“Poor crazy Henriks,” Katterson said. “Why does he keep on writing music when there’s no orchestras, no records, no concerts? He can’t even hear the stuff he writes.”
North opened the window and the morning air edged in. “Oh, but he does, Paul. He hears the music in his mind, and that satisfies him. It doesn’t really matter; he’ll never live to hear it played.”
“The doles have been cut off,” Katterson said.
“I know.”
“The people out there are eating each other. I saw a woman killed for food yesterday—butchered just like a cow.”
North shook his head and straightened a tangled, whitened lock. “So soon? I thought it would take longer than that, once the food ran out.”
“They’re hungry, Hal.”
“Yes, they’re hungry. So are you. In a day or so my supply up here will be gone, and I’ll be hungry too. But it takes more than hunger to break down the taboo against eating flesh. Those people out there have given up their last shred of humanity now; they’ve suffered every degradation there is, and they can’t sink any lower. Sooner or later we’ll come to realize that, you and I, and then we’ll be out there hunting for meat too.”
“Hal!”
“Don’t look so shocked, Paul.” North smiled patiently. “Wait a couple of days, till we’ve eaten the bindings of my books, till we’re finished chewing our shoes. The thought turns my stomach, too, but it’s inevitable. Society’s doomed; the last restraints are breaking now. We’re more stubborn than the rest, or maybe we’re just fussier about our meals. But our day will come too.”
“I don’t believe it,” Katterson said, rising.
“Sit down. You’re tired, and you’re just a skeleton yourself now. What happened to my big, muscular friend Katterson? Where are his muscles now?” North reached up and squeezed the big man’s biceps. “Skin, bones, what else? You’re burning down, Paul, and when the spark is finally out you’ll give in too.”
“Maybe you’re right, Hal. As soon as I stop thinking of myself as human, as soon as I get hungry enough and dead enough, I’ll be out there hunting like the rest. But I’ll hold out as long as I can.”
He sank back on the bed and slowly turned the yellowing pages of Dante.
Henriks came back the next day, wild-eyed and haggard, to return the book of Greek plays, saying the times were not ripe for Aeschylus. He borrowed a slim volume of poems by Ezra Pound. North forced some food on Henriks, who took it gratefully and without any show of diffidence. Then he left, staring oddly at Katterson.
Others came during the day—Komar, Goldman, de Metz—all men who, like Henriks and North, remembered the old days before the long war. They were pitiful skeletons, but the flame of knowledge burned brightly in each of them. North introduced Katterson to them, and they looked wonderingly at his still-powerful frame before pouncing avidly on the books.
But soon they stopped coming. Katterson would stand at the window and watch below for hours, and the empty streets remained empty. It was now four days since the last food had arrived from Trenton Oasis. Time was running out.
A light snowfall began the next day, and continued throughout the long afternoon. At the evening meal North pulled his chair over to the cupboard, balanced precariously on its arm and searched around in the cupboard for a few moments. Then he turned to Katterson.
“I’m even worse off than Mother Hubbard,” he said. “At least she had a dog.”
“Huh?”
“I was referring to an incident in a children’s book,” North said. “What I meant was we have no more food.”
“None?” Katterson asked dully.
“Nothing at all.” North smiled faintly. Katterson felt the emptiness stirring in his stomach, and leaned back, closing his eyes.
Neither of them ate at all the next day. The snow continued to filter lightly down. Katterson spent most of the time staring out the little window, and he saw a light, clean blanket of snow covering everything in sight. The snow was unbroken.
The next morning Katterson arose and found North busily tearing the binding from his copy of the Greek plays. With a sort of amazement Katterson watched North put the soiled red binding into a pot of boiling water.
“Oh, you’re up? I’m just preparing breakfast.” The binding was hardly palatable, but they chewed it to a soft pulp anyway, and swallowed the pulp just to give their tortured stomachs something to work on. Katterson retched as he swallowed his final mouthful.
One day of eating book bindings.
“The city is dead,” Katterson said from the window without turning around. “I haven’t seen anyone come down this street yet. The snow is everywhere.”
North said nothing.
“This is crazy, Hal,” Katterson said suddenly. “I’m going out to get some food.”
“Where?”
“I’ll walk down Broadway and see what I can find. Maybe there’ll be a stray dog. I’ll look. We can’t hold out forever up here.”
“Don’t go, Paul.”
Katterson turned savagely. “Why? Is it better to starve up here without trying than to go down and hunt? You’re a little man; you don’t need food as much as I do. I’ll go down to Broadway; maybe there’ll be something. At least we can’t be any worse off than now.”
North smiled. “Go ahead, then.”
“I’m going.”
He buckled on his knife, put on all the warm clothes he could find, and made his way down the stairs. He seemed to float down, so lightheaded was he from hunger. His stomach was a tight hard knot.
The streets were deserted. A light blanket of snow lay everywhere, mantling the twisted ruins of the city. Katterson headed for Broadway, leaving tracks in the unbroken snow, and began to walk downtown.
At 96th Street and Broadway he saw his first sign of life, some people at the following corner. With mounting excitement he headed for 95th Street, but pulled up short.
There was a body sprawled over the snow, newly dead. And two boys of about twelve were having a duel to the death for its possession, while a third circled warily around them. Katterson watched them for a moment, and then crossed the street and walked on.
He no longer minded the snow and the solitude of the empty city. He maintained a steady, even pace, almost the tread of a machine. The world was crumbling fast around him, and his recourse lay in his solitary trek.
He turned back for a moment and looked behind him. There were his footsteps, the long trail stretching back and out of sight, the only marks breaking the even whiteness. He ticked off the empty blocks.
90th. 87th. 85th. At 84th he saw a blotch of color on the next block, and quickened his pace. When he got to close range, he saw it was a man lying on the snow. Katterson trotted lightly to him and stood over him.
He was lying face-down. Katterson bent and carefully rolled him over. His cheeks were still red; evidently he had rounded the corner and died just a few minutes before. Katterson stood up and looked around. In the window of the house nearest him, two pale faces were pressed against the pane, watching greedily.
He whirled suddenly to face a small, swarthy man standing on the other side of the corpse. They stared for a moment, the little man and the giant. Katterson noted dimly the other’s burning eyes and set expression. Two more people appeared, a ragged woman and a boy of eight or nine. Katterson moved closer to the corpse and made a show of examining it for identification, keeping a wary eye on the little tableau facing him.
Another man joined the group, and another. Now there were five, all standing silently in a semi-circle. The first man beckoned, and from the nearest house came two women and still another man. Katterson frowned; something unpleasant was going to happen.