Denyse gripped the kid’s neck with her left hand, feeling the animal’s pulse race as she drew the knife close.
Blood ran like poison in this new world. People were made of meat.
The kid bleated, and again the sound elicited a memory of Randolph’s final days. She rammed the knife into the dirt.
“Damn you and your cute eyes,” she said. “You’re costing me a full belly.”
The kid blinked and stared as if to say, “What are you talking about? You have all those stolen vegetables.”
“They aren’t stolen,” she said, “merely re-appropriated. If you were off the tit, I’d share them with you.”
A metallic click sounded to her left. She looked away from the goat into the barrel of a rifle. It was pointed by a bearded man in a collapsed and dusty fedora, the brim notched and a crow feather stuck in the band. His wool shirt and pants were too hot for the balmy weather, and sweat ringed his eyes. He was maybe fifty, maybe twenty going on fifty; radiation poisoning had solved any problems of ageism that had existed back in the old days.
“You making a sacrifice?” the man asked, his hillbilly twang carrying a trace of the city.
“A sacrifice to my appetite,” she said. “What’s it to you?”
“That’s my goat.”
“I don’t see any property boundaries. And all the ‘No trespassing’ signs must have been knocked down by the thermal pulse.”
“Property is property,” he said, “and this gun makes the law around here.”
“I didn’t know anybody was up here.” She risked death by challenging him, but she figured death was fifty-fifty anyway, and a bullet at least got the job done a lot faster than cancer.
“Put down the knife.”
“There’s enough for two.” She licked her lips, leaving it up to him any innuendo he cared to take from it. The barter system played as well in the sticks as it did in the concrete forest. And at least it would take the gun out of his hands.
“I got other mouths to feed.”
As if on cue, a boy stepped out of concealment from the other side of the clearing. His face was dirty and his overalls ragged, bony knees showing through the frayed fabric. He had the gaunt cheeks of a late-stage cancer victim. “Minnie’s dead, Poppa,” he said, his tone flat, as if such declarations were all too common in his life.
“The kid come out fine,” his poppa said. “The wheel o’ life still turns.”
Denyse thought the homespun philosophy was a bitter joke, but the man’s dark eyes stayed serious. The rifle didn’t blink, either. She tossed the knife toward the man’s scuffed boots.
“It ain’t got no momma now,” the boy said. He appeared to be about ten, and whatever schooling he’d had must have dimmed from lack of use.
“We’ll raise it up ourselves.” Poppa’s voice was as steady as the gun he held. “Nurse it through the winter.”
Denyse wondered if they had a herd somewhere. Obviously the mother goat had been bred, and though she wasn’t sure of a goat’s gestation period, she figured it was probably a half a year or more, given the size of the offspring. But goats, like all ruminants, were herd animals by nature. Even sporting horns and thick skulls, they found safety in numbers, or at least better odds of not being the one hauled down by pack predators.
Denyse released the kid, and it turned its moist nose back to the udder. Perhaps sensing the fading of the milk’s heat, it emitted a bleat of unease.
The rifle barrel dipped at last. “Get up and let’s see what you stole.”
The boy rummaged through her sack, pulling out the vegetables she’d collected. As Poppa leaned in to look, Denyse thought of going for her .38, but it wasn’t a quick-draw situation, and she’d never shot a person before. The man appeared much handier with a gun than she did, and it didn’t seem the time to try new tricks. Since the revolver was hidden by her long blouse, she figured that option would remain open.
“She took a big bite,” Poppa said. “Take the kid to the house.”
Poppa threw the sack over his shoulder while the boy gathered the kid in his arms. The boy headed up a path Denyse hadn’t noticed before where a black strand of dirt that wound between tall, yellow poplars and led up the ridge. Poppa’s rifle pointed her to follow, and they walked in silence a few hundred feet, passing between chunks of granite that jutted from the ground like the prehistoric teeth of giants. The “house” turned out to be a structure built into the side of the mountain, with rotted, wood walls giving way to moist dirt and stone. The cave smelled of old sweat, mold, and wood smoke. A metal cook stove was tucked into one corner, and desiccated onions hung by a thread from the ceiling. A lantern burned in one corner, fueled by noisome oil and casting jagged shadows across the cramped space.
The room had one bed in the corner, a ragged quilt wadded atop the sodden. A cradle made of hand-hewn wood sat beside it. The lone window was covered with a sheet of tarpaper, and only a crack of sunlight appeared. She wondered if this were the hillbilly version of a fallout shelter or if it had been constructed after the war. The clammy air suggested a constant temperature, which meant it was probably easy to heat in the rough mountain winters.
The boy set the goat down, and it teetered a moment before collapsing near a crooked chair. The boy laid some kindling in the belly of the rusty stove and lit some gray newspaper.
“May as well earn your keep,” Poppa said, pointing to the stove.
“I’m just trying to survive, same as you.”
“Skillet’s in the cabinet there. Might as well fry some taters and cabbage since you took them out of the ground.”
The skillet had half an inch of congealed grease in the bottom. She didn’t ask. As the stove heated, the grease turned from ash-colored to yellow. Poppa gave her knife back and watched as she sliced the vegetables and spread them in the pan. Soon the rancid stench of cabbage filled the cave.
The little goat, which had been drowsing, woke up and gave its prating cry.
“The baby’s hungry,” the boy said.
“We’ll take care of it,” Poppa said. “We always do.”
Denyse busied herself with preparing the meal, such as it was. She scraped her knife along the bottom of the skillet, figuring when bedtime came and Poppa showed his intentions the same as any man, she’d have to go for the revolver.
The boy set out plates and they ate in silence, Poppa taking the knife from her again before sitting on the bed with his food. The boy sat cross-legged by the goat, trying to interest it in a strand of cabbage. The goat sniffed but wasn’t going for it. Denyse relished the meal despite the rancid grease, taking comfort in the probably erroneous notion that the fallout was less severe in the mountains. She’d also heard crops acted as natural filters for the worst poisons, though some of that strontium lingered for centuries. After all, Poppa didn’t show any signs of sickness or weakness, though the boy moved slowly and expressed little appetite.
“Got to keep your strength up,” Poppa said, belching and expelling a scrap from his mouth. “Got mouths to feed.”
She imagined Poppa planned to keep her around, turn her into a wife and mother. She had no destination, no real plan—at least he was a provider. She could die here as easily as anywhere else.
“Can we keep this one, Poppa?” the boy said, rubbing the goat though he was staring at Denyse.
“Depends,” Poppa said. “Such things are out of our hands and in the hands of the Almighty.”
The boy put away the plates. It had grown dark outside, or at least the sunlight no longer snuck through the tarpaper. In a world without electric lights, true darkness once again held sway in its domain, even if the nocturnal creatures that once prowled it had taken their measure of poison.
“You any good with a hoe?” Poppa asked her.
“I can work.”
“You’re an extra mouth.”
She debated licking her lips, but coyness no longer seemed necessary, The job was hers, whether she wanted it or not. “I can…ea
rn my keep.”
The boy slipped out in silence, probably to relieve himself in the woods. Denyse wondered whether he suffered the runs or if blood clouded his urine. In the deep night, perhaps it didn’t matter.
“The boy’s not been right since he lost his momma,” Poppa said.
Denyse nodded, staring at the stove, whose door was now open and casting suffused amber light. The pile of embers throbbed like the laughter of hell. “We’ve all come to know loss,” she said, allowing a bit of his twang to enter her accent.
“And plenty more awaitin’ ahead,” he said.
“There will come trials, for sure.” She wondered if she should bake up some bit of scripture for him, but none of the few verses she remembered seemed appropriate.
“This family’s been split, but it still got needs.”
“We all have…we all got needs.” She wondered where she could hide the revolver. She wouldn’t need it tonight and probably not next week, but a trial and judgment would come eventually.
“The ground will lay fallow,” he said. “But we got six weeks of harvest left.”
She wanted to say the harvest had commenced the moment the red buttons had been pressed, but she doubted this bearded mountain mystic would make the leap with her. She’d best keep things down to earth. “Your garden’s green, considering.”
“It’s all in the soil and how you tend it.”
“I can help raise things. I lost my child.”
“Maybe you’ll find something else.”
The boy returned, face paler than before. Or maybe the fire had fanned into flames and brightened the room.
“Get your brother,” Poppa said to him.
The boy went to the cradle, his bare feet slapping the dirt floor. The kid goat looked up at its master, no longer bleating. The boy bent over the cradle and emerged with a small bundle of filthy blankets. He carried his offering to Denyse.
“He sure sleeps sound,” she said, reaching out, wondering if the breasts that still leaked from her feeding of Randolph would lactate enough to nurse the child. “I heard nary a—”
The blankets fell away, revealing the mummified face of the dead infant. She screamed and almost dropped the corpse. Its face resembled the shriveled apple head of the corn-husk doll she’d found near the garden.
Poppa had the rifle pointed at her. “Got mouths to feed.”
She wondered at what point the man’s mind had cracked: during the nuclear annihilation, when his wife had died, or when his infant son had died. Or maybe she was the mad one, because the boy sat cross-legged at her feet, holding the new kid as if awaiting a messianic miracle.
Denyse closed her eyes and undid the top two buttons of her blouse, fishing around and bringing out a bare breast. She worked and squeezed it until she pinched a drop of milk to the nipple. She was moving the long-dead infant to her breast when Poppa’s shout caused her to blink.
“You crazy or something?”
Weeping silently, Denyse let the cold bundle rest in her lap. She looked down and saw it was only blankets. Not Randolph.
“Give her the kid,” Poppa said.
The boy brought the newborn goat close, and she could feel its warm breath on her nipple, causing the point of red flesh to involuntarily harden.
Maybe if her breasts offered enough yield, they would keep her. Maybe if she fed all the mouths they required, she could last through the fallow season. Maybe her trial was not far off.
Or only as far as the .38 in her waistband.
As the kid’s lips and tongue began working with an unwholesome greed, she settled in for winter.
The End
Missing Pieces Table of Contents
Master Table of Contents
###
THE ROCKING CHAIR
By Scott Nicholson
The rocking chair was out of place in the nursery.
Darla had spent two weeks painting the walls a warm sky-blue, complete with clouds, bordered with rainbow wallpaper. The nursery was nearly free of all the toys, clothes, and blankets that Darla had accumulated during her first pregnancy. The patchwork quilt with “Veronica” stitched in a crooked cursive, given to them by Allen’s grandmother, was packed away with the other things. The crib had been trundled off to the Salvation Army, and a varnished cradle had been bought in its place. Even the carpet was new, of an off-peach color that Darla hoped would disguise stains better.
Allen had supported her in her wanton act of forgetting, had been right beside her during the funeral, and had patiently waited for her to recover enough to try again. They opened a credit account at the hardware store so she could fill her days with window treatments, shelves, and picture hangers instead of memories. He had been a nearly perfect husband. Except for insisting on the damned rocking chair.
“It’s a family heirloom,” he said.
“It’s old,” Darla said. With her hands on her hips, she had to lean backwards so that her swollen tummy didn’t cause her to slouch.
Allen let his tape measure slide into its sheath. He was wearing one of his weekend, beer-drinking T-shirts, and the armpits were damp. The room was warm, the heat from their bodies stronger than the draft from the window.
“I know you want everything to be new,” Allen said. “But this means so much to Grandma.”
“It’s nice that your family is involved, but shouldn’t I matter more than she?”
“Honey, she’s not going to live much longer. Why can’t you make an old woman happy in her last days?”
“Seems like you’d rather make your wife happy. I’m the one who has to sleep with you.”
“This is a valuable antique,” Allen said. “Six generations of Benson babies have been rocked in this chair.”
The scarred chair sat under the window like a stubborn, old relative. The cherry arms and seat were worn smooth. The wooden pegs, used in place of nails, made dark circles where the pieces joined. The back slats didn’t quite match, each one carved by some forgotten Benson’s hands. Benson, Benson, Benson. Six generations, how many babies?
Darla said, “But the chair was here when…”
Silence fought the heat for domination of the room. Allen stared out the window.
“…when she slept here.”
Died. Darla didn’t say died. Funny how you could play tricks with words—especially tricks on yourself.
“That’s over and done with,” Allen said. “We promised we were starting over, like nothing ever happened.”
“Which is exactly why we need to get rid of the chair.”
Allen sighed.
“I don’t mean junk it,” Darla said. “I mean just put it away for a few years. Or we can give it back to your grandmother.”
“Yeah, she’ll really love that.” Allen’s upper lip curled in sarcasm. “After all she’s done for us.”
“I don’t care that she paid your way through law school. In fact, I’m tired of hearing about it.” Darla caught her voice rising and wondered what the angry adrenaline was doing to the fetus.
She took a deep breath to calm herself. “We don’t have to tell her, Allen.”
“She’ll know.”
“No, she won’t. We can hide it in the attic, bring it out when she comes over, if that will make you happy.” There. An olive branch. Darla didn’t want to fight with Allen when the delivery date was so near. She needed him.
Allen moved over to the rocker, put his hand on the back support, and gave it a small push. The chair eased back and forth on its runners, tilting slightly to the right on its forward swings. The soft squeak of its movement almost seemed to whisper, “Ben-son, Ben-son, Ben-son.”
“Don’t try to push my family out of it,” Allen said. “I know you don’t like Grandma, but she’s all I’ve got left since Momma died.”
“Except me. You still have me, remember?” She hated herself for sounding whiny, knowing Allen was faithful and that his loyalty was part of what made him a good mate, but her emotions were screwed up by the
flood of hormones coursing through her system. She’d never wanted to be the clingy, harping wife, but here she was, bitching about a stupid chair.
“Don’t forget, this baby is half Benson,” Allen said.
Darla looked at the teeth marks on the back of the chair, perhaps put there a hundred years ago by a small, dark-eyed Benson. She closed her eyes. If only she could tell Allen the real truth.
Because the real truth sounded even more stupid than in-law jealousy.
The real truth was that the chair scared her. It made her skin crawl every time she saw it. The one time she’d sat in it, right before going to the hospital the last time, she’d felt as if long fingers had snaked inside her, had caressed her belly, and had lovingly squeezed the seven-pound creature that would soon be born.
She hadn’t said anything. Of course not, such delusions would lock a person into years of therapy. And any decent therapist could get inside your head and find enough wrong to turn you into a career customer.
She hadn’t told Allen about the day Veronica died, and how she had come into the nursery and found the little baby burning up with fever, a pool of vomit by her mouth, everything happening so fast that even now she could almost convince herself she’d imagined it.
The chair. Rocking by itself.
But surely that hadn’t happened, she’d been panicked by her baby’s faint, flushed features and shallow breathing. No way could she have heard the soft whisper of the chair moving back and forth, whispering “Ben-son, Ben-son, Ben-son.”
“Half Benson,” Darla said. “But half mine, too.”
“Look, honey, let’s not fight. This is no good for you. The baby’s both of ours.”
Both of ours. Darla had hidden her true feelings about the chair. But she’d kept other secrets from Allen as well.
She nodded, guilt making her blush. “Okay,” she said. “The chair can stay for now.”
Allen grinned, looking as boyish as he had in college when they’d first met. He came over and hugged her, exaggerating the effort required to wrap his arms around her belly. “A growing family,” he said, kissing her on the lips.
Mad Stacks: Story Collection Box Set Page 28