“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just that…” She took another look over the wall. “Christ, I don’t know what half of those fucking guns even are. Do you?”
“Actually, no. But there’s a good chance we’re going to find out. In a peaceful way.”
She took my cup and took a sip. “I’m going back in. If you’re making progress with our mysterious visitor, having a third party around might just muck things up. You just make sure you’re damn careful, Mac,” she added as she climbed down.
I returned my attention to Weasel. He was sitting in the snow, white on white, his hands still drawing warmth from the coffee cup.
“Let’s get started, Weasel,” I said. “Take off all your clothes. Boots and socks too. Throw each piece up here.”
“Jesus Christ, McCall,” he hollered, “It’s twenty below zero out here.”
“I don’t think it’s quite that cold,” I replied.
“When I get naked, that’s what it’s gonna feel like.”
“Listen to me, Weasel, if you’re in a clan, you’ve got a tattoo somewhere on your body. If you’ve got one, access to our home will be denied.” I tossed the army blanket down to him. “You can use this while I search your clothes. I’ll send your boots and socks back first so you don’t have to stand in the snow barefoot.”
Weasel stripped as quickly as possible, slowed by the fact that he probably had on over a dozen items of clothing layered to protect him against the cold. He threw each item up as it came off until I had a huge pile of clothes beneath me, and he stood in the snow, not quite naked yet.
His torso, arms and legs were adorned with an array of scabbards and holsters, each securing a deadly weapon. I recognized a Bowie knife, a fillet knife, an ice pick (secured to his right forearm with surgical tape), a derringer on the other arm at the wrist, a short barreled 38 special, a short barreled Baretta, and a couple of small spray cans about the size of a cigarette lighter.
He grinned up at me sheepishly. “I never leave home unprepared.”
“Toss ‘em all up,” I said.
He complied, with a warning. “Don’t be sniffing those cans. They ain’t perfume. One’s mace and the other’s nerve gas.”
I asked him to raise his arms above his head and do a slow 360. Aside from some very nasty scars front and back torso, he was completely clean. To my relief there were no tattoos. Without the bulk of clothing, he was smaller than I initially thought, skinny, but not emaciated, muscles wiry and long, belly flat. Weasel was a poster child for pale. Except for his pubic region and under his arms, his body was almost hairless. His hair was military cut, receding in the front, light brown in color. My scrutiny did not appear to make him uncomfortable.
“You want I should bend and spread ‘em? Lift up my nuts?” He was smiling, putting me on.
“That won’t be necessary,” I responded. I quickly searched his socks and boots and threw them back down. “Relax a few minutes and I’ll get the rest of your clothes back to you.”
I threw the items down as I finished. The army pants and parka took a while. They contained more weapons than he had on his body. When I had finished, there was more firepower at my feet than Sarah and I had in our entire house.
I looked down at him. “I got more at home,” he said reading, my mind.
Shaking my head in disbelief, I said, “Now, remove the blanket from the wagon and shake it out.”
Under the blanket were two or three dozen square plastic boxes which I recognized as 21st cen compact discs and DVD’s. He removed them, stacking them on one end of the little red wagon. “These here are presents.”
Beneath where the discs had been was an Uzi and about twenty clips. He grinned up at me sheepishly. “You didn’t expect I’d leave all these valuables unprotected, did you? This is also a present. I’m gonna take it by the barrel and toss it up to you.”
Weasel returned the discs to their original position and rearranged some of the bounty, revealing a small rectangular black plastic box. He held the discs up to me, beaming proudly. “These things are what they call CDs and DVD’s. Some play music. Others show movies. And performances by music groups. The quality is state of the art for pre-collapse. And that there,” he said pointing his head toward the black box, “is a DVD and CD player, Blue Ray Max III, advanced digital signal processing unit, Dolby 10C Pro Logic Sound Enhancement, eight channel surround sound, and best of all, 3-D option. Consumer mags say this one is the best. Also got 4K and 3-D monitors back home.”
I was completely astounded. “Weasel, this is unbelievable. I’m flabbergasted by your generosity. And please don’t be disappointed, but I gotta tell you … We don’t have any electricity. No one does.”
Weasel responded with a grin that covered his face all the way up to his receding hairline. It was a wonder to behold.
“You will soon.”
• • • •
I buzzed Sarah in the house and told her to call Duke in and get ready for a visitor. Nobody but us had ever been in our house. This was momentous. Weasel and I had expended fifteen minutes on getting him re-attired and my guiding him and his wagon through the barrier of barbed wire, grape vines and raspberry patch. I decided to leave the weapons where they were until we decided if Weasel was a fit for Sarah, Duke, and me and our little homestead.
“Nice touch,” he said when he had made his way through the barbed wire. “Makes good sense. Keeps the bad guys out and supplies food at the same time. I suggest you go shopping and get a whole bunch of loud bells and attach ‘em to the barbed wire. And go to a jail or prison and get some razor wire.”
When the two of us and the wagon finally made it into the house, I was greeted by an astonishing scene. Sarah was in her 19th century rocker, Duke on his haunches by her side. The shotgun was in easy reach, but placed so as not be a primary concern to an observer. Between her and us, on a Queen Anne serving table was an assortment of cookies, a coffee urn, a pitcher of hot apple cider and three Nippon cups and saucers from one of her first forages (resting on early American lace doilies) and three Heisey glasses. In the center of the table was the Erte’ sculpture, Woman in Black. Around the serving table were three matching Louis XIV chairs. Sarah never allowed me or Duke to sit in them.
We had now been together 14 years. Since we were kids, really. Never once had we been apart for more than a day or two when one of us had gone scouting. We did almost everything together. Cooked, hunted, fished, gardened, built, read, slept, cleaned, refinished furniture. We had found and furnished a house; built a wall and barricade; dug an escape tunnel; put in a garden; collected antiques, art and books; gathered chickens, cows, and pigs; built a stable; and generally made a hell of a nice life for ourselves—far enough away from the clans to be somewhat free from danger.
Which is not to say that we talked nonstop for 14 years or liked exactly the same activities. We each read, a solitary activity, and we each have areas that one is more proficient at than the other. She is the baker. I am the cook. She gardens. I butcher our meat. She cleans the fish. She reads non-fiction for the most part; I generally stick to fiction.
The only thing missing was kids. We figured out the sex part about 10 minutes after I could lift myself up to my elbows. That was about two weeks after she saved me. We didn’t know much about sex, but we both knew babies could be dangerous.
Our first time, before we started, Sarah put her hand on my chest. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I’ve been reading about this. We’re gonna like this, but can’t be having babies.”
I nodded in assent. My mind wasn’t processing clearly. “I’ll follow your lead,” I croaked. Good decision.
We didn’t dwell on the issue. Survival took up most of our time. Tenderness and quiet moments are rare when wild dogs and deranged humans share your territory.
So when Weasel and I walked in the door and were greeted by Betty Crocker with a shotgun, I was a bit taken aback by this new side to her character. I was about to make a crack about the 50’s when she cu
t her eyes at me, so I shut up. In retrospect, I see Sarah had a far better grasp on the situation than I. For this was not only a significant passage in our life together; it was also an occasion of profound magnitude for Weasel.
I took a step forward, turned to Weasel, then back to Sarah.
“Sarah,” I said in what I imagined was a formal voice, “I would like to introduce my new friend, Mr. Wendell Worthington Washington.”
She stood up and walked across the room to Weasel, offering her hand when she reached him. As he took it, she said, “Welcome to our home, Mr. Washington. Please let me take your coat. Won’t you have a seat and join us for some nice hot coffee or cider and cookies.”
I almost laughed. I fought the impulse.
Wendell shuffled his feet, hung his head and pumped her hand enthusiastically. After a few seconds, he got up enough gumption to make eye contact with her and said, “Howdeedo, Ma’m. I’d be honored to sit. And please call me Weasel.”
Thus began the most amazing twenty-four hours of our life together and the flowering of a relationship that would send tidal waves of change through clan society five years down the road.
CHAPTER THREE
JANUARY 2053
We stayed up talking with Weasel for over twenty hours. As if recalling the way it should be from the words of 20th and 21st cen books and stories told by elders, all three of us made brave attempts at small talk. Three suburbanites circling an antique table filled with cookies, coffee and cider.
It didn’t work.
It wasn’t our world. The best of the 20th—families, ideas, church, schools, homes, neighbors—had gone up in smoke over three decades ago. Shells remained, barren and forlorn. Rusted vehicles frozen on rivers of concrete. Skyscrapers that would last for centuries, giant, functionless objet d’art. Hollow men and hollow women. There was no room for small talk in a society that required you to be armed every waking and sleeping moment.
Everything was big.
It was Weasel who finally got us down to business. “Ma’am,” he said, “Sarah, I mean, I got something I gotta talk about. It’s very important to me. And I’m not sure how to go about doin’ it.”
She leaned forward and refilled his coffee, then leaned back again, sedate and composed, trying, I knew, to allay Weasel’s fears, diminish his discomfort with the situation.
“You just relax, Weasel,” Sarah told our guest. “Mac here seems to trust you…and I trust him. We want to know what brings you to us. Whenever you’re ready to talk, we’re ready to listen.”
As if in preparation for a monumental task, he took a deep breath and began. “It’s a God forsaken world out there, Sarah. I’ve been alone in it for a lotta years, traveling and watching and movin’ on again. Every time I moved it was because the people were hard. Too hard. And empty. Didn’t make any difference if it was city or country or small town. The people just didn’t seem right. Like there was some part of them missin’. You know what I mean?”
“Weasel,” I said, “for the past eight years Sarah and I haven’t had the chance to know anybody except each other and the people in these books.” I swept my arm in a circle, indicating the bookshelves along each wall, stacked with our library and bookstore withdrawals. “But we’ve seen the horrors going on east of us and we know what you’re talking about.”
“I moved up here about a year ago,” Weasel continued, “and been scoutin’ and collectin’ ever since. I seen whole bunch of bad things. No worse here than the rest of the world, just more of it. I’m about five miles west of you, place called Montgomery. Just me and a few dirt farmers who trade food for some of the stuff I scavenge. But they ain’t very friendly. Kinda mad acting all the time, like someone took somethin’ from ‘em.
“Been all the way into the city and up north and down south, too. Fox River and a canoe make a pretty good highway. Ran across you two about nine months ago. Been watchin’ you ever since.”
He saw the glance between the two of us and lowered his eyes, as if shamed by his disclosure.
“I never meant any harm. Thing is,” he continued, “I never seen anybody like the two of you.”
“How do you mean?” Sarah asked.
Weasel raised his head and looked at us, swinging his glance from one to another, then settling on Sarah, directing his words to both of us, but focusing on her.
“First time I saw you was near the end of winter. You were walkin’ in the woods—holdin’ hands and talkin’. I could see you were both smiling and I heard Sarah laugh. I never heard a woman laugh like that—all happy and gay, not laughin’ at someone who was dumb or made some dirty joke, but just laughin’ ‘cuz she was happy.”
He leaned forward, getting closer, sharing a secret.
“You two ever seen a movie?”
“No,” said Sarah. “But we’ve read all about them. They sound so wonderful. But we have no power. No one does.”
“I’ve seen hundreds of ‘em,” he revealed, leaning back, the secret shared.
“My God,” said Sarah, excitement in her voice. “What are they like? Where’d you get them? Can we see one? How do you turn them on?”
“No worries. You’ll see plenty. But that ain’t why I’m tellin’ you. Thing is, in the movies people act different from the way they do now. Except for science fiction and horror movies, they look different, too. In lots of movies people are nice to each other. They got families and kids and pets and friends and they joke around and laugh and treat each other good.”
He got up and began walking around the room as he talked. “Now in the movies, somethin’s always gotta go wrong. Otherwise, you got no story to tell. Some problem’s gotta come up that makes people worry a lot and makes you scared somethin’ bad’s gonna happen to the ones you like. But in the end, it all seems to turn out OK.”
Weasel was wandering as he talked, taking in our furnishings, inspecting the antiques, the art. He stopped at one of the bookshelves.
“I know how to read, you know. Taught myself with educational dvd’s. Know how to use a computer, too.”
That got our attention. We knew the potential of computers. But never thought we could operate one.
He returned to the table, knelt down between our two chairs.
“Whenever I’m not scavenging or building something, I learn on the computer or watch movies. My favorite’s about this kid that finds a space creature and tries to take care of it, but it gets sick, and the government tries to get the creature, and the family helps the kid against the bad guys in the government.”
He looked at us, each on a flank, listening attentively, fascinated by his account.
“You see…I watch my movies and wish I could have what those people have. It’s real. I know life must have really been like that before the collapse. At least with some of the people. They couldn’t have made it all up. Could they?”
“No. I don’t think someone made it up, Weasel,” replied Sarah. “Mac and I remember people telling us about families and life before the collapse. People that write books and make movies use their imaginations, but they build their stories around things that are real.”
“Interesting,” Weasel said. “We didn’t have none of that where I came from. People being nice and happy. None that I recall, anyway.”
“We didn’t either,” Sarah said. “Just what we heard people say…about what it was like before…”
Sarah and I sat quietly. Waiting.
“Every time I watch,” Weasel continued, “I wish I could be part of something like they got…Have someone that cares what happens to you. People you can laugh and tease without worryin’ about getting shot or beat up. Somebody that’ll say nice things to you without wanting something. Then I seen you two, and for months you ain’t never said a cross word to each other. You laugh and play with your dog and hunt together. Build a snowman. Work together. And you’re always nice to each other.”
He stopped, lowering his head as he knelt between us. Neither of us broke the silence. After a fe
w minutes I saw his shoulders shaking. I looked to Sarah. She shook her head ever so slightly. No, let him be, she was saying. This is his time.
We waited, not uncomfortable with the silence, but concerned about Weasel’s pain.
Head still down, he spoke softly. “Had a brother and sister, once. They were younger. Got killed in a food raid down south near Cairo, by the rivers. I was eight. Lived alone ever since.”
Silence again.
He had been alone for twenty years, according to his calculation. He had found no one to trust, no one to care for the entire time of his self-imposed exile.
“I couldn’t of saved ‘em. Lucky I wasn’t killed myself. They caught the bullets and I didn’t. Just blind luck. We were all runnin’ away from the shooting together. I was leadin’ the way. Bullets got ‘em all. Went back to ‘em to check. But there wasn’t anything I could do. They were gone. Little brother, little sister. Our mother, too. I just slipped away into the night.”
We both sat across from him, silent, saddened by his tale, but not shocked. Each of us had endured similar tragedies.
He looked up at us, bittersweet smile on his face.
“Funny thing is, I never knew what I was missin’ until I got electricity and movies. Probably would’ve gone through my whole life figurin’ life’s shit and that’s that.”
Weasel read the concern on our faces and quickly continued.
“Now don’t you two worry about me none. I got a plan. What I got in mind is that I drop off these here presents and visit awhile. Then I leave and come back and we can set things up and I’ll bring more things. That way we can get to know each other. If we like it, maybe someday we can be like, you know…a little family.”
Sarah and I were silent, looking at each other. I didn’t know how to respond.
She left her chair and got down on her knees, butt back on her feet, nice and comfortable. She took Weasel’s hands in hers and turned him so they were facing each other.
“I’ve got a better idea,” she said, looking up at me then back to Weasel. “We’ve got about five empty bedrooms in this house. Why don’t you get some things you need and move into one and stay with us for a few weeks and we’ll all see how we get along. But we don’t want any presents. We just want you. You don’t have to buy your way in. Just do your share and we’ll all work together and get to know each other.”
Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation Page 3