Temple looks at the empty place beside Richard Grierson.
I suppose we’re waitin on your brother?
James will be down directly, Mrs. Grierson assures her.
And almost immediately after she says the words, the dining room doors swing open and James Grierson comes in and drops himself into the chair beside his brother.
James, we have a guest, Mrs. Grierson says.
Buzz, buzz, says James.
It is evident that he is the older of the two, not because of any physical indications but rather simply as a result of the spiritual weight he seems to lug around on his shoulders. He is paler than his brother, and dark in the places where his brother is light. His eyes are sunken and weary, broken of all the plastic dignity in Richard’s gaze. Nonetheless, he is handsome in a severe way—the kind of man who makes Temple’s insides roil around all curious and bothered.
Sarah Mary, Mrs. Grierson says, would you like to say grace?
Oh, uh, I best not. I never get the words right.
So Richard does it instead:
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you.
Amen, says Mrs. Grierson, and Temple follows with an amen of her own.
And praise Jesus that we’re not dead yet, James Grierson says. Then he looks at his brother and adds: Some of us.
James, Mrs. Grierson warns.
The food is the best that Temple has ever tasted. Salty chicken and dumplings, a puffy corn casserole, greenbeans with mushrooms and crunchy onions on top, cornbread, and for dessert a peach cobbler that makes her want to run her finger across the plate to get every last bit of it.
So, Sarah Mary, James says, elongating her name as though he’s not too fond of it, where are you from?
She’s from over in Statenville, James, Mrs. Grierson answers for her.
Is that right? he asks. You like Statenville?
It’s okay, I reckon.
I didn’t know there were still survivors in that town.
There’s a few.
It must be horrible out there, Richard interjects. For a girl your age to be exposed to such monstrosity. Those things.
He shudders.
They ain’t so bad, she says. They just doin what they supposed to do. Like we all are, I guess.
Are they supposed to eviscerate children? James asks suddenly. Are they supposed to play tug-of-war with the intestines of God-fearing men?
James! Mrs. Grierson says, I’ll not tell you again—
Are they supposed to digest entire populations?
James, that’s enough! I refuse to hear such horrible things at my table!
You refuse, James chuckles, looking at his grandmother. You refuse.
Then he pushes back his chair and tosses his napkin onto the plate and marches from the room.
Mrs. Grierson watches him go and collects herself and then smiles in a dignified way at Temple.
I apologize for my grandson’s behavior, she says.
Ain’t no problem, Temple says. Sometimes you gotta bust apart to get yourself put back together.
Life has been hard on him, Mrs. Grierson says.
He was in the army, Richard adds.
I GOTTA get out of this place, dummy. We can stay a few days to try and lose ole Moses, but I ain’t got this far in my life just to get familied down inside an electric fence.
She looks at him. He sits on the edge of her bed where she put him, his fingertips poking at the air as though something were there and his concentration intent upon it.
It’s an enigma what you seein in this world, dummy.
She considers.
Still, this ain’t a half bad place for you. Give em a few days to get attached, and we got you a new home. Plenty of people to make you dinner and watch you don’t get yourself hurt.
She nods her head and puts the curtain aside to look out the window.
They’re a little nutty, sure—but it’s about as nice a place as you or me’re ever gonna see in this life.
Later, after the sun sets, she creeps out to the car to smuggle in the gurkha knife, because she doesn’t sleep well unless she’s got it at hand. The car is parked behind the house where the hill continues to climb into a densely forested part of the landscape. From where she is, she can see a faint path winding up through the trees—and a dim figure standing at the foot of the path.
You gettin an eyeful? she says, loud enough for whoever it is to hear.
But the shape doesn’t respond, turning instead and ascending the path, disappearing into the dense foliage.
She looks back at the house once, the lighted squares of window beckoning with the kind of security that comes with knowing what to expect. Then she sighs and looks at the shoes Mrs. Grierson gave her. They match the taffeta dress, but they aren’t going to survive tromping through the woods.
It’s a shame, they are pretty shoes.
THERE IS no moon, and she follows the path up through the trees more by feel than by sight, sweeping the gurkha knife in front of her. She worries less about stumbling than she does about walking into the electrified fence along the perimeter of the property.
The path winds back and forth up the side of the hill. Every now and then she thinks she can hear footsteps other than her own. Behind her or in front of her she can’t tell, but they stop when she stops to listen.
A blind dark like this, she’s not doing any sneaking up, so she calls out.
Whyn’t you come on out, whoever you are, and we’ll make a midnight constitutional together. Otherwise I might could hack you by accident.
There is no response, and she looks back in the direction of the house. It is hidden behind the trees, but she can see the faint glow of it in the lower part of the sky. She continues up the hill.
Soon she emerges into a clearing at the top, and it’s a divine sight. The infested city is below her, lit primitive by a few meager lights shimmering in the night air. In those pools of light she can see the slugs stumbling densely together, tiny in the distance. The only sound is the rustling of the leaves, a peacefulness incongruous with the thick tableau of horror below.
The clearing must be used frequently. There is a park bench, and a small white-painted iron table with a glass top. On the ground next to the bench are two empty bottles. Dead soldiers, Uncle Jackson used to call them.
I have a gun aimed at your head, says a voice behind her. Don’t turn around.
Temple turns around. It’s James Grierson.
I said don’t turn around.
I heard you.
You think I won’t shoot you?
I never seen anybody shoot someone without some reason, good or bad.
I think you’ve got that wrong, little miss. If you haven’t noticed, reason is something we seem to have a dearth of in this world.
Then I guess you better kill me with that first shot, cause if I make it over there with this blade, I’m gonna mess you up permanent.
He gazes at her down the barrel of the gun, a look of consideration on his face as though he is thinking about whether to cast her in a play rather than shoot her. Then he lowers the gun. In his other hand is a bottle, and he raises it to his mouth and drinks.
It’s a beautiful night, he says. Pitch-black, the beasts of hell lowing in the distance. How about sitting with me and having a drink?
He seems to have lost interest in the gun altogether.
All right then, she says. That’s more neighborly of you.
He sits on the bench and sets his gun on the table, and she sits on the other end of the bench—and they look out over the city, and he hands her the bottle and she drinks from it and hands it back.
That’s good whiskey.
Hirsch bourbon, sixteen year. Only the best.
They drink.
Look yonder, he gestures down toward the city. A plague of slugs descended upon us. A scourge of evil bubbling up from hell.
He laughs, but she can’t tell whether it’s because he’s joking or because he isn’t.
I don’t know about evil, Temple says. Them meatskins are just animals is all. Evil’s a thing of the mind. We humans got the full measure of it ourselves.
Is that right? Are you evil, Sarah Mary?
I ain’t good.
James Grierson looks at her in a hard, penetrating way. His skin is pale and almost glows against the black night. He looks like someone who could slap you or kiss you and you wouldn’t be able to tell which one is coming and it would mean the same thing either way.
You’re a soldier, he says to her. Like me. You’ve done things you’re not proud of. You’ve got a fierce shame in you, little girl. I can see it—burning in your gut like a jet engine. Is that why you move so fast and so hard?
She looks out over the city of slugs. She can feel his eyes on her, and she doesn’t like to think about what they are seeing.
You were in the army?
I was, he says and takes a drink.
For how long?
Two years. I was stationed in Hattiesburg. We were trying to take back the city.
That weren’t no small task.
We had rescue stations set up, radio transmitters. We were working building defensive walls. But they just kept coming.
Slugs, they like to be where the action is, she says.
We thought we were taking a stand. We killed them and burned the remains and the women tended to the bonfire, and you could smell the smoking corpses day and night. We rotated shifts, a barrage of bullets, and then the cleanup crews. And then there would be more after that. They just kept coming. You wouldn’t have thought there were so many dead.
And then what?
It was too much. We ran low on ammo. Everyone was exhausted. A girl fell into the fire and her mother tried to pull her out and both of them died and had to be burned. The worst was the psychology of it. You can’t fight an enemy like that. There’s no way to win.
So you gave up?
We fell back. We spread out to secure locations. They gave us the option to go home, and I took it.
You were gonna take care of your family.
He holds his bottle up to the sky.
The Grierson dynasty holds fast to its glorious history. It closes its eyes to modernity in all its forms.
He leans over to her and points the bottle in her face.
I’ve been around more living dead in that house than I was when I was piling them up in a bonfire two stories high.
