Jason Frost - Badlands

"Is this how you remember the place?' "Pretty much. Same furniture and everything. It's just cleaner than I've ever seen it. It's like some TV household. Like on Leave It to Beaver or The Donna Reed Show. Know what I mean?'

Eric nodded.

She glanced around the room fondly. "Still, I guess they're just making the best home they can. Did a hell of a job, I'd say."

Eric unfolded papers with scrawled mathematical equations, handed them to Paige. "This look like anything?"

She looked at them, tossed them on top of the desk. "Doodles. Some of these are scraps of ideas, but not the whole blueprint. Not even enough to make much sense."

Eric walked over to one of the bookshelves that lined an entire wall of the living room. A Sanyo cassette tape recorder held up a row of Britannica encyclopedias. Eric lifted it from the shelf and a couple volumes collapsed. There was a tape already in the machine. Eric pressed Play. Nothing happened.

"Batteries are dead," Wendy said from the doorway. "They weren't when we got here, but one of the kids played some Peter, Paul and Mary tape that was in there and left it on overnight. We couldn't find any more batteries."

Sarah stood behind Wendy, still hugging the sock doll to her throat. "I didn't mean to do it," she whined.

"Never mind, Sarah," Wendy said. "It doesn't matter. We can still sing same as always. Don't need batteries for that." She pointed at the ancient upright piano in the dining room.

"You play?" Eric asked.

"I'm teaching myself. When there's time." She smiled proudly. "Meantime, I read stories to the children at night from those books." She pointed to a stack next to the worn easy chair. The top one was Peter Pan.

"Oh," Eric said. Of course. Peter and Wendy. "What's your real name, Wendy?"

The girl who called herself Wendy smiled. "Grace Yedonski. Ugh. I like Wendy better."

"What about Peter?"

"Louis Southern. But don't call him anything but Peter, OK? Makes him mad."

"OK."

"Look," Wendy said, "I'd appreciate it if you'd hurry up and find what you came for. Peter will be back soon and he doesn't like strangers. Gets the kids all stirred up."

"Must be hard on you," Paige said, "taking care of so many children."

Wendy shrugged. "It's not bad. They need me."

"We're almost done, Wendy," Eric said. "A few more minutes. OK?"

She hesitated, nibbled her bottom lip, then nodded. "OK. But hurry." She went back to the kitchen, Sarah trotting behind her.

"You might think this is funny," Paige said, staring after Wendy, "but I kind of admire her. The way she and this Peter kid take care of all these children."

"They seem to really care," Eric agreed.

"Yeah, well, while she is scrubbing and cooking and keeping these kids alive, it's time for us more mature adults to get back to the really important task of finding some stupid papers."

Eric pointed at her backpack. "Got any batteries in there?"

"In my flashlight, sure."

"Hand 'em over."

"They won't fit that thing."

"They will when I'm done." Eric pulled some wires from the back of the stereo and adjusted them to the small recorder. Within a few minutes he had the Sanyo working. He popped in one of the Judy Collins tapes. Judy Collins sang "Both Sides Now."

"So much for that theory, eh, master spy?" Paige said.

Eric punched the Fast Forward button, then Play. Judy Collins singing "Send in the Clowns." He repeated this several times. Finally he got something else. Obviously a home taping of someone playing the piano, clumsily picking out single notes.

Paige stopped fussing with the papers in the desk and listened.

"Your dad know how to play the piano?"

"The way you and I breathe. That can't be him. The notes don't make any musical sense, they sound like random plunking."

"Code, maybe. Notes corresponding with letters and numbers."

"Of course!"

Eric ejected the tape. "He must've figured someone would come for him, but he probably couldn't be sure. So he put it all in code on these tapes."

"But where is he? He wouldn't have just left them in the truck."

"He might have. Maybe he came back here for something to fix the flat, but when he got back to the truck, someone was unloading it. They might've been armed and he didn't want to risk getting shot by looters, so he ran. The tapes sure weren't worth his life, especially when he could always make more."

Paige sat on the edge of the desk. "Yeah, that's possible. Otherwise, he would have left some sign, some way for us to find him."

Eric looked at his watch. "There's not enough time for us to look for him right now. We'll have to take the tapes back. Maybe there's something on them about where he was heading. They can always send someone back after him."

Paige stared at him. "You know better. Once they have this, that's the end of it."

The front door swung open with a thud and a tall, skinny boy of sixteen strode in with a scowl on his face. "What's going on? Who are you?" He pulled a rust-pocked machete from his belt.

"Hold on," Eric said, raising his hands. "Peter, right?"

Wendy came bustling out from the kitchen, Sarah in tow. "It's all right, Peter. They don't want to hurt us."

Peter didn't look like he was buying that as he walked slowly toward Eric, interested not in the HK 93, but in the crossbow slung over Eric's back.

"Neat," he said, for a moment reverting back to his own age. But when he looked at Wendy the burden of responsibility crowded aside his youthful features and he was scowling again, brandishing his machete. "What do you want?"

"This house used to belong to my father-"

"Well, we live here now," Peter said. "And we ain't leaving."

"I don't want you to," Paige continued. "We were just looking for something that might tell us where he's gone." Paige described him. "Have you seen him?"

Peter thought about it for a while. "Moustache, huh? Saw this body over near the ravine, had a moustache. He was old, had some gray."

Paige looked pained. "What about his eyes? What color?"

Peter shrugged. "Dunno. He didn't have no eyes anymore. Birds got to 'em, I guess." He made a pecking motion with his fingers.

Paige lunged another step toward him and he reflexively lifted the machete at her. "How old was he?"

"Old. Maybe forty."

Paige sighed. "Christ. Kids."

"We're not fucking kids, lady," Peter exploded. "We're a family. You got the fancy weapons, so if you're gonna use 'em, go ahead. Otherwise, get your asses outta here."

"Language, Peter," Wendy clucked.

Eric looked at Paige. "Let's go."

"Not yet. Look, Peter, I'm sorry. You and Wendy have done a terrific job here. I mean that."

Peter accepted the compliment with the same proud expression that Wendy had shown earlier. "We done all right."

"So let us stay a few minutes longer. Let me try to work out some of the message on these tapes with your piano." She looked at Eric. "Maybe there's something on here about where he was going."

Eric looked at his watch.

"It's probably a very simple code, Eric," she pleaded. "Just give me half an hour."

Eric gestured at Peter. "It's your house, man. What do you say?"

Peter and Wendy exchanged glances, little smiles. It was the same kind of silent exchanges Eric and Annie used to have. That secret language of lovers.

"Half an hour," Peter agreed. "In exchange for that fancy bow."

Eric started to shake his head, saw the desperate look in Paige's eyes, and sighed. "OK."

Peter clapped his hands together and rubbed them happily. "Right. Why don't we let your lady alone in here while we go outside and you show me how to shoot that thing."

Eric stroked his scar, his mouth grim. Sure, he had the HK 93 now, but he'd had the crossbow since the quakes. It had saved his life several times. He didn't like parting with it.