by Alden Bell
How long you been hangin on to this? she says and tucks it into the pocket of her pants. I reckon now I gotta find out what it says, don’t I?
Mrs. Grierson comes and leads her to a different room where she takes great delight in sending Temple into a huge square closet and watching her emerge in different colorful dresses. Each time Temple comes out, Mrs. Grierson claps her hands to her lips and grins, then she sweeps over and makes various little adjustments to the outfit because Temple has invariably put it on incorrectly.
This is the second time in just a week that Temple has been costumed by gentlewomen. She dislikes it but acquiesces because serving as a dress model counts as currency for some species of women, and Temple knows she will owe Mrs. Grierson a certain not so small debt.
Aren’t you lovely! Mrs. Grierson says. You must get a great deal of attention from the young men.
Usually the kind that needs beatin down.
Oh, you’re a scamp. You can’t fool me, I remember what it was like to be young.
What was it like?
Dangerous, she says as though that were a good thing. Of course, Temple realizes, the danger of her youth was probably in coming home late or getting caught sneaking some whiskey from the family bar or kissing one boy by the arbor while another one waited for you on the porch swing out front.
At dinner, they all sit around an oversized polished table in the dining room. Mrs. Grierson sits on the end, and there are two places set on the left side for the Grierson boys and two places set on the right for her guests. Temple has been outfitted in peach taffeta for the occasion, and her hair has been artfully piled on top of her head.
Mr. Grierson is still too ill to join us, I’m afraid, Mrs. Grierson says. I’ll have Maisie take him a plate in his room.
I guess if he’s as hungry as I am, Temple says, gulping down her entire glass of ice water with lemon, it don’t matter much to him which room he gets his grub in.
Mrs. Grierson and her son look at her with their hands folded neatly in their laps.
Oops, Temple says. Sorry. It’s been a while since I dined all polite and everything. It don’t come natural to me.
Doesn’t, dear, Mrs. Grierson says.
Temple looks at the empty place beside Richard Grierson.
I suppose we’re waitin on your brother?
James will be down directly, Mrs. Grierson assures her.
And almost immediately after she says the words, the dining room doors swing open and James Grierson comes in and drops himself into the chair beside his brother.
James, we have a guest, Mrs. Grierson says.
Buzz, buzz, says James.
It is evident that he is the older of the two, not because of any physical indications but rather simply as a result of the spiritual weight he seems to lug around on his shoulders. He is paler than his brother, and dark in the places where his brother is light. His eyes are sunken and weary, broken of all the plastic dignity in Richard’s gaze. Nonetheless, he is handsome in a severe way—the kind of man who makes Temple’s insides roil around all curious and bothered.
Sarah Mary, Mrs. Grierson says, would you like to say grace?
Oh, uh, I best not. I never get the words right.
So Richard does it instead:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you.
Amen, says Mrs. Grierson, and Temple follows with an amen of her own.
And praise Jesus that we’re not dead yet, James Grierson says. Then he looks at his brother and adds: Some of us.
James, Mrs. Grierson warns.
The food is the best that Temple has ever tasted. Salty chicken and dumplings, a puffy corn casserole, greenbeans with mushrooms and crunchy onions on top, cornbread, and for dessert a peach cobbler that makes her want to run her finger across the plate to get every last bit of it.
So, Sarah Mary, James says, elongating her name as though he’s not too fond of it, where are you from?
She’s from over in Statenville, James, Mrs. Grierson answers for her.
Is that right? he asks. You like Statenville?
It’s okay, I reckon.
I didn’t know there were still survivors in that town.
There’s a few.
It must be horrible out there, Richard interjects. For a girl your age to be exposed to such monstrosity. Those things.
He shudders.
They ain’t so bad, she says. They just doin what they supposed to do. Like we all are, I guess.
Are they supposed to eviscerate children? James asks suddenly. Are they supposed to play tug-of-war with the intestines of God-fearing men?
James! Mrs. Grierson says, I’ll not tell you again—
Are they supposed to digest entire populations?
James, that’s enough! I refuse to hear such horrible things at my table!
You refuse, James chuckles, looking at his grandmother. You refuse.
Then he pushes back his chair and tosses his napkin onto the plate and marches from the room.
Mrs. Grierson watches him go and collects herself and then smiles in a dignified way at Temple.
I apologize for my grandson’s behavior, she says.
Ain’t no problem, Temple says. Sometimes you gotta bust apart to get yourself put back together.
Life has been hard on him, Mrs. Grierson says.
He was in the army, Richard adds.
I GOTTA get out of this place, dummy. We can stay a few days to try and lose ole Moses, but I ain’t got this far in my life just to get familied down inside an electric fence.
She looks at him. He sits on the edge of her bed where she put him, his fingertips poking at the air as though something were there and his concentration intent upon it.
It’s an enigma what you seein in this world, dummy.
She considers.
Still, this ain’t a half bad place for you. Give em a few days to get attached, and we got you a new home. Plenty of people to make you dinner and watch you don’t get yourself hurt.
She nods her head and puts the curtain aside to look out the window.
They’re a little nutty, sure—but it’s about as nice a place as you or me’re ever gonna see in this life.
Later, after the sun sets, she creeps out to the car to smuggle in the gurkha knife, because she doesn’t sleep well unless she’s got it at hand. The car is parked behind the house where the hill continues to climb into a densely forested part of the landscape. From where she is, she can see a faint path winding up through the trees—and a dim figure standing at the foot of the path.
You gettin an eyeful? she says, loud enough for whoever it is to hear.
But the shape doesn’t respond, turning instead and ascending the path, disappearing into the dense foliage.
She looks back at the house once, the lighted squares of window beckoning with the kind of security that comes with knowing what to expect. Then she sighs and looks at the shoes Mrs. Grierson gave her. They match the taffeta dress, but they aren’t going to survive tromping through the woods.
It’s a shame, they are pretty shoes.
THERE IS no moon, and she follows the path up through the trees more by feel than by sight, sweeping the gurkha knife in front of her. She worries less about stumbling than she does about walking into the electrified fence along the perimeter of the property.
The path winds back and forth up the side of the hill. Every now and then she thinks she can hear footsteps other than her own. Behind her or in front of her she can’t tell, but they stop when she stops to listen.
A blind dark like this, she’s not doing any sneaking up, so she calls out.
Whyn’t you come on out, whoever you are, and we’ll make a midnight constitutional together. Otherwise I might could hack you by accident.
There is no response, and she looks back in the direction of the house. It is hidden behind the trees, but she can see the faint glow of it in the lower part of the sky. She continues up t
he hill.
Soon she emerges into a clearing at the top, and it’s a divine sight. The infested city is below her, lit primitive by a few meager lights shimmering in the night air. In those pools of light she can see the slugs stumbling densely together, tiny in the distance. The only sound is the rustling of the leaves, a peacefulness incongruous with the thick tableau of horror below.
The clearing must be used frequently. There is a park bench, and a small white-painted iron table with a glass top. On the ground next to the bench are two empty bottles. Dead soldiers, Uncle Jackson used to call them.
I have a gun aimed at your head, says a voice behind her. Don’t turn around.
Temple turns around. It’s James Grierson.
I said don’t turn around.
I heard you.
You think I won’t shoot you?
I never seen anybody shoot someone without some reason, good or bad.
I think you’ve got that wrong, little miss. If you haven’t noticed, reason is something we seem to have a dearth of in this world.
Then I guess you better kill me with that first shot, cause if I make it over there with this blade, I’m gonna mess you up permanent.
He gazes at her down the barrel of the gun, a look of consideration on his face as though he is thinking about whether to cast her in a play rather than shoot her. Then he lowers the gun. In his other hand is a bottle, and he raises it to his mouth and drinks.
It’s a beautiful night, he says. Pitch-black, the beasts of hell lowing in the distance. How about sitting with me and having a drink?
He seems to have lost interest in the gun altogether.
All right then, she says. That’s more neighborly of you.
He sits on the bench and sets his gun on the table, and she sits on the other end of the bench—and they look out over the city, and he hands her the bottle and she drinks from it and hands it back.
That’s good whiskey.
Hirsch bourbon, sixteen year. Only the best.
They drink.
Look yonder, he gestures down toward the city. A plague of slugs descended upon us. A scourge of evil bubbling up from hell.
He laughs, but she can’t tell whether it’s because he’s joking or because he isn’t.
I don’t know about evil, Temple says. Them meatskins are just animals is all. Evil’s a thing of the mind. We humans got the full measure of it ourselves.
Is that right? Are you evil, Sarah Mary?
I ain’t good.
James Grierson looks at her in a hard, penetrating way. His skin is pale and almost glows against the black night. He looks like someone who could slap you or kiss you and you wouldn’t be able to tell which one is coming and it would mean the same thing either way.
You’re a soldier, he says to her. Like me. You’ve done things you’re not proud of. You’ve got a fierce shame in you, little girl. I can see it—burning in your gut like a jet engine. Is that why you move so fast and so hard?
She looks out over the city of slugs. She can feel his eyes on her, and she doesn’t like to think about what they are seeing.
You were in the army?
I was, he says and takes a drink.
For how long?
Two years. I was stationed in Hattiesburg. We were trying to take back the city.
That weren’t no small task.
We had rescue stations set up, radio transmitters. We were working building defensive walls. But they just kept coming.
Slugs, they like to be where the action is, she says.
We thought we were taking a stand. We killed them and burned the remains and the women tended to the bonfire, and you could smell the smoking corpses day and night. We rotated shifts, a barrage of bullets, and then the cleanup crews. And then there would be more after that. They just kept coming. You wouldn’t have thought there were so many dead.
And then what?
It was too much. We ran low on ammo. Everyone was exhausted. A girl fell into the fire and her mother tried to pull her out and both of them died and had to be burned. The worst was the psychology of it. You can’t fight an enemy like that. There’s no way to win.
So you gave up?
We fell back. We spread out to secure locations. They gave us the option to go home, and I took it.
You were gonna take care of your family.
He holds his bottle up to the sky.
The Grierson dynasty holds fast to its glorious history. It closes its eyes to modernity in all its forms.
He leans over to her and points the bottle in her face.
I’ve been around more living dead in that house than I was when I was piling them up in a bonfire two stories high.
He passes the bottle to her and sits back. She drinks.
Your family, they’re just doin what they know how to do is all.
Just like the slugs, right?
I reckon it ain’t the first time the comparison’s been made.
He looks at her again, and she can feel her skin go taut.
Where exactly are you from, Sarah Mary Williams? And don’t tell me Statenville. I’ve been to Statenville, it’s a ghost town.
I’ve been down south for a while. Found myself a nice little place, but the meatskins were fixin to move in. Before that I did a lot of travelin. Alabama, Mississippi, Texas. Once I got as far north as Kansas City.
What about your parents?
What about them?
Where are they?
Beats me. I guess I must of had some. But they either roamed free or got dead before I got any recollection of em.
What about—
He points down toward the house.
Is he really your brother? he asks.
Him? Huh-uh. He’s just a dummy I picked up a ways back. He don’t talk much, but he follows directions real good. Bet he could haul quite a load, big as he is. Would be a good worker to have around if anybody had need of one.
So you don’t have any family at all?
She shrugs and sniffs, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
Not really. There was a kid once. Malcolm. It could of been he was my brother—but all the papers in the orphanage got burned. And there was Uncle Jackson, but we just called him that. He wasn’t a real uncle or nothing.
What happened to them?
Uncle Jackson, he got bit.
WHERE IT happened was up on the ridge where Uncle Jackson liked to hunt rabbits. He was crouched down in a gully taking careful aim when he felt the hands on him, the teeth sinking into the flesh of his forearm. He said he never saw the thing coming at all. That it must’ve been there in the leaves for who knows how long just waiting for some food to come along, like a Venus flytrap or something.
She found him later, met him as he was coming back to the cabin.
You’re gonna have to do something for me, little bit. It’s not gonna be pretty. Are you ready to do it?
She nodded.
He led her to a fallen tree and rolled up his sleeve and put his arm out and told her to tie it tight above the elbow with his belt. She did it. Then he told her to use her gurkha and take it off.
Just one quick stroke. Do you think you can do it?
It’s gonna hurt you bad, ain’t it?
It’s not gonna hurt as much as the alternative, little bit. Now you go on. Thirteen years old, maybe, but you’ve got a hacking arm on you the kind I’ve never seen before. Can you do it?
She nodded.
He put the loose end of the belt in his mouth so he wouldn’t scream when she did it.
She brought the blade down quick and firm like he had taught her before.
Afterward, he couldn’t walk so straight, so she got under his good arm and took him back to the cabin and laid him down on his cot.
What happened to Uncle Jackson’s arm? Malcolm said. He gazed around Temple’s body at the man lying on the bed. He was a worrying kind, Malcolm was, and sometimes you had to make him breathe into a bag when he got stirred up.
He got in an accident.
Was it meatskins?
It’s gonna be okay. Go to the well and bring me back some water.
But where’s his arm?
Go on like I told you.
They heated water on the woodstove and put damp cloths on Uncle Jackson’s forehead and tried to get him to drink. He was fitful for a long time, his head jerking back and forth, his good hand clutching at the space where his other arm should have been.
Eventually he slept, and so did Malcolm. And she sat up and watched the man in the glow of the firelight.
He woke after midnight, but he wasn’t the same. There was a quietness to him as of someone given up.
How you doing, little bit?
I’m all right, she said.
It got me, he said. I can feel it.
But your arm. It could be we got it in time. You might not change.
He shook his head.
I can feel it, he said. It’s in me. Whatever it is, it’s part of me now. You’re gonna have to take Malcolm away from here.
No, she said. You don’t know. You’re sick but it might not be that. You could make it, it might not be that.
Listen to me, little bit. You have to know this, it’s important. When it happens, you can feel it. All right? Are you listening? When it happens you’ll know.
But—
Give me that pistol from the table.
She brought the pistol to him. He popped the cartridge.
Now take out all the rounds except one.
It could be—
Come on, little bit. You do what I’m telling you. Just leave one round. You’re gonna need the rest.
She did it.
Now you take the guns and put them in the trunk of the car, and you take Malcolm, and the two of you drive away from here and don’t come back. You got it? You listening to me?
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and shook her head.
Temple, I’m talking to you, he said, his voice coming harsh and sudden and causing her to straighten up. Now you’re gonna do exactly what I tell you, do you understand?
Yes, sir.
I’ll be all right here. I’ll take care of myself before it gets ahold of me.
He gripped the gun to his chest.
Now you’ve got bigger things to think about, little bit. You’ve made a home out of this world somehow—I don’t know how you did it, but you did. And that means you can go anywhere in it. Everyplace is your backyard. You understand me?