Sunrise

But this flenser wasn’t trembling, weak, or slow. Somehow he had avoided the shaking disease that had afflicted the first guy. He threw his free arm out above my head, planting it in the snow and instantly arresting our roll. At the same time, he bore down on the butcher knife. I clutched his wrist with my right hand and put my left arm behind it for support. It felt like I was trying to hold back a hydraulic ram. The knife inched inexorably closer. He gri

I shoved his hands one direction and frantically wrenched my head in the other. The butcher knife buried itself in the snow beside my head with a soft, nearly inaudible thunk. The flenser fell forward—right into the blade of my hook.

I hadn’t had room to do anything but line up a short, weak jab to his throat, but his weight took care of the rest. My hook sunk deep. Blood sprayed from the wound, coating the side of my face in a hot, wet glaze. For a moment he seemed to hover there, poised over me, caught on the edge of my hook. Then he opened his mouth and vomited blood, splashing the top of my head.

I shoved him sideways, but it was like trying to move a dump truck. Finally I managed to scramble out from under him. Two shots rang out—one from Darla, right next to me; the other from Nylce, up on the nearby hill. Both hit the flenser perfectly, center mass. He gurgled once more and died.

Ed peered out from behind a nearby snow mound. “That’s two,” he said in a stage whisper.

“You count the one we killed inside?” Darla asked.

“No,” Ed replied, “I shot one who was trying to sneak around to the side door and come in behind you. So that makes three.”

Nylce started to get up and come down the hill toward us, but I waved her off using a series of gestures to tell her and Francine to stay put and keep watch.

Darla handed her rifle to Trig and knelt beside me. “You get any of that blood in your mouth?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“We’ve got to get it off you.” She grabbed a handful of snow and started scrubbing at my face.

“This guy wasn’t sick.” I gestured at the big flenser laid out in the snow nearby.

“He could still be a carrier. The disease might have taken longer to manifest in him.”

That made sense. I quit protesting and submitted to a painfully vigorous and cold scrubbing.

When Darla was satisfied I was clean enough, I left Nylce, Francine, and Trig on guard, while Ed, Darla, and I went back into the Pe

I stepped closer to the bone pile inside the Pe

Darla paused by the bone pile and dead flenser. “Those . . . they were people once.” Her voice was so soft that I could barely hear her.

“What? The bones or the ca

“Both,” Ed said, his voice barely audible.

“I wish,” Darla said looking over the bone pile, “I wish we could bury them.”

I didn’t want to bury them. I wanted to burn it all, burn even the memory of this scene from my mind, burn the spoiled, greasy taste from my mouth, burn time itself if I could, burn away this world in which the best answer, the only answer, was sometimes to kill. I wanted to sear the last few minutes from my mind, or better yet sear away everything since Yellowstone erupted. Everything except Darla. “Can we burn them?”

“Need a hot fire,” Ed said.

“I need a bucket,” Darla said.

I gave her a blank look.

“To hold gasoline.”

A Dutch oven crusted with unidentifiable charred food had been tossed to one edge of the sleeping area. I gingerly lifted it with my hook. “Will this work?”

“I’d rather have a five-gallon gas can, but sure, it’ll do.” We dragged the other two flensers to the bone pile. Maybe we could have just left them where they had died,

but someday this winter would end, and all the frozen corpses would thaw, creating a huge problem for someone. I believe in the rules I learned in kindergarten—you make a mess, you clean it up. Although I’m thankful that kinder-gartners don’t have to deal with dead flensers.

Then we started trudging from snow hump to snow hump, unburying cars, unscrewing their gas caps, and sniffing. When we found a locked fuel hatch, Darla jammed her hook under it and pried it open by main force, snapping the lock. When she unscrewed the gas cap, I could smell gas even from where I stood, several feet back. Darla smashed the driver’s side window with the handle of the screwdriver, popped the hood, and ripped some tubing out of the engine compartment.

Darla stuck one end of the tubing into the gas tank and sucked on the other, getting a siphon going. How she managed without getting a mouth full of gas was beyond me. When the Dutch oven was nearly full, I carried it into the Pe

It took thirteen trips to empty the car’s tank. Without more buckets, there wasn’t really anything Ed could do to help, so he stood guard. As I trudged up to him and Darla after the last trip, he said, “Kind of a waste of gas, isn’t it?” “No,” Darla and I said together.

“Anyway, everything’s clear,” Ed said. “No sign of anyone else.”

“Let’s blow this joint,” I said.

Ed groaned.

“I’ll do it,” Darla said. “You’re covered in gas.”

She was right—it was nearly impossible to carry the lidless Dutch oven without splashing. I had gas on my hook, its cuff, and all down my left pants leg.

Darla made one final trip into the Pe

As we walked back to the Family Affair, I asked Darla, “What do you think happened in this town?”

Darla didn’t answer, but Ed did. “Folks in the college are paranoid, shooting at anyone who comes close. Must have been a big group of flensers here. They would have picked off loners, singletons, small parties, maybe even foraging parties from the college. The folks in the college built their wall and buttoned everything up tight. Once there was no other food source, well, my guess is the flensers ate each other. Those three were all that were left.” “Oh.” I was sorry I had asked. It made sense, though. Ca

“Could you have that shaking disease?” I asked Ed.

A pained look passed across Ed’s face, and I felt guilty for bringing it up. “I might.” He shrugged. “Would serve me right.”

“You can quit with the pity party anytime, Ed,” Darla said. “We know what you did, and we don’t care anymore. You’re a different man now.”