Harper stepped over him to get to Renée, who was leaning in the open driver’s-side door. When Harper got there, Renée was cradling Gilbert Cline in her arms. Blood still leaked from the bullet wound in his neck, but without much enthusiasm. There was blood all over the front seat.
Harper noticed—almost absently—a severed hand, still clutching a gun, set carefully in on the dash. Renée had thoughtfully picked it up and put it where the Marlboro Man couldn’t go after it in an attempt to get his Glock back.
“We were almost to the end of Watership Down,” Renée said. “Gil said he never thought he could like a story about talking animals so much. I said life was strange, I never expected to fall in love with a man who stole cars.” She was not weeping and spoke with great clarity. “He hot-wired the truck. We couldn’t find the keys. While he was doing it, he told me he was just more proof that most criminals went right back to what they knew best as soon as they got out. He said he was sorry to be adding to the recidivism rate. It took me a moment to realize he was joking. He was very dry. He didn’t even smile at his own jokes, let alone laugh at them. Didn’t give you any clues he was being funny. Oh, Harper, I don’t want to try and live without him. I feel like I spent my whole life unable to taste food. Then Gil came to camp and suddenly everything had flavor. Everything was delicious. And then that awful man shot him and Gil is dead and I’ll have to go back to not being able to taste things again. I don’t know if I can do that.”
Harper wished there were something to say. Maybe there was, and she was just too wobbly and light-headed to think what. Instead she put her arm around Renée and clumsily kissed her ear. Renée closed her eyes and lowered her head and wept in a very quiet, private way.
The Marlboro Man shrieked.
Harper turned and saw Allie standing over him. Allie had her brother in her arms again. She had paused, Harper thought, to kick the Marlboro Man in the ribs.
“Oh, you fuckin’ bitch, you’re gonna burn, and I’m gonna jack off on your charred fuckin’ tits,” the Marlboro Man said.
“You want to jack off,” Allie said, “you’re going to have to learn how to do it with your left hand, stumpy.”
“I don’t think he should live,” Renée said, wiping her face. “Not when so many other people are dead. It doesn’t seem fair.”
“Do you want me to kill him?” the Fireman said. Harper hadn’t realized he was on the ground, standing behind her. He was swaying himself, and looked as bad—maybe worse—than she felt. Sweat crawled on his wasted, white face. His eyes, though, were as dark as crow feathers, and perfectly serene.
He put a hand on the fire ax that leaned against the side of the truck.
Renée thought it over, then shook her head. “No. I guess not. I suppose I’m very weak and foolish, not to get even while I can.”
“It makes you the furthest thing from weak I can imagine,” the Fireman said. He looked back at Allie, who had joined them. “You’ll have to drive the fire truck, Allie. And you’ll have to find somewhere you can hide all of you, somewhere nearby. I’ll meet up with you later.”
“What are you talking about?” Harper asked him. “You’re coming with us.”
“Not now. Soon.”
“That’s crazy. John. You can’t be on your own. You can hardly stand.”
He waved this notion away, shook his head. “I’m not seeing double anymore. That has to be a sign of progress.” And when he saw her expression, he insisted, “I’m not abandoning you. Any of you. I swear I’ll be with you in no more than a day. Two at most.”
“How will you find us?” Harper asked.
“Nick will send for me,” the Fireman said, looking over Allie’s shoulder into Nick’s swollen, filthy, dazed face.
The Fireman did something with his hands, moving them here and there. Nick blinked slowly and seemed to nod. Harper thought the Fireman had said something about birds.
Renée said, “We’ll have to squeeze in with Gil. I hope that’s all right. I won’t leave him here.”
“No,” Harper said. “Of course you won’t.”
Renée nodded, then climbed up on the running board and gently eased Gilbert aside, making room behind the steering wheel.
The Fireman turned and strode across the matted grass. He crouched over the Marlboro Man.
“You,” the Marlboro Man said. “I know who you are. You’re going to die. My man Jakob is going to spread your faggot Brit ish ass all over the road. He’s going to paint the highway with you. Jakob loves killing the burners—he says it’s the first thing in his life he’s ever done really well. But he’s looking forward to doin’ you most of all. He wants to do it while she watches.”
“Jakob likes finishing off burners, does he?” the Fireman asked. He lifted his left hand and a trickle of green flame fluttered like a silk ribbon from the tip of his index finger. The Fireman gazed into it in a sleepy, speculative way, then blew it out, leaving the tip of his finger gray with ash. The Fireman lowered his hand and spread the ash across the Marlboro Man’s forehead, drawing a cross. The Marlboro Man flinched. “Well. You better get up and get moving then, soon as you can. Because you’re one of us now, friend. That ash is full of my poison. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a few other people who are infected who will shelter you and look after you, as the folk in this camp once did for us. Maybe—but I doubt it. I think most people will close their doors in your face the moment you open your big mouth to ask for their help. You have a quite recognizable voice.”
The Marlboro Man kicked his feet against the ground and slid six inches across the dirt, shaking his head frantically, and began to shriek. “No! No no no, you can’t! You can’t! Listen to me! Listen!”
“Actually,” the Fireman said, “I think I’ve heard more than enough. The only thing worse than listening to men like you on the radio is meeting you in real life. Because out here in the world there’s just no simple way to change the station.” And he kicked him—lightly, almost humorously—under the jaw. The Marlboro Man’s head snapped back and his teeth clapped shut on the tip of his tongue, and his scream became a high, hideous, inchoate keening.
The Fireman started away, staggering a little, his coat flapping about him.
“If I don’t see you by tomorrow night,” Harper shouted at him, “I’ll come looking for you.”
He glanced back over his shoulder and gave her a crooked smile. “Just when I thought I was out of the frying pan. Try not to worry. I’ll be with you again soon enough.”
“Come on, Ms. Willowes,” Allie said. Allie was in the truck now, behind the steering wheel, hand on the door and leaning out to look down at her. “We have to go. There’s still men with guns out there. There’s still that plow.”
Harper jerked her head in a nod, then cast her gaze around for a last look at John. But he wasn’t there. The smoke had claimed him.
11
The fire truck bashed aside the wreck of the Chevy Intimidator with an almost casual indifference, sent it spinning toward the circle of stones. It struck one of the monoliths with a ringing clang. Marty Casselman was approaching the overturned Chevy when the fire engine struck it. He dived out of the way, but the Uzi in his right hand went off in a chattering blast, and the spray blew off three of his toes.
The big Freightliner was backing from the half-collapsed bonfire that had once been a chapel. The driver saw the fire truck banging up the hill, but by the time Jakob got the Freightliner turned around, his wife, Renée Gilmonton, and the two children with them were long gone.
12
Allie pulled the truck to a stop where the dirt lane met Little Harbor Road.
“Where to now?” she asked.
Harper looked out the passenger-side window toward the rusting blue hulk of the school bus. The headlights were on. A skinny girl of about fifteen, with a shaved head, slumped behind the steering wheel. Someone had left a machete in the back of her skull.