Wormwood (35 page)

He tore the penlight from his shirt and pointed it at Larry’s face, staring intently at the spot of light until it became apparent that Larry had merely lost consciousness.  There was still motion in his chest, a faint pulse throbbing at his neck.

Shane wiped the sweat from his brow, breathing a sigh of relief.

Not alone.  Not quite yet.

He rolled on his elbow and looked down the aisle, past the stacks of bargain books and magazines.  Things that had lost importance as the looting began.  The road flare showed him the first 20 or 30 feet then made him imagine the rest.

The aisle would go to the front of the store, to where Larry claimed the manager’s office was located; one hundred yards distant; maybe more, maybe less.

Terra incognita
, he thought to himself, the phrase plucked out of memory from a book he’d read, knowing now what it meant.

He turned back to Larry with a critical eye.  The blood was no longer flowing from the wound in his arm, but he was still unconscious.

Perhaps it would be better that way, he reflected, imagining Larry trying to walk after losing two or three pints of blood, crashing from shelf to shelf, drawing an audible line for the disease to follow.  With him unconscious, Shane could drag him along the polished tiles by his legs, which were whole and undamaged.  He just had to make sure Larry’s injured arm was folded securely on his chest, where it wouldn’t be apt to bump or drag along and start him screaming again.

Shane looked at his backpack, still lying where he’d dropped it, and considered the wisdom of giving him a shot of morphine.  He studied Larry and decided against it.  The man was already unconscious, so the benefit would be negligible; besides, Larry was in a weakened condition and he didn’t want to risk an overdose.  It wouldn’t do him much good if Larry OD’ed halfway up the aisle and suddenly switched sides on him.

No, Shane decided.  That wouldn’t do much good at all.  Larry would just have to wait until they got to the front office for his shot, and even then he’d have to measure it out for himself.

Shane would do all he could to help him
live
, but he wasn’t going to help him die.

And with that thought in mind, he picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulders.

10

The worst part of the plan was relinquishing his grip on the axe: leaving it balanced precariously on Larry’s chest and stomach while he took the man’s ankles in hand and dragged him down the aisle.

Halfway past the magazine racks, as the light from the flare was fading, he decided letting go of the axe wasn’t the worst thing after all; the worst thing was walking backwards into the dark, his hands full, and knowing full well that there were horrors skulking about, nightmares that might reach out for him without warning.

The penlight was clipped to his collar again, swinging back and forth with every step, spotlighting the passing floor, the shadowy “V” of Larry’s legs, the axe handle between them, and very little else.  Occasionally, as when the head of the axe began to slide off Larry’s chest, Shane would pause to turn and shine the beam down the aisle behind him.  This gave him about ten seconds of confidence, and then the fear and the uncertainty climbed upon his back again.

As the scenery changed from books and magazines to greeting cards, Larry began to stir; his eyelids fluttered and a slow groan issued from between his lips.  Shane paused to strengthen his grip and continued back-shuffling down the aisle.  At the far end of the greeting cards (Happy Mothers Day!) they passed a ravaged place on the shelves, nothing but colored bits of wax littering the aisle where the stock of candles had been plundered.

Larry came back to consciousness with a startled jerk and the axe slid from his chest in the middle of a wide intersection.  Shane set his feet down quickly, gently, and pointed the light down the two new aisles.  Nothing but school and stationary supplies to the west, but to the east, where personal grooming items gave way to detergents and paper plates, there was a sly suggestion of movement, an elusive shadow that might have been a trick of the eye or perhaps still something to worry about.

Whichever, Shane didn’t intend to stick around long enough to find out.

“What are you doing?” Larry asked thickly, his voice calling out from deep inside a terrible dream, one where he was bound and helpless, waiting for something to crawl out of the dark and devour him.

“Dragging you to the office,” Shane told him, picking up the axe and putting it back on his chest.  “Can you hold onto that?” he wondered.

“Where’s my gun?” Larry wanted to know, the fingers of his left hand closing around the handle.

“You dropped it,” Shane reminded him, silently cursing himself.  He hadn’t bothered to look for it.  He’d been so focused on stopping Larry’s bleeding and then getting them to safety that he’d forgotten about the revolver.

He shone the light back down the aisle, over a wide red streak, wondering how far they’d come.  The flare had sputtered out — either of its own accord or extinguished by Larry’s blood — and he was left with only the penlight to guess.  Surely no more than 80 or 90 feet.

Larry closed his eyes and shook his head, denying this unfortunate fact.  “You’ve got to go back and find it,” he told Shane, a fatal urgency in his voice, as if he’d had a glimpse of the future: a clear vision of one of them holding the revolver at some crucial juncture.

“I can’t leave you here and go back for it!” Shane protested, thinking of the slippery shadow he’d seen.  Larry would be very easy pickings if left on his own.

“Leave me your pistol.  I can defend myself,” Larry insisted, the effort of lifting his head, of speaking, leaving him short of breath.  “Just don’t be gone for long.”

“You’re only
half-conscious
!” Shane argued, reluctant to hand over his own pistol.  It left him with the axe, of course, but he was going to need the 9mm and every round in it to make his way home.

“I’ll be fine,” Larry said, reaching up for the gun.  His eyes blinked blearily, as if he were having a hard time bringing Shane into focus.  “I
need
that gun.”

Shane didn’t bother to ask him why he needed it (in fact, he had a pretty good idea); he could see that Larry had his mind made up on the matter and time spent arguing would simply be time wasted, so he unholstered the 9mm, thumbed off the safety, and chambered a round so it was ready to fire.  Carefully handing Larry the gun, Shane picked up the axe and turned back toward the pharmacy.

“I’m not hunting all day,” he warned, pushing the words through clenched teeth as he lifted the penlight on his collar.  “If I don’t find it right away, I’m coming back.  Fuck your stupid gun.”

“You’ll find it,” Larry assured him, beads of sweat standing out on his brow.  “Look around the magazines.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Shane sighed, skirting the paintbrush trail of Larry’s blood.  “Just be careful with that gun.  I don’t want you shooting me when I come back.”

“Let me know when you’re coming,” Larry whispered, setting the pistol aside long enough to dig the spare Paveral out of his pocket.  It came out bloody, partially dissolved, but he supposed the blood was his own, so what did it matter?

He popped it in his mouth and nearly choked.

Strangely enough, the taste of blood made it easier to swallow.

11

Turning his back reluctantly on the two bodies they’d left in front of the pharmacy, Shane got down on his hands and knees and peered under the magazine display.  As he’d feared, the rack had no fender or baseboard to keep things (like dropped subscription cards or loaded revolvers) from disappearing underneath.

He reached as far as he could into the narrow space, his arm wedged halfway between the elbow and shoulder, and felt around.  His penlight was highlighting the final issue of Modern Bride magazine, the cover shining back in his face, brilliantly glossy, adorned with a young and fetching bride who was blissfully unaware of what was going to happen to the world before the glow of her honeymoon wore off.  Shane wondered absently where she was now, at this moment: dead, or doing things like he was?  Things impossible to imagine two short months ago.

Groping, his fingers combed through the dust bunnies and slipped cards to touch on small things — a coin, a screw, a mashed cigarette butt, wisps of cellophane — but nothing remotely like a fallen pistol.

“This is
crazy
,” he muttered, an uncomfortable feeling like a hairy tarantula crawling down his spine.  He pulled his arm back and rested on his knees, glancing up and down the aisle.

“You okay down there?” he called and Larry rasped something to the affirmative, his voice too weak to do more than sigh.  Shane looked at the axe lying at his side and a thought occurred to him.  Holding the handle by its butt-end, he pushed the head deep under the display and raked it sideways, sweeping out a dusty arc of clutter.  Moving methodically down the rack, the gun came spinning out on his third try, caught between the pages of an old Mad magazine.

What me, worry?

“Got it!” he exclaimed, picking up the revolver then nearly dropping it again as a loud series of gunshots came booming up the aisle.

He looked toward Larry and saw a slumped figure standing frozen in a muzzle flash, the flare of light imprinted on his eyes, fading quickly into another.

By the time he started to move it was all over.

12

Shane found Larry lying at the intersection, flat on his back and trembling from the sudden flood of adrenaline.  Sprawled beside him was a man in a pink shirt with a gray hole flowering out of the top of his head, his right arm lying amid a clutter of Clairol boxes.

Shane swore, his penlight moving between the two of them.

All told, four shots had been fired.  Where the other three had gone neither of them knew or cared to investigate, but Larry apologized for using so much ammunition.

“I just couldn’t help myself,” he wheezed, the pistol clutched to his chest, the barrel still smoking.

Shane crouched and exchanged the 9mm for the revolver, telling him not to worry about it, that it probably wouldn’t make any difference in the end.  He avoided looking at Larry as he said this because by now they both knew this was a lie.  Every bullet was important, and most especially the
last
one.  The last bullet was the only sure way to keep from coming back; this was a truth.  There had been no need to discuss it, it simply
was
.

Reloading his pistol, Shane ruminated on the possibilities this might give credence to in the new world, this concept of the final bullet.  Would it come to be carried separately, religiously, like a rosary or St. Christopher’s medallion?  A modern-day good luck charm to be touched and kissed against its eventual need?  Prayed to and offered up when necessary?

This one certain inoculation against Wormwood.

Shane shook his head and glanced down the aisles, deciding they were pressing their luck.

“We’d better get moving,” he told Larry.

13

As they moved toward the front of the store, a faint blue light —
twilight
, Shane realized — began to filter into the aisles, giving them a better view of the shelves sliding past.

It looked like a storm had recently passed through, one as violent and capricious as a tornado; a sucking mass that left vacant gaps alongside shelves hardly touched: a run on aspirin and analgesics beside a full stock of cold remedies and cough drops; a need for bar soap but not deodorant; razors but not shaving crème.  A vast and sobering void where the tampons and disposable diapers had been.