AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hit me,” Lucy said.
“All right. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. ”
“That’s fine. There’s nothing you can ask that’ll embarrass me. ”
“Good. Because I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t wondering about your arms. How’d you lose them?”
Lucy’s smile came back. “I don’t mind. It’s not a secret, anyhow. I lost the right one during the running time—when all of us were leaving because if we didn’t go, we’d die, or worse.
“I was on the far side of the square, closer to the city dump than to the nice hill you lived on. Me and my husband, Charlie, we kept up a place where people used to come—mostly men. The old wharf rats and fishermen in their oiled coats, the prospectors with their tin pans banging together on their backs… They came for the food. I’m sorry, I should’ve said so first thing—it wasn’t a cathouse or anything. We had a little bar, smaller than Maynard’s and about half as nice.
“We called it the Spoiled Seal, and we did all right with it. We served mostly brew and spirits, and fish poached or fried in sandwiches. We kept the place, just the pair of us—me and Charlie—and it wasn’t perfect, but it was fine. ”
She cleared her throat. “So sixteen years ago this big old machine came crashing down from the hill, burrowing under the city. You know that part. You know the things it broke, and you probably know better than anyone whether or not the Boneshaker brought the Blight. If anyone knows, you know. ”
Briar said softly, “But I don’t know, Lucy. So I guess nobody does. ”
“Minnericht thinks he does,” she said, temporarily shifting the subject. “He thinks the Blight has something to do with the mountain. He says that Rainier’s a volcano, and volcanoes make poison gas, and if they don’t spew it out, it stays underground. Unless something breaks through and lets it out. ”
Briar thought it was as good a theory as any, and she said so. “I don’t know anything about volcanoes, but I guess I’d believe that. ”
“Well, I don’t know. That’s just what Dr. Minnericht said. Maybe he’s a crackpot, but there’s no telling. He made me this arm, so I owe him something, for all he’s made things difficult, too. ”
“But you and Charlie,” Briar prompted her. She didn’t want to hear any more about Minnericht, not quite yet. The very letters of his name made her queasy and she didn’t know why. She knew he wasn’t Leviticus, even though she couldn’t tell Lucy how she knew. But it only mattered so much; the man might as well have been Levi’s ghost, if people still believed in him.
Lucy said, “Oh yes. Well, the Blight ate its way through town and it was time to run. But I was at the market picking up supplies when the order went out, and the panic hit us good. And Charlie was out at the Seal. We’d been married ten years, and I didn’t want to leave him, but the officers made me. They picked me up and threw me out of town like I was a drunk taking up space on the sidewalk.
“They were already putting up walls, those treated linen ones with the wax and oil. Those didn’t work too great, but they worked better than nothing, and workers were hammering the frames together. As soon as I could, a couple of days after the biggest part of the panic, I put on a mask and ran right on past them—back down to the Seal and to Charlie.
“But when I got there, I couldn’t find him. The place was empty and the windows were broken out. People had thrown things inside and were stealing. I couldn’t believe it—stealing at a time like that!
“So I came inside and called his name over and over, and he answered from the back. I climbed around the counter and stormed into the kitchen, and there he was, all bit up and covered with blood. Most of the blood wasn’t his. He’d shot three of the rotters who’d tried to bring him down—you know how they do, like wolves on a deer—and he was alone with their bodies, but he was so bit up. He was missing an ear and part of his foot, and his throat was half tore out. ”
She sighed and cleared her throat again. “He was dying, and he was turning, too. I didn’t know which one he was going to do first. We didn’t understand back then, so I didn’t know that I shouldn’t get down close to him. His head was nodding all loose-like, and his eyes were drying up, going that yellow-gray color.
“I tried to pull him up, thinking maybe I’d rush him over to the hospital. It was a stupid thing to think. They’d closed everything up by then, and there wasn’t anywhere to go for help. But I got him up onto his feet. He wasn’t a big man, and I’m no tiny woman myself.
“Then he started fighting me; I don’t know why. I like to think that he knew it was the end, and he was trying to help keep me safe by pushing me away. But I fought his fighting me. I was as determined as hell to take him away and get him safe. He was equally determined to stay.
“We fell together, landing against the counter, and when I got him back up again, he was gone. He’d started moaning and drooling—with all those bites on him, the poison had worked its way inside him.
“That’s when it happened. That’s when he bit me.
“He only got my thumb, and he barely broke the skin, but it was enough. I knew he was gone then, even more than when his eyes had gone nasty and his breath had turned stale like a dead animal on the street. Charlie would’ve never hurt me. ” She cleared her throat again, but she wasn’t crying. Her eyes stayed dry, glittering in the candlelight.
The pipes whistled again, and she used it as an excuse to pause. She continued with, “I should’ve killed him. I owed him that kindness. But I was too afraid, and I’ve hated myself for it ever since. Anyway, it’s all done now, or left undone, and there’s no fixing it. Point is, I ran out to the Outskirts and found a church where they let me lie down and cry. ”
“But the bite. ”
“But the bite,” Lucy said. “Yes, the bite. The bite took to rotting, and the rot took to spreading. Three of the nuns held me down and a priest did the first amputation. ”
Briar cringed. “The first?”
“Oh, yes. The first one didn’t take enough. They only took my hand, right at the wrist. The second time they came back with the saw and they took it above the elbow, and then the third time I lost it all the way up to the shoulder. That did the trick, at least. I nearly died from it, each time. Each time the wound was red and hot for weeks, and I wished the sickness would just take me, or someone would just shoot me—since I was too weak and hurt to shoot myself. ”
She hesitated, or perhaps she was only tired.
But Briar asked, “Then what happened?”
