Wormwood

“I’m serious,” Larry asserted, frowning at their expressions. “Back when I was Shane’s age. I couldn’t afford a car and needed something to get me to work and to school, so I bought a second- hand Honda. I didn’t join a bike club or wear a leather jacket, and I sold it as soon as I could afford a car, but I rode it for two or three years, in all kinds of weather.”

“Could you ride me double?” Shane asked, looking at Larry with a new respect.

Larry smiled weakly. “I think I could manage.”

Rudy and Pam, however, weren’t as quick to warm to the idea, much less agree. Larry was aware of the frank, probing looks he was getting and guessed he knew what they were thinking. He hadn’t after all, distinguished himself very well in the past few weeks. In fact, he’d behaved like a scared and selfish coward. He saw this in their eyes and decided to meet it head-on.

“I know I haven’t done much to earn anyone’s trust; you don’t need to remind me of that; but I’d like to do this, if you think it will help.” He glanced into the fire, at the remains of his son. “I don’t know what’s waiting out there, no more than any of you, but I can guess. I’ve had to deal with it in a way that none of you have and I pray to God… well, I just pray that you don’t have to.” He looked up at them, his eyes rimmed with naked tears and fire. “It doesn’t seem likely though, does it.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of belief. “After what I saw today, I think we’re all just buying time — minutes and hours; no more, really.”

Rudy stepped forward. “If you genuinely believe that, Larry, why do you want to do this? Why do you want to drive Shane into town on the assumption you’ll find a drugstore that still has a stock of antibiotics and — providing you do find them and return here safely — that they’ll do Mike or anyone else the slightest bit of good?”

Pam and Shane both objected to this dour supposition, but Rudy waved them aside, interested in Larry now and not the niceties of his question. For the moment, they had ceased to matter.

Larry shifted uncomfortably, reluctant to shine such a searching light on his motivations and emotions. After a moment’s consideration, however, he admitted that he found his bomb shelter a lonely and sterile place, little better than a prison cell. He admitted that what they thought of him, how they remembered him, mattered, and what he wanted — more than simple survival — was to rejoin their society. He also understood that to do that, he had to make some sort of atonement.

“That’s admirable, Larry, but reckless as well. I can’t speak for anyone except myself, but the fact that you want to come back is enough for me. We don’t need to see you risking your life to prove anything. It’s not an initiation.”

“I realize that,” Larry nodded, “but there’s also a matter of self-respect. If you each contribute your strengths and skills as the need arises, why shouldn’t I? I don’t want to be carried; I want to help. If I’m standing here listening to you say you need a motorcycle driver, why shouldn’t I volunteer, since I can.” He paused and looked back at them challengingly. “Unless you’re lying when you say I don’t need to prove anything?”

“That may have been a poor choice of words,” Rudy admitted. “To be frank, blunt perhaps, Shane’s life may well depend on you and I’ve seen you falter under fire. We would gladly welcome you back into the fold, but — again, to speak my mind — that doesn’t mean I’m ready to trust you with my life yet, or Shane’s.”

“I guess that’s plain enough,” Larry grimaced, “but at this point, is there a difference? The issue seems fairly black and white now. There’s us and there’s them. What could be simpler?”

“It’s always been us and them, Larry; it’s just a question of where you draw the line. A month ago we never would have taken up firearms to stop those men at the creek, much less hung them from lampposts and power lines once they were dead; but it came down to an issue of us against them. This morning Keith Sturling was one of us and before the day was half over he was one of them. It happened in a heartbeat. I’m certain Mike can attest to that; in fact, it cost him two fingers. One day I might have to draw such a line between your house and mine, or the Dawleys. It all depends on how things unfold. I expect we’ll all have to make the same decision… when and where we’ll draw those lines.”

“In other words, it’ll be every man for himself?”

Rudy nodded, though hesitantly, as if Larry had goaded him into revealing a card he wasn’t yet ready to play.

“Yes, I believe that in the end, that’s what it will come down to.”

34

They went to their separate homes soon after, the pyre burned down to smoldering embers and the stars gazing coldly overhead, untouched by their fleeting lives and tragedies.

Pam and Shane came to a tentative agreement. If the motorcycle in the Sturling’s garage was in good repair and Larry was still willing to take him, then she would let him go. It was the only hope of keeping her husband alive, though even so, there were no guarantees. She might lose them both, whether he went to town or not.

No guarantees.

She would let him go as mothers the world over sent their sons off to war.

With bitterness, and a prayer for his safe return.

35

Rudy slipped quietly inside his house and bolted the front door. The rest of the house was locked and tightly boarded, but he made his rounds anyway, knowing he would lie awake in bed, wondering, if he didn’t.

When he’d satisfied himself that all was in order, just as he’d left it, he climbed the stairs and looked in on his children, feeling a brief chill of apprehension touch him as he grasped each doorknob. The day had taught him how fragile, how tentative their lives had become. That an unlucky fall or a prick from a rusty nail might easily snowball into a matter of life or death.

And such long lives stretched ahead of them… lives filled with unending caution and fear.

A bleak notion flitted in and out of his head like a rabid bat.

If he was a real father, if he really cared about their futures, he would take the gun that Keith had left behind and make a quick and merciful end to them, himself and Aimee included, because Larry was right when he said they were just buying time. Days and hours.

So much better, he thought, his face pinched, for them to die in the comfort of their beds… before something came hobbling up the street with the dark curse of Wormwood.

Horrified, he closed the door on his two daughters and backed away from such thoughts, such dubious mercies.

He prayed to God instead to watch over them and keep them safe throughout the night, discovering it was better to think in short-term horizons, in hours instead of years. Tomorrow would have to take care of itself; he would concentrate on tonight. Everything else was out of his hands.

The house was securely barricaded; there was fresh water and food in their stomachs; his family was intact and sleeping… these things in themselves were enough reason to give thanks.

He would need sleep himself, and best to get it while the street was quiet, while darkness rolled overhead.

He opened his bedroom and smiled.

Aimee was waiting up for him.