What Came After by Sam Winston Read Free Book Online Page B

reach his daughter, who was even then coming around. “No harm done.”
    Weller gathered himself over his daughter and held her close and wanted to stay there with his arms around her forever. Just putting himself between her and the world. He bent there breathing hard and sick with the girl waking up and beginning to get sick herself a couple of minutes behind him. The girl gasping and turning her head to the side and her father helping her turn it and the sickness coming unstoppable and her father thinking it served the old man right. Let her finish. Let her purge herself of the old man’s poison. Let her give it all back to him. Wiping her mouth with his shirt when she finished and picking her up and holding her close. Wishing he could kill the old man but still too dizzy to step clear of the table where he leaned and fearful of putting his daughter down anyway. Leaving her unprotected.
    The old man sat on the cot, smoking a cigarette and watching them. Looking exhausted the way an old man will, an old man who’s been through something miserable and come out the other side. Even something of his own making. The stoppered brown bottle stood on the crate with the water glass and a different clear bottle stood with it. The gun on the pile of magazines. The cigarette in a fist in between his knees, the white of it stained red. “There’s rubbing alcohol if you want to clean up those cuts,” he said. “I’d recommend it. Never know what you might catch.” He raised the cigarette and pulled in smoke through the residue of their bleeding. “It’s your call, though.”
    Weller kept himself between Penny and the old man. Letting his mind clear. Looking at him over his shoulder. His child just breathing, which was enough. “You didn’t find anything,” he said.
    “No sir, I did not.”
    “I told you.”
    “They all tell me. They all lie.” He blew smoke at the glass bottle. “Alcohol’s right here if you want it. Cotton balls and so forth. Bandaids in the locker.”
    Weller imagined the sting of the alcohol and turned away and drew Penny tighter if that were possible. Thinking of what he’d have to do. How it would hurt his child again and how he had to do it. “Soon,” he said. Bouncing her a little. “Soon.” And then looking back at the old man. “I’ve got a little money if you didn’t take it already.”
    “I don’t want your money.”
    “It’ll make up for what you didn’t get.”
    “I don’t want it. I start doing a cash business, where does that end? What kind of people have I got to deal with then? I’ll stick to credits, if you don’t mind.”
    “Then let us be on our way.”
    “On your way.” He said it like it was a joke. “On your way to where, is what I can’t figure.”
    “That’s my problem, isn’t it.”
    “There’s nothing out there. Just more of what you came from.”
    “Let us go, then.”
    “Absolutely,” said the old man. “Go on and good riddance. I won’t stand in your way.”
    “All right.”
    “You’ve wasted enough of my time as it is. You’re a total loss already.”
    The girl had begun to cry. Great deep sobs. Weller looked at the old man and the gun on the crate. He said he was going to gather up their things.
    “Fine by me. I’d use that alcohol pretty soon, though. Just from a medical point of view.”
    Weller didn’t want to put her down. Keeping an eye on the old man and the gun he went to where they’d dropped their packs and kneeled and picked them both up with one hand. Coming back to a standing position. Drawing breath. “We’re going now.”
    “Bye bye.”
    The girl sobbed.
    Her father carried her through the doorway out of the cold bunker and into the bluelit stairwell. The girl risking a look back over his shoulder.
    “You take good care of that kitty cat, now.”
    Weller had never climbed faster. The girl howling all of a sudden and both of them bleeding still and his clothes stinking of her sickness. Up the concrete steps and