The Fireman: A Novel Part 13

After a breakfast of soft, milky oatmeal and bitter coffee, it was time for services.

Ben Patchett was her crutch again and helped her along, out into the unseasonably warm October night. Dragonflies whisked through the perfumed dark. The buzz of excitement and pleasure, rising from the crowd around her, brought to mind small country carnivals, Ferris wheels, and fried dough.

They filed into the narrow, high-ceilinged chapel, beneath splintery exposed rafters. The nave was a long cabinet of shadows, windows boarded up against the night, the enormous s.p.a.ce lit by just a few candles. Giant shadows twitched restlessly against the walls, more distinct than the people that threw them.

Harper had an arm across Ben Patchett's shoulder as he led her to a pew midway up the aisle. Another man squeezed in on her right side, a small, tubby fellow, a little older than Ben, with pink cheeks and the smooth complexion of an infant. Ben introduced him as Nelson Heinrich, who in a former life had owned a shop called Christmas-Mart, which perhaps explained why he was wearing a sweater with reindeer on it when it was just turning Halloween.

The merry chatter died as Father Storey stepped to the podium. He moved his spectacles up his nose and peered owlishly at his own songbook, then announced: "If you'll open to page 332, we begin tonight with a plain but honorable hymn, beloved by the Pilgrims in the early days of America."

This was met by a smattering of laughs, although Harper didn't understand why until Nelson opened the songbook to the right place. It was a camp songbook, for little boys and girls, not a true hymnal, and the song on page 332 turned out to be "Holly Holy" by Neil Diamond. Harper approved. If anyone could save her soul, it was probably him.

Carol rose from the bench behind the organ and came to the front of the stage. She lifted her ukulele to acknowledge a little flurry of applause.

Nelson bent toward Harper's ear and, rather loudly, said, "It's easy, you'll see! Nothing to it! Just lay back and enjoy it!" An unfortunate statement with unfortunate connotations, Harper thought.

Ben winced, then added, "It doesn't always come right away. Don't worry if nothing happens to you tonight. It would be amazing if anything did! Like bowling a strike the first time you pick up a-"

But he didn't have a chance to finish. Carol began to play, belting out that melody that sounded as much like a marching song as a gospel. When they all began to sing-over a hundred voices resonating in the gloom-a pigeon was startled off one of the rafters above.

Allie and Nick were in the row directly ahead of her and the first Harper knew anything was happening was when the boy turned his head and smiled at her and his normally aquamarine eyes were rings of gold light.

Wires of Dragonscale on the back of Ben Patchett's hand lit up, like fiber-optic threads filling with brightness.

A glow built from all directions, overpowering the dim red illumination of the candles. Harper thought of an atomic flash rising in a desert. The sound of the song mounted along with the light, until Harper could hear all those voices in her chest.

Onstage, Carol's belted white gown was rendered diaphanous, the body beneath painted with light. She didn't seem to mind or notice. Harper thought, helplessly, of the hallucinatory nudes who pirouetted through the credits of the James Bond movies.

Harper felt she was being swallowed by all their noise. The brightness was not beautiful but awful, like being caught in headlights hurtling madly toward her.

Ben had an arm around her waist and was unconsciously kneading her hip, a gesture she found revolting but could not seem to break away from. She glanced at Nelson and found him wearing a choker of light. When he opened his mouth to bellow out the next line, Harper saw his tongue glowing a toxic shade of green.

She wondered whether, if she began to scream, anyone would hear her over all the other voices. Not that she was going to scream-she had lost her breath, could not even sing. If not for her fractured ankle, she might've run.

The only thing that got her to the end of the song was Renee and Don Lewiston. They were across the aisle and a little closer to the stage, but Harper could see them through a gap in the crowd. Renee's head was turned to look back at her and she smiled sympathetically. The loops of 'scale around her neck shone, but it was a faded sort of glow, and the light had not reached her kind, clear eyes. More important, she was still there, still present, paying attention. And that was when Harper understood what so unnerved her about the others.

In some way Ben and Nelson, Allie and Nick, and all the rest of them had left the room, leaving behind lamps made of human skin. Thought had been replaced by light, and personality by harmony, but Renee at least was still there . . . and so was Don Lewiston, who sang dutifully, but did not glow at all. Later, Harper learned that Don was only sometimes able to shine with the others. When he turned on, he turned on intensely, but more often he was completely untouched by their song. Don said it was because he had a tin ear, but Harper was unconvinced. His rumbling, rough ba.s.s was perfectly in tune, and he sang with a casual, disinterested confidence.

Harper smiled weakly for Renee, but felt unsteady and sick. She had to close her eyes to withstand the a.s.sault of the last thunderous verse-her Dragonscale crawled unpleasantly, and the only thought she could manage was, Stop, stop, stop-and when it was over, and the room erupted into stamping feet and whistles and applause, it was all she could do not to cry.

Ben absently stroked her hip. She was sure he didn't know he was doing it. The threads of light on his exposed 'scale were fading, but a bra.s.sy sheen remained in his eyes. He regarded her with affection, but not much recognition.

"Mmnothing?" he asked. His voice had a drifting, musical quality, as if he had just woken from a restorative nap. "No luck? I wasn't paying attention. Kind of lost myself for a minute there."

"No luck," Harper said. "It might be my ankle. It's been achy all morning and it's a little distracting. Maybe I'll just sit for the next song and rest it."

And she did sit the next time. She sat and closed her eyes to shut out the bright glare that so felt like oncoming headlights.

She sat and waited to be run down.

NOVEMBER.

7.

Harper woke the night of Thanksgiving from a dream about Jakob and Desolation's Plough. She smelled smoke and couldn't figure out what was burning and then she realized it was her.

Harper wasn't in flames, but the stripe across her throat had charred the collar of her Coldplay T-shirt, causing it to blacken and smoke. Beneath the shirt, she felt a sensation like bug spray on a sc.r.a.pe, only all over.

She threw aside her sheets with a cry and yanked off her shirt. The stripe marked her skin in inky lines flecked with grains of poisonous red light. The jellyfish sting intensified, made thought impossible.

The sound that went up all around her, from the other women stirring in their beds, made her think uncharitably of pigeons startled into flight: a nervous cooing. Then Allie was with her. Allie put her legs around Harper's waist and clasped her from behind. She sang, in a soft, barely audible whisper, lips close to Harper's ear. In the next moment Renee was beside her, holding her hand in the dark, lacing her fingers through Harper's.

Renee said, "You're not going to burn. No one burns here, that's one of the rules. You want to break the rules and get us all in trouble with Carol Storey? Deep breaths, Nurse Willowes. Big deep breaths. With me, now: Innn. Out. Innnn."

And Allie sang that old Oasis song. She sang that Harper was her Wonderwall, in a sweet, unafraid voice. She even did it in her Fireman voice, in a darling faux-snotty English accent of the sort best known as Mockney.

Harper didn't start to cry until the Dragonscale dimmed and went out and the pain began to pa.s.s. It left behind an achy, sunburnt feeling, all through the spore.

Allie stopped singing, but went on holding her. Her bony chin rested comfortably on Harper's shoulder. Renee rubbed her thumb over Harper's knuckles in a loving, motherly way.

Nick Storey stood in the dark, four paces from Harper's cot, watching her uneasily. Nick was the only boy who slept in the girls' dorm, splitting a cot with his big sister. He clutched a slide whistle to his chest with one hand. He couldn't hear it, but he knew he could blow through it and call the Fireman. And what good would that do? Maybe the Fireman would've brought a hose to douse her ashes.

"Attagirl," Renee said. "You're okay. All over. Could've been worse."

"Could've been better, too," Allie said. "You just missed a perfectly good opportunity to toast an awful Coldplay T-shirt. If I ever spontaneously combust, I hope I'm holding a whole stack of their CDs."

Harper made sounds that might've been laughter or might've been sobs; even she wasn't sure. Maybe a bit of both.

8.

Harper filed into the night in her singed Coldplay shirt, moving along toward the cafeteria and breakfast with all the rest of them. She walked without seeing where she was going, letting the human tide carry her along.

A dream. A dream had almost killed her. She had never imagined that going to sleep might be as dangerous as a gla.s.s of wine with Jakob over a loaded gun.

In the dream, she was enormously pregnant, so huge it was both horrible and comic. She was trying to run, but the best she could manage was a tragic, hilarious waddle. She was clutching Desolation's Plough to her sore and swollen b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the pages were sticky with blood. There were b.l.o.o.d.y handprints all over it. She had the confused idea that she had beaten Jakob to death with it and now she had to hide the evidence.

She was running across the road to bury it, as if it were a corpse. An icy wind sheared up the highway, caught the ma.n.u.script, and dashed it to the blacktop.

Harper got down on the frozen asphalt, grabbing pages and trying to collect the ma.n.u.script there in the dark and the cold. In the logic of the dream it was necessary not to lose a single page. She had gathered up about a third when a pair of headlights snapped on, three hundred feet down the road. A two-ton Freightliner with a plow the size of an airplane wing was parked along the curb.

"Oh, you b.i.t.c.h," Jakob called from behind the wheel. "Do you know how hard I worked on that? Where is your respect for literature?"

The gears ground. The Freightliner began to roll. Jakob flicked the beams to high, pinning her to the road with a blinding blue light. He accelerated, crunched up into second gear, the noise of the engine rising to a diesel scream, and the headlights were piercing her right through, the headlights were hot on her skin, the headlights were cooking her- Just remembering it made her Dragonscale p.r.i.c.kle with an unwholesome heat.

She walked with her head down, so lost in her hopeless, dismal thoughts that she was startled when someone planted a cold, gentle kiss on her cheek. She looked up in time to be kissed again, on her right eyelid.

It was snowing. Great fat white flakes as big as feathers floated aimlessly down from the darkness, so soft and light they barely seemed to be descending at all. She closed her eyes. Opened her mouth. Tasted a snowdrop.

The cafeteria was steamy and smelled of seared Spam and white gravy. Harper shuffled through a din of shouts, laughter, and clattering utensils.

The children had made paper place mats shaped like turkeys and colored them in. All the kids were working as waiters that evening, and wore Pilgrim hats made out of construction paper.

Renee steered Harper to one of the long tables and they sat down together. Ben Patchett glided in from the other side, b.u.mping Harper's hip with his own as he settled on the bench.

"Did you want to sit with us, Ben?" Renee asked, although he had already plopped himself down.

In the last three weeks, Ben had developed a habit of hovering. When Harper walked toward a door, it seemed like he was always there to hold it open for her. If she was limping, he slipped up against her, unasked, to put an arm around her waist and serve as her crutch. His fat, warm hands reminded her of yeasty, uncooked dough. He was harmless and he was trying to be useful and she wanted to be grateful, but instead she often found herself wearied by the sight of him.

"You okay, Harper?" Ben narrowed his eyes at her. "You look flushed. Drink something."

"I'm fine. I already had some water and you wouldn't believe how much I'm peeing these days."

"I said drink." He pushed a paper cup of cranberry juice at her. "Dr. Ben's orders."

She took the cup and drank, mostly to shut him up. She knew he was kidding, trying to have fun with her in his clumsy way, but she found herself even more irritable with him than usual. It was no problem for him to join the Bright. Ben Patchett always lit right up in chapel, from the first chords Carol played on the pipe organ. He was never going to wake up burning. He didn't have to be afraid of going to sleep.

Harper's bad dreams of being run down in the road didn't surprise her in the least. She felt trapped in the path of oncoming headlights at least once a day, when all the rest of them sang. More and more, she dreaded entering the chapel for services. She had been in camp all month and had not been able to join the Bright, not a single time. In chapel, she was the one dead bulb on the Christmas tree. She clenched her fists in her lap throughout each day's ceremony, a white-knuckled flier gritting her teeth through a battering stretch of turbulence.

Recently, even Ben had stopped rea.s.suring her it was just a matter of time before she connected, before she plugged in, joined up . . . all those phrases that made it sound like a matter of getting online with some modem of the soul. When services were over, and they all filed out, Harper saw people avoiding eye contact with her. Those who did meet her gaze did so with small, cramped, pitying smiles.

There was a stir of commotion halfway across the room as Carol helped Father Storey up onto a chair. He raised both hands for quiet, smiling down at the almost full room and blinking through his gold-rimmed bifocals.

"I-" he began, in a mumbly, m.u.f.fled sort of way, and then he reached into his mouth and plucked out a white stone. His audience responded with a rumble of adoring laughter.

Someone-it sounded like Don Lewiston-shouted, "Hey, Fadder, is that what's for dinner? Christ, the food in this joint is bad."

Norma Heald glowered in the direction of whoever had been yelling, then called out, "No snacking before meals, Father."

Father Storey smiled and said, "I thought this being the day of Thanksgiving, I should say something before we dig in. You can put your hands together if you want, or hold hands with whoever is next to you, or tune me out and listen to the wind, as it suits you."

Throats cleared and chair legs thumped. Ben Patchett took Harper's hand in his, his palm moist and doughy. Renee gave Harper a sidelong glance that was full of sardonic sympathy-Look who has a boyfriend! Lucky you!-and took the other hand.

"All of us together are a chorus of praise, saved by song and light," Father Storey began. "We are grateful to have this chance to come together in harmony, saved by our love for each other. We have so much to be thankful for. I know I am thankful for biscuits and white gravy. It smells great. We all sing our thanks for Norma Heald, who busted her b.u.t.t making this amazing Thanksgiving dinner with very limited supplies. We sing our thanks for the girls who sweated puddles a.s.sisting her in the kitchen. We sing for Renee Gilmonton, who helped the kids with their Pilgrim hats and taught them how to be an ace waitstaff. We sing for John Rookwood, who isn't here tonight, but who miraculously provided us with the cocoa and marshmallows I'm not supposed to mention, because we don't want the kids to get excited."

A shriek of happiness went up around the room, followed by an indulgent murmur of adult laughter. Father Storey smiled, then shut his eyes. His brow furrowed in thought.

"When we sing together, we sing for all the people who loved us but who aren't here tonight. We sing in memory of every minute we got to have with them. I lost a daughter-a beautiful, smart, funny, combative, difficult, inspiring daughter-and I couldn't miss her any more than I do. I know other people here feel just the same about the ones they lost. I sing for what I had with my Sarah. And when we raise our voices in harmony, I feel her still. I find her spirit in the Bright. I hear her singing for me, as I sing for her."

The wind shrilled beneath the eaves. Someone took a choked breath. Harper could feel the silence in her nerve endings, a sweet, painful throb.

Father Storey opened his wet eyes and swept a grateful, affectionate look across the room. "The rest of us, we're still here, and it feels pretty good. One more night on Earth, with a little music and some fresh biscuits and some good conversation. That's about all I ever wanted. I don't know about anyone else. And now I think everyone would just about sing with joy if I'd shut up so we can get to eating."

A cheer went up, a loud yell of pleasure, followed by applause. Don Lewiston stood. Then others were standing with him, pushing back their benches and chairs, so they could clap for the old man, who told them it was all right to still sometimes be happy, even now. As Father Storey came down out of his chair, they rose from theirs, whistling and clapping, and Harper whistled and clapped with them, glad for him. For one moment, anyway, she was not sick at heart about waking up to the smell of smoke.

They ate: greasy cubes of Spam, half drowned in gravy, on top of floury, b.u.t.tery biscuits. Harper didn't have any appet.i.te at all and ate mechanically, and she was surprised when it was all gone and she was sc.r.a.ping the plate for the last of the gravy. She might not be hungry, but the baby was always in the mood for a little something. She looked at the half biscuit on Renee's plate a moment too long, and the older woman smiled and used a plastic fork to shove it onto Harper's dish.

"No," Harper said, "Don't. I don't want it."

"That would be more convincing if I didn't see you picking crumbs off the tablecloth and eating them."

"Oh, G.o.d," Harper said. "I'm such a pig. It must be like sitting next to a f.u.c.king swine at the trough."

Ben twitched and looked away. Harper was not a big one for swearing, but around him she couldn't help herself. Ben avoided profanity like a cat avoided getting wet, said heck for h.e.l.l, c.r.a.p for s.h.i.t, and frick for f.u.c.k, a habit Harper found unpleasantly prissy. When she herself swore, it never failed to make him flinch. Sometimes, Harper thought he was more of an old lady than Norma Heald.

She supposed she had been looking to pay him back ever since he decided to play Daddy and make her drink her cranberry juice. No sooner had she done it, though, than she felt guilty. It was a lousy thing to do, set out to offend a guy who had never been anything but decent to her.

He put his fork down and stood up. Harper felt a flash of horror, wondered if she had so offended him he was about to flee. But no; he was making his own announcement, climbing up onto the bench, putting two fingers in his mouth, and blowing an earsplitting whistle.

"I don't have a rock in my mouth," Ben said, "but by the time I'm done talking, some of you will probably wish I did." He smiled at this, but no one was quite sure whether to laugh or not, and the room remained silent except for a low, uneasy rustle of back-chatter. "The snow may be pretty, but it's going to make our lives a whole lot harder. Up until now we've had the freedom to go about camp as we like and the kids have had plenty of room to run and play. I am sorry, but now all that has to change. Tonight the Lookouts will be setting out planks to create walkways between buildings. When you're pa.s.sing between buildings, you must stay on the planks. If a Quarantine Patrol comes through here, and they find the snow all churned up with footprints, they are going to know people are hiding here. I want the Lookouts to meet me in Monument Park after tonight's chapel. We need to practice getting the boards up and out of sight. I want to be able to make them disappear inside of two minutes. We can do this, but it isn't going to come easy, so expect to be out there for a while, and dress accordingly."

This was met by groans, but Harper thought they were less than entirely heartfelt. The teenagers who had signed up to be Lookouts loved hustling in the cold, pretending they were marines on a black op. Most of them had been preparing for postapocalyptic stealth missions since they were old enough to pick up an Xbox controller.

"Father Storey mentioned that Norma Heald just about killed herself pulling together today's meal. It wasn't easy, given what she has to work with. Which brings me to some unfortunate news. Norma and Carol and myself spent six hours in the kitchen yesterday, going over our supplies. I won't kid you. We're in a corner and we've had to make some tough decisions. So starting on Monday next week, everyone between the ages of thirteen and sixty, who isn't infirm or pregnant"-Ben glanced down at Harper and winked-"will draw a ticket out of a hat, just before lunch. If your ticket has an X on it we'll ask you to skip that meal. On an average night, probably thirty people will miss out on their lunch. If you happen to lose in the hunger games-" He paused, smiling, expecting laughter. When he didn't get any, his face darkened, and he hurried on. "You can skip drawing a ticket at the next lunch. I'm sorry. It's simple math. This camp was outfitted with enough dry and canned goods to keep a couple hundred kids fed for a few months. We've had over a hundred people here since July, and more turning up every week. The barrels are low and there isn't going to be any more anytime soon."

No one mock-groaned this time. Instead, Harper heard nervous whispers and saw people casting worried looks back and forth. Allie, who was two tables away, turned to Michael, sitting beside her, raised a hand to cover her mouth, and began to hiss furiously into his ear.

"Anyone who draws a losing ticket will still be offered coffee or tea, and as a thank you . . . well, Norma has discovered some sugar. A large can of it. It doesn't even have ants in it. So if you pull a bad ticket you can also have a teaspoon of sugar for whatever you're drinking. One. Teaspoon. It's not much, but it's something. It's the best we can do to show our grat.i.tude." Ben's voice hardened, and he went on. "On the subject of low supplies and missing meals: someone is taking cans of condensed milk. Some of the Spam has gone missing, too, and we don't have any to spare. That has to stop. It's not a joke. You are literally stealing food out of the mouths of children. And if someone took Emily Waterman's big teacup yesterday, I would be grateful if you would just put it back on her bed at some point. You don't have to explain yourself. Just do it. It's a very, very large teacup, about the size of a soup bowl, with stars printed in the bottom. It's her lucky cup of stars and she's had it since she was tiny and it means a lot to her. That's all. Thank you."

He waited to see if anyone would applaud for him but no one did, and finally Harper reached up and held his hot, damp hand while he climbed down. She wasn't annoyed with him anymore. Conversation returned to the room, but it was subdued and troubled.

He sat poking his plastic fork at some smears of gravy on his plate. Renee leaned forward to look around Harper and said, "Are you all right, Ben?"

"It was bad enough being the guy who took away the cell phones," Ben said. "Now I'm the guy who took away lunch. Aw, frick it."

He pulled himself up off the bench, took his plate to the counter, and dumped it in a bin full of gray, soapy water.