“Let’s go for a dog-hunt,” Malory said, smiling, as he drew near.
“Watch your tongue, little man. I might just eat you if I get hungry enough.”
“Eh? I thought you were so shocked by two men trying to catch a dog.”
Katterson looked up. “I was,” he said. “Sit down, or get moving, but don’t play games,” he growled. Malory flung himself down on the wreckage near Katterson.
“Looks pretty bad,” Malory said.
“Check,” said Katterson. “I haven’t eaten anything all day.”
“Why not? There was a regular dole last night, and there’ll be one tonight.”
“You hope,” said Katterson. The day was drawing to a close, he saw, and evening shadows were falling fast. Ruined New York looked weird in twilight; the gnarled girders and fallen buildings seemed ghosts of long-dead giants.
“You’ll be even hungrier tomorrow,” Malory said. “There isn’t going to be any dole, any more.”
“Don’t remind me, little man.”
“I’m in the food-supplying business, myself,” said Malory, as a weak smile rippled over his lips.
Katterson picked up his head in a hurry.
“Playing games again?”
“No,” Malory said hastily. He scribbled his address on a piece of paper and handed it to Katterson. “Here. Drop in on me any time you get really hungry. And—say, you’re a pretty strong fellow, aren’t you? I might even have some work for you, since you say you’re unattached.”
The shadow of an idea began to strike Katterson. He turned so he faced the little man, and stared at him.
“What kind of work?”
Malory paled. “Oh, I need some strong men to obtain food for me. You know,” he whispered.
Katterson reached over and grasped the small man’s thin shoulders. Malory winced. “Yes, I know,” Katterson repeated slowly. “Tell me, Malory,” he said carefully. “What sort of food do you sell?”
Malory squirmed. “Why—why—now look, I just wanted to help you, and—”
“Don’t give me any of that.” Slowly Katterson stood up, not releasing his grip on the small man. Malory found himself being dragged willy-nilly to his feet. “You’re in the meat business, aren’t you, Malory? What kind of meat do you sell?”
Malory tried to break away. Katterson shoved him with a contemptuous half-open fist and sent him sprawling back into the rubble-heap. Malory twisted away, his eyes wild with fear, and dashed off down 13th Street into the gloom. Katterson stood for a long time watching him retreat, breathing hard and not daring to think. Then he folded the paper with Malory’s address on it and put it in his pocket, and walked numbly away.
Barbara was waiting for him when he pressed his thumb against the doorplate of his apartment on 47th Street an hour later.
“I suppose you’ve heard the news,” she said as he entered. “Some spic-and-span lieutenant came by and announced it down below. I’ve already picked up our dole for tonight, and that’s the last one. Hey—anything the matter?” She looked at him anxiously as he sank wordlessly into a chair.
“Nothing, kid. I’m just hungry—and a little sick to my stomach.”
“Where’d you go today? The Square again?”
“Yeah. My usual Thursday afternoon stroll, and a pleasant picnic that turned out to be. First I saw two men hunting a dog—they couldn’t have been much hungrier than I am, but they were chasing this poor scrawny thing. Then your lieutenant made his announcement about the food. And then a filthy meat peddler tried to sell me some ‘merchandise’ and give me a job.”
The girl caught her breath. “A job? Meat? What happened? Oh, Paul—”
“Stow it,” Katterson told her. “I knocked him sprawling and he ran away with his tail between his legs. You know what he was selling? You know what kind of meat he wanted me to eat?”
She lowered her eyes. “Yes, Paul.”
“And the job he had for me—he saw I’m strong, so he would have made me his supplier. I would have gone out hunting in the evenings. Looking for stragglers to be knocked off and turned into tomorrow’s steaks.”
“But we’re so hungry, Paul—when you’re hungry that’s the most important thing.”
“What?” His voice was the bellow of an outraged bull. “What? You don’t know what you are saying, woman. Eat before you go out of your mind completely. I’ll find some other way of getting food, but I’m not going to turn into a bloody cannibal. No longpork for Paul Katterson.”
She said nothing. The single light-glow in the ceiling flickered twice.
“Getting near shut-off time. Get the candles out, unless you’re sleepy,” he said. He had no chronometer, but the flickering was the signal that eight-thirty was approaching. At eight-thirty every night electricity was cut off in all residence apartments except those with permission to exceed normal quota.
Barbara lit a candle.
“Paul, Father Kennon was back here again today.”
“I’ve told him not to show up here again,” Katterson said from the darkness of his corner of the room.
“He thinks we ought to get married, Paul.”
“I know. I don’t.”
“Paul, why are you—”
“Let’s not go over that again. I’ve told you often enough that I didn’t want the responsibility of two mouths to feed, when I can’t even manage keeping my own belly full. This is the best—each of us on our own.”
“But children, Paul—”
“Are you crazy tonight?” he retorted. “Would you dare to bring a child into this world? Especially now that we’ve even lost the food from Trenton Oasis? Would you enjoy watching him slowly starve to death in all this filth and rubble, or maybe growing up into a hollow-cheeked little skeleton? Maybe you would. I don’t think I’d care to.”
He was silent. She sat watching him, sobbing quietly.
“We’re dead, you and I,” she finally said. “We won’t admit it, but we’re dead. This whole world is dead—we’ve spent the last thirty years committing suicide. I don’t remember as far back as you do, but I’ve read some of the old books, about how clean and new and shiny this city was before the war. The war! All my life, we’ve been at war, never knowing who we were fighting and why. Just eating the world apart for no reason at all.”
“Cut it, Barbara,” Katterson said. But she went on in a dead monotone. “They tell me America once went from coast to coast, instead of being cut up into little strips bordered by radioactive no-man’s-lands. And there were farms, and food, and lakes and rivers, and men flew from place to place. Why did this have to happen? Why are we all dead? Where do we go now, Paul?”
“I don’t know, Barbara. I don’t think anyone does.” Wearily, he snuffed out the candle, and the darkness flooded in and filled the room.
Somehow he had wandered back to Union Square again, and he stood on 14th Street, rocking gently back and forth on his feet and feeling the light-headedness, which is the first sign of starvation. There were just a few people in the streets, morosely heading for whatever destinations claimed them. The sun was high overhead, and bright.
His reverie was interrupted by the sound of yells and an unaccustomed noise of running feet. His Army training stood him in good stead as he dove into a gaping trench and hid there, wondering what was happening.
After a moment he peeked out. Four men, each as big as Katterson himself, were roaming up and down the now deserted streets. One was carrying a sack.
“There’s one,” Katterson heard the man with the sack yell harshly. He watched without believing as the four men located a girl cowering near a fallen building.