Ashes

by Haunted Computer Books

  Lucas almost smiled at that one. "Cows likely went over with the sheep. Bet the darkies changed their tune a little by now."

  "Them what's left," Camp said, punctuating the sentence with tobacco spit.

  They walked on as the sun sank lower and the landscape became a little rougher. A few hills rolled in the distance, dotted with scrub. They came to a creek, and Lucas pointed out the hoofprints in the muddy banks.

  They stopped for a drink and to rest a few minutes, then continued. The sun was an hour from dark when they reached the base of a steep mesa. The cliffs were eroded from centuries of wind and weather. A small group of wooden humpies huddled in the shadow of the mesa.

  "Wadanetta, dead ahead," Camp said. They broke into a jog. When they were a hundred yards away from the town, they shouted. Their voices echoed off the stone slopes. Nobody came from the gray buildings to greet them.

  "Anybody here?" Lucas yelled as they reached a two-story building that looked like a knock shop. Camp pushed open the door. The parlor was empty, a table knocked over, playing cards spread across the floor. A piano sat in one corner, with a cracked mug on top.

  They went inside, and Lucas yelled again. The only answer was the creaking of wood as a sunset wind arose. "Thought you said blokes was here," Lucas said.

  "Said I heared it. Hearing and knowing is different things."

  Camp walked around the bar and knocked on one of the wooden kegs that lined the shelf. "They left some grog."

  He grabbed a mug and drew it full. In the fading light, the lager looked like piss, flat and cloudy. Camp wrinkled his nose and took a drink without bothering to remove his chaw. He swished the ale around and swallowed.

  "Any good?" Lucas asked, eyeing the stairs, expecting some grazed-over jackaroo to come stumbling down the stairs with his pants around his ankles.

  "Nope," said Camp, but he quickly drained the rest of his glass and refilled it.

  Lucas pulled a stool out from the bar and sat down. He thought about trying the ale, but decided against it. Night was nearly here, and he didn't want to be slowed down by drunkenness. "What do we do for a bite?"

  "Well, we can't eat no mutton, that's for damned sure."

  "I've been eating kangaroo. Hasn't karked me yet, but I used up the last of it a couple of days ago. Thought about killing a rabbit, but it's hard to bang one with a pistol."

  "How do you know rabbits don't got it, same as the sheep?"

  "Rabbits haven't been eating people."

  "Least as far as you know."

  Lucas had to nod in agreement.

  Camp gulped down another mugful and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Nearly time."

  Lucas nodded again. "Saw a general store up the street. Might have some rifles and ammo."

  Camp pulled another ale, the yeasty stench filling the room. Or maybe it was Camp himself that stank. "You go ahead. I'm aiming to knock back one or two more, to get my nerve up."

  Lucas got off the stool and went outside, pausing on the porch to make sure no sheep had strayed from the herd. The sun was almost gone now, the west streaked with purple and pink rags. It had been three weeks since Lucas had last watched a sunset without dread crawling through his bones. Three weeks since a sheep was just a sheep. Things go full-on berko real fast.

  He went up the street, his hand on the butt of his revolver. Something rustled in an alley to his left. He spun and drew, his hand trembling. A crumpled hat blew out into the street. He sagged in relief.

  He shook like a blue-assed fly in a windstorm. He pulled the brim of his hat low over his eyes, glad no one was around to see him like this. Word got around fast when a fellow broke down.

  A small rise of land to the left was bathed in the dying sunlight. A few wooden crosses still stood askew, but the picket fence marking off the cemetery had been trampled into ruin. Wadanetta's boneyard had been plowed up by gut-hungry sheep. Lucas pictured a whole herd of them, pawing and snorting to bust into those pine boxes and get at the goods inside.

  He hurried to the general store. It was just as desolate as the knock shop had been. Cobwebs hung on the shelves, but he found a few blankets and a box of bullets for the revolver. All the rifles were gone. Some money was left in the register. Lucas didn't take it.

  Camp staggered into the store, his Remington over his shoulder. "Could have told you they'd be no rifles," he said, his words slurred. "I took the last one."

  "Bloody hell? You been here before?"

  "We'd best get over to the jail. Sheep smell us, they'll be going crazy. They might be able to climb stairs, I don't know. But they sure as hell can't bust through steel bars."

  They went into the street again, Camp leading the way. A soft bleating swept in from across the plateau. It was followed by another, then more of the man-eating sheep raised their voices.

  "Ever wonder who's riding herd on them things?" Camp asked, not slowing.

  Lucas looked behind them and saw a dust cloud roiling on the horizon. Appeared to be several hundred of them. The drum of hoofbeats filled the air. He hoped the jail was well-built.

  "I mean, you figure it's the devil or something?" Camp said, belching. "A sister from Lady of the Faith Church told me them which don't repent would have the devil to pay someday. Figure maybe someday's finally here?"

  "I don't deadcert know," Lucas said, his voice thin from fright. Darkness was settling like molasses, clogging Lucas' lungs and tightening his throat. He saw the jail and almost wept in relief. It was brick, squat, and solid, with iron bars across the windows.

  Camp pulled a key from his pocket and opened the thick wooden door. A pungent odor struck Lucas like a fist. The stink reminded him of something, but the hoofbeats were so much louder now that they filled his senses, bounced around in his skull, drove every thought from his brain but the thought of sanctuary.

  He stumbled into the dark room and Camp closed the door behind them. Camp dropped a crossbar into place, then shook it in its hasps. "Safe as milk," he said. "Let's see them woolly-eyed buggers bust into here."

  Lucas bumped into a table. He ran his hands over its surface. Something fell to the floor and glass shattered. Flies buzzed around his head.

  "Damn," Camp said. "You busted my lamp."

  The stench was stronger, so thick that Lucas could barely breathe. The herd was closer now, stampeding into Wadanetta, a hundred haunted bahs bleating from bottomless mouths.

  Camp's voice came from somewhere near the wall. "I like to watch them come in," he said. "They's something lovely about it. 'Specially when the moon's up, and all them eyes are sparkling."

  Lucas put his hands over his ears, squeezing tight to drive out the noises of the stampede. He thought of all the people who had filled those bellies, who had been stomped and ground into haggis, who had served as leg of lamb for this devil's herd. The first of the horns rattled off the brick. The building shook, but Camp laughed.

  "They can't get us in here," the old man shouted over the din. "You'd figure the dumb bastards would quit trying. But night after night they come back. Guess I ought to quit encouraging them."

  A match flared. Camp's face showed in the orange circle of light. He was beside the window, grinning, his rotted teeth like mossy tombstones. The Remington was pointed at Lucas' heart.

  Lucas forgot about the sheep. He'd had guns pointed at him a time or two before. But never like this, with his guard so far down. He was in no shape for a quick draw.

  "Don't try it," Camp said. "You might be fast, maybe not, but you're not likely faster than a bullet."

  Horn and snout hammered against the window bars. Camp put the bobbing matchlight to the end of a candle. The room grew a little brighter, and Lucas saw what stank so badly.

  Naked bodies, three of them, hanging upside down inside one of the cells. Chains were wrapped around their ankles. One of them might have been a woman, judging from the swells in the red rags of flesh, but Lucas couldn't be sure. His heartbeat matched the rumble of the herd outside.

&n
bsp; "Remember out there, when I rescued you, and I said I don't like to see a man get ate up?" Camp said, his voice as low and sinister as that of the sheep. "Don't like to let good meat go to waste, seeing as how it's getting so scarce and all. This free-range hunting is hell on an old man like me."

  Camp sat on a chair, the rifle barrel steady. Lucas held his hands apart. He could see the tabletop, scarred and pitted, a dark and thick liquid on it. A nun's habit was folded over the back of a chair.

  "Our Sister of the Lady of the Faith," Camp said, picking at his teeth with a thumbnail. "Mighty good eating. Figure it's the pureness of the flesh what makes it so sweet."

  Lucas wouldn't have minded going down from a bullet. In fact, he'd always suspected that's the way he'd meet the Lord. Beat getting eaten by a Merino any day. But to know that this greasy bugger would be carving him into dinner portions was more than he could stomach.

  "Hell, it's the way of things," Camp said, tilting back in his chair. "People eat sheep, then sheep eat people. What's so wrong about people eating people?"

  Something slammed against the door, and two horn tips poked from the wood beneath the crossbar. Camp turned to look, and Lucas knew it was time. He rolled to his left, filling his hand with his oldest friend the revolver, and squeezed off three rounds without thinking. Camp gave a gasp of pain and the Remington clattered to the floor.

  Lucas lifted himself up and blew the smoke from the revolver's barrel. Camp slumped in the chair, holes in his chest. The scent of fresh blood aroused the herd, and heads butted frantically against the brick walls. Camp's eyes flickered, the light in them dying like the last stars of morning.

  Lucas wondered how long the herd would mill around. Daylight usually made them get scarce, but one or two of the orneriest would probably hang around. Maybe they'd get rewarded for their trouble, if they just happened to find some fresh meat out on the porch. One thing for sure, Camp would be nothing but gristle and rawhide. Hardly worth fooling with.

  Lucas sat at the table. He'd heard that other people had turned to it, but the thought had sickened him. Until he'd run out of kangaroo. Hardly seemed unreasonable anymore, even for a man who followed the Lord. Camp's logic of the food chain fit right in with these balls-up times. And his stomach was squealing with all the intensity of a fresh-branded sheep.

  Camp had been a fine butcher. The meat was thin and tender. Lucas stuck Camp's butcher knife into a slice and held it under his nose, checking its scent. Hell, not much different from mutton, when you got right down to it. His belly ached from need, and he wondered if that's how the sheep felt.

  He chewed thoughtfully. The taste wasn't worth savoring, but it wasn't so terrible that he spat it out. He speared a second piece and held it up to the candlelight.

  "You know, Sister," he addressed the meat. "Maybe you were right. Someday might just be here after all."

  Maybe the Good Book was right, too, that the meek were busy inheriting the earth at this very moment. Lucas figured it would be humble and proper to offer up a word of prayerful thanks. He bowed his head in silence, then continued with the meal that the Holy Father had provided.

  Outside, in the dark ghost town of Wadanetta, the chorus of sheep voiced its eternal hunger.

  ###

  THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE

  Silence wasn't golden, Katie thought. If silence were any metal, it would be lead: gray, heavy, toxic after prolonged exposure.

  Silence weighed upon her in the house, even with the television in the living room blasting a Dakota-Madison-Dirk love triangle, even with the radio upstairs tuned to New York's big-block classic rock, even with the windows open to invite the hum and roar from the street outside. Even with all that noise, Katie heard only the silence. Especially in the one room.

  The room she had painted sky blue and world green. The one where tiny clothes, blankets, and oversized books lined the shelves. Wooden blocks had stood stacked in the corner, bought because Katie herself had wooden blocks as a child. She'd placed a special order for them. Most of the toys were plastic these days. Cheaper, more disposable.

  Safer.

  For the third time that morning, she switched on the monitor system that Peter had installed. A little bit of static leaked from the speaker. She turned her head so that her ear would be closer. Too much silence.

  Stop it, Katie. You know you shouldn't be doing this to yourself.

  Of course she should know it. That's all she heard lately. The only voices that broke through the silence were those saying, "You shouldn't be doing this to yourself." Or else the flip side of that particular little greatest hit, a remake of an old standard, "Just put it behind you and move on."

  Peter said those things. Katie's mom chimed in as well. So did the doctors, the first one with a droopy mustache who looked as if he were into self-medication, the next an anorexic analyst who was much too desperate to find a crack in Katie's armor.

  But the loudest voice of all was her own. That unspoken voice that led the Shouldn't-Be chorus. The voice that could never scream away the silence. The voice that bled and cried and sang sad, tuneless songs.

  She clicked the monitor off. She hadn't really expected to hear anything. She knew better. She was only testing herself, making sure that it was true, that she was utterly and forever destroyed.

  I feel FAIRLY destroyed. Perhaps I'm as far as QUITE. But UTTERLY, hmm, I think I have miles to go before I reach an adverb of such extremity and finality.

  No. “Utterly” wasn't an adverb. It was a noun, a state of existence, a land of bleak cliffs and dark waters. And she knew how to enter that land.

  She headed for the stairs. One step up at a time. Slowly. Her legs knew the routine. How many trips over the past three weeks? A hundred? More?

  She reached the hall, then the first door on the left. Peter had closed it tightly this morning on his way to work. Peter kept telling her to stop leaving the door open at night. But Katie had never left the door open, not since—

  Leaving the door open would fall under the category of utterly.And Katie wasn't utterly.At least not yet. She touched the door handle.

  It was cold. Ice cold, grave cold, as cold as a cheek when—

  You shouldn't be doing this to yourself.

  But she already was. She turned the knob, the sound of the latch like an avalanche in the hush of a snowstorm. The door swung inward. Peter had oiled the hinges, because he said nothing woke a sleeping baby faster than squeaky hinges.

  The room was still too blue, still far too verdant. Maybe she should slap on another coat, something suitably dismal and drab. This wasn't a room of air and life. This was a room of silence.

  Because silence crowded this room like death crowded a coffin. Even though Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" jittered forth from the bedroom radio across the hall, even though the soap opera's music director was sustaining a tense organ chord, even though Katie's heart was rivaling John Bonham's bass beat, this room was owned by silence. The absence of sound hit Katie like a tidal wave, slapped her about the face, crushed the wind from her lungs. It smothered her.

  It accused her.

  She could still see the impressions that the four crib legs had made in the carpet. Peter had taken apart the crib while she was still in the hospital, trundled it off to some charity. He'd wanted to remove as many reminders as possible, so she could more quickly forget. But the one thing he couldn't remove was the memory that was burned into her eyes.

  And any time, like now, that she cared to try for utterly, all she had to do was pull the vision from somewhere behind her eyelids, rummage in that dark mental closet with its too-flimsy lock. All those nights of coming in this room, bending over, smiling in anticipation of that sinless face with its red cheeks, sniffing to see if the diaper were a one or a two, reaching to feel the small warmth.

  And then the rest of it.

  Amanda pale. Amanda's skin far too cool. Amanda not waking, ever.

  Katie blinked away the memory and left the room, so blin
ded by tears that she nearly ran into the doorjamb. She closed the door behind her, softly, because silence was golden and sleeping babies didn't cry. Her tears hadn't dried by the time Peter came home.

  He took one look at her, then set his briefcase by the door as if it were fireman's gear and he might have to douse the flames of a stock run. "You were in there again, weren't you?"

  She stared ahead, thanking God for television. The greatest invention ever for avoiding people's eyes. Now if only the couch would swallow her.

  "I'm going to buy a damned deadbolt for that room," he said, going straight to the kitchen for the martini waiting in the freezer. Mixed in the morning to brace himself for the effort of balancing vermouth and gin all evening. He made his usual trek from the refrigerator to the computer, sat down, and was booted up before he spoke again.

  "You shouldn't be doing this to yourself," he said.

  Julia debated thumbing up the volume on the television remote. No. That would only make him yell louder. Let him lose himself in his online trading.

  "How was your day?" she asked.

  "Somewhere between suicide and murder," he said. "The tech stocks fell off this afternoon. Had clients reaming out my ear over the phone."

  "They can't blame you for things that are out of your control," she said. She didn't understand how the whole system worked, people trading bits of paper and hope, all of it seeming remote from the real world and money.

  "Yeah, but they pay me to know," Peter said, the martini already two-thirds vanished, his fingers going from keyboard to mouse and back again. "Any idiot can guess or play a hunch. But I'm supposed to outperform the market."

  "I'm going to paint the nursery."

  "Damn. SofTech dropped another three points."

  Peter used to bring Amanda down in the mornings, have her at his feet while he caught up on the overnight trading in Japan. He would let Katie have an extra half-hour's sleep. But the moment Amanda started crying, Peter would hustle her up the stairs, drop her between Katie's breasts, and head back to the computer. "Can't concentrate with her making that racket," was one of his favorite sayings.