“I found the tape in an old house,” Mortimer said. “I was scavenging, and I found it.”
“Well, ain’t you just the luckiest goddamn scavenger ever.” The Beast made a noise in his throat, then spit in Mortimer’s face. “You found tape and ammunition for both your guns and food and whiskey and…and fucking bubble wrap?” He stood, kicked Mortimer hard in the gut.
This time Mortimer did vomit. He rolled his face toward the floor and heaved once, twice. The third time brought up bile.
“Tell me where you got this stuff,” the Beast said.
“I…I found it.”
“You found it, huh?”
The Beast stomped the heel of his boot into Mortimer’s forehead. Mortimer grunted.
“I know you fucking found it, cocksucker. Now tell me where.”
Mortimer shook his head. “A long way from here. I’ve been gathering it up, saving it.”
“Bullshit.” The Beast lifted him a foot off the floor by a fistful of hair. “Nobody carries that much food and booze and doesn’t eat and drink it. What? You just like lugging it around?” He brought his other fist down hard, knocked Mortimer’s head around.
Mortimer blinked, colored lights dancing in front of his eyes and a hot buzz in his ears. He tried to curl into a ball, but the Beast still held him fast.
“Where’d you get it? Someplace close, right?”
Mortimer shook his head.
The Beast punched again, and Mortimer felt his lips flatten against his teeth, skin ripping. He spit blood, coughed.
“Shit.” The Beast let go, and Mortimer’s head knocked against the floor. The Beast left the room again.
Mortimer lay on the cold floor, reeking of piss, face throbbing. This had been a mistake, coming down the mountain, trying to reconnect with whatever remained below. He’d been safe, comfortable. There had been no need to leave his sanctuary, only the imagined necessity of human companionship, only the vain notion that he must know what had become of the world.
The world had broken, and there was nothing left of humanity but the dregs, dumb sons of bitches in bear skin.
Mortimer opened a swollen eye, saw the girl standing over him, her face expressionless.
“Help me,” Mortimer pleaded.
She stood frozen.
“Untie me,” he croaked. “I’ll go away. I won’t do anything, I promise. I’ll just go.”
She didn’t say a word, didn’t blink. A few moments later she started at the Beast’s return and slunk away.
The Beast knelt next to Mortimer, held up a gleaming bowie knife. “Like it? It ain’t quite as sharp as I’d like, so the cut won’t be clean. I’ll have to saw a bit.” He grabbed Mortimer’s bound hands, pulled them close to his thick body.
Mortimer gasped, tried to jerk away.
The Beast shifted, pinned Mortimer’s wrists under his arm. Mortimer tried to squirm away. The Beast selected the pinkie finger on Mortimer’s left hand, stretched it out. Mortimer tried to make a fist and pull away, but the Beast was too strong.
“P-please.” Saliva flew from Mortimer’s lips. He shook so badly he couldn’t talk.
“I think we’re gonna have a more productive conversation after this.” The Beast put the blade against the finger. Mortimer renewed his struggles, but the Beast held him.
“Here we go.” The blade bit deep, dark blood flowing over the metal.
Mortimer howled, kicked, screamed. The Beast sawed the blade back and forth. So much blood. Within ten seconds he was down to bone. The Beast leaned his weight into it, sawed bone. The finger came off, blood squirting over both of them.
Mortimer lay covered in sweat, limp in the Beast’s lap, like a spent lover deep in swoon. The Beast splashed water on Mortimer’s face, shook him until he woke.
“Okay,” the Beast said. “Let’s take it from the top.”
VII
The Beast led Mortimer on an eight-foot length of thin rope back down the road toward the entrance of the pocket wilderness. The girl walked silently behind them like the dead, wagless tail of an old dog.
Mortimer had lain on the office floor of the dilapidated firehouse and told the Beast all, his secret cabin and the cavern and his storehouse of old-world commodities. The Beast demanded to be taken there. Mortimer had agreed, lying there bleeding and weak.
But now, treading the frozen road, Mortimer burned with hate and humiliation and plotted the Beast’s demise. The wind tore at his eyes, face and ankles. A six-foot length of hickory lay across his neck, his wrists tied to the
