VI

Mortimer awoke naked and shivering. The girl lay on the pallet ten feet away, her legs in the air, dress up past her waist. She whimpered, her head back, glassy eyes fixed on the ceiling. A big man, maybe a full foot taller than Mortimer, grunted and heaved on top of her, thrusting mercilessly and without grace. His jeans bunched around his ankles. He wore some kind of coarse, black fur coat that made him appear like a prehistoric beast.

Mortimer twisted. His head swam. He was bound at the wrists and ankles with thin twine. He writhed, strained against his bonds. No good. The beast continued to thrust. Mortimer tried to sort out what had happened. He'd been hit from behind. He'd been too stupid and eager, let his guard down.

The Beast shuddered and howled, then pulled out of the girl with a nasty wet sound. He was flushed and sweating, rolled off her and reached for something. It was one of Mortimer's bottles, Johnnie Walker, half full. The Beast took a swig, wiped and smacked his lips. His black shaggy hair and beard matched his coat except for the gray at his temples and the corners of his mouth.

The Beast saw Mortimer, grinned, slugged back another hit of Johnnie Walker. "Well, well. Santa Claus is awake." He toasted Mortimer with the bottle. "Thanks for the goodies, Santa." Another thick gulp.

The girl was already curling into the corner, smoothing the dress back over her thighs. Her face was as blank and white and distant as the moon.

The Beast lurched to his feet, reaching for his jeans, his rapidly deflating pecker and balls swinging in a salt-and-pepper thatch. "I'm glad you're awake. Got some questions for you." He fastened his pants, drank more whiskey and nudged the girl's ass with his boot heel. "Sheila."

She turned her head toward him. Her eyes remained unfocused.

"Food."

She nodded once, got to her feet and went away.

The Beast turned his mad grin back at Mortimer. "Now we have a chat." He stepped forward, stood directly over Mortimer. The reek off of the Beast was formidable, a yeasty, pungent cologne of sweat and grease and sex. He shook the bottle of Johnnie Walker in Mortimer's face. "Any more where this came from?" His eyes gleamed like wet, black river stones.

Mortimer said nothing, eyes wide and round and waiting.

The Beast chuckled from deep in his throat and drank the rest of the Johnnie Walker, hiccupped and belched. He squatted next to Mortimer, sniffed. "You smell like soap, and you look clean."

You smell like a turd covered in feta. Mortimer tried twisting out of his bonds again.

"You down from Knoxville? I hear they got power on in Knoxville, but I thought it was just talk."

Mortimer now recognized the Beast's black coat as a bear skin. Mortimer remained silent. This was not defiance. Don't provoke the scary man.

The Beast tossed the bottle over his shoulder, and it clinked and tumbled without breaking. "Cat got your tongue, huh?" He unzipped his pants, fished inside and came out with his pecker. He leaned, grunted and squirted, the piss splashing against Mortimer's face.

Mortimer sputtered and coughed. The piss was warm. An ammonia taste. It stung his eyes. He gagged, stopped short of vomiting.

The Beast laughed. "Drink up, beautiful." He shook off his pecker, zipped up and left the room.

Once the piss cooled on his skin, Mortimer shivered.

The Beast returned and squatted next to him. He held the bubble wrap that Mortimer had used to protect the whiskey. He held it close to Mortimer's face, turned it over. Mortimer didn't understand what he was supposed to see.

"You taped this," the Beast said.

Mortimer frowned. "Yeah."

"You fucking taped it?"

"So?"

The Beast's hammy hand swatted Mortimer's cheek, the slap loud and sharp. A thousand hot needles in Mortimer's skin.

"Where the fuck did you get Scotch tape, dipshit?"

"What?"

Another quick slap from the Beast, and Mortimer yelled. Ringing in his ears.

"You gonna tell me you just went down to the Walgreens and picked up some goddamn Scotch tape?"

It clicked in Mortimer's head, a realization sliding into place, the slow understanding. Where the hell did you get Scotch tape after the apocalypse? Something so commonplace, but who would make more? Scotch tape and underarm deodorant and hairspray and antacid and toothpaste and aluminum foil and dishwashing liquid and roach spray and all of civilization's bright conveniences. Would anyone ever make those things again?

"I found the tape in an old house," Mortimer said. "I was scavenging, and I found it."

"Well, ain't you just the luckiest goddamn scavenger ever." The Beast made a noise in his throat, then spit in Mortimer's face. "You found tape and ammunition for both your guns and food and whiskey and...and fucking bubble wrap?" He stood, kicked Mortimer hard in the gut.

This time Mortimer did vomit. He rolled his face toward the floor and heaved once, twice. The third time brought up bile.

"Tell me where you got this stuff," the Beast said.

"I...I found it."

"You found it, huh?"

The Beast stomped the heel of his boot into Mortimer's forehead. Mortimer grunted.

"I know you fucking found it, cocksucker. Now tell me where."

Mortimer shook his head. "A long way from here. I've been gathering it up, saving it."

"Bullshit." The Beast lifted him a foot off the floor by a fistful of hair. "Nobody carries that much food and booze and doesn't eat and drink it. What? You just like lugging it around?" He brought his other fist down hard, knocked Mortimer's head around.

Mortimer blinked, colored lights dancing in front of his eyes and a hot buzz in his ears. He tried to curl into a ball, but the Beast still held him fast.

"Where'd you get it? Someplace close, right?"

Mortimer shook his head.

The Beast punched again, and Mortimer felt his lips flatten against his teeth, skin ripping. He spit blood, coughed.

"Shit." The Beast let go, and Mortimer's head knocked against the floor. The Beast left the room again.

Mortimer lay on the cold floor, reeking of piss, face throbbing. This had been a mistake, coming down the mountain, trying to reconnect with whatever remained below. He'd been safe, comfortable. There had been no need to leave his sanctuary, only the imagined necessity of human companionship, only the vain notion that he must know what had become of the world.

The world had broken, and there was nothing left of humanity but the dregs, dumb sons of bitches in bear skin.

Mortimer opened a swollen eye, saw the girl standing over him, her face expressionless.

"Help me," Mortimer pleaded.

She stood frozen.

"Untie me," he croaked. "I'll go away. I won't do anything, I promise. I'll just go."

She didn't say a word, didn't blink. A few moments later she started at the Beast's return and slunk away.

The Beast knelt next to Mortimer, held up a gleaming bowie knife. "Like it? It ain't quite as sharp as I'd like, so the cut won't be clean. I'll have to saw a bit." He grabbed Mortimer's bound hands, pulled them close to his thick body.

Mortimer gasped, tried to jerk away.

The Beast shifted, pinned Mortimer's wrists under his arm. Mortimer tried to squirm away. The Beast selected the pinkie finger on Mortimer's left hand, stretched it out. Mortimer tried to make a fist and pull away, but the Beast was too strong.

"P-please." Saliva flew from Mortimer's lips. He shook so badly he couldn't talk.

"I think we're gonna have a more productive conversation after this." The Beast put the blade against the finger. Mortimer renewed his struggles, but the Beast held him.

"Here we go." The blade bit deep, dark blood flowing over the metal.

Mortimer howled, kicked, screamed. The Beast sawed the blade back and forth. So much blood. Within ten seconds he was down to bone. The Beast leaned his weight into it, sawed bone. The finger came off, blood squirting over both of them.

Mortimer lay covered in sweat, limp in the Beast's lap, like a spent lover deep in swoon. The Beast splashed water on Mortimer's face, shook him until he woke.

"Okay," the Beast said. "Let's take it from the top."

VII

The Beast led Mortimer on an eight-foot length of thin rope back down the road toward the entrance of the pocket wilderness. The girl walked silently behind them like the dead, wagless tail of an old dog.

Mortimer had lain on the office floor of the dilapidated firehouse and told the Beast all, his secret cabin and the cavern and his storehouse of old-world commodities. The Beast demanded to be taken there. Mortimer had agreed, lying there bleeding and weak.

But now, treading the frozen road, Mortimer burned with hate and humiliation and plotted the Beast's demise. The wind tore at his eyes, face and ankles. A six-foot length of hickory lay across his neck, his wrists tied to the wood in crucifixion fashion. He wore his boots and his pants and shirt. The Beast had taken his parka and socks, marched in front of him holding the rope in one hand, the police special in the other.

The Beast wore his bear skin over the parka, and walking along the road, Mortimer on the leash, they looked the grotesque reverse of some old-west traveling carnival act, the dancing bear leading his trainer. Mortimer desperately looked for his opening but did not expect one. He'd have to make some kind of move before they reached the cavern. The Beast would not want to keep and feed Mortimer after he'd been led to the stash.

Even in the worst throes of torture, Mortimer had kept his weapons stash a secret. Somehow he'd make a break for it or maybe fake needing to take a shit. If Mortimer could just get his hands on the Uzi, he'd chop the Beast in half with a spray of nine millimeter.

They had taken Mortimer's medical kit too, the iodine and hydrogen peroxide and bandages. They'd used none of it to bind Mortimer's mangled hand. The girl had splashed the wound with dirty water, wrapped the finger stump in a tattered pink rag. His hand throbbed but bothered him less than the biting cold. He staggered and shook and lurched forward at the Beast's insistent yank on the rope.

Mortimer took another fifty steps, shivered and collapsed.

"Get up." The Beast yanked the leash.

Mortimer shook his head, panted. He didn't have the energy to form words.

The Beast took two quick steps toward Mortimer, then kicked hard, caught Mortimer in the ribs. Mortimer wheezed and heaved dry.

"I said get up." The Beast drew his leg back for another kick.

"Stop."

The Beast froze, looked for the source of the new voice, which had echoed along the mountain road. Mortimer looked up too. What now?

"Show yourself!" the Beast yelled.

Forty yards up the road, a man stepped out of the bushes, planted himself in the center of the road, legs apart. Mortimer blinked, not sure if he was seeing right. The newcomer wore a black cowboy hat, long leather coat swept back to reveal a pair of pistols hanging on his hips. A blue bandana pulled loose around his neck. A forked beard yellow as the sun, long hair the same color, hands hovering dangerously over the pistols.

The Beast squinted. "What the fuck are you?"

"Cut that man loose," ordered the cowboy.

"Kiss my ass." But the Beast's eyes flicked to the man's twin six-shooters.

"Mister, I'm gonna tell you just one more time." He eased forward as he spoke, one deliberate step at a time. "Let that man go and piss off. That's your only chance to live."

The Beast dropped to the ground, rolled, came up behind Mortimer in a kneeling position. He grabbed Mortimer's face and pulled him close until the two were cheek to cheek. He pulled the police special, put it against Mortimer's head. "I don't know what your interest is in this guy, but I'll splatter his brains all over the mountain if you don't stop right there." With his arms spread along the length of hickory, Mortimer provided good cover. Only half the Beast's face and a bit of shoulder showed.

The cowboy froze. He squeezed his fists so tight, Mortimer heard the knuckles crack. They all waited for something to happen.

A split second later it did.

The cowboy dropped into a kneeling position, one six-shooter flashing from its holster. His arm shot out straight, and he sighted along the barrel, one eye mashed closed, biting his lip in concentration. It all happened in a heartbeat.

Bang.

The Beast screamed, a high-pitched mix of surprise and pain. He stood, staggered, blood trailing from his shoulder. He swung the police special to return fire.

The cowboy was already on his feet. He fanned the six-shooter's hammer twice, and the Beast fell dead in front of Mortimer. Blood pooled in the Beast's empty eye sockets.

The girl, Sheila, who'd been twenty paces behind the whole encounter, turned and screamed back up the road and out of sight.

The cowboy trotted to Mortimer and knelt next to him, began to untie his wrists. "Hold on, mister. We'll get you free shortly." He had a yellow handlebar moustache to go with the forked beard.

"Thanks," Mortimer said. "Who are you?"

A smile across the young face, under thirty years old. "Who do I look like?"

"George Custer."

The smile fell. "Damn. I was going for Buffalo Bill."