CHAPTER 26

Ben

Christie woke up.

She had that moment, wondering—Where am I, where am I sleeping?—before she remembered.

Then the pieces of the day came flying back, like sticky notes that had blown away and needed to be recovered.

Remembering… finding the food. Finding this house. The plan to take shifts, sleeping, watching.

And in the dark room—under these covers that belonged to some unknown people, pulled tight, keeping her warm in the chilly house—she heard voices.

First Simon’s voice.

Then a deep voice. A laugh. The words indistinct.

But then, now fully awake, remembering how she got to this bed, she was also aware that someone was down there with Simon.

She reached down beside her bed and felt the wooden stock of her gun.

The thought incomprehensible, My son down there, talking to someone.

She took care getting out of bed. Old houses, and the floorboards, would creak. And the room was dark. She’d have to navigate an unfamiliar space. That is, unless she put the light on.

Won’t do that, she thought.

No.

Standing up, her feet cold despite the socks, picking up the gun carefully, feeling so heavy when she had simply been lying in bed, just holding the covers tight.

The sounds again. Simon’s voice, then the other voice, so deep.

She started to the door, open enough that its outline caught some of the light from below.

A step.

She flipped the rifle’s safety off. The click sounding so loud in the small bedroom.

And she kept walking to the stairs leading down.

The voices came from the kitchen, and now Christie could catch a few words.

Simon: “But what did you do then?”

Then a deep laugh—so deep—and: “I didn’t know what to do, now with everyone gone.”

Christie could feel her heart racing. On one hand she felt glad that it sounded like Simon was all right.

On the other, who the hell was he talking to? Why would he let someone into this house?

Without asking me.

She walked past the living room and then, slowly, into the kitchen, not raising her rifle but keeping it at a forty-five-degree angle.

Ready.

And she saw Simon and someone else sitting at the small kitchen table.

The stranger saw her first.

A giant of a man, six-feet-plus tall, but also wide. His head bald, an oval face.

He had been smiling, talking—but his dark face froze when he saw her.

And Simon spun around fast.

“Mom?” he said.

“Simon,” she said quietly, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “Simon, what’s going on?”

Then she looked at the back door. Dish towels jammed into the door’s broken windows, and on the floor, a pile of shattered glass, swept to a corner of the kitchen.

“Mom,” Simon said. “This is Ben.”

Christie nodded.

Right, Ben.

As if that made perfect sense that Simon would be sitting here, chatting with someone.

She saw that Simon’s gun sat on the table, right there, certainly close enough that this Ben could reach over and grab it.

Then the man—his face still frozen, apparently sensing Christie’s alarm—started to stand up.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said slowly. “I didn’t mean—”

But Simon interrupted him.

Simon’s voice now strong. “Mom, he saved my life.”

Christie’s eyes went from her son, to Ben, and back again.

The man remained standing there.

“Maybe I should go. Maybe leave…” he went on.

He started to turn, and now Simon stood up. “Mom! He saved my life.”

And Christie had the thought, When does all this become too much for me?

And not for the first time, she hated—in some strange way—how her husband left all this for her to deal with.

She would have given anything for Jack to be here. Now.

To be in charge.

Instead, she took more steps toward the table.

It was Simon who noticed first. Christie had been so scared.

“Mom, you’re not using your cane.”

Had she been that scared?

Christie nodded, moving to a chair, a plain wooden-back chair that matched the simple wooden kitchen table pressed tight against the wall.

“Sit down,” she said. To Simon, to Ben.

And she took that chair, taking a breath.

A little after 3 a.m. She had gotten a good five hours sleep.

And that would be all for this night, as she asked, “What happened?”

Simon had arched his neck up, showing a visible purple mark.

The place where the Can Head had grabbed him.

Ben sat silently as Simon breathlessly finished the tale: how Ben appeared, and just twisted the Can Head’s head one way, then the other, and it was all over.

“So… I asked him in. I gave him—”

Simon pointed to a can on the counter by the sink. French string beans.

“He was hungry.”

Ben nodded in confirmation of that fact, and Christie had the realization that Ben… had some issues.

So big, massively strong, and yet so quiet here, like a school child.

Finally she looked up to him.

“Ben, thank you for saving Simon.”

The words sounding absurd.

But not absurd at all in this world.

She reached out and covered Simon’s hand. She knew that with all that her kids had to deal with, she had to be as strong a possible. There was no room for weakness.

Ben nodded. “That’s okay, Mrs.—”

“Christie,” she said, with a smile.

He smiled at that. “I usually don’t see too many of them around. Those Can Heads. When all the people left, those things… it seemed they left too.”

Christie looked over at Simon who, with a glance, told her that he understood that Ben—what was the word?

Struggled?

“Brave of you to come, and help…”

He shook his head. “Normally, I’d have gone in the other direction. Fast as I could. Fighting even one of them can be hard. But… but I saw that it had something… someone it was holding. Couldn’t walk away then.”

His head bobbed up and down, as if that was a universal truth.

But Christie guessed many a normal person would have done just that, move as fast away as possible in the other direction.

“So, Ben, what happened here, in this town? Why are you still here?”

Ben’s face scrunched up, the question making him think and remember.

“You mean to all the people? They went to other places.”

Christie nodded, then quickly to Simon, “Simon, you want to grab some more sleep?”

But her son shook his head.

“I want to hear too.”

Of course, she thought.

So much to know, to understand—and Simon needed to have it all.

“Okay,” Ben said quietly his long pause resolved, his answer ready.

“I used to work… in the Stop & Shop, the big food store on the highway? A big place,” he went on, explaining.

“I know,” Christie smiled. “A really big store.”

“I got all the carts. The ones people just leave after they load their cars, and I push them back to the store.”

Another pause. She and Simon said nothing.

“I liked my job. The people… they were nice to me. The customers, well some just in a hurry. But a lot would smile. Say, ‘How you doin’, Ben?”

Then, repeating it, “I liked it.”

More silence.

“Then everything changed.”