Anomaly Flats (15 page)

“I was hoping you’d ask,” Lewis said, giving her a wry little smile. “Believe it or not, I have a plan.”

Chapter 16

“
That’s
your plan? Get to Walmart first and shoot the clone?”

“What’s wrong with it?” Lewis asked, his face falling.

“I wouldn’t call it a
plan
,” Mallory said. “More like a ‘plan.’” She used air quotes to make sure the not-really-a-plan-ness of it came through. “Something really obvious that someone with no plan whatsoever just decides to do one day.”

“It’s elegant in its simplicity,” Lewis said, trying not to let his hurt feelings show.

“It’s stupid in its stupidity,” Mallory countered.

“A plan doesn’t have to involve code names and secret weapons and hand-drawn maps and needlessly complex pulley systems to be a good plan!” Lewis insisted.

“No, but there should be some sort of
planning
involved. And what the hell sort of plan has a needlessly complex pulley system?”

“I’m sorry it doesn’t strike the perfect balance between sparkling ingenuity and detailed machinations. But it
will
work.” Lewis crossed his arms and set his face into a stern scowl.

Mallory rolled her eyes. “Fine. You’re right. It’s fine. It’s simple, and it’ll work. It’s a great plan.”

Lewis nodded primly. “Thank you.” Then he added, “There’s also a back-up plan.”

“What is it, lie down and hope he trips over us?”

“Mallory!”

“I’m sorry...I’m sorry. Okay. What is the back-up plan, and why is it not the primary plan, and do we actually need a back-up plan if the most crucial element of the primary plan is ‘get there a few minutes early’?”

Lewis clamped his mouth shut and took several big, labored breaths. His face was splotchy and strained with emotion. “I don’t anticipate needing a back-up plan. But
if
we fail—not that I think we will, given the
elegant simplicity
of our primary plan—and
if
the clone sets the ancient evil free, we’ll need a plan to stop it from escaping aisle 8. We need to be prepared to kill it.”

“The back-up plan is a plan to kill an ancient, all-powerful demon?” Mallory asked. Lewis nodded. Mallory rubbed her hands together. “Now we’re talking. Lay it on me, Hannibal Smith.” Lewis gave her a questioning look. “What? Hannibal Smith. ‘I love it when a plan comes together’?
The A-Team?
” The scientist only shrugged. “Jesus, Lewis, turn on TV Land once in a while.”

“We don’t really get television out here,” he said simply. He hopped off the stool and rummaged through a different pile of books and papers, stacked up beneath the hayloft. “Now where is that…?” he mumbled to himself.

“How does one even kill an ancient evil?” Mallory called. “Smother it with love?”

Lewis found what he was looking for in the pile and held it above his head triumphantly. “Nope! You kill an ancient evil with this.” He jogged back to the table and slapped the piece of paper down in front of Mallory. It was a crude drawing of some sort of long, thin metal tool.

“A crowbar?” Mallory asked, confused. “You kill an ancient evil with a crowbar?”

“A crow—? What? No, it’s a spear,” Lewis said, stabbing his finger at the drawing. “Look. There’s the tip, there, and the rest of this is…you know…spear. The shaft.”

“But it’s split at the end,” Mallory pointed out, tracing the back end of the tool with her finger. “And it curves. It’s definitely a crowbar.”

“It’s a spear!” Lewis insisted. “And a spear of great power, I might add.”

“Crowbar,” Mallory said, crossing her arms.

“It’s not a great drawing,” Lewis explained, getting a little huffy.

“I think it’s a very good drawing,” Mallory said. “Of a crowbar.”

Lewis sighed with frustration. “Fine. It’s a crowbar. A crowbar that’s actually a spear of great power. It’s called the Spear of Rad, and it might just be the only thing that can destroy the ancient evil.”

Mallory raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “The Spear of Rad?”

Lewis shrugged. “It was discovered in the ’80s.”

“What does it do, play David Bowie’s greatest hits while riding a BMX?”

“Ha, ha,” Lewis said dryly. “It’s actually
very
powerful.”

“Let me guess. You dug it up outside a RadioShack.”

“Close. Circuit City.”

Mallory leaned back and rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

“As far as anyone can tell, the spear seems to have arrived as a comet, encased in ice. It crashed into the Earth several centuries ago.”

Mallory crossed her arms. Her skepticism was palpable. “So this comet crashes into town, and instead of destroying all life and sending Anomaly Flats the way of the dinosaurs, it just sort of sits there quietly and melts?”

“It did leave a crater. But yes.”

“And you’re
sure
that’s what happened.”

“Fairly certain. See these markings on the shaft?” he asked, tapping the drawing of the spear. “Definitely an alien language.”

“Oh, definitely,” Mallory agreed, nodding. “And now we’re going to use this to kill an ancient evil.”

“If we have to,” Lewis said grimly.

“One question: Why don’t we just use, like, a knife?”

Lewis laughed out loud. The sound surprised Mallory so much, she had to grab the bottom of her seat just to keep from sliding off it. “You can’t kill an all-powerful ancient evil with something as crude and unremarkable as a
knife
, Mallory. Everybody knows that.” He chuckled as he took off his glasses and wiped them on his coat. “You have to use an archaic weapon with great, mystical powers.”

“Oh, of
course,
” she said, setting a new record for the most eye rolls in a 24-hour period. “And the Spear of Rad is that archaic weapon with great, mystical powers, and it can kill the ancient evil.”

“It is, and it can,” Lewis said. Mallory had to admit, he
did
sound impressively confident.

“How can you be sure?” she asked.

“Because it says so in the manual.”

Mallory stared at the scientist. It took a few tries to get her mouth to work. “The manual?”

“Yes,” Lewis nodded.

Mallory paused. “Okay, so…wait. The Spear of Rad, a great, mystical weapon that arrived in a comet from an alien world, came with a
manual
?”

“Written in English and everything! Isn’t it
fasc
—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know,” Mallory said, waving him off. “It’s fascinating.” She wondered, not for the first time, if she were having the world’s longest, most drawn-out embolism.

“According to the manual,” Lewis continued, admiring the little drawing, “the spear can vanquish demons, archdemons, reapers, wraiths, shape shifters, succubae, incubi, and ancient evils. The manual also gives detailed instructions on proper care for the spear and an address to contact about returns and exchanges, though it’s in a nebula I daresay we won’t be able to reach with manmade spacecraft for at least another millennium or two.”

“How stupidly bizarre,” Mallory muttered. “Okay, so we get to Walmart early tomorrow and shoot the evil clone dead. In case that fails, because we forget how to tell time or how bullets work, we use this conveniently-super-powered crowbar to destroy the ancient evil as he emerges through the canned goods. Yes?”

But Lewis frowned. “Technically, yes, that is the plan. Though I wouldn’t call it convenient. Obtaining the spear is going to be…tricky.”

Mallory sighed. Of course it was going to be tricky. “How tricky?”

Lewis rubbed the palm of his right hand nervously. “When the Spear of Rad was discovered, the mayor wanted it housed in the town museum, where it could be both admired by the public and guarded by the highly-trained special forces team that for whatever reason volunteers as museum docents on the weekdays. But the woman who found the spear…she opted to keep it in her…private collection.”

Mallory was confused. She wasn’t terribly political, but she had a working knowledge of how the government operated. “If the town mayor and SEAL Team Six wanted the spear, why didn’t they just, like,
take
it?”

Lewis inhaled sharply through his teeth. “Well…you see, Colleen’s not exactly the type of person you just go
take
things from.”

“But
we’re
going to go take it,” Mallory said, for personal clarification.

“We’re…going to try.”

“You don’t sound very confident.”

“I’m
not
very confident.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? She says no?”

“Yes. The worst that could happen is that she could say no,” Lewis said, swallowing hard.

“So what?”

“So Colleen likes to say no with her shotgun collection.”

Mallory started. “She has a
collection
of shotguns?”

“Thirty of them, at least.”

Mallory dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “Doesn’t matter. She could have a hundred shotguns, she can only shoot one at a time, right? As long as we stay spread out, she can only take out one of us before the other runs away, and I’m pretty sure she’ll shoot you first. She’s known you for years; I’ve only known you for a day, and I’d definitely shoot you before me.”

“Actually…I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“You think she’d shoot me first?” Mallory asked, trying not to sound offended.

“No. I mean there’s a reasonably good chance she could fire her entire collection of guns at once.”

Mallory snorted. “How is
that
possible?”

“She’s resourceful.”

“Well, shit, with a pep talk like that, how can we go wrong?” Mallory scowled. She slapped the table with the palms of her hands, and the plywood wobbled and bounced and threatened to collapse completely. Mallory didn’t care. “Let’s do it. Let’s go get that Spear of Rad and stab a primeval demon to death, or else get riddled with holes trying.”

Lewis tapped his teeth together nervously. His eyes darted out toward one of the windows, and he considered the full darkness of the world outside. “I think we’ll hold off until tomorrow.”

“Why? No time like the present, right? Seize the day, up and at ’em, eyes on the prize, all that shit.”

“It’s too dark,” Lewis insisted.

“It’s just dark enough,” Mallory countered. “If we’re going to get shot at by an army’s worth of bullets, I’d rather not see them coming.”

But Lewis held firm. “Trust me. You don’t want to approach Colleen’s place at night. We wouldn’t make it past the gate. We’ll get some sleep, then head over in the morning. If she doesn’t shoot us and stuff us on sight, we might actually have a chance at the spear. Then we can worry about the clone and aisle 8.”

“You know, it sure sounds like we’re putting ourselves in an awful lot of danger just so we can go somewhere else and put ourselves in an awful lot of danger,” Mallory pointed out.

Lewis smiled grimly. “Welcome to Anomaly Flats.” He stood up from his stool and stretched. His back popped, and he winced. “Come on. We should get you back.”

“Back where?” Mallory said miserably. “The Hellmouth Bed and Breakfast?” She planted her forehead on the plywood and muttered, “I can’t handle any more tentacles.”

Lewis straightened up a bit. He cleared his throat nervously. “Well, ah…you’re…ah…you’re welcome to…stay here tonight,” he offered.

“I’m not sleeping with you,” she reminded him, her voice muffled by the tabletop. Lewis blushed so hard, he couldn’t speak. Instead, he coughed out a series of syllables so clogged and haphazard that they made Mallory roll her head over so she could get a look at the scientist and determine whether or not he was actually choking to death on his embarrassment. His face looked like it had been dipped in cranberry juice, and his mouth was opening and closing at an alarming rate, but he was taking shallow gasps of air, so she decided he’d probably live. “Good lord, Lewis. You have
got
to get laid,” Mallory said, pushing herself up to a full seat. “Not by me, obviously. But, you know. By someone.” She hopped off the stool and looked around the miserable-looking barn. “Which way to the guest room?” she asked.

Lewis managed to catch his breath. He pulled off his lab coat, balled it up, and fanned himself with it. “No guest room,” he said, shaking his head. His face slowly drained back to a non-lethal shade of pink. “You can sleep in the bed, up in the loft. I’ll take the couch.”

Mallory looked doubtfully around the room. “
What
couch?” He nodded at a pile of blankets that sat before the corner of the barn that, judging by the scorch marks, Lewis liked to use as a fireplace. “Looks…comfortable.”

“The outhouse is out that way,” Lewis said, nodding toward the back of the barn over his shoulder, “if you want to use it before bed.”

Mallory made a sour face. “A quarter-mile walk in the dark? In this place? I think I’ll hold it.”

“Come on, I’ll walk with you. It’s not
that
dark. The lava pits do a pretty good job of lighting the way.” Lewis reached into a milk crate near the hayloft ladder and pulled out an old revolver. He loaded the chambers, cocked the hammer, and pointed the gun straight ahead as he opened the back door and stepped into the darkness beyond. “We’ll almost certainly be fine.”

Chapter 17

Mallory awoke the next morning to a familiar, sickeningly sweet aroma wafting through the stale barn air. “Oh my God,” she mumbled before even opening her eyes. “That had better not be waffles.”

“I got waffles!” Lewis called happily from below. He ducked just in time to avoid getting clobbered in the face by Mallory’s thrown shoe. “What? You don’t like waffles? Are you a monster?” He opened up the brown paper sack and pulled out a little plastic container full of thick, brown liquid. “There’s field mouse syrup, too.”

Mallory sighed as she threw off the covers and shook her fingers through her hair. “I
did
like waffles, before waffles were the only thing on the menu,” she said, stretching and yawning and trying to coax her limbs out of apathy. She sniffed at her shirt; it didn’t smell all that bad for being her only clothing option for three days straight now. It didn’t smell all that
great,
but it didn’t smell all that bad. She wouldn’t be attracting flies, at least. Not like Marcy, anyway…

She shivered as she thought of the cloud of flies swarming out of the tourism director’s mouth and decided maybe she should just go back to bed and lie there until she died.

“I’m an eggs and bacon man myself,” Lewis admitted, pulling the Styrofoam containers out of the bag and placing them on the table. He stopped and thought a moment, and a certain sadness settled over his shoulders. “Of course, that was before the chicken incident,” he said quietly.

“
What
chicken incident? Tell me the truth about those goddamn chickens!” Mallory demanded, half-climbing, half-falling down from the hayloft. The mystery of it all was driving her mad. Lewis was ready to respond, but just then, a speaker bolted to the wall just beneath the hayloft eaves squawked to a painful, screeching sort of life. Mallory threw her hands over her ears and said, “You have a speaker in your
house
?”

Lewis tilted his head and gave her a quizzical look. “There’s a speaker in
every
house,” he said, as if it were the most obvious and natural thing.

“Attention, Anomaly Flats,
” the voice from the speaker said. “
The truce between Anomaly Flats and the subterranean nation that exists beneath the overpass has been violated. I repeat: The three-year truce between Anomaly Flats and the subterranean nation that exists beneath the overpass has been violated. One of the mole-women was seen lounging in the wildflower patch adjacent to the overpass, which is a clear and aggressive violation of the treaty. The mayor is attempting a diplomatic resolution by flushing a warning bucket of boiling hot sulfuric acid into the mole-peoples’ water table, as is Anomaly Flats’ diplomatic tradition. The Mayor’s Office would like to remind everyone that poisoning the water is only the first step in a long, diplomatic approach to peace, and warns that citizens should not expect a swift conclusion. Additional diplomatic steps include, but are not limited to, colorful threats, unusually bright flash bombs, showers of inorganic waste materials, and care packages of highly explosive materials hidden inside of raw potatoes. Residents are reminded to place all of their inorganic waste materials and unused potatoes in the yellow bags that the town government has already placed in the crawlspace in their attics in an effort to aid the diplomatic process.

“Attention, Anomaly Flats: The Anomaly Bijou
movie theater would like to remind you that Mandatory Monday is just two days away. All citizens are required to purchase tickets to one of three showings of
Howard the Duck.
Ticket discounts will not be given—especially not to the elderly. Enjoy the movie! You have to. It’s the law.”

“She really brightens the day, doesn’t she?” Mallory said after the speaker clicked off. She twisted her back, and it gave a loud pop. “Aging is bullshit,” she decided.

Lewis pulled out a stool for her at the table. “Trudy’s waffles may be the best thing for that,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. He wasn’t wearing his lab coat this morning, but Mallory saw that a fresh, clean coat hung on a peg near the front door, ready to be thrown on at a moment’s notice. He wore a pink-and-green plaid shirt and a purple bow tie with pink polka dots. His outfit looked pressed and tidy, and made Mallory’s three-day old t-shirt and jeans ensemble that much crummier by comparison. She sniffed the air near her shoulder, just for reassurance, and was almost positive she detected a hint of swamp mud this time.

“Why’s that?” she asked, climbing onto the stool with a sigh. “The secret ingredient is arsenic, and it puts you out of your misery at an unnaturally early age?”

“Not at all,” Lewis said, shaking his head and taking his own seat at the end of the table. “It’s just that there’s a very good possibility that eating Nite-Owl waffles gives your body the preternatural ability to defy a standard timeline.”

Mallory stared at the little nerd on the other stool. “Which means?”

“The waffles
may
cause your body to automatically slow, or even selectively reverse, time.”

“Oh, come on,” Mallory snorted, popping open one of the Styrofoam containers. She prodded the waffles inside with her finger. They were crispy and fluffy, and they smelled like wonder. But a DeLorean, they were not. “You’re telling me this waffle is a time machine?”

“I’m still studying them, but the evidence is compelling.”

Mallory picked up her fork and stabbed at the golden brown delight. “Can they take me back to before I came to Anomaly Flats?”

Lewis shrugged. “Who knows?” He opened his own container and set to work cutting up his waffles. “I haven’t seen any effects on that level, but I can confidently say that my wrinkles have been smoothing over ever since I started eating them. And my bad elbow is just a regular elbow now. It’s not a trip to the past, but it’s something.”

“It’s something, all right,” Mallory murmured. She took a bite of waffle and closed her eyes as the flavor melted across her tongue. Whatever else the waffles might be, they were undeniably delicious. Completely, frustratingly, and undeniably delicious.

“Eat up,” Lewis said through a mouthful of food. “You’re going to need your strength today. And also,” he said, swallowing a lump of waffles down, “it might be your last meal.”

X

Colleen Branch lived in a house in the middle of nowhere—and considering it was situated in a nearly-impossible-to-find town in the middle of a state like Missouri, that was really saying something. Mallory reflected on this as they drove farther and farther along a long-neglected dirt road that constantly curved to the right. They drove through fields and hills and forests and, at one especially confusing point, a small ocean, and still, the road continued, disappearing around a curve ever to the right. “How long have we been driving?” Mallory demanded after what felt like half her life bouncing around through washed-out ruts and wayward stones.

“We’re almost there.”

“We’ve been through three different woods,” she pointed out.

“Just one more.”

“And a few dozen fields.”

“I know.”

“And part of an ocean.”

“It was a very small ocean,” he said.

“Lewis, where are we going?”

“Mallory, we are going to the boonies.”

Mallory snorted. “This whole
state
is the boonies.”

“We’re going to the boonies of the boonies,” Lewis clarified.

“No shit,” Mallory muttered, staring out the window at the sprawling woods outside. “Am I drunk, or have we been curving to the right this entire time?”

“I don’t believe anyone’s ever reported a sensation of inebriation from Trudy’s waffles,” Lewis said. He glanced at Mallory, his eyes bright with interest. “Do you
feel
drunk?”

Mallory rolled her eyes. “It’s an
expression
, Lewis.”

“Oh.” Lewis focused back on the road, unable to hide his disappointment. Discovering new symptoms, Mallory guessed, was something of an enjoyable pastime for him. “Yes, we’ve been curving to the right this entire time.”

“Then call me crazy, but shouldn’t we have eventually made a circle? Or, like, a million of them? Shouldn’t we have met our own road a bajillion times by now?”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Lewis asked with a smile. “The road to Colleen’s farm is…unique. It’s sort of like a reverse nautilus. Or a regular nautilus, I guess, depending on which end of the nautilus you start from.”

“We’re spiraling into smaller and smaller circles?”

“Not smaller and smaller so much as deeper and deeper.”

Mallory ducked her head and peered out the windshield. “What are you talking about? The land is totally flat here.”

“Not deeper and deeper
geographically
; deeper and deeper
metaphysically
. This road is something of a three-dimensional representation of a five-dimensional downward spiral that leads to a new elevation of a separate dimensional aspect.” Mallory sighed and laid her forehead down against the dashboard. The world hurt a little bit less when she closed her eyes. “Try not to think about it too much,” Lewis advised. “It’s largely uncharted territory, since Colleen gets so few visitors. And besides…we’re here.”

Mallory lifted her head from the dashboard and saw a wood rail fence winding its way through the trees and across the road. A wide metal gate spanned the road between fence posts and forced Lewis to slow the RV to a rumbling halt. The gate wasn’t locked, at least not in a traditional sense; a bungee cord wrapped in the split rubber of an old garden hose snaked through the bars of the gate and looped around the nearest fence post. It wasn’t exactly a major deterrent. But what
was
a major deterrent was the collection of old, weather-battered signs that had been tied to the gate with barbed wire.

NO SOLICITORS.

DO NOT ENTER.

NO UNAUTHORIZED VISITORS.

SECURITY SYSTEM PROVIDED BY THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

DEAD MEN ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.

BEWARE OF CROTCHETY OLD BITCH.

NO TRESPASSING: VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT, STABBED, BEATEN, SKINNED, GUTTED, ROASTED, EATEN, DIGESTED, AND FLUSHED.

“She seems sweet,” Mallory offered dryly.

“She’s…different.” Lewis unbuckled his seatbelt and popped open the door. He stuck both arms out and held up his hands so they were in plain view from the far side of the fence. “Stay here,” he murmured. Then he tumbled awkwardly out of the Winnebago and began a slow, cautious creep toward the gate.

“Colleen?” he called, his voice sinking into the thick brush that lined the dirt road and disappearing among the trees. “I’d like to talk for a few minutes, if that’s okay?”

His plea was followed by several long moments of silence. Then a small, oblong object bounced onto the road just inside the gate and bumped and skittered along the hard-packed dirt. Mallory squinted through the windshield and screamed when she realized that it was an olive green grenade.

Lewis threw himself into the ditch that ran alongside the road and tucked his head under his arms just as the grenade exploded. Mallory screamed again, and then she screamed a third time, just for good measure, because for the love of God, a
bomb
had just gone off thirty feet away.

But the explosion was smaller than she’d expected. It was more sound than fury, though it did leave a small crater in the dirt road. There were some small bits of shrapnel that peppered the trees, and a few bits of casing chipped against the RV, but there didn’t appear to be much major damage to the vehicle, to the fence, or to the little scientist crouched down in the drainage ditch.

A good and decent person, Mallory knew, would have sprinted out to check on Lewis, to make sure he was still in one piece and do some amateur field surgery if necessary. But
her
first instinct was to stay relatively protected in a giant shield of metal and glass rather than go galloping across a road that was susceptible to grenades.

So she ran with it.

She hunkered down lower in her seat and called, “Lewis? Are you okay?” through the open driver’s side door. But either he didn’t hear her…or he was dead after all, because he didn’t so much as twitch. Mallory eyed the keys to the RV, which Lewis had left in the ignition. It took almost no time at all to realize that, yes, she would most certainly leave a man behind.

Suddenly, a second grenade plunked its way down the road and exploded just a few feet away from the crater left by the first. Mallory cried out and ducked down behind the dashboard. This explosion was bigger, and it shook the Winnebago on its tires. More shrapnel and dirt rained down on the RV. “Fuck this,” she murmured, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Sorry, Lewis.”

But just as she reached for the keys, Lewis raised his hands a bit in the ditch and stood up on trembling legs. He shook the dirt off himself and called out, in a voice as steady as he could manage, “Colleen, we just need to talk!”

Mallory stayed her hand. She’d wait and see how this played out.

Lewis crawled out of the drainage ditch and, despite the fact that it was now the target of what Mallory considered a vicious and unrelenting onslaught, cautiously approached the gate. “Anomaly Flats is in danger!” he hollered up the road. “Real danger! And I think you can help!”

A spray of shotgun pellets sprayed the dirt near Lewis’ feet. Mallory didn’t hear the actual gunfire until almost two full seconds later. Something in the back of her brain tried to signal to her how strange that was, but the rest of her brain was too busy expressing a desperate desire to get the hell out of Dodge to really pay attention.

Lewis leapt back, but he didn’t retreat. “Colleen, I’m coming up! I am unarmed, and I don’t mean any harm!” He gingerly lifted the bungee cord loop from the fence post and let it hang limply from the gate. “I have a friend with me, and—”

More lead shot sprayed the air, whizzing off into the trees and exploding against the bark of a tree not far to Lewis’ right.

“She’s a
friend
!” Lewis repeated, sounding frenzied. “She can be trusted! I promise!” He paused and tensed, waiting for another warning shot.

But it didn’t come.

He exhaled slowly and pushed open the gate. It swung on rusty hinges that hadn’t been put to great use in the past few decades. “I’ve opened the gate,” he called out. He began slowly backing up toward the RV. “We’re going to come up now, okay?” A lone rifle slug ricocheted across the dirt, but it felt like a half-hearted shot. “Okay,” Lewis said, smiling with relief. “Okay.”

He eased his way back to the Winnebago, still not turning his back on the gate. He reached out and fumbled for the door as he backed into it, then skirted around and leapt into the RV. He mopped the sweat from his brow and exhaled hugely. “That went better than expected,” he said.

“I am
amazed
that you’re not dead,” Mallory admitted.

Lewis shrugged. “The trick is to know where to stand,” he said. He fired up the RV, and they rumbled slowly through the open gate. Mallory peered up through the windshield, but all she could see in the distance was the ever-curving road and more trees. “Where’s the house?” she asked, confused.

“It’s another ten minutes or so. About five miles up the road.”

Mallory scanned the woods. “But…where was she shooting from?”

“Her front porch, I imagine,” Lewis said.

Mallory scowled. “Are you telling me this crazy old bitch can lob a grenade for five miles?!”

“I know what that sign said, but she’s not actually old,” Lewis said. “And I have to say, I know you’re the one with a shared female experience, but I really think the word ‘bitch’ is—”

“Not the point!” Mallory cried. “What are you driving me into, Lewis?”

Lewis tick-tocked his head back and forth a few times, trying to decide how best to proceed. Finally, he said, “Colleen’s farm is really quite special.”

Mallory snorted. “Is it a catapult farm?”

“In principle, you’re not too far off,” Lewis said. “Distance is relative in this part of Anomaly Flats.”

“How fascinating,” Mallory said dryly.

Lewis couldn’t help but beam. “It
is
fascinating,” he agreed. “If only someone else had claimed the property instead of the Branch clan.” A Claymore mine exploded to their right, as if to punctuate his point, uprooting a small tree and blasting a casing full of metal shot harmlessly into the woods. “That was a little over the top,” Lewis murmured to himself.

“Are you going to tell me what sort of farm this is or not?” Mallory demanded. “Enough cryptic bullshit. What sort of farm makes distance fucking relative?”

“That kind,” Lewis said tensely, nodding up the road. An old, weathered cabin came into view around the curve. Its once-brown planks had been stripped by decades of wind and sun and were now a dusty, exhausted gray. The cedar-shingle roof slouched in the middle and drooped over the edges of the house like petrified gelatin. A splintery rail ran along the front of the house, and half the steps leading up to the porch had broken through. A pair of tough, leathery feet were propped up on the railing. They belonged to a middle-aged woman in a pair of dirt-stained denim overalls and a dirty mesh trucker hat that said SKOAL across the front. She held a long-barrel shotgun in one hand and a small silver pail in the other. The gun was pointed toward the sky; the pail was tipped up to her lips. She drank deeply from it, and rivulets of liquid dribbled down her chin.