But it was only a child. Hairy, dirty, smelly, wild-eyed and ragged, but a mere child nonetheless. Warily, having skittered forward a few feet, into the light, it looked Justin up and down and frowned.
“Hey, little guy,” said Justin, in that high, gentle tone adults reserve for pets and children. “It’s OK, I won’t hurt you! Can you talk? Do you understand me?”
The child just crouched there like a skinny little monkey and stared edgily back. Justin, looking more closely, saw now that it was a boy, about seven or eight years old, and apparently healthy and alert. He was going to try speaking to the little fellow again when the kid snatched up the dead rabbit, thrust it in Justin’s direction, and mimed eating. Justin’s stomach churned as he waved the thing away.
“No thank you,” he managed. The kid eyed him curiously for a moment and then shrugged unconcernedly and, taking great, savage bites, tore into the carcass. Justin turned away in disgust and, in so doing, saw that there was a door, just behind him, with a promising glow of sunlight beyond. Slowly, watching the kid in his peripheral vision, he edged over to the door and put his hand to the handle. The kid watched but made no move to stop him and so he slowly pulled the door open and, shading his eyes, looked out into glaring midday sunlight. Tottering like a drunk, he mounted three steps and walked out of the shed.
Looking around, unsure of what to expect, he found that he was still at the tornado-ravaged farm. Dully, still in a fog from whatever the Small Man had used to sedate him, he recalled all that had happened and then had to sit down. For a long time, it felt like, as nauseating sounds of crunching and slurping came from the shed, he sat, numb as a stone, and stared at the ground.
After all they’d been through, all they’d had to overcome, they’d finally failed. For real. There would be no rescue this time, no deus ex machina to save them. The Old Man was gone and all of the terrible sacrifices of Justin’s colleagues and friends had amounted to a great big fat nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. Maybe someone out there would have the presence of mind to grasp Lampert’s importance, but the odds of that happening before the Old Man died were probably so slim as to be inconsequential. They had failed and now humanity itself was done for. The End.
So why did he have such a hard time caring? Maybe he was in shock, or maybe he was flat-out emotionally overloaded, but for whatever reason, it just didn’t seem to matter. He had almost mustered the energy to feel bad when Erin Swails suddenly came walking up through the tall grass. Hastily collecting himself with no small effort, he shook himself and struggled to his feet. Erin, looking haggard and beat up and generally unwell, came over to him and gave a sickly smile.
“Hi, Doctor Kaes,” she said. “Are you OK?”
Justin scowled. “No, not really,” he said bleakly. “In fact, I feel pretty lousy, all in all.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Erin. “But it wears off. I feel better than when I first woke up, anyway.”
Justin groaned and rubbed his temples. “What about him?” he asked, gesturing toward the shed. “The kid.”
“You got me,” shrugged Erin. “I woke up in there, with that weird little guy pokin’ a dead rabbit in my face. Ugh! So I came out here, had a look around. I was just coming back to see if you were awake yet.”
“Huh,” said Justin heavily. “I almost wish I wasn’t.” Something occurred to him and he cast about. “What about Bowler? Is he here, too?”
“Haven’t seen him. But then, somebody had to have dragged us into that shed, right? So who knows? Maybe he woke up before we did, hauled us in there and then went out exploring or whatever.”
Justin nodded; that sounded logical. Erin just stood and shuffled her feet. Justin tried to think, but it was all so pointless and he felt so sick and generally detached that it was far from easy. Finally he gave a resigned sigh and looked around at the ruined farmstead.
“So,” Erin said. “What are we gonna do?”
Justin shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. I need some time to think.”
“Yeah, OK, I hear that. As for me? I think I’ll have a look around, maybe see if I can’t find something besides raw rabbit to eat.”
Justin nodded. “Yes, of course. You go ahead and do that.”
Erin looked at him sadly for a moment. Then she clapped him lightly on the shoulder and eked out a thin smile. “Don’t worry, Doc,” she said. “We’ll be OK.”
“Oh, I suppose we will,” said Justin tiredly. “But what about the rest?”
Erin had no answer to that.
As it transpired, the Kid was more or less what one might consider feral. He didn’t speak, couldn’t understand English, and generally behaved for all the world like a poorly-trained dog. For that, though, Justin recognized a keen spark of intelligence in the boy’s eyes. He might be wild, but he was far from stupid.
He and Erin spent their first day as the Kid’s guest simply resting and recuperating. They couldn’t find anything else to eat, but they were able to find some old-fashioned kitchen matches in the shed, with which they started a fire to roast a rabbit. The Kid was flat-out amazed at the matches. Every time Justin lit one, he would jump and clap and make a strange hooting sound of unmistakable glee. He wasn’t as keen on the idea of cooked rabbits, though, and grimaced and shook his head when offered a roasted haunch.
Justin felt marginally better, at least physically, and after they’d eaten and cleaned up, sat back with Erin outside the shed and watched the sunset. The Kid, with no warning or explanation, came out of the shed and promptly vanished into the darkening landscape.
“So,” Erin said, uneasily breaking the silence, “what do you think, Doctor? About the kid, I mean.”
“I would say,” Justin sighed, “that he’s an orphan of the Plague. Like so many others.”
“Yeah, but how did he survive? Don’t you think he must’ve had some kinda help? I mean, he’s just a little kid!”
“Don’t be so sure,” said Justin. “There are recorded cases of feral children throughout human history. Maybe he just got lucky.”
“I suppose so,” said Erin dubiously. “I guess I was just hoping that there was somebody else around here, you know? Some adult, that is.”
Justin frowned. “I doubt it,” he said. “No, I think our little host is on his own. Unfortunately.”
“Do you think he’s got a name?” Erin wondered aloud. “After all, we can’t just call him Kid, can we?”
“I don’t suppose it matters,” Justin said. “Even if he had a name, he can’t tell us what it was. And if he never had one, well…” he trailed off. Erin just nodded.
“What about the body?” she asked, after a pause. “Cornell’s body, I mean.”
“What about it?”
“Well, it’s gone, isn’t it?” Erin said. “So where did it go?”
“You don’t think,” Justin said queasily. “Not the child, surely? He wouldn’t… eat someone, would he?”
“I don’t know,” she said, making a face. “I guess it’s possible. Or maybe Bowler did something with the corpse. Buried it before he wandered away.”
“Maybe.”
Erin nodded again and went quiet. Justin tried not to think about what had happened to the body of poor Cornell. There was a long pause as they sat and watched the sun sink into a bank of black clouds. From out in the gloom there came some animal noises, odd yelps and grunts Justin didn’t recognize. Then silence again.
“Doctor Kaes?” said Erin, very softly.
“Yes?”
“What are we going to do? I mean, we’re not going to stay here, are we?”
Justin considered for a moment, but then found that he’d already decided on what he wanted to do next, as if his mind and willpower had been working independently and now offered their conclusion.