Sheathing her shotgun with a quick, savage motion, she glared at Justin for a long moment before finally throwing up her hands in the universal sign for exasperation.
“Hey, why the fuck not?” she said acidly. “First I got some old frack and two whitecoat bitches trailin’ me aroun’. Now I got this doopy greep, too? Well why not, heh? Let’s start a whole gang while we at it! A whole gang o’ old greeps an’ whitecoats an’ whoever else wants to go. Maybe some cripples or little kids or somethin’. Why not? But listen to this, Doc. An’ hear good, yeh? These others gonna hafta find they own food, got me? I ain’t gonna go H and G for them, no way, no how. Track me? They on they own.”
“H and G?” said Justin, ignoring the outraged muttering from Cass and Swails. “What’s that?”
“Huntin’ and gatherin’,” said Teresa. “Food run. Whatever you wanna call it, I ain’t gonna do for no four extra peoples. Gonna be hard enough for jus’ us two.”
“I understand,” said Justin. “But I’m sure we’ll manage somehow. After all, we certainly have a lot of candy canes; we can take a good supply of those and, if worst comes to worst, we’ll just have to survive on them.”
Teresa made a face. “Ain’t so sure I like them things no more. Jus’ thinkin’ about ‘em make me feel kinda blurpy.”
“Yes, well,” said Justin, smiling slightly, “I did warn you about eating too many. But is that your final word? Bowler can come along?”
“Like I said,” she growled. “Why not, hey? Same as for all these peeps. Long as they can keep up an’ get they own food an’ water. Anyhow, things gonna change, once we get to Zero’s.”
“Yes, well,” said Justin, “let’s just focus on getting there, shall we?”
Teresa just shrugged and walked away. Bowler, watching her go, came up to Justin and offered his right hand.
“Thanks, Doc,” he said. “I thought for a second she was gonna blast me!”
Justin shook hands and nodded. “Yes,” he said wryly. “She is a very volatile young woman, but she does seem to know her way around.”
“Yeah,” Bowler agreed, nodding, “but, uh, how’s about those candy canes?”
Justin smiled and waved. “Right this way.”
It was that same day, towards afternoon, when Justin came across a conversation between Teresa and the Old Man. They’d spent the day sleeping—in shifts, for safety’s sake—eating candy canes, and generally recovering their strength. All in all, a quiet and welcome period of rest. Justin was dozing, thinking of not much of anything, when he heard the sounds of quiet conversation and, curious, went to see who was doing the talking. As before, he found Lampert sitting in an old office chair with Teresa at his feet. She was holding up a ragged old poster for Lampert to read. Moving slowly and silently, Justin took up an inconspicuous position from which to eavesdrop.
“What this say?” asked Teresa, pointing at the poster, which was angled so that Justin couldn’t see it.
Lampert looked at the poster and then shrugged. “That’s Santa Claus,” he said. “And the words under that say “he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake.” That’s part of an old song, what they used to call a Christmas Carol.”
Teresa lowered her head, seeming to think, before looking back up.
“Then he God, hey?” she said. “Fat dude inna red suit with white fur. That God. Ain’t that right?”
“Who, Santa Claus?” said Lampert jovially. “Oh no, you’ve got that mixed up. Not that it’s any great leap from one to the other, I suppose, but no. See they used to have something called Christmas, the 25th of December, that was this big holiday. And this guy, Santa, was sorta the spokesman for it.”
“Tell me ‘bout Krismis,” said Teresa. “And what a holiday?”
“Whew, you sure ask a lotta questions,” the Old Man grumbled. “Aw, but that’s OK, kid, I got nothin’ but time, anyway. Well, let’s see. Where to start? Well, a holiday was a day of the year, one specific day, see, when they celebrated something. Or remembered something. Like there was the 4th of July, where they marked the founding of America, and there was Valentine’s Day, 14th of February, to celebrate like, love and romance and such. But there were all kinds of days like that and what they generally meant to the average person was a day off from work. Maybe a present or some flowers. Now Christmas, that one was kinda different. Originally it was a day to mark the longest night of the year, what they called the solstice, and that went back to, oh Jeez, prob’ly the ancient Romans.”
“Who that? Romans?”
“Eh, that’s another story,” said Lampert. “Let’s just say they were a lot of people who lived a long, long time ago.”
“Like re-publicans?” said Teresa. “I hearda them once.”
“Who? Republicans?” laughed the Old Man wheezily. “Well, yeah, I guess they’re kinda the same. Just as extinct. But the Romans are much older. Like a couple thousand years ago. Real old.”
Teresa only shook her head in bewilderment.
“Like I said, it ain’t important right now,” said Lampert. “The thing is, Christmas was a real old holiday, but then, once Christians got control over everybody, it got turned into the birthday of Jesus. Now, have you heard of Jesus?”
“Sure,” shrugged Teresa. “Hippie dude, right? Got nailed up ona cross?”
“That’s the guy,” said Lampert, nodding. “Course, they didn’t really know for sure what day Jesus was born, since it happened so long ago, but the day itself, the guy’s birthday, now that was a big deal, naturally, and so they kinda just moved in on the date and took it over. But the thing was, this other guy, this Santa Claus guy, like on your poster there, he was a sort of holdover from the earlier traditions, from the old holiday. Understand?”
Teresa nodded. “Kinda like when ya use another crew’s colors once ya wiped ‘em out.”
Lampert’s brow arched. “Yeah? Well, I’ll take yer word for it. Anyhow, Christmas involved presents, see? People gave each other gifts, things they wanted, right? And this here Santa Claus, he was supposed to keep track of who was good and who was bad, all year long, and he’d like, determine who got presents based on who did what. Get it? OK, so the story was, he’d show up on Christmas Eve—that’s the night before Christmas—and leave presents for the good little boys and girls.”
“What about the bad ones?” asked Teresa feelingly. “What they get?”
“Well, nothin’,” shrugged Lampert. “Or, in some places, I guess they said you’d get a lump of coal. But it was all really just a way for parents to keep their kids in line. You know—be good or you don’t get no presents from Santa. Like that.”
Teresa lowered her head and absently scratched at a spot on her leather-clad leg. For quite a while, there was silence in the old factory. Then Teresa shook her head and looked back to the Old Man.
“I don’ get it,” she said. “How come this fat red-suit dude any different from God? He sound just the same, watchin’ to make sure ya do good, like, how the preacher johnnies say: don’t sin or ya go ta hell, hey? And if you don’t sin and do good, you get to go up ta heaven, where it all juicy, right? Kinda like gettin’ them presents, hey?”
Lampert laughed, but gently and without malice. “Oh, you got that right, kid!” he wheezed. “The only difference is, really, that people stopped thinkin’ of Santa as real and started thinkin’ that God was real. And the kicker is, neither one was real! Unless o’ course, you believe in God. Not that you shouldn’t, I guess. At this point, it sure can’t hurt.”