“Sure?”
“Course I’m not bastard sure, Pete! But it’s the best guess I got….”
So then they’d reached the ebony wilderness of the Catskills, with one motorbike, its tank near empty, and a single day’s supply of food, the last of the hi-concentrate. One tent and a sleeping bag each, a couple of good knives—and not much else.
Actually the gas in the tank of the trusty old Norton kept them going right across the state line into Connecticut before the engine coughed once and then finally fell silent.
“North of Danbury,” said McGill, studying the creased remains of their road map. “Near dusk. Could hole up for the night.”
“Some houses up there, on the right.” Pete pointed ahead of them.
“Might be some gas stashed in one of the garages. I’ll push the bike and you can carry the packs. That a deal?”
“Sure. Why not?” Pete laughed. “Few weeks ago I’d have spit in your eye at the thought of hiking around with a heavy backpack on. Now I guess I feel fitter than I have in years. And I’ve kept up the practice on the martial arts.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen you, remember? Any son of a bitch tries to get cute with you is gonna end up with his head jammed up his ass.”
THEY GOT LUCKY.
“Figure we’re far enough away from any real big towns for refugees and looters to have got here. And we’ve stuck to back roads, as well. Seems like nobody reached these places.”
“There was enough gas in that single can out in the garage to carry us the eighty miles or so to Mystic.”
“If both your families are there, Mac, and they’re all well, it’s going to be a straggle to get nine more people on the pillion of the Norton.”
The house they’d discovered had been owned by a realtor, a man in his fifties with a wife a couple years younger. They had no children but they’d owned a golden retriever called Helga.
Mac and Pete knew all of this because the house hadn’t even been entered. Helga was lying in the bedroom, on the floor, with a crusted saucer by her nose. She’d been dead for months. The tiny round brass disk bearing her name was tarnished, stained with smears of green verdigris.
Her owners were also in the same room, side by side on the bed, their skeletal, sinewy hands clasped. The empty pill bottles were on the round table by the window.
Mac and Pete left the couple where they were. Their bodily fluids had leaked clean through the mattress, dripping and leaving a dark stain on the pale cream carpet.
Though death must have been all around them, the husband and wife had left a short suicide note, on the table, alongside the pills.
Food finished. No place to go. No point in going on. Poor Helga has gone ahead of us and we shall soon be joining her. If anyone reads this, do not cast a cruel, judging eye on us and what we’ve done. We are together as we’ve been through so many good married years. Horseman, pass by.
Mac pulled the door shut. There was a single unopened tin of dog food in the empty, stripped-pine kitchen.
“Fancy it?” asked Pete.
“There’s some catsup. Powdered chilies. Cumin and some oregano. Mix the whole lot up, and I reckon I could just about manage it.”
They got a fire going in the grate, against the bitter cold that was riding down around them on the teeth of a raging blue norther.
The logs crackled, bright and dry.
“Guess there isn’t any more green wood left anywhere in the country,” said Mac.
“Maybe none in the world. Remember that all the tundra and forests across Russia had gone from green to red.”
Neither of them heard a sound outside the isolated house.
The first clue that they had intruders was when the door of the living room swung silently back. Framed in the doorway were two figures. Both looked to be in their late teens, wearing plaid jackets and jeans.
Peter had discovered a supply of candles on a top shelf in the kitchen and had stuck them around the room on plates and saucers. In the wavering light the uninvited visitors looked like Halloween goblins. But Mac had a feeling that the trick-or-treating might turn nasty and mean.