Swan Song

Swan Song Page 10

"Down the hatch," Paul Thorson said, and he took the first sip.

Sister tilted the bowl to her mouth. The soup was bitter and gritty, but the meat wasn't too bad. The saliva suddenly flooded into her mouth, and she gulped the hot food down like an animal herself. after two swallows, artie had begun to go pale.

"Hey," Paul said to him, "if you're gonna puke, do it outside. One speck on my clean floor and you sleep with the wolves."

artie shut his eyes and kept eating. The others attacked their bowls, scraping them clean with their fingers and holding them out for more like orphans from Oliver Twist.

The wolves howled and clamored just outside the cabin. Something slammed against the wall, and Sister jumped so hard she spilled asshole stew on her sweater.

"They're just curious," Steve told her. "Don't sweat it, lady. It's cool."

Sister had a second bowl. artie looked at her in horror and crawled away, his hand pressed against a throbbing pain at his ribs. Paul noticed, but he said nothing.

No sooner had the pot been cleaned out than the old man said irritably, "It's time! Right now!"

Paul put aside his empty bowl and checked his wristwatch again. "It hasn't been a whole day yet."

"Please." The old man's eyes were like those of a lost puppy's. "Please... all righti"

"You know the rules. Once a day. No more, no less."

"Please. Just this once... can't we do it earlyi"

"aw, shit!" Steve said. "Let's go ahead and get it over with!"

Mona Ramsey shook her head violently. "No, it isn't time! It hasn't been a whole day yet! You know the rules!"

The wolves were still growling outside, as if they had their muzzles right up to the cracks in the door. Two or more of them started a gnashing, howling fight. Sister had no idea what everyone in the room was talking about, but whatever it was must be vital, she thought. The old man was near tears.

"Just this once... just this once," he moaned.

"Don't do it!" Mona told Paul, her eyes defiant. "We've got to have rules!"

"Oh, fuck the rules!" Steve Buchanan banged his bowl down on the counter. "I say we do it and get it over with!"

"What's going on herei" Sister asked, puzzled.

The others stopped arguing and looked at her. Paul Thorson glanced at his wristwatch, then sighed heavily. "Okay," he said. "Just this once, we do it early." He held up a hand to ward off the young woman's objections. "We're only going to be about an hour and twenty minutes early. That's not enough to hurt."

"Yes it is!" Mona was almost shouting. Her husband put his hands on her shoulders, as if to restrain her. "It could ruin everything!"

"Let's vote on it, then," Paul offered. "We're still a democracy, righti Everybody say 'aye' who wants to do it early." Immediately the old man shouted, "aye!" Steve Buchanan stuck his thumb up in the air. The Ramseys were silent. Paul paused, listening to the call of the wolves, and Sister could see him thinking. Then he quietly said, "aye. The ayes have it."

"What about themi" Mona pointed at Sister and artie. "Don't they get votesi"

"Hell, no!" Steve said. "They're new! They don't get votes yet!"

"The ayes have it," Paul repeated firmly, staring at Mona. "One hour and twenty minutes early won't make a big difference."

"It will!" she replied, and then her voice cracked. She started sobbing, while her husband held her shoulders and tried to soothe her. "It'll ruin everything! I know it will!"

"You two come with me," Paul told Sister and artie, and he motioned them into the cabin's other room.

In the room there was a regular bed with a quilted cover, a few shelves of paperback and hardbound books, and a desk and chair. On the desk was a battered old Royal typewriter and a thin sheaf of typing paper. Balls of paper were scattered around an overflowing wicker trash can. an ashtray was full of matches, and tobacco ash had spilled from the bowl of a black briar pipe. a couple of candles were set in saucers on a little table beside the bed, and a window looked out toward the tainted lake.

But that was not all the window revealed.

Parked behind the cabin was an old Ford pickup truck, the battleship-gray paint flaking off its sides and hood and red creepers of rust starting to eat through the metal.

"You've got a truck!" Sister said excitedly. "My God! We can get out of here!"

Paul glanced at the truck, scowled and shrugged. "Forget it, lady."

"Whati What do you mean, forget iti You've got a truck! We can get to civilization!"

He picked up his pipe and jammed a finger into the bowl, digging at a carbon deposit. "Yeahi and where might that bei"

"Out there! along I-80!"

"How far, do you thinki Two milesi Fivei Teni What about fiftyi" He put the pipe aside and glared at her, then he drew a green curtain shut between this room and the other. "Forget it," he repeated. "That truck's got about a teacupful of gas in it, the brakes are shot, and I doubt if it'll even crank. The battery was fucked up even on the best of days."

"But..." She looked out at the vehicle again, then at artie and finally back to Paul Thorson. "You've got a truck," she said, and she heard herself whine.

"The wolves have got teeth," he replied. "Sharp ones. Do you want those poor souls out there to find out how sharpi You want to pile them in a pickup truck and go for a nice excursion through the Pennsylvania countryside with a teacupful of gas in the tanki Sure. No problem to call a tow truck when we break down. Take us right to the gas pumps, and we'll pull out our trusty credit cards and be on our way." He was silent for a moment, and then he shook his head. "Please don't torture yourself. Forget it. We're here to stay."

Sister heard the wolves howling, the sound floating through the woods and over the frozen lake, and she feared that he might be right.

"Talking about that bum truck's not why I asked you in here." He bent down and pulled an old wooden footlocker out from beneath the bed. "You two still seem to have most of your marbles," he said. "I don't know what you've been through, but those people out there are hanging on by their fingernails."

The footlocker was sealed by a fist-sized padlock. He fished a key from his jeans pocket and opened the lock. "We play a little game around here. It might not be a very nice game, but I figure it keeps them from letting go. It's kind of like walking to the mailbox every day because you're expecting a love letter or a check." He lifted the footlocker's lid.

Inside, cushioned with newspapers and rags, were three bottles of Johnny Walker Red Label Scotch, a .357 Magnum revolver and a box or two of ammunition, some moldy-looking manuscripts bound with rubber bands, and another object wrapped in heavy plastic. He began to unfold the plastic. "It's funny as shit, it really is," he said. "I came out here to nowhere to get away from people. Can't stand the breed. Never could. I'm sure as hell no Good Samaritan. and then all of a sudden the highway's covered with cars and corpses, and people are running like hell and I'm up to my ears in the human race. I say screw it! We deserved everything we got!" He unfolded the last layer of plastic to reveal a radio with an intricate set of dials and knobs. He lifted it from the footlocker, opened the desk drawer and got out eight batteries. "Shortwave," he told them as he began to put the batteries in the back of the radio. "I used to like to listen to concerts from Switzerland in the middle of the night." He closed the footlocker and snapped the padlock on again.

"I don't understand," Sister said.

"You will. Just don't get too bent out of shape, no matter what happens out there in the next few minutes. Like I say, it's all a game, but they're pretty jumpy today. I just wanted to prepare you." He motioned for them to follow, and they returned to the front room.

"It's my turn today!" the old man cried out, sitting up on his knees, his eyes shining.

"You did it yesterday," Paul told him calmly. "It's Kevin's turn today." He offered the radio to the young man. Kevin hesitated, then took it as if accepting a child in swaddling clothes.

The others gathered around him, except for Mona Ramsey, who crawled petulantly away. But even she watched her husband excitedly. Kevin grasped the tip of the radio's recessed antenna and drew it all the way out; it jutted up about two feet, the metal shining like a promise.

"Okay," Paul said. "Switch it on."

"Not yet," the young man balked. "Please. Not just yet."

"Go ahead, man!" Steve Buchanan's voice shook. "Do it!"

Kevin slowly turned one of the knobs, and the red needle moved all the way to one end of the frequency dial. Then he laid his finger against a red button and let it rest there as if he couldn't bear to press it. He drew a sudden, sharp breath - and his finger punched the ON button.

Sister winced, and everyone else breathed or flinched or shifted, too.

No sound came from the radio.

"Crank the volume up, man!"

"It's already set high," Kevin told him, and slowly - delicately - he began to move the needle along the frequency dial.

a quarter inch more, and still dead air. The red needle continued to move, almost imperceptibly. Sister's palms were sweating. Slowly, slowly: another fraction of an inch further.

a high burst of static suddenly wailed from the speaker, and Sister and everyone else in the room jumped. Kevin looked up at Paul, who said, "atmosphere's supercharged." The red needle moved on, through the thickets of little numbers and decimal points, searching for a human voice.

Different tones of static faded in and out, weird cacophonies of atmospheric violence. Sister heard the howl of the wolves outside mingling with the static noise - a lonely sound, almost heartbreaking in its loneliness. Spaces of dead air alternated with the grating, terrible static - and Sister knew she was hearing ghosts from the black craters where cities had been.

"You're going too fast!" Mona objected and he slowed the needle's progress to a speed that might tempt a spider to spin a web between his fingers. Sister's heart pounded at every infinitesimal change in the pitch or volume of static pouring from the speaker.

Finally, Kevin came to the end of the dial. His eyes were luminous with tears.

"Try aM," Paul told him.

"Yeah! Try aM!" Steve said, pressing over Kevin's shoulder. "There's gotta be somethin' on aM!"

Kevin turned another small dial to change from shortwave to aM, and he began to lead the red searching needle back over the numbers again. This time, except for abrupt pops and clicks and a faint, distant humming noise like honeybees at work, the band was almost completely dead. Sister didn't know how long it took Kevin to reach the other end of the dial; it could have been ten minutes, or fifteen, or twenty. But he stretched it out to the very last faint sizzle - and then he sat holding the radio between his hands, staring at it as a pulse beat steadily at his temple.

"Nothing," he whispered, and he pressed the red button.

Silence.

The old man put his hands to his face.

Sister heard artie, who was standing beside her, give a helpless, despairing sigh. "Not even Detroit," he said listlessly. "Dear God... not even Detroit."

"You turned it way too fast, man!" Steve told Kevin Ramsey. "Shit, you spun through it! I thought I heard something - it sounded like a voice! - and you went right through it!"

"No!" Mona shouted. "There was no voice! We did it too early, and that's why there was no voice! If we'd done it on time, by the rules, we would've heard somebody this time! I know it!"

"It was my turn." The old man's pleading eyes turned toward Sister. "Everybody always steals my turn."

Mona began to sob. "We didn't go by the rules! We missed the voice because we didn't go by the rules!"

"Fuck it!" Steve snapped. "I heard a voice! I swear to God I did! It was right..." He started to take the radio, but Paul Thorson snatched it out of Kevin's hands before he could. Paul lowered the antenna and turned away, going back through the curtain into the other room. Sister couldn't believe what she'd just witnessed; anger stirred within her, and pity for the poor, hopeless souls. She strode purposefully into the room where Paul Thorson was wrapping the radio back up in its protective plastic.

He looked up at her, and she lifted her right hand and gave him a slap across the face with all the fury of judgment behind it. The blow knocked him sprawling and left a red handprint on his cheek. Still, as he fell, he grasped the radio protectively to his chest and took the fall on his shoulder. He lay blinking up at her.

"I've never seen anything so cruel in all my life!" Sister raged. "Do you think that's funnyi Do you get pleasure out of thati Get up, you sonofabitch! I'll knock your ass right through that wall!" She advanced on him, but he held up a hand to ward her off, and she hesitated.

"Wait," he croaked. "Hold on. You don't get it yet, do youi"

"You're gonna get it, shitass!"

"Back off. Just wait, and watch. Then you can kick butt if you still want to." He pulled himself up, continued wrapping the radio and replaced it in the footlocker; then he snapped the padlock shut and pushed the footlocker underneath the bed again. "after you," he said, motioning her into the front room.

Mona Ramsey was bent over in the corner, sobbing as her husband tried to comfort her. The old man had curled up against one wall, staring into space, and Steve was kicking and hammering at the wall with his fist, shouting obscenities. In the center of the room, artie stood very still as the red-haired teenager rampaged around him.

"Monai" Paul said, with Sister standing just behind him and to the side.

The young woman raised her eyes to his. The old man looked at him, and so did Kevin, and Steve stopped hammering at the walls.

"You're right, Mona," Paul went on. "We didn't go by the rules. That's why we didn't hear a voice. Now, I'm not saying we will hear one if we go by the rules tomorrow. But tomorrow is another day, righti That's what Scarlett O'Hara said. Tomorrow we'll turn the radio on and try again. and if we don't hear anything tomorrow, we'll try the day after that. You know, it would take some time to repair a radio station and kick the juice back on. It would take quite a while. But tomorrow we'll try again. Righti"

"Sure!" Steve said. "Hell, it would take a while to get the juice back on!" He grinned, looking at all of them in turn. "I bet they're trying to get the stations back on the air right now! God, that'd be a job, wouldn't iti"

"I used to listen to the radio all the time!" the old man spoke up. He was smiling, too, as if he'd stepped into a dream. "I used to listen to the Mets on the radio in the summertime! Tomorrow we'll hear somebody, I'll bet you!"

Mona clutched at her husband's shoulder. "We didn't go by the rules, did wei Seei I told you - it's important to have rules!" But her crying was over, and just as suddenly she started to laugh. "God'll let us hear somebody if we follow the rules! Tomorrow! Yes, I think it might be tomorrow!"

"Right!" Kevin agreed, hugging her close. "Tomorrow!"

"Yeah." Paul looked around the room; he was keeping a smile on his face, but his eyes were pain-ridden and haunted. "I kind of think it might be tomorrow, too." His gaze met Sister's. "Don't youi"

She hesitated, and then she understood. These people had nothing to live for but that radio in the footlocker. Without it, without being able to look forward to a very special time once a day, they might very well kill themselves. Keeping it on all the time would waste batteries and blunt the hope, and she saw that Paul Thorson knew they might never hear a human voice on that radio again. But, in his own way, he was being a Good Samaritan. He was keeping these people alive in more ways than by just feeding them.

"Yes," she finally said. "I think it might be."

"Good." His smile deepened, and so did the networks of lines around his eyes. "I hope you two are poker players. I've got a hot deck of cards and plenty of matches. You weren't going anywhere in a hurry, were youi"

Sister glanced at artie. He was standing stoop-shouldered, his eyes vacant, and she knew he was thinking of the hole where Detroit had been. She watched him for a moment, and finally he straightened up and answered in a weak but courageous voice, "No. I'm not hurrying anywhere. Not anymore."

"We play five-card draw around here. If I win, I get to read my poetry to you, and you have to smile and enjoy it. Either that or you can dump the crap buckets - your choice."

"I'll make up my mind when I come to it," Sister replied, and she decided that she liked Paul Thorson very much.

"You sound like a real gambler, lady!" He clapped his hands together with mock glee. "Welcome to the club!"  

Thirty-three

Swan had avoided it as long as she possibly could. But now, as she stepped out of the bathtub's wonderfully warm water - leaving it murky brown with shed skin and grime - and reached for the large towel that Leona Skelton had set out for her, she had to do it. She had to.

She looked in the mirror.

The light came from a single lamp, its wick turned low, but it was enough. Swan stared into the oval glass over the basin, and she thought she might be seeing someone in a grotesque, hairless Halloween mask. One hand fluttered up to her lips; the awful image did the same.

Shreds of skin were hanging from her face, peeling off like tree bark. Brown, crusty streaks lay across her forehead and the bridge of her nose, and her eyebrows - once so blond and thick - had been burned clean away. Her lips were cracked like dry earth, and her eyes seemed to be sunken down into dark holes in her skull. On her right cheek were two small black warts, and on her lips were three more of them. She'd seen those same wartlike things on Josh's forehead, had seen the brown burns on his face and the mottled gray-white of his skin, but she'd gotten used to what Josh looked like. Seeing herself with a stubble where her hair had been and the dead white skin dangling from her face jarred loose tears of shock and horror.

She was startled by a polite knock at the bathroom door. "Swani You all right, childi" Leona Skelton asked.

"Yes, ma'am," she answered, but her voice was unsteady, and she knew the woman had heard.

after a pause, Leona said, "Well, I've got some grub for you when you're ready."

Swan thanked her and said she'd be out in a few minutes, and Leona went away. The Halloween-mask monster peered at her from the mirror.

She had left her grimy clothes with Leona, who'd said she'd try to wash them in a pot and dry them before the fire, and so she wrapped herself up in the floppy plaid boy's-size robe and thick white socks that Leona had left for her. The robe was part of a trunkful of clothes that had belonged to Leona's son, Joe - who now, the woman had said proudly, lived in Kansas City with a family of his own and was the manager of a supermarket. Been meanin' to throw that trunk out, Leona had told Swan and Josh, but somehow I just never got around to the job.

Swan's body was clean. The soap she'd used had smelled like lilacs, and she thought wistfully of her gardens bright with color beneath the sun. She hobbled out of the bathroom, leaving the lantern burning for Josh to see by when he took his bath. The house was chilly, and she went directly to the fireplace to warm herself again. Josh was asleep on the floor under a red blanket with his head on a pillow. Near his head was a TV tray with an empty bowl and cup on it and a couple of corn muffin crumbs. The blanket had pulled off his shoulder, and Swan bent down and tucked it up underneath his chin.

"He told me how you two got together," Leona said, quietly so as not to disturb Josh; he was sleeping so soundly, though, that she doubted he'd wake if a truck came through the wall. She continued into the room from the kitchen, bringing Swan a TV tray with a bowl of lukewarm vegetable soup, a cup of well water and three corn muffins. Swan took the tray and sat down in front of the fireplace. The house was quiet. Davy Skelton was asleep, and except for the occasional rush of wind around the roof there was no sound but the crackling of embers and the ticking of a windup clock on the mantel that said it was forty minutes after eight.

Leona eased herself into a chair covered with a garish flower-patterned fabric. Her knees popped. She winced and rubbed them with a gnarled, age-spotted hand. "Old bones like to talk," she said. She nodded toward the sleeping giant. "He says you're a mighty brave little girl. Says once you set your mind, you don't give up. That truei"

Swan didn't know what to say. She shrugged, chewing on a rock-hard corn muffin.

"Well, that's what he told me. and it's good to have a tough mind. Especially in times like these." Her gaze moved past Swan and to the window. "Everything's changed now. all that was is gone. I know it." Her eyes narrowed. "I can hear a dark voice in that wind," she said. "It's sayin', 'all mine... all mine.' I don't figure a whole lot of people are gonna be left out there, I'm sorry to say. Maybe the whole world's just like Sullivan: blowin' away, changin', turnin' into somethin' different than what it was before."

"Like whati" Swan asked.

"Who knowsi" Leona shrugged. "Oh, the world's not gonna end. That's what I thought first off. But the world has got a tough mind, too." She lifted a crooked finger for emphasis. "Even if all the people in all the big cities and little towns die, and all the trees and the crops turn black, and the clouds never let the sun through again, the world'll keep turnin'. Oh, God gave this world a mighty spin, He did! and He put mighty tough minds and souls in a lot of people, too - people like you, maybe. and like your friend over there."

Swan thought she heard a dog barking. It was an uncertain sound, there for a few seconds and then masked by the wind. She stood up, looked out one window and then another, but couldn't see much of anything. "Did you hear a dog barki"

"Huhi No, but you probably did, all right. Strays pass through town all the time, lookin' for food. Sometimes I leave a few crumbs and a bowl of water on the porch steps." She busied herself getting the new wood situated in the fireplace so it would catch amid the embers.

Swan took another swallow from her cup of water and decided her teeth couldn't take the battle with the corn muffins. She picked up a muffin and said, "Would it be okay if I took this water and the muffin out therei"

"Sure, go ahead. Guess strays need to eat, too. Watch out the wind don't grab you 'way, though."

Swan took the muffin and cup of water out to the porch steps. The wind was stronger than it had been during daylight, carrying waves of dust before it. Her robe flapping around her, Swan put the food and water on one of the lower steps and looked in all directions, shielding her eyes from the dust. There was no sign of a dog. She went back up to where the screen door had been and stood there for a moment, and she was about to go back inside when she thought she detected a furtive movement off to the right. She waited, beginning to shiver.

at last a small gray shape came nearer. The little terrier stopped about ten feet from the porch and sniffed the ground with his furry snout. He smelled the air next, trying to find Swan's scent. The wind ruffled through his short, dusty coat, and then the terrier looked up at Swan and trembled.

She felt a deep pang of pity for the creature. There was no telling where the dog had come from; it was frightened and wouldn't approach the food, though Swan was standing up at the top of the steps. The terrier abruptly turned and bolted into the darkness. Swan understood; it didn't trust human beings anymore. She left the food and water and went back into the house.

The fire was burning cheerfully. Leona stood before it, warming her hands. Under his blanket, Josh kicked and snored more loudly, then quieted down again. "Did you see the dogi" Leona asked.

"Yes, ma'am. It wouldn't take the food while I was standing there, though."

"'Spect not. Probably got his pride, don't you thinki" She turned toward Swan, a round figure outlined in orange light, and Swan had to ask a question that had occurred to her while she was basking in the tub: "I don't mean this to sound bad, but... are you a witchi"

Leona laughed huskily. "Ha! You say what you think, don't you, childi Well, that's fine! That's too rare of a thing in this day and age!"

Swan paused, waiting for more. When it didn't come, Swan said, "I'd still like to know. are youi My mama used to say that anybody who had second sight or could tell the future had to be evil, because those things come from Satan."

"Did she say thati Well, I don't know if I'd call myself a witch or not. Maybe I am, at that. and I'll be the first to tell you that not everything I see comes true. In fact, I've got a pretty low score for a seer. I figure life is like one of those big jigsaw puzzles you have to put together, and you can't figure it out - you just have to go at it piece by piece, and you try to jam wrong pieces in where they don't fit, and you get so weary you just want to hang your head and cry." She shrugged. "I'm not sayin' the puzzle is already put together, but maybe I have the gift of seein' which piece fits next. Not all the time, mind you. Just sometimes, when that next piece is real important. I figure Satan would want to scatter those pieces, burn 'em up and destroy 'em. I don't figure Old Scratch would like to see the puzzle neat and dean and pretty, do youi"

"No," Swan agreed. "I don't guess so."

"Child, I'd like to show you something - if that's all right with you."

Swan nodded.

Leona took one of the lamps and motioned for Swan to follow. They went along the hallway, past the closed door where Davy slept, and to another door at the end of the hall. Leona opened it and led Swan into a small pine-paneled room full of bookshelves and books, with a square card table and four chairs at the room's center. a Ouija board sat atop the table, and underneath the table was a multicolored five-pointed star, painted on the wooden floor.

"What's thati" Swan asked, pointing to the design as the lamplight revealed it.

"It's called a pentacle. It's a magic sign, and that one's supposed to draw in good, helpful spirits."

"Spiritsi You mean ghostsi"

"No, just good feelings and emotions and stuff. I'm not exactly sure; I ordered the pattern from an ad in Fate magazine, and it didn't come with much background information." She put the lamp on the table. "anyway, this is my seein' room. I bring... used to bring my customers in here, to read the crystal ball and the Ouija board for 'em. So I guess this is kinda my office, too."

"You mean you make money off thisi"

"Sure! Why noti It's a decent way to make a livin'. Besides, everybody wants to know about their favorite subject - themselves!" She laughed, and her teeth sparkled silver in the lamplight. "Looky here!" She reached down beside one of the bookshelves and brought up a crooked length of wood that looked like a skinny tree branch, about three feet long, with two smaller branches jutting off at opposite angles on one end. "This is Crybaby," Leona said. "My real moneymaker."

To Swan it just looked like a weird old stick. "That thingi Howi"

"Ever heard of a dowsing rodi This is the best dowsing rod you could wish for, child! Old Crybaby here'll bend down and weep over a puddle of water a hundred feet under solid rock. I found it in a garage sale in 1968, and Crybaby's sprung fifty wells all over this county. Sprung my own well, out back. Brought up the cleanest water you could ever hope to curl your tongue around. Oh, I love this here booger!" She gave it a smacking kiss and returned it to its resting place. Then her sparkling, impish gaze slid back to Swan. "How'd you like to have your future toldi"

"I don't know," she said uneasily.

"But wouldn't you like toi Maybe just a little biti Oh, I mean for fun... nothin' more."

Swan shrugged, still unconvinced.

"You interest me, child," Leona told her. "after what Josh said about you, and what the both of you went through... I'd like to take a peek at that big ol' jigsaw puzzle. Wouldn't youi"

Swan wondered if Josh had told her about PawPaw's commandment, and about the grass growing where she'd been sleeping. Surely not, she thought. They didn't know Leona Skelton well enough to be revealing secret things! Or, Swan wondered, if the woman was a witch - good or bad - maybe she somehow already knew, or at least guessed that something was strange from Josh's story. "How would you do iti" Swan asked. "With one of those crystal ballsi Or that board over there on the tablei"

"No, I don't think so. Those things have their uses, but... I'd do it with these." and she took a carved wooden box from a place on one of the shelves and stepped over toward the table where the light was stronger. She put the Ouija board aside, set the box down and opened it; the inside was lined with purple velvet, and from it Leona Skelton withdrew a deck of cards. She turned the deck face up and with one hand skimmed the cards out so Swan could see - and Swan caught her breath.

On the cards were strange and wonderful pictures - swords, sticks, goblets and pentacles like the one painted on the floor, the objects in assorted numbers on each card and presented against enigmatic drawings that Swan couldn't fathom - three swords piercing a heart, or eight sticks flying through a blue sky. But on some of the other cards were drawings of people: an old man in gray robes, his head bowed and a staff in one hand, in the other a six-pointed glowing star in a lantern; two naked figures, a man and woman, curled around each other to form a single person; a knight with red, flaming armor on a horse that breathed fire, the hooves striking sparks as it surged forward. and more and more magical figures - but what set them to life were the colors impressed into the cards: emerald green, the red of a thousand fires, glittering gold and gleaming silver, royal blue and midnight black, pearly white and the yellow of a midsummer sun. Bathed in those colors, the figures seemed to move and breathe, to perform whatever range of action they were involved in. Swan had never seen such cards before, and her eyes couldn't get enough of them.

"They're called tarot cards," Leona said. "This deck dates from the 1920s, and each color was daubed in by somebody's hand. ain't they somethin'i"

"Yes," Swan breathed. "Oh... yes."

"Sit down right there, child" - Leona touched one of the chairs - "and let's see what we can see. all righti"

Swan wavered, still uncertain, but she was entranced by the beautiful, mysterious figures on those magic cards. She looked up into Leona Skelton's face, and then she slid into the chair as if it had been made for her.

Leona took the chair across from her and moved the lamp toward her right. "We're going to do something called the Grand Cross. That's a fancy way to arrange the cards so they'll tell a story. It might not be a clear story; it might not be an easy story, but the cards'll lock together, one upon the next, kinda like that jigsaw puzzle we were talkin' about. You readyi"

Swan nodded, her heart beginning to thump. The wind hooted and wailed outside, and for an instant Swan thought she did hear a dark voice in it.

Leona smiled and rummaged through the cards, looking for a particular one. She found it and held it up for Swan to see. "This one'll stand for you, and the other cards'll build a story around it." She placed the card down on the table in front of Swan; it was trimmed in gold and red and bore the picture of a youth in a long gold cape and a cap with a red feather, holding a stick before him with green vines curled around it. "That's the Page of Rods - a child, with a long way yet to go." She pushed the rest of the deck toward Swan. "Can you shuffle thosei"

Swan didn't know how to shuffle cards, and she shook her head.

"Well, just scramble 'em, then. Scramble 'em real good, around and around, and while you're doin' that you think real hard about where you've been, and who you are, and where you're wantin' to go."

Swan did as she asked, and the cards slipped around in all directions, their faces pressed to the table and just their golden backs showing. She concentrated on the things that Leona had mentioned, thought as hard as she could, though the noise of the wind kept trying to distract her, and finally Leona said, "That's good, child. Now put 'em together into a deck again, face down, in any order you please. Then cut the deck into three piles and put 'em on your left."

When that was done, Leona reached out, her hand graceful in the muted orange light, and picked up each pile to form a deck once more. "Now we start the story," she said.

She placed the first card face up, directly over the Page of Rods. "This covers you," she said. It was a large golden wheel, with figures of men and women as the spokes in it, some with joyous expressions at the top of the wheel and others, on the wheel's bottom, holding their hands to their faces in despair. "The Wheel of Fortune - ever turnin', bringin' change and unfoldin' Fate. That's the atmosphere you're in, maybe things movin' and turnin' around you that you don't even know about yet."

The next card was laid across the Wheel of Fortune. "This crosses you," Leona said, "and stands for the forces that oppose you." Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, Lordy." The card, trimmed in ebony and silver, showed a figure shrouded almost entirely in a black cloak and cowl except for a white, masklike and grinning face; its eyes were silver - but there was a third eye of scarlet in its forehead. at the top of the card was scrolled, intricate lettering that read -

"The Devil," Leona said. "Destruction unleashed. Inhumanity. You have to be on guard and watch yourself, child."

Before Swan could ask about that card, which gave her a shiver, Leona dealt the next one out, above the other two. "This crowns you, and says what you yearn for. The ace of Cups - peace, beauty, a yearning for understanding."

"aw, that's not me!" Swan said, embarrassed.

"Maybe not yet. But maybe someday." The next card was laid below the hateful-looking Devil. "This is beneath you, and tells a story about what you've been through to get where you are." The card showed the brilliant yellow sun, but it was turned upside down. "The Sun like that stands for loneliness, uncertainty... the loss of someone. Maybe the loss of part of yourself, too. The death of innocence." Leona glanced up quickly and then back to the cards. The next card, the fifth that Leona had dealt from the scrambled pack, was placed to the left of the Devil card. "This is behind you, an influence passin' away." It was the old man carrying a star in a lantern, but this one was upside down, too. "The Hermit. Turned upside down, it means withdrawal, hidin', forgettin' your responsibilities. all those things are passin' away. You're goin' out into the world - for better or worse."

The sixth card went to the right of the Devil. "This is before you, and says what will come."

Leona examined the card with interest. This one showed a youth in crimson armor, holding an upraised sword while a castle blazed in the background. "The Page of Swords," Leona explained. "a young girl or boy who craves power. Who lives for it, needs it like food and water. The Devil's lookin' in that direction, too. Could be there's some kinda link between 'em. anyway, that's somebody you might run up against - somebody real crafty - and maybe dangerous, too."

Before she could turn the next card over, a voice drifted through the hallways: "Leona! Leona!" Davy began coughing violently, almost choking, and instantly she put the cards aside and rushed out of the room.

Swan stood up. The Devil card - a man with a scarlet eye, she thought - seemed to be staring right at her, and she felt goose bumps come up on her arms. The deck that Leona had put aside was only a few inches away, its top card beckoning her to take a peek.

Her hand drifted toward it. Stopped.

Just a peek. a small, itty-bitty peek.

She picked up the top card and looked.

It showed a beautiful woman in violet robes, the sun shining above her, and around her a sheaf of wheat, a waterfall and flowers. at her feet lay a lion and a lamb. But her hair was afire, and her eyes were fiery too, determined and set on some distant obstacle. She carried a silver shield with a design of fire at its center, and on her head was a crown that burned with colors like trapped stars. Ornate lettering at the top of the card said THE EMPRESS.

Swan allowed herself to linger over it until all the details were impressed in her mind. She put it down, and the deck's next card pulled at her. No! she warned herself. You've gone far enough! She could almost feel the Devil's baleful scarlet eye, mocking her to lift one more card.

She picked up the following card. Turned it over.

She went cold.

a skeleton in armor sat astride a rearing horse of bones, and in the skeleton's arms was a blood-smeared scythe. The thing was reaping a wheat field, but the sheaves of wheat were made up of human bodies lashed together, nude and writhing in agony as they were slashed by the flailing scythe. The sky was the color of blood, and in it black crows circled over the human field of misery. It was the most terrible picture Swan had ever seen, and she did not have to read the lettering at the top of this card to recognize what it was.

"What are you up to in herei"

The voice almost made her jump three feet in the air. She whirled around, and there was Josh standing in the doorway. His face, splotched with gray and white pigment and brown crusted burns, was grotesque, but Swan realized in that instant that she loved it - and him. He looked around the room, frowning. "What's all thisi"

"It's... Leona's seeing room. She was reading my future in the cards."

Josh walked in and took a look at the cards laid out on the table. "Those are real pretty," he said. "all except that one." He tapped the Devil card. "That reminds me of a nightmare I had after I ate a salami sandwich and a whole box of chocolate doughnuts."

Still unnerved, Swan showed him the last card she'd picked up.

He took it between his fingers and held it nearer the light. He'd seen tarot cards before, in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The lettering spelled out DEaTH.

Death reaping the human race, he thought. It was one of the grimmest things he'd ever seen, and in the tricky light the silver scythe seemed to slash back and forth through the human sheaves, the skeletal horse rearing while its rider labored under the blood-red sky. He flipped it back onto the table, and it slid halfway across the card with the demonic, scarlet-eyed figure on it. "Just cards," he said. "Paper and paints. They don't mean anything."

"Leona said they tell a story."

Josh gathered the cards into a deck again, getting the Devil and Death out of Swan's sight. "Paper and paints," he repeated. "That's all."

They couldn't help but hear Davy Skelton's gasping, tormented coughing. Seeing those cards, especially the one with the grim reaper, had given Josh a creepy feeling. Davy sounded as if he were strangling, and they heard Leona crooning to him, trying to calm him down. Death's near, Josh knew suddenly. It's very, very near. He walked out of the seeing room and down the hall. The door to Davy's room was ajar. Josh figured he might be able to help, and he started into the sickroom.

He saw first that the sheets were splotched with blood. a man's agonized face was illuminated by yellow lamplight, eyes dazed with sickness and horror, and from his mouth as he coughed came gouts of thick, dark gore.

Josh stopped in the doorway.

Leona was leaning over her husband, a porcelain bowl in her lap and a blood-damp rag in her hand. She sensed Josh's presence, turned her head and said with as much dignity as she could muster, "Please. Go out and close the door."

Josh hesitated, stunned and sick.

"Please," Leona implored, as her husband coughed his life out in her lap.

He backed out of the room and pulled the door shut.

Somehow he found himself sitting before the fireplace again. He smelled himself. He stank, and he needed to get some buckets of water from the well, heat them in the fire and immerse himself in that bath he'd been looking forward to. But the yellow, strained face of the dying man in the other room was in his mind and would not let him move; he remembered Darleen, dying in the dirt. Remembered the corpse that lay out there on somebody's porch steps in the moaning dark. The image of that skeletal rider running riot through the wheat field of humanity was leeched in his brain.

Oh God, he thought as the tears started to come. Oh, God, help us all.

and then he bowed his head and sobbed - not just for his memories of Rose and the boys, but for Davy Skelton and Darleen Prescott and the dead person out in the dark and all the dead and dying human beings who'd once felt the sun on their faces and thought they'd live forever. He sobbed, the tears rolling down his face and dropping from his chin, and he could not stop.

Someone put an arm around his neck.

The child.

Swan.

Josh pulled her to him, and this time she clung to him while he cried.

She held tight. She loved Josh, and she couldn't bear to hear his hurting sound.

The wind shrieked, changed direction, attacked the ruins of Sullivan from another angle.

and in that wind she thought she heard a dark voice whispering, "all mine... all mine."  

SIX

Hell Freezes

Thirty-four

Torches whipped in the cold wind on the desert flatland thirty miles northwest of Salt Lake City's crater. Some three hundred ragged, half-starved people huddled on the shore of the Great Salt Lake, in a makeshift city of cardboard boxes, broken-down automobiles, tents and trailers. The torchlight carried for miles over the flat terrain and drew scattered bands of survivors who were struggling eastward from the ruined cities and towns of California and Nevada. Every day and night groups of people, their belongings strapped to their backs, carried in their arms, lugged in suitcases or pushed in wheelbarrows and grocery carts, came into the encampment and found a space of hard, bare earth to crouch on. The more fortunate ones came with tents and knapsacks of canned food and bottled water and had guns to protect their supplies; the weakest ones curled up and expired when their food and water was either used up or stolen - and the bodies of suicides floated in the Great Salt Lake like grim, bobbing logs. But the smell of the salt water in the wind drew bands of wanderers as well; those without fresh water tried to drink it, and those suffering from festered wounds and burns sought its cleansing, agonizing embrace with the single-minded desire of religious flagellants.

at the western edge of the encampment, on rough and rock-stubbled ground, over a hundred corpses lay where they'd collapsed. The bodies had been stripped naked by scavengers, who lived in pits in the dirt and were contemptuously called "dirtwarts" by the people who lived closest to the lake shore. Strewn out almost to the western horizon was a junkyard of cars, RVs, campers, Jeeps and motorcycles that had run out of gas or whose engines had locked for want of oil. The scavengers scrambled out, tore the seats out of cars, took the tires off, ripped the doors and hoods and trunks away to make their own bizarre dwellings. Gas tanks were drained by parties of armed men from the main encampment, the gas set aside to fuel the torches - because light had become strength, an almost mystic protection against the horrors of the dark.

Two figures, both laden with backpacks, trudged across the desert toward the light of the torches, about a half mile ahead. It was the night of august twenty-third, one month and six days after the bombs. The two figures walked through the junkyard of vehicles, not hesitating as they stepped on the occasional nude corpse. Over the odors of corruption they could smell the salt lake. Their own car, a BMW stolen from a lot in the ghost town of Carson City, Nevada, had run out of gas about twelve miles back, and they'd been walking all night, following the glow of the lights reflected off low-lying clouds.

Something rattled off to the side, behind the scavenged wreck of a Dodge Charger. The figure in the lead stopped and drew a .45 automatic from a shoulder holster under a blue goosedown parka. The sound did not repeat itself, and after a silent moment the two figures began to walk toward the encampment again, their pace faster.

The lead figure had taken about five more steps when a hand burst from the loose dirt and sand at his feet and grabbed his left ankle, jerking him off balance. His shout of alarm and the .45 went off together, but the gun fired toward the sky. He hit hard on his left side, the air whooshing from his lungs with the shock, and a human shape scrabbled like a crab from a pit that had opened in the earth. The crab-thing fell upon the man with the knapsack, planted a knee in his throat and began to batter his face with a left-hand fist.

The second figure screamed - a woman's scream - then turned and started running through the junkyard. She heard footsteps behind her, sensing something gaining on her, and as she turned her head to look back she tripped over one of the naked corpses and went down on her face. She tried to scramble up, but suddenly a sneakered foot pressed on the back of her head, forcing her nostrils and mouth into the dirt. Her body thrashing, she began to suffocate.

a few yards away, the crab-thing shifted, using the left knee to pin the young man's gun hand to the ground, the right knee pressed into his chest. The young man was gasping for air, his eyes wide and stunned over a dirty blond beard. and then the crab-thing drew with its left hand a hunting knife from a leather sheath under a long, dusty black overcoat; the hunting knife slashed fast and deep across the young man's throat - once, again, a third time. The young man stopped struggling and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace.

The woman fought for life; she got her head turned, her cheek mashed into the ground, and she begged, "Please... don't kill me! I'll give you... give you what you want! Please don't..."

The sneakered foot suddenly drew back. The point of what felt like an ice pick pricked her cheek just below her right eye.

"No tricks." It was a boy's voice, high and reedy. "Understandi" The ice pick jabbed for emphasis.

"Yes," she answered. The boy grabbed a handful of her long, raven-black hair and pulled her up to a sitting position. She was able to make out his face in the dim wash of the distant lights. He was just a kid, maybe thirteen or fourteen years old, wearing an oversized, filthy brown sweater and gray trousers with holes where the knees had been; he was skinny to the point of emaciation, his high-cheekboned face pale and cadaverous. His dark hair was plastered to his skull with grime and sweat, and he wore a pair of goggles - the kind of goggles, trimmed in battered leather, that she figured World War II fighter pilots might have worn. The lens magnified his eyes as if through fishbowls. "Don't hurt me, okayi I swear I won't scream."

Roland Croninger laughed. That was about the stupidest fucking thing he'd ever heard. "You can scream if you want to. Nobody gives a shit whether you scream or not. Take the pack off."

"You got himi" Colonel Macklin called, from where he crouched atop the other body.

"Yes, sir," Roland answered. "It's a woman."

"Bring her over here!"

Roland picked up the pack and stepped backward. "Start moving." She started to rise, but he shoved her down again. "No. Not on your feet. Crawl."

She started crawling through the dirt, over the festering bodies. a scream was locked behind her teeth, but she didn't let it get loose. "Rudyi" she called weakly. "Rudyi You okayi"

and then she saw the figure in the black coat ripping open Rudy's backpack, and she saw all the blood, and she knew they'd stepped into deep shit.

Roland tossed the other pack over to Colonel Macklin, then put his ice pick away in the elastic waistband of the trousers he'd stripped from the corpse of a boy about his age and size. He pried the automatic out of Rudy's dead fingers as the woman sat nearby, numbly watching.

"Good gun," he told the King. "We can use it."

"Got to have more clips," Macklin answered, digging through the pack with one hand. He pulled out socks, underwear, toothpaste, an army surplus mess kit - and a canteen that sloshed when he shook it. "Water!" he said. "Oh, Jesus - it's fresh water!" He got the canteen between his thighs and unscrewed the cap, then took several swigs of sweet, delicious water; it ran down through the gray-swirled stubble of his new beard and dripped to the ground.

"You got a canteen, tooi" Roland asked her.

She nodded, pulling the canteen strap from her shoulder under the ermine coat she'd taken from a Carson City boutique. She was wearing leopard-spotted designer jeans and expensive boots, and around her neck were ropes of pearls and diamond chains.

"Give it here."

She looked into his face and drew her back up straight. He was just a punk, and she knew how to handle punks. "Fuck you," she told him, and she uncapped it and started drinking, her hard blue eyes challenging him over the canteen's rim.

"Hey!" someone called from the darkness; the voice was hoarse, scabrous-sounding. "You catch a woman over therei"

Roland didn't answer. He watched the woman's silken throat working as she drank.

"I've got a bottle of whiskey!" the voice continued. "I'll trade you!"

She stopped drinking. The Perrier suddenly tasted foul.

"a bottle of whiskey for thirty minutes!" the voice said. "I'll give her back to you when I'm through! Deali"

"I've got a carton of cigarettes!" another man called, from off to the left beyond an overturned Jeep. "Fifteen minutes for a carton of cigarettes!"

She hurriedly capped the canteen and threw it at the kid's sneakered feet. "Here," she said, keeping her eyes fixed on his. "You can have it all."

"ammo clips!" Macklin exclaimed, pulling three of them out of Rudy's pack. "We've got ourselves some firepower!"

Roland opened the canteen, took a few swallows of water, recapped it and slid the strap over his shoulder. From all around them drifted the voices of other dirtwarts, offering caches of liquor, cigarettes, matches, candy bars and other valuables for time with the newly snared woman. Roland remained quiet, listening to the rising bids with the pleasure of an auctioneer who knows he has a prize of real worth. He studied the woman through the eyeglass-goggles he'd made for himself, gluing the appropriate-strength lenses - found in the wreckage of a Pocatello optometry shop - into army surplus tank commander goggles. She was unmarked except for several small, healing gashes on her cheeks and forehead - and that alone made her a very special prize. Most of the women in the encampment had lost their hair and eyebrows and were marked with keloid scars of various colors, from dark brown to scarlet. This woman's black hair cascaded around her shoulders; it was dirty, but there were no bald patches in it - the first signs of radiation poisoning. She had a strong, square-chinned face; a haughty face, Roland thought. The face of roughneck royalty. Her electric-blue eyes moved slowly from the gun to Rudy's corpse and back to Roland's face, as if she were figuring the precise points of a triangle. Roland thought she might be in her late twenties or early thirties, and his eyes slid down to the mounds of her breasts, swelling a red T-shirt with RICH BITCH stenciled across it in rhinestones underneath the ermine coat. He thought he detected her nipples sticking out, as if the danger and death had revved her sexual engine.

He felt a pressure in his stomach, and he quickly lifted his gaze from her nipples. He had suddenly wondered what one of them might feel like between his teeth.

Her full-lipped mouth parted. "Do you like what you seei"

"a flashlight!" one of the dirtwarts offered. "I'll give you a flashlight for her!"

Roland didn't respond. This woman made him think of the pictures in the magazines he'd found in the bottom drawer of his father's dresser, back in his other, long-ago life. His belly was tightening, and there was a pounding in his nuts as if they were being squeezed by a brutal fist. "What's your namei"

"Sheila," she answered. "Sheila Fontana. What's yoursi" She had determined, with the cold logic of a born survivor, that her chances were better here, with this punk kid and the man with one hand, than out in the dark with those other things. The one-handed man cursed and dumped the rest of Rudy's pack on the ground.

"Roland Croninger."

"Roland," she repeated, making it sound like she was licking a lollipop. "You're not going to give me to them, are you, Rolandi"

"Was he your husbandi" Roland prodded Rudy's body with his foot.

"No. We traveled together, that's all." actually, they had lived together for almost a year, and he'd done some pimping for her back in Oakland, but there was no need to confuse the kid. She looked at Rudy's bloody throat and then quickly away; she felt a pang of regret, because he had been a good business manager, a fantastic lover, and he'd kept them supplied with plenty of blow. But he was just dead meat now, and that was how the world turned. as Rudy himself would've said, you cover your own ass, at all and any cost.

Something moved on the ground behind Sheila, and she turned to look. a vaguely human shape was crawling toward her. It stopped about seven or eight feet away, and a hand covered with open, running sores lifted a paper bag. "Candy barsssssi" a mangled voice offered.

Roland fired the automatic, and the noise of the shot made Sheila jump. The thing on the ground grunted and then made a sound like a yelping dog; it scrambled to its knees and scurried away amid the junked vehicles.

Sheila knew the kid wasn't going to turn her over to them, after all. Hoarse, garbled laughter came from other, hidden pits in the dirt. Sheila had seen plenty of Hell since she and Rudy had left a coke dealer's cabin in the Sierras, where they'd been hiding from the San Francisco cops when the bombs had hit, but this was by far the worst. She looked down into the kid's goggled eyes, because her height approached six feet; she was as big-boned as an amazon warrior, but all curves and compliance when it met her needs, and she knew he was hooked through the cock.

"What the hell is this shiti" Macklin said, leaning over the items he'd pulled out of Sheila's backpack.

Sheila knew what the one-handed man had found. She approached him, disregarding the kid's .45, and saw what he was holding: a plastic bag full of snow-white, extra-fine Colombian sugar. Scattered around him were three more plastic bags of high-grade cocaine, and about a dozen plastic bottles of poppers, Black Beauties, Yellowjackets, Bombers, Red Ladies, PCP and LSD tabs. "That's my medicine bag, friend," she told him. "If you're looking for food, I've got a couple of old Whoppers and some fries in there, too. You're welcome to it, but I want my stash back."

"Drugs," Macklin realized. "What is thisi Cocainei" He dropped the bag and picked up one of the bottles, lifting his filthy, blood-splattered face toward her. His crewcut was growing out, the dark brown hair peppered with gray. His eyes were deep holes carved in a rocklike face. "Pills, tooi What are you, an addicti"