Swan Song

Swan Song Page 14

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!" Swan shouted.

"Damn straight!" Josh answered.

They raced into the storm, heading toward a new horizon.

and a couple of minutes after they'd passed, the terrier came bounding after them.  

Forty-three

a wolf with yellow eyes darted in front of the pickup truck.

Paul Thorson instinctively hit the brake, and the truck slewed violently to the right, narrowly missing the burned wreckage of a tractor-trailer rig and a Mercedes-Benz in the middle of I-80's westbound lanes before the worn tires gripped pavement again. The truck's engine racketed and snorted like an old man having a bad dream.

In the passenger seat, Steve Buchanan stuck the Magnum's barrel through the slit of his rolled-down window and took aim, but before he could fire the animal had vanished into the woods again. "Jesus H. Christ," Steve said. "Those fuckers are comin' out of the woodwork now. This is a suicide mission, man!"

another wolf ran in front of the truck, taunting them. Paul could've sworn the bastard smiled. His own face was set like stone as he concentrated on weaving a path through the wreckage, but inside he was lanced by icy fear of a kind he'd never known. There would not be enough bullets to hold off the wolves when the time came. The people in the truck would look to him for help, but he would fail them. I'm afraid. Oh, dear God, I'm afraid. He picked up the bottle of Johnny Walker Red that sat between himself and the teenager, uncapped it with his teeth and took a swig that made his eyes water. He handed it to Steve, who drank some courage of his own.

For perhaps the hundredth time in the last five minutes, Paul glanced at the gas gauge. The needle was about three hairs shy of the big red E. They'd passed two gas stations in the last fifteen miles, and Paul's worst nightmares were coming true; one of the stations had been razed to the ground, and the other had a sign that said NO GaS NO GUNS NO MONEY NO NOTHING.

The pickup labored west under a leaden sky. The highway was a junkyard of wrecked hulks and frozen, wolf-gnawed corpses. Paul had seen a dozen or so wolves trailing them. Waiting for us to start walking, he knew. They can smell that tank drying up. Damn it to Hell, why did we leave the cabini We were safe! We could've stayed there -

Foreveri he wondered.

a gust of wind hit the pickup broadside, and the vehicle shuddered right down to its slick treads. Paul's knuckles turned white as he fought the wheel. The kerosene had run out a day earlier, and the day before that artie Wisco had begun coughing up blood. The cabin was twenty miles behind them now. They'd passed a point of no return, everything around them desolate and as gray as undertakers' fingers. I should never have listened to that crazy woman! he thought, taking the bottle from Steve. She'll get us all killed yet!

"Suicide mission, man," Steve repeated, a crooked grin carved across his burn-scarred face.

Sister sat beside artie in the rear of the truck, both of them protected from the wind by a blanket. She was holding onto Paul's rifle; he'd taught her how to load and fire it, and had told her to blow hell out of any wolves that got too close. The fifteen or so that were following slipped back and forth between the wreckage, and Sister decided not to waste bullets.

Nearby, also covered by a blanket, were the Ramseys and the old man who'd forgotten his name. The old man clutched the shortwave radio, though the batteries had died days ago. Over the engine's racket, Sister could hear artie's agonized breathing. He held his side, blood flecking his lips, his face contorted with pain. The only chance for him was to find medical help of some kind, and Sister had come too far with him to let him die without a struggle.

Sister had one arm around the duffel bag. The previous night she'd looked into the shining jewels of the glass circle and seen another strange image: what appeared to be a roadside sign at night, dimly illuminated by a distant glow, that read Welcome to Matheson, Kansas! We're Strong, Proud and Growing!

She'd had the impression of dreamwalking along a highway that led toward a light, reflected off the bellies of low clouds; there were figures around her, but she couldn't quite make out who they were. Then, abruptly, she'd lost her grip on the vision, and she was back in the cabin, sitting in front of a dying fire.

She'd never heard of Matheson, Kansas, before - if there was really such a place. Looking into the depths of the glass ring caused the imagination to boil like soup in a stockpot, and why should what bubbled out of it have any connection with realityi

But what if there was a Matheson, Kansasi she'd asked herself. Would that mean her visions of a desert where a Cookie Monster doll lay and of a table where fortune-telling cards were arranged were also real placesi No! Of course not! I used to be crazy, but I'm not crazy anymore, she'd thought. It was all imagination, all wisps of fantasy that the colors of the glass circle created in the mind.

"I want it," the thing in its Doyle Halland disguise had said, back in that bloody room in New Jersey. "I want it."

and I have it, Sister thought. Me, of all possible people. Why mei

She answered her own question: Because when I want to hold onto something, even the Devil himself can't pry it loose, that's why.

"Goin' to Detroit!" artie said. He was smiling, his eyes bright with fever. "'Bout time I got home, don't you thinki"

"You're going to be all right." She took his hand. The flesh was wet and hot. "We're going to find some medicine for you."

"Oh, she's gonna be sooooo mad at me!" he continued. "I was supposed to call her that night. I went out with the boys. Supposed to call her. Let her down."

"No, you didn't. It's all right. You just be quiet and - "

Mona Ramsey screamed.

Sister looked up. a yellow-eyed wolf the size of a Doberman had scrambled up on the rear bumper and was trying to hitch itself over the tailgate. The animal's jaws snapped wantonly at the air. Sister had no time to aim or fire; she just clubbed the beast's skull with the rifle barrel, and the wolf yelped and dropped back to the highway. It was gone into the woods before Sister could get her linger on the trigger. Four others who'd been shadowing the truck scattered for cover.

Mona Ramsey was babbling hysterically. "Hush!" Sister demanded. The young woman stopped her jabbering and gaped at her. "You're making me nervous, dear," Sister said. "I get very cranky when I'm nervous."

The pickup swerved over ice, its right side scraping along the wreckage of a six-car pileup before Paul could regain control. He threaded a passageway between wrecks, but the highway ahead was an auto graveyard. More animals skulked at the edges of the road, watching the pickup rumble past.

The gas gauge's needle touched E. "We're running on fumes," Paul said, and he wondered how far they could get on the Johnny Walker Red.

"Hey! Look there!" Steve Buchanan pointed. To the right, over the leafless trees, was a tall Shell gas station sign. They rounded a curve, and they both saw the Shell station - abandoned, with REPENT! HELL IS ON EaRTH! painted in white across the windows. Which was just as well, Paul reasoned, because the off-ramp was blocked by the mangled hulk of a bus and two other crashed vehicles.

"Good shoes!" artie said in the rear of the truck. Sister dragged her gaze away from the message - or warning - on the Shell station's windows. "Nothin' beats a pair of good, comfortable walkin' shoes!" He lost his breath and began coughing, and Sister cleaned his mouth with an edge of the blanket.

The pickup truck stuttered.

Paul felt the blood drain from his face. "Come on, come on!" They'd just started up a hill; its top was about a quarter mile away, and if they could make it they could coast down the other side. Paul leaned forward against the steering wheel, as if to shove the truck the rest of the way. The engine rattled and wheezed, and Paul knew it was about to give up the ghost. The tires kept turning, though, and the truck was still climbing the hill.

"Come on!" he shouted as the engine caught, sputtered - and then died.

The tires rolled on about twenty yards, getting slower and slower, before the truck stopped. Then the tires began to roll backward.

Paul plunged his foot on the brake, pulled up the parking brake and put the gears into first. The truck halted about a hundred yards from the hilltop.

Silence fell.

"That's that," Paul said. Steve Buchanan was sitting with one hand on the Magnum and the other strangling the scotch bottle's neck.

"What now, mani"

"Three choices: We sit here for the rest of our lives, we go back to the cabin or we start walking ahead." He took the bottle, got out into the cold wind, and walked around to the tailgate. "Tour's over, friends. We're out of gas." He snapped a sharp glance at Sister. "You satisfied, ladyi"

"We've still got legs."

"Yeah. So do they." He nodded toward the two wolves that were standing at the edge of the forest, watching intently. "I think they'd beat us in a footrace, don't youi"

"How far is it back to the cabini" Kevin Ramsey asked, his arms around his shivering wife. "Can we make it before darki"

"No." He regarded Sister again. "Lady, I'm one damned fool for letting you talk me into this. I knew the gas stations were going to be shut down!"

"Then why'd you comei"

"Because... because I wanted to believe. Even though I knew you were wrong." He sensed motion to his left, saw three more wolves coming through, the wrecks on the east-bound lanes. "We were safe in the cabin. I knew there wasn't anything left!"

"all the people who passed this way had to be going somewhere," she insisted. "You would've sat in that cabin until your ass grew roots."

"We should've stayed!" Mona Ramsey wailed. "Oh, Jesus, we're going to die out here!"

"Can you stand upi" Sister asked artie. He nodded. "Do you think you can walki"

"Got good shoes," he rasped. He sat up, pain stitched across his face. "Yeah, I think I can."

She helped him to his feet, then lowered the tailgate and just about lifted artie to the pavement. He clutched at his side and leaned against the truck. Sister slung the rifle's strap around her shoulder, hefted the duffel bag carefully to the ground and stepped down from the truck bed. She looked Paul Thorson in the face. "We're going that way." She motioned toward the hilltop. "are you coming with us or staying herei"

Her eyes were the color of steel against her sallow, burn-blotched face. Paul realized that she was either the craziest or toughest mutha he'd ever met. "There's nothing over there but more nothing."

"There's nothing where we came from." Sister picked up the duffel bag and, with artie leaning on her shoulder, started walking up the hill.

"Give me the rifle," Paul told her. She stopped. "The rifle," he repeated. "That won't do you a damned bit of good. By the time you get it unslung you'll be hash. Here." He offered her the bottle. "Take a long swig. Everybody gets a drink before we start. and for God's sake, keep those blankets around you. Protect your faces as much as you can. Steve, bring the blanket from the front seat. Come on, hurry it up!"

Sister drank from the bottle, gave artie a swallow and then returned it and the rifle to Paul. "We keep together," he told all of them. "We stay in a tight group - just like the wagons when the Indians attacked. Righti" He watched the converging wolves for a moment, lifted the rifle, aimed and shot one through the side. It fell, snapping, and the others leapt upon it, tearing it to pieces. "Okay," Paul said. "Let's get on down this damned road."

They began walking, the wind whipping around them in vicious crosscurrents. Paul took the lead and Steve Buchanan brought up the rear. They'd gone no more than twenty feet when a wolf lunged out from behind an overturned car and shot across their path. Paul raised his rifle, but the animal had already found cover beyond another hulk. "Watch our backs!" he shouted to Steve.

The animals were coming in from all sides. Steve counted eight scurrying up from the rear. He eased back the Magnum's hammer, his heart whacking like a Black Flag drumbeat.

another wolf ran in from the left, a streak of motion headed for Kevin Ramsey. Paul whirled and fired; the bullet sang off the pavement, but the animal turned away. Instantly, two more darted in from the right. "Look out!" Sister shouted, and Paul turned in time to shatter a wolf's leg with one slug. The animal danced crazily across the highway before four others dragged it down. He pumped shots at them and hit two, but the rest fled. "Bullets!" he called, and Sister dug a handful out of the box he'd given her to carry in her duffel bag. He hastily reloaded, but he'd given his gloves to Mona Ramsey, and his sweaty skin was sticking to the rifle's cold metal. The rest of the bullets went into his coat pocket.

They were seventy yards from the top of the hill.

artie leaned heavily on Sister. He coughed blood and staggered, his legs about to fold. "You can make it," she said. "Come on, keep moving."

"Tired," he said. He was as hot as a furnace, and he spread warmth to the others gathered around him. "Oh... I'm... so..."

a wolf's head lunged from the open window of a burned Oldsmobile at their side, the jaws snapping at artie's face. Sister jerked him aside and the teeth came together with a crack! that was almost as loud as Paul's rifle shot a second later. The wolf's head spewed blood and brains and the beast slithered down into the car.

"... tired," artie finished.

Steve watched two wolves racing in from behind. He lifted the Magnum with both hands, his palms slick on the butt though he was freezing. One of the animals shot off to the side, but the other kept coming. He was just about to fire when it closed within ten feet, snarled and ran behind a wrecked Chevy. He could've sworn the snarl had spoken his name.

There was motion on his left. He started to turn, but he knew he was too late.

He screamed as a wolf shape hit him, knocking his legs out from under him. The Magnum went off, jumping out of his hands and sliding away across the ice. a large silver-gray wolf had Steve's right ankle and started dragging him toward the woods. "Help me!" he shouted. "Help me!"

The old man acted faster than Paul; he took three running steps, lifted the shortwave radio between his hands and smashed it down on the wolf's skull. The radio burst apart in a confetti spray of wires and transistors, and the wolf released Steve's ankle. Paul shot it through the ribs, and it, too, was jumped by three more. Steve limped over to get the Magnum, the old man staring horrified at the metallic mess in his hands; then Steve guided him back to the group, and the old man let the last of the radio fall.

Upwards of fifteen wolves were swirling around them, stopping to ravage the dying or wounded. More were coming from the forest. Holy Jesus! Paul thought as the army of wolves circled them. He took aim at the nearest.

a form squirmed out from beneath a car hulk on the side away from his rifle. "Paul!" Sister shrieked - and she saw the wolf leap for him before she could do or say anything else.

He twisted violently around, but he was hit and knocked down under a clawing, snarling weight. The beast's jaws strained for his throat - and clamped shut on the rifle that Paul had thrown up to guard his face. Sister had to let go of artie to rush the wolf, and she kicked the thing in the side with all her strength. The wolf released Paul's rifle, snapped at her foot and tensed to spring at her. She saw its eyes - maddened, defiant, like the eyes of Doyle Halland.

The wolf leaped.

There were two cannonlike explosions, and the bullets from Steve's Magnum almost tore the wolf in half. Sister dodged aside as the wolf sailed past her, its teeth still snapping and its guts trailing behind it.

She drew a breath, turned toward artie and saw two wolves hit him at once.

"No!" she shouted as artie fell. She bashed one of the animals with her duffel bag and knocked it about eight feet across the pavement. The second chewed on his leg and started dragging him.

Mona Ramsey screamed and bolted from the group, running past Steve in the direction they'd come. Steve tried to grab her but missed, and Kevin went after her, caught her around the waist and lifted her off her feet just as a wolf sprang from beneath a wreck and trapped her left foot between its teeth. Kevin and the beast pulled Mona in a deadly tug-of-war as the woman screamed and thrashed and more wolves ran out of the woods. Steve tried to fire, but he feared hitting the man or woman. He hesitated, cold sweat freezing to his face, and he was still in a trance when a seventy-pound wolf hit him in the shoulder like a diesel train. He heard the sound of his shoulder breaking, and he lay writhing in pain as the wolf doubled back and began gnawing at his gun hand.

The things were everywhere now, darting in and leaping. Paul fired, missed, had to duck a shape that came flying at his head. Sister swung her duffel bag at the wolf that had artie's leg, struck its skull and drove it back. Kevin Ramsey had lost the tug-of-war; the wolf wrenched Mona out of his grasp and was attacked by another that wanted the same prize. They fought as Mona frantically tried to crawl away.

Paul fired and hit a wolf that was about to jump Sister from behind, and then claws were on his shoulders and he was slammed face first into the pavement. The rifle spun away.

Three wolves converged on Sister and artie. The old man was kicking wildly at the animal that was attacking Steve's hand and arm. Sister saw Paul down, his face bleeding and the beast on top of him trying to claw through his leather jacket. She realized they were less than ten yards from the top of the hill, and this was where they were going to die.

She hauled artie up like a sack of laundry. The three wolves came in slowly, biding their time. Sister braced herself, ready to swing the duffel bag and kick for all she was worth.

Over the snarls and shouts, she heard a deep bass growling noise. She glanced toward the hilltop. The sound was coming from the other side. It must be a horde of wolves racing for their share, she realized - or the monster of all wolves awakened from its lair. "Well, come on!" she shouted at the three who were creeping up on her. They hesitated, perhaps puzzled by her defiance, and she felt craziness pulling at her mind again. "Come on, you motherfu - "

Its engine growling, a yellow snowplow came over the hilltop, its treads crunching over debris. Clinging to the outside of the glass-enclosed cab was a man in a hooded green parka, and he was carrying a rifle with a sniperscope. Following behind the plow was a white Jeep like the kind used by postmen. Its driver zipped the vehicle around the wrecks, and another man with a rifle leaned out the Jeep's passenger side, shouting and firing into the air. The man riding shotgun on the snowplow carefully aimed and squeezed off a shot. The middle of the three wolves dropped, and the other two turned tail.

The animal on Paul's back looked up, saw the oncoming vehicles and fled. another rifle shot sang off the pavement near the two fighting over Mona Ramsey, and they ran for the forest as well. Mona reached her husband and flung her arms around him. The wolf that had made a bloody mess of Steve's arm gave it one last shake and ran as a bullet zipped past its skull. Steve sat up, shouting, "Fuckers! You fuckers!" in a high, hysterical voice.

The white Jeep skidded to a halt in front of Paul, who was still struggling to get the air back in his lungs. He got to his knees, his jaw and forehead scraped raw and his nose broken, gushing blood. The driver and the man with the rifle stepped out of the postman's Jeep. On the snowplow, the sharpshooter was still popping off bullets at the wolves heading into the woods, and he hit three of them before the highway was cleared of living animals.

The Jeep's driver was a tall, ruddy-cheeked man who wore dungarees under a fleece-lined coat. On his head was a cap that advertised Stroh's beer. His dark brown eyes shifted back and forth over the tattered group of survivors. He looked at all the dead and dying wolves, and he grunted. Then he reached work-weathered fingers into a pocket of his dungarees, withdrew something and offered it to Paul Thorson. "Gumi" he asked. Paul looked at the pack of Wrigley's Spearmint and had to laugh.

Sister was stunned. She walked past the white Jeep, still bearing artie's weight on her shoulder. artie's shoes scraped on the pavement. She walked past the snow plow and reached the top of the hill.

Off to the right, through dead trees, smoke was rising from the chimneys of wood-framed houses on the streets of a small village. She saw the steeple of a church, saw United States army trucks parked on a softball field, saw a Red Cross banner hanging from the side of a building, saw tents and cars and campers by the thousands, scattered in the village streets and through the hills around it. a roadside sign just over the hilltop announced Homewood Next Exit.

artie's body began to slide to the ground. "No," she said, very firmly, and she held him standing with all her strength.

She was still holding him up when they came to help her to the white Jeep.  

Forty-four

By the light of an oil lamp, Colonel Macklin admired himself in the mirror of the airstream trailer's bathroom.

The gray-green Nazi uniform was a bit tight around the chest and midsection, but the sleeves and trouser legs were long enough. at his waist was a black leather holster and a loaded Luger. On his feet were Nazi hobnailed boots - again, just a bit too small, but Macklin was determined to make them do. Medals and ribbons adorned the uniform's jacket, and though Macklin didn't know what any of them were for, he thought they looked very impressive.

The closet in the pigsty of the late Freddie Kempka's bedroom had been full of Nazi uniforms, flak jackets, boots, holsters and the like. a Nazi flag was fixed to the wall over the bed, and a bookcase held volumes such as The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Military Strategy and Maneuver, Medieval Warfare, and a History of Torture. Roland had gotten hold of the books and had been devouring them with pure passion. Sheila Fontana slept in the other bedroom, staying mostly to herself except when Macklin needed her; she seemed content to do her duty, though she lay cold and unmoving, and several times Macklin had heard her cry out in the night, as if waking up from a dark dream.

During the few days they'd occupied the trailer, Macklin had made a thorough inventory of what Freddie Kempka had collected: There was enough junk food and soft drinks to feed an army, plenty of bottled water and canned food as well - but Macklin and Roland were most interested in the weapons. Kempka's bedroom was an arsenal of machine guns, rifles, pistols, a crate of flares, smoke grenades and fragmentation grenades, and boxes and bags and clips of ammunition scattered around like gold in a royal treasure house. The Shadow Soldier didn't have to tell Macklin that he had found paradise.

Macklin regarded his face in the mirror. His beard was growing out, but it was so gray it made him look old. Kempka had left a straight razor behind, and Macklin decided he would give himself a shave. also, his hair was too long and scraggly; he preferred the close-cropped military look. Kempka had also left a pair of scissors that would do the job very well.

He leaned forward, staring into his own eyes. They were still deep-sunken and bore the memory of the pain that had ripped through his wound in the Great Salt Lake - a pain so soul-shattering that it had sloughed away the old dead skin that had confined him for so long. He felt new, reborn and alive again - and in his icy blue eyes he saw the Jimbo Macklin that used to be, back in the days when he was young and fast. He knew the Shadow Soldier was proud of him, because he was a whole man again.

He did miss his right hand, but he was going to learn how to use a machine gun or rifle just as effectively with the left. after all, he had all the time in the world. The wound was bound up with strips of bedsheet, and it was still draining, but the heaviness was gone. Macklin knew the salt water had burned the infection out.

He thought he looked very handsome, very - yes - kingly in the Nazi uniform. Maybe it had been a German colonel's uniform, he mused. It was in fine shape, just a few moth holes in the silk lining; Kempka obviously had taken great care of his collection. There seemed to be more lines in his face, but something about that face was wolfish and dangerous. He figured he'd lost twenty-five pounds or more since the disaster at Earth House. Still, there was just one small thing about his face that bothered him...

He lifted his hand and touched what seemed to be a brown scab about the size of a quarter, just under his left eye. He tried to peel it off, but it was melded tightly to the skin. On his forehead were four dime-sized scabs that he had at first taken for warts, but those couldn't be peeled off either. Maybe it's skin cancer, he thought. Maybe the radiation caused it. But he'd noticed a similar scablike growth, also the size of a dime, on Roland's chin. Skin cancer, he thought. Well, he would take the straight razor and slice them off when he shaved, and that would be the end of it. His hide was too tough for skin cancer.

But it was strange, he thought, that the little round scabs were only on his face. Not his hand, or his arms, or anywhere else. Just his face.

He heard a knock on the trailer door, and he left the bathroom to answer it.

Roland and Lawry, both carrying rifles, had returned from the recon mission they'd been on with three other able-bodied soldiers. Last night, one of the perimeter sentries had seen the flicker of lights to the south, three or four miles across the desert.

"Two trailers," Lawry reported, trying not to stare too hard at the Nazi uniform the colonel wore. Kempka had always been too fat to squirm into it. "Pulled by a Chevy van and a Pontiac. all the vehicles look in pretty good shape."

"How many peoplei" Macklin asked, opening one of the jugs of bottled water and offering it to Lawry.

"We saw sixteen people," Roland told him. "Six women, eight men and two children. They seemed to have plenty of gas, food and water, but all of them are burn-scarred. Two of the men can hardly walk."

"They have gunsi"

"Yes, sir." Roland took the jug of water from Lawry and drank. He thought the uniform looked wonderful on the King, and he wished there'd been one his size to wear. He couldn't remember much of what had happened that night with Freddie Kempka, but he recalled having a vivid dream in which he killed Mike armbruster. "One of the men had a rifle."

"Just one riflei Why do you think they haven't come herei You know they've seen our lights."

"They might be afraid," Roland said. "They might think we'll take what they have."

Macklin took the jug back, recapped it and set it aside. a door opened and closed, and Sheila Fontana walked through the corridor into the room. She stopped short when she saw the uniform. "We could use the trailers and the vehicles," Macklin decided. "But we don't need anybody with burn marks. I don't want anybody with burn marks in our camp."

"Colonel... there are already about thirty or more people here who were burned in... you know," Lawry said. "I mean... what does it matteri"

"I've thought a lot about this, Corporal Lawry," he replied - and though he had not, it sounded impressive. "I think people with burn marks - keloids," he said, remembering the technical name of atomic-induced burns, "are detrimental to the morale of our camp. We don't need to be reminded of ugliness, do wei and people with burn marks are not going to keep themselves as clean as the rest of us, because they're ashamed of the way they appear and they're already demoralized." He found himself staring at the scab on Roland's chin. It was the size of a quarter. Hadn't it been smaller just a few days agoi His gaze shifted. There were three other small scabs at Roland's hairline. "People with burns are going to be disease spreaders," he told Corporal Lawry. He looked over Lawry's face but saw none of the scabs. "We're going to have enough trouble as it is keeping disease out of our camp. So... in the morning I want you to round up the ones with the burn scars and take them out of the camp. I don't want them returning. Understandi"

Lawry started to smile, because he thought the Colonel was kidding, but Macklin's blue eyes bored into him. "Sir... you don't mean... kill all of them, do youi"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

"But... why not just banish themi I mean... tell them to go somewhere elsei"

"Because," Roland Croninger, who saw to the heart of the matter, said, "they won't go anywhere else. at night they'll slip back into camp and try to steal food and water. They might help the dirtwarts attack us."

"Right," Macklin agreed. "So that's the new law of this camp: No one is admitted who has burn marks. and you will take those others out in the morning, and they will not come back. Roland'll go with you."

"I can do it myself!"

"Roland will go with you," Macklin said, quietly but firmly, and Judd Lawry looked at the floor. "Now, another thing: I want you to organize a work detail in the morning and distribute some of this to my people." He nodded toward the cartons of soft drinks, potato chip bags, cookies and cakes. My people, he realized he'd said. "I want them to be happy. Do that after you've finished the first duty."

"What about those people with the trailers out therei"

Macklin deliberated. Oh, he thought, the Shadow Soldier was going to be so proud of him! "How many soldiers do you need to go out and take those vehiclesi" he asked.

"I don't know. Maybe four or five, I guess."

"Good. Then go out and bring them back - but not the people. We don't need people who aren't healthy."

"What do we need the trailers fori" Sheila asked. "We're okay as we are!" She couldn't bear to look at Judd Lawry's face, because he haunted her nightmares along with an infant that kept crying. a decayed corpse named Rudy crawled through the dust in her dreams, right up into her bed, and she thought she was going crazy.

"Because," Macklin said, turning toward her, "we're not going to stay here forever. as soon as we get organized and healthy, as soon as we get our morale high, we're moving out."

"Moving outi" She laughed. "Moving to where, war heroi The fucking mooni" "No. across the country. Maybe east. We can forage as we go."

"You mean... everybody moving easti What the hell fori Where is there to goi"

"The cities," Macklin answered. "Or what's left of them. The towns. The villages. We can build our own cities, if we please. We can start to put things back together again, like they should've been in the first place, before this shit happened."

"You've cracked, friend," Sheila said. "It's over. Can't you dig iti"

"It's not over. It's just beginning. We can build things back, but better than they were. We can have law and order, and we can enforce the laws - "

"What lawsi Yoursi The kid'si Who's going to make the lawsi"

"The man with the most guns," Roland said.

Colonel Macklin turned his attention back to Judd Lawry. "You're dismissed," he said. "Have the trailers here within two hours."

Lawry left the trailer. Outside, he grinned at the night sky and shook his head. The soldier shit had gone to the Colonel's brain - but maybe he was right about getting rid of everybody who had burn scars. Lawry didn't like looking at those burns and being reminded of the holocaust, anyway. The burn marks were ugly. Keep america Beautiful, he thought, Kill a Scarface Today.

He walked on into the camp to select four men for the mission, but he knew it would be a piece of cake. He'd never felt so important in his life; before the disaster, he'd just been a clerk in a gun store, and now he was a corporal in Colonel Macklin's army! This was like waking up in a new skin. "It's not over," Colonel Macklin had said. "It's just beginning." Lawry liked the ring of that.

In the airstream trailer, Sheila Fontana approached Macklin and looked him up and down. She saw the Nazi swastika on several of the badges he was wearing. "What are we going to start calling youi adolfi"

Macklin's hand came out and caught her chin. His eyes flared angrily, and she realized she'd gone too far. The strength in that hand felt like it was about to crack her jaw. "If you don't like something here," he told her quietly, "you know where the door is. and if you don't watch your mouth, I'll throw you to the dirtwarts. Oh, I'm sure they'd love to have company. aren't you, Rolandi"

Roland shrugged. He could see that the King was hurting Sheila, and that bothered him.

Macklin released her. "You're a fool," he said. "You don't see what could be, do youi"

Sheila rubbed her jaw. "Man, the game is done! You're talking rebuilding and all that crap - we're lucky to have a pot to piss in!"

"You'll see." His gaze searched her face for the small scabs. "I've got plans. Important plans. You'll see." He found no evidence of the cancers on Sheila's face.

She'd noted his roving eyes. "What's wrongi I washed my hair yesterday."

"Wash it again," he said. "It stinks." He looked at Roland. a sudden inspiration struck him. "The army of Excellence," he said. "How does that soundi"

"Fine." Roland liked it. There was a sweeping, grand, Napoleonic sound to it. "It's good."

"The army of Excellence," Macklin repeated. "We've got a long way to go. We're going to have to find more able-bodied men - and women. We'll need more vehicles, and we'll have to carry our food and water with us. We can do it if we put our minds and our muscle to the job!" His voice rose with excitement. "We can build things back, but better than they ever were!"

Sheila thought he was off his bird. The army of Excellence, my ass! But she held her tongue, figuring it was best to just let Macklin blow off steam.

"People will follow me," he continued. "as long as I give them food and protection, they'll follow me, and they'll do whatever I say. They don't have to love me - they don't even have to like me. But they'll follow me all the same, because they'll respect me. Isn't that righti" he asked Roland.

"Yes, sir," the boy answered. "People want to be told what to do. They don't want to make the decisions." Behind his goggles, Roland's eyes had begun to glint with excitement as well. He could see the vast picture the King was painting - a massive army of Excellence moving across the land on foot, in cars and in trailers, overrunning and absorbing other encampments and communities, swelling stronger - but only with healthy, unmarked men and women who were willing to rebuild america. He grinned; oh, what a game of King's Knight this had turned out to be!

"People will follow me," Colonel Macklin said, nodding. "I'll make them follow me. I'll teach them all about discipline and control, and they'll do anything I say. Righti" His eyes blazed at Sheila.

She hesitated. Both the war hero and the kid were watching her. She thought of her warm bed, all the food and the guns that were here, and then she thought of the cold dirtwart land and the things that slithered in the dark. "Right," she said. "anything you say."

Within two hours, Lawry and his raiding party returned with the Chevy van, the Pontiac and the two trailers. The small camp was taken by surprise, and there had been no wounds or casualties to Macklin's army of Excellence. Lawry delivered several knapsacks full of canned goods and more bottled water, plus three cans of gasoline and a carton of engine oil. He emptied his pockets of wristwatches, diamond rings and a money clip full of twenties and fifties. Macklin let him keep one of the watches and told him to distribute extra rations to the rest of the raiding party. The largest of the diamond rings he offered to Sheila Fontana, who stared at it for a moment as it glittered on Macklin's palm and then took it from him. It was inscribed From Daniel to Lisa - Love Forever. Only after she'd put it on and was admiring it by lamplight did she realize that grains of dried blood were stuck down in the setting, giving the diamonds a dirty cast.

Roland found a road map of Utah on the rear floorboard of the Buick, and from the glove compartment he retrieved several Flair pens and a compass. He gave all the booty to the King, and Macklin rewarded him with one of the medals adorned with a swastika.

Roland immediately pinned it on his shut.

In the lamplight, Colonel Macklin spread the road map out on the table in his command headquarters and sat down to study it. after a few moments of silent deliberation, he picked up a red Flair pen and began to draw a jagged arrow pointing east.

"My main man," the Shadow Soldier said, leaning over Macklin's shoulder.

and in the morning, under thick gray clouds scudding slowly eastward, Roland and Lawry and ten handpicked soldiers escorted thirty-six burn-scarred men, women and children out to the edge of the dirtwart land. after the shooting was over, the dirtwarts emerged from their holes and scuttled forward to claim the corpses.  

Forty-five

Swan and Josh had been following the railroad tracks through a Nebraska dust storm for three days when they found the wrecked train.

They didn't see the train until they were almost upon it. and then there it was, railroad cars scattered everywhere, some of them riding piggyback. Most of the cars were broken to pieces except for a caboose and a couple of freight cars. Swan slid down off Mule, following Josh as he walked carefully over the debris. "Watch out for nails!" he warned her, and she nodded. Killer had been turned the color of chalk by all the dust, and he advanced before Josh, sniffing warily at the splintered planks under his paws.

Josh stopped, shielding his eyes from the dust with one hand, and he looked up at the side of a freight car. The storm had almost scoured all the paint off, but he could still make out a faded panorama of clowns, lions and three rings under a big top. Scrolled red letters spelled out RYDELL CIRCUS, INC.

"It's a circus train!" he told Swan. "Probably going somewhere to set up when it got knocked off the tracks." He motioned toward the caboose. "Let's see what we can find."

For the past three nights they'd slept in barns and deserted farmhouses, and once the railroad tracks had taken them to the outskirts of a moderate-sized town - but the wind brought such a smell of decay from the town that they dared not enter it. They'd circled the town, picking up the tracks on the other side and continuing across the open plains.

The caboose's door was unlocked. It was gloomy within, but at least it was shelter. Josh figured both the horse and terrier could fend for themselves, and he stepped in. Swan followed, closing the door behind her.

Josh bumped into a small desk, making little bottles and jars clink. The air was warmer the further he went, and he made out the shape of a cot to his right. His groping fingers touched warm metal - a cast-iron, freestanding stove. "Somebody's been here," he said. "Hasn't been gone very long, either." He found the grate and opened it; inside a few coals had burned down to ashes, and an ember glowed like a tiger's eye.

He continued to feel his way around the caboose, almost tripping over a bundle of blankets lying in a corner, and made his way back to the desk. His eyes were getting used to the dim yellow murk that came through the caboose's filmy windows, and he discovered a half-burned candle stuck with wax to a saucer. Near it was a box of kitchen matches. He struck one and lit the candle's wick, and the light spread.

Swan saw what appeared to be crayons and lipsticks atop the desk. a curly red wig sat on a wigstand. In front of the desk's folding metal chair was a wooden box, about the size of a shoebox, decorated with little intricately carved lizards. Their tiny eyes were formed of multifaceted glass, and they sparkled in the candlelight.

Next to the cot Josh found an open bag of Gravy Train dog food and a plastic jug that sloshed when he nudged it with his foot.

Swan stepped closer to the stove. On a wall rack were gaudy suits with spangles, oversized buttons and floppy lapels. There was a pile of newspapers, shards of timber and coals ready for the fire. She looked toward the far corner, where the bundle of blankets lay. Except there was something else over there, too... something only half covered by the blankets. "Joshi" She pointed. "What's thati"

He brought the candle over. The light fell on the rigid smile of a clown's face.

at first Josh was startled, but then he realized what it was. "a dummy! It's a life-sized dummy!" The thing was sitting up, with white greasepaint on its face and bright red lips; a green wig was perched on its scalp, and its eyelids were closed. Josh leaned forward and poked the dummy's shoulder.

His heart kicked.

He gingerly touched the thing's cheek and smeared off some of the greasepaint. Under it was sallow flesh.

The corpse was cold and stiff and had been dead at least two or three days.

Behind them, the caboose door suddenly swung open, letting in a whirlwind of dust.

Josh spun around, stepping in front of Swan to shield her from whoever - or whatever - was coming in. He saw a figure standing there, but dust in his eyes blinded him.

The figure hesitated. In one hand was a shovel. There was a long, tense silence, and then the man in the doorway said, "Howdy," in a thick western drawl. "You folks been here longi" He closed the door, shutting off the storm. Josh watched him warily as the man walked across the caboose, his cowboy boots clomping on the planked floor, and leaned the shovel against a wall. Then the man untied a bandanna from around his nose and mouth. "Welli Can you two speak English, or am I gonna have to do all the talkin'i" He paused a few seconds, then answered himself in a high, mocking voice, "Yessir, we surely do speak English, but our eyeballs are 'bout to bug out of our heads, and if we flap our tongues they'll go flyin' out like fried eggs." He pronounced it aigs.

"We can speak," Josh replied. "It's just... you surprised us."

"Reckon I did. But the last time I walked out that door, Leroy was alone, so I'm a mite surprised myself." He took off his cowboy hat and swatted it against one denim-covered thigh. Dust welled into the air. "That's Leroy." He motioned toward the clown in the corner. "Leroy Satterwaite. He died coupla nights ago, and he was the last of 'em. I been out diggin' a hole for him."

"The last of themi" Josh prompted.

"Yep. Last of the circus people. One of the best clowns you ever laid your eyes on. Man, he could've made a stone crack a grin." He sighed and shrugged. "Well, it's over now. He was the last of 'em - except me, I mean."

Josh stepped toward the man and held the candle and saucer out to illuminate his face.

The man was thin and lanky, his scraggly, grizzled face as long and narrow as if it had been pressed in a vise. He had curly light brown hair spilling over his high forehead almost to his bushy brown eyebrows; beneath them, his eyes were large and liquid, a shade between hazel and topaz. His nose was long and thin, in keeping with the rest of him, but it was the mouth that was the centerpiece of his face: the lips were thick, rubbery folds of flesh designed to pull miraculous mugs and grins. Josh hadn't seen such a pair of lips since he'd been served a bigmouth bass in a restaurant in Georgia. The man wore a dusty denim jacket, obviously much used and abused, a dark blue flannel shirt and jeans. His lively, expressive eyes moved from Josh to Swan, lingered a few seconds, then returned to Josh. "Name's Rusty Weathers," he said. "Now who in blazes are you, and how'd you get out herei"

"My name is Josh Hutchins, and this is Swan Prescott. We haven't had any food or water in three days. Can you help usi"

Rusty Weathers nodded toward the plastic jug. "Help yourselves. That's water from a creek a coupla hundred yards from the tracks. Can't say how clean it is, but I've been drinkin' it for about - " He frowned, walked over to the wall and felt for the notches he'd carved there with his penknife. He ran a finger along them. "Forty-one days, give or take."

Josh opened the jug, sniffed at it and took a tentative swallow. The water tasted oily, but otherwise okay. He drank again and gave the jug to Swan.

"Only food I've got left is Gravy Train," Rusty said. "Fella and his wife had a dog act. Jumped French poodles through hoops and all." He plopped the cowboy hat on top of the red wig, pulled the folding chair to him, turned it around and sat down with his arms crossed on the backrest. "Been a time, I'll tell ya. Train was movin' pretty as you please one minute; the next minute the sky looked like the inside of a mine shaft, and the wind started whippin' cars right off the tracks. We get twisters back in Oklahoma, but damned if this wasn't the granddaddy of 'em all!" He shook his head, rattling loose the memories. "You got any cigarettesi"

"No. Sorry."

"Damn! Man, I could just about eat a carton of smokes right now!" He narrowed his eyes, examining both Josh and Swan in silence. "You two look like you been stomped by a few dozen Brahma bulls. You hurtin'i"

"Not anymore," Josh said.

"What's goin' on out therei There ain't been another train along this track in forty-one days. The dust just keeps on blowin'. What's happenin'i"

"Nuclear war. I think the bombs fell just about everywhere. Probably hit the cities first. From what we've seen so far, I don't think there's much left."

"Yeah." Rusty nodded, his eyes vacant. "I kinda figured it must be that. a few days after the wreck, me and some of the others started walkin', tryin' to find help. Well, the dust was a lot thicker and the wind stronger back then, and we made it about fifty feet before we had to come back. So we sat down to wait. But the storm didn't stop, and nobody came." He stared at a window. "Nicky Rinaldi - the lion tamer - and Stan Tembrello decided to follow the tracks. That was a month ago. Leroy was busted up inside, so I stayed here with him and Roger - all of us were clowns, see. The Three Musketeers. Oh, we put on a good show! We really made 'em laugh!" His eyes teared up suddenly, and it was a moment before he could speak again.

"Well," he said finally, "me and the others who were left started diggin' graves. The wreck killed a lot of folks outright, and there were dead animals all over the place. Dead elephant's lyin' up the tracks a ways, but he's all dried up now. Man, you couldn't believe what that smelled like! But who in hell has got the strength to dig a grave for an elephanti We got a regular circus cemetery not too far from here." He nodded vaguely off to the right. "Dirt's softer, once you get away from the tracks. I'd managed to find some of my gear, and I moved in here with Leroy, Roger and a few of the others. Found my make-up case." He touched the wooden box with its carved, creeping lizards. "Found my magic jacket, too." a finger hooked toward the rack where the clothes hung. "I wasn't hurt too bad. Just bruises on bruises and this." He lifted that big upper lip to display the space where a front tooth had been knocked out. "But I was okay. Then... everybody started dyin'."

He sat looking at the candle. "It was the damnedest thing," he said. "People who were fine one day were dead the next. One night..." His eyes glazed over like pond ice, and the memories had him again. "One night we were all sleepin', and I woke up cold. The stove was goin', and the caboose was warm - but I was shiverin'. and I swear to God... I knew the shadow of Death was here, movin' from person to person, figurin' out who to take next. I think whatever it was passed near enough to me to freeze my bones - and then it moved on. and when daylight came, Roger was dead with his eyes open, and he'd been tellin' jokes the day before. You know what that crazy Leroy saysi He says, 'Rusty, let's you and me put a happy face on that sumbitch before we send him off!" So we painted him up - but it wasn't a disrespectful thing, oh, no!" Rusty shook his head. "We loved that old scudder. We just gave him the face he was most comfortable wearin'. Then me and Eddie Roscoe carried him out and buried him. Seems like I helped dig a hundred graves in a week's time, until it was just me and Leroy." He smiled faintly, looking past Swan and Josh into the corner. "Lookin' good, old buddy! Hell, I thought I'da been the one long gone before now!"

"There's no one else here but youi" Swan asked.

"Just me. I'm the last of the Rydell Circus." He looked at Josh. "Who woni"

"Who won whati"

"The war. Who won the wari Us or the Russiansi"

"I don't know. If Russia looks anything like what Swan and I've seen... God help those people, too."

"Well, you gotta fight fire with fire," Rusty said. "That's somethin' my mama used to tell me. Fight fire with fire. So maybe there's one good thing about this: Maybe everybody shot all their bombs and missiles off, and there ain't any more. The fires just fought it out - and the old world's still here, ain't iti"

"Yes," Josh agreed. "The world's still here. and so are we."

"I reckon the world's gonna be a mite changed, though. I mean, if everywhere is like here, I believe the luxuries of life are gonna be sufferin' some."

"Forget luxuries," Josh told him. "This caboose and that stove are luxuries, friend."

Rusty grinned, showing the hole where his tooth had been. "Yep, I got a real palace here, don't Ii" He gazed at Swan for a few seconds, then got up, went to the rack and took from its hanger a black velvet suit jacket. He winked at her, shrugged out of his denim jacket and put on the one made of black velvet. In the breast pocket was a white handkerchief. "I'll tell you what's still here, too - somethin' that'll never change, little lady. Magic. You believe in magic, honi"

"Yes," she said.

"Good!" He whipped the white handkerchief out and suddenly there was a bouquet of brightly colored paper flowers in his hand. He offered them to Swan. "You look like a lady who might appreciate some pretty flowers. 'Course, we'd better water 'em, too! If flowers don't get their water, they might just swoon away!" He thrust his other hand forward, snapped his wrist in the air, and he was holding a small red plastic pitcher. He tipped it over the flowers, but instead of water, a trickle of yellow dust came out and floated to the floor. "aw," Rusty said, feigning disappointment. Then his eyes brightened. "Well, maybe that's magic dust, little lady! Sure! Magic dust'll keep flowers alive just as good as water will! What do you thinki"

Even though the corpse in the corner gave her the creeps, Swan had to smile. "Sure," she said. "I bet it will, too."

Rusty waved his slim hand in the air before Swan's face. She suddenly saw a red ball appear between the first and second fingers, and then another ball seemingly grew between his thumb and forefinger. He took one ball in each hand and began tossing them up in the air from hand to hand.

"Think we're missin' somethin', don't youi" he asked her, and when the balls were in mid-air he reached with his right hand toward Swan's ear. She heard a soft pop and his hand withdrew with a third red ball. He juggled the three of them back and forth. "There you go. Knew I'd find that thing somewhere!"

She felt her ear. "How'd you do thati"

"Magic," he explained. He plopped one ball in his mouth, then the second and third. His empty hand caressed the air, and Swan saw Rusty's throat gulp as he swallowed the balls. "Mighty tasty," he said. "Want to try 'emi" He offered his palm to her; in it were the three red balls.

"I saw you eat them!" Swan exclaimed.

"Yep, I did. These are three more. That's what I've been livin' on, see. Gravy Train and magic balls." His smile faltered, began to fade. His eyes flickered over toward the corpse, and he put the three balls in his pocket. "Well," he said, "I reckon that's enough magic for one day."

"You're pretty good," Josh said. "So you're a clown, a magician and a juggler. What else do you doi"

"Oh, I used to ride broncos in the rodeos." He took off the velvet jacket and hung it up like putting an old friend to bed. "Used to be a rodeo clown. Used to short-order cook in a carnival. Worked on a cattle ranch once. Jack of all trades and master of none, I reckon. But I've always loved magic. Hungarian magician name of Fabrioso took me under his wing when I was sixteen and taught me the craft, back when I was shillin' with the carny. Said I had hands that could either pick pockets or pull dreams out of the air." Rusty's eyes danced with light. "That Fabrioso was somethin' else, I'll tell ya! He talked to the spirits - and they sure 'nuff answered him and did what he said, too!"

"Is this magic, tooi" Swan touched the wooden box covered with lizards.

"That was Fabrioso's box of tricks. I keep my makeup and stuff in it now. Fabrioso got it from a magician in Istanbul. Know where that isi Turkey. and that magician got it from one in China, so I reckon it kinda has a history."

"Like Crybaby does," Swan said, and she held up the dowsing rod.

"Crybabyi That's what you call that dowseri"

"a woman - " Josh hesitated. The loss of Leona Skelton was still too raw. "a very special woman gave that to Swan."

"Did Fabrioso give you the magic jacketi" Swan asked.

"Naw. I bought that in a magic store in Oklahoma City. But he gave me the box, and one other thing." He unlatched and opened the carved box. Inside were jars, crayons and rags smeared with a thousand colors. He dug down toward the bottom. "Fabrioso said this came with the box in a set, so it was right that it went where the box did. Here it is." He withdrew his hand.

In it was a simple oval mirror, framed in black with a scuffed black handle. There was only one ornamentation: Where the handle was attached to the mirror were two small black masklike faces peering in opposite directions. The glass was a smoky color, streaked and stained.

"Fabrioso used this to put on his stage makeup." There was a note of awe in Rusty's voice. "He said it showed a truer picture than any mirror he'd ever looked into. I don't use it, though - the glass has gone too dull." He held it out to Swan, and she took it by the handle. The thing was as light as a buttermilk biscuit.

"Fabrioso was ninety when he died, and he told me he got the mirror when he was seventeen. I'll bet it's two hundred years old if it's a day."

"Wow!" Something that old was beyond Swan's comprehension. She peered into the glass but could see her face there only dimly, as if through a curtain of mist. Even so, the burn marks still jarred her, and there was so much dust on her face she thought she resembled a clown herself. She was never going to get used to not having hair, either. She looked closer. On her forehead were two more of those strange dark wartlike things she'd noticed at Leona's; had those always been there, or had they just come upi

"I guess Fabrioso was kinda vain," Rusty admitted. "I used to catch him lookin' in that mirror all the time - except he was usually holdin' it at arm's length, like this." He stuck his own hand in front of his face as if his palm were a looking glass.

Swan thrust her arm out. The mirror was aimed at the left side of her face and her left shoulder. Now her head was only an outline in the glass. "I can't see myself like - "

There was a movement in the glass. a quick movement. and not her own.

a face with an eye in the center of its head, a gaping mouth where the nose should've been, and skin as yellow as dried-up parchment paper rose behind her left shoulder like a leprous moon.

Swan dropped the mirror. It clinked to the floor, and she spun around to her left.

There was no one there. Of course.

"Swani" Rusty had gotten to his feet. "What is iti"

Josh put the candle and saucer aside and laid his hand on Swan's shoulder. She pressed into his side, and he could feel her racing heartbeat. Something had scared the stew out of her. He leaned over and picked up the mirror, expecting it to be shattered to pieces, but it was still whole. Looking into the glass, he was repelled by his own face, but he lingered long enough to see that there were four new warts on his chin. He handed the mirror back to Rusty. "Good thing it didn't break. I guess that would've been seven years bad luck."

"I saw Fabrioso drop it a hundred times. Once he flung it down as hard as he could on a concrete floor. It didn't even crack. See, he used to tell me this mirror was magic, too - only he didn't really understand it, so he never told me why he thought it was magic." Rusty shrugged. "I just think it looks like a smoky old glass, but since it went with the box I decided to hold onto it." He turned his attention to Swan, who still stared uneasily at the mirror. "Don't fret, Like I say, the thing won't break. Hell, it's stronger'n plastic!" He laid the mirror down on the tabletop.

"You okayi" Josh asked.

She nodded; whatever monster she'd seen behind her in that mirror, she did not care to lay eyes on it again. Whose face had that been, down in the depths of the glassi "Yes," she replied, and she made her voice sound like she meant it.

Rusty built a fire in the stove, and then Josh helped him carry the corpse out to the circus cemetery. Killer yapped along at their heels.

and while they were gone, Swan approached the mirror again. It called her, just like the tarot cards had at Leona's.

She slowly picked it up and, holding it at arm's length, angled it toward her left shoulder as she had before.

But there was no monster face. There was nothing.

Swan turned the mirror toward her right. again, nothing.

She missed Leona deeply, and she thought of the Devil card in the tarot deck. That face, with the awful eye in the center of its head and a mouth that looked like a hallway to Hell, had reminded her of the figure on that card.

"Oh, Leona," Swan whispered, "why'd you have to leave usi"

There was a quick red glint in the mirror, just a flash and then gone.

Swan looked over her shoulder. The stove was behind her, and red flames were crackling in the grate.

She peered into the mirror again. It was dark, and she realized it was not angled toward the stove after all.