Грэм Мастертон - Famine

‘Carl—’ began Season, but Carl raised his hand to quieten her.

‘There are vigilantes out there. Season. Looters, hoodlums, rapists, you name it. And if they don’t get you, the police or the National Guard probably will. I’m telling you straight, you wouldn’t only be ill-advised if you went, you’d be dead , and I don’t want to see Sally without a mother or Vee without a sister. Or me without a sister-in-law, if it comes to that.’

Vee squatted down beside her and said earnestly, ‘He’s right, honey. You can’t even think of going. If Ed wants to get back to you, you’re going to have to leave it to him.’

‘I feel like I’ve deserted him, just when he needed me most,’ said Season. ‘Didn’t you see the way he looked on television on Sunday? He looked so sincere, so straight. He was saying what he believed was right, and that’s the way he’s always been.’

‘I know he has,’ argued Vee. ‘But think about it. Sincere and straight may be the breakfast of champions, but they may not be what you really need in your man. There is so much else required in a one-to-one relationship apart from sincere and straight. What about alluring? What about devious? What about irritating? Provoking? Expansionising? Season – you can’t stand there like some suburban housewife from San Fernando and tell me that you and your female identity don’t require more out of a marriage than sincere and straight? Can you?’

Season lowered her eyes. She looked at the joints in the ashtray and the egg scrapings on the plates. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I guess I can’t. I guess I do need more than Ed can give me.’

‘So you’ll stay?’

‘What about food? Things are going to be pretty lean from here on in. I can’t take the food out of your mouth. Nor yours, Carl, whatever you say.’

‘We’re pretty well stocked up here,’ smiled Carl. ‘Vee never did like marketing, so I guess we’ve got ourselves enough steak to last us through till Christmas.’

‘We’ve even got a turkey for Thanksgiving,’ said Vee. ‘I bought two last year, and froze one of them.’

‘Let’s hope we still have something to give thanks for,’ Season said, and the tears that blurred her eyes were only partly provoked by the sunshine that skipped and dazzled on the pool. She was thinking of Ed, too, and even though they’d only been apart for a week – even though she’d begun to find a strange new energy in herself through the sexual and emotional stimulation of Granger Hughes – she missed Ed badly. She could just picture Ed raising his eyes from a copy of one of his tedious agricultural magazines and smiling at her with that amused, warm expression that meant I love you , and nobody else.

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. ‘I guess I’d better go see what Sally’s doing,’ she said. She attempted a smile. ‘You’re very good to me, both of you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘You’re family,’ said Carl, as if that explained everything.

Season went back inside the house. Carl had switched off the air-conditioning, in response to a plea from the Mayor to save as much energy as possible, but there was a crosswise wind blowing that morning from the ocean, and it was tolerably cool. She called, ‘Sally? Are you dressed yet? Auntie Vee wants to know if we’d like some breakfast.’ There was no answer. She called, ‘Sally? Sally, are you upstairs?’

Again, there was silence. She frowned. She had seen Sally only a few minutes ago, taking off her pyjamas and laying out her new blue-chequered sun-dress. She said, ‘Sally?’ more quietly this time, and walked slowly towards the stairs.

She was just about to put her foot on the first stair when Sally’s voice from the kitchen said, ‘ Mommy! ’ in such an odd and off-key way that Season froze. She felt as if someone had slowly poured a carafe of ice-cold water down her back. Her hair tingled and even her nipples rose.

‘Sally?’ she asked, in a trembly voice. Then she was rushing along the corridor into the kitchen and screaming, ‘Sally! Sally – what’s wrong?’

She burst through the white louvred kitchen door and there they were. Five of them – tall, greasy-haired, dressed in black leather jackets, with chains and studs and pointed insignia – all of them except for the one who was holding Sally, who was blond and almost angelic-looking, and who was wearing a pale blue denim two-piece suit, and a white shirt, and a pale blue bootlace tie. He was twisting Sally’s arm around behind her back, and gripping his forearm against her throat, and he was smiling.

‘Don’t do anything silly. Mommy,’ he grinned. ‘I shouldn’t like to have to waste your baby. She’s too pretty to die, don’t you think?’

Season stood where she was, shuddering, cold. ‘My God,’ she said, in a voice as splintered as pieces of broken mirror. ‘My God, if you hurt her—’

One of the angels snorted in amusement. ‘Kind of touching, hunh, Oxnard?’

‘Oh, very ,’ said Oxnard. His face was white, much whiter than any of the others, and so the grime on his cheekbones where his motorcycle goggles had been was far more pronounced. ‘A really moving example of motherly love.’ Season stared at Sally in horror. The wide-open eyes, the same straight nose as Ed’s, the softness around the mouth that was hers. In her blue-check dress she looked as innocent and vulnerable a a baby bird.

‘Mommy,’ appealed Sally. ‘Mommy, he’s hurting me.’ Season looked at the Angel called Oxnard. ‘What do you want?’ she asked, in an intense whisper. ‘What is it you want?’

Oxnard kept on smiling. Another Angel, with frizzy hair and a faceful of red zits, started to mime the actions of playing a violin, and humming a sentimental tune. The others shuffled their feet and laughed.

Oxnard tugged his forearm a little closer under Sally’s chin. ‘What I want and what I need are two different things,’ he said, in that sly, smiling voice. ‘I need food. That’s what I need. You see, most of our friends have left LA, all lit out and left nothing. And there isn’t a single café or diner or hamburger stand left open in the whole festering city. So, I’m hungry; and so are my associates here, and we need food. That’s what we’ve come for, and that’s what we’ll be satisfied with. But… if you’re talking about what I want … that’s different. What I want is to shove seven inches of stiff intellectual pecker right down your gorgeous throat.’

Season stood rigid, the muscles in her cheeks pronounced, her thin fingers clenched into narrow fists.

‘My sister and her husband are outside,’ she said. ‘In a minute or two they’re going to miss me. They’re going to come looking, and what are you going to do then?’

Oxnard looked around at the rest of the Angels and then snorted. ‘You think we’re cowards? You think we’re scared of your sister and her husband?’

‘You’re cowardly enough to frighten a little girl,’ snapped Season.

‘Oh now, come along,’ said Oxnard, softly. ‘You know festering well why we’ve got your little girl. Nothing to do with cowardice. Just practicality, seeing as how every smug middle-class canyon dweller who’s afraid of being molested by real people has gotten himself a gun these days. And the best protection against the wild shooting of canyon dwellers is a child hostage, don’t you agree?’

Season said, ‘You’ll have to talk to my sister’s husband. He’s got the key to the freezer. If you want food, that’s where it is.’

Oxnard, still holding Sally tight against him, held out his free hand towards the Angel standing on his left. The Angel, unshaved, with the oddly flat face of a boxer, reached into his leather jacket and dragged out a huge black revolver. Oxnard took it, hefted it in his hand, and then pointed it directly at the top of Sally’s head.