“No,” I said. I grabbed one of the books from the coffee table. “Anger is good.”
“Good?”
“It keeps us moving. You read the book on implements, I’ll read up on familiars when I’m done Essentials.”
“Okay,” she said.
The quiet outrage kept me reading through the night.
1.06
I paced. The Demesnes text in hand, I walked from one end of the living room to the other, then walked back.
Another trip back and forth, and I stopped by the window, using the edge of the book to push the curtain back. It was dusk outside, just past sunset, day two, and some of the locals had emerged.
If I didn’t know better, I might have thought the locals were trying to put pressure on me. Men and women, some children, simply staking out the perimeter of the fence. Some of them paced like I was doing, like tigers in their cell, while others were patient, smoking or holding phones to their ears. A number of the ‘children’ were standing on the short stone wall, hands wrapped around the metal curls and spikes of the railing, eyes on the house. Some talked, others were silent.
Most were normal enough I wouldn’t have looked twice. A handful weren’t. One little boy, separate from the others, kept scratching at his head, face, neck and arms, his fingers coming away black with his own blood, or so it appeared in the gloom. I could see the gouge marks, dark lines cut into his skin, he would turn away, and they would be gone the next time I got a chance to see. There was a woman with hair, hat and coat covering much of her face, but when I did get a glimpse, I saw only vague, black smudges where her eyes and mouth should be. She held a cigarette up near her face, but never inhaled from it. The others seemed rather intent on avoiding her, giving her a wide berth as she paced.
A car passed down the length of the road. I tried to use the headlights to get a better look at the things, but the headlights revealed a mostly empty sidewalk, no Others but a small group of the ‘children’ that had hopped down from the fence and were simply walking as a group, heads covered by hats and hoods, hardly worthy of a glance.
My eyes had to adjust from focusing on the headlights. The Others appeared from dark spots, and stepped out from behind the pillars that framed the gate.
I let the curtain drop, then resumed the pacing. I’d read the same page five or six times.
“You’re making me nervous,” Rose said, startling me. “You’ve been pacing the entire time I’ve been gone?”
Her hair was wet. She’d left to go shower, but she still wore the same clothes as before. Apparently she had running water, on her side. That was interesting, considering there wasn’t necessarily anything for the pipes to connect to.
“I’m nervous,” I said. “I ordered pizza, but I didn’t think they’d come crawling out of the woodwork like this. There’s a good ten or so out there.”
“Why did you order pizza?” she asked.
“Because I’m hungry?” I responded. “There’s nothing more than the most basic stuff in the kitchen, I’m going to go crazy or get sick living off flour tortillas, canned beans and tuna, and since I’ve got to figure out a way to keep myself supplied, I might as well start sooner than later.”
“Pizza isn’t supplies.”
“Pizza is a way of testing the waters,” I said. “Will anyone in this town do business with me? If I can’t order a pizza, I might have trouble getting groceries delivered. If I can’t get groceries delivered, then I need to find a reliable, safe way of going outside.”
“So you put a pizza guy in the line of fire?”
“There wasn’t a line of fire when I called,” I said. I looked outside again. “It’s hard to keep track of time. My sleep schedule’s all over the place, my eating schedule’s off track, and the days are short. It’s dangerous, and it’s going to fuck me up. Need to get back in the habit of sleeping at night and eating on time. As is, I didn’t figure it would get dark so soon, and I didn’t figure they’d appear like this.”
“I know,” she said. “Except I don’t even have the physical needs to gauge by, and it’s awfully dark in here.”
I peeked outside.
Two Others had joined the group. One was very talkative, engaging with the eyeless, mouthless woman who had the cigarette, even venturing into the four or five foot bubble of personal space around her that the rest seemed to be respecting.
I reached for the phone. Mind changed.
“Bell Pizza. What can I do you for?”
“I’d like to cancel my order,” I said.
“You’ve already paid for your order. The food is made and is on its way. We can’t provide a refund.”
“It’s fine. Keep the money. Just call back the delivery guy so he doesn’t waste his time.”
There was a pause.
“I’m sorry. We can’t refund your pizza, because we already prepared it. It should be there in ten minutes or less.”