Off Season - Jack Ketchum [44]
“Good,” said Dan.
She did not look again. There was something about those children waiting for them out there, an unnatural stillness, a deadly patience, that unnerved her. She supposed the women were more dangerous, and she damn well knew the men were, but it was the children that frightened her most. Perhaps it had something to do with that old fear she had of closed-in spaces. She had the feeling that the children would fight in packs, in a swarm, and she could imagine all too vividly how they would surround her and pull her down, smothering her under their sheer weight of numbers. She turned her attention back to Laura.
She stooped and took the girl by the arm and lifted her up, and then, when she was standing, peeled the robe off her shoulders. She could not help admiring her firm, full breasts; Laura was a bit on the heavy side but Marjorie had seriously underestimated her body. She and Carla were both slim and that was definitely the fashion these days, but it had not always been, and there had been times when Marjie would have given anything to trade places with a woman like Laura. Not now, though, she thought, looking into the empty green eyes. Not now by a long shot.
In a few moments she had the shirt on and buttoned and the jeans pulled over her cool, pale thighs. By the time Marjie was through, her hands were shaking. “Come with me,” she said, leading Laura into the kitchen. She had a bad feeling about Laura. The girl would be pretty much defenseless out there. She hoped Dan meant to take good care of her.
As they stood in the kitchen facing each other nobody said a word for a few moments. There was nothing left to do but what they had said they would do, and now that seemed enormous and filled them with a kind of awe. They listened to the crackling fire and waited—for what, they did not know. It was possible that they were walking out there only to die the way all fools die in danger, with a plan that could snag in a thousand different ways, and with little defense should it do so. They felt the adrenaline build and sluice through them like a dangerous poison, urging them to begin, to get it over with. While fear muted their voices and tried to break their will.
If Marjie’s fear had a physical aspect it was the faces of countless children. She could almost feel their hands on her and she shuddered. At the same time she thought of Carla. Was she still alive out there? What if she should call her, if she should see her sister beckon to her? Could she still go on? Nick saw himself at the window again, but this time the knife sliced him ear to ear. In his imagination his blood splattered Marjie and Dan and Laura until they stood before his dying eyes, bathed in red. And Dan stood on a hill in a jungle far away from here, looking down at the face of a man he had just blown away—and this time that phrase was coldly appropriate, because half the man’s head was gone, split clean as a grapefruit. He saw half a pair of lips gape at him in dumb amazement, a single eye to register that final surprise that ended all surprises.
“It’s war, isn’t it,” said Nick, breaking the silence.
“Yeah,” said Dan. Perhaps there was something to ESP after all, he thought.
There was another, shorter silence. Then Marjie picked up a towel and folded it over. “Let’s get going,” she said.
“Okay,” said Dan. As quickly as they had come to them, the violent images dispersed, leaving them in the grip of a powerful churn of adrenaline. The fear was not gone. But in some way it had germinated, and its offspring was a clean pure thrill of sheer excitement. Soldiers know all about it, Dan thought. Fighting for your life is a fucking ball. As long as you didn’t get slaughtered. The hardest thing was keeping