She nods her head and puts the curtain aside to look out the window.
They’re a little nutty, sure—but it’s about as nice a place as you or me’re ever gonna see in this life.
Later, after the sun sets, she creeps out to the car to smuggle in the gurkha knife, because she doesn’t sleep well unless she’s got it at hand. The car is parked behind the house where the hill continues to climb into a densely forested part of the landscape. From where she is, she can see a faint path winding up through the trees—and a dim figure standing at the foot of the path.
You gettin an eyeful? she says, loud enough for whoever it is to hear.
But the shape doesn’t respond, turning instead and ascending the path, disappearing into the dense foliage.
She looks back at the house once, the lighted squares of window beckoning with the kind of security that comes with knowing what to expect. Then she sighs and looks at the shoes Mrs. Grierson gave her. They match the taffeta dress, but they aren’t going to survive tromping through the woods.
It’s a shame, they are pretty shoes.
THERE IS no moon, and she follows the path up through the trees more by feel than by sight, sweeping the gurkha knife in front of her. She worries less about stumbling than she does about walking into the electrified fence along the perimeter of the property.
The path winds back and forth up the side of the hill. Every now and then she thinks she can hear footsteps other than her own. Behind her or in front of her she can’t tell, but they stop when she stops to listen.
A blind dark like this, she’s not doing any sneaking up, so she calls out.
Whyn’t you come on out, whoever you are, and we’ll make a midnight constitutional together. Otherwise I might could hack you by accident.
There is no response, and she looks back in the direction of the house. It is hidden behind the trees, but she can see the faint glow of it in the lower part of the sky. She continues up the hill.
Soon she emerges into a clearing at the top, and it’s a divine sight. The infested city is below her, lit primitive by a few meager lights shimmering in the night air. In those pools of light she can see the slugs stumbling densely together, tiny in the distance. The only sound is the rustling of the leaves, a peacefulness incongruous with the thick tableau of horror below.
The clearing must be used frequently. There is a park bench, and a small white-painted iron table with a glass top. On the ground next to the bench are two empty bottles. Dead soldiers, Uncle Jackson used to call them.
I have a gun aimed at your head, says a voice behind her. Don’t turn around.
Temple turns around. It’s James Grierson.
I said don’t turn around.
I heard you.
You think I won’t shoot you?
I never seen anybody shoot someone without some reason, good or bad.
I think you’ve got that wrong, little miss. If you haven’t noticed, reason is something we seem to have a dearth of in this world.
Then I guess you better kill me with that first shot, cause if I make it over there with this blade, I’m gonna mess you up permanent.
He gazes at her down the barrel of the gun, a look of consideration on his face as though he is thinking about whether to cast her in a play rather than shoot her. Then he lowers the gun. In his other hand is a bottle, and he raises it to his mouth and drinks.
It’s a beautiful night, he says. Pitch-black, the beasts of hell lowing in the distance. How about sitting with me and having a drink?
He seems to have lost interest in the gun altogether.
All right then, she says. That’s more neighborly of you.
He sits on the bench and sets his gun on the table, and she sits on the other end of the bench—and they look out over the city, and he hands her the bottle and she drinks from it and hands it back.
That’s good whiskey.
Hirsch bourbon, sixteen year. Only the best.
They drink.
Look yonder, he gestures down toward the city. A plague of slugs descended upon us. A scourge of evil bubbling up from hell.
He laughs, but she can’t tell whether it’s because he’s joking or because he isn’t.
I don’t know about evil, Temple says. Them meatskins are just animals is all. Evil’s a thing of the mind. We humans got the full measure of it ourselves.
Is that right? Are you evil, Sarah Mary?
I ain’t good.
James Grierson looks at her in a hard, penetrating way. His skin is pale and almost glows against the black night. He looks like someone who could slap you or kiss you and you wouldn’t be able to tell which one is coming and it would mean the same thing either way.
You’re a soldier, he says to her. Like me. You’ve done things you’re not proud of. You’ve got a fierce shame in you, little girl. I can see it—burning in your gut like a jet engine. Is that why you move so fast and so hard?
She looks out over the city of slugs. She can feel his eyes on her, and she doesn’t like to think about what they are seeing.
You were in the army?
I was, he says and takes a drink.
For how long?
Two years. I was stationed in Hattiesburg. We were trying to take back the city.
That weren’t no small task.
We had rescue stations set up, radio transmitters. We were working building defensive walls. But they just kept coming.
Slugs, they like to be where the action is, she says.
We thought we were taking a stand. We killed them and burned the remains and the women tended to the bonfire, and you could smell the smoking corpses day and night. We rotated shifts, a barrage of bullets, and then the cleanup crews. And then there would be more after that. They just kept coming. You wouldn’t have thought there were so many dead.
And then what?
It was too much. We ran low on ammo. Everyone was exhausted. A girl fell into the fire and her mother tried to pull her out and both of them died and had to be burned. The worst was the psychology of it. You can’t fight an enemy like that. There’s no way to win.
So you gave up?
We fell back. We spread out to secure locations. They gave us the option to go home, and I took it.
You were gonna take care of your family.
He holds his bottle up to the sky.
The Grierson dynasty holds fast to its glorious history. It closes its eyes to modernity in all its forms.
He leans over to her and points the bottle in her face.
I’ve been around more living dead in that house than I was when I was piling them up in a bonfire two stories high.
He passes the bottle to her and sits back. She drinks.
Your family, they’re just doin what they know how to do is all.