Ryan looked over her shoulder. "I'll take the deep-fried breaded cheese sticks for a starter, or the egg rolls and mustard sauce. The chef's salad with... what the fuck's a julienne of ham? And what are olives? Never heard of 'em. A stuffed flounder and crab meat stuffing. Heard of a crab but not a flounder."
"It's a fish, I think."
"Right now I'd settle for anything."
"How 'bout bird shit on rye?" asked Krysty.
"Sure. As long as it's goodbird shit."
"Let's go look in the kitchen."
They couldn't believe their luck in the back. Right by the bat-wing doors was an open closet door. Inside, a dozen hand-torches hung, on hooks next to a push-button power pack, Ryan pressed the red switch a few times, and the bulbs began to glow, brighter and brighter.
"Solves a problem. Take one, and we can come back for the others."
The torches threw a bright narrow beam that lasted about ten minutes before needing recharging. The light was reflected off the polished metal of pots and pans sitting neatly in racks. The shelves at the far end of the kitchen were stacked with all kinds of tins and packets. Krysty let her light explore them.
"The packets have probably gone off, but there's plenty of tins. Ready meals in sealed cartons. Gumbo... what's that?" She peered at the label. "Oh, yeah. Freeze-dried collard greens, fatback and chili. Irradiated and reconstituted pulk salad. Sounds like enough. What d'you say, lover?"
Ryan shone the torch on his own face, the harsh beam highlighting the sharp contours of his cheeks and mouth. "Don't you see my tongue hanging out? We'll look round some, then meet up with the others. Bring a spare light with you."
Many of the drapes were still drawn, letting in only a murky, filtered sunlight. Here and there doors to rooms stood open, with sharp-edged bars of brightness thrown across the corridors.
"Why the dead not smell? Quint chilled the dead. Some days he did not, and the dead smell." Lori wrinkled up her nose in disgust at the memory.
"Too long a time has passed, dearest," replied Doc Tanner. "The flesh rots slowly, and mortifies. Gradually it all dries, and the maggots feed on it. After a few years slip by, there is nothing left for the maggots, and they too die and rot slowly and very quietly the corpse becomes sinew and bone. Nothing else remains. Nothing to smell anymore."
"Guess for a few weeks West Lowellton sure must have fucking stank like a summer slaughterhouse," added the sweating Finnegan.
J. B. Dix, hefting the Mini-Uzi, stepped into one of the rooms on the right of the corridor. The drapes were half open, and the waves of light illuminated countless motes of dust suspended in the air. Beyond the window, greenery was pressed against the glass. In a corner, termites had evidently worked their way in, destroying some wood at floor level.
He looked around. Two double beds, huge by comparison with all the other beds the Armorer had ever seen. It looked like neither of them had been used, the covers as tight and square as when they had last been made up in January 2001, probably by some Puerto Rican maid. There were lights mounted on the wall above each bed, and a painting of a cowboy riding a spirited Appaloosa stallion. A low bureau faced the beds, with a polished black vid set upon it. A round table with two chairs in dark plastic hide stood against the window in an ugly little grouping with a spidery lamp. J.B. walked over the carpet, breathing slow and easy, seeing his reflection approach a massive mirror screwed over a washbasin in pastel pink. Glancing around to make sure the others hadn't followed him in, the Armorer winked at himself and tipped his fedora. There was a long pink bath and a pink toilet, sealed in some kind of clear plastic. A small label pasted to it read, "Sanitized for your protection". Beneath it the water was long gone.
Drinking glasses on the basin were also sealed tight. J.B. reached over and turned one of the chromed taps, not surprised to see that nothing happened. No leaking drops of rusty water. No hissing and gurgling in the pipes. No skittering insects.
"J.B., come look in here!"
Quick and light as a cat, the Armorer darted across the corridor. Finn was in the doorway of an identical room, with Lori and Doc at his elbow.
"What?"
"Couple of chills. In the bed."
J.B. stepped past him, his eyes surveying the place. The thick shades were down almost to the bottom, letting in little light. But there was enough to see the two leering skeletons in the bed on the right. There were a couple of open valises on the floor and several empty bottles on the table, two glasses next to them.
Doc pushed past the Armorer, straight to the smaller table at the head of the bed. He picked up a white plastic container and shook it to show it was empty. Peering at the label, he replaced it where it was.
"What is it?" asked Lori.
"Morphine derivative. Very strong sleeping tablets. There were some fifty or so, I would hazard a guess. Now there are none."
"They chilled themselves?"
"Yes."
Finnegan whistled. "I can't ever figure someone doing that."
The old man patted him gently on the shoulder. "That is a sad comment on the times in which we live and the life that you must lead, my dear young friend. You must be aware that when civilization ended, it was not utterly unexpected. There was a time of warning for some. Only for some."
"Some ran," said J.B.
"One day, Mr. Dix, I shall entertain you with the tale of the man who had an appointment in Samarra. You can run faster than the wind, but Death will always o'ertake you. These two had warning, and they chose to die together, in each other's arms, perhaps with some good corn liquor to warm their passing. It was a more dignified departure from life than many enjoyed."
"That is sad," Lori said quietly.
"Yeah. Let's leave 'em," agreed Finnegan, leading them out of the suite of death.
Ryan and Krysty found bodies in half a dozen rooms in the Holiday Inn of West Lowellton. Most were in the beds.
Not all.
One skeleton was in the bathtub. The pale pearlized sides were streaked with clotted black marks, thick around the top. In the bottom, almost hidden by the slumped pelvis, was a slim razor blade, its edges dulled with the long-dried blood. The skull hung forward, drooping in a final disconsolate slump. Shreds of long gray hair were still pasted to the ridges of the head.
The right hand, which had been dangling outside the tub, had become detached and lay in an untidy heap of carpals and phalanges on top of an open book.
"What is it?" asked Ryan.
Krysty stooped to pick it up, keeping her finger between the open pages. "The Bible. Whoever it was got in a warm tub and opened up his or her veins. Uncle Tyas McNann told me it was how the old Greeks and Romans used to take their lives."
"What chapter was he or she reading?"
Krysty examined the heading that the dead fingers had marked, stumbling over some of the unfamiliar language. "It's from the New Testament Ч the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians."
"Who were they?"
"Some old Romans or Greeks, I guess, lover. It's open at chapter thirteen."
"Read a little, Krysty."
The girl began, her voice rising with the mouth-filling phrases of the King James text. "But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly."