***/Author's note: I have an inability to deal with character death. (Spoiler) Which means I'm going to fuxx hardcore with some major plot points. I've also (in my head, if not in the story explicitly) bumped things into the modern day. If SK can do it, updating from late seventies to early nineties, I guess it's ok if I do it too. This story also gets a little uh- naked in places. The M rating is deserved, just a slow build up to it. 've tried not to Marysue too badly. Please review or feel free to contact me. As always, The Stand, the characters (except for the one not in the book), and most of the plot don't belong to me. Enjoy!/***
Nick stood at the edge of Main street, looking back over Boulder's main thoroughfare. A few people were milling about, stretched out on the town common or just picking through the open storefronts for necessities. Most people however, were occupied at the power plant, working at winding copper wire around the generators, or on the cleanup crews, shoveling dead bodies into trucks and mass graves. A third faction prowled the mountains and forests searching for Mother Abagail. It seemed that there were plenty of jobs available to those who wanted them, and not nearly enough hands to do all the work. With the other members of the committee thus occupied, Nick found himself at somewhat of a loss.
Searching for Mother Abagail he'd be pure useless, unable to hear a call or respond to a walkie-talkie, or make a call on one. And he'd have to be on foot, not a motorcycle like the rest of the search party. He'd debated learning to ride a motorcycle, but the thought of crashing it, father out than he would get on a bike and being unable to call for help, or running headlong into a car he couldn't hear coming gave him a queasy unsettled, feeling in the pit of his, stomach. No, the bike would have to do.
The power plant was a similar situation. He'd been out with Brad Kitchener earlier, helping supervise, but the crew only needed so many "chiefs" as Ralph said. When the plant was up and running, the machinery was rigged to set off warning lights, but until things were up and running, all of the emergency communication was still auditory. He had thought about the clean up crew, but was afraid that without the interaction of other voices, other people, the constant press of dead bodies around him would drive him nuts. Today was a rare day when he didn't have a project to work on, and he felt restless and ill at ease. Without something concrete to work on, he felt more aware of the growing population of people around him. Initially, he'd craved the contact with other people, and when it had been he, and Tom, and Ralph and Dick- that had been fine. Comfortable. Now there were as, many unfamiliar faces in Boulder as there were familiar ones, with more new ones coming in every day. And they all seemed to look to the committee for guidance. First they came, asked for Mother Abagail, and then wanted to know who was in charge- and looked at him.
He sat on the bench in front of the drugstore and watched those people walking across the common. The gregarious, ready way that humans paired off wasn't lost on Nick. A good deal of the men and women who arrived in Boulder were already spoken for, hitched to someone they had been traveling with, like Larry and Lucy, or Stu and Fran. Nick thought uncomfortably of Julie Lawry, a little disgusted with himself, but too realistic to presume that beggars could be choosers. He supposed, that so long as he was wandering around, before the plague, it had been easy to presume that he was solitary because he never stayed long in one place. Now however, he wondered if that had really been the case. If maybe there was something more fundamentally flawed in him, that would ensure he would remain solitary, while he watched the rest of the world pair up around him. No, that's not fair, he thought, I'll always have Tom. He needs me. Still, Tom's friendship wasn't quite the kind of companionship he found himself missing as he watched a couple in their mid thirties settle under a tree, the man- Aaron something-or-other, he recalled, fluffing out a red and white checked cloth for them to sit on.
He wondered to himself, not for the first time, if he was doomed to having his sexual encounters reduced to curiosity in the Free Zone as they often had been before the flu. Not that those had been so easy to come by either. Mostly women he met traveling, sometimes those who picked up him hitchhiking, or random encounters, like Julie Lawry, who wanted to know if his dick worked normally, or if whatever had affected his ears and throat extended to that region as well. It didn't, which he could have told them, if they'd have asked. But it wasn't the kind of thing people ever asked. Julie had been a rude anomaly in that regard. Everything worked properly, and he was young, as much in his prime as he would ever be.
Shaking the uncomfortable thoughts off, Nick rose, still feeling a jangling sense of disquiet in his limbs. He debated perusing Boulder's bookstores for something else to add to his small library, and hesitated. The bookstores had been pretty well picked over by the town's residents, desperate for entertainment as much as they were for light and food. And in some ways, he felt obligated to leave books in the stores for other members who might need them more. And half of the stores were empty, the shelves were now husks, empty of the collections they had once held. Still, he straddled his bike, looking off into space contemplatively, his dark eyes far away in thought. Longmont isn't that far from here. I can bike there and back in a day easily. And I'm sure it's not going to be as picked over as anywhere here in Boulder. And there's people in and out of there pretty regularly. With that thought in mind, assuaging his concerns about ending up stranded without the ability to call for help, he turned then pedaled toward the diagonal, heading north east at a decent clip.
It was a little over ten miles from the edge of Boulder to the main street in Longmont, and nearly lunchtime, the sun high in the sky by the time Nick arrived and he wished he'd had the forethought to bring something from home to eat. True, he could always find something, some stored good in a grocery store, but it wasn't the same really as packing a meal on purpose. To him, it felt too much like foraging, and those lonely wandering days between Shoyo and May. The feeling was not altogether unpleasant, however. There was something carefree about that time, when he didn't have other people looking to him for direction, and himself the only person to look after.
His first stop, was the local grocery, where he found some packages of saltines and crackers, and spray cheese. He rounded out the meal with six oreos, packing another half dozen or so away to snack on when he rode home. He washed his lunch down with a warm Pepsi, enjoyed leaning against the front of the store. He wasn't sure if it was indulgent or not, but it felt good to be out on his own, independent. He felt free, for the first time in a long time, watching the dust devils blow across the wide empty main street. The solitude didn't worry him as much now, knowing that there were still other people, that he wasn't the only one. And the dreams had ceased weeks ago. Upon meeting others, the fear that he'd been going mad was quickly assuaged. Or else they were all going mad in the same way. With that anxiety laid aside, the peace was refreshing. Nick let out a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding and turned his face up to the afternoon sun.
Halfway down main street, among the shells of a pawn shop, and what had been an art gallery, filled with the dusty remnants of long dead folk artistry, he found a used book store that had what he wanted, shelves lined with everything he could hope to read, including an extensive sci-fi section. Everyone who wrote ever wrote a book is now dead. The thought gave him a chill and he shuddered coldly. Thankfully, the thought was easily brushed away, and he began perusing the stacks, loading up on new paperbacks, and a hard-backed book on government and political policies in the United states around the turn of the century. He wasn't sure if that last would be useful or not, but he figured it couldn't hurt. There was the meeting with Al Bundell coming up later this week, and he thought it wouldn't be a good idea to have some information about law development on hand.
With his load settled comfortably against his back, Nick mounted his bike, and headed farther down main street, past the bookstore and a few empty insurance agencies. He had an idea to take some of the winding back roads on the way back. Since he was sixteen, he'd been on the move, and was accustomed to being active on a daily basis and he hadn't realized how much he missed that aspect of life, while living in Boulder. It would take longer, maybe two hours to get home on the farm roads, but it would also give him a chance to actually see some of the scenery in between places, heading up to the mountains.
I wonder if anyone ever just- stops to look at the country anymore? We were all so busy looking for other people, we stopped looking at anything else around us. I think Mother Abagail would have something to say about that, about our relationship to the land. His mind wandered over this territory, and where Mother Abagail might have gotten to. He was saddened and confused by her disappearance, more than most maybe. It seemed a waste to him, to lose a person who was had been such a powerful force in drawing them all together, simply because of a perceived guilt trip from God. If there even is such a thing. In spite of everything that had happened, Nick remained unconvinced. He was willing to accept the reality of the Dark Man, the Walkin' Dude, as an actuality, because Mother Abagail was a real person. But an agent of the Devil? Were they on a religious quest? No. I don't think so. I don't believe that.
Thus lost in thought, he almost missed the stalking grey shapes passing the field to his right, about 50 yards away from where the asphalt sloped into a drainage ditch, the field stretching out to a farmhouse and barn, the door flapping open in the light froze, his bike skidding a little at the sudden halt in momentum, his heart thumping into his ears. He reached to his hip and mentally cursed himself, he hadn't even brought his pistol, the revolver he'd carted all the way from Shoyo, with him on this trip. It serves you right, get eaten by wolves and no one even knows you're out here. You're a damned fool for coming out here on your own. A hot loose feeling settled in his groin as he watched the small wolf pack stalking across the overgrown hay field. Off in the distance, a few cattle lowed nervously and shuffled farther away from the canines.
The wolves had something other in mind than the cattle far afield however, they seemed intently focused on some movement in the waist-high grass, growing brown and dry in the fall Indian summer. Nick watched the silent play, captivated, praying that their attention would remain focused. He willed himself to move on, to get away before he was noticed, bu he couldn't seem to make his legs work. He remained glued in the center of the road, fixated, heart pounding. His attention was focused on the three wolves padding through the grass, and as he watched, one of them dropped cold, a hole appearing between its eyes and the other two crouched low, becoming almost invisible in the grass. He looked, to see where the shot had come from, and saw a figure stand, rifle held to its shoulder. The figure was covered mostly in a dark hooded sweatshirt, sleeves pushed up, revealing skinny red-streaked arms, face hidden from view, and it raised the rifle to the sky. If Nick had been able, he would have heard a stream of obscenities skating across the afternoon air.
"HAAAH! Motherfucker, YAAH! What now, huh cocksucker! What NOW!"
To his surprise, rather than cutting and running from the other two wolves, capitalizing on their stunned hesitation, the figure raced forward, brandishing what Nick could have sworn was a bayonet, or a machete. Seeing the two wolves, unafraid of this lone madman crouch, ready to spring, finally set Nick to motion. Not away from the fray, but toward it. He dropped the bike and ran into the field, waving his hands frantically, hoping, somewhere in the back of his mind to give the other figure enough time to reload before the wolves could spring. If he could have cried out, he would have, instead settling for making as much of a presence as he could, hoping to draw the animals off.
The figure turned toward the man running across the field, grasping quickly what his purpose was. Although it might get him killed. Would probably get him killed, in fact. Unsure about the bloody figure with the weapon, who had already killed one of them, the wolves turned toward the newcomer with a snarl. The hooded figure thumbed two more slugs into the rifle, firing both barrels at the farthest wolf, the one closest to the dark haired man. It fell, shoulder and leg blown away in bloody spatter. Not dead, but mortally wounded. Nick stopped short, saw one of the wolves fall in a bleeding heap. He gaped, then turned, seeing the other wolf close upon him and turned back toward the road, sprinting for all he was worth. His breath rasped sharply in his chest, feeling like sandpaper drawn across his lungs. He dared not look back around, ready to feel either bullets racing through his body, or sharp teeth pulling at the back of his neck with deadly urgency.
The remaining wolf raced behind him with eager grinning glee, bounding through the standing hay. It didn't growl, its paces were deadly and silent, whatever it had been stalking in the grass forgotten in the light of moving prey. Unseen behind the two runners engaged in a race for Nick's life, the hooded figure sprinted after them, machete raised, crying out a war whoop echoing across the field. Nick panted; his heart thudding painfully in his chest. His vision whammed in and out, arms and legs pistoning frantically as he sprinted for the road. At first, he wasn't sure if the bolt of tearing pain up his calf was a cramp or not, until he felt heat running down his leg, soaking into his jeans. No- His mind panted frantically, No, no, no- is this what happens? What the hell was the point of it all? Crossing the country on foot, on a bike, only to be torn down by a wolf 10 miles from home? Because I started to feel a little boxed in? In his panic, and terror he'd forgotten the stranger. He stumbled, fell, sprawled on the crunching carpet of hay, his face twisted in a rictus of pain and dismayed terror. He waited for the wolf's teeth to sink into his neck, clawing at the dry soil.
The bite didn't come, and when Nick looked back, he saw why. The stranger had abandoned the rifle, giving chase as well, and had hacked at the wolf's spine with what Nick was now able to identify as a machete. It was standing over the prone body of the wolf,which was still writhing and snarling, a bloody machete raised over its hooded head. As he watched, the machete came down, severing the wolf's head with a chunk that Nick felt from his position on the ground. For a moment there was no movement from either party. Then, the stranger pushed back the hood and revealed herself to be female, with a rather short pointed nose and tanned skin, and high cheekbones. Her pale grey eyes were bright with adrenaline and exaltation. She crouched, lifted the shaggy wolf's head by the scruff and held it to the sky, her lips peeled back in a wild, ululating cry of victory, and her short dark hair whipped around her face. As he watched, she held the head up, waving it back and forth, then drop kicked it, sending it into the field like a furry soccer ball. Aghast, Nick held his position on the ground, uncertain of his fate regarding the madwoman. He wasn't sure if he should flee or anticipate help from her. Without examining his wound, he wasn't sure if he could flee. She turned to him and offered one hand to him, the, palm streaked with some kind of red tacky stuff. From the smell, Nick knew it was blood. He looked up at her uncertainly before taking the offered hand.
"Shit, are you okay? Did it get you?" Nick saw her lips frame the words and nodded. He staggered to his feet, lifting his injured leg a little to keep weight off it. The grip that helped him to his feet was strong, her hands cool under the tacky glove of blood. He looked down his torn pant leg, and was dismayed to see it red below the knee, coating the back of his calf.
There's no way I can bike back like this. He tested the leg and a bolt of pain raced up his leg, spreading from the bite on his calf outward.
"Well, cock. Okay, can you gimp over this way?" She took a step back and jerked her head in the direction she had come from. "I can give you a hand-" again, Nick nodded, and without the ability to write, he was incommunicado, as he had been so many years ago, before the flu, before Rudy, reduced to what simple pantomimes he could do with one hand.
Standing, he saw the woman was a about six inches shorter than he was, and leaning on her for help felt a little awkward. He accepted the help though. The pain in his leg was savage, not as bad as the bullet graze, he was afraid he would need stitches. Or that the wolf had been rabid. Madly he wondered if George Richardson back in Boulder had any of those shots to treat rabies on hand.
Together, they picked their way slowly past one, two, three dead wolves, stretched out still and somehow hollow, all threat of attack negated. Nick saw as they approached the place the woman had come from what had drawn the wolves. Stripped of its hide and partially butchered was the carcass of a longhorn steer, meat from it stacked neatly on a clean blue tarp next to the body. In front of the half-dismantled carcass was a large white book, with a diagram explaining about beef grades, and depicting the carcass of a cow, with the cuts of meat separated and described. She lead him to a white hulking truck, hip deep in hay, mostly hidden behind the barn. The truck was a massive Chevy, equipped with off-road tires, splattered with mud up to the door handles in places, the truck bed open and facing the carcass. The woman hoisted herself up and opened up the storage box near the cab, pulling out a smaller white box with a red cross on it. A first aid kit. Nick breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. He had no desire to risk infection again. The woman sat on the tailgate of the truck and offered Nick a hand, helping him climb up next to her.
"Okay, hang on." She opened the kit, and pulled out some pain relieving tablets and pressed the paper packet into Nick's hand, "take those first." Nick swallowed them dry, crumpling the paper packet in his hand. Next she rummaged out a pair of blunt-tipped scissors and used them to cut up the side of Nick's pant-leg to examine the wound. He craned his neck to see, and saw the tight press of her lips instead. She worked quickly, efficiently and poured first half a bottle of water from the storage box over the wound, rinsing it off. The wound looked ugly, the wolf's teeth had attempted to chew a piece out of the lower part of Nick's calf, and his sock was stained dark maroon with blood. Sharp teeth had attempted to tear at the muscle, and Nick saw that if it had been an inch or two closer it would have succeeded in dragging him down by the Achilles tendon and crippling him, not just wounding him. Ignorant of Nick's grimace over his wound, she focused on a brown bottle of peroxide, which she opened and poured over Nick's wound. It bubbled furiously and Nick winced, gritting his teeth. "I know, I know." The woman shook her head and unwrapped a piece of sterile gauze to dress the wound and stop the blood flow as much as possible. "Press on that." With her head bent, Nick missed the sense of her words and she grabbed his hand, pressing it firmly to the gauze while she tore off a few pieces of medical tape to hold it in place.
Once he was bandaged, she sat back on her hands, legs dangling off the tailgate of the truck. "Well, I think you'll live. They weren't rabid, just dirt-mean. All of the predators out here seem to be- preternaturally nasty." She patted his good knee and offered a half smile. Nick looked back at her gratefully. With his leg cleaned and bandaged, the pain was less, and his panic about rabies was abating. He reached for the notebook in his denim shirt pocket and wrote, `Thank you.' He paused, then followed that line with another, 'My name is Nick Andros. I am a deaf-mute. I can read lips.' She read his note and her brow furrowed. For a moment, Nick was afraid that it would be his encounter with Tom all over, she wouldn't be able to read. Instead, the woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a pencil, scratching on his piece of paper before handing it back. She'd altered it, and when he read it back, it said, 'My name is Nick Andros, I am deaf and mute.' He tipped his head at the change. "It's nice to meet you Nick. My name is Maggie English."
Nick shook her hand and smiled. She'd been prepared for contingencies, without knowing he would be there. It reminded him a little of when he'd met Mother Abagail, and she'd already had supper on for them. As if she'd been waiting.
