Christopher Buehlman - Those Across the River

What was he doing?

Fussing with the gun.

He pointed it now and screamed insanely at us. “GIT ON OUTTA HERE! I know what she is now. Maybe you, too. GIT!”

“She’ll die,” I said.

“Good,” I heard, then he shot above our heads.

He drew and slapped the bolt, and aimed again.

“Next time I start tryin. GIT!”

I remembered my .45, which was still in my waistband; Martin’s pants were so tight, the gun had stayed wedged in. I had the presence of mind not to actually put my hand on it now.

We limped together through his field. It was taking forever. He watched us down the barrel all the way off his property.

Now we were in the Gordeaus’ corn, but there weren’t any more Gordeaus. Crows were flying all around, a few at first, then many. A proper murder of them. We made the street. A dog was barking somewhere.

The town square was deserted as we went through. We limped near Harvey’s Drug Emporium, and I banged on the door but found it locked. Harvey was moving inside. He pulled the shade.

“Please,” I said, and banged the door again.

Nothing.

We moved away.

I looked at the wrecked tea roses.

I looked at the flaking town hall.

I looked down and noticed that we were both leaving bloody footprints on the sidewalk.

I felt woozy for a minute, and went to lean on Dora, but she was leaning too much on me. Her head was starting to droop. I reached deep inside me and pulled up what was left. I had to be strong for just a little while longer. I helped Dora towards the general store, but before I even got close, Peter Miller came out and waved us off.

“Keep away,” he said. “Nobody here wants what you got.”

“We’re dying,” I said.

“We don’t want it,” he said again, and went inside and locked his door. I looked around. Curtains jiggled and shadowy figures moved in windows in all directions. We were a spectacle. We were lepers.

The door to the hardware store opened, and for a wild moment I thought Sheriff Blake was going to come out. He did not, but one-armed Mike did. He had a wheelbarrow. A fucking wheelbarrow.

“Get away from there,” somebody yelled at him.

He dragged it behind him, unable to push it with just the one arm. He helped me put Dora in it. Then he went back to the hardware store and shut the door. He waved out the window at us. He was crying.

Staggering, praying, stopping to heave, stopping to rest. Somehow I got us home.

I piled Dora into the passenger seat of the Ford and then stumbled into the house to get the key and my spare pair of glasses, whose frames were slightly bent. I didn’t bother locking up as I left. As I opened the driver’s-side door, I saw my reflection in the glass and didn’t recognize it for a second. Beard nearly full grey now. Sunken eyes. Crooked glasses. A ghoul was trying to get into my car.

I pulled the gun out of my waistband and sat down. The car seemed strange to me, like I had forgotten how it worked. I had to think my way through every step. Key in the dash, turn it to On, check the gas, clutch in, stick in neutral, spark lever up (this hurt my broken finger), throttle down, choke, then the starter button. Spark lever down. Let her warm up. Don’t pass out. Brake. Reverse gear. Check mirror. Foot off brake. Now we’re moving.

I backed the car out.

Right into a throng of women.

Nearly hitting Mrs. Woodruff, Sarah’s mother. She was holding a large, mean-looking wrench. The other women had makeshift weapons, too. And at least one gun; a woman I didn’t recognize had a rifle.

Mrs. Woodruff’s face was tight and determined. She slapped her hand on my window. Her ring nearly chipped it.

“You open that window and talk to me!” she said.

Proceeding on the theory that angry women with wrenches rarely have nice things to say, I stepped on the gas. I believe I ran over her foot. A hoe flashed and broke a headlamp. The woman with the rifle shot, but I don’t know how many times because I was also honking the horn as I sped off. I can’t say why. I believe it was a reflex. One of the shots hit the body of the car, but I could only assume it didn’t damage anything important, because we kept moving. Now I saw Mr. Woodruff coming up the road on a horse, holding a pistol. God knows how the maenads had beaten him here; maybe he had gone ahead to try to cut me off.

He pointed the pistol, and I laid on the horn again, making straight for the horse, an ugly mottled thing. It did what I hoped it might do in ruining his shot, but then it surprised everybody with a proper rear and pitched the ignorant bastard into a tree.

And that was how we left Whitbrow.

I didn’t know where we were going, but that’s just as well.

We wouldn’t have arrived anyway.

A BABY WAS crying.

I was on my stomach.

I opened my eyes, but this took some effort; they were crusty and they hurt. Everything hurt. I saw words, and I tried to focus on them.

TALMADGE OPPOSES ROOSEVELT ON CCC

I didn’t understand why this was important, why it was right in front of my eyes. I picked up my head a little and it felt like an iceskater slid to a stop on my back and then wiggled there.

“God,” I said, and shut my eyes again.

The baby kept crying.

Why wasn’t Dora hushing it?

Why should she? She couldn’t have any.

Where was I?

“Gramma, that man awake now.”

“I told you he was fittin to wake up.”

“I thought he dead.”

“No, chile. Lots livin that look dead, and lots dead that look livin.”

“Can I look him in the face?”

“Sure enough, he won’t hurt you.”

I felt a small poke on my right arm.

“Dammit, Horace, I didn’t say you could touch im.”

“His face was agin the wall.”

I opened my eyes again. I saw that what I had looked at before was a newspaper that had been pasted to pine boards. Moving my head a little, I saw that there were others, covering the whole wall.

I was confused.

Where was my Dora?

“Don’t you roll over and mess up my work, now,” a woman said.

I edged up just a little on my forearms and looked to my right. Just about the cutest little black boy ever was staring at me with big eyes. Behind him was a huge older woman with a kerchief around her head, trying to bounce the bad humor out of a squalling baby in a burlap gown.

“You might just live,” she said.

“My wife.”

“I think she gonna live, too, but if you got any prayers, pray em hard. She bad hurt. She ain’t woke up yet.”

I saw something fall off my shoulder and wriggle on the fabric near my face. It was a maggot. I groaned.

“Horace, put that back under the man’ dressin, and mind you don’t kill im.”

“Yes’m,” said the boy, and he pinched it carefully between his little fingers and tucked it somewhere on my back. I felt sick.

“I know they ain’t pretty but they eat all the bad out. I’m a take em off today an put honey to you. Moss, hosstail, onion juice an comfrey, too. An you gonna drank hosstail tea. Do that an them licks gonna close right up. Don’t an you gonna be in the groun by Friday. What you think, can you drank a little tea?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“One thing you owe me to tell.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Somebody lookin for you?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, you better live, cause if you die I’m a dump you in a hole and never tell nobody. You come from Whitbrow?”

“Yes, ma’am. Where am I?”

“You didn’t get too far. You in Chalk Ridge. We poor as bluejays, an twice as loud, but you better off here. The Good Lord done forgot where Whitbrow was a long time ago.”

“Gramamma?”

“Yes, chile.”

“I don’t like he face.”