“Sure,” says Tom.
The Pharmacist nods. “It tastes good if you ignore what it is. And it’s full of natural protein,” he adds, and strolls into the house. The guard waits, watching them.
“What’s going on?” Tom murmurs. When Sylene says nothing, he nudges the empty bucket with his foot. “You’re doing well, aren’t you? Maybe we’ll be able to leave soon. What do you think, Kate? Can we go? It’s ripping me apart being here.” His eyes are pleading as he searches hers. Sylene feels her face twitch as she tries to hold his gaze. “What’s the matter?” he asks.
“Nothing, Tom. I’m just exhausted.”
“But we’re losing so much time! Kate. You’re well again! We have to go or we’ll never find her. And I can’t go without you—we have to stay together.”
“Tom . . .” And his expression, firmed up with anger and confusion, breaks, and she sees deep in his eyes a vulnerability, a fear of ceasing to hope that they will somehow find the girl. She recognizes it in herself: her own hope, her own hurt, and what she feels for her son—
The Pharmacist sighs, stepping back out onto the veranda. He tosses a rattling bottle between his hands. “Be a pal, Tom. Take this down the drive, would you?”
“What is it?”
“Payment,” the Pharmacist remarks. He rattles the bottle again and then morphs the movement into a syncopated swing down by his hips and speaks in time with the rhythm. “A mildish opiate, I think is what it is. Just two pills each, now, Tom. And make sure that they give the stuff to you first.” He stops dancing, strides over, and pats Tom’s shoulder, a gesture that turns into a grip and then an encouraging lift before he pushes him down the stairs. Tom turns to protest but the Pharmacist lowers the bottle into his hands like a chalice, then puts his finger to his lips and points firmly down the driveway. Tom turns and the Pharmacist exhales, watching him go. “He really never leaves you alone, does he?”
“He’ll make us leave soon for the girl.”
“Do you want to stay here? You can, you know.”
“I should stay with him. We don’t want him closing the breach. So what do I need to know?”
“It’s difficult, Sylene. Knowledge is in very limited supply. We got President Taylor. We hit China soon after, but things fell apart so quickly it’s hard to know who else we got. Some power stations. I think that’s what did it for the Feed. Energen was pulled out of the Arctic by its CEO. An announcement from nowhere, apparently. He had them creating cold-fusion plants, started promoting utterly unheard-of technology, so we definitely got to him. But I don’t know any more. The Feed hasn’t transmitted for years. It all broke, Sylene.”
Sylene rubs her face. “So we’ve done it? It worked?”
“I don’t know. It seems so.”
“And can we use the Feed to find each other?”
“Not yet. There’s no power, so the Hubs are all down. SaveYou still runs, of course, though. Don’t let Hatfield work that out or he may try to close it down. I don’t know . . .” The Pharmacist glances at her from the corner of his eye. “Have patience, Sylene, we’ll make the Feed work again. And the world. There are quite a few of us, you know. And still some more may come.”
“Really?”
“We’re all dotted around,” he says, and nods. “There must be thousands of us at least. Maybe more. Who knows? There are a couple close by, for example. They head up some little camp. You know, she actually seems to care about these people.”
Sylene frowns, remembering the pea pods, the furnace that they’d made. “Claire’s one of us?”
“Is that what she’s calling herself now? Gosh, she really has gone native. The body she got is fat,” the Pharmacist describes with relish, and blows out his cheeks. “Missing ear. Lower lip incised.”
“So . . .” Sylene stops talking as things come together. Like that: they click. The lost child. Tom’s daughter. This Bea. And that SaveYou still works, of course. So there’s an obvious way to find her. And with that she realizes how she can find her son—if, that is, he survived. But she won’t know unless she looks, and using Bea like this is the best she’s come up with yet. Her voice comes quickly on the hammering of her heart: “How did you look for your family, Ethan?”
“Who are you searching for, Sylene?” The Pharmacist’s words are too fluid. She sees the dart of his tongue around his lips before he snaps, “Forget them!” And then, warmly again, “Who is it? Who have you lost? Are you all sad?” He examines her, leaning to stare into her eyes, and his voice stops crooning and spits, “Well, they’re dead! Whoever they are. Stop torturing yourself.”
“What happened to you, Ethan?”
“Hurt breeds hurt. I can’t describe the hatred I feel. I thought it would stop, but no, it grows. I hate them, Sylene, I—”
“I hate them too, but—”
“Enough.” The Pharmacist nods down the lawn to where Tom is marching back toward them, straining with gasoline tanks and a bag across his back. “The Hatfield himself,” he sighs. “And be careful, Sylene. Slips like the geklean are unforgivable. A-ha! Splendid!” he cries as Tom drops the tanks on the ground.
Tom’s voice shakes. “What you’re running here is wrong.”
The Pharmacist scrutinizes him. “But you enjoy the light and the warmth and the food and water?” He knocks his hat back from his brow. “All things that wouldn’t be possible without a little suffering passed off down the line. Isn’t that life?”
“Those people are destroyed. They’re animals!” Tom cries, pointing back at the gates.
“You have a choice.” The Pharmacist’s fingers mark time in the air. “And so do they. So do I, Tom. I choose to play.”
Tom’s voice is seething. “You remember those people we saw, Kate, when we were coming here? Well, they’re all outside, addicted to . . . what is it?” He throws the plastic bottle up the stairs.
“As I said, I don’t know,” the Pharmacist apologizes, snatching the bottle up off the floor, opening it, counting the remaining pills. “But they seem to like it, and I have a whole lot more inside.”
“And there you are. Fuel and stuff.” Tom kicks one of the bags. “There’s a chicken too.”
“Ah, excellent!” the Pharmacist exclaims. “Meat for supper tonight!”
Tom stomps up the steps and sits between them. He scowls out at the garden, his fingers twisting over themselves. Sylene glances at the Pharmacist behind Tom’s head and nods him to go inside. “Well . . . let’s get these stored, then,” the Pharmacist says mock tactfully, and stoops to lift a tank. Wheezing exaggeratedly, he stumbles into the house—but as soon as he disappears, his footsteps become unlabored and they echo easily away.
Tom deflates. “All those people. He has them addicted. One woman, she gave me that chicken—a chicken—for a pill.”
Sylene takes Tom’s hands. She examines his skin like a map. “It’s not a fair world, Tom. But you’ve got to harden up. If we’re going to find Bea, we will have to fight. Never give up hope. We’ll find her. You’ll see.”
Tom stacks their packed rucksacks by the door that night. Sylene’s strength has returned. She spends the next morning in the gardens, walking between the plants. She lies on the lawn and feels the wet depth of the earth beneath her. She smells the flowers deeply. She is better now, apart from one thing: while the fever has disappeared, the swelling waves of sickness remain.
“So . . .” says the Pharmacist, rubbing his palms as she sits on the counter before him. He unpeels the bandage and smiles up at her with hooded eyes. “Well, haven’t I done well? You are free to leave whenever you like. If you like. You can always amuse yourself with me here. Wouldn’t that be nicer than heading off with him?”
She ignores his suggestive glance and bends to examine her shin. It’s still bloody but the colors have gone from the veins. As the Pharmacist spreads more cream on her leg, he holds the muscle of her calf firmly, kneading her skin, and his hands slowly move up her thigh.
“Thank you, Etha
n.”
“My pleasure. Hmm.” The Pharmacist purses his lips. He trails a finger up her leg before raising it into the air. “You’re still getting sick, though?” He feels her glands. Puts his hands on her waist and presses her stomach with his thumbs. When he looks up, his expression is excited. “You know, Sylene, this is quite a thing! All I can think is that you are—”
“Don’t. The infection’s gone?”
“Yes, but I—”
“Then you’re a clever man. Well done. We should go now to find his daughter.”
“I can give you something to solve it, if you like?”
Sylene frowns, but his steady gaze is immutable. There are many worlds in her head: one where she finds her child; one where she doesn’t; one where she goes with Tom; one where she stays with the Pharmacist instead, with someone who would understand what she’s been through, which is companionship of sorts. But with someone who seems so casually inhumane? So set to destroy people and their lives? To say that he could solve it?
“What’s happened to you, Ethan?” she whispers. “Why would you suggest that?”
The Pharmacist smiles and shrugs. “Don’t you find it so lonely being alone?”
“But we’re not alone anymore. That’s the point. Why are you so determined to destroy things? I don’t understand it. Those people outside. This—”
“Oh, look at you playing happy family with Mr. Hatfield . . .” Contempt drips around the sides of his words. “Look how good you are, Sylene!”
“I’m not . . .” Anger burns her cheeks. “I’m not playing anything, I’m trying to—”
“Listen,” he says, and he puts his hand on her leg again. “We could build a life here, you and me. It could be lovely. We would be everything for each other. Don’t leave me alone.” He lays his hand on her belly and lets it linger there. Blinking shyly, he leans toward her until she pulls away.
“Thank you, Ethan, for curing me. I can’t thank you enough—”
“Oh, I’m sure you can. You offered it. And I have totally cured your leg. Listen, I’d rather you didn’t go, I’d much prefer you stay with me, but if you are leaving, well, that was the deal you proposed. You offered me yourself. So if this is good-bye, let’s go!”
“Ethan . . .”
“I just want a bit of what they get, Sylene.” His tone has changed again. It has thinned, become pleading, but with the whiplash potential of a tightly compressed spring. He smiles and strokes her cheek. Licks his lips. Smiles again, his long face stretching. “I’m human, after all!”
Sylene shrugs his hands off her and slides away from the counter, shaking her head. In her mind she is already out of the house, planning their journey and the next moves she must make, when his voice stops her, halfway to the door.
“If I told Tom Hatfield who you really are, do you think he’d want you then?”
Sylene closes her eyes. Bites her lip. “Why would you do that, Ethan?”
She hears him crossing the room behind her, and his voice when he speaks, though quiet, is sinuously close to her ear as his fingers curl around her hips.
“What are you planning, Sylene? I know you’re up to something. It’s in the things you never quite say . . .”
“Like you said, I have to stay with him, we can’t let him close the breach!”
“Well, I might just let him know that his wife’s no longer herself. That’s the charitable thing to do. Because it’s cruel, isn’t it, really, that the poor man doesn’t know what he’s lost—”
“Don’t!”
“Then what will you offer in return? What’s in this for me? I make myself vulnerable to you and you treat me with contempt. I make you well and he takes you off. I’m left alone again. You’re not even giving me some fun with a body that isn’t even yours!”
“Tom!” Sylene calls loudly, and then, turning, whispers rapidly, “I’ll come back to you, I promise, but let me find his daughter first. Think about it, Ethan, he may be useful to us. She may be useful, because if we have the girl, we can make him do—what—we—want.” She has a hand on his face and strokes underneath his jaw. She kisses him quickly and he, briefly, closes his eyes and sighs. “And when I come back, then we’ll see what the future might bring—for us.”
Things flicker across the Pharmacist’s face. A sudden loosening and expansion of his pupils in hope; faint quivers of doubt. Then the door opens and Tom enters. He glares at the Pharmacist from the threshold.
“Kate? Did you call for me?”
“I’m cured,” Sylene says, and hurries toward him. “He’s done it, Tom, my leg! Let’s leave here now, let’s find Bea!”
“You’re definitely leaving then? Is that what you’ve decided . . . Mrs. Hatfield?” The Pharmacist, swaying slightly, watches Sylene, his eyes on fire.
Tom blanches and turns on her. “You told him who we are?”
“He forced me to!” she hisses. “That’s why I called for you. Come on, let’s go!”
“Oh!” the Pharmacist croons across the room, laughing. “I tell you what, Tom, listen to this. I’ll give you a choice, all right?”
Tom hesitates as Sylene tries to pull him out.
“Kate here hasn’t really left me any choice at all, so the choice you have to make is between your wife and your daughter. Like we started, all that time ago. What do you say, hey?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me have your wife,” the Pharmacist explains, ambling daintily across the carpet, “and I’ll tell you where your girl is. What do you think about that?”
Tom squeezes Sylene’s hand. Indecision cracks his voice. “Kate?”
“I saw her not too long ago, you see,” the Pharmacist muses. “She is a pretty little thing and will be fertile, I’m sure, like her mother.”
There is a potent pause before Tom leaps forward. “Where is she?” he cries. “Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“Will you let me have your wife?” the Pharmacist spits at him. “Tit for tat, come on!”
“Please!” Sylene appeals, struggling between the two of them. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because,” the Pharmacist says tartly, “who wants to be alone? I’ll tell you where your daughter is, Kate, and you can stay with me while he gets her! Then, when they return, how happy we can be!”
They stand like that, the three of them unmoving, shaking, until, like a wire under tension snapping, Sylene relents. She grabs the Pharmacist’s hand and leads him across the creaking floor, Tom staring after her, flushing, as she leans the Pharmacist against the counter, strokes his chest and runs a hand up his arm. He relaxes, closes his eyes, smiling; hums as she caresses his neck and leans down toward his lips. Then both her hands are there, one behind his head and the other squeezing his throat, and the Pharmacist’s eyes jerk open, along with his gaping mouth.
“Tell us where our daughter is!” she snarls, but the Pharmacist, bent back, holds his breath and grins determinedly at her. He forces out a wink. “What happened to you?” she whispers. “This isn’t how we should be!”
“We owe these people nothing,” the Pharmacist chokes out. His stale breath caresses her face; they’re so close together, speaking so fiercely quietly. “Don’t leave me! Look after your own. That’s what this is all about, Sylene—”
“Don’t—”
The Pharmacist strains to raise his croaking voice as she squeezes harder. “Mr. Hatfield, I have to tell you that your wife—”
She cracks his head against the countertop. His legs bow and then his feet scrabble for purchase on the floor. From the corner of her eye, Sylene sees Tom tense, but he stays where he is, too far away to hear. “It’s my son!” she whispers desperately in the Pharmacist’s ear. “All right? It’s my boy. That’s who I’m trying to find, Ethan! And if I can find him, I’ll come back here, and if I can’t find him, I’ll come back too. I won’t leave you alone, I promise, but please let me have a chance! If you tell him who I am, I’ll leave you alone forever, I swear it. Ke
ep the secret and tell us where his girl is, and there’s a chance, isn’t there, that I’ll come back for you. It’s the only one you have.”
The Pharmacist starts to shake as Sylene squeezes his throat harder. It’s as though an electric current courses through him as he tries to keep his lips clamped together while his face turns redder and redder, until—
“They came here for supplies!” he croaks, bursting, gasping in some air.
“What supplies?”
“Sedatives,” the Pharmacist wheezes. “That’s what they always want.”
“And where did they go?” Sylene demands, releasing her grasp slightly.
“I don’t know!” The Pharmacist heaves in a breath. “Truly I don’t—at least not exactly. But they went north. They’re holed up in some valley. I heard they’ve taken a village.”
Sylene glances at Tom, whose slowly nodding face is deathly pale. She releases the Pharmacist and, wiping her hands on her top, staggers back toward Tom. Takes him by the elbow. They walk unsteadily toward the door.
“Oh, Mrs. Hatfield?”
Behind them, the Pharmacist sprawls by the counter, his hair disheveled, his clothes awry. There are tears on his face, but he’s smiling. He closes his eyes and savors the air as if smelling spring flowers on a breeze. His fingertips linger along his throat. His other hand scuffs his groin.
“That was lovely,” he whispers. “Thank you.”
At the bottom of the drive the guards roll the gates back, and it’s almost like no time has passed, except now she can walk without pain. Ivy clogs the canopy. Birds roost and coo. It’s not long before they pass a group of racked and starving people. Most lie on the road, staring up at the sky. One, a woman, pale-eyed and spattered with muck, cranes to stare at them. She reaches toward Tom, her face stretched in a pleading grimace.
“That was her,” he says quietly. “With the chicken.”
They soon leave the suburbs behind them and they walk northward for days toward the hills. They eat very little and stop only briefly to sleep. They reach a track that coils into a valley, past farms and rusting threshers. Searching for this village. But no one lives here now. Time has passed and a new world opens up before them. The landscape changes and a wind whips down from the dark and vicious rocks that rise to higher ground.
The Feed Page 19