CHAPTER EIGHT
It was less than two miles. Within minutes they saw a clutch of buildings silhouetted against the bleak light of the dying sunset. There was something wrong with the light in the distance, like it was shining through greased glass, but they paid it no mind.
“Where’ll he be?” asked Hammond.
“Inn,” said Monk. “I hope.”
They spread out and approached the town in a tight half-circle. They saw no people, no animals, no sign of life save for a few lit windows among the buildings. At the outskirts they moved among the structures like hunters in a forest, seeking cover and shadow and lines of sight. Still nothing stirred.
“Whole damn place is dead,” said Roosevelt.
“Seems to be,” said Pike.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“I can’t say.”
There was a crash from a general store and a man came running out from the back with arms full of food and bottles of alcohol. He wore overalls and a straw hat barely kept together and he had no shoes. He stopped when he saw them watching, then turned to run before one of the twins stepped out and stopped him, grabbing his arm.
“Let me go!” he cried. “Let me go!”
“What’s this nonsense?” said Pike as he strode up.
“Let me go! You bastards let me go!”
As they struggled one of the bottles fell from the man’s arms and shattered on the ground. He shrieked like a child and kneeled over it, crying, “You broked it! You done broked it! Why’d you have to do that?”
“Be quiet,” said Pike.
“You done broked it! I had to go to all that trouble and everything and you all just ruined everything! Why, you—”
Pike slapped him hard, once, then twice. A trickle of blood began to form at the corner of the man’s mouth and he whimpered.
“Will you be quiet?” asked Pike.
He nodded.
“What’s happening here? Where’re all the people?”
“They left,” he said, and sobbed and rubbed at his mouth.
“Why? Where?”
“Don’t know where. They left ’cause there was no reason to stay. Farms all dried up, got bought out, got dug up. There’s only a few here now.”
“And where are they?”
“Most left just now. A storm’s coming. You can take what you want. The place is deserted. You can just go in and take whatever you want,” he said, and smiled like this tip could fix everything.
“Get out of here,” said Pike, and threw him aside. The man hurried to grab what he had dropped and ran down the street without looking back. Pike turned to the others. “This doesn’t change anything.”
“No,” said Connelly.
They found the inn, a long, low-slung building that could have been built with the same primitive tools and designs of fifty years ago, even a hundred years ago. An oil lamp fluttered and swung in the window as the wind picked up. Connelly, Pike, and Monk entered while the others kept watch outside. The inn seemed abandoned as well until a short, fat man with a droopy mustache poked his head out of the back.
“What the hell?” he said. “Are you folks crazy or something?”
“No,” said Pike.
“There’s a goddamn storm coming in, don’t you know to get cover?”
“We know. We’re looking for someone.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Someone who may be staying here.”
“Only got one man who’s staying here.”
“Does he have a scarred face, by any chance?”
The innkeeper looked at them, suspicious. “He might. What do you want with him?”
“Where is he?” asked Monk.
“I don’t like this,” said the innkeeper.
“Where?” repeated Pike.
“You boys get out of here. I don’t want you here. Get out.”
Pike walked around the countertop and the innkeeper opened his mouth to shout when Pike’s fist slammed into the wall above the man’s head. The innkeeper cowered before Pike, shielding his face with his arms. Connelly started forward but Monk put his arm in front of him, though he was trembling. Pike grabbed the innkeeper and thrust him back on the counter and clapped his hand over the man’s mouth before he could yell.
“You stay quiet,” said Pike to the innkeeper. “You scream and I will make sure you never walk or write again, do you hear me? I have walked miles and miles to find this man and I will have no issue walking over you, sir. Now where is he? Is he here?”
The innkeeper shook his head, terrified.
“Then where is he?” said Pike, and took his hand away.
“He left,” whispered the innkeeper.
“Left? Where’d he go?”
“He said he was going for a walk. He does it every night but he said he was doing it again this time. I said he was crazy, just like you all are, you bastards. He said he was going for a walk and I said the sky was about to come down on him but he paid it no mind.”
“Which way did he go?”
“Up the street,” said the innkeeper, and pointed. “That a-way.”
Pike left him where he was and they walked out. The others crept out of the shadows and joined them in the road.
“Well?” said Roosevelt.
“He isn’t here, Mr. Roosevelt,” said Pike. “He went for a walk. The man said he does it every night.”
“So where’d he walk?” asked Roonie.
Pike nodded up the road. “So I suppose now it’s hide and seek,” he said, and spat.
They organized a search party as quickly as they could, each taking pairs. Connelly was paired with Roosevelt and they would travel with the twins. They each took a street and, if needed, decided they would search what few houses there were.
“No one’s here anyways,” said Lottie. “The damn place is a ghost town. Ghosts won’t care if we bust in.”
“Amen,” Roonie said.
Connelly and his group moved north and wandered among the alleys and the stores. A handful of slums squatted toward the edge of town, along the ditches and the bridge and a scattered half dozen trees. They walked along fences and looked into yards and began to search the homes.
“You ever broke into a house before?” said Roosevelt.
“No,” Connelly said.
He chuckled. “It’s easy. Sort of fun. Can’t see it being fun with no one around, though. Sort of spoils it.”
The twins picked a ruined shack with no door, but for some reason Connelly was compelled otherwise. He would not want that, he realized. The scarred man would not want something so poor and already hopeless. He would want something comfortable. Something homey. Something warm. It would be of no worth to violate something already destitute.
“Where you going, Connelly?” asked Roosevelt as Connelly walked away from the twins, but he made a
