“Why don’t y’all come on down with me to the basement. Seein’ as it’s a special night and all, I might break out the good stuff.”
He was already lumbering through the door into a hall-way. Cass looked around the room; in the faint moonlight from the window, she saw the sort of simple furnishings that looked like they might have been there for several generations: a simple wood-post bed, dresser, upholstered chair. The outline of pictures on the walls. A mirror over the dresser casting a ghostly reflection.
“You’ll want to hold on to the rail,” Lyle called over his shoulder. “I’ve cleared out all the rugs and whatnot, so’s I could get around better at night, but it wouldn’t do to go breakin’ your neck after you just escaped them critters.”
“Funny guy,” Smoke muttered as they followed him down the stairs. Cass held tight to the rail, placing her feet on each step with care. She’d traveled at night for weeks now, but there had usually been enough moon or starlight that she could walk with a reasonable measure of confidence. Occasionally she’d trip over some unseen root or rock, but she was fit and nimble and hadn’t suffered anything worse than bruises and a cut or two.
Here, though, inside the house, the dark was absolute except for the thinnest slivers of moonlight between the boards on the windows. As they descended to the first floor, there was no stray light at all. Cass guessed Lyle had pulled the drapes tight-she’d do the same, if it was her, to avoid seeing the Beaters when they came shuffling around.
“Down the hall here,” Lyle said. “And then there’s the basement stairs to the right. Watch out, they ain’t got risers. You don’t want to go poking a foot through and breaking your ankle. Come on in and shut the door behind you and I’ll spark up a light.”
Cass followed behind Smoke, slipping her hand into his back pocket. The gesture felt too intimate, almost presumptuous, but she needed to hold on to something. She could feel his warmth through the denim. With her free hand she felt along the wall, brushing her fingers against wallpaper, a door frame, the entrance to the basement stairs.
She was the last onto the landing, and she closed the door tight behind them. Lyle snapped on a flashlight and Cass blinked against the sudden pool of thin light that illuminated rickety wooden stairs, an unfinished basement, and Lyle himself at the bottom, busying himself at a card table loaded with supplies. His face was obscured by a length of thick brown hair collected into a loose ponytail at his neck. As she made her way down the rest of the stairs he looked up and she saw a face with a full beard and kind eyes set in a network of wrinkles that made his smile look almost mischievous.
He set the flashlight upright on the table so it pointed up at the ceiling, filling the room with a ghostly light that cast crazy shadows on the unfinished concrete walls. He held out a hand, first to Smoke, who shook it without hesitation, and then to Cass. She was surprised at how careful his touch was, how soft his palm.
“Now this ain’t exactly the Ritz,” Lyle said, “but I got it set up comfy enough, I guess. Ain’t any light can get out of here and these walls are twelve inches thick so those nasty fuckers won’t give us any trouble tonight. When they can’t smell you, they just wander off like the dumbasses they are.”
He dragged an old upholstered rocker closer to the light and then went to a makeshift storage unit constructed of plywood and concrete blocks and pushed objects around, talking the whole time.
“Cass, honey, you sit yourself down in the nice chair. Us fellas can sit our asses on the fold-ups. I know they’re back here somewhere…my wife used to have this place organized like the fuckin’ Library of Congress or something. Probably would of alphabetized it if I let her…”
Cass considered refusing their host’s chair, but it looked so comfortable and she was still shaking so badly from their narrow escape that she collapsed into it gratefully. It smelled of aftershave and tobacco, and the well-worn cushions sank under her tired body.
“Okay, here we go,” Lyle said, coming back with a pair of folding metal chairs. “Sorry, Smoke, buddy, I’d go up to the kitchen for a couple of nicer chairs but I don’t see no sense getting our friends out there all riled up again.”
“They can hear you through the walls up there?” Cass asked.
“No, ma’am, I don’t think so, but you see, they know I’m in here. Me and Travers across the street-why, ever since they figured out we were here it’s just about been driving them nuts. They come around every day, whole mobs of ’em, wander back and forth between our places, moaning and carrying on like a bunch of horny teenagers going on a panty raid. Oh. Excuse me, Cass, I don’t mean to be crude, it’s just been a while since I’ve had any need of, uh, whadda you wanna call it, social skills.” He laughed, a rich, booming sound, and reached for a Tupperware box on a nearby shelf.
“It’s okay,” Cass said. “I don’t mind.”
Smoke took the seat next to her, lowering himself with care. Cass had noticed that all his motions were deliberate. He struck her as a careful man, one who did little without forethought. She wondered if that was a result of the work he’d done Before, or if he had always been that way.
“So they’ve been coming around for a while?” Smoke asked. “You been here the whole time?”
“Yes, sir, I hunkered down when the shit hit the fan and I ain’t moved. Got nothing against folks who want to band together, but I guess you can say I’m a natural loner. Them Rebuilders-you heard about them?-I got no need to get myself bossed around, you know?”
Smoke’s expression tightened. “How do you know we’re not Rebuilders?”
Lyle barked out a laugh. “No offense, boss, but Rebuilders don’t go out without some serious firepower. They ain’t fearless…they’re just well armed. You were a Rebuilder, you woulda shot those fuckers and then held me up for good measure.”
“Shooting wouldn’t have done much good, not even if I was a better shot than I am-there must have been a dozen of them closing in on us.”
A Beater could be felled by a bullet, but only if the shooter was using a heavy gauge and nailed the brain or the spine. Hit anywhere else, even in the heart or the gut-shots that would take down a citizen-a Beater could keep going for crucial seconds, even minutes, as it took its time bleeding out. Even a dying Beater would keep trying to claw its way toward a potential victim until its last breath left its body.
“Those Rebuilders train all day long,” Lyle said. “A lot of ’em could hit my left nut from across town with one eye shut. But I take your point.”
Smoke relaxed slightly. “I’ve had…a run-in with them myself. Don’t much care for their philosophy, but I don’t know that I’ve got what it takes to live like this, on my own, either.”
“You might say I’m not much of a joiner,” Lyle said as he settled his own large body onto the remaining chair and started going through the box. “I might be a stupid son of a bitch trying to tough it out here on my own. Me and Travers, he’s just as stubborn as me. And them Beaters getting smarter, our odds ain’t great. Only been a week or so they’ve started doing what you might call a regular patrol through here.”
Lyle took out a folded plastic bag and carefully opened it, shaking out a half-smoked, tight-rolled joint. “I been saving this sweet little blunt for a special occasion, ain’t a whole lot more where it came from, least until I figure out how to smoke me some kaysev, if you know what I mean. I’d be honored if you’d finish it up with me.”
“I…not for me,” Cass said quickly.
Lyle nodded and sparked up a lighter, a cheap plastic Bic he took from the box. “I got a little bit of Johnnie Black up there on the shelf, too, if you’re interested.”
“No, thanks. I’m, uh… I’m an alcoholic.”
There was an awkward silence, while Cass kept her features as still as she could. It was not the first time she’d made such an admission, not by a long shot. But it was the first in Aftertime. There’d been drinking in the library; for some, the days were a lot easier to take through a haze of in
ebriation, a notion Cass understood all too well. But Bobby had put a stop to that; he designated the men’s bathroom as a place people could go if they wanted to get drunk, there and nowhere else, and it was a testament to his power over all of them that everyone cooperated.
Cass had found the men’s bathroom easy to resist. She’d never been much of a social drinker anyway. She had liked to numb herself in solitude.
“No worries, little sister,” Lyle said softly. “I can put this away if that’s easier.”
“No, no-you go ahead.”
He hesitated, his gaze traveling to the scars on her arm. He sighed and reached out to touch them, so gently that his callused fingertips tickled. “You’ve had a rough road,” he said softly, and Cass realized that Lyle thought she’d made the scars herself.
Cass resisted the urge to hide them, to jam her hands under her legs. Instead she gestured to the box and forced a smile. “It’s fine, really. Come on, someone around here might as well get a buzz on.”
“Well, okay, if you insist. But just say the word…”
He took a deep draw on the joint, squeezing it delicately between his large, stubby finger and thumb, and held the smoke in, concentrating with his eyes shut and a look of intense pleasure on his lined face.
“That’s the ticket,” he finally said, and passed it along to Smoke.
Smoke took a hit before passing it back. “Not sure I know how to thank you for the hospitality.”
“No problem. Mind telling me what has y’all out on the streets, anyway? Ain’t any water in this block, and the raiders-no offense-but the raiders usually seem a little better organized than you two.”
Cass glanced at Smoke; he returned her gaze with concern but didn’t speak. He was leaving it up to her.
She considered not telling. Twenty-four hours ago, no one knew her story. The only people who knew about Ruthie were the others at the library, and even they didn’t know the full story, since she’d only had her daughter back for a day before the attack. Besides, there was no way to know how many of the people who were there that day were even still alive.
But what would it hurt, now, to tell the truth? The old shame that had weighed so heavily was gone now, vanished along with everything else familiar from Before. She, like all the other citizens, had been given a fresh start. True, it came at a terrible price, and there was no way to know how long they had remaining, but Cass had wasted enough in her lifetime. Or lifetimes.
She wasn’t going to waste any more opportunities. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The chair rocked slightly with the motion.
“I’m looking for my daughter.”
13
“ARE YOU, NOW?” LYLE ENCOURAGED HER WITH a smile as he and Smoke passed the joint back and forth. “You have a little one?”
“She’s almost three. Her name is Ruthie. She was at the library when I was…when I had to leave.”
Lyle narrowed his eyes and waited, but Cass forced herself to take a breath and let it out slowly. Lyle probably thought she’d done something reckless while she was drunk, gotten expelled from the library. Well, let him think it. The truth would only make things worse-how likely was he to let her stay, if he knew what she was hiding under her shirt? If he knew what she had been? If he were to start imagining the things she couldn’t remember doing?
“And you think your little girl’s here in town?”
Cass nodded. “We were sheltering at the library. It was two months ago. Do you ever get over there?”
“Not so much inside the place. If I see raiding parties out, I’ll go along and lend a hand. Once in a while they’ve checked up on me and Travers over there, a few other stubborn assholes like us who insist on squatting. But I haven’t heard of any kids, really. And I’m sorry, I’m not sure I would have remembered if they were talking about it-I don’t know the first thing about kids.”
Cass tried to cover her disappointment. “That’s okay. I’ll know soon enough.”
Lyle nodded. “You’re welcome to stay with me as long as you want. I reckon you’re anxious to get moving again, especially now that you’re so close, but I’m guessing the rat bastards are going to be hanging around for a while, anyway. Usually they just fuck around during the day, but now and then, like tonight, a few of ’em’ll show up trying to trick me into coming out.”
“You think they’ve evolved that much…awareness?” Smoke said, waving away the joint, which was burned almost all the way down.
Lyle took a last big puff and stubbed the spent butt out on a jar lid before he answered. “Tough to say. They don’t seem any smarter than before. If anything they’ve lost all their, you know, whadda you want to call it, their language skills. You know how they used to say little odds and ends, almost make you think like they had something going on upstairs?”
He tapped his head for emphasis, a long coil of his brown hair springing out of the elastic.
“Yes…a few words at a time, little phrases…” Smoke said.
“Yeah, that. Well, they aren’t doing much of that anymore. Now it’s all this wailing and snorting and shit, like they’re a bunch of rutting pigs. Only pigs are probably a damn sight smarter than they are.”
“But their habits-” Smoke said carefully.
“They still look like a bunch of fucked-up retards on the dance floor when they walk, and you still see them doing all kinds of freaky shit like they’re trying to remember what it was like to be human. Like I saw this one out there with a doll, taking her dress off and putting it on again. Course then it pulled the doll’s hair out. Or just the other day, here comes a couple of ’em with a wheelbarrow. I’m not shit-tin’ you, they’ve got this thing loaded up with a bunch of bricks and a watering can and I don’t know what else kind of crap…and they’re trying to wheel it down the street, only they ain’t got any balance and it’s just dumpin’ shit out and then they stop and try to put it back in. Best entertainment I’ve had for weeks, I’ll tell ya, watching those two assclowns. Finally they just left the whole mess next door in my old neighbor Bess’s yard, right in the flower beds. Oh, that old bitch woulda loved that, I’ll tell you.”
Lyle chuckled, a deep satisfied sound that amazed Cass. He genuinely seemed amused by what was just one more chronicle of how horrifying the world had become. Cass wondered how he did it…surely a little weed wasn’t the only answer. If it was, she’d happily light up.
If she thought drinking would help, she’d go right back to it.
Only she knew better. Drinking had taken away her pain, for a while. But it hadn’t given her anything back but emptiness. And if she ever wanted emptiness that badly again, she’d just kill herself, hang herself from a light fixture in an abandoned house or slide a blade into the soft flesh of her wrist. It wasn’t like she’d be the first.
“But you said they’re stalking you, here,” Smoke said. “Like they keep track of which houses have squatters. They’re not just responding to catching a scent or seeing movement through the glass or…”
“Oh, for sure. Ain’t any doubt about that.”
“That’s no good,” Smoke said heavily.
“Hell, no, it ain’t. It’s fucked, is what it is.”
“So they’ve got some sort of memory. And planning. I mean even if it’s just rudimentary.”
“Yeah, I guess you could say that. It’s like they’re all in on it, figuring out how they can work together. They’ll do anything if there’s a chance they can bring down a live citizen. They’ll bang their heads into a wall until they’re dead, long as the wall gives way even a little bit. And after one does it, the rest figure out if you bang on the wall long enough it’ll break, and then next time it’s all of ’em bangin’ their heads. They’re fuckin’ unstoppable.”
“Yeah, that’s a bit newish, but still different from, you know, waiting for you to come out.”
Lyle shrugged. “I figure waiting around probably feels about like head-banging to them. Sometimes I go up to
the window upstairs and holler at them just to watch them get all pissed off. They’ll throw themselves at the house for a while, climb on top of each other trying to get to the top windows-the lower ones are all boarded up now. One time I pushed a dresser out the window on one of ’em, broke its skull clean in half.” He chuckled. “Good times…’Course I had to drag it away later myself.”
“How do you…” Cass gestured around the basement. The shelves were well stocked with supplies: cans and boxes of food, paper towels and toilet paper. “I mean, what do you, um-”
“What do I do all day?” Lyle chuckled, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. “Fair question. Well, I go out every single day. I don’t aim to let the fuckers keep me cooped up. I mean, I ain’t crazy, I usually go right after nightfall or right before dawn, you hardly ever see one of ’em out then. It’s about four blocks to the Horseshoe, so that’s a big feature of my day, ’cause I take four or five jugs with me.”
The Horseshoe was a branch of the Stanislaus River that wound through town. A walking path had been laid several years back, and young mothers with strollers brought stale bread for their kids to feed the ducks, Before. Cass had taken Ruthie there when she was a baby.
“So what else,” Lyle continued, ticking his activities off on his thick fingers. “Well, I go poking around in folks’ sheds and garages and whatnot, see if I can find anything useful. And I been digging a new latrine…over in Bess’s backyard, in fact. Dug it right next to those fuckin’ roses she was so damn nuts over. If I had a nickel for every time she came over here to bitch and moan about my tree dropping plums on her rosebushes…and she had a yappy little dog, too, but luckily she took it with her when she moved on down to the library. Though I suppose someone’s made dogburgers out of it by now.”
Cass exchanged a glance with Smoke. When she’d been at the library, there had been a no-pets policy. Bobby had been firm on that; resources were to go to humans. Anyone who didn’t like it could try their luck living on their own, outside, with their dog or cat.
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