"Why did you bother to bring the paint back down?" she asked him curiously.
"I wouldn't want to leave it up there. It might lead to spontaneous combustion and we'd lose our sign." And she thought again how determined he was not to miss a single bet. It was just a little bit scary.
They both gazed up at the barn roof. The fresh paint gleamed out in sharp contrast to the faded green shingles, and the words painted there reminded Fran of the signs you sometimes came upon down South, painted across barn roofs - JESUS SAVES or CHEW RED INDIAN. Harold's read:
HAVE GONE TO STOVINGTON, VT. PLAGUE CENTER
US 1 TO WELLS
INTERSTATE 95 TO PORTLAND
US 302 TO BARRE
INTERSTATE 89 TO STOVINGTON
LEAVING OGUNQUIT JULY 2, 1990
HAROLD EMERY LAUDER
FRANCES GOLDSMITH
"I didn't know your middle name," Harold said apologetically.
"That's fine," Frannie said, still looking up at the sign. The first line had been written just below the cupola window; the last, her name, just above the rain-gutter. "How did you get that last line on?" she asked.
"It wasn't hard," he said self-consciously. "I had to dangle my feet over a little, that's all."
"Oh, Harold. Why couldn't you have just signed for yourself?"
"Because we're a team," he said, and then looked at her a little apprehensively. "Aren't we?"
"I guess we are... as long as you don't kill yourself. Hungry?"
He beamed. "Hungry as a bear."
"Then let's go eat. And I'll put some baby oil on your sunburn. You're just going to have to wear your shirt, Harold. You won't be able to sleep on that tonight."
"I'll sleep fine," he said, and smiled at her. Frannie smiled back. They ate a supper of canned food and Kool-Aid (Frannie made it, and added sugar), and later, when it had begun to get dark, Harold came over to Fran's house with something under his arm.
"It was Amy's," he said. "I found it in the attic. I think Mom and Dad gave it to her when she graduated from junior high. I don't even know if it still works, but I got some batteries from the hardware store." He patted his pockets, which were bulging with EverReady batteries.
It was a portable phonograph, the kind with the plastic cover, invented for teenage girls of thirteen or fourteen to take to beach and lawn parties. The kind of phonograph constructed with 45 singles in mind - the ones made by the Osmonds, Leif Garrett, John Travolta, Shaun Cassidy. She looked at it closely, and felt her eyes filling with tears.
"Well," she said, "let's see if it does."
It did work. And for almost four hours they sat at the opposite ends of the couch, the portable phonograph on the coffee table before them, their faces lit with silent and sorrowful fascination, listening as the music of a dead world filled the summer night.
BOOK I CAPTAIN TRIPS Chapter 37
At first Stu accepted the sound without question; it was such a typical part of a bright summer morning. He had just passed through the town of South Ryegate, New Hampshire, and now the highway wound through a pretty country of overhanging elms that dappled the road with coins of moving sunlight. The underbrush on either side was thick - bright sumac, blue-gray juniper, lots of bushes he couldn't name. The profusion of them was still a wonder to his eyes, accustomed as they were to East Texas, where the roadside flora had nothing like this variety. On the left, an ancient rock wall meandered in and out of the brush, and on the right a small brook gurgled cheerily east. Every now and then small animals would move in the underbrush (yesterday he had been transfixed by the sight of a large doe standing on the white line of 302, scenting the morning air), and birds called raucously. And against that background of sound, the barking dog sounded like the most natural thing in the world.
He walked almost another mile before it occurred to him that the dog - closer now, by the sound - might be out of the ordinary after all. He had seen a great many dead dogs since leaving Stovington, but no live ones. Well, he supposed, the flu had killed most but not all of the people. Apparently it had killed most but not all of the dogs, as well. Probably it would be extremely people-shy by now. When it scented him, it would most likely crawl back into the bushes and bark hysterically at him until Stu left its territory.
He adjusted the straps of the Day-Glo pack he was wearing and refolded the handkerchiefs that lay under the straps at each shoulder. He was wearing a pair of Georgia Giants, and three days of walking had rubbed most of the new from them. On his head was a jaunty, wide-brimmed red felt hat, and there was an army carbine slung across his shoulder. He did not expect to run across marauders, but he had a vague idea that it might be a good idea to have a gun. Fresh meat, maybe. Well, he had seen fresh meat yesterday, still on the hoof, and he had been too amazed and pleased to even think about shooting it.