In addition to everything else, Locke had soiled himself. So the next hour was spent cleaning the big man up, putting a new dressing on the suppurating wound, and trying to pour some water into him.
Finally, once Capelli had done everything he could, he allowed himself to take another nap. Rowdy wasn’t too pleased with that decision, and he spent a good five minutes whining by the door, before curling up in front of it.
When Capelli awoke it was evening, and time to work on Locke again, before fixing a large dinner that he shared with Rowdy. It seemed as if Locke was dreaming, because he spoke occasionally, and even laughed out loud once.
After darkness fell, Capelli opened the door and stuck his head out. There was a scattering of clouds, but the moon was up, and threw a ghostly glow over the land. It was cold, damned cold, and Capelli figured it would freeze later.
Rowdy stood in the opening for a moment as his supersensitive nostrils sampled the night air and his ears stood at attention. Then he was gone, and Capelli knew better than to try and call him back. Rowdy was tired of being cooped up and eager to hunt.
Capelli wanted to stretch his legs too. But first there were chores to take care of. He took a broken shovel he’d found earlier and the Rossmore out to a spot a couple of hundred feet from the shelter and dug a hole. After dumping a load of garbage into the depression, Capelli covered it with a thick layer of dirt. Because if he could smell it, then Howlers could too, and the last thing Capelli needed was to have a couple of those monsters hanging around.
Once he was done, it was time to fetch more water from the river. So Capelli armed himself with the shotgun, two buckets, a grimy towel, a bar of Lava soap, and some clean clothes before making his way to the stream.
After placing everything on the bank within easy reach, Capelli removed his clothes, took the bar of soap, and waded out into the freezing water. It wasn’t deep enough to swim in. But he could sit down, and that was a shock.
Working quickly, Capelli scrubbed his skin with the highly abrasive soap, rinsed it off, and hurried to wash his hair. Then he stood up quickly and made a grab for his towel. The moment he was dry enough to put them on, Capelli slipped into clean clothes and a warm jacket.
Once he’d filled both buckets with water, he returned to the shelter, where he took a look at Locke before returning outside. Not for any particular purpose, but to enjoy the night air, and escape the confines of the shelter.
As Capelli sat on the mound of earth over the shelter and looked upwards he saw three bright lights streak across the blue-black sky. He wondered if they were meteorites but knew they weren’t. Not only did the Chimera own the Earth, they owned the sky, and as far as he could tell, they owned the future, too.
It took Locke the better part of three days to die.
When the end came, it came quietly; Locke simply stopped breathing. Capelli might have been able to resuscitate him, but knew it would be pointless if he couldn’t solve the real problem, which was the raging infection that had taken over the big man’s body.
Capelli would have needed more than a day to dig a proper grave. And he had no way of knowing who or what might catch up with him while he did it. Not to mention the fact that he would have had a hard time moving the corpse by himself.
So Capelli closed Locke’s eyelids, arranged his body in a peaceful repose, and went looking for something to write with. He found half a can of black paint in the storage unit, plus a still-serviceable brush, and took them back to what was about to become a crypt.
Capelli wrote the epitaph in military-style block letters on the wall directly above the body. Miss October smiled as she watched from across the room. “HERE LIES ALVIN LOCKE. A GOOD MAN, FORCED TO LIVE IN BAD TIMES, WHO WAS ON HIS WAY TO DO GOOD THINGS WHEN THE CHIMERA KILLED HIM.”
Afterwards he sorted through Locke’s belongings and took what he could use. Food mostly, since Capelli had no use for .30-.30 cartridges, or clothes that were way too big for him. The money belt, however, was still heavy with gold coins, and his to keep if he wanted to do so.
But at some point over the last few days he had made the decision. Though he could not deliver his client to Haven, Oklahoma, he could deliver the money belt—and take a look at the community at the same time. Maybe it was just another group of pathetic survivors eking out a day-to-day existence while they waited to die. Or maybe Haven was something more. Locke had thought so, and Capelli was determined to find out.
So Capelli tidied up, left the rifle and the supplies he couldn’t use in plain sight on the card table, and made his way up the stairs, where Rowdy was sitting with one leg up in the air, nibbling at his fleas.
Having lowered the door into place, Capelli turned towards the access road, and the highway beyond. He figured he was pretty close to Hays, Kansas. After that it would take a good six or seven days of walking to reach what had been Salina, Kansas, and was currently referred to as “Tank Town” by runners who had been down that way.
It was early morning, a good time to travel. As Rowdy led the way, and Capelli followed along behind, farms gradually gave way to light industry and a scattering of houses. But rather than enter Hays, and be forced to deal with whatever might be lurking there, Capelli elected to give the city a wide berth by swinging south. He crossed a set of railroad tracks, and pushed down into farm country, before heading east again.
That took him into the early evening, when the weather turned bad and he sought refuge in a barn. One end of the structure was filled with pods. They made raspy breathing sounds, and with no way to know when they might pop, Capelli couldn’t stay there. He could set the barn on fire, however—which he did before going back out into the rain. Capelli knew the flames could attract some stinks, but it was a chance he was willing to take rather than leave the pods intact.
Half an hour of walking brought him to a road, a sizable junkyard, and the opportunity to hole up in the back of an old bread truck. And with Rowdy acting as his alarm system he felt reasonably safe. Rain rattled on the roof as he ate cold beans out of a can. Then, after finishing his meal, he brushed his teeth. The floor was hard but the sleeping bag was warm. Sleep came quickly.
The next day dawned bright and clear. Capelli made breakfast for himself, packed his belongings, and was on the road by eight. He followed it north to Route 40, where he took a right-hand turn, and continued east.
Following the highway was a dangerous thing to do. Both the Chimera and humans used it. But cross-country travel was often extremely slow due to the need to traverse occasionally difficult terrain, cross rivers, and cut through barbed-wire fences. So having chosen speed over safety, Capelli was on high alert as the ribbon of highway carried him through rolling grasslands.
And that was why he spotted both the body and the child from a half-mile away.
The sighting was enough to send Capelli off the road into a cluster of trees. A low whistle brought Rowdy in, and the dog lay panting at his side as Capelli freed his binoculars. The body that lay sprawled on the highway was clearly that of a woman. A pack was strapped to her back and a rifle lay on the pavement next to her. There were no obvious signs of injury—though that didn’t rule out a bullet wound. But why shoot her, and leave the rifle? No, an illness of some kind seemed more likely. The little girl, who Capelli judged to be three or four years old, was squatting next to the body as if waiting for it to come back to life.
It was a pitiful sight. But Capelli had seen a lot of pitiful sights and wasn’t about to move forward without a careful examination of the surrounding countryside.