A laughing woman wearing a flimsy blue robe, her face swollen and lacerated, sat on a front porch and jeered at them as they passed. “You’re too late!” she shouted. “Everybody’s gone! You’re too late!” She was holding a pistol in her lap, and so they kept going. On another corner, a dead man with a purple face, his head hideously misshapen, leaned against a bus stop sign and grinned up at the sky, his hands locked around a business briefcase. It was in the coat pocket of this corpse that Doyle Halland had found the pack of Winstons and the butane lighter.
Everyone was, indeed, gone. A few corpses lay in front lawns or on curbs or draped over steps, but those who were still living and still halfway sane had fled from the radius of the holocaust. Sitting in front of the fire and smoking a dead man’s cigarette, Sister envisioned an exodus of suburbanites, frantically packing pillowcases and paper bags with food and everything they could carry as Manhattan melted beyond the Palisades. They had taken their children and abandoned their pets, fleeing westward before the black rain like an army of tramps and bag ladies. But they had left their blankets behind, because it was the middle of July. Nobody expected it to get cold. They just wanted to get away from the fire. Where were they going to run to, and where were they going to hide? The cold was going to catch them, and many of them would already be deep asleep in its embrace.
Behind her, the others were curled up on the floor, sleeping on sofa cushions and covered by rugs. Sister drew on the cigarette again and then looked at Doyle Halland’s craggy profile. He stared into the fire, a Winston between his lips, one long-fingered hand tentatively massaging his leg where the splinter was driven through. The man was damned tough, Sister thought; he’d never once asked to stop and rest his leg today, though the pain of walking had bled his face chalky.
“So what were you planning on doing?” Sister asked him. “Staying around that church forever?”
He hesitated a moment before he answered. “No,” he said. “Not forever. Just until ... I don’t know, just until someone came along who was going somewhere.”
“Why didn’t you leave with the other people?”
“I stayed to give the last rites to as many as I could. Within six hours of the blast, I’d done so many that I lost my voice. I couldn’t speak, and there were so many more dying people. They were begging me to save their souls. Begging me to get them into Heaven.” He glanced quickly at her and then away. He had gray eyes flecked with green. “Begging me,” he repeated softly. “And I couldn’t even speak, so I gave them the Sign of the Cross, and I ... I kissed them. I kissed them to sleep, and they all trusted me.” He drew on the cigarette, exhaled the smoke and watched it drift toward the fireplace. “St. Matthew’s has been my church for over twelve years. I kept coming back to it and walking through the ruins, trying to figure out what had happened. We had some lovely statues and stained-glass windows. Twelve years.” He slowly shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” Sister offered.
“Why should you be? You didn’t have anything to do with this. It’s just ... something that got out of control. Maybe nobody could’ve stopped it.” He glanced at her again, and this time his gaze lingered at the crusted wound in the hollow of her throat. “What’s that?” he asked her. “It looks almost like a crucifix.”
She touched it. “I used to wear a chain with a cross on it.”
“What happened?”
“Someone—” She stopped. How could she describe it? Even now her mind skittered away from the memory; it was not a safe thing to think about. “Someone took it from me,” she continued.
He nodded thoughtfully and leaked smoke from the corner of his mouth. Through the blue haze, his eyes searched hers. “Do you believe in God?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?” he asked quietly.
“I believe in God because someday Jesus is going to come and take everyone worthy up in the Rap—” No, she told herself. No. That was Sister Creep babbling about things she’d heard other bag ladies say. She paused, getting her thoughts in order, and then she said, “I believe in God because I’m alive, and I don’t think I could’ve made it this far by myself. I believe in God because I believe I will live to see another day.”
“You believe because you believe,” he said. “That doesn’t say much for logic, does it?”
“Are you saying you don’t believe?”
Doyle Halland smiled vacantly. The smile slowly slipped off his face. “Do you really think that God has His eye on you, lady? Do you think He really cares whether you live one more day or not? What singles you out from all those corpses we passed today? Didn’t God care about them?” He held the lighter with its initials in the palm of his hand. “What about Mr. RBR? Didn’t he go to church enough? Wasn’t he a good boy?”
“I don’t know if God has an eye on me or not,” Sister replied. “But I hope He does. I hope I’m important enough—that we’re all important enough. As for the dead ... maybe they were the lucky ones. I don’t know.”
“Maybe they were,” he agreed. He returned the lighter to his pocket. “I just don’t know what there is to live for anymore. Where are we going? Why are we going anywhere? I mean ... one place is as good as another to die in, isn’t it?”
“I’m not planning on dying anytime soon. I think Artie wants to get back to Detroit. I’ll go there with him.”
“And after that? If you make it as far as Detroit?”
She shrugged. “Like I say, I’m not planning on dying. I’ll keep going as long as I can walk.”
“No one plans on dying,” he said. “I used to be an optimist, a long time ago. I used to believe in miracles. But do you know what happened? I got older. And the world got meaner. I used to serve and believe in God with all my heart, with every ounce of faith in my body.” His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he were looking at something far beyond the fire. “As I say, that was a long time ago. I used to be an optimist ... now I suppose I’m an opportunist. I’m very good at judging which way the wind blows—and I’d have to say that now I judge God, or the power that we know as God, to be very, very weak. A dying candle, if you like, surrounded by darkness. And the darkness is closing in.” He sat without moving, just watching the fire burn.
“You don’t sound much like a priest.”
“I don’t feel much like one, either. I just feel ... like a worn-out man in a black suit with a stupid, dirty white collar. Does that shock you?”
“No. I don’t think I can be shocked anymore.”
“Good. Then that means you’re becoming less of an optimist too, doesn’t it?” He grunted. “I’m sorry. I guess I don’t sound like Spencer Tracy in Boys Town, do I? But those last rites I gave ... they fell out of my mouth like ashes, and I can’t get that damned taste out of my mouth.” His gaze slipped down to the bag at Sister’s side. “What’s that thing I saw you with last night? That glass thing?”
“It’s something I found on Fifth Avenue.”
“Oh. May I see it?”
Sister brought it out of her bag. The jewels trapped within the glass circle burst into blazing rainbow colors. The reflections danced on the walls of the room and striped both Sister’s and Doyle Halland’s faces. He drew in his breath, because it was the first time he’d really gotten a good look at it. His eyes widened, the colors sparkling in his pupils. He reached out to touch it but drew his hand back at the last second. “What is it?”
“Just glass and jewels, melted together. But ... last night, just before you came, this thing ... did something wonderful, something I still can’t explain.” She told him about Julia Castillo and being able to understand each other’s language when they were linked by the glass circle. He sat listening intently. “Beth said this thing’s magic. I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s pretty strange. Look at it pick up my heartbeat. And the way the thing glows—I don’t know what this is, but I’m sure as hell not going to throw it away.”
“A crown,” he said softly. “I heard Beth say it could be a crown
. It looks like a tiara, doesn’t it?”
“I guess it does. Not quite like the tiaras in the Tiffany windows, though. I mean ... it’s all crooked and weird-looking. I remember I wanted to give up. I wanted to die. And then I found this, and it made me think that ... I don’t know, it’s stupid, I guess.”
“Go on,” he urged.
“It made me think about sand,” Sister told him. “That sand is about the most worthless stuff in the world, yet look what sand can become in the right hands.” She ran her fingers over the velvet surface of the glass. “Even the most worthless thing in the world can be beautiful,” she said. “It just takes the right touch. But seeing this beautiful thing, and holding it in my hands, made me think I wasn’t so worthless, either. It made me want to get up off my ass and live. I used to be crazy, but after I found this thing ... I wasn’t so crazy anymore. Maybe part of me’s still crazy, I don’t know; but I want to believe that all the beauty in the world isn’t dead yet. I want to believe that beauty can be saved.”
“I haven’t seen very much beauty in the last few days,” he replied. “Except for that. You’re right. It is a very, very beautiful piece of junk.” He smiled faintly. “Or crown. Or whatever it is you choose to believe.”
Sister nodded and peered into the depths of the glass circle. Beneath the glass, the threads of precious metals flared like sparklers. The pulsing of a large, deep brown topaz caught her attention; she could sense Doyle Halland watching her, could hear the crackle of the fire and the sweep of the wind outside, but the brown topaz and its hypnotic rhythm—so soft, so steady—filled up her vision. Oh, she thought, what are you? What are you? What—
She blinked.
She was no longer holding the circle of glass.
And she was no longer sitting before the fire in the New Jersey house.
Wind swept around her, and she smelled dry, scorched earth and ... something else. What was it?
Yes. Now she knew. It was the odor of burned corn.
She was standing on a vast, flat plain, and the sky above her was a whirling mass of dirty gray clouds through which electric-blue streaks of lightning plunged. Charred cornstalks lay about her by the thousands—and the only feature on that awful wasteland was a large dome that looked like a grave about a hundred yards away.
I’m dreaming, she thought. I’m really sitting in New Jersey. This is a dreamscape—a picture in my mind, that’s all. I can wake up anytime I want to, and I’ll be back in New Jersey again.
She looked at the strange dome and wondered how far she could push the limits of this dream. If I take a step, she thought, will the whole thing fall to pieces like a movie set? She decided to find out, and she took a single step. The dreamscape remained intact. If this is a dream, she told herself, then, by God, I’m dreamwalking somewhere a long way from New Jersey, because I can feel that wind in my face!
She walked over the dry earth and cornstalks toward the dome; no dust plumed beneath her feet, and she had the sensation of drifting over the landscape like a ghost instead of actually walking, though she knew her legs were moving. As she neared the dome she saw it was a mass of dirt, thousands of burned cornstalks, pieces of wood and cinder blocks all jammed together. Nearby was a twisted thing of metal that might once have been a car, and another one lay ten or fifteen yards beyond the first. Other pieces of metal, wood and debris lay scattered around her: here was what appeared to be the nozzle from a gas pump, there was the burned lid of a suitcase. The rags of clothes—small clothes—were lying about. Sister walked— dreamwalked, she thought—past part of a wagon wheel half buried in the dirt, and there was the remnant of a sign that still held barely decipherable letters: P ... A ... W
She stopped about twenty yards from the gravelike dome. This is a funny thing to be dreaming about, she thought. I could be dreaming about a thick steak and an ice cream sundae.
Sister looked in all directions, saw nothing but desolation.
But no. Something on the ground caught her eye—a little figure of some kind—and she dreamwalked toward it.
A doll, she realized as she got nearer. A doll with a bit of blue fur still clinging to its body, and two plastic eyes with little black pupils that Sister knew would jiggle around if it was picked up. She stood over the doll. The thing was somehow familiar, and she thought of her own dead daughter perched in front of the TV set. Reruns of an old show for kids called “Sesame Street” had been one of her favorite programs.
And Sister remembered the child pointing gleefully at the screen and shouting: “Cooookies!”
The Cookie Monster. Yes. That’s who that was, lying there at her feet.
Something about that doll there on the desolate plain struck a note of terrible sadness in Sister’s heart. Where was the child to whom this doll belonged? Blown away with the wind? Or buried and lying dead under the earth?
She bent down to pick up the Cookie Monster doll.
And her hands went right through it—as if either the scene or she were made of smoke.
This is a dream, Sister thought. This is not real! This is a mirage inside my head, and I’m dreamwalking through it!
She stepped back from the doll. It was for the best that it remain there, in case the child who had lost it someday came back this way.
Sister squeezed her eyes shut. I want to go back now, she thought. I want to go back where I was, back far away from here. Far away. Far a—
“... for your thoughts.”
Sister was startled by the voice, which seemed to be whispered right into her ear. She looked to her side. Doyle Halland’s face hovered above her, caught between the firelight and the reflection of the jewels. “What?”
“I said, a penny for your thoughts. Where’d you go?”
Where indeed, Sister wondered. “Far away from here,” she said. Everything was as it had been before. The vision was gone, but Sister imagined she could still smell burned corn and feel that wind on her face.
The cigarette was burning down between her fingers. She took one last draw from it and then thumped it into the fireplace. She put the glass ring down into her bag again and held the bag close to her body. Behind her eyes, she could still clearly see the dome of dirt, the wagon wheel, the mangled remains of cars and the blue-furred Cookie Monster.
Where was I? she asked herself—and she had no answer.
“Where do we go in the morning?” Halland inquired.
“West,” she answered. “We keep going west. Maybe we’ll find a car with a key in the ignition tomorrow. Maybe we’ll find some other people. I don’t think we’ll have to worry much about food for a while. We can scavenge enough to eat as we go. I was never very fussy about my meals, anyway.” Water was still going to be a problem, though. The kitchen and bathroom faucets in this house were dry, and Sister figured that the shock waves had shattered water mains all over the metro area.
“Do you really think it’s going to be better anywhere else?” He lifted his burned eyebrows. “The wind’s going to throw radiation all over this country. If the blast and the fires and the radiation don’t finish people off, it’s going to be hunger, thirst and the cold. I’d say there’s nowhere to go after all, is there?”
Sister stared into the fire. “Like I say,” she said finally, “nobody has to go with me who doesn’t want to. I’m getting some sleep now. Good night.” She crawled over to where the others were huddled under the rugs, and she lay down between Artie and Beth and tried to find sleep while the wind shrieked beyond the walls.
Doyle Halland carefully touched the metal splinter in his leg. He sat slightly slumped forward, and his gaze ticked toward Sister and the bag she held so protectively. He grunted thoughtfully, smoked his cigarette down to the filter and tossed it into the fireplace. Then he positioned himself in a corner, facing Sister and the others, and he stared at them for perhaps a full five minutes, his eyes glittering in the gloom, before he leaned his head back and went to sleep sitting up.
26
IT BEGAN WI
TH A MANGLED voice calling from beyond the gymnasium’s barricaded door: “Colonel? Colonel Macklin?”
Macklin, on his knees in the dark, did not answer. Not far away, Roland Croninger clicked the safety off the Ingram gun, and he could hear Warner’s harsh breathing over to his right.
“We know you’re in the gym,” the voice continued. “We searched everywhere else. Got yourself a nice little fortress, don’t you?”
As soon as Roland had reported the incident at the cafeteria, they’d gone to work blocking the gym’s doorway with stones, cables and parts of broken-up Nautilus machines. The boy had had the good idea to scatter shards of glass out in the corridor, to cut the marauders up when they came creeping through the dark on their hands and knees. A moment before the voice, Macklin had heard curses and pained mutterings, and he knew the glass had done its job. In his left hand he held a makeshift weapon that had been part of a Nautilus Super Pullover machine—a curved metal bar about two feet long, with twelve inches of chain and a dangling, macelike sprocket at its business end.
“Is the boy in there?” the voice inquired. “I’m looking for you, boy. You really did a job on me, you little fucker.” And now Roland knew Schorr had escaped, but from the way he sounded the hospitality sergeant had lost half his mouth.
Teddybear Warner’s nerve shattered. “Go away! Leave us alone!”
Oh, shit, Macklin thought. Now they know they’ve got us!
There was a long silence. Then, “I’ve got some hungry people to feed, Colonel, sir. We know you’ve got a bagful of food in there. It’s not right for you to have it all, is it?” When Macklin didn’t reply, Schorr’s distorted voice roared, “Give us the food, you sonofabitch!”
Something gripped Macklin’s shoulder; it felt like a cold, hard claw digging into his skin. “More mouths, less food,” the Shadow Soldier whispered. “You know what it’s like to be hungry, don’t you? Remember the pit, back in Nam? Remember what you did to get that rice, mister?”
Macklin nodded. He did remember. Oh, yes, he did. He remembered knowing that he was going to die if he didn’t get more than one fourth of a small rice cake every time the Cong guards dropped one down, and he’d known the others—McGee, Ragsdale and Mississippi—could read their own tombstones, too. A man had a certain look in his eyes when he was pushed against the wall and stripped of his humanity; his entire face changed, as if it was a mask cracking open to show the face of the real beast within.
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