Besides, it was hard for her to lower her guard around other people enough to form any kind of real intimacy. She was always on the lookout for someone who might see her as a prize or use her as a fetish because of her prosthetic leg.
They circled around the back of the bungalow. There was a large window covered with a white sheet just above a dryer exhaust.
A good place to break into, Red thought. A little glass wouldn’t hurt the laundry room. She always tried to be polite when entering other people’s houses—there was a possibility that they might come back to them one day, after all—and she disliked the idea of accidentally breaking some precious heirloom as she stepped through the window frame.
“Should I find a rock?” Riley asked.
“To break the window? No, I’m going to use this,” Red said, and took her axe off her belt.
She turned the blunt side toward the window and then waved at the kids, who stood at her hip, watching.
“Get away,” she said. “You don’t want to get cut by broken glass if it flies in every direction.”
“I’d rather you didn’t do that. Apart from the risk to your kids it’s very hard to get a good glazier to come and fix windows these days.”
The voice was strong and firm but a little scratchy, like a well-played record, and it made Red jump and nearly lop her own ear off with the blade of the axe, which was facing her. Sam and Riley clutched at the hem of her coat.
Red lowered the axe slowly, spinning the blade face out so she could use it if she had to. She turned to face the voice, which was not easy to do with two small people clinging to her.
Don’t let anything happen to Riley or Sam. Please, whatever happens, let them get away.
She expected to see one of the men they’d spotted earlier, and that there would be a rifle pointed at her head. But instead there was an almost comically benign-looking gray-haired man not much taller than Red peering at them out of dark inquisitive eyes.
He was wearing a neatly pressed blue button-down shirt under a gray cardigan with soft-looking khaki pants and worn navy blue Converse sneakers. His hair was cut short on the sides, longer on the top, and combed back from his forehead. He looked like he was getting ready to walk to the grocery store, or do some light gardening.
How did he get his shirt pressed without electricity? Red thought, then said, “Who are you?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled a little bit. “Don’t you think I should be the one asking that question? You’re about to break into my house, after all.”
“Oh,” Red said. “Um.”
It wasn’t often that she was at a loss for words. A first in the annals of history, Adam would have said.
Now is really not the time to think about Adam.
“I’m sorry,” Red said. “We thought nobody was here.”
The man nodded. “A reasonable assumption, given the circumstances.”
He looked at her expectantly. The silence stretched out between them. Red wasn’t really sure what to do. Should she just take the kids and go? Would he try to stop her?
Riley and Sam were both trembling, their faces hidden in her coat. She was able to pat Riley’s head with her free left hand but could only give Sam an awkward bump of her elbow since Red still had the axe in her hand and she wasn’t ready to put it down yet. The man seemed friendly but that didn’t mean anything.
“I see that the lack of civilization has made you forget the rules of civility. Very well. I shall go first. My name is Park Dae-Jung, though most people call me D.J.”
He gave them a little bow, hands at his sides.
“Uh,” Red said. It was really quite extraordinary, the way she could run her mouth in the face of an army but when confronted with a harmless-looking old man she could only manage single syllables.
She cleared her throat. “Um. I’m Red. This is Riley and this is Sam. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Park.”
That last bit sort of trickled out so that by the time she said “Park” it was almost swallowed up. This, somehow, was more surreal than anything that had happened to her since the Crisis began.
“And all of you have just one name, like Prince or Madonna. You may call me D.J., not Mr. Park. I see now that you are far too young to be the mother of those children. A sister, perhaps?” He went on without waiting for an answer. “You probably have several questions, and I’m assuming you were attempting to break my window because you were hungry.”
“Er. Yes,” Red said.
“Well, I have plenty of food inside and you are welcome to join me for lunch.”
Mr. Park—no, D.J., Red thought—looked at them expectantly.
“I’m assuming you don’t want to get caught when those young men return on the second circuit of their patrol,” D.J. said. He glanced at his watch. The brown leather band was cracked with age. It looked like the old-fashioned kind you had to wind every day. “You do have some time. They usually don’t circle back for a couple of hours.”
“The same men?” Red asked. “Why would they do that?”
“Oh, it’s not always the same men,” D.J. said. “But there are always three of them, and they come through here every couple of hours or so. None of them are especially attentive about checking the houses, but if you’re out in the open even they will notice you.”
Red felt Sam shift and the little girl’s gaze lock onto her face. If what D.J. said was true, then that meant the area wasn’t safe for them. Three men came through the town every couple of hours on a kind of patrol. That meant that they were affiliated with some group that had established this as part of their “territory.” Red wondered where their home base was.
“Their territory can’t be very big if the patrols are returning here every couple of hours,” Red murmured.
She’d said it more to herself, just thinking out loud, but D.J. answered her.
“I agree,” he said. “But the fact remains that they do return. And I should warn you that they are more diligent about examining the open houses at night. It seems they think that travelers might be squatting in them.”
“What do they do if they catch someone in one of the houses?” Red asked. She had a good idea of the answer, but it was best to know for certain.
D.J. looked from Sam and Riley back up to Red’s face and quirked an eyebrow, like he was asking if she really wanted him to say it in front of the children.
“Go ahead,” Red said. “It doesn’t help them to hide terrible things. They’ve already seen plenty.”
“They kill any men they find and take the women and children,” D.J. said.
Red felt Sam and Riley press harder into her sides.
“Red, let’s go inside, okay?” Riley said. His voice was muffled because most of his face was still hidden in her coat.
She hesitated, because it wasn’t in her nature to trust anyone and because for all she knew this man might be the leader of the patrolling gang.
“I have nothing to do with that group,” D.J. said, correctly interpreting her expression.
Damn, I thought my poker face was getting better.
“I assure you that I am just what I seem—an old man, living alone. I promise that if you come inside my home you will come to no harm from me.”