Stranger

by Simon Clark

  “Ben,” Zak broke in. “I think we should give them some privacy, don’t you?”

  Laughing, I shook my head. “Give me a minute to get on some clothes.”

  They backed out through the door, Zak resting the shotgun I’d mistaken for a club over his shoulder. Once the door closed, Michaela reached across to stroke my leg. “Well, if we intended to keep this relationship a secret I guess we’ve gone and blown it.”

  I smiled. “I’m pretty relaxed about that.”

  “Me, too.” She kissed me. “Don’t keep the guys waiting. I guess they want to hear what happened to us.” She looked down at my feet. “Looks as if you’re going to wind up wearing those pretty white sandals again.”

  “Aw, crap.”

  After Zak and Ben had heard about our experiences in the bunker, and after telling us that they were convinced we were raccoon meat (even though they had regularly checked the garage for our return), they carried us on the pillons of their bikes to the ruins of a strip mall. Then they set about fixing us up with replacement clothes from the stockpile they had tucked away in an old water tank (now dry as a bone.) Michaela kept my T-shirt but dumped the bunker green sweat pants in favor of shorts and sneakers. She found a denim jacket, but the temperature had climbed high enough for her to tie it ’round her waist. After going through a packing case full of shoes, boots and sneakers I hauled out a pair of brown work boots that fit perfectly. Zak went through plastic sacks crammed tight with coats, jackets and parkas.

  “Here,” he said, throwing a bundle to me. “It smells a bit ripe, but it should fit a big guy like you.”

  The leather jacket must have belonged to some biker who, I’d wager, had gone to the big Harley roundup in the sky by now. It smelled of gasoline and had become musty as hell from sitting in the bag for months on end, but it appeared in good shape, apart from some pale scuffs at the elbow where the long-gone biker had enjoyed a rumble or two in the past, or maybe just taken a roll on his bike. Painted on the back, surrounded by a starburst of studs, a Norse dragon’s head breathed fire.

  “It’s OK,” Zak told me. “I didn’t peel it off a fatbellied corpse. Boy found it hanging on a peg in a chapel around six months ago. If you throw it over a fence for a couple of hours it’ll soon freshen up.”

  For an hour or so the time was taken up preparing a meal from a few cans Zak carried in the pannier of the big Harley. Ben took the usual run on the dirt bike ’round the neighborhood to check to see whether any hornets were nearby. He came back to report the allclear, then we set about eating.

  They told us that Tony had moved the clan to a cluster of vacation cabins they’d found out in the hills. The place looked untouched by hornets. With luck they could spend the summer there before moving south for the winter. Once more the dark reality of life out here away from Sullivan struck me. Supplies were scarce. Hornets kept them moving from place to place. How many years could you keep living the life of a rootless refugee? What happened when the fuel ran out? What did they do when they couldn’t find spark plugs and tires for the bikes? There was only a limited amount of canned food to be picked out of the ruined buildings. When that went, what then?

  As I sat there watching them spoon food into their mouths my mind flew forward five or six years. I saw how it would be. There we were, half-walking, half-crawling through the snow. We were clad in rags. We were so starved our cheekbones cut their way out from inside our faces. One by one we were dropping into snow drifts. Our fingers were blackened from frostbite. Toes snapped off inside boots. One by one we were dying. And I saw this as clearly as I saw Zak scratch his bald head with the end of his spoon. As clearly as I watched Ben unlace his boots with those jittery fingers. I saw Michaela glance across at me and smile. And I saw her in five years’ time; she was staggering through that blizzard with a baby in her arms that was too cold and too hungry to even cry. I saw all that like it was a goddam vision from the Bible. That wasn’t imagination. That is what will happen. OK, OK, I wasn’t claiming supernatural second sight. Nothing like that. But if those people didn’t die in a snowstorm it would be something else. They’d be so worn down by exhaustion they’d die of infections. Or they’d drink contaminated water. Or they’d be caught by the bad guys. One way or another, the people sitting here with me had the clock ticking against them. Counting down the seconds until bad luck tore the life force out of them.

  I had to slam the plate of food down because suddenly it was choking me. A surge of blistering fury climbed up through my throat. I stood up, began pacing ’round the clearing, grinding my fist into my palm.

  Michaela looked up at me. “Greg, what’s wrong?”

  I looked at Zak and Ben. “These cabins you’ve taken everyone to: There’s clean water there?”

  “Sure.” Zak looked puzzled, wondering what had gotten into me.

  “There’s a deep well,” Ben said. “A big old one with a crank and bucket. It’s not going to dry up for years.”

  “Did you check whether it was clean?”

  “Clean?” Zak’s puzzled expression grew more perplexed.

  “What are you getting at, Greg?” Michaela looked puzzled, too.

  I looked into my cup. “Where did this water come from?”

  “A bottle we brought with us.” Zak nodded at empty plastic bottles lined up by a wall. “I was going to fill them here.”

  “But there’s no water main close by.”

  “No, but the last time we were here we found a well.”

  Michaela explained, “Most homes out here drew water from their own wells; that’s why we stayed. After all, the water mains in towns and cities failed months ago. And one thing we do need if we’re going to survive is a good supply of clean drinking water, otherwise— Greg? What’s wrong?”

  “Zak, show me the well.”

  “Now?”

  “Sure now; come on.”

  “OK, OK, but I don’t see the hurry.”

  “You will in a minute. Ben, you got a flashlight?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Bring it to the well.”

  Zak led the way to the backyard of a trashed motel, then along a path downhill. We’d only been walking a few seconds when he pointed to a steel hatch set beside the path. “Before the Fall the motel drew their water supply from there. There’s an electric pump under the hatch. Of course, that’s no good now.”

  “What do you use to get the water?”

  Zak shrugged, as if I was asking a bunch of stupid questions for the goddam stupid fun of it. “A bucket and a line. Lower it down—splash—haul it up with the water.”

  “When did you use this well last?”

  Michaela frowned. “What are you driving at, Greg?”

  “Got that flashlight, Ben?”

  “Here you go.” He handed it to me. “Zak, can you open the well cover?”

  Again he gave a mystified shrug. “Sure.” He reached down to the steel ring and easily hauled open the metal cover that was perhaps the size of a house door. “There, knock yourself out.” He grinned at the others, as if I’d got myself wrapped up in some idiotic obsession about well water.

  I flicked on the flashlight and shone it down the well shaft. About twenty feet down the water glinted in the light. I clicked my tongue. “See what I see?”

  They all looked. Ben recoiled, like something had burned his face. Michaela stepped back, swallowing. Zak looked a little longer, then sighed. “God . . . what a mess.”

  I looked down again. A man floated in the water. Decomposition gases had bloated arms and legs and face into a cartoonish figure with little piggy eyes and a black, puckered mouth. I checked for the characteristic death blow to the head. Yup; I could just see the head wound through molting corpse hair.

  “He’s been knocked on the head and thrown down the well,” I said, looking down at the corpse that bled its poisons into the water.

  “The murdering bastards.”

  “Yeah . . . but they murdered one of their own kind.”
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  “Hell, why on earth did they do that?”

  “Think about it. How do they get rid of our kind?” I snapped off the flashlight and nodded to Zak to drop the metal cover back down. “They can hunt us down and kill us. But that takes time, energy and manpower. Or they can starve us by taking all the food they can find. What they can’t carry they destroy. But . . .” I nodded down at the well. “The subtle way is to poison the water supply.”

  Michaela nodded. “They wrecked the main supply months ago. So now they’re poisoning the wells.”

  “Damn right.” Ben looked as if he’d just bitten into something rotten. “The quick way is to kill one of their own kind and drop him into the water.”

  “So they either finish us with cholera or typhoid . . . or they get lucky and infect us with the bug that’s swimming ’round in their own blood and we all turn Jumpy.” I shook my head. “They’re pushing us closer to extinction, guys.”

  “So we check the wells first,” Zak said. “They can’t find every well and spring, can they?”

  “Maybe not,” I agreed. “But they’ll find most in a year or so.” I tapped the metal hatch with the toe of my boot. “And I guess one adult corpse will crap out the drinking water for a good five years or more.”

  “We could boil it.”

  “ ’Course you could. But you’d have to boil every drop of water you used for drinking, cooking and washing.”

  “We’d manage.” Zak sounded defiant. “

  And you’d really want to drink something with chunks of rotting face and genitals floating in it?” I shrugged. “Be my guest.”

  Michaela folded her arms, her face tense. “So that’s why you asked about the well at the cabins?”

  “If our people drink water with one of those rot boys down the hole then they’re going to wind up sick, if not dead.”

  Michaela started to walk back to the bikes. “How far away to the cabins?”

  “About an hour’s ride.”

  I threw the flashlight back to Ben. “Ride up there and warn them about the well.”

  “There’s a chance it might still be all right. The place hadn’t been touched by hornets.”

  “It might be sweet as a nut,” I agreed. “But the hornets could be getting cute. They might be content with dropping a corpse down the well and leaving it to do their dirty work.”

  They started to walk back to the bikes but paused when they saw I’d squatted down by the fire.

  Ben looked back. “Greg? You’re coming, too?”

  “I’ll wait for you here.”

  “Why? We’ll be staying at the cabins.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t guarantee the water will be fresh. You’ve hardly any food. You’re low on ammunition.”

  Ben looked bemused. “Yeah, I know . . . but what do you suggest?”

  I shot him a smile that he must have read as crazed. “Well, old buddy, I’ve decided it’s high time we went back home to Sullivan.”

  Forty-four

  They were back within three hours. And when they saw I’d found one of their precious stores of gasoline—a niggardly thirty gallons stored in cans beneath a mound of motel debris—they were pissed—really pissed.

  Tony roared up first on the Harley in a cloud of swirling dust. He glared at the fuel cans lined up against the remains of the motel wall. There was no, “Hey great to see you, buddy . . . glad you made it back alive.” Instead: “What the fuck are you doing, man? Michaela told me you’re going back to Sullivan.”

  “That’s right?”

  “So, you’re running out on us, huh? Going back to a nice soft bed . . . man, you are a pile of shit, you know that?”

  “I need to go back.”

  “Yeah . . . need. You need to save your yellow neck.” Climbing off the bike, he rocked it back onto the stand. “And how the hell did you find that gas? That’s ours.”

  “I followed my nose. Look.” I pointed at one of the Jerry cans. “It’s leaking. I could smell it twenty paces away.”

  “What do you need all that gas for? There’s thirty gallons there.”

  “Twenty-five now. You stored it in cans that leaked.”

  “Hey, but we need that.”

  “But I need it more.”

  Tony’s hand went to the butt of his pistol. “There’s no way on earth we’re going to let you take what’s left of our gas so you can go running back to your soft, pussycat town.”

  I looked at him. “ ‘What’s left of our gas’?” I repeated his exact words. “You mean this is all you’ve got?”

  Tony looked uneasy, as if he’d let some secret slip. “Sure, we’ve got more gas. We’ve got a store up at the cabins.” He slapped the tank of the bike. “What do you think we run these on—morning mist?”

  “How much gas? Ten gallons? Fifteen?”

  “Enough, Valdiva.”

  By this time the others had killed their motors and had climbed off the bikes. Ben looked puzzled. Michaela and Zak were angry. They immediately replayed the conversation I’d just had with Tony. Why did I need the gas? It wasn’t my gas. It was theirs. Why was I scuttling back to Sullivan like a whipped puppy?

  Ben chipped in. “You’re crazy, Greg. You know what happened last time. They’ll lynch you if you go back there.”

  Michaela shook her head. “You rat. After last night . . . I mean, I thought we had something together. Now you’re leaving?”

  Tony spat. “He’s got a yellow streak up his back . . . this wide.” He held his hands apart.

  Disgusted, Zak swept his hat from his head to strike it against his thigh. “Go back to Sullivan, homeboy. But don’t expect a lift from us. And don’t think you can take that gas, because we—”

  “ ‘Because we need it,’ ” I mimicked. “I know.”

  “So what are—”

  “Just listen to me for one minute, OK?”

  Grudgingly they looked at each other, then Zak nodded. Michaela still glowered.

  “First answer some questions.”

  Zak sounded suspicious. “What kind of questions?”

  “How much gasoline do you have?”

  Michaela shrugged. “With what you’ve found around fifty gallons.”

  Tony added defiantly, “But we’ll find more.”

  “OK. Where?”

  “We’re good at finding supplies.”

  “Yeah.” Zak nodded. “See for yourself. We’ve done all right so far.”

  “How much ammo have you got left?”

  They shrugged.

  “OK, don’t give me an audit down to the last shotgun shell,” I said. “Give me an approximate figure.”

  “OK, OK.” Michaela held up her hands. “We have around a hundred shotgun shells. Maybe three hundred rifle rounds and a few dozen rounds for handguns.”

  “That’s not much, is it? Not if you’re going to keep twenty people alive over the next few months.”

  “Like I said”—Tony rested his hand on the pistol butt where he’d pushed it into his belt—“we can find more.”

  “But where? The towns are picked clean.”

  “We’ll do it.”

  I moved in close to meet him eye to eye. “Tell me: When was the last time you found some gas? Some ammunition?”

  Tony glared back. “Two weeks ago. A stack of rifle shells.”

  Michaela sighed. There was a defeated look in her eye. “Greg, it was three weeks ago, and we found three rifle shells in the trunk of a wrecked car.”

  “Three shells won’t win a war, will they?”

  “Michaela.” Tony glared at her as if telling her to keep her mouth shut.

  “What have we got to hide, Tony? It’s looking like crap. We haven’t found any gas in a month. In a couple of weeks we’ll have to dump the bikes and go on foot.”

  “We can manage, Michaela. We got by in the past.”

  “ ‘We got by in the past’?” I echoed. Boy, oh boy, this time I let them have it. Words came out like machinegun bullets. “What good is
that? Don’t you see? You can’t live like this, grubbing for cans of beans in ruins and running from place to place. Listen to me; it’s time to stop living like hobos. It’s time to start living like Vikings!”

  “Like Vikings?” Tony gave a dismissive laugh. “Yeah. What do you suggest, Valdiva?”

  I took a deep breath. “Do you have any dynamite?”

  “Dynamite! Hell no.”

  “What do we need explosives for, Greg?” Michaela asked, astonished. “We carry what’s essential. Food. Ammunition.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “And what’s this talk of Vikings?” Ben asked, be-mused. “What do Vikings have to do with anything?”

  “Because, Ben, we’re going to start taking what we need to survive.”

  Zak scratched his bald head. “Well, Valdiva, you talk the talk, I’ll grant you that. But how we going to take what we need?”

  I looked ’round at the faces that were either puzzled or downright hostile. Only Michaela’s had softened. I sensed she trusted me to offer some kind of hope. Jesus, I prayed I could. “Listen: This is the plan. There’s a Jeep back at the garage I’ve been staying in. All it needs is gas. Once I have a full tank I drive to Sullivan. There, I’m going to pick up explosives. I’m sure they’ve got dynamite and detonators, haven’t they, Ben?”

  “Sure, there’s a place that supplied the quarries, but—”

  “Once I’ve got the dynamite we open up that nuclear bunker. There’s a crazy guy there who’s sitting on enough gasoline to float a ship. There’ll be military hardware. Mortars. Rocket launchers. Grenades. Machine guns. And probably a million rounds of ammunition. See? We’re going to start living like Vikings. We’re transforming ourselves from losers to winners. We’re taking control of our lives again.”

  Michaela’s face lit up. Zak nodded, a grin breaking across his face. Even Tony’s expression changed to one of excitement.

  Only Ben looked worried. “Greg, that’s a great idea. But everyone in Sullivan will hate our guts. How do you propose to get them to hand over dynamite? All you’re gonna get is a bullet between the eyes.”