Selection Event (23 page)

Having no particular destination, they decided to drive to the capitol building, since its dome rose through the trees only a few blocks from the end of the bridge. Perhaps survivors might have been drawn to it.

The Capitol grounds were overgrown like everything else, the shrubbery tall and stringy, ivy beginning its climb up the white walls, and it seemed to Martin that the Capitol Building itself had already begun to take on that hollow-eyed look of a haunted house on the cover of a book. The storms that had swept through had broken several leg-thick limbs off the surrounding oak trees and a huge sycamore had fallen across the steps up to the main doors, it upper branches wrapped around the fluted columns.

As they climbed through the brush, Winch said, “They should've had this here all the time, an obstacle course. Maybe some of the leeches woulda got lost.”

“You didn't like politicians?”

“They're all lawyers,” he explained.

Inside the building, under the rotunda, it was eerily dim, lit only by the small windows high above them. Their footsteps were unnaturally loud, echoing from wall to wall. In the center of the open area, on the glossy mosaic of the state seal, someone had set up a simple card table. There was a folding chair next to it, and as they got closer, they saw that the plate on the table had a few slices of fresh carrot on it and a piece of onion. There were also a dozen wild flowers in a tiny crystal vase and a half-burned candle in a pewter holder. Martin bent over it and saw that the wax around the wick had just skimmed over and was still warm.

Martin nodded to Winch.

“Hello?” Martin said, purposely not looking around. His voice rattled around the dome. “We're from Santa Miranda, looking for anyone left. My name's Martin, this is Winch. We'd like to get a few people together, help each other out, make our lives a little easier.”

A woman's voice came from somewhere around them: “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Well... I guess you can't know. But we're not carrying any weapons, if you noticed. So if you have one, I guess we have to trust you. Also, we aren't going to look for you. If you want to come with us, you can. Or I can leave the address where we're living and you can get down there yourself.”

There was a long pause.

“I have two children with me. I have to be careful.”

“Kids,” Winch said to Martin. “I haven't seen any kids in almost a year. I used to have grandkids.”

There was another long silence.

“You can come down to Santa Miranda later,” Martin said. “We have a place fixed up pretty well, with a garden. I'll put my address on the table.”

There was the sound of movement near them. She stepped through one of the tall half-closed doors, fifteen or twenty yards away. She was wearing black pants and a man's red plaid shirt. She was thirty-five or forty, with dark shoulder-length wavy hair. In the dim light, he couldn't distinguish anything else about her. She didn't come forward.

“Pleased to meet you,” Martin said. “Do you know of any other survivors who might be interested in coming with us?”

“I've seen a few,” she said. She remained in the doorway and seemed to study them. “For the most part, the people left you'd not want to have dinner with. I had a friend, Larry, who purposely drank himself to death two weeks ago.” She paused. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he saw that her face showed a certain strength of composure, as though she considered whatever grief she felt to be a private matter. “I think there may be someone living at the downtown mall. I heard some noises and saw someone a few days ago.”

“I used to have grandkids,” Winch announced aloud.

“We found each other a couple months ago.”

“Well....” Winch stuck his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I haven't seen kids in a long time.”

The woman studied him a moment, taking in his self-consciousness, and then her expression softened. “I don't trust you enough yet.”

Winch looked acutely embarrassed. He jammed his hands in his pockets and bit on his lips. “I'll wait outside. I don't see any reason a woman should trust two men.”

After he had gone, she said, “I have to be careful. The children depend on me.”

“I understand,” Martin said. “So... how do we get around this?”

She thought for a moment. “Why don't you sit down. I'll be right back.”

Martin sat at the card table, listened and heard nothing but the sound of birds, bluejays, squawking outside in the trees. Then the woman reappeared, carrying another folding chair in one hand and a tray on the other.

On the table she set the tray, on which was a plate with three stalks of celery, a half dozen radishes, a jar of cheese spread, and a small .38 revolver, which she placed on her side of the table.

She sat down and looked directly at him. “I thought we might have something to eat while we talk.” Her blue eyes were set wide apart with faint laugh lines at their corners. She had prominent, high cheekbones and full lips. Her expression was one of casual competence; there was nothing fearful in her.

Martin nodded at the pistol. “I see you must've had some of the same experiences I've had.”

“I hope you've been luckier than I've been. Either the disease selected deranged halfwits for survival, or surviving demented them, I don't know which. It's not been pleasant.”

As he nibbled at the food she'd brought, Martin told her how he had come to survive, and about Diaz and Curtiz. He described Moreen only as someone he'd met.

She listened attentively and occasionally asked questions about his parents, about Moreen's madness, and how he felt about Diaz being a euth artist. At the end of his story, Martin said, “You haven't told me your name.”

 She smiled ironically. “It was Winnifred Waite. Some people have scars or lisps or weight problems. I had a name problem. I was named after a wealthy maiden aunt who always gave me a dollar and an orange for Christmas.” As she talked and ate, she bumped the .38 with her elbow and then pushed it a little aside, slightly nearer Martin. She continued. “I married a high school teacher named Bunkley. I became Winnifred Waite Bunkley.” She shook her head. “After I saw I was going to live through the catastrophe, I decided that since everything else was gone, my name would go with it. I renamed myself Catrin. That's it. No last name.”

She had married when she was in college, a year away from a bachelor's degree in geography, and over the objections of her husband, she had continued school until graduation. Then she took a series of low-level clerical jobs to support the both of them while he went from company to company, never earning enough to allow her to quit and look for something in the field of her degree.

As she spoke, she gestured and bumped the revolver. It was close enough he could drop his hand over it.

In her fifteen years since graduation, she concluded, she'd been six kinds of clerk, a governess, a waitress, and thoroughly fed up.

“But,” Martin said, “from my point of view, the important question is whether you're crazy.”

She laughed. “Indeed."

“The reason I ask is that you're letting that thing—” (he nodded at the .38) “—get pretty close to me.”

She looked at it and seemed surprised.

Martin slowly pushed it toward her.

She looked at him with a half smile on her lips. “That was very gentlemanly of you.”

“One should be polite at the end of the world.”

“I agree.”

“You said you thought there might be some other people nearby. Could you show me — or tell me — where you think they are?”

“Yes. I need to tell the children I'll be out for a bit. Wait here.”

When she stood up, he saw that she had cradled a .22 automatic in her lap. She offered neither explanation nor apology as she slid it into her pants pocket. None was needed.

While she was gone, Martin confirmed what he thought, that the revolver on the table wasn't what it appeared to be. It was loaded all right, but the firing pin had been filed down and a small pad glued in its place. Twenty points for that.

She led him across the Capitol grounds, walking strongly, climbing over fallen limbs, not going around them, and Martin liked following her. There was something different about the way she handled herself, the way, even, that she handled the situation with him and Winch. She was feminine, he was thinking, without being effeminate. He'd never noticed that in a woman before, but he was enjoying noticing it now.

Chapter 40

Adjacent to the Capitol was an outdoor mall of stone walkways, lawns, fountains, pools, and several pieces of massive sculpture for children to play on. Now grass grew between the paving stones, the lawns were foot-high clumps of green, the fountains silent, and the pools green with algae. The air was moist and rich with plant smells and stick-legged birds waded in the overgrown pools, dipping their heads underwater.

It was not difficult for Martin and Catrin to find two survivors. They simply followed the music. At first Martin dreaded they would find more gun-carrying vandals, but when they came closer, they heard classical music. He couldn't hear enough to place it.

The closer they got, passing by shoe shops, communications and department stores, the more cautious they were. There was a pause in the music as one piece ended, and then another began and Martin placed it immediately — it was the lead-in to Mendelssohn's wedding march. Catrin gave him a puzzled look.

When they stepped at the storefront from which the music came, they saw in an instant what was happening.

Two people, a young man and woman, were dressed in the most formal wedding attire, standing on a red carpet they had placed before an altar they had assembled of several boards, wineglasses, lace, and red velvet. They stood there poised, his right hand holding her left, about to slip a ring on her finger. They looked up suddenly, startled, at Martin and Catrin, the music filling the air around them. With a serious expression, Martin nodded at them, took Catrin's hand and they stood at the edge of the red carpet.

The woman, slender and blond, with a round face and thin nervous lips, was dressed in an elaborate white wedding gown. The train was a dozen feet long and was carefully swirled around her feet. She suddenly smiled bashfully at Martin and Catrin.

The young man, freshly shaved, his dark hair slicked down, slid the ring onto the girl's finger, lifted her veil, put his arms around her as the music swelled to its conclusion, and kissed her quickly. He drew away from her a moment, looked embarrassed and then kissed her again, this time a moment longer.

“Congratulations,” Martin said as the music finished. Both he and Catrin politely clapped their hands.

The young man nodded nervously and said a barely audible, “Thanks.”

“We thought it was the right thing to do,” the young woman said.

“It was lovely,” Catrin said. “It really was. Congratulations.”

“We have some champagne,” the young man said, fumbling with the buttons of his vest. “It's not very cold.”

“That would be nice,” Martin said. He was amazed how walking in on them in the middle of this ceremony from the old times had made their meeting so much easier. It gave them something to say, small talk, like people used to do.

The cork popped and he took four glasses from their makeshift altar and poured them full.

“To your lives together,” Martin said.

“To your life together,” Catrin said.

Martin liked this woman.

....

They introduced themselves — the young couple was Paul and Leona — and told each other how they came to be where they were. They said they were living in an apartment nearby, but that they soon would move to the basement where there was still some water pressure. “You could come live near us,” Martin said. “We have a well and a pump, and I think the garden will be supplying some fresh food in a month or so. The toilets flush, even.”

“They do?” the girl asked, very interested.

“They did yesterday.”

She looked up at her new husband for his interest in this.

“Are the apartments nice?” he asked. The question had a kind of stiff formality to it.

“There aren't any apartments near us,” Martin said. “Only houses. Good sized houses.”

“We could live in a house,” the girl said to her new husband.

“You could come back with us this afternoon, or I could leave you our address and draw you a map. You could think about it and come down whenever you want. We're not out to re-create civilization or anything, but we're comfortable.”

“Let's go with them,” the girl said to Paul. She turned to Martin, her eyes excited. “Really, there are houses with toilets that flush and running water? Is there electricity?”

“There's a little electricity. Not much and it won't last for long. Don't start thinking it's like the old days.”

Anxiously she looked up her husband, allowing him to have the final say on the first decision of their married life. Not having any choice, he nodded. “We'll come down and look,” he said, “but we don't have a car.”

“Not a problem. Meet us at the Capitol Building in an hour.”

As Martin and Catrin walked back, Martin talked about Isha, how she had been nearly starved when he'd found her. “I hate to leave her this long. I'll be glad to get back.”