- - End of All Things, The (34 page)

There was a small, fenced-in pasture beside the house with a creek bordering it, lined with trees. Justin carried his burden there, after a quick stop at the barn to grab a shovel. He dug quickly and lowered the body into the hole before replacing the soil. He turned to walk away, and a thought flitted through his mind of how Carly would react if she knew. He never intended to tell her, of course, but her way of thinking was influencing him more than he realized until moments like these. He laid the shovel down and went in search of what he needed: two straight limbs he fashioned into a cross using a strip of cloth ripped from his T-shirt. 

Justin started to walk away again and paused. He felt like he ought to say something, even though part of him laughed at himself for such sentimentality. Carly’s influence again, he was sure of it.

“Requiescat in pace,
” he murmured. “I . . . uh . . . Thanks. For your house, I mean. Carly’s going to love it. We’ll take care of it, I promise.” Feeling a little foolish but oddly relieved, Justin propped the shovel against his shoulder and headed back up to the house.

“Carly?”

“Mmph.”

“Carly, honey, wake up.”

She sat up woozily. “Are we leaving?”

“No, I think we’re staying, as long as you’re happy with it.”

“Happy with what?”

“The house. If you like it, we’ll stay here.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “I thought you wanted to keep going until we were out of North Dakota.”

Justin smiled faintly. “Plans have changed.”

He helped her to her feet and held onto her because every so often she grew dizzy after lying down for a while. 

He led her through the house. To Carly, it looked like the set of a movie or a museum, not a home, but he was enthusiastic about its features. The stove in the kitchen and the working fireplaces should keep the house warm. Carly saw no evidence of another heating source—no vents or radiators. None of the windows had an air conditioner, either, but the cross breeze between them seemed like it would be enough to keep the house cool.

“Did you open the windows?” Carly asked.

“Yes. It was hot and stuffy in here. I let it air out a bit before I woke you.” Justin said this with a nonchalant shrug.
Too
nonchalant.

Carly reached for the doorknob to the last room, and Justin caught her hand. “Let’s leave that one for a bit, okay?”

Carly dropped her eyes. She didn’t want to know the answer if it was related to the open windows. That was something she’d rather not ever know.

Justin took her upstairs and showed her the two bedrooms with charming canopy beds. Each had a fireplace. One of the rooms was set up as an office, with papers stacked neatly in trays and all of the pens in their wooden cup. Carly opened the door across the hall and found a child’s play room. In the center of the room was a large and convoluted racetrack for toy cars. The cars were still scattered on the carpet where the child had dropped them. In the sunshine streaming in through the windows, Carly could see dust had gathered on the track. She looked away and noticed the wood letters that read “Jeremy” mounted on the wall in a whimsical arc, clumsily painted and adorned with stickers. Tears stung her eyes, and she backed out of the room.

 “I’m sorry,” Justin said. “I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I’m so emotional. It’s silly.”

“You’re not silly.” Justin hugged her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s just a playroom. He didn’t live here.”

“That’s good.” Carly looked down at the runner rug covering the hallway’s wood floor. It was powder blue with little pink roses. She tried not to think of what might have happened to the little boy who’d owned these toys or why the cars had never been put away. She decided they wouldn’t use this room. Moving those things seemed like a violation of a shrine—the only memorial that little boy might ever have.

“What do you think, Carly?”

“It’s a good house.”

“Do you think you could live here for a while?”

He looked so hopeful and concerned that she had to smile. “Yes, Justin, I think I could live here.”

He smiled in relief. “Good. I’ll start bringing in our stuff. Pick one of the bedrooms for us.”

Carly picked the one on the left side of the house, above the kitchen, which Justin told her later was a good choice; it would be warmer from the heat of the stove in the kitchen below. Carly was secretly delighted when he said so, as she always was when he praised her decisions, and pretended that had been her reasoning all along. She put their clean clothes away in the drawers. Either this had been a guest bedroom or Justin had already cleaned out the belongings of the previous residents.

She went downstairs afterward and found Justin busy storing their food in the cabinets. There was already a good bit inside, and Carly’s organized nature was offended by the jumble of cans and jars and horrified at watching Justin stuff the cans inside wherever he could find a spot.

“If you swell with any more indignation, you’re going to pop.” He chuckled and put the cans he was holding down onto the counter below. “How about if I just bring these inside for you and let you decide where they belong?”

Carly blushed a little and laughed at herself. “Maybe that would be best.” And she began organizing, from left to right, rearranging the cans in alphabetical order. The Mason jars went in the last cabinet, organized according to contents, vegetables on top and fruits on the bottom, both in alphabetical order. It was a relaxing and enjoyable chore. She sang while she worked, a sound that made Justin smile while he unloaded the wagon of all of their supplies. 

“Something I forgot to show you,” he said when he came back inside with the last load of canned goods. He went over by the stove and pulled a ring set into the floor. A door swung open to reveal a dark staircase below.

“A cellar!”

“Not really. Not large enough for storage.”

“What’s it for, then?”

“Storms. We’re in Tornado Alley, though they’re not as common up here as they are in the central states.”

Carly flinched. “Oh, God, Justin, there won’t be any sirens or weather alerts.”

“It’s okay,” Justin said with a reassuring smile. “There’s a barometer out on the addition.”

Carly shook her head. “What good will that do, especially in the middle of the night?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on it during dangerous weather.”

God, another thing to worry about
. 

“I’m storing the meds down here,” Justin told her. “It’s the best place for them—cool and dark, with a steady temperature.” He gave her a little smile. “I’m storing them by grouping, so please don’t go down there and alphabetize them.”

She knew he did that since his dyslexia made the labels difficult to read, and she’d never re-sort the boxes because of it, but Carly grinned at him. “I make no promises.”

They’d left the back door ajar for Sam, and he pushed his way inside. He had something dangling from his mouth.
Lunch, most likely,
Carly thought as he dropped it at her feet. But the creature was still moving, and it let out a plaintive little
Mrow!

It was a kitten. A little ginger ball of fluff with blue eyes, bedraggled from wolf slobber and painfully thin. Carly picked it up and cooed at it. The poor baby was trembling, but what cat wouldn’t be after being clasped in the teeth of a wolf? She peeked beneath the kitten to see if it was a boy or girl.

“Sam, where did you find her?” Carly asked as if Sam would answer. He sat, his eyes hopeful, his tail swishing back and forth across the floor.

Justin sighed. “I guess we’ve got a cat now, too.” He sounded a little glum at the prospect, and Carly cast him a reproving look. 

“Poor baby is starving! Justin, would you get me a packet of tuna?” He did, and Carly tore it open. She stood the cat on one of the counters and fed the tuna to her bit by bit, slowly, as not to upset her stomach or overfeed her. Justin came back in a few minutes with a plastic tray he’d filled with sand he got from the banks of the nearby creek. He laid it down on the floor by the stove with a sigh. “What’s her name?” he asked Carly in a resigned tone. “Frodo? Arwyn?”

“Tigger,” Carly responded, and Justin burst into laughter.

“From
Lord of the Rings
to
Winnie the Pooh
? Is this the baby’s influence?” 

Carly grinned at him. She put the kitten on the floor and was surprised when she trotted over to Sam and rubbed her cheek against his leg. He lay down, and the kitten curled up beside him.

“I’ll be damned,” Justin said with a shake of his head, and went back to transporting the medicines down into the cellar.

From the outset, Tigger was Sam’s cat. She followed him everywhere, and Sam showed remarkable patience toward her. He never snapped or growled when Tigger attacked his tail or climbed all over him. It was Sam who taught her to hunt, though Carly sincerely wished he’d skipped those lessons when Tigger began to bring back “presents” of half-eaten mice and moles. Carly always acted as though she was thrilled with them, though, and even pretended to eat them to spare the cat’s feelings, which Justin found hilarious.

Justin was gone a lot during the day over the first few weeks in their new home. He was scouting the countryside for supplies and any potential threats. There was no one in the nearby homes, and he stripped them of both food and firewood. The latter he stacked on the porches around their house as he collected it. 

He had found a harness for Shadowfax, and she willingly pulled a large wagon for him when he went on these collecting missions. Justin had fitted out the barn for her, covering the floor with a thick, comfortable layer of straw and stacking the bales of hay he’d brought back so she could eat in the winter. There were also bags of feed, for variety’s sake; Shadowfax would be snug and warm during the winter.

Carly was worried about Shadowfax, for she seemed to get fatter every day. Her belly had an odd bulge that didn’t seem natural, and Carly started to wonder if she had picked up a horse disease or worms during their journey. Other than the huge, swollen belly, she seemed to be healthy and happy, so Carly didn’t think it was colic. She didn’t seem fevered from what Carly could tell—she couldn’t get Shadowfax to leave the thermometer in her mouth long enough to be sure—and she showed no signs of distress. The book on horses Carly had gotten from the library didn’t contain a reference to symptoms of horse illnesses, so she spent hours looking over the various ailments listed under the Diseases section, trying to find one which just made the belly swell up. But the book seemed designed for people who already understood about caring for horses, and Carly was at a loss. She asked Justin to get some de-wormer for all of their animals if he found a veterinarian’s office.

He didn’t say anything, but she could tell he was worried about Shadowfax, too. At some point, their little menagerie had ceased to be just Carly’s animals and became Justin’s, as well.

Justin woke before dawn and dressed quietly. He went around to Carly’s side of the bed and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’m heading out, honey.”

“Mmph,” she replied and burrowed down into her pillow. He tucked the blanket up around her neck and tiptoed from the room. He felt a little guilty for leaving while she was still asleep, but he thought it would be easier on her. She worried about him when he traveled around the countryside; if she’d known where he was heading today, she would have begged him not to go and he would feel awful for refusing her. So, he was cutting the Gordian knot by sneaking out like a coward. Sam hopped off the foot of the bed and followed Justin downstairs, wagging his tail.

Justin opened the front door to let Sam outside and began to arm himself from the cache in the hall closet. In the back of his mind, he heard Lewis’s voice dispensing advice on firearms:
Take as many guns as you think you need, then double it.
He put a handgun holster on each hip, his knife in the back of his belt, and loaded extra clips into a backpack.

Sam butted the door open with his head. He looked up at Justin questioningly and gave a wag of his tail.