“I’m at the lab,” he said, sounding rushed. “Listen, Nora just called. I know it’s last-minute, but is there any chance you’re free Saturday? She wants to switch weekends.”
Such conversations had become routine between them: the complexities of Stuart’s custody arrangement, the ongoing negotiations with his ex-wife. His life was complicated. If he and Claudia wanted to get laid regularly, they had to be organized.
“I can’t,” she said quickly. “I have to run up to Maine. To check on my mom’s place.” Already she’d postponed the trip twice, due to two monster nor’easters. Now she was grateful for the excuse. Twelve hours earlier, she’d climbed out of another man’s bed. She needed to collect herself.
At home she showered at great length. The spray landed like needles on her skin. She thought of Timmy’s bare face, the face of a stranger. When he’d answered the door he’d already seemed naked.
The first part of the evening, she recalled vividly. The magnificent car, traffic lights flashing. The dull thump of windshield wipers, regular as a heartbeat; a thousand snowflakes melting on the glass. What happened later, in the half-light of Timmy’s bedroom, was less clear, but the sting of the shower offered certain clues.
His face was not as smooth as it looked. She had experienced this before: the treachery of blond stubble. Her breasts were scraped raw, her thighs and belly.
Her skin remembered everything.
THAT NIGHT SHE LAY AWAKE A LONG TIME, THINKING OF THE bag of weed she’d bought from Timmy—still sitting, probably, on the couch where she’d left it. All she had to do was text him: Hey, are you awake? In half an hour she could be smoking a bowl and watching his giant television. In thirty-five minutes she could be back in his bed.
Finally she gave up on sleep and turned on the television. Once again, Dateline was in full swing.
This episode did not disappoint. It satisfied in all the usual ways. The victim was a mother of four, a beloved Sunday-school teacher, a loyal wife, sister, neighbor, and friend. And yet her virtue did not save her. Her husband had snuffed out her life using a pillow from the marital bed. He was, it developed, a man of unsavory habits, a compulsive gambler with a much younger, distinctly nonmaternal piece on the side.
“The victim lived a low-risk lifestyle,” the homicide detective said.
The victim did not venture out after dark without male supervision. She did not drink or take drugs or associate with people who did. She did not, even once—in an impaired state, at the end of a long winter, in a grand mal seizure of loneliness and anxiety and paralyzing grief—fuck her weed dealer.
Not even once.
When Claudia went driving with Timmy, she left her phone behind. She wanted to disappear with him. She wanted never to be found.
If someone strangled her tomorrow, Dateline would have no interest. Of this she was absolutely sure.
15
Luther lived in a prefab house in the north end of Bakerton—a single-story cracker box held together with cheap plastic siding, textured to look like wood. To Victor the place looked flimsy as a Popsicle stand. Its only notable feature was the sturdy wooden ramp that led to the front door.
He parked his truck and stepped down, thinking how it took balls to live in such a house, which announced to the world that a disabled person lived there—a man unable to navigate the world on his own two legs, whose survival depended on a battery-operated chair. In the post-collapse world, the ramp would be a liability. Knowing this, Luther had taken appropriate precautions. Long ago he’d given Victor a tour of his arsenal: enough firepower to equip a small army.
Luther, no question, had balls of steel.
The front door was open a crack, the screen door latched. Victor could hear the whir of the chair as Luther rolled to the door. He was already deep in conversation, which was classic Luther. You simply tuned him in, like a radio station. It was clear he’d be having the same conversation anyway, whether or not you were in the room.
Today he was talking about the Ebola virus, which had been created in a lab in New Mexico by Purdue Pharmaceuticals. He paused briefly to acknowledge Victor’s presence.
“You been following this horseshit?” he asked rhetorically, pushing open the screen door.
Victor stepped inside. It was best to let him talk awhile. Luther’s house was very dark, the shades pulled to the windowsills, the few pieces of furniture spaced far apart to make a path for the chair. The perimeter of the room was lined with cardboard boxes, stacked three deep. A regular customer at the VA, Luther had made friends with a nurse there. For years he’d been stockpiling medicines and syringes, surgical masks and latex gloves.
“First they cook up the virus. Then—believe it!—they try and sell you a cure.”
Luther was obsessed with infections, communicable diseases of all kinds. In prepper circles he was considered odd, but not extraordinary. The community was full of lunatics—Rapture lunatics, climate change lunatics, Gold Standard lunatics. Luther was a virus lunatic. He could talk about viruses for hours on end. Victor found him tedious, but for strategic reasons maintained friendly relations. Luther would be a valuable ally when SHTF. It was the great lesson of prepping: everyone had their pluses and minuses. Luther couldn’t outrun an assailant, but he was a trained medic. He could set a bone, dress a wound, excise a bullet. In the post-collapse world, these would be valuable skills.
“You believe this shit?” Luther demanded.
Victor waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, a response seemed necessary.
“Fuckin’ A,” Victor said.
He followed Luther outside to the patio, where the generator was waiting. It looked to be in decent shape, the same model Victor had at home.
“Crank her up, if you want,” said Luther. “I tested her out this morning, but I guess you want to see for yourself.”
Victor did. The motor turned over with a satisfying roar.
“Looks good to me,” he said. “I got one already. This is just for backup. What do you want for it?”
Luther said, “Got any meat?”
Victor felt his face heat. This time of year, the chest freezer in his basement should have been full of wild game.
“Nah,” he mumbled. “I got nothin’.”
“Huh. I thought for sure you’d have something. Don’t get your back up,” he added hastily, reading Victor’s glowering face. “What else have you got?
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FORTY YEARS OF HUNTING, VICTOR HAD failed to get his deer.