He made the long climb to his room—the elevator’s shaft was still there, and the frozen elevator, but such luxuries were beyond dream—and stood outside for just a moment, searching in the darkness for the doorplate. There was the sound of laughter from within. A strange sound for ears not accustomed to it, and a food-smell crept out through the door and hit him squarely. His throat began to work convulsively, and he remembered the dull ball of pain that was his stomach.
Katterson opened the door. The food-odor filled the little room completely. He saw Barbara look up suddenly, white-faced, as he entered. In his chair was a man he had met once or twice, a scraggly-haired, heavily bearded man named Heydahl.
“What’s going on?” Katterson demanded.
Barbara’s voice was strangely hushed. “Paul, you know Olaf Heydahl, don’t you? Olaf, Paul?”
“What’s going on?” Katterson repeated.
“Barbara and I have just been having a little meal, Mr. Katterson,” Heydahl said, in a rich voice. “We thought you’d be hungry, so we saved a little for you.”
The smell was overpowering, and Katterson felt it was all he could do to keep from foaming at the lips. Barbara was wiping her face over and over again with the napkin; Heydahl sat contentedly in Katterson’s chair.
In three quick steps Katterson crossed to the other side of the room and threw open the doors to the little enclosed kitchenette. On the stove a small piece of meat sizzled softly. Katterson looked at the meat, then at Barbara.
“Where did you get this?” he asked. “We have no money.”
“I—I—”
“I bought it,” Heydahl said quietly. “Barbara told me how little food you had, and since I had more than I wanted I brought over a little gift.”
“I see. A gift. No strings attached?”
“Why, Mr. Katterson! Remember I’m Barbara’s guest.”
“Yes, but please remember this is my apartment, not hers. Tell me. Heydahl—what kind of payment do you expect for this—this gift? And how much payment have you had already?”
Heydahl half-rose in his chair. “Please, Paul,” Barbara said hurriedly. “No trouble, Paul. Olaf was just trying to be friendly.”
“Barbara’s right, Mr. Katterson,” Heydahl said, subsiding. “Go ahead, help yourself. You’ll do yourself some good, and you’ll make me happy too.”
Katterson stared at him for a moment. The half-light from below trickled in over Heydahl’s shoulder, illuminating his nearly bald head and his flowing beard. Katterson wondered just how Heydahl’s cheeks managed to be quite so plump.
“Go ahead,” Heydahl repeated. “We’ve had our fill.”
Katterson turned back to the meat. He pulled a plate from the shelf and plopped the piece of meat on it, and unsheathed his knife. He was about to start carving when he turned to look at the two others.
Barbara was leaning forward in her chair. Her eyes were staring wide, and fear was shining deep in them. Heydahl, on the other hand, sat comfortably in Katterson’s chair, with a complacent look on his face that Katterson had not seen on anyone’s features since leaving the Army.
A thought hit him suddenly and turned him icy-cold. “Barbara,” he said, controlling his voice, “what kind of meat is this? Roast beef or lamb?”
“I don’t know, Paul,” she said uncertainly. “Olaf didn’t say what—”
“Maybe roast dog, perhaps? Filet of alley cat? Why didn’t you ask Olaf what was on the menu. Why don’t you ask him now?”
Barbara looked at Heydahl, then back at Katterson. “Eat it, Paul. It’s good, believe me—and I know how hungry you are.”
“I don’t eat unlabeled goods, Barbara. Ask Mr. Heydahl what kind of meat it is, first.”
She turned to Heydahl. “Olaf—”
“I don’t think you should be so fussy these days, Mr. Katterson,” Heydahl said. “After all, there are no more food doles, and you don’t know when meat will be available again.”
“I like to be fussy, Heydahl. What kind of meat is this?”
“Why are you so curious? You know what they say about looking gift-horses in the mouth, heh heh.”
“I can’t even be sure this is horse, Heydahl. What kind of meat is it?” Katterson’s voice, usually carefully modulated, became a snarl. “A choice slice of fat little boy? Maybe a steak from some poor devil who was in the wrong neighborhood one evening?”
Heydahl turned white.
Katterson took the meat from the plate and hefted it for a moment in his hand. “You can’t even spit the words out, either of you. They choke in your mouths. Here—cannibals!”
He hurled the meat hard at Barbara; it glanced off the side of her cheek and fell to the floor. His face was flaming with rage. He flung open the door, turned, and slammed it again, rushing blindly away. The last thing he saw before slamming the door was Barbara on her knees, scurrying to pick up the piece of meat.
Night was dropping fast, and Katterson knew the streets were unsafe. His apartment, he felt, was polluted; he could not go back to it. The problem was to get food. He hadn’t eaten in almost two days. He thrust his hands in his pocket and felt the folded slip of paper with Malory’s address on it, and, with a wry grimace, realized that this was his only source of food and money. But not yet—not so long as he could hold up his head.
Without thinking he wandered toward the river, toward the huge crater where, Katterson had been told, there once had been the United Nations buildings. The crater was almost a thousand feet deep; the United Nations had been obliterated in the first bombing, back in 2028. Katterson had been just one year old then, the year the War began. The actual fighting and bombing had continued for the next five or six years, until both hemispheres were scarred and burned from combat, and then the long war of attrition had begun. Katterson had turned eighteen in 2045—nine long years ago, he reflected—and his giant frame made him a natural choice for a soft Army post. In the course of his Army career he had been all over the section of the world he considered his country—the patch of land bounded by the Appalachian radioactive belt on one side, by the Atlantic on the other. The enemy had carefully constructed walls of fire partitioning America into a dozen strips, each completely isolated from the next. An airplane could cross from one to another, if there were any left. But science, industry, technology, was dead, Katterson thought wearily, as he stared without seeing at the river. He sat down on the edge of the crater and dangled his feet.
What had happened to the brave new world that had entered the twenty-first century with such proud hopes? Here he was, Paul Katterson, probably one of the strongest and tallest men in the country, swinging his legs over a great-devastated area, with a gnawing pain in the pit of his stomach. The world was dead, the shiny streamlined world of chrome plating and jet planes. Someday, perhaps, there would be new life. Someday.
Katterson stared at the waters beyond the crater. Somewhere across the seas there were other countries, broken like the rest. And somewhere in the other direction were rolling plains, grass, wheat, wild animals, fenced off by hundreds of miles of radioactive mountains. The War had eaten up the fields and pastures and livestock, had ground all mankind under.
He got up and started to walk back through the lonely street. It was dark now, and the few gaslights cast a ghostly light, like little eclipsed moons. The fields were dead, and what was left of mankind huddled in the blasted cities, except for the lucky ones in the few Oases scattered by chance through the country. New York was a city of skeletons, each one scrabbling for food, cutting corners and hoping for tomorrow’s bread.
A small man bumped into Katterson as he wandered unseeing. Katterson looked down at him and caught him by the arm. A family man, he guessed, hurrying home to his hungry children.