The King of Clayfield - 01 (9 page)

When I had a handful of shavings ready, I opened the door to the stove. We had a stove like this when I was a kid, but I’d never actually operated it. I'd watched my dad enough that I thought I could do it. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t burn the building down, and
 
Jen would think I knew what I was doing.... not that she cared.

The bottom of the stove had a lot of ash in it. I found Blaine’s ash bucket and shovel, and cleaned out
 
the stove. I put down some of my shredded magazine ads in first. There was a small hatchet next to the door.
 
I turned
 
the
 
two-by-four on its end and used the hatchet to bust up
 
into smaller sticks for kindling.

Then, I opened the damper on the stove,
 
so it could draw air.

“Still got the lighter?” I said.

Jen looked up absently, then dug around in the coat pocket and tossed me the little green BIC. I got the paper started, and then I
 
placed
 
my pile of shavings loosely on top of the flame. It started to smoke, and then ignited.
 
I put the smaller kindling on first and when it caught, I put on the bigger pieces. Then I put one of the wet logs next to, but not on, the fire. Smoke was coming into the room. I'd forgotten to open the flue.
 
I looked over my shoulder to see if
 
Jen noticed, but she wasn’t paying attention. I
 
opened the
 
flue and the
 
smoke went out the chimney.
 

“I’ve got to find more dry wood,” I said. “I’m going to
 
see if there is any in one of the sheds.”

She nodded but didn't look up.

I stepped out and shut the door behind me. In the field across the road were several cows. They all stared at me as though I was the only human they’d ever seen.
 
There were cows like this on farms all over the countryside.
 
There were all sorts of fenced livestock out there. I wondered what would happen to them. Would they
 
eventually overpopulate their
 
boundaries? Turn
 
feral? Starve?

I walked over to the closest shed. Inside, I found stacks of plastic flowerpots, four bags of potting soil, and a
 
bucket of sand. I was about to leave and check another shed, when I noticed
 
the wooden pallet on which the bags of soil sat. I moved the dirt quickly and pulled out the pallet. The top boards were dry, and that would do for now.

On my way back, I looked out across the
 
open fields behind the house. In the
 
far distance, I could see a figure moving around, dark against the snow. It was far enough away and my depth perception was
 
confused enough, that I couldn't tell whether or not it was human
 
or animal.
 
My imagination told me it was human. I watched it, trying to
 
figure it out, but the whiteness of the snow was playing tricks on my eyes.
 
But I couldn't watch long, because I had a fire to feed.

When I came back into the building with the pallet, Jen was removing the power tools from the counter.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m not sleeping on that concrete,” she said. “It is cold and hard, and there might be stuff crawling around down there.”

I didn’t argue. It made sense to me.

"How many shells do you have for that shotgun?" I asked as casually as I could.

"Two."

"Just two?”

"It only holds three, and I used one.”

I didn't want to shoot anyone, but the reality was that I might have to defend myself and Jen.

I grabbed a claw hammer and pried the pallet apart.

I could feel her staring at me.

"We should save them," she said. "You know, for us...just in case."

I looked over at her;
 
she looked so incredibly sad and scared.

"It'll be okay,"
 
I said. "The alcohol worked. I'm sure
 
it did."

"But my head is splitting," she said.

"You're just hung over," I said. "Eat something.”

She picked up the egg and sat down on the bucket again.

"Part of me hopes I do have it," she said softly. "Things won't get no better than this."

"No," I said. "The government
 
has contained the virus. We just have to wait
 
here."

"Be real. They ain't coming for us."

I knew this. Deep down, I knew
 
it had spread everywhere by now. But I had to give her some hope.

"Then we'll go to them," I said.
 
"We'll head west and cross the river. Besides, we're not the only people left in this town....”

"Yeah," she snorted, "There are plenty of people--all
 
drunks and monsters."

Using the hatchet, I split
 
the slats from the pallet
 
into narrow strips, and broke the strips across my knee.
 

The fire was dying, but I fed it some more paper, then the pallet wood. I got my head close and blew on
 
the embers.
 
Soon it was a respectable fire. I went outside and brought in the rest of the wet wood and piled it near the stove to dry. I closed the damper a
 
little.

"The fire is going," I said. "Let's have a hot meal then we'll try to come up with a plan. I haven't
 
really eaten much since yesterday morning, and I'm starting
 
to get a headache, too."

She looked up at me, warily.

"I get headaches when I don't eat," I said.

I pulled
 
one of the
 
food boxes in front of her to unpack, and then
 
I started on another.

“Who the hell buys canned beets?” she said, pulling food out of the box. “Or lentil soup?”

“I’ve had those a while,” I said.

"Did you buy them on purpose?"

“We can save them until last, or eat them first and get them out of the way.”

“Or…” she said. “Or we could forget about them altogether.”

I pulled out a cylindrical box of oatmeal, and
 
just looking at it made my stomach growl.
 
 

"We’ll need to get in the house,” she said. “Where does your friend keep his key?”

“I don’t feel right about going in there when they’re not home,” I said.

“Did you bring a can opener to open this lentil soup? Or a pan to cook
 
it in? Or a spoon
 
to eat
 
it with?”

“No,” I said. It made me wonder how
 
many things I'd forgotten.
 
“I’ll take care of it. That way I won’t have to explain about a stranger in their house.”

“I don’t think they’ll be back for a while,” she said.

“Still,” I said, “I’d feel better if I did it.”

"Suit yourself,” she said. “Knock first when you come back. I want to change clothes.”

I found the spare key underneath the fourth rock that lined the walkway to the back door, just where it always was. The rock was frozen to the ground, so I had to knock it loose with the heel of my boot.

After I picked up the key, I looked out across the fields again. The dark figure I'd seen earlier was gone now. It made me uneasy. I knew they were out there. I knew they were around, just like in town.

I went in the house.

"Hello? Blaine?"

Even though I knew no one was there, I still thought I should announce my presence. If they had been home, they would have been in the workshop with a fire; it was too cold inside. I went into the kitchen and started collecting the necessary utensils for our meal. I didn't want to be nosy in my friends' house without them there, but I
 
decided to see if they had anything decent to eat, so we wouldn't have to eat canned beets. I would try to replace it later.

The pantry was
 
empty.
Completely
empty. I opened the refrigerator.
 
There was a frozen stick
 
of butter in the door and an open jar of pickles in the back,
 
but otherwise, it was empty,
 
too.

I left the kitchen and went into the living room. The pictures of the kids that Betsy kept on the bookcase were gone.
 
Some of the bookshelves were bare. I went to the kids'
 
bedrooms. Their
 
closets had
 
very little
 
clothes. I went to Blaine and Betsy's
 
bedroom. The
 
chest-of-drawers was open. Blaine's gun rack was empty. I stepped over to the walk-in closet.

"They bugged out."

The
 
voice startled me, and I jumped. Jen had come in and was
 
standing behind me in the doorway. She'd already changed her clothes.

"What?" I said.

"Got the hell out of Dodge," she said.

"It looks like they moved."

"Well, it looks like they plan to be gone a while," she said. "Did they have family somewhere else?"

"Betsy's family lives in Missouri...I don't understand. Why didn't he tell me?"

She looked around the room.

"Do the kids have twin beds?" she asked.

"Huh? I don't know."

"If they do, we should move them out there to sleep on. It'll beat sleeping on those countertops."

She left me. I sat down on the bed.

He could have told me he was leaving. He could have at least warned me about the virus.
 

"There are
 
twin beds in both rooms," she said when she returned. "After we
 
eat, we
 
should move the mattresses
 
into the shop before it gets dark."

"How could
 
he do this to me?" I said. "He just left."

"Don't be hard on him," she said, sitting next to me.
 
"He had kids to worry about."

I
 
still
 
felt a little betrayed.

"Come on," she said. "Let's eat those lentils. Maybe this headache will go away."

We didn't eat the lentils. We
 
ate oatmeal instead, and it was the best oatmeal I'd ever
 
tasted.
 
It felt good to have my belly full.
 
Jen seemed to feel better, too. Her headache was gone, and
 
we moved the kids' mattresses out to the workshop with the intention of moving the beds out there the next day.
 
I went out and checked the clock in the Blazer, and it
 
was after 2 pm.

"Our priority now is to get you drunk.
 
I
 
think the tequila killed it. I feel good...well, as good as I can, considering."

"I didn't see anything to drink in there," I said.

"We'll have to get some somewhere. Maybe one of the neighbors..."

"Break in somebody's house?" I said.

"I'll do it if you feel weird about it," she said. "But
 
we need to do it now. It'll get dark soon. We might want to find some candles while we're at it."

We headed outside.

"Another thing," she said. "We need a
 
toilet."

"We can just use the ones in the house...."

"I did
 
use
 
one of the ones
 
in the house, but
 
we'll have to haul in water to flush it at some point."