If you want to go back with me, you'll be welcome. My cabin's about two miles north of here, as the crow flies. "Sounds like the makings of a stew to me. It took Sister about two more seconds to make up her mind. Josh could see the outline of her head, but not her face her head angled toward Swan. He and Sister entered the woods after the shuffling figure of the man in the ski mask and left the highway of death behind. His ribs ached where the beast had hit him, and his legs felt like short pieces of soft rubber. Artie looked over his shoulder, terrified of more lurking predators coming up behind him. ![]() They had no choice but to hurry after him. "Why'd you think the door was locked, then? This is private property" He headed for the next house, further along and across the road. He approached one of the houses but stopped when he saw a body curled up like a question mark on the front porch steps. She held onto that Cookie Monster doll like life itself and occasionally flinched in her tormented sleep. Josh was stiff with cold, and he knew Swan must be freezing, too. Still, they'd been out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wasteland and dead fields, and both of them had dreaded first light because they knew they had to start walking again. They had spent last night in the windbreak of an overturned pick-up truck bound-up bales of hay had been scattered around, and Josh had lugged them over to build a makeshift shelter that would contain their body heat. "Money ain't worth nothin' no more I'd blow your damn head off if I wouldn't have to clean up the mess" He saw the woman's gnarled finger on the trigger. He lifted his foot and kicked at its center, knocking it off its hinges, and they crossed the porch to the front door. ![]() "Wake up, now." She mumbled, and he set her down then he tried the door but found it latched from the inside. Josh walked across the dirt lot and up the porch steps to the screen door. The hand-lettered name was Davy and Leona Skelton. The mailbox, supported on a crooked pedestal, was painted white and had what appeared to be an eye, with upper and lower lids, painted on it in black. The outlines of small, blocky one-story buildings and red brick houses began to appear from the deepening scarlet gloom. "If you don't mind, we'll just go on our way." Josh had just put his hand on the knob when the door flew open and the barrel of a pistol looked him in the eyes. "Take care," he said, and he started gliding across the snowy highway toward the woods. But you do what you want to do I'm hitting the trail." He shrugged into his pack, wrapped the cord around his shoulder and picked up his rifle. Like I say, they'll come out of the mountains with knives and forks between their teeth. It'll freeze up pretty soon, but you'll have a blood smell on your clothes. I didn't think anybody was here."īut he was already moving again, heading into the edge of the dense forest. He saw that dozens of paperback books lay in the dust around him, their pages flipping wildly in the restless hand of the wind, and to the left were the remains of a little clapboard structure with a hand-painted SULLIVAN PUBLIC LIBRARY sign. A small caf�� had also collapsed, except for the sign that read GOOD EATS Every step an exercise in agony, Josh walked past the crumbled buildings. A sign flapping back and forth on its hinges advertised TUCKER'S HARDWARE AND FEEDS, but the store's front window was shattered and the place looked bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard. There was a Texaco station with one pump and a garage whose roof had collapsed. ![]() He saw no cars, no hint of light or life. The dark town-just a scatter of wind-ravaged buildings and a few widely spaced houses on dusty lots-beckoned him onward.
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