 'em again. People came along and salvaged parts off the car, and by and by there was nothin' left. Better that way. "

  Carla returned with some bowls and began to spoon the stew into them.

  "Bad days," Sly Moody said softly, staring at the tree. Then his eyes began to clear, and he smiled faintly. "That there's my apple tree! Yessir! See, I used to have an apple orchard clear across that field. Used to bring in apples by the bushel - but after it happened and the trees died, I started cuttin' 'em down for firewood. You don't want to go too far into the forest for firewood, uh-uh! Ray Featherstone froze to death about a hundred yards from his own front door. " He paused for a moment and then sighed heavily. "I planted them apple trees with my own hands. Watched 'em grow, watched 'em burst with fruit. You know what today isi"

  "No," Josh said.

  "I keep a calendar. One mark for every day. Worn out a lot of pencils, too. Today is the twenty-sixth day of april. Springtime. " He smiled bitterly. "I've cut 'em all down but the one and thrown 'em in the fire piece by piece. But damned if I can put an axe to that last one. Damned if I can. "

  "Food's almost ready," Carla announced. She had a northern accent, decidedly different from Sly's languid Missouri drawl, "Come and get it. "