AFTER (9 page)

Phyllis laid out her silverware on the table and used an old hubcap she found in a corner as a plate. She moved the lavender candle to the center of the table. "A nice white wine and a raspberry sorbet would make this meal complete, but beggars can't be choosers, my mother always said."

It wasn't long before she and
Compadre
were feasting on roasted owl. She had to admit it was a little gamey for a bird, but the spices helped to cover that unpleasant aftertaste.
Compadre
took a couple of bites, but didn't like the sting of the cayenne pepper at all. Phyllis took her knife and cut some chunks from the inner meat that weren't so spicy.
Compadre
gnawed on the bits of owl and lapped at a little water Phyllis had poured in old Styrofoam cup she had found in the debris.

Afterward, Phyllis extinguished the candle and lay down on the nasty mattress of the twin bed. For the first time since the Burn, she retired for the evening with a full belly and a relative sense of ease.
Compadre
climbed up on the bed and settled down next to her. She found comfort in his presence. Taking the gun out of her pocket, she laid it on the mattress next to her, but that overwhelming fear of being attacked in her sleep no longer seemed to plague her. If someone came, the Malamute would alert her in plenty of time.

"What's your story,
Compadre
?" she asked him in the darkness. "Did you have an owner who loved you? A little boy who thought the world of you? Did you live in a big back yard with green grass and a tire swing in the tree and a dog house you called your own? Did they feed you scraps from the table and give you baths in a big metal washtub?"

She lay there on her back and listened to his steady breathing. Already asleep. She supposed that day's hunting had tired him out. Gently, Phyllis stroked his back, out of affection and thanks for the wonderful meals he had provided.

Phyllis reached into her other pocket and took out her Blackberry. She turned it on. NO SERVICE flashed on the display when she tried her home number again. Then almost immediately afterward, LOW BATTERY followed. Fantastic! And she had absolutely no way to recharge it.

Where are you, Art?
she wondered.
Are you still on the Bay or did you come looking for me? Are you dead or alive?

Having no answers, Phyllis sighed and turned the phone off. She lay there in the darkness, listening to the sound crickets and the gentle breathing of her protector until, she herself, drifted off to sleep.

For the next few days, Phyllis went nowhere. She stayed at the little shack in the woods, instead of continuing her long journey northward to Maine. She didn't know why. Maybe it was because she was exhausted, or maybe she was just weary of the unknown she encountered with each mile she traveled. In some strange way, the shack seemed like an oasis from the danger and chaos the Burn had conjured.

Two times a day,
Compadre
brought her the product of his daily hunts. Sometimes it would be a squirrel, sometimes a rabbit or chipmunk. Once it was a possum, which was almost too ugly and nasty to consider eating, but she had used her culinary expertise to turn the scavenger into a feast she would have been proud to serve to the Queen of England. Together they would eat and, at night, they would sleep satisfied, their stomachs having ceased their grumbles of hunger and complaint.

Over time, Phyllis seemed to grow accustomed to such a simple and
wantless
existence. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she would wake up and wonder if the TV shows and cookbooks and the lighthouse on Casco Bay had only been a pleasant dream, the interviews with Larry King and the guest spots on Oprah an elaborate fantasy. Sometimes she even wondered if Art and Sandy had been real at all or merely inventions of her imagination.

As the lesions on her arms and face multiplied, and she grew weak and confused and her hair began to fall out little by little, Phyllis found herself believing that she had always lived in the shack by the creek and that the white dog with the mismatched eyes had always been by her side. The lighthouse and the sea became a distant memory and she began to forget what Art and Sandy had even looked like.

Sleeping and eating the wonderful meat that
Compadre
provided became her life. Phyllis would stay awake only long enough to work her magic on the flesh brought to her, then she would return to her bed and descend into merciful slumber once again.

Then, abruptly, simplicity changed into hardship once again.

The offerings of
Compadre's
hunts in the woods turned less than desirable. The first sign that something was wrong was a woodchuck the dog brought her early one morning. The animal didn't look right; it seemed too large and malformed. When Phyllis slit its hide, she found the meat to be purple and bruised-looking underneath. And its blood was black and sluggish. She wondered if it was a result of the radiation. Maybe it had taken a toll on this poor creature… the same way it was taking a toll on her, little by little.

After a couple of days, the infected animals grew scarce and
Compadre
would return to the shack with nothing. After enjoying such a plentiful bounty, the sudden loss of sustenance – of her precious meat – was both disheartening and nearly unbearable. Once again, her stomach began to grumble and complain, and the gnawing pangs of hunger returned.

Then, one afternoon, Phyllis nearly crossed a line she had never even considered before.

Compadre
was out on one of his fruitless hunts. Phyllis was in the shack alone, tidying up a bit, although the action now seemed pointless and mundane. She was straightening up the table and chair, when she heard a noise at the door behind her. "So, did you find anything today?" she asked, turning around.

Standing in the doorway were two men. One was a big man, bald and clean-shaven, wearing a ragged t-shirt, jeans, and boots. The other man, smaller and thinner, sported a shaggy beard and wore a tank top and shorts. Both men were filthy and riddled with radiation sores. But that wasn't what frightened her about them. It was their expressions that startled her, the fire in their eyes and the ugly grins upon their faces.

Phyllis steadied herself against the table. "What do you want?" She suddenly realized that it was the stupidest question she had ever asked in her life.

The two entered the shack. The big guy carried a baseball bat, while the wiry man held a wicked-looking hunting knife in one hand. They split ranks midway, one starting to the right, the other to the left.

"
Lookee
there," said the man with the knife. "She's got a bed and everything. We don't have to do it on the ground like usual."

The big one chuckled. "I'll take the mouth this time." He patted the fat end of the bat against the meaty palm of his hand. "I might have to knock her teeth out, though… so she won't bite me."

Phyllis remembered the gun. Struggling, she pulled it from her pocket and pointed at the man with the knife. "Get out of here!"

"Put that gun down, lady," said the one with the bat. "If you don't, I'll have to bust you up. And loving ain't too pleasurable when you're full of broken bones."

It suddenly occurred to her that the threat of the gun wasn't going to deter the two. They were going to rape her.

The one with the knife unzipped his pants and unleashed himself. His penis was swollen and purple, the veins dark and enlarged. Something yellowish-green dripped from the end, thick and stringy.

He's going to stick it in me,
thought Phyllis.
He's going to put it in and poison me!

Only one other option came to her mind. "
Compadre
," she said. The word came out as a hoarse croak at first. "
Compadre
!"

The intruders laughed. "Oh, we'll be your
compadres
, se
ñ
orita," said the big fellow.

The one with the diseased member took another step forward, then an expression of intense pain wracked his face. He shrieked long and loud as a deep growl rumbled directly behind him.

Compadre
had his jaws locked around the calf of the man's left leg. The fangs burrowed deeply, breaking skin and drawing thick rivulets of blood. Phyllis watched as the dog yanked his head sharply to the side, ripping the muscle completely from its moorings. The tendons behind the knee snapped first, then the ones just above the ankle. As if in triumph, the Malamute lifted his head, displaying his gory trophy.

The knife spun from the thin man's hand, landing point down in the earthen floor. He collapsed under his own weight, continuing to scream and thrash in agony.

Phyllis turned to find the big man starting toward the dog, the bat cocked over his shoulder. He was about to swing for
Compadre's
head, when she leveled the gun and fired. The bullet hit the man in his right side. It shattered a lower rib, tunneled through his guts, and exited on the other side in a ragged, bloody hole. He dropped to his knee, then, with a grunt, regained his feet and started for the dog again.

"Get away from him, you bastard!" Phyllis aimed again, this time at his hands. The slug struck the center knuckles of his right hand, shearing off his index and middle fingers at their base. The bat dropped from his maimed hand and rolled along the dirt floor.

Then both men left, staggering and pulling themselves into the deep brush. Phyllis walked to the door and watched as the dead vegetation to the south parted in their wake. She had a feeling neither one would have the desire to return anytime soon.

Phyllis looked down to see that
Compadre
had laid a prize at her feet. Trembling, she knelt and picked up the bleeding calf muscle. She studied the ugly thing in her hands, staring past the coarse hair and sore-speckled flesh, seeing the potential underneath.

Compadre
whimpered. She glanced down to see the dog looking up at her, licking his blood-stained lips.

Phyllis looked down at the bleeding hunk of man-flesh. "No," she muttered. "No… I won't go there." She stepped to the door and, with all the force she muster, flung the calf far into the thicket.

The malamute cocked his head and looked at her, as if thinking,
"Why the heck did you do that?"

"I can't," she said. Phyllis dropped to her knees and embraced her only friend. "I haven't reached that point yet."

But, secretly, she knew that she could. And it wouldn't take much to send her there.

Three days had passed since the incident at the shack. Phyllis hadn't eaten a bite during that time and her health was sinking fast. The sores on her body ran constantly and she felt dizzy and disoriented. The small slice of utopia she had experienced during those first days at the shack was gone. She began to think about Maine and her family, and the possibility of hitting the road again. But that would be impossible if she couldn't build her strength and resistance again.

And that would mean food.

That night, she lay in bed with
Compadre
beside her. She stroked the dog tenderly, feeling the looseness of his skin and the serrated pattern of his ribcage. It hurt her to see him in such a state. He had once been so strong and healthy. Before long his muscle would shrink and grow useless.

Something she had considered for a long time returned to mind. Something she had never had the heart to act on… until now.

"
Compadre
, my friend," she whispered tearfully. "One way or another, we will always be together. We'll forever be a part of one another. I truly believe that."

Her black roll was unfurled on the table – the knives laid out meticulously, the spices lined up and ready, the eating utensils placed beside the hubcap plate.

Before falling asleep, Phyllis took the gun from her pocket and laid it on the mattress beside her.

She would make an effort to wake up before
Compadre
did in the morning. It would be easier on both of them that way.

Tess Flanders got an early start that morning.

The twenty-year-old walked along the winding stream, but at a slower pace than she had several days before. Part of it was due the terrain and the heaviness of the pack on her back. Most of it, however, was due to the fact that she hadn't eaten anything in the past two days.

Tess had been a faithful vegan since her mid-teens, shunning all meat and by-products in favor of a strict diet of fruit and vegetables. At first, following the Burn, she had been able to follow her regiment to the letter. But as the days passed and the vegetation around her began to wither and die, she found herself sorely lacking the sustenance her body required. The last bite of food she had eaten had been several blackberries she had found in a clump of bramble. The berries had left her mouth numb and burned in her stomach for hours, followed by a draining bout of diarrhea. Something bad was happening to the world around her, that was for sure.

The young woman continued her hike, stopping several times to rest. She drank water from the stream, but only because she had to. The water had begun to taste strange lately; it had a burnt, slightly chemical tang to it.

As Tess cleared a stand of dying cedars, she came across a small, one-roomed shack. At first glance, it seemed deserted. But as she neared the structure, she heard noises coming from within.