Drink For The Thirst To Come Part 4

The gong was a good fifteen feet in diameter and hung from a frame. When the man struck the quarter hour the sound reached them a good two seconds after. "A half-mile," she said quietly. Her voice quivered.

They stared, gathering the sight. Not wanting to.

"Hm," he said.

The thing wielded by the ringer was soft, and for the first few strokes, still alive.

A dozen or more people surrounded the gong and frame. Men, women, hard to see detail, harder to figure what the h.e.l.l.

"What are they?" she said.

"What you think?" he said. "Yep. Taking pieces. Just what you think."

The shattering buzz that lingered on the end of each tone was a voice. Next toll, he thought, the voice would be different. The ringer would probably use up his hammer.

"But what...?"

"Religion, I guess," Chris said.

The girl ralphed.

She is a girl, Chris thought.

A rubble dam blocked the slow dark river upstream from their position. The nearest crossing was directly below.

They waited for sinking light to pitch shadow darkness across the Wetward face of I-90/94. Even in near dark, the descent was easier than the climb. Two toll cycles and they'd reached the ford. Day was falling into the west and the girl was squirrelly to be away, far as possible, from the bong-bong.

"Religion?" she spit it. And took off.

The pour began when they'd cleared the river and skirted the Opera Tower. The gongs never slacked through the Wet, marked each quarter hour with certainty. They pressed until the Opera was in the dark, then they sheltered in the base of a building that rose from one of the mossy heaths and a now-gray, rain-pocked pond.

"Willis Tower," the girl said. "Maybe not. Hard to tell." Chris wiggled his toes and thanked his socks, the Old Guy.

The girl shook. From the walk, the kill, the climb, the bong-bongs from the Opera? Chris didn't know. Maybe she was cold, tired. Who could tell about girls?

The pour became a downpour, the downpour wanted to be snow then d.a.m.n near was. Each dirty drop, a slushy mud ball, fell hard. They sheltered in a stairway landing above a bas.e.m.e.nt pond that stank of green rot. Looked pretty from on high and in the light. Girders overhead sagged like candles in July. Chris dipped a metalized polyfiber tarp from his pack and strung it over them. The snudfall drops drummed inches from their heads. It was true dark, now. She was there. He could smell her, feel warmth, hear her... What the h.e.l.l? Crying.

Chris didn't like where masonry remained: the flash-black walls were thick with white niter, bearded with pale roothairs curled into a near-living mat. Leaves and stems bound the shattered foundation, held it against falling in. The walls chattered and crackled, as they did at the Center, elsewhere. G.o.dd.a.m.n, he'd eat the b.u.t.ter of them but would not to see the critters, did not want them to touch! Sheltering in these living sh.e.l.ls on the Long Walk, Chris had felt the spooks in the ruins. As a newson, sleeping unclaimed and rough, he thought the City was haunted by those evaporated on The Day. Night brought dreams, that much he knew. The folk he carried living in his head, Mom and Daddy, the guys, Jaycee, others, dragged their clean bright pasts from his dark and dirty now. Came to life as he slept, clawed the walls.

What an a.s.s I was! He looked at the darkness where the girl was. An a.s.s and likely still remain.

She squeaked, a mostly quiet little noise, unheard, but by him. He felt her jump, knew she was looking wide. "What's..." she started.

"Sh." He dared a moment's drain of the Center's batteries. Yellow light flickered on the wall. Where they'd always been, what they always were, the ghosts of Chicago, of the days past The Day: palm-long roaches, fist-thick 'pedes, their million footfalls rustling hairy white roots.

"Oh," she said and scooted from the wall. He saved the bats. "Okay," she said. The next bonging peal rasped over them. "Okay, here's the deal," she said. "That Adam and Eve thing Commissioner Mike was thinking? Didn't work. Not with him. In retrospect, not a bad notion, what with racial suicide and all, but not with him. Anyway, he's gone and his little Eden 400 feet below world's end? It's still operational, still stocked, still enough of everything there for hundreds." There was a moment's quiet. "For now it's empty."

"Yeah?" he said.

"It is. Yes."

He might have been shaking. "So, you what? You have any suck down there?"

"Suck?"

"Weed? Cripes, smoke? Cigarettes?"

Her liquid chuckle came from the dark. "Sorry," she said. "He didn't smoke. Neither do I."

"Oh."

"So?"

Cripes, Chris thought, she ain't going to ask...?

"Look, I came up to see if there might be someone. You know?"

He knew. She touched him, in the dark. What the Boss had said? What? "What's done with the goods, here to there, that's your lookout." What did that mean? s.h.i.t. Deciding was never his strong suit.

"I mean," she said, "you have a better offer?"

He thought. Hard, this kind of stuff. He touched the cell in his jacket pocket, keyed his number, the number of home. Just a thing, a meaningless thing.

"You know," he said, "all along that walk from Dolph Station to here, I kept seeing Walking Will."

"Walking...?"

"Will. Grampa talked about him. Something folks saw in Dust Bowl times: this old guy who walked the world giving warning, gettin' rides, jumpin' out. Saying stuff. One thing Grampa said he'd yell: 'Drink! Drink for the thirst to come!' No idea what it meant except maybe 'Fill up now cause tomorrow you go dry!' I dunno. Maybe that and something more. Maybe..."

He could only smell her, feel her touch. "One thing I been wondering," he said to the dark. "What's that smell?"

Silence. "What?"

"That smell. You got a smell."

The water-running laugh again. "Chanel," she said.

"Chanel. Okay. I got to tell you stuff," he said. He could feel her waiting. "I got hiddens, a lot of hiddens. First, I'm older'n I look. I'm 47. I look younger and I let on I am."

He went on. Told her everything there was. Everything he'd wanted to say but didn't for five long years, maybe longer. That was that.

Snudfall stopped. They struck out for the Monadnock stump. An easy half-mile and they were there. The bongs behind them, every fifteen minutes, still buzzed with screams but they were behind.

The Monadnock was a gutted sh.e.l.l. The Heath and Hollows people? People. Mex's mostly. Chris was used to Mex's. Like home.

First, the people wanted to string them up, him and the girl, grab their worth. Like at the Center when newbies oozed in all strange. "Al carillon, al carillon," they shouted.

"Senor Temoco!" Chris yelled. "We got Daley business with Senor Temoco!"

Down they were put for a few dark minutes, everyone muttering, plinking hard. Then there came Senor. Heard him before he saw him, a little squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak and the Mex's parted sharp. Out of the shadows rolled Senor, a fat man on a chair, a legless fat man on a chair with wheels, big wheels, rolling on the paths across the pulver that had been packed down smooth for him. Squeak-squeak. The chair was topped with torches dripping burning fat or tallow. Puddles of liquid fire trailed back the way he came.

Chris laughed when he caught on. He wanted to slap someone's back-the Boss's back for a matter of fact-and shout out, "Why h.e.l.l, that's the best I've heard since The Day! You'll know him by his bearing! His G.o.dd.a.m.ned burned out bearing!"

Squeak-squeak, squeak... And the Senor stopped and was looking, his eyes bright flames behind ridges of fat. He looked at the girl, plinked Chris, looked at the girl again and licked a lip.

"Senor Temoco," Chris said.

"Jefe," the Senor said, little sharp gleams behind the eye fat.

"Jefe," Chris said, "I'm here from the Boss, my Daley from the Center, to pick up a thing he says you got. A box he says. This big." He showed.

"This is arranged, yes," Jefe said.

From behind Senor Temoco's chair came a guy. The guy carried a small wooden box. A box like the Boss had said. The box buzzed a long drawn-out humm that never drew breath.

Chris smiled and made his trade. The smile was not deep.

"'Spected you yesterday." The Boss looked at him like he'd forgotten something. "What's your name?"

"Harp. Chris Harp."

"Harp." The boss looked him up and down. At the mud, the blood, the pipe-smacked face, gone to s.h.i.t. "Fun out there, Angel?"

"Some."

"And?"

"Box." Chris handed the buzzing thing to the Boss. He'd kept it clean all the way back.

"Yeah." He handed it to Lenny. "Leonard?"

"Yeah," Lenny said.

"Something for our Angel Harp here."

Lenny tucked the box under his arm. Pa.s.sed Chris a hand of smoke, a full pack of suck. Marlboro. Cellophane, tab and all. Twenty weeds sealed. A week of suck.

"Lenny," Boss said.

"Right," and he was off with the box.

"Wonder what that is, do you?"

Chris looked after Lenny. The old kicker was gimping toward the old United stadium half-a-mile 'burbward, No-one's place.

"The future, Boss?"

The Boss smiled. Put his hand on Chris's shoulder. "h.e.l.l, probably not. Just bees. Some say they're necessary. Well, you gotta try, right? You're wondering, 'Was it a good trade?'"

Chris kept eyes on Lenny until he disappeared into the dark and pulver mist. "Not so much."

"Stop by my table tomorrow. Have a bite." Boss said. "Fresh meat."

The Icehouse was dark and stinking. He'd missed night thistle. Better grunts coming, anyway!

He'd missed TV Johnny. That hurt.

He climbed his tier. Second from the top. His muscles ached. Near fifty. Still looked forty. Good. He still could climb but fifty's coming. Me, an old guy! Imagine that! Still. Climbing was... nothing to it. He stepped on the Mex's meaty paw. Guy grunted like he's gut-kicked. f.u.c.k him. This might could be his last night of being too, too high on this particular s.h.i.tpile. Boss'd hinted; Boss said: good trade. And he touched him, gave him a name. Cripes. Luck. Maybe he was lucky.

He eased into the sack, slipped off boots, slipped off socks-tucked them in his pockets, one each side. Careful. Jacket off, shirt, there he was, not looking forward but here he was with a night to go, facing them: the living of his dreams.

The bunk above was empty, the One-Eyed Kid from Nowhere was nowhere. That's the way. No point thinking about. Whitey'd been his name.

It had been?

He thought about darkness for a little. Darkness was close. From the walls around came the chatter of the 'pedes, the roaches' crackle. At least his bunk wasn't by the wall.

It hadn't been a bad couple days! Been to the Wet and back. Seen the bong-bongs. He'd met that girl and did what he had to, his job. She said her name, but it did not bother him. No. Had a job and he'd done it: brought the box. She'd not be in his living nights, there to kick his dreams. No. Let someone in, that's someone there to lose. He'd told her all, given his hiddens. Now she's gone, and the Boss had touched him! Invited him to grunts tomorrow! Cripes, worth-up. And smokes! Holy Cripes, that's how G.o.dd.a.m.n good the days had been: he scored suck and hadn't remembered. Luck. Still, he wished: Wish I could have gotten that tick-tock watch. Would have been...

Wouldn't have been right. Senor Temoco's by rights. s.h.i.t, he'd wanted to tell her about the jack stamp on the Walk; always wanted to tell someone but h.e.l.l that was just an old folk's tale. Sometimes you had to step back a little, see how much one thing or another... something to think on later when you couldn't do nothing else. And maybe someday when he was old, he'd find that hole, the Big Hole where were lights and movies and...

He was slipping, now. In his sleep, he fingered the cell. Keyed the number, the number. Home. What would he ask? If someone answered? What should... He almost couldn't keep the days, the times he'd had, in mind-and he wanted to! No! Christ. That's the thing. Close it all! Pray, maybe. The dead cell, the silence of home filled him. He held on. If he could remember something else about how he'd spent... He'd seen the Wet. Seen the Hollows... Seen Walkin' Will... No, no. He jHeHust told of him. And he'd had a choice? Not so good that... He'd had a job. He'd said what? Old Will'd said, "Drink! Drink for the thirst to come!" What the hey? There was something else that could've meant! No, he thought, no. Don't sleep. You sleep, you'll dream. Those dreams of the living, of Dolph Station and Jaycee Dogton, Tex, Marty, the others, the living. By then, day had bled away and Chris Harp of Johnny's Icehouse slept. The dream-day was bright blue and gold and went on, oh G.o.d, forever, a summer day and mild, mild weather, a day like no other...

ROOT SOUP, WINTER SOUP.

Cordelia and trees. She saw in the still water of the pond her silly old face and no one else. That funny old face smiled up. She wiggled her finger in the cold water and Cordelia was alone, excepting the trees. Leaves floated lazy, half on top, half under the water, hardly drifting. Afternoon air was cool, heading to cold. Cold nights were coming.

Soon them leaves'll be cotched up and froze-in, she knew. Cotched good. The pond would be an ice sheet, then covered with fallen things, leaves, acorns and little branches, more leaves and other goods as fell. A person don't know it's there might could fall right in, she thought. Well, she knew it was there. The critters that wandered there for a drink knew it too. They would have to tap, tap by hoof or claw on the icy sh.e.l.l to water there. Soon after they'd eat snow or perish to the thirst. She knew that.

The pond water stilled and there was that old Cordelia face again, minnows swimming through. Why, there she was. Couldn't see the scars, not like when she looked in a peering gla.s.s. No. Could see how one eye was a little sagged, could see her funny crookback nose, could see...

"Oh fuss!" she said. What's the point? His season's over. He is gone and done with and good riddance to him. He who'd given her that eye, that nose, that curly lip.

She stirred the water again, chased the face away. Her minnies scattered. She laughed.

Walking, Cordelia gathered the wooly hunting jacket around herself. Real cold coming. Time, indeed, for her root soup, her winter soup. She looked forward to the good smells as filled her cabin, winters. She wanted to run and do it quick, hug the comfort, the wonder of the forever pot, the pot going down with eating, the pot filled up again with bits added, an essence from the stock pot, more chopped roots and other pieces from the cellar. The forever pot of root soup, G.o.d's good winter warmth.

Another year and no one found her morel patch, where it lay sprouting. The season's 'shrooms had been fine and plentiful, big headed, tender and clean-grown through the rot. And all hers for taking. A time gone, someone had felled a stand of tree where the morels sprouted now. Someone building, maybe. Someone who give up and moved on, she figured. Maybe a long time gone. New growth had sprouted since and filled around the wasted logs.

Good. This season hundreds more morels had spread across the moldering stumps, between old cut-and-fallen logs. A thousand more had spread onto the damp forest floor where decay made a wet and fragrant bed.