“I bet this is it,” Mortimer said.

“What?”

“The way out. Wait here.” He jogged back down the hall.

“Where are you going?” A hint of alarm in Ruth’s voice.

“I’ll be right back.”

Back in the dead man’s office, Mortimer picked up the fire extinguisher he’d used to bash open the padlock. He hefted it, feeling its weight. Probably he could smash through the glass door with it. He turned to run back down the hall. Paused. He set the extinguisher down, entered the office again.

He stared at the corpse, still clutching the panties, imagined a macabre smile of perverse satisfaction across the mummified face. Mortimer’s gaze shifted downward, came to rest on the plastic I.D. badge hanging from a frayed cord. Mortimer grabbed it quickly, yanked, and it came loose. He ran back down the hall and found Ruth squatting small and quiet against the wall.

It only took Mortimer a second to find the slot. He inserted the plastic I.D. Nothing happened.

“What’s that?” Ruth got to her feet, stood close to Mortimer. “What are you doing?”

Mortimer turned the I.D. card around so the magnetic strip faced the other way. He inserted it again. The slot buzzed sluggishly, a green light flickering and struggling.

“Come on!” He jammed the card in harder, slammed the slot with the heel of his other hand. “Work, you piece of shit!”

The green light buzzed. An audible click from the glass door.

“Get it. Quick!” ordered Mortimer.

Ruth pulled the door open and held it. Mortimer put the I.D. card in his pocket, raced through the door, pulling Ruth after him. “Come on!”

This is it, thought Mortimer. The way out. Mother Lola had kept it hidden, kept all her little subjects trapped in her morbid little kingdom. But they’d made it through. They ran down a long hall, Mortimer’s heart thumping.

“Wait! What’s that?” Ruth halted abruptly, pulled on Mortimer’s arm.

They held their breath, listened.

From behind they heard movement, hard footfalls on a tile floor, muffled voices.

“Oh, God, they’re coming.” Ruth’s eyes shot wide with animal panic. “Mother Lola knows. She’s coming.”

“Hurry!” Mortimer pulled her forward, ran down the long hall.

They turned a corner, saw a smear of daylight. Double doors leading to the outside. They ran. Ruth faltered, almost stumbled, but Mortimer jerked her upright and kept running. Flashlight beams behind them now, harsh shouts to stop.

They didn’t look back, hit the doors at a run, bright sunlight washing over them as they erupted into the open.

“Run for it!” Mortimer let go of her wrist, ran full speed for open ground. “We can make it,” he shouted into the wind. “Keep running!” He turned his head, expected to see her sprinting for her life.

She wasn’t next to him.

He stopped, turned, saw her still only a few yards from the hospital entrance. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I…I can’t…” She took three halting steps, then froze, shut her eyes tight, put her hands in the air as if fending off some unseen ghost.

Mortimer ran back, grabbed her, started running again. It was like pulling a sack of bowling balls. But then she jogged, tried to keep up, Mortimer pulling and urging her. Abruptly she fell to the ground, sliding out of his grip. She curled into a ball.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He grabbed under her armpits, attempted to hoist her up. She went limp, dripped from his arms.

“I can’t…I didn’t know.” She shook her head, the words coming breathless. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”

He grabbed her, ran sluggishly with her a hundred yards before they fell into a pile. Mortimer panted, gulped for air, his breath steaming in the cold. “What the hell is your problem?”

“It’s too much,” she gasped. “I didn’t know it would be so big. I can’t do it. It’s so much. So open.” She put her hands over her head like she was trying to fend off the sky, gigantic open spaces threatening to crush her into the earth.

Mortimer stood, looked back at the hospital entrance. Three women stood in the doorway. Mother Lola with a fox fur around her neck, two women flanking her. Both holding bows and arrows.

“Unhand her, vile abductor,” bellowed Mother Lola.

Mortimer dropped next to Ruth, whispered in her ear, “We have to go right now.”

“I can’t. It’s too much. There’s nothing between me and…and…” She waved a frantic hand at the sky. “Everything.” She staggered to her feet, ran for the hospital. “I have to get back inside.”

“Are you crazy?” Mortimer leapt, tackled her around the ankles. They both went down, Ruth screaming.

She kicked at him, writhed, twisted from his grip. She was up again and running.

Mortimer started after her when an arrow landed with a meaty thwock in his upper thigh.

“Holy fucking shit, that hurts!” He hopped on one leg, gritting his teeth and uttering curses. He grabbed the shaft, pulled the arrow out with relative ease. A nonbarbed target arrow. It hadn’t penetrated deeply, but it stung like a son of a bitch.

Mortimer yelled, “Ruth!”

She didn’t turn, fled weeping into the arms of Mother Lola.

He stood a moment looking at the women and the hospital, vines creeping up the building on all sides as if the earth were trying to swallow it whole. He saw Mother Lola and Ruth disappear back into the darkness within.

Another arrow whizzed over his head.

“Okay, okay. I can take a hint.”

Mortimer limped away as fast as he could. They didn’t chase him. Maybe his seed wasn’t so desirable after all.

XIX

The cold tore at Mortimer’s bare ankles, whooshed up his pant legs to do fierce, shrinking things to his genitalia. He shivered and trudged, favoring the leg with the shallow arrow wound. The winding, narrow road twisted and curved through the forest away from Saint Sebastian’s and toward nowhere he could guess. He assumed the asphalt would eventually take him to some village or town. He’d settle for a farmhouse where he might beg a scrap of food.

He could not shake the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ruth. Poor girl. What should he have done for her? Ultimately another victim of the world’s implosion. After growing up in her sterile cocoon, how could she possibly face the unyielding totality of an entire planet?

Or maybe she was just a wack-doodle.

Mortimer hugged himself tighter, trudged on, tried to keep his teeth from chattering.

He passed three dead farmhouses before he realized it might be a good idea to scavenge. Even if he didn’t find food, he might possibly find something warmer to wear. He might even stay in one of the abandoned dwellings for the night and try to get a fire going somehow.

The next two farmhouses produced nothing of value. In the third, Mortimer attempted to pull down a thick set of yellow drapes to use as a blanket, but the material disintegrated in his hands.

By evening, he was exhausted and starving. His feet hurt, and every muscle ached.

The next farmhouse had no front door, all the windows smashed out. He found only barren rooms and hard wooden floors inside. There was a fireplace but nothing he could use to start a fire. He’d read a number of frontier guides that demonstrated how to build a fire without matches, but he couldn’t remember anything that would allow him to strike a spark out of thin air with his bare hands.

In the bathroom, he found a dirty plastic shower curtain still hanging. He tore it down and used it as a blanket. Mortimer spent a long uncomfortable night in the tub.

Every limb was sore and stiff when he awoke. The leg with the arrow wound was the worst. Not for the first time, Mortimer thought how much simpler and safer and more comfortable it would have been to stay in his cave. Or he could have stayed in Spring City, bought back his house from the crazy old lady.