Pickle and Mister Man circled Jessica’s feet and yowled. Pickle’s voice was as old and creaky as the rest of her, but the young and vigorous Mister Man was able to pick up the slack. Pickle was a raggedy grey tabby with half a tail—Jessica was uncertain if she’d been born that way or if it had been lost to a dog or something—and Mister Man was a young and vigorous black tom. His voice drilled relentlessly into Jessica’s ears as she shuffled sleepily into the kitchen.
“I know, I know,” she muttered. “Hold your dang horses.”
The cats saw her open the refrigerator and cried even louder, racing around each other like hamsters. The power was off in this part of town, had been off since the Return, but the box was still a handy place to store food. It kept the rats out, and it contained the smell when the meat inevitably started to turn.
Jessica sniffed at the bowl of meat and nodded. It was a little strong but still fit to eat. Pickle and Mister Man agreed heartily, and their yowls increased in volume and pitch until they were cut off as with a knife when Jess plopped the last of the meat into their bowl. The cats dug in frantically, acting as though they hadn’t eaten in days.
“Greedy things,” Jess said fondly. “You just ate last night for crying out loud.”
There was no electricity in the apartment, but Jessica’s grandson had found and rigged up an old-fashioned wood stove shortly after the world went to hell. Jess missed Nick so badly. Not so much his parents, those uppity brats who thought Jess wasn’t fit to babysit her own grandson. How Jessica had come to hate them, especially the bitch wife. Nick was a good boy; he knew that Grandma loved him best, even though his parents had tried to poison him against her. But Nick was gone now, and Jessica missed him every day.
Nick’s disappearance was not a memory Jessica cared to dwell on, so she concentrated on brewing a good, strong cup of tea on the wood stove. After this and her customary bowl of bran cereal, she would see about acquiring more meat scraps for Pickle and Mister Man. Jess sat at her lonely little table and munched the dry cereal, washing it down with sips of hot, sweet tea. She missed milk. She liked milk in her tea as well as in her cereal. The cats tore at the scraps in their bowl and growled at each other around jaws full of raw, bloody meat. Jess ignored them. They were always like this at breakfast time.
The sun was shining outside, and the sky was a clear springtime blue. Jess opened the curtains and breathed deeply, as though she could inhale the sun’s energy. It was going to be a beautiful day. That was good. The hunting was always easier when the weather was fair and fine like this.
But first she had to go about butchering the meat she’d already caught. Jess went to the hall closet and put on a pair of waders, a heavy rubber apron, and long rubber gloves. She pulled her favorite machete out of the umbrella stand next to the front door and headed down to the basement storage room.
Her entire building was deserted. All of Jess’s neighbors were either dead or they fled. This was sad but useful for Jess because she now had plenty of space for storing meat that had not yet been butchered. Each apartment had its own storage closet that locked with a key. She had the keys to half a dozen storage units, though she seldom needed more than one at a time.
Jess knocked on the unit’s heavy wooden door. “Hello in there!” she said sweetly.
An incoherent scream was her answer. The meat was going crazy in there. Good thing it was time to become food. Jess unlocked the door and stepped in slowly.
The boy was about ten years old. He was chained about the neck and wrists, and the chains were bolted to a single metal bracket in the floor. The boy had enough movement that he could reach the bucket for relieving himself, but he couldn’t move around to strengthen his muscles. Pickle was old and needed her meat nice and tender.
The boy growled at her. His eyes were dark and almost feral. His face was still sticky and smeared with jam from the last meal she’d fed him. Lots of sugar, lots of sweets, that was the secret to a nice, tender cut. It kept the children calm, and it sweetened and tenderized the meat. This one had put on lots of fat. They usually did. One or two might try to starve themselves, but it never lasted long. They were children, after all.
“It’s all right, dear,” Jess said in her best kindly-grandmother voice. “This is going to be over soon.”
A flicker of hope twinkled in the boy’s eyes, and then it died when he saw the knife. He scarcely struggled at all.
*****
That afternoon, after Jess had cleaned up and changed her clothes, she took her purse and went out hunting. She had to go pretty far these days. There weren’t many children in her immediate neighborhood anymore.
Jessica strolled the empty city blocks and looked for likely prospects. The meat in her refrigerator would last the kitties a couple of weeks, but she wanted to have the next batch fattened up and ready to go before she had to butcher it. Meat these days was usually skinny and stringy. There were also times, unfortunately, when Jess had to make a meal out of cat food when other food was scarce. She didn’t care for meat, but a lady had to eat.
Jessica crossed Belmont and made a left. She laughed at herself a little; there hadn’t been a motor vehicle in this city for years, but she still stuck to the sidewalks and looked both ways before crossing at the crosswalk. Old habits died so hard. Even when she’d been forced to acquire a whole new set of survival skills, she still clung to old habits.
Two blocks down Belmont she spotted two small children playing alone in front of a well-kept little apartment house. The hedges were trimmed, and the windows were unbroken—when was the last time Jess had seen a building without a single broken window?
She stopped half a block away and assessed the scene. A boy and a girl, ages about five and eight, threw a ball back and forth across the road and chattered to each other in their high, squirrelly voices. They both had red hair and freckles, so they were almost definitely siblings. That was good; that could be used. They were both a little bony, but beggars couldn’t be choosers these days.
Most importantly, there were no adults in sight. Mom or Dad was probably inside doing something adult-ish, like cleaning the house or fixing a toy. They were listening to their children play, no doubt, but that would not be a problem. Their ears were attuned to the sounds of distress, and anything else would pass by unnoticed. If Jess could lure them away without frightening them, the parents would remain blissfully ignorant until it was too late.
“Hello there,” Jessica said as she approached.
“Hey,” the little boy said. He caught the ball and appraised the elderly lady. She gave him her kindest, most grandmotherly smile. It helped that she had most of her teeth.
“You kids look like you’re having a good time,” Jess said, coming a little closer.
“Yeah,” the boy said. He tossed the ball straight up and caught it. The little girl studied Jess carefully. Her eyes were large and grey.
“I have a puppy who likes to play ball,” Jess went on. The girl said nothing, but the boy perked up. All boys loved dogs. The lost-puppy routine was a standard.
“He plays ball with me every day,” Jess said. “He’s white and has black spots. Little round polka-dots. His ball is yellow with an orange stripe.”
“Where is he?” the boy asked. His green eyes sparkled.
“Well, I’m a little sad,” Jess said. “He ran away from me this morning, and I’ve been looking for him all day. Have you seen him?”
Both children shook their heads. The boy’s eyes were aglow; the girl was still solemn.
“You gotta find him soon,” the boy said. “When it gets dark is when the dragons and stuff come out.”
Jess knew, and she was counting on the children’s natural empathy for animals to get them back to her apartment without having to drug them and drag them. “Are there dragons around here, you think?” she asked, widening her eyes a little.
“Dragons are everywhere. You gotta find him before it gets dark.”
“Can you help me look for him?” Jessica’s voice cracked and trembled. “I’m scared now.”
And just like that, the fish jumped into the boat.
*****
Jessica walked them back to her apartment under the guise of looking for the “puppy.” The boy skipped along like a child from a nursery rhyme, chattering tirelessly about his stupid life and asking inane questions about her “doggy.” Jess was hard-pressed to answer them. She had never owned a dog. She hated the filthy things.
The girl was a worry. She followed Jessica and her brother about half a dozen steps behind, and her green eyes never seemed to blink. “Don’t mind her,” the boy said. “She don’t like dogs. When we find Spotty, don’t let him near her. She got bit by a dog once, and now she don’t like them.”
Jessica relaxed. Maybe that was it, then. The girl was as gullible as her brother, but she just didn’t want to waste play time looking for a dog. That was easy enough to deal with; a little bribery went a long way.
The boy was beginning to flag by the time they got close to Jessica’s apartment. He walked slower, and he looked behind himself frequently as if wondering how he had come so far. Time to activate Phase Two.
“Say, my home is right close by,” Jessica said. “If you kids are getting tired, maybe we can go inside and sit down for a bit. I might have some cake or candy I can share.”
Both children perked up. Candy was a rare treat these days; dried fruit was a more common sweet. A few people were learning how to make their own candy from scratch, but most folks concentrated on foods that would keep them alive over foods that made life worth living. These kids had probably tasted candy no more than two or three times in their lives.
“Real candy?” the boy asked. “Not raisins or jam?”
“Well I’m not sure,” Jessica replied. “We’ll have to go look.”
“But what about your dog?” the girl asked.
“We’ll only rest for a minute. It’s just that my hip hurts a little, and I need to sit down. I’m not as young and strong as you kids.”
The children accepted this and followed her into her ground floor apartment. Pickle and Mister Man ran around Jessica’s feet, yowling their familiar, persistent cry.
“You have cats and a dog too?” the girl asked.
“Oh, yes. Cats and dogs get along just fine if they grow up together.” Damn the girl. None of the others had ever noticed.
The girl said nothing, but her eyes followed Pickle as she paced and meowed in her old, creaky voice. When Pickle drew near to her, the girl hunkered down and put out a hand. The tabby laid her ears back and butted the girl’s hand. The child smiled and obeyed Pickle’s demand for a pat. Jessica was surprised; Pickle was usually the more standoffish of the two.
“Do you really have candy?” the little boy persisted.
“I think I do,” Jessica said. “Let’s have a look.” She opened up her cabinet and pulled out an enormous plastic package, bright-colored and decorated with clown faces. Multi-hued baubles shifted inside. “What do you suppose this could be?”
“Candy!” the boy shrieked, and Jessica’s ear rang. The girl looked up from petting the cat. Her eyes were still sober, but Jess saw the hunger nevertheless. No matter what happened to the rest of the world, children would always be children.
Jessica spilled the bag onto the kitchen table, and the children’s eyes lit up at the colorful array. The candies were old, dry and partially melted, but neither of them would notice. They were colorful and sweet, and that was all that children cared about. “Help yourselves. This is just my way of saying thank you for trying to help me find poor Spotty.”
The boy opened up four fruit-flavored chews and crammed them into his mouth all together. The girl was more polite, opening one piece, studying it carefully, then nibbling at the end like a chipmunk. Jessica watched her indulgently. Careful as the girl was, she’d never find the syringe-mark. The sleep-drug had been injected using a syringe Jessica had bought for a diabetic cat. It made an impossibly small hole.
The boy passed out first, which was no surprise. Usually the child couldn’t finish more than two or three before going glassy-eyed, and this one had gobbled down at least six. Jessica hoped he wouldn’t die. The meat would spoil before the cats got a chance to eat it.
The girl watched her brother put his head down on the table with no surprise. “He usually takes a nap, but today he wouldn’t listen,” she told Jessica. “He said he was too big for naps. He’s such a baby.”
“That’s how little boys are, dear,” Jessica said. She patted the little boy’s hand, surreptitiously checking for a pulse. It was steady and strong. “They want to become men just as soon as they can walk. My grandson was the same way.”
Jessica didn’t like to talk about Nick, but she was feeling good about how things were going. No matter what the girl did, she was as good as chained to the kitchen. Her protective instincts wouldn’t let her leave her brother. “His name was Nick, and he was twenty-two years old last time I saw him. It’s been a while, though. We used to spend every day together. He was such a good boy. His parents never understood, but Nick and I had a special bond.”
“Why didn’t his parents understand? Wasn’t one of them your son or daughter?”
“Yes, Nick’s father was my son. But Joe wasn’t like me. He took after his father, a selfish and cruel man. And that woman he married—” Jessica stopped. She was talking too much. But it was nice to have someone to talk to for once. She missed Nick so much.
“Nick came to live with me, and he helped me fix up the apartment really nice. He brought me food, and he went out and hunted for meat for my cats. Then one day he went out hunting and never came back. I don’t know what happened to him.”
“What about Nick’s mom and dad? Do they know what happened?”
Jessica shook her head. “Nick cut—cut them off. He stopped talking to them when he came to live with me.”
“That’s so sad.” The girl’s eyes were glassy. Her head rolled a bit, and her gaze lit on the pot-bellied stove in the corner.
Jessica nodded proudly. “He was a good boy.”
“I never saw a stove like that before. How does it work?”
Jessica walked over to the stove and opened the front double doors. “The wood goes in here. See all that ash and coal? I dig that out when it gets full, and I put in fresh wood when I want to make a—”
Jessica caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, but she was still too late. The little girl came at her—how could she move so fast after two pieces of candy?—and before Jessica could react the child leaped at her and slammed her head into the solid iron stove. Bright pain, then warmth, then darkness.
*****
Gina slammed the witch’s head into the stove three more times, just to make sure. The witch’s face was a bloody mess, and there was a huge dent in her forehead. Gina dropped the dead witch and wiped her bloody hands on her pants.
Then she turned to Henry, who was still snoring. “You are such an idiot,” she told her sleeping brother. “And now I have to carry your stupid self all the way home. Mom and Dad are going to kill you.”
The two cats stood in the kitchen doorway and stared at Gina without blinking. “Sorry, guys. At least you’ll still have meat for a while. When that’s all gone, you’ll have to do your own hunting.”
Gina took a deep breath and felt her wolfish strength fill her body. A dusting of grey fur broke out across her body, but Gina held the power back. She needed her human arms. One of the cats growled, but Gina ignored it. She scooped the sleeping Henry into her arms and sighed. This was going to be a long walk. “You’re such an idiot,” she said again. “It’s a good thing I love you.”
Then she headed out into the deserted street. The cats watched her go, licking their whiskers.
Dawn Napier 