The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [148]
Winston sighs.
A moment later, he straightens his back and lifts a hand, that broad hard palm driving once into my chest, pretty much wringing the breath right out of me. Without trying.
I want to run and don't.
"No," he declares. "That's not it."
"Oh yeah?" I ask doubtfully. "What is 'it'?"
A smirk rises, and he laughs. "I'm not telling you anything. But if I did know somebody like that - I'm just saying 'if - the killing wouldn't be what pisses me off. No, the trouble is that the wrong people got killed. If you've got this wonderful weapon in hand, you don't just slaughter your own. You don't save the world just to fill it up with idiot Christians and black savages. That's a dumbshit waste, if you want my honest opinion."
Butcher Jack would have brought the news but it was summer and scorching hot and his main freezer was in some kind of trouble. That's why Old Ferris made the journey instead. I was out back in the junkyard, hunting for pipe that I could splice into our growing irrigation system. The rattling roar of a little motor brought me back to the house. I came around to discover Lola standing on the porch, flanked by several dogs, her favorite Bushmaster assault rifle propped just inside the front door. Our visitor was straddling his little motorcycle, the dust of his arrival finally settling on top of the heavier dust. Lola was talking. With a voice friendlier than any she used on me, she told the visitor that he was welcome to come inside or at least into the shade of the porch and would he like a drink of water because we had plenty, it was no trouble, and he looked hot, did he feel hot, and how was the ride out from town?
Ferris was pleasant about his silence - no grimaces, no uncomfortable looks at the cloudless sky. But even miles from Salvation, he refused to speak to any person who had been officially and permanently shunned.
I called to him.
He brightened instantly. One stiff leg swung over the seat, and he propped up his bike and looked at me, forgetting for a second or two why he had come. Then he remembered. A fresh sorrow went into his eyes, and that's when I knew that he'd brought bad news. It was easy to guess what he would tell me but there was still shock in the words. "It's your mom, Noah," he began. Then with a slow shake of the head, my old friend said, "She died this morning. Just before sunrise."
I didn't say anything.
So he answered the questions that I might ask, put in my place. "It was the cancer. She didn't suffer too much. The right prayers got said. In the end, I don't think she even knew where she was. Which isn't a bad way to be, all things considered."
He paused and stared at me.
"What else?" I asked.
"She was talking about you. These last days, she kept asking where you were. She didn't remember."
I stepped up on the porch, one sweaty hand pushing into my wife's damp back. "Well," I began. Then after some consideration, I admitted, "I guess I should know she died. So thank you."
He wanted to look only at me, but his eyes kept jumping back to Lola.
"Want some water?" I asked.
He almost said, "Yes." But he had so thoroughly ignored the earlier offers that he couldn't agree now. So he took a deep breath, pushing into the rest of his important news. "She planned her funeral. Weeks ago, before she was real sick, she told us that it was important to her that you come and serve as one of her pallbearers."
"No," I said, out of reflex.
Lola moved against my hand.
I shook my head and stepped off the porch, suddenly angry with this man that had never said one cruel word to either one of us. He was a simple decent creature who helped my family many times over the years. But there was a lot of emotion to deal with on a day best spent in the shade. I approached and stopped short of him, and he watched me. His little mouth looked as if it was holding