Cruel World(111)

Alice slowly slumped closer to him and finally rested her head on his shoulder. A warmth bloomed there that spread through him, fluttering wings in his stomach.

“Are you okay to stay awake?” she asked, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Yes. I’ll keep watch.”

As her breathing evened and the sounds of the stilts receded further, his mind drifted, the utter blackness around him like being in the vacuum of space. He closed his eyes and opened them. No difference. The man shifted and then fell quiet. Quinn kept his hand on the revolver, finger in the trigger guard until the first light of dawn crept into the cellar through the cracks in the ceiling.

~

When it was full light, they ventured up the stairs and into the ruins of the shack above. The little house had been destroyed. Two of the four walls were gone, torn away like wreckage from a high-speed crash. Pots and pans, old newspapers, shattered wood and glass all littered the floor. Outside the sun lit the small clearing and churned earth, the greening trees in the surrounding forest tipping with the breeze. The herd of stilts was nowhere to be seen.

The man murmured that his name was Hilton when Quinn asked. He didn’t say if it was his first or last. He seemed indifferent to their presence, and when Quinn suggested that they scout the immediate area, he merely fed more shells into his shotgun and headed out across the field.

Quinn followed and caught up with him after having Alice lock her, Ty, and Denver in the cellar. Hilton’s eyes were bright in the light of day, their gaze roaming the earth, the trees, and Quinn’s face from time to time. They moved across the field, its surface trampled by the long tracks of the stilts. When they entered the plantation, the air grew quiet around them. The birdsong that had accompanied them to that point, gone. Quinn hesitated at the border but continued after the old man when everything remained still.

When they arrived at the farmhouse where they’d left the truck the night before, Hilton stopped and slowly lowered himself to the ground. Quinn did the same, spotting movement a fraction of a second later.

Three stilts stood in the driveway, their arms at their sides, only their heads moving in a panning of the land around them.

“Damn,” Quinn said under his breath.

“They’re lookin’ for ya,” Hilton said.

Quinn glanced at him and then back at the towering creatures.

“No, they’re…” He was about to say, they’re not that smart. But were they? Were they staking out their vehicle in hopes that they would return? If they were, then was there a chance that there were more hidden and watching from other angles?

Quinn looked around, searching the plantation thoroughly. There was only the thin trees.

“We should go,” Quinn said, waiting until the stilts’ attention was focused on something opposite their location before standing and making his way back to the little field. Hilton followed, proceeding with a stealth that shamed even Quinn’s careful treading over leaves and branches. When they were back at Hilton’s home, he spoke again, producing a hand-rolled cigarette and lighter from his pocket.

“If they’re waitin’ there, they’ll be waitin’ all around. Be stupid to go traipsin’ off through the woods now. Specially with a blind boy and a dog.” He took a long drag on the cigarette, bright eyes squinting. “Don’t like dogs.”

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and I’m sorry for your house. If things were different, I’d help you repair it.”

“Ain’t a worry. Wasn’t much to begin with, but it kept me dry.” Hilton studied him from behind the cigarette. “What you people doin’ out here anyway?”

“Trying to get to Iowa,” Quinn said, looking down at the trap door.

“Yeah. What’s there for ya?”

“The army, we heard.”

Hilton coughed out a laugh. “Army’s dead, sonny boy. Same as everything else.”

“Well, that’s where we’re headed. We lost our map the other day and—”

“Lost your way looks like to me,” Hilton said, dragging on the cigarette.

Quinn watched the other man, a tingling rising from the pit of his stomach.

“Yeah. Anyway, where are we exactly? Are we still in Ohio?”

“Nah. This be the great state of Indiana.” He pronounced it, Endiana.

“Gotcha. You wouldn’t know of any other houses nearby, any vehicles—”

“You could steal?” Hilton asked, cutting him off again.